Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTN

“I live in a vacuum that is as lonely as a radio tube when the batteries are dead, and there is no current to plug into.”

that’s what Ernest Hemingway said of his life.

How could that be?

He was known for his tough-guy image and globe-trotting pilgrimages to exotic places.

He was a big-game hunter, a bullfighter, a man who could drink the best of them under the table.

He was married four times and lived his life seemingly without moral restraint or conscience.

But on a sunny Sunday morning in Idaho, he pulverized his head with a shotgun blast.

But there was another side to Ernest Hemingway that you may not know.

He grew up in an evangelical Christian home.

His grandparents were missionaries and his father was a devoted churchman and a friend of none other than D. L. Moody, the great evangelist.

His family conformed to the strictest codes of Christianity and, as a boy, he was active in his church.

But something didn’t ring true for Hemingway.

While he seemed to embrace all that he encountered, there was a hollow ring in his soul.

It came bubbling out when he went away to WW1 as a war correspondent and observed the death and despair that only war can bring.

His ritualized faith failed him.

He soured on God and rejected the religion he once had.

It’s always a danger.

Divorce ritual from meaning and disillusionment follows.

It is inevitable.

Which leads me to this Sunday and to this table.

We are here, on this Palm Sunday, the Sunday before the greatest Christian celebration of the year, Easter.

Today we come to what most protestants call, “Communion.”

Others call it, “The Lord’s Table.”

Whatever you call it, the same disconnect that happens for millions of Hemingways can also happen for you: You can eat the bread and drink the cup while never connecting the meaning.

And that is dangerous!

If ritual is so dangerous, someone might ask: Why?

Why do we even have rituals?

Are they really necessary?

Why not just take the belief without the symbol?

Really what is the deal with communion anyway?

Why do we do this?

BACKGROUND

I want to attempt to answer that question this morning.

In fact, I want to take you to a passage of scripture which really explains the answer and offer you three reasons why we’ve prepared this table for you this morning.

Now, let me just admit right up front that these verses do not specifically mention communion.

The symbol isn’t anywhere to be found in these verses.

The meaning, however, is.

And it really is that meaning I want to celebrate this morning.

I want to remind you of the sacrifice this ritual symbolizes and, from that, show you why it is so good to remember and physically celebrate what Jesus did.

The verses I’m talking about are found in the Book of Romans.

This book thoroughly explains the gospel.

In chapter one Paul indicts the Gentile pagan for his unbelief and willful rejection of God.

In chapter two, he skewers the proud Jew who thinks that just because he has been given the law, he is righteous even though he cannot and does not keep it.

In chapter three he concludes both Jew and Gentile to be under the judgement of God telling both groups that the wages of their sin will be death.

In chapter four, he presents the way to real righteousness.

It is through faith.

Trusting in Christ makes us right with God, not keeping the law.

Now all of this would have been confusing to the average Jew.

On what basis was a holy, righteous God able to accept a sinful man?

The answer to that question is addressed in these verses.

Read with me beginning in chapter 5, v 6:

6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.

8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

NEED

These verses give us a depth of meaning in this celebration that, if you really understand it, can change your life.

My fear, however, is that so many church goers are really Hemingways.

They are caught up in the ritual but devoid of the reality.

They mumble pious phrases, but mean not a one of them.

It isn’t that they are willing hypocrites, it is that they are unwitting victims of disconnected religion.

They have a form of godliness, but they, for whatever reason, deny it’s power.

That’s why I ask you to concentrate on this sermon and this celebration.

By the end of this next hour or so, I want you to really “get it.”

Perhaps for the first time in your life, I want you to meaningfully celebrate communion.

TRANS

It all begins with the “Why” question.

Why do we eat this bread and drink this cup?

Three reasons are clear from Romans 5.

The first is this: We celebrate communion because:

DIV 1: WHO WE REALLY ARE IS OFTEN MISUNDERSTOOD.

EXP

The biggest reason people miss the reality of Christ is that they miss the reality of themselves.

They never connect with their true identity.

So let me ask you: Do you know who you are? “Well, I reckon I do, Rusty.

Ever since I’ve been breathing I’ve been . . .

Well . . .

Me!” Fair enough, but do you know yourself the way the Bible knows you?

Have you ever viewed yourself in the mirror of Scripture?

In case you haven’t, let me tell you that this passage of scripture makes it clear who we are.

In fact, four separate terms define us.

v6 calls us “weak.”

It says, “ For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died . .

.”

This particular term doesn’t speak of our moral weakness so much as our human frailty.

We were mere humans, unable to do what was needed for ourselves.

It is revealed in a couple of ways.

As one writer said, “the weaknesses of individuals apart from God is both the limitation and steady decay of their mortal body, and their inability before the power of sin to do God’s will.

We are weak.

But it gets worse: v.6 also calls us “ungodly.”

It says, “ For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”

Not only are we weakened and unlikely to do good, we are “ungodly,” and completely unable to do good.

This is the same term used in chapter 1:18 when it says that the wrath of God is being poured out against all “ungodliness” of man.

We are incapable of good.

We are ungodly.

But it get’s worse: v8 calls us “sinners.”

It says that God shows us His love to the extent that while we were still “sinners,” He died for us.

To “sin” is literally miss the mark on purpose.

It is to fail to keep the law of God because we are willfully rejecting it.