Overflow 10/12 (Communion)

Intro:

This morning we are on our last sermon in our Overflow sermon series

That being said every single week we have quoted one chapter of scripture every single week

Who can tell me what that scripture is? (SMALL CANDY)

Who thinks they can quote the whole thing (BIG CANDY)

Psalm 23

New Living Translation Psalm 23

The LORD is my shepherd;

I have all that I need.

2 He lets me rest in green meadows;

he leads me beside peaceful streams.

3 He renews my strength.

He guides me along right paths,

bringing honor to his name.

4 Even when I walk

through the darkest valley,

I will not be afraid,

for you are close beside me.

Your rod and your staff

protect and comfort me.

5 You prepare a feast for me

in the presence of my enemies.

You honor me by anointing my head with oil.

My cup overflows with blessings.

6 Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me

all the days of my life,

and I will live in the house of the LORD

forever.

Alright this is our last week to do it

Everyone stand up (Lets read)

If you remember we are talking about the characteristics of God that Overflow throughout Scripture.

So far we have talked about:

Blessings

Judgment

Suffering

and if you have ntoiceed with each of these different topics that we have talked about

it always come back to Jesus

feel like each week we have been able to go to the crucification of Jesus

Or characteristics that we can specially see Jesus exhibiting for us

So today we are going to keep that theme

And what we are going to be talking about that overflows from God is

Communion

Now I already know right now I say that someone is confused

“How can communion overflow out of God”

I promise it will make sense, and I am going to explain it all

That being said how many of you know what communion is?

When you hear the communion what do you think of?

Yeah, maybe you think of:

Bread

Grape juice

Maybe you think of like a serious time

Maybe your’e like I have no idea what that is

before we dive in today I want to give at least a little bit of an understanding what communion is

Communion

Eucharist

The Lord’s supper

It has many different names

And we are going to talk about some of them in a little bit here

But Communion is a tradition that we have have as Christians to remember something very specific that we see in scripture

Without going to crazy into detail

we get this concept from the tail end of each of our gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, with John rendition being a little bit different)

In this we have Jesus who is soon about to be crucified

having his last meal with his disciples

The meal that they were eating was called the Passover meal

Which I am not even going to get into everything about why its called that

And as they are sitting there at the table Jesus says this about the bread and the wine

New Living Translation Chapter 22

Luke 22:19-20

As the rest of the story goes

Jesus is then crucified the following morning

And 3 days later he raises from the dead

Throughout history Christians have acknowledged this event of Jesus’s final supper with his disciples

and have copied it as Jesus tells his disciples in verse 19 “Do this in remembrance of me”

Now that explains why we do it, but it still doesn’t explain the name

The word communion comes from the Greek word “κοινωνία” koy-no-NEE-ah

Which translates to community indicating the fellowship with other believers and with God

Now another word also used for communion is the word

Eucharist

this is more common in Catholic and Lutheran tradition however it is still talking about the same tradition that we do

Same as communion this also comes from the greek

And it is the word “εὐχαριστία” yoo-kha-ree-STEE-ah

Which means Gratitude or to give thanks

Now you are probably thinking thanks for the history lesson Adam this is all fine and dandy, but whats the point

My hope is to give you some truths today about the Lord’s supper

1. change the way that you view communion (some of you have done this your whole lives)

2. help you but understand WHY we do it

3. Help you engage with it, and SEE God while you are doing it (We talk about God Overflowing out of it)

That being said lets dive into it

1. Communion is about REMEMBERING

This scripture should sound familiar

Luke 22:19–20 “And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and gave to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: do this in remembrance of me. And then he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, that which is poured out for you.”

Have you guys ever forgot a chore you were supposed to do?

so then you do it at like hyper speed so you don’t get in trouble?

I share that story not just because you shouldn’t forget chores

But because there are so many times where we do stuff like this

We forget what is asked of us

And then we scramble because we want to make sure we don’t get in trouble

If we are really honest we do the exact same thing in our relationship with God.

There are so many times when we read the Bible and we are convicted to change something in our life

But instead of following through and doing that

We push it off to the side.

And so here is the first thing I want you to understand about why we do communion

We do communion to Remember what Jesus did on the cross

Just like how we forget to do chores. we forget to engage with God

even coming here on a Sunday morning

Lets go back to our text one more time

Verse 20 Jesus says “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, even that which is poured out for you.”

Jesus is telling us

“look this wine”

The wine that we use in communion

this is so that we remember that we are under a new covenant with him

And I bring this up because I think so often we forget the real toll, and the whole point of why Jesus did what he did

Communion is that we can remember that “WHOLE POINT”

It’s so we can remember not only that he created a new way for you and I to spend eternity with him

But it is also so that we can literally remember each physical step that he had to take for you and I

PAUSE

In Roman Catholicism

And as well as some other different denominations of Christianity

There is a tradition called VEE-ah KROO-sis

Which is a latin word that translates to way of the cross

Or “The stations of the cross”

The way of the Cross are 14 different carvings, or usually pictures

That are set up around the church

Each “station” is one of the physical steps that Jesus took during the crucifixion story

to give you a few there is Jesus:

Jesus is condemned by pilote to be crucified

Jesus falls down the first time

Simon of Syrene Helps Jesus carry his cross

Jesus is stripped of his clothes

Jesus is nailed to the cross

and of course he is eventually laid in the Tomb

I share all of this will you

Because though we are not catholic

I believe it is important for us to remember the physical path, steps, and things that our savior had to endure on our behalf

We do communion to remember

To remember what Jesus went through

And to Remember that he did it all because he loves us

2. Communion is about REFLECTING

Philippians 4:19 “And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.”

Show life milestone pictures up on the screen

When I look at these pictures I certainly feel a sense of nostalgia

However I also like to reflect on that part of life and what was going in these photos

All at different points

“Man what was I worrying about when I was in that season of life”

“Oh yeah I remember I was so angry in that picture because”

“Oh I was excited in that picture because this person showed up”

And here is the thing

We do Communion so that we can reflect on what Christ has done in our lives

Just as our scripture says

“And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.”

So the point his trying to make is

Look I have a God who has provided for me

Sent his son to die for me

(As we have already talked about)

But he has continually been apart of my life

Providing for me

Helping me

Even in the rough times

God was there

And so as we take communion similar to how we look at old pictures and reflect

And so when we talk about communion

it is about reflecting

reflecting on the parts of life where you saw God

and maybe you didn’t see him then, but you see him now

But its about reflecting on those times

Communion is a time for us to stop, pause, and reflecting on our lives with Jesus

3. Communion is about REIGNITING our faith

Romans 12:11–12 “Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.”

Have y'all ever had your hot water heater not work before?

Have any of you guys ever had it turn off while you have been in the shower before

How many of You guys have ever had it happen from your basement flooding?

Just this past summer I had my basement flood super bad

and whats interesting is how Hot water heaters work?

How many of You guys know how a Hot water heater works?

I have a gas one

SHOW PICTURE

And so basically what happened was this flame that heats up the water went out

And so I had to reignite it

I share this imagery behind why we do communion.

We go through seasons of life where things aren’t always great

Thats the truth of it

there are times when we come to church

We aren’t super on fire, and super excited

And this can happen

whether its from something that we have done

or just from situations of life.

And when we take communion its not just for us to reflect and remember

but times when that fire goes it out

it reignites our faith in Jesus

Communion reignites us so that we can then overflow

I feel like I have talked about this so much

But God wants to heat us up

that fire for him helps overflow and spread his word to others

4. Communion is about REUNION with each other

1 Corinthians 10:16–17 “When we bless the cup at the Lord’s Table, aren’t we sharing in the blood of Christ? And when we break the bread, aren’t we sharing in the body of Christ? And though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body.”

Have ya’ll ever been in a group chat before that is awesome, and it slowly starts to fade off (Star wars marathon)

I talk about this because Just as we can have a group chat that can fade off when we don’t talk

We take communion so that we can be united with each other

Paul tells us in the passage that even there are so many of us we are one body from communion

We live in a day in age where the last thing that we want to be is unified

we are always trying to find reasons to be separate from others

“Oh those are MY friends so I don’t talk to those people”

“Oh They said something mean to me so we don’t talk anymore”

“Oh they go to that school”

“Oh I think they support stuff that I don’t follow, so I CAN’T EVEN TALK TO THEM”

Fill in the blank

And the Bible is trying to tell us that when we call ourselves Christians we are supposed to be together

And guess what

THAT MEANS ALLLLLLL OF US!!!!

I know there are some of you that don’t get along in this room

There are some of you that want to separate yoursleves from each other

And I will tell you not only is there no room for that in CSM

There is no room for it in the body of Christ

Or under the ritual of communion

Jesus has called us to be together, to be one body, and love one another

The body and blood of Jesus brings us together as one

When you drink that grape juice

And you eat that waffer or whatever it is

You are saying we are one we are together

And so that being said I want to give you guys the opprotunity to take communion today

As you are coming forward

I want to read our last verse from Pslam 23

Psalm 23:5 “You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings.”