A Demanding Spirit

Well, again, I want to welcome you to hope lowertown. One other bit of exciting news that I forgot to mention somehow is that this is Patrick's first week officially as an elder of hope lower town. So excited for him. We had the vote on Wednesday and unanimously was voted in by the members. And thankful for Patrick and his friendship and all the mishkees and their family as we've gotten to know them over the past five plus years now. Really thankful for them, all of you. Thankful for all of you. All right, we are in the gospel of Mark. This is week 23 that we've been walking through this gospel. And we'll be here for a while. We'll take a break in the summer and then a small little series in the fall that we're gonna kick off and then we'll jump back into Mark. And so again, it's really hard to kind of recap everything, but it's good to just start at the beginning. Start in verse one. That in the beginning of the gospel about Jesus, the good news about Jesus. That's what gospel means. It just means good news. We're inundated with bad news all around us. But this is good news about Jesus. It's not Mark's gospel. It's not John or Matthew or Luke's gospel. It's always about Jesus, the messiah, the anointed one, the son of God. And we're looking at Mark and his big question that he's wrestling with, especially with the disciples asking the question, who is this guy? What manner of man is this, who can do the things that he is doing? And that's gonna shift here in the next couple of weeks as we see the disciples start to get it. They finally start to see that Jesus isn't just some political ruler, that he's something so much more than what they had thought him to be. And we see his authority in teaching, authority over demons, authority to forgive sins, authority over nature in many different ways. And so let's jump into today's sermon. So in 1993, the greatest movie of all time came out. What was it? What was it? It's a no brainer. Greatest movie of all time. Jurassic Park. There it is. Jurassic Park. Thank you. Thank you. You know me, Jurassic park, right? This is a wild thing that happened. We weren't allowed to go to movie theaters because it was a mortal sin. But we did. We snuck out and we saw this one. I was only seven at the time, way too young. My kids are not watching this at 7. And I mean, it's my favorite movie. So it couldn't have been that bad, right? But what happens in this movie, right? This is. And it gets into that question that I had you ask, and that is, I wanted to get Ian Malcolm, this character, Dr. Ian Malcolm, up on there. He's a chaos theorist, which is actually quite fascinating if you ever read up on that. It's a real thing. Anyways. He is kind of the cynic of the group that it doesn't matter what evidence is brought in front of him or what somebody says or some scientist or some professional, he's always got a statement to. I don't know about that. Right. Well, they're all, you know, I think Dr. Grant asked, well, what do you do about breeding in the wild? And the scientist says, well, no, you can't breed in the wild. It's all female. And then he has this line, right, of life finds a way, right? And it's like, bro, like, no, man, there's proof here. There's evidence. But he ends up being right. Of course. There's the question, right? When he says, your scientists were so concerned about whether they could, they didn't stop to consider whether they should, right? It's kind of a classic line. And he's just this skeptic of, I don't know if we should be doing these things. I don't know. And then there's just people, maybe it's you, maybe it's me that we know who always need more proof. They're just never convinced. No matter what we show them, no matter what we explain to them, they just always want more. And that's Ian in this book, in this movie. And that the problem isn't with the evidence that you're showing. The problem is really with the individual. They just don't want to believe this thing. It's just that you just couldn't prove it enough. I think of it with these videos going around now of, like, people showing their grandparents AI videos of, like, a cat making stir fry. You know what I'm talking about? It's just wild. And the grandparents just. Oh, just. Minds are blown. I can't believe this cat is able to cook like this. Yeah, it's fake. No, no. Look how real it is. No, no, Grandma, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have showed it to you. It's not real. That's us. And that's gonna be in this passage. And so as we look at this in Mark, chapter eight, we're gonna look at what I've called demanding a sign. How do we in spite of all the evidence, still, still today, for us, this is for me, not believe all this, that it's here, it's in the passage, it's in the Scriptures. And yet I want something more. I want something else. I demand my own little sign in my own way. So let's look at this. There are outlines in the back. And then a Gospel of Mark, a copy of that, if you would like to add, in the back of the coffee, if you are interested in that. So here we are. Where did they come from? Mark chapter eight, just at the beginning in those days, when again, a great crowd had gathered. Where's this crowd come from? Why are they there? So again, we're gonna do the fun thing of maps, all right? And all God's people said, amen. This is a map of the region, which I know is super boring, but it's kind of helpful, right? You have the Sea of Galilee, which is centered there in the middle of that picture there. And kind of to the southeast is, you have the Decapolis, which is gentile land. It is not Jewish territory. It's gentile territory. That's every other ethnicity, predominantly Greek, in this area, in that region that was not Jewish by heritage, by ethnicity. And so you have Jesus ministering, though, to both. Well, previously we saw Jesus in the Decapolis. And so I wanna go back just to remind us, where does this crowd in gentile land just happened to be there when Jesus and his disciples show up? Well, it's because the first time he was there, it says that he did not permit him. That is, Jesus did not permit what is called the Garrison demon act, that he is possessed by the legion and God, Jesus saves him, sets the demons away from him and casts them into the pigs. Remember that old story that we were in, I don't know, a month or two ago now in Mark, chapter 5? But Jesus was there, and this guy who's healed, right, the whole community was like, we've tried to bind him, we've tried to chain him. We can't control this guy. Jesus shows up, sets him free of his bondage of not just physical chains, but also of spiritual chains. And the guy says, can I join you? I wanna be one of your disciples. And Jesus is like, well, I'm kinda doing this New Israel thing with the 12 followers. And so the 13 just doesn't quite have the same ring. So he says, no, I'm not gonna permit you to join me. But he said to him, and this is the first time that we see Jesus say, go Ahead and tell everyone, everyone that he's healed that is Jewish. He says, don't tell anyone because they don't want his position as, like, this messiah or a king to be like, we wanna crown you as king. Don't tell anyone. I don't need to be executed by the state yet. Okay, so don't tell anyone. But to the Gentiles, he's like, go ahead, you tell everyone you want. Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you. And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And everyone marveled. So now here we are. Jesus goes back across the Sea of Galilee, goes back into Galilee and is ministering to Jews. And then he comes back now, and when he gets there, there's a crowd and they're ready. They've only heard secondhand, right? They've only heard through the testimony of this guy who they once knew. This guy was falling apart. He was helpless. Nobody could help him. This guy named Jesus shows up, heals him. Holy cow, I need to go see this guy. I need to hear who this guy is and hear what he is saying. So second point, I wouldn't forget. Let's get into this. Says in those days, when again, a great crowd had gathered, that's that crowd now of Gentiles who just say, I want to see Jesus because I've seen what he's done in this guy's life. And they had nothing to eat. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now for three days. This is a different language that's used. I'll get in the next slide here from the previous miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000. That there's something different about this crowd, that they are in this language. That is, they are committed to following Jesus. They want to listen to him. They've been with him for three days. There's an intentionality about what they're doing and following him on purpose. Says, I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away. And his disciples answered him, how could one feed these people? If only one could feed these people with bread in this desolate place, how could one possibly do that? What this is just off of, not even like just a chapter Ago, at the end of chapter six, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he. He looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave it to the disciples and set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all, and they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the 12 baskets full of broken pieces and the fish and those who ate the loaves were 5,000 men. Again, different group, different context. You've got Jewish men, mostly zealots. There probably would have been women and children and their families maybe, but mostly these zealots. And the Gospel of John tells us they forcefully wanted to crown Jesus as king. You are the Messiah. You are the one who's come to set us free from Roman occupation. You gotta be king. And he says, everyone calm down. I gave you bread, but now we have this thing happening again. This is hard for me to wrap my head around because if I was a disciple following Jesus and I saw him perform this miracle, and then I happened to find myself in a very similar but different situation, I would go, oh, hey, Jesus, remember that thing you did? So before we completely throw the disciples under the bus, let me quote our favorite theologian here, James Edwards, in his commentary on Mark, says, although Mark records proportionately more miracles than the other evangelists, I.e. matthew, Luke and John, he certainly does not portray Jesus as a vendor of miracles. Right. It can feel like that as you read through the gospel and as you're going from one thing to the next, that we're only reading about miracles. But this is over a span of three years that Jesus is doing these things. But with few exceptions, in Mark, Jesus miraculous activity comes to people and especially to the disciples as holy, wondrous and unanticipated activity. No one was able to predict when Jesus was gonna do this, that there were all kinds of crowds that Jesus was with, especially in that interim period in between these two things. So it wouldn't be surprising the disciples would have been with this crowd. Well, he doesn't feed this crowd. He heals this person, but he doesn't heal this person. Right? There's a lot of that going on that we just don't see. And so it's not crazy that the disciples are going, oh, man, we got no way to feed these people. That's not that wild. And yet I want us to think about it, because I think that we might put ourselves in their shoes and say, I wouldn't forget. There's no way. Right? We just have seen. And just, just briefly looking at Mark, 1, he drives out unclean spirit. This is just Mark, let alone all of the Old Testament of what God is doing. And through Moses and Elijah and Elisha and now with Jesus and what will be the apostles, he's doing miracles. This is not normal. It's not a normal place in the world that miraculous things happen. And so anyways we see this. He drives up the unclean spirit in the synagogue. He heals Simon Peter's mother in law, Mass healings and exorcism and Capernaum cleanses a leper. In Mark 2 he heals a paralytic lowered through the roof. Chapter 3, he heals a man with a withered hand. Large scale healings and exorcism by the sea. In chapter four he calms the storm and five casts out the legion of demons. I just read about that guy. Gerosene Demonak heals the woman with the issue of blood and he raises Jairus daughter from the dead. Mark chapter six, right? He's not raising everyone from the dead. There's other people that have died during the life of Christ. But he only raises just a couple. Mark chapter six, mass healings in Garrisonet 13 feeds the 5,000 which I just talked about. And then 14 walks on water and then in chapter seven delivers the Syrophoenician woman's daughter. Looked at her last week that this Greek woman comes and says my daughter has a demon. And he says you're a dog. And she's like, you're right, I am a dog. Right? And that's like whoa, what just happened again? You're a gentile and the Jews have nothing to do with the gentiles. And she's like yeah, but if I could just eat the leftover scraps. She gets it. She understands there's plenty to go around when it comes to Jesus and his mercy and forgiveness. She gets it. And yet those that are closest to him, the disciples and those that are the religious fanatics of the day, want nothing to do with Jesus. They just don't see it. And then we see that he heals the deaf and mute man. And then here we are. And we might say, man, I would never forget. There's no way I would forget all that. And yet I think we do. I do, I do. All the time when I pray that God would heal a loved one of addiction, there's a part of me that thinks he can't actually do it because if he could do it, he would do it. And I forget my scriptures, I forget what the Bible says and I forget all of these just in the gospel of Mark, of his power and his wondrous deeds, these miracles that he performs now when a loved one dies. And I just want more evidence of resurrection or afterlife. I just want a sign. Can you just show me something that says this is real? The evidence is there in Jesus Christ of Nazareth. We just sang about it. You overcame the darkness when you walked out of the grave. That's my proof of the resurrection. That's all Paul had. That's all we need. I don't need to see it with my own eyes. The evidence is right there in front of me. I don't need to be an Ian Malcolm and demand more and more and more. I can simply take God at his word. We forget all that he's done, or we just don't want to believe. It's just illogical to believe this stuff. It just doesn't make sense. So if you'll permit me, which I guess I don't know if you have much of a choice, you could walk out. You can walk out. Here's your permission to walk out here if you want. That would be bold if somebody did that. Just calling you out. All right, philosophy of miracles. Let me get into this. There's two different ways of looking at miracles, okay? Because this is really important that a lot of people, skeptics or just skeptical of who Jesus is, whatever, like the miracle thing has always gotten people hung up for thousands of years. Are miracles real? There's two different ways of looking at this. If I hold that the laws of nature define the limits of what is possible in the universe, then no law giver God exists beyond the laws. Then in principle, miracles cannot be viewed as rational. And no amount of evidence could be accepted as evidence that a miracle has taken place. There's plenty of books that you can read on this, on the historical Jesus, a real historical figure. But then people believed that he performed miracles. Well, they just thought he just was able to trick them into thinking that some miracles were happening because they believe historically Jesus was real, that this was a real person. We have an insane amount of evidence that Jesus was real. But they say but yeah, but these people thought that he was performing miracles. And that part breaks the laws of nature and it just doesn't work. There's no way that miracles were real. The other option then is if I hold that the laws of nature do not define the limits of what is possible, that the laws themselves point to a lawgiver, God behind the laws, then since such a lawgiver could act through and beyond the natural laws, it is rational to believe in the possibility of miracles. And I am free to accept a miracle when there is good evidence in its favor. So when I read the evidence and I see and I go through all the historical data, points of attestation and all this stuff and I look at it and, and I go, wow, people really believe this stuff to be true, that these things were happening so much so that it changed the entire landscape of the world. That I look at that and I have to say, either it didn't happen and people were just mistaken, or maybe God did do some kind of miracle, some wondrous deed that bends the laws of physics. And if I believe that there is a God who creates and has created all of this, then I certainly can believe that he can create more food out of a bread loaf and some fish. Let me just briefly here quote a woman. She's not a Christian, but she has written and studied the life of Christ extensively. King of the Jews is the book that she wrote. Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Professor Paula. Paula Fredrickson and read a lot of her stuff. Let me just summarize this with, with this. Did Jesus of Nazareth perform miracles? Again, not a believer. She's a historian. Here I as a historian have to weigh the testimony of tradition against what I think is possible in principle. Okay, so she's saying historically, there's a lot of evidence for it, but I have to think about what I believe is possible. I do not believe that God occasionally suspends the operation of what Hume called David Hume called natural law. What I think Jesus might possibly have done, in other words, must conform to what I think is possible. So to answer my own question, yes, I think that Jesus probably did perform deeds and that contemporaries viewed that his contemporaries viewed as miracles. Those I have least trouble imagining his workings are healing and exorcism. Right. Even though, because she's going to look at there's kind of these eight laws of historical criticism and she's going to say, man, the New Testament knocks these out of the park. And you can fact check me on this. You can look this up. There is no other first century biography that that meets the historical criteria the way that the first century does within the New Testament. It blows. It is the standard that all other biographies are held to in the New is the New Testament that it is a spiritual work and yet it is historical and historically accurate in recording what happened in the life of Christ. And she gets that. She says this is accurate and I believe it to be accurate. But something doesn't quite work out here. So then should we be looking for miracles today? Should we be demanding a. Signs. Demanding signs and working miracles? This is what one author writes. The ancient church interpreted the healing ministry of Jesus not as the model for contemporary miracle working, but as a sign of what God will one do to restore the world. And therefore as an indication of the responsibility of the church to heal the world wherever it can with whatever resources it may possess. So, yes, why we heal for praying. Why we pray for healing. And we pray over people to be cured of whatever sickness that they might have or struggles that they might be going through. Yes, we ask that we know that God can, but he might not. And we see that explicitly with the Apostle Paul that he has some kind of thorn in the flesh. We don't know what that means, but he prays that it would be removed. And three different times God says, no, but I'll tell you what, my grace is sufficient for you that I will show up in your weakness. And so the church then takes that and says, well, then, should we go around placing hands on people and healing them, or should we do what we've been commanded to do? And this leads to another awesome historical study on the birth of the hospital in the Byzantine Empire. You can read that on your own time. Go ahead. By Timothy Miller. And really, the whole point of this is that in the third, fourth century that hospitals started popping up and this was radically new, that there was no other culture in the world that was making hospitals until Christians showed up. Now there were infirmaries, especially with soldiers, or even within slave communities where you had people who were. That they were protecting their interests. And so when a slave got injured, they would say, hey, go to the doctors. You can be healed so I can get my investment back out of you as my slave. But then this shows up in these hospitals where it's not just some kind of temple healing or ritual or again, an infirmary. Those were all over the place. But this is now an institution where there are trained professionals, there's caregivers, they get everything organized, and then it's completely funded by the Church and their charity and the goodwill of people to say, we wanna care for all people, not just those who have money, who can afford a physician, but those who can afford the physician. The poor and the sick, the widows, the orphans. We wanna care for them because that's what God has called us to do. So again, while the Christian. While the Church should not heal the sick, miraculous could. Sorry. While the Church could not heal the Sick miraculously, as Christ is said to have done it in the Gospels. It could follow the Lord's example of compassion, of going around doing good from Acts 10:38, using what resources it did have, money, buildings, physicians and volunteers. That was their way of making God's kingdom come now as it is in heaven, making little pockets of God's kingdom on this earth. And it is done through hospitality and care for those who can't help themselves. Third point. He broke bread and gave thanks again. The first time Jesus does this, back in chapter six, when he feeds the 5,000, he prays this prayer. It says that he gives thanks. He prays for thanksgiving. And it is a Jewish custom, a Jewish word based off of Deuteronomy, chapter 8, verse 10 of this Jewish phrase that was said before a meal. That's most likely exactly what he uttered in that passage. But here it says, and he asked them, how many loaves do you have? And they said, seven. He directed the crowd to sit on the ground, and he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them. Right? This is a different word here of give thanks than we had just in chapter six. And not to get all Greek nerdy on you here, but this word, this Greek word should sound familiar if you grew up Catholic or Lutheran. And that is the word here for to give thanks. In this particular passage is Eucharist. Sound familiar? That's where we get our English word, Eucharist. This is where the Lord's table or the communion table was established in the sense of that phraseology is on this passage. It was based on the Last Supper of how we may take the elements. But it's based on this that Jesus has performed this miracle and he gives thanks, and then he breaks the bread. It's Eucharist. It's the Eucharist. Very significant. But what's interesting here is now he's not doing this to Jews who have been celebrating Passover for thousands of years. He's now breaking bread and giving thanks to a bunch of Gentiles, outsiders. And he broke it and gave it to them and his disciples before the people. And they set them before the crowd, and they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, they said that these also should be set before them. And he ate, they ate, and they were satisfied. They took up the broken pieces and left seven baskets full. Don't get. Mark doesn't get weird with, like, numerology. So don't get caught up in, like, oh, what's the. What's seven mean? It means seven that's what it means. And there were about 4,000 people. It's 4,000. It's 4,000 approximately. And he sent them away. And immediately he got into the boat with the disciples and they went to the district of Dalmanthua. Let's look at this demanding assign for the remaining time here that I have, the Pharisees came and began to argue with him. You can always see this posture. Pharisees, they're non priestly religious leaders devoted to the Torah. And then the teachings of the elders through the mission on the Talmud. Incredibly influential group of people. Incredibly devout followers of Yahweh. And the Pharisees came to Jesus and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. They want a sign. We see that this hankering for miracles, not just in this passage, but all over the New Testament is not a sign of one who's a follower of Jesus. Jesus, we hear that you're all powerful. Show me a sign. Prove it. That's never a follower of Jesus. It's always one of his opponents. And then it says they came a sign from heaven to test him. This word, test him. The last time we saw that phrase was in the beginning of the Gospel of Mark when it says that Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan river. And he pops up out of the water and there's a voice from heaven that says, this is my Son, in whom I am well pleased. And then it says, immediately the Holy Spirit led him out into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. And what does the devil say? If you are the Son of God. If you're the Son of God. And what exactly are the Pharisees doing here? They're testing him. You're. You're claiming to be the Messiah. You're using language like the ancient name of Yahweh, of I am. You're claiming that. You're claiming to be God. Prove it. Give us a sign. And I can't. Because if the Pharisees are with him here, they followed him across the sea. They just saw the feeding of these 4,000 people and saying, I like that, but could we do more? That was one meal. But actually Moses, he was able to provide meals for 40 years for his people. Can you do that? That's what a real Messiah would do. If you are really the Son of God, then you will do this for me. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation. And he's going to say elsewhere in Matthew, you've had a sign. You had Jonah, you had Moses. Why? You don't need me to have a sign. The proof is already here. It's already here in scripture. You don't need any more. If you're not going to believe them, why would you believe me? And he left them and got into the boat again and went to the other side. They want Jesus on their terms. That sound familiar? Or maybe, maybe that's just me. So how do we do this? There's maybe a catch all word that's I think, been overused. This phrase of deconstruction that people have deconstructed their faith. I think it's a good thing to an extent. I've had to deconstruct the way I grew up in the church. I've had to deconstruct maybe ways that I was taught. This is how the Bible reads. You read it this way and through this lens. And I've had to deconstruct that and tear that down. But always keep your eye on Christ. People are going to hurt you. Institutions are going to crush you. Christ doesn't do that. And so when you start to ask questions about your faith, deconstruct your religion all you want. Keep your eyes on Christ. He's the one that matters. And so this applies to all of us that we might ask or say, if Jesus isn't blind blank, then I don't want them. We might say, show me a sign before I obey God. I'll forgive them, but I just need you to give me peace first about this. I don't think Jesus felt peace as he was nailed to the cross and cried out, father, forgive them. They do not know what they're doing. There's no peace in that. A lot of times we're asked to forgive someone, we don't feel peace about it. Peace is not a signal that this is God's doing and God wants you to do something. If God wanted me to serve or to do this or that, he'll make it obvious. Scripture is full of God already speaking clearly about forgiveness, generosity, forgiveness, humility and service. We just don't like what he says, so we demand more. I need another sign. We treat circumstances as divine fortune cookies. God opened that door. It must be from God. That door was closed. It wasn't from God. Want to think about this, if I may, with our politics. Oh God, put that man or woman in charge. That was God's doing. Oh God, put that man or that woman in Charge. Clearly God's not involved in that. Let's look at the Scriptures. What does it say about God's providence over all the see to itness of God? It has nothing to do his kingdom has nothing to do with politics in this world. He can use it. We ask for open doors, an easy path. But following Christ is never meant to be easy. We want circumstantial evidence. Our faith fluctuates with emotional experiences. I just don't feel close to God. That God must not be in this. I don't know, I just. When I was in college, man, I just. I was just on fire for God. And I just don't feel that anymore. So I just don't know if I can believe this anymore. I just don't think he's here with me. We need to trust his promises that he will always be with us, even when we don't feel like it. And if you don't believe that, read the Psalms. They are full of lament. How long, O Lord? Or why, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? We have conditional faith. If God answers this prayer well, then I will fill in the blank. If the situation works out well, then I will believe that God is good. This turns faith into transaction. A transactional approach to faith, which is a complete antinomy. It's an oxymoron of faith. I cannot have transaction and proof and faith. It just doesn't make sense now. It doesn't mean blind faith. It doesn't mean I can't think and logic and study and learn and read about my faith. But there's a part of me that will never figure this all out. Even though I've dedicated my life to figuring it out. So in a world full of Ian Malcolms, we need to be a little bit more like Timmy. We need to have a little bit of awe and a little bit of wonder and a little bit of logic and understanding. Right? He read a book by a guy named Backer, right. He's not just going into this blindly. He's saying, yeah, I wanna learn, but I believe this. I trust this stuff. I know that may be pushing the analogy a little bit too far. God created logic though. He's not afraid of it. Deconstruct. Go after it, dig into it. But keep your eyes fixed on Christ. Cause he is good. Or to quote St. Augustine, I know I've said this multiple times in this pulpit that I can see the heights, but I cannot sound the depths. Or to quote Job, there are just things too wonderful for me to understand. I just can't even begin to comprehend your power. And so we need to take that step of faith. And so in application, give thanks. This is not. You're trash. You doubt God. You don't have enough faith. It's not. That's not. If you've heard that, forgive me, I've done a poor job communicating that. That's not what's going on here. It is belief, repentance, that's what Jesus calls us to do. And the same salvation that's offered to the disciples and the Pharisees and the Gentiles is the same salvation that's offered to you and me. And that if you confess our sins, if you confess your fears and your doubts and your failures, it says that he is faithful and he is just to forgive us of our sins. Yeah, but I don't, I just don't feel forgiven. I don't feel that I've been made righteous. You have been made righteous. That's how this works. His goodness has been given to you. It's called imputation. He says, jesus, the author of your life says your sins are forgiven and that's good news that causes us to give thanks in response. And so we are going to do what Jesus did thousands of years ago, not just in the feeding the 4,000, but when he takes his disciples on what historically is called the Last Supper. And he has Eucharist, he has communion, he has the Lord's table, whatever you want to call it. Now we have these elements up front. There's a gluten free option on my left if that's a dietary restriction. And we have the cracker, we have the bread that represents his body that's broken for us. And we have the juice that represents his blood that was shed for us. And so this morning we get to take these elements and we get to remember Jesus performing miracles. And then immediately afterwards, people going, I need more. Is that you? Is that me? Do I constantly want more? Or can I look at what God has shown us in the Scriptures and say, man, you're good. You've got this even when I don't feel it, even when I don't see it in my circumstances, you are good and we can give thanks because you have saved my soul. So you don't need to be a member of this church or any church. But if you're a follower of Jesus, if you say, yes, that Jesus, I love that Jesus, and I would love for you to take these elements with us this morning as we remember his finished work for us on the cross. The worship team's gonna come and sing two more songs. As we take these elements, as we reflect back on the finished work of Christ on the cross as he looks out upon everyone there and says, father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Let me pray, Father, again, just thank you for our time together this morning. Thank you. Now that we get to take these elements that as we look back to this Eucharist and as we look back to what Christ did as he fed the 4,000, while right now we're not eating a meal where we're going to be fully satisfied, Christ has done so much more that we don't need the physical bread here right now the way that they did after being famished after three days. But what we do need is spiritual nourishment. And you have given that to us through your son on the cross. And you've commanded us to remember that finished work until every time we gather together, until you return. And so as we do that, would you just forgive us individually and corporately for times that we have put you to the test, that we have put you on trial and say, prove yourself? Would you just give us faith that you would actually, as the Roman centurion says, I believe, help my unbelief? Would you help that? Would you help our unbelief? Would you help our faith to grow in who you are and who you have revealed yourself to us in the Scriptures? We love you, and it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.