Being Called In To Supper
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: 2 Chron 30:1-12
N:
Welcome
Welcome
Bye, kids!
Good morning, and welcome to Family Worship with the church body of Eastern Hills: People helping people live out the unexpected love of Jesus every day. Whether you are here in the room, or online, thanks for being part of our celebration of Jesus this morning. I’m senior pastor Bill Connors, and I’m grateful for this church family and being able to gather together. Thank you, choir, for helping us to prepare our hearts for communion this morning.
If you are visiting with us for the first time today, thanks for choosing to worship with Eastern Hills! We would like to be able to thank you for your visit and to pray for you, so if you wouldn’t mind, please take a moment during the sermon to fill out a visitor card, which you’ll find in the back of the pew in front of you. If you’re online, you can let us know about your visit by filling out the communication form at the bottom of our “I’m new“ page. If you’re here in the room today, you can get that card back to us in one of two ways: you can put it in the boxes by the doors at the close of service, or I would love the opportunity to meet you personally, so after service, you can bring that card to me directly, and I have a gift to give you to thank you for your visit today.
Stumin volunteer thanks.
Announcements
Announcements
Mother’s Day Offering for NMBCH last week: $5,393.42 Goal exceeded!
Opening
Opening
Next Sunday, we will begin a three-week look at Psalm 139, and then after VBS and Part 2 of the Family Road Trip on Father’s Day, we will start a verse-by-verse look at the Song of Songs, which we are currently planning to take several months, and which I’m calling Beloved. But for this morning, we are going to really just focus on the Lord’s Supper.
Our focal passage is honestly not only a passage I’ve never preached, but never equated with the Lord’s Supper, and not only that, didn’t actually remember was in the Bible until my study for this morning’s message! I’ve read through the Bible I don’t know how many times in my 37 years of following Jesus, but I suppose this passage never got my attention like it did this week. Don’t you wish you could just remember everything you’ve read? So if you would, please open your Bibles or your Bible apps to 2 Chronicles chapter 30, and as you are able, stand in honor of the declaration of the Word of the Lord as I read the first 12 verses of that chapter:
1 Then Hezekiah sent word throughout all Israel and Judah, and he also wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh to come to the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem to observe the Passover of the Lord, the God of Israel. 2 For the king and his officials and the entire congregation in Jerusalem decided to observe the Passover of the Lord in the second month, 3 because they were not able to observe it at the appropriate time. Not enough of the priests had consecrated themselves, and the people hadn’t been gathered together in Jerusalem. 4 The proposal pleased the king and the congregation, 5 so they affirmed the proposal and spread the message throughout all Israel, from Beer-sheba to Dan, to come to observe the Passover of the Lord, the God of Israel in Jerusalem, for they hadn’t observed it often, as prescribed. 6 So the couriers went throughout Israel and Judah with letters from the hand of the king and his officials, and according to the king’s command, saying, “Israelites, return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel so that he may return to those of you who remain, who have escaped the grasp of the kings of Assyria. 7 Don’t be like your ancestors and your brothers who were unfaithful to the Lord, the God of their ancestors so that he made them an object of horror as you yourselves see. 8 Don’t become obstinate now like your ancestors did. Give your allegiance to the Lord, and come to his sanctuary that he has consecrated forever. Serve the Lord your God so that he may turn his burning anger away from you, 9 for when you return to the Lord, your brothers and your sons will receive mercy in the presence of their captors and will return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful; he will not turn his face away from you if you return to him.” 10 The couriers traveled from city to city in the land of Ephraim and Manasseh as far as Zebulun, but the inhabitants laughed at them and mocked them. 11 But some from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. 12 Also, the power of God was at work in Judah to unite them to carry out the command of the king and his officials by the word of the Lord.
PRAYER
I’m sure you’ve noticed that this morning, my message is titled “Being Called In To Supper.”
As I was reflecting on setting aside this Sunday to just focus on the Supper, I was reminded of when I was a kid and how different times feel now compared to then. Of course, I can’t help but mentally compare my life as an adult with my life as a child, and my perspectives as a boy weren’t adult perspectives. But I really had a good time as a kid. Even as young as six years old, I had lots of friends in the neighborhood, and in my memory, especially over the summer, I basically got to roam fairly free all day. But I almost always had to be home for supper.
And that’s the funny thing: thinking back, I remember LOTS of suppers around the table in our house in Wisconsin, and around the table in our house in Silver City (that one was a picnic table because our family was so big). If I was out roaming free, how did I know when it was time to go home for supper? I’m guessing many of you had the same rule: When did you have to be home for supper? The fall of darkness, when the street lights came on. I asked my mom about this, and she confirmed that was the case. And if I needed to be home earlier for some reason, she’d call around to my friends’ moms and have them send me home. If I was out in the yard (we had good yards for playing in in both places), she’d just open the door and call me in, and I’d come running.
And when I think about that, I feel blessed. Being called in to supper wasn’t a hardship. It was a joy. I had been away (to be fair: maybe only for a few hours), and I was called to come back so that I could be refreshed, renewed, and to have my connection to my family restored and deepened.
And this is some of what we see in our focal passage this morning. Granted, the Passover is not the Lord’s Supper, but the first Lord’s Supper was the Passover, and so the Passover was a picture of what the Messiah would do. It was an intentional time where the entire nation of Israel would come together to remember what God had done in delivering them from slavery in Egypt. And it was supposed to be an ongoing, permanent celebration of remembrance for them:
14 “This day is to be a memorial for you, and you must celebrate it as a festival to the Lord. You are to celebrate it throughout your generations as a permanent statute.
But a couple of hundred of years before our focal passage this morning, the people of God had split into two nations: the Southern Kingdom (called “Judah,” which was only Judah and Benjamin), and the Northern Kingdom (called “Israel,” because it was made up of the other ten tribes). And when that happened, the first king of Israel, Jeroboam I, intentionally shifted both the Northern Kingdom’s religious practice and calendar away from the commands of God in the Scriptures. He built his own altars in the north, and also pushed the date of all of their religious festivals later by a month (1 Kings 12:32). The people of God no longer kept the festivals that God had commanded them to keep as one people.
The events recorded in 2 Chronicles 30 likely took place in about 715 BC, the year Hezekiah became sole king over Judah. About seven years earlier, in 722 BC, the King Shalmeneser V of Assyria had invaded Israel and had captured its capital of Samaria, and his successor Sargon II destroyed it and deported most of the Northern Kingdom Jews to various places in the Assyrian empire in about 720 BC. So the people of Israel were dejected, defeated, and isolated when Hezekiah became king. The dark of night had settled on them.
And what Hezekiah and the people of Judah decided to do was to turn on the streetlights, so to speak—to call those children of Israel in for supper. And in a way, the Lord’s Supper is the same type of invitation to the distant, the wayward, and the estranged.
1: An invitation to restoration (1-5)
1: An invitation to restoration (1-5)
When my mom would call me in for supper, it was more than an invitation to come and eat—it was an invitation to be restored—restored to my home and family, restored to relationship, and to shared experience based on our common family history. Similarly, Hezekiah’s invitation to the Northern Kingdom’s remaining people was more than just an invitation for them to come and have a particular meal together—it was a call for them to come and be restored to their covenant with their brothers, and to their covenant with the Lord. We see this in verses 1-5 of our focal passage, which I’m not going to re-read for the sake of time this morning.
The people of Israel had been distant from Judah for a long time. Sure, they had some times when they worked together militarily, but on the whole, they were at odds from the time of Jeroboam’s reign to Israel’s fall. Not only that, but they had intentionally been moved away from the clear commands in God’s Word through Jeroboam’s paranoia and the constant failure of every one of the kings that came after him. They weren’t just far away from Judah—they were far away from God Himself as well.
The Passover was, in a way, the inaugural celebration of the Jews freedom from slavery. It was the night of the very first Passover that God “passed over” the homes of the Israelites that were marked with the blood of the sacrificial lamb, and struck down the firstborn of all of Egypt. The ongoing Passover was meant to remind them of the power and love of God that were so great as to set an entire people free from what was perhaps the most powerful nation on the planet at that point. The corporate method of the practice of the Passover was supposed to remind all of Israel of their shared history, and their commonality as the people of God. But after Solomon’s son Rehoboam had failed to maintain the unity of the nation, this practice ended.
So this invitation to return to the Passover was for both: be restored to your people; and be restored to your God. And Hezekiah sent it out to all of Israel, both Southern and Northern Kingdoms, through the mention of two of the geographic extremes of united Israel: Beer-sheba being very south, and Dan being very far north. His invitation was for all of the Jews to come to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. He was truly trying to restore the nation to covenant worship and to fellowship as God’s people.
But why had they needed to delay celebrating the Passover? It was because the first thing that Hezekiah did when he ascended to the sole ownership of the throne (recorded in chapter 29) was to restore and cleanse the temple. So by the time of the Passover, the 14th of the first month, not enough priests were consecrated to be able to lead the Passover when it was supposed to be done, and the people had not gathered by the appointed time. The Law allowed individuals to delay the Passover by a month for uncleanness and for travel:
9 Then the Lord spoke to Moses: 10 “Tell the Israelites: When any one of you or your descendants is unclean because of a corpse or is on a distant journey, he may still observe the Passover to the Lord. 11 Such people are to observe it in the second month, on the fourteenth day at twilight. They are to eat the animal with unleavened bread and bitter herbs;
Hezekiah simply applied this rule to the whole nation: who had been distant from the Lord and from one another, and who were certainly unclean. He sent the invitation to restoration out to those who were far away, and those who were near.
In Ephesians 2, we see that God’s invitation to restoration goes out to a broader audience: it goes out not to a divided kingdom of Jews, but to a divided world—to Jew and Gentile alike, who Paul refers to as near, and far, respectively:
17 He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household,
Jesus not only brings peace between us and God when we trust in Him, but peace between us as we look to His restorative work in our hearts and lives. He invites us to believe the Gospel today. If you’ve never believed in Christ, He calls you faith in Jesus as Savior: that He died for your sins so that you could be forgiven, and as Lord: that He rose again proving that He is God, so that you can have eternal life if you are His.
But He invites Christians to believe the Gospel as well: that He not only has saved us, but that He is continuing to save us—that we need the Gospel every bit as much today as we did on the day we believed—because we still sin and still need His grace, and sometimes we need to be restored to relationship with one another, which is only going to happen through His work in the power of His Spirit.
The Supper is a picture of this work of restoration, as we remember the flesh and blood of our Savior who laid down His life so that we could be restored to right relationships with God and with each other. It is only for those who have been restored to a right relationship with God through faith in Christ, just as the Passover was only for those who would come and participate in the restored temple worship in Jerusalem.
Hezekiah’s missive was also an invitation to the wayward to return:
2: An invitation to return (6-9)
2: An invitation to return (6-9)
When I was a kid, I don’t remember any times of actually running away. I can’t imagine what it would be like for my child to run away. But that’s exactly what the Northern Kingdom of Israel had done to God: they had run away. And because of their sin and apostasy, the Lord had had to bring correction in the form of the Assyrian invasion, according to 2 Kings 17:18-23. In verses 6-9 of our focal passage, we actually get to see at least some of the text of Hezekiah’s invitation:
6 So the couriers went throughout Israel and Judah with letters from the hand of the king and his officials, and according to the king’s command, saying, “Israelites, return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel so that he may return to those of you who remain, who have escaped the grasp of the kings of Assyria. 7 Don’t be like your ancestors and your brothers who were unfaithful to the Lord, the God of their ancestors so that he made them an object of horror as you yourselves see. 8 Don’t become obstinate now like your ancestors did. Give your allegiance to the Lord, and come to his sanctuary that he has consecrated forever. Serve the Lord your God so that he may turn his burning anger away from you, 9 for when you return to the Lord, your brothers and your sons will receive mercy in the presence of their captors and will return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful; he will not turn his face away from you if you return to him.”
The language here is strong: Hezekiah calls the people of Israel to reject the foolishness and sin of their ancestors, and to return to worshiping the Lord in the way that they should have. It’s language that hearkens back to what had brought about the collapse of the Northern Kingdom, and called those who remained to return to allegiance to God, and to serving Him in faith.
The Northerners had been wayward for over 200 years. Spiritually speaking, they were far from the Lord for that entire time. But still God had pursued them, because they had not been without warning. The prophet Amos records God’s disciplinary actions against Israel in order to get them to return (Amos 4), and called them to repent of their waywardness in Amos 5:14-15. And the prophet Hosea had called the Northern Kingdom to return to God just before their destruction and exile:
1 Israel, return to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity. 2 Take words of repentance with you and return to the Lord. Say to him, “Forgive all our iniquity and accept what is good, so that we may repay you with praise from our lips.
After even Judah fell because of their later sin, and when they came back from Babylon, the prophet Zechariah recalled the warnings that had gone unheeded, perhaps even intentionally using some of the language of Hezekiah’s invitation:
3 So tell the people, ‘This is what the Lord of Armies says: Return to me—this is the declaration of the Lord of Armies—and I will return to you, says the Lord of Armies. 4 Do not be like your ancestors; the earlier prophets proclaimed to them: This is what the Lord of Armies says: Turn from your evil ways and your evil deeds. But they did not listen or pay attention to me—this is the Lord’s declaration.
In each of these passages, the word “return” is the same word in Hebrew, and the same word was used when Solomon dedicated the temple back in 2 Chronicles 7, when he spoke of the wayward people returning to God:
14 and my people, who bear my name, humble themselves, pray and seek my face, and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.
If we’re running away from God, the only way to be restored to God is to turn around—to repent. The words for “return” and “repent” are the same root, and almost exactly the same form in Hebrew. To return is to repent, and to repent is to return.
The Supper involves a call to return to the wayward people of God through repentance, in a way inviting them to do what James wrote in verse 8 of chapter 4 of his epistle:
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul gave instructions about the Supper, and he specifically called upon the church who would take it to examine ourselves properly beforehand, to see if there is any sin within us that we are treasuring that makes us unworthy to take the bread and the cup:
27 So, then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself; in this way let him eat the bread and drink from the cup.
So we have to ask ourselves honestly before we take the Supper: Have I been running away from the Lord, and He is calling me to return? Do I come to the table of the Lord this morning with unclean hands and with an impure heart, because I am double-minded in my devotion to Him? Am I treasuring any sin right now that I need to repent of—such as bitterness, anger, strife, factiousness, pride, lust, or arrogance?
Return to the Lord even right now where you sit. Repent of your sin, confessing it to God and agreeing with Him that it is, in fact, sin. Stop running away from Him and respond to His call to come to the Supper.
There’s one more aspect of this invitation for us to see here in this passage:
3: An invitation to reconciliation (10-12)
3: An invitation to reconciliation (10-12)
One of the powerful aspects of sitting down together for a family supper is that it promotes reconciliation if people at the table are at odds with one another. Eating a meal together often provides the time and the context to have a dialogue that promotes unity. And reconciliation between the Jews of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms was at least a part of the invitation that Hezekiah sent, because it was part of what happened as a result, by God’s power:
10 The couriers traveled from city to city in the land of Ephraim and Manasseh as far as Zebulun, but the inhabitants laughed at them and mocked them. 11 But some from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. 12 Also, the power of God was at work in Judah to unite them to carry out the command of the king and his officials by the word of the Lord.
Again, the ten tribes of Israel were estranged from the tribes of Benjamin and Judah. Some of the people in the north (represented collectively by Ephraim and Manasseh), rejected the invitation to come and be reconciled. They persisted in their sin, and 2 Kings 17:24-41 records the long-lasting outcome of that persistence.
But some of them—actually people from a total of five of the Northern tribes as we will see—responded with what is necessary for reconciliation to take place.
Responding to the invitation to reconciliation always involves humility—because we have to admit that we need to be reconciled. Often, what this means is taking a step back from the attitudes and prejudices that we hold, examining what’s going on in our hearts, and realizing that maybe, just maybe, the problem is us...not them.
Hezekiah’s invitation was to spark a revival of unity among God’s chosen people. Not unity in perspective, but unity around a Person. Likewise, we are to be unified around Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, because He transcends our personal preferences, our petty differences, and our prideful complaints about others in the church.
The Supper gives us an opportunity to see ourselves rightly as one body, the body of Christ, in unity. Paul wrote about this in 1 Corinthians 10:
16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, since all of us share the one bread.
What unites us is WAY more important than any of the things that might divide us, church. So we need to make sure that our focus is in the right place, on the right Person, with the right purpose: unity.
There’s one last little thing that I want us to see in 2 Chronicles 30—something that isn’t in our focal passage, but gives us a really good picture of Christ in this narrative:
4: An Intercessor reflected (18-20)
4: An Intercessor reflected (18-20)
I’m going to leave behind the called in to supper illustration for a moment, just so we can see the beauty of the crimson thread pointing to Jesus that runs through the whole Old Testament. In verses 18-20 of this chapter, we read that the tribes that returned, since they hadn’t celebrated the Passover correctly in their lifetimes or in the lifetimes of their parents or grandparents, took the Passover in an unclean manner according to the Law of Moses.
18 A large number of the people—many from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun—were ritually unclean, yet they had eaten the Passover contrary to what was written. But Hezekiah had interceded for them, saying, “May the good Lord provide atonement on behalf of 19 whoever sets his whole heart on seeking God, the Lord, the God of his ancestors, even though not according to the purification rules of the sanctuary.” 20 So the Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people.
Hezekiah steps into the gap for these people, asking God to overlook the sin that they committed in their ignorant experience, looking instead at their sincere hearts of seeking the Lord. They didn’t know what they were doing. Hezekiah asks the Lord to provide atonement for them based upon their hearts, rather than upon their actions, in this case. And the Lord heard Hezekiah’s request and brought healing, echoing again back to what Solomon said in 2 Chronicles 7:14.
But here in Hezekiah’s intercession, we can also see a reflection of Christ Himself, interceding for those who were committing a much graver sin in their ignorance—the crucifixion of the Son of God, the Messiah:
34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided his clothes and cast lots.
But unlike Hezekiah, Jesus continues to intercede for us even now in the presence of the Father, because He is alive eternally and has taken His seat at the Father’s right hand:
25 Therefore, he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them.
It is only through Him that we are saved, through Him that we are restored, through Him that we return, through Him that we are reconciled, because He lives to intercede for us.
It’s a wonderful thing to be able to see the way that God has woven the thread of the cross throughout the tapestry of the Scriptures.
Closing
Closing
And that thread connects us to the practice of the Lord’s Supper that we are taking this morning. The Supper commemorates the crucifixion and death of Christ, reminding us together that Jesus gave His body and shed His blood on the cross, taking the death that we deserve, so that we could be forgiven because the price has been paid.
And we are collectively called in to the Supper this morning: called to be restored to Christ through the Gospel if we’re distant, called to return to Christ if we are wayward, and called to be reconciled to each other if we are estranged.
And if you have never before believed the Gospel, then I ask: why not? What’s holding you back from it? You’ve heard this morning that Jesus took your place in death, so that you could have His eternal life through His victory over the grave. Will you surrender to Him as Savior and Lord?
Repentance: Returning to God.
Baptism
Church membership
Giving
PRAYER
Observance of the Lord’s Supper
Observance of the Lord’s Supper
I’d like to invite our deacons to come down and prepare to serve the Lord’s Supper to our church family.
As they come, I’d like to reiterate both a welcome and a warning. The welcome is that we’re here together in this room (and online for those who could not be here this morning, but are participating), and it’s such a joy to be able to take the Supper together. Look around you for just a moment and welcome each other to the family table.
The warning is that if you do not belong to God through believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, please do not take the Supper. Since this is a time of memorial of and identification with the Gospel, if you do not believe, you should not participate. This is to safeguard the sanctity of the ordinance and for your protection as well, according to Scripture. We love you, and we’re glad that you’re here. We pray that witnessing this ordinance will be a blessing to you and open your heart to ask questions or to want to find out more about following Christ.
I actually kind of have a fifth little “bonus point” for my sermon to share here: An inexpressible rejoicing. In 2 Chronicles 20, in verses 21-27 (so the rest of the chapter), the people celebrated the Passover, and then the prescribed Feast of Unleavened Bread, which should have taken a week. But they were having such a great time together and with God that they decided to celebrate for two weeks. I’d like us to take two minutes and just greet one another, and spend a moment in fellowship. Perhaps ask for forgiveness of someone if you need to do so. Meet someone you don’t know and welcome them, and if someone comes and greets you and you’ve been here a long time, don’t take offense: it might be the first time you’ve met, given that there are hundreds of people here!
Let the fellowship and celebration go for two minutes.
Ask Jeff and Aaron to come and distribute the bread to the deacons.
Mark 14 records that Jesus took the bread, blessed it, broke, it, and gave it to His disciples.
Have Joe give thanks for the bread and ask the Lord to bless it.
Deacons distribute the bread.
Mark 14:22 says that Jesus told His disciples, “Take it; this is my body.”
Have Jeff and Aaron come and distribute the cup to the deacons.
Mark also recorded that Jesus gave thanks and gave the cup to His disciples.
Ask Tony to give thanks for the cup and ask the Lord to bless it.
Deacons distribute the cup.
Mark 14:24 says that Jesus said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.”
Thank you, deacons, for serving our church family this morning. We all appreciate your faithfulness. And thank you, Donna, for playing during the Supper.
As the deacons return to their seats, I’d like us to celebrate the Lord’s goodness to us this morning. Inexpressible rejoicing comes from 1 Peter 1:8-9:
8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Let’s take just a moment to rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy!
I have just a couple of closing words:
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Neighboring Moments
I volunteered with the Roadrunner Food Bank to help distribute food to some of our neighbors in need.
Picked up piles of pine needles that my neighbor had not gotten around to bagging yet, bagged them and took them to the curb so they wouldn't miss green waste pickup day.
Bible reading (Num 26, Ps 69, Isa 16, 1 Pet 4)
No Pastor’s Study tonight (Business Meeting)
Wednesday dinner this week is the second-to-last one until the fall!
Prayer Meeting this week
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were like sheep going astray, but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
