Worship and Communion Sunday

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

All right, Awakening, thanks so much for participating in those three minutes.

We really do believe it's an important exercise.

I mean, the church has been assembling like this for centuries, and it was actually the Apostle Paul who told us to greet each other with a holy kiss.

And uh thankfully there's been some cultural changes to this practice because I'm not even a hugger.

Uh but we still seek to honor the principle behind the command as a way of just doing that.

It reminds us that we're a part of a brotherhood and sisterhood that all sits under this faith family, under the name of Jesus.

And so thanks for participating in that time.

We do feel it's it's really important.

And uh guys, this is just one of the many rhythms that God has established within our faith, just to ensure that we remain deeply connected to him and also we we remain deeply connected to one another.

And along with the weekly rhythm of gathering like this and giving God our worship and sitting under his teaching so that we're transformed and we're guided by his will and his heart, at the same time, God has also established some other rhythms, rhythms of remembering that we're actually going to do today to celebrate and reflect on this practice of communion.

You have to understand that the practice and the rhythms of remembering that God is activated within our faith, uh, they're really powerful and they're really purposeful.

And scripture has given us actually the consequences of when we begin to lose these rhythms of remembrance.

And most dramatically in Judges chapter 2, verse 10, it says this after the whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what had or what he had done for his people.

Judges 2:10

We can be a pretty forgetful people.

And when we neglect the core tenets of our faith and the the deep biblical history and rootedness of our faith, guys, it can be so devastating.

And so, therefore, here at Awakening, we've been having a consistent flywheel of centering in on communion for an entire service so that we once again just remind ourselves of our guilt, of God's grace, and also this future gathering to come.

I've actually been doing a lot of remembering lately.

We've been in the process, as you as I just mentioned, of moving from the East Coast and been digging through boxes and pulling out artifacts and been showing them to my family.

Look at this, and they don't care.

All right?

But I'm gonna share them with you, okay?

Maybe you'll care.

All right.

But one of the boxes that, or excuse me, one of the boxes I was rummaging through, I pulled out some of my old tape cassettes and CDs and that kind of thing.

And I I pulled, yes.

I pulled this one out here.

Uh, this was one of my favorite conscious rappers of the day.

His name was KRS1.

He was a part of a group called Boogie Down Productions, okay?

And I used to listen to this and many other tape cassettes in my Sony Walkman all throughout the day.

If you're not familiar with what a Sony Walkman is, uh I want you to imagine a brick.

And I want you to imagine putting this uh in the brick.

And then there's a thing called follow me on this, a wire, okay?

And that actually goes into some headphones, okay?

And I would listen to that that music all the time.

Now, unfortunately, if I'm being honest with you, I really couldn't afford a Sony Walkman right out of the gate.

I had to go with a cheaper knockoff version that was made by Jordash Jeans.

I want you to see it right here.

It's pretty bad.

Uh yeah.

It's amazing this thing even played.

Somehow we put it, we like hung these on our belt loops and thought it was amazing and cool.

So it's funny how the mind works.

And it's one of the reasons I think that that God gives us symbols because it jars us, and we need physical things to awaken our minds to the invisible spiritual realities that are going on.

And when I see that, my mind immediately goes to the first tape cassette that I ever bought.

It was with my mom in the grocery store, and it was just a single, and the song was called The Message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

And I can still hear the chorus going on in my head.

It's like a jungle sometimes.

It makes me wonder how I keep from going under.

And so it was a it was a kind of an awakening thing.

It was a fun song, but at the same time, in the midst of all the 80s glitter and glam, there were those that were trying to point out the realities of what was really going on in our world.

Interestingly enough, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, they were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame the same year that Martin Luther King was for his I Have a Dream speech, and they were both saying some similar messages that this world isn't right, this world is a jungle, this world is broken, and ultimately our hearts are broken.

See, when it comes to the communion table, God has placed it in the rhythm of our church so that we would remember our spiritual brokenness, our guilt, and realizing that we can so easily lose sight of that.

This is why, through the rituals and ceremonies that God integrated within Old Testament Israel, he says this in Deuteronomy 16, 12, remember that you were slaves in Egypt.

And so through the regular act of communion, God is telling us, hey, remember that you were slaves of your sin.

You see, this rhythm of communion, it forces us to once again remember the state of our brokenness, our guilt, and to reflect the very heart and the very words of King David in Psalm 51 that says, For I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me against you.

You only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.

However, if we're honest, remembering the depth of our sin like David, it is an extremely, extremely hard practice to do.

You see, many times we either lose sight of the depth of our sin just to our own spiritual blindness or of our attempts to self-justify.

I'm not as bad as that person, or these good works are minimizing the nature of my sin and my brokenness.

And all that does is just cheapen the work that Jesus has done on the cross.

That's why the New York City pastor and theologian Tim Keller says it this way: you're more sinful than you ever thought you were.

And thankfully he continues on and he says these words though, and you're more loved than you ever dreamed you could be.

You see, this rhythm of remembering through community not only forces us to remember our guilt, but there's more to remember as well.

Digging through a few of those boxes, I pulled out this right here.

It's my first baseball cap when I was just a little kid.

I have a P head, actually, so I probably could fit the put that on, maybe not.

Okay.

This hat here uh is a reminder of many things.

One, every child that's born in South Jersey outside of Philadelphia, we're to chain up a child well and ensure that they have a deep love for all Philly sports teams.

Right.

And at the same time, make sure that the Philly sports teams know that you hate them as well when they do not perform well.

And that's sort of the Philly thing.

So the Philadelphia Eagles are in the NFL playoffs right now.

I'll be cheering them with all of my heart and cursing them too if perfection is not displayed on the field.

That's just in our wiring.

And the memories of this uh hat right here, they not only point to an allegiance that I had that I have with a sports team, but they also point to the bond that my dad and I had over baseball.

It actually stirs up memories of the steadfast nature of his mentoring in my life.

Reminds me of the unconditional love that I have received over the years from my father.

And as my dad's in the late stages of Parkinson's right now, he's being cared for by my mom and sister.

He's still a reminder of God's grace in my life.

To receive such a good and supportive father.

It's nothing, though, that I earned.

I was just born into it.

You see, in some ways, dad is a picture of God's grace, unmerited favor and goodness.

And guys, we all experience aspects of this.

It's what the theologians call common grace.

Whether it's the undeserved blessing of a loving father, the undeserved blessing of just good health, or the undeserved blessing of the sun shining.

Please, God, let the sun shine.

Guys, these are just small deposits of God's grace, but they all point to the ultimate act of grace that He provides for our eternal guilt.

And so you see this rhythm of remembering through communion.

It just doesn't start with the hard facts, stop with the hard facts of Romans 3.23 that says this, for we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

But it forces us to once again remember this incredible, loving act of grace that our God displayed on the cross when the Apostle Paul then continues in Romans 5.8, where he says, While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

I love how the theologian and scholar James Wilhoyt just explains the duality as we come to communion of the guilt that we have, but also this amazing grace that God provides.

He talks about it in his book, Spiritual Formation as if the church mattered.

And this is a big quote, but hang with me on this because it's so powerful.

He says this we are at our best spiritually when our sin drives us to the cross, when we cling to it and nothing else.

The law, our sin, our failure, our ache for beauty and our yearnings all can drive us to the cross.

We must resist our natural inclination to think that we can handle our sin, its guilt, its shame, conviction, pain, enslaving power, and so on.

The cross is the place where God most clearly tells us who he is and how he feels about sin.

He is holy, hates sin, and weeps over the pain it causes his beloved.

It's also the place where God most clearly tells us what he thinks of sinners.

I would rather die than live without you.

I will die to provide you a way of escape.

These are powerful words, and what Wilhoy continues to talk about is this power of communion.

And he does so through a visual.

I want to show you two parts of this visual because I think it it sticks with me.

I'm a visual person.

And essentially what he says is that we all know when it comes to conversion, that happens in a moment, but transformation takes a lifetime.

And as we start off on this journey of this faith journey, we have to realize that we have a small cross in view.

And we don't fully understand our brokenness.

And so we have this small cross because we have only a short, small, perceived need of the grace that we require.

And we don't necessarily see our brokenness because of our own spiritual blindness and our self-justification.

Think I'm not as bad as that person.

I'm doing this to go ahead and outweigh whatever's going on here when it comes to my own brokenness.

Wilhoy talks about the need of communion like this on a regular basis.

And when that begins to churn, it allows us to sit and remind ourselves once again of the depth of our sin, and then begins to see the true need of grace.

And our cross becomes bigger and bigger and bigger, recognizing that really the grace that we require is infinite.

This is the journey of faith that we are all on.

Essentially, Wilhoit is, I think, bringing forth a key spiritual principle, and it's this right here the transforming and healing power of God's grace generally doesn't exceed our perceived need for grace.

I want to say that again.

The transforming and healing power of God's grace generally doesn't exceed our perceived need for grace.

This is why spiritual guru Dallas Willers says this to grow in grace means to utilize more and more grace to live by until everything we do is assisted by grace.

Then whatever we do in word or deed will all be done in the name of Jesus.

The greatest saints are not those who need less grace, but those who consume the most grace, who indeed are most in need of grace, those who are saturated by grace in every dimension of our being of their being.

Grace to them is like breath.

And so as we come to communion, this rhythm of remembering, we remember our guilt.

We remember the grace that God has given us in rescuing us, but then also the grace of continually transforming us.

And this act, however, it just doesn't stop there.

It also forces us to remember this future gathering to come.

I want to share with you one other artifact that I've dug up.

And this one here is a button, it's rusty, and it says member Jim Smith Society.

This is another one that's connected to my dad.

You see, during my childhood years in South Jersey, my family and I were part of an organization called the Jim Smith Society because my dad's name was Jim Smith.

Now you have to understand my dad, unlike me, he's an extreme extrovert looking for the next party.

And so when he came across this group called the Jim Smith Society, he actually thought it was the greatest thing ever.

And the only requirement to enter into this society is that your name needed to officially be Jim Smith.

Therefore, follow me on this.

Every summer, hundreds of Jim Smiths and their families would gather for a weekend retreat in Pennsylvania for softball games, cookouts, and their version of bingo, wait for it, Jim Go.

Yes.

I'm confident this is where dad jokes first originated.

It's really bad.

I even want to show you their brand, their logo.

Uh, take a look at it.

Their motto is we don't shun fun.

Okay.

So if you're in marketing, I just triggered a gag reflex in you right now.

I understand that.

Now, if you're thinking this society was one hallucinogen and sacred text away from a text, or away from a cult, excuse me, you're absolutely right.

Uh but thankfully, after years of pushing back and and really trying to revolt what was going on here, my dad gave in and we stopped going just before I headed into middle school, or that would have been death.

It's a little weird.

Here's the crazy thing, we look a little weird too.

Uh because we're all here under one name.

It's one name that's really brought us all here together, and we have different ages and backgrounds and ethnicities, yet many of us are here because of one name that's stamped on our hearts.

And the cool thing is that as we are gathered here today under one roof in unity and worship, it actually gives us a foretaste of this new heaven and earth that God will be establishing.

You see, each time we enter into the rhythm of remembering through communion, it forces us to remember the hope that we have in a future gathering.

There will be a future feast with our Jesus where there'll be no more pain, there'll be no more tears, and we'll be able to experience life to the fullest.

You see, Jesus mentions this future meal at the very first communion, which we call the Last Supper.

And it was the night before his death, Jesus was sitting down with his 12 disciples for this traditional and rhythmic Passover meal that God instituted for Old Testament Israel.

This Passover meal was essentially a dramatic retelling of the liberation of the Jewish people out of Egypt.

But Jesus then takes this meal and he reframes it.

And he says, Hey, when you take and eat now, it not only points to, or doesn't point to, the liberation of God's people out of Egypt, it actually points to the liberation of the entire world from their bondage of sin and from eternal separation from their creator.

Matthew 25, or excuse me, 26 describes it this way.

He says, This, then he took a cup, when he gave thanks to it, he gave it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of you.

This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit or uh the drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom.

Hear me on this.

The the the rhythm of remembrance and communion, it not only forces us to remember the weight of our guilt, the rescuing power and grace of our God, but also it forces us to remember that there is a future gathering that we will be a part of where we will party and we will dine and that we will drink the finest of wine with our Jesus.

And so as we prepare to engage this act of communion, I want to encourage you to grab the cups that you found on your seat as you came in here today.

We're not gonna take it right now.

Uh I want to prep us first.

We're gonna take it together, the bread and then the drink.

Uh we're gonna drink from the cup as one church family.

Uh but if these cups are new to you, the first layer you'll be able to get the bread, which is a wafer.

The second layer you'll be able to get the drink, and we'll be able to drink from the cup.

Uh, by the way, if you need a gluten-free version, there's some at the prayer station in the back.

Uh but we really just want to take time before we go and eat the bread and drink from the cup.

We just want to spend some time to reflect, to really honor the core foundation of this rhythm, which is to remember, to remember our guilt, to remember his grace, and to remember this gathering that's to come.

And so, Ben and the band, they're gonna be playing a song, and I encourage you to enter into this space however you feel like you need to.

Uh, maybe you just want to sit and pray and confess and give God thanks and to celebrate.

Maybe you want to stand and sing these words out as a prayer, as words of declaration to your creator.

But no matter what, we have these objects that can jar our memories.

Allow this object to jar our memories on the core and essential truths of our faith.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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