Christopher: Think of sin as the act of filling up a cavity in your soul. And we might be filling that cavity up with experiences or achievements or anxiety. Because of this yawning cavity, we might snap in anger or distract ourselves with drink or chemicals or pornography. It may cause us, this cavity in us may cause us to grip for control in our life. I need to have control, control.
It may cause us to wallow in self pity or just shut down and withdraw. Any number of sins comes out of this, but the central thing that all of them are radiating from is this absence, this cavity, this death, which is a lack of Christ for me.
Caleb: The following message was recorded at King's Tree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of god in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
Christopher: Well, this morning, we are back in first John together having taken last week to hear from pastor Sean in first Samuel. We're in first John, and we have only a few, I think it is two after today, lessons left in one John, and then we will be through with this book that we've been in for over a year now, and we'll be moving on to what's next. But for now, we're in one John chapter five, and as Caleb reminded me, we don't have children's church downstairs today, but we do have the nursery open if parents would like to utilize the nursery, and of course downstairs is open if you need to take children down there, but we'll be in First John chapter five today. So if you can recall, the last time we were in one John, we were looking at John's statement about confidence in prayer, Confidence in prayer. And he says, The way that we can know we can be assured that we will receive from God that which we have asked of him is that our prayers are in accordance with his will.
We know when we pray what God's will is that he's going to do what we're asking. He always hears his people in Christ, but he hears us and does what has been asked when we're praying his will. And we said one of the most surefire ways to pray the will of God is to pray his commandments, to pray the commandments of God back to God. He's commanded us, love your neighbor. So you pray, Father, grant me to love my neighbor.
Father, grant me to love my wife. Grant me to serve those around me. Grant me to be patient in the midst of this situation causing anger or to be trusting in the midst of this situation causing anxiety. Father grant me obedience to you not to be afraid. Whatever it may be, you're praying for him to do what he's commanded, and we can know, yes, that's according to his will, so we can have confidence in that prayer.
Now this week, in our text for this week, John's going to move from talking about this more general sort of prayer to a specific kind of prayer, specifically prayer for those who are in the midst of sin. Prayer for those that we may see in the congregation around us, brothers and sisters around us who are in the midst of sin, and he's going to show us how to pray for them. So let's look at that text. First John chapter five verses 16 through 17. Let me read it for us.
If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will give him life to those who commit sin that does not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death. Okay, so this text is simultaneously pretty simple and straightforward, and it's got some complexity in it.
It's pretty simple and straightforward because it says, When you see somebody in the midst of sin, pray for them. It's got complexity because it talks about this sin that leads to death. What's that mean? What's that all about? So this is what we're going to look at this morning, but know that we are all sinners, and the only people we interact with are sinners, and so this text about praying for those who are in the midst of sin has a lot to say to us.
It's simple. It's straightforward. It has a lot to say to us. Now it's not calling us to this kind of holier than thou gossip prayer, which perhaps you've heard, where somebody is praying and says, Lord, help so and so because they're in the midst of this, and I saw them doing this, and I'm not sure about this. It's not that kind of praying down at people, but John's calling us to a genuine concern for other believers that I should be concerned for you and praying for your soul.
You should be concerned for me and praying for my soul, and as we do that, we are obeying what's commanded here, but then there's this complicating point of, well, what about sin that leads to death? What's that all about? So that's what we're going to look at today, the simple command John's giving, but then the complexity of this aspect of sin that leads to death. Let me pray for us, and then we'll look at these things together. Father, thank you that we are in your hands.
Thank you that our lives are in your hands. That all things, Father, come from you, through you, and to you, as that passage in James reminds us. That we live, we breathe, we continue, if you will, and we entrust ourselves to you this morning. And Father, as we come to your word, we are here also in great need. I am in need to have the capacity to speak these things faithfully to your people, and your people are in need to receive them and discern them and have them applied rightfully in their lives.
So come, Father, we pray, even now, by the Holy Spirit, and fill this place with your presence. Grant Christ to be faithfully unfolded from his word. Grant me grace to speak, your people grace to hear, and may we be built up into Jesus for the glory of your name. Father, we commit now this time to you in Jesus name, amen. So before we look at what John here tells us either to do or not to do, we need to ask ourselves what is John's understanding of sin?
We've talked about this before in this series, but when you come to scripture, you're coming with all these assumptions of this is what sin is. This is who God is. This is what right and wrong is. Sometimes those are right. Sometimes those need to be corrected by what we find in the text.
So let's ask ourself, according to John, what is sin? What is sin? So let's see what he says here. There's something in this text that helps us have a little bit more clarity about John's particular way of thinking of sin. Let me show it to you.
Verse 16, If anyone sees his brother committing a sin, not leading to death, he shall ask and God will give him life. Okay, so you see someone committing a sin. Let's put aside the question of not leading to death. We're gonna get to that. You see somebody committing a sin, and it says, Pray for them, and God will give them life.
Okay, does this help us understand John's understanding of sin? Well, think about it this way. Say you don't know what hunger is, but you see that when people are hungry they need food. Okay? You begin to realize hunger has something to do with a lack of food.
You don't know what thirst is, but you see when people are thirsty they need drink. Thirst has something to do with a lack of drink. Here we're saying we don't know what sin is specifically, we're trying to find out, but we see that those who are sinning need life. Therefore sin has something to do with a lack of life. That's what John's laying out here.
Sin is opposed to life. You can think about it as a spectrum. Death on one side, life on the other side. And sin is not just choosing death, choosing life, that's true, but sin is also facing. Sin is facing death.
It is death word. It's death word instead of life word. Sin is aimed at moving in the direction of death, and what is needed in the midst of that is life. What is needed when someone's in the midst of sin is not just forgiveness. Yes, we need forgiveness, but not just forgiveness and then I'll continue walking in this direction.
No, what someone needs in the midst of sin is actually life, to be turned back to life, to be satisfied again in life. And so I think that's why John doesn't say here, Pray for them and God will forgive them. The forgiveness is assumed. Forgiveness is a means to an end. Forgiveness is a step that we step on as we're getting to the goal.
Yes, you must be forgiven your sin, but you don't just say, Great, now I'm forgiven. No, what we need in sin is to be given the very thing that sin is an absence of, which is life, life. That's what we need. That's the essence of sin here. It is an absence of life.
Okay, well what kind of life is it an absence of? Not physical life obviously, because people who are continuing in sin are alive. They're physically alive. So the life that is lacking when we are in the midst of sin must be therefore a spiritual life. That real spiritual deep life of which our biological life is a picture.
The beating of your heart, pulsing of your mind, the breathing of your lungs, the doing of your actions, that real biological life that matters is a picture of the spiritual life, this reality beneath it, and what is lacking when we're in sin, John is implying here, is that life. Sin is a turning from spiritual life. Okay. Well, that sounds very religious and nice, but what is spiritual life? Is it just a good feeling when I'm singing, or what is spiritual life?
Well, John is actually quite clear about that. One John five eleven, this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his son. Whoever has the son has life. Whoever does not have the son of God does not have life. Or again in verse 20, Jesus Christ, we are in him who is true.
In his Son, Jesus Christ, he is the true God and eternal life. So sin is an absence of spiritual life, but spiritual life is just Christ. Spiritual life is Christ. So sin then is this absence of Christ. Now let me pause there, because when I say ultimately life is Christ, you might say, Well, that's just Christianese.
That's just how Christians talk. It doesn't mean anything. It just sounds nice. Okay, well perhaps it does, but stop and consider. The statement Christ is life, if we take that down off the shelf of religious slogans and consider what does it mean, it's a profound reality that we need to hold fast to.
Christ is life, which means every good thing we have, every good gift, every benefit, every blessing in this life, and there are many of them. I'm not dismissing them. Every good thing in this life is pointing toward and finally fulfilled in intimate knowledge of God in Christ, relationship with Christ. Every blessing of this life is aiming toward Christ, just as every line on a blueprint for a sailboat is aiming toward and fulfilled in the reality of that boat actually floating in the water, so too every blessing, every good, every joy, every gift in this life is pointing toward and fulfilled in Christ himself. Jesus himself, the crucified and risen man who is God, who is reigning over the universe right now, who hears your thoughts right now, who sees us right now, who knows us right now, that one is life.
Life exists to be a parable of him, and our intimacy with him, our faith union to him. He is life. Now when we have that in mind, and we come back to sin as the absence of life, we begin to get some more clarity about what sin is. Okay, again, think about our analogy I laid out earlier. Just as the essence of hunger is a lack of food, just as the essence of thirst is a lack of drink, knowing now that Christ is life, we can say this, so too the essence of sin is a lack of Christ.
The essence of sin, the core of sin is Christ is missing. Jesus is not there. There's absence or a lack of Jesus, and I don't mean there's a lack in him or an insufficiency in him. I mean that there is in us a lack of him. We're missing him.
Just as when we're hungry, it's because we're lacking food. So too when we're sinning, it's because we're lacking Christ in that moment, in that moment. Ultimately sin is that which happens when I am not satisfied in Christ. Sin is the thoughts, the words, the actions that flow from being not satisfied in Jesus Christ. Let me give some examples to hopefully make that a little more practical.
When I give into anger, in that moment Christ is not my peace. I'm not saying Christ is not my peace as far as a human being for my life. I'm saying in the moment when we give into sin Christ is not our peace. He is not my stability in that moment. He's not my sufficiency in that moment.
In the moment anger is happening, or I should say I am doing anger, in that moment it's happening because I'm not believing Jesus is these things for me. That's why it's happening. We could talk about all the extenuating circumstances that brought that about, sure, but the reason this is happening is because right now Christ is not that to me. Something else has pushed him out of the way. Or again, when I'm eaten up by envy, like a burr under the skin, in that moment Christ is not my treasure.
Christ is not my reward. He's not my inheritance. He's not my worth. In the moment that envy is gnawing at my mind, at my heart. Envy is getting the upper hand because I'm not believing Jesus is these things for me.
It's a lack of him. Or another one, fear. When we act out of fear, when we bow to fear, when we're crippled by fear, I'm not just saying when we experience it, but when we bow to it, In that moment Christ is not our shepherd. He's not our refuge. He's not the conqueror of death for me.
Rather I'm pushing that. I'm not holding to him as that, So in these, these are just three examples. We could have many more. In these moments Jesus is not He is not the fullness for me. He is lacking.
He's missing. I've turned from him who is life toward something else, which has to therefore be death. So this is the point. If Jesus is the life we lack in the midst of sin, then sin is ultimately that which happens when Jesus is lacking in my life somehow. So it is Christ.
It's Christ. The answer to these things is him pressing into him. Now with this understanding of sin in our minds, let's ask the question, what then would be If that's what sin is, what is sin unto death? Let's ask that question. Verse 16, If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life to those who commit sin that do not lead to death.
There is sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. Okay, so what's going on with this sin that leads to death? In light of what we've just seen about sin, what can we say here? Well again, in all sense, in a sense, all sin is a turning toward death.
That's clear in verse 16, because what we need in our sin is life. Therefore, all sin is to some degree a turning toward death, but John says there is a kind of sin that's not just a turning toward death, but it's a walking toward death. It's a going in that direction. It's unto death. Its end, its destination is final soul death cut off from Christ's damnation.
That's what's going on here. So there's a sort of death. All sin is turning from Christ, but some sin is actually unto the absence of Christ, unto death. Well what kind of, what is that? What's the difference between sin and sin unto death?
Well again, what is death for John? They were just thinking very simply here. We're getting one thought of John's and just playing out the implications. Okay, sin unto death. What is death?
Well remember what we said, Christ is life. So sin that is unto death is sin that is unto a separation from Christ, a final separation from Christ. Like Jesus says more clearly in John's gospel, John eight twenty four, unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sin. Or as he says to Martha, whoever believes in me, though he dies yet shall he live. Whoever believes in me will never truly die.
So death is a cutting off from Christ. If we have him we have life. If we're cut off from him we're in death. So then sin unto death is sin that finally separates us from Christ. What kind of sin is that?
What is that sin? I don't wanna do that one, right? What is that sin? Well, it doesn't seem that John is talking about a particular sin here. Like, oh, that's the really bad one.
Rather, he seems to be talking about a kind of sin. There is a kind of sinning that cuts us off from Christ. What is that? This is clear all throughout the New Testament. I'm working through Hebrews right now in my own personal reading, and it's very clear all through Hebrews.
The kind of sinning that cuts one off from the life of Christ is a persistent, willful, unrepentant sinning. That's different than a believer who falls into sin or falls into a season of backsliding. There is a sinning that is a persistent, willful, unrepentant, yes, I know it's sin, and I'm doing it anyway. Yes, I know, but I'm doing it anyway. That kind of persistent sinning is the sin that cuts us off from Christ.
So it's not a matter of, Did I or did I not commit the sin that leads on to death? It's a matter of am I right now willfully living in sin? Am I right now unrepentantly doing what Christ commands me not to do? Am I right now embracing a Lord other than the one proclaimed in flesh and blood from the cross and preached by the apostles in his word? All sin is turning away from life toward death, and all Christians fall into that.
John's clear. But some sin is not only a turning, but a walking, and a lying down, and a closing of the door, an utter cutting oneself off from Christ. Imagine a tomb, an open tomb on your left, the risen Christ on your right. Sin, when it's a burst of anger or an act of lovelessness or whatever it may be, the kind that we do every day, God help us, sin is a turning from Christ. I'm turning back to the tomb, but when we're doing that we're still his, and we turn back to him.
We turn back to him, but this sin unto death is a sinning that walks into the tomb, lays down in the tomb, closes the door, seals the stone, and lays in death. That's sinning unto death. It's a rejection of the apostolically proclaimed Christ and his way. So this has all been foundation laying. We've seen what sin is.
It's an absence of Christ. It's a lack of Christ. Sin unto death is sin that ultimately finally cuts us off from him, which is a willful, unrepentant continual turning from him. Now with all that laid out then, let's look at what John actually commands of us in this text. So this has all just been getting our bearings.
Now what's he say? If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, so this kind of I'm turned from Christ, but they're not laying in the tomb cut off from him utterly. If anyone sees a brother committing, or a brother or sister committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life to those who commit sin that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that.
So let's deal with the simplest part of this verse first because this is actually John's main idea. The whole thing about sin that leads to death is almost a comment he makes on the side. That gets all the attention because it's confusing, but the main thing John's saying is this, if anyone sees a brother in sin, pray for them. When you see your brother or sister in sin, pray for them. Not in a condescending, Oh, it's too bad they're not as holy as I am, but maybe I can help them.
Not like that. In a genuine concern, compassion, Lord, bring them out of this death. Lord, satisfy them in Christ. Whatever they're seeking in that death of sin, grant them to find it in Christ who is their life. So pray for those that we find, for those that we see in sin.
And note, this is not a command to go hunting for sin. This is not a command to be the sin police of the church. This is saying when you see it, when you see it, which means it's fairly obvious at this point, when you see it don't gossip about it. Don't go and talk about it with a bunch of other people. The first thing to do here, not ignore it.
I didn't see that. That's not my problem. Pray, pray, pray for them. Pray for their soul. Pray for them compassionately, and if you say, I don't wanna pray for them really, I don't care, then here's where we can do the other thing.
God commands us to pray for them, so say, Lord, give me a heart that wants to pray for these people. That gets us back to last week's sermon. Pray for them. Pray for them. Pray that God would grant this person to find in Christ whatever it is that is leading them into this sin, whether it's fear, or envy, or anger, or lust, or greed, or whatever else it may be.
That's how we're to be praying for one another, and that's the main point of today's text. So very simple. That's the main thing. The other stuff about sin leading to death, that's besides the point. The crystal clear central point is this, pray that those who are in sin, the other believers you see, Christians, those who are in sin would be raised up from the death of Christ's felt absence to them, and they would be given the life that is Christ's embraced presence with them.
Pray that for them God would give them life, who is Christ. Okay, so that's very straightforward. Now we could end there, because that's what John's wanting to say, but the question lingers, doesn't it? What about those whose sinning leads to death? What about them?
So let's take a moment and consider that. Are there people we aren't supposed to pray for? Are there people that the Bible says don't pray for them? And if so, who are they? So let's look at that together here.
Who are these people whose sin leads to death that John is talking about here? If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life. To those who commit sins that do not lead to death, there is sin that leads to death. I don't say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.
Don't you wanna say, John, just tell me what this sin that leads to death is? Like, tell me. You're kind of implying it, but that's part of our answer because John doesn't feel the need to explain to his audience who these people are whose sin leads to death. He doesn't feel the need to explain it to them, which suggests they know what he's talking about. They understand what he's talking about.
If I were to say, you know, those of you who go to home group do this, and those of you who don't go to home group, do this. Two thousand years later somebody reads that, they're like, What did he mean by home group? He didn't even explain it. What does he mean like a group? What did he mean?
Well, you knew what I meant, so I didn't have to explain it. Similarly, John's audience seems to know what he means by those whose sin leads to death. That's why he doesn't have to explain it. So then we think, okay, who might they have been thinking about when John wrote this? And it just so happens this letter, recall, this letter is written to a church that has just had a significant portion of their congregation leave the body.
They've just had a group of people leave in pursuit of false teachers, going out denying Christ. Remember, these are the people that John wrote about in chapter two, verse 22 when he said, These are those who have denied the Father and the Son, those who are not listening to John and his teaching. So there's a group of people in this context who John's audience is immediately thinking of most likely when they hear those whose sin is unto death, and that is those who have just left the body of Christ following false teachers. They've just gone out and they said, We don't follow John anymore. We don't believe in this crucified Christ who's come in the flesh.
We believe in a different Christ. We believe in different teachers. We're leaving, and so those are the ones, it would seem, who are in view when John says those whose sin is unto death. It is those who have denied the crucified Jesus as the Son of God and the risen King, who have turned from the apostles' teaching, and who are now living in opposition to the self giving love required of the Christian. So these are the Yes, there's an application for us today, but it seems that immediately in John's context he's talking about, you know those people who just denied me as an apostle and denied Christ as the crucified one, and who are no longer walking in love, and who have just left your fellowship, they're sinning unto death because they've cut themselves off from life.
Those are the ones he has most immediately in mind. And then for our application to ourselves, we could say this. Those who are sinning unto death are those who have turned their backs on the crucified and risen Lord. It seems they were in the church at one time, but now they've turned their back on him. They've turned their back on the Christ proclaimed by the apostles, and they're living in willful disobedience to his commands.
This is like what the epistle to the Hebrews calls trampling on the Son of God. That's a shocking phrase, trampling. We won't go into it now, but that's crushing down the mud under your feet, and the author to the Hebrews says, If you've lived in the life of the church and you turn and abandon Christ, you're trampling him down under your feet, and John here is saying those are the ones who are sinning unto death. Those are the ones who are sinning unto death. So this is not a one time failure.
This has not even been a season of backsliding. This is a settled and chosen way where the door has been closed, and one has turned their back on Christ, laying in the tomb with the door sealed shut. Now does this mean we're not allowed to pray for these people? Does John say, Don't pray for them. Stop.
Because we all know people like that. We all know people like that. Does that mean you can't pray for them? No, no, that's not what John's saying here. Let me try to explain this.
This is a little tricky. Okay, follow with me. I'm gonna use a lot of negative phrases, but follow with me. John is not saying, Do not pray for them, as if he's commanding them, don't pray. Rather John is simply not commanding them to pray in this situation.
He's not saying don't pray, He's simply not commanding them to pray in this situation. To those who commit sin that lead to death, do not There is sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. The way it's laid out in Greek is like so careful. He's saying, I'm not telling you you have to pray for that.
That's the idea. Think about it in this example. A parent says to, let's say a mom says to her son, If it's a sunny day, you have to go outside and play. If it's rainy, you don't have to go outside. Okay?
Well, she did not say, You can't go outside when it's raining. She just didn't command her son to go outside when it's raining. So the son, if it's sunny, he's gotta go outside. If it's rainy, he could or he could not. The mom hasn't said one way or the other.
She says if it's rainy, you don't have to go. It's up to you. So too John is saying here, If you see someone sinning, pray for them. If it's a sin that doesn't lead to death, if it's the sin of a believer who's in the church, pray for them. That's a command.
But if you see someone who's sitting unto death, who's turned from God, who's turned from Christ, who's cut themselves off, John is saying, I'm not telling you, you have to pray for them. I'm not binding your conscience to tell you, you have to pray for them. It's not wrong to pray for them, but John's not commanding it. Now that leads to the question, why isn't he commanding it? Doesn't Paul say in one Timothy, We should pray for all people because God desires all to be saved?
It does say that in one Timothy. So why here does John say, Look, if they've cut themselves off utterly, I'm not telling you you have to pray for them. Why not? Here's the reason. Here's what I think.
Here's what seems to make sense. Remember the context we're in. John has just been talking about prayers you can be confident in. You can be confident. When you pray according to God's will, you know he's gonna do it.
So when you see another person sinning who's a Christian, they're holding fast to Christ, they're holding onto the promises, they're trusting him, but they've fallen into sin, We have a high degree of confidence to pray, Lord, bring them out of this sin. According to your promises, they're trusting in Christ. According to your promise, Father, bring them out of this sin. We have great confidence to pray in that way. But if someone has cut themselves off from Christ, turned their back on Christ, cut themselves off from the promises, living in opposition to him willfully, then certainly we can pray for them, but we don't have confidence in the same way that the Lord is going to answer that prayer.
He can. Hear me on this. You can go as far as you want into the tomb of sin and seal yourself in. We all have, And he can break through, like with Lazarus, rip open the tomb and say, Come out, and bring the most hardened apostate out of that death. Absolutely he can, but there's no assurance that he will do that.
So John is saying, Pray for that. If the Lord puts it on your heart, go ahead and pray for it. I'm not commanding you to pray for it because the assurance is not the same there as it is when we're praying for one who is a believer, who's trusting, who's depending, who's fallen into sin. Do you see that difference? There's a difference of our assurance in these situations.
So we do have assurance in this though, in those whose lives are holding to Christ, confessing the slain and risen one as Lord, pursuing obedience to him when they fall into sin as we all do, even when they fall into seasons of sin, and you say, what's going on with them? Pray for them, trusting that the God who has already raised them up and united them to himself in Christ will raise them up from this death and satisfy them afresh in Christ. We have confidence in that. And know also that one who has utterly, utterly cut themselves off and has abandoned Christ entirely, God can still raise them up. Of course he can.
So John's not saying, Don't you dare pray for them. He's just saying, Remember your prayers for them don't have the same assurance as one who's in Christ, so I'm not telling you you have to do That seems to be John's pastoral counsel here. Now this leads us into the table, into the Lord's Supper. Now this is today the first of what we are trusting will be a new season of weekly communion together, and critical to this new season is that you realize the end of the sermon and the beginning of the table are not two different things. My prayer for this time is that you will realize the preaching of God's word moves immediately into the actual eating of God's word, and that this supper we are going to share together as believers at the end of each service is not something different than the sermon we've just heard, but an application of it.
It's the first application of it, because the first application of anything that comes from scripture is return to Christ, hold fast to Christ, be satisfied in Christ, come to Christ. So this is not different. This may it be is just what has been proclaimed here now taking on a tangible form that you can receive and feast upon in memory of Christ. So moving into this, when we are in sin we need Christ. When I'm sinning what's going on is Christ is lacking for me.
Again, not in him, but in me. And this table is where God in grace gives us Christ through the spirit by faith again. We need Christ not merely as a savior, right? Every Christian says, Oh, I need Jesus, but we need him not just as a savior of the consequences of our sin, we need him as the satisfaction that we are seeking in our sin. We need him to be the thing I actually want more than this sin, this moment, whatever it may be.
Think of sin as the act of filling up a cavity in your soul, and we might be filling that cavity up with experiences or achievements or anxiety. Because of this yawning cavity, we might snap in anger or distract ourselves with drink or chemicals or pornography. It may cause us, this cavity in us may cause us to grip for control in our life. I need to have control, control. It may cause us to wallow in self pity or just shut down and withdraw.
Any number of sins comes out of this, but the central thing that all of them are radiating from is this absence, this cavity, this death, which is a lack of Christ for me. Somewhere Christ isn't enough for me. That's why I got angry. Somewhere Christ isn't enough for me. That's why I'm so anxious, And that's not a rebuke, it's an invitation.
Come into him more. And that's what you can do tangibly here at the table by faith. Receiving the bread, receiving the cup by faith is truly by the working of the Spirit you receiving Christ afresh. Christ given for you from the cross. Christ reigning for you from the throne.
Christ as your life. So as we come to this table, the invitation from Isaiah 55 is for us. Here's what it says. Come, hear as God's invitation now to you, to all of us as sinners who, believer or not, in our sin we're turning from Christ, and the Lord speaks into that moment of our turning from him in this way, Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come, buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good. Delight yourselves in rich food. And we say, Where's this food, Lord? Where's this drink that satisfies my soul?
Because I'm looking everywhere. Here's where it is. Come to me. Here that your soul may live. The food, the drink, it's when we come to him because he is the food.
He is the drink given on the table of the cross and represented here before us by the elements that he himself has given the church, and this invitation is open to all who are trusting in Christ. So put down the false food, put down the cup of ash, and come to this one who loves us, because this is what he says to us right now. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord. Why?
So that he can get the punishment he deserves, so that he can get what's coming to him. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. It is the pinnacle of madness to say, I've been sinning so much I can't go back. This says, In turn so that I can have compassion on you. Turn because I am ready to pardon you.
Turn because I'm right here to embrace you. I've born hell for you, says God. So turn. There's nowhere you can go beyond me. Turn and receive me.
That's what's happening here. So Christian, confess your anxieties to the Lord here at this table. Trust the heart of the one given for you on the cross. Lay down your need to be first here at this table and rejoice that God has given himself as your feast in Christ. Repent of your bitterness here at this table and see it dissolved in the ocean of grace pouring down from the cross.
Turn from anger, and lust, and greed, and obsession by grace, and come to this wellspring of healing and of life, because here is God himself in Christ given to us by the spirit, received by faith. As you're coming to this table, you're receiving Christ, so let us confess, let us repent, let us come and find life in him who is alone, our life. Let me pray for us, and then I'll talk about how we're doing things a little differently today, and we'll take the supper together. Father, we need Jesus Christ just more than oxygen, more than food, more than drink. We need Christ, and father, we repent.
I repent, and I trust my brothers and sisters do as well from those times where we have turned, those times where we do turn to false and empty things. We put the wax bread in our mouth and the cup of ashes to our lips, thinking again it will satisfy, and it doesn't. And so Lord, grant us now to come to this table as coming to Christ. Grant us to come in faith, and grant our eating and our drinking now to be a manifesting of faith in the crucified and risen one as our Lord and our God and our savior and our all. And as we come to him, Father, those of us, those who are in the midst of sin, would you give them life?
Give them forgiveness, give them repentance, give them turning, and give them life. We praise you for Jesus Christ, and we pray all these things in his name. Amen.
Caleb: Thank you for listening to this message from King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God and the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.