March 4, 2001

Remembering the Lord

I had planned to speak on Revelation 19 this Sunday, and then two chapters nest week, two more the following week, and be finished by the third Sunday this month. This turned out to be one of those weeks when the Lord had other plans. This is Communion Sunday, and we will be devoting this whole morning to thinking about communion.

What is Communion, the Lord's Supper? What does it mean? Who is it for? Who is it not for? How should we do it, and when should we do it?

If you have your Bibles with you today, and I hope you do, turn to Matthew 26, verse 17, and we will begin to see what the Lord's Supper is: " Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover?
Mat 26:18 And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples.
Mat 26:19 And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the passover."
Now skip down to verse 26: "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.
Mat 26:27 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;
Mat 26:28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Mat 26:29 But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.
Mat 26:30 And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives."

On the night that He was betrayed, Jesus ate the passover meal with His disciples, and the passover was a symbol of who Jesus was, and what He did. God had given the nation of Israel the passover 1500 years previously to point them toward God's own Lamb, Jesus, to teach them about a substitutionary sacrifice, and to prepare them for the coming of Jesus, God's own passover lamb, but they missed seeing it.

Jesus took the passover meal and changed it into something new, something that no longer pointed back to a deliverance for Israel 1500 years previous, but a deliverance for all believers that happened because of His own death, burial, and resurrection. Over the next several weeks, we will be thinking and talking about the passover quite a bit as we get closer to the time of the year when Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead.

The point that I want to make for today, the Lord's Supper is a remembrance feast, a time to remember the Savior. Just as Israel was to keep the passover feast as a reminder and a remembrance of how God delivered them from bondage in Egypt, and into a relationship with Himself, Christians keep the Lord's Supper as a remembrance that Jesus has delivered us from sin and hell, into a relationship with Himself.
And that brings us right into the second point I want to cover, who is the Lord's Supper for?

Turn to Exodus 12, and verse 3 "Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house" and then for the next eight verses, Moses receives instructions for how the passover lamb was to be chosen and how the passover meal was to be eaten.
Skip to verse 6: "And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
Exo 12:7 And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it." If you think about the movement that you have to make with your hands to apply the blood onto the parts of the door with a sprig of hyssop, you will make the sign of the cross. Fifteen hundred years before the crucifixion.
Verse 8: "And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it."
Skip to verse 12: "For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.
Exo 12:13 And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt."

On what basis did the death angel pass over the houses of the Israelites? Did he pass over the ones that paid their tithes? The ones that bathed twice a week, or remembered to take out the garbage for their wives? The ones that remembered not to nag their husbands? Of course not, the only thing that mattered was; are you hidden behind the blood of the lamb? Death and judgement was upon all the first born in the whole land, everyone, no exceptions. If an Israelite did not put the blood upon their door, they would die. Although it is not mentioned, if an Egyptian had put the blood upon their door, then they also would have lived, the blood of the lamb was the only thing that mattered.

We are not going to study the passover meal today, we will get to it over the next several weeks, just notice one thing: what was the main item that they ate? The lamb. Question: Any chance that the passover lamb would be eaten by anyone that did not have the blood on their door? No. God told Moses to tell the people: "Kill the lamb, put the blood on the door for your salvation, and then eat the lamb."

Skip to verse 23: "For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.
Exo 12:24 And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever.
Exo 12:25 And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the LORD will give you, according as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this service.
Exo 12:26 And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service?
Exo 12:27 That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD's passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped."

It does not take a whole lot of imagination to see that Egypt in this situation is symbolic of those that are not saved, and those Israelites behind the blood of the lamb are the saved. Those that are saved are to keep the memorial feast forever. This makes it very easy for us to see what Jesus had in mind. He took the passover feast and moved it up to a higher level. He took the symbol of an example and changed it into the symbol of the ultimate reality, His death for our salvation. The passover and it's deliverance of Israel was a rehearsal of the reality of Jesus dying on the cross for the deliverance of the whole world.

Now I think we can answer the question: "Who is the feast for, who is the Lord's Supper for?" It is for those that have been delivered by the covering blood of the lamb, either those years ago under the old covenant, or those today under the new covenant. God delivered men and women from death and judgement by the blood of the lamb under the old covenant, and then Jesus Christ came and fulfilled the promise of the old covenant by His own death and resurrection, and gave us all a better covenant, a new covenant.

Who ought to be partaking in the Lord's Supper? Those that have been saved by the Blood of the Lamb. If you have been saved by the Blood of the Lamb, then you ought to be partaking in the Remembrance Feast of Jesus Christ, all that He is, and all that He has done.

Who should not partake? Is there anybody that should not partake of this Communion meal, the Lord's Supper? During the passover in Egypt, the ones who did not eat the passover meal were also the ones that did not have the blood of the lamb covering them. Those that were under the blood were entitled to eat the meal, those that were not under the blood did not eat the meal. Nothing has changed.

Keep your place in Exodus, and turn to 1 Corinthians 11, verse 23: "For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
1Co 11:24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
1Co 11:25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
1Co 11:26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.
1Co 11:27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
1Co 11:28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
1Co 11:29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
1Co 11:30 For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.
1Co 11:31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
1Co 11:32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world."

Stop for a minute and think about what Paul is saying here in view of the passover meal and it's relationship to the blood on the doorposts: What would have happened back there in Egypt, if an Israelite had killed the lamb, and then fixed the passover meal and eaten it, but never went outside and put that blood on the lintel and the doorposts? The firstborn in that house would have died, wouldn't he?
That Israelite would have been eating and drinking unworthily, eating and drinking judgement and damnation to himself, because he had no discernment, because he had no understanding of what it was that saved him, the covering blood of the lamb.

In verse 26: "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death until He come." The word "show" here also means "to proclaim." When we eat the Communion together we proclaim that Jesus has died for us, it makes us different from the rest of the world. We stand out. Don't you think that during that afternoon in Egypt, if you were to walk down the street, the houses that had blood splashed all over the door posts and the lintel of the door really stood out? They proclaimed the death of the lamb for their salvation.

But if there was a house where someone was inside eating that lamb, eating that passover meal, and there was no blood on the door, what do you think the death angel would do that night? It makes no difference how much lamb you eat, if you aren't covered by the blood, the death angel will find you.

Verse 27: "Wherefore, whosoever shall eat of this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." You better know what you're doing. You better know why we're here, and why you're here. And before you eat, you better be under the blood. To eat of the Lamb in the Communion meal means that you know that He died for you, that you have applied that blood to the doorposts of your own personal life, and you are trusting in His blood to cause the judgement of God to pass over you.

Verse 28: "But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
1 Cor 11:29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body."
Examine yourself. Is that blood applied to the doorposts of your life? Are you under the blood? Or are you just fooling yourself and the people around you? Do you think that because you went down an aisle somewhere, or said a sinners prayer some time, and then went on your merry way, business as usual, that now everything is just peachy keen? Did you get truly converted from death to life? Did the Holy Spirit move upon you, convict you of sin, did you receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? Were you converted into a new creature in Christ? Or did you simply respond to some evangelist's altar call somewhere, and now you think you have a "get out of hell free" card, and you can just do whatever you want, and the judgement of hell will pass over you?

Meanwhile you act like a believer, playing the role, even participating in the remembrance meal, intended only for those whom the death of Jesus Christ delivered from death unto life, and meanwhile you never put the blood on your door? That is foolishness, that is idiotic, that is playing stupid games with your soul. Examine yourself. What is your relationship with Jesus Christ?

If there is someone here today that does not have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, we will stop right here and invite you to come and ask Him, personally, to include you under His covering blood. You can receive Him as your personal Savior today. If you feel the need to make some response to Him, that is the Holy Spirit speaking to you. Now the ball is in your court. He is waiting for you to make the next move. I invite you to come down to this altar and do business with Him. We will wait for a few moments, and then we will continue on.

There is another kind of foolishness, another kind of irresponsibility, and that is for a person to become genuinely saved, genuinely trust Christ for salvation, and then expect to live carelessly, and still fellowship with God. God gave Moses instructions to pass on to the people about how to eat the passover in the years to come, and it is very instructive to us today. Keep your place in 1 Corinthians, and flip back to where you were before in Exodus 12, verse 19. We know that leaven is a symbol of sin, and for a week before they ate the passover meal, they were to have no leaven in their houses. Verse 19:
"Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the land.
Exo 12:20 Ye shall eat nothing leavened; in all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread."
Before they came together to eat their passover meal, they were to be clean before the Lord, nothing in their lives that spoke of sin. If we come to the Lord's Table with sin in our lives, we put ourselves under the same risk of physical chastening that they did 3,500 years ago. Look at 1 Cor 11:30:
"For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.
1Co 11:31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
1Co 11:32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world."
Pretty simple, isn't it? If there is sin in our lives, we need to judge it and deal with it before we partake of the Lord's Table.

When should we take communion? What day, and how often? On what day of the week did the early churches meet? Turn to 1 Corinthians 16, verse 1. Paul was answering a question about how the churches in Corinth should take up a collection for the poor Christians in Jerusalem, and in the process he gives us an insight into what day they met for worship. "Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye.
1Co 16:2 Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come." Hmm. Apparently the churches in Corinth met on the first day of the week.

Turn to Acts 20, verse 6. We are looking at the apostle Paul, planning to meet some friends in Macedonia. "And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days; where we abode seven days.
Act 20:7 And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight."
Here we see the church at Troas meeting on the first day of the week, and look what their priorities were: "When the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached." Why did they come together? To observe the Lord's Supper. And Paul used that opportunity to preach to them.

In the early church, they had the Lord's Supper every week. Frequently they had it following a fellowship meal, and Paul addresses some problems with immature and selfish believers misbehaving during that fellowship meal in 1 Corinthians 11, verses 17 through 22, but we won't deal with that today.

In the Catholic church, the main thing at their services every week is the Mass. The Mass is not the same thing as the Lord's Supper. By 1,000 AD they had changed Communion into something very different than Jesus intended. The Protestant Reformation around 1600 AD sought to correct the problems that believers had with the Catholic church, and one of the things they had a major problem with was the Mass. But ever since the Protestant Reformation, the main emphasis on Christians meeting together has changed. Instead of the focal point being remembering the Lord, the Lord's Supper, every week, it is now the sermon. Is that a good thing? I'm not sure that it is. You might think so, I don't.

I am almost through here, in just a few more minutes we will be done with the sermon, and we can get on to what the early church thought of as the real reason for us being here, the Lord's Supper.
If you have been here before, you already know that I also believe that the early church saw this as a time for all the believers to worship and praise the Lord. Are there any guidelines for how we ought to do that?
Paul says that as we eat and drink, we are to show or proclaim the Lord's death until He comes again, and proclaim it just as boldly as blood splashed down the sides of our front door, and dripping off the lintel. Amen. His death and resurrection is the centerpiece of why we are here, and to the extent the Holy Spirit brings those thoughts to our minds, the better off we are.

In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus tells us: "Take, eat the bread, drink the cup, it is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for the remission of sins. I will not drink it anymore until I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." That tells me that He is looking forward to a wedding feast with us, His bride. I could certainly get into talking about that during the Lord's Supper, and worshiping and praising Him for that.

In Luke's Gospel, Jesus also adds the instruction to eat and drink in remembrance of Him. What does Jesus mean when He tells us this? The word that Jesus uses when He tells us to remember Him has the idea of affectionately calling someone to mind. If I stand here and remember my son Dale, my mind can affectionately go and touch on any number of thoughts about my son, in a multitude of different situations. I do not think of Dale in the abstract, I think of him in his relationship to me. To remember the Lord, you have to have a relationship to Him. When you remember the Lord, then your mind affectionately goes to some aspect of your relationship with Him. Perhaps you think of something He has done for you. Perhaps you think of something that He has promised that He will do for you. If He has promised it, then it is as good as done.

Perhaps you remember something that He has given to you, or taken away from you. Perhaps you remember something that the Holy Spirit has showed you about Him in His Word, and it is precious to you. Or maybe some other way to affectionately call Him to mind that I haven't thought of, and that's good. That's why He wants all of us to worship Him, because we're all different, and all our various praises are like different harmonies to the same beautiful song. But that's why we're here today. To remember the Lord. Is there any thing better that we could do than that? I don't think so.