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Lord's Day Liturgy

Can’t Help It

As often as you watch the Tube, as often as you check the news or seek entertainment, as often as you drive past stores, you are being invited to consider how discontent you probably should be. Propaganda tells you how everything around you is bad, advertisements tell you about everything you don’t have. Those who suppress the truth about God can’t help but be agitated.

There is a place of peace, in but not of this world. It’s the Table before us.

In 1 Corinthians 11:24, Jesus took bread and “when He had given thanks” (εὐχαριστέω), then “in the same way also He took the cup,” which we know from Matthew 26:27 included “when He had given thanks” (εὐχαριστέω). This is why communion is called the eucharist, the meal of thanks.

It is the Supper of God’s glory. It is not a table focused on our guilt but for our gratitude. Giving God glory and thanks is what the world will not do (Romans 1:21). Those who believe the gospel of God can’t help but praise Him.

Let Him be glorified for His righteousness, His love, His grace, His sacrifice. Let Him be thanked for gifts of repentance, faith, and fellowship. Let Him be glorified for His eternal nature and divine power, let Him be thanked for giving us eternal life by the power of the gospel. Let the Son of God be glorified for His obedience, let us give thanks for the Son of God who spent His body and shed His blood for us. Let us glorify the Spirit who points to the Son, let us give thanks for the Spirit who dwells in us as the guarantee of our inheritance. Let us glorify God who created grain and grapes, let us give thanks for the bread and the wine that remind us of our Savior.