SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grant Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grant Parkway, visit Grantparkway.org.
SPEAKER_02: If you don't have a Bible, there's one on your row there.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to read from start reading from page 958.
SPEAKER_02: And by now you may have looked around and figured out something different is going on here.
SPEAKER_02: We celebrate communion here today.
SPEAKER_02: We figured it'd be a good thing on this memorial day to kind of kind of remind ourselves of how all this got started.
SPEAKER_02: And so the Bible so prioritizes and makes a big deal out of communion or the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper, whatever word you're most comfortable with, that it kind of gives us instructions on how to do it.
SPEAKER_02: And I want to read from that in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, the Apostle Paul says these words.
SPEAKER_02: He says, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.
SPEAKER_02: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_02: In the same way also he took a cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
SPEAKER_02: Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_02: For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
SPEAKER_02: 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_02: Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
SPEAKER_02: For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
SPEAKER_02: That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
SPEAKER_02: But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.
SPEAKER_02: But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
SPEAKER_02: Paul kind of gives us some clear instructions there, and then just basically three things he says to us that I want us to focus on before we come to the table this morning.
SPEAKER_02: He says, number one, remember.
SPEAKER_02: Remember.
SPEAKER_02: What do you mean, remember?
SPEAKER_02: He says, Jesus says, as often as you do this, do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_02: It's so easy for us to get so plugged into school and our kids' extracurricular activities and this, that, and the other that we could kind of forget it.
SPEAKER_02: I was reading this week.
SPEAKER_02: I keep this debt, this book on my desk.
SPEAKER_02: It's just a little book entitled Note to Self.
SPEAKER_02: I would highly commend this to you.
SPEAKER_02: It's a great way to catechize your children, teach your children.
SPEAKER_02: It's got 48 little short readings in it.
SPEAKER_02: They're about a page or two long.
SPEAKER_02: Put it on your dinner table and just pick it up and just every once in a while just kind of read one of them.
SPEAKER_02: Have a family discussion about it.
SPEAKER_02: Here's why.
SPEAKER_02: I read this one this week.
SPEAKER_02: Dear self, take note.
SPEAKER_02: Your view of Jesus tends to shrink over time.
SPEAKER_02: It is not that your theology itself drifts, but sometimes you so focus on one aspect of Jesus that you tend to forget the rest.
SPEAKER_02: The result is a shrinking Jesus in your faith.
SPEAKER_02: And as your shrinking Jesus becomes small, Jesus, he is easily eclipsed by your idols and ego.
SPEAKER_02: The bigger and more biblical your understanding of who Jesus is, the more likely he is to be such an object of love and adoration that the idols that aim at capturing your attention and swaying your allegiance will lose their power.
SPEAKER_02: This is why you sometimes lack earnestness for the kingdom and the glory of God while you overflow with passion concerning temporal things.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is big, beloved.
SPEAKER_02: When I say remember, I want to just put you to charge.
SPEAKER_02: I want to remind you, instead of just saying remember, I want to remind you who the Bible reveals him to be by just reading the Bible to us this morning.
SPEAKER_02: As pedestrian as that can feel and sound, it can be very enlightening and very clarifying.
SPEAKER_02: This is the way John remembered him in John chapter 1, with these words In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
SPEAKER_02: He was in the beginning with God, and all things were made through him, and without him not anything was made that was made.
SPEAKER_02: In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
SPEAKER_02: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
SPEAKER_02: There was a man sent from God whose name was John.
SPEAKER_02: He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him.
SPEAKER_02: He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
SPEAKER_02: The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
SPEAKER_02: He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
SPEAKER_02: He came to his own, his own people did not receive him.
SPEAKER_02: But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
SPEAKER_02: And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_02: John bore witness about him and cried out, This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.
SPEAKER_02: And from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.
SPEAKER_02: For the law was given through Moses.
SPEAKER_02: Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
SPEAKER_02: Remember, this is the way Paul remembers him in Colossians 1.
SPEAKER_02: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
SPEAKER_02: For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
SPEAKER_02: And he is the head of the body, the church.
SPEAKER_02: He is the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
SPEAKER_02: For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
SPEAKER_02: And you you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he is now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.
SPEAKER_02: If indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
SPEAKER_02: Isaiah the prophet of old remembers him this way.
SPEAKER_02: Who is believed what they heard from us?
SPEAKER_02: And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
SPEAKER_02: For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground.
SPEAKER_02: He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.
SPEAKER_02: He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
SPEAKER_02: And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
SPEAKER_02: Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
SPEAKER_02: But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.
SPEAKER_02: Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
SPEAKER_02: All we like sheep have gone astray.
SPEAKER_02: We have turned every one to his own way.
SPEAKER_02: And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
SPEAKER_02: He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.
SPEAKER_02: Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that is before its shears is silent.
SPEAKER_02: So he opened not his mouth.
SPEAKER_02: Unless we get stuck in this one-dimensional view of Jesus that is besodted with our sentiment and not clarified by principle.
SPEAKER_02: John also writes as the revelator what is to come.
SPEAKER_02: He describes it with these words.
SPEAKER_02: And then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse.
SPEAKER_02: The one sitting on it is called faithful and true.
SPEAKER_02: And in righteousness he judges and makes war.
SPEAKER_02: His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems.
SPEAKER_02: And he has a name written on him that no one knows but himself.
SPEAKER_02: He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the word of God.
SPEAKER_02: And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses, and from his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.
SPEAKER_02: And he will rule them with a rod of iron, and he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
SPEAKER_02: And on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_02: And now remembering today, when the Bible gives us instructions and says, Hey, as often as you do this, do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_02: It's easy, let's confess today, it's easy to forget Jesus and kind of think just about ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: And so the first thing we do today is we remember.
SPEAKER_02: The second thing we do is we proclaim.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says so much with so little words.
SPEAKER_02: He says, as often as you do this, you proclaim the Lord's death.
SPEAKER_02: And so let me just say to you that we practice open communion here at Grand Parkway, which means you can be visiting today, and you're welcome to come and celebrate communion with us.
SPEAKER_02: But by your coming, here's what we're kind of proclaiming.
SPEAKER_02: Here's what we're saying, that we are such wretched sinners by nature, that our only hope of forgiveness is that the sinless Son of God died on the cross is payment for our sins.
SPEAKER_02: What you're saying is that yes, what the Bible says about me is true.
SPEAKER_02: We should be the most authentic people that anybody knows.
SPEAKER_02: I live a couple doors down from a widow on my street, and I told her dying husband, and he was in the hospital, and he said, I'm concerned about our yard.
SPEAKER_02: Uh that we live on a corner lot and we've got a big yard and a big backyard, and I'm concerned my wife can't keep up with it.
SPEAKER_02: And then a moment of just sheer stupidity, I blurted out, I'll take care of it.
SPEAKER_02: That was two years ago.
SPEAKER_02: This stopped being sexy a long time ago.
SPEAKER_02: And so every time I do something, and I'm not, I'm not complaining, it's the most spiritual thing I do.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says that pure and undefiled religion is to take care of widows and orphans in their distress.
SPEAKER_02: But every once in a while, one of my neighbors will walk over and tell me how noble I am.
SPEAKER_02: And I have to tell them the truth because part of me wants to just keep silent and go, keep talking.
SPEAKER_02: Let me just rub this in like beauty cream.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yay, me.
SPEAKER_02: So the other day when one of them came over and said, You're such a good man for doing this.
SPEAKER_02: I said, No, I'm really not.
SPEAKER_02: I'm a selfish weasel.
SPEAKER_02: And I might just be beating my body in hopes of making it my slave so that after I preach to other people, I won't be disqualified for the prize.
SPEAKER_02: And my neighbor just backed up beer in hand.
SPEAKER_02: I I don't know.
SPEAKER_02: I don't, I don't know what you just said.
SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna go back across the street now and watch you finish.
SPEAKER_02: Well, I tell you what, I'm fixing, we eat this thing.
SPEAKER_02: You can sweep it all up.
SPEAKER_02: No, I'm good.
SPEAKER_02: I'm good.
SPEAKER_02: All right, thanks for coming.
SPEAKER_02: And and I'm not trying to be difficult.
SPEAKER_02: I'm just trying to not just kind of make this all about, yay, look at me.
SPEAKER_02: I said, this is by far one of the more spiritual things that I do.
SPEAKER_02: What am I saying?
SPEAKER_02: I'm saying what the Bible says about me is true.
SPEAKER_02: I can't apply it to you, but I can apply it to me.
SPEAKER_02: I can tell you it's true about you.
SPEAKER_02: But what it says about me that I've sinned and fallen short of the glory of God when I receive these elements today, I'm saying what the Bible says is true about me.
SPEAKER_02: But you're also saying what the Bible says about Jesus is true as well.
SPEAKER_02: Therefore, his death is sufficient and it's satisfaction for your life.
SPEAKER_02: So I can tell all of you this, regardless of what heinous sinners you are.
SPEAKER_02: And by nature, you're damnedable wretches, and you should all be burning in hell.
SPEAKER_02: How's that for a Memorial Day weekend?
SPEAKER_02: You may be sitting there thinking, I shaved my legs for this.
SPEAKER_02: My boss doesn't even talk to me this way.
SPEAKER_02: Martin Luther, the great reformer, said this if your sin is small, then your savior is small.
SPEAKER_02: But if your sin is great, then your savior is great as well.
SPEAKER_02: You must embrace your depravity, otherwise, the cross has no wonder for you.
SPEAKER_02: It's jewelry.
SPEAKER_02: It's not propitiation.
SPEAKER_02: It's not that the wrath of God was satisfied, so I no longer live in fear that God's gonna find out what I'm doing and come get me.
SPEAKER_02: No, he knows everything I was ever going to do.
SPEAKER_02: And yet Isaiah 53 goes on to say that it pleased God to crush him.
SPEAKER_02: So that's what the Bible means when it says, and as often as you do, you you and as often as you do this, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
SPEAKER_02: So your confession today is not, okay, communion, this is something we do.
SPEAKER_02: No, your confession today is this is who I am.
SPEAKER_02: My confession today is your pastor, is that I am such a sinful, fallen creature by nature, right out of the womb.
SPEAKER_02: By nature and by choice, a sinner.
SPEAKER_02: That Christ had to die for me.
SPEAKER_02: There was no other way I could get to heaven.
SPEAKER_02: But I'm also so loved by God that Jesus was glad to die for me.
SPEAKER_02: So I can't boast and I can't snivel.
SPEAKER_02: Third thing the Bible tells us is just to examine ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 29 has this phrase in it that we often get wrong.
SPEAKER_02: We often consume upon our lust or our misunderstanding or our preference.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 29, it simply says, hey, and let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
SPEAKER_02: For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
SPEAKER_02: What do you mean without discerning the body, without recognizing that your sin affects the church who is the body of Christ?
SPEAKER_02: So you can no longer say, I'm not hurting anybody.
SPEAKER_02: You can no longer say, we're consenting adults.
SPEAKER_02: What we do is our business.
SPEAKER_02: If you belong to a church, if you profess to be a Christ follower, a Christian, then you've got to discern the body that your sin has a corporate aspect.
SPEAKER_02: Your life is not just vertical.
SPEAKER_02: You and God, just me and Jesus, that's all I need.
SPEAKER_02: I can talk to God and the deer stand as good as well as I can on Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_02: That's not what you're created for.
SPEAKER_02: You're created to be a part of something bigger than you, and the only thing that will always be bigger than you is the church, the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: That's why Paul says, whoever drinks this without discerning the body, discern the corporate nature of your sin today, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: Some churches are what they are, not because the pastor or the staff or the whatever, but because the people.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he says you drink judgment on yourself.
SPEAKER_02: You say, no, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_02: To profess to be part of the body, you discern the body before you come to receive the elements.
SPEAKER_02: You examine, we examine ourselves and our relationships in light of the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: And so I'll just bring this down to where we live.
SPEAKER_02: I had to tell somebody this week that I love very much.
SPEAKER_02: You don't want to forgive this person that sinned against you because you've forgotten what a great sinner you are.
SPEAKER_02: And apparently that was news because this person said, I don't think I like that.
SPEAKER_02: Does it surprise you that you're a sinner?
SPEAKER_02: Well, no one tells me that but you.
SPEAKER_02: You should bring me a trophy then.
SPEAKER_02: Or bake me a cake.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I say crazy things like this to people who I love.
SPEAKER_02: You see, here's the thing.
SPEAKER_02: When you remember what a sinner, what what sin you're capable of, and I don't think we're just sinners saved by God.
SPEAKER_02: We're we're we're saints, we're children of God.
SPEAKER_02: Don't lose sight of that, but hold on to the like C.S.
SPEAKER_02: Lewis says, the Christian's nostrils should always be attuned to the cesspool within.
SPEAKER_02: It's like when the disciples, Mark's account of the Last Supper, the disciples, Jesus said, When he was going to betray him.
SPEAKER_02: And the Bible says that each one of them said, Is it me?
SPEAKER_02: You you you got to be mindful of your capacity.
SPEAKER_02: You got to be able to say, Is it me?
SPEAKER_02: Instead of going, I bet it's Judas.
SPEAKER_02: He kind of looks like a fink.
SPEAKER_02: Look at him.
SPEAKER_02: Beady-eyed little weasley guy, but it's him.
SPEAKER_01: They all looked inside and said, Is it me?
SPEAKER_01: Does it catch you off guard what you're capable of?
SPEAKER_01: It shouldn't.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the Bible says, examine yourself.
SPEAKER_02: And that's why we as a church just take some time.
SPEAKER_02: Clyde's gonna come.
SPEAKER_02: I'm in a voice of prayer, and we're just gonna examine ourselves just for a brief moment.
SPEAKER_02: Won't be a long drawn.
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, this is not, let's now let's hate ourselves in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: That's bad gospel, folks.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_02: It's okay to go, you know what?
SPEAKER_02: I'm in a good place.
SPEAKER_02: Coming to church doesn't mean let's get my sad on now.
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: When I say you're damnable wretches, you should go, yeah.
SPEAKER_02: But Christ died for you to make you sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_02: You're the people of God.
SPEAKER_02: When they sang earlier, you know, this is amazing love, you should have ripped your shirt off and swung it over your head.
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
SPEAKER_02: Don't you want to go to church once and walk out and go, can you believe that God took his shirt off?
SPEAKER_02: Aren't you glad grandma didn't do that?
SPEAKER_02: Here's the thing do not let this lose its wonder.
SPEAKER_02: This is not math, this is music.
SPEAKER_02: This is such a profound mystery that we can't figure it out.
SPEAKER_02: We just kind of sing about it in a way to try to get our our arms around it and our heads around it.
SPEAKER_02: That's why the hymn writer says, We're the whole realm of nature mine.
SPEAKER_02: That were an offering far too small.
SPEAKER_02: Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all.
SPEAKER_02: If you hear anything this morning, you hear this you are a loved and beloved people.
SPEAKER_02: That's what Paul says in Romans, and God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were still sinners.
SPEAKER_02: Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_02: He did not wait for you to get your act together because you can't.
SPEAKER_02: I can't.
SPEAKER_02: He said, I'll go first.
SPEAKER_02: And he died.
SPEAKER_02: For those days where you get up and you hate yourself and your clothes don't feel right, and you're just your marriage is off the tracks, and you're just kind of like, should have married the other guy.
SPEAKER_02: You can just look up and there's a frame of reference that's eternal.
SPEAKER_02: It says, you know what?
SPEAKER_02: I know you have these days.
SPEAKER_02: Let's examine ourselves, beloved.