When are You coming back?

Good morning! It’s good to see all of you that are gathered here today, whether this is your church home or maybe this is your first time here or maybe for whatever reason God has brought you back to this church on this day. We believe that nobody is here on accident, amen? We also want to welcome those that are joining in online, our friends at First Lutheran and Algonac, those that are streaming in today wherever you may be. There’s people in the chat if there’s anything that you have questions about, they would love to answer that.

If you are a guest and maybe you’ve been here even the last couple of weeks and myself or Ben or Eric haven’t had a chance to meet you yet, we will be in the middle of the West Lobby after the service. We’d love if you come up and just introduce yourself and gives us a chance to just thank you for worshiping with us today. Does that sound good? All right, we’re continuing a series of messages that we’ve been on the last several weeks called Questioning God and the way that we wrote the sermon series is we ask the question to God and then we go to the Bible, we open the Bible and we let God answer the question according to his word.

Because as a church, we believe that we go to the word of God and we allow God to dictate how we are to live our lives. Okay, that was really weak. So let’s try that again.

As a church, we believe that we go to the word of God and we allow God’s word to dictate how we live our lives because he created us and he knows what’s best for us. Perfect. Which is what we actually tackled in week one.

If you weren’t here for any of these, you can go on our website. They’re easy to find. You can go through if any of these topics interest you and it’s been kind of a fun series.

We’re actually today, there’s only two weeks left and before I get into that, I want you to know the scripture because sometimes we’ll have a scripture that kind of carries us through the series and our key scripture for that has been out of 2 Timothy chapter 3 where it tells us that scripture is breathed out by God. It’s written by God and it teaches and it trains us. It teaches and trains, teaches and trains just as we are to teach and train our children who are in our kids program even right now this morning.

But it also rebukes and corrects which isn’t a negative thing, that’s a positive thing and that’s why we say we go to the word of God and allow it to dictate how we live our lives. And so our last two questions in this series today and tomorrow, they kind of coincide with each other. Today we’re going to look at answering this question.

God, come on man. What’s taking you so long? Anybody feel that? If we were calling the shots, would you not have already determined that he should come back? Any of you wish you would have come back in the 80s? 90s? What was the best era? 70s? I don’t know. 2000s? Here we are 2025.

God, when are you coming back? And then next week we’re going to answer this question. God, what happens when you return? Because you’d be surprised at how much God actually gives us in the scriptures on that very question. But when you look at a question like God, when are you coming back? Honestly, it usually dovetails into asking more questions.

Like if you’re really coming back, why are you taking so long? Am I the only one to ask this question? I mean it’s been 2,000 years. I think the earth is good. Don’t you think? We got enough people on the planet.

Certainly everyone has had a chance to know you. I mean because of technology and satellites and televisions. I mean are there really unreached people groups that are still on our planet? Or how about this? God, why don’t you just tell us when you’re coming back? I mean you give us a lot of details in the Bible.

Like why would you not tell us when you’re coming? Wouldn’t that make life so much easier if you knew? Like for example, if you knew that Jesus was coming back at the end of this year, December 31st 2025, how many of you would quit your job? How many of you would take out a car payment or a lease that you know you could never pay back? Anybody willing to admit they’d rack up some credit card debt, right? Put it on Jesus’s tab, he’s coming back. Or you just go on some extravagant vacation. I mean most of us, I think that’s in our human nature.

If we actually knew he’s coming back, we’d be like the first reaction would be, well I think I’ll just enjoy the few weeks and months that we have left. What about this? Can we predict when Jesus is going to return based on signs and world events? What does the Bible say? We’re going to get into that today and then we’re going to focus on this more next week. But what if I’m not ready when Jesus returns? A.k.a. I don’t have faith, my kids don’t have faith, my grandkids don’t have faith.

Will they be left behind? Will they be left behind? And we’re going to dig into that more. That gives you a reason to come back next week. Now, the school I went to focused a lot on the end times.

In fact, I was in a different church body before transitioning to the one that I’m in now, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod that our church is part of. And one of the books that we had for our class was this book. You ready? It says this, I predict 2000 A.D. Anybody happen to have this book? I actually still have this book on my bookshelf and I keep it on my bookshelf on purpose.

And it’s by a guy named Lester Summerall. And if you do some research, I mean this was a godly man. He went all over the world proclaiming the gospel.

He wanted more and more people to know Jesus. And he writes this book and he has all of these predictions on what is going to happen in the year 2000. Now, he wrote the book in 1987.

Here’s what you might not know is that there’s a book that he wrote before this one. And the book he wrote before this one was I predict 1985. And because that didn’t happen in 1997, he wrote I predict 2000.

And sadly, he passed away before the year 2000, which means he didn’t have an opportunity to write a third book. And I’m always amazed at how many people try to, I mean they just become obsessed with it, almost overly obsessed with it. And so there’s this fine line that you’re going to see in the scriptures of knowing the times, studying the times, but also not getting so caught up and overwhelmed that you start telling other people exact dates and times.

What happened recently in our culture, even in our world just this last month, some of you, you might have watched this podcast. Anybody know who this is? Anybody know who this is? Anybody know what country he’s from? South Africa. All right, this guy’s name’s Joshua.

And he said Jesus came to him and that Jesus told him that he was coming back either on September 23rd or September 24th, 2025. Now think about this, because someone told me after the nine o’clock service, because I was like, oh, who picks two dates? Like just be, you know, one or the other. And someone came and they made sense of this for me.

They said, well, depends on where you’re at in the world, because sometimes September 24th for part of the world is that date, but then the other half of the world is September 23rd. So I guess this guy was being really smart. Here, I’m going to give you two dates.

And this is when Jesus is coming back. And there were people that sold their possessions and they went out into the woods and they sang songs and they did all sorts of things. But then what happened? September 25th came and it didn’t happen.

And this became such a worldwide phenomenon that people went on their social media pages and people were actually saying to people, hey, don’t fear, don’t doubt, Jesus is not coming back on September 23rd or 24th. How many of you saw a video like that? And then you’re like, wait, what is this about? And why are they telling us on these dates that he’s not coming back? But this has been going on for a long time. People have been trying to predict when Jesus is coming back for a very long time.

Let’s go to our Bibles and let’s see what God’s word says. If you have your Bible with you, which we encourage you to bring your Bibles to church, we’re going to be in Matthew 24. That’s going to be the basis for the sermon this morning.

And in Matthew 24, right at the very beginning, verse one, Jesus is leaving a temple. He’s walking away with his disciples and they come up to him. Jesus draws attention to the building that they’re standing by.

And he says, do you see this building? Not one of the stones on this building are going to be left on another. Every single one of them is going to be thrown down. Now, if you’re new to the Bible, Jesus will oftentimes just throw out statements and he will honestly throw out things that would confuse even his closest circle, his disciples.

And so when they heard Jesus say this, they were kind of like, wait a second, have we heard this before? And what is he talking about? And what is the context of this? Well, it tells us as Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples actually came up to him privately because they’re like, hey, remember that thing that you said before? We need a little more clarity on that. Are you talking about when this happens? That’ll be a sign of your coming. And then it’s the end of the age, meaning it’s the end of the world.

Like everything is just complete at that point. And so they’re asking Jesus, like, can you give us the date or can you give us the time? Or can you at least tell us what the signs will be leading up to it? Look at how Jesus answers their question. He says, watch out that no one deceives you.

For many will come in my name, claiming I am the Messiah. And by the way, unfortunately, they are going to deceive many. And I want you to think about this because we tackled this several weeks ago when we looked at different religions.

Not only was this happening in their time, it’s happening now. How many different religions there are and religions that would say Jesus is not the Savior, he’s not the promised Messiah. They’ll give him some credit and say he was a prophet, but he’s not the ultimate prophet.

So we know the Muslims, Jewish witnesses, the Mormons, all of them have different views of who Jesus is and even our belief in the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And it continues to happen to this day. How about this? Tell me if this is what’s happening in our world.

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. Good, none of you are watching the news. Anybody want to admit this morning that you’re watching the news and you see what’s going on again with Russia, and now Poland, and NATO, and the whole thing with Ukraine, and it makes you nervous? Or it makes you fearful? Or you wonder what does this mean for me? Look at what Jesus says.

He says you’re going to hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. See to it that you don’t fall into the trap of having anxiety or thinking that this isn’t part of God’s plan, or that God’s still not on the throne, or God is not still orchestrating the events of human history according to his sovereign will. In fact, this is going to continue to happen, and these things must happen, then the end is still to come.

Like these things are going to happen, and there’s still other things that have to happen before the end comes. By the way, nation’s going to rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. There’s going to be famines.

There are famines in parts of the world. How many earthquakes are we seeing all the time? All these are the beginning of birth pains. Ugh.

This is where I just sometimes like, oh man, I want to stop reading the Bible. I don’t even want to know what’s next. What else did Jesus say? I think this is enough.

Jesus, why couldn’t you say this would be the end of birth pains? Why does it have to be the beginning? I think all of that stuff is enough. I think once all those things are going, okay, it’s time. You can come back.

I know you didn’t ask my opinion, but I’m going to give it to you anyways. Now is a really good time to come back, Jesus. Then he says this, and I don’t think people know this part of this passage.

You’re going to be handed over to be persecuted and put to death. Imagine the disciples, wait, me? You mean them, those guys, not me. Like what’s going to happen? Oh, by the way, you’re going to be disliked.

Oh, no, no. You’re going to be hated by all of the nations because you have faith in me and because you’re proclaiming the gospel. At that time, many will turn away from the faith.

Did you see that? Jesus’ words again. These are all in quotes because it’s Jesus talking. This is why we don’t believe in once saved, always saved.

Many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate even each other. He goes back and repeats what he said at the beginning. False prophets will appear.

Unfortunately, many people are going to be drawn away into cults and into other beliefs. Do you see the tension, the real spiritual tension that we live in every single day for the souls of those that God has placed on planet Earth? I think so often we just get busy. We get too overwhelmed with the life circumstances.

So often, even in my own family, and I felt guilty about this this week as I was preparing the message, that the last thing that my wife and I do before we go to bed is we pull up our Google calendars and we figure out who has to be where with which kid and how this whole next day is going to go because it’s so overwhelming. Anybody else have that? And then the crazy part is we have to wake up again in the morning and we have to do it all over again because I forgot everything we said the night before. Anybody else have that happen as well? And it is when you’re raising kids or you have life going on.

It’s just like you don’t think about the fact that Jesus could come back at any moment. You’re just trying to survive each and every day and yet the world around us is eroding. And is it possible that we’re going to get to a point in time when we are going to see an increase in persecution? Are people going to be put to death because of their stance about who Jesus Christ is and who he claimed to be? How many know what happened last week to this gentleman? I mean you saw this in the news.

His name’s Ezra Jin. He has built one of the largest underground Christian churches ever. 40 cities and he reaches about 10,000 people on a weekend.

What country do you think he’s in? China. And he was arrested by the Chinese government. He and several other key church leaders, he’s still in prison as of this morning because I looked at it.

Of course the Chinese government is being very transparent about why they have him in custody. And wait a second, I thought China was becoming our friend. I thought they were becoming more loving and kind.

I thought they wanted to get along with all the other world powers. Wait, this doesn’t make sense because I thought that the love that we have in our hearts for each other will eventually fix the problems we have in the world. Oh wait, that’s right, China’s a communist country.

Oh wait, China doesn’t value human life like we value human life. Oh wait, China wants to control every single ounce of information that their people receive and because this guy’s church is exploding and people are putting their faith in Jesus, he now finds himself in a prison. You have to pray for him and pray for his family, pray for his church.

Jesus said this, because of the increase of wickedness the love of most will grow cold, but yet the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. Well how do you stand firm to the end? What does that look like for you and for me and for our families and for this church? If you really want to know when it’s getting close, this is what Jesus says. This gospel of the kingdom, the truth that I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the father except through me.

I am the promised messiah. I am the fulfillment of the old testament scriptures. This message that goes forth will be preached to the whole world as a testimony to every single nation and when that happens, Jesus is coming back.

There’s a clue, there’s a bread crumb right from Jesus. So it makes you wonder, okay we got to be getting closer, right? Again because of technology and satellites and televisions and most people even impoverished countries living in shacks still have somehow smartphones in their possessions. How are there still people on our planet that haven’t heard the gospel message? But let’s start with the world population.

How many people are in our world? Anybody know? A little over eight billion. And how many people do you think have not had a chance to hear the gospel message? Do it this way. What percentage of those over eight billion people do you think still haven’t heard the gospel? 30, 40, 15? See that’s where I was at.

I was like we got to be getting close. It’s been 2,000 years. We got to be at like 10%.

We got to be so close and we’ll just have everyone that calls Shepherds Gate home go on a mission trip and we’ll find that extra 10% and then Jesus comes back. Like you want to force the hand of God, this is how you do it. Everybody let’s get up and go on a mission trip.

Well here’s a map of our world and you’ll see this one comes from the Joshua Project and this organization does incredible work in research and you can see there the red dots of the people that they believe have not heard the gospel message. And so they’re raising up this next generation. They’re deploying them to be missionaries in some of the hardest reach people places to reach people on the planet.

The unreached people that according to them is a little over three and a half billion people. Not million, billion. Which makes up over 43, almost 44 percent of every living soul on the planet.

That stinks. I don’t think he’s coming back anytime soon folks. We have some work to do don’t we? As you look at that map those of you that know your geography where are most of the red dots? In India.

How many of you are ready to sell everything and get on a plane and go be a missionary in India? I can see you. If we don’t then who’s going to go? The reason there’s a box around this they call this the 1040 window and they believe that this area in particular has the highest concentration of unreached people groups. So what is our responsibility? What is it that God has called us to do? I’m thankful that here at Shepherd’s Gate we have three women who are serving full-time on the mission field in foreign countries right now and have given up their paychecks, have given up their lives and they are strategically in some of the most difficult situations so that people will come to know Jesus.

Can we give them a hand this morning? And I just believe, maybe I’m crazy, that God’s going to stir more hearts and he’s going to raise up more people and we have to figure out how to support them through our prayers and yes through our financial resources as they make that commitment and they’re willing to go share Jesus. Amen? A couple of the organizations that we’re tied into here at Shepherd’s Gate is the Lutheran Bible Translator and it’s even fascinating to think that there’s languages on our planet that don’t have a copy of the Bible in their language and thanks be to God for technology that’s advancing this. It’s making it easier for them to do this.

Lutheran Heritage Foundation is actually headquartered in Macomb Township. I mean it’s right here in our backyard and they make all sorts of incredible materials that then go out to all of these foreign countries to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. But going back to the words of Jesus, Jesus said this, then, just so you know, there’s going to be a sign of the Son of Man in heaven.

He’s going to come out of the clouds and all the people of the earth are going to celebrate. This is where you say that’s not what it says, Tim. All the people of the earth will mourn and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

It’s going to be angels. There’s going to be a trumpet call. He’s going to gather his people, his church, those who have faith in him.

And yet it’s so sad to think that millions and millions, possibly even billions of people are going to see with their own eyes the risen Savior and the Lord and they’re going to mourn because they don’t know him as their Lord and Savior. And something really difficult happened to me just yesterday. Many of you know that several months ago I shared about one of my best friends happens to live in Canada.

His mom found out that she had cancer all over her body and there was nothing that they could do. They weren’t going to try any types of treatment. Basically said you have three, maybe four months tops before your body just gives out.

And if you remember me sharing this, I found out that in Canada, if you have two doctors sign off on your condition, that when you decide that you’re ready to die, the doctors will come to your home and they will inject you and then you can decide when to take your last breath. Which was really difficult because I love my friend and I love his family and I’ve spent a lot of time with him and his parents, but they don’t go to church. They’re kind of in that agnostic stage.

And my buddy, to be honest with you, he’s been very successful in life. He’s built an incredible business. He lives in a beautiful home.

Money’s not an issue. He’s well liked in his community. He’s got a beautiful wife and kids.

I mean, from the outside, looking in at everything that he’s done and accomplished at a young age, it’s pretty incredible. And we’ve had so many talks about faith because he’ll say, I know what you believe and I know what your church believes and I know what you say. He’s like, but I just don’t see a need for church and I’m just agnostic.

So however it works out or whatever religion leads, I guess we’ll find out when we pass away. And it’s always been difficult to hear because I just know that at some point, God, you have to be the one to bring them to faith. That’s what we believe.

It’s not because of my wise or persuasive words or because somehow I’m able to debate him into believing in Jesus. And yet earlier this week, his mom did pass away. And I finally had the opportunity to talk to him just yesterday morning.

In fact, my wife and I were on our way to the gym and I said, I’m just going to call him really quick, probably only take 10 minutes. And we got to the gym and Lisa went out and went inside to the gym and I’m still in the car with him an hour later talking on the phone. And for the first time in the 25 years that I have known him, I saw a broken heart.

I saw someone that all of a sudden because of the loss of someone so close to him and the respect and the love that he has for his mom and all that he’s been through these last several months, but leading up to the day that she took her last breath, he now said this to me. He said, Tim, I know that I’ve always told you I’m agnostic and I still kind of am, but I believe in Jesus and I believe in some of the teachings in the Bible. I just don’t believe all of the teachings in the Bible.

So now I’m somewhere between agnostic and Christian. I don’t know what that’s called, but somewhere I’m between the two. I thought to myself, man, this is the Holy Spirit at work.

This is the Holy Spirit at work in the heart of someone that has created a beautiful life that doesn’t see the need for God or a church or a church community until you come to the place where you realize that your life is temporary and short, that it’s not just about being busy or making the next dollar, that eternity hangs in the battle and that balance for you and for me, all of us, and not just when we breathe our last breath on this earth, but it also equates to the fact of when Jesus could come back because he could come back at any hour, at any day, and are we actually ready? Paul tells us this as well, that he’s coming back, just so you know, he’s coming down from heaven, and again he repeats the same thing that Jesus said, there’s going to be a command, there’s going to be angels, there’s going to be this trumpet call of God. But then going back to Matthew, this is what Jesus says next, the day or the hour, which is the original question if you remember the disciples asked him, that day or hour, actually no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the son, but only the Father, which this is kind of a perplexing verse, can we just admit that? Because if we believe that God is three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we call it the Trinity, it’s a mystery, we don’t fully comprehend because our minds can’t comprehend how three individual persons can also be one entity, how is it if Jesus knows everything, he doesn’t know when he’s coming back? Does anybody else struggle with that? And this is Jesus saying this, Jesus is saying I’m not going to know, but God’s going to know, and when God gives me the nod, that’s when I’m going to go back to earth for my church once and for all. And sometimes there’s these difficult texts that we have to wrestle with, sometimes we have to admit that we don’t fully understand what this means, but we continue to put our faith and our hope and trust in God, whose ways are higher than ours, whose thoughts are higher than ours, we recognize that we have these finite minds and he has the infinite knowledge of the universe.

And so even though we don’t have all of the answers and even understanding even the scripture, this is what we know about Jesus, that he is fully God and fully man, that in and of himself he has two natures, divine and human, because he took on human flesh, came to this earth, born of a virgin, lived a life similar to ours, experienced every single thing that we experience with our time on this earth, yet he was without sin. That’s why he’s on the cross, that’s why he took our sins upon himself, he did what we couldn’t do for ourselves so that he could die and on the third day rise again and defeat sin and death and the devil for you and for me. The scriptures are clear, he’s sitting at the right hand of God the Father.

The Bible tells us that he intercedes for us, he prays for you, he loves you, he’s concerned about your Google calendar, did you know that? He wants to spend time with you and he’s going to come to judge the living and the dead and as we think of all of that, as we look at all of the things going on in our world, as we’re only a few months away from saying goodbye to 2025 and welcoming 2026, is it possible, is it possible for us to predict maybe a little bit closer of when he’s coming back based on world events? Now I’ll say this and this is normal in human history, anytime there’s major wars, when world war one was going on the church thought oh man this is it, Jesus is coming back, world war two, same thing, Vietnam war, same thing, any of the wars that we’ve had recently, same exact thing, which is a normal human response of is this the end and is this really when Jesus is coming back? Here is what Jesus said, these are his words for us today, he says as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the son of God. You guys remember the story, there’s a flood, people were eating and drinking, they were getting married, they were going on their merry way, they were filling their lives with everything you have to fill your life with, you know tea times and restaurant appointments and vacations and all the things that we do and they knew nothing would happen until the flood came and took them all away. People were just living their lives until something rattled them, until something took place and that was the rain that was coming from the sky.

Jesus says look back to that story, so what is he doing, he’s validating the old testament, he’s validating Noah, he’s validating Noah’s ark by the way, as it was like that, that’s when you know you’re getting even closer. Now I want you to look at what it says in Genesis about this time period, God was the one that looked down on man and he saw man had every intention and thought of his heart was constantly on evilness, that the world gets so dark and so sinful that the vast majority of those that don’t have faith in Jesus are consumed with evilness. Man I so wish I could give you good news this morning, at least that mankind will figure it out, that love wins, which is what a lot of people think, oh eventually maybe it’s the next generation, people even put the pressure on the Gen Zers, oh the next generation of Gen Zers, they’ll dislove and accept everybody and then we’ll have world peace.

Can I just tell you Jesus says the exact opposite in this passage, mankind doesn’t have the ability to figure it out, we’re too prideful and sinful and fallen, without Jesus and without the faith and the love that he puts in our heart, we are doomed, the only way that we make it through this is because of his love and his grace and his mercy for us and because he gives us faith, because he gives us love, the love that we share is not even our own love, stop taking credit for it, the love that we share with others only comes from God, don’t mix that up, it’s not going to get better, it’s going to get worse, and we have a responsibility to make sure that we keep that in mind and that we pass this on to our kids, which begs the question, well what do we do while we wait? Any ideas? Buy a cottage, is that what you said? Spread his word, pray, I love the person that said pray, what else do you think he would want us to do? What if we all sold our houses and we moved up north and we built a compound and we just waited for him to come back? Anybody on board with that? Just checking, okay, just checking. God, what do you want us to do in the in-between time? And this is how he ends this passage, keep watch, repeats, you’re not going to know the day or the hour and not only should you keep watch, you should be ready because he’s actually going to come when you least expect it. That means you have to have a mindset and a posture of being ready every single day.

I would submit to you this this morning that he actually does call us to keep watch, that we should read the news, we should know the times, we should equally reject false beliefs because Jesus said that not once but twice in this passage and as we reject false beliefs that gives us the ability to stand on the word of God, the truth of God’s word. But here’s the one I think we miss out on, do you know that? It’s just so often even though we know it’s going to get worse, as followers of Jesus we can get excited, did you know that? We can be thrilled that God is coming back, we have absolutely nothing to fear. God is the one who is sending his one and only son, God is the one that knows the timeline, God is the one that knows each and every one of our human hearts and he has never stopped working out his perfect plan for each and every single one of you that are here today.

And not only can we be excited, which I think we should throw parties more for this, we can wait expectantly. How many of you like to wait that we can figure out and maybe there’s a better way to do this and I’m open to ideas because even with my own family, I told my wife this week, I said I feel kind of guilty because we don’t talk about this enough with our kids and so we don’t really talk enough about this at church and that would be on me as the one who sets the preaching calendar and the scriptures that we’re going to go over. I was like, how do we incorporate this into our daily lives? And I was like, what if tomorrow morning, I said this to her last night, I wake up the kids and I say, hey kids, guess what? Jesus could come back today, be excited about it.

And because I knew they’d be asleep this morning, last night I looked at my boys and I said, guys, guess what? Jesus could come back tomorrow. You should go to bed. And my kids are way too smart and sarcastic.

I love having teenagers. They’re like, dad, it doesn’t even make sense. I’m like, listen, I’m preaching on it tomorrow.

Just go there with me. They’re like, if he’s coming back tomorrow, then why do we need to go to bed? I’m like, I don’t know, but we’re going to figure this out. We’re going to figure out a way to be excited about it.

We’re going to figure out a way to incorporate this into our discipleship with you. But here’s the really cool thing about this morning as we prepare hearts to receive Holy Communion, that what we do here on a regular basis, why we take Holy Communion so seriously, why we do it often is because this is a foretaste of what is to come. This is a reminder of the goodness and grace of our God.

And as we prepare our hearts to receive Holy Communion, I want to just change your perspective for a moment. Because certainly part of this process is we bow our heads, we close our eyes, we have a moment of silence between you and God to confess your sins to him. But on this day, as we’ve looked at these packages, could we do this today? After you confess your sins and you receive that forgiveness, that you will come to the communion table this morning with your head held high.

And not only are you going to have your head held high, you’re going to have a massive smile on your face. Can we just practice that right now? Go ahead. Because you have already been forgiven in your seat and then you’re going to receive God’s forgiveness again when you receive God’s very presence in and with the bread and the wine.

And that today we turn this whole thing into a celebration of who our God is and what he’s done through his son Jesus Christ. And we will excitingly and eagerly await the day that he comes. Amen? Amen.