In Remembrance of Me — J. Glyn Owen

Deepening Faith Through Repeated Truth

It would seem that the New Testament is not simply concerned with what we believe, and that we do believe what God has revealed to us in the Gospel of His Son, but the Scriptures are equally concerned with the depth and the quality of our faith.

It is possible to believe on various levels, beginning with perhaps the intellectual or the emotional. Then it may come to include both. But there is a quality of faith, a quality of belief in that sense, which ought to be exceedingly deep in the hearts of God's people.

And for that reason, the New Testament is not averse to repeating the same truths over and over again under different circumstances and in different words. The Apostle Peter, for example, tells those to whom he is writing that he is not simply repeating things at that point in time as he is writing to them, but he says, I've even made preparations that after my decease, after my death, after I leave this body, I've made preparations, he says, that the same things should be repeated to you again and again.

I bring to you this morning some very familiar truths, not because they are unknown to any of us, I am confident of that, but trusting that as we meditate upon them at this communion season, the quality of our faith, the pungency of our faith, the depth of our faith and confidence in God and in his Son and in the salvation provided for us in Christ will become something altogether new.

Receiving the Word in the Parable of the Sower

After all, our Lord Jesus in the parable of the soil and the sower and the seeds, you remember, indicated that there are at least four stages in the reception of the seed. One can be very superficial.

Another, there can be an immediate response even with a measure of gladness. But as time goes on, it is discovered that there is a rock underneath that has never been broken. And so there can be no rootage.

The little plant, as it grows up, cannot send its roots down into the soil in order to be fed thereby, and so it just withers and dies. And there are others who apparently receive the word, but when the heat of the day arises, it just withers away.

Oh, they had promised faith. They had professed faith. But there was only one kind of soil that really produced the quality of faith that our Lord Jesus deemed appropriate and worthy. God grant us that.

May he use the word of Scripture and the visible word of the sacrament today to help us toward a deeper, larger, more vibrant and consistent faith in what we perhaps already believe and affirm. I have taken as the title to our message this morning, In Remembrance of Me.

The Lord’s Supper as a Feast of Remembrance

These words, you will remember, these are repeated twice over in 1 Corinthians 11, verses 24 to 25. And I have taken them as a fitting title to what I want God helping me to underscore and underline. When he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is broken for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, after supper he took the cup saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this whenever you drink it In remembrance of me. In remembrance of me. What is this ordinance all about?

Well, among other things, it is essentially a service of remembrance. Not remembering one who was dead and is with us no more, but remembering one who came from heaven's glory to die our death and really died.

So died that he was proved to be dead and he was buried. Buried in a borrowed tomb where he remained for three days and three nights until, in the power of an endless life he tore the bars away and changed the face of death and rose again a prince and a deliverer.

In remembrance of me. It is a feast of remembrance that he so loved and so died, but we do not remember him in his absence. We remember him now in the presence of his endless life and he is with us at the feast.

So it isn't a funereal attitude that befits this occasion. We are saddened when we remember the sin that occasioned his death, but we are gladdened when we remember and realize especially, realize that the Christ who died is alive and well and gathers with his people and has said, Lo, I am with you always.

And what is this ordinance all about? I want to mention this morning a few very familiar points and I'm trusting the Spirit of God with you to make them more and more potent to our lives, to our hearts than we've ever known them to be hitherto.

The Unique Person of Jesus Christ

Let's look first at the fact we remember. In remembrance of me. We remember a person, a person who is utterly and completely unique. If we come to this service of celebration today in the spirit in which God would have us, this is really at the heart of it.

We shut out a whole continent of truth and experience and history and what's going on. Not because we want to turn our backs on people. We want to go back to people and we want to have something to tell them and to do for them.

But for the moment we shut out the world in order to concentrate upon one and only unique. Any worthy and acceptance participation in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper requires us to recognize this fact and especially the uniqueness of the person we remember.

He was unique in his birth. He pre-existed his incarnation. You remember how simply the Gospels state this remarkable truth. In the beginning was the world. A reference to our Lord Jesus Christ. In the beginning.

Not after the beginning. When the beginning was he was there already. When the cosmos came into existence he was there already. When the first star appeared in the sky he was there already. When there was light he was there already.

In the beginning was the word and then it qualifies it. All things were made through him. And then it adds this very mystifying word which we believe to be the word of God. And the word that was in the beginning became flesh.

A long time after the beginning and dwelt among us. He was the subject of prophetic prediction. A statement such as Acts 10 .43 puts it all so bluntly and so clearly. All the prophets testify about him says Peter.

He was born a child through the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit. And his supernatural action upon his virgin mother. The angel answered the bewildered Mary. How can these things be? The Holy Spirit will come upon you.

And the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born of you will be called the Son of God. He was unique in his life. He was unique, utterly unique in his life. As in his worth.

He was unique in the quality of his life both Godward and manward. Both tables of the law were fulfilled in him. In their most ideal and lofty nature. God the Father said of him not once nor twice. This is my son whom I love adding these significant words.

With whom I am well pleased. Not just the fact of his divine sonship. That's important. But the pleasure of the Heavenly Father in his Son incarnate upon earth. The pleasure of the Father in his Son. And the same goes for his relation manward.

The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews puts it like this. He was holy, blameless, pure. And to cap it all he was set apart from sinners. He was exalted above the heavens. He was tempted in all points like as we are sin apart.

He was unique in the quality of his life. He was unique in the authority of his teaching. You remember when some of the temple guards were sent. And they were expected to have brought him back under arrest.

They explained to their masters. They said no man ever spoke the way this man does. John 7 .46. We couldn't arrest him. He spoke as no one else has ever spoken. We couldn't arrest him. We read in Matthew 7 .29.

He taught as one having authority. And not as the teachers of the law. In his birth, in his life. The quality of his life. The authority of his teaching. And in his ability to help others. You and I have often longed in some situation or another.

That we could do something. You visit the sick. You pause with the aged and the shut-ins. Those who have come to the very borderlands of eternity. And are weary and worn perhaps. Maybe very sick as well.

And there's so little we can do. Oh my friends, listen, listen. We remember one who was utterly unique in his ability to help. He gave eyes to the blind. And they saw again. He gave ears to the deaf. And they heard again.

He gave speech to the dumb. They spoke again. He gave health to the sick. He gave liberty to the captives. He gave sanity to the mentally sick. He gave comfort to the broken-hearted. He gave forgiveness to the guilty.

Hope to the hopeless. He gave life to the dead. We remember today. We remember one. And there is none other like him. Never has been. Never will be. We remember a person who is thus utterly unique. We remember this unique person in his wholly unique passion and suffering.

The Unique Death of the Author of Life

Sounds enigmatic, doesn't it? Being so unique that he should suffer. Yes, and the enigma of it is made more forcible when we remember that he was the author of life. Even so he suffered and he died as no man ever died.

Through him all things were made, to quote John 1 again. Without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life. He was the fount of life. And this brings out, you see, the mystery of his death.

How could the fount of all life be put to death? But he died. Again, he was not subject to death as you and I are because he had not broken the law of God and had not sinned and brought death upon himself.

He was not part of the condemnation of the race. He was outside of it. For there was no sin in him. He was not subject to death, not worthy of it. Yet he died. I am always impressed when I read John's Gospel, chapters 18 and 19, and see Pontius Pilate vacillating nevertheless, but in due course, three times over, in the space of a short passage, coming out and saying the same thing three times over.

In John 18, 38, Pilate asks Jesus, What is truth? With this he went out again to the Jews and he said, And here are the words, I find no basis for a charge against him. Move on into chapter 19 and verse 4,.

Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews, Look, I'm bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis of a charge against him. And in John 19 and verse 6,. As soon as the chief priests and their officers saw him, they shouted, Crucify him!

Crucify him! But Pilate answered, You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis of a charge in him. And yet he chose to die, the author of life, against whom sin had no claim, and man had no ultimate power.

Yet he died. And he died, he tells us, because he chose to die. And I want to add to that in a moment. But he chose to die. The reason my father loves me as he does, says Jesus, is that I lay down my life only to take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it again. This command I received of my father. So the mystery of it is that for some reason or other, the author of life chose to lay his life down in death.

Was he insane? Why on earth should the wise author of life with such authority and teaching lay down his life for any man? Well, here is the greater mystery still. We're plumbing the depths, aren't we?

He chose to die for us sinners, for our salvation, for our redemption, for our reclamation, to lead ultimately many sons to glory. For Christ died for sins once for all, says Peter, explaining this, the righteous for the unrighteous in order to bring you to God.

So he in whom was life and against whom death had no claim laid down his life to a sacrificial death upon the grass because he would save you and save me. The fact we remember, we remember the wholly unique person of the incarnate Son of God dying a wholly unique death in our place as sinners.

Faith in the Sufficiency of Christ’s Sacrifice

And when we come to the table of our Lord, we partake of these elements in remembrance of me, of Jesus Christ. Then think of the faith we confess. The passage goes larger than I have indicated, goes wider than I have indicated.

Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. In partaking of this sacrament, we do not only remember an historical fact and an historical person involved in the fact of death, but we proclaim a personal faith.

You see, this sacrament is the sacrament of believers. Oh, everybody is welcome to hear and to see even, but not to partake. They only can worthily partake of this feast who have faith in him and love toward him and gratitude.

This is the feast of love, the love of the beloved and the love of God for us in Christ his Son. What is the faith we personally profess and confess as we come to the table of our Lord? Well, in the first place, it is faith in the total adequacy of the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus to effect our salvation from start to finish.

It is faith in his competence to be our Savior from beginning to end in the things we know about and have experienced to save us from the guilt of the sins with which we are all too familiar and from all that may arise between now and eternity to save us from them all.

That he is competent, that he is qualified and that he has promised in coming to the Lord's table we profess personal faith in the adequacy of Christ's death to meet all the demands of God's law against us individually.

Have you broken God's law? Then it is something against you. It is a case against you and it can properly arraign you before the heavenly court. But you see, in coming to the Lord's table and coming with faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ we believe that he's dealt with a law that was against us.

Paul puts it like this. He cancelled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands and this, says Paul, he set aside, nailing it to his cross. Brothers and sisters, here is occasion for rejoicing.

In all God's case against you individually and against me individually Jesus the Christ took it to his cross and in dying for me and dying for you he nailed it there as if to say it's done for them for whom I die.

Peace of Conscience Through the Blood of Christ

We also profess the adequacy of Christ's death to pacify our troubled consciences. Therefore brothers, says the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews we have confidence, now there it is, confidence includes peace, more than peace but it includes peace, confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way open for us through the curtain that is his body and since we have a great high priest over the house of God let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.

God invites you, believer, this morning to come with confidence to him with peace. The memory of your sins may be haunting you but if you are cleansed and forgiven by the blood of Jesus you may come with confidence and don't let the devil rob you of what Christ has purchased for you.

Often have Christian people sung not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away its stain but Christ, the heavenly lamb takes all our sins away a sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they believing, and I do like Isaac Watts' word here believing we rejoice to see the curse removed we bless the lamb with cheerful voice and sing his wondrous love.

That's how you and I are called to the table today and we profess the adequacy of our Lord's death also to satisfy the very nature of God you see, it isn't only that God has forgiven us God has forgiven us and all his entire nature his justice his holiness every aspect, every facet of his being is satisfied with what Jesus did for sinners on the cross and so he can rejoice in forgiving.

I don't think we've ever got the music out of that passage of scripture which says there is joy in the presence of the angels of heaven over one sinner that repents. God rejoices to forgive and the angels join in the rejoicing.

He doesn't forgive begrudgingly. He's satisfied, you see, with what his son did. And because he's satisfied, he freely forgives as one of the prophets said in anticipation the Lord delights in mercy. The Lord delighteth in mercy.

And we may say therefore since we are justified by faith we have peace with God and God isn't angry with us anymore for our sins are purged in a manner that satisfies his holy nature. The fact we remember, the faith we confess.

Examining Ourselves Before the Lord’s Table

Can I say something about the fear we overcome? I say this because I know it is necessary to say it. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.

A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. Oh yes, there are fears to overcome in approaching the Lord's table.

Any sensitive person knows that if you have never been challenged by it brother or sister, examine yourself first of all, there is the fear of approaching his table without a true faith a genuine faith.

I believe this is reflected in many places in the New Testament. But it comes out especially in the epistle to the Hebrews. Take care, brethren, says the writer lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart.

He's writing to professing Christians and he's bidding them draw near to God come in within the veil and worship the almighty God in the holiest of all. But now he says, now listen, take care lest there be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart.

Take care ere we come to the table. We must overcome this fear in at least two ways. We must be sure that our faith is directed towards and settled upon Jesus Christ God's anointed Messiah and our only Savior and settled on Him alone, alone.

Where is your faith this morning, friend? In your pedigree? Don't let's despise good upbringing. Godly parentage and grandparents. No, no, that's not the purpose of the question. But if you depend upon the way you've been brought up in that way and upon your pedigree to give you acceptance with God you're of all men the most miserable but will not do.

Christ Alone as the Object of Saving Faith

We must focus our faith on Christ and Christ alone. Listen, God has put faith in Christ and Christ alone to save us. God ordained no other. He set aside none other. He sent no other. When people ask me at any rate hi, there isn't any other Savior in any other religion.

I tell them because God only appointed one according to His word and He only anointed one according to His word. If He had anointed two then there would be two. But apparently He's only appointed one.

God has chosen one. God says all the earth must look unto Him and be saved. Are your eyes upon Him? Is your heart set on Him? Is your confidence in Him alone this morning? Or a little bit of your own self-righteousness and a little bit of what Jesus did.

Are you mixing truth with error righteousness with unrighteousness. Is it Christ and Christ alone? And then this we should be sure that our faith in Christ and Christ alone is authenticated by works of faith which are really the works of the Spirit of Christ working in us and through us.

Faith without works is dead. Paul writing to the Thessalonians speaks of them and he says how glad he was on their account. We continually remember before our God and Father. He says your work produced by faith.

And then he goes on in the very next line to say how sure he is brothers loved by God. We know that He has chosen you. No question as to whether they are among the elect of God. He says because there are works of faith not only a profession of faith but the possession of faith as exhibited in works that correspond.

Approaching the Table With Love and Gratitude

We must overcome the fear of approaching the table without a true faith by cultivating a genuine and fruitful faith by the aid of the Spirit and in accordance with the Word. And then this we must also learn to overcome the fear of properly approaching the table in the wrong attitude.

Attitude is as important as anything here see if the Son of God died for you, for me your whole attitude to Him is so important it's not enough to think about Him along with thinking of Him. There must be some dare.

I use the word to begin with appreciation of it all. But I take it that the word appreciation only brings us in towards the kind of attitude that is acceptable appreciation. Yes a gratitude towards Him a rejoicing in Him a pride in Him.

A sense of evaluation which says take the world but give me Jesus my Jesus. I love Thee. I know Thou art mine for Thee all the pleasures of sin. I resign. You see the attitude to Him if God sent His Son to die my death and save my soul and my life for all eternity.

And He's done it and He's alive again as He's coming to meet me at His table this morning. I want Him to meet me with faith in my heart and with love in my heart with gratitude and with hope and with all that corresponds to the reality of His amazing love for me.

Remembering Christ in His Sacrificial Death

If your heart is cold this morning brother, sister, think twice. Remember me in remembrance of me in remembrance of me. I close with this. There is much more to be said. But I close with this. Why did Jesus do this?

Was there any danger of people forgetting Him? Not at all. He could not be forgotten by the world into which He came and where He lived and taught and died. His marks, His finger marks are upon the universe and upon men and women everywhere out of every kindred, tribe, people and nation forget Him.

He could not be forgotten and most certainly His people could not forget Him. His redeemed could not forget Him. But this is the danger of failing to remember Him as He deems it important we should. He wants you believer and me.

He wants you to do all of this in remembrance of Him because He wants to be remembered in terms of these elements. His body was broken. His blood was shed. He was made a sacrifice. And my dear blood-bought brother or sister this morning the Son of God says to you.

Look, I don't want you to think of me as the hymns talk about me merely or even as the Bible speaks about me generally. I want you to think of me in this context when you break the bread and you pour out the wine and you eat and you drink.

Do both of these things in remembrance of me as I am here represented. And it is to this that we are called. O heavenly privilege. O blood-bought priceless grace. Sinners lost and ruined by the fall sitting at our Master's table and in thinking and remembering Him communing God grant it God grant it.

Pray for me. Pray for one another. Pray for those sitting in your pew this morning. Pray for those the other side of the sanctuary. Pray that all of us may enter into the experience of remembering our blessed Lord as He bids and as He deserves to the everlasting glory of His name and the good of His people.

We shall move towards the table singing a hymn which again.