Waiting for the Lord
Download MP3Well, morning. My name is Dwight Castle. I'm one of the pastors here at Redeemer, and I'm so thankful to continue our sermon series through the book of Isaiah this week. When I was a young kid, not much older than my oldest son right now, something happened that I was thinking about this week and a vivid memory in my mind. It was during the nineteen ninety three big winter storm that came through where I lived.
Jeffrey Heine:I know it hit the Southeast in general, especially North Carolina. Does anyone remember that here? Oh, I see a couple hands. Okay. Yeah.
Jeffrey Heine:So when I was a kid, this was amazing. We didn't have school. All the power was out for an entire week. The temperature never got above freezing. So we moved all of our frozen food outside.
Jeffrey Heine:We moved all of our refrigerated food into the mudroom. We moved all of our mattresses into the living room where we had a wood burning stove that pretty much kept us alive for that entire week. It was the six of us in my immediate family and my two grandparents that lived down the road from us. And every day, me and my brothers would have the task of going out and filling multiple five gallon buckets with snow. And we would bring it in, melt it on our stove, and this is how we would cook all of our meals.
Jeffrey Heine:It's how we flush the toilets, take little bird baths. As a kid it was amazing. I think now through the lens of a parent, I don't know that would have been quite as awesome as I remember it to be. But we had no idea how long that was gonna last for. And I have this memory of my grandfather every day walking out of the chaos of our contained house down the driveway to the road, and he would just wait and watch for the power company to come.
Jeffrey Heine:He waited for any sign of a snow plow that would let us out or anyone in. He waited for the only sign of hope of any civilization beyond our pioneer little dream that we were living in to come. And that image has stuck in my head as I've been thinking through this text for today of my grandfather waiting. Let me ask you a question. What are you waiting for?
Jeffrey Heine:Because we're all waiting in life, all of the time. If you don't feel like you're waiting right now, it probably won't be very long before you are. It might be something massive. Takes up most of your mind, stresses you out constantly. It might be something in the back of your mind that's just that kind of passive, anxious feeling that it gives you.
Jeffrey Heine:What are you waiting for? I'll tell you a few things that I am waiting for right now in my own life. I'm waiting for my jammed finger to stop hurting, because it actually impedes a lot of what I do day to day. I'm waiting for my anniversary staycation with my wife tonight to get a break from the chaos of my kids and my life. Amen.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm waiting for my twins to learn how to swim. So that when we go to the pool with our friends, we can actually have fun. I'm waiting for my son to be cancer free. For the almost two years of chemotherapy that we have left to be finished, to see his body and his spirit return to normalcy, See our lives return to some sense of normalcy. It's what I'm waiting for.
Jeffrey Heine:But let me ask you, what are you waiting for? Because waiting is a normal part of life. Now, as Christians, we are going to look today specifically at what waiting for the Lord looks like. Because that is a different thing. But none of us likes waiting because it's hard.
Jeffrey Heine:It makes us be confronted with certain emotions and feelings that we would not choose to have. It's uncomfortable. Makes us feel vulnerable, afraid, maybe angry, isolated, disappointed, powerless. Now we wait in life for a variety of reasons. Right?
Jeffrey Heine:We don't have enough information. We don't have enough time. We don't have enough help. We don't have strength in ourselves. Ultimately, we wait because we don't have control over our situation.
Jeffrey Heine:If we did have control, we would often change our circumstances. But we can't. So in your times of waiting, where do you find your hope? Is your hope simply that your circumstances will get easier? You'll have a good outcome, a good diagnosis, maybe healing.
Jeffrey Heine:Maybe you need something new in life, a new chapter, a new house, a new job. Maybe that long anticipated child that you've prayed and waited for. Maybe you want relief. No pain. No more fighting.
Jeffrey Heine:You want resolution. Peace. Answers. What is that thing on which you are setting your hope to get you through your waiting? Maybe some of you have completely lost all hope.
Jeffrey Heine:This is where we find ourselves today in Isaiah 40. This is our framework for this passage. So look with me if you will at Isaiah 40 verse 27. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel? My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God.
Jeffrey Heine:Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God. He's the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary.
Jeffrey Heine:His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youth shall faint and be weary and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles.
Jeffrey Heine:They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. This is the word of the Lord. Amen. Pray with me.
Jeffrey Heine:Oh Lord, we need you. I need you right now. We need you to speak to us. We need you to open up our defensive, hard, cold, hurt hearts. We need you to speak words of life and truth into our beings.
Jeffrey Heine:We know that you do this. We ask you to do this. And I ask you that the words in my mouth and the meditation of my heart will be pleasing, acceptable, Lord, in your sight, my rock and my redeemer. In the name of Jesus, amen. In our passage today, Israel is waiting.
Jeffrey Heine:And they've been waiting for a long time, a very long time, decades in fact. Because if you recall, the Israelites are exiled in Babylon. There's actually been, up to this point, five different rounds of exile of them being taken from their homeland. Their homeland being overrun completely by enemies twice now. They're in a foreign land that is not of their choosing.
Jeffrey Heine:They are stuck away from their temple, away from their people, away from their family. They can't worship as they would wish. They have no king, and no hope of having a king anytime soon. They have no army, no power. Really, they have no visible hope for their circumstance to change or improve anytime soon.
Jeffrey Heine:So it would be safe to say that the Israelites are probably on the verge of despair. And this is why they call out to the Lord. Look at verse 27. This is what they've said to God. My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God.
Jeffrey Heine:This is a familiar complaint that many of us have likely said to our self at one point or another. It's this. Where is God in my suffering? Where are you God? What are you doing?
Jeffrey Heine:Because to Israel, it seems like God is absent. They can't see him anywhere. And what's maybe worse, they feel like he doesn't even see them. They say my way is hidden from you. God do you even care?
Jeffrey Heine:You disregard my right. In other words, this isn't fair. Aren't you just? Has anyone ever spoken these words? Maybe if you're not quite so bold to do it out loud, at least in your own heart.
Jeffrey Heine:But my friends, the good news is God does see. He does hear. He does care. There has not been one moment where he has not seen what his people are going through. There has not been one moment he has not seen what you've gone through.
Jeffrey Heine:And so he answers his people. And he answers in the same way that I imagine a parent would to a child. With a patient sigh, but with deep love and affection. He says, haven't we already been over this? Haven't I already told you?
Jeffrey Heine:Because you see in all of the verses leading up to this in chapter 40, what Cole preached on last week, God has just gone to great lengths to paint beautiful pictures about who he is. About how powerful he is. The type of God he is. Remember he said, all of the oceans in the world are in that little spot in my hand. I measure the breadth of the universe with my hand.
Jeffrey Heine:All the nations are but dust in the scale, and I care for you. That's what God has told them, but here they are asking the same questions again. But really? Are you really in control? I mean, you trustworthy?
Jeffrey Heine:Do you even care about my circumstance? And we see our first important lesson for today. While God is in complete control, he does allow suffering. And in our suffering he allows us to lament over our circumstance. Lament is simply a biblical view of expressing our grief and our sorrow to God.
Jeffrey Heine:So in our suffering, in our waiting, in our pain, God welcomes our questions. He welcomes our doubts. I don't know if that's something that you have heard before, but scripture is full of God's people lamenting. Now lament is important because it is directed to God. It's not just a general grievance airing.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not complaining bitterly about our circumstances to anyone who will listen. There's an implicit belief in God in that lament. It's directed towards him, because we know he can do something about it. Now God does want to grow our faith. He wants us to believe that he is with us in those times.
Jeffrey Heine:But, just as a parent would welcome a scared child who is missing the fact that they've got it taken care of, so God welcomes us into his arms. In Psalm one zero three fourteen, God says that he knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. So Israel calls out to God in their pain and in their waiting. And how does God answer?
Jeffrey Heine:Well he doesn't answer how I probably would. Right? Which is to say, hey, you want to know why you're exiled? Because you disobeyed me over, and over, and over again. So let me teach you about natural consequences.
Jeffrey Heine:He doesn't say, hey, life is tough and it's unfair. Or, other people are suffering too. It's not just you. He doesn't do any of this. God lovingly engages his people.
Jeffrey Heine:He draws them in with these reflective questions. And I want you to feel the posture and the tone of God with his people. He's not finger pointing. He's welcoming them into conversation. He's gently reminding them of what they need to hear.
Jeffrey Heine:Read again verses twenty eight and twenty nine with me. The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not grow faint or weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength.
Jeffrey Heine:So God reminds them here of truth. Particularly truth about who he is. And I want us to slow down here because this is the key to how we wait biblically for the Lord. We take our eyes off of the circumstances in front of us that so overwhelm us that it can be crushing, and we fix our eyes on God. We take our eyes off of the circumstance, and we put our eyes on God.
Jeffrey Heine:Hear me, in times of suffering, in seasons of waiting, we lose our bearings. I know this, in my own life. Right? Up is down, down is up. The most simple truths are hard to remember and to believe.
Jeffrey Heine:In those moments, we're not talking about deep theological truths. We're saying things like, God are you real? Are you there? Do you see me? Do you care?
Jeffrey Heine:Are you for me? I mean, can relate to this specifically. As me and my family have walked through a season of suffering and waiting in our latter years. This has been where my heart has gone to. I remember when we received the news that we were having conjoined twins, and my world got turned upside down.
Jeffrey Heine:My sense of truth got turned upside down. I was like, God you're good, but this is not good. Somebody help me out here. God are you are you really good? How is this good?
Jeffrey Heine:How are you good if this is happening to me? This is where Israel is. And God knows this about us. And so, he is kind to remind us of who he is. And here is who God says he is in a nutshell.
Jeffrey Heine:God is the creator, and we are the created. This simple truth unlocks our hope. Because we cannot save ourselves, God as creator needs to save his creation. God can do what we cannot. Verse 28 lists these attributes about God as creator.
Jeffrey Heine:He's eternal. He made everything that exists. He sustains everything that exists. He is limitless in his resources. He has ultimate knowledge and wisdom.
Jeffrey Heine:Basically, he is everything that we are not. We aren't any of those things. He is the creator. We are the created. He is different from us.
Jeffrey Heine:You could say, He's other. He's holy. Do you remember Joel talking about this weeks ago? This is who our God is. He is not like us.
Jeffrey Heine:If we could save ourselves, we would. Right? We would get ourselves out of that circumstance. We can't. But God, if He is like us, then He can't save us either.
Jeffrey Heine:He's other. We have to wait for him to save us. And, no matter how hard the Israelites wished themselves out of exile, no matter how hard they could have come up with plans, they aren't getting out of Babylon. And neither can we get out of our own circumstances on our own. We are limited.
Jeffrey Heine:But God, as creator, is never limited. And this is what God reminds his people of. This is our hope in suffering and waiting. Not only God's power, which is limitless, but God's character, his nature. He is the God who comes to his people.
Jeffrey Heine:Who gives to his people. He doesn't lord over us the fact that he has all power in heaven and earth. He's not stingy with it. No. He gives of it freely.
Jeffrey Heine:It's in his heart. Listen. Birds fly, fish swim, God gives to his people. It's that simple. It's in his nature.
Jeffrey Heine:This is the gospel. We believe that God comes to broken, needy, dead sinners who can do nothing for themselves, And he in his love and his kindness comes and saves us. And we need the same gospel foundation in our waiting. Because the gospel that we initially hear, the truth that saves us, is the same truth in our suffering and waiting that we are strengthened by as we hear again, and again, and again. When life's sucker punches you, and you lose your sense of truth, God knows we need to be recalibrated.
Jeffrey Heine:We have to hold in this one hand our experience, our lived reality, and how we feel about that. Right? And then in the other hand, we hold what we know to be true about God from his word. And when you're in that situation, what tends to happen is that life makes you want to make this bigger. You forget who God is, and you're just focused on how you feel.
Jeffrey Heine:But what we need to do is to remember in those times who God is, and let that impact the way that we feel. God continues to contrast himself as the unlimited creator versus us as the limited creation. Look again with me, if you will, at verses twenty nine and thirty. He gives power to the faint. To him who has no might, he increases strength.
Jeffrey Heine:Even youth shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. Those words weary, tired, faint, they're used seven times in this short passage. What do they mean? The word faint, it is a failure through loss of inherent strength. In other words, you just run out of energy.
Jeffrey Heine:Eventually, if you keep going long enough, you are going to wear out. The word weary is slightly different. It's a particular exhaustion that comes because of the hardness of life. So you might be able to manage all the normal life stressors, but some of them knock you flat on your butt. They punch you in the face.
Jeffrey Heine:These are common experiences for us. But guess what? They're not for God. He continues the contrast here. Verse 30 he says that even youths grow tired and weary.
Jeffrey Heine:That word youth, it's someone who's in the prime of their life. Here's the funny thing about those of you in this room who are in the prime of life. You probably don't even know it or appreciate it. But as soon as you get on the backside of it, you're very aware of it. Right?
Jeffrey Heine:I'm reminded of this every time I go to the gym and I'm trying to keep up with those who are in the prime of their life. And this verse is actually an encouragement to me, because I'm like, even they grow tired, so I've got an excuse here to be tired. Right? Young men shall fall exhausted. Young men's not just another repetition of the same thing.
Jeffrey Heine:That is a word for someone who is chosen for their soldierly prowess. These are the top tier warriors trained. Maybe a seal team six person, or an Olympic level athlete. But here's what God's saying. He's saying that even those in their prime, the best physical, natural specimens that humans can offer will eventually get tired.
Jeffrey Heine:Human strength at its best is limited and frail. Now we have a hard time admitting this. This feels like bad news. It feels like failure. Right?
Jeffrey Heine:Who here loves the way that makes you feel? No one. But God is saying, we shouldn't deny it. We shouldn't view it as failure. It's actually his design.
Jeffrey Heine:God wants us to call out to him in our times of need. In second Corinthians twelve nine, the apostle Paul puts it this way. He says, I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For when I am weak, then I am strong. So God's hope to Israel and to us is this.
Jeffrey Heine:God offers renewal. Renewal. Now who does God offer renewal to? Verse 31 says, they who wait for the Lord. They who wait for the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:I both love and am confused by this phrasing. I mean it is in some of my favorite passages in scripture. Psalm 25 says, none who wait for the Lord shall be put to shame. Psalm 27 says, wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage.
Jeffrey Heine:Wait for the Lord. Lamentations three says that the Lord is good to those who wait for him. So this seems important. But what does it mean? I mean this is clearly something different from just waiting.
Jeffrey Heine:In the old testament waiting for the Lord is not a passive thing. It's active. It's expectant. Waiting for the Lord has a biblical component of certainty. Hebrews eleven one talks about faith in this way.
Jeffrey Heine:Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen. So faith, hope, and waiting are all similar in that they're not blind, naive, passive trust. Here's what I think is a simple definition of waiting for the Lord. To wait with confidence and trust.
Jeffrey Heine:Or even more simply put, an eager expectation. I love that. My brain can start to think about that. An eager expectation. We see an example of this on display in the Old Testament.
Jeffrey Heine:In Daniel three, another time of the Israelites being exiled in Babylon. It's a pretty famous story. You've got three characters, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They have refused to bow down and worship an image of King Nebuchadnezzar. And so they're going to be thrown into the fiery furnace.
Jeffrey Heine:And they demonstrate waiting for the Lord in this way. Here's what they say. Our God who we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand. But if not, be it known to you, o king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. Now there's a tension here.
Jeffrey Heine:Do you feel that? Because they don't know what God is going to do in that circumstance. Now they believe that he can save them. And they believe that he is the God who saves his people. But they don't know exactly what he's gonna do.
Jeffrey Heine:He might not do what they want, when they want, how they want. But they choose to wait, to hope, to have eager expectation, confidence, and trust in God. Pastor and theologian Ray Ortland says, waiting for the Lord is what faith does before God's answer shows up. Guys, this is hard. I don't pretend to understand this.
Jeffrey Heine:I don't pretend to have it figured out. I mean, how am I supposed to be active in my faith, but not controlling? How am I supposed to be faith driven and confident, but submissive? This is what we wrestle with. And this is an image that comes to mind that I think demonstrates it.
Jeffrey Heine:This is a heavy image. But it's that of a child drowning. That child is completely incapable of saving themselves. They're helpless. They're desperate, and they are calling out to their parents.
Jeffrey Heine:They're just looking expectantly at their parent. There's an inherent trust, a confidence that that parent is going to save them. And this is our posture before the Lord. Read verse 31 with me. They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.
Jeffrey Heine:They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. So what does God promise? Renewal.
Jeffrey Heine:He doesn't guarantee answers, an easy out, a cure, comfort, immediacy, relief, expectations that we have, explanations, none of it. He offers renewal. Now this word renewal, the word renew, it means to exchange. So what is God exchanging here? He's exchanging our worn out strength for his unlimited strength.
Jeffrey Heine:He's not giving us just more of our cheap strength that will run out again. He's given us the real thing. So what God is practically saying to these Israelites, these downtrodden, hopeless, worn out people in exile, he's saying, look to me, wait for me, hope expectantly in me, and I will not only remind you of who I am, but I will actually give you myself. A. W.
Jeffrey Heine:Tozer points out the freedom in this arrangement. He says, how completely satisfying to turn from our limitations to a God who has none. So in verse 31, God gives three inspiring images of renewal. Flying majestically, running tirelessly, and walking steadily. Now these are each different, probably for different times and circumstances.
Jeffrey Heine:Right? And we're not gonna go into all of them, but the first one, this is a blatant miracle. Right? God takes this person who is this, maybe we have this image of someone who's running, who's collapsed on the ground in heat stroke. Right?
Jeffrey Heine:Someone who can't do anything for themselves. They're deeply exhausted. Maybe having emotional mental breakdowns. And he pulls them out on wings of eagles. He removes them even from their circumstances.
Jeffrey Heine:They glide away effortlessly, not even having to flap those wings. Right? That's beautiful. That's how God comes to his people at times. Sometimes he takes that worn out defeated person on the ground, and he gives them strength to run through their obstacles, to continue on right where they are, and to get through them and have boundless energy.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean for a runner, this is everyone's dream. Just keep running all the time, right? Takes a lot of work still, but God gives you what you need to continue. Sometimes, there's nothing flashy at all. You're still in the daily grind of a walk.
Jeffrey Heine:You're not moving fast through life. You might even wonder if you're moving at all. Are we crawling? Are we going backwards? Some days, you don't know if you're going to make it through that very day.
Jeffrey Heine:That's a relatable feeling for me. You might not even want to crawl out of bed. And then somehow, you made it through. And you wake up to a new day. And that is the Lord's miracle as well.
Jeffrey Heine:That he renews you day by day to grind, to trust in Him, to look to Him, to wait expectantly. We don't know what our renewal will look like, but we can depend on God. Lamentations three says that God's mercies are new every single morning. So this renewal, it's constant. It's ongoing.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not just a one time thing. And that's because our our waiting, our faith in him, is a constant ongoing thing. So we must each day depend on him again, just like the Israelites had to depend on God to provide manna for them. And then God provides every single time. Okay.
Jeffrey Heine:So Israel, the Israelites here, they probably hear this. And they're encouraged. Hey guys, God's with us. That's right. He cares.
Jeffrey Heine:He will renew us. But tomorrow, they're gonna wake up and they're still gonna be exiles. And the reality is we know they're gonna be exiles for a long time still. They're not getting out of that circumstance anytime soon. For each of us, we're gonna walk out of here and we are going to encounter again the same trials that we walked in with.
Jeffrey Heine:My son's still going to have cancer. Tuesday, I will take him to the hospital to admit him for his next round of chemotherapy. You will walk out and you might still not have a spouse. You might not have that child. You might not have that job.
Jeffrey Heine:You might have unfulfilled expectations and longings deep in your heart that hurt. So I want to ask us again the question that we started with in our waiting. What is our hope? It can't for any of us be simple relief from our circumstances. That's too cheap.
Jeffrey Heine:It's too short term. It's not promised. We must set our hope on Jesus. We must wait for him. We must live in that daily renewal that he offers.
Jeffrey Heine:Alright, so what does this look like practically? I wanna encourage you to consider the daily habits and rhythms that you set up in your life. To establish them in a way so as to receive those new mercies each day. I'm gonna give three practical tips. One, start the day with your eyes on God and not on your circumstances.
Jeffrey Heine:You're gonna wake up first thing in the morning. Maybe even you didn't get a good night of sleep, and they troubled you in your dreams. Right? But the first thing that's gonna confront you is those circumstances. Take your eyes off the circumstances and put them on Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:Same way Peter had to when he was walking on that water, the wind and the waves, they came up. Jesus said, look at me. That means we have to start our day in his word. We got to be reminded of who he is. The truth about who he is.
Jeffrey Heine:Then, when we are confronted throughout the day with how we feel, we are reminded with those truths because we prepared of who he is. We prepare in advance, so that we're ready when the trials come. Two, keep reminding yourself to keep your eyes on Jesus. So, I want you to think about it this way. If you're walking on the path of your day, I want you to put obstacles in your way that will force you to be reminded to put your eyes on Jesus, and not on your circumstances.
Jeffrey Heine:A practical way, write down some of those verses of truth that you started your day with. Put it on a piece of paper, and put it in your pocket, and when life feels like it's out of control, look at that verse of who God is. Or if that's too old school for you, put it on your phone as your screen saver or wallpaper. Because one of the devious things in waiting, how the enemy wants to get us, is to try to distract ourselves and numb ourselves from focusing on the Lord. And when we pull out that phone, you better believe that's way number one.
Jeffrey Heine:What if it has a verse of who God is on that? I'll take it even further. Memorize God's word. Memorize a few of those passages. Simple one line truths that remind us of who God is.
Jeffrey Heine:Let your friends remind you of truth. There are times where we cannot remember for ourselves, and we need others to speak into our lives and speak truth. Put every input in your life to be something that reminds you of God's character. The podcast you listen to, the music you listen to, all of your inputs. Number three, in moments when life goes sideways, when it really gets bad, remember God's past provisions.
Jeffrey Heine:Remember his provisions in your life. Recount to yourself, remind yourself the ways that God has provided for you. Remember who he is in his word to his people. Remember the famous stories of God providing. And most of all, look to the cross.
Jeffrey Heine:Because ultimately, we have hope in our waiting, because we can look to the cross. See Israel, they were waiting to be freed from their exile, from their captors. But what they really needed and what we need is to be freed from our greatest enemy, sin and death. And Jesus has already accomplished that. And so we can look back with great certainty and we can say, you wanna know what?
Jeffrey Heine:God has made an exchange, a renewal. He took my sin and death and he gives life and peace. And that is a renewal that we receive afresh every day. We remind ourselves of the gospel. Hear Jesus' words of this.
Jeffrey Heine:He says, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Friends, God's spirit renews us each day as we look to him. He gives us more of himself.
Jeffrey Heine:And here's really good news. Someday he's coming back, and he is going to redeem this whole world. Every broken thing will be made whole. Every wrong will be righted. Every unfulfilled desire, and longing, and expectation of your heart, he will fulfill in himself.
Jeffrey Heine:Amen. And we long for that day. We know that day's coming. We can get excited together and point to that day when he's gonna make all things new. But we don't just have to wait till then.
Jeffrey Heine:He's making us new every day. And so let's together as God's people, set our hope on that day, but let's also today look at him expectantly. Pray with me. Oh, Lord, you know we need your help. We are frail, we are weary, We are forgetful.
Jeffrey Heine:We are limited. You are none of those things. Thank you that you are our creator, our sustainer, and our savior. Thank you that you've made a way through the cross. Remind us of who you are.
Jeffrey Heine:Remind us that you give of yourself freely to your people, and help us receive it now through this table in your name. Amen. This is not a separate conversation about what we're about to do here. Guess what? This is God's renewal for us.
Jeffrey Heine:It is a reminder that he is the bread of life. He is the living water. He broke his body to make a body. When we take this bread and when we take this wine, we are reminded that God sustains us. He renews us.
Jeffrey Heine:He exchanges all that we are for all that he is. And so Jesus, on the night that he was betrayed, he gathered with his friends and he took the bread. And after blessing it, he broke it. And he said, this bread is my body broken for you. Take in remembrance of me.
Jeffrey Heine:And in the same way he took the cup and he said, this wine is the new covenant in my blood. Take it and drink. As often as you take this bread and you drink this wine, you do so in remembrance of me, and we longingly, expectantly, confidently wait for the day when he will return, and he will take that cup with us again in his kingdom. Amen? Today, we look for that day and we will take this together in joy as God's people.
Jeffrey Heine:People who have put their hope and faith in Jesus. No one comes to this table who's self sufficient. It's people who admit our great weakness and his great sufficiency. This meal is for all baptized believers. I encourage you to take time as you prepare.
Jeffrey Heine:Ask the Lord to meet you in your places of longing and waiting. Ask him to remind you of his all sufficiency, which we see through this picture of the bread and the wine. The way we will take is we will start in the balcony, and then we'll work our way from the back of the room. You can come down these center aisles and return along the sides. You can take off a piece of the bread and dip it in the wine, and you will be reminded of the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:You will hear the words. This is the body of Christ broken for you. It's the blood of Christ shed for you. And the only appropriate response is, thanks be to God. I'm gonna pray for this, and then our servers can come up.
Jeffrey Heine:And as you feel led in that order, you can come. Jesus, we thank you that you have met us in this place. We thank you for the reminder that you left us on your last night here on earth with us, that you are coming again. Thank you for what you accomplished through your life, death, and resurrection, and we long for your return. May we partake of these elements in a way that pleases you, Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:In your name, amen.
