Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
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Remember

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Opening Scripture

This evening we’ll be taking the Lord’s Supper or Communion as some call it. And exactly a month ago we took the Lord’s Supper and we looked at this text in 1 Corinthians 5 where Paul says the context here is dealing with a sinning church member, but he brings in the sacrifice of Christ as a grounds for which we ought to maintain the purity of the body of Christ. And he says, you’re boasting in verse 6, 1 Corinthians 5, 6, is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? A little meaning a little leaven meaning a little sin. Little sin in the church can defile the whole church is what he’s saying. Therefore purge R the old leaven that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened For indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast. What feast? Well, the Feast of Passover. Not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. And we looked at that time at the symbolism, the typology is called of the Lord’s Supper and of the Passover meal. Now, if you would go to 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul talks more about the Lord’s Supper, since we’re having it tonight, we’re going to talk more about it. In 1 Corinthians 11, he says in verse 23, for I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the same night,

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for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till he comes. Notice here twice in this passage that we are told that what we are doing when we take the Lord’s supper, what we are doing is we are remembering. Now if I said to you, Did you forget Jesus this week? You probably say no. Then why do we need to remember? What’s going on here? Remember what? Well, if you remember a month ago, which you don’t, when I talked about the Passover, God instituted that memorial before Israel came out of bondage. Yet after they came out of Egypt, and even after the first-generation died in the wilderness, and the second generation went into the Promised Land, they

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celebrated the Passover. The Passover was a remembrance meal. They were remembering something.

When you go back and read the Old Testament about the Passover, they were remembering God’s redemptive acts in Egypt and how he delivered them out of the House of Bondage and brought them into the Promised land. So they were celebrating annually what God had done for them through his redemptive power. So we likewise need to remember. So the Lord has given us a celebratory meal, a meal of

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as we call it, commemorated in the famous Da Vinci painting. The Last Supper was really the last Passover. It was the first communion. It was the

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Christ’s redemption in the new covenant. And so we take the Lord’s Supper in remembrance of Him.

I’ve told you this story before, but when my kids were younger, I want to talk about the kid that isn’t here. So you guys that are here, you’re good. So her name is Lydia. She’s not here. So anyway, This is the one thing that pastry kids hate more than anything I’m doing right now. But she had this habit of forgetting things. So, and I’m sure I’ve told this story before because it’s so, there’s so much to learn from it. But, so we’d say, you know, Lydia, You need to pick up your room or whatever. Then you can go peek an hour an hour an hour an hour and it wasn’t picked up. Lydia, let me tell you the pick up room. I forgot. And then. Lydia, you need to go brush the cats. You check an hour later. The cat’s done. Oh, I forgot. Hey, Lydia, did you take care of this? Oh, I forgot. And for a while there, I really thought she had a memory problem. You know what I mean? I have actually, maybe I gave her a lot of grace on that because I think I have a memory problem. I don’t have a good memory. A lot of people say it’s a diet coke. But what was I saying? See, I forgot. So then I remember this very distinctly, because I was

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She’s just not remembering. She’s not remembering on purpose. And that’s when not remembering becomes a sin, right? Because she was obligated to remember. And so we are obligated to remember. And God in his goodness toward us has given us this meal that when we gather, and we could do it weekly, and I’ve even contemplated that maybe we need to do it weekly, but at a least monthly. We would be reminded through very concrete physical symbols of what the New Covenant is really about. As Passover was the the feast, if you will, that commemorated the old covenant. So now communion is the feast to commemorate the new covenant and all that is implied. And when Jesus instituted it and when Paul reminded them of the original institution in both of those occasions, the word remember is used. Do this R to remember me. The implication being, we forget. And the fact is, we do forget. But we don’t even know we’re forgetting. we forget. So we need to be reminded, we who are even seasoned in the Christian life need to remember what is implied, we need to remember what we have in the new covenant. So tonight

Remember God’s Love

I want to encourage you to remember a few things. Can I do that? Yes? Before we take the supper because as we take it we’re doing it in remembrance. Amen. First we need to remember God’s love that sent his son into the world. John 3 16 says for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. If you are a Christian you, believe that tax and you believe that God sent his son not just for the world, but that God sent his son for you. That God so loved you. And so we need to remember as Christians that God loves us and God loves us not in a simple generic way, meaning he has positive feelings toward us or that he even likes us, which he does, But in order to appreciate the love of God, we need to understand that this love compelled him to give us that which was most dear to him, his only begotten son. You know, I love a lot of you, and I know I’m supposed to love all of you, but some of you I don’t know. I mean disadvantaging people. I mean, I really don’t know you that well. I mean, I guess I love you in a generic sense. But you know what I mean. people you know well and you do a lot for them and you make sacrifices for them. You call them your friends. But as much as I love you, I just can’t envision sacrificing one of my children for you. And I think that what we do is we say, well, you know, God’s God and he’s impassable, which means he doesn’t really have real emotions. And by the way, he knew Jesus was going to come back from the dead, so it really wasn’t that big of the deal anyway. And so we deprecate the love of God in giving us his son. But in fact, God gave us his son and we need understand that was the greatest act of love ever demonstrated in the eyes of the rational universe. There was no greater demonstration of love than the God gave us his son. If he had given us all of the hosts of heaven, all All of the angels had been annihilated on our behalf. I would have been nothing compared to the gift of his dear son. If God had given us the entire inanimate universe, if he had destroyed every planet that existed and every the galaxy and he said, I did this to demonstrate my love for you, that would have been nothing compared to giving us his dear son Jesus. because Jesus was and is the apple of his eye. And he loved and loves Jesus above the all things. And by giving us his son, he demonstrated the profundity and the depth of his love for us. And the amazing thing is that Jesus says in John 17, When he’s praying for the church. He’s praying a praying for us and he says to the Father, they need to know that you love them the way you love me. Have you forgotten that? I think some of us have. That you, being united to his son through the son’s death and resurrection, you are now the apple of his eye. God now loves you as he loves his son Jesus Christ. Do you remember that? That’s something to celebrate. Amen? The object of God’s profound-love. We’re also the object of His love.

And God has compassion on us. God feels for our brokenness and our lostness.

And because we are in this deplorable, lost estate, God has moved with compassion to act on our behalf.

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And so, go to Ephesians 2. There are many, many passages that talk about this, but in Ephesians 2, it says, It describes our our just as others. It says, but God who is rich in mercy, God saw us in our lost estate. He saw us in our deadness, our alienation from Him, our subjection to alien evil powers, and in this pitiable condition, in a condition of which we could not redeem ourselves, in a condition from which we could not save ourselves, God came to save us in the person of His Son because of His great mercy for us.

Not only did He remember our deplorable condition and our need for mercy, He remembered also our undeserving position. And He gave us not only mercy, but He gave us His grace. Remember, God’s grace means glared us that which we do not deserve. And we’re often fond of saying that what we deserve is nothing, but that’s not the biblical teaching. The Bible says that what we deserve is hell. That’s what the Bible says. What we deserve is judgment. It says that even more so, before we come to Christ, we’re under a sentence of condemnation, condemnation.

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you from our condition. It wasn’t because we were good that God had pity on us. It was because God chose to set His love upon us. God chose to save us, redeem us, because God is gracious. And God saved us by His grace. But God who is rich in mercy because of His great love with which he loved us. Even when we were dead in trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved.“ Grace. Verse 7, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. When we break the bread and we drink the wine, we’re celebrating God’s love for us. We’re celebrating God’s mercy for us. We are celebrating God’s grace for us, that although we deserve nothing, He gives us everything in His Son, Jesus Christ. Amen? But not only do we remember God, we specifically

Remember Jesus Christ

We remember Jesus Christ. We also need to remember not only the love of God, we need to remember the love of Jesus Christ Himself. And that Jesus gave His own self for us. So let’s run to Ephesians, look at chapter 5, if you will. Ephesians chapter 5. Paul is talking about marriage in 22 through 33, He can’t talk about marriage without talking about Jesus because Jesus and the church, or should I say a husband and wife are symbolic of Jesus and the church. Can’t understand the New Testament teaching on marriage if you don’t understand the New Testament teaching on Jesus and the church. So he says the husband in verse 23 is the, we’ll just read it, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. Why? is the head of the church, and he, Jesus is the savior of the body. He is the savior. And then he says, husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. The love of Jesus for his church led him to give, not just his time, He gave His very self, he gave his life, he laid it down on- on behalf of his Church. What greater gift could He give than himself?

Right? We think of the gifts that God gives us, that Jesus gives us. But the greatest gift he gave was the gift that he gave on Calvary. That was it. That was the epitome of what, what he could do for us. And as he said to the apostles right before he died, he said, there’s no greater love than this, than that a man would lay down his life for his friends. And he’s saying, I’m going to show you. He called him, friends. So he used to call you service, and I’m going to call your Because there’s no greater love than the love of Jesus, amen? And there’s no greater sacrifice that could, than they laid down his self completely pure and sin, completely undeserving of the scorn of men, completely undeserving of the punishment of God, and yet He laid it down on our behalf because of His great love for us. So we need to remember as we take the Supper the love of Jesus Christ and nobody in this room should ever, if you are a professing Christian, no one in this room should ever feel unloved because there is no greater love than that which has been shown to you and for you in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and Jesus died on that cross he saw you he saw you and when he died he didn’t die just for

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a generic mass he died for you. And that you must believe to be saved. Not believe that Jesus died for the world, not even believe that Jesus died for the church, you must believe that Jesus died for you. And if and when you believe that, then, and only then, are you truly saved. I have to say, I believe, I believe churches in America are full of people who believe a generic gospel, but they’re going to a generic hell. The generic gospel saved no one. I told you this story many times. I’m going to share it again. I was out witnessing one time, and I was preaching the gospel. This guy, and he was kind of one of those stiff kind of people and the young guy, but kind of a stiff young guy. I’m sure the gospel with him. Do you believe? And his response was, that is what my church teaches. But that’s not the question. The question is not not what does your church teach. The question is, what does your pastor preach? The question is, what do you believe? Because the teaching of the church doesn’t save you. The preaching of your pastor doesn’t save you.

The only thing that saves you is your own faith in receiving Christ. So when we talk about the love of Jesus Christ for his people, it is a personal

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Remember His Victory

It has to be done in faith. It has to be done believing. So the question is, do we remember? Do we really realize and contemplate and believe the love of Jesus Christ that when He died on the cross, He did that for me? And as my old pastor, my first pastor ever used to say, you need to believe that when Jesus hung on the cross, There was no one else in view but you. That if you were the only person alive, he would have done it for you. And if you believe that, then you believe. We need to remember not only the great. Love of Jesus Christ. We need to remember Jesus Christ’s victory over sin and the grave. Amen.

1 Corinthians 15, we could look at many verses, but we’ll just look at this one.

Because you see in the Bible, when the Bible talks often about the death of Jesus, but so often it’s assumed in the context that the death means not just the death, but the death, the burial, and the resurrection. The one led to the other. There’s no resurrection and if there’s no death, right? So often it will refer to the death of Jesus or the blood of Jesus and the resurrection is assumed or implied. Here in first Corinthians 15 Paul gives the gospel in a nutshell as we say. First Corinthians 15 1 Moreover brethren I declare you the gospel which I preached you which also you received and in which you stand by which also you are saved if you hold fast that word which I preached to you unless you believed in vain.” Well you’ve got to hold fast the word that he preached. For I delivered to you, first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture. Secondly that he was buried. And thirdly that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And then he goes on and he talks about how numerous people saw Jesus after after the resurrection and they confirm the reality of the resurrection by their testimony.

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He may have even been a prophet sent by God, but he was certainly not the Savior. Because the Savior has to save us, from that which is afflicting us, and we are afflicted with sin which leads to death. You see, the resurrection of Jesus, his victory over the grave, was the physical manifestation of his victory over sin. Because the power of the grave is sin. And if you can defeat the grave, you’ve defeated sin. Right? So Jesus Christ got the victory over sin and over death. And Paul gives a long defense and explanation of the resurrection, which we do not have time to look at, right? But toward the end of this chapter, He says in verse 51, Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall not all sleep, but we shall not all sleep, but we shall not all sleep, but we shall not all sleep, but we shall not all sleep, so whether dead or alive, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. So those that are in the grave will be raised, those who are alive and know them will be transformed in the wink of an eye. How fast is that? It’s a nanosecond, right? For this corruptible, meaning this mortal body, must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

So when we take the Lord’s Supper, we are remembering his victory over sin and over death. And as we contemplate this in the future, and we sang about it just a moment ago, this means that we will be transformed. We will be fully redeemed. we will receive a new body. There will be no more pain, no more suffering, no more tears, no more sickness, no more death. Somebody say, Hallelujah. No more. Because Christ has defeated all of the evil effects of sin, including death, which is the worst effect. We need to remember this. That we have a glorious future. We have a glorious hope because of the work of Jesus Christ. We need to lift our eyes off of the earth and place them in heaven. We need to be more heavenly minded than maybe will be more earthly good. Right? Paul tells us to set our affections on things above, not on things on the earth.

Some Christians haven’t thought of heaven in months, if not years. They are so immersed in the things of this world. So we’re heading toward heaven, and it’s going to be sooner than later, I believe. Thirdly, we need to remember Christ’s power over the devil. His power over the devil. We read Colossians last week, but we won’t read it for the sake of time. But the word of God tells us that when Jesus Christ hung on the cross, He was disarming the powers of darkness. But it’s to say that he was defeating the devil. The beautiful irony of God’s work. God uses spiritual jujitsu. Where you thrust at the enemy and you use it against them. That’s hard to say, I’m not going to say it again. So here the devil thinks he’s winning. I mean, do you understand that? Jesus Christ is being crucified. The devil is thinking he’s winning. He’s thinking, oh, I’m destroying the Holy One of God. I’m destroying the Son of God. I’m winning. I’m winning. And so the devil brings the Pharisees and the people and there’s this rush of madness and hatred toward Jesus and they beat him and they crucify him. And he’s buried in his disciples’ fleet. They’re despondent. We lost. Jesus lost. The devil won. But then the third day. The third day. In the very moment that the devil thought he was winning, he thought he was destroying Jesus, At that very moment, Jesus was a

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will never be touched by the devil. The redemption that we have in Jesus, as I’ve been attempting to remind you over the past few weeks, is a redemption that includes the fact that as Christians we have been delivered from the bondage of sin and the bondage of the devil. The devil has no authority over the believer. None whatsoever. Now you can grant him authority if you choose to, because Paul says you are the servant of whomever you serve. If you wanna serve the devil, you can do that. But you don’t have to do that. You don’t have to be in subjection to the evil one. Matter of fact, we are told to stand against him. We’re told to put on faith. We’re told to take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and we are told to wrestle or fight against principalities and powers. And if we stand against him in faith and in the word, we will be victorious.

Yeah, so the defeated Christian is an oxymoron. It’s a contradiction in terms and it. It’s the denial of communion. It is a profound forgetting of what Jesus did.

Now either Jesus did this stuff or he didn’t. And he did. And we need to remember it. So when we’re being tempted to sin, we need to remember. We could have victory over sin. When we want to give into self-pity, we need to remember that we are the object of God’s love and Christ’s self-giving love. We need to remember that we are not in bondage to the world. We need to remember everything that Christ has done for us through His cross.

Remember the Holy Spirit

We need to remember, this is my last point, that Christ has given us His Holy Spirit and and his spirit dwells in us. The Father gives the Son as a gift to us, but then the Son gives the Spirit as a gift to us. The Spirit in return gives us the Father and the Son. Everything that I have said this evening, everything that I’ve said for weeks about redemption that is symbolized in the Passover. Everything I’ve said, are you listening? That’s why preachers reiterate things like that. Everything I’ve said, I’ve said that about five times. Building up to something, aren’t I? Everything I’ve said is a dead letter to you apart from the Holy Spirit. Sounds good. It’s a dead letter when it comes to your life, if it is not made real to you through the Holy Spirit. There are people all over the place, for whom Christ has died, who either do not even know Jesus or if they know Him, or if they know Him, they’re living a defeated life. The fact that Jesus Christ conquered sin hasn’t changed their life. The fact that Jesus Christ has redeemed them from the power of the devil has not changed their life. Because these things are not real to them. What makes all of this real? When we talk about God’s love for us, When we talk about God’s mercy and God’s grace, when we talk about Christ’s love, when we talk about Christ’s victory, when we talk about Christ’s power, what makes all this experientially real to us? Not make it true because if it’s true, it’s true, right? If things are true, they’re true. They have an object of reality. It’s true. But it doesn’t mean it’s real in my life. It just means it’s true. Do you read the story recently about the couple that found ten million dollars in gold coins in their backyard? Amazing story. Yeah. Coins were dated from the 1840s or 50s from the big gold rush era. These people were millionaires and they didn’t know it. But what they put their hands on the gold, now they can experience the wealth that was always there. there, buried in their backyard. My friends, God has given to us his Holy Spirit, and he’s a lot more valuable than $10 million. The riches that he gives are more value than $10 million. And we have the Holy Spirit of God in us. And the Holy Spirit of God takes the riches of Jesus Christ and unfolds them to us. And if we want to know the reality of Christ’s love, if we want to know the reality of his victory over sin, if we want to know the reality of everything that Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross, it is made real in our experience. It is made real to our consciousness through the work of the Holy Spirit. spirit to his church was his parting gift. He said, it’s good that I went away. It’s good that I’m going away is what he said. It’s good for you. I’m leaving. Well, Jesus, don’t leaveve. I want to be with you, Jesus. It’s good that I’m going to leave because then I’ll not just be with you. I’ll be in you. I’ll be in you. And by being in us through his Holy Spirit, we can know His love in an experiential way. We can know His power in an experiential way. We can know His victory in an experiential way because His Holy Spirit dwells in us.

Do you remember? Or did you forget this week? Do you remember that you’re wealthy? Do you remember that you have power over sin? Do you remember that you have victory in your life? Do you remember that you’ve been redeemed from sin, from the world, from Satan? Do you remember you don’t have to live defeated? Do you remember that you don’t have to live sad? That you don’t have to live murmuring and complaining? You don’t have to live under any of that because the Spirit of God dwells in you. Do you remember? There’s gold coins in your backyard. You’re rich. You’re rich. So why are you living like a pauper? You’ve been watching Benny Hinn, Pastor. Nope. Just been reading my Bible. Just been reading my Bible. That Christian life is a life rich and full of Jesus Christ and everything He purchased through the Holy Spirit. It’s a full life. It’s a rich life. It’s not that there’s never battles. It’s not that there’s ever struggles. It’s not that there’s never tears. Oh no, I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that you can live a victorious, rich, full, abundant life in Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit because Jesus died so you could have that. That’s what you need to remember. It’s yours by covenant. It’s yours. And some of you need to get in the backyard and dig up the coins. Okay? Dig up the coins, because you’re not cashing in what God has given to you.

I know I said last verse, I always lie about that. Ephesians, you’re lying in the pulpit. This is not a good sign. Ep. Ephesians 3. Paul’s praying to the Father. And he says in verse 16, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might. How? Through his Spirit in the inner man. There’s the Holy Spirit, right? that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you being rooted and grounded in what? Rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the, with and the length and the depth and the height and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. to know the unknowable love of Christ. How do you know that which is unknowable? Because this is not a knowing which is simply a knowing to the reason, this is a knowing to the soul and the spirit. Okay? You can know Jesus died for you and not know his love. This is what’s called revelation knowledge. This is the knowledge that the Holy Spirit grants to the true believer that he sees now, not just with his mind, but he sees with the eye of faith. He sees in such a way that what is real is real. It’s not simply a doctrine, it’s not a Bible verse to be memorized. It is the thing that is most true, and it’s true in the believer’s experience. To know the unknowable love of Christ, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God. That’s the abundant life. That’s a description of it right there. This This is what God wants for his people, that they would be filled with all the fullness of God. Not the fullness of sin, not the fullness of doubt, not the fullness of sickness, not the fullness of all this other junk, not the fullness of bondage, but the fullness of God. This is what he wants for us. Somebody say amen.

Okay. This is what he wants for his people. And then he attacks on this prayer. Well, the whole thing’s a prayer. But, He says, Now to Him, meaning God, to do, exceedingly abundantly above, all that we ask our think according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church, by Christ Jesus, to all generations, Amen.

What He’s saying is that He’s saying that what what I just Christ really comprehending that which transcends reason, that which I’ve just told you about.

Guess what? God is able to make this true in your experience. God is able to do this through his power. Not only is he able, he’s exceedingly, abundantly, above all able to do it. I mean, Paul is being like just over the top. You get what I’m saying? I?

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Conclusion

I’m going to celebrate communion. Amen? So in conclusion, do you remember?

Or are you like Lydia? Oh, I forgot.

You sin. God says, do you remember? Oh, I forgot. You fall into self-pity. God says, do you remember? Oh, I forgot. the

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So you stop forgetting. He doesn’t just want a thank-you. He wants you to have the abundance but you have to remember. Amen.

Closing Prayer

Let’s stand together. Dear Lord Jesus, words are never sufficient to thank you for your self-sacrifice, to thank

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you for your victory, to thank you for your Holy Spirit.

Lord, words are never sufficient. But yet, you command us like to give you the sacrifice of praise. You tell us to do this. To offer spiritual sacrifice so Lord we’re going to do that in obedience word even though we know our praises are nothing compared to what you’ve done for us in what you’ve given to us. Lord, as we take the bread and the wine and bless it to our souls. May we take it, Lord, remembering. May we take them in faith, believing. May we take them in truth, experiencing. You Jesus. We remember you. We remember, your death. We remember, your burial. We remember, your resurrection. We remember, your victory. ,

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by grace even though we are so undeserving in ourselves. And I pray, Lord, that the work of Your Word and Your Spirit in our lives that we would truly know the love of Jesus Christ, the knowledge for passing love, the above reason love, the transcendent love of Jesus Christ. And I pray that for each one of us, and that by knowing that love, Lord, we would be filled, we’d be filled with your fullness. Lord, I pray that as we go away from you, keep us safe on the roads. Guard and protect each one of us, I ask. And bring us back next week to worship you and to praise you. Lord, throughout the week remind us. Throughout the week, may we remember your love, your mercy, your grace, your power, your victory, and your Holy Spirit. We ask it in Jesus’ name, for your glory alone. Amen.