Jesus Institutes the Lord's Supper

Redeeming Grace Church iconRedeeming Grace Church

0 views

0 comments

00:00
I'd just like to speak to you shortly about how Jesus institutes the
00:05
Lord's Supper. Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper. So, our text will be from the
00:13
Gospel according to Mark, so please turn with me to Mark, the Gospel of Mark.
00:22
I like, again, I've said this before, I'll mention it again, but I like what Ravenhill said.
00:27
There's really just one Gospel that's just told by different eyewitnesses.
00:34
This one that I've chosen is from Mark. He was an eyewitness.
00:44
These wonderful words written to us in our language,
00:50
God breathes. Aren't you glad every time we open this book, this is the only book that the author is present every time we open it and read it.
01:03
You've got famous authors out there writing books. They can't be present. But think about who's present when we open this book.
01:11
The God of the universe. The Creator of the ends of the earth. Our Savior.
01:18
That's so wonderful. The Gospel of Mark, chapter 14. And I would like for us to just look at just five verses of Scripture.
01:30
I'm not going to be able to unpack all of this, but we're just going to get an overview. So, beginning at verse 22, reading through 26.
01:42
22 through 26, five verses. Hear the word of the living
01:49
God. While they were eating, He took some bread.
01:57
And after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to them. And said, take, take it, this is my body.
02:06
And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them and drank from it.
02:15
And He said to them, this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.
02:25
Verse 25, truly I say to you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when
02:32
I drink it new in the kingdom of God. Verse 26,
02:39
I love the way this ends. After singing a hymn, they went out to the
02:45
Mount of Olives. May God richly bless His holy word from our ears to our hearts on this
02:53
Lord's Day this morning. Let's pray and seek our God once more within this hour to ask
03:00
His help from heaven. Father in heaven, again we say, hallowed be
03:07
Thy name, hallowed be Your name. We thank
03:13
You, Father, that You are the Sovereign King, the Ruler of the Universe as we've already said. Everything is orchestrated by Your mighty hand.
03:22
Father, we come into Your courts lowly and humbly, asking,
03:29
Father, for Your help within this hour in worship.
03:35
This is a tremendous important part of our worship this morning, to hear from You, to hear from heaven.
03:42
And we have the divine revelation before us. Father, hide me behind the cross and may
03:49
You be glorified. And Father, we first praise You as we are to hallow
03:54
Your name. That is a call to praise and an adoration for who
04:00
You are. You are the most holy God. Matter of fact, Your word says
04:05
You are holy, holy, holy. You are the majestic and glorious God, merciful, kind, patient, gracious.
04:14
God of a thousand attributes and even more. So incomprehensible, Father, our minds cannot comprehend
04:21
You. And I thank God we can't because if we could, You would not be God. But You are the Lord.
04:27
You are the Holy One of Israel and there is none beside You. And Father, again, above all these attributes, every one of Your attributes are absolutely holy.
04:38
Your love is holy, Your mercy is holy, Your grace is holy. Everything about You is holy.
04:43
And Father, Your children are to be holy. Because You are a holy
04:48
God in a holy city called heaven with the saints that are holy. You are making us holy.
04:57
That is our ultimate desire is to be imitators of You through Jesus Christ.
05:03
So Father, we praise You for Your holiness. And we come to You as we have the privilege to address
05:10
You as our Father, our Father, not my Father, our Father. We're part of the family of God that is so large, it's so wonderful, so glorious.
05:21
And Father, You are going to establish this. Even the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
05:30
You have elected and established Your people. You have purchased them, redeemed them.
05:36
Father, You elected them. The Son has brought the redemption.
05:42
The Holy Spirit applies it. We thank You for this. We thank You, Father, that Your work continues even to this day.
05:51
And nothing is going to stop Your work. So we praise You for Your mighty acts. We just read from Exodus of the institution of the original
06:01
Passover. So Father, give us insight by Your Holy Spirit.
06:07
May He be the true teacher this morning as we continue to worship You. And we thank
06:13
You in everything that is to be done. And most of all, Father, we thank You that You have demonstrated
06:19
Your power not only in the Passover that You instituted years back in the
06:25
Old Testament, but Father, You have demonstrated this and showed Your greatness that You put on display at the cross.
06:36
Father, there is nothing that is going to make more meaning to us unless we see the cross in all this.
06:43
The sufferings are of our Lord, of His life, how
06:48
He came to bleed and die for unworthy sinners such as I. So Lord, would
06:56
You take Your word this morning and drive it to our hearts.
07:02
May we see the cross. May we never lose sight of that. It's horrible, but it's glorious at the same time.
07:14
And Father, we thank You for the grace that You have given through Jesus Christ.
07:22
He has silenced the thunder of the law and justice and righteousness and the justice in which we well deserve.
07:33
Father, that's why we plead for mercy all the time. Lord, it's mercy that's going to rewrite our life and change us.
07:41
It's mercy that brings us into the kingdom. And Father, we thank You for all these things.
07:48
And we realize that all this power and truth comes to us through Your word and through Jesus Christ.
07:57
And everything we ask, we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. Within the text that we have before us, the celebration of the
08:08
Passover is monumental. It's a monumental event that took place.
08:15
And I thank God that it's in our Scripture reading because it actually parallels, in a sense, with everything that Jesus institutes in the new covenant that He institutes.
08:33
It's so important, this transaction, this transition, I should say. When you think of it, for 1 ,500 years since the
08:42
Exodus, Passover has been celebrated at that time of the year in which
08:49
Jesus is instituting it by the Jewish people, the
08:54
Israelites, without a break. And here before us in our text, and it's also in other
09:07
Gospels such as Luke and John and Matthew, as all of them bring to our attention, that this will mark the end of the old and the beginning of the new.
09:21
It is not only the last Passover, but it is the very first communion that takes place.
09:27
Our Lord Himself makes the transition, taking the components of the last Passover and redefining them as the elements of His table.
09:38
And this is so critical for us to really take a hold of.
09:43
And I don't want to spend a great deal of time on that because we could do a whole series on this. It's really so in -depth.
09:50
I'm just going to try to just put a lot of this together in a nutshell in a very simple way. But the
09:55
Old Testament is fulfilled and over and the new has come.
10:04
Let me say that again. The Old Testament is fulfilled and technically the sacrifices that has been taking place for thousands of years is over with.
10:15
And really all the animal sacrifices that were slain before God were not really pleasing to God.
10:25
There's only one that's really pleased Him and the Lord Himself slew Him, His own
10:30
Son. You think about the priest down to 1500 years had slain the animal sacrifices of the substitute, an innocent lamb.
10:42
But God Himself slew His own Son. It pleased the
10:49
Lord to bruise Him. Have you ever thought how God hates sin? All you have to do is look at the cross.
10:58
Every time that we're tempted to sin, remember the cross. That puts a stop to my sinning right away.
11:07
If I'm tempted to sin because we all have a temptation to fall into sin or to continue to sin, don't we, in a sense?
11:16
Because we live in a fallen world and we still have a fallen nature that we have to deal with. And that's why
11:22
I mentioned sanctification earlier that God, in my prayer, that God, the ones in which
11:30
God has redeemed, that's born again with a new heart, hates the sin, loathes the sin, abhors the sin, practices not sinning, not going towards sin, but running from it.
11:46
And there's a lot that takes place in the Passover about this because there was a series of events.
11:53
I'm not going to have time to get into this. But as they came, they came and it was a meal.
12:00
And as they came to eat this meal, it was a full meal. And it wasn't a quick lunch, was it?
12:06
It wasn't a fast food, so to speak, luncheon.
12:12
It was a meal that took time over a course of probably a couple hours. But there was a part before they even ate the meal that they washed their hands.
12:25
I was listening to Pastor John MacArthur's message on this and I love the way he brought this out, but he said within that hour when they were preparing themselves to eat the meal, they would first wash their hands.
12:42
And it was then, most likely, we don't know exactly, this is what he said, what the sequence of events that was taking place in that order.
12:53
But if you go, if you read in the gospel, I believe it's the gospel of John, that they were arguing about who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven.
13:06
At that time, Jesus addresses the pride and He does it by demonstration.
13:15
He girds Himself and He washes their feet to teach a lesson on humility.
13:21
And it was at that time when they were washing their hands in preparation to eat the
13:28
Passover. I said, what a thought. What a wonderful thought of here
13:35
Jesus takes the opportunity, more likely at that time, was they were washing their hands and preparing to eat the meal in the course of arguing who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
13:48
And then Jesus teaches them about humility in that sequence.
13:55
I said, what a lesson that we need to learn from that. And here was the
14:02
Son of God Himself that stoops down and washes their feet. Such humility.
14:10
And can I say this, perfect humility and demonstration. So here,
14:17
Jesus fulfills all righteousness. That's a tremendous thing to keep before us because every step, everything that He did,
14:27
He came to fulfill all righteousness. R .C. Sproul says that, as he well says so many times, that we are not by no means saved by our good works, by no means, but we are saved by works.
14:44
We cannot save ourselves by our good works. Our good works come so short, doesn't it? We fall so short of it.
14:51
How dare anybody would say, I'm a good person, I can somehow make it into the kingdom of God, that we have all, we all even in being born again, fall so short all the time.
15:03
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But what are the works that saves us? And there was one that earned
15:09
His way to heaven, and that's Jesus. Perfect, perfect works.
15:16
He fulfilled the Father's will. And it's by His good works that we enter into heaven.
15:24
None other. And that's why Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
15:29
Father but by Him. So Jesus comes to fulfill all righteousness.
15:36
And our Lord Jesus became the Passover Lamb according to the Scriptures. At this period of time,
15:44
He is the Lamb of God. Christ our Passover, Paul put it.
15:50
Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God. John the Baptist introduced Him as the
15:56
Lamb of God. And at this time, this would be the last legitimate
16:02
Passover, because the very next day, the one who was the true
16:08
Passover Lamb, and this was taking place on a Thursday, would be our
16:14
Thursday, by the way. And Jesus would be crucified Friday. He's the
16:21
Passover Lamb, 1 Corinthians 5, 7. He would be the one that would be slain, and Scripture says, once and for all.
16:31
It would not be a second event to it. He came to do this once and for all. And the reality would come, and the substance would come, and the symbols and the shadows that was in the
16:47
Old Testament would pass away. And actually be fulfilled in Jesus.
16:54
Now when I say pass away, it doesn't mean we rip out all 39 books of the Old Testament, right?
17:02
And say, okay, 27 books of the New Testament. So we start from Matthew to Revelation.
17:09
No, we believe in these 39 books. We basically mean, when we say it's over, it was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
17:17
Jesus came to fulfill everything. That's a study in the book of Hebrews, right? Hebrews talks about this.
17:26
Now we come to this evening right here in our text that that very night was a monumental transaction.
17:32
It was a monumental transition. A tremendous transition that took place.
17:40
And the old is gone, like I said, and the new has come. Jesus ushers in the new.
17:47
And actually, if you read the book of Hebrews, you see this all the time. This language, a new and better way.
17:56
It's Jesus is a better way, the new living way. A better covenant.
18:03
Everything is better than the old. The old is good, but the new is better.
18:10
Actually, Scripture says we are ministers of the new covenant. So it has everything to do with covenant, which is an agreement.
18:21
And God himself was the one that instituted the old covenant. And Jesus fulfills in the new.
18:28
So much has happened in the upper room here that evening, and we'll call it a
18:33
Thursday evening according to our calendar. But John is, if you read John's gospel, is the only gospel writer to cover the upper room in great detail.
18:48
I wish I had time to go to more of those verses, but if you study it, the upper room discourse,
18:57
John goes into detail. You see John 17, the prayer that Jesus makes to the
19:04
Father. It's tremendous. And actually, John devotes five whole chapters to this event.
19:14
Five chapters of everything that is to take place. Now in contrast,
19:20
Mark, which is a shorter take of being an eyewitness of everything that took place in the life of Jesus, he only covers only two events of the upper room, and both of these are given in only brief detail.
19:40
Mark concentrates upon Judas' betrayal and the
19:46
Lord's Supper. And in five fully packed verses,
19:52
Mark shares what Jesus did to institute the Lord's Supper and the four important acts that Jesus did to institute this about Himself.
20:02
And this is my outline. We're going to look at it just very briefly because we have the Lord's Supper before us.
20:10
But I'd like to bring to your attention four acts that took place. The first act we will look at is in verse 22.
20:19
Jesus took the bread. Jesus took the bread in verse 22.
20:26
The second act we will look at, verse 23 and 24, Jesus took the cup.
20:33
Just simple, simple outline. Third act, verse 25,
20:39
Jesus revealed a glorious kingdom. And then the fourth act, verse 26, they sang a hymn.
20:47
So let's look at this in a small little journey here of what is said in the
20:53
Scriptures about the institution of the Lord's Supper. Verse 22,
21:04
Jesus took the bread.
21:09
Jesus took the bread. Let's read it. While they were eating, He took bread.
21:17
Now, some translations puts it in the NASB has some bread. That word some is not in the original.
21:25
So He took some bread or He took bread. And after a blessing,
21:31
He broke it and gave it to them and said, Take it, this is my body.
21:40
The plain meaning of this event is the bread, again, represents the body of Jesus.
21:49
My body, He said. And the wine, the fruit of the vine, the wine represents my blood.
21:58
Again, it's only in representation, not literally becoming that.
22:06
If you read down through the ages, again, there is so much controversy about this. It beggars description.
22:15
But that is the meaning here. He did not mean that the bread He gave
22:21
His disciple was really literally His body. The early
22:26
Christians were known as being cannibals because of this.
22:33
And they were by no means cannibals. After all, a fallen person, unless they're born again, they're not going to understand this.
22:43
There's depth to this. And again, He did not mean that the wine He gave
22:48
His disciples was really literally His blood. No, it's a representation. What Jesus did when
22:54
He said this is my body was to invest the traditional
23:00
Passover in which Brother Ben read earlier in the last closing of the chapter.
23:07
He's invest in a traditional Passover ceremony with a new meaning to it. And He gives a new meaning to it, doesn't
23:15
He? And you notice the meaning that He gives is all focused on the cross and His suffering. The original unleavened bread symbolized severance.
23:27
In other words, a transaction, a transition, a relationship, a different, I should say, a different relationship from the old life in Egypt.
23:37
And the children of Israel were to carry nothing of its pagan and oppressive leaven into the promised land.
23:50
I could stop right there and preach because we're changed by the grace of God.
23:56
And by the way, grace does not give us liberty to sin. Grace teaches us to be holy.
24:05
Grace has a higher level than the law itself. So the bread here is representing a separation from worldliness and sin and the beginning of a new life of holiness and godliness.
24:24
That's really what it means. There's a separation. And by the divine authority that's in Jesus Christ Himself, Jesus transformed these symbolisms into another.
24:40
That's beautifully said in the Old Testament there. But He takes that from that point forward.
24:50
The bread would represent His own body. His body was broken.
24:56
So He breaks the bread, symbolizing His body that would be broken, sacrificed once and for all for the salvation of men when
25:05
He died upon the cross. Luke records additional words here from Jesus.
25:11
And He says, This is My body which was given for you. For you.
25:22
Do this in remembrance of Me. Jesus took the bread into His hands, symbolizing.
25:29
And I love this. If you notice, while they were eating, He took.
25:35
He took it. In other words, He took it by His hands. Hands is something personal.
25:45
Symbolizing that His death was a voluntary act of love.
25:51
That He would give His life upon Calvary's cross. And His destiny was in His hands.
26:00
Now, we can't say that. We can't say our destiny is in our own hands.
26:08
In essence, this is what Jesus is saying. He took bread. Symbolizing the bread represents
26:18
His body. And His destination was to go to the cross and be buried and be raised again.
26:25
And some scripture says the Father raised Him from the dead. Some says He raised
26:31
His own self from the dead. But the representation of His hands that this was not suicide.
26:41
Man does not take His life. He did not have to die upon a cruel cross.
26:49
But He willingly died. Don't you love that about our Lord? He willingly went to the cross.
26:57
And that was the commandment that He had from the Father. Nothing would stop
27:02
Him from it. He willingly died and laid down His life to bring salvation.
27:10
Don't you love that about our Lord? Such great love that He willingly died.
27:18
Let me ask you something. Would you willingly die for the lowest of low? From a rotten sinner?
27:26
From the scum of this earth? Could you actually willingly die for such people?
27:34
That many people consider just scum of the earth and trash of the world?
27:41
Enemies of God, depraved, defiled, filthy sinners.
27:48
Could you willingly die and say, I'm going to stand as a substitute for this person?
27:55
That that person would be changed? Well, that's beyond our imagination to even think that we could do something like that.
28:06
But Jesus gave Himself for filthy, rotten, low -down sinners like us, didn't
28:13
He? I love John 10, 15, and 17, and 18. As the
28:18
Father knoweth, as the
28:26
Father knows, even so I, so know
28:32
I the Father, I'm sorry. And I lay down my life for the sheep. As the
28:37
Father knows me, even so know I the Father. I'm reading the Old King James here.
28:43
And I lay down my life for the sheep. There's a particular atonement right there.
28:50
The sheep. He died for the sheep. Therefore doeth my
28:56
Father love me because I lay down my life.
29:03
I lay it down. Notice what He says. I lay it down. And that I might take it again.
29:12
Jesus had that much authority. He could lay it down and then He could take it back up again.
29:19
And then I love the next part of this verse. No man, no man taketh it from me.
29:27
But I lay it down of myself. And then He said this.
29:33
I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again.
29:40
This commandment I have received of my Father.
29:47
I lay it down. So He took it.
29:53
He took bread in His hands. And then it says next.
30:03
After a blessing He broke it and gave it to them. He broke it and gave it to them.
30:10
So the next act He does, He gives thanks. He gives thanks.
30:17
Why is He thanking God? He's thanking God the Father for the deliverance. The salvations of the
30:23
Lord. And the provision that would be to purchase eternal life for the sheep.
30:33
Which is only in Himself. And then it said He broke it.
30:41
He broke it. Now let me back up a little bit here before I go any further here.
30:51
The reclining and eating. Notice in verse 18. They were reclining. I don't want to overlook this.
30:58
As this meal was taking place in that evening with the twelve in verse 17.
31:04
As they were reclining at the table. And actually at the table is inserted in.
31:11
So it's just the original says as they were reclining and eating. Jesus said, truly
31:18
I say to you that one of you will betray me. MacArthur says the order of the
31:24
Passover meal was this. And I don't want to leave this out because this is critical.
31:30
Number one, drinking a cup of red wine mixed diluted with water. Which was in Luke 22, 17.
31:39
Second, the ceremonial washing of hands symbolizing the need for spiritual and moral cleansing.
31:45
And it was at that time that He taught the lesson about humility more than likely.
31:52
Because we don't know exactly the sequence. And that's not really the most important thing here.
32:00
The important thing is that it happened. It happened.
32:07
A lot of people don't know exactly the sequence that's taking place. But if we don't know, we know that it happened.
32:14
The third thing at the meal was eating the bitter herbs.
32:19
Eating the bitter herbs symbolic of the bondage in Egypt. The fourth sequence that was taking place is drinking the second cup of wine.
32:31
There was different cups. The second cup of wine at which time the head of the household explained the meaning of the
32:39
Passover. And the purpose of it. Fifth was the singing of the
32:46
Hallel which was really Psalms 113 all the way to 118. And at this point they sang the first two which was inserted in 113 and 114.
33:00
And at this point, this is what they sung.
33:06
So sixth, the lamb was brought out and the head of the household distributed the pieces of it with the unleavened bread.
33:17
Then seventh, drinking the third cup of wine was the last.
33:24
That's a full meal. You know, a lot of times we think, oh, is it just a quick thing that was going on? We're talking about a full blown out meal that took place.
33:34
So it has a great amount of depth. So getting back to what we're looking at,
33:39
Jesus broke the bread. That was the next part that he gave it. He gave thanks and he broke bread.
33:50
Symbolizing, what does it symbolize? It symbolizes his broken body. His body that would be broken, that would be sacrificed as the
33:58
Lamb of God slain. This act itself was so significant that the early church, and as you read this, practiced this in Acts 2 .42
34:09
in what is it called? The breaking of the bread.
34:15
The breaking of bread. That was the communion that took place and the early church practiced that.
34:21
I tell you what, Brother Keith brought this to my attention. I don't care what church, what place or people call themselves church, if we're not practicing the breaking of bread, we're not part of the church.
34:37
That is an ordinance that Jesus instituted. If the church is not practicing that, and if the church doesn't know that meaning, that's not a church.
34:49
Because there's such an intimacy in remembering what our Lord did at His death.
34:58
So under the Old Testament, the broken bread pictured the sufferings of the Israelites.
35:04
But now under the New Testament, the bread was a picture of the broken body of Jesus Christ.
35:11
Doesn't Isaiah 53 .5 say it? But He was wounded for our transgressions.
35:16
He was bruised for our iniquities and the chastisement of our peace was upon Him.
35:25
And with His strikes, we are healed. With His strikes, the strikes that He took, the lacerations that He took, the strikes that He took from God the
35:37
Father. Now there might have been some cruel men doing this, but God was the one that allowed
35:44
Him to go through this. It was God's land. Let us never lose that sight, folks.
35:51
Brothers and sisters, if we lose that, we've lost the true meaning of the cross.
35:57
He is God's land. Next, Jesus gave the bread to the disciples to eat.
36:05
He gave it. Notice, while they were eating, He took bread. He took some bread and after a blessing,
36:13
He broke it. He gave it to them and then He said, Take it, this is my body.
36:21
I love what Keith sent me earlier. I was on my way here. It's like a good doctor, a great physician saying,
36:29
Here, take it, eat it. This is medicine for your soul. Isn't that a beautiful way to look at it?
36:38
This is my bread which cometh down from heaven, Jesus said, John 6, 50 and 51.
36:46
This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.
36:52
I am the living bread, Jesus said, which came down from heaven. And if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.
36:59
And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
37:05
Now, let me stop right there. This and understanding that verse doesn't mean that we go through every time we partake of the
37:17
Lord's Supper that there is salvation in that Supper. It's for those who has already been saved.
37:25
It's not another act of sacrifice because Jesus was sacrificed once and for all.
37:32
Again, it's a memorial, right? It's to remember what our
37:38
Lord did. And this is why we celebrate the Lord's Supper and to partake is to remember the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
37:48
To remember that when His body was broken, that our soul was healed at Calvary's cross.
37:56
Of everything that Jesus did at the cross. Well, let's move to the second act.
38:02
The second act is in verse 23 and 24. And again, like I said, I can stop there and go on.
38:09
But because of time, I'm just basically because of the Lord's Supper, we're just looking at a quick overview.
38:16
Verse 23 and 24, And when He had taken a cup and given thanks,
38:22
He gave it to them and they drank, and they all drank from it.
38:28
And in verse 24, He said to them, This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many.
38:37
Beautiful verse. The second act of the Lord's Supper involves the cup.
38:46
Jesus here does four things with the cup. I like this. He took the cup into His hands.
38:53
Again, He symbolizes the teaching that His death was voluntary and He volunteered to lay down His life and take it back up again.
39:05
In other words, no man takes it from Him. He held His own life in His hands.
39:10
So, His own destination. He knew exactly what was going to take place.
39:16
He knew that. His life was not being taken. It wasn't suicide. He didn't commit suicide.
39:22
It was voluntarily laid down. Such great love that compelled
39:29
God the Father to send His own Son to do such thing. And in love of the
39:34
Father, to give His one and only Son. And then Jesus was willing to do it.
39:43
The next thing that He gave thanks, and He thanked God, the Father, for the deliverance. That only deliverance is in Him and salvation is in Him alone.
39:53
And third, He gave the cup and He drank of it. Christ gave the cup once and for all.
40:02
Romans 6 .10 For in that He died, He died unto sin once.
40:08
But in that He lives, He lives unto God. The next thing here,
40:14
He identifies the cup as His precious blood of the New Testament. It simply meant that His blood established a new covenant with God.
40:24
A new covenant with God. And like I said, that can go into another series.
40:30
You can go into the New Covenant. The Old Covenant speaks about the new covenant that God will establish.
40:35
Jesus Himself is the one that established it. It's all about Him. He is the one that it's all about.
40:42
His blood allowed a new covenant relationship between God and man. So many verses on this, but what comes to my own mind is
40:51
Ephesians 1 .7 In whom we have the redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.
41:00
1 John 1 .7 But if we walk in the light as He's in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
41:06
And the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.
41:13
Don't you love that? 1 John 2 .1 and 2 My little children, these things write unto you that you sin not.
41:22
And if any man sin, if we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins.
41:32
And not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. He is the atonement for our sins.
41:40
So the point is that man must receive Jesus Christ and what He has done for him.
41:46
That is the ultimate thing to understand and truly understanding the Lord's Supper here in which
41:52
He instituted. The blood stands for the concept of His death, by the way, and not the chemistry alone.
42:01
There's so many people that think it's the chemistry, literally the literal blood of Jesus Christ.
42:08
So actually if you want to look at it, it's by faith in the blood. And although Jesus did not bleed to death, literally,
42:17
He did bleed, didn't He? Both before He died and as He died. We know that there was blood.
42:25
Scripture says it. Blood, I'm sure, was poured out from the wounds of the crown of thorns.
42:32
There was lacerations in which Jesus took on His back with a cat of nine tails. The scourging.
42:39
I'm sure blood spilled out everywhere. When they nailed Him physically to the cross with large nails through His hands, more to the wrist and also to His feet as He hung in shame.
43:04
A spear by a Roman centurion soldier in His side. And we know when
43:10
He pierced Jesus, the Bible says that blood and water came forth.
43:17
Beloved, we are redeemed by faith in that precious blood. Again, not necessarily the chemistry of it, but the concept that that blood was spilled out for our salvation.
43:35
His blood sacrifice, Jesus gave His unblemished as a unblemished spotless lamb.
43:46
Pure, holy, righteous life without sin for the corrupt, depraved, the vile, sinful lives of unregenerate man.
44:04
Isn't it amazing? Will you stop to think of it? That such a
44:10
God would do such an act for such depraved humanity. Unregenerate people receive the act of mercy and sacrifice as they place their faith on the complete sacrifice and the full atonement for the sins of all who place
44:31
Jesus Christ, who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Very quickly, let me, my time
44:38
I'm sure is about gone. It is. I meant to make this very short. Let me very quickly look at the fourth, the promises.
44:46
The fourth act promises the great marriage feast of the lamb. And here you have the third act that was given to two great promises.
44:59
There was a promise of a glorious kingdom. And there was a promise of the glorious celebration that will be in the future in the kingdom of God.
45:09
Both promises are due to the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Both promises given to the person who partakes of the body of Jesus and faith and believes of that great sacrifice.
45:22
I'm telling you, when I'm at my lowest low personally, let me insert a footnote here.
45:31
The one place that I go that helps me more than anything and encourages me more than anything,
45:37
I always go to the cross of Jesus. And I see the love that compelled
45:45
God the Father to send his son for my salvation. Always go to the cross.
45:52
Always go to the cross. The rock of my salvation. Jesus promised a day when all genuine believers would sit down with him in the kingdom of God and would sit down at the great marriage feast of the lamb.
46:07
And this is the promise of reigning and living with him forever. And first, there's the suffering, right, in this life.
46:16
Believe me, if you live for Jesus and truly live for Jesus, there's going to be suffering coming. There's no way around it.
46:23
I like what Elizabeth Elliot says. And she said this when she was living on her broadcast.
46:29
She said, Beloved, let me just tell you straight forward. It's normal to suffer in the
46:35
Christian life. Accept it as normal. Well, there's so much that could be said about this.
46:46
Colossians 3, 4, When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then you shall appear with him in glory. We long to see him.
46:54
2 Corinthians 4, 17, For our light affliction. Notice Paul says, our light affliction.
46:59
No matter what kind of sufferings we go through, it's but for a moment, right? Works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
47:13
1 Peter 1, 11 For so an entrant shall be ministered unto you abundantly unto the everlasting kingdom of our
47:21
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The fifth thing that he does, there's the singing of the hymn.
47:28
Notice here in verse, after verse 25, Truly I say to you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until the day in which
47:36
I drink it anew in the kingdom of God. We have that to look forward to, children of God.
47:43
Isn't that glorious? Knowing that Jesus Christ himself, the reigning King of kings and Lord of lords, will serve us.
47:51
I feel so unworthy. So unworthy. Unworthy of the blood.
47:58
Unworthy of that sacrifice. And yet, the one who laid down his life, the perfect son of man, the son of God, will serve us in that great kingdom.
48:09
Verse 26 After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. They sung the hymn, like I said, the
48:17
Hallel. Despite the sorrow that was about him, despite the agony that he would face and the bitter cup that he would drink, that the
48:28
Father would give to him, he sang a hymn, joyfully.
48:34
And he went to the cross for the joy that was set before him, right? Hebrews 12, 1
48:42
They sang a hymn in celebration of that great hope which God gives deliverance and salvation.
48:47
That was the purpose of it. These things, Jesus said in John 15, 11
48:53
These things have I spoken to you, that my joy, isn't that great? His joy might remain in you.
49:01
And that your joy might be full. Notice, His joy becomes your joy. What does
49:08
Paul say in Philippians 4, 4? Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. 2
49:15
Corinthians 6, 10 As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. As poor, yet making many rich.
49:23
As having nothing, and yet possessing all things. Don't you love that paradox? Let me close with some thoughts of J .C.
49:34
Ryle real quick. In conclusion, then we'll have the Lord's Supper. Can't leave this out,
49:41
J .C. Ryle. I was reading this, and I said, wow. I said,
49:47
I got to share this with redeeming grace. Praise God. J .C.
49:52
Ryle says this, A man may know, and by the way, this comes from his book,
50:01
Expository Thoughts. I just picked this up. That book is always used. My goodness, I got it for $5.
50:08
Passed that up. He says, a man may know, but little. And be no better than a child in spiritual strength.
50:17
But he is not on that account to be excluded from the Lord's table. Does he really feel his sins?
50:26
Does he really love Christ? Don't you love his questions? Does he really desire to serve him?
50:35
If this be so, we ought to encourage and receive him. Doubtless, we must do all we can to exclude unworthy communicants.
50:46
No graceless person ought to come to the Lord's Supper. But we must take heed that we do not reject those whom
50:53
Christ has not rejected. There's no wisdom in being more strict than our
50:59
Lord and his disciples. Let us leave the passage, and he's speaking of this text, let us leave the passage with serious self -inquiry as to our own conduct with respect to the
51:11
Lord's Supper. Do we turn away from it when it is administered?
51:17
If so, how can we justify our conduct? It would not do to say it is not a necessary ordinance to say so as to pour contempt on Christ himself and declare that we do not obey him.
51:35
It would not do to say that we feel unworthy to come to the Lord's table.
51:40
To say so is to declare that we are unfit to die and unprepared to meet
51:46
God. These are solemn considerations, and all non -communicants should ponder them as well.
51:57
In closing thoughts, this is what he says. Are we in the habit of coming to the
52:06
Lord's table? If so, what frame of mind do we come? Do we draw near intellectually, intelligently, humbly, and with faith?
52:22
Do we understand what we are about? Do we really feel our sinfulness in need of Christ?
52:34
Do we really desire to live a Christian life as we profess the Christian faith?
52:42
Some soul -searching questions, isn't it? Do we really feel our sinfulness and our need of Christ?
52:51
Do we really desire to live a Christian life as well as profess the Christian faith?
52:58
Serious questions. Then he says this, happy is that soul who can give satisfactory answers to these questions.
53:11
Let him go forward and persevere. Amen and amen.
53:16
Let's pray. Father, we are faced with this great question.
53:28
Jesus, your Son, asking to his own disciples, who do men say
53:38
I am? The answer was given.
53:45
Some say Elijah. Some say the prophets. And in such perfect wisdom, the
53:54
Lord says, but who do you say I am? Father, we must get that right.
54:05
Out of all the questions that's asked, we must get that one right. Who is
54:10
Jesus Christ? It's the
54:16
Lord and Savior. Our Redeemer. Our friend of sinners.
54:24
Come to save those who utterly realize that they are spiritually bankrupt.
54:34
Father, we thank you for such a Savior you have given. We are such unworthy sinners. We do not deserve this.
54:41
We deserve justice. We deserve hell. We do not deserve heaven.
54:49
We deserve justice. We deserve hell. We deserve wrath.
54:56
We recognize, Father, that we are utterly incapable of an inheriting eternal life within ourselves.
55:07
There is nothing in us good. But yet, you sent your one and only
55:16
Son and went all the way to the cross and went stooped so low and suffered such a horrible death at the cross.
55:28
It's become the most glorious thing to us. But in reality, the crucifixion was the most horrifying thing.
55:39
And there's an offense to it. Our flesh cringes to this.
55:47
But Lord, we realize there's no other way. And as we follow the
55:53
Lord Jesus Christ, your own Son, we recognize that we must do the same.
55:59
We must deny ourself and take up our cross and follow
56:05
Him. We cannot by no means compare to such a sacrifice. But we do know whom we follow.
56:12
And we thank you for this, Father, that you gave your unspeakable gift. So, Father, as we ponder these questions in which your servant, your late servant
56:22
J .C. Riles said, Lord, may we realize who it is that is before us, the representative of the bread, what it represents, and the cup of the fruit of the vine and the seriousness of it.
56:41
May we search our own hearts that we will be found to partake in a worthy manner.