This transcript was generated automatically and may contain minor errors.

Good morning. It's good to be with you all this morning. If you're busy with us, we're thankful that you're here, thankful that you've chosen spiritual things this morning and chose to worship with us. So I appreciate your participation in worship this morning as well and for Jerry songs that he selected this morning to get our minds focused. Again, our kinda order of service is a little bit different.

We got handouts as well if anybody needs a handout for the lesson this morning to follow along. I'm a challenge you a little bit this morning. We're gonna go through a little bit obscure text, but, hopefully, you'll see its importance and relevance for the Lord's table as we go through it this morning. And so the handout will be helpful for you trying to kinda distill the... Our lesson seen follow along this morning.

We're concluding a series on the Lord's Supper I started some months ago, and this is the third one. And so we're we're gonna be ending with the Lord's Supper later today. So that's the reason for our little bit different order of services this morning. I wanna start talking about wedding reception this morning. I know what you're all thinking as you look at this picture.

What what did I do to let myself go? Right? Just be so handsome. So handsome. It's only been five years.

Man, what happened? I don't know about you. We had a meal at our wedding reception. Maybe... I know, like, the olden days, you know, like, thirty years ago or so.

You know, a lot of people, you know, I think they had, like, Jordan almonds. Anybody have, like, those multicolored Jordan almonds? Buttermints, Diana, she told me about that one. Buttermints, I could eat a five gallon bucket of those. Right?

Just some white cake, maybe you had it at your reception. Right? But God bless the state of Texas most of the time nowadays. It seems like people are eating barbecue after weddings. Maybe anybody else...

You had a meal, but you didn't get to eat it because you were too busy going around talking to people the whole time. That's a crime. It should be outlawed. If you're getting married soon, sit down and eat your meal. Your parents pay good money for it.

Sit down and eat your meal. Abby and I, we got married on a Monday morning, a lot cheaper. That's also good marriage advice. And we had a brunch style breakfast. We had, like, shrimp and grits.

Honestly, I can't remember anything else because it's marriage, you know, wedding ceremonies are kind of a whirlwind. Right? We all know... You know, when it comes to a wedding ceremony, we always... And at least, typically, we celebrate with this kind of wedding reception meal afterwards to celebrate the covenant that's now just been made.

The ceremony establishes the covenant while the fee... The meal afterwards, it celebrates the covenant. And meals, they were also accompanied covenant making in the ancient world in the days of the patriarchs, whether covenants were made between God and humanity, whether they're being made between friends or family members. We think about Genesis 26 where the Philistine king Abimelech and Isaac, they make this peace treaty after they disputed over some wells in the area, and so they make this peace pact, and they conclude it with a meal.

Genesis 31, Jacob, he flees from his uncle Laban. His uncle Laban catches up with him, but God gives him a dream on the way. He says, don't... Hey. Don't harm my guy, Jacob.

And so they make a covenant to... They make a covenant of peace together, and they erect a heap of stones. They give oaths with each other to not harm one another, to leave on a good terms, and then they eat a meal around this big pile of rocks. And much like today in ancient world, covenant making was accompanied by a meal. You ate together.

This practice, it continued atop Mount Sinai in Exodus 24, you'll turn there this morning. But most importantly, as we're gonna see towards the end of our lesson in Luke 22, meals were often accompanied... Also accompanied the institution of the meal of meals, the Lord's Supper itself. And while Exodus 24, it may be unfamiliar, it provides a very necessary backdrop for our understanding of the Lord's Supper itself. The covenantal confirmation ceremony, it parallels Jesus' own institution of the supper.

And as we'll see, Jesus actually quotes directly from this text in his institution. But here's what I want you to consider this morning as as we study together. I want you to consider how the covenant meal atop Mount Sinai, it moved the people of Israel from sacrifice to God's dwelling. Move them from sacrifice to God's dwelling. And in the Lord's Supper, what I want us to see is that we not only are somberly remembering the death of Jesus on the cross, but we also rejoice in the new communion we now share with God in Christ.

And that's what I want us to talk about this morning as we'll see in the book of Exodus. Let's talk about the book context. If you're in my how to study the bible class earlier this year, this will be familiar to you. Let's talk about the lay of the land of the book of Exodus very quickly and simply. As we said a couple weeks ago, we talked about the tabernacle.

The goal of the Exodus was not merely the redemption of God's people, but God's desire in the book of Exodus was to dwell in their midst in the tabernacle. And there's a lot of in between though, in between the Red Sea and God's kind of cap on his redemption of God's people of Israel and the indwelling of the tabernacle at the end of the book. In the covenant in Exodus 19 and... Through 24, and the meal at the end on Mount Sinai, this is what links these two sides of the story. God's redemption of Israel, it was the basis for their covenant, but the covenant was the means by which God would dwell with Israel.

Put another way, the covenant, it bridged the gap between Israel's salvation and their ultimate communion with God that was to come. But Exodus 19-24 in the immediate context, really, it's... It concerns the Mosaic covenant's introduction. It concerns its explanation and its ratification or its confirmation, we may say. You know, Israel, when they come to the foot of Mount Sinai after being in the wilderness for three months, they stand before God, and he introduces their covenantal identity and their mission in Exodus 19.

When he says in verse 4, he says, you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasure possession among all peoples for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Israel was staying before Sinai because God wanted them to be a holy nation, one that was set apart from all others for a specific and unique purpose. And they're called to this moment to accept the terms to live out this purpose. And, of course, Israel responds.

This will be an important statement in chapter 24 in verse eight of chapter 19. They respond to God's offer saying, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do. So God, he delivers to Moses the book of the covenant. This is an explanation of what holiness is meant to look like. On the one hand, it's summarized in the 10 commandments, and then it's expounded upon in a series of various case laws for the end of chapter 20 to chapter 23.

And so Moses in chapter 24 is coming, and he's reading and confirming these covenant stipulations with Israel. And these chapters, both chapter 19, chapter 24, we're about to read in a moment, They're both bookended with Israel's response to God's covenant offer where they say, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do, and we will be obedient. So the covenant ratification, as we're about to get into in a moment, it functioned, therefore, to consecrate Israel as holy. So as god says, I want you to be a holy people. In the introduction, he says, this is what holiness looks like.

The ratification makes Israel a consecrated and holy people. So And the covenant ratification meal, again, it may be obscure to us, but it's a really important event in the book of Exodus. Very important. The covenant ratification itself and the meal are important because on the one hand, it established the covenant, kind of formal stamp on it, but it also celebrated the new relationship between God and Israel. And this movement's kind of kind of demonstrated in the structure of the text itself.

The text kind of appears to have a kind of a key aspect structure to it. Right? A key as if you're not familiar, it's just a literary pattern. It's really common in Hebrew literature where there's ideas that are meant to mirror one another. And so the first one is meant to mirror the last, second to last, and then generally speaking, the main idea is kinda found there in the middle.

And I want you to see two things in particular about this, and I won't have the text on the screen. I just encourage you as we read in a moment, kinda follow this structure and just kinda note kind of the structure of this text because it's gonna be important here in a second. I want you to see at the heart of the text, of course, it concerns the covenant sacrifice. That's what's in the very middle, what what Moses is doing here in the altar and the sacrifices and the blood. But I want you to see also that God's presence is what the emphasis is in the in the bookends of this section.

And that the sacrifice, it's what stands in between Israel's approach to God and their fellowship with him in his presence. Again, the sacrifice stands in between Israel's approach to God and their fellowship in his presence. So follow this kind of as I read and just try to keep track of what's happening in the text. Exodus 24:1-11. Then he said to Moses, come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and the 70 of the elders of Israel and worship from afar.

Moses alone shall come near to the Lord, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him. Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, all the words that the Lord has spoken, we will do. And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and 12 pillars according to the 12 tribes of Israel.

And he sent young men of the people of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, all that the Lord has spoken, will do and we will be obedient. And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, behold, the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.

Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the 70 of the elders of Israel went up and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone like the very heaven for clearness, and he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel. They beheld God, and they ate and drank. It's a really strange text, especially if you're unfamiliar with the Bible, if you're busy with us this morning, there's a lot of ceremonial things going on.

Right? Even if you've grown up in church, this is maybe kind of a very strange text to read. Right? That's why we had to kinda break it down leading up to it because there's a lot going on here. This is an important event that kinda moves the story forward in Israel in the book of Exodus.

What I want you to see here, while there's a lot going on, is that at its heart, this text, it concerns the blood sacrifice that ratifies the covenant. It puts that seal on this bond between God and Israel. But at the same time, again, as we said, it's bookended by the emphasis on God's presence among Moses and the elders. To put it succinctly, if we wanna talk about it in these terms, we'll talk about in a second, what the text is doing is it's taking us from the altar, and then it's taking us to the table. That's the progression I want you to see in this text.

God starts the altar, the people, he takes them and moves them to the table. Let's talk about the altar first here. You know, the altar, of course, it takes the central place in the text, and this is because we know blood isn't necessary to inaugurate a covenant. As Hebrews says, comparing this event in Exodus 24 with a new covenant, we'll mention in a moment. Hebrew writer says in nine...

Chapter 9 verse 18, therefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. Says everybody knows you gotta inaugurate a new covenant with blood. Moses... We understand, you know, blood and sacrifice, they are deeply associated with covenant making in the Old Testament. The Hebrew expression, you know, that's used here in chapter 24 and verse 8 that's used throughout the Old Testament for covenant making when it says God made a covenant with them, it's literally he cut a covenant with the people.

See, Moses, he built this altar at the base of the mountain. He erected these 12 pillars that represented on the one hand, God and the people of Israel. And he throws half of the blood, the sacrificial blood, onto the altar itself and then onto the people. And in short, what's happening in the ceremony is that God and Israel are being bound together in both purification and in promise. On the one hand, Leviticus 1 in chapter 4, it tells us about burnt offerings, one of the offerings that's offered here.

It's meant... It's purposed to make atonement for people. And so the blood served as a purification rite for Israel. There's a lot that we could get into about uncleanliness and profaneness and the need to be cleansed before God's holiness and the danger that it poses and coming in his presence without being purified, but we'll leave it at that. But in other words, what's going on really here is that God is making the people holy.

He's allowing them, an unclean and unholy people, to stand before a holy God. But at the same time, this blood also serves as a possible... Possibly is a threat for disobedience. For example, when God cuts the covenant with Abram that that in Genesis 15, even before his name is changed to Abraham, God tells Abraham there. He says, hey.

I want you to sacrifice a bunch of animals, some birds, and I want you to split them in half, and I want you to put them opposite of one another. And then, strangely, there's this smoke and there's this fire that passes through these sacrifices. And if we're reading that, we're really thinking, this is weird. What does this mean? I don't understand.

Right? Well, Jeremiah, the prophet, he talks about this type of kind of sacrificial covenant making ceremony, and this is what he tells us. He says, and the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make them like the calf that they cut into and passed in between its parts. So what we potentially have going on here, it's very likely that this is the case of the sacrifice. Not only is it a purification.

Right? But also because the altar is representing God. Essentially, what God is saying, he's making a pledge. He's making a promise. And he's saying, if I don't uphold the covenant, let me be slain like these animals.

And likewise, Israel is asked in written and oral form in the text to confirm their understanding of the stipulations and presumably the consequences for disobedience as well. This really underscores the seriousness of this event. The altar is a very serious and solemn place. And still, they answer before and after the sacrifices we saw both times, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do. What we see is the altar is the altar, it allowed Israel to stand before God as a purified people, but it bound them together with him in a pledge, in a promise.

And therefore, on both sides had accepted the terms, they made their oaths. What does Moses say? But our really key passage in this text, he says, behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. Final stamp and approval. Notarized.

Right? Any notaries in the audience this morning? Put your hands in the air. Right? All the notaries.

That was stupid. Alright. Let's turn to the table now. That was a fitting transition to... Great sermon transition.

Reagan taught me that one. So... Alright. But we understand, we tell you the structure of the text, right, is that the altar is not the end of the story. It's the center point of the story.

It's not the end. Right? The altar, it was characterized by solemnity and seriousness, but at the table, the mood changed. Remember what happens at the end of the passage. Moses, the elders, they ascend, they sit before the presence of God, and they eat and drink in his presence.

That passage gives me chills every time I read that. I can't understand what that means or what that would've looked like. You know, it may seem really strange for us to think about God eating. Right? But Leviticus tells us that both of these offerings, the burnt offering and the peace offering, they were a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

You know, some of the sacrificial... The offering that would have been delivered, you know, it was it was sir... It served as this kind of the food for the covenant meal that they were partaking in now. And, of course, the burn offering, you know, it is just what it sounds like. You burn it all up.

It's offered completely to God. But the other offering, the peace offering was different. Portions of the peace offering were given back to the people. You sacrifice something, but God gives it back to you. And peace offerings, what they were meant to do is they either...

They maintained or they deepened an existing relationship. That's what they did. Here, of course, they're recognizing a newly established one. But in a sense, when you made a peace offering with God, you were invited to sit at God's table. You know, in the past, when I've imagined this text, I've read it several times in the last couple years, but every time I read it, felt like I always pictured that somber event that that...

You know, I didn't really picture a wedding reception type event, but more as like a post funeral meal. You know, I see Moses and the elders, they're eating quietly. They're burning their eyes. They're they're not looking up at the awesome power and glory of god. And no doubt, you read all of chapter 24, this text does not in any way minimize the holiness or the power or terror in which god comes to the people.

In fact, it magnifies that. It describes god as sitting on this sapphire throne, this beautiful sapphire floor in which he's enthroned upon. And later, his glory is still referred to as a devouring fire on top of the mountain in sight of the people of Israel. They're terrified early. They don't wanna go up there.

They said, Moses, you go talk to... We're not going up there on the mountain. This is still the same awe inspiring god. And yet after the altar, something has changed. You know, the text, it doesn't give us it doesn't give us the sense that this is a somber event or meal.

It says, God did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel. They beheld God and ate and drank. You know, they were in the presence of the almighty God, and yet at the same time, they were permitted to remain there, and they were able to eat a meal in his presence. So this meal on in on Exodus 24 on Mount Sinai was a onetime event that just was a relic of the past to be forgotten, but it opened up a new pattern of fellowship between God and Israel that would continue on in Israel's worship, not just for a select few people like here, but for all of God's covenant people. The sacrifices brought before the Lord at the tabernacle and later at the temple, they were not all meals, but some were.

In Deuteronomy, it describes the mood of these later meals. In Deuteronomy 12:5, it says, but you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. Talking about the temple. There you shall go, and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings in the fur... Firstborn of your herd and of your flock.

And here's the key part. He says in verse 7, and there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice. You and your households in all that you undertake in which the Lord your God has blessed you. When Israel ate their sacrificial meals before the Lord, they were commanded to rejoice. This was the character of later sacrificial meals.

Why would we imagine this meal on the top of Mount Sinai any differently? And why shouldn't this meal be joyful in the first place? A relationship has just been established through this covenant. This was caused for celebration, and what better way to rejoice than with a meal? But how could these people...

You may may still think, how could how could Moses and the elders and Nadab, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, how could they all sit there in god's... In the presence of god's awesome power? Well, it's the same reason that Israel could even enter into a covenantal relationship with god in the first place because of God's mercy and his grace. The altar, it made possible what otherwise would have been impossible, communion between a holy God and an unholy people. At the table, Israel, they met god's mercy and grace.

And though the altar was a serious and a somber occasion, at the table, Israel celebrated their unprecedented communion in the presence of God. Nadine's already crying. She's like, wrap it up, daddy. We're only halfway through. I'm sorry.

But even these events surrounding this covenant meal, this altar in this table, they pointed to a greater covenant that will be instituted by Jesus. On the night before his death, Jesus, he instituted a covenant meal, a new covenant within... In the context of a meal in the midst of the Passover. Read with me here in Luke 22 now. Excuse me.

Luke 22:7-20. Then came the day of unleavened bread on which the Passover had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John saying, go and prepare the Passover for us that we may eat it. They said to him, where will you have us prepare it?

He said to them, behold, when you've entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters and tell the master of the house. The teacher says to you, where's the guest room? Where am I... Where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?

And he will show you a large upper room furnished. Prepare it there. And they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. And when the hour came, he reclined at table and the apostles with him. And he said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.

For I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he said, take this and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. He took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying, this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

And likewise, the cup after they had eaten saying, this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. There's a... There's several parallels to consider just at the outset between these two events in particular. You know, think about this. You know, like like Moses, Jesus is serving here as this covenant called mediator.

He's the one who's staying between God and man, and he's bringing about this new relationship. And like Moses, Jesus, he gathers a select few individuals. This is disciples, like Nadab, Bayou, Aaron, all the elders, and they come to celebrate this institution together in a very kinda small confined space. And they may not be atop of a mountain, but where are they located at, but an upper room. Seems like that location is suddenly significant.

But the upper room then is... It's the new covenant counterpart to which took place at Sinai. Again, we may not think of Exodus 24 as being particularly significant to the Lord's supper at times because we may be unfamiliar with it, but this is the very counterpart to Jesus' institution for the supper. But, of course, there's... While there's similarities, there's differences as well.

One of the immediate ones is what concerns the sacrifice. Moses, he offered a sacrifice before the ratification of the covenant, but Jesus' dinner is anticipating his sacrifice that would come the next day. And though Jesus instituted this meal during Passover, he did not offer an animal to ratify this covenant.

As the Hebrew writer says in chapter 10, it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Rather, it was God's will that his new covenant people would be, he says in verse 10, sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Jesus, he gave his disciples the bread, he gave them the cup, he identified these symbols with his own body and blood. In the following day, Jesus would offer his sacrifice on the altar of the cross.

Jesus says that the bread is his body which is given for us, and the cup is the new covenant in his blood. Matthew, in his account, he adds to the quotation of Exodus 24:8 that the blood of this new covenant was poured out for the many for the forgiveness of sins. By quoting Exodus 24:8, Jesus, he identifies this meal that he's instituting as the inauguration of a new covenant, the one spoken long ago by the prophet Jeremiah. And God's new covenant people have been consecrated. They've been brought into covenantal fellowship with him through Jesus' self sacrifice.

For us, this morning, we're coming to remember the altar, and our altar is the cross. Once again, like the Sinai covenant, this meal wasn't a onetime event. It wasn't just something in the past that we may think about occasionally, think about fondly. He tells his disciples in the church that we are to do this in remembrance of him. The Lord's Supper, it was intended to be a regular observance, a regularly observed meal among God's covenant people.

But when we come to remember Jesus' death to remember the altar, we're not remembering that just as simply some past fact, but we also remember what it continues to accomplish for us. Like the Exodus again, God did not redeem us merely for the sake of redemption, but so that he might commune with us. Again, the picture of the tabernacle, as we've been talking about this whole year, we are the temple of God made for his dwelling. Communion with redeemed humanity, that is God's purpose to end. In the cross, it makes his fellowship possible.

Just as the covenant communion experience at Sinai became a part of Israel's ongoing life and worship. Well, the communion Christ established in this upper room is shared by God's people wherever and whenever they gather at his table. This is precisely Paul's point here in 1 Corinthians 10:14-22. We'll just read a snippet of it here in verses 16-18 where Paul is comparing Israel's sacrificial meals that they would eat before the tabernacle and temple with the Lord's supper itself. He says, the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?

The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices participants at the altar? Paul is helping us see that just as Israel participated in the altar by eating sacrifices, we get to participate by sharing the bread and the cup.

Just like when Moses, Aaron, Nadab, would buy you the elders, everybody experienced on top of mountain. What disciples experienced there in the upper room that was brought down into the community of Israel is now brought down to us in the life and the worship of the church. Lord's supper is not merely a meal in which we remember something Jesus did, though it is. It is a meal in which we participate in the saving benefits of what he has done. The Lord's Supper, that is our table.

That's what we call it. It's the Lord's table. I know we used to have a table right out here. It's hidden away somewhere back here. The point is about a physical table.

Right? That's not the point, But it's to understand that in the participation of the body and the blood of Christ that we are spiritually speaking, sitting at the table of the Lord with him. Now please don't understand this morning. I wanna be really clear. This is the takeaway for the lesson morning.

This is where I want you... This is where I want us to land this morning. The point is is not to drive a wedge between the altar and the cross. It's not that we abandon all salinity and seriousness and we turn the Lord's supper into a party or a lighthearted occasion. Right?

Monte made that point last Sunday. I thought it was a great point. This is a time of solemnity. It's serious. Right?

But at the same time, what we're trying to say this morning is while the Lord's Supper is that, we need to also understand that we cannot unintentionally narrow the focus of the Lord's Supper in such a way that we neglect the joy of what the cross accomplished for us. Because we understand as we sit and we partake of the body and blood of Jesus, in all actuality, what we're doing, even though, you know, we can't see it, these symbols are pointing us to a greater reality. What we need to understand is that the Lord's table, we are commune... We are communing with God in Christ. When you understand then the story doesn't end at the altar, but it ends at the table.

The altar is how we get there. We can't forget about the altar. We wouldn't be... Have a seat at the table if it wasn't for the altar, if it wasn't for the cross. But we need to consider, as we've been doing this morning, you know, considering the celebratory character of Israel's covenants and their sacrificial meals, have we sometimes maybe neglected an equally important aspect of the Lord's Supper?

It's joy. If we allow the funeral imagery that we often so use to talk about the Lord's Supper, which I'm not saying is wrong in any way, but if we allow that to completely overshadow the wedding imagery as well. So in conjunction with the somber remembrance of Jesus' death, we're called to rejoice at the same time. That may seem like a little bit of a whirlwind of emotions. Right?

But it should be. Right? This is an emotional thing that we're doing. Why? Because the cross makes possible a new life that we otherwise would have not known.

Jesus' death opened communion between God and redeemed humanity, and that is cause for celebration. God, he didn't redeem Israel merely to bring them out of Egypt and leave them there in the wilderness. He redeemed them to bring them to himself. In Christ, he did not merely die to rescue us from sin and death. He died to bring us into fellowship with the living God.

And we come to the table, we come with penitence. We come with sorrow before the Lord, but we don't have to leave in despair. We leave with every reason to rejoice because we have sat at the Lord's table as we're about to do. We've experienced the saving benefits of the cross, and we've communed with the living God. As we close, I want you to think one more time.

Think back to either your wedding or one you've been to recently, that wedding ceremony and reception. You know, we all understand we go to a wedding ceremony. Ceremonies are serious. Right? Turn off your phones.

Right? Hopefully, learn that by now. Turn off your phones. Right? And the people, especially up there at the altar, they're very serious.

Right? We may crack the occasional joke. You know how we preachers are. We're terrible. We're the worst.

I know. Usually terrible jokes that you've seen on display this morning. Ceremonies are serious events. Right? Vows between a husband and wife, they are lifelong promises that are being made.

We'd be worried if we got to a wedding ceremony and the woman... A woman or man that were up there started making light to their vows or cracking jokes. We think immediately, this marriage is in trouble. Right? This is not gonna go over very well.

Why? Because we understand a marriage covenant, it's not something you enter into lightly. That's why all those marriages and chapels in Vegas don't last very long. Right? If you're one of those marriages today, come, I would love to hear your story.

That would be super interesting. But at the same time, when we go to the reception afterwards, we understand that that's an occasion for rejoicing. We'd be worried if we saw the man and woman sitting there at the table, and they're weeping uncontrollably, not like, I'm happy, sad, like, you know, really sad, ugly ugly crying. Right? Or you see the woman and she's white as a sheet, we think, oh, is not good.

Somebody just made a mistake. This marriage is in trouble. Hopefully, you've never been to any weddings like that. Because we know a marriage celebration... Marriage ceremony or reception, it's meant to celebrate a newly formed relationship.

So this morning, that's what I want you to see. It... It's the same way with the Lord's Supper. There's a time for penitence. There's time for covenant renewal.

There's time for restoration. We do a really good job at emphasizing that. That's a great thing I think we do that we need to keep doing. We're not stopping that. But what we do need to realize is that there is also a time for joy, for celebration.

We remember the altar this morning, but we rejoice at the table. We wanna do that with you this morning. And if you're a Christian today and maybe you haven't been living your life as you ought to, if you haven't been living in step with the gospel and you need that renewal, you need that restoration, well, this is an opportunity for you to have that as we partake of the Lord's supper. Don't leave these doors not taking advantage of this opportunity for God through Christ to turn your mourning into joy. But at the same time, if you're not a believer, if you've not entered into this covenant relationship, well, we want you to partake of this meal.

We want you to experience the saving benefits of Jesus, but you can't do that unless you are in Christ. And so we wanna offer you an invitation this moment before we even partake that this could be the first time that you eat this meal with us to experience the saving benefits of Jesus that he offers to us on the cross and to participate with us in the communion we all share in our participation with the body and the blood in Jesus in just a moment. If you wanna do that, we'd love to help you. You'll come now as we stand and as we sing.