Holy Communion
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Intro
Intro
The Christian only has two sacraments. Baptism and Holy Communion. These are “rituals” which we have been commanded by God to perform.
Today qwe will see why we have been commanded to partake of Communion and why it matters.
Its Beggining.
Its Beggining.
To understand the signifgicance of communion we have to go back in history, not to the time of Jesus, not even to the time of Israel, but even before Israel was a nation.
Joseph, one of the patriarchs, was a ruler in Egypts after being sold as a slave by his brothers. Its a long story, but in the end he saved Egypt from calamity by preparing for a severse drought.
His brothers and family eventually came to live in Egypt because it has plenty of stored food and supplies.
The king oif Egypot was gratful to Joseph and they all lived in peace.
But time passed, Jacob died and so did the king of Egypt.
Then the stage gets set for us in Ex 1:8
8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
This new Pharoh grew stedaly more afraid of these Hebrew people living in Egypt so he decided to do something about it.
9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us.
10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”
11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses.
12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.
13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves
14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
This period of slavery was not just a few years. Over many egyption kings each a new generation the hebrews were enslaved for hundreds of yesrs.
40 The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years.
41 At the end of 430 years, on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.
430 years.
In other words, other than the first and last generation, every single Hebrew was born into slavers, lived in slavery and eventually dies in slavery.
Slavery Illistarted.
Slavery Illistarted.
This life of slavery was used by God as an illistartionj of all humanity.
As they were born slaves, lived as slaves and died as slaves in Egypt, God tells us that this is the Spiritual State of every human being.
we are born as slaves to sin, live as slaves to sin, and dies as slaves to sin.
1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
This slavery is slavery to sin. aAs Jesus said:
34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.
God hears His People
God hears His People
in due time God hewars and answers His people Cry:
23 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.
24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
To delievr is people from Egyptian slavery God calls a deliverer to help them - Moses.
Moses confront Pharo and command him to let God’s people go. Pharoh refused and God displays his power through mighty miracles.
Their river turned to blood; frongs infested the land, boils and sores broke out on the Egyptians, the cattle and livestock died.. it was terrible.
But Pharoahs heart refused to be humbled.
This evertually led to the most terrible plauge of all - the death of all the first born.
1 The Lord said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely.
4 So Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt,
5 and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle.
6 There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again.
However to spare His own people God gave specific instructions:
On that night God peole had to prepare a special meal, wear special clothes and say inside to eat, but most importantly, they had to sacrifice ayounf spotless lamb and paint its blood over the door post of their houses.
God said that if they do this, when he passes through the land of Egypt:
12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.
13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
Notice what God said he would do, he would “Pass over” their house.
And indeed he did. As a result Pharoah ordered God’s peole to leave Egypt and after some drama, the people of God were set free from Egyptian Slavery.
In remembrance of God’s promise and his fulfilment of that promise that meal was to be remebemerd and celebtared on the day it happened every year -and as you can guess that meal is known as the Pass Over”.
The Passover Limitations
The Passover Limitations
This was the jewish people most sacred time of celebration. A time to remeber God’s promise,power and act of deliverance from Egyptian slavery.
However, as powerful and special as the passover was, it was not complete deliverance from slavery.
yes, God’s peole where no longer slaves to Egypt, howver, humainy was still slaves to sin.
Moses may have gotten the peoplke out of Egypt, but the events following their deliverance (moauning at God, building the golden calf..) proved that through theey were out of Egypt, Egypt was not out of them.
But this would be a problem not solved for some time.
years passed and each year the Passover was celebrated, and so it continued for thousands of years, untill one day when during the passover, a young jewish man would send some of his disciples to prepare a room for them to celebrate:
8 So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it.”
The Day it all Changed
The Day it all Changed
What happened next would totally change the passover. Jesus would not remove it, but he would fulfil it.
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
As we said, the passover may have rescued the hebrews from Egypt, but it did not rescue the world from Sin.
The blood of the passover lamb may have caused God to passover their house but it did not stop God from passing over their sins.
20 The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
So at the passover meal, Jesus picked up the bread and the cup, symbols of the passover and he gave them a new meaning.
Jesus picked up the bead made with bitter herbs and he said:
26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”
Then Jesus picked up the cup and said something extrodnary:
27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you,
28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
With these words Jesus said that the Old covenant God made when He delievered the people out of Ehypt was over, and a new covenant would begin.
He was saying that the old covenant, based on the blood of that passover lamb would be fulfilled by a different Lamb, not any old lamb, but the Lamb which John the Baptist sopke of when he saw Jesus:
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
Notice Johns words:
This lamb would not free a few people from physical slavery, like the first lamb, but this lamb’s blood would free the whole world from their spiritual slavery to sin.
Jesus promised it, and then later he fulfilled it.
His blood was shed on the cross, meaning that everyone who puts their faith in Him would not perish but ever last life.
Because the blood of Jesus is appled to the door posts of our life, the wrath of God will pass over us.
2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
Remember what propitiation means? That which satisfies wrath.
Keep Remembering
Keep Remembering
Then Jesus, at this new passover meal closed by saying:
19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
He told us to partake of this new passover, not once a year, but as often as possible in remebrance of what Jesus has done.
To remind ourselves of His great love for us.
To remind ourselves that we are not longer slaves to sin.
To remind ourselves that we are no longer under God’s wrath.
To remind ourslves that who the son sets free is free indeed.
To remind oursleves that we have been forgien by God’s grace.
To remind ourslves that we must live holy lives for the gospels sake,
To remind ourslves to preach the gospel to every soul.
To remind ourslves that though satan should buffet, through trail should come - because of the blood of Jesus it is well with mu soul.