We'll be in 1 Corinthians 11,
that's right after the book of Romans. 1 Corinthians 11. Once we're in 11, we're gonna
head down to verse 23. For I received from the Lord
what I also passed on to you. On the night when he was betrayed,
the Lord took the bread, when he had given thanks broke it
and said this is my body which is for you do this in remembrance
of me in the same way also he took the cup after supper and
said this cup is the new covenant in my blood do this 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
until he comes so then Whoever eats the bread or drinks the
cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sin
against the body and the blood of the Lord. Let a person examine
himself in this way. Let him eat the bread and drink
from the cup. For whoever eats and drinks without
recognizing the body, eats and drinks the judgment on himself.
This is why many are sick and ill among you, and many have
fallen asleep. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we're about to take the elements Keep the distractions of anything
that would be earthly away from us. Help us to contemplate deeply
and think of exactly what happened on the road to Calvary. The beating,
the humility, the puncture wounds, the spear in the side, the spitting,
most of all, the doubting of who exactly who you are. As we
drink the blood and as we eat the body, it's a remembrance
of what you've accomplished for us in our stead that we could
never do for our own. to leave the throne of heaven
and enter history as a man, and to take that beating, and by
your stripes we have been healed. Thank you so much for the generosity
and beneficence of other people. We count on you to send them
our way. Nothing that we do on our own, but everything glory-wise
goes to you. You give us a gratitude that
we can imitate on an everyday basis by just thinking about
Calvary and what you've accomplished. There are people here today sick
and hurting, emotionally, physically, spiritually, you are the balm
that makes all well. Be with pastor as he delivers
the word today, and be with a special blessing on his knee. We ask
these things and pray these things in Christ's name, amen. Yesterday morning, I drove to
Flint to speak at the memorial service
of a young man who OD'd and to try to give some
comfort to mom and dad and this young man's sister. The gospel of Jesus Christ and
our God is the God of all comfort. The message of the Bible is a
simple and clear message. I often say to you here, this
is a hymn book spelled H-I-M. It concerns itself with what
God is doing for poor sinners in and through Christ Jesus. So I'm going to give the gospel
to you very simply, and then we're going to partake of the
memorial supper. The message of this Bible and
the message that I proclaim, whether it's at a funeral or
at the hospital at a birth occasion, that man is a sinner. The Bible
says so. It's an absolute truth. It's
a simple truth. And it's an easy to understand
truth if you're honest with yourself. I am a sinner. I have sinned
and fell drastically short. That statement alone creates
a problem because God is holy. He is a holy God. The cherubims
and the seraphims proclaim, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The God of the Bible is a just
God. The God of the Bible is not impressed
with religion. If you're here and you think
to some degree that religious exercise belonging to some denominational
church is good enough for God, I can tell you you're wrong. The message of the Bible is that
God has come into the world for a tremendous purpose, that God
has come into the world, that God has condescended, that though
he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through
his poverty might be made rich. the eternal Lord, the great creator. I know it's hard to lay hold
of this, to enter into this, but there is no hope outside
of this, that God came to do for us in the person of Jesus
Christ, what we could not do for ourselves, to provide a perfect
righteousness and to pay the debt to justice that we owe. We often say this here, and people
often say this crazy statement, I just want God to give me what
I deserve. No, you don't. You don't want
what you deserve. See, you and I are in need of
mercy, and we are in need of the grace of God, grace meaning
undeserved favor. And again, I want to say, the
Bible is not a complicated book. The Old Testament moves us through
the pages of the prophets proclaiming this, somebody's coming. Someone
is coming. Someone is coming. When you get
to the gospels, it's someone has come. Someone has died. When you get
over in the book of Acts, someone arose from the dead. And by the
time you get to the revelation, it's somebody's coming back again. And that's a good hope that God
has come to earth, not to spy out your sin. God knows all about
the drug use. God knows all about our lust
and our mess. And God knows all about that.
He doesn't have to spy it out. He looked down through time,
the Bible says, see if he could find a good person. And Psalm
14 and Romans 3 says, he couldn't find any good people. All have
sinned and missed the mark. That's a very important subject. It's a very important point that
you are a sinner. And until you come to realize
that, you don't have a desperate need of a savior. But once you
come to see and to understand that you are a sinner, and that
the Baptists can't save you, and the Catholics can't save
you, and the Presbyterians can't save you, and there is nobody
that can save you except Almighty God, then you need a savior. Amen. And you have this desire
to come to know him. You see what God did? Because
we needed a perfect righteousness. If you're gonna go to heaven,
you have to be perfect. Well, pastor, you just said there's
nobody perfect. We're all sinners, that's right.
That's why God came in the person of Christ, to work out for us
a perfect righteousness. You see, the message of the Bible
is that Christ walked the Judean acres and never sinned. He was
the sinless savior. and that he was providing for
me a perfect robe of righteousness. He kept the law. He was not a
law breaker. You and I are. There's nobody
in here that's kept the 10 commandments. 75% of you don't even know half
of them. Much less keep them. No, we're
lawbreakers. But Jesus came, walked the Judean
acres and kept every jot and tittle of the law. And God was
well pleased with his son. He was working out a robe of
righteousness for you and I. And then he went up on the cross.
What a message we find there. And in the three hours of darkness,
he paid a debt that we could not pay. Justice, the justice of God was
satisfied. Do you know your Bible? There's
a verse that says this, that every sin and every disobedience
must receive a just recompense of reward. What that means in
clear language is that every one of your sins has to be paid
for. And that's what Jesus did. On the tree of the cross, he
suffered. in my room, in my stead, and
the justice of God was poured out on him. He took my place. He who knew no sin became sin
for me that I might be made the righteousness of God in him.
So here's where I stand today, not boasting in self at all,
or not boasting in church anity at all, but boasting that I'm
accepted in Jesus Christ. and that I'm heaven bound for
sure, even though I'm still a mess. In my flesh dwells no good thing.
But there's another part of me. There is that new man, that new
birth, that spiritual part of me. Many of you don't understand
yourself quite yet. On one hand, you almost seem
as good as God. On the other hand, as bad as
the devil. And there's this war going on
inside of you. That's because you've been born
of the spirit of God. You have a new nature that God
has given you. And not until death will that
old flesh die off. And then that new nature go to
be with the Lord. And one day he'll come back,
new nature, new body in a new heavens and a new earth. That
sounds good to me. That sounds good to me. So the
message of the Bible is clear. Now, quickly, I want our men
who are going to help us serve the Lord's Supper to prepare
yourself. You can come forward if you will. The Lord's Supper, holy communion
proclaimed in many, many churches. Here are the words of Christ
from the Corinthian letter. This do in remembrance of me. This do in remembrance of me. Now, I want you all to know,
probably everybody in here has been in some type of communion
type service. I want you to know that nothing
magical is happening here. This bread is not going to become
literally the body of Christ and you're going to digest Jesus
Christ into your body with gastric juices. That is not going to
happen. This is a memorial service. This do Jesus said in remembrance
of me. This grape juice that we're using
today, for many of your benefit, the grape juice that we're using
today is not going to be turned into the blood of Christ. So when you drink it, you're
not drinking the blood of Christ. You are remembering this. And
Dr. Christopher read this today to
us. You know what the Corinthians did? The Corinthians, this is
the Corinthian church. They had the Lord's supper, supposed
to be the Lord's supper. And back in the days of Christ,
they used real wine. Some of you can't handle real
wine. I can, but you can't. I mean,
some of you can, some of you can't. But let me just give you
a little lesson here. Alcohol is not sin. Sin is not found in a Jack Daniels. Did I say that right? Sin is found in your heart when
you drink alcohol to get drunk or you can't handle it. And for
your sakes today, we're going to use Mogan David or some grape
juice. because we don't want to be a
part of maybe tipping you a little bit. Being balanced is good though. So what's going to happen is
this, our men are going to pass out the bread, but I want you
to know, and what I want you to concentrate on, what I want
you to think about, over 2000 years ago, outside of Calvary, On that mount, God came in the
person of Jesus Christ and was nailed to the cross. If all you
see is the outward suffering of Roman soldiers driving nails
in his hands, in his feet, and a spear in his side, you have
not reached the depth of it yet. You see, because it was at Calvary
that God was going to punish him in your place. He who knew
no sin, had no sin, did no sin, became sin for us. Isn't that
something? That God so loved us. that he
would pay our sin debt at Calvary. I want you to think about it,
that God took out his black snake whip of justice and punished
him and with his stripes were healed. That's called substitution. He became the propitiation for
our sins, the appeasing factor. And the justice of God was exhausted
at Calvary. And when he had paid the price
in full, he said, it is finished. It is accomplished. It is done. Now, all of us in here have messed
up. But today we sang rejoicing,
believing that the debt has been paid and that God is not against
us. All week I've been thinking, you know, if God be for me, who
can be against me? And I know God is for me in his
son, Jesus Christ. So I want you gentlemen to take
the bread and wine and you can proceed to give to each of you. What I hope you'll do is take
the bread, take the wine, just hold it in your hand until everyone
is served, and then we will observe the supper together. I want to read to you while the
guys are doing that from the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 53, the
Old Testament. And here's what it says. I call
it the gospel according to Isaiah. Who hath believed our report?
What report? The gospel report. Who has believed
it? Have you believed the report?
Are you a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? See, I'm not asking
you if you're a Methodist or Catholic or Baptist. I'm asking
you, are you a Christian? You know what a Christian is?
A Christian is a person who has a single mindedness toward Jesus
Christ. He is your only hope. He is the way, the truth, and
the life. Who has believed our report and
to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? You know, With regard to Mary and her being
brought here, she was asking the question, there was an unseen
hand that was behind that. I know that. I believe that's
the spirit of almighty God who works in people and effectually
and irresistibly draws them and brings them to a place where
they do the things they do. Now listen, for he shall grow
up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see him, there
is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected
of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we
hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not. Surely he had borne our griefs.
and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him smitten of
God and afflicted." Isaiah said, we thought it was because something
he did, but it wasn't. It was because something we did.
He was smitten and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions. and he was bruised for our iniquities,
and the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes
we're healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shears is dumb, so he opened
not his mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgment. Who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the
land of the living. For the transgression of my people
was he stricken. And he made his grave with the
wicked and with the rich in his death, because he had done no
violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him. He was holy, but it pleased Almighty
God to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. And
when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, He shall
see a seed. He shall prolong his day and
the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall
see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. God shall
be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many for he shall bear their iniquities. Thank
you. In the Corinthian letter, the
apostle Paul said, some of you are not discerning. And the word
discerning there in the Corinthian letter means you're not entering
into this. Or you have a false understanding
of this memorial supper. Remember, it's just that. Don't
think you're going to digest Christ with digestive juices. Enter into this. In his body,
he was punished for my sin. In your soul, in your heart,
think about that. He died in my room. He died in my place. He was the substitute. He was
the propitiation for my sins. The wrath of God rested up on
him. What an awesome God we have.
And here's what the scripture said. And when he had given thanks,
The Lord break the bread and said, take eat. This is my body,
which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also, he
took the cup which he had supped, saying, This cup is the new covenant
in my blood. This do ye as oft as you drink
it in remembrance of me. Drink ye all of it. without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission of sins. Often in 50 some years as a pastor,
I have been asked by the mockers of blood substitution, you still
preaching the old bloody way? Yeah, 50, 50 plus 50 years now. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission of sins. The only way for you and I to
make it there and be right with God is through the blood of Jesus
Christ. It is the dominant message of
this Bible, not religious ceremony. Even this we've done, this is
a type, it's a ceremony, all right, but we enter into this. Jesus paid it all. All the dead
I owe sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as
snow. Or how about the old hymn by
William Cowper? There is a fountain filled with
blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunge beneath that
flood, lose all their guilty stains. Amen. The blood of Jesus Christ. Let's
stand together for prayer. Dr. Christopher, you can make
your way. We'll have the praise team come forward. We'll sing
a hymn. Let's pray together. Our father, how emotional we ought to be
and how moved we should be. to think that you have loved
us with an everlasting love and have not left our salvation to
luck or to chance, but in great power, you have saved us and
delivered us from ourselves, from Satan and from hell. And
that we stand before you without spot or blemish. that we have
been justified, declared not guilty because of the blood of
Jesus Christ. Thank you for those who have
come today. Thank you for this time to set
aside this remembrance supper. And we do remember you. We ask
that you will bless us throughout this week. We thank you for what
you're doing at Grace Centers and Grace Gospel Fellowship.
And we know that you're doing it. We are seeing the miracles
and wonders of your providence and how you sustain us. And we
praise you today in the name of Christ, amen.