SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Want you to take a minute and look at those words on the screen, because that summarizes everything we're going to think about this morning.
SPEAKER_01: This, my friends, is the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: That my debt is paid.
SPEAKER_01: Let's start there.
SPEAKER_01: My debt is paid.
SPEAKER_01: You are by nature so sinful.
SPEAKER_01: Or let me use myself.
SPEAKER_01: I by nature am so sinful that the only way that I could get to heaven, the only way I could have a relationship with God, the only way I could be forgiven is that Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God, had to die on the cross as payment for my sins.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm also so loved by God that Jesus was glad to die for my sins.
SPEAKER_01: That's the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: So when we say my debt is paid, that's what we mean.
SPEAKER_01: The second part is there's nothing that can separate my heart from your great love.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing that can separate.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible talks about the love of God, the sense of permanence.
SPEAKER_01: I want to draw your attention to those last two words from your great love.
SPEAKER_01: Most of us have we've heard of great love, but all we've experienced is good love, okay love, so-so love.
SPEAKER_01: There's a greatness to God's love that you don't find anywhere and in anything else.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that's so disillusioning that we we know there's great love out there and we've never experienced it.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us self-medicate and we self-medicate over a period of time, and that's where that's how addiction it becomes addiction.
SPEAKER_01: We self-medicate because we know there's great love, but all we've ever experienced is okay love.
SPEAKER_01: And you can't live with that dissonance, and so you gotta do something to take the edge off.
SPEAKER_01: So some people eat too much, some people take a glass of red wine and a valium, some people love Percocet.
SPEAKER_01: Because to know it's out there and not experience it is just it's unnerving.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, God comes to bring it to us.
SPEAKER_01: And so, everything we're gonna talk about this morning, if you're our guest and you're looking around, kind of going, what is this?
SPEAKER_01: We're observing communion, we're celebrating communion this morning here at Grand Park Way.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just say, by way of we practice what's called open communion, which means that if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus, you have a relationship with Christ, you're welcome to receive with us this morning.
SPEAKER_01: You'll get some instruction here in just a minute, but let me tell you what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01: In just a minute, I'll pray a brief prayer.
SPEAKER_01: You'll sit down, I'll read from the Bible back in the very beginning because I want to answer the question, why do we do this?
SPEAKER_01: Because one of the times we were doing communion and a family came, had three kids, I think, and one of them is a little like a four or five-year-old girl.
SPEAKER_01: And while I'm talking, she just looked at me to her family.
SPEAKER_01: She looked at me and she goes, Why do we do this?
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, that's great.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to talk to us, remind us while we do this.
SPEAKER_01: And then after that, we'll kind of sit and reflect for a minute, and then we'll open up the communion stations.
SPEAKER_01: There's three in the front and two in the back, and people will come.
SPEAKER_01: We'll continue to worship.
SPEAKER_01: During that time, people will come and we'll serve your communion.
SPEAKER_01: If you've ever been to church and you looked up, especially uh if you grew up at a church, they had a little table at the front, and on the front of it, it was kind of usually routed in.
SPEAKER_01: This do in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_01: That's that was called the communion table.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Jesus, when he celebrated Passover with his disciples, he was saying, Hey, this is not just an empty ritual.
SPEAKER_01: When you do this, as often as you do it, do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_01: Translation, never forget what I did on your behalf on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Because then you start believing untruth about yourself when you forget.
SPEAKER_01: So let me pray and we'll dig in this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Holy Spirit, thank you that you love us with a great love.
SPEAKER_01: And that we were created for great love, and so often we settle for just okay love or good love.
SPEAKER_01: May the power of great love be brought to bear on us today, we pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a seed.
SPEAKER_01: I want to read to you from Genesis chapter 3 in response to the question, why do we do this?
SPEAKER_01: Now God's created the heavens and the earth and the animals and everything, and he made man and woman.
SPEAKER_01: He says it's not good that man should be alone.
SPEAKER_01: So he made a helper, uh, Eve, uh, for him.
SPEAKER_01: He puts them in the garden, and God said to them, You're free to eat of any tree in the garden, but of this one tree, don't eat, because when you eat of that, you'll surely die.
SPEAKER_01: We pick up the story right there.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 3, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made, and he said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?
SPEAKER_01: And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat the fruit the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die.
SPEAKER_01: But the serpent said to the woman, You shall not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil.
SPEAKER_01: So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit, and she ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
SPEAKER_01: Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked, and they sowed fig leaves together and made themselves loinclaws, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the cool of the garden on the day, and in the cool walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
SPEAKER_01: And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
SPEAKER_01: But the Lord called to the man and said to him, Where are you?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Who told you that you were naked?
SPEAKER_01: Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?
SPEAKER_01: And the man said, The woman whom you gave with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord said to the woman, What is this you have done?
SPEAKER_01: The woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we do this?
SPEAKER_01: We do this because in Adam and Eve we see a picture of ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, what we see is that in our human, fallen human nature is a desire to be God.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, let's just face it, why submit to God and the things of God, the law of God, the commands of God, if you can be God?
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: The serpent comes along and says, Hey, did God really say don't eat of the tree?
SPEAKER_01: And these they said, Well, he told us not to eat of tree.
SPEAKER_01: We can eat of all these trees, but this one, don't eat of that because you'll die.
SPEAKER_01: The serpent doubts the truth of what God says and says, Hey, you're not gonna die.
SPEAKER_01: God's afraid you're gonna be like him, knowing good and evil.
SPEAKER_01: And so that is the most appealing thing.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to appeal to human nature, tell them they get to be God, they get to be in charge.
SPEAKER_01: You say, I would never think that.
SPEAKER_01: That is alive, and that thought process is alive and well today.
SPEAKER_01: It just sounds like this.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's my body.
SPEAKER_01: Or it sounds like this: who are you to tell me what to do?
SPEAKER_01: Because deep inside all of us, we want to be God.
SPEAKER_01: Let's just face it.
SPEAKER_01: So why do we do communion to remind ourselves that we're not God?
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, why do we do communion?
SPEAKER_01: Well, we do communion because we by nature are like our spiritual parents, Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_01: We we we we don't trust God, we disobey God, and when we screw up, we hide.
SPEAKER_01: And when we get found, when we get called out.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, when God says to Adam and Eve, where are you?
SPEAKER_01: He is calling them out of a small place.
SPEAKER_01: Because when you hide, when you kind of, when you when you break fellowship with God and you go hide, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: That don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says they made for themselves loincloths out of fig leaves.
SPEAKER_01: And so they kind of covered themselves with this temporary solution because that's what we do.
SPEAKER_01: We realize, hey, I've screwed up.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if I can screw up, I can also fix it.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot be both sinner and God at the same time.
SPEAKER_01: And so they make provision for themselves and they hide among the trees, kind of like a real the first real tree camo outfit is Adam and Eve, and God says, Where are you?
SPEAKER_01: And he invites them from a small place of hiding into this big place they were created for.
SPEAKER_01: He's not asking because he doesn't know.
SPEAKER_01: He's God, of course he knows where they are.
SPEAKER_01: And Adam says, Well, I was naked, so I hid myself, but who told you you were naked?
SPEAKER_01: Who begin to shape the way you think about yourself?
SPEAKER_01: And so God, and Adam does what we do to this day, he blames somebody else.
SPEAKER_01: Have you noticed that no one's guilty anymore?
SPEAKER_01: Most conversations, if people were honest, they would just say, Let's begin with the fact that this is not my fault.
SPEAKER_01: Adam and Eve, hey, hey, uh, what have you done?
SPEAKER_01: Well, the woman you gave me, she gave me some fruit and I ate, and it's he looks to the woman.
SPEAKER_01: What have you done?
SPEAKER_01: Well, really, it's the serpent that you made.
SPEAKER_01: If you hadn't made the serpent, I wouldn't have been this way in the first place.
SPEAKER_01: That is just human nature.
SPEAKER_01: Human nature is to look around and blame everybody but ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: This is why we do communion.
SPEAKER_01: And let me just can let me just boil it all down to this phrase and we'll get to it.
SPEAKER_01: Uh if you leave your seat here in a few minutes and you go to one of these communion stations and you remember the body and the blood of Jesus with the elements that are on the table.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what you're confessing today.
SPEAKER_01: You're confessing that you by nature are a deceitful liar who hides.
SPEAKER_01: You're confessing you want to be God.
SPEAKER_01: You're confessing that it's, hey, if left to myself, I will blame everybody else except myself.
SPEAKER_01: Aren't you glad you came to church to hear that?
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that seeker friendly?
SPEAKER_01: And yet that's the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Because if that's not true of you, then why does Jesus have to come?
SPEAKER_01: If that's not true of me.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Bible tells us, hey, this is why we do this.
SPEAKER_01: And he also tells us later, hey, and gives us some instructions as to how you do that.
SPEAKER_01: He says, hey, in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul says, hey, uh, don't receive the elements in an unworthy manner.
SPEAKER_01: Not unworthy as in I I deserve it or I don't deserve it, but don't just kind of go through the motions without discerning the body.
SPEAKER_01: Discerning the body is not, hey, now we're going to sit here and hate ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: No, discerning the body means I'm a part of something bigger than myself, therefore it matters how I live.
SPEAKER_01: Uh most of you know we just got a men's, our men's, some of our men just got back from a mission trip to Costa Rica in the mountains of Costa Rica, and uh we got back Friday night and it's eight days and we're tired, and it was great.
SPEAKER_01: The men worked hard, it was awesome.
SPEAKER_01: We laughed, we cut up, we gave each other a hard time.
SPEAKER_01: James Serrano cut his leg off and we stitched it back on.
SPEAKER_01: It's a flesh wound.
SPEAKER_01: I'll fight you.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, uh by the time he got back here, he severed that thing or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, we get back and we're we get back to the airport in Houston and we go on the shuttle bus and we're driving, and the guy's going about 45 miles an hour, and I am dying.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, this thing got a governor on it.
SPEAKER_01: Can we go faster?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just about out of Jesus, and then he misses the turn from this from the Sam Houston tollway onto the West Park tollway.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, I'll just go down 59 and loop back around.
SPEAKER_01: And there's all all we could see between us and the driver was a little limousine window.
SPEAKER_01: I was ready to crawl through there and choke that guy out.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm the pastor, that's not good.
SPEAKER_01: And the other guys are picking up on it, and then I thought about today and that little subtle phrase in 1 Corinthians 11 when Paul says, Hey, don't do this without discerning the body.
SPEAKER_01: Translation, you belong to something bigger than yourself, so what how you live matters.
SPEAKER_01: And so I said it out loud to myself and all the other guys.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Hey, let's remember we're the Christians on this bus.
SPEAKER_01: And I wasn't scolding my men, I was reminding all of us how we live matters.
SPEAKER_01: And so in just a minute, Brett and Emily are gonna come and they're gonna sing a song over us, and it's an opportunity to just kind of discern the body and kind of say, you know what, how I live matters because Christianity is not a path toward individual self-actualization or self-fulfillment.
SPEAKER_01: It is the responsibility of conducting yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel and realizing I'm a part of something bigger than myself.
SPEAKER_01: There's a little girl up on the mountain, her name is Nuria, and every year we show up, she shows up.
SPEAKER_01: The confite, the confite, the candy.
SPEAKER_01: She wants candy, and every time I take a break, she'll come over and sit beside me.
SPEAKER_01: The first year she just put her hand on my hand.
SPEAKER_01: Last year we kind of held hands.
SPEAKER_01: This year she took my hand and splayed my fingers out and put her fingers between them.
SPEAKER_01: She's experienced horrible abuse.
SPEAKER_01: She's in the third grade.
SPEAKER_01: And the redneck in me wanted to find all the men that have taken advantage of her and slaughter every one of them.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not I'm not making that up.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, we would just sit there and hold hands and I'd drink water and I'd go back to work.
SPEAKER_01: And the last day I looked at her through a translator and I said, Hey, no dear, don't ever forget God has a plan and a purpose for your life.
SPEAKER_01: I know it's hard up here on this mountain, but God has a plan and a purpose.
SPEAKER_01: And because he has a plan and a purpose, how you live matters.
SPEAKER_01: Don't don't ever act like it doesn't matter, because if you don't, if it if God doesn't have a plan and a purpose, then nothing matters, but he does, and therefore it does.
SPEAKER_01: You understand?
SPEAKER_01: And she kind of nodded, blinking back tears.
SPEAKER_01: Why do I tell you that?
SPEAKER_01: Because when when Paul says, hey, don't do this without discerning the body, he's saying that hey, it matters how you live, not just for you, but you're part of a church.
SPEAKER_01: I know church membership is not sexy and in vogue these days because we're free-spirited individualists.
SPEAKER_01: That's an offense to the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: You're part of the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And therefore how you live matters.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's what Paul means when he says, discern the body.
SPEAKER_01: So Brett and Emily are gonna come and they're gonna just kind of sing over us and kind of remind us of the difference between our earthly father and our heavenly father.
SPEAKER_01: Because I got back Friday night to my house about 9, 9:15, and my wife said, Hey, save me three minutes before you go to bed.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, she had recorded American Idol, which I just thought, I don't, I got nothing in me for this.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm married, so okay, this better be good.
SPEAKER_01: And it was more than good.
SPEAKER_01: It was beyond good because the three minutes that she made me watch were Kelly Clarkson singing a song called Peace by Peace, where she wrote the song about how her dad who had abandoned her, and she's really contrasting the dad that left her and the dad that came along and and and just kind of loved her consistently and was there for her.
SPEAKER_01: And as I'm watching that, I thought about this morning, and I thought this is a communion song.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because here in just a minute, you're gonna come to these stations and piece by piece, you're gonna taste and see that the Lord is good, and you're gonna be reminded.
SPEAKER_01: And so, just kind of as we let this watch over us, I want Jesus said this.
SPEAKER_01: He said, if your earthly father knows how to give good gifts, and some of you had great earthly dads, and some of you didn't have very good earthly dads.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter either way, because over all of that, the goodness or the badness of your earthly father, God has come today to say, I want you to taste the how much mourness of your heavenly father.
SPEAKER_01: So let's, as we listen, let's just discern the body.
SPEAKER_01: And let's just discern the goodness and the how much mourn of our father.
SPEAKER_01: It is the nature of fatherhood to give your children what they need before they know they need it, and to give it to them in a way in which they'll never forget it.
SPEAKER_01: And so now that you've tasted it, depart and may the bread on your tongue leave a trail of crumbs that leads the lonely back to the place that you're from.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you, you're dismissed.