SPEAKER_00 0:03

I just have to say before I begin that I found as they were singing that song, I found how easy it was for me to say those words. Give me Jesus. I don't want anything else. I don't need anything else, or I don't need anyone else. And as I was saying those, Holy Spirit stopped and said, Do you really mean that? Do you really mean that? Then I thought about Job. And I thought how Job lost everything. He lost his family. I'm so blessed that my family's here today. He lost his family. He lost his possessions. He lost his health. Those are things that are pretty important to me. And so I had to really stop and think. Do I want anyone else? Do I need anyone else? You're all I need. You're all I want. And I want to tell you, I got some work to do. I've got some work to do. I want to be able to sing that song without any reservation. And I want to be able to say, whatever it is that you think I don't need, you can have it. You can have it. Just give me Jesus. Amen. Oh, thank you for blessing me this morning. I'm going to begin reading in 1 Corinthians chapter 11. I'm going to start with verse 17. And I was reminded before service this time that I need to give you time to find the word. I have it printed out in bigger print, just so you know. And so it's easy for me just to look down here and say, okay, we're ready to go. But I'll give you just a minute. First Corinthians chapter 11, starting with verse 17. I'm trying not to blubber. I don't look very good when I blubber. Now in giving these instructions, I do not praise you, since you come together not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you that those who are approved may be recognized among you. Therefore, when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating each one takes his own supper ahead of others, and one is hungry and another is drunk. What? Do you not have houses to eat or drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you. So to put these verses in context, they're a part of the Apostle Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth. He established this church on his first, I'm sorry, his second missionary journey, and he lived there for 18 months and taught the Word of God among them. Then after he left, after some time passed, word came to him, both in person and by letter, that there were some problems within the church. So Paul wrote this first letter to the church in Corinth, addressing what I would call a whole laundry list of problems. And in the chapter that are the portion of the scripture that I just read, he was talking about disunity and problems with the Lord's Supper. And I suspect that by the time they had read that part, as those letters are, as I understand, were read aloud in the churches, I suspect maybe he had their attention at that point. So he moves on. But before that, I want to say that he was talking about these factions and divisions in the church. And it was evident that when they came together to celebrate the Lord's Supper, that was kind of maybe almost the last thing on their mind. They were not focused on the Lord's Supper. They uh maybe had been part of an agape feast at that time. It was it was, I think, a common practice to celebrate what we would call an agape feast or a love feast. In my day, we would call it a fellowship supper. And it was a time when they would come together and they were to fellowship with one another. And this would oftentimes take place before the actual celebration of the Lord's Supper. And what was happening, instead of it being a fellowship supper, it was kind of a bring your own thing, go over to your own corner, sit down and eat it, and then we'll move on. And there were people who had a lot, and there were people in the congregation, which should be in every congregation. There are there are those who are blessed financially and blessed well, and then there are others who are in need. And if it's lopsided one way or the other, I feel like we got a little bit of a problem. I think there should be both within the church, and we should be working together to meet one another's needs. But they were not doing that. Those who had a lot, who had a lot of food, were able to uh make a good meal, they were coming early. They were going over, they were eating their food, and then those who came at the regular, maybe prescribed time, everything was done by that point, and they had nothing. And Paul says, This there's something really wrong with this. You, you know, if you're just going to eat your own food, just stay home and eat it rather than coming, you know, here if that's the way it's going to be. And you know what I found, and I I mentioned this in first service, uh, we had a lot of fellowship. I find that Christians really like to eat. And, you know, we have a lot of what we call fellowship meals, but a lot of the time the very same thing happens or similar happens to us. I bring my food and I go and I sit with those that I'm comfortable with, and maybe those who are not as familiar or maybe first timers, they're trying to figure out where to sit and what to do. And we need to, you know, just a little side note, when we have fellowship dinners, maybe look around and see if there's somebody that's new or somebody that's not as comfortable and include those within your group. And that's what Paul was saying. He was saying, you know, don't just do this, and if it is what you're gonna do, stay home and do it there. So let me see where I'm at here. Okay, so then by the time he gets through telling them all this, he moves on to what uh scriptures that we're familiar with, probably, 1 Corinthians 11 23. So you can stay in the same place and we're just gonna continue on. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which he was betrayed took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you, this do in remembrance of me. In the same manner he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. Now a lot of us, many of us probably are familiar with this passage, or at least the passages in the gospels that record a real similar thing, but Paul is quick to point out here that he wasn't going to rely just on what the apostles had said, but he relied on what the Lord Jesus had given him personally. And I want to just say that I love the Lord's Supper. We're going to celebrate the Lord's Supper in a little while. I love to be a part of the communion service, or at least that's how when I was growing up, that's what we called it most of the time was communion. That's taken from scripture back in 1 Corinthians 10, 16, uh, which says the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ, the bread which we break? Is it not the communion of the body of Christ? I love to be a part of the communion of the Lord's Supper. I just feel that it's an important part of every believer's uh experience. But I also think that if we aren't careful, it can become very routine and we fail. We we need at times to be refreshed or reminded exactly what it is that we're doing and why we're doing it. I think too often we just go through the motion because it's just what we do, and we can do it without really even considering. Uh, in the years that I pastored, that was one of the things that was so very important to me is that I never treated the Lord's Supper as something we just tacked on at the end of the service. But it would always be something that was special, that would be something that would be meaningful, and that the people of the congregation could leave and feel that they had experienced something really good. And so uh today I want to just remind ourselves of what it is when we do and when we participate in the Lord's Supper. Sometimes I believe, and again, this is my personal opinion, sometimes I believe that we focus more on the blood of Jesus and sometimes to the neglect of the body of Jesus. I think we're quick to recognize and acknowledge that by the blood of Jesus our sins were dealt with. We're more familiar with that. We really sing songs more about that. We sing about the blood of Jesus and how our sins have been dealt with. We remember the animal sacrifices that were symbolic of the old covenant, that way of dealing with sin, and how blood had to be shed and applied year after year. And we thank God that Jesus' sacrifice of his blood dealt with sin once and for all. Hebrews 9 12. Hebrews 9 12, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, he entered the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. And then Colossians 1 and 13 and 14. Colossians 1, 13-14, he's delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. So we we we are more familiar with that, and sometimes when we think about communion, that's what we think about. We think about his blood. But I want you to think this morning with me about his body as well. That Jesus didn't just use the cup of wine that represented his shed blood when he established the Lord's Supper, but he also used bread and said that that represented his body. He broke the bread, he gave it to his disciples, and told them to eat it. He told them to do it in remembrance of him. Again, I think I read this verse it just before, but I want to read it again. First Corinthians 11 26. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. So it wasn't just a one and done. They were to continually remember his body as well as his blood. So as I was thinking about this, and I'm thinking, okay, so we know, we understand the significance of the blood, but what exactly is the significance of his body? And so as I thought about that, my mind went back to Exodus chapter 12, where the recording about the first Passover is recorded in the scripture. And I want to read that account for you out of Exodus chapter 12, reading one through nine. Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be your beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, On the tenth of this month, every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household, and if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons, according to each man's need, you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight, and they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. Then they shall eat the flesh on that night, roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water. Pardon me, but roasted in fire, its head with its legs and its entrails. I uh might just go down a rabbit trail this morning. Sometimes I'm when I study I find not myself doing a lot of rabbit trails, but I was trying to figure out, and I've wondered at times, why the lamb, why it was important and why why the Lord stressed that the lamb was to be roasted and not boiled. I I thought, you know, it's going to be cooked, they're going to eat it. What difference does it make? Here's what I thought of this week. That maybe it was so that they would experience the smell, the sense of smell. And I think sometimes, I've thought a lot of times about how it must have smelled in that community, in that Hebrew community, as every house, or perhaps uh almost every house at least, would have been roasting a lamb. Uh, think about I don't know about you, but sometimes we'll, especially in the springtime, we'll be driving down streets and all of a sudden you get that whiff of somebody who's got their grill going, maybe for the first time. And boy, your mind is just full of that. And can you imagine a whole neighborhood all at one time roasting a lamb? Their sense of smell would have been ignited, I think. Uh, and I thought, well, maybe perhaps every sense that they had was involved in this whole Passover meal, this whole Passover celebration thing that they were doing. They would have seen the lamb as it was kept, and maybe perhaps even watched as it was killed. The lamb would have had to have been held by someone's hands, touched as it was slain. They would have no doubt heard the cries with their ears of that innocent lamb as it died in their place. And then sooner or later, they were going to taste, and so all of their senses perhaps were involved in that preparation and in the celebration of the Lamb and the Passover. Exodus twelve verses ten and eleven. You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire, and thus you shall eat it, with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand, so you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. So from this reading and from thinking about it, we can see that it wasn't just the significance of the blood that was applied to the doorpost that provided their uh protection from the death angel that was going to pass, but it also won they the Lord also wanted them to eat the lamb and the body of the lamb. And so what they didn't eat was to be destroyed. So we know what the lamb, we know what the blood did, but what was the significance of the flesh or the body of the lamb? You know, maybe at first we might think about uh provision. No doubt they would need strength. And and you know, I was as I thought about this, I thought everywhere I look these days, I see the importance of protein. It seems to be protein, protein, protein. Well, the lamb would have provided that protein that they needed to give them the strength that they needed to go on this journey. They were getting ready to travel by foot. They were going to take their possessions with them, and while they themselves probably had very few possessions, the scripture tells us that they were instructed to ask of their Egyptian neighbors and to get possessions of gold and silver and all sorts of important things. I'm going to read that from Exodus 12, 35, and 36. Now the children of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, and they had asked from the Egyptians articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing. And the Lord had given people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they granted them what they required. Thus they plundered the Egyptians. The King James says they spoiled the Egyptians. I really like that part. I like that word of I like the fact that they spoiled the Egyptians. So it's understandable that they would need nourishment from this last meal, which was the Passover lamb, and the other there were other things included in that. There's also the probably the benefit of a covenant meal. In the Bible, a shared meal would seal an agreement between God and his people. By eating together, both parties declare that they're united and bound to keep their promises. An earlier example of that would have been when Melchizedek, who was the king of Salem, brought bread and wine and met Abraham after Abraham had rescued his nephew Lot, and they celebrated together there. And there had to have been some kind of a covenant or agreement that was made there. And we can also see from what I've read and what we know that the Passover meal, no doubt, was a covenant meal. It was a time and it was a place where God was making promises to these people. And they and he's going to be faithful, and that by sharing this meal, it was sealing that covenant that was between God and His people. It's also my personal opinion, and I will state that it is my opinion, that the meal itself had healing qualities. Think about it. There were 600,000 Hebrew men, not counting women and children, and the mixed multitude who went with them. They were about to embark on a monumental journey. To put this maybe in context, anytime you have a group of people, it doesn't have to be very many, but anytime you have a group of people gathered together, you're always going to have those who have some type of physical problem. It might be age. I shared with the first service this morning that uh I'm pretty used to just doing whatever I want as far as physical is concerned. I'm I'm just the Lord has really blessed me with my. Good health, but for whatever reason, I've had a little one of my knees has decided it wants to act up. And I had to change shoes three times this morning before I could find some that I trusted myself that I wouldn't fall over or I wouldn't trip or something. And so, you know, I would be a little challenged, I think, to set out on what might be an 11-day journey. Think about it. There had to be those who were really old. There had to be those who had some type of physical problem or whatever. There had to be some that maybe just came down with the flu the night before. There were young people, there were babies. And how in the world were these, all of these people, this multitude of people, how were they going to be able to make this journey? I believe that this Passover meal, as they partook of the body of the Lamb, the flesh of the Lamb, I believe that healing took place, preparing them for the meal. The scripture says in Psalm 105 and verse 37, He also brought them out with silver and gold, and there was none feeble among his tribes. And that that whole chapter 105 is sort of a recount of the Exodus and the things that he did for them. So it says that there was none feeble among their tribes. So is it possible that as they ate that first Passover meal that included the flesh of that Passover lamb, that sickness, disease, paralysis left the body of God's people, enabling them to make that journey. Now I want to go back to 1 Corinthians 11, and I want to just maybe try to tie this together and wrap it up. After the meal, Jesus takes bread. By the way, without I don't know that I said this, but they were sharing and they were celebrating Passover. And this was just shortly before Jesus would die. But after the meal, he takes bread, and most likely it was unleavened bread because they were celebrating Passover with unleavened bread. He takes it, he breaks it, and he tells them that the bread represents his body, which would be given for them. And he tells them they're to eat the bread of his body. In John chapter 6, Jesus told his disciples that unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Now certainly Jesus was not suggesting that they were going to eat, literally eat his blood, or eat his flesh and drink his blood. But he was talking about what was represented by his flesh and his blood. In other words, they needed to be willing to make his body a part of them. He continued by taking a cup of wine and telling them that it represented his blood, which would be shed for them. So you notice that just like the Passover lamb, the Lamb of God was to be taken by both body and blood, or bread and blood. Again, we know what the blood did for us. We've read that. I read it in Hebrews 9, 22. Can I tell you today that my salvation came through the shed blood of Jesus Christ? The spotless Lamb of God gave his blood so that I can be whole. So that I can that I can just live without sin. My sins, you know, the blood has been applied to the doorposts of my heart. Spiritual death passed over me. Is it possible that the blood, I'm sorry, the body of the Lamb of God does for me what the Passover Lamb did for the children of Israel? Does my wholeness come through Christ's body? Isaiah 53, 5. But he was wounded for my transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him. Thank you for peace that was bought and paid for by Jesus and the chastisement that he endured. I walk in peace today. I can walk into things that I don't know and I don't understand, but the peace of God will go with me. And it was paid for on the cross. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And by his stripes, we are healed. I'm going to tell you what I do when I take communion. As I take the bread, I break it. Sometimes it's a challenge if it happens to be those little bitty things, but I break it. And before I eat it, I affirm. Jesus, all that you did for me with your body, I receive now. In Jesus' name. As I prepare to drink the cup, I thank you, Jesus, for taking my sins to the cross, for shedding your precious blood so that my sins were dealt with once and for all. I walk in forgiveness and victory in Jesus' name. Thank you for being my Passover lamb. I'm gonna ask Pastor James to come. And he's going to lead our communion service. But I challenge you, and he will do this as well. Take time to reflect on Jesus sacrifice.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Right. I want to encourage each of us. I love how you taught that today, Pastor Ruby. It's so, so good. And I love her spirit. Can we just thank her for being here with us today? You know, before we take communion, I just there's a couple things that just stood out to me so much that you were teaching on. And one of those is here in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 26. It says, For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. I wonder how often when we receive communion and take communion, are we really doing that? Or have we truly allowed things to become habit and ritual? And I so appreciate what you said, and I felt the same way. It's why we don't have communion out every single week, because I don't want it to be something that is just something we just do, because it should be very, very special because we're not just doing it, you know, willy-nilly. We truly are making a proclamation. Amen? A proclam a proclamation of what the Lord has done in our lives and for each and every one of us. So I just really want us to take that seriously. And and you know, in in all seriousness, we uh we are the ones that make things ritual. We are the ones that make things happen. I mean, the Lord has placed these things in our lives and and so that we can do them and make that proclamation and to and to be whole and right with Him, and as a reminder, and we gotta remember what I said last week is we can't quit reading, right? We gotta keep reading because it goes on to say something else here in the scripture. It says, therefore who whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment. Okay. Judgment on himself. And so we should never just grab communion and take it and just be and be done with it and like, oh, I just did it, that check that box. Because it is so not that. Amen. It's not that at all. And so I want to encourage you today. We have communion uh right over here on the sides and also in the front. And if you need someone to bring it to you, just slip your hand up and I will be happy, uh, or or some one of us will be happy to bring communion to you if you can't make your way down. But if you want to go ahead at this time, as Pastor Greg begins to go ahead and start playing over us, um, I really want us to take a little bit of time. It's only 1159, just take a little time to just spend with the Lord. You're making a proclamation, amen. You're making a proclamation of what Jesus has done in your life with his body and with his blood. And you can stay at the altar, you can go to your seats, whatever you feel most comfortable doing.