Encounter - Encountering God Through Baptism And Communion

So let's get into the message.

This morning we're going to look at Acts, chapter 2, verses 37 through 42.

Acts 2:37–42

Acts 2, verses 37 through 42.

Acts 2:37–42

We've been studying the Scriptures from the Book of Acts and looking at the first church, the early church, and the types of things that they were involved with, that they were devoted to and really the way that they encountered God through those different things.

So we talked about how the early church encountered God through the Scriptures, how they encountered God through fellowship, through the fellowship.

Yeah, we got it.

We're working on the mic.

This is a brand new mic, so appreciate your patience as we get that thing fine tuned.

In Encountering God through the Scriptures and through fellowship and this morning I have the privilege of sharing encountering God through baptism and communion, encountering God through baptism and communion Now, before you check out, these are really powerful things that God has implemented, that Jesus implemented, for the church to be involved with that are really significant.

So I hope that, like I did this week as I was preparing this message, I hope that you look at this with fresh eyes and listen to it with fresh ears, amen.

So let's look again at Acts, chapter 2, verses 37 through 42.

Acts 2:37–42

Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles brothers, what shall we do?

And Peter said to them repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord, our God, calls to himself.

And with many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying save yourselves from this crooked generation.

That applies, doesn't it?

So those who received his word were baptized and they were added that day about 3,000 souls, and they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Let's pray together.

Father, in the mighty name of Jesus, I thank you for your word that is true and is alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, and I ask today that the words that you desire for me to deliver, that they'll come forth from my mouth and they'll be anointed by your spirit and they'll do the transact transactional work that needs to happen in people's minds and hearts and lives so that we all choose, by God's grace, to live out the Christianity that you've called us to live out.

We thank you for this great time together and we ask that you would bless it and that you would be glorified in Jesus' name, amen.

So, before my wife, this is my wife Amy, for those of you who don't know her yet.

Before my wife Amy and I got married, almost 31 years ago yeah, it's been a long time we both traveled on a Christian drama team.

Now, one of the things about this Christian drama team is it was a volunteer ministry.

Now, what is Tennessee's big on?

Volunteers, right.

But what does the word volunteer mean at its simplest form?

No pay.

Volunteer equals no pay, right.

So we traveled together on this drama team no pay.

And I realized that I really wanted to marry this girl, but I did not have one really remarkable, remarkable, significant object that I wanted to be a part of this experience.

And what would that be?

I did not have a ring, did not have a ring, and so I just said Lord, and one thing we were.

We were so much in love with each other.

We were very young at the time.

We still love each other very much, but I could have given her just about anything, and she probably would have been content with it.

Right, maybe not a ring pop, but something, something between I mean, you know what I mean.

She might have looked at me and said you could do a little better than that.

Right, you could have made something better than that, but anyway, no ring pop.

But so I really I cried out to the Lord and said Lord, do you know how much I love this woman and I really believe that she brought her into my life and I want to show her in a powerful way, I want to give her an object of the love that I have for her, and so I'm asking you to provide a ring Now.

I also said, lord, my parents are poor, I'm broke, I don't know anywhere that it's coming from, I have nowhere to turn but to you.

And, remarkably, just a short period of time after that, we were staying.

I was staying at a host home and the host home knew me pretty well and they actually said you're getting, you're planning to get married pretty soon, right?

And I said, yeah, lord willing, planning on it.

And they said, well, what about a ring?

Do you have a ring?

I said, well, not yet, not yet working on that and I said, oh really, well, what's, what's the plan for that?

I said.

I said, whatever good Christian would say, the Lord will provide.

You know, I did not, I did not ask them, I did not, you know, try to make any kind of draw on them.

But here's what the man said.

Well, my wife and I were praying and the Lord spoke to us to buy you a, an engagement ring.

So it took me to the jewelry store and let me pick out the diamond, and and I had learned before that Amy loved the marquee cut and so I picked out a marquee diamond and was able to look at it under the light and all of that, and then pick out the setting for it.

It was a gold setting, beautiful, beautiful.

And I still do this day have no idea what the final bill was, but I know they paid for it and they handed it to me and said this is a gift from the Lord.

And on December, the 24th 1992, I bent my knee, this knee here down, and I raised that ring up in my hand and I said to her will you marry me?

And she said let me pray about.

No, she said that would have been horrible, right?

No, she said if only it was a bigger ring, right?

She said no, she said yes.

And the other cool thing was that she handed me her gift.

This was Christmas Eve, 1992.

She handed me her gift, which was this ring right here.

The Lord had provided for her to buy me a ring.

She was going to give it to me as a Christmas gift.

I looked at it and I said do you mind if I hold onto that and use it as my wedding ring?

And she said sounds good to me, absolutely.

So three months later we were married and God has been faithful all of these 31 years and he will continue to be right.

Cool story, really.

It was true.

It actually is true.

It actually happened like that.

But what is it about a ring that is so significant when it comes to marriage?

There's something special about it.

It's not just an object, right, it has significance.

It's a symbol, a sign and a seal.

So let me just quickly.

This is not a marriage message, so you can relax, it's going to be okay.

It's not a marriage message, but it is.

This week is Valentine's Day, so it's always good to have a little bit of a reminder, right?

But a symbol is something that represents something else.

So precious metals.

Amy's ring is gold and it has the diamond marquee settings in it and then she has a wrap around it that has like flowers and those have little diamonds in them too, right, and she's so cute.

I just looked at her and recognized again how much I loved her.

So sweet.

I know sometimes it's like enough.

We crush you out.

I'm sorry, get over it, okay, but it's a precious.

The precious metals and gems symbolize the value that you have in the other person.

When I gave Amy that ring with those diamonds and with that gold, what I was saying to you is you're far more precious to me and valuable than even this can represent.

But this is the best I could do, right?

This is what God did for us.

It's also a continuous circle representing a lifelong loving marriage commitment.

Have you noticed?

The ring is a continuous circle and it's supposed to symbolize that this is a marriage that God, by God's grace, is going to last from now until one of us passes from this life right, and many, many years from now.

That's the prayer, that's the hope.

So it's also a sign.

It's not just a symbol, but it's a sign.

It points to something or points to someone.

When I look at my ring, I don't look at it and have regret, like I don't look at it and say maybe I won't wear it today, I don't look at it enough.

There are times through my life when different levels of sodium in my body and things like that where it's been more difficult to wear than other times.

Anybody else can relate to that, okay, but anyway.

But I never think about, oh, I just don't want to wear it today or I don't like looking at it because I don't like thinking about us.

Thank God that's not the issue for me.

That doesn't even come by God's grace.

It doesn't even come across my mind.

When I look at my ring, it reminds me of her.

It's a token that represents or symbolizes her.

It points me in everyone else to the fact that I am committed to her and I'm no longer available to anyone else.

I'm off the market, right, and so is she.

I just want to make that clear.

All right, now, proverbially and literally put her ring on it.

So she is good, we're good to go.

But it's also a ring as a seal, a seal of God's stamp of approval.

It's interesting because you can, as Amy and I stood together on our wedding day and we exchanged vows and rings.

We did it before God, because we recognize that you can have an agreement between two people, and it may or may not last.

You can make an agreement or a partnership with someone else, and it may or may not last, but a covenant is something different.

In order for there to be a covenant, god has to be involved in it, and so we asked God at the point of our marriage and always to bless it and to be a part of our marriage.

So when I look at my ring and I think about her, all of these things together make me thankful that I'm a part of a covenant relationship with my wife and for the rest of our lives we are enjoying.

In fact, we have dreams, we have plans we'd love to go to.

Anyway, I'll stop.

I don't want to give away all the secrets, but lots of things we'd like to do.

So, in a similar way to the ring analogy, the early church had a couple of practices that were much more than just rituals or habits.

They weren't just something that was to be done, because it was a tradition to do that, and we're talking about baptism and the Lord's Supper or communion Lots of different names that you can call that by.

Almost all churches that consider themselves New Testament churches practice these two things baptism and communion.

Okay and there, but there are many different opinions on how to practice them, what they should be called.

If they're the only two, are there other things that we should do?

As an example, some churches call these things sacraments.

Sacraments I don't like to use that word specifically because for a lot of churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, they believe that there's something mysterious about the actual experience of participation in these things that happens in a certain way.

In other words, they believe, for example, that if you are to take the bread and eat the bread of communion and then drink the cup, that the bread becomes the actual DNA body of Christ and that the blood becomes the actual DNA blood of Christ.

I don't see that in scripture and I don't believe for myself and as I'm preaching to you, I don't believe that that's an accurate depiction of what this is.

It doesn't mean it's not significant or important, but it's just not that.

Does that make sense?

So I like to call these things ordinances and a lot of New Testament churches and we'll call them that.

These are ordinances because Jesus instituted them, the early church adopted them and they were practiced throughout the book of Acts, not just one time, but over and over again, and through the epistles they were written about, and also the early church fathers, after the writing of scripture, spoke to the fact that they continued in these two practices the baptism.

Baptism and communion, or the Lord's supper.

Most people in the group that I belong to would look at baptism and communion more as commemorative.

In other words, we're commemorating, we're remembering, we're celebrating, we're being thankful for something that has occurred.

Right, and that's a big part of what it is, instead of it being redemptive in and of itself.

Some people believe that, actually, when you're baptized, that that is your point of salvation and that you cannot be a Christian unless you're baptized Again.

I just don't see that in scripture and that's not the practice that we adhere to here.

Right?

Does that make sense?

There's a distinct difference between commemorating something, enjoying it, practicing it because we've been commanded to do so, and believing that those the doing of these things is where the actual miracle happens Make sense.

Yeah, so let's look at baptism quickly, and we'll start with that Encountering God through baptism as the crowd of people on the day of Pentecost were listening to Peter Sermon.

Remember, these are people from all over the known world.

They'd heard the gospel being preached in their own language as people spoke in tongues.

After they were filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, they stopped the sermon, they cried out and they said what do we need to do to be saved?

And Peter said repent.

Now, the word repent infers belief, because why would you change your mind about one thing unless you change it to something else?

So to repent of something means to believe something different, right.

So to repent and believe and be baptized.

It's not a suggestion or recommendation.

It was something that was practiced.

So you can imagine how many of you saw the Jesus Revolution movie.

It was the story of the move of the Holy Spirit that happened during the Jesus movement, and one of the things that was so special about watching that movie and the kind of reenactment of what happened is all of these people who were looking for answers and looking for God in so many different places and ways, and Jesus began to reveal himself to them and they began to believe in Jesus.

And then, all of a sudden, they would just show up at this beach, hundreds and hundreds of them, and people would go out into the water and they would baptize one after another, after another, and can you imagine?

It just went on and on and on, and that's what the experience was like on this first day of the early church 3,000 people got baptized.

That's awesome.

I wish that I could have been there.

I wish sometimes that we could go back and that we could watch, you know, like the huge, just I don't know what you would call it, but the huge screen.

That could be possible.

Maybe when we get to heaven we'll get to watch all these things back.

I don't know.

We probably won't even be concerned about it at that point in time, because we'll see Jesus and once we see Jesus, none of the rest of it really matters, right?

So the next thing is that Jesus experienced baptism.

Jesus himself experienced baptism.

Remember, as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Jordan River, his cousin, john the Baptist, had been baptizing people and he looks over at Jesus and he says behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Amazing statement, right?

And then, sometime later, jesus comes to John and says John, baptize me.

And John, of course, looks at Jesus and says no way.

No, sir, I need to be baptized by you.

And you're asking me to baptize you?

No way, can't do that.

Then Jesus said it must be done in order to fulfill the law, to fulfill the commandments.

And so then John baptized Jesus, and the story is picked up in Matthew, chapter three, verses 16 and 17.

And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water and behold, the heavens were open to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him.

And behold, a voice from heaven said this is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.

What a powerful description of Jesus.

Before he ever performed a sign or a wonder or miracle, before he ever preached a great sermon or chose any followers, the father, his father, said to him this is my son, in whom I am well pleased.

Now, jesus was the only one ever born on this planet who actually didn't need to be baptized, and yet he chose to be baptized to fulfill the law, but also as an example to us.

As an example to us, in fact, christ commands Christians to be baptized.

A few weeks ago, neil did a great message on this from Matthew 28,.

Verses 18 through 20,.

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

What are we supposed to do?

We're supposed to make disciples and baptize them in the name of the Lord.

So here's the statement I want you to walk away with from baptism.

It should be the experience of any person who lives beyond their moment of conversion to obey the command of Scripture to be baptized.

So if you accept Jesus Christ and you're still living and breathing and you have life left in you and you're able to, if you're able to, it would be really, it's really important that you are water baptized.

Okay, now we know there's an exception to this clause.

And what is it?

You can think of the story, the thief on the cross who said Jesus, don't forget me.

And Jesus said today you will be with me in paradise.

That man did not have time between that moment and his death to be able to be baptized.

And yet what did Jesus do?

He welcomed him into his kingdom, right?

So it's not something that God will hold people in judgment over, but it is something that we should want to do and that we should do.

So let's go through, like we did with the ring.

First of all, baptism is a symbol.

The water of baptism symbolizes what Cleansing, cleansing, cleansing.

What does water do?

It washes, it, cleanses Right.

And also another thing that is a symbol is the fact that immersion being lowered into the water, being covered by water, illustrates Christ's death, burial and then coming up out of the water represents what His resurrection, amen.

So baptism is an outward expression that symbolizes what has happened inwardly, when we are born again.

It's a powerful thing.

Baptism is not just a signal, though.

It's also a sign.

It demonstrates that I'm a believer in Jesus.

It says to the world around me I am a follower of Jesus Christ and I'm not ashamed of it.

Baptism don't get it wrong.

Baptism does not make you a Christian, but it shows that you're a Christian Right.

It proves to the world around that you are a Christian.

It's a commitment to Christ based on the fact that he's drawn you to himself by the Holy Spirit that saves you.

None of us can save ourselves.

None of us can save ourselves.

Only Jesus can do that and he uses the Holy Spirit to awaken us to the fact that we need to repent and believe on Jesus so that we can be saved.

But baptism says to the world I am not ashamed to tell the whole world what's happened to me.

I've given my life to Jesus Christ.

Now, how many times does a person need to be baptized?

I'll say once, but with an explanation Once, as long as it's after they have become a believer in Jesus Christ.

There are some churches that sprinkle children or sprinkle babies, or baptize people before they become actual followers of Jesus.

I don't believe that, that I understand the concept of it.

I don't believe that the scripture teaches that that does much except for get them wet.

Okay, so just being honest, just being real, but after salvation, after conversion, being baptized like Jesus was and like he's commanded us to, is really significant.

I encourage people to do it.

It also illustrates my new life as a Christian.

Second Corinthians, 5.17, says this means that anyone who belongs to Christ has becomea new person.

The old life is gone and a new life has begun, and any of you remember that old life, that old life that's gone, and now you're recognizing the new life that has begun.

Baptism is one of the great ways to illustrate that it does not produce salvation, but it expresses that a new birth has occurred.

And finally, baptism is a seal.

It represents our union with Christ.

You realize that we've been made one with Christ.

That's incredible.

I can't even imagine or fathom the entirety of what that means.

We are in him and he is in us.

Romans 6, verses 3 through 5,.

Romans 6:3–5

Try to give us some understanding.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

We were buried, therefore, with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life?

Or, if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.

How many of you know that there will be a day and a time when Jesus will return and when he does this, ankle, this knee and the rest of everything that's broken about me and the rest of all of us is going to be completely made whole and we're going to live forever and ever with Jesus who ruling and reigning over all forever.

That's good news.

The other thing that's a seal about baptism is that being filled with the Spirit often occurs at baptism.

I have many times experienced either by baptizing other people or observing where people go into the water and they come out filled with inexpressible joy, a song of praise that's on their heart.

Sometimes a heavenly prayer language is given to them and they begin to speak in tongues.

Other times people begin to prophesy the Word of God.

I have seen children burst out in tears.

I've seen so many different experiences that people have had in the waters of baptism.

In Matthew, chapter 3, verse 11, john the Baptist again is speaking of Jesus I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, who sandals I'm not worthy to carry.

Matthew 3:11

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Jesus came to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire.

He wants us to be filled with the Spirit of God.

One of the things that caused the church to be what it was was the fact that they were filled with the Spirit of God.

One of the things we do at TCC is, when we baptize people, we don't wait, we pray right.

Then, father, fill this person completely and totally with your Holy Spirit, give them every gift that you want to give them, unleash all of the strategy and plans that you have for them and cause the fruit of the Spirit to be developed and grow within their lives.

We got to be praying for people to be filled with the Spirit, but here's the reality the water of baptism isn't miraculous, unlike I'm sorry for Carrie Underwood and her beautiful song about there's something in the water.

The water itself is not miraculous, but the one who calls us to join him in the water is Jesus we're going to find in the water, is Jesus who's calling us and saying come, follow me, follow me.

What a beautiful scenario that God set up this.

I don't know about you, but I'm not just a learner by hearing or by reading.

I like to observe, I like to experience, and so the fact that God created this means for us to be able to experience, just even in a symbolic way.

To get to experience what this all means for our lives is a powerful thing.

So, finally, moving on to encountering God through communion to the Lord's Supper, the Book of Acts Church practiced the Lord's Supper and communion regularly, regularly described in the Acts 2 passage as the breaking of bread.

So this would have been done like this the early church would have had open meetings in Solomon's Portico, which was an outdoor space outside of the temple proper, and as they would, peter whoever it was that was on the docket to get up and speak that day.

As they would get up and preach, there would be some that were in the crowd who did not yet know Jesus.

There would be others who are already followers of Jesus but were maybe from out of town, and then there's a third category of people that were followers of Jesus and who were a part of the church of Jerusalem.

So there would be this public declaration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

People would have a chance to respond to the gospel based on the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives, and then after that there would be a separate fellowship meal that would be held for those who are part of the Christian community already in Jerusalem, and as a part of that fellowship meal they would partake of the breaking of bread and the passing of the cup, right Communion or the Lord's Supper.

That's what they would do.

They would practice it like that.

So it was actually a part.

Traditionally, it was a part of a larger meal, a larger feast, and it was intended for those who were already Christians and who were a part of the local church.

So Jesus instituted communion, and the Lord's Supper Wasn't the church's first church's idea, it was his idea.

Remember, jesus is in Jerusalem with his disciples.

He's just a few hours away from the passion, from his time of suffering and being led to the cross, dying the death that he died and then being raised from the dead.

He institutes the practice of communion.

Can you imagine in your mind again a picture, a mental image of what this might have been while the Last Supper?

If you've ever seen an artist's interpretation of that, that's the idea.

Of course it wouldn't be, as I think Jesus was a little more manly than the way that some of those artistic interpretations make him look.

But that's just me personally, so you don't have to write that down on your notes or send that out on Instagram, but that's my personal thoughts.

So, but anyway, put yourself in the mind of that being in that room.

Jesus is sitting there amongst his 12, one of them getting ready to betray him, another getting ready to deny him.

And what does Jesus do?

He takes a loaf of bread and he breaks it and he gives thanks for it and he distributes it to them.

And Paul says this to describe it, for I receive from the Lord what I have 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.

Now, just to stop there for a minute, one of the reasons that I don't believe that the bread and the cup actually become the body and the blood of Jesus is Jesus was in the room physically giving them this bread and then saying that we should do the same following.

They were not like.

I don't mean to be grotesque, but it was actual bread and actual drink that they were partaking of, not the actual body and blood of Jesus.

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 and remember it should be, for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Wow, now there's lots of different names that people call this ordinance.

You could call it the Lord's table, the Lord's supper, some people call it the Eucharist.

Don't get hung up on the name.

Get hung up on what's really important about this and why Jesus commanded us to do it.

So Jesus commands believers to partake in communion.

He didn't say if you feel like it or if you wanna add it to your service, then do this.

He says do this in remembrance of me.

It's not a suggestion, it's a command.

Right, so let's talk again.

We'll finish with the three, like the ring, the three parts of communion.

Communion, first of all, is a symbol.

What does the broken bread represent?

Yes, the broken bread represents the broken body of Jesus Christ, that's right.

And the cup represents what?

The blood of Jesus that was poured out.

So communion helps us to look backward to the sacrifice of Jesus and never forget the awful price that was paid.

I don't know about you, but I really try to focus in on the fact that it should have been me, I should have been the one, and yet Jesus did it in my place.

Secondly, communion is a sign.

What is it a sign of?

It highlights the fact that the work of Jesus is finished.

It's finished once and for all.

It's done.

No more need for anything else to be added to it.

I love one of the songs that was sung this morning we may not win every battle, but he's already won the war.

Come on, it is finished.

The work of Jesus is finished.

It also shows us that Jesus's motivation was love for his father and for us.

Why did he do the things that he did?

Why did he allow himself to be tortured like he was?

It was out of his love for his father and his desire to restore relationship between the father that he loved and the creation that they both together had helped to create.

Remember, last week we talked about fellowship and the vertical and the horizontal relationship with God.

His fellowship with his father led him to the point to where he loved the creation of God, the children of God, in such a way that he wanted to pour out his love for them and for us.

Imagine as Jesus is hanging there on the cross and he's holding himself together the best that he possibly can, and the father is silent and Jesus, it says, for the joy that was set before him.

He endured the cross and the suffering and the shame.

What was that joy.

It was the joy of his heavenly father's great reception, receiving him back into glory and placing him at the right hand of the father.

Partly it was also the joy of looking 2000 years in the history into Knoxville, tennessee, and seeing a church called Trinity Community Church with a few hundred people sitting around on a Sunday enjoying his presence and enjoying the company of other believers and partaking together of the communion that represents the price that was paid.

Communion again should point us to the heart of God.

The last thing is communion is a seal.

It's a seal.

It represents, just like baptism, our union with Christ.

That's powerful.

It also signifies the union of believers with one another as we are one body in Christ.

One of the blessed things about taking communion together in a setting like this is that we're recognizing that we're a part of a larger body of Christ.

And today we have the blessing of having Randy here from parts unknown I don't know if you're allowed to say or not that he's from Russia and he's here.

He's from America, he's from parts, all parts, but he's here with us.

This morning we had Phil Adams in the first service here from France.

So people from all over the world right and all gathered together in one place, partaking of communion, together, representing the body of Christ.

What a powerful thing.

You see, my friends, communion reminds us that Jesus will come again, not as the suffering servant, but as the conquering king, and so we look backward and we look forward to that day.

And, by the way, the last supper that's misstated.

There's gonna be another supper.

There's gonna be another supper where every tribe, every nation, every people, every tongue, every person on the face of the that's ever lived, on the face of this planet that put their faith and hope and trust in Jesus Christ, we will gather together and the Lord Jesus himself will once again pick up the bread and break the bread and distribute it, and he'll pour the cup and we'll drink from the cup.

Wow, as we conclude this, we must approach communion with holy reverence.

1 Corinthians, 11, 27 through 29, says whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.

Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup, for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

That's heavy.

That's heavy.

Baptism and communion are two things that you do not want to pretend to be a Christian while doing.

This is not a game.

This is very serious to God.

It's not because I've made this up or because it's my plan.

This is very important to God and he's established this as a covenantal right, as something that's a part of being a part of the family of God.

We get to enjoy this and celebrate together, and it's something special and unique and it's not to be enjoyed by those who do not yet know Jesus.

Now, if you're here in this room or you're listening at home and you want to take communion this morning, you don't yet know Jesus.

The Holy Spirit's leading you right now.

Talk to the Lord, confess your sin to him, acknowledge your need for a savior and believe on Jesus, and this could be your very first communion that you partake in that is based on the fact that you're in right relationship with God.

We'd love for that to happen.

That's one category.

Another category to consider is this I had to repent this week to the Lord because I haven't always taken communion as seriously as I need to.

Sometimes it does become kind of like a ritual or something that we're doing just because it's a part of the service and we do it on the first of every month and this is just something we do and it's something we have to a lot time for, and I need to restrict my sermon length and we need to make sure the songs are not too long and the announcements and all of that stuff.

We need to create space and room for this.

But even more than all of that, just in my own heart, do I really take the time as I'm partaking of this great grace gift that God has given us?

Am I really considering what it's about?

So I want to take us through a practice this morning as we get ready to take communion together.

If you did not receive the communion cups this morning, if you raised your hand, we'll be glad to bring you one right now and make sure you get one.

Okay, there's a few hands Now.

Another thing is that sometimes it feels like we spend more time worrying about how to open these things.

If I'm being honest, then really considering what this is a pallet.

So let's not let that become an encumbrance or a hindrance to how special this really is.

So I have a couple of around this side.

They're meeting elements.

So the first thing we're gonna do together this morning ask the band to come on in.

First thing we're gonna do is examine ourselves.

That's what the scripture teaches examine yourself, and what does it mean to examine myself?

What I try to do is ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any unrepentant that's, the key unrepentant areas in my life that may not be pleasing to God.

Now here's what Satan will do in this moment.

If you let him, he'll bring up every sin that you've ever committed and that you've already repented for and try to get you to focus on all of that.

That's not what this time is about.

How many of you know, once those sins have been forgiven and covered over by the blood of Jesus, they have been cast into the sea of forgetfulness as far as the east is from the west.

They have no more place and they carry no more weight in your life.

So it's not about all of the list of things from 51 years of living.

It's about Lord, is there an area of my heart right now that I've got closed off to you or to other people?

Am I disappointed in some way with the fact that you're not moving at the speed that I'd like you to move in my life?

Am I holding unforgiveness without even maybe, recognizing it?

Lord, show me, show me my heart, show me.

Oh, lord, search, search me, show me.

And then I just take a few minutes to between you and the Lord, between us and the Lord.

Let's consider this a holy moment and let's begin to ask Him to reveal to us those areas.

Okay, again, don't listen to the lies of the enemy.

Just maybe a few things that pop into your head Some heart motivation, some attitude, some words that have been spoken, maybe even some shows you've been watching on TV that really just don't need to be watched.

Whatever the case is, this is a holy moment between you and God.

Lord, we do ask you, by your precious Holy Spirit, to reveal to us the areas of our life that we are living with unrepentant sin.

In the mighty name of Jesus, we ask you, lord, god, show us now.

We listen for your voice.

We thank you, lord, that you don't speak words of condemnation.

You speak words of healing and forgiveness, and redemption and restoration.

So, lord, if you bring these things up, we know that the whole reason is because you want to bring about forgiveness and change.

We listen for you now.

Music Maybe you had a person pop up in your head, is it possible that you need to forgive them?

That's a choice you can make right now in the presence of a holy God.

You can choose my God's grace, to let go To forgive.

Someone does not say that what was done was right.

In fact, it says that what was done was wrong, absolutely wrong, and yet, by God's grace and inactive my will, I'm choosing to forgive in spite of that and to let go Forgive today.

Here's the other question.

Maybe somebody's name popped into your head and you need to apologize to them.

You need to acknowledge to them your need for forgiveness.

You're the one that's created the divide or the problem or the issue.

That's the case, and they're here with you right now your husband, your wife, your children.

Just lean over to them right now and you nobody's looking around, but between them and God, and you just say, hey, I'm sorry, forgive me.

I was wrong in the way that I've been wrong and the way I've been speaking to you, the way I've treated you.

I acknowledge that and I ask you to forgive me.

If there's a person that's not in this room, I encourage you Don't let this day go by without doing something writing a letter, sending an email, sending a card do something, and if you're not able to, maybe they've passed from this life.

Guess what?

We have a God that you can ask for forgiveness from, and he can do it.

He'll do it.

He'll do it, but to the best of your ability.

Make it right with God and with everyone else.

Lord, we thank you for your grace in the area of our weakness.

We ask that you would forgive us and cleanse us from all in righteousness, creating us a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us.

In the name of Jesus, lord, I do pray that you would cause all of us to not only have our relationship with you restored, but those broken relationships in our lives, lord God, that are devastating and hurtful and that are keeping us in prison.

Would you give us the ability to let go and to trust you with those things Right now?

In Jesus' name, we thank you, father.

And lastly, I don't know if you caught this before, but it says that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it.

Communion is one of the greatest opportunities that we have to be thankful for, the things that are the most important.

I mean, we can complain about a lot of things in life, we can be concerned about a lot of different things in life, but if it comes down to, what's most important is the fact that Jesus did what he did so that we could be made right with God.

That's where it's at, and so it's not that you have to pray the sinner's prayer every week in order to be saved.

It's not like.

But we can celebrate, we can be thankful, we can look Godward and be filled with joy and gratitude for what Jesus did.

So now, if you want to go ahead and get your bread, father, it's with a heart full of gratitude that we take this bread this morning, that we thank you.

That it represents symbolizes so many things.

It's a sign of the covenant that you've made with us.

It's a seal upon our hearts and upon our minds when the accuser of the brethren comes to lie to us, to try to steal from us, when this life isn't fair and it makes no sense.

Lord Jesus, this is something we can be thankful for.

This is a place where our joy can be restored.

This is a place of presence, where you promise that you'll reveal yourself in new and fresh ways to us.

Lord, we don't want to take the bread again today, just in another kind of habitual way.

Lord, god, we want to take it with a heart full of inexpressible joy.

I cannot even imagine what my life would be like without you and Lord, I watched my granddaughter, two-year-old granddaughter, dance around the living room singing songs of praise and worship to you just a couple of days ago.

I was taken to a place in my own heart of saying where's your dance, where's your song?

Where's your heart?

Father restored to us a simple joy of knowing you, discovering you for the first time.

And so we take this bread, lord Jesus, in remembrance of you.

Thank you, jesus.

I try to, even as I'm chewing the bread, I try to think about all of the punishment that Jesus absorbed in his body.

It's just hard to fathom that he did all of that.

He took all that he took for me, and then Jesus took the cup and blessed it as well.

I was thinking about the blood of Jesus, and it's not culturally popular to talk about these things.

If we could just talk about how God loves us, that would be something that the culture could embrace.

But to talk about what it costs for that love to be expressed is not something that people want to talk about, but I'm here to tell you.

Just one drop of our Savior's blood and everything changed.

For thousands of years of history, animals were slain, thrown on altars, burnt to a crisp, sent out with hands laid on them to somehow in some way cover up for or make some form of atonement for the sin of the people.

And yet the next day, another lamb, another goat, another dove, another sin.

But Jesus, jesus was the perfect sacrifice, greater than any of those sacrifices made before him, because he did not come just to cover over or paint over or make something look better.

He came to erase, to remove, to eradicate, to destroy the wall that was made between us and his Heavenly Father.

And I can't stop thinking about the very man who nailed Jesus to the cross.

As Jesus is breathing his last breath and the blood falls from his body, where the man spirit him, in his side, and the blood hits him more than likely in the face or in the hands, and he repeats the words of John the Baptist in clarity, kind of as a wrapping around this whole thought of who Jesus is, he says behold Jesus, the Son of God.

This is the Son of God.

Oh Lord, god, we know we have forgotten the value of your blood in so many ways in this nation and in our own lives.

Father, we come to you today with a heart full of gratitude and grace.

We're thankful that you have forgiven us, that you've cleansed us, that you have made us white as snow, that we don't have to go back anymore to the old way of living.

There's a new beginning.

This is a new day.

So, father, as an act of obedience and because of the words that you spoke to us and the sacrifice that Jesus prayed, made, we ask you to bless this cup and we take of it, we partake of it, and we do this in remembrance of you, in Jesus' name.