Prayer for the Sick

This is Celebration Church, but it's more than just a building. Together we will raise Generation to change the world. Jesus is This is celebration. Good morning. Welcome to Celebration Church. Let's stand as our campus joins with us down in the Fox Valley, as well as all the people online, lots of people still online, hundreds. There's like five hundred people a week that watch us still online and assuming there's more than one person watching.

That's like a thousand people or more, so still at home, but we love you all the same. I meet them all the time. Anyway, let's all recite together the Apostles' Creed. This is our statement of faith. This is who we are and what we believe at Celebration Church. We believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth. We believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who for us and for our salvation was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead, and on the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. We believe in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Christian Church. The fellowship of believers, the forgiveness of sins

The resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen. You may be seated. Good to have you with us this morning. Uh before we go any further, I'd like to remind you of our offering. We don't hand the buckets out uh anymore. I don't know if we ever will again, but uh

'Cause the whole COVID thing. If you have cash or check that you would like to give in support of your church, you can do so on the way out the doors this morning. Uh many people give online. I have s many have signed up for recurrent giving. We appreciate your faith. in doing that and then others use their phones, the Celebration Church app, and are able to give that way. So uh anyway, I want to thank you for continuing to give. We need to give give you know, giving is an important thing.

Not only just to the church. We're not talking about and others, to our kids and stuff like that. Say, oh, it's just money. No, it's never just money. You know what money is? Money is a reflection of your life. We spend the majority of our lives working. Anybody notice this? Working to make a living. That money is a reflection of your blood, sweat, and tears. When you give of your money to anybody, anywhere, at any time.

It is a reflection of this is my life that I'm sharing with you. And God encourages us to give so that we can be blessed and receive at the same time. So, you know, don't sneer at, you know, the whole money thing. It's an important part. of uh your interaction with other people. People who hide all their money, keep all their money, stuff away all their money, and act like

Ebenezer Scrooge when it comes to their money. These are people who do not share their lives. Well, I I meet with people and we have a beer. Yeah, now that's not the kind of sharing I'm talking about. I'm talking about You really give something that reflects who you are and a lot of times that has to do with money. Money in itself is not evil, it's the lusting and hiding and hoarding around money that makes that becomes evil. Everybody said.

Amen. All right, so that's the money. This is part of your life. Um if you're visiting this morning, forgive me for taking a few minutes to do some uh internal church uh uh cleanup work, I guess is the word or announcement. Um uh we have uh been working for some time with the Stevens Point campus to uh try to find a solution there. That campus, which is what I started, uh Twenty years ago it's yeesh. Oh, I'm getting old. Um, has always struggled financially.

And uh uh has always needed to be propped up, even when I was there. It had to be constantly propped up from external sources and uh then we came here and started the whole campus concept and have spent On average. sixty thousand dollars a year from this campus went to prop them up with a home. We say, why would you do that? Well we kind of looked at it as a missions project. We've got somebody to missions. Well, how about our missions in our own backyard, right?

So that kind of made sense. But at some point you look at it and say, All right, this just is not working. And uh about a year ago, Bishop Ed and myself, Phil started working with the campus. Uh and uh Bob, who is the pastor there, said, okay, you've got to figure this out and make this work. And after more than a year of work on they couldn't come up with any solutions and then he asked, Why don't you just release us and we'll just start our own independent church?

I said, okay, but then you're on your own and he said, Okay, so that's what we did. Uh they heard this announcement a couple of weeks ago, they are now, uh so you won't hear us welcoming the Stephen's point. campus anymore, although I'm sure there's people in Stevens Point who are still watching us on home at home. Glad to have you. Uh some actually from Point said

Well, can we drive to the Appleton campus? Because it's really not that far. And the answer, of course, yes, by all means, if you want to stay connected directly with us. Uh you can certainly do that. So anyway, if you wanna if you're wondering after a while, whatever happened? Whatever happened to Stephen's point, that's what happened. So anyway. But we certainly gave it a good shot, I'll tell you that. Um Uh oh by the way, I'm I'm glad to be here this morning as your guest speaker. So bad.

So yeah. I thought I thought you were stemming back from your laugh-your way stuff. Actually I have. I've only had two of those. Well what were the other ones? Well, you know, Bishop Sean was here, okay, and he spoke here and then I went and spoke at his church. And Pastor Eric from Pascagoula. Pascagoula was here and then I they said, well come at Archer. So I did that. And actually he's coming back next week. Tell you about that in just a second.

But uh anyway, why what's with all of that? Um one of the things that I personally am really excited about that is just energizing me uh at this point in my life is being involved in the launch of a new diocese. And and let me explain that. I know a lot of you come from a Roman Catholic background and these phrases mean different things.

to the rest of the world than it does to them. A diocese is a group of churches that are in fellowship, close fellowship with each other, and who has oversight by a bishop. Uh Bishop Sean, who's been part of my brother Ed's Bishop Ed's diocese for some time is now launching his own diocese and we're going with him as they start this and we're drawing in other churches and getting to know them. And that's why I'm inviting some of these guys to come and speak.

Uh because it would be great to be part of something new, a group of churches that think and act like we do. All right, so we can encourage each other and there's accountability over that. Uh I know we've been an independent church for quite some time. But independent churches tend to get a little goofy and I don't want to get goofy. And I it's good to have people that you can respond to and connect with and watch over.

It's not like a Roman Catholic thing. They don't own anything, okay? They don't own the churches. Uh uh and at any time we don't want to be part of that diocese, we just leave, you know, just like you. Say uh do you vote on Whether or not I'm your pastor. No, but you can leave.

That's a pretty strong vote. You know. So that kind of thing. So that's why we're bringing in and I'm excited. It's probably gonna take a couple of years to get going, but it's really energized me in low this Autumn of my life. A new project. I'm really excited about it. I am loving these men and looking forward to connecting with these churches. Uh and and that uh and again from time to time we'll be uh asking some of these guys to come and talk just so we can connect with them.

Uh some of them are great communicators, others really not all that great. You say, well why do you invite them? Well everybody doesn't have to, you know you know it's good to hear from other people. Right? And other perspectives. Okay? I get it that I'm a lot prettier than all of them. But uh it's good to hear from them so it it it'll be fine. So uh I'm excited about that. Um one other thing uh

to mention uh we have been working for some time on a succession plan. What happens if Mark drops over dead? Which is not an exciting conversation for me to have. I mean all the com I'm the least comfortable guy in the room when we're talking about this stuff. All right, but it's just the reality of life, right? At some point. What happens next? So we've been working on this for quite some time. Bishop Ed has been helping us with this.

Uh as you know, he's been serving as our uh executive pastor off site, but he's been mentoring Phil and Phil has taken over most of the executive pastor role. He's been doing an amazing job. and been giving him more opportunities to speak and we've met with him recently and said, Is this something you would like to do if something happens to your dad? And he prayed about it and said, Yes, yes, I would. So uh, so yo-

Uh so Phil is gonna be the next guy. Now if if if Phil was a really highly Yeah, thank you. There you go, Phil, somebody likes you. If uh if uh if Phil was a highly motivated, self-interesting guy for his own career. He wouldn't want this because I'd have to get out of the way. And I don't have any plans to get out of the way. So uh but uh he loves being here, he loves me. Uh so we're gonna be having less and less after saying what I said about these. Guests coming in.

years uh uh and giving Phil more opportunity to speak. The only way you learn this stuff is to do it. Okay, and he's been doing a great job. So when you come to church, it's gonna pretty much be me or mini me. And Minnie Me is taller than me, it's kind of an odd thing. But anyway, uh so that's what we're doing and so you know what's going on, uh, because you know, the banks and everyone's asking, Well, what's your secession plan? What do you mean? What if you die? I don't want to die.

You know, so we've had to come up with this and we're putting it all in place. So anyway, that's kind of what's happening behind the scenes. All right. Now I heard there is a rumor going around that I'm moving. That that yes, you've heard this, right? Yeah, don't listen to crazy people. All right, so uh I'm not moving. I d I've had more rumors about me moving and leaving over the last twenty years than I don't know. Maybe they're hoping.

He's gotta leave eventually. So uh no, I'm not moving. My guess is uh s people saw that our house was up for sale. So people assume that he's moving. I'm not moving. Well, the plan was to sell the house and move to another house. About a mile down the road. So we were going to build a new house that was a little bit smaller because you know it's just the two of us now and blah blah blah. You all understand that. But then the building prices kept going up.

And up and up. And uh the hells who are were selling our house Uh Michael and uh Mary Kay, wonderful people, uh actually brought us finally a great offer, probably more than we deserved, but by the time that offer came, to build a house now was insane. So we had to say no. Which was kind of a drag, certainly for them. But anyway, um, we're not going anywhere. Where am I gonna go? You're the only people who'll tolerate me. All right?

And then finally, before I get into our very short message this morning, um the uh in October, now next week uh uh uh Uh Pastor Eric is gonna be here again. Uh and then I'm here from who knows when. There's nothing on the schedule for I'm sure at some point I'll still be gone to other places, but uh uh overwhelmingly I will be here as I have been much of this year. All right, for those who are uncomfortable with that, I will pretty much always be the guy here.

But uh uh so anyway, after Eric, I'm going to be doing a s short series, two or three weeks, about stuff connected to COVID. What about the COVID thing? You know what? How are we supposed to be approaching this? Uh we're gonna be looking at the Bible. Is the uh um vaccine the mark of the beasts? Uh if you get the vaccine, will you go to hell? Will it change your soul and turn you into something else? Uh and

There's people who really believe this and are concerned. And I'm going to enlighten all of us about these things and try to do it without being angry. So anyway, uh Uh uh you know, what about uh the vaccines connected to fetal cells? What about that? What's the morality of this, that and the other?

And we've pretty much just stayed out of it, but it's getting a lot a little bit out of hand and uh you know, so I'm gonna be doing this. So you wanna know what does the church think about this? What does the Bible say? Be here in October. On Sundays, and I'm going to be speaking about that. And another thing tied to that is many people have asked us. for religious exemption letters. So because their place of employment is forcing them

to get the shot they don't want to get and uh and their only exception would be a religious exemption. And uh we have written many of them. Thirty plus a lot of them. But but just so you understand, uh our religious exemption ladder just validates your belief. We don't say one way or the other about this vaccine. That is not our job, and I'll talk about that. In October, so you understand where we are coming from. But if you have a problem with it and it really bothers you

And you are looking for uh a religious exemption, you can contact the church and we will do it. Here's the catch. What we are doing is validating the devoutness of your faith. If you are a person who regularly attends church You uh uh financially give to support the church. You volunteer to help with the church. You are considered in our book a devout Christian. These are the people we are giving letters to.

Now, in the beginning I was even given letters to people that weren't really even connected to the church and then I felt bad about that. I said, Okay, I'm stopping this nonsense. If you are not cle if you hardly ever come to church, you never give jack squat and have never volunteered to do anything, I ain't giving you a letter, all right?

So uh I'm just not gonna do it. You know, go online, see if you can buy one from somebody, you know. And you can't buy it from us, these are not indulgences that we are selling to raise funds. All right. But if in fact you are a committed person involved in this faith community and would like validation, it's a nice letter and I think virtually everyone who's received it has gotten their exemption, right? Except for what? All right. I don't even know anything about that. Do I want to know?

Probably not. Anyway, so we're 30 to 1. We're doing good. So uh so that's what that so that's available to you if you are panicking, and some people are very much panicking and concerned about this thing, uh, and you're a very devout member of our church. This letter will validate your faith, and I argue in that letter that uh to force them to do something they do not do is unneighborly, is unkind, and very likely unconstitutional.

Uh and most of these have gone through. So anyway, so you've got all that.

All right, the sermon at last. And I will keep it fairly short, I think. Who knows? I never keep anything short. Uh let's look at uh James the fifth chapter. Starting at verse 13. Alright? James writes these words Are any among you suffering? And there's always people that would say yes to that. This was in the early church too, said times.

People suffer. Sometimes good people suffer. Sometimes, you know, we think why do bad things happen to good people? Because we live in a bad world. It's a very simple answer. And we get affected by these things. So if you're in a situation where you are suffering and really struggling in life, what should you do? He says, they should pray. Why? Because prayer changes things. But you have to pray in faith. A lot of people, when they pray, they're just panicking.

You know what I'm saying? They're freaking out. They're crying. Oh God, help me! And that's not really effective prayer. That's panicking. Now, you can panic. Call us, we'll panic with you and cry and we'll hold hands. But that's not going to change anything for you, it might make you feel better. You want to get to a place of faith because God will change things for you. Uh James writes about this in the earlier chapter, chapter one, verse six.

He says, but ask in faith, never doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind, back and forth. I believe God. I'm not sure why if it doesn't happen, oh God, help me. For the doubter, being double minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord. You say, Pastor, but I struggle. How do I do this? Listen, you know how to get faith for the big things in your life?

Start having faith for the small things in your life. If you're a bodybuilder like myself, I'm building this way. Uh if you're a bodybuilder and you lift weights, you don't start with actually John is a bodybuilder. So what weight did you start with, John?

He says, just go on, don't make this about me. You don't start with 300 pounds, right? Yeah, that's just not how you do it. You don't start I always feel bad and I've said this before and it's not condescending. I mean it's sincerity from my heart. I always feel bad having to come and help people who are having to trust God for something big in their life, and it's the first time they've ever had to trust Him for anything.

Uh it's sad because it's so hard for them and they struggle and then it's mostly just emotional support at that point. Listen, you want to trust God for the big things in your life? Start trusting for the little things. Start with twenty pounds. You know? Have a little faith. Learn to pray about the small things. You know? If you got a headache, maybe instead of just dousing half a bottle of Tylenol. Pray.

Lord heal me with this headache, you know. This is uh you know I'm talking little things. Now if you want to take the time out of, I don't care. I'm just saying find somewhere, something where you can trust God. That's how you build your faith, just like lifting weights. If you're a musician. And they're all hiding in the back somewhere back there. But uh being a musician y you know how you learn how to play real fast? You play slow. You have to play slow.

Bing, bing, ding, ding, ding, ding, no, no, no, no. And you do it over and over and over again, and pretty soon you get to the place you can hardly think about it. Do you just have fun with it? But you don't do that by practicing right away because you're not gonna get anywhere. All right. Start

little. So no matter where you're at, I don't care if you're eight years old or if you're eighty years old this morning, whatever your situation, start to trust God. Why? Because when things go bad, you can then, as James encourages you to,

Pray and see answers to prayer. So he says, uh if anything's bad, pray. And then next thing he says, uh are any cheerful? Then they should sing songs of prayer. And this is where we celebrate God in our life and enjoy the blessings of God and be grateful. God loves people who are grateful and thankful. Thank him for stuff. Be grateful. Thank God when this goes right for you and that goes right for you. Stuff and then you come to church on Sunday morning.

And we celebrate. We're called Celebration Church. What do we celebrate? We're celebrating God in our lives. That He cares about us and He blesses us and He encourages us. So this is something the Bible tells us that we're supposed to do. All right? Do I want to go down that? No. Stay focused, Mark. All right. And then he says this: Are any among you sick?

Many of us have been sick, or everybody's sick at one point or other. Uh and it says what should you do then? He says, They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. And then the uh indication there is that they lay their hands on them and they pray for them. But I was talking to uh some of our pastors, actually a few pastors this last week, and I said, does anybody do this anymore?

I cannot remember the last time anyone asked us to come to their home and pray for them. And we're missing a big king. And I asked, why don't we do this? And immediately I answered my own question with, Well Mark, you never talk about it. So I'm talking about it. We should be asking now, we live in a different world today. The main thing is nobody wants anybody to come to their house. You know? When I grew up. People love people coming to their houses.

Okay, there's a comedian. His name's uh Sebastian Manascalco. He has a whole routine on back in the day when people would come over and it was company. We got company. And you know remember how and we can all relate to this, right? Mom would always have this really nice dessert. Nobody could eat it. Because it was for company. And when when uh company came, everybody was excited. down and check.

You got to eat the good dessert and you know time and if the phone rang, nobody answered that phone. Right. He goes this whole routine is hilarious. But it's exactly what we did, right? You couldn't answer the phone. Oh my goodness gracious. Why? Because we have Company. I remember when I was first in ministry, it was a big thing for the pastor to come visit you at home.

Okay. So anyway, in his routine, which again is so accurate, uh, he says that's the way it used to be. Today Your doorbell rings, everybody panics. Who's here? Who invited anybody, you know? Everybody hide, nobody move. Uh and it's really, really funny. But and as I was thinking about this, I thought, you know, it's really true. We nobody wants anybody to come in their lives anymore, and especially in their homes.

And I was trying to think, why is that? And I suppose it's because uh both men and women were it used to be back when we grew up, mom was home all day long and and was able to keep the house. Fairly orderly. Not so much the case today. A lot of homes look like a hand grenade was thrown in the middle and nobody wants to come to my house. My house isn't clean. And even if your house is clean, you don't think it's clean.

And if you were like my wife Debbie, whenever we'd have a cleaning person come, she'd make sure to clean ahead of time. Why are you doing this? I don't want this place to look awful. She's a cleaning lady. This is what she does. But anyway, so anyway, had people had lots of time for that. People don't have some. I don't know. And listen.

I will respect that. You don't want us coming to your home. Nobody wants anybody coming to their home anymore. Fine. I'm good with that. Then at a minimum, you should come here. Alright. Make an appointment and say, well, can you get the pastors of the church to pray for me? I'm sick. Or so and so is very sick. Can you you know don't come to my house.

Well then come here. So you gotta make an appointment? Yeah, you do that all the time. You make appointments to go see doctors and in our case we won't make you sit for forty-five minutes. And we won't send you a bill later. Alright? So come and get prayed for. And and more than just so well I I get prayed. I get prayed for.

Okay, so don't you believe in that? Yeah, sure, I believe we should always pray. But that's not what the Bible says. If you're sick, it doesn't say get a bunch of strangers praying for you on a prayer chain. Why? I don't know. I'm just following the directions. It says, call for the elders of the church so they can come, lay hands on you, anoint you with oil. Something special happens when that happens.

God does I think an amazing thing. It's really a sacramental thing. We believe that when we lay hands on people, something happens. And it's based on the scriptures. All right? I'm just gonna I I could do this for a long time. I'm just gonna give you a few of'em. In the Gospel of Luke, chapter four, verse forty. As the sun was setting, all those who had any sick were uh Uh with various kinds of diseases, brought them to Jesus and he laid his hands on them and cured them. Luke thirteen.

11. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, Woman, you're set free from your ailment. And when he laid his hands on her, Immediately she stood up straight and began to praise God. We read in the book, and this is all throughout the gospels. We jump to the book of Acts or Saul, who becomes Paul eventually.

uh was on the road to Damascus persecuting Christians and he gets knocked down and blinded and and Jesus says, you need to go to such and such place and God speaks to this guy named Ananias to go pray for him. So Acts the nineteenth, chapter verse seventeen, we read the account. So Ananias went and entered the house, and he laid his hands on Saul and said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on your way here

has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. So what does what's one of the first things that happens to Saul? Somebody comes and lays their hands on them, him, and prays for him, and suddenly he could see. Uh Paul, Saul who eventually becomes Paul, eventually writes to Timothy. And again we see this throughout the whole Bible. I'm not getting all of'em, but just to give you a a small reference here.

Uh Paul writes this to Timothy, he says, For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through what? The laying on of my hands. This is something that was done continually. through the uh New Testament. This idea Jesus did it, the apostles did it, and believers were encouraged to do it. And James says, Is any of you sick?

Let them call for the elders of the church so they can lay hands. He doesn't say lay hands, he's anointed with oil, which you gotta do by laying hands on. Uh lay hands on them, but pray for them so they can be healed. Again, it's something that has become a distant memory in churches. And again, as I talked to these pastors, no one could remember the last time anybody ever did this. And I think this is wrong. We need to get back to this.

Okay? Well one pastor says, well that's why we have people come up in church in the line and we all pray for them, lay your hands real quick. Uh my problem with that, a lot of you know, is uh you don't really get to know people and find out what's going on in their lives. And sometimes the Bible says, Don't lay hands on people quickly.

In other words, know something about what's going on in their lives and chat with them a bit, uh which we will do to you when we pray for you. Um, it's like someone comes forward and says, What's your problem? I feel guilty, and then they just pray for. I always say, why do you feel guilty? Right? Well, I'm committing adultery. Yeah, you're supposed to feel guilty when you do that. How about you stop?

Or someone comes up and says, Would you pray for me? We're struggling financially. And then just boom, these instant prayer lines they just pray for. Well I say, Well, why are you struggling? Well, we I have a gambling problem. Ah, let's talk about that. I have a coughing problem. Why is that? Is that new? Well, I smoke two and a half packs of cigarettes a day. Oh, maybe we should pray about that. People don't want that stuff, right?

That's part of the problem. Nobody wants nobody peeking into my life to see what's going on. Uh you know, and we're not gonna be intrusive, but the idea is to get to uh find out how you're doing, what's going on, and lay our hands and pray for you. So I think this automatic You know, McDonald's version of prayer lines in churches. This isn't what the Bible's talking about.

We need to take the time to pray for you. And and there was a a a young lady who came. Were you there when when we prayed for her? Uh she was pregnant. She had like four months to go. Is that right? If I can find the text here. Tiffany, right? All right. So Tiffany comes and she's very pregnant, which is different than being a little pregnant. I don't know if she's I guess if you're pregnant, you're pregnant. So anyway, she's here and they're saying there's something wrong with the baby.

And it was like he had only half a heart or something like that? This is not good news. When you're four months out and you have your infant in you, the doctor says only has half a heart. Now most people would just panic, scream and cry, get mad at God, I mean, oh the whole list. And I don't know what emotion she had, but all I know is she was standing here with us with total confidence and asked us.

to pray for her. And we took the time, laid hands on her, anointed her with oil, and I'll never forget it. As I did it, I don't know if you remember saying that I thought, oh my I felt something you know. I mean I don't know what's gonna happen, right? But we're praying that God would do this. So anyway, here's the text this morning. Uh just spoke because the'cause the baby is here now. The boy?

What's his Micah? Should have called him Mark. Um Hedda's uh I forgive you. All right. Uh Just spoke to the cardio people and confirmed they're saying no surgery is needed. No medication. Isn't that amazing? Just follow ups to watch because there's a couple of little holes yet that haven't closed just watched, but they think it's just gonna just keep as it's been going. Will it c clear up on its own. We're gonna praise God for his continued healing. Four months ago.

He had half a heart. And now here we are talking about going home just days after his birth. That's pretty cool. So anyway, let me just encourage. Let's get a thing. I know people are very private. Nobody likes some people don't don't touch me. Where you've been, you know, that kind of thing. And I now if you have an extremely communicable disease, let us know.

Maybe we'll come up with a version two, I don't know. Uh you know, and if you're in the hospital in the COVID war, they're not gonna let us come in anyway. But uh short of that, let us be bold and let us be confident and let's

Pray for each other. Now having said all of that, as we're getting ready to go into our communion time, uh we are going to end our service here and in uh in the Fox Valley. Our benediction is going, we're going to ask people who want us to pray for them to line up and come down. We're going to lay our hands on you and anoint you uh with oil and pray healing grace over you. We did this at the beginning of COVID.

And compared to a lot of other convers congregations I've heard around the world, we have not had. massive deaths or any some of had serious s sicknesses. I was one of'em, but we came through it. I believe God answers prayer. And you know we were talking about this maybe the Song Weaver should do every fall as we go because that's when all the crud comes out. Let's just have a time. Just anoint people. Ask God's healing grace over them. And if you do get sick Call. Make an appointment.

We don't have to come to your house. Make a format. Come and uh we will gather around you, we'll lay hands on you, we'll anoint you with oil, and we pray. And according to what the scripture says here, we can expect God to heal you. All right. So that's what that's all about. So that's what we're gonna be doing in a minute. Now if you're in a hurry, as soon as we're done, you can zip out the back. But if you want someone to pray for you Uh it won't take long.

And uh we'll have different pastors up here and we'll be able to anoint you with oil, pray God's healing grace. on you during this COVID time and even with all the other stuff that's going on as we move into the fall. Alright, so that's how we're gonna end our service. Now, uh we're gonna go right now into our time of communion. This is where we celebrate. The Bible says to just celebrate, right? We're going to celebrate our faith.

Jesus Christ died on the cross for the sins of the world. On the night before he was crucified, he gave his disciples bread, said, Take this, this is my body broken for you. Gave them the wine. This is my blood shed for you. This is what we celebrate during this time. Now, the Bible says before we do this, we should always examine ourselves. to see where we're at with God. So having said that, let's all bow our heads as I pray a prayer of forgiveness over all of us.

Heavenly Father, before we partake of the bread and the cup this morning, and in obedience to the scriptures, we pause to examine ourselves. If we've sinned against you in thought, sometimes thinking, something we did, something we said. Boy, am I guilty of that? And uh we asked that you would forgive us of our sins. for the sake of your beloved son Jesus who died on the cross. For us. Have mercy on us. Strengthen us by your Holy Spirit to keep us.

And as our heads are bowed and and we're praying and if there's something you can think of that Maybe you need to settle with God. Just talk to him about it right now. And if you're here, maybe you're just visiting, watching online, whatever, and you're thinking, you know, I've never done this. I've never experienced what you guys have experienced. You can do that. Just ask Jesus to come into your life. Ask him to forgive you of your sins.

give you a new start and you can start your first And experience God's forgiveness and grace in your life.