Discerning the Lord's Body

Well, I'm a survivor.

So we made it to camp last week and with the young people.

My wife and a few others prodded me to go.

And it wasn't that I didn't want to go, but I didn't want to go.

And, you know, who wants to stay in a dormitory with sweaty boys?

Who wants to wrangle cats all day?

But I prayed. I said, Lord, I pray that you would use this time in our young people's lives, help me get to know them, spend time with them.

And when I was, Denny and I was driving back, I was reflecting upon the week.

And I'm so proud. I am so proud of our young people.

There was not one time we needed to correct them, not one time we needed to redirect them.

They were respectful. They took notes.

They sang hymns and songs, unprompted when they were together.

On the van, right back with all these girls, they continued to sing hymns and songs.

And it's just a sweet thing to see the young people seeking the Lord.

I was convinced that they were seeking God and that many of them knew God.

And they were having spiritual fellowship with one another.

You're not too young to seek the Lord.

And I gave them a little sermon on the way home in the van.

And I think it's good for all of us. It was good for me to hear me instruct them because this is true.

That I instructed them that the most important thing about the Christian faith was seeking a relationship with Christ, having a communion with Christ.

We forget that it's not just learning a bunch of theology and going to church and doing religious activities.

But how do you know, I asked him, how do you build a friendship and how does friendships die?

How does friendships come and how do they die?

And they come by pursuing to know someone. They die by neglect.

And it's hard. It's hard for us to all be friends with one another.

It's almost impossible for this large of a group for every one of us to be friends with every one of us.

But regardless if we can't be friends with every one of us the way we would like to be friends with every one of us, there's one friendship that is vital.

And that friendship is knowing Jesus and relating with Him.

And I told him two things how to how to build that friendship with Christ.

One, you have to be transparent and honest. You can't have a facade with a friend and be a deep friend.

You can be a hypocrite and say, hey, be surface level.

But with Christ, if you want to go and build that relationship in prayer, you have to be completely transparent with your failures, your weaknesses, your insecurities.

You expose yourself before the Lord in prayer.

And then you seek to know Christ through reading His word, especially the gospels, seek to know His character and learn who He is.

And the more you see of Christ, the more you love Him, the more you around Him, the more you appreciate Him and you worship Him and adore Him.

And let us not. You know, that was something I give for the young kids.

They're like, man, this is not something for any of us to forget. Let us make sure that we're not neglecting.

You know, if you neglect your spouse, your relationship is going to go south.

If you neglect the Lord, it's going to affect you in a couple of weeks.

You're going to neglect the Lord in a day or two and not notice go a week without communion with Christ.

It's going to affect your spirit. You'll see yourself to some signs.

You'll see yourself. You'll see yourself get critical.

You'll see yourself getting critical of others.

Typically, when you're critical of others, there's some something is malfunctioning with your relationship with the Lord.

And to when you become covetous for this world or become discontent, discontentment will be a sign.

You know, it's a morning sign, a little hike.

You feel low. Your fuel is low.

Here's a sign you get charged up when you see yourself discontent and start coveting things and you're getting disgruntled.

All that kind of internal misery gets come out of you to restore the joy of the Lord or joy and love and peace and first of the spirit flow out of you.

And where you become not so critical of others, but you come so like I'm I'm just I I can't believe that, you know, that God loves me.

I'm overwhelmed with the reality that God is my friend. Christ is my friend, and he's the friend that will stick closer than a brother.

He's a friend that won't ever fail you. I will fill you.

You will fill me. We will fill each other. Your spouse will fill you.

You will fill your spouse. You'll fill your children. Your children will fill you. And it's easy.

Let's just be honest. It's easy in all the failing relationships or the inconsistent relationships in this arena, even though I think God's people are the best people to have relationships with.

But even in all the failures and inconsistencies in this arena, it's easy to go.

It's easy for us to go. Hey, I'm just going to focus on the Lord Jesus.

I don't need the church. I just need my relationship with Christ because he doesn't fail me.

He's sweet and he's wonderful and he's perfect. And I find all that I need in him. And that's true.

But the more you study the Lord Jesus Christ and how loving he was a sacrificially serving he he was.

You see that if you want to if you become I'm so impressed with Christ and how he loves me in my failures and my unfaithfulness, he remains faithful.

And if you come from something you're you're marrying the Lord for in his beauty and his glory and his humility and his long suffering and his patience with you and I.

Then you say, well, he did this for his people. Then may we have that same love and patience and long suffering and kindness towards his people and seek to serve and not to be served.

Seek to give and not to be one who received seek to go to church to bless others, not necessarily seeking others to bless you that we're here to pour out what God has poured into us.

And so for us to be able to be a benefit to God's people, we need to be alone with Christ.

We need to have that that relationship with the Lord strong.

And yes, our religion when Lord will be built through the church, but it has to be built independent of the church.

It has to be built in this intimate, personal, incommunical relationship that you have with Jesus, that it is real for you.

And that and this is what the beauty see the Catholic Church says you can't get to Christ, but except through the church.

We don't hold that you don't get to Christ through the church.

You get to the church through Christ.

You go straight to Christ and you have a direct line of communication.

You have direct relationship with Christ and there's no immediate agents between you and Christ.

Christ is the only mediator between God and you know God through a direct personal intimate relationship with Jesus.

And that gives you the strength, the courage, the love, the fruits of the spirit, all these things for us to love one another.

So let's let's pursue that.

All right.

If you have your Bibles turn with me to first Corinthians 11.

Starting in verse 23.

But before we read our texts and verse 23 through 26 of Chapter 11.

What if you were going to your spouse's funeral or memorial service?

And it was you're fighting back tears.

You're fighting back all the emotions of losing a spouse.

And it was a kind of a serious atmosphere.

It was in a church facility like this.

And then a couple of boys came in not knowing where they're at.

Maybe they're just clueless.

They walk in and their gym shorts and tank tops and they got ear pods in the ear.

And they come in.

They come in smack in their gum and just chit chatting and talking while everybody is just kind of serious and quiet.

And they're just horsing around and start picking on one another and making a noise and everybody stinches looking at them.

And they they seem kind of clueless.

The young young kids are clueless of where they're at.

They're clueless of their their environment.

They're include.

They're clueless.

There's a few are going on.

They think they're at a basketball game or something.

How would that how would that be?

How would you feel if this was your spouse's memorial service and these kids just continued on it?

They didn't even after like five minutes in they they should go.

Oh where we at and kind of straighten up.

But they didn't do that.

They they're so focused on themselves that they continue to misbehave.

And it's not necessarily that they're being our right sinful or doing anything wrong if they were at the gym.

Their behavior would be suitable but they're not at the gym.

They're in the sanctuary and they're at a funeral service and they're not able to have discernment.

That's the key word.

They're lacking discernment of what's going on.

They don't understand.

They're they're lacking understanding of the environment.

Now that is similar what's going on in the Church of Corinth when they're participating in the Lord's Supper.

What they have made the Lord Supper was to be a holy ceremony as an ordinance of the Lord.

And they made it into a common meal.

It was a potluck and three things were happening that was not suitable.

They weren't using discernment.

They didn't have understanding what was going on.

And three things that led that led to them misabusing the body of Christ or they're not discerning as the text says they didn't discern the body of Christ.

They weren't aware of what was being represented during this supper.

So they made it in common meal one they want discerning of the church body which remember last time I preached I talked about how the body of Christ represents God's people.

And the Lord's table is meant to signify as there's one loaf one body and we all partake of that one loaf is to symbolize our unity in Jesus Christ that we have one this with one another we have unity with one another.

And they weren't demonstrating that because some of the ones that had food were eating without the ones that didn't bring food.

They weren't sharing their food and basically it made the ones that did not have food it made embarrass them it kind of they felt ashamed.

And so it brought division in the body rather than unity in the body.

So they weren't using the Lord's Supper properly.

It wasn't fostering unity as the communion is meant to foster.

So they weren't discerning what was going on in that way.

Secondly they had forgotten the importance of the elements.

Now in the text that we're going to deal with the day where he reminds them what the bread means and what the cup means.

Let me tell you what these mean.

And he says I don't you.

This is not just a regular supper.

You could eat at home.

This is not just a fellowship meal.

There's places to do that elsewhere.

So you've made this into a common meal but you're forgotten the seriousness of this event.

Let me remind you and we'll talk about that in a minute.

Let me remind you what the bread means and what the cup means.

And finally they weren't they were not discerning the church body.

They weren't discerning the physical body of Jesus.

And lastly they weren't taking inventory of themselves.

They weren't discerning their own misbehavior.

So when you take communion properly and we're going to do that here in a minute when you take communion is three things you need to discern or understand or evaluate.

One you need to understand.

Hey am I have am I in unity with the body of Christ.

That's one thing to do I remember am I remembering the physical body of Jesus.

Am I taking time to reflect upon his death.

And that's the sermon for today remembering the gospel remembering the body and blood.

Actually remembering the broken body and the spilt blood of our Savior as we remember the gospel.

Then we'll look at next week making sure that our hearts are right discerning ourselves.

But let's look at remembering the gospel remembering the what the elements what the bread and cup what did the signify certain verse twenty three with me.

For I received from the Lord what also was delivered to you that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread and we had given things he broke it and said this is my body was just for you.

Do this remembrance of me in the same way also you took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant my blood do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of eight for as often as you eat this bread and drink this drink the cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

So here he's having us to remember or discern the elements remember consider what what is this represent.

There's.

A piece of bread underneath this and there is some juice here.

Here's the cup and here's the bread. What what does this mean and it does is no good to take the Lord's Supper if we don't have awareness of what this represent and this is a memorial service.

These are given to us as a memorial and you know what a memorial monument is or a monument is something to put you in remembrance of something or someone maybe the World War II Memorial.

It reminds you of the great cost of freedom or the Lincoln Monument or the Washington Memorial.

The things are set up in prominent places so that we don't forget and God doesn't want us to forget the gospel.

He would have us to recall.

The body of Christ the broken body of Christ in the spilled blood of Christ and as we think about this and we see that the Lord's Supper is a memorial.

You have the Catholic position and they believe that the Lord's Supper is the actual physical bodily presence of Jesus Christ that Jesus comes back bodily like it's another reincarnation of Christ and when you eat of the bread and drink of this cup you're actually physically cannibalizing Christ.

That's what they teach that you're eating the physical body of Christ.

It is called transubstantiation and the word trans means to be transformed and so in the process the Catholic Church teaches that this bread becomes it is no longer bread.

It becomes the actual physical meat the muscles of Jesus Christ in this juice actually are this wine would actually become the physical literal body.

I mean blood of Christ you know this the Latin phrase.

The body hawks X Corpus is the Latin phrase hawks X Corpus and that's where we get in these movies.

Focus focus you know that's the magic of transubstantiation.

The priest says the words hawks X Corpus he's actually that words are transforming right then and there these elements into the physical body of Christ now Luther rejected that view and so he says no.

This actually stays because it tastes like wine and it tastes like bread.

It doesn't taste like flesh and blood.

It's not changing it's not transforming however the some in mystical way he couldn't explain it in some mystical way the physical literal body and blood of Jesus Christ gets attached to it.

It's either under it he says it's under it or on it or in it or around it somewhere attached to it.

So this is not transforming itself but the physical body of Christ so it's invisible which is remarkable somehow gets attached to this.

And this is called consubstantiation which means consubstantiation means remaining the same.

But this taking you know the physical body of Christ doesn't have the attributes of the divinity of Christ the physical body of Christ can't be omnipresent it can't be invisible so it's it's undoing what.

Christ meant when he says this is my body when he says this is my body is not saying this is literally my body.

He said this will this represents my body you know it's like kids playing football in the backyard and has a bottle cap says that this is you and here's a stick now that's me.

You're not the stick of the bottle cap but this represents you you go here and I'll throw it here and here's this you know and here's the bottle cap going out the bottle cap is just stands as a representative like a memorial like when you look at the Lincoln monument you don't go well there's Abraham Lincoln.

But you go all that brings the memory of a Abraham Lincoln back to my mind.

Well that's what the Lord's Supper is and that's the memorial position that's the reform position is memorialism that's what we hold to now there's two divisions in with in memorialism that there is a spiritual presence of Christ.

That Christ doesn't physically come to us but he spiritually in his divine nature and his spirit comes and is with us and we commune with him by faith when we take the Lord's Supper.

We'll talk about that more the next time I teach on Wednesday in a couple weeks.

But we see here that this is a more moral look at verse twenty four.

It says do this and remembers of me then in verse twenty five it says do this and remembers of me again in verse twenty six is worth often is eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord's death into his comps.

So he said I'm going to give you a physical tangible object. I mean these are tangible things and it's going to function as a sign our types is going to it's going to function as a memorial elements.

So when you see this you remember me you're thinking about me and I can tell you this way when you have something in your mind it's closer to you in presence that is something's physically next to you.

There are all kinds of things right physically next to you right at this moment but you're not paying attention to him.

I mean you could be daydreaming about supper or dinner and that's more on your mind than your surrounding environments.

You see it's more important not that we see Jesus in the flesh. We believe him without seeing him. We don't need to see him. We don't need to physically eat him.

We don't need to drink his blood. We need by faith faith sees the invisible faith sees that which is unseen and that's what sanctifies us.

That's where the means of grace takes place in the in the Lord's Supper is by faith. This points to something that's invisible.

See these elements don't point to themselves. They're not saying look at the bread look at the cup these cups and bread saying look to Christ look to the death.

He's done. And this is the Lord's Supper is an ongoing memorial service.

And thus we need to discern or to consider you see the Corinthians weren't discerning the Lord's body. They weren't recalling the gospel.

They were just eating him. You know they probably even didn't even they probably didn't bring out the elements.

They just had they just made it in a common meal and the gospel was out of their mind apparently.

And so in the sense they weren't discerning the meaning of the supper. They weren't remembering what was going on.

It was like these kids that come to the funeral service in their gym clothes. They're just clueless of the environment that they're in.

So as you come to the service of the Lord in his up at his table you're going to consume of the Lord by faith.

But you need to be aware. You need to be discern of what's taking place.

And now with that said this communion is a design to remind us of the gospel.

It's to remind us of actual what Christ has done. Now we forget. We forget.

And so we need a constant reminder of how we stand before the Lord.

So first of all we need to remind ourselves of the broken body of Christ.

The bread and which is broken. Now I.

I would love.

I would love that. I don't know how to do it but I would love to have one big loaf that we break and everybody eats from that single loaf.

I mean that because that's the way it was designed to be.

And when you broke the bread it comes broken it signifies that Christ's body was broken for us.

And you're thinking well I don't think Christ body was broken because the Bible clearly says that one bone was broken.

Well it is true that his bones weren't broken but his body was.

His body was broken for us.

Isaiah 52 14 says.

As many were astonished at you his appearance was so marred beyond human symbolance.

And his form beyond that was the children of mankind.

This verse says that when times Jesus was on the cross his friends couldn't recognize that that was Jesus.

Could you imagine being beaten so bad and bruised so bad and broken so bad.

That the time you get to the cross you can't identify the facial features.

He's unrecognizable.

It all happened.

He started the sufferings began.

We could say it began at the beginning of the incarnation his whole life was a life of sorrows and suffering.

But you could say the actual.

Agony of the crucifixion began in the garden.

The night that he was betrayed.

He went to pray and as we know he began to sweat drops of blood.

This is a condition that rarely happens is a medical condition.

In fact you can look at Web M.D.com and it's a condition.

A physical diagnosis in the medical community.

And even they say it's so rare that they the medical community says they don't really know what causes it.

Although they do say it typically happens when people face trauma or they're scared to go into battle and it's the desire of their life to live.

But they know that they're thinking they're going to die.

And what happens in this medical conditions is the blood vessels around your sweat glands burst.

And you're sweating out of fear and anxiety if you would.

And then the little blood vessels begin to burst and your sweat mix ends with your blood mixes in with the with the tears and it begins pouring out your pores usually around your eyes and your face.

Sometimes out your nose.

Sometimes you even will cough up blood.

When this happens with the Lord was experiencing that because he was quite aware he wasn't.

He wasn't unaware what was going to happen.

You know sometimes when bad things happen you don't know what's going to happen and it just hit you and you don't have time to think the Lord had three years to contemplate this.

And he knew his hour was going to come.

He said from the beginning my hours not yet my hours not yet.

Here at the Lord's Supper of the Passover the night he was betrayed right before he praises as my hour has come.

And so he goes to pray and he's contemplating what's going to happen.

He foresees the abuse that he's going to take.

And they arrested him and they took him before palette.

First they took him before the priest and the priest had their own soldiers.

And they began to blindfold him.

They blindfolded Christ and they started hitting him.

And they said if you're of the Christ then tell us who's hitting you.

And they were whopping him if you would right in the face.

No doubt he probably had black eyes bloody nose.

They weren't just slapping him gently.

They were hitting him forcefully while he is blindfolded and he held back and just took it.

It was probably at this time that they ripped out his beard.

Isaiah 50 verse 6 says they poured out his beard by the cheeks.

Isaiah 50:6

All the Jews older men in that day had full length beers and think of what it would feel like if someone would grab your beard and just yank it out by the roots.

It would open up the flesh.

You begin to bleed in the face and they're just pulling out his beard.

And this is just the first step.

Then after he he's with palette I mean with the priest the priest send him to palette because the priest don't have the authority to put him to death.

So they send him to the ones that could put him to death and that's the Romans.

So he goes to palette and palette doesn't want to do anything with them.

So he sends them to Harold who happened to be in town and heard made him look like mocked him and put a robe on him and made fun of him and then send him back to palette and palette kind of want to let him go and order pacify the people.

And this is the first half of the crucifixion because the crucifixion had two parts.

Part one was the beating the flogging part two was the actual putting you on the cross but you never got on the cross until you as flog.

And so he says I'll flog them really bad.

And once they see how punished he is maybe they'll let him live.

Well this flogging was terrible.

We know by the extra biblical accounts of crucifixions that they would take the victim and they would tie his hands to a flogging post and sometimes I think the flogging post would they would they would pull out his hands like this to two posts actually.

So a stretch out his back to pull the muscles then they would take a whip and the whip they would use would have these nine called with the nine tails they had these nine branches of these with at the end of each of them was glass stoned and iron flakes.

And there was a man it was meant to be raped and dragged across the back.

It was meant to cut deeply and then bring the the the scars or the cuts throughout the muscles and they would do this.

The Jews could only do it 39 times because they considered 40 last year's to be the death sentence but the Romans had no reservations.

This was reserved for those who were of the worst criminals wrote.

In fact it was so bad that even if you're a Roman citizen you could not go through this punishment.

But the Lord Jesus wasn't a Roman citizen.

And so they raked his back to the point of opening up deep deep cuts exposing his backbone.

Maybe even some of the the organs in the lower back were exposed.

Lacerating his flesh.

This is what I say 50 verse 6 says I gave my back to those who strike in my cheeks to those who pull out the beard.

I hit on my face from disgrace and spitting.

So as we think about this bread you have to consider this broken bread.

You have to consider the broken body of Jesus.

Think about that for a little while.

The broken body of Christ how it was split open and wounded.

You're going to be healed by his stripes.

What stripes are we talking about.

We're talking about these clashes that were raked across his back exposing him to these awful wounds.

Often people would die in this process that would even make it to the crucifixion.

They would die out of being just completely unconscious.

But the Lord survived this ordeal.

After he went through probably thirty nine forty lashes.

This time he may be in critical condition.

He probably could have died if they left him alone without tending to his wounds.

He was most certainly would have died from that.

But they brought him back and put it they took.

In fact they stripped him naked to do that.

Then they put his clothes back on.

And can you imagine having open wounds and having your shirt put back on you your robe put back on you.

And then when you get back to the priest they yank it off again and just pulling that shirt back off those open wounds.

They did that again.

And at this time they had to read the priest had to read one of the men had this stick and started beating him with it.

Then they took a crown of thorns with two inch long needles and they didn't just place it gently.

They smashed it on him.

I mean they're inflicting pain on him for a reason.

Then he had to carry the beam the cross just one of the beams he had to carry until he couldn't carry it no longer.

And he fainted out of exhaustion and then they tied his hands to the beam and then they pierced his hands to it with these seven to nine inch spikes.

And could you imagine then they after you're you're laid down on this beam then they take the beam and they hoist it up to the other cross beam which the two beams together would make a cross.

They would hoist you up and the weight of your body pulls your lungs and pulls your whole body down where you can't exhale.

You can breathe in in order to kind of prolong the agony and then we get the word.

Crucinating we get it from crucifixion because this was meant to be a excruciating torture.

It was an object of torture.

Christ went through torture and so here they would put something underneath his feet maybe a little platform because if you're going to speak at all.

We know he said seven things.

So in order for you to speak when you're on a cross you have to lift yourself up to be able to get the breath that you need to speak.

Eventually you would die because you can't breathe.

And it.

It was a curse.

That's why that even before the crucifixion was invented.

Now predates the Romans.

But even before it was fought up in the mind of some evil person.

The Old Testament says cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.

Cursed you see this was designed to be a torturous painful event.

And it's reserved only for the worst criminals.

But that's not all many many evil men have gone through torturous things.

I don't think that alone calls the Lord to sweat drops of blood.

I think of the fact he knew that his father would forsake him all of his friends.

The deserted him like sheep without a shepherd.

They deserted and scattered her out.

So he's left to deal with the worst day of his life with all his friends rejecting him a close friend already betrayed him.

But I think he could have endured that.

I think it was the consideration that his heavenly father that he's had eternal communion with would not be there for him.

That his father would turn his back on him.

And he would cry out in the middle of this agony.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

I mean, look at me and see it was in his flesh that the wrath of God was poured out on.

It was in his body.

God didn't want to sacrifice.

He prepared a body.

A body Christ had to be incarnate to take a human body.

And it is in that body that he suffered.

He had the mental and emotional torments.

I've often thought about that being the feeling of being forsaken and rejected and despised and ridiculed and mocked.

That's excruciating to think about the emotional torment.

But think about the physical for torment for a little bit and think about when people are beating him and hitting him and flogging him.

And in some ways, now I know God is in some ways.

That's the wrath of God using these men as instruments.

Because you and I deserve to be on that cross.

You deserve to be there.

Right. We deserve that treatment.

And this is what the Psalm twenty two talks about.

The Psalm twenty two is a messianic psalm predicting the crucifixion.

It says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me?

From the words of my groaning.

Oh, my God, I cry by day.

But you do not answer.

And by night I find no rest.

I'm a worm and not a man scorned by mankind, despised by the people.

All who see me mock me.

They make mouths at me.

They wag their heads.

He trusts in the Lord.

Let him deliver him.

Let him rescue him.

He delights in him.

I'm poured out like water.

And all my bones are out of joint.

Probably his bones got out of joint with the whipping post.

And if not there, it definitely got out of joint there on the cross.

My heart is like wax is melted within my breasts.

My strength is dried up like a pot shirt and my tongue sticks to my jaws.

You lay me in the dust of death for dogs encompass me.

A company of evil doers encircle me.

They have pierced my hands and feet.

I cannot I can count all my bones.

They stare and it glowed over me.

They divide my garments among them and for my clothes they cast lots.

Now as we think about this, remember that member of the bulking body of Jesus.

He said, Jeff, this is not something I want to recall.

This is not something that's delightful.

This is not something enjoyable.

Why would you want me to fix the eight and think and remember all these things?

This is terrible.

Well, you got to remember this is done for you.

Look at verse twenty four.

When he had given things, he broke it and said, this is my body.

Which is.

For you.

This is my gift for you.

He bore the wrath we deserved in his flesh and his body.

First Peter two twenty four.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin live to righteousness by his wounds.

You have been healed.

You see, this is the doctrine of substitutionary atonement.

Now, this is where Christ takes our place.

He's a substitute.

He's there fighting back the wrath of God.

He think of the wrath of God as a firehose.

Think of a big one with with ultimate pressure and think of the water coming out of holes.

I mean, it doesn't trinkle out.

It's just it's going just as rapid as forceful.

You can imagine imagine that that being the wrath of God, the wrath of the father being poured out in this that that firehose is aimed at you because of your sins and your disgrace and your all the things you've done and I've done is like we deserve the lashings and we deserve the wrath of God.

We deserve the torture of the body to be to go to the place where the worm does not die.

We deserve that.

Think of that wrath of God.

So here you have the wrath of God and then you have the love of God sending his son to step in front of the firehose.

So that you don't get wet.

That you don't have to face it, that you don't have to endure.

You can be healed by his stripes.

You can be forgiven by his wounds that you can be free and you don't have to have sweats or drops of blood.

Dripping from your face as you contemplate death.

You don't have to worry about the wrath of God anymore because Christ stood in your place.

He got on the cross for us and it was the joy that was set before him that he did this.

Isaiah fifty three verse four says surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

And with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned everyone to his own way.

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted.

Yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that has led to the slaughter and like a sheep that is before it sheers is solid.

So he opened not his mouth by oppression and judgment was taken away from him.

And as for this generation who considered that he was cut off of the land of the living.

Stricten for the transgression of my people.

Now that's what we're remembering.

That's what we're considering.

It's not literally just this piece of bread.

That's representative.

When you look at that.

Think of.

Christ's afflictions.

Think of his broken body.

Now what I love about this is you get to consume it.

That speaks the fact that we're going to take from the table of the Lord and his afflictions becomes ours.

That is he he we get the benefits of the wrath of God.

I want to love about the this idea of the fire holes of the wrath of God being aimed at us.

But Christ stands in between us and God.

Another way of looking at it would be like a cup of wrath that God pours out.

And Jesus has let this cup pass from me but nevertheless I'll drink it.

And the cup was poured out of wrath and he drew every drop.

He took every bit of it.

And that leaves there leaves no wrath.

There's no more condemnation.

There's no more judgment for you.

That leaves you without any any wrath to take.

You don't have to face any beatings any punishment.

Any afflictions you don't have to go to hell.

You don't have to face the dread of God's anger anymore.

Is that makes sense.

Is that not wonderful.

See this is a remembrance of the gospel.

It's a beautiful thing.

It's in fact is the most glorious of all the theological truths there is.

In fact is so glorious is hard to believe is true.

But not only do we remember the broken body of our Lord we remember his spilt blood.

The spilt blood started in the Garden of Gethsemane.

It came out voluntarily and then it was repeated throughout the next the rest of that morning and day.

In fact probably by five thirty he's already dead.

So all day he's being battered and beaten and blood is oozing out of them.

It's not just a little bit blood where they build the spikes in his bloody face bloody chin bloody back.

Buddy feet.

But you see here the blood represents the nature of the new covenant.

Look at verse twenty five in the same way he took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Jesus said in Luke twenty two at the Passover he says the cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you.

This body is for you.

His blood is for you.

You're not redeemed by silver and gold but you've been redeemed by the most precious thing in the world.

By the blood Christ is death.

The Bible tells us in Hebrews nine that the law requires nearly everything to be cleansed with blood without the shedding of blood.

There's no forgiveness.

If he is one seven says and in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins in accordance to riches of his grace.

This this cup the blood represents the new covenant.

Remember the old covenant says do and live and the one who does not do a curse it is the one who doesn't do everything is written in the book of the law.

Curse it is the one who doesn't obey to the point that you should be put up on a tree.

This is the end of the old covenant the crucifixion and we're all under the law.

Therefore we're all deserved to be crucified.

But he came and stood in our place single handily and he poured out his blood.

He spilled his blood willingly lovingly so that he can get us out of the old covenant and make a new covenant with us and Jeremiah thirty one verse thirty one says it prophesied.

He said because they did not keep my covenant I need to make a new covenant with them and the new covenant he says I need to make with him it won't be like the old one which they broke but the new one is that they're ever sin will be forgiven.

And I will write my law within their hearts you see Christ knell the law to the cross.

He took away the demands of the law everything the law says you've got to do you've got to do you've got to do you've got to do in crisis it is finished.

Is finished and we revert back doing not to go.

Hey if I'm going to be right with God I just need to go to church more and pray more man in my prayer life.

That's not where I need to be and we get this guilt in fact you know sometimes we don't pray like we don't pray like we should.

And sometimes we feel the remorse and the guilt of our failures and our weaknesses and our shortcomings and it condemns us and it condemns us and the law speaks to us and the devil speaks to us and accuses us and say you're guilty you're guilty you're guilty but Jesus stands before you in that guilt and says no you're it is finished.

Every demand every requirement ever scruple of the law has been satisfied in Jesus Christ and therefore there is now no more condemnation there's no more guilt there's no more there's no more of the law saying do because when the law looks at you it says wow you're perfect.

So I'm not perfect goes yes you are perfect.

For the righteousness of Christ has been imputed to you.

You've been given a perfect record.

And the law is just the is the standard of God's own in my own thoughts the law is not an entity or person in God's the person and he's a righteous just judge and when God the father looks at you and I he says.

Oh perfection.

Here's my beloved child whom I'm well pleased he sees you as if you live Christ life.

For he who knew no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

That's the gospel that's the new confident.

And as we do this we're remembering this most sacred and most beautiful truth in the world.

What does this mean to us in closing.

Well as we partake of this you can think to yourself well I can't partake of this and we're going to talk about how we need to evaluate ourselves but here's how it works.

If you're going to evaluate yourself to see if you're worthy to take of this you should come to the conclusion I'm not.

But you don't come to the table because of your worthiness.

It is not like you had a good week today makes you qualified for this.

It is not because you prayed really well this week that you could take this.

You have no righteousness of your own you have no boast in your own if you're going to come to the table Lord you come in faith and you know that this covers you.

What this represents covers you.

That gives us confidence.

Our confidence is not in self and if you hear this is the good news about you who are lost.

You say I want to take of this now you can't take of this if you don't know Christ.

But you can take of it.

And you could take of it right now.

You don't need the physical elements to believe in Jesus Christ.

You can be certain of forgiveness is that well how can I know I'm forgiven.

By looking to the one who suffered in your place.

Who lived the righteous life in your place.

And so this is the nature of the gospel is not for the righteous but the unrighteous is the one who comes to the self like I have nothing I am nothing I don't have anything to boast it and all I boast in is in this one man named Jesus Christ.

He's my Savior. He's my substitute. He's my righteousness. He is everything and I stand forgiven in him.

Hebrews 10 tells us verse 18 where there is forgiveness of these there is no longer any offering for sin.

Therefore brothers since we have confidence to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh.

It says we have a great priest over the house of God let us draw near and now we can come to Lord we don't have to re sacrifice we don't have to put ourselves as a sacrifice we don't need any other sacrifice.

It's the sacrifice of Christ alone. This doesn't need to be a renewal of that sacrifice a new sacrifice. No this looks to the one finish permanent sacrifice.

Forever.

And with that confidence we can come boldly to the Lord's table we can go boldly to the throne room of God having true heart full of assurance with our hearts sprinkled clean from every evil conscious our bodies worse with pool water pure water you can come with guilt free.

Joy to the table.

Yes the Lord's table and should be a moment of reflection of what Christ has done but it should leave us feel guilt free.

Rejoicing.

In our savior.

Remember this is a remembrance of the gospel.

Christ has given us the Lord's table so that we don't forget.

May we remember these things as we protect him.

Amen.

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