The Life of Christ: His Last Supper

Now we’ve come to the time in our worship service where we prepare ourselves to take communion. And since we have been walking through the gospel of Matthew, we have come to the portion of the book of Matthew called the “Lord’s Supper.” So, I thought today, we could extend our sermon and make the sermon one long extended communion reflection as we meditate together on what God has for us. Now, like many of you I am sure, I grew up in a church where we did not take the Lord’s Supper every week. It was a monthly celebration in my church growing up, and even in some churches I know it is a quarterly celebration. Some churches don’t celebrate the Lord’s Supper at all. There are many many churches like that. And so communion has really lost any sense of importance in a lot of churches, and it really has lost a lot of its distinctiveness and its importance. The problem with that is that communion is an incredibly important practice in the Bible. There are dozens and dozens of Bible verses that talk about communion. Whereas so many churches have relegated communion to the backseat, in the Bible, communion is one of the most important things that the church does together. In fact, communion is so important that many atheists, such as Richard Dawkins at the Rally for Reason in 2008, will say, “We can’t be Christians because of communion.” Even though they think it is repugnant, they see that it is so important to the Christian faith that it is the reason they can’t be Christians. Since the beginning, Christians have been a communing people because it is so intricately tied up wiht our faith.

In fact, when we take communion, we commune with Christ through his work. When we take communion, we commune with Christ through his work. When we take communion, when we take the Lord’s Supper Together, when we partake of the bread and wine, we are communing with Christ through his work, with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and with his work, with the gospel, with his death and resurrection. When we take communion, we are communing with Christ through his work. So, what I want to do today is just walk through that statement. So first we’re going to talk about “When we take communion we commune”, then we’ll talk about this phrase “with Christ,” then we’ll talk about this statement, “with his work.” When we take communion, we commune with Christ through his work.

When we take the Lord’s Supper, we commune

Communion is for Christ’s disciples: Now, the first point might be seem obvious, but it is very important. Jesus from the beginning designated that he wanted to take communion with his disciples. Look at vs. 18, Jesus says, “I will keep the passover at your house with my disciples.” Later on, in vs. 20, Jesus says he reclined at table with the 12. Later on, Jesus tells the disciples, “Drink of it, “all of you.”” Jesus wanted every single person who was a believer in him to take of communion. It was his gift of the whole church.

Of Both kinds: Now, I have to make a note about church history here because it is our heritage. Part of the reason that the Protestant Reformation happened was because of a defective practice of communion. You see, in the Middle Ages, it became common practice only to give the bread to the masses, if they got anything at all, and only to give full communion to the monks and the priests. And that is in direct contradiction to what Jesus says here. He wants every disciple to take it. So, when the Reformation came, they started administering communion to every single believer. Because this is Jesus’ gift for every believer.

I will keep the passover at your house with my disciples.”

Open Communion: Which is why we as a church practice what is known as open communion. And open communion simply means that if you have called Jesus Christ Lord, if he is your Lord and Savior, if you have put your faith in him as your only way to see God, then this is for you. Communion is for all those who consider themselves to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Judas

Judas: BUt you will notice here the presence of another person. IN fact, it is here that Jesus tells the disciples that he will be betrayed. And all the disciples say, “is it I, Lord.” But Judas says, “Is it I, Rabbi?” Why does Judas say it is “I Rabbi”? Well, Matthew is trying to draw out this distinction for us. All the other disciples address Jesus as Lord, Judas addresses him as “Rabbi.” Matthew is trying to make the point that Judas was among them, but was not “of them.” He was not a true disciple. Rather, at communion, even though the other disciples could not understand it, he was exposed.

At communion, true disciples are sorted from false: You see, this funny thing happens at communion, it distinguishes between those who are disciples of Christ and those who are not. It distinguishes between believers and unbelievers. It distinguishes between Christians and nonChristians. In fact, the Lord’s supper even distinguishes between repentant Christians and Christians who are hiding sin in their heart. This is why Paul, later in his book of says… This is why at our church sometimes we will say something along the lines of, “If you are a believer in Christ this is for you. If you are not it’s not that we don’t love you or don’t want you here. We do. We want to be a place where people feel free to ask questions and voice their doubts and come to see if this whole thing is real. But it is because this thing is real that we say, This is for Christians. Because we believe Paul was deadly serious when he said this. Communion is a sacred meal for those who know, love, and follow Jesus Christ.”

The posture of those who believe: But notice here the disciples in contrast with Judas. The other disciples are pictured as slightly naive, but totally trusting. Jesus says, “go into the town,” Jesus says, “One of you will betray me,” Jesus says, “take and eat.” And what do they do? They believe him. They trust him. This is what faith looks like. it’s not that they understand all the ramifications of what is happening. It’s that they love Jesus enough to take him at his word. They take communion as an act of trust and of faith. In Communion, we are believing in God’s promises to us. We are sayig, “I believe this to be true” every time we take the Lord’s Supper. Every time we take the communion bread, we say, “I trust that this is true.” THe posture of the disciples is a posture where they trust in him wholeheartedly to be and do what he says he is and do what he says he will do.

Are you a true disciple? So let me ask you here as we prepare to take communion today, does this describe you? Are you a true disciple? Does Christ’s blood cover your sins? Have you put your faith in him? Are you like Judas, along for the ride, but not a true disciple? Or is this faith yours? Is yoru faith genuine? Is it true? Is this faith yours? If it is, this communion is for you.

The Communion of Saints: But you will notice here how communion functions as kind of a “family gathering” for the disciples. It’s a place where the disciples are all united. in fact, they laugh, they eat, and they sing in this short story. You know at family holidays, your whole family comes together to argue, and celebrate, and sometimes to cry? That’s what communion is for. It’s a time for us to come together as a church family, to, as Paul says in the passage, to consider ourselves and confess our sins, to ask God for forgiveness, and to celebrate what God has done. Communion is a really precious time to celebrate what God has done together as a church family.

We commune with Christ as his true disciples

With Christ

But communion is more than about us. Rather, the main focus in communion is not on us and what we do. Rather it is on Christ and what he does. That is why when we take communion, we commune with Christ. So let’s look at all the different ways that Christ is described in this passage.

The Teacher: First, you will notice that Christ describes himself as “teacher.” Look in vs. 18, it says, “the teacher says.” Jesus wants us to connect his role as “teacher” with the communion. And the reason that is important and the reason that that is emphasized is because communion is communion because Christ makes it so. IN other words, the words of jesus make communion communion. It is not on our authority that we celebrate communion. It is not on our authority that we believe these things about him. It is on his.

The Word of Communion: The elders and deacons at our church try to take this very seriously. We know that we don’t offer communion on our authority. Only he can. So what we try to do is every single time we offer communion to you, we try to make sure one of the different parts of Scripture are read, because we don’t do it on our own authority. Now, there are dozens of places in Scripture that reference communion, and we can’t read all of the scriptures on every Sunday, so when I’m training guys to offer communion, I try to say, “listen, pick just one of those passages, and try to pick just one of those themes, and talk about it for a few minutes.” WHy is that, we want this to be a meaningful time wher eyou meditate not on what we have to say, but on what Christ has to say.

Son of Man: You will notice that CHrist is not only “teacher” here, but he is also teh “son of man.” in fact, he calls himself that two different times. Now, teh phrase “son of man” is a phrase that has a lot of meaning. It is taken from which says this.... Spo Jesus here designates the way that he was going to achieve his kingdom. He spells out how he is going to receive dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, and the service of all these peoples, and an everlasting dominion, and an indestructible kingdom. So Jesus is the promised Messiah of all mankind who will achieve the authority over all people.

Son of God

Following God’s Plan: Now, notice here how he does this.

Son of the Father: But, I think more important in his mind, is this final description of himself. The Son views himself as the “Son of the Father.” Look down in vs. 29. He says, “I Will drink it new with you in my father’s kingdom.” You see, Jesus is the teacher, he gives the true Word. ANd Jesus is the SOn of man. He is the promised Messiah for all mankind. But most importantly, Jesus is the Son of the Father. he loves teh Father, and he looks forward to teh day when he will be in teh Father’s kingdom. he will do the Father’s bidding. He will obey him and follow him.

We commune

through His Work

When we take communion, we commune with Christ, but we also commune with his work. You see, when we commune with Christ, he gives us all that he is. And at Passover, we celebrate Christ through his work. In fact, the work of Christ that we celebrate at communion goes from eternity past to eternity future as we will see.

God’s Plan and Man’s Responsibility:

Following God’s Plan: First, we see the Son of man is following what was written concerning him. This is so important in vs. 24. It was God’s plan that Christ would go the cross. It was God’s plan that Christ would die for sinners. It was God’s plan for our salvation. The cross was not an accident. It wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t a coincidence. No, the cross was God’s plan to save humanity. This is why describes Christ as “slain from the foundation of the world.” This is why says that Christ’s death was by the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.” Was Judas guilty of his sin? Yes. Was he responsible? Did he make the choice to betray Jesus. yes. But it was all in teh plan of God to provide salvation for the people of God.

Body and Blood of the covenant: One of the things that Jesus tells us about communion is that it is his body and blood of the covenant. The idea of a “covenant” was originally a ritual. And what you would do in the ancient world is that you would take a number of animals, and you would cut them from end to end and split them in two. And the two parties walk through the middle of these animals, and they say, “May this be done to me if I do not hold up my end of the deal.” And you see this with Abraham in . This is why the Hebrew word for “make a covenant” is literally to “cut” a covenant. When we “cut a covenant” we are splitting the animal from end to end and asking that this would be done to us if we do not hold up our end of hte deal. Sometimes, the blood of animals was sprinkled over the people who made the covenant to show them what would happen if they did not hold up their end of the covenant. THis is what happened in , when they ratified the covenant with God. But of course, we cannot hold up our end of the covenant. Which is why Jesus breaks the bread and has us drink the cup. It is to show that he will bear the punishment that we cannot. He will take the curse. He will spill the blood. His body is broken so we might be made whole. His blood is spilt so we might be renewed. At communion, we eat the bread to rmind us of Christ’s broken body. At communion, we drink the cup to remind us of Christ’s blood spilt for us.

Passover Lamb: Now, an important part of the old covenant was the Passover lamb. This is why repeatedly in this passage Jesus repeatedly draws the connection with this event and with the Passover. You see, in the book of Exodus, God sent these ten plagues on Egypt to make them let Israel go. ANd on the night of the tenth plague, God told every house to take a passover lamb, and to put its blood on their doorpost. And that night God sent an angel of death. And every house that did not have the blood, the angel slew the firstborn. But every house that had the blood, the angel passed over. And the people of Israel ate the lamb as their meal so that they might the next day flee to the promised land. This is why it is called “Passover.” Well, Jesus is the better passover lamb. When his blood is put on us, the wrath of God passes over us. When we take communion together, we are putting the blood over our doorpost as it were, eating that feverish meal so that we might escape the wrath and come to the promised land.

Forgiveness of Sins: And all this was done so we might be forgiven. Without the blood,there is no mercy. Without the lamb, there is no forgiveness. Without the sacrifice, there is no salvation. But Jesus died so that we might be forgiven. THere is forgiveness in teh blood, mercy in the blood, salvation in teh blood. At communion, we celebrate what Christ purchased for us. He was slain so we might live. He was betrayed so we might be saved. He was put to death so we might have life.

Forgiveness of Sins

Bringing us into the Father’s Kingdom: But in communion, we also look forward to the day, when we will be in teh Father’s kingdom. Where teh Son will take us by the hand and take us into God’s throneroom and we will worship him forever. There we will see teh Son of man for all that he was meant to be. And we will see the son of God for all that he is. We will be in God’s kingdom with no more sickness, no more pain, no more hurt, and no more death. We will be with the SOn in the presence of the Father and death will be no more.

The Disciples

The Kingdom of God

SHCC statement of faith: You can tell by this that we care a great deal about communion. Communion is the churhc’s proclamatino fo the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is what our Church’s statement about communion says.

What is Communion? Holy Communion is Christ’s institution of bread and wine for the church to proclaim the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the church’s growth into Christ’s likeness. (; )

When we take communion, we commune with Christ through his work. At the Lord’s Supper, we are meeting wtih Christ and saying, with the saints in ...

Communion Today

Receiving this reality: when you and I take communion, we are proclaiming this. We are receiving this. We are saying, he was broken for me. His blood was spileld for me. He is my passover lamb. We will be with him for eternity praising his name.

Are you a true disciple? So let me ask you here today, as we gather. Are you a true disciple?

Renewed in this identity: But we are also ren ewing our identity. We are celebrating this, and we are becoming centered on teh cross. As we meditate on the forgiveness of the cross, we forgive others. When we consider that Christ gave all so we might live, we decide to die that he might be glory in him.

At Communion we receive what God has done for us

We walk out of our communion as people with a renewed identity

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