Hope Church LV Sermons
The Lord's Supper 8.22.10
I want to ask you a question as we begin this morning, and I don't want you to answer out loud. I want you to think about your answer. And when I ask the question, you're going to say, "Oh, that's a simple question. That's an easy answer." But I want you to think about it. And the question is simply this, "What is a church?" It's a word that we use in our vocabulary. It's a word that probably you use this morning. The word "church." When we use that word, often what we're referring to is a building. You ever said, "Okay, hey, we're going to drive over to the church." Right? And when we say that, what we're really talking about is we're going to go over to a building, a facility, a campus. When we talk about it, hope that we are in the process of developing a new campus. Sometimes we say, "Hey, we're building a new church." We use the word "church" to refer to a building. The church is more than a building, right? I mean, we're glad that it's more than a building of hope, amen? Because we don't have one. If church was a building, we're in real trouble. We don't have a building. We've been in eight locations in eight and a half years. We know what it is to move around a little bit. So church is more than a building. Sometimes we use the word "church" to refer to an organization. You hear somebody say, "Well, I think the church should do something. I think the church ought to help this family." And what's even more funny is when somebody who's in the church comes up and says, "Pastor, I don't know why the church isn't doing something." And they're referring to the church as an organization, that there's this corporate entity that's supposed to be doing something about this situation or getting involved in this situation. But the church, like we've said, is more than a building. The church is more than an organization. What is a church? At Hope we have kind of developed a definition for what we believe the church to be. And we've given it to you before, but I want you to look at this definition on the screen again. A church is a community, a community of Jesus followers who gather to worship the person of Christ, connect as the body of Christ, and together share in the mission of Christ. That is a church. Read that out loud with me. A community of Jesus followers who gather to worship the person of Christ, connect as the body of Christ, and together share in the mission of Christ. That's what a church is. It's not a building. It's not an organization. It's a community. And as we read that definition, there are a couple of things that should jump out at us. And first of all, what I mean by that is, as we read that definition, we come to understand that the church is all about Jesus, right? I mean, you can't read that definition without hearing the name Jesus. It's a community of Jesus followers who gather to worship Jesus and connect to be the body of Jesus and share in the mission of who, Jesus, right? The church is all about Jesus, and that's important from the very beginning because what that means is the church isn't all about me. In the Western world, particularly here in America, we've created a mentality in church that says, "It's all about me. I come to church to see what I'm going to get out of it, and to even measure that when you leave. Sometimes you get in the car and say, "Well, what'd you get out of it today?" We come with a measuring stick of, "What does it do for me? What does church give me? Does it meet the style and expectations and preferences that I have? Did it do everything that I wanted it to do for me?" But at its core, the church is not about me. The church is about Jesus Christ. It exists for Him and His glory. We come together to worship the person of Jesus Christ. Hey, when we gather together in the weekends, we come together to worship who? Come on, Jesus, right. If you're in church and somebody asks you to answer a question out loud and you're not real sure of the answer, a good guess is always what? Jesus, you're going to get it right most of the time, and if you're wrong, they can't really say you're wrong, right? I mean, who can say Jesus is the wrong answer? I mean, that's just got to be half right no matter what you answer it to, right? The answer is Jesus, we come together to worship Jesus. Let me tell you how we get that wrong sometimes. Sometimes we come in here and we think that these people up on stage have been preparing all week and they've been getting ready to come in and they're here performing for the group that's sitting out here, but that's not what's happening here at all. Yes, this group up here, they've been preparing and they've been seeking God all week long, but not to perform for this group out here. Do you know what this group's doing? This group are prompters who've been preparing and seeking God all week to prompt the group that's sitting out here, and let me tell you where the real audience is. The real audience is not out here. I got bad news for you this morning. You're actually sitting on the stage. The real audience is an audience of one. It's the person of Jesus Christ as we come together. This group's job is to help usher all of us into the very presence of God and we are worshiping Jesus Christ. That's what the church is, it's a community that worships Jesus, that connects as the body of Christ, as we get together in small groups and in fellowship, we minister to one another and we serve one another and we encourage one another as we live the body of Christ, as Christ lives his life through us and together we're sharing in the mission of Christ. And when I say that, I don't just mean that as the organization, the organization of hope is out there doing the mission. No, when we say to our churches sharing in the mission, who I'm talking about? You and me, the community, we together are to carry out the mission of Christ of touching Las Vegas, the West and the world for the glory and honor of God. It's all about Jesus. Secondly, it's all about community. You can't read that definition, look at it again without seeing those words that speak to community, gather, we gather. That's what we're doing each weekend when we come in here, we're gathering. We're following the biblical admonition to gather for worship of God. We connect and the church is about connecting with each other's lives, building those relationships that allow God to speak into my life from your life and God to speak into your life out of my life. If all I'm doing is coming in on a weekend and gathering and kind of staying anonymous, I'm really missing out on what the church is supposed to be. The church is supposed to be a place of connection where we're building those relationships that lead to transformation in my life, and we're sharing. We're coming together to carry out the mission of Christ. The church is a community. It's all about Jesus. It's about celebrating and worshiping and sharing in Jesus in the context of community. At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus on the eve of His crucifixion sits down with what is the very beginning of the church. Everything that you and I know when we say church, everything that comes into our mind, all the experience that you've had in church is rooted and grounded and born in this little group that Jesus is sitting down with at the end of the Gospel of Matthew. It's the birth of the New Testament church as we know it. And the night before He's crucified, Jesus sits down with this little group of people and He introduces them to a very unique experience. As a matter of fact, it was an experience that until the events of the next day played out, they didn't really even understand everything that had happened. Turn in Matthew to chapter 26 and verse 26, and I want to read a passage of the description and then we're going to look at some truths out of it. At 26, 26, if you don't have a Bible, these words on the screen, listen to what it says, while they were eating, Jesus took some bread. And after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to His disciples and said, "Take, eat. This is my body." When you've taken a cup and given things, He gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you." For this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins. Remember, the crucifixion hadn't happened yet. It's happening tomorrow. They're sitting down having a meal, all of a sudden in the middle of the meal, Jesus breaks in and takes the bread and says, "Hey, this is my body." And they're kind of like, "Okay, where is this all going?" This cup is the blood of the covenant. They didn't have the perspective that we have today to look back on the cross and the crucifixion. They didn't have 2,000 years of studying the theology of salvation and atonement. There's 29, He said, "But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you and my Father's kingdom." After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Now you know what happened next, right, at the Mount of Olives. They went to the Garden of Gethsemane and the soldiers came and arrested Jesus and they through that night ran him through a series of mock trials, 11 of them, to show you the tragedy and the dishonesty of what they were doing to Jesus. All of these trials held in the middle of the night, not the normal way you would try somebody that was being found guilty of a crime. Gather everybody at 3 in the morning and run through this trial. By the next day, they crucified Jesus with two thieves, buried him after he died. On Sunday morning, he rose again from the dead. And I don't know if it happened Sunday night, Monday, Tuesday, the next Sunday. But at some moment, this little nucleus came back together. And can you imagine the emotion of the moment when somebody picked up the bread? Remember the last time it had happened, it was in Jesus' hands. And since that moment, what had played out was the crucifixion and resurrection. And now here they see it. I don't know who it fell to, probably Simon Peter, I don't know. But can you imagine how unworthy that person must have felt to be the one stepping into the function that Jesus had held? Can you imagine how now with crystal clarity they looked back? And when he made the statement, "This is my body." Can you imagine the emotion that was attached to this simple practice? I'm afraid that over time we've lost some of that significance. I'm afraid sometimes, and I'll be honest, I'm guilty of it myself. I see it on the calendar. Oh, here comes Lord Supper Week, we've done that before. Sometimes we come into the service, we sit down and we say, "Oh, there's the table down front again." I want you to try as best you can this morning to imagine what they felt that first time. Remember what it is to lose somebody you love, and then they have to go in and go through those things after that memorial service and work through the emotion of all that. That's what it must have felt like that day. I mean, they've gathered in that room, now understanding the full significance of what Jesus did, and somebody takes that breath. You see, Jesus gave us this practice to bring us back to the simplicity of devotion to Jesus in the context of community. That's what this is designed to do. To bring us back to the simplicity and purity of devotion to Jesus, right in the context of community, the church. This practice is at the very core of why we exist as a church. And Jesus wanted them with this practice to simply be reminded and understand three realities. Here's the first one. They had a sacrifice to remember. It's a great hymn writer named Isaac Watts, if you're a student of the hymns, you know the name. One of the hymns that Isaac Watts wrote that became very famous, the opening line went like this. And I survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but loss and poor contempt on all my pride. Did you hear that opening sentence? When I survey the wondrous cross, the word survey means to consider carefully. Let me ask you a question. When is the last time you surveyed the cross? Apparently it was the practice of Isaac Watts' life. He's writing in this song about those times in his life when he sits down to really contemplate to meditate on, to consider carefully the cross. Man, the cross is everything to who we are as followers of Jesus Christ without the cross. We're lost. Yet I'm afraid for many of us as followers of Jesus Christ, the cross and the crucifixion and the gospel is so much a part of our vernacular that we become so familiar with it that no longer does it stir us at our core when we think about the sacrifice of Jesus. You see, Jesus gave us this practice to survey so that we would come back and contemplate the great sacrifice. Jesus wanted his disciples to live close to the cross. Luke and Paul tell us something that Matthew does not. They add a phrase that Jesus shared with his disciples in that small ceremony. Look at it on the screen, Jesus said to them, "Do this in remembrance of me." He gave us a command, that little phrase, "Do this." It's an imperative in the Greek language, meaning it wasn't a suggestion. He said, "I want you as the community to practice this. This morning as we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we are following in 2,000 years of church history. For 2,000 years the community has been coming together in seasons and at times to celebrate the Lord's Supper." He says, "Do it to remember." The word "remembers," the word that simply means a memorial. You know what a memorial service is, right? Unfortunately, we have memorial services, they're a part of life. We have to deal with death and it seems like at hope this summer we've had more than our share of these memorial services that we've been a part of. But a memorial service is the opportunity to remember the life of the one who has passed and celebrate all that they live for. Jesus gave us this practice so that we would occasionally be brought back to the very core of the gospel and we would remember all that Jesus lived for, that he was God who became a man, lived a sinless life and offered his body on a cross as a sacrifice for our sins and that we would celebrate all that his life accomplished, the glorious forgiveness of our sin and the relationship that we've been given with God. Our security in heaven will him forever. All of those things are wrapped up in this simple practice. Jesus gave it to us to remember. Secondly, they had a story to share. They had a story to share. Not only a sacrifice to remember, but look at verse 28, verse 28, Jesus said, "For this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." It's a key word in that phrase, it is the word mini, it's a word that means multitudes of people. And when Jesus used that word, it was a reminder that this practice was not just about them. He said, "Man, as you take this cup, it's a symbol of the blood that is a sacrifice for many." He wanted to remind them, even in that moment, that it was bigger than just them. This whole scene that was about to play out was not just about them. Hey, when Jesus said mini, he was talking about you and me. John MacArthur said it this way, "That blood made atonement for the sins of all mankind, Gentile as well as Jew, who placed their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. The mini includes those who trusted God in Christ before Christ died, as well as those who have and will trust Him after His death." You see, every time we come and take the Lord's Supper together, we're reminded that we got a story to share. Hey, this gospel, it's not just for us to get in a holy huddle and worship God together and be encouraged and uplifted, but Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world. And we should be about the business of taking the message of the gospel two chapters later, in Matthew 28, Jesus would gather this same group together and say to Him, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." He would give them that commandment to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Listen, we've not been entrusted with a message of self-help, prosperity, or psychology. We have been entrusted with the life-changing message of the gospel. And if you are here today and you have never embraced the gospel, turn from your sin and trusted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross and received His life. Listen today, the gospel is powerful for you. At Hope, we crescendo what Paul said, when Paul said, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, or it is the power of God unto salvation." Listen, there is nothing else that can change your life but the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus died for your sins. Jesus didn't stay dead. He rose again from the dead. And when you and I recognize that we've sinned against the Holy God and we turn from our sin and embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ forgives us and gives us a relationship with God. We believe in the gospel. And I think one of the reasons Jesus gave us this practice is because He knew the tendency of humanity to drift. And every time we do this, let me tell you what we have to explain. Body and blood. What does that mean? Church doesn't like to talk about that in America today. It's not relevant some people say. Listen, nothing else is relevant but the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Nothing else has any significance without the atonement of Jesus Christ and what He accomplished for us. It's only through Jesus that we can have life. We have a story to share. So let me just ask you, when's the last time you told somebody the gospel? The many. Number three, we have a promise to celebrate. Promise to celebrate. Verse 29, he said, "But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day, when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." That day, Jesus says, "Hey, here's a practice. I want you to keep doing it, but if you need to know something, I'm not going to do it again with you till that day." Now I'm sure that raised a small question. What day is he talking about, right? He's talking about that day when all of time has come to an end, Jesus Christ returns. The writer of the book of Thessalonians describes it this way, "On that day the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God and the dead and Christ will rise first and we who alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and thus we will always be with thee, Lord. There's coming a day when time as we know it is coming to an end, an eternity as described in the Bible will begin the kingdom of God and eternity in His presence. New heaven and a new earth, and Jesus says, "Until then you'll have a supper in my honor." But He says, "Then you'll have a supper in my presence." No more memorial, no more just in His honor, but then it'll be in His presence. There was a day when Jesus took that bread. He was there with them. The Scripture tells us that one day He'll be there with us again physically and we will be with Him. Let me give you a closing thought before we take this supper. 1 Corinthians 11, 28, Paul is writing and he gives some prescription about the Lord's Supper and how the church should take it. Listen to what he says, "But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup." Let's examine himself. Paul says that every time we come to the Lord's table it's an opportunity for us to examine our heart. The word "examine" means to inspect closely, to test by questioning. It's an opportunity for us to ask some questions on the inside. What kind of questions? Well, remember what we said the church is all about and there was all about Jesus. The first set of questions needs to be Jesus. Is there anything that's not right in my relationship to you? It begins by asking the question, "Do I know Jesus?" Listen, if you're here today and you do not know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior today, you can receive Him into your life. You can surrender your life to Him and by faith embrace the gospel. Some people believe that you take this supper, you take these elements in order to somehow earn salvation or to earn grace or favor or merit with God. Listen to me. To put your faith in a practice instead of the person that this practice represents is an affront to the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. This is merely a picture. It's a symbol, it represents what Jesus did for us. The only way to know God is by receiving by faith what Christ has done on our behalf. But if you already know Him, then the question is, is there anything in your life that's a hindrance between your fellowship with Him? Any unconfessing, any area of disobedience, any area of rebellion that you need to right now, just go to God and say, "God, I need you to forgive me." Listen, before you come to the Lord's table, you need to deal with those things. Be honest with God. Come clean before God. But not only do we need to examine our relationship with Jesus, we also said the church is all about community. We need to examine our relationships with each other. It's an opportunity to ask some questions about our relationships with one another. When Paul was writing in 1 Corinthians 11, actually he was writing to a church, he tells us we won't take the time to go there, but in verse 18 of this same chapter, 1 Corinthians 11, he tells us that in this church, there were all kinds of divisions. The word divisions, the word that literally means to tear, and it's a picture of a church that was filled with torn relationships. This person got mad at this person, this person upset with this person, and I'm sure you've never been in church or you've seen anything like that, but that's where it was in 1 Corinthians. They were having that kind of deal in the church. Paul said, "Man, before you come to the Lord's table, deal with that stuff. And if you need to go to a brother's sister in Christ and make that right, you need to do that before you do this." He said, "Only after examining yourself do we take of the bread in the cup." John MacArthur said it this way, "True worship is not enhanced by better music, better prayers, better architecture, or even better preaching. True worship is enhanced by better relationships between those who come to worship." So what I want you to do right now is I want you to examine yourself. In just a moment, we're going to distribute these elements of the Lord's Supper, and each of us are going to have the opportunity to remember and to celebrate. But before we do that, I want you to examine your heart. So you just bow with me right there where you are. And God, we come before you right now, and we ask Lord that you would speak to us, that you would direct this time. And as you bow right there before the Lord this morning, the first question I want you to ask and answer is, "Do you know God personally? Do you know Him? Do you have a relationship with Him? If you don't have a relationship with God, listen right where you're sitting, right where you are, right now, I invite you to just cry out to Him and say, "God, I know that I'm a sinner. I know that I've sinned against you and God I know that I need you. Lord I repent of my sin. I turn to you and I ask you to forgive me of my sin, and God I believe in the gospel. I believe in Jesus." The second question I want you to ask, if you already know God is this, is there anything in my life right now that's not right with God? Any area right now you need to just do business with God and they're right there in your seat. And the third question is, "Is there anything between me and another brother, sister in Christ that needs to be made right?" So somebody in this room, maybe you need to go to even before we do this and say, "I need you to forgive me." As God speaks into your heart, you take these moments, you examine your heart, our ushers are going to come, we're going to begin in just a moment to prepare to distribute these elements as they come though. In just a moment the first thing that's going to happen while we're passing out the bread is on the screen, we're going to have a reading of the crucifixion account of Jesus Christ from the gospel of Mark. And as the words are read, I want you to think about and survey and wonder at the cross of Jesus Christ. God, would you use this time as we examine our hearts as we hear your word, speak to us God. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is the governor's headquarters, and they called together the whole battalion, and they cloaked him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, hail king of the Jews, and they were striking his head with the reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they let him out to crucify him. And they compelled a pastor by who was coming in from the country, Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. And they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull. And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him, and the inscription of the charge against him read, "The King of the Jews." And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, "Ha, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross." So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, "He saved others, he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe." Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, "L-O-I, L-O-I, La-Ma-Sebak-The-Nigh." Which means, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" Jesus says that when He had taken the bread, He blessed me, let's pray together. For Jesus, we understand from Your Word that this bread is a symbol of the humanity that You took on. Lord, we will never be able to wrap our minds around what it is, that eternal God took on human flesh. The one that had created the world entered the time and creation that You had made, and You became a man. Or not just any man, You became God-Man. You lived a sinless life, and You offered that body, a body that You had used by Your own choice to limit, to lay aside the privileges of being God. You never ceased being God. You just laid aside the privileges, and You chose to live as a human being. You took that very body, and You offered it as a sacrifice for our sins. Or the Word of God says, "We don't have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are yet without sin." Lord, thank You for the body, thank You for the incarnation. We praise You today, and we bless You. It's in the name of Jesus Christ, we pray, Amen. It reaches to the highest mountain, O yes it does, and it flows to the lowest valleys. In the name of love that gives me strength, from day to day, it will never lose its power. Aren't you thankful for that, Amen? The Word says it when He took the cup, He blessed it, let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we are so thankful for the blood. Lord, Your Word says that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. Lord, we would be lost. Lord, we would be destined to an eternity in hell because of the blood. We have been forgiven. Lord, Your Word says that we have not been redeemed with perishable things inherited from a futile way of life from our forefathers, but we have been redeemed with the blood of a lamb, unblemished, and spotless, the blood of Jesus Christ. God, we worship You today. That's in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. 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