Christ Has Made a Way! (Communion)
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Christ has Made a Way!
Introduction:
This morning I want to talk to you about communion and we are going to do a little different than some of you may be used to, but I trust you will still be able to worship the Lord in spite of a few additions.
Communion is a display of how much God loves you and how far he is willing to go to keep you from harm and death.
If I asked people around town “What’s the greatest threat to mankind?”
global warming,
gun violence,
corruption
disease
The greatest threat of mankind is sin,
It’s death rate is 100 percent
Context
We only want to focus on the symptoms of sin and regulate against the actions while ignoring the root.
We have a sin problem
It is an inward condition within our hearts that desire what is not good for us, or others and goes against God’s design.
Communion reminds us of how God has dealt with sin, the root of mankind’s greatest threat
The symbols of communion show us how sin has cut us off from God.
Symbols of Communion
A meal (fellowship)
Wine: (covenant) ex 24
Bread: his body (sacrifice)
Foot washing (unconditional love)
Communion is a display of how much God loves you and how far he is willing to go to keep you from harm and death. It serves as a visual reminder of how God dealt, deals, and will deal with sin once and for all.
3 ways God deals with Sin
1. God saves us from sin through His substitutionary death.
The Lamb of God, The bread and cup.
When the hour came, He reclined at the table, and the apostles with Him.
Then He said to them, “I have fervently desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
Then He took a cup, and after giving thanks, He said, “Take this and share it among yourselves.
For I tell you, from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
And He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is My body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”
In the same way He also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant established by My blood; it is shed for you.
But look, the hand of the one betraying Me is at the table with Me!
Justification:
Jesus operated in love. He was not just willing but he eagerly desired to die for you so that you would not face the wrath of God and external separation from him in Hell
Illustration
Jack Weimer is the father of a little girl named Megan. Megan was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease. They tested everyone in the famuly to see if there was a match for a kidney. Her father Jack was the only match. However the doctors said we cannot use your kidney because you are obese and they were worried he could die during the surgery or shortly after given his own complications.
Jack asked how much time do we have? the team said probably 6 months. and in 6 months, Jack lost 100 pounds and was able to save his daughters life.
That Father was willing to do what ever it took because he loves his Child.
He wanted to see his child live and have a life that is of better quality of life than the one she had.
Jesus has done the same thing only it’s not called an organ transplant it’s called substitutionary atonement.
Just like a patient needs the right type of blood, and right conditions to be given a new chance at life, Jesus is the perfect match for your sin condition.
Jesus is not obese. he does not say “let me take care of my business than I can help you with yours.”
Jesus IS sufficient for all.
Jesus IS the only blood that can be applied to our sinful condition.
Jesus IS the only match for our eternal life’s needs.
“I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father but through me.”
Jesus does not just give you his health so that you could live,
He took on your sickness and died your fate, for you, because sin bears a 100% death rate and all of us suffering from sin.
He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
“For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
This bread and cup is symbolic of the substitutionary atonement we have received through Him.
Application
1. Notice Jesus’s eagerness to do it!
Love compelled Him to the cross, not a guilty verdict.
2. He died for the penalty of sin so that we can live free from sin.
The old is gone behold the new has come.
3. He has given us a chance for a new life through grace and forgiveness!
And it is eternal!
Paul says we are to not partake of this symbol if we have not placed our faith in Jesus. He says
Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy way will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord.
So a man should examine himself; in this way he should eat the bread and drink from the cup.
For whoever eats and drinks without recognizing the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.
This grace and forgiveness of Christ must be received by faith.
1. Jesus is not wanting you to tip your hat to his work
2. Faith is more than just acknowledging His life
3. It is faith that believes…
Jesus is my only chance at freedom over death,
Jesus is my only hope to for life beyond this one
Jesus is the only way to be with my Father in Heaven.
That is the level of faith God is looking for.
Faith that is willing reject everything this life of sin offers,
and exchange it for everything Christ has to offer.
By consuming these elements we are not saying they become Jesus’s flesh and bones.
We are saying, we trust in our hearts and minds that Jesus died for me and my sins are forgiven by him.
Jesus said, I am creating a covenant with you that I Will die your death so that you can live my life.
His body was given over to destruction for you
His blood paid the price of your penalty.
Instruction:
We are going to take a moment and pause for reflection
(Nothing Else)
I will invite you up after I pray
2. God removed condemnation associated with sin
We have been saved! However, in our humanity, we can still sin.
Satan loves to accuse us so that we feel like Adam in the garden hiding in ashamed.
When people do wrong to us we tend to withhold forgiveness so they can keep “paying for their sins.” However Jesus shows us that forgiveness is a sign of spiritual growth.
Before the Passover Festival, Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart from this world to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
Now by the time of supper, the Devil had already put it into the heart of Judas, Simon Iscariot’s son, to betray Him.
Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into His hands, that He had come from God, and that He was going back to God.
So He got up from supper, laid aside His robe, took a towel, and tied it around Himself.
Next, He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples’ feet and to dry them with the towel tied around Him.
He came to Simon Peter, who asked Him, “Lord, are You going to wash my feet?”
Jesus answered him, “What I’m doing you don’t understand now, but afterward you will know.”
“You will never wash my feet—ever!” Peter said. Jesus replied, “If I don’t wash you, you have no part with Me.”
Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.”
“One who has bathed,” Jesus told him, “doesn’t need to wash anything except his feet, but he is completely clean. You are clean, but not all of you.”
For He knew who would betray Him. This is why He said, “You are not all clean.”
When Jesus had washed their feet and put on His robe, He reclined again and said to them, “Do you know what I have done for you?
You call Me Teacher and Lord. This is well said, for I am.
So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done for you.
“I assure you: A slave is not greater than his master, and a messenger is not greater than the one who sent him.
If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.
Everything is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed the message of reconciliation to us.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, certain that God is appealing through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.”
Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus,
Expalanation.
Jesus has done an incredible work getting us free from sin.
Jesus paid it all!
All to Him I Owe,
Sin has left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow
Sanctification Illustration:
Do you remember being a kid and your mom wanted you to dress up for some event like church or a wedding?
(Picture of Jason and me)
Mom just wantEd us to stay “white as snow” until the event was over.
She’s worked hard and she just wanted us to stay clean.
Sin from this world make us dirty.
Lying, gossip, immorality, hatred, greed it all sticks to us and smears in with the work that Jesus has done for us.
It becomes the focal point of who we are to others.
Like me in that suit, if I had mud from the knees down your eyes would have all been drawn to the mud and away from the rest of what was good.
Our sins smear our testimony and hinder us from showing the world Jesus.
They are glaring and obvious and the work He’s done in us gets overlooked.
Jesus’s purp for washing feet was this,
“your’e already clean” meaning you belong to Jesus bought with his blood (paid on a cross).
But you still live in a world where sin can stick to you if you walk to closely to it.
Stay clean! But if you do get into a mess, know that God loves you.
Just like a mom doesn’t disown her child for getting messy, God does not disown his children for their sin.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
In the same way that a mother IS expecting an apology and an understanding that this cannot happen again. God also wants us to learn from our sin and to walk away from it.
Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus,
because the Spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires.
And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness.
God will always forgive you and He will help clean you from that sin so that you do not do it again.
But you need to confess your sin, apologize, and agree not to do it again.
Argumentation.
Now in the text He says, “ok, now you do the same to each other…
Confess your wrongs and Forgive each other”
There should never be a forgiveness we should not extend to someone and there should never be an apology we withhold from someone.
The picture of this is seen in washing feet.
Our pride is what prevents us from being like Jesus.
Our pride refuses to extend forgiveness and or seek forgivenes.
Our pride also says I’m not showing you my feet or washing yours.
Application
1. Christ got up and came to His disciples who did not understand what he was doing. He was forgiving them before they even realized they needed it.
When you truly love God you hate sin.
God knows every sin you will commit and he has chosen to forgive you for them and enter into a relationship where there is freedom from judgment, wrath, and condemnation.
We in return when we fall short we seek forgiveness not for salvation but for the sake of our relationship maturing.
2. Our lives are to look like Christ’s when we are quick to forgive others of their wrongs because Jesus has forgiven us of our wrongs.
Forgiveness isn’t easy, in fact some people die broken hearted and bitter because they cannot forgive others.
3. The root of our sin tempts us to withhold forgiveness from others,
but The Lord gives you the strength to forgive and the joy to live out the choice to forgive.
3. God will remove sin once and for all Fellowship (meal)
Partially seen in the OT through he exodus from Egypt
Partially Seen in the Gospel of the NT
Seen fully in Heaven one day!
Then I heard something like the voice of a vast multitude, like the sound of cascading waters, and like the rumbling of loud thunder, saying: Hallelujah, because our Lord God, the Almighty, has begun to reign!
Let us be glad, rejoice, and give Him glory, because the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has prepared herself.
She was given fine linen to wear, bright and pure. For the fine linen represents the righteous acts of the saints.
Then he said to me, “Write: Those invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb are fortunate!” He also said to me, “These words of God are true.”
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will no longer exist; grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer, because the previous things have passed away.
This text shows us that God longs for fellowship with us free from sin.
To receive “fine linen bright and pure” and “righteous acts of the saints” represent the outward manifestation of an inward virtue given to us in heaven. Like the garden of eden with no serpent.
We will walk with God glorified in heart and mind.
No one will sin, or hurt one another, or say anything unkind or selfish.
Do you hope for those days?
They are coming.
Those who trust Christ as their savior will experience it.
Application
These symbols serve as a reminder to us today.
1. God still desires to save people from their sin by placing their faith in Jesus Christ.
If he died for you and for me, He has made a way for all who chose to believe.
2. God no longer condemns those who have placed their trust in Jesus and He is quick to seek restoration.
3. God desires fellowship with you and has overcome every obstacle for you, so that, you can have assurance of heaven with Him.
Instructions:
We are going to close with 2 (a) song.
I will dismiss you to go downstairs.
Downstairs in the fellowship hall is all kinds of food. I am going to bless it so that people can enjoy it.
Please share at your table One thing you look forward to enjoying in heaven and why. Knowing that God has made a way for you to enjoy Heaven with Him through his work and your faith.
Across the hallway downstairs we have a footwashing station. At anytime you would like to go over there with someone you can; before, or after the meal its your choice.
Pray
