Okay, brethren, let's go to John
chapter 1. John 1, and we'll be looking
at verses 40 through 51. Now, I want to call your attention
that last week we saw two disciples. One we know is Andrew, and the
other we believe to be John, the Apostle John, the younger
brother of James. And when they heard John the
Baptist speak, they were at least to some degree, disciples of
John the Baptist. They were following him and interested
in what he was declaring and what he signified. And they heard
him point out Jesus Christ. They heard him point out the
Lamb of God and were told in verse 37 that these two disciples
heard John the Baptist speak and they followed Jesus. And one of the things that I
was speaking of last week was just how we see the power of
our Savior right there to right there in delivering those two
men. They were seeking, the Lord had
caused them to seek Him, but they didn't know Him, they didn't
recognize Christ, they didn't know who He was, and they weren't
following Him. But as soon as they heard the
Word declared, we know that THE Word of God, they heard that
Word, that spoken Word declared, but the word of God, the Lord
Jesus Christ, brought that word to their hearts with power so
that they heard what John was saying, they received it and
believed it, and they followed the Lord Jesus Christ. And we know that that's what
the scripture teaches us in Romans 10, 17, that says, faith cometh
by hearing. and hearing by the Word of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Word of God who, with power, causes that preached and declared
and spoken word to be heard in spirit and in truth by the new
man formed in us, created in us by the Spirit of our God. And so because of this, because
of this work, they followed Jesus. and it's because the grace of
God was working in them. And then after following Christ,
we know they spent some time with Christ. They spent the evening
with him, and it seems quite likely even the night there.
He put them up and they were able to speak with him and fellowship
with him, to see him, to hear his words, to ask him questions,
and the next day, They were believers. They knew this man is unlike
any other man we've ever heard before. And they were excited
about that. And so that's really what these
final verses here of John chapter one, what they're showing to
us is that there was a lot of excitement, a lot of buzz among
the believers during this time, right? In the early days of of
the church and they were followers of Christ even based on what
little they had. Based on the little bit that
the Lord gave them at that time, it was sufficient for them to
be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. And our Lord tells us
in this text that, well, he gives them the promise, you're gonna
see greater things. You may know a little now, but
you're gonna see greater things than these. And so that's what
I titled this message, seeing greater things, seeing greater
things. Now, just think about that, how
exciting that must have been for, these early disciples. That had to be something. Everything that they had waited
for, that they had heard there in the synagogues or in the temple,
they were excited about what was happening now. They saw John
the Baptist and heard reports of him or saw him physically,
went and were baptized by him, and then they hear of Christ.
And it had to be quite amazing. You know, if you think about
it in our day, it would be like us seeing the sky roll back and
the Lord appearing in the sky and that immense excitement for
us, right? Or just even having an understanding
of what the Lord is declaring to us, you know, of signs of
the times, right? If we were able to accurately
see it and understand it, how exciting that is when you believe
the Lord is coming any moment now. He's going to arrive, and
the excitement you feel, well, that's what they're feeling,
because the long-expected Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, has now
come. And we're told in verses 40 and
41, one of the two which heard John speak and followed him was
Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. Well, he first findeth his own
brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messiah,
which is being interpreted the Christ. And so, right at this
point, Andrew isn't even one of the called disciples of Christ. He's not one of the 12 disciples
at this point. That comes a little bit later
when Christ specifically calls out 12 men to be his inner circle,
his close apostles or his disciples at this time. So Andrew hears
this, and based on the witness that he heard of John, And now
the witness that he's received of being with the Lord Jesus
Christ himself, we know that it's a simple message, but he
comes with that simple message saying, we found the Messiah. It's a pretty basic message. It's a pretty simple message
that he comes with. And so that's what he gives to
his brother. We found the Messiah. And so he takes him, we read
in verse 42, he brought him to Jesus, and when Jesus beheld
him, he said, thou art Simon, the son of Jonah. Thou shalt
be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a stone. And what he's calling him there
is Peter, right? The name Peter means a stone. rock right a stone and so he's
calling him Simon Peter that's his name now Simon Peter and
you know we the message is seeing greater things and Peter I'm
sure did not understand even what the Lord was saying to him
at this time, but we know that after the Lord was crucified
and buried and rose again, and after our Lord ascended up to
the right hand of the throne of God there, We know that he
sent forth his apostles and Peter being one of them. And so Peter,
he goes and with greater understanding now of the relationship, not
only that he has with his Lord, but with the brethren, right? With the brethren in the church,
he writes an epistle. And in that epistle, he's telling
the brethren, he's speaking that every one of us is made a stone
in Christ's hands, a living stone, right? And so he would write
over in 1 Peter 2, verses 4 and 5, He speaks to us who believe,
saying to us, to whom coming as unto a living stone. That's 1 Peter 2, 4, and 5. You're
coming, you that come to Christ, in whom we are brought to the
Father, you're coming unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men,
but chosen of God and precious. Ye also, as lively stones, are
built up as spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. And so Peter
didn't understand what he first was hearing, but as the Lord
blessed him and taught him and revealed the gospel to him, he
saw greater things that we're all. living stones in Christ's
hand and we're all being made up of that church, that building
of God that he creates. We're brought to the living stone
and in him we're alive and have fellowship with our God. All
right, so next we come to Philip. Next we go to Philip and it says
there in verse 43, the day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee
and findeth Philip and saith unto him, follow me. And you know what happened? Philip
followed him. Philip followed him based on
that word. So that Philip was moved by the
power of Jesus Christ based there on that word. And you can say,
well, maybe Philip, you know, heard him another day or saw
some things that provoked him to do that. But I don't know
about that. But all I do know is that John
felt that it was sufficient to simply say, that Christ said
to him, follow me, and Philip followed him. And certainly we're
going to get to it in a moment when he finds Nathanael, his
good friend. Nathanael didn't know anything about this Jesus
of Nazareth yet. He hadn't seen him. He hadn't
heard of him speaking. So this is very early. And yet we hear, we see this,
this, this testimony that our savior by his own word is able
to affect such power, such a living faith in his people, just from
two little words, follow me. And And that's what we see. It
says in Psalm 110, which is speaking of the Messiah, it says, thy
people shall be willing in the day of thy power. And it was
the day of Christ's power for Philip, right? And so when Christ
came, he spoke that word and sent it forth by the power and
glory of the word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so We
don't think, I don't think we think much of Christ's word,
typically. We don't really think much of
the preaching of the word. Most men and women don't think
much of the preaching of the word, and they'd rather just
avoid it altogether. But this is where our Lord meets
with us, and he teaches us and declares his word and we never
know what day is the day of our salvation and certainly we that
believe we never know when the Lord's going to answer the questions
in our heart and reveal something that's troubled us or hindered
us or caused us to stumble for many years we don't know when
he's going to bless that word to our heart and draw us nearer
to himself there in the preaching of the word But we know that
our Lord's word, those simple words, were able to raise a dead
man from the grave. Lazarus was raised from the dead
on just a few words. Lazarus, come forth. Just those three words, Lazarus,
come forth. And we're told in John 11, 44,
he that was dead came forth, even though he's bound hand and
foot with grave clothes, and his face was bound about with
a napkin, yet he came forth. He heard Christ. He was dead,
literally dead, and Christ's word raised him from the dead.
And that's a picture of him raising us from spiritual death, which
he accomplishes in us by his word. We hear the voice of the
shepherd, and his sheep hear his voice and follow him. All
right, and so that's what happened. And Jesus saith unto them, loose
him and let him go. And we know that's speaking to
the church, right? Who provides for a pastor that
the gospel may go forth so that the local church with the pastor
preaching the gospel and you brethren supporting this work
here, that's the loosing of the grave clothes of the people that
the Lord brings here to hear his gospel, to be fed, and nourished,
and strengthened, and healed, and encouraged. The Lord does
that. Through the preaching of the
gospel, those grave clothes come off. They come off us, right? All our religious baggage starts
to drop off, and we let those things go, looking unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith, all right? So Philip followed
the Lord, And even though it doesn't appear to be as dramatic
as Lazarus' calling from the Lord, but it's every bit as dramatic,
it's every bit as powerful and glorious that he was saved spiritually
from just the Lord speaking those words, follow me. All right,
so Philip now, verse 44 and 45. Philip was of Bethsaida, the
city of Andrew and Peter, and Philip findeth Nathanael and
saith unto him, we have found him of whom Moses and the law
and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. So, Like Andrew, here's Philip
with very little understanding, very limited knowledge of Christ,
but hopeful, believing, having seen and heard him say, follow
me, he's excited. And so he goes forth and finds
his dear friend, Nathaniel, who by the way, we believe is Bartholomew,
right? The son of Ptolemy or Ptolemy
or Ptolemy. That's Nathanael and one of the
apostles, we believe. So he goes and finds Nathanael
to tell him the good news. And so he's speaking of this
Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. But the thing that seems
to have interested Nathanael isn't some man, some Jesus of
Nazareth, the son of Joseph, but the fact that Philip says,
we found him of whom Moses, in the law and the prophets, did
write. And so the Lord would use that
word there because Nathanael obviously knew the scriptures.
This was meaningful to him because he could think, well, Moses wrote
of the seed of woman. that the promised seed of woman
that should come and crush the serpent's head. And Moses wrote
of God's promise to Abraham that in him, in his seed, all the
nations of the earth should be blessed. And Moses wrote of Shiloh,
who should come from Judah, who would gather all the Lord's people. to one, right, into one, into
one body, right? Moses wrote of that prophet,
right, who the Lord would raise up among the brethren like unto
himself that were to hear him, were to hear that prophet. And
so Nathanael was a scholar of the scriptures, and he knew the
scriptures well. And so Philip said what he knew
he had to say. He didn't know much, but he said,
I know exactly what to say. This is the one whom Nathanael's
been seeking and talking to me about. This is him. We found
him. And so Nathanael says unto him, verse 46, can there anything
good come out of Nazareth? And Philip saith unto him, come
and see. So Nathanael, being a scholar,
knows that Messiah is to come from Bethlehem Ephrata. All right, down there in Benjamin
near Jerusalem there in Judah. All right, but he knows this,
and he's thinking, well, we're in Galilee, which is largely
despised by the Jews. And then out of Galilee, he comes
from Nazareth. And Nazareth is a nothing. There's
nothing much to it. So it's even doubly despised. But Philip answers his question
perfectly. You know, he may not have been
able to solve every question, every puzzle, every riddle that
Nathaniel might throw at him, but he answered it perfectly
just saying, look, I don't know all the answers to your questions,
but come and see. Come and see. And that should
be a comfort to any of us, right? A lot of us, we don't say much
because we're afraid we're going to get asked a question that
we don't know the answer to. right, that we're going to be
stumped or challenged, and so we think, you know, it's better
off for me to say nothing. But we see here how simply this
understanding was of these men, and yet they said what they could.
And ultimately, if they stump you, and you don't know, just
say, come and see. I don't know what to tell you,
but just come and hear what I'm hearing. Listen to this one,
hear what Christ is saying. He's exalted and praised and
glorified. Just come and hear him. I can't
answer all your questions, but he can. The Lord can do it. So preach him. And so that's
the same way we encourage our friends and our family. Just
come and see, listen, hear what the gospel our Lord declares
in the Gospel. So, Nathanael comes, and we're
told in verse 47, Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him and saith of him,
Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile. And what the
Lord's saying is Nathanael is a sincere and honest man. He
really wants to know the truth. He's not saying Nathanael's not
a sinner, because all of us are sinners. If he wasn't a sinner,
he'd have no need of a Savior, right? He wouldn't need to be
saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, but Nathaniel is honestly seeking
truth and he was seeking the Lord. He wanted to know the salvation
of God and so We know this because the Lord drew him. In spite of
his religion, in spite of the things that make all men stumble
and fall in man-made religion, which is around all of us, in
spite of all that, the Lord drew him. He delivered him out of
that deadness of man-made religion and idolatry that so many thousands
and millions perish in all the time, right? And so Nathanael
says unto him, verse 48, Whence knowest thou me? And Jesus answered
and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou
wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. And it's that word that
was made effectual to Nathanael's heart. Now, we don't fully, we're
wondering, well, what's so special about him saying that under the
fig tree? Well, I don't know for certain,
but it certainly had an effect on Nathaniel. I mean, perhaps
Nathaniel had just been praying that morning there under the
fig tree. and just seeking the Lord, begging him, Lord, show
me thy glory, show me thy grace, teach me, Lord, reveal, send
your Messiah. Who knows, maybe he was preaching,
I mean, praying that because when the Lord said it, he was
blown away, mind blown, just amazed that Christ should see
him there, should know he was there. Because we don't even
know that Philip found him there. He found Nathaniel, maybe walking
in the village, maybe back at home, maybe going through a field
somewhere. But Nathaniel felt like no one could know where
he was. And yet that word was made powerful. was brought home
to his heart, given to him with power. And so it's because Christ
is almighty God. He's omniscient. He knows all
things. He knows the questions in your
hearts because he's the one that puts those questions there in
your hearts, right? He's the one who stirs you up
and causes you to seek him. And so our Lord, He does that,
right? It's a picture of what he does
for us, how he speaks to our hearts, right? He knows the things
that we need to hear. we will hear, and honestly, there's
probably a lot of things that we hear that we don't hear, you
know. We're listening, kind of, but we don't always hear a lot,
but there are certain things that the Lord takes and brings
to your heart very powerful, very powerfully, even in the
midst of struggling, even in the midst of not hearing, or
in the midst of distractions. I believe He's able to cause
you to hear, to to effectually bring that word that you in the
time of his mercy and grace he causes you to to hear it and
so that's what he does for each of us he reveals his gospel in
our hearts he reveals our need of him to us he shows us that
we're sinners and he shows us that christ is the savior and
that he came for me and died and shed his blood for me all
right and so He does that, and he says now in verse 49, Nathanael
answered him and said unto him, Rabbi, thou art the son of God,
thou art the king of Israel. And I'm sure Nathanael still
had questions, right? I'm sure not every question was
answered in that one little engagement, but he saw enough to know that
this is indeed the Christ, and I need to hear him more. I wanna
know more, Lord, teach me. teach me more. And so, that's
good. Especially, you know, those of
us that come out of religion, we then have so many questions
about the truth of Christ. You know, especially we that
are marching under the banner of Christ and exalting Him and
preaching and declaring Christ every time we meet. That's hard
for people in religion to hear. They don't understand why we
preach Christ and glory in Him to such a degree because for
them religion is about me. What do I need to be doing? Tell
me about me. Whip me. Beat me with the law. Motivate me with the scriptures. Tell me more about me. That's
what we want to hear in religion because that's what religion
tells us. And so when someone comes preaching
Christ and glorifying Christ, it's confusing. They're like,
I thought this was all about me. I thought these scriptures
were about me. But you keep seeing Christ in
these scriptures and declaring Him. And so it's hard for a religion
to hear. And so they have so many questions. But through the preaching of
the gospel, our Lord opens our hearts, he lifts off the veil
of blindness, he delivers us from our death and our shackles
and makes us to see him, to see that he is our light and life
and our hope and our joy. And that's because the word tells
us in Hebrews 4.12 that the word of God is quick and powerful
and sharper than any two-edged sword. All right, we're speaking
of Christ who makes his spoken and written word and preached
word sharp, effectual, right? And that two-edged sword is,
doesn't matter which way you hear it, the Lord's able to cut
you, to divide and make you to hear and to know what you have
need of. hearing. It's sharpened to its sword,
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and
of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart." And so our Lord is able to to answer
your questions, and and he does and will, but seek him upon the
testimony that you have, right? Don't wait for every question
to be answered before before you wholeheartedly seek Him and
believe Him and trust on Him, take that which He's given you
and believe Him and ask Him for more and He'll show you. He'll
reveal Himself to you that seek and you that ask, He'll answer
you. And you that knock, He'll open
the door to you. He'll provide for you and answer
the questions that He's given to you in your heart. Just come
and see. All right, so then our Lord says in verse 50 and 51,
Jesus answered and said unto him, because I said unto thee,
I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? Thou shalt see
greater things than these. And he saith unto him, verily,
verily, I say unto you, hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and
the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."
And so, you know, Nathaniel was able to see
great right Nathaniel did see greater things this was just
the beginning and Andrew saw greater things and Peter James
and John and Philip, they saw greater things and, you know,
like them, we're excited when we first hear of Christ, right?
We're joyful and glad and excited and all things are new. But the reality is when we're
first hearing these things, it's a lot of it is head knowledge.
We're coming to a doctrinal understanding of things. We're getting a book
learning on things. But the Lord, His promise that
we shall see greater things is to us as well. And what He does
is He grows us in grace. He grows us through various trials
and hardships. He grows us through laboring
together as sheep. The most growing that you do,
right? A lot of times when we get annoyed
with brethren, yet the most growing that we do is being put through
those trials and temptations. I believe that we grow a lot
more even in the midst of hardships and trials that could arise from
just being with one another, more so than when we're alone
in a house you know, just listening to a CD or a tape, you know,
a DVD or something like that, because it's being tested, it's
being tried, it's being proven to you what the Lord is saying.
right? If you're all alone and no one's
bothering you, there's no real test or verification of that
word to you, but when you're with one another and you're seeing
you're part of a local assembly where the Lord is doing a work
in the midst of the people, you're seeing what he does and so you're
learning that it's coming to you with a greater understanding
even though it's hard on us it's difficult it has its difficulties
and challenges yet the Lord does that because what he does is
through those trials right and through trials with one another
not just all hardships but even just the feeling that we have
for one another right when one another suffers when one another's
sick or or hurting when another is joyful and glad. We're feeling those things because
we care, right? And we're taught to care more
and we see, you know, how the Lord takes us from a cold, dead
heart, right? And brings us to, he warms us
up to care, to have a thought, you know, for our brethren and
to remember them in prayer. And so he teaches us, we see
these things greater more and more because we go through these
things. And then it takes that word that's up here, and he brings
it down into the heart, where we really experience it. And
if we're puffed up, the Lord has a right, and we're not understanding
another, if someone sins and we judge them, the Lord and his
wisdom and power is able to make us, like we come into sin. He
allows us to fall so that we see, wait a minute, I'm just
as capable of sinning as my brother is capable of sinning, right?
And so we're humbled in that way, and then we feel it, all
right? And we feel the shame and the
sorrow for us, and we realize I'm weak, and how easily I'm
fooled, and how hard I can be. how easily I get hurt by others,
right? We're all like that. We all are
more sensitive than we probably like to think we are. We all probably have a thinner
skin than we'd like to admit. But when we see it, we can get
angry with ourselves about it and just how weak we are. But
seeing all that, the Lord is showing us greater things, greater
things of His grace and love and how He bears long with us,
because at first we're quick to be short with our brethren,
but as he's long and patient with us, then we begin to be
more long-suffering and patient with our brethren. And so he'll
take us who have a knowledge of something, a puffed-up head
of knowledge, and he moves that down to the heart through the
experience, and he takes that, which is at the moment just a
dead letter, Religion right and he makes it a living faith in
us, and he does that it's it's what what he does and none of
us are Accepted from it none of us can say you know to another
yeah, you needed that yeah I need it especially if you say that
you definitely need it yourself because you don't you know everything
to you is just a head knowledge and the Lord's bringing it to
to our heart, and he's bringing us to the lively stone as living
stones and Otherwise, we're just dead stones. We're nothing at
all. And so, it becomes that living
faith rather than that book knowledge. So, you think about Martha's
experience. When Christ came, her brother
was dead, and Christ comes and he says, I forget exactly how
he worded it, but he spoke of the resurrection. saying that
he's the resurrection and the life. Because she had said, Lord,
if you had been here, my brother had not had died. She knew that
he had power to heal of sickness. And he says, I'm the resurrection.
And she's like, oh, I know the doctrine of the resurrection,
that in the day he shall be raised from the dead, but I'm hurting
now. My brother's dead now, today. Lord, what about now? And the
Lord says, Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth
in me shall never perish, but I shall raise him up from the
dead. And then when he raised Lazarus
up, when he called forth Lazarus, do you think her understanding
of who Christ is, the resurrection of life, do you think her understanding
was much greater? Do you think she saw greater
things then? That knowledge, that doctrinal
knowledge of the resurrection became real. Wow, Lord, you literally
are life you are the resurrection you give life to whom you will
as you sovereignly please to do and so she saw it and was
transformed in that hour and that's what the Lord does for
us with these truths that we have you know this understanding
of who sovereign God is who saves whom he will when he will we
know that in doctrine but as we see him delivering us That
it's not my good works, it's not my works of righteousness
that save me, it's not even my works of righteousness that keep
me in good standing with Him. But He overcomes all my offenses. He overcomes me in all things
so that I see that all my salvation is the Lord. And as He shows
us that, that's where in practice we become more patient and kind
and thoughtful of one another. And so the Lord, that's what
he's doing. That's the experience he's giving
us. We shall see greater things.
We shall know that as Jacob's ladder, with the angels ascending
and descending that Jacob saw, because that's what he's referring
to there to Nathaniel. That's where we see that all
the spiritual blessings I receive of God is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we see that all my acceptance
with the Father, holy, righteous God, is because of and in the
person of Jesus Christ. When I pray, there's nothing
special about my prayer, but my hope and my thought, my understanding
is that He takes His His sacrifice, which is the incense by which
those prayers ascend up to the Father and are heard by Him. Otherwise, God doesn't hear sinners. He doesn't hear sinners, but
He hears Christ, His Son. He hears the new man which is
created in Christ. He hears the groan of His Spirit
and our fumbling words by which we don't know what to pray, but
He takes them and by His grace, He prays for us what needs to
be prayed and so that we're comforted and helped and forgiven and aided
by the Spirit. So he does that. So I that's
the greater things that we see. He takes that from that simple
little acorn, you know, little tiny nut of little seed of faith
that he gives, that little tiny bit of understanding that we
have, and he's able to show us greater things, right? To take
us from just a carnal religious knowledge to a living faith,
to a hope and a joy in him. So I pray that's what he's doing
for you, and trust he is, just as I pray he does that for me
as well. So I pray that the Lord bless
that word to your heart forever. All right, let's close in prayer. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father, for your mercy and your grace, Lord, that you should
take such feeble men and women of clay and that you are able
to take the smallest, meanest of things and make them fruitful
and profitable in your kingdom. Lord, that you, by your power,
are able to bring forth fruit from us, Lord, who by ourselves
are nothing, but Lord, by your spirit rooting us in the vine,
Lord, that we bear your fruit and are made alive in you and
that more and more as you grow us, we see greater things. And
I pray, Lord, that you would Indeed, bless us in that manner,
that you would cause us to grow in this grace and knowledge,
not in head knowledge, Lord, but that you would make all these
things which we've heard, that we would know you more and more,
and that we would see that testimony of your love and grace borne
out in our fellowship with one another. It's in Christ's name
that we pray and give thanks. Amen. You know, I was just thinking
that when I was in high school, I was in Spanish class. And because I was a bad child
and didn't always go to school, I failed Spanish 2 a lot. And I had to repeat Spanish 2
over and over and over again, three times I think it was. And
then I went to college and I went through the same course again.
So I heard a lot of words. I knew a lot of verbs. right? And I knew just, I had a lot
of vocabulary there. And then one day I got this,
I didn't know how to speak it though. I couldn't put together
a sentence in Spanish for the life of me. I just, I knew tons
of words, but I didn't know how to speak it or communicate in
the language for all those years. And I remember I got a course
on speaking Spanish, and it was such an effective course that
I was getting that, like suddenly I understood, oh that's how you
put together a sentence in Spanish. And then all that vocabulary,
all those verbs and all those words I knew from Spanish, because
I heard it for so many years, all became effectual to me. I could speak it now. I could
say a lot of things well beyond that course, because the thing
I was missing was how to speak it. And so the Lord, I think
that's a good illustration. I wasn't thinking of it at the
time of the message, but I think it's a good illustration how
the Lord takes, by experience, He takes what we know up here
and don't know how to use it or what it really means, and
He makes it effectual, once he reveals it, once he shows us
and gives it to us, right, then we suddenly can speak it really
well to our brethren. So I hope that illustration helps
you. All right, well, today is, well,
today we're gonna take the Lord's Supper. So for today, brother,
Carl and Ken, would you come up? And Carl, would you? Just pray and then hand them
out and then we'll take it together. Lord, we thank you for this time
together. And we thank you for the picture
of the wine and the bread that we're about to take. And we ask
that you direct our eyes look to the sinless life pictured
in the brand and the shed blood of our Lord and comfort our hearts
and encourage us. We ask this. I'll be reading from 1 Corinthians
11, and Paul writes in verse 23,
I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you,
that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed,
took bread, And when he had given thanks, he break it and said,
take, eat. This is my body, which is broken
for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And verse 25, after the same
manner also, he took the cup, and when he had supped, saying,
this cup is the New Testament in my blood, this do ye as oft
as ye drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat
this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till
he come. If you close this in a hem, then
we'll be dismissed. We'll close with number 106 out
of the softback, 106 Heavenly Bread and Wine. 106. Bread of heaven on thee I feed,
for thy flesh is meat indeed. Ever may my soul be fed with
the true and living bread, day by day with strength supplied
through the life of him who died. Thine of heaven Thy blood supplies,
This blessed cup of sacrifice. Tis Thy wounds my healing give,
To Thy cross I look and live. Thou my life, O let me be, Rooted,
grafted, built on Thee. You know what you were saying
about being part of a local assembly? It's really true because I remember
when we were still sitting at home, Greg said that in a message
that people know I've met believers who wasn't at home, very immature. And if I didn't understand it
at the time, I just thought,