Here For Him | Communion | Coleton Segars

All right, y'all.

We are finishing up a series titled Here for Him.

And the goal of the series is to look at everything that we do in the life of the church and how what we do here is for him, it's for Jesus.

And how everything that happens in the life of the church is supposed to show in some facet of how it's related to Jesus, it should point to Jesus in some capacity and ultimately lead us to greater affection, love, and worship of Jesus.

That's the point of everything that happens here.

He established the church in his death and resurrection.

The Spirit lit that thing, and the church started not after the resurrection, but right after the Spirit was given, because now the presence of Jesus is among his people always because it lives within.

And this week we uh are looking at uh communion.

And I'm gonna try and keep this up here.

And if you're worried that this will spill, it's empty, so don't worry.

Just put your mind at ease right then.

Um but I'm gonna try and do this up here because we're talking about communion today and the importance of communion, the need to remember it consistently.

And I just want to say for you in the room, as um uh just it's spring break week, it's also daylight savings time.

You are the faithful, like you are the people that were like, I'm coming anyways.

I'm not saying Jesus loves you more, but like me.

And to honor that and to honor you showing up, this is my best message by far.

I saved my best message for those of you who would show up today.

So if you're listening on the podcast, we still love you.

But this is on communion and the importance of it.

So the teaching text comes from uh 1 Corinthians 11.

This is Paul writing to the church in Corinth, and he's really actually berating them about how they forgot what communion is about, but he berates them by going, like, Look, we gotta go back to the beginning, you've forgotten, and we have to remember.

And so he goes back to the beginning.

This is what he says.

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you.

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.

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

Do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of me.

For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Simon Sinek, in his book, Start With Why, uh, which is an incredible business book, and it's just a good book in general.

Um, but he talks about the importance of remembering.

And in looking at Communion Today, it was just a helpful connection to consider why it's important to remember.

But he talks about the importance of remembering why we do what we do consistently, and he references uh the organization Walmart uh as a prime example.

And if you know anything about Walmart, Sam Walton, who began the company uh and he began it as a way to serve people by offering low prices so that the average person could afford things to buy.

Quality products at a low price to serve people.

And so that was the order.

Walmart under Sam, serve people by offering low prices.

And so what this did for them, this vision, it led them ultimately to uh build stores, but they built stores more slowly than some would have liked because again, they were seeking to serve people the best they possibly could.

And so they built stores, but they built them slowly in spaces where they felt like they could really serve people.

They didn't want to overextend themselves.

Um, it led them to do things that cost the company a bit more money and not make as much money as they probably could if they just had cheaper quality products.

If they just cut some corners, they could save some money.

It was like, well, we're really about serving people, so we can't do that.

It led them to pay their uh employees better than most places because they were seeking to serve the people in their company, not just those outside of their company, to give them a good and living wage, and consistently their their company was very successful under Sam Walton.

But as soon as he died, Walmart executives quickly forgot the original order of things, and it turned into this.

Instead of serve people by offering low prices, it shifted just a little.

Low prices to serve people.

Low prices to serve people, and it seems inconsequential.

Like what how much could that possibly change?

But that small shift from going from serving people by offering low prices, how are we gonna serve them?

Well, we're gonna seek to offer low prices, but our main goal is to serve people, shifted to we're gonna offer low prices at whatever the cost, and if it serves people, and we can kind of justify anything that we do because we're trying to get low prices, and low prices serve people.

Certainly it does.

And so what happened is just in changing that, here's what happened to the company.

In order to create low prices, when it became the aim, they compromised on the quality of their products.

They sourced uh for manufacturing in countries that had forced labor that they didn't have to pay, uh, had child labor so they could pay uh for the products at a at a lower rate, um, which wasn't serving the people in that nation where they were getting those products.

They lowered the wages of their employees to keep their prices low.

Walmart stopped providing health care to their employees who really needed it because it was too expensive to pay for.

And again, low prices is the aim.

And then I found this fascinating.

In some countries, they even stopped paying their employees with actual money and only paid them in Walmart gift cards so that their money would ultimately like we're giving you payment, but it's ultimately has to be used to be poured back into the company, all for the sake of like low prices to serve people.

And so they were doing this thinking we're being faithful to the original Sam Walton ideal.

We're serving people by low prices.

And it's like you're not, you've shifted it.

And you've shifted to low prices in order to serve people, and that became their aim.

And in the early 2000s, they were riddled.

If you know anything about Walmart, they were riddled with lawsuits from not only customers but also factories and a lot of things going on with their employees and all this different stuff because of how they treated people, because they were no longer serving people but serving themselves by offering low prices.

And it cost them, they had low prices consistently, but it cost them greatly because of all the different things.

And it was just this small little shift like, why do you do what you do?

And it's like, I think we do it to get low prices in order to serve people.

It's like, I don't think that was the original vision.

It's a little different than that.

And when they lost that vision, it cost them.

And so the reason I say all of that is one, I think it's a fascinating book, and anything by Simon Sneck, I would just encourage you to read it.

He's a great guy.

Um, but the reason I say all that is because to me, what happened to Walmart can and I believe has happened in the church.

Uh, that we've just forgotten why we do in many spaces, why we do what we do.

Uh, and the modern church has forgotten why everything happens here isn't necessarily about church, isn't about us, but about him.

And I think this is definitely true about communion.

Um, and I think if you've ever been in the church where you've been hurt by the church, I think you've experienced that to some extent.

Like this space is supposed to be an encounter with what Jesus was like, not a space that it's like, well, it's something to build for ourselves.

And so the church has forgotten this, and the results at best have been detrimental and at worst have been destructive in the lives of people that actually attend church.

And so, communion, this space here, the bread and the wine, is supposed to be this constant reminder of what the church was supposed to be about.

It began with a sacrificial loving death, and it should continue, and it and then it ended with this resurrection to life and all this stuff.

And it's this constant reminder of why we're supposed to be here and why we do what we do.

And so, what I want to do today is I want to look at three things that communion itself, this bread and this cup, are meant to remind us of, so that we can kind of get back to not just why we do church, but why we do this and why this is supposed to be for you and for me.

Just a reminding space for you to be like, oh yeah, that's what he's like.

Oh yeah, that's why we're here.

Oh yeah, that's why we do this thing.

That's why it's supposed to be filled with joy, uh, that's why we do these things.

And so that's what I want to do today.

Three things.

Only three.

And I think there's a ton.

I think I think we could spend a ton of time here just going like, here's everything that we could remember.

Um, but what Paul does with this passage is his experience in Corinth is like, you people aren't serving one another.

And so I want to I want to get you back to remember the bread and the cup, to remind you like Jesus served you by laying down his life sacrificially.

Y'all need to, and he takes this and he applies it to their situation.

And so I think there's many spaces in in our lives throughout the years that we'll be together that we could take this and apply it to any situation that we're walking through in the church.

And so what I want to do is I just want to take this bread and cup and apply it to what I believe our community needs the most moving forward to be reminded of.

And so, again, there are more than three, but I just want to focus on three.

So, the first, every time that we take bread and cup, every week that we do this, we should be reminded that he loves us deeply.

Jesus loves us deeply.

Jesus said, There's no greater love than the love a person shows by laying down their life for their friends.

There's no greater love than to lay down your life for someone else.

And in this, Paul says that we proclaim the Lord's death for us.

We proclaim his death over us.

And so what we're proclaiming is trying to consistently remember that he has loved us.

Every week we're remembering he has loved us with the greatest love possible.

There's no greater love than this right here, and he has done that thing for us.

And the reason I believe that is so important, which again, I think it sounds super apparent, like, oh yeah, Jesus loves us, like I get it, God loves us, he's all this thing.

But like it sounds small, but I think it's really, really significant.

Because I think if we're honest, Jesus says to you and to me, he says a lot of really, really hard things for us.

He just commands us to do things that we don't want to do.

He commands us not to do things that we really want to do.

And it's like, I don't think it'll be a bad thing if I do this.

And it's like, yeah, but he commands us not to do it.

He consistently says things that we don't want to hear.

He talks about our money.

We looked at that over the last two weeks.

He talks about our money and what we should do with it.

He talks about our bodies, he talks about our thought life, he talks about our sex life, he talks about how we need to forgive everyone, regardless of whether they're asking for forgiveness or not.

He talks about turning the other cheek when we'd rather just punch them in the face.

He talks about loving our enemies, not just the people who love us.

He constantly is telling us to turn away from sin, which is just like hard to talk about, but he does not pull punches.

He's constantly saying, turn away from sin, turn away from sin.

He talks about a real hell and says that some people will experience eternal condemnation and separation for him, that hell was created for Satan and his demons, and yet people will experience that.

He talks about these things, that it'd be easier when you're reading some of the text just to kind of go back.

I'm like, Jesus, could we go back to like the come to me, you who are weary, and I will give you rest?

Like that Jesus.

I love that Jesus.

Real strong Jesus there.

But he just says some things that are really hard.

And I think there are spaces in our lives where when Jesus testifies to the fact that he's not okay with you just doing you and me just doing me, it can be this space where it's hard to believe that he actually loves us, that he actually has something good for us.

He preaches against how we feel, he preaches and doing that, he preaches against our natural tendencies, he preaches against our cultural movements at the time, and he sets himself against those things.

He is constantly going against the grain of most of the things that we want to believe and want to do, and he's going against those things.

And if we forget that he loves us, if we forget that, we will see these places where he speaks against what we want to do and what we don't want to do, and we will see them not as ways that he's seeking to love us, but as ways that he's trying to hinder us, like he's trying to steal from us, like he's trying to hinder our freedom and oppress us with some way, like these antiquated commands, like certainly there's this doesn't apply to me anymore.

And if we don't believe that he loves us, we will see them as spaces where he's actually trying to take from us and not give to us.

But if we can believe that he genuinely is saying these things from a space of love, that all of these things, even though we'd rather do something else, that we'd rather do what he doesn't want us to do or not do what he wants us to do, even though he's saying those things, if we believe that he loved us, we would actually see those things as a way that he's trying to help us and not to hurt us, a way that he's trying to lead us into more joy, not lesser glory.

Like we would see it that way, we'd see it very differently.

So for example, uh my kid is learning to ride his bike, Teddy is learning to ride his bike, and um, every minute that he rides his bike is a minute of screen time.

He doesn't get screen time, and so if he rides his bike, which we really want him to do, we give him some screen time, and so like he's like on it, wants to ride his bike, and uh and so obviously I have rules.

I'm like, hey man, when you cross the street, like look both ways.

They're basic rules.

Look both ways before you cross the street.

Uh if you don't, a car will hit you and you will likely die.

Like, that's probably the way that's gonna go down.

Because he was like, Why do I gotta look both ways?

I need to look ahead of me.

And I was like, Not when you're crossing the street.

Gotta make sure that car is not gonna pound you right in the side.

Like, you have to do that.

I tell him what streets he can go on and what streets he can't go on.

Like, you can't go on that street.

You can't do that one.

And that's normally because like how fast it is.

Like, hey, don't be crushing it on Poplar, okay?

Don't do that.

Too much traffic, they're going way too fast, and honestly, no one's safe out there in a car, okay?

But y'all would all realize, and I do too, like, for me to say that is loving.

It's not hinder, I mean, it is hindering him in some ways.

Like, you can't go on these streets, you can only go on these streets.

You have to do this when you ride a bike, you you can't do this when you ride a bike.

Y'all would all everybody gets like, that's a good parent thing, that's a good thing to do, good for you.

But if somebody rolled into his life and like read these or or heard these commands that I was giving him and was like, your dad's such a dictator with all those rules, man.

Like, can you you gotta look both ways?

None of the cool kids look both ways.

Like, ooh, that's just I can't believe that he would make you do that.

You don't have to, cars won't hit you, they'll just move.

Like, they'll get out of the way.

You don't have to worry about that.

If if somebody came into his life and was like, just go on whatever street you want to go on, it doesn't matter.

You won't surely die.

Like your dad's just using scary death language to like keep you down, and he's the man trying to shove you down.

Like, just live your best life now and just go as fast as you want on I-40.

It's fine.

Like everybody would know the difference and be like, hey, lunatic, like that's not good.

That's not more, it sounds more free and more loving, but that's a lie, man.

You're just lying to this kid.

And everybody would see that and feel that and know that, and you would know that like the hindrances of my commands or the hard things, it's like, I wanna, I don't want to look both ways.

Y'all would see that as like, yeah, I know you don't want to, but that's a loving thing to say.

And in the same way, for someone to say that though, to say that, oh, it's completely fine, don't even worry about it, is not a loving thing to say.

And I think for us, it's hard for us to read Jesus' hard things to us as loving because we don't see them that way.

We actually see them as like, ah, this space of hindering us, of taking something from us.

We'd all know that particular person is lying.

And to me, that is how the enemy wants us to understand and believe about Jesus' commands to us.

He always wants to undermine his motive and get us to believe certainly God is trying to keep something from you by these commands.

Certainly you should be able to just do whatever you want and it should be fine, but he's trying to harm you, not help you.

He's not asking you to do that from a motivation of love.

He's doing that because he's actually trying to steal from you.

That's what he did in the garden with with Eve.

He's like, You can't eat from any tree of the garden.

And he narrows it, and it's like, she's like, actually, the command was you can eat from any tree in the garden.

And like the enemy comes and it's like, why would he say that?

And gets her to question his motive because he knows if he can get us to question God's motive for why he asks us to do certain things and why he tells us we can't do other things, if he can get us to question the motive, he can get us basically to do anything that he wants us to do.

He can lead us into sin.

And that's what the enemy wants for us.

He doesn't want us to walk in the freedom of God's commands.

He doesn't want us to experience the love and blessing that comes with experiencing life with God and being obedient to his commands.

He actually wants us to continually be stuck in this space, we're being dripped into the poison of sin, where it's just stealing our joy and stealing our peace and stealing our fullness.

For the Christian, for you guys and for me, if you're a follower of Jesus, the enemy recognizes that your soul is not his.

Like you, you are you've been redeemed, your soul is headed to heaven, and so he can't touch you for eternity, and he can't have you in hell for eternity.

But while you're still here, he's like, I think if I can just get them to question God's motive enough and keep them sinning, I won't have them in hell for eternity, but I can make them experience hell on earth every day of their lives.

And so I was I came across this uh Japanese torture method for Christians back with some of the missionaries.

And it's called this uh Anasiroshi.

And what they would do is they would take, it was Christians at this point, but they would take Christians and they'd hang them upside down.

The issue with hanging a Christian or hanging anybody upside down like that is they pretty much pass out immediately because, I mean, or just over time, because um the blood flowed to the to the head and it'd rush to your head and you'd pass out.

And they wanted to torture them.

And it was like, we we actually want to torture you.

We want you to experience all the pain.

We don't want you to pass out and just die.

We actually want to torture you.

And so what they would do is they would take a knife and they would just cut just the tiniest little cut, just a cut that would never kill you if you're standing up, and just eventually heal.

But they cut it right here.

There's this tiny little thing, so that the blood pressure would never allow you to pass out, so that you would experience every painful moment until the blood, all of it from your body, leaked out of your body.

And that was the way that they tortured you.

And to me, I came across that, and maybe you're like, why did you come across that?

But I came across that and I was like, man, that is exactly what the enemy wants to do to Christians.

I can't have you for eternity, but I can make you suffer forever while you're here.

And like, if I can just get you to press into small sins, like small ones that almost you don't even feel and think it anything's bad about, if I can get you to press into these things, a little bit of fear, a little more worry, a little more this, a little more that, if I can get you to do that and be disobedient to the to God, I can ultimately bring you to an experience of torturing you for the years of your life that you have here on earth.

And I don't get you for eternity, but I can torture you with hell on earth here and now.

And to me, this is exactly what he's seeking to do and seeking to motivate us to look at God's motivation and go, he's not asking you to do those things out of love.

He's stealing from you.

Don't listen to him.

This is what he's trying to do to us.

And so it that's why, in many ways, it's so important as we take communion to believe that like, remember that he has loved you with the greatest of loves.

And so if he has loved you with the greatest of loves that's possible, when he's asking you to do anything or telling you not to do something, it's coming from a space of like, man, I've already proven that I love you.

I promise I love you.

And so if I ask you to do anything or tell you not to do something, that too is coming from a place of love.

I'm not commanding you to do something to steal from you.

I'm actually trying to lead you into greater freedom.

I'm not trying to take your joy, I'm trying to actually actually lead you to experience more and more joy.

This is what he's doing.

And in communion, we're reminded of this every week that when we have these spaces in our lives where we're struggling to be obedient, we're struggling to understand why, it's like, I just don't know, it doesn't make sense.

I can't understand why God would not be okay with this.

I can't understand why God would call me into this.

I can't understand that.

But even though I don't understand, I'm reminded every week that he has loved me with the greatest love.

And if he is asking me to do that or commanding me to not do that, it's coming from a space where it's like because he has loved us with the greatest love.

And he's seeking to do that in every word that he speaks to you.

Everything he tells you to do, and everything he tells you, let's not do that.

It's not coming from a space of I'm trying to take from you, it's coming from a space I am trying to give to you.

I'm trying to lead you.

And so follow me, not because I tell you to, but follow me because I've loved you with the greatest love, and I'm seeking to do that with these words that I'm giving to you as well.

And we need to believe that, otherwise, we're gonna live our lives.

I'm glad he took the picture down.

But I do think it's important.

I do think it's important for us to one, just have an image for what it's actually supposed to uh.

And I think, man, I think I I don't know, look at the first 17 years of my life, not knowing Jesus, and I mean that don't put it back up.

But that picture describes the first 17 years of my life.

I just battling and struggling and just trying to find anything, searching everywhere to find anything, to experience joy, and trying literally everything, and going, This isn't working either, and getting to the end of my rope and going, I have literally tried everything I can possibly try, and there's still nothing there, and thinking maybe my life should just be taken from me, maybe I should do it.

And it's like, man, that's what the enemy wants to do.

Don't turn to Jesus, don't listen to him because he has something he's out for you.

And it's like, no, there is a thief who came to steal and kill and destroy, and then there's one who came to give life and life in abundance.

And if we believe that the enemy is actually offering us abundance, then he'll hang us upside down, cut us on the forehead, and let us suffer for the entire time that we're here until finally we get to go and be with Jesus.

And I think the Lord has something better for us in that.

And this is supposed to remind us it's hard to follow you.

Your road is narrow.

What you call us to do doesn't make sense all the time, but it's coming from a place where you have proven your love for me.

And so I will follow even though I don't understand.

Because I know that you, a person who loves me, is trying to lead me into better situations.

Alright, that's the first.

Every time we take this cup and bread, we should be reminded that he loves us.

And the second, every time we take this bread and cup, we should be reminded of the good news of the new covenant.

The good news of the new covenant.

Jesus says this.

He says, This is the new covenant in my blood.

This is the new covenant in my blood.

I'm talking about the cup, and he holds it up.

God has always had a covenant or contract.

We talk in contracts now.

He's always had a contract with the people who follow him.

It's always been a part of the situation there.

Happened with Abraham, it happened with Moses and the people of Israel, and it has happened with us.

In the old covenant, under the old covenant, here is how the old covenant worked.

Here are the stipulations, just kind of you know brought down, simplified.

You were blessed if you keep the law, and you're cursed if you don't.

It's basic instructions for the covenant.

You're blessed if you keep the law, you're cursed if you don't.

If you kept the law, you would receive so many blessings under the old covenant.

If you did not keep the law, you would experience so much pain and so much hardship and so much death that you wouldn't you would experience cursing and not blessing if you didn't do it.

And so you better be good.

You better be good under the old covenant.

You better do it right.

All the 600 and some odd laws you need to know, learn them, memorize them, make sure you do it right, cross every T dot every I.

Otherwise, there's pain coming for you.

That's the old covenant.

Or, and if you screw up, make sure you sacrifice an animal.

But what Jesus has done and what he's doing here is he's redefining the covenant.

He's saying, Hey, I have good news for you.

There's something new that's happened.

There's a new covenant that has been initiated and implemented.

And the new covenant is this that Jesus kept the law perfectly and deserved all the blessings that come with obedience.

But instead, he chose to be punished as a sinner in the place of sinners so that sinners could receive the blessings he deserved.

This is the new covenant.

The law still needs to be kept.

But he's like, But I'll keep it.

I will keep it.

And so because I kept the law perfectly, I deserve all the blessings that come with being obedient to the law.

But instead of receiving the blessings, I will actually take on the torture of a sinner.

I will take that that you're supposed to torture sinners with.

I'll take on that so that sinners can receive my blessing.

I'll swap with them, I'll trade with them.

Even though it belongs to me, I'm going to give it to them.

That's the good news of the new covenant.

And so even though now we struggle to be obedient to this new covenant, we're still covered and clothed in righteousness because he has taken the curse of sin that we deserve.

He took it once and for all on the cross and he gave us this cloak, his cloak of righteousness, so that now, even while we're in the midst of sin, what the Father sees in us is the righteousness of Christ covering us, not the sinner underneath that's still there because he has been the one to cover us.

It's really good news.

It's actually great news that we have this thing have happened, and we have to remember that this is actually good news, that this is actually the new covenant has been initiated, that it's been implemented, and it's part of something that Jesus wants to give us.

For me, in my experience with Christians, we struggle to believe this initially, really like a lot.

We struggle to believe this.

We still, many times, we come to faith thinking, I came to faith to do a good thing, now I'll be blessed.

And then in some sense, that's correct.

But if I do bad again, I'm gonna be cursed.

We struggle to believe that we've made it into a new covenant and we're not still in the old covenant.

It's very, very difficult for us.

We still think when I do good, he loves me.

When I do bad, he's mad at me.

We just we just get stuck in the old covenant belief.

But this new covenant, this new thing that he's talking about, the new thing that he wants us to experience, is like, I have good news.

You don't go from righteous to unrighteous because of your behavior.

You have been covered in righteousness, and so your behavior does not change that.

John in 1 John he says, See what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called sons and daughters of God, and that is what we are.

And notice it is not like, and that is what you are becoming, or that is what you could be.

Like, that's what you are.

Your status has shifted, everything has changed for you.

You've entered into a new space.

Your mistakes and sins don't change your status in his family.

That's the good news of the new covenant.

Teddy, uh, this is years ago, and some of y'all may have heard this story, but years ago, um, I had this snow globe that my grandparents gave me.

It was a family heirloom that I got when my grandfather passed away.

I really loved it, and this snow globe, and you twisted it, and the train went, and all this stuff.

And my grandparents had all these stories about me loving this thing, and so they gave it to him at my grandfather's funeral.

I brought it home and I was so excited about it, and it was really sweet.

And uh, Teddy wanted to see it, and he's like four at this point.

And I was like, Yeah, man, you can hold it.

I was like, but this is super important to me.

Like this snow globe means a lot to me.

It's been in our family for a long time.

Please be careful with it.

Please don't drop it.

Sit down while you hold it.

Like you're, you know, let's just make sure.

And so he's like, okay, okay, okay.

And so he sits on the couch and he's holding it.

And y'all, I bet he held it for like 10 seconds before he dropped that joker.

Like, I mean it was so fast.

I like gave it to him, like, stay right there.

And then I turned away and it was like on the ground.

And everybody kind of stopped.

Me, Teddy, Rainey, everybody was just kind of like this moment happened in history.

And I was, I just start crying.

And I was like, because it meant a lot to me.

I cry about a lot of stuff, but I was like, my grandfather had passed away.

It's just this whole thing was was like just it, just a lot was bound up in that.

And then Teddy sees me crying, so he cries and starts running, and Rainey's like, I don't know what to do.

And so she just runs to get Teddy and uh talks to him, and I'm in the kitchen, and I end up getting the this, you know, the broom out or whatever, and starts sweeping it up because uh it has water in a snow globe and glitter too, so it's everywhere, man.

There's glass everywhere.

And so I'm cleaning this thing up, and then Teddy ends up coming back in, and uh he's like, Dad, I'm I'm really sorry, I'm really sorry.

And I was like, It's it's okay, man.

It's all right.

I I forgive you, it's okay.

And he was like, Okay, um, can we can we be best friends again?

And I was like, uh, and so I put you know, I put the I put the broom down, and uh anytime I have like a really important thing to him, I put my forehead to his forehead.

Uh I'm like, right here, like just stick your forehead on mine.

And uh I was like, dude, yes, we are always best friends.

Like it's better than that.

Like you are my son.

Like just because you broke a thing doesn't make you, doesn't make my friendship with you go away, and it doesn't make you not my kid.

Like, yes, of course, we can be best friends.

And it was this, I mean it was a sweet moment, it's a moment that he remembers, and now we have this space where like we put our foreheads together, and that's just kind of what we do uh to say big things.

But I think the same thing, in the same way that your that Teddy's behavior didn't change our friendship, it didn't change our his sonship in my life, your behavior in God's family as his son or his daughter doesn't change your status in his family.

It can't.

You can't do that.

He would have to do that, and he chooses not to do that.

Once you are brought in, you're brought in.

You are a son and you are a daughter.

Your sin doesn't make you less of his son, your sin doesn't make you less of his daughter.

And to me, we need to be reminded, consistently, we need to be reminded that when when the accuser goes to God, when the enemy goes to God and he's like, Did you see what he did?

Like, do you see what your son did?

Like, did you what do you think of him now?

God, what do you think of him now?

You need to remember that like he, what the father looks at the enemy in the eye, looks the accuser in the guys, like, that is my son whom I love, with him I am well pleased.

That's what he says.

And when he this is your daughter, she did all these sins, like what do you think of her now?

That is my daughter, whom I love.

With her, I am well pleased.

We get the announcement that was announced over Jesus, we get it announced over us, even in the midst of our sin.

He looks at us and says, That's my kid.

Get out of my face about my kid, because that's mine, and no one can touch them.

That's what he thinks of us consistently.

And that has to be our experience with him.

Otherwise, there's nothing to celebrate.

There's no good news if it's he only loves us when we do good.

Well, sure, lots of folks do that.

What makes this good news?

It's like the good news is you are a son and a daughter.

You've been brought in by Jesus' sacrifice, not your own.

And to me, when we struggle to remember this, we do one of three things.

We either run and hide from the only one who actually wants to cover us, or we give up and just go like, I'm just, I just can't follow all these rules.

I just can't do all of this.

Certainly, God doesn't want me anymore, and so if he doesn't want me, I don't want him, and we bail out on Christianity.

Or we try and pay it off and we never rest.

We're like, oh, I sinned, I'll be right back.

I'm gonna go do some work for the Lord and then I'll pay off my sin.

I'll make it right.

And I'm gonna get blockers on my phone and do this and do that.

And then God will be pleased with me.

And it's like, bro, just rest.

Just live in the freedom that Jesus has purchased your freedom.

He's done it for you.

He has covered your sin.

You don't have to cover it for yourself.

And for us, this is the way that we're supposed to live.

We're supposed to live under this new covenant, and Jesus is announcing it because it's actually good news.

Y'all know I like country music.

I I could worship to some country music, I gotta be honest.

Not like the artist himself, but like I just I can just get there.

But uh, there's this song that honestly maybe isn't the best song, but I love it.

Uh, this is a song by Rodney Atkins, um, and he it's it's called He's Mine.

And uh if you get a chance and you don't throw up when you hear country music, go listen to it.

Um But uh he has this there's this moment in the song where someone is like his kid had done something really bad, and uh they bring him to the to the dad, or they're excuse me, they're they're like shouting, like, whose whose son is this?

Like, whose kid is this?

Whose kid is this?

And this is what he says from the dad's perspective.

He says, uh, I yelled, he's mine.

That one.

He's got a wild-haired side, and then some.

It's no surprise what he's done.

He's every last bit of my old man's son.

And this line right here, it's hard for me to sing without crying.

He's like, and I'll take the blame and I'll claim him every time.

Yeah, he's mine.

He's mine.

And if we don't understand that, like, that's what Jesus is saying to us, like Jesus has taken our blame so that the Father can claim us every single time.

It's like, who do whose son is this?

Whose daughter is this?

And he's like, I took the blame so that I could claim them every single time.

That one's mine, and no one can touch them because that one's mine.

This needs to be our experience with Jesus, and if this is not your experience with Jesus, come on.

It's better than what you think.

This is what he's like.

He claims us every single time.

He is proud to be your father.

He delights to be called father.

He is proud that you are his son, he is proud that you are his daughter, and he delights in you.

The new covenant is this gift to us to go, why do you love me?

Why do you accept me?

It's like, oh, because Jesus did this amazing thing as a son.

And so now you get his sonship, his daughtership, like you get his position in my family.

That's the new covenant.

And it's beautiful.

All right, that's the second.

Every time, the third, every time we take this bread and cup, we should be reminded to celebrate the victory of Jesus.

We should be reminded to celebrate.

This is a celebration, to celebrate the victory of Jesus.

Paul says, we proclaim his death.

It's a proclamation.

It's a it's the same word for like to preach and to declare.

It's this proclamation.

Paul says this in in uh Colossians 2.

He says, Jesus, having disarmed the powers and authorities, Jesus made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by way of the cross.

It's like you proclaim his death, which sounds like a loss, but he's like, no, no, actually, through his death, a victory has been won for you.

We proclaim a victory and we celebrate a victory.

Made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the way of the cross.

And then I love what Brendan Manning says.

He says, Jesus overcame, and this is why we celebrate, Jesus overcame evil by allowing evil to run its course.

Like you can't hurt me because even if you allow evil to run its course, I will still overcome and conquer.

Like that's how strong I am.

My victory came through what looked like my defeat.

And so we proclaim his death as a celebration that, like, death couldn't hold him, sin couldn't keep him down.

This is a celebration of victory.

And every week, this weekly act is supposed to be this moment of declaration and celebration of like we are celebrating what Jesus has done for us and what he's accomplished over sin, Satan, death, and hell.

It's supposed to be a celebration.

Um last summer, um, I took the last church I was at, some students to uh the beach uh in Panama City.

And every year we used to go, and it was really just a celebration.

We had a culture of celebration among our student ministry, and it was wonderful.

And uh the whole thing was like just go for a week and just have a blast and just really enjoy being together.

And um, so that's what we did.

And uh, we are always there with other churches, and there was this Southern Baptist church there.

I always have bad stories about Southern Baptist churches.

I don't mean to, uh, but that's it's just the nature that works out.

And I actually love Southern Baptist churches, but this is another downer.

Okay.

So there's this Southern Baptist church there, and I think we're just partying too hard, right?

Like we're just and there's nothing like alcohol there, there's nothing.

Like we're just celebrating the goodness of God in our time, just enjoying ourselves.

And uh and we got bad looks from the Southern Baptist Church and their youth group and told that we needed to quiet down.

I'm like, Jesus has overcome the grave, I will not be quiet.

Like it was really it actually happened quite a bit.

But we're on the beach one day, and our kids are like just laying out, enjoying themselves, you know, just like God's creation, and it was awesome.

It was so much fun playing in the waves and the water and just enjoying ourselves.

Well, then so the Baptist church comes out and they like a huge cross, like into the sand, put a man up there, start throwing blood on the and this is on a public beach, and start throwing blood onto the man, and then have their youth group come around and surround the thing.

And it's like, do you see what your sin has done?

Do you see what your sin has done?

And our kids are like, like, what the heck?

What is happening?

What are they doing over there?

And I'm like, I don't know, man, I'm gonna snag some video though, just because I just want to see.

And uh it was, and that was what you know, that was their their whole, I don't know if it was a worship show, I don't know what you call that.

Um, but they were doing like a reenactment of the crucifixion.

And I look, I love a passion play.

I don't have any beef with a passion play or a reenactment of Jesus or anything like that.

But we had to have a conversation with our students.

They're like, should we be doing that?

Is that something that we should be doing?

And I was like, no, man, he told us how to remember him.

He was like, I he didn't say, like, here's what you need to do to remember Jesus, reenact my death.

He goes, No, proclaim my death until I come.

Do this.

This is how you remember me.

You drink sweet drinks and you eat good bread, and you remember that I died so you can feast.

We don't need to do this thing and go, like, gee, gee, like, no, my death overcame.

It's a victory we've won.

Celebrate with food and good drinks.

Like, that's what you're supposed to do.

And so, how are we supposed to remember his death?

It's like right here.

Let's eat some good food, let's drink some good drinks, and just enjoy the goodness of God in our time because it's been bought for us.

And we just get to live in the gift of that.

And again, I don't have any problems with reenactment.

I'm just saying that's not how he called us to remember him.

Remember me when you're enjoying good bread and good wine.

Remember that, like, this is what I'm like.

Remember that this is what I purchased for you.

I died so that you could feast.

I died so that you could live.

I ate bread of affliction so that you could eat the bread of redemption.

I drank a bitter cup of your sins so that you could drink the sweet drinks of this wine.

Like, this is what I've done for you.

Celebrate.

Enjoy what I've done.

It's pretty good what I did.

Enjoy it.

And I did it for you because I love you.

This is meant to be a constant reminder to us to celebrate.

Tim Keller, I will use this quote forever.

Um, and so you'll hear it a long time.

Um, Tim Keller says this: God directs his people not to simply worship, but to sing his praises before the nations.

We are called not simply to communicate the gospel to non-believers, we must also intentionally celebrate the gospel before them and to us, to a non-believer in the room, that's like, what should I think about my sin?

Should I just be guilt-ridden and should you like enjoy the fact that it can be it's it's been covered.

If you don't know Jesus this way, he loves you deeply and he wants to lead you into life and joy and peace and fullness beyond your imagination.

This is what he has for you.

We're called to celebrate the gospel before them.

We're called to remember that in celebrating that the good news is actually good news.

We're supposed to enjoy Jesus.

It's supposed to be our experience with him.

Simon Seneca, in another book of his, he says about business.

He says, customers will never love a company until the employees love the company first.

And to me, I think the same is true for Christians.

Why would a non-believer love Jesus if we're always like, oh no, no, man, it's okay.

Like it's fine, I guess.

I had to go to church today and had to repent.

And I think, like, no, dude, like, who would want, why would anybody want to join that?

We're supposed to enjoy them.

Dallas Willard says this.

He says, How many people are radically and permanently repelled from the way of Jesus by Christians who are stiff, unapproachable, boringly lifeless, and dissatisfied?

I love that quote.

Like, how many like to me, this is the first 17 years of my life.

Every time I walked into church, I was like, you know why I'm not a Christian?

Because you are.

Like, I'm not, I don't, there's no way in the world I want my life to look like yours at all.

But this, like, this is something else.

This is a different thing.

Celebrate the goodness that has been poured out on you.

Celebrate the fact that you don't have to pay for your sin.

I did that.

Celebrate the fact that your shame has been covered, that you don't have to wallow in your past.

I took that.

It's gone.

I can turn your past into glory, your shame into glory.

I can make the horrible things of your past that you don't want to think about and don't want to look at spaces of testimony that now you testify and be like, I was this way, but now I'm not, and Jesus is the answer of the difference in between.

That's what he's like.

And so he does this beautiful thing for us, and so we celebrate that.

He died so that we could live.

If you were to ask, um, what does your God require of you and you're talking to a Buddhist, here's what they'd say.

I'm supposed to let go of all my desires because everything that I love will leave, change, or die.

And I need to realize that all my suffering is my own fault.

What does your God want you to remember?

He wants me to remember that.

What about you, Muslim?

What do they want you to remember?

My God wants me to obey the commands of the Quran and have more good than bad in my ledger at the end of my life.

More good than bad.

What about you, Hindu?

What does he want you to remember?

What does your God want you to remember?

That if I do harm, I'm gonna get harm.

If I do good, I'll get good.

So try and make sure that my life is better than it is bad.

And if they were to ask us, what about you, Christian?

What does your God require of you?

And the answer is, my God requires the invitation is just come to Jesus and feast.

Come to Jesus and feast and eat and drink and enjoy the victory of Jesus over sin, death, Satan, and grave.

Like, what does he want us to remember?

Just what does he require of me?

Come to me, and you will experience life beyond compare.

Your sin is covered, but you don't have to pay it off of yourself.

Your shame is covered, you don't have to feel bad about that.

I took all those things.

It's actually good news, and we're called to celebrate it.

And so to me, I think we should celebrate it.

I think Christians throw too few parties, and I think we should throw more parties.

And so for us, we will have a culture of celebration just like we did in the youth ministry, but it'll be better because our students didn't have any money, but we got money, so we can actually throw real good parties.

C.

S.

Lewis says this.

He says, This is mysterious action, this one, this mysterious action, which different Christians call by different names.

Holy Communion, the Mass, the Lord's Supper.

It spreads Christ's life to us.

If you have once accepted Christianity, then some of its main doctrines need to be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day.

We have to be continually reminded of what we believe.

There isn't a belief that will automatically remain alive in the mind.

It must be fed.

And so for us, this is why every week we hold this before our minds and we eat and we drink, we seek to feed the belief that, like, oh, he actually loves me.

Oh, the new covenant is actually real.

I don't have to sit there and wonder, does he hate me because I struggled this week?

No, I get to walk in the freedom of someone who's been purchased.

My sin has been covered and purchased for by the blood of the Lamb, and like he actually calls me son and daughter, regardless of how I've been able to do it this week.

And it's a reminder of like, what does he want you to do in the midst of it?

He's like, he wants me to celebrate.

This is what he has for us.

And so for us, uh, I want this to be a space where we just constantly remember that.

Remember today, as you take communion, that he loves you.

He has loved you with the greatest love.

And so if he's calling you into something or calling you out of something, he's not doing it to be cruel to you.

He's doing it just because he seeks to bless you, because he loves you.

If if today, as you're coming and you're wondering, like, does he love me even though I sinned this week?

Yes.

He loved you while you were sinners and gave his life for you, yes.

This testifies to the fact that you get to experience the good news of a new covenant.

And if you're like, I don't know if Jesus like wants me to enjoy life or whatever, because I'm not doing so great, like this is a celebration meant to declare his victory.

It is an act of defiance and rebellion against sin will never taste better than Jesus.

He will never be better than anything that we that he can give us, and he's seeking to lead us and the joy we experience in any kind of celebration.

He's like, that's what I'm like, and that's what I'm calling you into.

And so let it be a reminder for you today.

We need to be reminded.

Um, one of the things I want to do, we're gonna take communion.

Uh so Chris, you guys can come on up.

Um, I've been waiting to change communion the way that we do it until I preached this message.

Um, and so what I want us to do is as you come and take communion, um, and again, look, I have y'all can do whatever you want.

I'm just I would just like y'all to do this if you don't mind, but we're gonna do this moving forward.

Um but I would love for us to actually take communion together.

And so as you come and receive the elements, my request would be to just take the elements, go back to your seat like you would, but hold them.

And we'll do our liturgy then.

And we will announce to you, because you need to hear, and we're communion is it's together.

You're communing.

You can't commune alone.

So we're communing together and communing with the Father together.

We're gonna say, like, this is this is his body broken for us, take and eat, and we're gonna do that together.

This is his blood poured out for us, and we're gonna do that together as well, and take and drink.

And so if you don't mind doing that, I'd love for you to do that.

But if you helped set up communion, and then Ella, can you come help me over here?

If you help set up communion, I'd love for you to have this space here.

But again, receive the elements, come and grab them, but just hold them, and then I will come back up as everyone has received the elements and uh and we will partake together.

Let me pray for us.

Father, I pray that this be a space where we believe and hear and be reminded and really again just believe that you love us, that you have purchased an incredible thing for us, that you have called us into your kingdom as sons and daughters and not as people who owe you something, and we actually owe you everything, but you don't call us that way.

We're sons and daughters, heirs with Christ.

But we are covered in your righteousness and not our own.

Thank God our sin doesn't keep us from you.

That's something that you did away with on the cross.

And so, Lord, we just want to say thanks.

Lord, allow this to be a space of celebration for us.

That we would announce the goodness of God into our own hearts and into the world that He has conquered and triumphed by way of the cross.

And so, God, I pray that you would do that for us in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Come and take communion as you feel ready, and again, hold your elements.