SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information in our church, please visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_00: I want to read.
SPEAKER_00: As you can tell, if you're a guest today, you look around, things are a little bit different.
SPEAKER_00: Today we celebrate communion here at Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say from the beginning that we observe what's called open communion, which means uh if you're a Christian, if you have a relationship with Christ, then you're welcome to celebrate and receive communion with us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not there yet, just relax.
SPEAKER_00: There's no pressure on you.
SPEAKER_00: You can just kind of observe and ask yourself, why wouldn't I want to know a God that would give himself for me as payment for my sins?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I want to read from 1 Corinthians chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'll start reading in about verse 25, and I want to just give us some instructions that the Bible gives, and then I want to give us a few things to meditate on.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 11, verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: The word of God says, For I receive from the Lord what I also deliver to you.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and he said, This is my body which is for you.
SPEAKER_00: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
SPEAKER_00: Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and the blood of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
SPEAKER_00: For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
SPEAKER_00: That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
SPEAKER_00: But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.
SPEAKER_00: For when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined, so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of things uh written and said about communion and the cross and the crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, in this past week, anytime we observe communion here at Grand Parkway, uh, I just kind of immerse myself in just kind of reading.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things, back in 1974, uh a man by the name of J.I.
SPEAKER_00: Packer, he wrote it's kind of a little pamphlet, but basically it's come to be known as the evangelical model of penal substitution.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, try that on for a sermon title.
SPEAKER_00: The evangelical model of penal substitution.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the word penal means that a person has been found guilty uh and deserving of punishment by a court of law.
SPEAKER_00: And and and and and and but J.I.
SPEAKER_00: Packer, back in 1974, by the way, we modern preachers have a tendency to think that we've kind of discovered it all, we got it all figured out.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so the older I get, the more I the further I reach back in history to read older and older people.
SPEAKER_00: You say 1974, not that old.
SPEAKER_00: Tell your kids that.
SPEAKER_00: They're kind of like, uh, what?
SPEAKER_00: Uh yes, phone, remember phones?
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
SPEAKER_00: 1974 there.
SPEAKER_00: Had pong.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone?
SPEAKER_00: No?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was like state of the art back then.
SPEAKER_00: Now your kids would be like, that's lame.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not waiting for that thing to drag across the thing.
SPEAKER_00: 1974, a man named Jack Packer, he wrote just kind of basically it was a it was like a like not a book, but like a more like a chapter or something, but he kind of boiled it down.
SPEAKER_00: And and as I was preparing for today, I just read over and over and over and found so much freedom and illumination and revelation that the way I want us to get ready for the Lord's table today is by just kind of reflecting upon these uh nine statements that kind of summarize, because when Paul says, hey, anyone who eats the bread and drinks a cup without discerning the body, I want us to discern the body.
SPEAKER_00: I want us to be, I want us to reflect and remember on exactly what happened on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want us just to kind of reflect on these statements.
SPEAKER_00: They'll come up.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the first one I want us to think about.
SPEAKER_00: God condones nothing but judges all sin as it deserves, which Scripture affirms and my conscience confirms to be right.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says in Galatians 6, don't be deceived.
SPEAKER_00: God is not mocked.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap.
SPEAKER_00: For God to not judge sin would mean that God is not a just being.
SPEAKER_00: And God is just.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 3 tells us he put his son forth.
SPEAKER_00: He put him forth as a sacrifice of atonement to demonstrate his justice.
SPEAKER_00: God does not single out certain sins and say these are big ones.
SPEAKER_00: He judges all sin as it deserves.
SPEAKER_00: Let's also think about this this morning.
SPEAKER_00: My sins merit ultimate penal suffering and rejection from God's presence, and nothing I do can blot them out.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing I do.
SPEAKER_00: I deserve.
SPEAKER_00: Me, your pastor, I deserve.
SPEAKER_00: My sins deserve ultimate just suffering and rejection from God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: And nothing I do can blot them out.
SPEAKER_00: If I could do enough good to outweigh my bad, then there's no reason for Jesus to die on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: But because the Bible is right when it says that all my righteous deeds are as filthy rags in the sight of a living God.
SPEAKER_00: When it says in Titus 3 that not by works of righteousness which we have done has he saved us, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration, by the renewing of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I'm liberated in the cross.
SPEAKER_00: I'm liberated from trying to earn what God says I can have for free.
SPEAKER_00: Let's also consider this this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The penalty due for my sins, whatever it was, was paid for me by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and his death on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: What I deserve was paid for.
SPEAKER_00: Just, I mean, you you've got to just think about.
SPEAKER_00: I deserve separation from God.
SPEAKER_00: That's just punishment for my sin.
SPEAKER_00: And died.
SPEAKER_00: It was paid for me.
SPEAKER_00: The cross is both public and personal.
SPEAKER_00: Let's also think of this this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is so.
SPEAKER_00: I threw faith in him and made the righteousness of God in him.
SPEAKER_00: I am justified.
SPEAKER_00: Pardon, acceptance, and sonship, daughtership, being children of God, that becomes mine.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, about verse 21, He made him who knew no sin to become sin for us, so that in him we could become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 10, about verse 12 says that when this priesthood offered for all times one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And since that time he awaits for his enemies to become his footstool.
SPEAKER_00: Because by that one sacrifice he is made perfect forever.
SPEAKER_00: Those who are being made holy.
SPEAKER_00: That's my position in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: My process is that I am being made holy.
SPEAKER_00: I'm being made into who the Bible says I am.
SPEAKER_00: So the issue for you is not, usually when we say let's examine ourselves, we think we think, okay, let me get in touch with what a dirt bag I am so I can come up here and feel bad.
SPEAKER_00: You're the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Let's also think about this.
SPEAKER_00: Christ's death for me is my sole ground of hope before God.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have anything that I can stand before God and point to and say, look what I did.
SPEAKER_00: The fact that Christ died for me is my only hope before God.
SPEAKER_00: But because Christ died for me, my hope is certain.
SPEAKER_00: My hope is certain.
SPEAKER_00: Your hope, if you're a Christian today, your hope is certain.
SPEAKER_00: Let's also think about this.
SPEAKER_00: My faith in Christ is God's own gift to me.
SPEAKER_00: Given in virtue of Christ's death for me, the cross procured it.
SPEAKER_00: My faith in Christ is God's own gift to me.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't my idea.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I don't labor under the duty of sustaining or maintaining it.
SPEAKER_00: It is a gift that I enjoy.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible talks about this in Ephesians chapter 2, when it says, For by grace you're saved through faith, not of works.
SPEAKER_00: It's a gift of God, lest any man should boast.
SPEAKER_00: We love to boast.
SPEAKER_00: We love to say, I did this.
SPEAKER_00: On the cross, we're forced to recognize that there's nothing that we could do.
SPEAKER_00: But yet God did everything.
SPEAKER_00: The cross procured this for me.
SPEAKER_00: Let's also consider this today.
SPEAKER_00: Christ's death for me guarantees my preservation to glory.
SPEAKER_00: If you're under 40, you're like, I don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: If you're over 40, you're going, rock on.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what that means.
SPEAKER_00: In plain talk.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 1:6 says, He who began a good work in me will continue it to the day of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you this week was a great week spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, it was not a great week for you spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: Don't beat yourself up today.
SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself, ask God, God, what are you doing in me?
SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible says that he began it.
SPEAKER_00: It was his idea.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to sustain it.
SPEAKER_00: And the cross is a reminder.
SPEAKER_00: You say, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 8, verse 31 says, Hey, he who spared not his own son, but freely offered him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
SPEAKER_00: He's just going to keep on.
SPEAKER_00: The cross is a reminder of the way God wants to relate to you.
SPEAKER_00: Not prosperity, gospel, Christmas list, I get what I want.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: We don't believe that here.
SPEAKER_00: Christ's death for me guarantees I'm going to make it to glory.
SPEAKER_00: Not because I'm moral or good or a vote Republican or watch the Fox News channel or go to church.
SPEAKER_00: Christ's death for me.
SPEAKER_00: Let's also consider this this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Christ's death for me is the measuring pledge of the love of the Father and the Son to me.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 5.8.
SPEAKER_00: God demonstrated his love for us in that while we're still sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_00: A single man asked me a couple months ago, what's it like to be married?
SPEAKER_00: It is continually thinking of different ways to say the same thing to your wife without her figuring out you're saying the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, What's the same thing?
SPEAKER_00: I love you.
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: I said, When you are you dating?
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I said, You can say I love you.
SPEAKER_00: And she goes, Oh, he goes, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I said, When you're married and you say I love you, she's like, Unload the dishwasher.
SPEAKER_00: And what she's saying is demonstrate it.
SPEAKER_00: And God says, I'll go first.
SPEAKER_00: I'll demonstrate it.
SPEAKER_00: So you'll always know that I love you.
SPEAKER_00: God's love for you is not contingent upon your behavior.
SPEAKER_00: He loves you.
SPEAKER_00: Let's consider this this morning.
SPEAKER_00: This is the last thing we'll consider.
SPEAKER_00: Christ's death for me calls and constrains me to trust, to worship, love, and to serve.
SPEAKER_00: Look at that again.
SPEAKER_00: Christ's death for me calls and constrains me to trust, to worship, to love and to serve.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, we are never without a context for what it looks like to love somebody.
SPEAKER_00: There are things, aspects of Christian behavior, which are really irrelevant unless their relation to basic spiritual truths is made obvious.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: There are aspects of Christian behavior, things the Bible tells us to do that don't make any sense unless we connect them back to a spiritual truth.
SPEAKER_00: Like, for example, the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 5, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.
SPEAKER_00: The death of Christ becomes kind of, hey, this is kind of the standard.
SPEAKER_00: This is the, I can't say like yesterday at my home, my wife and two daughters left my house at 2 o'clock and they were gone for four hours.
SPEAKER_00: I was recording a college football game in one room and watching another one in our bedroom.
SPEAKER_00: Sitting in the corner in a club chair with some old gym shorts on and a t-shirt, eating chips and hot sauce.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, in Man Heaven.
SPEAKER_00: My wife's supposed to stop and pick up pizza about six o'clock.
SPEAKER_00: I started getting hungry.
SPEAKER_00: I called her and said, Hey, how you coming?
SPEAKER_00: She goes, We've been to Target and we're now in Joann's.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking, four hours in two stores?
SPEAKER_00: I could feel the flames of hell lapping around my legs as I sat there in my room, had the air conditioner on 66, and every light in the house was off.
SPEAKER_00: I thought I died and gone to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: But I looked out the front door, my neighbor was still there.
SPEAKER_00: I said, no, this isn't heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so I just sit there.
SPEAKER_00: And then I said, Well, just let me know.
SPEAKER_00: I texted my wife and to take the pressure off and said, Hey, listen, I'm not even hungry yet, so take your time.
SPEAKER_00: I could tell in her voice, she's like, I'm I left with two kids, I'm coming home with one.
SPEAKER_00: And this swole up in me.
SPEAKER_00: Christ's death for me calls and constrains me to trust, worship, love, and to serve.
SPEAKER_00: Mark 10, 45 says, The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
SPEAKER_00: Here's my confession today.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I work hard during the week and I go home, and my expectation, though unexpressed, is this that my wife will just serve me.
SPEAKER_00: I know I'm the only one.
SPEAKER_00: And I was sitting there watching, just flipping through the channels, I mean, watching game after game after game, this swole up in me and said, Why don't you offer to go get the pizza?
SPEAKER_00: So I called my wife and I said, Hey, how are you coming?
SPEAKER_00: And she says, Well, we're in the checkout line at Joann's.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Hey, what if I go get the pizza?
SPEAKER_00: Just right up here on Highway 6, five minutes away.
SPEAKER_00: She goes, No, no, we're already out.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't ask if you were already out.
SPEAKER_00: That'd be a great response if I said, Are you still already out?
SPEAKER_00: See, I called you because you're not here.
SPEAKER_00: That means you're out.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, sometime before you die, answer questions I'm asking, not the ones you think I'm asking.
SPEAKER_00: Gets on my last nerve.
SPEAKER_00: But I didn't say that.
SPEAKER_00: I said, hey, babe, I don't mind going, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Let me go.
SPEAKER_00: She goes, No, no, no, we'll get it.
SPEAKER_00: We can swing by there.
SPEAKER_00: Babe, I could tell by her voice, she was like, oh, just I said, hey, why don't you just, it's it sounds like you're close to being done.
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00: Just come home and I'll go get the pizza.
SPEAKER_00: On my way to go get the pizza, it's a five-minute drive up to Papa Murphy's up here on Highway 6, maybe four minutes.
SPEAKER_00: I thought to myself, because this is how depraved and selfish I am, I am awesome.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if my wife is going to tell all our friends what a great serving husband I am.
SPEAKER_00: And I turned the oven on to preheat it and get it going so it'd be ready when I got back.
SPEAKER_00: Is it going to pop it in for 10 minutes?
SPEAKER_00: And I even thought, I wonder if she notices if she beats me home that I had the wherewithal to preheat the oven so it's ready to go.
SPEAKER_00: And I walked in and she said, I said, Hey, do you notice I got the oven going?
SPEAKER_00: Because she didn't notice.
SPEAKER_00: And I just wanted to point out another reason to think I'm awesome.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, uh, yeah, it's not 400, it's 425.
SPEAKER_00: And I was offended.
SPEAKER_00: And I just thought to myself, really?
SPEAKER_00: I went and got this and killed it and brought it back, and you threw that on me.
SPEAKER_00: And again, I was reminded, husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church and gave himself for her.
SPEAKER_00: What am I saying?
SPEAKER_00: You are not without context today on what it looks like to love everybody in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Your biggest enemy and your closest friend.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because on the cross, your God prayed, Father, forgive them.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00: And he bled and died.
SPEAKER_00: Not just for you and me, but for everybody that disagrees with us and doesn't think like us.
SPEAKER_00: Now you begin to comprehend the magnitude of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: You mean people that don't agree with me might get in?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: The only way in is through a relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: So don't be morbidly introspective today.
SPEAKER_00: Be liberated by the consequence of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Stand to your feet, let me speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_00: On the cross, your father gave you exactly what you need.
SPEAKER_00: And now your pleasure is to figure out in this life what you don't need anymore.
SPEAKER_00: You're no longer children, so put away childish things.
SPEAKER_00: You're sons and daughters of God.
SPEAKER_00: Depart now.
SPEAKER_00: Live, love, and laugh like it.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Bless you.
SPEAKER_00: You're dismissed.