Sometimes Faith Makes No Sense

This is Celebration Church, but it's more than just a church. Good morning. Welcome to Celebration Church. Let's all stand together as I give up on my iPad. demon possessed this morning. It's just not working. So we're gonna test to test out the pastor's eyeballs on the phone. There we go. Let's recite together the Apostles' Creed. This is our statement of faith, who we are, 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 beautiful morning in Green Bay. Hallelujah. It's not raining and it's not snowing. It's really windy though. We can't win. Anyway, uh before we go any further, just remind you how we do our offerings here at Celebration Church. If you'd like to contribute. Uh you can use the envelopes on the seat backs in front of you.

to put in any cash for checks you like and give it to the ushers on the way out of the service this morning. Or you can go online if you consider celebration your church, your church, this is our church, you should go online and sign up for recurrent giving. It just does it automatically.

Uh just you decide this is how much we're gonna give every week uh to the kingdom of God and uh it just happens automatically. Very great. Or you can use your phone, using my phone this morning just for my notes. And you can give that way as well on the Celebration Church app. Next Sunday is July 3rd, big fourth of July weekend. Jimmy Bratcher is going to be here speaking, and we're excited about that. He's going to be playing the guitar and doing a blues version of praise and worship.

It should be a lot of fun looking forward to it. And then afterwards, they're gonna do be doing a bike blessing for those of you who ride your Harleys, Yamahas, Suzuki's, tricycles, whatever you got. Bring them and we're gonna bless them. Uh, but there's only going to be one service. If all y'all here show up at the same time next week, you'll be having your own service because we're not gonna be here.

Come at nine. I promise you will not die. It'll be a beautiful thing. And then you have the rest of the Sunday and the 4th of July weekend to enjoy. That's why we're doing that. So don't forget.

Just the nine o'clock service next Sunday. Now, before I get into this next bit, I just want to s be very, very clear something we've stated many, many times. It's celebration church. We don't really care about your politics. Uh the table of grace is open to everybody. If you're ra way on the right uh Politics, you're welcome here. If you're way off on the left, you are welcome here. If you're Democrat, Republican, Communist, Socialist, whatever other issue they have, you are welcome here.

It's not about politics. It's about knowing God in your life, and the table of grace is open to everyone. Jesus said, Whosoever will. That even means people who don't think like you. What a shock. I know we live in a very polarized world today. We're very tribal. We people tend to only hang with people who think and act and believe just like they do. Uh but uh in the the kingdom of God.

all our brothers and sisters in Christ who express faith in Jesus. Having said that, just want to make a quick comment about what happened uh on Friday with the uh overturning of uh Roe v uh V Wade, which brought the right of abortion. to to the nation. Uh fifty years later, and after sixty some million unborn children uh wiped out, uh they finally overturned that. As a Christian, I say thank God. Yes.

It's and and if you if you don't like them clapping, fine. You're still welcome here. It just that's the way they think. They think differently than you. It'll be okay. No one's gonna have a heart attack and die. All right. Uh people uh who are on the opposite of side of it uh have just had a complete uh emotional breakdown over the whole thing.

Um they have been protesting and destroying things in Portland and Los Angeles and New York City, which is all rather ironic because you can still have an abortion in Portland, Los Angeles. or New York City. It's in cities and states where it's still legal that are protesting the places where it's not legal anymore. You don't see any of this, you know, and they're decrying the end of democracy.

Now, a lot of you adults understand understand what I'm about to say. I say this for your young people, because a lot of young people don't understand, they're not being taught in school how this works, and they're World of information is a little bit more than a little bit. You know, Snapchat or whatever thing. Uh democracy works like this. We live in a representative democracy. That means I vote for him and he's going to go represent my interests and vote the way I want him to vote.

is called a representative democracy. That overturning of Roe v. Wade was not the death of democracies many people are on the left are just howling and Foaming at the mouth about. It was not the death of democracy. Duma it's if anything, it was the return to democracy. Judges should never have made this decision in the first place.

They say, well, they ruled uh you know in favor of guns the day before. I get it. But in the Constitution, remember they're there to judge everything, laws in light of the Constitution. The Constitution clearly says People can carry weapons. It's there, so they rule accordingly. There's nothing in the Constitution that says anything about abortion. That's why they said we're overturning this. They shouldn't have done it in the first place. All they're doing is returning it back to the state.

If these people don't like it, they can now get involved in democracy. They can vote for the people they want to vote and make their state legislators and national legislators, whatever they want, to vote the way they want. And if they don't like the Constitution, and many of them don't, they can change it. That's how these amendments got there in the first place.

The Constitution didn't say a lot of these things, so they added amendments. That's what an amendment is. If you're ever buying or selling a house, sometimes you have amendments. to all the contracts that you're signing because they're specifying this, that, or the other. You can still do that. Get organized. You guys on the left, you think this is the end of the world? It's not the end of the world. Get organized. You know, you can change uh your list again.

In all these states it's still legal. Uh I think it's sad, but uh I thank God at least the wholesale slaughter is being limited uh than from what it was. But they can vote whoever they want to vote in and uh And exercise in democracy. That's how this works. You'll remember not too terribly long ago, there was an amendment to the Constitution that made alcohol illegal.

Churches were behind this big time. It was probably the single stupidest things churches did in modern history, and we still pay the price for it today. Don't get me started. But they were all and they had a constitutional amendment. You can't drink, there's no alcohol. It was called prohibition, remember? Um and of course it was a humiliating disaster, so they had to vote and remove the prohibition. You can change anything. These guys don't like the Second Amendment.

Go to work, change it, you know. But you're gonna have people like us who think the other way, and that's how democracy works. It's not supposed to be Nine people in long flowing robes making up laws from a bench somewhere. That's not the way it was supposed to be. It never was intended to be that way. All this court is doing is putting it back the way it should have.

If they don't like it, uh they can change it. Everybody has the right to get involved in democracy. And again, why people who are living in these very liberal areas where it's still legal are having a fit. It makes no sense to me. I don't understand it. It's not that they they can do it. It's they want everybody to do it. Uh and that is not.

Democracy, okay, forcing everybody to do something that they don't want to do. Anyway, so I thank God for it. God bless all those who fought and prayed and worked so hard over the last 50 years to set right this wrong.

and finally set right. But it's not over. There's still going to be all the arguing and elections. Okay, fine. It is what it is. All right. We are now in the season of Pentecost. I don't believe it. It was working before. All right, I have my back up. Give a hand to the blonde. She's bossing me around. In front of everybody. Use this. You can go do whatever. Yes, ma'am. I'm using this one. All right. So we're in the season of the Pentecost.

Now the power of God is available to the entire world. What is so different about Pentecost? Spirit of God can fall on everybody. In the Old Testament, it just felt on a few. A prophet here, a prophet there, something like that we come. But what made Pentecost so radical after Jesus was raised from the dead. It's the Spirit of God came and the Bible says now the Spirit of God will fall on your sons and daughters. That was really radical. Just the fact that all the sons could get in it.

It was also for all the daughters, male or female. Everybody gets in on this deal. The presence of God that these people experienced in the special occasions now is available to all who put their faith in Christ. This is what changed the world and why Christianity spread so widely. Uh so anyway, and the color changes during the season of uh Pentecost is green. We're now into the green season of

stole as green and stuff. Uh and this is the longest season of the Christian calendar. It won't change until we get to Christmas. So we're gonna be talking about this whole thing of walking and green, talking about growth, spiritual growth. Uh so today I want to reflect on this a little bit and talk about a prophet from the old testament and take a look at now highly unlikely anybody will experience anything like that.

This guy did. This is my favorite prophet in the Old Testament, Elijah. Elijah and the next one right after him. They were buddies. Elijah. These guys were the Mac Daddies of prophets. I mean, they did stuff with this incredible, uh amazing things. But I want you to see how this guy worked. Now, to put it in context. This is Elijah. Elijah is during the time of King Ahab. King Ahab is evil, wicked, horrible human being. That is the king at this time.

His wife was worse than he was. Her name was Jezebel. And to show you how awful she was, even to this day. Thousands of years later, if you want to talk about a woman in the most negative of terms, you call her uh Jezebel. She's nothing but a wicked old Jezebel. Man, when you still talk badly about

Jezebel, 3,000 years later, she's one bad person. She was awful. Anyway, so him and Jezebel were just doing terrible things. The prophet Elijah was following what God said, and he prophesied, okay, guys. There's not gonna be any more rain until I say there's rain.

And of course they got mad at him, he took off. Uh but sure enough what he said came to pass, and now there's no rain. It's three years, three and a half years later, and this horrible famine is coming on the land. It's completely dried up. So we'll pick it up in chapter 18. Verse one, after a long time, in the third year now, the word of the Lord came to Elijah. Now go and present yourself to Ahab, this wicked king, and I will send rain on the land.

So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in Samaria. It was bad. When he saw the king saw Elijah, he said to him, Is that you, you troubler of Israel? And Elijah says, I haven't made trouble for Israel, but you and your father's family have. You've abandoned the Lord's commands and have followed the Baals, which was uh these idols and stuff that they worshiped. And it wasn't.

That they bow down to a bunch of statues. I mean, they are into pagan worship and rituals and evil. would show up when this stuff happened. Um Here's what I want you to do. And he's able to call the shots at this point, because he's the one who said it was going to be no rain. And there's not going to be rain until I say it's rain. So he tells the king, I want you to summon all the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel.

And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table, all these wicked people. So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel. Why would he do that? They were a little desperate. You know, he says no rain. There's not gonna be any more rain. They're having a famine. He wants to meet. All right, let's go meet with the prophet. So Elijah went before the people and said.

How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him, but if Baal is God, follow him. They had their feet in both things. They really weren't serious. And he's calling them out. Make a decision.

And the Bible says the people said nothing. They just stood there. No no backbone whatsoever. And then Elijah said, I am the only one of the Lord's prophets left. Actually, technically, he was not. The Lord had to show him there were still others. But oftentimes when you're standing for something, you feel like you're the only person in the world. Just always.

Realize the chances of you being the only person about anything is highly unlikely. All right? God has people everywhere. But he says, I'm the only one laughs. Baal has 450 prophets. So get two bulls for us. Let Baal's prophets choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood, but don't set fire to it.

I will prepare the other bull and put wood uh and not set fire to it. Then you call on the name of your God, and I will call on the name of the Lord, the God who answers by fire, he is God. So this is the Showdown at the okay corral in the Old Testament. All right. You got the bad guys, you got the good guy. The good guy's taking on all the bad guys. We're gonna have a contest. Set up two altars, who whichever God answers by fire, so fire just falls out of heaven. Uh that will be the true God.

And the people said, Okay, what you say is good. And you have to understand all the prophets of Baal said, sure. We can do this. Why would they do that? Because these people saw supernatural things happen. Uh now unlike God who does supernatural things for the benefit of people. Satan does it through people to terrify the people. He thrives on fear, and the people fear those in power, and that were these prophets of these uh demonic.

uh things and these idols and stuff like that. So you remember when Moses came before Pharaoh and he had a big staff and he threw it on the ground, it turned into a snake. Remember, the magicians of Egypt did the same thing. Is that all right? They threw their stats around, and they all turned into I mean, wow, there's some serious voodoo going on in some of these dark times of the world. Uh people totally sold over to say.

Of course, in that situation it was great because Moses' snake swallowed all the other snakes and turned back into a stick. It's kind of cool. So anyway, these guys thought, yeah, we can do this. No big deal. But what these guys don't realize is the presence of God is with the prophet. And when the presence of God is there, the devil has no power.

And sometimes I hear from people who get nervous and fearful because they think a demon is here or a demon is there. You don't need to fear this stuff. The Bible says greater is he that is in us, Jesus. Than the devil who is in the world. The presence of God in you cancels and overcomes anything the devil can throw at you. I've heard people get nervous because you know, a bunch of witches got together and put a curse on them or a curse on their city. They're all freaked out. I said, relax.

Greater is he that's in you than he that is in the world. Our God uh is greater than anything that Satan can throw out. The Satan is a defeated foe. Uh he thrives only where God is not So but anyway, so they're figuring we can do this. So Elijah says to the prophets, Now choose one of the bulls and prepare first. You go first, ladies first, you let some go first. Since there are so many of you, all you guys are here, call on the name of your God, but don't light the fire.

So they took the bull and prepared it, and they called on the name of the of Baal from morning till noon. Oh Baal, hear us Baal Sakatumi Baal, come on Baal, yo, Baal, let's make this happen. But there's no response. No one answered. And they danced around the altar. They admit, oh Baal, come on, Baal. They're into it. The band is playing. They're getting down. And they're crying out to Baal. But nothing is happening. At noon, Elijah begins to taunt them.

Shout louder, he said. Surely he's a god Perhaps he's in deep thought or busy. Now that's the English translation. This stuff irritates me to no end. Because apparently English people speaking people are so fragile, like little tiny person in glasses or something that we can't hear the real words that these people spoke because it's just too crude and y I I don't know who these pinheads are that do this, but it irritates me to no end.

You know, and no one knows they sometimes call Christians pruse and stuff because they they changed the Bible just to avoid. He didn't say he's in thought and busy. What he basically said, maybe he's pooping. So I'm looking at the guy I learned this years ago and I said so I'm looking at all these translates and nobody's saying.

So what the heck? So I'm looking at some uh commentators. Most of them won't even make comment. I finally found uh Adam Clark, he's my favorite uh uh Theologian uh from the eighteen hundreds, Methodist guy, brilliant, fluently read and spoke. Uh Hebrew, Greek, Latin, I mean I mean just Brilliant guy. So he's talking about this thing. He says, Well, that's not really what they say, because in the Hebrew, and he writes it out in the Hebrew.

Of course, unless you were able to read Hebrew, you didn't know what he's talking about. He says it's it's just too crude to translate into English. So I'll I'll translate it into Latin. For the love of Pete. So he translates it into Latin and I'm reading it. It says for tasis ad locum secretum abit ut ventrum ibi exemerit. Now with my advanced skills of cutting and pasting. I copied it and went over into a uh

Latin translator, Latin to English. And it came up and says, perhaps he is in a private place emptying his bowels. So apparently that is so horrible, English people can't handle it. Then some of these religious pinheads, you know, well, Bible, but brother, the Bible says not to speak crudely. It's the Bible saying it! I don't think the Bible is contradicting the Bible. Maybe you're a pinhead.

So anyway, he's going at, maybe he's sleeping, shout louder, maybe he's going poop, come on. And he's ragging on these guys and teasing them and just mocking them, taunting them. So they shouted louder. They slashed themselves with swords and spears, bloods flowing everywhere. It's all part of their demonic worship. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. They've been doing this since the morning.

And nothing's happening, and they don't understand why it's anything happening. Because the presence of God is there. It negates even this massive demonic power by the name of Baal cannot do jack. When the presence of God is there. Fear not the enemy.

Anyway, Elijah said to the people, All right boys, come in. And they came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down. Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes, descended from Jacob. To whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, Your name shall be blessed, er shall be Israel. And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. He dug a trench around it, large enough to hold two seeds of seed. It was like twenty-four pounds.

big trench around it. Why is he digging a tenth? I dunno. He arranges the wood, he cut the bull into pieces, laid it on the wool, and then he says to these guys, Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood. What? You're trying for fire here. This makes no sense. He tells them to drench it and they pour water all over it. And he says to them, Do it again. And they did it again. And he says a third time, do it again. And they did. Now the thing is just soaked.

Water ran down and around the altar and even filled the trench. There is water everywhere. This makes no sense. But I want you to notice and learn from this morning. Sometimes faith doesn't make any sense. Sometimes faith seems very counterintuitive. It can seem upside down. How can this possibly work this way? The Bible tells us when somebody's mean to them, mean to you, you should be kind to them. That makes no sense.

Or somebody's mean to you, you want to smack them upside the head, straighten them out, give'em a little adjustment. Paul says don't be kind to them. You mean I can't get mad at people? Oh, you can get mad. Oh yeah. Just don't be mean when you do it. Right? You can love people when you're mad. Anybody have kids?

They can drive you crazy. You get mad. You still love them. Anybody married? The problem isn't mad. In fact, Paul writes in the New Testament, you can be mad, just don't sin when you get mad. So when you get mad, don't freak out. You can be mad. Just be as nice as you can about it. The Bible says. Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry. In other words, get over it. This is why I prefer to get angry in the evening. Gives me twenty four hours to blow off steam.

I didn't do it just before sunrise, get my But the point is get over it. That's counterintuitive. That's upside down. That makes sense. Jesus says, bless those who despitefully use you. Now listen, it's terrible to be used. When somebody uses you, that's nasty, that's mean. To despitefully use you is even worse. These people are doing this on purpose. And they have an attitude about it. Jesus says, bless them. Makes no sense. There's a big bucket of water.

You want God to bless you financially? You know what Jesus says? All through the Bible says give. Give and God will bless you financially. Makes absolutely no sense. That's about as upside down as you can possibly think. Because if you give, then you're not going to have as much.

And I want more and I want God to bless me with more, but He's not going to bless you with more until you learn to give. It's upside down. It makes no sense. Jesus said, give and it will be given to you. Pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Say, well, that's not my life. Well, chances are you're not much of a giver. You need to learn to give, and God will bless you. It makes no sense. It's subside. But but and people who really struggle with this, people with poverty mentality.

And I gotta tell you, a lot of people in Wisconsin, our wonderful state, struggle with a poverty mentality. It's not their fault. They got it from their parents, who got it from their parents, who got it probably from their parents. Somewhere along something went goofy in their heads. These are the people. Everything is a limited pie. You can't take a piece of the pie. If you take a piece of the pie, there won't be enough pie around. Oh no. People with abundant mentality realize there is no pie.

There's no limit. All things are possible to him who believes. There's people like this, they they can't love other people because they're afraid if they love people th they're taken away from someone else. Uh s some people they'll get married, you know, f as a result of divorce or whatever, remarried, and they have a hard time loving their stepkids. Why?

Uh uh take away from my I gotta love my kids. No you Nimrod, you can love everybody. There's no limit on love. You can love Kids, you can love your stepkids, you can love the kids in the neighborhood, you can even love all the demon-possessed little kids around around Walmart. You can love them all. It's not a limited pie. All things are possible. I don't do this. What are you guys doing here? Didn't you just get married? Well, congratulations.

Amen. Blessings on you. And you. So much joy. Yeah, you will drive each other crazy, but enjoy. Amen. Don't have a limited mentality. It's a big world. God's huge. It's not a little pie, and you gotta freak out about every little thing. All things are possible to him who believes. Makes no sense. There's a big bucket of water.

What do you do when things go wrong? You want to complain? Bible says don't complain. He says, praise God. You know what praise is? Praise is thanking God for an answer before you get the answer. That's praise. That's faith. When things are going wrong and just feel, oh, everything's wrong. I don't know what I'm gonna do. That's not faith.

When everything's going horrible and you're able to say thank you, God, you love me, you care about me, your word is true. I know you're gonna turn the situation around and you praise God, you look a little crazy to everybody else. But it's called faith. There's a big bucket of water. What are you praising God for? Because all things are possible. I believe he'll turn my situation around. Amen. Enjoy your life. Life is crazy.

People say to me, Pastor, it's easy for you to be happy. You finally got some success success in your life. Yeah? But I was happy when I was broke. Completely broke. I've always been happy. I just have. People say, what happens if you lose everything? I said, it'll be like my honeymoon. Hallelujah. All we had was a beanbag chair and certain diversions to keep us entertained. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Well there's a bucket of water, praising God when everything's going wrong, yeah.

Some people they like to praise God when everything goes right. Well it's good to be thankful. Easy to praise God when everything goes right. The bucket of water is praising God when everything goes wrong. You want to be the greatest? You want to be the greatest? You want to be the most successful? Jesus said, be a servant. the greatest among you will be the servant of all. That makes no sense. That is a big bucket of water. Splash.

At the time of the evening sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed, Lord the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. Let it be known today that you are the God in Israel and that I am your servant, and I have done all these things at your command. Answer me, Lord, answer me. So these people will know that you, Lord, are God. And that you are turning their hearts back again.

And then boom, fire falls out of heaven. It burns up the sacrifice. It burns up the wood. It burns up the stones and all the dirt and licked up all the water in the trench. Wow, that's some intense heat. And all the people went, oh, praise the Lord. The Lord, he is God. The Lord is yeah, because they were all freaking out. Then Elijah says to Ahab, go get yourself a sandwich. He's speaking prophetically. He's calling things that are not as though they are, which is why God does.

You call things that are not as if they exist. You say that's crazy. No, it's not. You do that. If you're a good parent, you're doing that with your kids. You're looking at these little snots and you say, you're a blessing. I want to kill you right now, but you're a blessing. You're gonna do something great. All things are possible. You can be some you speak into people's lives. Things will turn around. I don't like you right now, but I know I love you.

Amen. So he says, you I hear the sound of rain. Now there's been no rain for three and a half years. So Ahab goes against Sabbath. Elijah climbs on the top of Mount Carmel. I love this. He bends down on the ground and puts his face between his knees. 'Cause he didn't want to see. Because sometimes sometimes we put too much weight on what we can see. And he knows that faith isn't about what you see. And he gets down.

And he's got his face down like this. And he says to his servant, go look over the ocean. See if anything's happening. The guy comes back and says, There's nothing. Elijah goes, do it again. Guy calls, comes back and says, There's nothing. Elijah, he's not even looking. He's just going, Go do it again. He comes back, dude, I'm telling you, there's nothing there. There's not a cloud in the sky. It hasn't been a cloud for three and a half years. Go do it again.

He comes back. Go do it again. Go finally, the seventh time, the guy comes back. Okay. There's a small cloud as small as a man's hand coming out of the sea. That was it. That's all Elijah had to hear. He said, Oh man, go tell Ahab, hitch up your chariot, Jack, and get out of town before the rain stops you. Meanwhile, the sky just grows black with clouds, the wind rises, and the heavy rain started falling, and Ahab rode off to Jezreel. Ahab is riding his

Super powerful chariot. He's got the best chariot money can buy. It's the Rolls Royce of chariot. You know how many horses are under the hood? About four probably. And anyway. And he's right, they're the fastest horses in the s in the in the w world. And he's writing off. And I love this next part. The power of the Lord came on Elijah. And tucking his cloak into his belt, he starts to run, and he's excited. He's running now. That's not

unusual. It's a natural thing to run. But what happens to Elijah or he starts running supernaturally. And he ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel. Now get a picture of this in your head.

Ahab is riding his McDaddy chariot. And he had head start. He's going and he's heading, and the rain is starting to come. And he looks in his rearview mirror. Yeah. She just sees this cloud. Something's coming up. He's like, who that? You know, it's like those uh cartoons with the What do you call him? Roadrunner. There's a cloud of smoke. He sees us coming. And and the prophet Elijah passes him. Going by. I hope we got instant replay in heaven. I gotta see this.

'Cause this guy is just running past him and he can't and he beats Ahab all with it back, just running. You say that's amazing. Yeah, it's called supernatural. And something about this, I want you to understand, supernatural doesn't mean super spooky. It just means natural stuff you can do, but you can do it better. Super Natural. Ahab ran. Anybody can run, but he ran supernaturally.

God wants to bless your life. Whatever you can do, take whatever abilities you have, breathe life into a so it's not only just natural, it's supernatural. You can be better, you can be bigger, you can more successful, more impacting in your life with the presence of God than you can on your own. It's supernatural. I am naturally super, hallelujah, because of what Jesus has done in my life by the power of the Holy Spirit. Good preaching, Pastor Mark. Amen. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Anyway, let's turn our attention to our time of communion. This is one where we reflect on what makes all this possible. Jesus Christ died on that cross 2,000 years ago. Rose again from the dead. His body was broken so we could be made whole, his blood shed so we could have forgiveness of sin. And uh the scriptures say that because of what he did, we can now experience God in our lives. We can have forgiveness of sins and the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

So, but it's the Bible says before we do this, we should stop and reflect. So I'm going to ask everybody to bow your 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, word, or deed, something that we did that we should not have done.

Something that we didn't do that maybe we should have done if we haven't loved you with our whole heart, if we haven't loved our neighbors as ourselves. For the sake of your beloved Son Jesus, who gave himself as a sacrifice for our sins, we pray, have mercy on us and forgive us all of our sins. And while people have their heads bowed and people are reflecting, maybe you're here this morning, maybe you're watching online thinking, you know, I I've never really experienced anything.

You can. In your own words, just ask Jesus Christ to come into your life and forgive you of your sins. And you can start to take your first steps of faith this morning and start to experience this wonderful presence of God, the supernatural presence of God. Sometimes it seems upside down, like it doesn't make any sense, but you'll soon see that it makes great sense. Amen.