Neil: It's so good to be face to face with the church, right?
This is a little bit different, but it feels so good to actually see faces. So good morning and welcome to The Edge Church, both in person and online. I'm so thankful for new people that we have met along the way and we actually have some here today. People that have gathered with us today, who we've never met until today, face to face. So Lindbergs, we're so glad to have you guys here. I think it's awesome to have you, what a blessing. Some of our friends aren't here today because we've been in this extremely long pandemic. Is anybody tired of even hearing the word pandemic? You know what, it's an exhausting exercise, isn't it? But we will make it through, God's church will overcome, absolutely, we know that. So we're gathering here today, but we're also streaming online. We're still streaming online today for people who couldn't make it.
Let's remember guys to pray for the families of those who have lost family members to Coronavirus. We're over 130,000 people just in the US, so let's just keep all those people close in our prayers. For a long time now we've just been meeting virtually, you guys have been seeing us on a screen for months and for a long time, the teaching team—Steve, myself, Brandi, and the worship team—we've been just looking at cameras. And as much as we've wanted to have participation in worship, it's been kind of challenging to create those experiences.
We pray that as we've walked through this sermon series called Unity in Diversity, that you've been challenged and also encouraged to live out the role that God has made for you to love God with all of your heart, with all of your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength and as you learn to walk that out with your neighbors as well. But the life of Christians should never look like a spectator sport, right? We're all called to do something. God has called us to be a part of something great. So today we're going to participate.
In Matthew 18:20 Jesus said,
For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.
For me, that's really good news because we haven't been able to really gather much. And what that tells us is that God is with us, even if we can't gather with 50 people or 100 people or 200 people, or 250 people, but God meets us right where we are. We don't have to get extra loud. We don't have to convince God to answer our prayers, but I have to say there is something special about the gathering of God's people.
There's something special about God's people coming together and choosing to use your voice to praise God, to sing together in one accord, to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
Psalm 133, David said,
How good and pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity!
We're going to taste a little bit of that experience today, as we seek to do a few parts of what the early church did in the book of Acts, which is essentially a model for the church today.
Acts 2:42-47:
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Today, we're going to focus on three simple things. And the first is going to be praising the Lord because he is worthy of our praise. And because every good thing that you have today is a gift from God above. We're going to focus on prayer because it is with prayer that we acknowledge our dependence on God as our father and as our creator. And then finally, with communion because the life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus is central to everything that we do, every part of our church and every part of our lives.
So we're going to start by focusing on praise. Let's pray then we'll do that.
Father, we love you. And we thank you that you are here. Father, we pray for all the people out there, God, that have been affected by the coronavirus. Lord, I pray for healings to fall on every hospital in our nation, every hospital throughout the world. And that people would know that you are God and that you are good. Lord, be with us today. May your name be lifted up, and I pray that you would draw all people to you as we lift your name in praise. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.
Carol: All right. So I was asked to say a little bit about myself and about prayer and they asked why I like prayer. And I'm like, I don't know. It's just part of who I am. So then I started seeking the Lord and asking him, what is it about prayer? And he kept giving me this image of a person in the hospital with the oxygen tube that goes up their nose. But he says, the oxygen that you're getting from me is of the Holy Spirit. And I thought, well, that is true. And he says, it is just as important as the oxygen that you breathe here on this earth. I thought “Yes, Lord. It is.” So that's why I really love prayer. I love the body. I love contending for you guys. Cause I really want everybody to go deep with the Lord and just love him with all of their heart, soul, and mind, and just to really, really grow.
So we're going to pray for about three things this morning together. I'll start us. And in light of what's been going on in our sermon series, in these troubled times, unity is really, really important. So a passage that can really help us with this is John 17:20-21,
Jesus Prays for All Believers
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
So Father God, we just thank you. First of all, that we are here as the body worshiping you together because you are so worthy and so deserving of this. Lord, I just ask that we, as your church, as your children, would become a beacon of light that people would see through us the unity that can be seen. That we are in unity with you as our Father, that we are in unity with one another. And that we can be in unity with those who don't know you yet, Lord. So everybody at this time, just take a moment and pray yourselves and pray together. And just one voice lifting up for unity contending for everybody in the world to have unity.
Now we're going to pray about togetherness because it's really challenging during these times with the pandemic to be together. And we need prayer for one another so that we do not feel like we are alone during this time.
I just ask you Lord, that you would guide us, that you would be with us, that you would be with those that are sitting in their rooms alone, sitting in that hospital room alone, Lord, I pray that you would just embrace them, that they will feel your presence, Father God, that they would know that they are loved beyond all measure. And I pray for every person here, Lord, that they would also feel your presence in their lives. And I also ask, Lord, that we can be a beacon of light and be a blessing to those who are not with anybody that is by themselves or feeling all alone, even though there's many people around them. So at this time I just ask that you would ask for opportunities from the Lord to be an encouragement, to be a light to somebody as we pray together as one.
And lastly, we're going to talk about salvation. We should always ask God for others, what he offered to us first. And that is the gift of eternal life.
Romans 10:1 says
Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.
Jesus, you are the reason you are Lord, you are our savior. You are our King. There is none above you. It is your Holy name that we worship. It is the gift that you have given to us Lord. And we just thank you so much for that precious gift. And it's all just for asking, Lord, there's nothing that we can do. There's nothing that we can say. There's nothing that any of us can ever do that can give us the life that you can give us Lord.
So at this moment, as one voice, pray for that person. Who's coming to your mind? That is a person that you know, who needs the Lord, even if it's for yourself, because we all need extra Jesus some days. So pray for that person in one voice.
David: Good morning Edge Church. Pretty toasty out here for those of us who are here in person. So awesome that we're here together. Great seeing faces. So one of the things that we do together as a body is communion. If you think about that word communion; it's union, it's unity together with each other and not just with each other, but with Christ. That prayer in the garden of Gethsemane is something that I reflect on all the time. It's how God the son is connected to God the father. And it's how he prays that we are connected to each other and to him.
2 Corinthians 13:5 says,
Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you?
That unity has happened to those of us who believe who are indwelled by the Holy spirit. And so we're going to celebrate, we're going to commemorate. We're going to remember that. The act of communion and remembrance brings forward to our present day in our hearts, the sacrifice that Jesus made to unshackle the chains of bondage to sin, to free us to be in him, for the church, to be the body of which he is the head.
1 Corinthians 11:23-25
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
So for those of us who have communion with us this is a little one shot deal here. The top of it is a thin layer. You can peel back and reveal the bread element. Those of you are at home, just take whatever you have. It doesn't need to be anything special. There's nothing special intrinsically about these elements. They're a symbol of what Jesus did for us on the cross and what he continues to do for us in our lives and throughout the world.
So together, we're going to take this element of the bread and the body, and we're going to put it in our mouths. And I want you, I urge you, I encourage you to think about Jesus' broken body on the cross. And after they'd broken the bread and eaten it, he took a cup and gave thanks and praise again. And he said, “This is my blood, blood with a new and everlasting covenant. Blood that was shed for you for the remission of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.”
This is how God has shown his love for us, to us. Let's keep that in our minds as we're tempted to look at the differences that we have with each other. Let's think first of the unity that we have in Christ.
Steve: God, thanks for this time. Thank you that we could be together. Can we just all take a moment? Just lift up our hands to the Lord and just say, God, we just thank you. Can we just thank the Lord together for a minute? God, we thank you. We bless you. We praise you. Could just tell him God, whatever it is, just bless his name. God, you're good. You're true. You're faithful. You're altogether wonderful. God you're worthy. God, thanks for our kids. Good to hear some noise as we gather. Let's just give the Lord some praise. God, thank you, Lord. We love you. We bless you. We thank you for this morning and this time we thank you, Jesus. God, you're so good. God for everybody who's watching online, God just pray, I just, pray your mercy, your grace over them. God, for those who are sick, I pray healing in Jesus' name. God, for those who fear, who just feel alone, God, I pray you overwhelm them with your presence. God who, for those who feel unseen, God, that they would just have a revelation of you God, and a sense of you and encounter with you. God, that they would know how close you are right now. God, remind us of who you are. Remind us of who you've made us to be in you. Oh, we love you. We bless you. God. Thanks for this time. Keep everybody as they go, Lord, pray that we'd have a great rest of the day. It would help everybody to get a little bit cooled off that's out here. No sunburn in Jesus’s name.
Thanks everybody for being here. Thanks to everybody watching online. Great to be together. Love you all. Thanks for being here. So good to be together and just have the opportunity to praise God with his people. So guys have a great rest of your Sunday. Love y'all and we'll see some of you guys hopefully next week.