Ebenezer Service

Introduce myself

Reference what this service is - service of thanks. Some call it an “Ebenezer Service” - which I like better and I just want to spend a few minutes setting the stage for what we’re about to do.

We just sang a song called, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” and the second stanza begins:

“Here I raise my Ebenezer… here now by thy help I’ve come

And I hope, by thy good pleasure… safely to arrive at home.”

And every time we sing this song in church, I think of… Ebenezer Scrooge. Don’t laugh because you do too!

But that’s not what it means - Ebenezer is a Hebrew word that doesn’t have a translation in English - so all we can do is take the Hebrew letters and sounds and transliterate them - or try to spell the word out in English. But it doesn’t actually mean anything. In the original Hebrew, though, it had a lot of meaning.

It only shows up a few times in the Bible and all but once it shows up in reference to a town that was called Ebenezer. But in 1 Samuel 7:12, right after God brings the most sacred religious artifact back to Israel - the ark of the covenant - and defeats the Philistines who had stolen it (as Justin would say - sermon for another time) right after things seemed hopeless for Israel God showed up. And 1 Samuel 7:12 tells us that the Prophet Samuel

1 Samuel 7:12 ESV

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the Lord has helped us.”

He called the stone “Ebenezer.” It’s a compound word from Eben which means stone and Ezer which means Help - you might recognize this as the same word from Genesis 2 when God saw that Adam was alone and decided to create a companion - a helper - an Ezer, named Eve. So literally - it’s the stone of help.

Now the stone itself actually did nothing to deliver them from the Philistines or bring the ark of the covenant back to Israel - it had no power in and of itself to help - it was just a stone… a token… a symbol that they could later look back on and remember the Lord’s helping hand in their lives.

See - there’s a lesson here for us in the concept of the Ebenezer - generous people, people who sacrifice for others, people who … then we need to first and foremost be grateful people. Thankful people. We need to have an attitude of gratitude. But you can’t be grateful for something that you’ve forgotten about. You can’t be grateful if you don’t remember.

And so as we think about and get ready to raise our own little Ebenezer this morning - that we do think of Ebenezer Scrooge. Because remember his story - his stiff-necked, stubborn and stingy heart was transformed when he was able to remember the help he had received. His name is very fitting for the story he’s at the center of.

That’s why we do this service today. Because we, like Scrooge, tend to forget how we come to God in the first place. We tend to forget how we may one day safely arrive at our heavenly home. We tend towards cynicism and pessimism about people… and about God’s redeeming work in this world. We more easily remember the ways the Lord has disappointed us than delivered us.

We need to remember. We need an ebenezer to look at and remember his work in our lives.

Lord’s Supper:

If you grew up in the church, maybe you grew up in one like me - where each time we came to communion, I felt like I was re-crucifying Jesus all over again for the sins that I had committed that week. But here this friends Jesus is crucifixion 2000 years ago was the only time the one and only time that Jesus ever had to die for your since it was a once and for all act of Jesus that completely covers everything you ever have done and everything you ever will do. The only thing you bring to this meal is your faith, your belief, your trust in Christ. Some of us need to be reminded of that truth this AM.

In my church, we had to remember what we had done - our sins, our transgressions, our failures, our faithlessness. That would make us worthy to come to the Lord supper.

But that isn’t the kind of remembering that Jesus calls us to when he instituted the Lord’s supper listen to what he said in Luke 22:19-20

Luke 22:19–20 ESV

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

“do this” WHAT? “in REMEMBERANCE of me!” Not in remembrance of you… or the week you had… or the great things you did that you think make you worthy… or the sins you committed that make you unworthy.

The Supper has nothing to do with you! it has everything to do with Jesus and his perfect life, his unjust punishment, his faithfulness and his devotion to God on your behalf. That’s what we need to remember. This is our weekly Ebenezer.

In fact, I would challenge you, if you want to see change in your life - maybe it’s more gratitude… maybe it’s generosity… maybe it’s prayer… or truly putting away a sin in your life - if you’re a follower of Jesus - to focus not on any of those things… but on remembering Christ - to make weekly worship and the Lord’s Supper a priority - do it for the next 2 months straight, don’t miss a week, and see what how the Lord shows up.

If you’re not a Christian, pray that God would reveal himself to you. Commit the next 2 months to at least exploring who Jesus is - with us at Redeemer as we start to make our way through the book of Mark. If he’s not real, it isn’t going to hurt. But if he is, it just might change your life.