1 John

Turn to, 1 John chapter at 1, which is page 1225 in the church bibles. So 1 John chapter 1, starting from verse 1. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched this we proclaim concerning the word of life. The life appeared. We have seen it and testify it to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the father and has appeared to us.

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you. God is light In him, there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and we do not live out the truth, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with 1 another and the blood of Jesus, his son purifies us from all sin.

If we claim to be without sin, We deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. Good morning. My name's, Pete Woodcock.

I'm the pastor of the church. It's great to see if you're visiting really Really good to see you. I know we've got some old friends back with us. So look out for them again. It's it's great to to have you with us.

Father, again, as we look at this, precious word that you've given us. Please, may we, know who you are, may we love you more? May it affect our hearts and our lives for your glory in Jesus' name, our men? Now in, in most religions, if not all, I'm sure you agree. There are holy artifacts and holy places and holy buildings and and that sort of stuff and followers of those religions, whatever religion that it is, are encouraged to go on pilgrimages to those places.

In order to see them and to feel them and to touch and bring adoration or even kiss certain artifacts. There are holy cities to be visited. Jerusalem, Mecca, Modena, Rome, Varanasi and Amritsya. They're all holy cities, taken up by different religions to be holy places, and they're holy so it's believed because god in some way or the god of that religion in some way has touched that. Or visited, that place.

And so the followers go there, go to these holy places to get some kind of contact with their god that they wouldn't have if they didn't go. And then there are holy artifacts, or relics as they're often called. They're often relics and artifacts from holy people that have been completely devoted to their god. And so if we go and see those relics that come from those wholly devoted then it will help us in our devotions. That's that's sort of how it goes.

So for instance, you can go and see the hair from Mohammed's beard. You can go and see the finger of Saint Peter. You can get the tooth of buddha. I was thinking that we could put all these together in a sort of frankenstein and they'd get a, you know, just 1 very religious person. You had some, weird stuff going on in medieval Europe, and the artifacts there were totally bizarre, and they were pushed by often corrupt religious leaders that were making masses of money out of these relics.

So there were so many splinters, so it was said. Of, wood from the cross of Christ that you could have made a great big ship from from from them. There was so much milk from the breast of Mary, the mother of Jesus, that, her breasts are described as the Swiss Alps. You could even pay to go and see the holy fore skin. It's supposed to be the fore skin of Jesus.

In fact, there were 18 churches that were claiming to have a bit of that fore skin, so I don't quite know how big it was, but the Holy fore skin. Now, It's easy to mock, and I find it very easy to mock. So forgive me. It's very easy to mock these holy things, especially to mock those that are, those charlatans that are making money out of them. But what is important is to think about what's behind all of this.

And what's behind it is that people are attracted to go on pilgrimages, to feel, to touch to look at to gaze. See, we're sensory beings. We have 5 senses. And the whole point of those senses is that we have contact with other outside of ourselves. That's the whole point of the senses.

So do you get the reasoning? If I can touch the finger of Saint Peter who touched the Christ Then I'm somehow in contact, even though it's secondary, I'm somehow in contact with the Christ in a way that I've never been. A number of years ago, there was, a religious phenomenon, something that you will will remember it, that hit the charismatic churches and the evangelical churches, and it was called the Toronto blessing. Some of you, it's only history too. Some of us live through it.

People in a church in Toronto were claiming that they were having a very physical experience of the Holy Spirit. And the way that manifested itself physically was that people would fall over, or they would shake, or they would make animal noises, like woofing of a dog or the roaring of a lion. And when you talk to these people, they'd say, yes, I feel god. I feel god like electricity in me, and then I see the outworking of god in my life by falling over uncontrollably woofing like a dog. Now many pastors made the pilgrimage from the UK to the church in Toronto, to experience, god in that way for themselves.

And, as they said, bring the blessing back to the UK. I went to quite a few of those, bring the back the blessing back to the UK meetings. And if I take away the nonsense and the religious frenzy and the money making in it, which there was a lot, a lot of nonsense and a lot of religious frenzy and a lot of money making, at the heart of the most sincere people was a desire to feel and touch god or at least feel god in some way touching you. Because it brings a measure of assurance, doesn't it? In 1 sense.

At least it's supposed to. If god so takes me over like electricity, that I uncontrollably shake or uncontrollably fall on the floor an uncontrollably roar like a lion, which I saw a woman doing for for about a an hour or so. If if if that happens, then surely, god is with me. Because I tangibly feel him. And therefore, I can be assured that I'm 1 of gods and He's he's mine.

The problem is, those experiences only happen in the holy place. In the big meeting. You can't do that at work. At the photocopier, You can't experience god and fall over on the floor and roar like a lion, not if you wanna keep your job. It's very hard.

To fall over and woof like a dog when you're driving in the m 25 on the m 25. So it becomes a holy place with a holy preacher that brings the holy spirit in that case. So but, however, what what I'm trying to do is to understand all of that. And I I I understand that there is a desire for a tangible physical touch of god, but hear me on this, and please hear me right the way through. None of what I've just been talking about is Christian faith.

None of it. What all these holy places Holy artifacts, holy things and experience do is turn us from faith to sight, and you don't find god there just in the sight. Listen to Jesus. Now try and be bear with me. Listen to Jesus.

Here's Jesus speaking to a Samaritan woman. It's in John 4. John records the whole event. And they're talking about holy mountains and holy cities. And Jesus says to the woman, believe me a time is coming when you will worship the father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

The 1 in Samaria or the 1 in Jerusalem. Use Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know. For salvation comes from the Jews, yet a time is coming and has now come when true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth. For they have a kind of worshipers, the father seeks, godly spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.

The woman said, I know the Messiah the Christ is coming, When he comes, he will explain everything, then Jesus declared I. The 1 speaking to you, am he? Now if you think about that and slow down and read that a bit slower, he's talking about holy cities, holy mountains, holy places, and he's saying you won't find god there, you find god as father in me. In me. That's what he's saying.

Listen to 1 Peter. Peter was it's not his finger. But Peter was, a follower of Jesus. He was an apostle of Jesus. Listen to what Peter says.

Now listen. He writes a letter that's in the scriptures, talking about Jesus. Though you have not seen him, You love him. And even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled within its suppressible and glorious joy for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. You've not seen him.

I have, says Peter, but you haven't. And you don't see him now, but you still believe. Listen to what John writes about an encounter with Jesus after Jesus had died on the cross and risen again with Thomas Thomas, the famous doubter Thomas who said, I will not believe unless I see and touch. John writes this in John 20, then Jesus told him, because you have seen me, you have believed. Listen.

Bless to those who have not seen me, and yet believed. Less of those who have not seen me, and yet believe. And this is what 1 John is on about. This what John is writing in his little letter to the churches in 1 John. It's the same thing you get here.

Look at, 1 John chapter 1 verses 1 to 4. We're still on 1 to 4. And we were dealing with this a little bit last week, and I'm sort of emphasizing it again. But verse 1, that which was from the beginning, which we Now the we there is the apostles. We saw that last week, that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at with our hands and have touched this we proclaim, concerning the word of life The life appeared, we have seen it, and we testified to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life.

Which was with the father and has appeared to us, we proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus, Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. We come to know god through the apostolic message. They're the ones that saw and touched in a time in history. It's a message passed on to us what they saw and what they heard.

John didn't say what you need is my finger. I'm gonna clip my finger off, and that Jesus. And so there's the finger and if you could pass the finger on and then people will come and see the finger. That's the way your experience got. He didn't say that.

Jesus did, John didn't say what you really need if you want an experience of god and really understand the Christian faith is to do a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. What you really need is to be baptized when you're baptized is to be baptized in the Jordan River because it's something more special there. Because Jesus was baptized in the Jordan. He doesn't say anything like this. You need to visit this holy place, kiss this holy finger.

He doesn't say that. Knowing god is through the apostolic passed down message of the eyewitnesses. It's the message that you are to have. Look at verse 3 again. We proclaim to you that which we have seen and heard.

So that you also may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship is with the father and his son. Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. You don't need to see the Holy Forekin. Yeah?

You don't need that. If anyone says, oy, come here, which would be odd. I've got only 4 skin here, run. Okay? You don't need the holy foreskin and you don't or or or even 18 of them.

You don't need the holy finger, the holy place, the holy experience, you need the message Now is that message devoid of experience? No way. Let's try and unpack it. Here's my first point. This apostolic message brings fellowship with god.

That's how good this message is. Real, substantial, fellowship with god. Fellowship with god, based on a message of history, not on a feeling, not on some holy place, but the true apostolic message. You have fellowship with God. That's my first point.

You have fellowship with God, and that's what we were created for. We were created for fellowship with God. We're not gonna act properly as human beings outside fellowship with God. It's why people are looking and searching. I can never find, you know, what they're looking for and all of that stuff.

And we could do a whole sermons on that. We were made to dwell and know god. This is the great goal of the message that John is writing. He's writing this message. So the most important thing is that you could have fellowship with God would happen.

That's what this message does. There's something powerful about the message that brings fellowship with God. And you don't have to go miles to get it. You've got a Bible in front of you. You've got this message right now in front of you, that you can have fellowship.

We've got its extraordinary. Verse 3, we proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you so that you may also have fellowship with us and our fellowship is with the father and with the son Jesus Christ. Fellowship. That word is partnership. It's not just mates.

It's partners and mates. We walk side by side. That's what fellowship is. We can walk with God. That's what we were created for if you know the early chapters of Genesis.

We were made to walk with God but it all went wrong with our sin. But now this message brings fellowship with it's astonishing if we can get hold of this. If we get a hold of this, it's worth not going to Jerusalem so we can read this. This is amazing, right here in this funny little building, that isn't religious. Look at it.

I mean, come on. It's a dump. We know that. Without the smells and bells and There's so little religious stuff here. It's almost appalling.

But here, we can have fellowship with God. Why? Because we have the message. Felorship with god. Fellowship means sharing.

Partakers, partners. Did you know this message that the apostles have written about Jesus Christ is the very message that brings you divine life. Listen to Peter again in 2 Peter, listen. Just listen. 2 Peter 1 4.

Listen. He has given us this very great and precious promise. So promises so that through them, you may participate. That's a fellowship word. It's a slightly different word that John uses in 1 John, but it's the same route.

So that through them, you may participate fellowship Listen, this almost sounds blasphemous. Are you ready for this? That you may fellowship, participate in the divine nature. Having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. We've escaped corruption and death And we've been given this sounds blasphemous, almost, a divine nature God's divine nature lives in us.

That's extraordinary, isn't it? I don't have to go to a holy place. I am a holy place. We're called the Temple of the Holy Spirit. My goodness.

That's amazing, isn't it? And god somehow shares our life with us, and we share his life with with with him. Listen to Galatians, another book in the Bible chapter 2 verse 20. You can look these verses up later. But listen, Paul is writing.

He says I've been crucified with Christ and no longer live, but Christ lives in me. Christ lives in me. Don't have to go and see a finger of someone who touched Christ. Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith by trust, by sight, but by faith in the son of god who loved me and gave himself for me.

These are extraordinary things. God lives in me. His divine nature is in me. Through this message, through this message. You see that?

And we're we're sharers of of him. We fellowship with him. What interests him interests us. And he tells us. He tells us his great plan of salvation.

He tells us about what's gonna happen to the world. He we've we've shared with him when he grieves. We grieve when we see people being treated and manipulated by false teachings and lies. We grieve at that. We're angry at that.

Rightly so. We wanna honor off god in this world. When we when when we see sin, we see it for what it is. It is sin. We're errors.

We're fellowship. We're walking along the way together. It means that we have conversation with this god. He's not distant and far away. I don't have to get on a a a bus or a a plane or a or try and do it in some carbon neutral way, get to Jerusalem to try and have an experience of god there.

No. I can speak to him. Fellowship with god. But then he spells it out even more, John. We have fellowship with god, but he doesn't just say god.

He spells it out clearer. Here's my second point. Gosh, we're whizzing through them. Fellowship with the father and son. The trouble with that 3 letter word, g o d, god, is that it really doesn't mean much because it almost means anything.

It doesn't mean anything. But the Bible roots the word god and defines god as what? Father, a father. And we see John doing this because he's talking about fellowship partnership, walking with god, not just god, some vague power, but father. Father.

It's extraordinary. But then it goes even further. And the Bible goes even further, actually, just to make this very clear. And it calls god very often the father of the lord Jesus Christ. There's a lot a lot of bible verses like that.

And if you look through the Bible and if you read through John's gospel, the gospel that he wrote, he's he wrote this letter 1 John, and 2 John, and 3 John, and the gospel in Revelation. If you read through John's writings, you'll see that you cannot divorce the father and the son. You can't do that. If you do not believe in Jesus, the son, you are an atheist. Yeah.

You cannot believe in god, the father, except in conjunction with Jesus, the son. So Jesus says in John 5, if you don't honor the son, you don't honor the father. If you honor the father, you honor the son. If you don't honor the Jesus of the revelation of the apostolic revelation, You don't honor the father. You don't honor the father.

And John Lynch, this whole knowing God's father, us knowing god's father, with no knowing Jesus. So just have a look. The, verse 2 of chapter 1 of 1 John, The the life appeared, that's Jesus, we have seen it and testified to it. We proclaim, to you eternal life, which was with the father and has appeared to us. The 2 go together.

Look at verse 3, at the end of verse 3, and our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ, the 2 go together. Look at chapter 2 verse 1. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ, the righteous 1. So I hope you're getting this, because this is important. The way to the father is through the son who is the word of life who is the eternal life, who has appeared from the father, who is an advocate of the father, so we have fellowship with god, partnership with god because of the sun.

And Jesus makes a distinct between us calling godfather and him calling godfather. He says I am going to my father and your father, my god and your god. There's a difference relationship. Mine is unique. Jesus is saying, yours is derived from mine.

So why am I telling you all this? Because by nature, we're not children of god, but by nature Jesus is the son of god. And how we come into fellowship with the father is through the apostolic Christ. Who was seen and touched and heard. He's the 1 that brings us brings us in.

We become sons because he is the son. So John writes in his his his book Gospel, 1 John 12, to all who receive him Jesus, to all who receive Jesus to those who believe in his name. He Jesus gave the right to become children of god. He's the natural son with an unnatural children and we can come in. So Paul talks about being adopted as sons.

We're adopted as sons because Jesus, the sun has come. This is the message. The historic apostolic message that we who were bastards in the universe illegitimate far away in our sin that the sun has come to make us sons to bring us to adopt us to bring us into the family so that through the sun we become sons and heirs of god says, poor. And we can call god the father. Abba father.

Abba. That's not just a pop group. Amber father. It's a baby word. Words around, you know, languages around the the world have baby words, and it's lovely because some of the babies are just beginning, aren't they?

All these babies, not that 1 yet because too small. But soon, the first word to the annoyance of the mother will be dada, or in some parts of the world, papa, or in other parts of the world, Abba. You don't need tea for it. It's bad bad bad. You don't need teeth.

You just need a tongue and a mouth. You don't need it's not complicated. They say it. They look up. Dada, dada.

Jerusalem still calls me that. Dada, I I remember when Karl was at school, and he got muddled up because he had to call everybody sir, and he came home. And twice he called me sir, and I said to him, I'm telling you off strongly. Do not call me sir. I'm dad.

I'm dead. This is not just god. It's dada. Papa, Abba. That's the word.

You don't need any teeth. You hardly need a brain. You just say Yeah. That's why Jerusalem still uses it. She's not here, thankfully.

Is she? She is. She's out with rooted. Yeah. Well, you listen to her.

She when she sees me, she goes, oh, tada. And that's right. So we can know god. We can know god as dada. We can reflux we can say it.

You don't have to go to holy places and have holy artifacts or have some weird experiences. When you know this Christ, the son, this apostolic message he brings you into fellowship with god as data. Data. And as a data, he's aware of everything you go through. Can I just read 1 little bit of Jesus from Matthew?

Listen. Just listen. Just listen. Just listen to how Dada is aware of everything you're going through. Therefore, I tell you, says Jesus do not worry.

Do not worry about your life. What you will eat or drink or about your body, what you will wear is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes. Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns. And yet your heavenly father feeds them.

Are you not more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life. And why do you worry about your clothes? See the lilies of the fields? They do not labor or spin, and yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like 1 of these.

If that is how god close the grass of the field, which is here today and gone tomorrow and throw thrown in the fire, will he not much more clothe you owe you of little faith. So do not worry saying what shall we eat or what shall we wear or what what shall we drink? For the pagans run after these things, listen, and your heavenly father knows that you need them, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. Don't worry. It's extraordinarily tender And it's this message that has been written down and passed on to us that you have on your laps that communicates to us that because of the son, the historic Jesus.

Objective in in many ways, out side of you in many ways, when you trust that message, then it becomes part of you, and you become part of it and you fellowship with god, the abba, the daddy, father, and he knows your needs. He knows them, and he not only knows them if you carry on reading the Bible. He not only knows them. He works out everything in your life for your good. It's extraordinary.

For your good because he's our responsible father, He knows, but not an easy responsible and knows. He has the ability There are volumes written about god. Most of them are philosophy. They pretend to be theology. Volumes and volumes written about god.

Yeah. Richard Dorkings, bless his soul, has written another book to make some more money out of the god that doesn't exist. Yeah. There are volumes and volumes written about god, but these words, these 4 words are just all you need. Our father in heaven.

That's extraordinary. He's our father. He's our abba He knows what we need, but he's in heaven, and so he has the ability to give us what we need. He plans and knows what is good for us. But not only that, he's available.

We can talk to him We don't have to go on wild pilgrimages and spend lots of money. We can talk to him now, our father. When you pray, When you speak, when you pray, say abba father, dad, father, dad. It's not hard, is it? Dad.

Dad. I've blown the electrics up. Can you come round and sort it out? Oh, alright. But I've not particularly got the ability as I was putting a wire in the wrong wire hole.

But he's got the ability. He's got the availability. He knows where the wires go. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard verse 3 of 1 John 1 so that you may have fellowship with us and our fellowship is with the father and with his son. Jesus Christ.

As close as the father and the son are in fellowship, in eternity we now are included. Here's my third point. It's written for joy This is real fintech Christian experience, you see. Look at verse 4, we write this to make our joy complete. This is this is the apostle saying, I wanna have my joy complete by writing this so that you would come into this.

John's saying, look, I'm an eyewitness of a historic event that happened in history. You can guarantee that happened. I've written this down because we saw him and heard him and touched him. And when he rose again, we saw him and heard him and touched him. We touched God Life.

Yeah. And the purpose of me writing this is twofold. 1 verse 3 that you will have fellowship with the father and with us, and 2, verse 4, that are there'll be increased and completed joy in doing that. This isn't academic boring dull stuff, you see. This is real authentic Christian experience.

Christian fellowship with god and each other is meant to bring love and joy. We'll see that again and again through 1 John, but that's where joy is complete. In his little letter, tiny little letter called 3 John, and verse 4, he says this, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. You see, when you know the truth, this objective written down eyewitness truth, It brings an assurance that you have fellowship with god as your father, your daddy, and that in itself brings joy.

That's how it works. People that don't have assurance that god is their father often don't have joy. There are many people walking around. As if life is utterly miserable and frustrating. Now I'm not talk I'm talking realistically here.

I'm not saying I'm not talking about surface fun and surface happiness. We can know a brokenness of sin and a broken world and a sinful world are not are not equating joy with flippancy and over overdone sort of brightness, but it does mean that unhappiness and melancholy should not really be there Even in darkness, this is the strange thing about joy. The great theologian Augustus said the Christian should be anallelujah from head to foot. Jesus knew grief and pain and he was called the man of sorrow, so you can be that. And yet for the joy set before him, he endured the cross.

You can endure, you can know grief, you can be a man of sorrow, but there's a joy of fellowship there. We're meant to have that, and it's this reality that brings this. So do you see how important these verses are Let me try and rub this in a little bit. So you don't find god in holy places. We don't need that.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of teaching coming from other places of the world being beamed over into books that are suggesting that we need some sort of slight holy artifact or something religious. And it's very interesting that these men very often now are falling away that wrote those So I read a book, a good book on prayer. It was very helpful. And his his he said, if you want to pray, it's really good to find your own corner And he said, I hold a shepherd's crook because it reminds me that Jesus is a shepherd, and I I I I have a little light or a or a candle, and I look at to remind me that Jesus is the light of the world. And I hold that, and I kneel down, and that's where I pray.

And I want to say that that is utterly, utterly disastrous Because as CS Lewis says, that's what the devil does. He locates god there, And that's why that man then hollow out and then goes off with his secretary. Just do you see do you see that? Because it's just experience. And when I'm not looking at the candle and holding the thing, then is god with me, or isn't he?

And therefore there's a nice experience now with the secretary. So I'll leave my wife. Do you see what happens? We hollow out an experience and not the truth of Christ the light of the world, and it affects our life. I can touch the finger.

I've I put I've walked up the steps that Jesus was supposed to have walked up at his trial that are now in Rome. Well, I only got halfway up because you're supposed to go up on your knees, and I wasn't doing that. And halfway ups, a load of religious people came out and said, Get down, get on on your knees. I said, no. And we are not coming up here.

Well, I'm halfway up. And I wanted to sing. I'm neither halfway up or halfway down. The grand old juke of York. Get down.

I had to walk down. You get I think half a million years of Perka street, Perga street for going up the top. Well, I've got 250000 off, but it didn't go all away. It's all nonsense and money making and horrible and false and unreal, and only certain people can do it Only people with knees can do it. This is just not holy places anymore.

It's the gospel. It's the word. It's the apostolic truth, and it's not dry and academic. As I've tried to show you, it brings you into fellowship with god as Dada. It means that it means that this isn't a blind faith that we we believe despite the evidence.

This is not the faith the atheists have that despite the evidence for god, they believe there is no god. This is not atheistic blind faith like that. It's faith, not based on my feelings. It's subjective, historic, eyewitness, apostolic. When my feelings are awry, and I'm in dark trouble.

I go back to the facts to the facts. Do you see how important that is? Now does god not do anything visual? Well, no. You can see god where in the church.

His body. If you want to touch god and see god and know god, you need to be in the fellowship. And John makes that point because they're the ones who are following the historic message. Does it mean that we have no visuals? No.

He's given us, visual aids, the church, changed life and the workings of the body, and baptism, and the lord's supper. Now there's nothing in 1 sense wholly about the water of the baptism and nothing wholly about that bread and that juice. It's what it points to. So the reason we are going to take this now, the lord's supper, is that that points us to this historic apostolic Jesus who died and shed his blood and his body was broken and rose again for our justification. That is just a visual for our trust in what really happened.

So god is kind, isn't he? Reminding us of this apostolic faith all the time, and listen. If you haven't come to know Jesus, if you've not asked him to be your savior based on the truth, then why not do it now? We're gonna take this. It's a very simple meal.

There's nothing holy about this bread. I can tell you that because it's gluten free. And, I I can't believe there's anything gluten free in heaven. Because we're wheat, actually. That's a good point.

Yes. Anyway, sorry. My mind's gone. Forget me. And, so that's gluten free so that we can all share all those with gluten free issues, we can share this together.

It's a loaf. It's a symbol. It's what Jesus did with his disciples. He broke bread and said, this is my body broken for you. It's a picture of what the apostolic message is.

And the juice is a picture of his blood shed for us. That's the historic message visually. So that we may come and cry out in faith, be my savior, die for me. Would you do that today? That you may know god as your dadder.

Don't start wandering around this world without knowing god as dad. What an extraordinary message, we isn't seriously, isn't this amazing? And this is a picture of how we can come to know him. So the, stewards are gonna come. And they'll take the bread round.

Just take a bit. If you want to follow the law, Jesus Christ, take a bit, and, you take that by yourself. And then, we'll take these little cups around, and we're all drink together to remember that we're 1 body in Christ. Father god, we thank you for these truths. Please help us to be people that have faith in this message in Jesus' name, amen.