The Once-for-All Sacrifice of Jesus | Communion

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Let's pray together.

Father, we uh we recognize today, as someone has said long ago, that freedom has always been an expensive thing.

So we want to acknowledge the men and women who sacrificed their lives to make our country free.

It's not perfect, but it is free.

We have freedom of speech.

We have the freedom to gather and assemble.

We have the freedom to worship God as we see fit today.

And so, Lord, we want to acknowledge them, but we want to worship you because you offered up your son to secure the ultimate expression of freedom.

You paid the ultimate price.

And so today we've come on this Memorial Day weekend to remember, to do what you said to do, Jesus, when you held up the bread and the cup and said, Hey, and as often as you do this, do this in remembrance of me.

And so we remember you today.

We remember not just what you did, but what it means for us and what it continues to mean for us.

So we're mindful today and we're grateful.

So we say thank you in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

And if you're our guests this morning, let me just say welcome.

Uh today's a little bit of a different service for us.

It's our communion service.

And communion for us is the whole service.

We'll give you some instructions in just a minute.

But let me say this right off the top.

If you're a Christian, we practice open communion, which means if you're a Christian, you're welcome to come and receive and celebrate communion with us today.

We'll give you some directions here in just a little bit, but what we'd like to do is we'd like to just um kind of fix our thoughts around some things.

So I want to read a passage out of the book of Hebrews.

Um, I'm gonna read 14 verses.

Now, the book of Hebrews is a book in the in the New Testament, and it's a comparison of the Old Testament sacrificial system and the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ.

Because under the law, when you sinned, you had to bring an animal to the priest, and the priest would sacrifice the sin, uh sacrifice the animal to cover your sins.

And so, but the sacrifice of Jesus didn't cover our sins, it took sins away.

And so there's a whole book in the Bible that just kind of lays these two side by side and says, see, it used to be like this, but now it's like this, okay?

And that's what we're gonna read about this morning, Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

What do we remember in communion?

Here's things to remember in communion.

Hebrews chapter 10, verse 1.

Hebrews 10:1

For since the law was but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.

Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins.

But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year.

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, Sacrifice and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me, and burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.

And then I said, Behold, I come to do your will, O God, as it is written to me in the scroll of the book.

When he had said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings.

These are offered according to the law.

And then he added, Behold, I have come to do your will.

He does away with the first in order to establish the second.

And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemy should be made a footstool for his feet.

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Now, I want to talk to you briefly this morning about what we remember in communion.

There's three things that I think God wants us to remember before we receive the elements this morning.

And the first one is simply this is that we are forgiven.

We are forgiven.

He says early on in verse 3 of this passage, he says, But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year.

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

In these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins.

But when the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ, there is a reminder that, hey, your sins aren't held against you.

Your sins have been paid for, they've been taken away.

Let me ask a question.

Did anybody in this room, you grow up as a kid going to church quite a bit?

Could I see your hand?

Will you hold your hand up?

Let me ask you another question.

Was there a table right here in front of the pulpit, like a wooden table, and have something, some words in the front of it?

It probably said this, this do in remembrance of me.

Remember that?

And when the sermon was boring, you would just read that as a little kid, this do in remembrance of me.

You'd count the letters, okay?

I don't know how many letters is that.

You'd hit your brother and go, what does that mean?

And your brother's like, I don't know.

And you try to figure out what it meant.

This is what it meant.

It's taken from when Christ celebrated Passover with his disciples.

He holds up this bread and he says, Hey, this is symbolic.

This is a reminder, okay?

This is my body, which is going to be offered for you, okay?

And so when you do this thing, when you when you recognize communion, all right, uh, we have really two major sacraments as a church.

You have the Lord's Supper and baptism.

He says, Hey, when you do the Lord's Supper, when you when you when you when you practice communion, you observe communion, remember the body of uh uh of Christ.

And then secondly, he holds up a cup and he says, This cup, he pours wine in it, or if you're a devout Baptist, it's grape juice.

Um, and he says, uh, we use grape juice here, okay?

Relax.

Ums wine, he says, This wine, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

As often as you do this, do this in remembrance of me.

And when he says a new covenant, he's saying, hey, there's a new way of relating to God, not based on rules and regulations, but based on relationship.

And so when I say to you, hey, you are forgiven, I just want to say it's not just Jesus did initiate a process that you complete through your religious determination.

He did everything necessary to secure your redemption and your forgiveness.

Okay?

He did not make you forgivable, he made you forgiven.

It's past tense.

And so, what does that mean?

Here's what that means if you're a Christian: that means past, present, and future sins have already been atoned for, have already been paid for.

And so at some point you have to ask yourself, hey, if this has already been paid for, why do I still do this?

Once you understand what Christ did on the cross, sin becomes the most unnecessary thing you will ever do.

If you want to understand how preposterous this feels and sounds, ask yourself what you would do if you never sinned again.

Some of you are like, shut up, don't talk like that.

Yet the Bible says this is exactly what happens, that you're forgiven.

Secondly, we're delivered.

We're delivered, not just from sin, but also from religious duty, from religious effort, from guilt and manipulation, from going to church where a guy gets up and just beats you with a guilt stick every Sunday, and you're like, I know, I stink.

Thank you, thank you.

Is that in the Bible?

Got it.

Here's what's in the Bible.

Verse 8, it says, When he said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings.

He says, Behold, I've come to do your will.

He does away with the first in orders to establish the second.

And hear verse 10, and by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Hear the first part of verse 10 again.

And by that will, we have been sanctified.

Everybody in this room, you are living either out of your will and your sheer determination and what you think you have to do, or you are living in light of the will of God who accomplished everything necessary.

The Bible says, through that will, through God's desire, through what only God can do, you've been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

So when I say we're forgiven, okay, get that.

We're delivered, not just from sin, but from religious effort.

Third thing I would say to you is that this is what we remember in communion is that we are becoming.

We are becoming.

It's verse 14.

For by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

It almost sounds like a play on words.

But here what he says, he says, for by a single offering, he has perfected.

He is made perfect forever.

That means complete.

That's my position in Christ.

He is made perfect, he is perfected for all times.

If you want to start a fight on the way home from church today, look at your wife, men, and say, Hey, I'm perfect forever.

And she will say, You're a work in progress.

And you know what?

Both of you would be right.

Because the Bible says, hey, this is our position in Christ.

We've been made perfect forever.

And then he says, those who are being sanctified.

One translation says, He's made perfect forever, those who are being made holy.

We become, when I say that we're becoming, we become who the Bible says we already are.

That's why when you become a Christian, you don't go straight to heaven.

Because you're sanctified, you become more and more like Jesus.

If you want to understand the sanctification process, watch your kids go through things and struggle with things that you struggled with, but you don't struggle with any longer.

Like if you got kids that are old enough to date, you watch your kids date, you're kind of like, please, dear Jesus, tell me I didn't say things like that when I was dating.

Like I walked by and heard my daughter talking to her friend on the phone, and I just talked to myself, God forbid, if my wife dies, I will never marry again.

I'm just not subjecting myself to that whole thing.

And I was like, did I talk to people that way?

Did I say, What are you doing?

I don't care.

What do you want to do?

No.

Of course not.

Answer, the truth probably is, I probably did.

I was at a uh a crawfish boil yesterday.

That's what you're supposed to do on Memorial Day weekend.

Sit next to a nine-year-old and had a conversation with him.

I said, Hey, if you're nine, how old do you think I am?

He said, 36?

You're my new best friend.

Until this morning I talked to a young lady back here who I think she's like seven, and I said, if you're seven, how old do you think I am?

And she said, 14.

I said, You've been talking to my wife again, haven't you?

But see, here's the thing.

Whether you're 14 and you're a Christian, or you're seven, or you're 36, or you're 52, you're still becoming.

You are not.

Here's what I'm saying.

Hear this.

You are not right now who you're always going to be.

Your life is not as hard.

If it's hard right now, it's not going to be this hard all the time.

You're becoming.

The Bible says it like this.

Ow.

The Bible says it like this.

And yeah, that hurt, by the way.

Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21.

2 Corinthians 5:21

For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Look at those words again.

For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin.

That's Jesus.

He's the only person who's never known sin.

He never sinned.

And God, for our sake, he made him to be sin, okay?

Why?

So that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

You could just kind of embolden two or three words in that whole thing, and it would pop out and make sense in ways that it doesn't, just flat words on the screen.

He says, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

If you're here today and you're an atheist or an agnostic or you're like, this is crazy, I can't stand any of this, I would just point to the two words.

When it says so that in him.

In him.

If you reject that and say, I don't believe any of that, okay, I'm not mad at you.

I would just ask you this question: what is your plan for becoming righteous right before God if you're going to do that apart from Jesus?

Because in just a moment, we'll have a time of reflection and we'll think about what we're fixing to do.

And then everybody that leaves their seats and comes to one of these three stations in the front or one of the two in the back, by leaving your seat and going to one of these stations, what you're saying is that in him is my only hope.

You're demonstrating that great hymn we just sang that says, His oath, his covenant, his blood, support me in the whelming flood when all around my soul gives way.

He alone is my hope and stay.

On Christ the solid rock I stand.

All other ground is sinking sand.

And by your coming and receiving and remembering today, what you're saying is, I ain't got a plan B.

I'm all in on what Jesus did.

The Bible is very subtle and yet very authoritative when it says, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

Look at me and I'm done.

Short sermon for Memorial Day.

Amen?

Look at me.

You're not just sinners saved by grace.

You're the righteousness of God.

That's what the Bible says.

So that.

So that.

See, if you want to understand the Bible, don't take it in chapters or even verses.

Take it in two-word couplets.

So that.

The purpose for which God offered up his son is so that you could become who the Bible says you are.

Let's think about that this morning.

Let me voice a prayer.

Father, we want to uh get our head and our heart around what the Bible says is true when it says that we're forgiven, that we're delivered, and we are becoming.

We're not just waiting for heaven.

We're here to become more and more like Jesus.

That doesn't mean more and more religious, more and more determined, more and more angry.

None of that.

It means we become more and more who the Bible says we are.

Because you've made perfect forever those who are being sanctified, those who are being conformed to the image of Jesus.

So I pray for people that are at a low point today that they would be reminded: hey, you're becoming.

This is not going to be forever.

So don't beat yourself up.

And so, Lord, just kind of brood over your people this morning.

As we think and reflect, as we ask and we listen, and we come and remember.

We do all this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Now, one of the things that the Bible does is it gives us instructions on how to do this.

And one of the things he says, he says, hey, when you get ready, he said, you need to come to this.

Spend some time reflecting and thinking about your life against the backdrop of the body of Christ.

You belong to the church.

If you're a believer, you're part of something bigger than yourself.

And it's not Grand Parkway, it's the church capital C.

And because of that, he says, hey, examine yourself so that you don't receive the elements in an unworthy manner.

Translation, examine yourself, check yourself before you wreck yourself and think about what's happening so you don't just get it on autopilot and kind of just cruise through.

Examination in the Bible is not take take a minute and think about what a loser you are.

That's not the voice of God.

The Bible says, think about this.

That God knew you so well that He and He alone has provided the one thing you can never accomplish for yourself to make possible what you were created for.

That's a relationship with Him that involves forgiveness.

But also it involves you becoming who the Bible says you are.

Let's think about that for a moment.