The Fruit and the Root

6 · Reading and initial presentation of Mark 11:12-14, the fig tree cursing narrative, establishing the text without yet interpreting its symbolic meaning

Verse 12, "On the following day, when they came to Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, 'May no one ever eat fruit from you again.'" And the disciples heard it.

7 · Refutation of misreadings of the passage (Jesus as petulant, Jesus as arbitrary), establishing instead that Jesus is creating a symbolic prophetic sign-act pointing beyond the literal tree to a larger theological reality

Now look, there are some scholars who look at this section of our passage and they think, oh, well, you know, Jesus is just being petulant. He didn't get what he wanted. He's kind of throwing a fit, if you will.

Others will look at this and say like, well, Jesus is just cursing an innocent fruit tree for not having fruit on it. And it's like, bro, it's a tree. Can't be innocent or even guilty for that matter. It's a tree.

No, make no mistake about it. Jesus is not hangry here and decides since he's hangry he's going to just curse this tree. No, no. Jesus is making a living illustration out of this tree, and this tree points to something else.

8 · Canonical-theological exposition establishing the Old Testament fig tree imagery as a repeated metaphor for Israel, tracing the pattern from Hosea through Jeremiah to Micah and showing how it connects to Messianic expectation, thereby providing the interpretive key for Jesus's act

You see, in Old Testament, in many of the books, Israel is referred to as a fig tree.

For example, in Hosea 9:10, God says, "Like grapes in the wilderness I found Israel, like the first fruit." 'When I saw fruit on the fig tree in its first season, I saw your fathers.' He's saying there was a lot of promise when he first forged the nation of Israel, like figs on a tree in its first season. He was like, oh man, this is going to be good. All of Jeremiah chapter 24 talks about Israel as being either good figs or bad figs. Good figs that are going to be nourishing and tasty and healthy. Or bad figs that you can't eat.

Jeremiah 8:13, the prophet says, "When I would gather them," declares the Lord, "there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree. Even the leaves are withered, and what I gave them has passed away from them." And Micah 4:4, when talking about the Messianic age, talks about —each man sitting under his fig tree and not being afraid.

You see, the Messiah comes from Israel, and when He comes, they're sitting under the fig tree of Israel and they're not afraid.

9 · Horticultural explanation of why Jesus's expectation of fruit was reasonable: fig trees produce fruit shortly after leaves appear, so a leafed tree without fruit is doubly condemned — it promises what it doesn't deliver and does so out of season

And this rebuke on fruitlessness is due in large part because a fig tree, not long after its leaves appear, fruit appears. Okay? It— like, leaves come, boom, fruit. It may be green fruit, but he could have at least eaten some green figs. Might not have tasted too hot, but this tree should have at least had fruit on it.

And with the promise of fruitfulness and the utter lack of it, Jesus rebukes the tree, saying, "May no one ever eat from you." 'eat fruit from you again.' Mark's declaration that it was not the season for figs is more illustrative of the fruitlessness of the tree. You know, he's saying not the fact that the tree— that figs shouldn't be on it. He's saying, hey, it shouldn't even have leaves on it. It's totally out of season. The fact that it has leaves, it should have fruit.

Like, this is even Like, it shouldn't even have leaves.

10 · Return to the tomato illustration, now explicitly paralleling the pastor's experience with the biblical fig tree to reinforce that outward appearance of health without fruit is the problem in both cases

Now, back to these Early Girl tomatoes.

They should have fruit. It's been way past the 52 days. We've gotten 2. These plants are tall. They're big.

They're lush. They've got, you know, good-sized stalk. They've got plenty of water. When I planted them, I used the fruit-bearing topsoil to mix in with there, and I dug deep and I dug wide so that there's plenty of room for the root to expand and get what it needs, and there's nothing but strong branches, lush foliage, no fruit. Same as this tree.

This tree looked healthy. It should have had fruit.

11 · Theological interpretation connecting the fig tree's judgment to Israel's permanent fruitlessness, then extending the principle to the church by establishing that created things — trees, nations, churches — have divinely ordained purposes they are accountable to fulfill

And Jesus is saying, "Hey, since you should have been fruitful, you'll never be fruitful again." And since Jesus is now coming to his people Israel and he sees their lack of fruit, the same is true of them. They will remain fruitless forever.

And here's the thing, this tree was created by Jesus to do a certain thing. It had a role. It had a function. Its function was to produce fruit that would feed people. Its role and function was to do something.

And it's not fulfilling that role and that purpose and that function. It's the same with Israel. And it's the same for the church.

12 · Direct application turning Israel's fruitlessness into a mirror for self-examination, specifying the fruit of the Spirit and holiness as key areas, then calling listeners to examine their hearts when fruit is lacking, reinforcing the root-determines-fruit thesis

See, there's a warning here for us. Now, not only in the passages mentioned earlier, but there are countless other passages where Israel is referred to as some kind of fruit-bearing plant.

Wild— a wild vine that produces no grapes, or a vine that produced only sour grapes. All throughout Scripture we have these allusions.

The question the fruit tree causes us to ask is, where in our lives are we not bearing fruit for the Lord? You see, if the tree points to Israel and we see there's fruitlessness in Israel, causes us to ask, where is there fruitlessness in our lives? Where in our lives are we not fulfilling our role and our purpose?

Now, what are some areas that we can be fruitful? Well, let's start with kind of the simplest, you know, lowest common denominator here, the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Are you bearing fruit there? Are you bearing fruit there?

In our fight for holiness, are we bearing fruit there? You know, God tells his people, "Be holy as I am holy." And in our fight against sin, are we bearing fruit there? If not, maybe it's time to start examining where our root is. Where is it located? Where has it been planted?

Where is it drawing from? Because again, out of the heart, out of the evil stored up in our heart, evil deeds come. Out of the good stored up, good comes. Where is our heart planted? Where is our root planted?

Because our fruit is directly related to our root. If there's a lack of fruit, we need to examine the root.

13 · Structural transition from the fig tree episode to the temple cleansing, signaling the sermon's movement to the second illustration of fruitlessness

This now brings us to the second portion here, the fruitless temple.

14 · Reading of Mark 11:15-17, the temple cleansing narrative, presenting Jesus's violent action and his own scriptural interpretation of what he is doing

Verse 15, "And they came to Jerusalem, and he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple. And he overturned tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons, and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.

And he was teaching them and saying to them, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers."

15 · Narrative reconstruction of Jesus's temple visit the previous evening (from last week's sermon), emphasizing his deliberate observation and overnight reflection, establishing that his next-day action was calculated, not impulsive

So last week Ricky was preaching that Jesus comes into town, he comes into Jerusalem, and it's right down that procession where they're bringing the Passover lambs and they're going to the temple and these lambs are going to be kept there for the week of the Passover. And Jesus does the same path and he gets to the temple and it's late and he goes in and it says what? And he looked at everything. He went in and he looked around and he saw the stalls, he saw the bird cages, he saw the tables, he saw the animal waste, he saw everything that was there.

And then he left and he went outside the city. And so all night he's thinking about what he had seen there, and he was thinking about what he was going to do the next morning.

16 · Historical contextualization using Josephus to establish the massive scale and chaos of Passover week temple commerce, helping the listener visualize the scene Jesus encounters

And there was a lot going on there, okay? Jewish historian Josephus in AD 65 wrote, that in that year 2.5 million— no, sorry, 250,000 lambs were offered as sacrifice that year. Now, if you figure 10 people per lamb, that's about an average size for a Jewish family back then, that's 2.5 million people, okay?

So this court of the Gentiles, it doesn't have 2.5 million people there, but that's how many in the city. Okay, this place is busy. They've got all sorts of stuff going on. They've got guys yelling. They've got people running to and fro, giving conversion rates and everything.

They've got animals coming, animals going, and all of the noise and mess that that brings.

17 · Theological exposition of what Jesus saw in the temple marketplace: not just economic exploitation of pilgrims, but worse — pilgrims robbing God by substituting purchased animals for the personally costly sacrifice God commanded, turning worship into a transaction

And Jesus comes into the temple and he sees the stalls and the tables and the coins and pigeons and the lambs and the salt and the wine. And he saw the people being extorted to pay the high conversion rates and the even higher prices for the sacrifices themselves.

And he saw the people being robbed blindly.

More than that, he saw the same people being robbed, robbing God.

How are they robbing God? Well, the lamb was supposed to be one of their own flock, one that they raised, one that they nurtured, one that they poured their heart into, something that would cost them more than money. 'Cause we all know how easy it is to write a check, right? It's easier for me to go to Walmart and pull out my debit card for some tomatoes than it is for me to grow my own tomatoes. That's probably why those tomatoes taste better that I've grown.

It's all up here because it cost me something. That was the design of the Lord and his commands, and they were supposed to care for this animal and then choose one.

18 · Exposition emphasizing that Jesus expelled both sellers and buyers, establishing that the guilt was shared — buyers were complicit in the corruption by choosing convenience over costly obedience

And after seeing what's going on, Jesus drove out those both buying and selling. He didn't just drive out the sellers. He didn't just say, "You guys are wrong, get out." No, even the buyers he drove out.

Why? Because they were robbing God, making God's house a den of robbers just as much as the guys selling it, robbing from those people who had no other choice but to buy. And he drove them all out.

19 · Vivid narrative expansion of Jesus's physical actions, heightening the dramatic tension and helping the listener visualize the violence and chaos of the cleansing

And he overturned the tables of the money changers. Smashed the chairs of those changing money and selling pigeon. He would have thrown the salt and the wine on the ground. Man, what a sight. This place is packed full and all of a sudden more commotion erupts and people start running from this guy.

20 · Imaginative character sketch of Jesus as physically imposing and filled with righteous zeal, helping the listener understand why the marketplace cleared out and emphasizing the intensity of Jesus's passion for God's honor

Why? Man, think about this. Jesus, he's probably a pretty interesting looking fellow, okay? He worked outside. He was a farmer, so he was weather-beaten, wiry, probably strong.

What did the disciples say after the first cleansing of the temple? It says that they remembered, zeal for your house will consume me. So not only is he like a scary looking guy, he's got a scary look in his eye. He's like, no man, get out. Like, get, go, go on now.

And I'm, okay. No, leave your table because I'm flipping it.

You can come pick up the pieces later, bro.

And they all leave.

He's consumed with zeal for God's house. He's probably yelling things that we would be like, Jesus, that's not very nice. Well, you got to motivate people to get out. When they're motivated by greed and money, you got to overcome that greed.

21 · Exposition of the Mishnaic law about not using the temple as a shortcut, showing Jesus enforcing the law's intent — that the temple is sacred space with a specific purpose, not a public thoroughfare — as part of his comprehensive purification

And it doesn't just stop there. See, one of the laws of the temple stated in the Mishnah was that you were not allowed to cross through the temple carrying a staff, wearing sandals, or carrying a wallet. Why? Because that means you're just going through there and taking it as a shortcut, and you could not take it as a shortcut. So you got these guys, you know, walking through there, and Jesus is like, mm-mm.

No, man, you better go around. I'm just going to go around, okay, Jesus? Like, he is purifying the temple and he's saying, this place has a purpose and this is not it.

22 · Exposition of Jesus's own scriptural justification for the cleansing, combining Isaiah's vision of the temple as a house of prayer for all nations with Jeremiah's indictment of it as a den of robbers, showing Jesus's action as prophetic fulfillment

And then we're given the reason for this outrageous display. He was teaching them, saying to them, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations,' but you have made it a den of robbers?" Probably sounds scarier in Aramaic when yelled by a guy who's got a crazy look in his eye that's consumed with zeal for God's house.

23 · Exposition connecting the temple marketplace's location in the Court of the Gentiles to Israel's failure to be a light to the nations — the very space designated for Gentile worship had been turned into a noisy bazaar, making worship impossible and revealing Israel's fruitlessness in its mission

You see, the Jews have made this place a place of utter fruitlessness. The court of the Gentiles where this was happening was the place that the Gentiles, those who were not ethnic Jews, could go and worship Yahweh, where they would come and be gathered and be able to pray and to worship the Lord and seek the Lord. And there is not a place to pray because there are animals in there and there are money changers in there and there are guys extorting the poorest of the poor people.

Those who couldn't afford a lamb were told to buy a pigeon, and now they're having to pay an exorbitant amount for a pigeon.

Because the pigeon guild has a stranglehold on all the pigeons being sold in the temple. I'm sure there was a guild. There had to be a guild. There was a guild, maybe. It's like a joke, only not funny, guys.

Just seeing if y'all are following along.

24 · Theological assertion extending Israel's failed mission to the church, establishing evangelism as a primary form of fruitfulness and linking it directly to the temple's misuse

Another role and function of God's people. They and we are to bear fruit in calling people to God. Just as the Jews were to use that temple to call the nations to God, and they weren't doing it.

25 · Theological interpretation of the temple as a gift from God intended to display his greatness, which makes its misuse for personal enrichment a particularly heinous form of ingratitude and rebellion

You see, and the temple was a gift to the Jews. It was a gift.

It was magnificent. It was amazing. It was marble floors, marble walls, Gold on the pillars, like this thing was a sight to behold. It was a gift meant to show God's greatness to his people. And they're using it to get rich.

They're using it to make money.

They're using it for themselves, to enrich themselves rather than to call people to God.

26 · Direct application question turning Israel's misuse of the temple into a diagnostic tool for the listener's own life, preparing for specific examples to follow

Begs the question, where are we misusing the gifts of God in fruitless ways?

27 · Personal testimony illustrating the misuse of God-given gifts for self-advancement rather than kingdom purposes, making the application concrete and modeling the kind of self-examination called for

You know, for example, God gifted me with the ability to lead people. Folks, folks everywhere I've been, folks have always just followed.

And one time in my life I used that gift to lead people to a life of drugs and debauchery.

At other times, I would use that gift to get ahead in the corporate world. I would use that gift to advance myself at the cost of those I was quote-unquote leading. Because all I cared about was me.

I would advance myself rather than God's kingdom, and God is the one who had given me that gift. When I came to the Lord, I had to reassess the ways in which he had gifted me and for what purpose he had gifted me.

28 · Series of concrete application examples specifying how spiritual gifts and material resources can be misused for self-advancement, followed by warning from the parable of the talents that God will remove gifts from those who misuse them, connecting back to the root-fruit thesis

Are there any ways you are using the gifts of God in fruitless ways? Are there ways you are using the Lord's gifts to advance yourself and not him? You know, maybe God gave you a great paying job and you use it to set yourself up rather than to help those in the church that you hear about having a financial need. Maybe God's given you the gift of leading and teaching and exhorting and you use those in the secular world to get ahead and to advance your business and to grow your business but you're not using them in the church world to advance God's kingdom and God's business and grow His influence. You see, the Jews were using the gift of God as a place to enrich themselves, a place to serve themselves rather than serve the nations and bear fruit for God.

See, we've got to remember the parable of the talents.

The things that God has entrusted us with, if we're not using them for his sake and to grow fruit for him, he will come and take it and give it to someone else. And God, in the person of Jesus, is now taking back his temple because they've been misusing it. They've been misusing that gift because just like us, Their fruit was directly related to their root, and they were rooted in themselves, not God. They were rooted in their own self-righteousness and greed, not a concern for God and His glory.

29 · Structural transition from temple corruption to Pharisaical opposition, moving to the third illustration of fruitlessness in the passage

Which brings us now to the fruitless Pharisees.

30 · Reading of Mark 11:18, presenting the Pharisees' response to the temple cleansing — murderous intent rooted in fear of Jesus's popularity

Verse 18, "And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy Him." For they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came, they went out of the city.

31 · Exposition of the Pharisees' motivation, distinguishing between righteous fear of God and their jealous fear of losing status, and noting that 'destroy' implies total elimination rather than mere execution

So the Pharisees, they show their true colors. Like, "Oh, huh, everyone likes this Jesus guy. Let's get rid of him." And the fact that That they use the word destroy is kind of interesting to me.

Because it's not just like kill him. Like when you destroy something, you remove all traces of it. You know, like they're like, man, we got to do away with this guy.

And they're doing it out of fear. Why the fear? Well, this fear is based in jealousy. It's not a reverential, awestruck fear of God. It's jealousy.

32 · Exposition showing that the Pharisees' jealousy stems from the contrast between their barren teaching and Jesus's authoritative fruitfulness — the crowds' astonishment at Jesus exposes the Pharisees as frauds by comparison

Why? Well, because Jesus is— they're worried about Jesus taking their place, exposing them as frauds. And you see this very clearly because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. See, the crowds are looking at Jesus and they're going, "Whoa, man." Like just in Mark, how many times have we heard like, "What is this? A new teaching with authority." They never did that with the Pharisees.

They never did that.

And the Pharisees' fruitlessness is being highlighted by Jesus' fruitfulness. See, the work Jesus is doing is clearly indicating that something is different with him compared to the Pharisees. And now they're upset.

33 · Direct application turning the Pharisees' fear into a diagnostic question for the listener — where does Jesus's teaching upset us, and what does our reaction reveal about where our hearts are rooted?

What about us? Where do we find ourselves?

Fearful of Jesus?

Where do we fear Jesus? Because he's given his authoritative teaching and it's upsetting us. It's upsetting to us. Where does Jesus illuminate our fruitlessness?

Where do we see that we fall short? You see, our fruit is directly related to our root, and where we are being convicted of that fruitlessness right now, we should start there. Because it's trying to show something about where we're drawing from, where our root, where our heart is drawing from.

34 · Major structural transition and thesis restatement, signaling the move to the passage's climax and the explanation of the root problem underlying all three illustrations of fruitlessness

And this brings us to the withered root, the reason for the fruitlessness in this passage is the root.

35 · Reading of Mark 11:20-21, the discovery of the withered tree and Peter's observation, completing the narrative frame around the temple cleansing

Verse 20: "As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, 'Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.'"

36 · Exposition identifying the withered root as the cause of the tree's fruitlessness and then extending the diagnosis to Israel and the Pharisees — their root was in self-righteousness and ethnic privilege rather than God, producing inevitable barrenness

The reason the fig tree Likewise, Israel and the Pharisees were unfruitful is their root. The tree had a withered root, therefore it could not produce any fruit.

And the same is true of Israel. Their root is in themselves and their own performance and self-righteousness. See, they see that they have to do certain things, and when they do all of these things, God will look at them and accept them.

They work and they strive and they look down on others and they think the Lord is pleased with them because of the blood in their veins.

They'd placed their root in ground that was infertile. They'd rooted themselves in themselves and the result was as disastrous as the fig tree.

37 · Exegetical note on the Greek construction emphasizing that the roots withered first and caused the tree's collapse, not the reverse — establishing the root as the primary problem from which all other problems flow

And the crazy thing about the fig tree, like in our English translations, this is a faithful translation, but in the Greek we see that it actually says like it was withered out of its roots, from its roots. Basically the roots were already withered and because of that the tree finally fell in on itself and withered. It had a root that was not deep.

Couldn't get to the nourishing soil down below and the water.

38 · Return to the tomato illustration with its resolution — discovering and fixing the broken water line that was starving the roots, resulting in the promise of abundant fruit, perfectly illustrating the sermon's thesis that fixing the root fixes the fruit

Now back to these tomatoes that I've been talking about. A few weeks ago, I was outside trying to figure out like, man, why are they not making tomatoes? What's going on?

And so I turn on the sprinkler system and I'm trying to check, you know, how it's getting water. And it's like there's nothing there. Barely anything there. And I was not on a water leak hunt, okay. I was just checking it out to see like what's going on.

And I just like turned around and I happened to look over this way and we've got those like tall trees that are kinda torpedo-shaped. I call them the Don Quixote trees, right? And so between the trees and the wall, like it shot up about a foot. You could see the water. And I was like, huh, hmm, imagine that.

So I went, dug it up. Fixed it. And man, now I've got blooms. I've got more than just a few blooms. Like, this is about to be bumper crop, okay?

And all it took was fixing the water, and that allowed the roots to go deeper and to get into all of that good soil that I'd put in there. You fix the root, you fix the plant, and you get fruit. Okay?

39 · Application question transitioning to gospel proclamation, exposing the Jews' fatal error of seeking justification through ethnicity rather than Christ, and the tragic irony that they are trying to destroy the only one who can save them

So what about us? How can we fix our root?

See, the Jews needed a new root. They thought that being Jews could justify them and that they would bear fruit just by being Jews. Oh, they were so wrong. There's only one man's blood that can justify. And that man is the one that they are insanely jealous of right now.

They are fearfully jealous of the only one who can help them. And they're seeking to destroy him.

40 · Christological climax identifying Jesus as the true Israel and the true root, establishing him as self-sufficient source rather than dependent recipient, and declaring that all Christian fruitfulness comes from union with him

And if the fig tree pointed to a fruitless Israel, we need to remember that Israel points to the true Israel, and that's Jesus, the one who is ultimately fruitful. Ultimately fruitful. Jesus was ultimately fruitful. How's that possible? Well, he is the true root.

He doesn't need to root himself in anything but himself because he is the source. He is the root and offspring of Jesse. He is the root. He nourishes, provides, and produces fruit in his people.

41 · Gospel proclamation connecting the temple cleansing to Christ's violent dealing with our sin on the cross, asserting that he removes our dead heart and gives us a new living one, and calling for response in faith and repentance

And not only that, he comes to our hard stone dead heart, our hard stone dead root.

And he makes it alive.

And he makes it alive by dealing with our sin. And you know, just as he went into the temple, man, I was talking with Alex Shafet after the first service, and this is just gold, okay? Gold what he gave me. He was like, man, when you're talking about how Jesus was being violent in the temple, all I could think about was how he got violent with our sin.

He dealt with our sin violently. He took it all. He removed it from us and He dealt with it. He drove it far away from us and He gives us now a new life and a new clean heart that can be used for its real function and purpose and role that it was created for.

That's how we fix our root. To the one who dealt with our dead root and gave us a new one. We come to Jesus. We come to him in faith. We come to him in repentance.

42 · Extended application presenting the full gospel (Christ's death, resurrection, ascension, return) as the means of fixing our root, then pointing to Scripture as the source of ongoing nourishment, and concluding by restating the church's evangelistic mission as the primary fruit we are called to bear

We come to him humbly knowing that he died for our sins, that he dealt with our sins, that he's removed our sins from us, that he's paid for our sins, that he rose again from the dead after dying for those sins, that he's that he has ascended to the right hand of God the Father and that he is going to one day come back and judge all of both the fruitless deeds and the fruitful deeds. That's how we fix our root. We come to that Jesus, the true root, and then we're fed by him and we're nourished by him. How? Man, right here.

Right here. This is the feeding and the nourishing that we need. This is what tells us of our Lord who suffered and bled and died for us. And it tells us why he did it, and it tells us of our trajectory, and it reminds us of the fruit that we're to bear. Not just the fruit of the Spirit, no.

Fruit in evangelism. Fruit in calling people to the Lord. See, the Jews were to call the Gentiles, us. They were to call the nations to Yahweh.

And if the Jews were to do that, they point to the true Israel, which is Jesus, and Jesus now gives the church that role and function to call people to him.

43 · Transition to communion, framing it as celebration of the root (Christ's work on the cross), giving instructions for participation, extending gospel invitation to unbelievers, and reading Paul's institution words for the bread

And now we come to communion where we celebrate the root, where we celebrate what he did on the cross, taking the place of his people. Becoming a sacrifice of atonement. We remember him. We celebrate him. We look forward to him coming again.

This meal is for all those who have placed their faith in Jesus. If you have not come to faith in Jesus, that he died to pay for your sins, that he rose again, that he ascended to the right hand of the Father, we just ask you to observe this meal, to think about what we've just heard. That Jesus has done.

And if you haven't yet come to Christ in faith, you can even do that right now. You can do that right now. Repent of your sins. Come in humble trust and faith to him. But let's open the bread portion of our cup.

And I meant to remind myself to get this before. Before the service. I'm sorry for those at home that I walked off of your screen.

So in 1 Corinthians 11:23, Paul says these words: For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, And broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

44 · Prayer of thanksgiving for Christ's body given for his people, connecting the bread to Jesus's teaching about eating his flesh and having life, then inviting participation

Lord Jesus, we thank you that you've given your body to be broken for us, that you've given your body for your people. And, Lord, you say, "Those who eat of my flesh," The true bread from heaven have life in them. So, Lord, we come now to this bread as a symbol of your body, and we eat it in remembrance of you. Let's take the bread, church.

45 · Reading Paul's institution words for the cup, emphasizing the new covenant in Christ's blood and the proclamatory nature of communion

Now we can open the juice portion.

Paul continues in verse 25, "In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death." until he comes.

46 · Prayer of thanksgiving for Christ's blood that justifies and unites, explicitly rejecting self-righteousness and ethnic privilege, and affirming that communion proclaims the gospel, then inviting participation

Lord Jesus, we thank you that you've shed your blood to pay for our sins, that your blood is the blood that brings justification, not any blood in our veins, not anything else, not anything we can do. You justify us.

You make us right with God.

Lord, we thank you that it was your love and your grace caused you to shed your blood for us, and that by this blood we are now united as your people. We thank you. Thank you for that. And we, we thank you, Lord, for the proclamation that this makes of what you've done, of your life, death, burial, resurrection, that we proclaim the gospel as we drink it together now. Church, let us drink the cup.

47 · Final transition from communion to corporate worship through song, framing singing as response to the Lord's work

Now let us respond to the Lord and what he's done through the singing of his praises.

Let's stand as we sing together.