In Remembrance (Communion)

Good morning.

I have a serious question to ask you as we begin our time in God's Word together.

How many of you, be honest, how many of you have forgotten something already this morning?

Yeah?

Forgetting.

We all forget things, don't we?

From our keys to in today's day and age, our our phones.

Most of us have probably at one point in time or another forgotten where we've parked the car.

Left your wallet behind?

Have you done that?

Perhaps forgotten a jacket?

There was a Major League Baseball manager who once announced on national television that he had forgotten his wedding anniversary.

He didn't say how his wife responded to that.

I don't know why, but we are all prone to forget.

And as we age, we forget more and more, seemingly at the most inopportune times, right?

It's just the worst possible moment.

Perhaps that is why we find the early church celebrating communion on a regular and consistent basis.

It was an important event that they were remembering, and it was crucial for them to maintain the freshness of the truth of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

So this morning we wanted to design a service that was entirely around the Lord's table.

Because I think it's appropriate for us every once in a while to make sure that we have our focus about communion correct.

And 1 Corinthians chapter 11 is the prime New Testament text for our observance of the Lord's Supper.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

And this morning I want us to consider one important part of that passage, and it is found in two verses.

So if you have your Bible, I encourage you to open it to 1 Corinthians chapter 11.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

I want to focus on verses 24 and 25, but I'm going to back up and read verse 23 as well so we get the whole sentence.

Again, that is 1 Corinthians chapter 11, beginning in verse 23.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.

That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

The Apostle Paul quotes the Lord Jesus saying, Do this in remembrance of me two times in those two sentences.

Do you think it's important to do this in remembrance of Jesus?

That repetition is there for a reason.

We are to eat the broken bread in remembrance of Him.

We are to drink the cup in remembrance of His shed blood.

And it doesn't take too long in regular participation of worship to become familiar with those words.

But what do they mean?

What does it mean to remember?

What importance is there in this expectation to remember?

Do we really know what Jesus meant when he commanded us to remember him?

Now, a simple look at a dictionary or a thesaurus would help us to know what it means to remember.

So let's think along those lines to start out.

What does it mean to remember?

Now we might come up with any number of words to think about that, but at the very beginning it means don't forget.

Don't forget.

Maybe you've heard of the story of Peggy Harris.

Peggy Harris waited for 60 years to hear what happened to her husband in World War II.

Her husband Billy was shot down as a pilot over France, and due to various mistakes, she was never told where his remains were or if he was considered missing in action or killed in action.

She just didn't know.

Finally, the family discovered that there really wasn't any mystery.

He was actually buried in Normandy, France.

But what surprised Peggy was that she discovered that for 60 years a small French town had honored the memory of her husband, Billy Harris.

In fact, they had named a street after him.

Why?

Because apparently it was widely known in that French village that as his wounded plane was crashing, he had done everything he could to just miss the village.

Instead, crash into some woods.

Peggy Harris remained unmarried, and she visited the town and his grave as often as she could.

And it was so often that that community began to treat her as family.

And she became friends with one of the men who tried to rescue her husband.

That man was the mayor of that village.

And he told her about the sacrifice of her husband, and he said to her, We don't forget.

We don't forget.

Surely, as Christians, when we think of the sacrifice that Christ made for us, we should be able to say, we don't forget.

Maybe we could say it means to be reminded, that is, to bring it to mind.

To remember means not to have something filed in the back of our filing cabinet in the back recesses of our brain, but to have it right there at instant recall, to know it, to remember it.

We could say it means to have an awareness of something or of someone.

Maybe it means to be stirred in our emotions, first in our minds as we consider mentally something, and then to be so stirred by that mental memory that our emotions follow suit, whether that's with joyous memories or sad memories or sobering memories.

Remembering means to look back at something, to recall something, to recognize something, to relive it.

To be reminded, to recollect, to reminisce, to retain, to treasure, to call to mind.

And we all do this.

We remember our personal and family backgrounds, don't we?

Some of you can tell all of your family members all the way back to your cousins three times removed, or however that works.

We remember our family and personal histories.

We remember impactful events in life, don't we?

I remember very vividly spending my dad's last night beside him.

He wasn't able to get out of his recliner, and so he slept that last night in his recliner, and we moved another recliner right beside him so I could try to sleep beside him that night.

We remember important events.

We remember big events.

Some of you that are older will still remember exactly where you were when JFK was shot, right?

Most of us remember where we were when 9-11 happened.

For many, many years, the a rallying cry that was heard in this country was, remember the Alamo.

We remember things.

But why is it that Jesus said, Do this in remembrance of me?

We can have all the dictionary definitions that we want, but it doesn't do us much good until we know what God meant when he said, Remember me.

So I'd like you to take your Bibles and go on a walk through your Bibles with me.

For those of you that have trouble with using your Bibles, I'm going to have these on the screen as well.

But I would really like you to use your Bibles so you can see these passages that we're going to look at in their context.

So first, I want you to notice that the Bible speaks about God remembering.

And when it says that God remembered, the first thing that we need to recognize is that God said that about a man named Noah.

He said that about a man named Noah.

And I don't know why this is not working right now.

So let's just go to Genesis.

If you have your Bible, go to the book of Genesis and chapter six.

We need to set the stage for this first.

Genesis chapter six, beginning in verse five.

The Lord saw, it says, that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Now look down at verse eight.

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Now you may be familiar with this passage.

This is the beginning of the flood record, where God looked out at his very good creation and noticed it is no longer very good.

It is incredibly evil, so that everything that came into mankind's heart was evil continually.

And God says, I'm going to destroy it, but there's one man who found favor, and that is Noah.

And so the floodwaters came on the earth and destroyed everything that was outside of the ark.

God saved what was inside of the ark because one man found favor with him.

Destroyed all living things.

And Noah.

Noah was on the ark for a hundred and fifty days.

That's about five months.

And after that one hundred and fifty days, we read in chapter eight, verse one, these words.

But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark.

And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.

God remembered.

There are three important connections to notice here.

They are different, but they are vitally connected.

So imagine this massive ark at the dock.

And this massive boat is tied off to the dock with three ropes.

Each of them identifying a different aspect of remembering.

One of those ropes shows us that God's remembering is tied to sin and judgment.

What had happened before God remembered?

Judgment.

God judged the earth with this massive flood, destroyed every living thing.

So God's remembering in this instance is tied to his judgment against sin.

But on the other hand, God's remembering is also tied to his grace to mankind.

Because in the midst of this judgment, God remembered Noah.

And the result of that remembering is he caused a wind to blow over the earth and the water subsided.

God said, That's enough.

I'm going to be gracious now.

And God's remembering is tied to his covenant faithfulness.

Flip over to chapter 9.

Chapter 9 and verse 13.

God said, I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember.

I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it, and I will remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature.

So those three ropes, God's remembering is his judgment against sin.

God's remembering is his grace.

And God's remembering is tied to his covenant that he establishes with people.

That's what we see in God remembering Noah.

But God didn't just stop with Noah.

God also remembered a little bit later in Genesis a man by the name of Abraham.

A man by the name of Abraham.

So look over at chapter 19 of Genesis.

Genesis 19 · chapter mention

Chapter 19.

This is the time period in which Abraham's nephew named Lot is living down in a wicked place called Sodom and its sister city Gomorrah.

And God has determined, just like in Genesis 6, this situation is rampant with evil.

I'm going to destroy it.

And he tells Abraham.

But Abraham realizes, hey, wait a minute.

My nephew is there.

Verse 29 of Genesis 19.

So it was that when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham.

And he sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.

God did destroy those places, but he rescued Abraham's nephew Lot and his family.

So what do we notice?

Yet again, God's remembering is tied to his judgment against sin.

God's remembering is tied to his grace and that he rescued Lot and His family out of those cities.

We also know from the context that God's remembering is tied to his covenant faithfulness.

Because if you go back to chapter 12 and chapter 15, you will see that God has already initiated a new covenant with Abraham in which he has chosen Abraham out of all the nations of the earth to bless the entire world.

And this action is a result of God's covenant relationship with Abraham.

We see another aspect of remembering in God, and that is a little bit later in the book of Leviticus.

And there we see that God promised to remember his own promises, specifically when his people confessed their sin.

Now the background for Leviticus 26 is quite intense.

This chapter describes God's requirements for the nation of Israel.

And it does it in quite some quite depth there.

On the one hand, we see the blessings given to Israel for their obedience.

But on the other hand, this chapter describes the curses, the judgment, the discipline for their disobedience.

And the first half of chapter 26 of Leviticus is really quite unsettling.

It's one of those passages of scripture that really makes us take pause and think, wow, that's really heavy.

For example, Leviticus 26, look at verse 27.

God says to his people, if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you in fury.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Can you imagine God saying that to you?

That there is the potential of God walking contrary in opposition to you in fury.

See what I mean by unsettling?

Look down a little bit further at verse 32.

God says, I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it.

I will scatter you among the nations.

I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation and your cities laid waste.

Can you imagine God saying that?

It's quite unsettling.

That's why we keep reading.

Because when we get a little bit later in the chapter, especially over to verse 40, we find some interesting statements.

But if they will confess their iniquity, they will confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers and their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me.

Verse 42.

Then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac, and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.

Again, we see that God's remembering here in this same chapter is tied to his judgment against sin, because they're walking contrary to him.

There is grace to the repentant if they confess their sin.

And that all is tied to God's covenant, faithfulness, remembering his covenant.

Now remembering by God is an anthropomorphism or a personification of God.

It's where we apply human characteristics to God.

Because God doesn't remember in the same way that we remember, does he?

He knows all things.

God actively knows all things at all times.

So he doesn't need to remember in the way that we remember.

But the Bible often speaks of God in human terms to help us understand him more clearly.

Therefore, when the Bible describes God in this way, it shows us that God is attentive to his creation.

He is attentive to his purpose, to his word, and to his people.

It tells us that God is actively involved.

Specifically, he is actively involved to be faithful to his purposes.

So when God is pictured as remembering, it's designed to help us understand Him.

Specifically, to know that He judges sin, but He exercises grace to the repentant because He is a faithful God.

Now the Bible also provides examples of people remembering.

And the first example of this is Deuteronomy 5, verse 15.

Deuteronomy 5:15

And this is after 40 years of the people of Israel wandering in the desert.

They're wandering around for forty years, dying off by the droves, not trusting God, being disobedient to God.

And God tells them in Deuteronomy 5, 15, you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

Of the land that God has promised them.

And in that moment, God tells his people remember.

Remember who you are, remember what you were, and remember what I have done for you.

Remember that you were slaves in Egypt.

Remember that I brought you out, and you are therefore free.

Therefore, honor the Sabbath.

Now that's an interesting statement because when God initiated the Sabbath in the book of Exodus, he told them to honor the Sabbath because of God's resting after his own creative work.

Remember, he worked six days and rested on the seventh.

But as they are about to enter the promised land, God tells them to honor the Sabbath day in remembrance of God's redemptive work of freeing them from slavery.

Now he's not replacing what he said before.

He's saying, honor the Sabbath day because I rested, but honor it as well because it is now a day to remember what I have done for you.

That's Deuteronomy 5.

Flip over a few pages to chapter 8.

Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 2.

Deuteronomy 8 · chapter mention

Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 2.

Deuteronomy 8 · chapter mention

And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

Notice what's going on here.

He's telling them, remember the whole way that God led you out.

Now, what's that mean?

It means that Moses didn't lead them out.

It means that Moses isn't the one who had the map of the desert in the back of his mind so that he could take them everywhere they needed to go, every stop along the way.

It means understand God's providential work in leading you.

Understand, too, God's discipline.

Testing to know what is in your heart, whether you will obey.

So the remembrance is tied to God's providence and our obedience.

But this is interesting because in this same passage we get the first hint of what it means to forget.

Look down at verse 11.

Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today.

Remember God's providence in leading you, remember his discipline, but be warned not to forget.

And that leads us to the next instance of remembering in chapter nine, verse seven.

Chapter nine, verse seven.

Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness.

From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord.

Israel was commanded to remember her sin.

They were about to enter the promised land, and God reminded them of the sinfulness of their hearts.

Now, some might argue that once our sins are confessed and forgiven by the blood of Christ, that we can forget it.

Put it behind us as though it never happened.

And there is a sense in which that is true.

But there is also a sense in that we must always remember that we have offended a holy God with our sin.

Israel was reminded, as you are about to go in and to receive this wonderful blessing, remember the sinfulness of your own hearts so that you don't begin to think, I did this.

In fact, on your own, you can look at Numbers chapter 5 and verse 15.

Numbers 5 · chapter mention

Numbers 5, 15, there is an offering that was specified by God for people to come to the temple and to offer that was specifically designed to remind people of their sin.

So remembering, then, was initiated by God to remind his people of who they were, and that what they had accomplished had not been done in their own power, but by the grace of God.

But God wanted his people to remember also for the future.

Remembering has a future goal.

God wanted them to keep in tune with his grace.

We'll see how that looks in a few moments.

But next let's look at Deuteronomy chapter 16.

Deuteronomy 16 · chapter mention

In verse 3, this is the account of the Passover.

So God commanded them to celebrate the Passover year after year after year, every single year.

Beginning in verse 2, you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God.

And he goes on to describe how to do that.

Verse 3, you shall eat no unleavened bread with it.

Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction.

Why?

For you came out of the land of Egypt in haste, that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt.

Israel was to remember year after year after year the day that God brought them out of Egypt.

So remembering here is tied to a significant event.

Remember the event.

Remember the day that God brought you salvation.

Remember the day that God redeemed you out of slavery.

And celebrate God's work in doing that.

That's what this remembering is tied to.

There's one more that I want you to look at here, and that is over in the book of Joshua.

So after Moses dies, the people are on the brink of crossing over the Jordan River into the promised land, and Joshua thinks they need to have another reminder.

And so we see in Joshua chapter 1, verse 13, remember the word that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, saying, The Lord your God is providing you a place of rest and will give you this land.

Joshua 1:13

They were to remember God's promise.

Joshua said, We're going.

Now remember what God promised to do.

So remembering became an impetus for taking the next step.

An encouragement to face the walls of Jericho.

An encouragement to face the giants in the hill country.

An encouragement that was rested in God's promise and his faithfulness to his promise.

God can be trusted with the unknown of the weeks and the months and the years ahead of you because you remember he is faithful to his promise.

So when we put God remembering together with people remembering in these passages of the Old Testament, we come away with this.

Remembering is about remembering our sin.

It is about remembering God's judgment against sin.

It is remembering God's grace in the midst of his judgment.

And remembering God's faithfulness to his promises.

Now the big question is how in the world does this prepare us for remembering Christ in the way that 1 Corinthians 11 tells us?

Well, we get a clue by staying in the Old Testament.

And this is going back to Leviticus chapter 7, but even further than that, back to Leviticus chapter 3.

Leviticus 7 · chapter mention Leviticus 3 · chapter mention

Leviticus chapter 3 is the details about what's called the peace offering.

Leviticus 3 · chapter mention

You can read about all the details of that offering, but what I want you to focus on is chapter 7, verse 15.

Isaiah 7:15

In chapter 7 of Leviticus and verse 15, we have a very interesting statement that we don't find in too many other passages of Scripture, especially the passages about these sacrifices.

Leviticus 7, verse 15.

Leviticus 7:15

And the flesh, that is the meat of this animal sacrifice, of a peace offering for thanksgiving, shall be eaten on the day of his offering.

He shall not leave any of it until the morning.

Now, under normal circumstances, when an Israelite person would bring an offering to the temple, whatever was offered would go to the priests.

That was, you might say, their income.

That was the way they kept themselves fed.

But in this particular offering, in this peace offering, God said, the one who offers this offering is to take some of the meat and celebrate with it.

To eat the sacrifice.

By eating the sacrificed animal, the one offering it would be recognizing that it was only through the death of that sacrificed animal that they could have peace with God.

This was their peace offering.

So partaking of the sacrifice was God's means of keeping sin and God's provision for sin in the forefront of the worshipper's mind.

By eating that sacrifice, they were remembering their sin and celebrating the fact that God had provided a way to be at peace with him.

So when we come to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, we need to have in mind this Old Testament foreshadowing of something that would happen later.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

God had said to his people, if you want to offer a peace offering, eat it.

Eat part of the sacrifice.

Another way that we are prepared for 1 Corinthians and remembering Christ is by remembering a couple of passages in the Old Testament prophets, specifically in the book of Ezekiel first, in Ezekiel chapter 16.

Ezekiel 16 · chapter mention

Ezekiel chapter 16.

Ezekiel 16 · chapter mention

This is a long chapter in the Old Testament.

Ezekiel chapter 16.

Ezekiel 16 · chapter mention

God speaks about a new covenant.

He says in verse 60, I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant.

So notice the future tense there.

He says, I will.

An everlasting covenant is coming.

Verse 62, I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember.

Notice there, we have God remembering so that we might remember.

That you may remember and be confounded.

And never open your mouth again because of your shame.

When I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God.

So God spoke of a new covenant, an everlasting covenant.

He spoke of an action by which he would atone for all that the people have done, cleansing them even from the shame of their sin.

He spoke of a covenant by which they would know that he is Lord.

And he spoke of a covenant of atonement that would confound the people.

He spoke of an everlasting covenant that would confound sinners with the extent of its mercy and grace.

A confounding covenant that would be remembered.

A covenant promised to his people.

How does the Old Testament prepare us to remember Christ?

By bringing all of us into that everlasting covenant that he promised.

He brings each and every one of his chosen people into that everlasting covenant.

Ephesians 2, 12.

Remember, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now, some of the most beautiful words in all of Scripture.

But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near.

How?

By the blood of Christ.

For he himself is our peace.

He has made us both one, has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.

Verse 16, that he might reconcile us to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

Those outside the people of Israel, the covenants of promise, have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Beloved, there has been a peace offering, a sacrifice of peace by which people are forgiven, and through that sacrifice they are made right with God so that they might have peace with God.

So how does God take people who are far off, who are not part of the covenants of promise, and bring them into that everlasting covenant?

It's through peace offering.

Through the new covenant of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, said, Do this in remembrance of me.

In remembrance of your sin.

In remembrance of God's action to judge that sin, and then atone for that sin by becoming the peace offering himself.

And so in coming before the Lord's table, we come before this peace offering that has been offered for us.

And we partake of the peace offering.

So remembering in the Lord's table wraps up all the remembering in Scripture.

That God took that judgment on himself.

And that when his people confess their sin and come to him in faith, he exercises grace.

It's a reminder of where we were without Christ.

And that he is the only satisfaction for our sin.

It's a reminder that God has led us every step of the way so that we are even here today by his leading.

It is a reminder of our sin and God's work to redeem us out of slavery to sin by the blood of that sacrifice that cleanses us from all sin.

It's a reminder that God kept his promises.

He kept his word to establish an everlasting covenant so that people from every nation, every language, every tribe might become a part of his redeemed people.

And so we remember his promises.

And we say, God has been faithful to his promises.

And as we come to this table and we remember him, he is going before us and has prepared everything we need to bring us safely home.

So as we embark on the new days in front of us in following Jesus, we are to remember that he has already conquered our giants.

He has already conquered the greatest enemy because he rose from the dead and he sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us.

He has provided everything we need to take us to the place of rest.

In remembering these, we are doing what it means to remembering Jesus.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we confess that we forget.

Sometimes we we just become too familiar with things, and it's not in the forefront of our thinking.

Thank you for a reminder from your word.

And by your spirit, may you cause us to actively remember all that you've taught us.

In your name we pray.

Amen.