“The Remembrance of the Cross”

Returning to the Cross Sermon Series

“The Remembrance of the Cross”

KEY PASSAGE: 1 Corinthians 11:23-32 (NASB)

Heavenly Father, our Creator and Sustainer, we ask for Your presence and glory to remain with us throughout the rest of this service. May Your Spirit move among us, drawing us closer to You and deepening our worship. We thank You for this sacred place where we gather each Sunday to lift Your name in praise and glorify You. We pray this in Christ’s name. Amen. You may be seated.

TITHE and OFFERING

The worship team will lead us [again] with a song as we collect our tithes and offerings—ushers, please pass around the offering plates so we can collect our tithes and offerings.

PRAYER FOR TITHE and OFFERING

Gracious Father, we come to present our tithes and offerings to the glory of Your holy name. I pray that You graciously accept and bless our gifts, through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen.

WELCOME

Well, welcome, everyone, again to our Sunday Worship Service. Please stand up, greet some folks around you, and tell them Jesus loves you. Our first-time visitors, please stand so we can see you. We also welcome all who join us online.

ANNOUNCEMENT

📖 Wednesday Night Bible Study Connect – 7:00 p.m. Please join us this Wednesday at 7:00 PM for a time of learning, fellowship, and spiritual growth as we study the Word of God! We are studying the Book of First Samuel. 📅 Corporate Meeting—We meet at the church every Saturday at 8:00 a.m. for a prayer meeting. I encourage you to please join us. If you have a prayer request, please complete the online or in-person prayer request form, and we will lift you up in prayer. 📅Worship Night is Friday, June 27, 2025, at 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM. Please come expecting a move of the Spirit through prayer, music, and worship. This is a night to be refreshed, encouraged, and renewed in His presence. Bring a friend and come with a heart ready to encounter the Lord!

DECLARATION of FAITH in GOD

Let us stand and say the Declaration of Faith in God together. Please remain standing as we pray.

PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

Let’s pray.

Father, in the name of Jesus, we come before You with open hearts, asking that You prepare us to receive Your Word. Let Your truth pierce through every barrier, bringing light where there is darkness and conviction where there is compromise. May Your Word transform us for Your glory, and deepen our walk with You. We pray this with gratitude and expectation, in the mighty name of Jesus. And everyone says, Amen. You may be seated."

SERMON INTRODUCTION

Our sermon for today is very important, I mean extraordinarily important, critically important for you and me in our Christian lives. My goal today is not so much about inspiration but to provide some clarity. And I say this because inspiration can die out as quickly as you get it. You can come to church and be high in church during the service, and be depressed before you get home. Inspiration has its place in the life of a believer, but you cannot live off of inspiration. Clarity of instruction is important, relative to our sermon series, “Returning to the Cross.”

The most important part of our church service is not the sermon; the sermon is critical, don’t get me wrong, it is important and instructional for Christian living. And it is not the singing. The singing is important and prepares us for worship because God wants our worship. I believe the most important part of our church service is the part that is least understood and most underutilized, and it is Communion. In some churches, Communion is over-exalted. In other churches, Communion is denigrated, vilified, and treated very poorly.

If you and I understood the Lord’s Table, the Lord’s Supper as it is called in First Corinthians 10:16—the Communion, the Eucharist, which means “the giving of thanks,” it would be a transforming experience in our Christian lives. Many of us came to church today with things sermons cannot fix. Many of you have come to church so broken that inspiration cannot last because you will return to the situation and issue you are dealing with. “You need something bigger, something better, something deeper—to infect and affect whatever has engulfed you.” And today, we turn to a compelling and sacred subject that all four Gospels discuss—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—: The Last Supper of Jesus Christ with His disciples.

SERMON EXPOSITION 1

Please take God’s Word and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, where Paul gives his extended version of the Lord’s Supper symbolism, significance, and its meaning. Paul was not present in the Upper Room but received this direct revelation from the Lord Jesus Christ. It was the night when the forces of hell met to destroy our Savior. Paul says in verse 23, “I received from the Lord that which I delivered to you.” Paul gets this direct revelation and teaching from God. God told me to tell you this. “When Jesus was betrayed, He took the bread and gave thanks.” “He gave thanks, He broke it.”—“This is My body, which is for you, do this in remembrance of Me.” “This is the cup”, verse 25, “This cup is the New Covenant in My Blood, do this, as often as you drink it in remembrance of Me.”

He says, “Do this” in verse 24 because this is for you. I raise the question. And I think it is a fair question–What, in what way, is it for me? Jesus has already died, and He ascended to heaven, and Paul is writing about how the Corinthian church should function. And he says, ‘This bread, this cup, this Cross is for you.” The Cross has already happened. The Cross is in the past, yet Paul says, ‘You are to do this’, and then He says, ‘And as often as you do it’.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION

He says in verse 25, ‘This is the cup, this is the bread, this is the New Covenant’. A covenant is a relationship; a man and woman get married, and they enter into a new relationship, a relationship that did not exist before their marriage, and it is called a ‘covenant.’ Every Christian here today has entered into a unique relationship with God because of the Cross of Jesus Christ.

SERMON EXPOSITION 2

God flows His goodness through this Covenant, or this arrangement that God has with His people. Through this arrangement, God ministers to His people. Paul is talking about the Cross. He says, ‘And this cup that you drink is the cup of blessing.’ So, inside whatever utensil you use, he says you drink blessings. Or the bread, you are eating a blessing because he says, ‘You are sharing Christ.’ He is talking about a spiritual partaking of Christ. To put it another way, he is talking about sharing the benefit that the Cross provides.

When Jesus Christ died on the Cross, yes, we are told that it was to forgive our sins and bring us into fellowship with God the Father. There is another reason why Jesus died on the Cross and that is to allow us to be partakers of His life—A sharing of His life, that is the benefits of His spiritual presence with us because there is an agreement, a covenant, an arrangement, a relationship, a bond that God has established with His people when we are brought into His family. This truth is often overlooked when the message of the Cross is preached. The Cross initiates divine participation, not just forgiveness, grace, healing, and victory. Christ’s death was the gateway to atonement and an abiding relationship with God. In Colossians 1:27, Paul describes it as “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The Cross also opens the way for us to become partakers of the divine nature, according to 2 Peter 1:4, to share in His righteousness.

1 Corinthians 10, let’s go a little deeper. “Since there is one bread”, verse 17 says, “… we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread.” Other Bible version says, “for we all share the one loaf.” Now, notice what he says, “Look at the nation Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices sharers in the altar?” What do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but I say to you that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God; and I do not want you to become sharers in demons.”

He says you have two options. You can share in Christ, or you can share in demons. What are demons? Demons are spiritual beings. Demons are good angels gone bad. Demons operate in direct opposition to God’s will—deceiving, tempting, accusing, and attempting to destroy what God loves. Jesus Christ is here spiritually because He is physically in heaven. He says, “I want you to be a partaker in Christ, but I don’t want you to be a partaker with the devil.” Which leads him to verse 21, “You cannot drink (from) the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons?” You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons! So apparently, [Watch This]. We have two tables from which to eat. You can eat from one of two tables, Paul says. You can eat from the table of the Lord, which is the cup of blessing. Or you can eat from the table of demons. What does this mean? He says what you eat from, you share. When you eat from the table of the Lord, you become a partaker with the Lord and a sharer of the Lord. You participate with the devil when you eat from the table of demons.

SERMON EXPOSITION 3

This is what you need to know about the Lord’s Supper. Your communion and relationship are designed to bring blessings into the believer’s life because Jesus Christ shares His life with His people based on what He has done for us on the Cross. Now watch this, back in chapter 11 of First Corinthians, He says, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup”, verse 26 says, “… you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” He says, “As often.” Now, does he say to do it every day or every week? No. He says as often as you want to. As frequently as you need to. As often as you can. When you read about the church in the Book of Acts, when they met, they called the church service “The Breaking of the Bread”. They met for the breaking of the bread.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION 1

In football, there is something called a pre-game meal. The purpose of a pre-game meal is simple but critical: to equip the football players with the fuel they need to endure the entire game. It energizes their performance, helps guard against fatigue, curbs hunger and discomfort, and provides essential hydration. In essence, it is preparation for the physical and mental intensity of the battle that awaits them on the field. In the same way, the Lord’s Supper serves as spiritual nourishment for us believers. The Lord’s Supper is not about remembering the Cross—it is about being spiritually fortified through the presence and promises of Christ Jesus. And so, every time [I know we do it every first Sunday of the month] we “eat this bread and drink this cup,” we are not only proclaiming His death, but declaring our readiness to walk in His life, face spiritual warfare, and live in hopeful expectation of His return.

SERMON EXPOSITION 4

“The reason we do this as often as we do this is to proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” That raises a question: Proclaim it to whom and for what reason? To proclaim is just like to preach. Proclaim means to preach, declare, or announce. The Lord’s Supper is a picture and a sermon that proclaims or preaches the Lord’s death and His return. He says when you take Communion, you are preaching! And since all Christians take it, everybody’s got a little sermon to preach. Colossians 2:15 says, “That on the Cross, Jesus deactivated the principalities and powers in heavenly places.” In other words, on the Cross, the devil was defeated. Jesus disarmed the principalities and the powers. They no longer have the last say, and the bullets were removed from their guns. When you take Communion, you proclaim to the spiritual world, “The Cross has spoken on my behalf. You no longer have the right to my life. You no longer dictate my future, my identity, or my peace. Your authority has been broken, and I belong to the risen Christ—body, soul, and spirit.”

The Cross means that the devil was defeated! And God knows we need to be reminded of that ourselves, and we need to remind them. God wants you to send a strong message to the spiritual world. Proclaim it! Declare it! And preach it. Because much of the stuff you are going through right now comes from the spiritual world. Much of the pain you experience in life comes from the spiritual realm. The spiritual realm invades your life and keeps you from experiencing what the Cross provides. The spiritual world keeps you from experiencing the benefits of the Cross. You need to send a message and deliver a sermon. You need to proclaim it. In other words, this is an ongoing meal until Jesus comes, because we live in a world that is controlled by the evil one. He says, “Do this in remembrance of Me!”

SERMON ILLUSTRATION 1

Every time a married couple shares physical intimacy, they remember their special wedding day. A married couple doesn’t need to repeat their wedding ceremony whenever they express intimacy. They don’t return to the altar each time. They don’t go back to the pastor and have a marriage ceremony, but they are remembering the covenant in the current act of intimacy. In the same way, when we come to the Lord’s Table, we are not re-crucifying Christ. Jesus suggests that we remember what happened on the Cross. We remember that Jesus, on the Cross, had victory over sin, victory over Satan …and victory over the world.

SERMON APPLICATION 1

When your life is shaken up, broken up, and broken down, sermons cannot fix that! The preacher can give you information. The preacher can inspire you. The preacher can encourage you. Sermons have their place. But you need something special. You need something from heaven to turn that around. And that is what Communion is. Communion is something different, and communion is something special.

SERMON EXPOSITION 5

He goes on: Verse 27 says, “Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” He introduces Communion and taking it in an unworthy manner. He is not talking about the person being unworthy. He says the manner is unworthy—and that is the difference. None of us in and of ourselves are worthy, in our struggles, sins, failures, and on our own. We are not. Paul is talking about the manner … how it is done. The concept of unworthy means the legitimate versus the illegitimate. It means to treat something holy as common. To treat Communion as ordinary and to cause it to lose its significance. I do it because it is Communion time, to lose its worth—let’s put it that way, to lose its substance.

When Jesus died on the Cross, that wasn’t an ordinary moment. That was an eternal and painful moment when Jesus said, “My God, My God! Why has Thou forsaken Me?”—That moment mattered to Jesus! Verse 33, “So then, my brothers and sisters, when you gather to eat, you should all eat together. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that you will not come together for judgment.” In other words, they were very careless because they lost the significance of the Lord’s Supper.

The significance of Communion is tied to the Cross, which was the defeat of Satan, the forgiveness of sin, the transformation of life, and the opening of the floodgates of divine blessing. All of that is in the New Covenant, and this flow of blessing is what we know as grace—God’s unmerited favor and empowering presence freely given to those who believe in Christ Jesus.  Communion is designed to flow or fuel your spirit with the life of Christ. He goes on to say. “But a man must examine himself and in so doing, he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”

What is the examination? The examination is to determine whether I am taking this in a manner that recognizes what it is for.” Do I realize and acknowledge what this thing is for? Communion is unique, Communion is special, and Communion is sacred. Communion is a one-of-a-kind thing that no sermon can duplicate, and [as gifted and faithful as the worship team is,] no praise and worship song can ever compete with it! Communion is the way God is going to transfer the victory of Calvary into my life. God takes an event from two thousand years ago—the Cross—and makes its power alive and personal in my present life and circumstances.

“For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.” He says if this examination doesn’t allow you, doesn’t cause you to understand and see the seriousness of the moment, the thing designed to help you can end up hurting you.  He says, “For this reason, many among you are weak, are sick, and a number sleep.” For this reason, many, he says, many Christians are weak. The opposite of weak is strong. So instead of being strong, you are weak. Instead of being on top of life, life is on top of you. Instead of being victorious, you are living in defeat; instead of winning, you are losing. And weakness could show up in a whole bunch of areas of our lives.

SERMON APPLICATION 2

He says, but some of you are weak—you may be weak financially, you may be weak emotionally, you may be weak circumstantially, but you are weak. For this reason, this reason didn’t have anything to do with the sermon or the song. This reason had to do with the table – The Lord’s Supper. He says for this reason, many are sick! Health issues that are not overcome, physical problems… that are not being fixed, that go on moment by moment, week by week, and year by year. He says many are sick; he says for this reason, some have died before their time. For this reason, some are in the grave.

The Bible makes it abundantly clear that Satan’s goal is to steal, kill, and destroy. That is the goal of Satan, according to the Bible. Satan’s middle name is Devolution; he wants to destroy things. Not every sickness is because the devil got you sick. And every time somebody dies, it doesn’t mean they did something wrong. He is talking to a particular kind of weakness, a specific kind of illness, and a form of death—all because the proper examination didn’t take place before the Lord’s Supper.  Now I can hear what some of you are saying right now. I will skip Communion because of the negative repercussions. He says, “As often you take it.” If you don’t take Communion, you will not receive the blessing and the benefits that flow from it. The purpose of the Lord’s Table, [Watch This], is to counteract Satan’s attempt to make your life weak, sick, and dead. That is the purpose of the table because, once and for all, over 2,000 years ago, Jesus defeated Satan on the Cross at Calvary.

Jesus is the only one who has defeated Satan. Nobody else has ever defeated Satan, including you and me. Guess what you need to defeat Satan? You need the Cross because that is the only thing that defeated Satan. And because you need the Cross, you need a way to make that two-thousand-year-old event relevant for you today! God says, “Well, I have a way to make two thousand years ago work for you today. It is at the Lord’s Table!” When you eat this bread and drink this cup, it imparts strength where there was weakness. It imparts health where there is sickness. It imparts life where death is on the way.

Now … don’t get me wrong. Every weakness is not because the devil is in charge… Job got sick, and the Bible says he was a righteous man! That is the health-wealth gospel, that you know … spiritual people never get sick. That is not true. Spiritual people get sick, and they die. Billy Graham was a faithful preacher, but he battled Parkinson-like symptoms , and he died. Charles Spurgeon – the “Prince of Preachers” suffered from depression throughout his ministry. Timothy Keller, a brilliant and faithful pastor-theologian, was diagnosed with cancer in his later years, and he died. Sickness and death are part of living in a fallen world, and God’s people are not immune but sustained. The power of the Cross doesn’t always deliver us from suffering, but it redeems suffering and ensures God’s grace is sufficient.

He says, “For this reason …” … for this reason, singular, for this one reason, many are weak and sick, and a number are asleep. The goal of Communion, the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, the Lord’s Table, is to bring wholeness of life where sin, Satan, and demons are disrupting your life. That is what Communion is designed to do. Communion is designed to give you a physical expression of feeding a spiritual reality.

FAITH APPEAL, CALL to ACTION, and ALTAR CALL

A fair question to ask is. How does a simple piece of bread, a simple cup of juice or wine, or whatever is being used—no Jack Daniels—no Hennessy - just grape juice..… How does the simple eating of bread and grape juice do all this? Watch this now! In the same way, a simple act of eating plunged the whole world into sin in Genesis chapter 3. The world was plunged into sin because somebody bit some fruit! And we don’t know what kind of fruit it was; everybody thinks it was an apple, but the Bible doesn’t say it was an apple.

It was just a piece of fruit. One bite, and all hell broke loose. All hell broke loose because somebody bit a piece of fruit? They bit the fruit, and death entered the world. They bit the fruit, and the first marriage turned into a battlefield of blame. They bit the fruit, and one brother killed another in cold blood. They bit the fruit, and now every mother groans in pain during childbirth.

They bit a piece of fruit, and thorns and thistles were growing from the ground. They bit a piece of fruit, and now death reigned from Adam. All because somebody bit a piece of fruit! So, eating, in the wrong context, can be dangerous—a door through which sin, suffering, and sorrow entered the world. They ate because behind the fruit was the activity of the devil! The devil was behind the meal, and because the devil was behind it, they got devilish consequences, because they were eating at the devil’s table.

Did you know there are two trees in the Garden of Eden? The tree of knowledge of good and evil, you cannot eat it. But the tree of life is a symbol of God’s sustaining presence and eternal life. That was the tree they did not bite. And that was the tree that would give them life! Jesus Christ is saying that on the Cross, on another tree, I have offered life..… Eat from it! Communion is God’s ordained channel for spiritual well-being; it will do what a sermon cannot do.

I want you to remember that Satan’s strategy is clear—he wants to distance God’s people from the Lord’s Table. Why? Because Communion is not just symbolic; it is a confrontation with the power of the Cross. Worship songs may stir our emotions, but do not shake the kingdom of darkness. The Cross exposes Satan’s defeat, proclaims Christ’s victory, and reminds every believer that they are redeemed, empowered, and seated with Christ. The Cross is the only thing that threatens Satan, and he wants to keep you far away from the Cross, like the east from the west. But the closer you draw to Calvary – The Cross, the more you remember who won the victory on the Cross. God bless you!

If you are here today, and the Holy Spirit has brought to light that—for perhaps years—you have approached the Lord’s Table in an unworthy manner, don’t leave church burdened. This is a moment of grace, not shame. If you feel that conviction in your heart, we invite you to come forward so we can pray for you and ask God for cleansing, restoration, and renewed reverence. If you are here today and don’t know Jesus, I want you to come to the Cross, give your life to Christ, and trust Jesus to be your Savior. If you need prayer, please come forward so we can pray for you.  Let’s stand on our feet and bless His Holy Name.

BENEDICTION [CLOSING PRAYER]

Let us pray.

Father God, we ask that You help us remember and feed on the Word, Your words of the truth that are spirit and life. We pray that You would shape us by reminding us to remember the Lord’s Supper. Father, thank You for speaking to our hearts today. Some people do not know Jesus Christ as Savior and cannot partake of the Lord’s Supper. I pray that you would open their heart to receive You as their Lord and Savior. That right now they would come to the Cross and say, “Lord Jesus, I want to eat Your flesh and drink Your blood, I want to accept Your incarnation and Your sacrificial death for me.” And there are other Christians, Lord, who cannot partake because of unconfessed, unrepentant sin and bitterness they are dealing with in their lives. May they confess it now. I pray that we examine our hearts every time we eat the Lord’s body and drink His blood. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

God bless you. We will see you next week at 10:30 a.m.