Broken and Shed for You

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. John, Chapter 13, verses 1 -17, and verses 31 -35.

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It was just before the Passover feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world and to go to the

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Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love.

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The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray

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Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power and that He had come from God and was returning to God.

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So He got up from the meal, took off His outer clothing, wrapped a towel around His waist.

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After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around Him.

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He came to Simon Peter who said to him, Lord, are you going to wash my feet? Jesus replied,

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You do not realize now what I am doing. Later you will understand. No, said

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Peter. You will never wash my feet. Jesus answered,

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Unless I wash you, you have no part with me. Then, Lord, Simon Peter replied,

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Not just my feet, but my hands and my head as well. Jesus answered,

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A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet. His whole body is clean, and you are clean.

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Though not every one of you. For He knew who was going to betray Him, and that was why

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He said, Not everyone was clean. When He had finished washing their feet,

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He put on His clothes and returned to His place. Do you understand what

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I have done for you? He asked them. You call me Teacher and Lord, and rightly so, for that is what

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I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet.

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I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth.

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No servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

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Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. Now is the

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Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will glorify the

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Son in Himself, and will glorify Him at once. My children, I will be with you but a little longer.

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You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now, where I am going you cannot come.

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A new command I give to you, love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another.

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By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. In the name of Jesus.

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1 Corinthians 5, verse 7 says this, For Christ, our

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Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. You cannot understand the

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Lord's Supper, and you can't understand the Passover, you can't understand even what's going on in the

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New Testament unless you understand that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the

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Old Testament types and shadows. And this has huge implications for how we are to understand the

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Lord's Supper. So if you return with me this evening, we'll do a little bit of work in our

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Old Testament text and our Epistle text this evening, and then we'll take a look at Luther's small catechism as we finish up our

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Lenten series that we've been doing for the past six weeks, working through the basics of the

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Christian faith. Exodus chapter 12. The Lord, notice it's capitalized, The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.

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Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.

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If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of the people there are.

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You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat.

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The animals you choose must be year -old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.

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Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.

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Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and the tops of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs.

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So we all know the story. We've all seen the cartoons. We've all seen Charlton Heston, right?

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Which, by the way, I watched that a couple of years ago and it struck me how campy that movie is. You know, they kind of over -dramatize things.

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Pharaoh! You know, it's kind of weird how they do things in that movie.

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If you're not sure, just watch it again. I'm sure you all own it. But, you know, the

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Ten Commandments. But the idea here is we're all familiar with this scene.

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It's like the epic scene, you know, where the children of Israel, they're celebrating the

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Passover indoors. And the shot works through Goshen, which is where the

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Israelites are. And on all of their doorposts, there's blood. Blood on the top and blood on the sides.

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And if you were to actually kind of think of it this way, where Christ bled, right?

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He bled from his hands, he bled from his feet, he bled from his head, right?

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You could literally draw a cross on every door. On every door of the

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Israelites in Egypt. Top of the doorpost, sides of the lentils, and then from the top dripping down to the bottom.

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It creates a cross. It's all right there. And remember what

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I read in 1 Corinthians 5. Christ, our Passover lamb, was slain.

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In other words, that Passover lamb that the Jews sacrificed on that very first Passover, that was all pointing to Jesus.

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And where do we find ourselves in a very similar story? Scripture tells us that each and every one of us was born in slavery to sin, death, and the devil himself.

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And so when you think of the story of the children of Israel in Egypt, in slavery, under Pharaoh, Pharaoh is a stand -in for Satan.

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That's exactly what he is. Because what did Pharaoh claim to be? Nothing less than a

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God -king himself. Divine God -man. And he had kept the people of God in slavery.

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And so each and every one of us, we were born in slavery too. And God, through a powerful act of judgment, has set us free on the

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Passover. And our Passover lamb was not a little animal. Our Passover lamb is

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Jesus. And then you think the idea that the destroyer goes through Egypt.

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And if the blood of the lamb is on your house, where does the destroyer go?

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To the next house. Looking for the firstborn to kill.

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And Jesus, in His sacrifice, He is the firstborn

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Son of Mary. And He is the eternal, only begotten Son of God. And so what

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God executed on judgment on Egypt, Jesus takes that judgment on Himself.

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So that when God comes to look at us, He sees us as covered by the blood of the lamb, and we are not destroyed by the destroyer.

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And this time, the destroyer is not looking only to kill the firstborn, but to send all those who do not believe into the lake of fire with the devil and all of his demons.

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And so because we are covered with the blood of the lamb, we are saved. And so that's the idea behind this.

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Now I would point something out to you. It's not a trick question. What did the children of Israel do with the

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Passover lamb after they killed it and cooked it? What did they do with it?

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They ate it. Okay? Now, if Jesus, our Passover lamb, was slain, here's the question

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I have for you. What do we do with our Passover lamb who has been slain? Answer?

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Well, Jesus says, Take, eat, this is my body. Take, drink, this is my blood.

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And it is exactly what Jesus says it is. How? I have no idea. But that's how faith works.

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It believes and trusts Jesus' words. And so just like the Passover lamb was consumed in the

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Old Testament, Christ, who is the fulfillment of the Passover lamb of the Old Testament, becomes our meal that we feast upon.

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And that's the way to put it. And rather than being roasted over a fire,

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Jesus was literally roasted in the wrath of God for our sins. That's the right way to think of these things.

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So then let's fast forward a little bit to our Epistle text. And in here,

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I'll teach you a Latin word. Every time we have the Lord's Supper, when

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I say these words, Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night that He was betrayed, took bread.

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There's a Latin word that theologically now people talk about this. That is now called the verba.

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So if you need to impress somebody at a cocktail party, say, yeah,

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I remember a pastor the other day, he said that verba. And they'll go, whoa, whoa, slow down there.

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But it's called the verba, just so you know. Now watch what Paul does here. And there's an interesting thing going on in this text.

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This text is so critical that it tells us exactly what the Lord's Supper is and what it isn't.

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It tells us what it means to take the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner and what it means to take it in a worthy manner.

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Now, I grew up in a very legalistic church.

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And the Lord's Supper was something that was done legalistically, if you would. And I understand that in Kongsvinger's past, there's been some legalism about the

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Lord's Supper here, too. And the thing is that the Lord's Supper is gospel.

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It's not law. When Jesus says, this is my body which is for you, is that law or is it gospel?

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It's gospel. It's good news. Who's offering us, who's doing what? Jesus is the one doing all the heavy lifting in the

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Lord's Supper as well. He's giving us his body and blood to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of sins.

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And if you remember, back in January, we talked about the idea of remembrance. Remember?

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Remember we talked about remembrance? And the idea here is that when we look at the story of Noah, after Noah got off the ark,

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God promised that he would not destroy the earth because he set the rainbow in the clouds.

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And every time he saw that rainbow, he would remember his promise to not destroy the entire earth by a flood.

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That was his covenant with humanity and with the animals. Now, Jesus here, in the institution of his

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Lord's Supper, on the night that he was betrayed, took bread. And when he'd given thanks, he said, take, eat.

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This is my body which is 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.

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Covenant. Who's the covenant between? The covenant is between us and God.

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So when we do this in remembrance of him, who's doing the remembering?

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It's a trick question. We are, and so is God. Because the covenant runs both ways.

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So every time we participate in the Lord's Supper, we remember

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Christ's sufferings for us, and God remembers Christ's sufferings for us.

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And believe me when I tell you, it's more important that God's doing the remembering than we are. Because I remember when

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I was a kid, being in church, and the pastor getting up there, it says do this in remembrance.

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You better think hard and remember. So I'm thinking, okay, I'm trying really hard to remember

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Jesus. And you better feel bad. Oh, I feel terrible. I feel awful. Are we almost done yet?

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This is a terrible way to do the Lord's Supper, because it runs everything through the law and puts all the onus on you.

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The reality is this, is the Lord's Supper is all gospel. It's Christ giving you his body and blood to eat and to drink because our

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Passover lamb was slain. And we are feasting on our Passover lamb, and it's for the forgiveness of our sins, to comfort us and assure us.

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So you can say in a very literal way, the forgiveness of sins tastes like really cheap sweet wine and a little bit of unleavened bread.

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Now, the nice thing about the bread we have here, it has a little substance to it. But if you've been to any other churches, sometimes that thing gets on your tongue and it just disappears.

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So we have a little bit of substance in our Lord's Supper. But let's keep reading here in our text.

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Here's what it says. Whenever we eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

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Therefore, whoever eats and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the

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Lord. That's a big deal. It's a big deal. So, I mean, number one, we're going to take this very seriously.

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It's a very serious thing to take the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner.

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The question is, what does it mean to take the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner? And if you think it means, well, this past month, yeah,

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I've sinned. I've been a rotten scoundrel. I've done some things I'm really ashamed of. I guess I'm not worthy of the

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Lord's Supper. No. No. No. Each and every one of us has done that.

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Did you not hear the absolution? I forgive you all of your sins. You did not come into this church service clean.

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You came in dirty. And the first thing we did was clean you off. So what does it mean to take the body and blood in an unworthy manner?

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Paul says so. Here's what he says. In other words, to eat the

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Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner is to not believe Christ's words where he says, this is my body.

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This is my blood. That's to eat it in an unworthy manner because you don't believe what

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Jesus said. And if you don't believe it's what Jesus says, you don't believe it's for what

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Jesus said it was for. To take the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner is to not believe the promises associated with it.

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And those promises are there to comfort you and to assure you. I'm a sinner just like you are.

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And believe me when I tell you, I rely heavily on the Lord's Supper to sustain my faith.

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You'd think that because I'm a pastor, I have great faith. In reality, I have very weak faith.

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But Christ sustains that faith through his body and blood. And so when

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I take the Lord's Supper, and I hear these words, take, eat, the body of Christ broken for you, the words

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I key in on, highlight in my mind and grasp on, is for you.

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There's no mistaking it. I can't say Jesus died for some guy out there.

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When I take the Lord's Supper, I take him into my mouth, and it's for you, which means it translates it's for me.

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There's no other for you that I can look to at this point because it's going right into my mouth.

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Seems like a funny way of doing this, thinking about this, but then the idea is this, is that when the devil comes along after the church service and says,

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I know what you did, you think that God loves you, how do you call yourself a

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Christian? You should be ashamed of yourself. And believe me, the devil talks like that, and you know it. I say to him, be gone, go to your place in the lake of fire and cool off, there's a little bit of thermal joke right there, because were you not there, the pastor said, and I get to be the pastor this time, take, eat, the body of Christ broken for you, take, drink, the true blood of Christ shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

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That was for me. My sins are forgiven. Be gone, devil.

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Stop doubting conscience. Believe and receive and hang on to these promises.

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And this is what Paul says, anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the

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Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. In other words, if you know you're a sinner, and you know you need

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Christ's forgiveness, and you believe these words, broken and shed for you, this is the body of Christ, this is the blood of Christ for you, you believe that, then you're receiving the

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Lord's body and blood in a worthy manner. That's what it means.

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So it's a big deal. Believe and receive. And it's all about gift, not works.

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There's not a work you have to do when you come to the rail. Not a work at all. Just believe and receive the body and blood of Christ broken and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins and hang on to those promises because you can take those promises to the bank.

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God never lies. You individually are forgiven. You have been fed the body and blood of Christ to sustain you and take you through this wilderness wandering on your way to the true promised land, the eternal kingdom, where we will see

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Christ face to face. He's made you worthy and he gives you his food to sustain you on the way.

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Much like he gave heavenly manna to the children of Israel while they were wandering through the wilderness on their way to the promised land.

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You see how that all connects? So it's all gospel promise. It's not law.

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If you've sinned and fornical mutilated or whatever and you know it and you want that forgiveness and assurance and you believe it's for you, come to the table and receive the body and blood and you will be receiving it worthily.

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That's what the text says. Now notice, I'm going to point out something else back up a little bit.

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It says, Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner. Notice that Paul says whoever eats and drinks the bread or the cup in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the

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Lord. How many things then does Paul say in this verse are present in the

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Lord's Supper? There's bread, there's wine, there's body and blood.

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There's four things. In other words, the Roman Catholics have it wrong when they say that ceases to be bread and wine and transmogrifies into only the body and blood of Christ.

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And then those who deny that Christ is bodily present, they're wrong as well. The text is clear. There's four things there and it's so simple to get and to understand.

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And that's the idea. So now let's take a look at the final part of Luther's Catechism on the section on the

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Sacrament of the Altar. And here's what Luther writes. As the head of the family should teach in a simple way to his household.

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What is the Sacrament of the Altar? Remember, sacrament just means mystery. Here's what

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Luther writes. It is the true body and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ under the bread and wine instituted by Christ Himself for us

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Christians to eat and to drink. Where is this written? The Holy Evangelist Matthew, Mark, Luke, and St.

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Paul write Our Lord Jesus Christ on the night that He was betrayed. Notice the verb of it, right?

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Was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks He broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat. This is my body which is given for you.

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This do in remembrance of me. In the same way also He took the cup after supper and when He had given thanks

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He gave it to them saying, Drink of it all of you. This cup is New Testament in my blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

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This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. Luther then asks, What is the benefit of this eating and drinking?

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These words, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins show us that in the sacrament forgiveness of sins, life and salvation are given us through these words.

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For where there is forgiveness of sins there is also life and salvation.

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You ever think of it that way? I mean, every time you come to the rail, I mean, the pastor says the words broken and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

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Does he not? Those are the very words of Christ. Well, where the forgiveness of sins is there is also life and salvation.

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In other words, there is life and salvation right here every time we celebrate the

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Lord's Supper. Knowing that, y 'all should be shoving people out of the way and trying to be first up on...

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No, you shouldn't do that. Luther then asks the obvious question,

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How can bodily eating and drinking do such great things? Remember, how does water do such great things?

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Well, certainly not just eating and drinking do these things but the words written here, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

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These words along with the bodily eating and drinking are the main thing in the sacrament. Whoever believes these words has exactly what they say.

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The forgiveness of sins. That's why you have to believe.

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If you believe these words, you have what they say. If you don't believe, how can you have that? So who receives the sacrament worthily?

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Luther writes. Well, fasting and bodily preparation are certainly fine and outward training but that person is truly worthy and well prepared who has faith in these words given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

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But anyone who does not believe these words or doubts them is unworthy and unprepared for the words for you require all hearts to believe.

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And thus writes Luther. And I would add by a little bit of a note here. Our gospel text is one of those texts that chokes me up.

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The exchange between Jesus and Peter just absolutely wrecks me every time and I have a difficult time reading it in public.

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The only thing more difficult for me to get through is actually being at a wedding. I always cry at those too.

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Let me read it again. Jesus came to Simon Peter who said to him,

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Lord, are you going to wash my feet? And Jesus replied, You do not realize now what

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I am doing but later you will understand. And you can just hear Peter, No, no, no, you will never wash my feet.

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What's the problem? Peter knows exactly who Jesus is.

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He is the God who spoke the universe into existence. He is King of kings and Lord of lords.

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He is the Messiah. And He, the Messiah, is not acting like a king.

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He is acting like the lowliest of servants in this society. The servant who washes people's feet.

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This tells you something about our Lord and Savior. He is so loving and He is so kind.

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He has not come to condemn us. He has come to serve us. Which is all the more reason why

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His command is one command, As I have loved you, love one another. This is in the context of Jesus washing the disciples' feet and then on that night not going to sleep.

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On that night beginning His suffering and passion. Being betrayed, being arrested in the garden, being up all night in a kangaroo court and then in the morning being taken to Pilate.

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We all know how the story goes. But see, Jesus is serving with the washing of the feet.

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As humble as that is, it's not nearly as humble as what

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He did on the cross. Because what He did on the cross was literally die a loathsome death.

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He was numbered not just with sinners, but the lowest of the low, the scummiest of the scummy.

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And He did that for you and for me. Jesus is all about serving us.

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He serves us tonight with His word. Tonight He serves us with His body and blood. He serves us with the words of forgiveness of sins.

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He serves us in washing away our sins in the waters of our baptism. Jesus is all about serving.

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And the idea here is that because He has so loved you, we as Christians are to be known then by our love for each other and also for the world.

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Because which of us, having been forgiven so much by Christ, having been served by Him in such an overwhelming way, we withhold love and forgiveness to any one of us here in this congregation, or even a neighbor.

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See, the love of Christ and His service to us now gushes like a river from Jesus to us and overflows from us to the world.

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Jesus is all about love and serving. It's all about the gospel. Let us never lose sight of that.

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Because when our actions are not in accord with the gospel, then people won't hear the gospel from us.

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But when our words and our actions are in sync, and that's the way they ought to be, then we have good news to proclaim to the world that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself and God calls all people to repent and to be truly forgiven, to be given eternal life, all as a gift, nothing that they have to do to earn, but all given by Christ as gift.

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So tonight we've received the gift of the forgiveness of sins and the absolution. We've received the gift of Christ giving us

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His word. It was a gift for me to be able to preach it to you. And tonight we'll shortly receive the gift of His body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins.

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What a great and kind Savior. It's outrageous how loving and merciful

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He is and all the things that He's done to forgive us, to strengthen us, to preserve us, and hold us in the faith so that on that last day when

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He appears, we will look Him dead in the face and we will not see anger but only love.

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And He will say to us, And we'll all know, Yeah, because all of the sin associated even with your good works

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He's bled and died for. It's gone. All of it's gone. And so you can do your good works in Him knowing that they don't earn

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God's salvation but He is pleased with them nonetheless because it is His will for you to do them.

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So go and love and serve your neighbor. Show them the love of Christ in word and in deed.

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This is what Christ has called us to do. They will truly know that we are Christians by our love.

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In the name of Jesus, Amen. And again, that address is

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