Ascension Presbyterian Lord's Day Worship

Grace and peace to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome to the corporate worship of our God. Please stand. Oh, brethren, you have come to Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem to an innumerable company of angels to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven.

To God, the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. Come now, let us worship him.

Please pray with me. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it is with great joy and expectancy that we heed your call and we assemble in your holy name. Oh, Lord, I pray that we would not count these things to be trivial, that we wouldn't approach you and your worship in a flippant way, but that we would have the appropriate level of sobriety and reverence and also joy.

And I ask all this in the name above all names, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Please kneel for the corporate confession of sin, if you're able, and let us confess together in one voice. Almighty Father, God of gods and Lord of lords, Father to the fatherless, husband to the widow, defender of the helpless, judge of all the earth, have mercy on us.

We have not bound up the broken, even though you healed us. We have not forgiven others, even though you have forgave us. We withhold kindness from the needy, even though you freely gave us your son.

We are without excuse, but not without hope.

By your power and grace,.

Account our sins to Jesus' death, and amend our grace.

By the power of your glorious resurrection.

Please stand. My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not ours only, but also for the whole world.

Oh, people of God, if you be in Christ, take heart and rejoice today. Your sins are forgiven.

Amen?

Amen.

Amen.

Please take up the insert that is Christ is risen, Christ ascended, number 646. DJ, give us the quick description. Let's start on three. Up the insert that says 70A in the upper left corner. And this is also to a familiar tune, DJ.

Let's sing through it twice.

This is so well done.

Please remain standing for the reading of the word from the book of Genesis in chapter two, Genesis two.

Thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished. And on the seventh day, God ended his work, which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work, which he had done.

Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he rested from all his work, which God had created and made. This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

Before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth and there was no man to till the ground. But a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed.

And out of the ground, the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon. It is the one which skirts the whole land of Havia where there is gold.

And the gold of that land is good. Bedlam and Onyx Stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon. It is the one who goes around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hidilkel.

It is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in that day you eat of it, you shall surely die.

And the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him. Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them.

And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man.

And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Let us confess our faith with the joyful, bold singing of the Apostles' Creed. Let us begin.

I believe in God.

Please take up the hymnal and turn to number 292 as we anticipate Ascension Day, which is Thursday this week, and Ascension Sunday next week. We are going to sing today number 292, Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord, number 292.

Please kneel as you are able. Prepare yourself now for the prayers of the people. We are in the Ten Commandments. Men, I would ask that you would be swift to get on empty space to pray and be timely in your prayers.

Let's pray together now in unison. Oh God, from whom come all holy desires,.

All good counsel, and all just works.

Give to us, your people, that peace which the world cannot give, that our hearts may be set to obey your commandments, and also that we, being defended from the fear of our enemies, may live in peace and quietness through the merits of Jesus Christ, our Savior, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, God forever, amen.

The Lord says, I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.

Lord, have mercy on us.

You shall not make yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the waters below.

Lord, have mercy on us.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery.

Lord, have mercy on us.

You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. You shall not covet. You shall love the Lord your God.

With all your heart and soul, mind, and strength, amen.

Please take up the insert that says 235A in the upper left corner. This is our new Psalm of the Month. DJ has distributed the music into the Slack channels, and we have practiced this on Wednesday night at prayer meeting.

DJ, a quick tip. We're gonna jump right in, and we're gonna have to, just to point out, we're seeing the first section first, and then the second. It says one through four. You stay on that upper portion.

Then the portion under 235B we'll be singing. Please turn in your Bibles to the book of 1 John in chapter one. 1 John in chapter one, and I'll be reading the entire chapter. This is God's holy and infallible word.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled concerning the word of life. The life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us.

That which we have seen and heard, we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. May the Lord be pleased with our new study in 1 John.

Let's pray together. Oh, Lord, I want your people to know the fullness of fellowship with you and the corresponding joy that flows thereof. Oh, Lord, would you grant this to your faithful saints today?

Would they know what it means to have real genuine fellowship with you, with one another, and to bask in the bottomless river ocean space of your joy. And we ask this in Jesus name.

Amen.

Please be seated. Today, we'll be considering only two verses of 1 John and it'll be verses three and four. And the title of the message today is very much encapsulates what I hope to preach on in this time that your joy may be full.

For those of you who are needing some way to organize your thoughts, I would like to supply three questions, which I hope to answer during the message. The first, what is fellowship? What is fellowship?

The second is, what is joy? What is joy? And third, what should you do if your joy is waning? What is fellowship? What is joy? And what should you do if your joy is waning? How does the Christian attain or lay hold of the fullness of God's joy?

Christ is both the fount of fellowship and joy and he is also the source and object of our joy. There is no fellowship without Christ and there is no joy that we speak of here without Christ. Let's look at our text again really quickly.

Last week, we considered the divine logos, we considered Christ, the incarnate son of God coming in the flesh to bring salvation, but also to communicate to us the very mind of God. The truth of God does not exist in the ether, it resides, we learned last week, in a person, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He himself is the truth, he proclaims the truth and he bids us to come walk after him in that truth. And John, citing his apostolic authority, says this is not just an idea again about divine wisdom and revelation, this is something that we as the apostles have ourselves seen with our eyes.

Verse one, we have looked upon these things, we've peered intently into them, our hands have handled, he has touched the Lord Jesus, not only in his earthly ministry, but after the resurrection. This we speak of concerning the word of life.

In verse two, this life, this incarnate Christ is revealed personally, bodily in the incarnation and John says, not only did he teach these things, but we attest and we bear witness to the efficacy of his message.

We see in Christ the salvation that comes from God. Everything that he preaches, all that he puts forth, everything that is positive reveals to us this truth about life and salvation. And now it's incumbent upon us as the sent ones to bring this message to you, to declare it to you that eternal life, which existed with the father before the world was, has now been manifested to us.

A very powerful, very grand introduction to this very practical epistle. So let's consider our text for today, verses three and four. It would seem that the way to have the fullness of joy is to have some connection to the apostles and their doctrine.

That's what John is saying here. To have fellowship with the apostles, their doctrine is to have fellowship and connection chiefly to the expounding of Christ as the one who brings us into this fellowship and communion with the Godhead, the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit.

There can be no fellowship with God if there be no fellowship in union with Christ. There can be no joy in the Christian life if there not be this union with Christ and his joy. It's all very Christocentric.

The message of John and his preaching, you see it in his gospel, you see it even in Revelation in these epistles, he wants people to know Christ and to experience the fullness of that union with Christ and that touches the whole of the person and the whole of life.

You and I must be challenged today and ask the question, where are we in the spectrum? Where are we on the line of joy? Where are we when it comes to fellowship with God and with one another? You and I are gonna be challenged in our study of 1 John, we're gonna be corrected.

But also we must never forget this is John's aim, that you might be in full fellowship with the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit and that your joy may be full. Now I say full fellowship because the Christian experiences joy and fellowship by degrees.

If you be in Christ, you have real fellowship with God, it's irrevocable. But the fullness of that communion and fellowship, now that may be going up and down and that may be tied to things that we're responsible for, not just for the work of the spirit in its general sense, but the work of the spirit in a very practical sense.

You and I must cultivate and invest and give time and energy and diligence to our communion with God. Sometimes you and I are privileged to soar to the heavenly realm with ecstatic joy in our hearts. The call to worship today, you have come to Mount Zion.

DJ prayed in the time before the church. Here, assemble this little humble church, united to Christ and to each other. We enter into that place because we're united with him. We are carried heavenward in our worship.

Now we come here, we don't act like that's true always, go, well, we've got to get through this and we've got to go through the liturgy, I've got to follow along. We have come to Mount Zion. We've come into the presence of the living God and we're welcome there because of Christ.

We have entered into the full fellowship of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This should be a great cause of our rejoicing. It is an ordinary thing that happens 52 times a year, but it's utterly extraordinary, isn't it?

Do you believe that when we come together as the church, that we are really united to Christ, both individually as families and corporately, the body of Christ attached to her glorious head has come today to assemble in his presence.

Our hearts should well up with joy. Sometimes our joy is weak, it's diminished. Sometimes it only barely flickers. It's never fully extinguished in the believer. That might be where you are today. You may not be soaring in the heavens.

I wish it were true for you and for me, but you may not be soaring. You may not feel the real sense of your fellowship in communion with God and the overflowing wellspring of joy which he supplies. Take heart today, his fellowship with Christ cannot be broken.

That wellspring of joy never stops bubbling. We merely have to lay hold of it again. We need to drink deeply from these wells again. But the first thing is you and I must have this desire. Our first parents, we learned again recently, when they sinned against God, they hid from his presence.

You and I in our sin, we want to hide from God's presence, but we really need to desire to have the full light of his truth and his righteousness shined on our wretched nakedness. And we find that we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

We're shy about coming back to our father, our savior, our friend, our Holy Spirit. We must desire the full vent, the fiery fullness of joy, which is found in fellowship with God and his people. If you haven't had that desire today, today I desire, I ask of you to seek this fellowship in the fullness of joy.

Here in our text, we have the first word I'd like us to consider with some depth is found in verse three, that answering the first question, what is fellowship? We, Mark, taught on this recently in prayer meetings, is that right?

So this is gonna be review for some of you. And it's very essence, this idea of koinonia, this thing that we're always striving after, it seems in the Christian church is a joint participation, a sharing in a communion.

It is a spiritual sharing of something in common. As you know, there's some nuance in the way these words are used. And in our text, really the closest grammatical construction here to understand this idea of fellowship is contact and intimacy.

Close contact and intimacy with one another. In Galatians 2 .9, Paul is given some contact and some intimacy. It says in Galatians 2 .9, and when James and Cephas, that's Peter, children, and John, the author of this epistle that we're reading, who seemed to be pillars, they were the apostles and they were big, strong, powerful men in the church filled with the Holy Spirit.

They perceived the grace that had been given to me and Barnabas, and they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, the clasping of the hands. This was not, hey, Paul, how are you doing? This is the grip of Paul's hand, the embrace of his hand, the squeeze, the clutch of his hand.

We're apostles, Paul, and we see the strange surroundings of your apostleship. We squeeze your hand and intimately we say, you are an apostle. We acknowledge you to be so because of Christ. The clasping of those joined hands is indicative of the intimacy of their bond as servants of Christ.

We, of course, see this in the marital relationship, that close contact, that intimacy, this very strong connection to one another. This is what we experienced, that the church, as I've already mentioned, as the bride of Christ, as the body of Christ, has close contact and intimacy with Christ.

Now, I don't know how we reckon this, but Christ's body is ascended, he is reigning and ruling in heaven, and we are so united to him that though we be here on earth, we are never disconnected from our head, just like your head is not disconnected from your body.

There's some spiritual wonder happening there. This is real, this isn't an idea, this is real communion, real fellowship, a clasping of intimacy with us and with Christ. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6, children, you're always wondering why your parents were saying you could never date or court or marry an unbeliever, don't ever even consider it, don't care how handsome they are, pretty they are, rich they are, do not be unequally yoked together.

Marriage, family, business, church life, for what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? Light and darkness do not have the close clasp of intimacy and contact, they can never really touch.

The light pushes the darkness away. The darkness, when we embrace it, it puts the bushel basket over the light of our shining. This is the intimate bond which unites Christians in an absolute sense, Acts 2 .42.

They continued steadfastly in the apostle's doctrine and fellowship, koinonia, in the breaking of bread and in prayers. Now, here's the part that expands our understanding of this and I think really makes us understand why verse one and two are here in this context is it doesn't really fully return to this idea of the divine logos in 1 John.

It seems, according to John's teaching in our text, this fellowship consists in the fact that Christians, I want you to listen carefully to this, are partakers in common of the same mind as God and Christ.

If we be in fellowship with Christ by virtue of our union with him on the basis of faith, there is a partaking of us as his people into the divine mind of God. We're either united to Christ or we're not.

And if we be united to Christ, then we are partakers of the divine logos. We are having in common the same mind of God. Now, you say, well, my mind doesn't work as good as God's. No, it doesn't. It doesn't say you possess it.

It says you partake in it. And also, this is the part that make us leap out of our seats and we get the blessings that arise therein. This is why John, I think, starts with this lofty notion, theme of logos, the word of life, eternal, himself the creator God, now made flesh, accomplishing in the flesh the work of redemption, risen and reigning, manifested, seen, heard, handled, witnessed, testified to, attested to, that this person, the Lord Jesus Christ and his people of God may see more and more of the glories of Christ and draw nearer and nearer to God and to one another that they might experience joy to the full.

You are united to God in Christ and to one another. Joy awaits and abounds. Our vision of fellowship is far too small. Excuse me. Our vision of fellowship is far too small. Do we see the deepness of the bonds of intimacy that he seeks with us as his people?

And also, what he wants us to have with one another. Peter says in 2 Peter 1, grace and peace be multiplied to you and the knowledge of God. We should put these ideas together. The divine wisdom of God, not obscured from our view, brought into full view of the church, this God and his perfect knowledge is knowable, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, the text continues, as his divine power has given to us all things pertaining to life and godliness.

This is the benefits that flow in accord with our communion and fellowship with him. Through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature.

Now, if you're panicking and thinking I'm teaching some kind of deification, I'm not. I'm trying to preach the text straight. If I be united to Christ, better said if the church, if you are united to Christ, we are partakers of the divine, soaring idea.

It follows, the text continues, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Now, let's look back at our text. John is speaking not only from inspiration, but he is a witness. He has seen it, he has heard it, and now he is obligated and duty-bound to declare it.

It should be noted, the church is duty-bound to declare this truth. You see, John doesn't wanna just stay with the 120 disciples and the apostles. He wants the church to flourish and to grow. He wants them to know, the outsiders, for them to be brought into the fellowship of God and the fellowship of the people of God, that they too might receive and experience this fullness of joy.

Modern evangelicalism has said that being part of the church is just expedient. It's helpful. You can have some Bible classes. Maybe a sermon will encourage you or help you get what you want. You can build a good network for your work life.

We need this grander, loftier vision of what communion with God and his people is. It is a mutual, joint partaking of the divine. I mean, this is so amazing. John wants his people to know and to hear this message because this is always under threat in the life of the church.

There are two errors that seem to be significant in John's purview. The first we mentioned last week is the denial of Jesus Christ coming in the flesh. It sounds a lot like the Christological controversies that would be coming in the years ahead.

Because of his emphasis on love for one another, it seems that there was a lack, a dearth of love amongst the brethren in these churches. This fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ.

It should be helpful to us to realize we think about the doctrine of the son being fully on display. Really, the fatherhood of God and his personal connection to the church is really a big part of the New Testament that was obscure from saints before.

The idea of that close communion and fellowship. God could not be looked upon, but now we look into his face. We talk with him as a man face-to-face in Christ. So that's the first idea, fellowship. The second that I'd like us to consider is joy.

You say, well, I know what joy is. And you may know, but I think we need a grander vision of joy. Would you like the fullness of joy? I want it, I want every drop of it. Whatever fellowship and communion with God and his people is, I want that.

That should be your desire, too. But do you want to experience the fullness of joy? There's a helpful key in this today. These things we write to you so that your joy may be full. Now, joy is the word chara, and it's close to charis, which is grace.

And I think we know what joy means, at least on the surface. It's to delight and to be filled with gladness. But it starts to develop a little bit more richness when we peer deeply into it. It is the extent of favor.

It's a leaning towards to be favorably disposed. And here is the kicker of it all. Joy is properly, I want you to catch this. Joy is properly the awareness of God's grace. We'll just stop for a moment.

It's not tied to our circumstances. Joy is the awareness of God's grace. When you look into your precious children's eyes, it's a recognition of God's grace. That's what joy is. And in fact, in every circumstances of life, whatever befalls you, whatever trouble you are in, joy is grace recognized.

I see the grace of God at work in my life, though these circumstances be hard and difficult. I see God's favor, his grace in my life. I am filled with joy and gladness because I recognize his grace. If you will do that, your life will be utterly transformed.

If it's circumstantial, if it's based on things going well, you're gonna be stuck in the miry clay. But if you see all of life because of your perfect union with God in Christ, you see everything in a different way now.

You see everything in the lens of grace. I recognize the grace of God in X and in Y and in Z. Oh, that we would have this joy. Well, I think we know what full means, but I'm not sure. John says, I want you to experience this fellowship that we have with God, the fullness thereof, which is the wellspring of this joy.

I want you to have both of these. The idea of fullness means to, of course, fill to individual capacity, to cause, to abound, to furnish or supply liberally. Christians, one Greek commentator has said, are those who are pervaded, filled with the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit.

In Exodus, in the Septuagint, this was the word that would be used for the people are flooded. They're filled to the full. Christians are so full of power and the gifts of the Holy Spirit because they have an intimate relationship, fellowship, communion with God, that he himself has entered into with them.

Christ fills the universe with his presence, power, and activity. In him is all the fullness of God. And he fills us up with that fullness. And here, the structure of the language, the joy that John seeks for the church in this fellowship with Christ is he wants it to be complete in every particular, in every facet, in every realm.

He wants you to experience the fullness of fellowship with God and the overflow of joy in every circumstance. He wants to render us perfect when it comes to the fullness of joy found in fellowship with God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

He wants us to be filled to the full. He wants to literally cram it in to imbue us and diffuse this joy to us in every respect. Well, third question has to be considered before we close and that is what do you do if you don't feel this way?

I want you to feel it, but I first want you to believe it. Is the reality of fellowship with God, is that the fuel that runs your life engine? Or is there something else? Does your calendar, does your spending, does your time, does it accord with the idea that I find all of my satisfaction in fellowship with God or is it in something else?

If you can't open the Bible, if you can't pray, if this is tedious to you to come to church, you have to acknowledge today that fellowship with God is not the greatest impulse of your life. It's okay, you have the unceasing burning flame within you if you be in Christ.

Stoke those flames. Stoke them. Add fuel to that fire. Read his word. Sit on the edge of your seat when Sunday school lessons and prayer meetings and sermons are being given. Peer more deeply into this knowledge.

When I was thinking about this today, I was thinking, I guess this was yesterday, I was thinking that there's treasure beneath our feet again. We have a pickaxe and we have a spade and all we have to do is break the surface of the dirt and the precious jewels of Christ will come rushing out.

If I said to you on your yard tomorrow morning, under there are diamonds and rubies and emeralds, immense wealth is there, but here are your two tools. Tomorrow morning, you can start digging it and using it.

Everybody, somebody might call in sick. Somebody might get up early. They're gonna start picking and spading and shoveling until they get to that mother load of jewels and diamonds. Brethren, this fellowship and this joy far outstrips whatever could be mined from the ground.

Take up the pickaxe, take up the shovel, break the crust of the dirt, peer deeply into this hole that is filled with truth about who Christ is and what he has done. Our vision for fellowship is too small.

Finally, our joy, sin stifles our joy. It stifles our fellowship. In verse five, I'm gonna tell you just a couple of things that are coming in the coming weeks. It says, this is the message, verse five, that we have heard from him and declare to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Christian, the reason you're not experiencing as much joy in your life as you ought is you still got a foot in the world.

And another thing, our homardiology is very strong. We have a good doctrine of sin in the reformed church. We believe in radical corruption. But I wonder, could it be true that our doctrine of soteriology is weak?

This is what we're famous for. Is sin, does the sin win the default battle? Are we always just sinners? Total depravity? Or have we been transformed so much by a new nature that sin is the anomaly? Do you think that way?

I've been saved and united to the righteousness of Christ. Sin is the anomaly. We act as though righteousness is the anomaly. We're not gonna have sinless perfection here. But have we shortchanged the grace of God revealed in Christ?

Joy is there for the taking. Real fellowship and communion with God and his people, a life of purpose and joy and satisfaction is ours for the taking. But we've said we're not interested, we're distracted by earthly cares or even the sin that so easily ensnares and entangle us.

John's going to help us with this. And finally today, I'll say from chapter two, verse three, now by this we know, this chapter two, verse three, and by this we know that we know him if we keep his commandments.

It says down in verse five, whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in him. See, our sin causes us to forget about that fellowship and extinguishes our joy.

There's a very practical benefit of putting sin to death in our lives. In chapter two, verse one, little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin, but sin is here in this world. But I want you to know that if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, and our repentance, our confrontation, our mortification with sin becomes an occasion for our rejoicing because we recognize grace.

If you don't have the fullness of joy, it's right here for the taking. If you're not experiencing the richness of fellowship with the triune God and his people, it's right here for the taking. Clasp your hands with one another and with our gracious God that your joy may be full.

Please pray with me now. Oh Lord, forgive us for our weak vision of fellowship. Oh Lord, help grow us up into full maturity that we would perceive grace in all the things that are happening around us, that we might be filled with gladness and delight and experience the fullness of joy.

Oh Lord, I pray that you would give us a hunger for communion with you and a hunger and thirst for righteousness that we might be satisfied and experience, not only propositionally, but in a very practical way, the fullness of joy.

We ask that you would grant this. Oh Lord, whatever blessing there is for the people of God in fellowship with you, I cry out to you according to your promises in Christ, grant it to them even now in this hour, oh Lord.

And Lord, if there be a waning or a wanting of joy, I pray that you would overwhelm your people with the fullness of your joy and they would taste and see that you are good and they would rejoice and worship you and praise you and live for you in response.

We ask all of this in Jesus' name.

Let us continue our worship through the presentation of our tithes and offerings.

Please stand and let us pray.

Our gracious God and Father, we do thank you, oh Lord, that you have blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places and that those spiritual blessings, oh Lord, have poured down upon us as we have just heard in the preaching.