The fundamental fact of your life is that God loves you. Because of Jesus' solidarity with us in baptism, what God says to him, God says to all of us: You are my child, the beloved. In you I am well pleased. That is primary: everything else, including your sense of your own sinfulness, is secondary. Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 1 John 3:18-20

1. God Loves You –
Baptism & Eucharist
1 Corinthians 11:23-26

2. Gratitude
For what are you grateful?

3. For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,
that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took
a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it
and said, ‘This is my body that is foryou. Do this in
remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also,
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.

4. What Does it
Say?
• Emotional reaction
• What’s the setting?
• Who are the characters?
• How would you summarize it?
• What happened before/after?
• What scriptural references do you
pick up?

5. What Does it Mean?

6. What It Does Not
Mean“I was powerfully convicted by
God’s word of my own sin and
idolatry. At the same time, I’ve
never found so much deep joy
in the love of God in in Christ
Jesus. I came away from the
conference spurred on to
submit myself to Jesus, with
renewed confidence in His
power to build and renew his
church”
Facebook post from a local church.

7. There Are Plenty of Reasons: e.g.
• Jesus’ solidarity with us in
Baptism means that what
God says to Jesus, he
therefore says to us:
• “You are my child, the
Beloved; with you I am well
pleased.”
Do you not know that all of us
who have been baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into
his death? Therefore we have
been buried with him by baptism
into death, so that, just as Christ
was raised from the dead by the
glory of the Father, so we too
might walk in newness of life.
Romans 6:3-4

8. (Part of) What The Eucharist
Means
• God desires your company.
• God is not grudging, waiting
for you to grovel enough to let
you in. God pursues you.
I fled Him, down the nights and down
the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the
years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of
tears
I hid from Him…
The Hound of Heaven Francis
Thompson

9. Grace Abounds?
• Does God love you more
because of your sin –
because it gives God a
chance to forgive you, and
thus to love you more?
“but where sin increased, grace
abounded all the more, so that,
just as sin exercised dominion in
death, so grace might also
exercise dominion through
justification leading to eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 5:20b-21

10. Lord I am not worthy to receive
you…
• Communion is not a reward
for good behaviour
• “it is the food we need to
prevent ourselves from
starving as a result of our
own self-enclosure and self-
absorption, our pride and our
forgetfulness”
• Food for the journey
Friends,
this is the table of the Lord
and he calls us to this sacred feast.
Come, not because you are strong,
but because you are weak;
come, not because of any goodness of your own,
but because you need mercy and help;
come, because you love the Lord a little
and would like to love him more;
come, because he loves you
and gave himself for you.
Uniting in Worship 2 – Uniting Church in Australia

11. What Does It Mean for
Me?

12. A Thought to Take
Away
God desires your company

13. Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours
now and for ever. Amen.

14. In the deserts of this world, may you find signs
of God. In the wilderness of your lives, may you
be encouraged by God. In your joy and in your
sorrow, may you rejoice in God. a
And the blessing of God, the Father, the Son
and the Holy Spirit be amongst us and remain
with us ever more. Amen