Communion Sunday
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Good morning!
Man I’m glad you guys are here today, you could have been anywhere, but you decided to worship with us!
I’m Jamie I’m one of the Pastors here at REVO I’m glad your here!
Pastor Matthew is out of town this week and asked me to fill in, and man I’m fired up to share with something that I’m super passionate about:
Tobey Maguire is the best Spider-Man of the three
Now hear me out — I grew up with Tobey, and so I’m going to be a little biased
But there is something about Tobey’s Spider-Man that I always appreciated:
When he first got his powers he kinda did whatever he wanted — I mean the dude went into a cage match with a guy just to make some extra money
He was essentially wasting his powers until his Uncle died
When Uncle Ben died he also dropped maybe the greatest wisdom of any movie — and I’m sure you all know it
“With great power comes great responsibility”
This ends up being the motto for Spider-Man and this is the moment that leads Tobey’s character to go from selfish to selfless
He starts using his powers for good instead of evil
Here’s the thing about that — it teaches us a principle that is all over scripture!
Something has to die for us to live
Something always has to die for something to live
For Spider-Man he had to have his Uncle die so that He takes on the responsibility of Spider-Man and takes it seriously
But we see this all over — think about muscles
If you want to get swole muscles what do you have to do — work out
That tears the muscle fibers so that they can grow back stronger
Here’s the reality:
The same is true for our spiritual life
Something has to die for us to live
Let’s break it down, but first lets pray
Prayer
Prayer
Lord be with this time
I pray you remove distractions
I pray you help us see you clearly
Be with Nathan and SF
Be with Bob at WT
OT proof
OT proof
Why does something have to die?
Why does something have to die?
For us to first understand why something has to die for us to live we first need to understand why
This starts all the way back at the beginning
Genesis 3 is the introduction to sin into the world
God in Genesis 1-2 created everything! He created man and woman
He created the world
He created all that we see
He then says to man
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
God gave his creation a job — be fruitful and multiply
Subdue the earth
He also tells them
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Basically — enjoy the earth, have fun, work the ground, play with the animals, just don’t eat from this one tree
Thats where Satan comes in — and tricks Adam and Eve into sinning — eating the fruit
This sin by Adam is then passed down to every living creature
Thats why Paul tells us this:
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God
Sin is what causes us to be separate from God — we cannot get to God because of our sin
Romans 6:23 tells us:
23 For the wages of sin is death
The wages — or payment — of sin is death
Because of this — man is destined to death
Destined to separation from God
Destined to be forever away from the Creator
God responds
God responds
Man cannot get to God because of his sin, but here’s the beauty — God doesn’t leave us there:
He now makes the statement:
Something has to die for us to live
I want to trace that out:
21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
This is the first time we see this principle in Scripture
God killed animals and made clothes for Adam and Eve
Ultimately this killing of the animals allowed Adam and Eve to come back into fellowship with God
It allowed for the blood of something to be shed so that sin’s wages can be paid
This isn’t the only time God has done this though:
Later in Genesis God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac
The child that Abraham and Sarah waited for 25 years to have
Abraham decided to be obedient, went up the mountain and was ready to sacrifice his son
But look at what God does:
13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.
God provided a ram for Abraham to offer as a sacrifice instead of Isaac!
Quite literally the ram had to die in order for Isaac to live
And we are good Bible scholars in the room — we know that God only asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to test if Abraham was truly faithful to God
Not the point of the message but a nugget for you all to chew on in your life:
God was testing Abraham to see “Do I love God more, or the blessings more”
So God provided the ram for Abraham to sacrifice
And God continues to provide for, care for, and protect his people all throughout the book of Genesis
But the next big moment when it comes to our thesis is from the book of Exodus:
1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.
7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. 10 And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. 12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
this is what’s known as the Passover
It was the final of the ten plagues that God sent on unbelieving Egypt to get Pharaoh to let his people go
God came and killed the first born child of everyone in Egypt that did not sacrifice a lamb and put the blood on the door posts
This is maybe the ultimate example of something having to die in order for us to live
If this was today, Gideon would be killed if we didn’t kill a lamb and put the blood on the door post
It is showing a reliance on God and an acceptance that we cannot solve, fix, or correct our problems, but instead must rely on the Lord
This then continues by the Lord giving the people of Israel the 10 commandments, showing them how to live, and ultimately showing them that they are far from God, completely imperfect and in need of saving
OR a better way to put it
Something has to die for us to live
Which then takes us to the book of Leviticus
The book that no one likes, or at least doesn’t appreciate
It is considered the bloody book of the Bible — it describes how do to every sacrifice, and what they are for
This book is so important because
God sets up entire entire sacrifice system to allow the people of Israel to live and communion with God
God lays the foundation for how people can get back right with Him
How despite sin, evil, brokenness, they are not hopeless
This sacrificial system is now set up and it is the only way that people can be made right with God
The problem? It wasn’t permanent
Every time something bad happened — every time there was sin man kind had to make another sacrifice
Something has to die for us to live
A promise of something greater
A promise of something greater
This continued until something unique happened
In the book of Isaiah there is a prophecy that is made
4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah tells us that
Isaiah 53
Jesus is promised to come and flip the script
No longer does man have to make the sacrifice
Jesus makes the Sacrifice
Jesus makes the Sacrifice
Matthew 27:45-51
Jesus died on the cross
The ultimate sacrifice for sin
The ultimate something had to die for something else to live
What does this teach us?
What does this teach us?
Sin separates us from God
Because of sin we are eternally separated from God
God always provides for His people
God provides a way for His people to come to Him
Do you follow God?
Before we go to communion I want to challenge you — do you believe in Jesus?
Communion
Communion
Matthew 26:26-28
