Memorials to the Master
Memorial Day Sermon
Chuck Sligh
May 24, 2015
Adapted from a sermon outline in Preach for a Year, #5, by Roger Campbell.
TEXT: Turn to 1 Corinthians 11
INTRODUCTION
Memorial Day was established in 1868 to honor the fallen soldiers of the Civil War. It has grown to become a solemn remembrance of all of our nation’s war dead and the price they paid for our freedoms.
Joke – A church had a bulletin board decorated with pictures of soldiers who had died in the service to their country. A little boy was looking up at the board when the pastor came up. The boy asked what the board with the pictures was about, so the pastor explained that the pictures were the men from their church who had died in the service. The little boy paused for a moment and then said, “The morning worship service or the evening service?”
A little boy’s innocence belies the seriousness of grown-up realities.
We need to remember, don’t we?—Because we had a tendency to forget if we don’t remind ourselves to remember. My dad has Alzheimer’s, a condition that causes a person to forget the past. One of his practices, until recently when he has really gone down, was to make notes to himself to help him remember things.
Illus. – [Illustration about our natural tendency not to remember important things as we ought. Best not to be another humorous one given the solemnity of Memorial Day.]
We need ways to remember, and setting aside a certain day each year to remember is what Memorial Day is all about. It’s a little note on our calendar that reminds us, “Don’t forget” the sacrifices of those who served and those who died for our freedoms.
The price of freedom has always been high. We take too lightly the blessings bought with blood—so we set aside a day to remember that it is those soldiers who served and sacrificed and died to preserve the precious freedoms we treasure as Americans.
• It’s the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.
• It’s the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
• It’s the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
• It is the soldier—who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag—who allows the protester to burn the flag.
Yes, the price of freedom has been high.
Death, suffering, blood, loss of limb, brain injuries, grieving wives, fatherless children—THAT is the price paid for our freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom from search or seizure without a warrant or just cause, and many other freedoms we have.
Yes the price of freedom has been high, so we should pause, take time to remember and thank God for those who purchased our freedoms at such great cost.
But I want you think about something else: The death of Christ also purchased freedoms for us—freedom from fear; freedom from judgment; freedom from hell; freedom from the slavery to sin; freedom from a guilty conscience; freedom from a sinful past.
And you know what—there are some “Memorials to the Master” we have in Christianity.
Dictionary.com defines a “memorial” as “something designed to preserve the memory of a person, event, etc., as a monument or a holiday.”
Let’s think about three “Memorials to the Master” in the Bible this morning:
I. FIRST IS THE MEMORIAL OF THE LORD’S SUPPER
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 who established the Lord’s Supper and why. – There Paul says, “I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: 24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. 25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.”
The Lord’s Supper is a memorial to Christ’s death. It’s a remembrance. It’s designed to preserve the memory of Jesus and what He did on the cross. And just as we set aside a time once a year to remember those who have fallen to secure our political freedoms, likewise we should set aside time to remember the sacrifice of Him who secured our spiritual freedoms.
There are many misunderstandings about communion based on tradition and man’s teaching, but which have no basis in the Bible.
• Some think of communion as a means to salvation.
There is not one iota of Scripture to support this belief. Jesus made it clear Himself when he said in John 3:16 – “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Jesus, Peter, Paul, John—all the writers of the New Testament give only ONE thing a person can do to be saved—believing in Jesus Christ.
• Some think communion was only for the early church, basing their beliefs on a radical form of a theological system called dispensationalism that basically dismisses four-fifths of the Bible as having any relevancy for us today.
Moderate dispensationalism is biblical, in my point of view.
But radical dispensationalism makes too sharp a distinction between the New Testament period of Jesus and the Apostles, and the New Testament era of the church.
It’s clear that Jesus meant for the Lord’s Supper to be for the church age since Paul commanded it to continue to be celebrated, and he lived and ministered after the establishment of the church at Pentecost.
• Some think communion takes away sin in the life of the believer; that it has some purifying effect.
Again, guess how much Scripture supports this belief. Not a SINGLE verse.
• Some think that in communion, the bread and body of Christ become the literal body and blood of Christ, and that in taking communion, we’re actually ingesting the body and blood of Christ—and that a sort of church sanctioned cannibalism.
This doctrine, called “transubstantiation,” is based on the fact that Jesus told the disciples in the Upper Room shortly before his death to “take, eat, this is my body,” and in John 6 Jesus told unbelieving Jews that unless they “ate of his flesh and drank of his blood,” they could not have eternal life.
However, a close examination of both of these passages show that Jesus meant something very different than the idea of transubstantiation: In the Upper Room, Jesus made very clear that the Lord’s Supper was to be a MEMORIAL of his death on the cross, not a literal eating of His body and drinking His blood. In the John 6 passage, Jesus clarified twice in that sermon (verses 35 and 63) that He was speaking symbolically of them accepting Jesus into their lives, for He is “the bread of life” (John 6:35).
If these ideas are not true, what does the Bible actually teach about the meaning and purpose of communion? Right here in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul quotes Jesus as saying the only thing He ever said about Communion: That it’s a memorial; a pictorial reminder of Christ’s death; a way to remember again what He did for us so we would never forget.
• The bread reminds us to remember Christ’s body given for us.
“This do in remembrance of me,” He exhorted us. In other words, “Take the bread to REMEMBER how I gave My body to be sacrificed for you.” The ONLY purpose of communion is to look back and remember in thankfulness and joy.
• The grape juice reminds us of His blood shed for our sins.
“This do in remembrance of me,” He exhorted us a second time. “Remember what I did for you. Bring to mind again my sacrifice. Recall how I shed my blood to pay the penalty for your sin.”
The Lord’s Supper is a memorial to remind us of the greatness of the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins. God gave His son to die for you and for me. There is no greater love than that. In John 15:13 – Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Next Sunday, when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, make it a memorial day to remember the Lord’s sacrifice for us.
II. THE SECOND “MEMORIAL TO THE MASTER” WE FIND IN THE BIBLE IS WATER BAPTISM
There are many scriptures dealing with this in the New Testament, but let’s just look at Romans 6:3-4 – “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
Paul teaches that baptism is a memorial to Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. It’s a picture to remind us again of what Jesus did on Calvary and His triumph over death by rising from the dead. Communion is a memorial of only the death of Christ; baptism is a rite of identification for new believers with the whole doctrine of Jesus’s death, burial and also His resurrection.
Every time we baptize someone in that baptistery over there, we’re memorializing again and anew what Jesus did for us. It’s a way for the believer to stand before all who are present and say by being baptized, “I’m not counting on anything I do to save me. No, I’m looking back to something Jesus ALREADY DID for me. He died, was buried and rose again to pay for my sin. That’s what I’m trusting in to save me.”
Again, there are many misunderstandings about baptism….
• Some believe is saves from sin.
• Some believe it gives a person the Holy Spirit.
• Some believe it adds grace and helps you along the way to heaven.
• Some believe it was only for the early church.
Yet the Bible is silent on all these false notions. Then what does the Bible teach us about baptism? Well, this is a sermon all in itself, so let me just give you the “Reader’s Digest” version:
• First, the Bible teaches that baptism is total immersion in water.
The word baptize is the translation of the Greek word baptizō. Baptizō means literally “to dip, to dunk, to immerse, to wash.” Baptizō was the word used by merchants when they dyed their cloth. They would COMPLETELY SUBMERGE it in the water so that the cloth would be totally identified with the dye.
When there’s a description of a baptism in the New Testament, it always says they “went down into” water and they “came up out of” the water. Now why do that if all you need to do is sprinkle or pour? Why go down into the water and get all wet when you could just dip a bowl in the water to get what you need to baptize? The only way these statements make sense is baptism by immersion.
Why is this important?—Because baptism is a memorial, and there’s no other way to memorialize the death, burial and resurrection of Christ—the core of the Gospel message—than by total immersion. (ILLUSTRATE : ARM UP = DEATH; ARM DOWN = BURIAL; ARM UP = RESURRECTION)
Illus. – Once a teenager wanted to be scripturally baptized, but his father told him that the sprinkling he got as a baby was sufficient. The son explained that the preacher told him that baptism by sprinkling didn’t picture the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and besides baptism was for believers only. But the father told him it didn’t matter—to just forget it.
The next day their dog died and the father told the son to go out behind the barn and bury it. The son sprinkled some dirt on it and returned.
Irritated, his dad told him to go back and bury it right. So the son went out and poured a cupful of dirt on it.
His dad thought he had gone daft—but suddenly he figured out what his son was doing. He said, “Let’s go see the preacher to get you baptized proper!”
• Second, baptism is only for believers AFTER their salvation experience.
There’s not a SINGLE example of a baby being baptized in the Bible. EVERY baptism in the book of Acts, without exception, was only after a believer had trusted in Christ to be saved.
Even those who had previously been baptized by John the Baptist had to be baptized again, according to Acts 19. They had been baptized by John by immersion—the correct mode of baptism—but they had not yet trusted in Christ. When they heard the Gospel and believed on Jesus as the Messiah John the Baptizer had prophesied about, they were baptized again in the name of Jesus AFTER trusting in Christ. They had no qualms about being baptized again, because they understood baptism as identification with Jesus’s death, burial and resurrection.
• Third, the Bible teaches that God wants every saved believer to be baptized. – Listen to the Jesus’s Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20 – Jesus says, “Go ye therefore, and [make disciple of] all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you…”
A church has not finished its job if all it did was bring you to Christ.
Its task is unfinished until you have been 1) baptized by immersion after your salvation and 2) taught you God’s Word. If God wants the church to baptize every disciple, it follows that God wants you to be scripturally baptized as the Lord commanded, and it further follows that if you refuse, you are disobeying the Lord’s command.
Have you been scripturally baptized by immersion, after your salvation? If you’ve not been scripturally baptized, why don’t you obey God and request baptism?
III. THERE’S ONE OTHER “MEMORIAL TO THE MASTER” IN THE BIBLE, THE MEMORIAL OF A CHRIST-LIKE LIFE
1 Peter 2:21 says, “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps.” A Christ-like life is a memorial to the lordship of Christ in your life.
Paul said this about the Corinthian believers in 2 Corinthians 3:2 – “Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men.” An “epistle” was a letter written by Paul to believers, such as the letter of First or Second Corinthians or the letter of Galatians, or the letter of Ephesians.
Here, Paul is using the word epistle or letter as a shorthand for Scripture. He’s saying the Corinthians were “walking Bibles.” Do you realize that we believers are the only Bibles some people will ever read? Oh that every word we speak and every deed we do would remind people of Jesus!
This declares the lordship of Christ in you. God wants to be the ruler, the boss, the Lord of your life. Is He the Lord of your life? Are you a walking memorial of what Jesus is like because He rules in your words and in your actions and in your thoughts and in your attitudes?
In what area in your life are you not like Christ? In what area are you a poor translation as a walking Bible? What should you surrender to God to change and become more like Christ?
My hope and prayer is that if there is ANYTHING in your life that is inconsistent or incompatible with what Jesus is like, that you would confess it and forsake it.
CONCLUSION
Well, what does God want you to go home with this morning from this sermon?
• We’ve talked of the memorial of THE LORD’S SUPPER.
When we have communion, join in this very important memorial to Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary. It’s important. Be present and participate in this ancient memorial of our Lord’s death.
• We’ve discussed the memorial of WATER BAPTISM.
If you’ve not memorialized your personal faith in Jesus Christ and His death, burial and resurrection by being baptized, what are you waiting for? Request water baptism, and do it right away to obey God.
• And we’ve looked at the memorial of A CHRIST-LIKE LIFE.
Surrender to God and confess your sins to the Lord. Become a walking Bible, reflecting Jesus in your words, thoughts and actions.
And if you’ve never trusted in the One who gave His life to die for your sins, I invite you to make this Memorial Day a day to remember by receiving Christ as your Savior.
