The Table Preaches Jesus

Transcript

Good morning church Let’s continue worshiping Jesus through the preaching of God’s Word of this first time with us. My name is Andrew I’m one of the staff pastors here for Trinity Church We will be in the words written by Mark inspired by the Holy Spirit in Mark chapter 14 Starting in verse 12 today If you don’t have a Bible there should be one in the seat in front of you And if you don’t own a Bible, we want nothing more than to give you a Bible Because in the Bible are the very words of God the very words of life. And so we would love to do that. So

Go with me to mark This is God’s Word to us from Mark chapter 14

And on the first day of unleavened bread When they sacrificed the path Passover lamb his disciples said to him Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover? And he sent two of his disciples and said to them go into the city and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you Follow him Wherever he enters say to the master of the house. The teacher says Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready there prepare for us and the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them and they prepared the

— Mark 14

(ESV)

Passover And when it was evening He came with the twelve and as they were reclining at table and eating Jesus said truly I say to you One of you will betray me One who is eating with me They began to be sorrowful and say to him one after another is it I He said to them It is one of the twelve One who is dipping the bread into the dish with me for the Son of Man goes as it is written of him But woe to that man whom the Son of Man is betrayed it would be have better it would have been better for that man if he had not been born as They were eating. He took the bread and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them and said Take this is my body And he took a cup and we had given thanks he gave it to them and they all drank of it and he said to

— Mark 14

(ESV)

Them this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many Truly I say to you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink in the Drink it new in the kingdom of God

— Mark 14

(ESV)

. This is the word of the Lord Thanks be to God. Please pray with me King Jesus we come today to look at a sense hit the Last Supper in the first communion We come to look at this thing that your people have continued to participate in for 2,000 years We come to look and see what it proclaims about you about your cross about your gospel and That you’ve hardwired this into the life of the church for 2,000 years So that we would have this reminder and even this reenactment of what you’ve done for us Jesus We go through this world with weights

But they’re not a surprise it’s the world that you’ve told us about that you’ve come to redeem and So Jesus, I pray as we face this world as we heard in the song Yes, we know there is evil in the world But as we look to what you’ve done as we look to the cross as we look to the resurrection, we would be glad We would be a people of joy that we would be different than the world because we have hope And I pray for us as we look to the table today We would understand that this is a celebration of the impossible This is a celebration of the God who has come to save sinners from death to life And that you have in fact saved us the Holy Spirit be with us today Guide us lead us help us instruct us move us

The Wedding Story

speak to us God we can only do these things if you allow it And so we pray these things Jesus for your glory and for our joy in your name Jesus Christ. Amen a Number of years ago. I did a wedding It was a wedding for a couple who were both first generation Asian or partly Chinese Americans As a result the husband or the soon-to-be husband, I guess whenever you’re doing that within the ceremony had worked in China Had done a great stuff in China in fact teaching English in American culture by American culture He would go and say Americans believe in Jesus Who is God who came to earth? to save sinners from death to life and believe the way you become a Christian as you turn from your sin and to him which by the way was the way as an English teacher

He got to tell people about Jesus all the time, which is totally rad But he had these friends he met in China who were working in Arizona of all places they were Chinese nationals and they’d come to his wedding and they grabbed me after the service and they said hey,We heard you say something kind of funny during that ceremony We saw you pick up some something in a cup and we Saw you pick up what looked like some bread and said something like eating flesh and drinking blood That’s not what you said, right No, no, that’s exactly what I said Because you see I grew up in a non-christian home watching, you know Robin Hood Prince and Thieves or the Godfather or whatever and I was familiar with this thing that Christians did It was just part of my life as an American and in some respects

We need to be careful of the same thing where it just becomes this thing that kind of happens But these people had never been exposed to this idea ever And I would argue as we take communion every week, there should be a novelty to what we are doing by that I mean there should be something unique to it because what we have here when we take communion together is we have this symbol of the gospel It shows us that we needed Jesus to bleed and die to save us It’s a symbol that we need to be aware of. It’s a symbol that we need to be aware of That we need Jesus to bleed and die to save us It’s a symbol that God himself came in a kind of crunchy real-life form that the God of the universe Entered into human history. He actually sat he actually ate with people. He actually talked to people. He actually healed people

He actually did what he did and he actually saved sinners from death to life That this was a symbol pointing to the cross the reality that Jesus had to come and live and die And so as I’m sitting with this couple in this rather honestly fancy schmancy hotel in the middle of downtown, Seattle I have this opportunity that is communion where I begin to just unpack the gospel to them from the cup To say you see whether you’re a communist or a taoist or a confucianist or a buddhist All of those things are about how you get somewhere where it’s about your effort but what’s unique about the gospel is that in the gospel Jesus the God of the universe had to come to earth to save sinners from Death to life. And by the way, if you’re in here today, and this is the first time you’re hearing anything like this yourself a

We are pumped that you are here be this is the good news that our whole lives live on the life death and resurrection of Jesus and That he saved sinners from death to life not because of anything we’ve done, but everything he has done That we don’t earn it We don’t put on our Sunday best to get it, but that Jesus condescends and gets us and saves us from ourselves and So as we look at this, I want us to understand as we think about communion as we dig into Mark that when we celebrate communion, this isn’t just the thing we’re doing before we get to get out of here and go to lunch This is our weekly Celebration as the people of God of the impossible That the table is a celebration of the impossible When that when the disciples look to Jesus in Mark 18 and say if that guy can’t get to heaven

How am I going to get to heaven? He says well with humans, it’s impossible. But with God anything is possible That we don’t just have one amongst many world religions and a belief that we pick up on but that we are people Who believe that God has done the impossible to save us from ourselves and to life in him? So today we have a simple sermon One point or one big idea and one point of application or implication from the text Technically in the world of preaching you’re supposed to save the application to the end, but I must tell you at the beginning So that you hear it The one point of the sermon is that communion preaches Jesus and the one point of application is That when I when we when you and I come to do this together not just today But for the rest of our lives, we would let the gravity of what God has done and why he’s instituted this hit us

Light us up on fire for worship for King Jesus So that if this isn’t something you take seriously you would and if it is something you take seriously you get lit up and That if you’re not if you’re in here today, and you’re not a Christian to understand why we do what we do

Passover and Redemption

So our one point communion preaches Jesus our one point of application is to let the gravity of Communion hit us. So here we are We’re in Mark. We’re in chapter 12 starting verse 1 And On the first day of unleavened bread when they sacrificed the Passover lamb his disciples said to him where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover as Protestant Christians in America don’t think that this is just Easter. This isn’t just going over to somebody’s house for dinner Exodus it’s in Exodus God institutes this mighty thing that is Passover and is a bit of a complicated Ritual to pull off. It’s not just a potluck and they need somewhere to prepare it and He sent two of his disciples and said to them go into the city and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you

Follow him and wherever he enters say to the master of the house The teacher says where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready There prepare for us and disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them and they prepared Passover now, this is one of those moments where we can almost get distracted from what Mark is actually trying to do here Because it’s very interesting that Jesus says Hey go find a guy with the water bottle find the guy with the water bottle follow him Whoever owns the house tell him this thing and do this thing Right, so we can stop and say well, what did the Holy Spirit tell him that? Did he know about the guy with the water bottle was he just really intuitive was it arranged beforehand?

Here’s the thing about Mark doesn’t care about that Now Luke probably tells him or not probably in many instances like this I should say Luke actually fill some of those details in for us So Luke is like the double LP on like marbled vinyl with all the inserts and the screen print and the good Graphics and like the long 15-minute instrumental intro and outro thing Mark is the hardcore record. So I grew up on the hardcore punk rock scene My favorite LP punk rock record is less than I think it’s less than 15 minutes Lights out. It’s really good So it’s on a 33 that you put on the record player and flip over and if you don’t know what I mean when I’m talking about these records Double LP is very very long and 15 minutes is very short Marks lights out and Luke acts is the white album or whatever

And so here we are but what did he do did you hear it when we read slowly When they sacrifice the Passover lamb Passover go prepare for the Passover Passover. He says Passover like four times in this paragraph Why is that because I think Passover is the thing that he wants to be clear for us now. We’ve been reading mark We’ve been working our way through mark. We know Passover is coming. We know that it’s Holy Week We know where we are. If you just been sitting down reading mark, this already would have been obvious I think Mark’s actually queuing us in and setting us up here for at least two reasons One Passover is this great symbol of Redemption and second Passover is a ceremony by which you don’t just do the meal

You actually reenact You reenact what happened as the people left Then only you react you react reenact it. It’s hard to transition when you’re ready to cry from worship and then start preaching So there’s this reality that there’s this reenactment but there’s also this reminder Does that sound like anything else that you know about Where there’s a reenactment and a reminder as he stands over the table

Just like communion we reenact in a reminded of this night But it’s not just that it’s the Passover is the symbol of redemption Deuteronomy chapter 7 God’s so clear He says I didn’t pick you Israel because you were the best and you were the biggest and you were the brightest I picked you because you were the smallest So that the world would know there’s a God in heaven and I took you out of the biggest nastiest scariest place Egypt the hegemonic world power that at the time seemed Completely and totally unstoppable and it was no effort for the God of the universe He gives Pharaoh ten warnings and he just lets him have it and Then he redeems his people as like the strongest most powerful army in the whole world at the time is Chasing them out into the desert

The Red Sea in front of them The armies behind them It’s impossible it’s a lose-lose die by the sword or drowned and Then suddenly God Parts the sea and they walk across on dry land Early in my walk with Jesus I was at a family gathering and someone had given a little boy a little picture ESV and I opened up that ESV and I looked inside and You’d have to ask Yon if there are whales in the Red Sea Because I don’t know and it doesn’t matter It does matter but not for our purposes here as I opened up that book. There’s this picture of the sea Parted and these large Probably whales or other sea creatures sort of swimming because the waters Parted you don’t get to walk through parted water that just happened that time But the artist who had put this idea into

Picture had these large creatures swimming in the water and something about that the Spirit Pushed me as I saw that He pushed me and I realized how impossible my redemption was That the mighty acts that God had done to save me from myself and from my sin I Realized that this thing that’s happened Right to them these Egypt or the Israelites as they’re passing over as a miracle and the life that we experience as Christian people is a miracle and I think what Mark’s doing here as he’s pointing to this redemption He’s reminding us of what John said behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world What Peter will later go on to say in his own letter that Jesus was in fact the Lamb of God That the Passover lamb who Thomas so rightly and well pointed out last week that the Passover lamb dies in the place of the firstborn son and the blood goes over the doorpost is a

Sign that the lamb died in your place So you don’t have to if you are a Christian you are a Christian because Jesus has died in your place So that you don’t have to He’s setting it up For this great theme that starts right there in Exodus and goes all the way to the cross of Jesus Christ In fact Jude in verse 5 you always want to say chapter, but you doesn’t have any chapters It just has verses in chapter and then I did it again In verse 5 of Jude goes out of his way to say that was Jesus who saved God’s people by name out of Egypt I

Think Mark’s teeing us up for what’s about to happen Or really in some respect what Jesus is about to tee up as he’s setting us up So that we could understand what’s gonna happen at the cross Verse 17 and When it was evening he came with the twelve, so this is a big party So it’s being marks being clear here So the two cats that went off to go get this thing ready were not the twelve apostles they’re not the main twelve disciples here and when his evening he came with the twelve and as they were reclining at table and Eating Jesus said truly I say to you one of you will betray me One of you who’s eating with me They began to be sorrowful and Say to him one after the other is that I It’s really really clear in the way that mark has written this in the original

They are really bonafide saying wait a second Wait one of us you mean like me like me am I gonna do it am I the one Jesus like there? This is a bonafide question. They’re asking because they’re so flabbergasted and floored that he would say such a thing Is it I he said to them it is one of the twelve

Well I guess if you’re the two cats that like got the thing ready like whoo all right, okay, let’s have some lamb But the twelve you mean the guys that have been rolling with Jesus for three years the twelve It’s One of the twelve who is dipping bread into the dish with me For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to the man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed It would have been better for that man not to have been born There’s two things happening these two paragraphs. Did you see it? Coming back to that question when we’re saying so is the guy with the water bottle or whatever? The point of that mark is making is that this all is playing out according to plan The point he’s emphasizing here because we’ve already heard about Judas we the reader already know who the cat is that’s betraying him

Mark’s going out of his way to say what Jesus said to let you know That this is going according to plan That the cross of Christ is not plan B. It is plan a Through the redemption of humanity through the bloodshed of Jesus Christ the Son of God on the cross As a redemptive act to make us whole was not an afterthought Adam and Eve didn’t screw up and God said oh shoot. What am I gonna do now? The God actually has a plan and a purpose for all of redemption and it goes right through the cross Now at the same time I Think this shows us some pretty incredible stuff and one of those things is first and foremost we have an inside-out gospel not outside-in Here’s what I mean by that Did you notice what didn’t happen in this text He didn’t say it was one of the twelve and everybody like quietly looks at Judas and goes mm-hmm

Why is that Well, I think it’s likely though it’s not explicit He’s Except for that Judas is included in the twelve when it’s talked about all these things in the Gospels that they Get sent and empowered to do miracles and go preach the gospel So does that mean that Judas was preaching the gospel

Inside-Out Gospel

Does that mean that Judas was doing miracles in the name of Jesus Because You know what it doesn’t say it doesn’t say Jesus sent the 11 or the 12 2 by 2 and when they showed up Judas like tried and it didn’t work He didn’t do that What’s our danger here? Well, he looks good on the outside

Christianity is not about looking good on the outside. It’s about being transformed by King Jesus on the inside There’s no amount of good work or things we do that earn our way to God he’s too holy He’s too wonderful. He’s too beautiful and Yet he takes scoundrels like us and I don’t just mean me I mean you

And he makes us his children and he descounder alizes us He makes us kids he makes us holy people he sets us apart he makes us his own Right, but when we read a text like this you say well, well, okay but you said Judas sounds like he was doing miracles and Something he was preaching the gospel How do I know if I’m a Christian How do I know then Because honestly, maybe last week didn’t look as good as you wanted it to look Maybe last week didn’t go the way you thought it should go And maybe you’re looking at saying so What do I do? Am I a Christian? The Bible gives us really good answers for this friends Romans 10 tells us if we confess with our lips and believe in our heart that we’re his That’s what it takes to be a Christian. It’s not the tenacity even of your

Confession it’s it’s not the goodness of your life. It’s the goodness of God who speaks life into us So we confess with our lips Jesus. You are King and we believe it in our hearts But that doesn’t mean that we get to believe in the Jesus we want to believe in we believe in the Jesus that Jesus is Right. It’s not the Mormon Jesus It’s not the liberal Jesus It’s not the hug everybody Jesus just try harder and God will kind of like smile what you’re doing It’s not the I feel Jesus love for me and my non-christian neighbor when they love me Jesus It’s the Jesus the Jesus who came and lived a perfect sinless life It’s the Jesus the second member of the Trinity God himself who entered into history and died on a Roman cross

bleeding for us to wash us clean of all of our sins and When we believe this Jesus, we’re swearing allegiance to him If we say it with our lips and we believe it in our hearts, we’re saying I am aligning and alleging myself to this King Jesus says if you abide in me, I’ll abide in you That means it’s not just knowing things about Jesus but knowing Jesus personally Actually knowing this Jesus having a real bonafide relationship with Jesus now I Know how this goes sometimes Maybe you can kind of go like check check, but Judas come on dog. Like I want to know I Want to know well, I think Augustine is helpful for us in this Augustine was a pastor and a theologian Who lived a long time ago and he said the way, you know that you’re a Christian because he had these same thoughts

You know, these aren’t new thoughts right like these things bugged him, too Right giant brain kind of conceptually invents quantum physics still mess with him It’s okay It’s okay come back to the truth of the word be fortified in the word That’s how you know, but he said you could look down your life and see God at work You could look and see where God has changed you because the reality is maybe you look and say last week was kind of rough Yeah, maybe it was But how was last week compared to last year How was last year compared to the last decade if you’ve been walking with Jesus that long The reality is if we’re aware of ourselves our sanctification looks very slow So I was really helpful to journey with people for a long time. I Remember the time I won’t tell you what it was

But I remember when a guy who had mentored me observed a trait in me that had changed So well, I can tell you so when I met you were kind of an angry young man. I don’t see that anymore You’re like honestly when he said that I was like, I didn’t know I was an angry young man I Sweetheart

Because here’s the reality of the gospel Colossians chapter 1 you’ve been transferred from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of light you are King’s kids It’s she’s so cute I know it’s hard We’re Kings kids we’ve been transferred from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of life You are no longer a sinner, but a sinner Saint meaning you are a new person You are a person made new you belong to the king. You are his there’s therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus Galatians chapter 5 verse 1 it’s for freedom. The Christ has set you free. This is who you are But still here on earth we do what Paul says in Colossians chapter 3 we’re taking off the old person putting on the new we’re turning from our sin and we’re turning to Jesus and Honestly, most of us would like those victories to be bigger and stronger and faster than they are and but

real talk part of the reason we tend to feel like we’re a failure because we’re trying to muscle it and do it ourselves rather than setting Our eyes on Jesus and moving forward towards him. I Can do all things through him who strengthens me it’s no longer I who live but Christ who lives through me Judas had confidence in himself. We have confidence in Christ and friends Jesus actually has a plan for your sanctification. He wants you to be a holier and yes dare I say happier person as you throw off every weight of sin as you put everything behind as you pursue Jesus and Jesus alone But as Thomas so rightly pointed out last week Judas wasn’t pursuing Jesus. No wonder his ship his life shipwrecked He was pursuing something else this incident really just revealed. What was already there Now we all need to have a real serious look at our own lives

You know, I don’t want to get you off the hook if you’re not saved If you’re not a Christian, I’m not I’m not trying to get you off the hook But get saved Turn from your sin and turn from Jesus confess with your lips and believe in your heart today is the day This isn’t where we put on our Sunday best and act a certain way But that we come to Jesus with empty hands and come to him for salvation Today is the day

The New Covenant

So everything’s falling apart We’ve got the Passover set up The disciples are kind of freaking out And in the midst of all of this happens Verse 22 And as they were eating He took bread After blessing it he broke it and gave it to them and said take This is my body And he took a cup and when he had given thanks He gave it to them And they all drank of it and he said to them This is my blood of the covenant and Go with me to Jeremiah 31 through 34 Which if marks here, it’s like here You got three big prophets in the middle Isaiah Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It’s kind of in the middle of Jeremiah Now this is one of those passages we have to go to it because it’s alluded to so much in the New Testament

It’s a passage. We need to make sure that as Christian people we are epically familiar with and we honestly miss sometimes First 31 says this behold The days are coming Which has always got that future that future focus declares the Lord when I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel in the house of Judah. It’s worth noting by this point in time ten tribes have disappeared He’s talking about a house that isn’t around anymore That the Assyrians moved in these cats into this place called Samaria This is why everybody hates them so much in the New Testament and moved out those folks and they’re gone

Not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the wind and by on the by the hand that Made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt Hey It’s that redemption story again Look at that. I wonder if Jesus knew that was there

He did by the way My Covenant they broke though. I was their husband There’s a whole big story behind there, but you need to understand this is where we’re at God called the people out of Egypt. He redeemed this people out of Egypt He had his his manifest presence among them over the the over the Ark of the Covenant Over where the Ten Commandments would sit his presence smoke by day and fire by night Right there first in the tabernacle then in the temple God was with them in the land and you think wow God saved them and he was with them. They must have been obedient and perfectly awesome ever since

Well, I would encourage you to read the first 78% of your Bible it’s called the Old Testament and When you do that, you’ll be sadly surprised. I shout at them all the time. Don’t do it. No Why are you getting a boat going away from Nineveh Jonah, why are you doing that God told you to do the other thing? Why Jonah why Adam and Eve he told you not to eat it that tree

This language is so tender My covenant that they broke though I was their husband declares the Lord It doesn’t just crumple it up doesn’t just throw it away Listen But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days declare the Lord I will put my law or maybe better yet teaching here. I will put my teaching within them I will write it in their hearts. I will make I will be their God and they shall be my people and No longer shall each one teach his neighbor and his brother saying know the Lord for they shall know me for the least of them to the greatest declares the Lord listen Trinity hear this There’s anything that should give us some cause to celebrate and to be a joyful weird Wonderful people in Portland for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more

The Bible tells us in Christ our sin as far as the east is from the west That way is pretty far from that way So you have to remember where they’re at They’re in Judea and Jerusalem Which is not ruled by a Davidic King. It’s ruled by the Romans the closest thing to A king for the Jewish people in this moment is Herod’s an Edomite. He’s Esau’s descendant not Jacob’s descendant Everything is jacked up and not the way it’s supposed to be in the land Not only that I think when we look to Matthew’s gospel when we hear about Jesus being born We get this phrase out of Egypt. I called my son and then he goes to Egypt and we think oh look God put him in Egypt so he could call him out of Egypt. I think what’s actually happening there. He’s saying hey

There’s a king who just like Pharaoh’s killing babies But he’s not in Egypt. He’s in the land I’m gonna call my son out of Egypt that things are so bad in the land that I think God there is calling Judea Egypt Out of Egypt I called my son So you’re there For thinking about this at this meal With this guy that you think is the Messiah and he just said it’s time for this new covenant This new covenant But the amazing thing about this covenant is that it’s throughout the Old Testament Ezekiel 36 alludes to this covenant when it says God’s gonna take our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh and Put his spirit inside us and cause us to walk in his ways The Old Covenant said I will be your God and you will be my people if you walk in my ways

And I think Ezekiel 36 is saying I will be your God and you will be my people and I will cause you to walk in my ways Joel 2 says the Spirit’s gonna be poured out on all flesh. We see at Pentecost There are all these wonderful and amazing promises where God says I’m gonna take a sinful Faithless people and I’m not just gonna be faithful to them. I’m going to enliven them I’m gonna make them a joy-filled people who live in my service as light in the darkness to the world I’m gonna bring my kingdom through this joy-filled people And all of a sudden The Messiah is there with them Saying this bread and this cup It’s time for this new covenant

This is the this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many Truly I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God So in here is his blood poured out for many It’s it’s this verse that kind of echoes throughout the whole the whole book mark 1045 the Son of Man Came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many Jesus saying it’s time It’s time This is where we get a teaching called penal substitutionary atonement It simply means this That on the cross Jesus is going to be punished for our sins So I deserve to be punished for my sins, but Jesus went there in my place as my substitute As my substitute and through that substitute I’m made right with the God of the universe

He gets what I deserve I get what he deserved he gets the cross I get to be God’s Son He gets the cross you get to be in the family of God Go with me 1st Corinthians chapter 11 Starring verse 23 says this For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you So immediately we see this same thing taking root in the life of the church That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread 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 In the same way also he took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood do this in remembrance of me 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 this cup This is a crunchy reality This is why we read this every week or almost every week when we set up communion when you this bread in this cup This one that’s right here For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you y’all Second present plural you all you all never sounds right y’all sounds not right either

For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup Trinity Church of Portland You proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes This isn’t just the thing we do so we can head out the door and get to lunch It’s a proclaiming act about Jesus This is why Paul gives us this warning in verse 27 Whoever therefore eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty Concerning the body and the blood of the Lord Let a person examine himself then and So eat of the bread and drink of the cup for anyone who Eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That’s why we fence the table This is why if you’re in here today, and you’re not a Christian. We are so glad you’re here, but this is a family deal

We are so glad you are here, but when we take this together. This is not for you Because you haven’t proclaimed that you love Jesus and this thing proclaims that you love Jesus. There’s simple logic there, right? But also as the church is really important that we take this thing seriously in part because there’s a Proclamation act and there’s this sort of reconciliatory act here, right? I had a colleague when I was pastoring in another church in another part of the world And we were trying to have good relationship with the other churches around And so we’re all like visiting those churches and the pastors are going Getting to know people and he went to the biker church down the street Which is totally rad and this biker church that really loves Jesus and really loves the Bible and really loves Harley Davidson’s all got together

Now the thing about a biker church if you’ve ever been to a biker church There’s a little bit of being a little rough around the edges at a biker church, but it’s okay. It’s a biker church still church Anyways this Pastor bud is preaching to the biker church. He talks about the love of The church together brotherly love that we would love one another in the world will know that we are his disciples And the middle of the sermon he stops he says All right t-bone t-bone We know you and Jimmy have been fighting Y’all need to make up the two big bikers apparently sort of like Got up Walked over yeah Sat down. All right, we can keep preaching. Let’s go Do you take this seriously this cup that we take together Do we take it in a worthy man? That means we examine ourselves

We consider ourselves before we take this cup. Is there something you got a cough up to the Lord? Is there something that you need to be liberated and freed from through confession to God? Is there something that nobody else knows about but God knows and you still haven’t confessed it to him as sin be free Nothing feels better than confessing sin Truly as a Christian nothing makes us lighter than letting it go Maybe you have something you need to deal with your spouse before you take the cup This isn’t just a ritual right? Like you actually need to do the business before you do this. It’s okay It shows something about Jesus if you deal with it, and maybe that doesn’t mean you get into the whole like three-hour conversation Maybe it means you grab their hand. I say hey that thing I did yesterday. That was really bogus. I’m really sorry

Please forgive me. I Want to talk about it later, but please forgive me and you get to get up and take the cup free right maybe you yelled at the kids on the van in the way here, right? So what do we do grab your kid? You got to do this so you can look him in the eye and you say hey That thing mommy or daddy did right there that wasn’t cool. Please forgive me. I Need Jesus just like you need Jesus and instead of trying to convince your kids you’re perfect You show them the grace of God and the joy that comes from living with him So I just encourage you take this thing seriously take this thing in a worthy manner We do think of ourselves. This is for Christian people, but also hey Like if you got some business to do with Jesus or somebody else before you take it

Do it But not so you feel bad It’s because this is not a funeral. This is a celebration That when we come and we take the cup we proclaim Jesus We take it with joy. You take it with joy We take it with joy Yeah, we take that part seriously we get right with God and others But when we come up and take this week, I’m gonna trip over this monitor at one of these days And it’s gonna go bad mostly for me

But we take this in victory We take this in victory we take this as the people of God we take this as people who can say there’s therefore now no Condemnation for those who in Christ Jesus, let’s drink We take this as people who say for freedom Christ has set me free. Let’s eat Let’s proclaim his death and resurrection till he returns

How Communion Preaches

So as we look at this what we’re seeing then It’s both the reenactment Of the Last Supper But also a reminder what Jesus has done for us and friends I don’t know about you, but I need a lot of reminders about the gospel all the time I want my life to be peppered with Reminders about the gospel of Jesus and what it means to be his son in real time on planet Earth But I’m a sinner saved by grace I’m a child of the king Satan wants you to forget it. The world wants you to forget it. Your sin wants you to forget it Jesus wants you to remember it. Let’s remember it

So as we look to this here’s here’s how communion preaches Jesus Communion preaches Jesus redemption We take this as a reminder that he has crossed the Red Sea of our sin on our behalf But he has dealt with us. He has redeemed us. He has done the impossible. He’s saved us. He’s made us his own But communion preaches Jesus victory the world looked at the cross and saw defeat and God looked and knew what had happened by the blood of his son. He had crushed Satan sin and death This is why Paul can say death, where is your sting?

To be apart from the body is to be at home with the Lord and Someday Jesus will resurrect us and put the world back the way it’s supposed to be We die differently than non-believers die And we can take rest in that As we approach glory as we see the day drawing near but not only that Jesus has defeated our sins Yes, we sin, but that is not our identity anymore. That is not who we are We are Christians we belong to Jesus we are his disciples

And he’s defeated sin on our behalf and he’s had victory over Satan We once lived in the dominion of darkness and now we live in the kingdom of light Satan doesn’t have a hold on you anymore. Now. This doesn’t mean that Satan doesn’t come for you. He doesn’t tempt you He doesn’t lie to you. He doesn’t tell you lies about yourself He doesn’t tell you lies about Jesus because he does all of those things In fact, I think from Ephesians chapter 5 pardon me chapter 3 we see that things like bitterness can make a place in our life for Satan as One preacher put it Satan beats the drum But we like the rhythm when we’re walking in our sin and not in the clarity of Christ So you’re grumpy and you’re cranky and you’re bitter at your friend and Satan says that friend sucks and you say yeah, he does

You get in this downward spiral When you stop and remember man, I’m a sinner saved by grace and so is my friend Man, my friend loves Jesus. I love him. And if I got a beef here, I got to go deal with it and Honestly, there’s a lot of things I can just let go and not sit around and be stuck in that downward spiral But Jesus has had victory over Satan. He’s had victory over sin. He’s had victory over death

Jesus Pardon me communion preaches Jesus new covenant We take this as new covenant people We take these people as people who are indwelt by the Spirit who have new hearts who have new minds and who live to love God and love people Communion preaches Jesus’s church both in identify for me it both identifies us and reminds us of our identity So it reminds us of our identity as children of the king who’ve been bought by the blood in a real tangible crunchy beautiful

Artistic way That’s in real time with real elements, but also identifies us as his people as The church together when we take that we’re saying I belong to Jesus. This is the church. I belong to the church that’s why this is for People who love Jesus. It’s not for people who don’t love Jesus it identifies and it identifies as one to another and say that’s someone I’m responsible for and someone who’s responsible for me as a church. We’re taking communion together. It says something to the world

It has this identification built into it and communion preaches Jesus’s return Do this until I come back? So when do we start doing it when he instituted it? How long will we do it till he comes back? And that’s when he’ll drink of it again, that’s when he’ll celebrate again and that’s when it will be amazing

So if you’re in here today and you’re not a Christian, I hope you’ve heard the gospel and I hope you’ve heard it clearly Jesus saved sinners from death to life. He saved sinners like us and like you from death to life He will make you his he will make you his own you can become a Christian today Turn from your sin and turn to Jesus Turn to him. He’ll save you. He’ll redeem you and he won’t just change you on the outside. He’ll change you from the inside out For those of us who love Jesus today as we take the cup, let’s remember that we are proclaiming the impossible together That we are proclaiming Jesus victory that we are proclaiming Jesus death burial and resurrection We are proclaiming the forgiveness of sins We are proclaiming amazing things about God and this isn’t just a ritual

This is an act we do together that proclaims and rings out into eternity That’s his people. Please pray with me Jesus we need you are mighty to save You’re mighty in grace you’re mighty in mercy You’ve died to save us from ourselves and to life and you and to joy and to freedom

Help us come to the table even today is Just a reaffirmment of that reality and may the gravity of it hit us in a way that lights us up for you And lights us up for the worship of you We love you Jesus and pray these things for your glory and for our joy in your name Jesus Christ. Amen