And verse 21, and yes, it may seem that we are
stuck here
in verse 21, but this is such an important
section
that we are going to get into that I wanna lay
one more layer of foundation before we get
into this next
set of verses.
Now, ladies, you're gonna be first starting in
verse 22,
but don't fret, right behind you will be the
phallus,
and they get it worse as you will see starting
in verse 25.
So everybody is going to get a good round
socking of conviction in the verses ahead,
but just for context, let's just start reading
,
I guess one more time, verses 18 to 21,
just to put us back to where we were last time
we were here beginning in verse 18,
and do not get drunk with wine, for that is
dissipation,
but be filled with the spirit,
speaking to one another in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs, singing and making melody
with your heart to the Lord, always giving
thanks
for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ,
who God even the Father, and be subject to one
another
in the fear of Christ.
Now, last time we were in this text, we said,
that the foundation of all Christian family
success
and marriage blessing all starts in that text
that I just read, there's no gimmicks,
there's no self-help books that we need here.
Before we talk about the wives in verse 22
and the husbands in verse 25 and the children
in chapter six,
there is a necessary foundation that must be
laid
for all those relationships,
and that foundation is you must be spirit
filled,
number one, singing, and remember we made
application,
joyful, saying thanks and submissive to one
another,
subject to one another, that's the four points
of verse 18 to 21 that we just read.
And if you remember, we drilled down last time
into the subject of necessary mutual
submission
to one another that has to be there
that we find there in verse 21, look at it in
verse 21,
and be subject, it's also translated,
submit, same meaning, same word,
to one another in the fear of Christ.
Remember I told you this, that's all
Christians,
towards all other Christians.
That's both other Christians in your natural
family
and other Christians in the family of God.
We are to be submissive to one another.
And when you combine that with being spirit
filled,
joyful, and always giving thanks and all
things,
you then have the necessary spiritual
foundation laid
for all of these Christian family
relationships
that we're fixing to study in this text,
husband's wives, parents, children.
The necessary building blocks for a solid
marriage
contain the main idea behind mutual submission
to one another.
And what does that remember?
Pursuing the needs of others rather than your
own
or looking at the needs of others
as more important than your own.
And that most goes for your spouse.
Remember, selflessness from both spouses is
the key.
And we're gonna get into all of that in the
days ahead
or Sundays ahead.
Having that mutual submission that cares about
the other
from both people.
And in addition, two people, individually who
are living
their lives first and foremost for the glory
of God.
And then both spouses together understanding
and living out the main purpose of the
Christian life
together in their marriage.
And that is to bring glory to God
and to enjoy him forever.
You see where I'm at?
And marriage is the place where you most live
out your Christianity, right?
Think about it.
Because of being together all the time
under every conceivable kind of circumstance
and every trial and difficulty, the home,
your marriage is the truest test of your
spiritual life.
It really doesn't have anything to do at all
with man-centered techniques and therapy
and human marital advice.
It has everything to do with your relationship
with God
and together your relationship with God.
When both spouses have that in order again,
listen carefully, marriage will not be perfect
because both are battling daily their flesh,
but I promise you it will be the best that it
can be
on this earth, this side of heaven.
So again, that makes the family, the home,
the most significant place where you live out
your faith
and that statement should convict everybody in
here
'cause at the house is where it gets real,
right?
I bet you all of you have heard Christie say
at one time or another, boy,
if you could see a video camera at our house,
huh?
Because that's where it gets real.
That's where life is lived out
in the most rubber meet the road kind of way.
And if we're gonna have any real success
with God's way of being married,
it all has to start with that spiritual
foundation
that verses 18 to 21 that we just read are
teaching us.
Apart from that, I'm telling you,
there's gonna be trouble in the marriage.
There's gonna be conflict.
And the reason for why I'm placing such an
emphasis
on this is because this is where it all begins
.
This is really where it all succeeds
and this is where it all breaks down.
Without this foundation in your marriage,
I'm telling you, you are headed for trouble.
And if you only have one person in the
marriage
with this foundation, that's rough.
And if both do not,
then marriage is miserable or can be very
miserable.
At least with one, you have some hope.
And again, the sin of selfishness
is at the root of most conflicts in marriage
and the workplace and anywhere.
When people don't get their way.
Mining needs are not being met, right?
When personal pride and personal self-fulfill
ment
are the prime motivators in one or both
parties
in the marriage relationship,
I'm telling you, conflict is sure to come.
And this is just as true, folks, in Christian
marriages.
And why is that?
It's because we are all so influenced
by the fallen world that we live in
as well as our own struggles in the flesh.
We can fall into the exact same type of
problems.
With the current rate of divorce and the
dysfunction
that exists in families,
conflict is a word that is almost synonymous
with the words marriage and family today.
We hear constantly about married men
who are oppressive and insensitive
and chauvinistic, who are abusive and selfish
and uncaring toward their wives.
And then on the other hand,
we hear about married women who are overbe
aring
and nagging and complaining
and never in any way shape or form wanting to
submit
to their own husbands.
In fact, it's just the opposite,
wanting to run the show at the house.
Well, why is this?
Well, the general answer,
the quick answer of course is one little word
with three letters, sin, right?
And I think it will be very instructive
for us to go back to the beginning
to see how all this started.
And that brings us all the way back to Genesis
chapter three.
After the disastrous fall in the garden,
when God goes through pronouncing those curses
upon man
after the fall in verse 16,
he comes to the curse upon the woman.
And since we're starting with the ladies,
that's where we're gonna start here.
Look at what it says to the woman, he said,
"I will greatly multiply your pain in child
birth.
In pain, you will bring forth children."
Now, is that true 99% of the time?
No, that's true 100% of the time.
And there's a reason for that, this curse.
Yet, your desire will be for your husband
and he will rule over you.
Now, as a result of the fall,
the curse came upon the whole human race,
which dramatically altered the original design
of God.
Before sin entered into the picture,
there was a perfect union between Adam and Eve
,
no conflict at all between them ever.
But when sin came into the picture,
along with it came chaos and conflict,
which remains with us to this day.
In fact, there were several aspects of this
curse
and those who consider the fall in the garden
just a metaphor that didn't actually really
happen,
they cannot escape the fact of all these
aspects,
perfectly describe our experience as human
beings.
It's not a coincidence.
Number one, as a result of sin,
there was a separation between God and man.
Man was thrown out of the garden
and the natural, free and full communion
that man had with God was at that moment ended
.
And that's how we all come into this world now
as a result of the curse, naturally separated
from God.
There was also a separation between man and
nature.
No longer would nature yield up its bounty so
freely
to man without any effort on his part.
Now he had to go, the Bible says,
by the sweat of his brow, till the soil
and work very hard to get what once came so
freely.
And then thirdly, the curse brought about
a separation between man and woman.
And the key part of the curse
that I wanna bring your attention to today
is at the end of verse 16 in this curse upon
the woman.
Look at it again.
Yet your desire will be for your husband
and he will rule over you.
Here is where the problem began.
First look at this husband part at the end of
verse 16.
This is saying, woman, he will rule over you.
The word for rule here means reign.
It's a word of sovereignty.
So the curse said to the woman
that man as a result of the curse,
woman is going to dominate you.
And then look what it says right before this
in verse 16 to the woman.
Yet your desire will be for your husband.
Now what in the world does that mean?
Does that mean that she will desire him
physically?
I don't think that's a curse.
I mean, it certainly wasn't before the fall.
It was already true
that they desired one another physically
before the fall.
And it's also not that she would desire him
as protector and provider.
I mean, that too already existed
from the very beginning.
She was designed to compliment him
as he was in authority.
She was designed as the weaker vessel, but
naturally,
naturally for her, it was a delight for her
to have her husband care
and protect her before the fall.
She loved the role that God gave her.
So all of that already existed.
And it's not part of the curse.
But what your desire will be
for your husband means here in Genesis 3.16,
is that her desire now after the fall
would be to control the man.
That was not the original desire to dominate
the man.
Now that word for desire to prove this to you
is the same original Hebrew word
that's found over in Genesis 4.7.
And I want to show you this.
This word means to control, to master.
Genesis 4.7, middle of the verse,
you remember the story of Cain and Abel.
Cain slew his brother and murdered him.
And God is talking to Cain here.
And he says, "And if you do not do well,
sin is crouching at the door and it's desire."
See that word?
Same word is for you, but you must master it.
Same word there for desire,
meaning sin wanted to dominate Cain.
It wanted to rule him.
It wanted to force him to do certain things.
So part of the curse is that the woman
no longer willingly, eagerly, naturally
welcomes her role as being submissive to her
husband.
Now there's something in her.
After the fall that wants to control the man,
now her natural desire is to usurp the
authority
that her husband has been given by God.
And that is exactly what Eve did when she sin
ned.
When she was tempted by Satan,
the first thing she should have done
was gone to her husband and sought his wisdom.
And Satan knew that and that's why he isolated
her
and got her by herself and deceived her.
She got out of order.
She acted independently.
And outside of the loving submission
that should have been as a part of her
commitment
to her husband as a result,
she led the whole human race into sin
and we've been paying the price ever since.
In her sin, she exercised authority over the
man
and took things into her own hands.
And part of the curse now for all time after
that
is the innate depravity in all women that
seeks control.
And don't forget, who was held most
accountable
for this?
Not her.
She was not.
It was Adam.
Why was Adam?
If she was the one who did it,
why was Adam held most accountable
because of his role of authority
that God had designed to be in the position
of authority over her?
Go read Genesis three after Eve sinned
and they're hiding themselves in the garden.
Remember?
And God called out not to Eve.
Go read your Bible.
Call to the man.
Where are you?
He wasn't talking about geography.
He knew where he was geographically.
Where are you, Adam?
Now that you've disobeyed.
So Adam was held most responsible because of
his role.
This is why there's always,
does any of this sound familiar to you for one
thing?
But this is why there's always been a women's
liberation
movement or at least the reality
in the natural heart of every woman.
And that's why there's always been male chau
vinism
in the natural heart of every man as a result
of the curse.
We're born with this.
And it's always gonna be this way until the
king returns.
The natural depravity that every person is
born with
as a result of the fall reveals itself
in women seeking to rule
and men seeking to dominate and suppress.
Women as a result of the fall are not willing
naturally
to submit and follow God's design for marriage
but rather wanna exercise their individualism
and man as a result of the fall wants to abuse
his God given role of authority in a way
that is oppressive and sinfully dominating
over the woman.
That is the way we all are naturally wired
when we come into this world.
And thus the battle of the sexes began
with the fall in Genesis chapter three
and then children come into the family
and enter into this ring of the boxing match
between the husband and the wife.
And that's not the best place for the kids to
be.
Both sides selfishly fighting for their own
turf
and dysfunction in the family abounds.
And so a huge question has to be
how can a marriage survive this kind of
conflict
which is produced by our natural desires
as a result of the fall?
How can a marriage work?
And how can children find any peace
in this kind of environment?
And we've already answered that question
by two people who have come to faith in Christ
on his terms of Bible repentance and saving
faith
having been totally changed and transformed
by regeneration who are spirit filled, joyful,
thankful
and mutually submissive to one another.
In other words, two genuine Christians getting
married
are two lost people who started out lost like
me and Christie
and became Christians later in their marriage.
However, you got to get there
and God does that differently for everyone
but it's the two together.
That's the most optimum.
60 years ago, many more people in our country
stayed married until death rather than divor
cing.
I mean, Papa would go live in the shed if he
had to
but he just wouldn't get a divorce.
And now that was mainly because from our
nation's founding
up and through the 1960s, Christianity
had such an influence upon our society
that that just became the standard way of
conduct.
You just don't get a divorce.
That's what our society at the time expected
out of people.
That doesn't mean there was any less conflict
in marriages.
They just hated one another's guts
and lived in the same house.
Because of our natural falling condition,
there always has been and always will be
until Jesus returns this conflict,
especially in marriages where there is no
Christ.
So all of those things are the root causes
for the issues that exist in marriage
right up to this very day.
And who wants to argue
that what I just said is not the way it is?
Anybody up for that debate?
Now I don't see nobody raising their hands.
So let's go back to Ephesians five.
And again, here in our texts
is the only real solution to conflict in
marriage
because this is a spiritual issue.
And that's the way that it has to be dealt
with.
Only the power of the Holy Spirit
can reverse the curse in the home.
Even again, if there's just one believer
and the other is not, there's some hope.
But it's at the optimum level
where both spouses are walking in the spirit
and again, even because of our daily battle
with the flesh is not perfect,
but it's the best that it can be.
I have to repeat that.
Now remember, we're still just continuing
to lay a foundation here in preparation
for our study of this whole text concerning
the family.
And there's one more layer I wanna add to this
foundation
before we close out for today.
Expository preaching includes, very
importantly,
the historical setting of the time period
in which the text was written.
Very important.
So before we wrap this up,
it's gonna be instructive for us to consider
the kind of world that Paul was writing to
at the time when Ephesians was first written
down by him in pen.
Because for sure, here's what the argument
always comes up in our day.
Well, this, I mean, why submit to your
husbands?
I mean, that's ancient history, dude.
That doesn't comprehend the kind of world
that we live in.
I mean, we're modern people.
This is modern times.
And look, they did live in a different time
with different perspectives for sure.
That's why it's good to understand
the historical perspective.
And what will probably surprise you today
is the parallels that exist
between our time and that time.
And let's start first with the Jews
in the church at Ephesus.
Now remember, Ephesians was a circular letter
that not only went to the church in Ephesus,
but to all the churches around in Asia Minor.
The people who were Jewish in the church
needed to understand the New Testament
biblical view
of marriage and hence the texts we have before
us.
That's why he's writing about this.
The Jews had a very low view of women.
And it didn't come from the Bible.
In fact, remember that by the time of Jesus
and Paul,
a whole lot of Judaism didn't come from the
Bible.
As you know, by the time of the first century,
they had long developed a lot of their own
long developed
apostate religions with many laws and rules
and ideas
that they added to the Old Testament scripture
.
And part of that was a very low view of women.
In fact, there were Jewish prayers prayed
by Jewish men every single morning of their
lives.
And there is one line in that prayer
that demonstrates their attitude.
Look, Liz knows what it is.
This is what they prayed every single day.
God, I thank you that you have not made me
a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.
They prayed that every day.
They thought of women as lower on the human
level
than man, a woman was an object to them, not a
person.
A woman had no legal rights.
A woman could not bring anything into a court
of law.
I don't even think about it.
She was in the absolute power of her husband
to do with her whatever he wanted, whenever he
wanted.
And by the time of the New Testament among the
Jews,
divorce had become tragically easy and common.
And they supported it from a passage in the
Old Testament
because of course they were very serious
about attention to the Mosaic law.
Look in Deuteronomy 24, verse one.
It says, "When a man takes a wife and marries
her
and it happens that she finds no favor in his
eyes
because he has found some indecency in her
and he writes her a certificate of divorce
and puts it in her hands and sends her out
from his house."
Stop right there.
Read no further.
Now there's context.
If you keep reading, but these Jews stopped
the presses
right there where I stopped.
If your wife loses favor in your eyes
and you find some indecency in her,
other translations say uncleanness,
you can write her a divorce and send her right
out of the house.
Nevermind the fact there's a whole lot more to
that passage
that you can go read for yourself in context.
I don't have time to go through it,
go read it for yourself, but that was it.
Mind indecency and you're free to divorce her,
send her packing.
So then the question became,
what is meant by indecency?
Well, the strict rabbis,
most famously represented by a rabbi named
Shamai
said it refers to adultery
and that's all that it refers to in nothing
else.
But liberal rabbis said it refers to
absolutely anything.
And the vagueness they said is intended by God
to allow you to just fill in the blank
as to what indecency was.
Well, that's pretty convenient for the man,
right?
The famous rabbi Hillel held to this view
and this is what Hillel said that it meant.
A man could divorce his wife if she spoiled
his dinner.
He could divorce her if she spilled his dinner
because a spilled dinner is a spoiled dinner.
This is true.
He could divorce her if she put too much salt
on the dinner.
He could divorce her if she walked out in
public
with her head uncovered.
He could divorce her if she talked
with other men in the streets.
How about this one?
He could divorce her if she talked bad
about her mother-in-law.
And he even could divorce her
if she argued with him about anything.
And I could keep going, but you get the
picture.
Now, you just guess which one of those views
was most popular with the Jewish men.
Shema had very few followers.
Hillel had so many followers that divorce
had become extremely rampant
in the Jewish culture of Jesus' day.
Women were discarded all over the place
and they were always left with absolutely
nothing.
All a man had to do was hand her a bill of
divorce
and all it took was to get a rabbi, a man,
to write it in the presence of two other
witnesses,
two men, because we gotta follow the law,
and then there might be a little cash involved
with that deal, and then pow, it's done.
That was it.
Monetarily, the only thing required from the
man
was the return of the dowry.
You remember us going over that?
That's the bride price that the bride's family
would pay to the groom's family.
And it was a done deal.
You wanna divorce your wife?
No problem, go see the rabbi, do your
paperwork.
Now, there were different levels of views
during Jewish history, but I'm telling you,
at the time Paul wrote this, and in Jesus' day
,
this was the dominant view in Jewish culture.
And so the whole institution of marriage
was completely threatened, and at this time,
prostitution was rampant in Jesus' day,
even amongst the Jews.
Now, let's look at the Greeks,
because there were Gentile believers
in the church at Ephesus, as well as Jewish
believers
in the church at Ephesus, and all those
churches,
they were similar, but they didn't have them
old Testament difficulties and technicalities
to worry about.
They didn't have to misinterpret any verses
to justify what they were doing with the women
.
They just lived in total disregard
for any kind of marital fidelity whatsoever.
In fact, prostitution was an essential part of
Greek life.
Remember, we studied this.
Their religions were filled with prostitutes.
Remember what they would do
in their religious ceremonies in their temples
?
They would commune with the gods through dr
unkenness
and through communing with the temple prostit
utes.
That's what they did on a regular basis.
One famous Greek orator said this,
we have courtesans for the sake of pleasure,
we have concubines for the sake of daily cohab
itation,
and we have wives for the purpose
of having children legitimately
and having a faithful caretaker for our
household affairs.
That's how they all did.
And that says about all you need to know
about how it was for the wives in Greek
culture.
You have the babies pay the bills, take care
of the house.
That's your deal.
The Greek man found his pleasure
and even his friendship outside of the
marriage.
And they didn't even have a legal procedure
for divorce.
You just put 'em out if you got tired of it.
And these leftist feminist women
complain about their situation today.
Try going back to those days and being a woman
and see how you like it.
And my point in pointing out the historical
perspective here
is to get you to understand
as Paul is laying down these principles
that we're learning here in Ephesians,
he's really running head on
into this kind of culture that I just
described to you
in this particular period of time.
And that is also why as Paul writes to the
early church
in all of his letters,
he emphasizes the sin of fornication,
sex outside of marriage so often.
And you're like, man, he's always talking
about that.
Well, because this is what he was dealing with
in the culture.
The issue of sexual sin comes up again and
again
in the epistles because the world of his day
was so dominated by those things.
And it's the same way in our culture today,
isn't it?
That's very similar.
It's hard to remember that when you read Paul
's letters,
how common all this was.
Married women were uneducated.
They were used for keeping house and having
children.
Slavery was also rampant.
And of course, the slave girls were also used
for one purpose, by the man.
And listen, I promise you,
I'm giving you the very tamest version here
of everything that was happening back then,
especially with those Greeks.
Then you go over Rome.
They just took things to a whole 'nother level
.
There were just no boundaries
when it came to immorality in Rome.
I mean, when you read Roman history,
I have a book at my house,
history of the Roman emperors.
Wow, insane craziness.
They even had a rise of feminism in Roman
culture.
I think the ladies must have just got enough
of it
at some point and some of the ladies quit
having babies.
And they built up their physical strength
'cause they wanted to compete with the men.
And they didn't wanna be at home.
They wanted to dominate and boy,
they started diving into law and politics
and they wanted to be defiant.
And so they started charging into areas
where only men up until that time had been
allowed to go.
The Roman writers say they took delight in fe
ats of strength
and one Roman writer criticizing the women,
who he wrote, joined in men's hunts with spear
in hand
and breast exposed as they took to pig
sticking.
I mean, these ladies were wild.
And this time period was wild.
I'm trying to get you to see, man,
unhappy marriages in Paul's day
to which he's writing these instructions
of God's way of marriage were just innumerable
.
But you really think about it.
It sounds a whole lot of familiar
to what we have today, doesn't it?
With the wildness of, I mean,
think about the way TV used to be
compared to the way TV is now.
You just think about that alone, right?
And so it's this kind of background
really similar to our society that Paul writes
and look,
he is not going to say anything in these
verses
that's anywhere close
to what most of the people believe in his day.
In fact, here in Ephesians and really all of
his letters,
he's calling upon men and women to live a kind
of life
that was absolutely the opposite
of what they had been involved in.
And in preaching these exact same texts today,
which is so fascinating to me,
that Paul wrote to the church in his day,
guess what?
We are doing the same thing right here in our
church today
in this church and many churches that's just
like ours
that are striving to follow God's way
according to God's word.
And that's why, why submit to your own
husbands
sounds so crazy to the modern ear.
That's counter-cultural.
You're not going to agree
with what I preached to you out of this text
if you do not have an internal commitment
by way of saving faith to the glory of God,
to live for the glory of God.
If you have not been redeemed and have a
desire
to strive to live in obedience to the word of
God,
you are not going to be interested at all
in maintaining these biblical standards
that I'm fixing to preach in the Sundays ahead
because they're just as counter-cultural today
as they were counter-cultural in Paul's time.
Nothing has changed on that.
It's important to realize that what we have
going on today
is a whole bunch of selfish individuals
wanting to do whatever they wanna do.
That's the culture we live in.
And right now at this point in our nation's
history,
again, the cultural restraints that we have
had
in our society after having been founded
by people who were biblical Christians,
those restraints are gone.
The church has steadily been losing its
influence.
It's had upon this society for the last 60
years or so.
So those restraints now are more off
than they've ever been.
And is the reality not clear to see?
41% of all marriages, first marriages end in
divorce,
like I said last time.
Second marriages, 60 to 70% end in divorce.
We are the first nation in the history of the
world
to change legally the definition of marriage
away from God's definition of marriage,
one man, one woman for life.
First nation in the history of the world do
that.
And how does that work out for us?
Well, I can tell you that the transgender
madness
is a result of that.
It's a byproduct of that.
What I'm wanting you to understand
before we get into this text, church,
is that God has a totally different plan
and design for the marriage and family
than the world has.
Completely different, sounds completely wild
to people outside of the church.
And it can basically be characterized as this,
an authority and submission plan.
That's what we're gonna get into.
Again, there is an equal submission
between two Christian married people,
just as there is equal submission
between all Christian people, but also,
God has designed in marriage,
there is someone responsible to lead
and someone responsible to follow.
Is that too hard to understand as an order?
It has nothing to do with anybody being
inferior.
It has nothing to do at all
with the woman being inferior to the man.
Therefore, she is to submit.
It has everything to do with God design
harmony
within the marriage relationship.
He is saying to us in his word,
if you want it the best it can be,
here's how to do it, and here's the order
that it needs to go with.
And both need to be at the same time,
saved and doing it this way.
The woman is not to seek to usurp the husband
's authority
and dominate him, and the husband is not to
abuse his authority
by acting harsh and mean
and all out of order with his wife.
It's that simple.
And when God is not, God's design is not
followed
in the home, there is chaos in the home
because of the effects of the curse
that I defined to you at the beginning of the
sermon.
Folks, is the proof of that not very clear to
see
in our society?
Remember, when you boil down every argument,
it always reveals selfishness at one level or
another.
I'm not getting my way.
Who people trying to dominate one another?
It's the curse of Genesis three being played
out
in real time continuously in marriages all
around the world.
And again, the only way to reverse that curse
is for two married people to come to Christ
and both of them striving to live obediently
to God's design for marriage.
And that starts with believing the gospel.
That starts with believing in the person in
work of Christ.
And this Lord supper right here that we're
fixing to take
is a picture of Christ's work upon the tree
in his substitutionary atonement for all
who put their faith and trust in him.
That's what this is a picture.
That's where it has to start in marriage.
It's the only people who are gonna even desire
to follow God's way or those who have been
redeemed by him
and place their saving faith and trust in him.
So let's begin as we always do
and look at 1 Corinthians 11.
And again, we have to get our bearings
straight here.
What is Paul talking about here starting in
verse 27?
Well, the Corinthians were all out of order.
I mean, they were getting wild at the Lord's
Supper.
It was crazy.
You can go read about it for yourself
and Paul is desiring to instruct them, hey,
y'all need to tighten this up.
This is getting wild.
Now, my reading this is not saying to you,
hey, you guys are getting wild with the Lord
Supper.
Y'all need to, that's not my intention when we
read this.
My intention is for you to see the gravitas,
the weightiness of how God views the church
to celebrate the Lord's Supper.
And it's not somber.
And as Derek Thomas said, it's not as like a
dark cloud
comes into the congregation and oh, we're not
worthy.
Of course you're not worthy.
Of course I'm not worthy to take the Lord's Su
pper.
Of course we're not, but we're worthy in
Christ.
And that's the only way we're worthy.
And so with great joy and exuberance,
if you're a believer, you should wanna come
with thanksgiving in your heart
and joy in your heart to take the Lord's Su
pper
because he saved you.
That's the intention.
But you can walk and chew gum at the same time
.
You can have that as a believer on the one
hand
but I don't have the other hand.
Recognize this is reverence I need to be
having.
This is serious stuff.
And let's see how serious it was.
Let's read it together.
Therefore Paul told those Corinthians,
"Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of
the Lord
in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the
body
and the blood of the Lord.
But a man must examine himself and in so doing
he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup
for he who eats and drinks eats and drinks
judgment
to himself if he does not judge the body
rightly.
For this reason many among you are weak and
sick
and a number sleep."
Again, that means they die.
I mean, if you know, if you act consistently
and long enough as a Christian out of order,
God will take you out.
He'll kill you and bring you home to heaven.
You're saved but you've been out of order too
long
and too consistently out of order.
Says it right there.
Sick, chastisement.
The Lord loves those he chases like a parent
chases a child when they get out of order.
It's the same thing.
So for us, my intention is to get you to see
the seriousness.
And then also as I said earlier, hey,
if you're not a believer, don't come down here
to take this supper because a serious business
,
then you're saying I'm coming anyway
'cause this is what I wanna do or whatever
your reason is.
I don't care what God says.
I don't care that this is for believers only.
You see what I'm saying?
That can be applied here to that scripture as
well.
So let's do this.
Our heads and close our eyes.
There's an old Baptist used to say,
time to do business with the Lord.
What does that mean?
That means we recognize every single day
we battle with our flesh, the world of flesh
and the devil are constantly our struggle.
And so we ask for temporal daily forgiveness
because of the sin that we battle is saved by
grace
but sin are still and while we do that
and we confess those things,
we then turn to Christ and see that in Christ
all of our sins have already been forgiven
and all of his righteousness put on our
account
and we glory in the gospel.
So take a moment with that and then I'm going
to pray
and then invite all of God's people to come
and be served the Lord's Supper.