Does God Have Enemies? - Obadiah Overview

Intro

Turn in your Bible to Obadiah.

Does God have enemies? This might feel a little strange to think about, but for most people around the world that tends to be an easy answer. If you ask a Muslim, the enemies of God are the Christians, Hindus, and Jews. Many atheists would say that if there is a God, they are gladly his enemies because if he exists and he created the world this way with all this suffering, then they argue he is evil and not good.

For some of us, this idea that God could have enemies pushes against our sensibilities. If God is all powerful, how can he possibly have enemies? Would not the presence of enemies naturally mean that somehow they threaten God? Or perhaps your hesitation is much more focused on the fact that God is all-loving, so the idea that there are enemies to God creates a dissonance in your understanding of God’s love for his creation. How could an all loving God have hatred? Love and hate can’t possibly exist together, right?

For others, it is obvious to us that God has enemies. It’s the Democrats! Or it’s the Republicans. It’s those who hate Christians and the Gospel! Or it’s those who pretend to love the Gospel but never let it’s implications ring true in the way they treat foreigners and outsiders. There are many who are quick to declare there are enemies of God, but how are we to know if they are correct or not?

The prophet Obadiah offers us some insight into this question.

Introducing Obadiah

We don’t know much about Obadiah even from his prophecy. It is the shortest book of the Old Testament at only 21 verses long and Obadiah offers no words to tell us about his father or his hometown. Because of this we don’t even know that he was an Israelite. He instead jumps straight into his prophesy to and against Edom.

Now if you remember your classes in ancient near eastern people and nations, you will remember that the people of Edom were actually the descendants of Esau, the twin brother of Jacob who would later become Israel (the father of the 12 tribes of Israel). This Esau is the same one who sold his birthright for a meal and was then cheated out of his firstborn blessing by his conniving brother and mother. This is the Esau that Jacob was so terrified of seeing again that he sent before him his animals and servants to try to appease his brother. This Esau, is the ancient father of the Edomites, so the Edomites are actually a branch of the Abrahamic Family Tree.

They lived in homes positioned on the tops of cliffs that could only be reached by narrow winding paths. They literally looked down on others. They held great confidence in the homes they had built and had successfully repelled invasions in the past. They were a prideful people and we will soon hear the message that God delivered to them through his prophet Obadiah.

Obadiah prophesied to the Edomites apparently sometime soon after Babylon conquered Judah in 587 BC. And the reason he was coming to them and prophesying is because during the conquest, the Edomites helped the Babylonians capture the Judeans and then went throughout Jerusalem looting and celebrating their apparent victory over their longtime rivals. So as we read through this prophecy, keep all of that in mind. It will keep the purpose of this reading a lot more clear in your minds.

So then, let’s read the entirety of this small book together.

Obadiah 1–21 (ESV)

1 The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom: We have heard a report from the Lord, and a messenger has been sent among the nations: “Rise up! Let us rise against her for battle!”

2 Behold, I will make you small among the nations; you shall be utterly despised.

3 The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, “Who will bring me down to the ground?”

4 Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord.

5 If thieves came to you, if plunderers came by night— how you have been destroyed!— would they not steal only enough for themselves? If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave gleanings?

6 How Esau has been pillaged, his treasures sought out!

7 All your allies have driven you to your border; those at peace with you have deceived you; they have prevailed against you; those who eat your bread have set a trap beneath you— you have no understanding.

8 Will I not on that day, declares the Lord, destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of Mount Esau?

9 And your mighty men shall be dismayed, O Teman, so that every man from Mount Esau will be cut off by slaughter.

10 Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever.

11 On the day that you stood aloof, on the day that strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them.

12 But do not gloat over the day of your brother in the day of his misfortune; do not rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their ruin; do not boast in the day of distress.

13 Do not enter the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; do not gloat over his disaster in the day of his calamity; do not loot his wealth in the day of his calamity.

14 Do not stand at the crossroads to cut off his fugitives; do not hand over his survivors in the day of distress.

15 For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own head.

16 For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations shall drink continually; they shall drink and swallow, and shall be as though they had never been.

17 But in Mount Zion there shall be those who escape, and it shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions.

18 The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble; they shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken.

19 Those of the Negeb shall possess Mount Esau, and those of the Shephelah shall possess the land of the Philistines; they shall possess the land of Ephraim and the land of Samaria, and Benjamin shall possess Gilead.

20 The exiles of this host of the people of Israel shall possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath, and the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad shall possess the cities of the Negeb.

21 Saviors shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.

Who are God’s Enemies? (1-16)

So, does God have enemies? The way we answer that question is very important for our lives.

In listening to the text of Obadiah, how do we answer that question? Yes, God does have enemies. But who are they?

The Proud (3-4)

It doesn’t take long for us to find the answer to that question. Quickly we see that God considers the proud to be his enemies.

2 Behold, I will make you small among the nations; you shall be utterly despised.

3 The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, “Who will bring me down to the ground?”

Though Edom was never a world power, they certainly were in what seemed to be a safe position. They apparently thought of themselves as large among the nations at the time, and why shouldn’t they? Their enemies were all destroyed and they had a lucrative alliance with the strongest kid on the playground. They had just made riches off the destruction of Judah and now they had trade routes that had to pass through their cities. They were feeling pretty good about themselves and what they had built. Times were good.

But that’s how pride works. It reinforces our reliance on things that can easily fall. However, no matter how strong or prosperous or successful you feel, God made us and will require an account of us. The only security we have is in him.

And this is the message that Obadiah delivers to the Edomites. They were proud and hard, relying on their strategies and their lofty position. They thought they were safe because they could see all the lands around them, but they were blind to their own hearts.

4 Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord.

Their loftiness was not impressive to God. They could have built for themselves a fortress in the heavens or one in the bowels of the earth and God would still have no problem in tearing it down. There is no earthly or cosmic power that can possibly stand strong against him. And yet, the Edomites thought they could stand strong under his judgement. Their pride deceived them.

And isn’t that the nature of pride? It's always fascinating to look at what people put their pride and confidence in. In the Bible we see the Tower of Babel as the great symbol of human pride. They thought they could reach the heavenly dwelling of God with an earthly building and make a name for themselves. For my younger self, it was my brain. I never considered the possibility that I couldn’t rely on my brain until, shortly after my 19th birthday, all of a sudden my brain started bleeding and I nearly died.

In France in the 1930s, they spent nearly a decade building the Maginot Line on their shared border with Germany as Hitler rose to power. This line was one of the best stocked and prepared areas in military history. There was even an underground rail system to grant a safe and hasty retreat if needed. All of these things assured the French that they would be safe and that they had no need to pay attention to the matter. The Maginot Line would protect them!

But, of course, Germany invaded Belgium first and then simply marched around the edge of the Maginot line. What France spent a decade and untold fortunes building, Germany rendered completely useless with a couple weeks of marching.

This a picture of what it means for you to put your trust in something other than God himself. As much time, effort and money that you spend building whatever it is, can be overwhelmed without any effort. Whatever you imagine protects you, will not protect you.

And yet we do this. We spend so much time trying to cultivate our bodies, our homes, our possessions, our jobs, our families, our appearance, our accomplishments, and our leaders. We trust them to bring us peace and security. But have you ever considered what would happen if they do not last as long as you do? If your parents, or kids, your wealth, your retirement, your looks, your body itself, or even your nation reach the end of their lives before you reach the end of yours, what will you have left? And the Bible teaches that this will happen, you will lose the things you put your security in!

The things you put your security in are the things you put your pride in… and they will fail you.

When God judges a proud nation, nothing can stop him. Every great nation in history has fallen and will fall. Countless books have been written about the decline of America since the war with Vietnam. The decline of Great Britain has been an accepted fact of life for a hundred years. The USSR, Hitler’s Germany, Hirohito’s Japan, even the great Roman Empire - all of them share in the fact that though they were powerful, they each fell and are no more.

Power will never last and Christians need to be the ones who honestly recognize and address the fleeting nature of power, not seek to get it for themselves - and they need to do so humbly, honestly, and lovingly.

Edom was not a superpower, but it was proud. Pride is not an acceptable human trait because we are so dependent. Our very breath depends on God.

Humility is the way of God, not pride. In humility, God put on human flesh, to come and redeem his people.

So it must be for Christians

If you think you are not prideful, consider what things cause you offense. If you’re easily offended take some time to consider why. With more humility comes less offense.

Pride makes us enemies of God because it deceives us into thinking we could possibly exist without him.

The Opponents of God’s People (5-16)

But what is it that Edom has done? What prideful act did they commit? They set themselves as the opponents of God’s people.

Verses 5-16 tell how they did that. They acted in sin toward Judah and God begins by comparing them to thieves and grape pickers.

5 If thieves came to you, if plunderers came by night… would they not steal only enough for themselves?

If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave some gleanings (a few grapes)?

In Houston, there was a time where we went to a park and forgot to lock the door to the van. It only was a couple minutes before we realized we had forgot something and went back, but by then someone had already opened the side door and taken our diaper bag that also contained Alicia’s phone. They didn’t take anything other than the bag, but it felt so violating and took some serious time for us to move past it. It was frustrating.

But how much worse would it have been if they had taken everything? Stripped it out to scrap it for parts, taken the engine, the seats, the little pictures we had stuck on the visor, And for good measure dousing it with gasoline and lighting it on fire. Intentionally leaving us with absolutely nothing.

God is basically saying in this verse that this is exactly what the Edomites had done to his people in Judah. It was worse than just stealing the phone and bag, they had looted everything! The feeling of robbery does not grant justice to the extent that Edom went to try to ensure the total destruction of God’s people!

The picture of robbery is also not enough to describe how God would respond to them! He interrupts the thought in verse 5 to say, “how you have been destroyed!”. The idea is that God would destroy Edom similarly to their destruction of Judah. Verse 6 says “How Esau has been pillaged, his treasures sought out!”

Nothing would be safe for Edom. Nothing would be left after God sent an enemy to plunder them. The people of Esau had forgotten that friendship with God comes with countless protections, but animosity toward him would result in nothing being secure. All they placed their hope in would come to nothing. And we see in verse 7 that God would use their allies, the Babylonians, to come and destroy them. Their protectors that they put their security in would become their doom.

God promises that the proud will be humbled and he hates nations that treat people like possessions, especially when those people are God’s own special people!

And God makes this clear throughout the Bible.

What does the risen Christ say to Saul on the road to Damascus on his way to persecute Christians? “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? (Acts 9:4)” Jesus identifies himself with his people. Persecution of his people is persecution of him. And this is exactly what is being said by God here in Obadiah. Actions against God’s people are actions against him.

In verses 8 and 9 we see that no feat of wisdom or strength would save Edom. The wise men and the mighty men would all fail them. And why would this happen? Look at verse 10 “because of your violence against your brother, Jacob.” God remembers their shared heritage and holds Edom accountable for their actions that relate them with another older brother from even further back in their history: Cain, who was the first person to commit murder, and did so to his brother Abel. Edom’s shame would cover them like the mark of Cain.

Where they should have offered hospitality to their brother, instead they sought out his destruction. This was not just the act of one nation against another, this was the gleeful destruction of one brother by another. And in the end of verse 10 God says, “you shall be cut off forever.” Notice that while the Israelites returned home after 70 years, Edom would never do so. To act against God’s people is to be an enemy of God and God will respond.

In verses 11-14 we see a clearer picture of what Edom’s acts of destruction looked like. In v. 11 they simply stood by and watched while the enemy came in. In v. 12 Edom gloated over Judah. In 13 they joined in to loot and kill. In 14 they laid in wait to capture and enslave all who ran for safety.

This was a real historical event that was recorded in multiple non-Jewish sources. This really happened. The Edomites really took the screaming Israelites who ran to their streets as a last ditch effort for survival, bound them, handed them over to the Babylonians as slaves, and then went and looted the Israelites’ homes.

And all of this foreshadowed King Herod, a descendant of the Edomites, who when he heard that God’s chosen messiah king had arrived, sought to destroy the chosen one by killing the children of Bethlehem. This chosen one faced similar opposition as what is described in Obadiah. He too, was opposed and rejected by men.

And just like the Edomites in this book, those who stand opposed to this chosen one and his people will one day face “the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev 6:16).

Edom had committed great evil against the people of God, and God would bring justice to them.

There are countless implications of God’s justice. We’ve talked about many of them these past few weeks, but I want to focus on one in particular. God’s justice can be a terrifying thought and but it is also a comforting one to his people. The promise of God’s divine justice should bring us comfort because it means that we can rest in him.

When we are hated for remaining faithful, for being willing to stand against the sin of our nation and culture, we can rest in knowing that God will bring justice. If it comes to a place where we face loss of work or government fines for refusing to follow their demands, we can know that God will bring his justice and we do not have to act for our own sakes.

We can be encouraged when we face injustices for the sake of Christ and we can also be encouraged to hear of unjust suffering by our brothers and sisters around the world for it will not always be this way!

We can expect the world to hate us, did not Jesus promise this very thing to his followers? They hated him, they will hate us, but they will not ultimately triumph in their hatred! God will sovereignly bring justice if we just persevere!

I want to take a minute to focus on the sovereignty of God in Obadiah because there have been conversations about this topic from people in the church and I want to do it justice. In my search to try to explain it I came across Pastor Mark Dever’s work on Obadiah and to be honest, he explains it in a way that I wasn’t able to and I think it will be beneficial to you. So Pastor Dever says this:

We know from other prophets that we have studied in this series that Judah was punished by God because of their idolatry. Through God’s sovereign rule, he used the Babylonian army to invade, conquer, and exile his people.

Likewise, we trust that Edom’s sinful compliance was also ordained by God as part of God’s punishment of his own people. How God worked all this out is beyond us. But this much is clear: even though God employed the Edomites to participate in bringing his judgment on Judah, the Edomites had no intention of serving as God’s minister of justice.

Where God sought what was holy and right, the Edomites sought what was carnal and wrong, just like the marauding hordes who destroyed Job’s family according to their own malicious desires, all the while being used by God to accomplish his good and perfect ends.

God uses his enemies as skillfully as a surgeon uses a scalpel to cut, but that does not mean God’s enemies are exempt from responsibility or punishment. They earn his judgment for their malice. “As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head” (v. 15b). Or as Jesus would later say, “in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matt. 7:2).

In speaking about the enemies of God, we must be aware of our hearts in this, because we who are the people of God should never fall into becoming the adversaries of God’s people, joining with those who would persecute his people. This is why church membership is so important. Being a member of a church clearly and publicly identifies us with God’s people and joining in membership with a church is our invitation to the people of God to hold us accountable to relying on God’s word to shape us instead of allowing the surrounding culture to shape us!

But overall, over the past century the American church has been diluted by an embrace of the American culture. We saw great reforms in many ways in our culture in earlier centuries, but that brought many Christians to relax and believe that our national culture was going to be the way that God was going to change the world. Instead, our churches became more and more like our culture until the labels “American” and “Christian” became so intertwined that we forgot that they were not the same thing.

And we’re seeing the consequences of that today. In everything from morality to marriage, from modesty to even murder, there are many who claim to be Christians who stand utterly opposed to God and his people.

As church members, we can stand united saying that we will not follow our nation’s culture, that Christ is King over all, and that we will not bow to anyone else!

But we cannot stop at simply standing firm against the harmful culture of the nation. We must also build a healthy culture in our church! We must build a church culture that is helpful and not harmful! And how do we do that? Through faithful studying, understanding, believing, and following of the Word of God. Run from those who just use the Word of God to talk about the things they want to talk about. Run from those who twist the Word of God to say it means something that some basic contextual study would prove to be false, just so that they can justify their sin. Run to those who labor in the Word in order to bring God’s proclamation to you.

And our work cannot simply be limited to helping our own church. We are committed to sending a significant amount of our budget out of our church and toward the causes of missions and cooperation with other Southern Baptists, but we can still do more! Friends, prayerfully consider how we can ally ourselves to other gatherings of the people of God with tenderheartedness. Pray also that we could develop a healthy culture in our church so that we can raise up leaders and funds to send in aid to fellow friends of God!

Christian churches should be marked with radical generosity out of special love for the people that God specially loves. In Obadiah, God is fiercely opposed to the proud and the enemies of his people because he fiercely loves his people.

Who are God’s Friends? (17-21a)

And that love brings us to our next question: who are God’s friends?

Throughout the Bible we see that, while all humans are God’s creation, they are not all his people. We see in both the Old and New Testaments that God has a smaller grouping of humans for whom God has a greater concern that he calls “my people(13).” This smaller group is filled with people to whom God has spoken, who have repented of their sins, and believed God’s word. God promises judgement for anyone who stands as the adversary of his people through persecution or rejection.

Think of Matthew 10:14-15 and Jesus’ promise to the towns that reject his messengers:

Matthew 10:14–15 ESV

14 And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. 15 Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.

Obadiah teaches that God is not only fiercely against the enemies of his people, but also that he is fiercely for his people. He is their Friend. He cares for them.

If you are not a Christian, have you ever thought of becoming one of God’s people? Maybe you think you already were one, but the only way to become one is to hear the promises of God’s Word, believe them, and respond to them in repentance and faith. There is no other way to avoid bearing the total weight of God’s perfect judgement upon yourself. You can become God’s friend through receiving the promises of God in Christ. This is why God became flesh, lived a perfect life in a sin filled world, died on the cross and bore the right punishment for all those who would ever turn and trust in him and his promises!

And though, in this book, we see Israel has fallen under God’s judgement, he was not done with them yet. Though they suffered, their future was different from Edom’s.

Obadiah 17–18 (ESV)

17 But in Mount Zion there shall be those who escape, and it shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions.

18 The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble; they shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken.

Not only will the wicked face judgement, the children of God will be comforted.

As we face suffering in our own lives we start to ask questions about the deeper things of God and his love. It causes us to experience the depth and fullness of his love as we rely on him more fully. Our trials teach us that we cannot rely on those things we wrongly put our trust in; that we cannot rely on ourselves; and that we must trust in Christ, who makes us God’s friends!

Jesus says in John 15:

John 15:14–15 ESV

14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

Here in Obadiah, God’s people are given hope amid despair. In the final verses (19-21) God promises that they will not remain in exile forever. They will return and regain their lost lands. And in one sense these promises were fulfilled in just a few decades when some of the Israelites returned to Judah from Babylon (as can be read in Ezra and Nehemiah), but Obadiah seems to have a picture of all God’s people in mind when he mentions the “house of Joseph (18)” a part of the Northern nation of Israel that had been taken by Assyria and dispersed among the nations 150 years before.

The fulfillment of this was not seen in Ezra and Nehemiah, but rather will be fulfilled when “God’s people are in God’s place under God’s rule through the reign of Jesus Christ!”

What blessings we have because of the Son of God! We are delivered and restored! We have God’s Word and God’s Love! We are adopted into the family of God and granted an inheritance!

As God’s people in his church, we have experienced some of the blessings of God, but there are far more waiting for us!

God’s friends are his people, set apart in Christ to experience his blessings!

Who is God? (21b)

And now we look at the last phrase in this book to try to understand “Who is God?”

and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.

The Main Point of Obadiah: God is king over all - Edom, Israel, and Babylon, Gaza, Iran, America, and Russia -

Does God’s Kingship bring you comfort or fear? When you think of him ruling, what emotions stir in your heart? What images in your mind?

Obadiah shows us that God is King over all the earth, not just his people. Obadiah is the only book in the Old Testament that was written primarily to unbelievers.

Why prophesy to unbelievers? Because God reveals the truth of his kingship and the cost of rebellion, even to his enemies.

For many, the language of God having enemies brings up a vision of bloody terrorism, and causes fear. Many today argue that the only way to find peace is to remain open-minded to everything forever. Anything that is possible to be believed has to be allowed to be believed in order to avoid tyranny.

However, Christians would say that the only way to avoid tyranny is to remember that God has authority over all of life! Any human authority over homes and government, business and church are only temporary authorities that are subordinate to God’s final authority and they will give an account for how they used their authority. The people that God has placed under us do not belong to us, they belong to God. We are stewards, not owners.

You will meet with God one day, what are you putting your faith in?

If you put your faith in Christ, you can rest in the closing statement of Obadiah “the kingdom will be the Lord’s!”

If you are one of the LORD’s people, think on that last phrase because it communicates the truth of God’s plan for history. He WILL win in the end and his victory will be complete.

We must remember this whether our churches are in decline or growth, in persecution or prosperity, because this will keep our eyes where they should be! It will keep us from seeking earthly power and it will keep us from thinking about ourselves so much that we stop engaging with the lost!

We must remember that God is King, Creator, and Judge of the universe,

that he will triumph,

and that he will bring his people home to the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21.

He will bring judgement on his enemies, and friendship to sinners who will draw near to him in Christ!

Conclusion: Who are You?

And now we ask, who are you? Are you a friend or an enemy?

God’s commitment is clear in this book. To his enemies, like Edom, God promises destruction. Was Edom destroyed? Yes. It suffered under waves on invasions until it was completely dissolved.

To his friends, God promises restoration. Was Israel restored? Yes, but only partially. The fullness of the promised restoration was begun when Jesus Christ came and declared the beginning of the Kingdom of Heaven, ushering many Jews and non-Jews into repentance and entry into the Kingdom.

In Christ’s incarnation, simply meaning that he took on a human body of flesh, he showed us the truth of God and who we are in relation to him. And Christ granted us a way to be found as one of his people, instead of one of Adam’s. Jews and Gentiles came together in the new people, the Church.

But does God really have enemies? The Bible teaches that we all are enemies of God because of our sin. The Apostle PAul taught in Romans 3:9 that “all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin,” and in Ephesians 2:3 that we all “were by nature children of wrath.” Jesus taught that all our sinful actions and thoughts proved the existence of our sinful hearts (Mark 7:20-23).

Hebrews 10:26-27 says, “if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries (enemies of God).” God’s enemies are those that continue in deliberate sin. James says the same thing in a different way, James 4:4 “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

So, I ask you again, are you one of God’s enemies or one of his friends? If you can say you’re a friend then praise God and persevere! But if you are an enemy, I plead with you with the words of Paul from 2 Corinthians 5:20-21:

2 Corinthians 5:20–21 (ESV)

20 I implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

We all have been God’s enemies at some point. The question is whether we have ever been reconciled to God. If you have not, do not delay. Count the cost of following Christ, repent of your sin, submit yourself to his Kingship, and never look back.

Let’s Pray.

Time of Confession and Repentance

Assurance of Pardon

Isaiah 12:2–3 (ESV)

2 “Behold, God is my salvation;

I will trust, and will not be afraid;

for the Lord God is my strength and my song,

and he has become my salvation.”

3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

The Lord’s Supper

Bless the Elements

The Lord’s Supper is intended to remind us and to unite us.

So, as you take The Lord’s Supper this morning, take some time to look back, look in, look around, and look forward.

Taking communion reminds us to look back. When we eat the bread and drink the fruit of the vine, we do so in remembrance of Jesus (Luke 22:19). More specifically, we’re reminded of the sacrificial death Jesus was willing to endure on our behalf.

But we’re also to look in. The Apostle Paul says that “everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (1 Cor. 11:28). Communion reminds us that Jesus’s death was necessary because of sin, our sin. And so, when you take communion, it’s an opportunity for you to search your heart, confess your sin, and ask God to forgive you. The good news? He will!

An oft forgotten aspect of taking communion is looking around. Eating and drinking the bread and the wine can feel intimate, a private moment between you and God. And to some extent, it should! But communion is also more than that.

Paul reminds us that “because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf” (1 Cor. 10:17). In other words, communion isn’t meant to be done privately. Rather, it’s to be celebrated together as one body– a community of believers joining together, unified by Jesus.

When we take communion, we commit ourselves to God and each other, as messy and at times painful as that can be. That means taking seriously the ways that our divisions stand in the way of being unified in Christ (1 Cor. 11:18-22).

Lastly, when you take communion, look forward. After Jesus gave his friends the cup of wine, he said to them, “I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it in the new kingdom of God” (Mark 14:25). In that moment, Jesus was looking forward to another meal– a future meal in the coming kingdom where believers from every tribe, tongue, and nation will gather together to celebrate God’s final work of salvation and restoration (Rev. 19:6-9).

When you take communion, you, too, can look forward to the promise of this future meal with hope and expectancy.

How does taking communion impact my life?

Following Jesus is a long journey, and God knows that every one of us will need encouragement and strength along the way. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the means by which God does just that. Taking communion doesn’t make you a Christian, but it does give you the nourishment you need as you follow Jesus.

And so, as you eat the bread and drink the wine, use it as an opportunity to renew your trust in Jesusand to reflect on the promises he’s given to you.

And remember, when we take communion together, it’s not just “something we do.” It’s a physical reminder that Jesus has done and is doing something to us and for us.

Start passing the elements

and sing “He Will Hold Me Fast”

Matthew 26:26-28

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”

Take and eat.

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 sins.

Take and drink.

Pray

1 Corinthians 11:26

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Sing “I Love You Lord”

Benediction