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Communion Order taken largely from a Communion Liturgy published by R. Kent Hughes. (Hughes, R. Kent. The Pastor's Book (pp. 447-449). Crossway.)

Pat Novak was a hospital chaplain intern who discovered the great power of God’s forgiving grace. He was making his rounds one summer morning when he was called to visit a patient admitted with an undiagnosed ailment. John was a man in his sixties who was not responding to treatment at all. His tests…

You see, when you start judging your own goodness, you really get into trouble. You may fall victim to the “Lake Woebegone Effect.” Garrison Keillor, the inventor of the show, The Prairie Home Companion, told stories of a fictional town in Minnesota named “Lake Woebegone.” In this town, “all the men…

Miroslav Volf, a Christian theologian from Croatia, used to reject the concept of God's wrath. He thought that the idea of an angry God was barbaric, completely unworthy of a God of love. But then his country experienced a brutal war. People committed terrible atrocities against their neighbors and countrymen.…

Right after I arrived in Wilson, I met Bro. Preston Gregory. I still remember him speaking at some event and telling about a ritual of his own. He blows his horn. His car horn that is. He blows it at his wife three times. Now, I have to tell you, blowing my horn at my wife just one time can earn me a…

AS THE DEER by Joe King As the deer pants for the water, I the Lord long after you You my child are my heart’s desire and I long to be with you. How we talked when our love was new But these past years our words grew few. I’m your father and you’re my child, come sit with me a while. You’ve been busy,…

My dad demonstrated such love to me. I still remember the time he caught me doing something that greatly disappointed him. He was so disappointed that I don’t think he knew what to do. That afternoon, he picked me up from school took me to his office and cried (that was one of the only times I ever saw…

“I live in a vacuum that is as lonely as a radio tube when the batteries are dead, and there is no current to plug into.” that’s what Ernest Hemingway said of his life. How could that be? He was known for his tough-guy image and globe-trotting pilgrimages to exotic places. He was a big-game hunter, a…

When I was a child, my father was an all-consuming presence in my life. For one thing, I knew he loved me completely. I never had any doubt of that. In fact, I understood that he loved me too much to let me get away with anything. In fact, my dad didn’t even have to speak to me to correct me. Anybody…

That was the case with Sarah. You see, Sarah was rich – very, very rich. Not only was her income a thousand dollars a day, but she had inherited twenty million. That's not bad?especially in the late 1800s. By today's standards, she could have been a billionaire. She was well known in high society. Just…

Communion For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. [27] Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. [28] But let a man examine himself, and so let…

We are looking this morning at the second sign of the cross. Last week we spoke of Baptism. This week, we will talk about Communion. At least that’s what we Baptists call it. If you were from another denomination, you might call it “The Lord’s Table,” or “The Eucharist.” Regardless of the title, I bet…

The defining event of the NT is the resurrection of Christ. Jesus, the Lamb of God, died at 3:00 PM (9th hour). This was the same exact time when the lamb was sacrificed in the Temple. Traditionally the priest would blow the shofar at this time to let the whole city know that the lamb died for their…

LORD'S SUPPER After serving the cup, ask the congregation, "What did God just say?" God speaks to us through our senses if we will pay attention. Not only does the smell and the taste take us back to the upper room, it pulls us back to this place, to the church Like it did with Abby, who is seven. She…

And His sacrifice was a suffering sacrifice. Notice He says, “This is my body which was broken for you.” A medical doctor, Truman Davis, contemplated the cross to determine what it was that caused Christ to die. Here’s what he wrote about the suffering of Christ: The preliminary scourging was done with…

Dallas Willard writes about a 2-and-a-half-year-old girl in her backyard who one day discovered the secret to making mud (which she called "warm chocolate"). Her grandmother had been reading and was facing away from the action, but after cleaning up what was to her a mess, she told little Larissa not…

I'm thinking of a small-town church in upstate New York. They'd had a rector in that church for over thirty-five years. He was loved by the church and the community. After he retired, he was replaced by a young priest. It was his first church; he had a great desire to do well. He had been at the church…

Priscilla Larson writes, “My brother-in-law, who is a minister, responded to a Red Cross appeal for blood donations. When he didn’t come home by the time his young son expected him, the boy asked his mother, ‘Is Dad going around visiting all the sick people?’ His mother replied, ‘He’s giving blood.’…

The Eucharist is the ultimate participation in something greater than myself, and the fact that it requires participation reminds me that, much as I'd often like to, I can't trod the spiritual path alone. I'm pretty sure that when Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to…

Apollo 11 landed on the surface of the moon on Sunday, July 20, 1969. Most of us are familiar with Armstrong’s historic statement as he stepped onto the moon’s surface: “That’s one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.” But few know about the first meal eaten there. Buzz Aldrin had brought…

The author Circian writes: “Nathan Hale was a young man who had every prospect for a happy and fulfilling life. He was very well educated for his day—a Yale graduate in an era when very few went to college. Although there are many contemporary accounts regarding his appearance and personality, no negative…

If you’ve seen Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” you probably remember the scene of Jesus’ scourging. It’s rather hard to forget the whip with steel and bone and glass knotted in its leather striking Jesus over and over again. There is a part of that scene that is perplexing at first glance.…

(Communion Meditation) Robert F. Hull Jr. Mark 14:35-36; Mark 14:50; In a powerful sermon, Fred Craddock points out that only the reader of Mark’s Gospel really sees Jesus in Gethsemane lying prostrate on the ground and hears him praying for the hour to pass from him (Mark 14:35, 36). Peter, James, and…

\\ Remembering the past is critical to our survival and to our identity as persons and as a people. This was brought home to me again while reading the book Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. He tells the story of the first Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth, the community they developed and the Indian wars…

D. M. Stearns was preaching in Philadelphia. At the close of the service a stranger came up to him and said, "I don't like the way you spoke about the cross. I think that instead of emphasizing the death of Christ, it would be far better to preach Jesus, the teacher and example." Stearns replied, "If…