SUPPER REMEMBRANCES
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on October 7, 2018 under 2018 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday message; October 7, 2018 from Colossians 1:21-23
Theme: There are certain things we must remember in order to embrace the communion meal as we should.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
Because it’s such an important part of our life together as believers, I think that it’s good—every once in a while—to set aside some time to explore what God’s word can teach us about it. And so, for that reason, I ask you to turn with me to the first chapter of the apostle Paul’s New Testament letter to the Colossians.
In Colossians 1, the apostle Paul gives us a marvelous picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. He tells us about the majesty of the Son of God; that He is the divine Creator and Sustainer of all things; that all things exist for Him; and that it is in Him that all fullness dwells. Paul tells us in verse 20 that it is by Jesus Christ that God the Father has reconciled all things to Himself, “having made peace through the blood of His cross.”
And then, in verses 21-23, Paul, as it were, turns to those of us who have placed our faith in this very same Jesus and says;
And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister (Colossians 1:21-23).
I believe that in those words we have some wonderful truths affirmed to us—truths about what Jesus has done for us—truths that you and I need to continually remember if we are going to embrace the communion meal in the way that we should.
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I’m afraid that very few professing Christians take the time to think deeply about the communion meal. Too often, it is viewed as nothing more than a religious ceremony or a traditional ritual—something that is done as an end in and of itself. Too many people in church participate in it out of unthinking habit, or merely as an outward way of identifying themselves as ‘Christians’. Too few see it for what the Lord Jesus Himself said that it is.
Our Lord taught us that the communion meal that He commands us to observe is—above everything else—is meant to be an act of ‘remembrance’. It is meant to help us remember some things, and to keep the truth of those things ever before us in our thinking and in our affections. In 1 Corinthians 11:22-26, the apostle Paul quoted the words of the Lord Jesus to us and said;
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes (1 Corinthians 11:22-26).
Twice in that passage, the Lord Jesus told us to do observe the communion meal as “a remembrance” of Himself. We’re told that when we observe the Lord’s supper as we should, we regularly ‘proclaim His death’ until the day when He finally comes back for us. And so, the Lord’s supper isn’t merely a ceremony to perform. It is the regular proclamation of certain things that are to be continually remembered by us—things that it is very necessary to our souls to keep ever before us—things we are to keep on remembering repeatedly until He returns.
I was with a group of men the other day, and we were discussing this subject. And one good brother pointed out to the rest of us that there is a deep and divinely intentional connection between the New Testament ordinance of the Lord’s supper and the Old Testament observance of Passover. To the Jewish people, the Passover was God’s appointed way of continually remembering how He had graciously delivered them from their bondage in the land of Egypt; and how He had brought judgment upon the Egyptians, but graciously ‘passed-over’ His people in that judgment. In order to be spared from that judgment, the Jewish people needed to—as an act of faith—slay the Passover lamb, eat it, and smear its blood on the doorposts of their home; thus identifying themselves with that lamb. And after He delivered them from bondage in Egypt, God commanded that the Jewish people—from that day forward—were to observe that Passover feast every year as a remembrance of what He did for them.
Well, dear brothers and sisters; the Bible tells us very clearly that Jesus is our Passover Lamb. He has fulfilled for us—in a spiritual sense—all that was symbolized in that Old Testament Passover feast. And just as the regularly repeated Passover was a feast of ‘remembrance’ for the Jewish people in old covenant times, the Lord’s supper is meant to be a regularly repeated act of ‘remembrance’ for you and me in this new covenant era.
Now; the passage that I am asking that we consider this morning is not one that speaks directly about the communion meal. But I very much believe that the things it talks about have a lot to tell us about what we need to ‘remember’ in the communion meal.
So; let’s look a little closer at Paul’s words to his believing brothers and sisters in Colossea, and consider the things that it tells us. Let’s embrace these affirmations, and bring them with us to our remembrance in the Lord’s supper this morning. As we do—and as we truly take these things to heart—I believe we will be ‘remembering’ as our Lord would want us to remember.
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Paul wrote, in verse 21, “And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled …” And I believe that gives us the first thing to remember when we come to the Lord’s supper, and that is …
1. WHAT OUR DESPERATE CONDITION WAS APART FROM CHRIST.
Take a look at how Paul began. He said, “And you, who once were alienated …” He speaks of something that was once true of us—something that was formerly our condition—but that is now no longer the case. In a sense, the Lord’s supper is the call to remember something that was once true of us but that no longer is true of us.
I can’t stress enough the importance of that. I don’t believe we can ever come to the Lord’s supper in a proper way—and that we can ever embrace it as the Lord would have us embrace it—unless we have first come to terms with how desperately lost we were apart from Jesus, and how much we needed to be saved by Him. The communion meal is not for people who think that they are good and righteous people who never needed salvation. No one should come to the Lord’s supper in any other way than as a desperately needy sinner—but a sinner who is no longer lost but is now saved.
The Lord’s supper, in other words, is—in part—a remembrance of our former, desperate condition.
Look at what Paul tells us that we once were. He said that we were “alienated” from God. And think carefully about this. To be ‘alienated’ from someone or something, there first needs to be a sense in which we fundamentally belong to that from which we are alienated. If we did not first belong to God as His creatures at all—and if we did not first actually owe Him our worship and service as our Creator—then it could not have been said that we were ‘alienated’ from Him. But we are alienated from Him! It was the sin of our first earthly father Adam that caused us to fall from our Creator and it is our own sins that have separated us from Him.
That has to do with our former state of being. We were ‘alienated’. And that was certainly desperate enough! But Paul goes on to add, “and enemies in your mind …” This speaks of our attitude of heart. We were not only alienated from God, but we were glad to have it so. We did not like to retain God in our thoughts, and we dared to pretend that He didn’t exist, or to live as if He didn’t have rights over us as our Creator. Every one of us who has come to the Lord Jesus Christ by faith can remember the ways that we used to rebel against God, and how we refused to worship or serve Him, and how we made ourselves ‘enemies in our mind’ toward Him.
And look at how Paul says we did this. We did it by “wicked works”. We acted-out in our rebellious alienation and enmity against Him by either doing the things He commanded us not to do, or by refusing to do the things He commanded us to do.
Dear brothers and sisters; it is very painful for me to remember the ways that I sinned so horribly against God and rebelled against Him. It’s very painful for me to remember what a desperate condition my sins put me in. It’s painful for me to remember how my conduct made me worthy of the righteous judgment and wrath of a holy God. But in order to celebrate the communion meal as I should, I must remember such things. I must remember what I once was in order to gratefully celebrate what it is that the Lord Jesus saved me from!
As Paul puts it in Ephesians 2;
Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands—that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:11-13).
I hope that, as we come to the table of the Lord this morning, you will be able to say, “Dear Father in heaven; I am an utterly unworthy sinner. It pains me to think of the ways I used to defy and rebel and sin wickedly against You. And yet, I am so grateful this morning to remember all that it is that Jesus has saved me from!”
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So then; I believe that that’s the first thing we need to do in order to embrace this important ‘remembrance’ as we should. We need to remember the desperate condition we were in apart from Christ.
And doing so helps us to remember the next important thing that Paul tells us about; and that is to remember …
2. THE CHANGE THAT HAS NOW BEEN ACCOMPLISHED FOR US AT THE CROSS.
Paul wrote in verses 21-22 that we were once alienated and enemies of God by our wicked works; “yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight.”
The idea of ‘reconciliation’ has great meaning against the backdrop of our former ‘alienation’ from God; doesn’t it? To be ‘reconciled’ means that our terrible alienation has been brought to an end—that the thing that stood between us having a full relationship with God has been completely removed, and that we are now welcome to enter into a full and unhindered relationship with the One who made us for Himself. And it’s interesting that the ordinary word for ‘reconciliation’ is not the one that Paul uses. Rather, he uses a word that means something more along the lines of being transferred from a condition of ‘against’ to restoration into an ongoing, ever-present, full favor. Through Christ, we have been brought back into the state of full favor before God that Adam enjoyed before the fall—and indeed, even more.
How did God do this? Paul goes on to tell us that it was “in the body of His flesh”. In the Lord’s supper, we’re to remember that, in love, God sent His beloved Son to take full human nature to Himself, to be born into this world in a body like ours, to become one of us, and to end our alienation from the Father ‘bodily’. To speak of Jesus ministering to us “in the body of His flesh” is to speak of His ministry of atoning for our sins as our complete Substitute.
And by what means did our Lord do this? Paul tells us that it was “through death”. In the body of our Lord, He fully obeyed every command of the Father on our behalf. He lived a life of sinless perfection before the Father on our behalf; so that all of His obedience and righteousness is now ours. But He did more. In that same body in which He fully obeyed the Father, He also fully paid the death penalty for all of our disobedience and rebellion and wickedness in His own person.
When we observe the Lord’s supper, then, we are remembering what it is that made Paul’s words absolutely true in Romans 8:1;
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).
And what is the result? Paul goes on to tell us that our Lord made this sacrifice for us in His body through death “to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight.” You and I may be frustrated at times by our own failures. It may even be, at times, that we slip again temporarily into moments of sinful rebellion and refuse to do what our Father tells us to do. But it does not change our standing before Him. Whereas before we were alienated from Him, now—because of what Jesus has done for us—we are still completely holy in His sight—completely set apart as belonging to Him. We are blameless in His sight—having no condemnation of guilt or sin upon us. We are above reproach in His sight. The enemy of our souls will never again be able to bring a charge against us before God.
This is describing complete cleansing—complete reconciliation to God—a new condition in which there is nothing that can ever again stand between ourselves and a holy God. We are now free to come to Him and enjoy His full favor through Jesus His Son. As the apostle Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5;
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).
I sincerely hope that as you come to the table of the Lord this morning, you will do so in remembrance of the glorious change in our condition that the Lord Jesus has brought about for us through His death on the cross. I hope you will pray, “Father, I thank You that—though I was once alienated from You—I am alienated no more! I thank You that I now stand before You 100% accepted in Your sight—reconciled—completely holy, completely blameless, and completely above reproach before You because of what Jesus has done for me!”
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Now; there’s one more thing that these words from Paul urge us to remember in the Lord’s supper; and that is …
3. THE PROPER RESPONSE WE SHOULD HAVE TO THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL.
In verse 23, Paul tells us that though we were once alienated from God by our sin, now we are brought into His favor through Christ, “if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
That word “if” might seem disturbing at first. It might seem as if Paul is telling us that our salvation is somehow a matter of our own effort—as if it’s conditioned upon our ‘continuing in the faith’ on the basis of our own power. But I don’t believe that’s what he’s trying to tell us. He has been affirming throughout this passage that our salvation is completely a work of God’s grace—that it is all a work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. But I do believe that Paul is telling us that the way we grab hold of God’s grace through Jesus Christ is by faith—and that we must keep hold of it by faith all the way to the very end.
Some people believe that they are saved because they prayed a prayer once—long ago—to receive Jesus as their Savior. They may have even ‘gone forward’, and ‘been baptized’. But they don’t maintain a real, living, continual faith in Jesus. The faith that saves us in Christ is not a ‘one-time-only-long-ago’ event. Rather, it is a continual, day-to-day, ongoing trust in Jesus as our Savior and our Lord through the message of the gospel.
Paul told us this in 1 Corinthians 15; when he wrote,
Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain (1 Corinthians 15:1-2).
In a similar way, the writer of the Book of Hebrews spoke of
… Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end (Hebrews 3:6).
Our perseverance in the faith of the gospel is proof of our having been saved by it. And just to make this clear to us, Paul affirms that it is the very same gospel which we have heard from him, which has been preached throughout the world as the one true gospel—the one that God made Paul himself to be a minister of to us. It’s the very gospel that is being remembered by us in the Lord’s supper.
And this stresses to us the practical value of the Lord’s supper; doesn’t it? It is in observing this supper repeatedly and thoughtfully—remembering together the things that Jesus has done for us as we commemorate it in the bread and the cup—that we continue in it; and are grounded and rooted in it; and are helped to be steadfast and stable in it; and are kept from being moved away from it by the philosophies and pressures of this world.
I hope that as we partake of the Lord’s supper this morning, you will join me in praying, “Father in heaven, I once again renew my faith in the body of the Lord Jesus broken for me; and I renew my faith in the blood of Jesus shed on the cross for me. I remember what He has done, and recommit myself in faith to it, and declare that Jesus Christ—and Him alone—is my fully sufficient Savior.”
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I believe then, dear brothers and sisters, that as we observe the Lord’s supper this morning, we can sum up the things that we are to remember in the three basic affirmations we find in this passage: “once alienated … now reconciled … if indeed you continue in the faith”.
EA
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