Oct 11 2020 Communion - God is With Us; God is For Us

We are going to do communion today – the Lord’s supper – and I’m going to take some time to talk about it – what the Lord’s Supper is for all of us.

If you go back a couple weeks to Elijah – he was having some difficulties, and there are a couple things that are really important in our relationship with God – and they are things that Elijah had forgotten, or maybe, lost sight of these things – first, God is with us, and the second – God is for us – He is on our side.

These are repeated over and over in the Bible because God wants us to remember these things – and to dwell and remember these things. It is easy, in these difficult times, for us to feel like these things are no longer true. Those things ARE true, but we can easily feel like they are not, and that can create fear and anxiety for some. It can create control issues and maybe inappropriate manipulation for others – and for many, it can create discouragement, and maybe even depression.

What I talked about two weeks ago and didn’t go into it much – we need to develop practices and habits that help us to remember that God is with us and God is for us.

The good news is this: The Bible often speaks about the importance of remembering, and it gives us many practices to remember the things that God has done for us. I’m going to look at the two biggest practices in the Bible to help us remember.

The first is in Exodus 12:12 ¹² 'For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments-- I am the LORD. ¹³ 'The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. ¹⁴ 'Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance.

The first is Passover. For the people of the Old Testament, Passover was the central event of the Old Testament and of their lives, and everything else in their lives was viewed in light of Passover.

This is the practice -and it was the primary practice to remind them that God was with them, and God was for them.

When it says – MEMORIAL – here that is more than just calling to mind a past event. Passover was a celebration of a living and present event. It happened in the past, but it was experienced and applied to those who celebrated as the years went on.

There were two ways it was celebrated – first, the removal of guilt and sin –

And the second thing they experienced:

and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments-- I am the LORD. – the second thing experienced in Passover, was the defeat of the forces of evil in their lives.

The plagues that God brought upon Egypt, each was directed at a specific god of Egypt – and this is saying that each of those gods will be finally defeated.

The second practice is the Lord’s Supper

1 Corinthians 11: ²³ For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread, ²⁴ and after he had given thanks he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." ²⁵ In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, every time you drink it, in remembrance of me." ²⁶ For every time you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Twice in there: In remembrance of Me – reminiscent of Exodus – a memorial.

The cross is the central event of the New Testament, but it is also the central event of the Entire Bible – and the central event of history. Everything else is to be understood through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. All of history is to be viewed in light of this.

This is more than just bringing to mind an event that just happened 2000 years ago, this is a living celebration -and as we do this, we will experience it – in two ways – first, forgiveness of sin and removal of guilt – and second – the defeat of the forces of evil in our lives, as we remember what Christ did in our lives. The next verse explains this:

Colossians 2: ¹³ When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, ¹⁴ having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.

First – on the cross, our sins are forgiven, the debt is paid – it is gone –

Disarming the rulers and authorities, he has made a public disgrace of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

He has defeated the powers of evil in our lives. We have victory! Often, we can ignore, or just forget/not realize – that as we come to communion – we are celebrating our forgiveness and restoration of relationship – but we also celebrate that the powers of evil have been defeated – this very day!

The enemy is defeated on the cross, the victory has been won – but like Israel, we need to learn to enter into that victory – and that is a lifelong process. The victory is there, but the entering in takes daily work and practice.

Before we take communion – I want to go back to the last verse:

1 Corinthians 11 ." ²⁶ For every time you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

As we are doing this, Paul is telling us that we are proclaiming the gospel – to ourselves, and to one another. We need to hear the gospel ourselves, not so we can get saved again, but so we can understand who we are and what has happened inside of us.

One odd thing – we proclaim the Lord’s death – Paul leaves out the resurrection – which is odd, in a book that is all about the resurrection!

When Paul preaches the gospel in the Book of Acts, his focus – a large part of it – the majority even – is the resurrection! And Paul leaves it out here – but I think that is purposeful. The Corinthians – they would have a meal and then do communion – but what was happening – they had rich people and poor people – like a COVID potluck, the rich people would bring their food in and eat it, and the poor people had no food – and the rich would be eating their food in front of the poor people and THIS WAS ALL WRONG, Paul was saying, what you are doing.

He specifically says, you proclaim the Lord’s death. Jesus laid aside His rights as a servant, and he is saying – Corinthians, you need to do the same – to die for your brothers and sisters.

They were observing the Lord’s Supper regularly – but they weren’t living it.

The gospel of John leaves out, “This is my body, take and eat it” in the Last Supper. He leaves it out – it is not there.

John wrote that when he was old – maybe he was having a senior moment – No – well, he may have had senior moments – but that it not what was happening there. John tells a different story – His last supper story is about Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. Ha, that’s fascinating – it shows Jesus, in a practical way, before He goes to the cross, laying down His life for the church.

This is a physical activity that points to a deep spiritual reality. As we reenact this event now, we are remembering that God is with us, and God is for us.

Matthew 26:26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after giving thanks he broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, "Take, eat, this is my body." ²⁷ And after taking the cup and giving thanks, he gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you, ²⁸ for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, that is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

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