Communion
Before we take the communion I just want to give a quick reminder of why we take it. After all it is something that we believers partake of often and it is very easy to become complacent.
We call what we are about to do, The Lords Supper or Communion.
When Jesus first started this meal of remembrance, it was called something completely different. It was called the Passover meal.
It was something that the Jews did every year to celebrate how God had saved them from the oppression of the Egyptians.
They sacrificed a lamb and put its blood on their doorposts. When the angel came to kill the first born of every household he passed over all the houses with the blood.
If a Jew hadn’t marked their houses with the lamb’s blood, then they faced the same punishment. It is no coincidence that Jesus chose the Passover meal to initiate the communion service that we are going to celebrate today.
I want to start by quoting a well known Bible Teacher in the U.K. I heard him speaking on the subject of Holiness and he said something that shocked me.
‘God loves righteousness more than he loves people.’
I want you to think about that for a second. Maybe you don’t agree with it. I didn’t at first either.
‘God loves righteousness more than he loves people’, and he went on to say that if you don’t believe me then just re read the story of Noah and the Flood.
Let me put that in context. God loves you more than anybody else could possibly love you. More than you could even love yourself.
Romans 5:7-8
7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.
8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God the Father loves you so much that he was willing to send His only Son, to be ridiculed, beaten, tortured and killed so that he could save the kind of people that were actually doing it to Him.
If any of you have children then just imagine what that must have been like. I couldn’t imagine letting my little daughter Avery go through anything like that. Yet God loves you so much that He did that for you.
If God loves us that much, how much must he love righteousness?
We must never forget that when we come to take and the bread, we come before a Holy God.
Paul emphasizes this point strongly when he writes to the Corinthian church.
1 Corinthians 11:17-32
Paul was actually saying that some of the Church of Corinth had actually died because of their casual approach to the Lords Supper. They felt that they could just get drunk, hold grudges and whatever else, and then just come before the Lords table. The Bible promises that if we do that then we will be judged.
Everything that God has done, and possibly could do, to make us worthy is symbolized in this spiritual act. If we don’t recognize the seriousness of it and take it in an unworthy manner, then we will face judgement.
Let me encourage you. If you have any sin, bring it before God first, in true repentance. If you are holding resentment against somebody then forgive them first. Perhaps that person is here. Make it right first. Then partake.
