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[Music] [Music] Thank you. [Music]

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[Music] The scripture reading of the evening is taken from the 26th chapter of Matthew's Gospel, beginning with the verse which is numbered 26, reading from the Revised Standard Version. "Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to the disciples and said,

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'Take, eat, this is my body.' And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, 'Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sin.

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I tell you, I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.' And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." And may the same Spirit that inspired these words open our hearts to hear them.

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Let us pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I would like to talk to you for a few minutes this evening about Jesus.

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And what I would say of him can be summed in four words. Jesus is always able. In my ministry, it has been my privilege and pleasure to know some truly great saints, some people who dearly love the Lord, and in whom the power of the Lord dwells mightily.

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And every one of these persons testifies to the same thing. Whenever in their lives they are able to confront some difficulty, some temptation, some hardship, some defeat triumphantly, whenever in their spiritual experience they know victory, it is not, they affirm unanimously, because of their ability.

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It is instead because Jesus is able. And Jesus dwells within their hearts. Just a few evenings ago, I was listening to a tape of the great Dutch evangelist Corrie ten Boom. And in that tape, she made reference to a speaking engagement she had in Manila in the Philippines.

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And she related to this audience to whom she was speaking the experience of her betrayal during the days of the Second World War. She was in the service of the Dutch underground, and she was betrayed by a quisling, a traitor. And she told of how Jesus had been able, within her, to lead her to forgive that man.

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So that even after the war, when that man was captured and was to be put to death for his treason, she was able to write to him of her forgiveness and her love, and to testify to him about Jesus. And now when she finished making these remarks to this audience in Manila, she sat down. And the man who had introduced her got up and said, "Isn't that wonderful to think that she was so able to love her enemies,

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what the world needs is more people like Corrie ten Boom." And she said, "When I heard that, I was furious. And I jumped up and I said, 'May I speak for one more minute?'" And they gave her the platform once again, and she said, "Let me say it once more.

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There's not enough love in Corrie ten Boom to have forgiven that man. What the world needs is not more Corrie ten Booms. What the world needs is more people with Jesus in them. For it was Jesus who was able to forgive through me.

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Jesus is the one who is able." Well, as I thought about that, I began to run in my mind through some of the verses in Scripture in which Jesus is specifically described as being able. And I'd like to notice just a few of them with you tonight.

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For example, in Hebrews 2 we read, "He is able to succor those who are tempted." Jesus is able to succor those who are tempted. Now, Peter understood what that meant. Do you remember how Jesus turned to him when they were gathered together for that Last Supper

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and he said, "Peter, the devil wants to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you. And if you will hold fast to me, your faith will not fail you. And when you have returned, strengthen your brothers." It must have meant a great deal to Peter in the dreadful later hours of that night

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to know that Jesus was praying for him, strengthening him, giving him succor in the moments of temptation. I had an experience not nearly so dramatic, but every bit as real, just this last summer. I was in St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank to undertake certain physical tests. It had been suggested to me that it was possible that these tests might reveal a serious health condition,

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one which could involve a malignancy. Well, when anyone tells you that they might find something like that, you're tempted to become anxious. And I will confess to you that some feelings of anxiety were in me, and I had very little peace. In that hospital at night, the evening devotions are given over the public address system.

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And as I prepared to go to sleep that night, having already completed my own reading of Scripture, suddenly they came on the air with their evening devotions. In every room, because it is a Roman Catholic hospital, there is a crucifix on the wall. And as they led us, the whole hospital, in devotion, my eyes fell upon and then were focused upon that crucifix.

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And it became very real to me that the reason Jesus could so speak to or strengthen or succor us in the moment of our temptation was precisely this, that He had not stayed off in some ivory tower, but instead had plunged Himself into the very midst of life, had, as it were, stood shoulder to shoulder with us, right in the center of all the temptations of human experience,

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even to the temptations of that cross at which I was looking at that moment. And that meant that He understood fully, to the uttermost, any temptation that I might know at that moment, the temptation to anxiety and fear. And as I heard the words of Jesus and thought upon that truth, I came to know a very great peace.

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Jesus, you see, succors us in the moment of temptation, like the little girl said, "Whenever I hear the devil knocking, I always send Jesus to the door." So be it. And this table spread now is testimony to the fact that He has walked with us, knows what we are called upon to endure, and stands ready to strengthen.

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But what about the person who is not tempted, but has already fallen? What about the person who is not still in the battle, but is already lost? If you go to the seventh chapter of Hebrews, you read, "Jesus is able to save to the uttermost." He is able to save to the uttermost. Now, Paul knew what that meant.

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Jesus came, you see, to Paul with power, not when Paul was being tempted. Paul had already yielded to the temptations and had given himself over to the bloody, hostile persecution of the Church. Jesus did not find Paul thinking about sin. Jesus found Paul in the very midst of it. And right there, you see, He saved him. The battle was lost for Paul.

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But Jesus changed things so that Paul comes off a winner. See, what this Scripture is saying to us is this, that not only is Jesus ready to strengthen us, He is also ready to save us. A couple of months ago, I was invited by the Christian World Liberation Front,

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together with some of the collegians of our Church, to go up and bear witness on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. And at one time during the day, I was called to speak right in the midst of the square, right in front of Sproul Hall, where there's that busy concourse of students. You just go out and you start to talk, and you gather a crowd about you, and you bear witness as best you can.

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I'd never done anything like that before. And I was in the midst of it, and I had already had the experience, being in the midst of it, of having some individuals throw cutting or critical remarks to me. You see, the enemies of Christ are free to come and go there too,

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and they don't hesitate to attack or belittle or speak quite openly against what you're proclaiming, right as you're proclaiming it. There's nothing courteous about the procedure. You're in the midst of the conflict, and you better be ready for whatever comes. I regret to say that I wasn't, because one man, an older man, I would estimate his age to be about 50,

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who was engaged in some demonstration there, suddenly came over in the midst of my testimony, that's what I was offering, my own testimony, and he said, "You're not talking about guilt, are you? You're not trying to make us feel guilty, are you?" And in an effort to keep on my theme and not to be diverted, I turned to him and I said, "No."

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At that moment, I wasn't talking about guilt, but I shouldn't have answered him that way. What I should have done is to have turned to him and said, and hindsight is always so much better than foresight, I should have turned to him and said, "My friend, you assert that you have no guilt.

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Therefore, you don't want to hear about Jesus as Savior. You want to hear about Him as Teacher or Lord or Master. Alright, then let me ask you this. Are you without sin?

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Have you never lied? Have you never been puffed up with arrogance? Have you never been given over to those things which if everyone had done them, our whole society would come to collapse?

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Are you without sin?" He would, of course, have been unable to say yes. He would have said, "No, I too have sinned." Then I would have said, "Well, before talking to you about Jesus as Lord, then,

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maybe I better talk to you about Jesus as Savior." That's where we always have to begin, you see, with the battles we have lost, not the battles we are losing. And the glorious truth of the gospel is this,

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that the body and blood of Jesus have been broken and shared to save us from our sin. Jesus is able to redeem to the uttermost. But more than that,

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go over to the book of Jude, and you discover there in the 24th verse that he is able to keep you from falling. That's what Jude says.

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Jesus is able to keep us from falling. Now, the suggestion here, you see, is a preventative one. So far, we've talked about Jesus as the one who strengthens and Jesus as the one who saves.

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Now we see Jesus depicted as the one who supports. In the first instance, we see the man who is sick. And Jesus comes and gives him the medication that's necessary to keep him from going down into the depths of the disease.

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In the second instance, we see Jesus coming to the man who's at death's door because of his defeat by the disease, and Jesus raises him up. But now we see Jesus in his preventative power. We see Jesus coming along and giving you vitamin pills

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so you don't ever begin to get sick at all. He is able to keep us from falling. Christ is here, and He is able. He gives ideals. He gives goals. He gives challenges.

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He teaches. He edifies. He instructs. He strengthens. He uplifts. He enables. He supports. He makes us strong.

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I'll never forget the first communion service I went to in Scotland. On a Saturday night late, and there was a knock at the door, and I went and here was the minister of the local church. His name was Wilfred Halbert.

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I hadn't met him, but I'd listened to him preach the Sunday before. And he said that, "We're going to have communion tomorrow, and I know you'll be coming, and I thought perhaps I'd better come and examine you

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to see if I can give you a token so that you will be able to come to the Lord's table." They still fence the tables over there, you see. If you're not prepared, you can't come to the table.

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So he examined me and questioned me, and we prayed together, and then he gave me the token. And the next day, I went to the Lord's table,

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together with others of like mind and spirit, and he shared with us out of God's Word about the power of Jesus. Now, I suppose it was just the connection of events. It was, you see, being examined personally

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before I came to the table, and then coming to the table in the communion of saints, and then hearing about the power of Jesus available at the table. It was all of these things together that brought home to me,

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with tremendous power, this truth, that there is available to us a strength that is beyond our imagining, that which can uplift us and uphold us, no matter what we might be called upon to endure.

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If you drive down in Georgia any time, you'll see little huts out in the boondocks, just shacks they are, where poor blacks and some poor whites live.

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These places have no electricity. They're dark at night. But overhead, just above these shacks, are great high-tension lines, humming with power. Now, you see, before the power from the high-tension line

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can be brought into the home, there has to be a connecting link, a transformer, that brings this power to the place of need.

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Jesus is the transformer. Jesus is the one who has come. This table testifies to that. And as he comes, if we will receive him,

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he brings into our lives indescribable strength. He lifts us skyward. He is able to keep us from falling. Or again, turn over to the letter that Paul wrote to the Philippians,

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and notice there in the third chapter, that he writes that Jesus is able to subdue all things unto himself. Jesus strengthens, Jesus saves, Jesus supports, and Jesus subdues. He is able to subdue all things unto himself.

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And the accent here, the trumpet note, is "all things." The work of Jesus Christ upon the cross, commemorated in this holy meal, is not limited only to us. It is not relevant only to that which occurs in our individual lives.

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It applies to every dimension of the whole creation. In Romans 8, Paul talks about how the creation is groaning in travail, waiting for the redeeming power of Jesus to be demonstrated through the witness of the sons of men.

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The Christian cannot be parochial. This gospel, this good news, this thing that Jesus did, this battle Jesus won, applies not only to what goes on in our own hearts, it applies to ecology and sociology and political science.

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It applies to every dimension of life. It applies to the whole creation. No principality or power, nothing in heaven above or in the earth beneath, no height, no depth is beyond this tremendous power.

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For all things are subdued by him. All things are transformed and won by him. There's a little red book being passed around in the world today, which is supposed to be a testament of power.

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It is, of course, the sayings of Mao Zedong, the dictator of communist China. Norman Vincent Peale has recently published a white book, which is the sayings of Jesus. I sat down one night and I read the sayings of Mao

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over against the sayings of Jesus. And I want to tell you, this Mao is a piker. The things he promises, the commitments he makes, the ideas and the concepts he presents

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are as nothing when put over against one who says, "All power in heaven and earth is given unto me." And that's what Jesus claims. When Lartin Luther prepared to go to Augsburg,

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someone said to him, "All the powers of hell are gathered at Augsburg." And Martin Luther replied, "At Augsburg, Jesus reigns!" And he does. And the clear teaching of Scripture is this,

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that nothing in life, nothing in creation, nothing in all the cosmos is beyond the infinite power of the infinite Christ. He subdues all things.

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He is able to subdue all things to himself. We say as a kind of code word at this table that what we are doing, we are doing till he comes. And when he comes, on the clouds with legions of angels,

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then all things will be wrapped up and all things will be made clear and all things will bow down and confess that Jesus is Lord.

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Very quickly, two last thoughts. In 2 Timothy, Paul notes in the first chapter that Jesus is able, and this is what Paul says, "to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."

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Jesus is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. Now remember, Paul was on his way to his death. He was very near the end,

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and it's altogether likely that he fully understood this was the case. And Jesus had not yet returned. So what Paul wants to know is this. Can the life which I have lived, the dedication which I have made,

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this entrusting of myself over to Jesus, last even beyond my dying? Will he hold on to me in death as he holds on to me in life? He has not yet returned. Therefore, can I depend on him in eternity

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since I have not yet been able to reach out and touch him here in the world of the temple? And the Spirit so speaks to Paul that he affirms, "Jesus is able to keep that which I have committed."

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And the word "committed" that he uses here is the same kind of a word we might use about depositing something in a safety deposit box. Jesus is able to take all of that which we have deposited with him,

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all of our hopes and dreams, and hold them no matter what we encounter, even death. That's a great promise. It's a great promise that applies to all of our loved ones

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who have already gone to be with him. They're not forgotten. They are with him. The commitment made to him is still held by Jesus.

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And it applies to us. When James Guthrie, the great Covenanter, Scottish Covenanter, was about to be put to death for the sake of what he believed,

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a Presbyterian who died for the sake of his Presbyterianism, he wakened on the morning of his death, and his servant James Cowley began to weep, weep with remorse over what was to occur.

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And Guthrie, there in the prison at Edinburgh, looked at him and said, "Come, come, no more of this. This is the day which the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it."

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You see, to him, death was no defeat, because Jesus held fast even through death. Nothing committed to him, ever lost. He is able to retain it,

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even when we move from this life to the life that is to be. And just one last thing. In Ephesians, Paul says, "Jesus is able to do exceeding abundantly

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about all we ask or think." Just get the cumulative weight of this. Christ suckers us when we're tempted. Christ saves us when we're defeated.

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Christ supports us for the coming battle. Christ subdues all things that are in the cosmos. Christ secures us, even through death. And he is able to give us things

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that are above and beyond anything we can ask or think. Some of you have come here tonight with great burdens of body or heart or spirit. No burden that you bring is beyond Jesus.

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There is nothing you can ask him that someone else hasn't asked at some other time, and he's already met their need. There's no problem you can present in this life

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or the life that is to be. There's no dream you have. There's no hope you hold which is beyond his capacity. Paul says our mortal existence is very much like living in a tent.

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You know what a tent's like. We put it up today and we take it down tomorrow. Here today and gone tomorrow. But he also says in the kingdom of heaven,

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we won't be a tent anymore. We will be a building. And that building, its maker and its builder is God. That means, you see, we are established for all eternity.

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And we're established like that, beyond anything we can ask or think, beyond anything we can imagine, because Jesus is who Jesus is.

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He is always able. Will you say this with me then? Will you repeat after me? Jesus succors us.

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Jesus saves us. Jesus supports us. Jesus subdues all things. Jesus secures all things for us,

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beyond what we can ask or think. Jesus is always able. Praise God. Amen.

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[music] Nobody wanted him. Nobody cared. Nobody wanted him.

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No one shared in the promise he brought. As a babe that night, nobody, nobody, nobody cared. Nobody lauded him. Nobody sang.

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No crowd applauded him. No bells rang when he went to the desert to fast and pray. Nobody, nobody, nobody cared. But oh, how the thousands came when the bread was multiplied.

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And oh, how the hosannas rang at their king's triumphal ride. And as long as the miracles flowed like wine, they called him wonderful. They came to dine, but nobody wanted him.

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No one remained. They only taunted him when his cross was stained with the blood freely given for a world unchained. Nobody, nobody, no one but nobody cared.

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[music]