Until He Comes

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And you may be seated.
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I want to invite you to open your Bibles.
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Turn with me to the first letter of Paul to the church at Corinth, 1 Corinthians chapter 11.
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And when you make your way there, find your place at verse 26.
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Verse 26, this morning, as I mentioned earlier, marks the beginning of the season of the year known as Advent.
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Advent comes from the Latin, Adventus, which means simply coming.
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It is a special season wherein we take time to focus on the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into the world.
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It's also a time wherein we focus on the fact that He will come again.
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This season is a time to be reminded of the virtues which accompany the coming of Jesus Christ.
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Each week a different virtue is given attention.
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Hope, peace, love, and joy are the four virtues which are given special attention, each one represented by a different candle each week.
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Each week, finally, on Christmas Eve, when we gather together for a night of worship, we'll light the middle candle in representing Jesus Himself coming into the world.
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And that is how we celebrate Advent together.
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Those of you who are members here and have been here for a long time have celebrated many of these candle lighting opportunities and celebrations.
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And you know how this works.
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And for those of you who are new to it, I hope that it adds to your celebration of the season.
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Also, those of you who have been members for at least a short time will notice that today's worship service is ordered differently.
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The elders met recently and discussed the role and purpose of communion in worship.
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We celebrate communion every week and because of that, oftentimes, we can have the opportunity in our minds to sort of take it for granted.
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Well, it's just part of worship and it's sort of just kind of something that we do.
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And it should never be.
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The Scripture tells us that every time we take communion, it's a time of self-reflection, a time of introspection.
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It's a time where we need to really examine ourselves.
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And because of that call to examine ourselves, we began to discuss among the elders the reality that we're calling for self-examination before hearing the Word.
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And it is often the hearing of the Word which causes the most introspection.
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It's the hearing of the Word which causes us to say, hey, there are some things of which I need to repent.
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And so, we felt as if the cart has been placed before the horse.
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Now, we're not necessarily rebuking the tradition of the church.
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We're just saying, semper reformanda.
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Which means what? Always reforming.
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Always going back to the Scripture.
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Always going back to say, what do we do and is it conforming to what Scripture commands and what the purpose of these things are.
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So, today is the first day of Advent.
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It's also the first day of a new worship order.
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And these two events do have a connection.
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Because today is the day we focus on Christ's coming.
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The hope of His coming.
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And we're going to look at the text of Scripture that the Apostle Paul tells us that is the reason for communion.
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That we're going to look back at His first coming and we're going to look forward to His second coming.
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So, it's amazing how God has orchestrated this change in our church.
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Because He's surrounding it around something that is already pointing to our blessed hope.
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And that is the Lord's table.
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So, we're going to read 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 26 with your Bibles open.
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If you would like to stand to give honor to God's Word.
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We will stand.
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I'm going to be looking at verses 17 all the way down to verse 26.
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But for the focus of the message, we're going to read verse 26.
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So, let us read that.
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For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
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Father in Heaven, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the truth of the Word.
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May it be that that truth would so permeate our hearts that we are moved by it to action.
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To repentance and stirred to good works.
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And Father, I pray that You would keep me from error.
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As I am certainly a fallible man capable of preaching error.
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I pray Lord that as we spend this time in the Word together.
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That You would help us to look inside.
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To be honest about the things for which we need to repent.
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And Lord draw closer to You and closer in our conformity to the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And Father, if there are those among us today who are not believers.
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I pray that this would be a time of stirring for their hearts.
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And Lord God that You might grant the gift of faith and repentance.
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For it is all a work of You and we trust You to do as You will.
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In Christ's name we pray.
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Amen.
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This coming January will mark my 10th anniversary as the pastor of this church.
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In that time over the last 10 years.
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And of course the years preceding that when I was the associate pastor.
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I have read hundreds if not thousands of verses of scripture from this pulpit.
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If there is one passage of scripture which I have read more than any other in public worship.
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It is 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 23 to 26.
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Those of you who have been here for a long time can probably recite it.
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And probably recite it in my voice because you've heard me say it so many times.
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But even though we know a passage of scripture well.
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It doesn't mean that we have plumbed its depths.
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Often the most common verses are the ones that we understand the least.
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I point to John 3.16 as my evidence of that.
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People quote it.
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People say it.
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People use it.
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So few really understand it.
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These verses become part of our traditional vernacular.
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And often lose their meaning and contextual significance.
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So my goal today is first to help you understand the context of 1 Corinthians 11.26.
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And then use this passage to apply to us a message on the subject of our hope.
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In the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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So let's look first at the context.
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The context of verse 26 begins back in verse 17.
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So if you want to open your Bibles and turn to verse 17.
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Paul says, But in the following instructions I do not commend you.
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Because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse.
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Now we'll just stop right there to give a little background on what he's talking about.
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He's about to address the subject of something called the love feast.
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You may have heard it in certain churches called the agape feast.
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Well the word agape in Greek simply means love.
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The agape feast or the love feast was a part of first century worship.
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When the church came together and gathered together for worship.
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They didn't just gather together to sing songs.
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Pray a prayer and then go eat at Arby's.
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Because there weren't no Arby's in the first century.
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If you can imagine that.
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They gathered together.
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They prayed together.
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They sang together.
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They heard the word together.
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And then they ate a meal together.
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And when that meal concluded, it was concluded with the celebration of the Lord's supper.
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Elements from the meal were used.
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Just like they are in Passover.
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Elements of the meal were blessed.
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And set aside and sanctified for the purpose of holy communion.
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So it didn't even just come at the end of the sermon.
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It came at the end of the meal that followed the message.
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And these love feasts became a point of contention in the church.
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In fact they became so contentious that in the fourth century there was a council that forbade them.
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A council was convened to say no more love feasts.
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Isn't that sad? Isn't that sad? Now there was a lot more involved with the reason for the cancelling of the love feasts.
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Had to do with bringing in false theology and things like that.
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There were things that were the cause of that.
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But it's sad that we couldn't even keep that tradition going.
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That there's so much bad theology and so much bad behavior.
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We couldn't even keep the potluck going.
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So that's what it was.
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It was an opportunity for the church to gather and everybody brought food.
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This is a 2,000 year old tradition.
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The Southern Baptists didn't invent this.
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When everybody brings food and eats together.
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I think they perfected it with that fried chicken.
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But they gathered together to eat.
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Everybody brought food.
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But there was a problem.
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When they were coming together, they were coming together and not sharing.
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He goes on to say in verse 18, For in the first place, when you gather together, come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you, in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.
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That's an important verse.
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Verse 19 can really stand on its own as its own lesson because Paul is making a distinction about the reality that there's always going to be divisions because there is always going to be false professors in the church.
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There's always going to be false professors in the world and that make up their own churches.
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That's why we don't celebrate worship with the Mormons.
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That's why we don't celebrate worship with the Jehovah's Witnesses.
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But we can celebrate worship with the Presbyterians because we share a unity in the Gospel with the Presbyterians.
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And while there would be small secondary divisions with them, the Mormons have a different Gospel and a different Jesus.
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The Jehovah's Witnesses have a different Gospel and a different Jesus.
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and the proclamation of the Gospel with them is different than what it is in Scripture.
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So, there is division there.
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And Paul says that division is going to happen because there's always going to be false professors.
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So we have to understand verse 19 is a lesson in and of itself, about the reason why divisions exist.
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But I don't want to bog down there, but I can't go by it without mentioning it.
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Verse 20, he begins to address the real issue.
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He says, When you come together, it's not the Lord's Supper that you eat.
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Interestingly enough, Paul actually identifies it as the Lord's Supper.
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We still use this language today.
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We call it the Lord's Table, the Lord's Supper, Holy Communion, whatever.
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But he identifies it.
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He says, You come together to eat a meal.
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It's not the Lord's Meal that you eat.
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For in eating, each one of you goes ahead with his own meal.
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One goes hungry and another gets drunk.
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So what's happening? It's pretty obvious.
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The people have brought food, but the food is not to share.
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The food is a symbol of status, particularly social status.
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You know, in modern days, social status may be identified by vehicles, or by jewelry, or by clothing, or some other social picture.
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But in the first century, the status was what you had to eat.
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It was a picture of your position.
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And here people came in and they had their wonderful meals, on which they would gorge themselves.
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The word drunk here does mean literally to imbibe alcohol and get drunk.
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But it's euphemistic also in the idea that they're overindulging while the other person's going hungry.
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You're drinking everything and the other person over here is going thirsty.
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You're eating everything and the other person over here is going hungry.
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How dare you? And you call it agape feast, love feast.
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What a shame such a thing is.
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And he says in verse 22, What? Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? I love that.
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Paul got down.
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He got serious.
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He said, couldn't you do that at home? If all you're going to do is eat your own food in your own family, and you're not going to share, couldn't you do that at home? Why bring it here? Or do you despise the church of God? And humiliate those who have nothing.
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Oh, this is shameful, y'all.
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There's a deeper meaning here than just somebody who brought their own meal to the potluck.
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These are people that are shaming those who don't have with what they do have.
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They're prideful about what they've been able to accumulate at the expense of the emotions of someone who hasn't accumulated as much and they're showing off.
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What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? I will not.
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So this is what Paul is saying.
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He's saying, you think you're coming together.
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You think you're coming together to have communion, the Lord's Supper.
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That is not what you're doing.
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And you want me to commend this.
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You want me to add my apostolic stamp of approval.
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No, I will not.
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They had perverted the table.
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They had perverted worship because it became a time for status and power and affluence to have its way and the poor to be pushed aside and given nothing and the rich to be idolized and the poor to be shamed.
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What a shame it was.
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So then Paul, based on that rebuke, gives us the real meaning of the table.
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Sometimes it's easy to kind of extrapolate this section out and forget what he's saying before.
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But remember, this is on the heels of a rebuke.
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The rebuke is, y'all are not doing the table correctly.
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It starts out with your selfish prideful hearts.
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It starts out with your unwillingness to share, your unwillingness to love one another in your quote-unquote love feast.
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Now know what it is.
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For I received from the Lord.
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That's a powerful thought.
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Paul did not get his theology from a book.
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Paul did not get his theology from the apostles.
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Paul got his theology from Jesus Christ.
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He said, for I received from the Lord what I now deliver to you.
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As if to say this, Jesus said it to me and I'm saying it to you.
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There is no doubt that what I'm about to say is correct.
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And what's interesting about this, I've mentioned this many times, I believe that 1 Corinthians is written before the Gospels, as far as when the writings of all the writings occurred.
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I think that 1 Corinthians would have probably come before the Gospels.
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There's some debate about that.
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If that is true, and if I'm correct, this is the first written inscription of what Jesus said on the night of the Passover.
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It's the first time that we're getting this, what did Jesus say? And if that's the case, Paul is saying, I received from the Lord, I'm delivering this to you, and it's the first time it's coming to you in written form.
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And he says this, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed, took bread.
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And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, this is my body.
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Those words have been so misunderstood, especially in Roman Catholicism.
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And I do not have the time today to dive into all of the various forms of understanding.
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I've done it many times in the past.
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And if you don't understand the differences in Roman Catholic theology when it comes to the table, I'd be happy to share with you at another time.
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But those words have been misunderstood.
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Jesus is not saying this is literally, specifically, physically my body.
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He's using the word is representatively.
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What does that mean? He's using it as a picture, in the same way if I took out, and I've said this before, if I take out from my wallet, and I open my wallet, and I show you a picture, and I say this is my wife.
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And you say, wow, you married a piece of cardboard with ink on it, that's pretty cool.
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No, you wouldn't say that because you're not foolish.
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You would know that when I say this is my wife, the is, the verb, is representative, not literal.
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That's simple.
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We know that.
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Jesus is there.
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His body is there.
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And he says this is my body.
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It must be representative.
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Thank you.
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Okay, we'll move on.
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He said this is my body, given for you.
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Do this in what? Do this to pull me down from heaven and sacrifice me on the altar.
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No.
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That's what is believed by some.
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That's not what happens in communion.
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He says do this for what reason? In remembrance of me.
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This bread will henceforth represent me in your presence, because I will be in the right hand of the Father.
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This bread will have a representative part in your worship to represent my presence with you.
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And every time you eat it, you will remember that I was here and I'm coming back.
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So it has a representative value among the people of God.
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Do this in remembrance of me.
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In the same way also, He took the cup, and after supper He said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
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And again, I could spend all morning and afternoon and next week talking about the new covenant and what that means.
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But just know this.
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He's bringing this new covenant in Him.
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We are no longer judged guilty by the law.
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But the law has been fulfilled in Christ.
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And now by the grace of God through faith alone, we have justification of all of our sins.
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That's the new covenant.
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And that's what we're in.
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In Him.
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Because of His blood.
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Because He died.
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What does blood represent in Scripture? It represents death.
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Blood is death.
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Because when you bleed, you die.
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And it's in His death, in His blood, that we have justification.
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Do this as often as you drink it.
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It doesn't say how often.
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And this again has been a debate in the history of the church.
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Should you do it once a year? Should you do it once a quarter? Should you do it once a month? Should you do it once a week? He doesn't give us a command.
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And I do think this is a point of conscience.
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I've never condemned a man who didn't take communion every week.
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And I've never been condemned, I don't know, by a man for doing it every week.
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I guess there are people who don't like it.
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But I don't know that anyone's ever condemned me for it.
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And we shouldn't.
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It's a point of conscience.
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As often as you do it.
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Do it for what purpose? To remember me.
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And then He says, For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
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So we see the past, His death, which brought our justification.
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We see the present, our communion with Him, which provides our fellowship with God.
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And we see the future, His imminent return, which will bring our glorification.
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And all of it's bound up in the table.
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Then He said, What's that got to do with the first thing you said? Remember all this is on the heels of a rebuke.
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Right? All this is on the heels of a very, very harsh rebuke.
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You're not even doing communion.
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You're not even taking the Lord's Supper.
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You want my condemnation, you want my apostolic stamp of approval.
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I'm not giving it to you.
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You're doing it wrong.
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I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you that the night He was betrayed took bread and He goes through it.
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Why? What is He doing? He's saying a very simple thing.
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This table is meant to represent Christ's work, past, present, and future.
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And you are bringing shame on the work of Christ.
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And what you're doing and how you're treating one another and in doing so, you're not even doing what this original intention was to be.
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It was to represent Christ.
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And you are bringing shame on Christ.
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Which is why He says in verse 27, which is the next verse, Whosoever therefore eats of the bread or drinks of the cup in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.
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Why is He going there? Because of what He said earlier.
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They were participating in communion in an unworthy manner.
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You want to know the definition of an unworthy manner? According to the Apostle Paul, is when the church gathers filled with pride and devoid of love.
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Because that's what they've done.
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They've gathered filled with pride, devoid of love, and they want to take communion.
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And Paul says that is an unworthy manner.
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And they were guilty.
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Because gathering that way, having communion that way, had profaned the body and blood of the Lord.
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You realize something folks? How many of you would get offended, absolutely offended, if you were walking into Walmart today, and you saw someone standing with muddy shoes on an American flag? I know some of you might even go up and push that person off the flag.
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And pick it up.
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And give it a rightful disposal.
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How many of you would have the same indignation to know that the bread and the cup which represents your Savior has been equally sullied by those who have received it in an unworthy manner? We're all willing to be good patriots.
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Are we willing to be good Christians? Because when we receive communion unworthily, when we pass it out and divvy it out like we're having snack time, and we don't give due respect and reverence to what we're doing, we are doing it in an unworthy manner.
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And that's why it says in verse 28, Let a person examine himself then.
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Examine himself.
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Look honestly at yourself.
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And ask the question, Am I shaming the Lord by putting this in my mouth? It's a serious question.
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Because he goes on in verse 29 to say, Anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, meaning, without discerning the meaning of what this is, eats and drinks judgment on himself.
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Communion is a place for discipline.
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It's a place for self-introspection and discipline.
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God disciplines those who are His.
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Hebrews 12 tells us, If you do not receive the discipline of God, then you are an illegitimate son.
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You are not His.
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And part of the discipline that He has instituted is the discipline of the table.
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This is why in many churches, and ours included, if a person were to be excommunicated from the church, they would not be welcome at the table.
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It would have to be that way.
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We welcome the table for who? Those who are believers.
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Those who have been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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Why do I emphasize that? Because there are two ordinances in the church.
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Now this is not a demand of Scripture, but it's a logical outgrowth.
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If there is one that's meant to be once for all, and there's one that's meant to be continual, logically the once for all would precede that which is continual.
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And so if a person has not yet come to the place where they feel confident that they should be baptized, then I would ask the question, why do you then feel confident to take the table? I'm not saying it's a necessary necessity.
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I'm saying logically, why would you do one without the other? And so we ask that question at communion.
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Have you been baptized? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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That's logical that if you're going to do one, that you would do the other.
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And so it becomes a time again for introspection.
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I've taken a little bit more time on that than I planned, but it's important to understand that this table must be respected, it must be revered as what it is.
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It is standing here for us, representing the fact that Christ has come, and He will come again.
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And that's what I want to focus on as I begin to look at the application of this message.
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If you'll look at the back of your folder, you'll see that I've written the application out for you.
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It's very simple.
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Because in the midst of all this, in the midst of the rebuke, which I think comes before and after the institution of communion, which is in verses 23-26.
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Before and after is rebuke, so 23-26 provides us with the institution of communion.
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In the midst of that, verse 26 says, For often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
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And what we see in that is a picture of our dual hope.
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One, the hope of the Christian originates in the first advent of Christ.
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And two, the hope of the Christian culminates in the second advent of Christ.
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Let me break those down for you very quickly.
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The hope of the Christian originates in the first advent of Christ.
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What is hope? No, it's not my daughter.
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What is hope? Well, in English, and particularly American use of the term hope, we have absolutely neutered the word.
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Because the word hope, as it is used in English, means a feeling of expectancy and a desire for something to happen.
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For instance, I may go home tonight and say, Well, I've got a sub tomorrow.
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I hope it doesn't rain.
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Because when it rains and I'm working at the school, I have to walk to the classes and they don't have covers over all the classes, and so I get drenched going from my car to the school.
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I hope it doesn't rain.
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But this be Florida, and because this be Florida, it's probably going to rain.
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So what is my hope? It's hope mingled with doubt.
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Because I have no knowledge of whether or not it's going to rain.
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They can say it's not going to rain, and it's still rain.
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All I'm saying with my hope is what? This is what I want to happen, but I have no assurance that this is what will happen.
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And that's how we say hope in English, and that's how we express hope as Americans especially, and that's how most people talk about their salvation.
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You ask a man, will you go to heaven when you die? He says what? I hope so.
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What does he mean? I don't know.
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That's what he means when he says, I hope so.
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Beloved, that is not the hope that Christ has provided for us.
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It is not a hope mingled with doubt.
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The biblical definition of hope is a sense of security.
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The Hebrew word, batah, means confidence and security.
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Psalm 16 verse 9, Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth.
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My flesh also shall rest in hope.
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That's the King James.
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If you go to the ESV, translating the same Hebrew word, this is what it says.
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My flesh dwells secure.
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See that's what hope is for the believer.
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It's our security.
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In the Greek, we see a similar idea, elpizo, to look forward with confident expectancy.
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To look forward with confident expectancy.
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This is why in Hebrews 11 verse 1, when it defines faith, it defines it with the word hope.
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Now faith is the assurance of what? Things hoped for.
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Faith is knowing that that which I'm looking forward to is going to happen.
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So hope then is what I'm looking forward to, not which I have doubts about.
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For the Christian, hope is not just a feeling.
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And why is it not just a feeling? It's not a feeling because it's not based on ourselves.
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If our hope was in ourselves, we would have reason to worry.
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If our hope was in the government, we'd have reason to worry.
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If our hope was in scientific advances, social programs, or any other type of thing that we could create with our hands or our minds, we would have no hope.
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But our hope is in a person.
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Jesus Christ.
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I've told this several times.
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If Christ be who He said, then my hope is secure.
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And if Christ be not who He said, then my hope is lost.
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My hope is found on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
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It's it.
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It has to be Jesus.
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Paul tells us this.
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If Christ be not raised, we among all men are the most to be pitied because we've wasted our life.
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But He has been raised, Paul says, to the glory of God the Father.
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You see, our hope originates in Christ.
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Jesus Christ never sinned, so we have hope because only a sinless man can bear the sins of others.
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Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, and there comes our hope because only God can provide a perfect sacrifice.
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Jesus Christ fulfilled all righteousness, and there is our hope because our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.
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We need someone else's.
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We need perfect righteousness, and that's what He provides.
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Jesus Christ died a substitutionary death, and therein lies our hope because He took the punishment that we deserve as our substitute.
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Jesus Christ rose from the grave, and therein lies our hope because He vindicated everything that He said.
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If Jesus was still in the tomb, and they could take us to His body and show us His bones, or even the ashes of His bones as they have deteriorated over time, they could say, look, here is where He died, and here is where He lays.
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But He rose from the grave, and He vindicated everything He said.
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Jesus Christ mediates for us in heaven, and that gives us hope because we are not perfect today.
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We still need a mediator today.
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The content of our hope is Jesus, and it originated in His first coming, and it will culminate in His second coming, and that's where I want to move to now.
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Our hope begins in the first coming, but it doesn't end there.
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We have something to look forward to.
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He came once to die, and will come again to judge.
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Now, there is a lot of confusion about the second coming of Christ, and you will watch TBN, and you will see these guys with big billboards behind them, and they are talking about how this is going to happen, and that's going to happen, there is going to be seven years of this, and three and a half years of this, and there is going to be a thousand years of this, and blah, blah, blah.
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Let me tell you something.
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There is a lot of confusion out there.
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And I know there is divisions about positions, and whether or not you are an amill, premill, postmill, or you don't know what I am talking about.
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That's fine too.
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We need to keep in mind that the great eschatological promise, meaning the great end times promise, is this, Jesus is coming back.
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That is the one point of eschatology that every Christian agrees on.
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There will come a day when Jesus will return as He ascended into heaven.
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Acts 1.10 says, as He ascended into heaven, He will return.
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And the Apostle Paul describes to us what will happen when He returns, and why we should not grieve like the world.
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I love this passage.
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Turn with me to 1 Thessalonians 4.
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Not going to get into rapture debates today, but I just want to read what Paul says just from the text.
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What Paul says about our hope.
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1 Thessalonians 4.13 He says this, speaking to the Thessalonians, he says, but we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep.
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And by asleep, that is euphemistic.
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And I can show this, all Scripture is euphemistic for the death of a believer.
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A death of a believer is never seen as being absolutely dead, but being asleep in Christ.
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It's euphemistic.
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He says, do not be uninformed about those who are asleep that you might not grieve as those who have no hope.
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That's an important passage.
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Every time I preach funerals, and I preach a lot of funerals, I give my services to Corey Curlin Funeral Home, and they do thousands of funerals every year.
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Maybe not thousands, that might be an exaggeration.
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They do one a day.
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Maybe two a day.
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Busy.
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Busy funeral homes.
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And I go and I provide for them, maybe once a month or twice a month, I'll go to a family who doesn't have a minister, and I'll share with them the Gospel, and they'll ask me to come and preach at the death of a mother or father, grandmother, grandfather, sometimes a child.
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And I tell you what, they've had to change the vernacular.
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Used to we talk about going to funerals.
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No, not anymore.
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It's life celebrations.
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Why is it life celebrations? Because we don't want to think about death.
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Because we don't want to think about what's really happening.
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You know what I always say when I gather the people together and we have the funeral service, at one point in the service I always stop and I always say, look, this service is not for the person that's passed.
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This service is for the people who are still alive.
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You're the people who hear my voice, and I need to tell you today that God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He has appointed, Jesus Christ the righteous.
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And it is appointed unto man once to die, and after this is judgment.
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You see, Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 4.13, the unbeliever goes to a funeral with no hope.
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I want him to leave with hope.
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I want him to leave with something.
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At least a challenge.
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Same for you today.
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Some of you have come in today and you have no hope for the future.
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You have no hope for tomorrow.
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If you were to die today, you don't know what would happen.
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I want you to have hope.
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Verse 14, For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him all who have fallen asleep.
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For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
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For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.
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And the dead in Christ will rise first.
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Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
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So we will always be with the Lord.
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Therefore do what? Encourage one another.
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Encourage one another with these words that there's coming a day when Christ will return.
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And if you are found in Him, you will be found having your hope realized.
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I am convinced that the vast majority of the anxiety that has taken over our world, especially our country, has its root in the hopelessness of being outside of Christ.
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Now I want to add a caveat.
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I myself have dealt with depression and anxiety.
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And I'm not condemning anyone who has dealt with those same things.
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Please know.
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But I know this.
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We have had such an upsurge in these things.
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As atheism and agnosticism takes hold, so too do depression and anxiety because you've come from nowhere and you're going nowhere and your life means nothing.
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You have no hope.
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The world is frantic to find something to hope in.
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People try to place their hope in their own goodness.
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And then they look inside and realize there's no hope in that.
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They try to find hope in political leaders.
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You remember when Obama was running for president the first time? And the painting was painted of him? What was the word plastered under his name? Hope! We're desperate for hope.
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So we look for it in a political figure.
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And we realize there's no hope in that.
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People try to invest their hope in their financial security.
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There's no hope in that.
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People try to invest their hope in social causes.
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And eventually find there's no hope in that.
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There is no hope outside of Christ.
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Until a man comes to that conclusion, his hope will always be mingled with doubt.
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Only in Christ is there a hope that is secure, founded on the promises of God Himself.
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Most of us are familiar with the hymn, Solid Rock.
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It begins with the words, My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
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The author of that hymn is Edward Mote.
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Edward Mote was a cabinet maker and Baptist preacher.
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And he began writing that hymn and he had the refrain, On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.
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He had that written on a notepad and he kept it in his pocket.
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And one day after a Sunday service, he went to a lady in the church's home who was sick and she was home ridden and unable to come to church.
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And as he went to her home, her husband was there taking care of her.
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And he said, Pastor, come in.
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He said, On Lord's Day, we can't come to church.
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My wife is sick.
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He said, But on Lord's Day, we gather together, we read Scripture, and we sing a hymn, and we pray.
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Would you do that with us? So, Mote went in and he sat down with them and they read Scripture together.
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And then the man went to get his hymnal and he couldn't find it.
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And so he came back and he says, Well, I guess we won't be able to sing a hymn today.
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I can't find my hymnal.
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And Mote pulled from his pocket the tattered piece of notebook paper that he'd had.
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And he opened it up and he said, Well, I wrote this hymn.
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How about we sing this? My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
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I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but only lean on Jesus' name.
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And the woman was very thankful for that.
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And as he left that day, he wrote two more verses based on her condition, a lady who would die just weeks later.
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And he wrote two more verses.
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His oath, His covenant, His blood support me in the whelming flood.
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When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.
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When He shall come with trumpet sound, Oh, may I then in Him be found, dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.
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The original title of this hymn was The Immutable Basis for the Believer's Hope.
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The Immutable, Unchanging Basis.
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Actually, not the believer, the sinner.
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The Unchanging Basis of the Sinner's Hope is what? On Christ the solid rock I stand.
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All other ground is sinking sand.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.
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I thank You that we can look forward with expectancy and not with doubt to His coming again.
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And though we may die in the body, we know that we will never die in the spirit.
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And we know that we will be raised and that we will be with You forever.
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And for this we give You glory and praise.
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And Father, I do pray that today You would open the hearts of everyone in this room to the believer to a closer walk with Christ and to any unbelievers that they might see in Him the hope of glory.
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And it's in His name we pray.
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Amen.