Lord's Supper - Pastor Greg Addison - July 19, 2026

Sermon from Pastor Greg Addison on Sunday morning, July 19, 2026.

Ministering to the heart of the Western Arkansas River Valley for over 165 years. Welcome to Chapter and First- the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith First Baptist Church, you'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg Addison, our ministry staff, and guest speakers. Thank you for listening!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years. Welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church. You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers. Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

We are so grateful to have our choir and orchestra lead us every week in worship. It's really wonderful. And of course, we had an incredible service on July the 5th, and they really uh outshone themselves. And uh what's really fun is you get 4th of July in July and you get Christmas in December. And so we have these incredible deals. And uh just want to invite you to come and test out being a part of this incredible group that leads us every week. Uh in on July the 29th, it's not this coming Wednesday, but the next one, they're doing their Christmas kickoff. I know Christmas in July, First Baptist Church and Hallmark Channel are the only two that do that, right? Uh but it's exciting and they have a great time, big Christmas party. They break out some of the music they're doing for Christmas. And so I just want to invite you, if you've ever thought about being in the choir, or you just want to be in it at Christmas, you don't have to sign up for every week, but you'd like to be in it at Christmas, come join us on the 29th on that Wednesday night, be in the choir room, which is just directly behind there. And it'll be a great time. I promise you you'll have a good time. I know we have talented folks out there, and so come and join us and be a part. They have more fun than anybody in the church, except for maybe Miss John's group and children's church with all the goldfish crackers. One or the two, the others are having the most fun. So come and be a part of that. I know you'll enjoy that, and and uh and we are blessed how they lead us in worship each week. Well, uh, this morning, as you see, we're going to do uh the Lord's Supper, and but I want you to think about something a little bit different as we prepare for the Lord's Supper this morning. As you know, we are reading chronologically through Scripture, and I hope you're joining with us in that. And I want to encourage you, had a conversation with a couple folks this week. I know it's easy to get off track in the summer. You know, you got vacations and stuff going on. Listen, don't stress out about it. Um, what you should do is just dive back in where you are, right? Just jump in where we are. And don't get stressed out about what you haven't done. Let's keep plowing and moving forward. This is an interesting time that we're in reading right now because we've got all these prophets that we're reading. And so we've done Jonah, and this week we did Micah and Amos, and we've got all these Hosea and Nahum and Abakuk and all these people coming up. We're in reading in Isaiah. We had a reading from Isaiah this morning setting up that last song. And so there's a lot of those prophets going on, but here's what I want you to know about them. It's not just history, those prophets in there. It's interesting to read it chronologically because you can tell when they were and who they spoke to and all of that when they gave those prophecies. But even more than that, in all of those prophecies, you have incredible pictures of Jesus and the prophecy of how we would know that Jesus is the promised Messiah. And so as you read through there, it's incredible how much Jesus is on every page and in most of those prophecies that you run across. In fact, there are two levels to many of those prophecies. There in the Old Testament, you get the picture of the Messiah that would come, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world and all of that, but you also get pictures of the ultimate purpose of salvation, and that is saving us for eternity and an eternity spent in heaven with the Lord. And so you get both pictures of that. In essence, if you will, you get the full-orbed picture of the gospel and what God is doing when he sends Jesus. As we take the Lord's Supper, I want you to think about it this morning as another of those prophecies. That prophecy is the indicator that God would send and provide a means of salvation, and it is also the identifier of who the Messiah would be. So as we take the Lord's Supper today, it very much is a prophecy. As you remember, when we read chronologically, the children of Israel were in captive in Egypt, and he sent Moses, and they were redeemed out of the bondage of slavery, and they were redeemed to the land of Canaan and the promise of relationship and establishment of them as God's people. And so that is a picture of salvation or redemption. The last trial that they put Pharaoh and the Egyptians through as God was convincing Pharaoh to let them go was what we call the Passover. And what happened in that time, as you know, God had uh prophesied judgment on the land of Egypt, and the firstborn of every family would die who did not do what God said do. And that is, they took a spotless lamb, a picture of Jesus, and they sacrificed that lamb. They took the blood of that lamb and they put it over the doorposts of their house. And as the death angel passed through Egypt, if he saw that they were covered by the blood of the lamb, he would pass over, and that's why they called it Passover. And then, as a part of that, the families of the Israelites were also supposed to build a particular kind of meal. It had herbs and breads and has all these different things in it, along with the lamb, because they were, number one, preparing to leave in a practical way. But in a spiritual way, it was very much a prophecy of the Messiah who would come. And it was a prophecy of what he would do. Jesus, as we know, came. He was identified by prophecies about where he was born and how he was born and what he would do, and then how he would be rejected. And before he went to the cross, he called his disciples together and they took the Passover Supper. It was a heritage and part of Jewish religion that they took that Passover because they were prophesying each year of the coming Messiah. Jesus sat his disciples down, they took the Lord's Supper. And in that moment, Jesus said and can and and showed them how he was the fulfillment of that prophecy. He came as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. And as they took what was the Passover Supper, and Jesus reflected how he was fulfilled in that, it became what we now call the Lord's Supper. And then in 1 Corinthians, Paul is reminding the church in Corinth, but also all of us through them how and what the Lord's Supper is. And so the Bible tells us in verse 23 that Paul said, For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, and when he gave thanks, broke it, and said, This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And so Jesus said, Look, here's what happens. I am about to go to the cross, and there I am going to die on the cross for your sins. And so he took this bread, which was unleavened bread, or bread without yeast. And why did they use that? Why did God teach them to do that? Because yeast or leaven is a picture of sin. And if you had introduced any amount of leaven into a loaf of bread that a family was making to make the Passover supper, it immediately would have tainted that entire loaf, because that's what sin does. It taints everything around it. And yet Jesus lived a sinless life. So the bread that was broken was unleavened. It was a picture of his sinless life that could be a substitute for his death, which had no judgment attached to it, could be a substitute for ours. And then he says the bread was broken. So he basically took it and he tore it and he did this. And it was a picture of the fact that he was going to be beaten and then he was going to be crucified for us. It is a prophecy of what Jesus did, and Jesus is showing that he fulfilled that prophecy. And then the Bible says that Paul explains the cup. In the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, and he said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. And so his blood is shed for us. And it also shows that covenant that God made with us, that Jesus shed his blood. It was an eternal, precious price that was paid for our forgiveness. Jesus conquered death and sin, and he rose again on the third day. And when he offers us salvation, that promise of salvation is sealed in the blood of Jesus. You can never lose your salvation. God will never break his promise to save you. Jesus explained that when he spoke to a man named Nicodemus, it's recorded in John 3, when he says that God so loved the world, he gave his son that whosoever believes in him will never perish. It is the promise of God sealed in the blood of Jesus. Whosoever believes in him will never perish. When you give your life to Jesus, that promise can never be broken by the holy honor of God sealed in the blood of Jesus. And then he says this as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. And so here's what happens: one prophecy is fulfilled in the person of Jesus. But another prophecy still remains of the second coming of Jesus Christ. When he comes to reunite his church, those of us who accepted Christ as our Savior, he reunites with us for eternity. And Jesus will come again for those who have been saved. In John chapter 14, he said this listen, if I go to heaven to prepare a place for you, surely I will come again to receive you to myself. So as we take the Lord's Supper today, we are doing that based on the fulfillment of one promise and looking forward to the promise of another prophecy. I want you to bow your heads as we prepare for the Lord's Supper this morning. When you've given your life to Christ, the shed blood of Jesus, your sins are forgiven, and you're in relationship with Him. And so today, if you know Christ as your Savior, we come and I want you to do this, and I want you to do it in a spirit of worship, in a spirit of excitement, and a spirit of gratitude. If you've never been saved, if you're in that journey, you're trying to determine salvation or whatever, this is a great morning for you to be here. And I'm glad you're here to experience the Lord's Supper and the message of that today. If you're saved, I want you to take a moment right now, and I want you to just thank the Lord for your salvation. And if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I just want you to just be open today. Tell the Lord, okay, Lord, I'm here. I'm gonna watch this and show me if this is real or not. Just ask Him to use today to reveal to you. Now here's the next thing. I want you to be able to experience the joy of this moment in a moment. Just a complete 100% focus on your Savior. In our lives, as we walk through our lives, several things happen. Sometimes we we doubt and we hit these questions and these question marks and we just struggle. Many times in our journey we sin. But Jesus is there to forgive that sin and to keep working with us and keep walking with us to continue the process of transforming us to be like Him. And sometimes we hit these spots in our lives where we just cling to something that we won't let go, that God has asked us to let go, and we're just struggling with letting that go. And those things can distract us in these beautiful moments of worship like this. So listen, if you've got a doubt, if you've got a question or a struggle, I want you to give that to Jesus this morning. I want you to pray, and I just want you to talk to him in your heart. And I want you to give that to him and ask him to answer that question, to meet those doubts so you can see him purely and effectively today in this worship. If you've got a sin in your life that you need to confess, do that this morning and rest in the forgiveness that's promised in this covenant of his blood so that you can focus on him without reservation this morning. And if you've got something you're holding on to, a better day, to just tell the Lord you want to let that go and give it to him. I want you to pray through those things wherever that is in your life so that you can we can let those go, we can give those to him, and we can have this incredible time of focus on that incredible salvation that comes through Jesus. We just come to you and we ask you to work in this moment. We're here today, we've come to celebrate the incredible gift of salvation. We've come to express our gratitude that in your grace and your mercy you would step out of heaven and you would allow your body to be broken and experience the death that comes for the punishment of sin in our place so we would not have to pay that price. We thank you for the incredible promise of salvation. Just the faith that we have to know that as a holy, honorable God, you meet every promise, and it doesn't matter how much we struggle when you make a promise, you never struggle, and you are always honorable to your promises. And the promise of salvation is sealed in the covenant of Jesus shed blood on the cross for us. So we come in this moment, Lord, and we ask that you speak into the lives of people. If someone who doesn't know you as their Savior, if they're questioning, if they're wondering, if they're researching or searching, I pray that in this moment, as your people come to worship you and thank you for salvation, that the Holy Spirit will show them and reveal Jesus to them in a fresh and in a tangible way. Lord, as we give our struggles or our sins or our things that we're holding back, as we give those to you today, and we come to this moment, I pray, Father, that you'll free up our hearts to be able to worship you and to be able to see Jesus in all of his majesty and all of his power and all of his glory as the resurrected Savior who has saved us and done what we could not do. And Lord, I pray that you will, as our Heavenly Father, take joy from seeing your children come to your house and sit at your proverbial table to take this Lord's Supper, to honor and to worship you, and to stand on the promise that we believe one day you will come and take us home to spend an eternity with you. Lord, I pray that you'll proclaim the gospel through this moment as we worship Jesus as our Savior. It is in His name we pray, and everyone said we ask our deacons to come and serve us now.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Sing along with us, I cast my mind to call me where Jesus was.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

It was the work of Jesus going to be seated on the cross that we're celebrating now that has brought us life. As Paul told us, on the night in which was betrayed, Jesus took bread, broke it, gave thanks, and he said, This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Then as we read in the scripture, the Bible says, in the same way, he took the cup, and he said, This is the new covenant which is in my blood. As often as you drink this, do this in remembrance of me. Lord Jesus, we thank you for salvation in your name and what that means to us today. Lord, I thank you for the price that you paid. It's beyond what we can imagine for you to become a person, to go from the creator God of the universe to become the person that we look to as Jesus. To be a human who would go through all that we go through and then go to the cross and there die in our place. There take your own wrath and punishment for sin and pay that price for us yourself there on the cross. We are overwhelmed at that price. And then the victory of the resurrection, conquering death and sin, and you offer us salvation, which means an abundant life in you, forgiveness, to walk in your presence, to have your direction and your protection and your provision in this life, but even more to know that the promise of eternity is to spend it with you in heaven in your presence. And only the eternal God of the universe could offer us eternity. So we come and today, as best we can, with the worship of our hearts and the actions of observing this Lord's Supper and being reminded of that incredible salvation. We worship you today. It is in your saving name we pray, and all God's people said. If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn with me to Micah chapter 5. As we read Micah this week, man, I just was reminded again just how incredible this book actually is. Again, I want to encourage you, don't get bogged down because we're looking at all these so-called minor prophets, and there's nothing minor about them. They just use that word because their books are short. But all throughout these, you have these incredible prophecies of Jesus and the full-orbed prophecies of salvation. Not just of in this life, but for all of eternity. And right here in Micah chapter 5 is a short prophecy, but it is filled with the fullness of the gospel. It is one of the most incredible Old Testament prophecies you could ever imagine. And unfortunately, we don't mean to, but Christmas time is the only time we really look at this. And at Christmas time, we're so excited about everything else, we just kind of gloss over this one and never really dig in and see how incredible it is. So today, as we took the Lord's Supper and saw one prophecy fulfilled, and as Paul said, we do this, eat and drink this way, to show the Lord's death until he comes back. Micah has here has both the prophecy of the Messiah and the promise of eternity through him. And here's what the Bible says, Micah chapter 5, verse 2. Bethlehem, Ephrata, you are small among the clans of Judah. One will come from you to be ruler over Israel for me. His, the one who will come, his origin is from antiquity from ancient times. Therefore, Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor has given birth, then the rest of the ruler's brothers will return to the people of Israel. He, the one who will come, whose origin is from antiquity, he will stand and shepherd them in the strength of the Lord, in the majestic name of the Lord his God. They will live securely, for then his greatness will extend to the ends of the earth. And so there he gives this incredible picture of the Messiah who would come and what would result from salvation in his name. And so I want you to just see that full picture of salvation here in this picture. Now, he gives us that verse that we've all heard and we think about at Christmas time. Bethlehem, Ephrata, you are small among the clans of Judah, and one will come from you to be ruler over Israel for me. And there it's important to understand that when God gives a prophecy, he in the Old Testament, he is not just saying who Jesus would be and what he would do, but he is identifying him so that those of us, when we're looking for a savior, when we're processing this faith choice to make Jesus our Savior, we can see that Jesus actually was the promised Messiah. And so right here you have that double picture when he says, In Bethlehem, Ephrata, there will be one that comes. And this is two parts of this. There were actually two Bethlehems around. And so this one is identifying Bethlehem, the ancestral home of King David. In fact, even before King David, it was the home of Ruth and Boaz in that story. It's a dinky little town. Again, he says it is really small in the grand scheme of Israel. It's a small little place, but it was there that God had made promises all throughout the generations. He reaffirms that promise again through David in the line of David. And so God orchestrates all of the things that are happening in that time at Christmas time with a census from the Roman governor and all of that business to bring Joseph and Mary to the place that God had identified where the Savior would be born. We know that was Jesus because he was born in Bethlehem. You also see the miraculous birth here of the Savior. He says his origin is from antiquity, from ancient times. And that's how that's translated into English. But in the original language, it was kind of an idiom that was used to describe the eternal nature of God and who God is as Yahweh God, as Elohim, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And he says, the one who will be born in Bethlehem, he identifies him as the miraculous Son of God, as the Savior. He says his origin, the baby that would be born there, was from antiquity. He is the person of God, born in the form of man, here in this place to identify him as the Savior. Not just a baby, not just any baby, but the promised Messiah. We know that Jesus was a son of God. That's the whole virgin birth deal. He was never born with the sin nature of man. He was born miraculously from the work of God. And he says clearly that this is God's Son, the promised Messiah. And if you think about it this way, John, the apostle John, said in John chapter 1, the Gospel of John, he used the word word to define Jesus. He would talk of him as the Word. He did that in 1 John, his letter in the back half of the New Testament as well. And in Matt, and in John chapter 1, he says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And he goes on to describe how the Word was there in creation. And so we know that Jesus as our Savior is the Son of God, both man and God, but he was born miraculously, and that prophecy is included here in Micah. It's an incredible picture of who he would be and what would happen. But we also saw, as we saw this prophecy fulfilled and another one put in place, that we are looking forward to the return of Jesus. Jesus will come and he'll rapture the church and we'll spend this time in heaven being rewarded and evaluated for our sin, our life here, and our following him and the acts of faith and all of that. And then the Bible says, in his coming, he will return in force and will establish a thousand-year reign here on the earth. And Micah is prophesying not just his birth and not just salvation as the Messiah, but the ultimate ushering in of eternity. And look what he says. And so he is speaking here prophetically of the Acts when Jesus comes and returns and begins the process of eternity. He will stand and shepherd them in the strength of the Lord and the majestic name of the Lord his God. They will live securely, for then his greatness will extend to the ends of the earth. Jesus will return and establish his reign here with his people, and he will cover the earth, and it will be the greatest time in all of humankind on this earth. Jesus will reign in power, he will reign in majesty and glory, and at the end of that reign will be the final judgment of Satan. God will end sin and evil forever, and he will begin eternity when we are placed in his presence in heaven forever. Jesus didn't just die to save us from evil things that happen on the earth or struggles or whatever. He died to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, to enter us into a salvation relationship with him that will last for eternity. That's always been the promise of salvation. It's so much more sometimes than we inadvertently describe. It is the promise of heaven, it is the promise of eternity, it is what we look forward to, it is what we long for. The Bible says about us as his children that we do not mourn as those who have no hope. Why is that? When we face that time of death and funerals and life, why do we not mourn the way those who have no hope? Because we have the hope and promise of salvation and an eternity spent with him and a relationship with him, which has always been the fullness of the promise of salvation. When we take the Lord's Supper, the reason we're looking forward to the return of Jesus is because he has consistently throughout his work promised us of an eternity with him. It is the most beautiful and full picture of salvation that we could get. I want to encourage you. Don't give up reading. Dive in and read Jesus and the prophecies of these men of God. Peter told us how great they were. In this second letter that we call Second Peter, he wrote in there, God has given us through his graciousness and through his power these incredible promises of God. And then at the end of that, he says, listen, we don't follow contrived myths, fables, or stories. We are trusting in promises that were written by men of God as they were directed directly by the Holy Spirit to write them. And that's why we have confidence in them, and we are looking forward to the promises that they provide. So I want to encourage you, man, don't give up. Read the promises of Jesus as we go through the next week. See what He's promised. As we close this morning, if you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, we have prayed for you today. And my prayer has been that seeing this picture and understanding who Jesus was, and even by going back and looking at prophecies fulfilled and prophecies that are coming, you will see Jesus in a tangible way. And if you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, this morning we want to invite you to give your life to Him. In a moment, I'm going to pray and that God's people are, and we're going to sing one last celebration song, and we're going to worship salvation. And when you hear them singing around you, you can know that is their testimony that they believe what we've done today. And if you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, we'll have some of our deacons here at the front. I'll be here. You just come. Come and we'll walk through that decision with you. Nobody will manipulate you. We won't argue. We just want to be here to walk the journey with you. If you're ready and you know, you come and we'll pray with you and we'll give you a scripture to stand on and we'll celebrate with you. If you have questions, you come, we'll answer them. If you want more of a conversation, listen, I will meet with you anywhere, anytime, and we'll walk that journey with you. Come and let's set a time where we can get together. We want you to know the promise of salvation that we've worshiped today. Brothers and sisters in Christ, thank you for being here. I know it's summer and you guys are great. It's been a great service today. I just want to encourage you, keep plowing, keep reading, keep looking forward to Jesus. Let's pray. Lord, we love you and we thank you. And again, we pray that you'll be honored with how we've worshiped you today. And Lord, I pray if there's folks who have not made that decision yet, that this is a great step in their journey as they're searching, that they'll see Jesus. They'll be clear in their picture of the sacrifice that he made for them. The promise and hope of heaven that is that is ours, sealed in the blood of Jesus, a covenant never to be broken when we've placed our faith in him as our Savior. Lord, I pray that in this time as we worship you, we'll leave here different than we were when we came in. Closer to you, more grateful for our salvation, ready to share it with others. And someone who needs to be saved will come and be saved. We pray these things as the saving name of Jesus and all God's people said.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus. Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you. Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can. Thank you for listening to chapter and first of the Bible teaching ministry of Fourth Smith at the First Methodist Church.