chapter of Matthew's Gospel.
We began this study last week, and we'll continue this week.
Once you find your place out of respect
for the reading of the Word of the Lord,
we stand as we look into His Word.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows.
After his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,
before they came together, she was found
with child of the Holy Spirit.
Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man
and not wanting to make her a public example,
was minded to put her away secretly.
But while he thought about these things, behold,
an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream,
saying, Joseph, son of David, do not
be afraid to take to you Mary, your wife,
for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
And she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name
Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
So all this was done that it might
be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet,
saying, behold, the virgin shall be a child and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which
has translated God with us.
Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep,
he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him,
and he took to him his wife.
And he did not know her, till she had brought forth
her firstborn son.
And he called his name Jesus.
We're going to pray, but I'm going to ask for,
if you just have a moment, as the silence,
we'll bow our heads, because all the word is a holy word.
But what we're reading and studying this morning
is the incarnation of the Son of God.
It's a holy mystery.
Indeed, church, we're standing on holy ground this morning.
So before we just plow into the text, let's bow, take a moment,
ask God to clear your minds of distractions
and give you holy thoughts and concentration
as we hear the word of the Lord this morning.
So let's have a moment of silence,
and I'll close this in prayer.
OK.
Father, help us this morning.
Lord, no man can say that Jesus is Lord except by your spirit,
and no man can see Jesus as he really is except by your spirit.
Lord, naturally we are blind.
We are deaf and heart-hearted to spiritual things.
God, do a work that only you can do.
Lord, we're reading this morning about the birth,
the incarnation of your eternal Son.
God, help us, Lord, this morning, not to be glib,
but rather, Lord, that we might have,
or just a holy concentration.
I pray for unction, Lord, the power of the Spirit of God.
Please do not let me say what needs not to be said.
And Father, would you call to mind and perhaps lead me
even in ways that, Lord, things I have not thought of or prepared
that Lord need to be spoken.
God, would you help me?
Give me utterance.
But Father, we pray for the working of your spirit now
to show us Jesus, we pray, in his name.
Amen.
You may be seated.
When Sandy and I found out that we were pregnant with Ezra,
we spent considerable time thinking of baby names.
And perhaps many of you have had that same experience.
It was very important to us, though,
to have a name that had deep meaning.
And so after we did the gender reveal
and we found out we were having a boy,
we narrowed the list down and we ultimately chose Ezra.
Why?
Well, Ezra means the Lord is my help.
And that was our prayer for him, that he would always
look to the Lord God for his help.
Then nine months later, after Ezra was born,
we got pregnant with Adara.
And of course, we started the process all over again,
this time looking for girl names.
And most of you probably never heard the name Adara.
It's a very unique name.
We found it.
It's on a Hebrew list.
It's a Hebrew word.
And Adara means exalted, noble, majestic.
And again, Sandy and I began to pray
that she would live up to her name,
that this little girl would be noble in character.
Nine months later, after Adara was born,
we got pregnant with Gaby.
And things got very difficult.
And we were told that she most likely would not live.
They felt the odds were stacked against her.
And so we are praying for her by name.
You can't cry right now.
We are praying for her by name.
And so we struggled to find a name for her.
We were going to all these appointments
and just never getting good news.
And so we thought, we need to pray for her by name.
And so we struggled, but we found the name
and decided on the name Gabriella,
the female version of Gabriel.
Now, why Gabriella?
Because Gabriella means the Lord is my strength.
The Lord had to have to be fighting.
The Lord, she needed the Lord to be fighting for her
and giving her strength, or she was not going to live.
And let me just tell you, if you know Gaby,
the Lord has been giving her strength ever since.
Yeah.
Nine months later, after Gaby was born,
we got pregnant with Isabella.
We were surprised.
And of course, we wanted a meaningful name
for this little girl.
And so we decided on the name Isabella.
Isabella means the Lord is my oath,
or the Lord is my promise.
And we wanted our little Isabella
to be a part of God's covenantal promises.
And then nine months later, nothing.
We had finished having children.
We were done.
So names are significant, aren't they?
And they were in scripture as well.
I think it's interesting how ancient people named their
children.
If it was in a very bitter event,
you know what that child might be named?
Mara, bitter.
Remember Isaac, he had two children.
And one came out very hairy.
And they're like, let's name him Harry.
No, not H-A-R-R-Y, but H-A-R-I-R-Y.
Esau, what's Esau mean?
He's the hairy one.
But she had twins.
And remember Jacob grabbed the heel of Esau.
So they're like, well, let's name the second one Jacob.
Why?
Because he grabs the heel.
What does Jacob mean?
One who grabs the heel.
It also can mean supplanter, or one who overreaches.
And you think, why would you name your child that?
It was interesting though.
And these names almost became prophetic in character.
Jacob became the supplanter, or the deceiver.
Later, his name would be changed to Israel.
In Matthew chapter one, we're given a long list of names
detailing the ancestry of our Lord.
But beginning in verse 18, the scene
switches from his ancestry to his birth.
And in this section, you see there are actually two names
that were going to be given to this child.
His proper name, he will be called Jesus.
Jehovah saves, or Yahweh saves.
And then Emmanuel, God with us.
And both of these names are, are, and will,
become critically important.
Because they're going to help us to understand
what his mission and his identity really were.
The child who had come to save us
is actually God with us.
Now remember that Matthew is writing primarily,
not exclusively, to Jewish people.
He is seeking to convince him that Jesus of Nazareth
was their promised Messiah.
So he starts out in the first 17 verses,
and he lists the ancestry of Jesus
through both David and ultimately to Abraham.
Now he's showing that Jesus fits the bill.
He has the proper pedigree, if you will.
Now the fact that Jesus was the son of Abraham
was not unique at all because all Jews
were descendants of Abraham.
That's what made one a Jew.
He had to be through Abraham.
But Jesus is also called Son of David.
Now oftentimes in Matthew, that is a title for the Messiah,
but it doesn't have to be.
It can just refer to a descendant from David.
Because if you look down in verse 20, you notice that Joseph
is also called a son of David.
So all Jews were sons of Abraham,
but not all were sons of David.
But there were many sons of David.
Solomon, Rehoboam, verse 20, we see Joseph, he was.
But what is Matthew's point?
Matthew's point was that Jesus is not a son of Abraham,
but the son of Abraham.
He is the seed in whom all the earth will be blessed.
Jesus is not just a son of David.
He is the son of David.
He is the son who had been born to sit eternally
on the throne of his father, David.
So in other words, Matthew, first chapter,
he's detailing very clearly Jesus
is the fulfillment of the promises made to both Abraham
and David.
Now to understand Matthew, you have
to understand a little bit about 1st century Israel
and their messianic expectations.
There was a lot of confusion about what the Messiah would
do when he came.
I mean, they knew that he would be a liberator.
He's going to be a deliverer of some sort.
They knew that.
They knew he would be a descendant of David.
So a son of David, who is a great deliverer,
their minds start thinking in political terms.
David's a king.
David rescued them from the Goliath and the Philistines.
So they're thinking politically.
And besides, at this time in history,
Israel is an occupied nation.
They're not free.
They're under Roman rule.
And if there's one thing the Jews hated,
they hated being under the pagan Romans.
They did not like that.
So they naturally assumed that the son of David
would come free them from their bondage to Rome
and then bring worldwide blessing
through the exaltation of the nation Israel.
But they failed to discern the Messiah's true identity
and its true mission.
Matthew is written to show Jews that Jesus is the king
of Israel.
He is their Messiah.
That's the whole point of this gospel.
He wants to show you who the Christ really is.
Now, why is that important?
For in seeing him, friends, you find life.
In seeing him, and I talk about seeing him through the eyes
of faith, you find salvation.
There is wholeness, shalom, peace.
In seeing him, there is security.
There is joy.
In seeing him, there is soul satisfaction.
There is rest for your soul.
In truly seeing him and understanding who he is,
you find everything.
Everything is tied to this child.
But if you fail to see him, you lose everything,
including your own life.
Everything hinges upon this child who is to be born.
So you're saying, well, who is the Messiah?
Verse 16, Jesus, son of Mary.
Well, who is Jesus?
It's a great question.
He is the one far greater than you can even imagine.
He is the one who is far greater than tongue can tell.
He is, son of Mary.
That's who he is.
But this Jesus from this tiny, nondescript,
unimportant, overlooked town of Nazareth is God in flesh.
He is Emmanuel, his God with us.
And everything about his birth is going to reveal that truth.
Jesus is God.
To deny the divinity or the deity of Christ
is to deny the gospel.
It is to deny the truth.
If you today do not believe Jesus is God,
you deny his deity, you are not a Christian.
You cannot be.
And you must repent of that wicked thought.
Now as we continue, we're going to see some amazing things
here beginning of verse 18.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows.
After his mother, Mary, was betrothed to Joseph.
Before they came together, she was found
with child of the Holy Spirit.
Now Matthew is going to give the details of our Lord's
birth from Joseph's point of view.
You can parallel that with Luke's gospel,
and he's going to give the details of the birth
from Mary's perspective.
But Matthew starts out calling him Jesus Christ.
Now so many people, if we're not careful,
they think Christ is his last name.
Christ is not his last name.
Christ is a title.
In Greek, it's Christas.
In Hebrew, it's Meshiah.
Both of those Christas, Meshiah, both mean anointed one,
Messiah.
See the first 17 verses we looked at last week,
it's going to show Jesus is the son of David,
and now verses 18 to the end of the chapter
are written to show why he is much more important
than his father, David.
He's not just the son of David, he's the son of David,
and he's far more important than his father, David was.
Well, how in the world could a descendant
be more important than David, who is the illustrious great
king of Israel?
I mean, how can it be more important than him?
Well, look up at verses five and six.
And it says, verses five and six,
Solomon begot Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth,
Obed begot Jesse.
Now look at verse six, and Jesse begot David the king.
David's father is Jesse, whose father is Obed.
So don't miss it.
In other words, Jesse and his wife
came together intimately, sexually,
and conceived David, normal human conception.
David is the son of Jesse, but Jesus is the son of God.
We are clearly told, now look at the text,
it was not Joseph who produced the conception.
Well, who did?
The third member of the divine trinity,
the Holy Spirit of God.
Look at verse 18, she was found with child
howl of the Holy Spirit.
Verse 20, don't be afraid to take to you Mary
or wife for that which is conceived to her is of the Holy
Spirit.
Verse 23, he quotes Isaiah, behold,
the virgin shall be of a child and bear a son.
Joseph and Mary had not yet come together.
They had not been sexually intimate,
and yet Mary became pregnant.
Now some might be thinking, well, of course,
just because it wasn't Joseph's child,
that doesn't mean that it wasn't some other man's.
Yes, it does.
In Luke 1, we read these verses again, 31.
And behold, you will conceive in your womb
and bring forth the angel speaking to Mary.
You will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son,
and you shall call his name Jesus.
Verse 34, Mary said to him, to the angel, how in the world?
How can this be?
I don't know a man.
She's never been with a man.
The scriptures leave no doubt whatsoever
that our Lord was conceived supernaturally
in the womb of a virgin.
And even here, we start to see a glimpse, an intimation,
that our salvation will not come as a result of human effort
or human act, but rather by divine power alone.
Everything is going to be because God.
Now how can a virgin conceive?
Luke tells us, for with God, nothing will be impossible.
Nothing.
Now God didn't need Joseph to create life in Mary's womb.
Of course not.
He supernaturally implanted life in that young lady,
that virgin's womb, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Look at Luke 135.
And the angel answered and said to her,
the Holy Spirit will come upon you, Mary,
and the power of the highest will overshadow you.
I want you to pay attention to that word overshadow.
Notice the words, power of the highest overshadows Mary.
Luke is using Genesis language, Genesis 1, 2.
The earth was without form and void and darkness
is on the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God, that's the Holy Spirit,
was hovering over, overshadowing the face of the waters.
So in Genesis 1, you have the Spirit of God hovering
over the face of the waters.
In Luke 1, you have the Holy Spirit hovering over Mary's
womb.
Luke is borrowing language from Genesis.
What's the point?
Don't miss it.
In Genesis 1, you had the beginning of creation.
In Luke 1, there is a dawning of a new creation.
Something radically new is happening.
And everything will change with the birth of this child.
Everything.
All of human history will be changed
with the birth of this child, including the way we mark time.
BC, before Christ, AD, and the year of our Lord.
Now, if you read textbooks today, they don't use BC and AD,
do they?
They use BCE and CE.
Before the common error, common error.
But you know what divides before the common error
and the common error?
The birth of Christ.
So whatever you want to do, that's
what it is, the dividing point of history.
Now Matthew and Luke, they both tell us in their gospel
that Mary was already betrothed to Joseph.
Betrothal was a two-part process in a Jewish marriage.
The betrothal church, you've got to get this,
created the legal relationship.
So it involved two families in a formal contract.
And that contract was as binding as marriage itself.
So after a couple was betrothed, there
only remained three things to take place.
The formal wedding ceremony, the bride
would move into the groom's home,
and then the marriage would need to be consummated,
come together physically.
Now notice in verse 19 how Joseph has already
called her husband.
Now the wedding ceremony had not yet taken place.
But in betrothal, they were already legally seen
as husband and wife.
So if they were going to break the betrothal process,
if Joseph were to break his betrothal,
it required formal divorce proceedings.
You don't just get a call off a betrothal like today.
You can call off an engagement, and you
don't need to go to the courts to do so.
Now usually a couple, not always, but generally,
they were betrothed about one year before the marriage.
Well, why would they wait a year?
They would allow the husband to go away and get everything
ready for his new bride.
And then he would come back and get her.
You see the language our Lord used later.
Now during this time of the betrothal,
because it's already legally established,
if the woman was unfaithful, found to be a faithful,
or if she got pregnant, she could be put to death for adultery.
Didn't mean she had to be, but she could be.
It was very dangerous for Mary to be found with child
during this time.
Had he wanted, Joseph could have easily exposed her
to public ridicule, shame, impossible death.
The law said she should have been stoned.
When Joseph learned of Mary's pregnancy,
he decided, well, I'll divorce her quietly.
He obviously did not believe her explanation.
But do you blame him?
I mean, who could possibly expect to believe her?
Virgins don't conceive children, and Joseph
was not buying the story like none of us would either.
But Joseph was a righteous man.
He was a just man.
He was a noble man.
So he did not want to bring the heavy hands of the court
down upon Mary.
He was not seeking to bring wrath down upon her.
He was not angry for her.
So he could have.
But he's like, I don't want to bring wrath upon her
for her presumed unfaithfulness.
So he's going to quietly divorce her.
He will go his own way.
But God stepped in.
God sends his angel, verse 20 and 21.
But while he thought about these things,
an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream,
saying, Joseph, son of David, do not
be afraid to take to you Mary your wife.
Notice she's already called wife.
For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
She'll bring forth a son, and you will call his name Jesus,
for he will save his people from their sins.
So an angel appeared to Joseph, explaining
that Mary's pregnancy was not a result of her unfaithfulness,
but rather a result of God's faithfulness.
Do you see that?
It had nothing to do with Mary being unfaithful.
It had everything with God to be faithful.
Mary was pregnant because God keeps his promises.
This child in her womb, he is the fulfillment
of the promises made to Abraham and David.
In fact, he's the fulfillment of all the promises made
to Israel in the entire Old Testament that are fulfilled in him.
Now, the only way that Joseph could possibly
believe this to be true is if God would have somehow
told him personally, and that's exactly what happened.
So now the angel speaks to Joseph.
He convinces him, don't divorce her.
She is telling the truth.
Her conception is supernatural.
It's by the power of the Holy Spirit of God.
And then the angel goes a little further,
and he instructs Joseph.
He says, here's what you're going to name the child.
Now, one of the highest honors for a Jewish couple,
or really any couple, is that you get a name for a child.
Joseph and Mary didn't.
It was told, here's what you will name this child, Jesus.
Now, again, the name Jesus at that time,
it was a very common name in Greek.
It's Jesus.
In Hebrew, it's Yeshua.
If you go to Latin America, you see a lot of Catholic boys.
It's very common to find Jesus.
You're going to find them everywhere.
We are told this child's name would be Jesus.
Why?
Why would the angel insistent to both Mary and Joseph?
Because Jesus means Jehovah, work Yahweh, Jehovah saves,
or in Jehovah, there is salvation.
Notice the mission of this child.
He had come to save his people.
Now, don't miss what there's a hint here.
If Jehovah saves, and Jesus is going to save his people,
what does that imply about the identity of this child?
He's Jehovah, bingo.
That's what they needed to see.
This child is Emmanuel, God with us.
Now, obviously, every Jew would expect the Messiah to come,
and they would expect the Messiah to come and save them.
But again, they thought he's probably
going to save us from our political enemies.
But notice the angel telling Joseph,
this child had come to save his people.
Here's the caveat from their sins.
Why?
Because they didn't know it, but their greatest bondage
lay not with Rome, but with sin.
They were enslaved to sin.
Now, we are not yet told in Matthew's gospel
how this child will save.
That will be revealed later as we will see the brutal death
at the cross.
If you would say, is the Messiah going to come and redeem you?
Yes, they would have known he's going to redeem us.
But there was no expectation whatsoever
that he would redeem them by giving his own life
as a ransom for theirs.
He would give his life as a ransom for their sins.
The stumbling block for so many, and as still as today,
they failed to understand his mission.
They tripped over him.
And people are still tripping over him daily.
He did not fit the bill for what they assumed the Messiah had
to do.
The angel also gave a little bit more information.
He said, this child is going to save who?
His people.
Now, obviously, Jewish readers would assume
whether the Messiah will come and save Israel.
That's his people.
Yes and no.
Yes, but that's not the whole story.
If you go back even in the pages of the Old Testament,
many Jews, Israelites, those within those circumcised
physically, they still fail under God's judgment.
Why?
They were unbelievers.
Yet there were other faithful Jews in Israel who
comprised a godly remnant.
There was an Israel within Israel.
Now, in Matthew's Gospel, written to Jews,
you're going to see pretty early on from even the lips of John
the Baptist and our Lord himself,
there's going to be a significant amount of Gentiles
joining this godly remnant.
The first time you get a hint of this
is John the Baptist speaking to religious leaders in Matthew 3.
But when he, John the Baptist, saw many of the Pharisees
and Sadducees coming to his baptism,
he said to them, very kindly, I'm sure,
Brutavipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance
and do not think to save yourselves.
He stopped and said, and don't for a moment
think you're really a son of Abraham.
The way of Abraham is our father.
He said, for I tell you that God is
able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
What he's saying is, listen, your lineage from Abraham
does not save you.
Don't count on that.
But Jesus, even more boldly in Matthew 8,
when Jesus heard it, the faith of a Gentile, he marveled
and he said to those who followed,
assuredly I say to you, I have not
found such great faith, not even in Israel.
And notice verse 11, and I say to you,
many will come from east and west outside of Israel
and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
in the kingdom of heaven.
Many Gentiles will become disciples of the Messiah,
and thus they will become members of His people.
As the gospel will unfold, you're
going to see that His people are not primarily ethnic.
Who are His people?
Those who have seen and embraced the word Jesus
as the true promised Messiah.
They've seen Him, and they've come to Him.
Now, Joseph gives more commentary, verse 22 and 23,
or Matthew, excuse me.
So all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which
is spoken by the word through the prophet, saying,
behold, the virgin shall be a child and bear son,
and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which
has translated God with us.
Why is this little detail?
Again, keep in mind the audience.
Matthew is writing to Jewish people,
and he shows, hey, this birth that's a virgin born,
it's a fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy,
and then he quotes Isaiah chapter 7, verse 14,
which is the first of many Old Testament quotations
in Matthew's gospel.
And he quotes Isaiah 7, 14.
It's essentially the same thing.
What is Matthew doing?
He's proving from the Hebrew scriptures
that this virgin born son of Mary is indeed the Messiah
and the fulfillment of all God's promises to Israel.
Here he is.
This is the one.
So I love what Matthew's doing.
He's actually a pretty good attorney.
He's putting together an ironclad case, first from
genealogy.
He shows the pedigree.
And now from prophecy, Old Testament scriptures,
both coming together to show that this son of Mary
is the Christ.
Verse 24 and 25.
Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep,
did his angel lord command it, and took to him his wife.
And he did not know her till she had brought forth
her first one son and called his name Jesus.
Now many times, we focus on Mary's obedience,
and that is right to do.
It is right to do that.
But Joseph's obedience is no less commendable either.
So he hears God's instruction, and he then
obeys without hesitation.
He takes Mary as his wife.
He goes through with the wedding ceremony,
and he assumed his role as the earthly father of Jesus,
the son of God.
So what happens?
Well, Mary gave birth to this child.
What they do?
They named him exactly as the angel had instructed.
They named him Jesus.
But friends, I think if we're not careful,
we will focus too much on Mary and Joseph's obedience.
But that's not Matthew's emphasis.
Matthew's point is to focus on not on Mary's obedience,
not on Joseph's obedience, but on the child who was born.
Who is he?
He's Emmanuel.
God is with us.
What is he doing?
His mission is to come and save his people from their sins.
Israel did not need a political messiah.
They did not need a military warrior.
Israel needed to be cleansed.
Israel needed to be forgiven and washed clean.
And so do you.
This is the testimony of the gospel.
You need to be forgiven.
You need to be cleansed.
The worst calamity that can fall upon a person
is to die in their sins.
To die in your sins is to be perish.
It is to be separated from God.
That is a fate far worse than I can even imagine or describe.
The worst thing that could possibly happen to you
is that you would die in your sins
and be separated from God forever.
To die in your sins is to fall headlong
into the severe judgment of a holy God.
And that is the destiny of every person who does not
come to Christ for salvation.
Doesn't need to be that way.
But here's the truth.
And you've heard it.
And I pray you've seen it.
Salvation is only found in this child that was born.
That's it.
There is no other.
There is no other Messiah.
There is no other Savior.
This child is no ordinary child.
This child is Jehovah in the flesh.
And only he can save.
So what must I do?
You must repent of your sins and come to him in faith.
My friends, you've broken God's law.
You were born into sin.
Your sins have separated you from God.
And you stand condemned.
The judgment of God is upon you.
But there is hope.
There is hope if you know that you stand condemned.
Because this child's name, it's Jesus, Jehovah saves.
He is a Savior.
His mission was one of rescue.
And let me say this with all authority of divine scripture.
He will save you if you come to him.
Do you see, and this is what I want to say.
As we started with the names, when I told you
about our children, but do you see how this child's names
reflect our deepest need?
Our greatest need is to be saved from our sins.
It has nothing to do with us other than our sins.
We need to be saved from our sins.
And we need to be restored to the presence of God.
And God has done both of those in giving us Jesus Emmanuel.
He is giving us a Savior by giving us Himself.
And today, I implore, I beg, and the scriptures command
for you to repent, fall on your face before this God,
confess your sins before Him, and believe
that His Son is the Savior of the world,
and He will receive you.
You must do so.
And my prayer is that you would do so even today
as you have seen this wonderful birth of the incarnation
of the Son of God.
Let's pray.
Father, I thank you this morning, Lord, for the word of God
and the power it has to lay us open.
Lord, it meets us at our deepest need.
So many times, Father, we deal with felt needs
or superficial needs.
But Lord, you don't allow that.
It's a fine-tuned scalpel.
And Lord, you open us.
And Lord, you know exactly, and you
diagnose the problem exactly as it is,
the problem lies inwardly in our hearts,
in our operating system.
We are corrupt.
We are sinful.
And Lord, we are estranged from you naturally.
Oh, God, you did not leave us there.
You gave us your Son.
You gave us Jesus.
And Lord God, today, Lord, there must be some here,
Lord, who are lost. Father, I pray
that they would feel the just condemnation, the guilt
and the weight of their sins.
Let them feel that, Father.
And then would you open their eyes?
Would you open their ears and let them see this child that
was born as Savior?
Let them come to Him today, Father.
Would you grant life?
Lord, I pray that you would do so, Lord.
Draw them, Father, to your Son.
Save them for His glory and for His honor.
We pray this in the mighty name of our risen Lord.
We pray this in the name of Jesus, the Christ.
Amen.
We're going to prepare now to commune with our Lord.
I'm West of Deacons to come.
And as you pass out the elements, as they're passing them out,
I would just ask that you would hold on to them, please.
And we ought to protect them.