I'd just like to speak for a
few minutes before we have the Lord's Supper. It's a glorious
thing, isn't it, that baptism pictures us being immersed in
the Lord Jesus Christ. And unless, as I said earlier,
unless the Lord Jesus Christ is proclaimed as the scriptures
declare him to be, then people are not baptized, no matter how
much water they use. But in the Lord's Supper, it's
a great glorious picture of Christ in us, isn't it? And the Christ that we hold in
the blood and the bread is the Christ that came and the Christ
that came with a purpose and the Christ that came to gather
his people in one. The Christ crucified. If you want to see the glory
of God in all of his extraordinary attributes, of Calvary. If you want to see how God gathers
his people together in one, he has to make them as good as he
is. How good do you have to be to
get into heaven? As good as God. glory of the Gospel. We declare
an absolutely sovereign, successful Saviour who is a substitute for
His people. I remember some considerable
years ago I spent a whole week contemplating Zechariah chapter
13 verse 7. So Zechariah is just a couple
of books from the back of the Scriptures. It's the second last
book of the Old Testament. In Zechariah chapter 13 speaks
of this gathering and God says, awake a sword. That sword is the sword of his
justice. He says, awake a sword. The sword
is awakened when sin is revealed in the presence of God Almighty.
Against my shepherd, that's speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ,
against the man that is my fellow, against the man that is my equal,
my companion. The Lord Jesus Christ is both
God and man. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,
against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts. Smite
the shepherd. Luther spent a week contemplating
God, the Lord Jesus Christ, being made sin and he said, God, crucifying
God, who can ever understand it? I'm just so thankful that
we are called upon to believe. I'm so thankful that all we are
called upon is not to understand. We just declare what God says.
Smite the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. And that's
exactly what happened on the cross of Calvary, wasn't it?
The Lord Jesus Christ was smitten and the sheep were scattered.
And then he says, and I will turn my hand upon the little
ones. I'll turn my hand of love and
grace upon the little ones. I'll gather the little ones.
I'll gather the little ones. And it shall come to pass that
in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts thereof shall be cut
off and die, but a third shall be left therein. And I will bring
the third part through the fire to come to the Lord Jesus Christ,
is to come through trials. And I will refine them as silver
is refined, and I will try them as gold is tried. That's why Peter says in 1 Peter
1 that the trying of our faith, which is more precious than gold,
and what's the end result of that? The salvation of our eternal
souls. And they, after this trying,
after this scattering, after this refining, they shall call
upon my name. They'll call upon me, the one
who does the smiting of the shepherd. They'll call upon me. And listen
to what God says. They'll call upon mine and they'll
call upon my character as revealed in this remarkable event. And
I will hear them. God hears the cries of his people. Cry, brothers and sisters. Cry
to him. Lord, save me. Lord, help me. Lord, this is the circumstance
of my life. Be my sovereign, successful saviour. Remind me again of who you are. Remind me again of your absolute
sovereignty. Remind me again of your infinite
love. Remind me again of what it costs
your dear and precious son for me to be called his child. They
shall call upon my name and I will hear them. Don't you love these
promises of God? I just love every time you read
a will and a shall in the Bible, you just need to make a mental
note of it. True, finished, done. And this is the result of all
of this. And I will say, it is my people
and they shall say, the Lord is my God. They shall. And that's going
to be, those shalls and wills will happen until the last of
the ones to be called is brought into glory. If you turn over
a page or so in your Bible, it says of these people in verse
16 of Malachi chapter three, then they that feared the Lord
spoke often one to another, and the Lord hearkened. The Lord
listened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before
him for them that feared the Lord and thought upon his name.
Listen to what he describes them as. And they shall be mine, saith
the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels, and
I will spare them. I will spare them. This Lord God gathers his people,
Zephaniah, just to back a couple of pages. The Lord God is in
the midst of thee, is mighty, is mighty. He will save, he will
rejoice over thee with joy. He will rest in his love. He will joy over you with singing. This is a glorious gathering.
No wonder in Psalm 40 it's called the Great Congregation. No wonder
Caiaphas is meant to say it's this great. It's a gathering
together in one. Such is the union, such is the
love, such is the security of all of God's people. The God
looks to his Son, and when he looks to his Son he sees all
of his It's a great mystery this union
of the Lord Jesus Christ with his people. In Ephesians 5 it
speaks of marriage, doesn't it? He says, husbands love your wives
even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. He gave himself on behalf of
a particular group called the church that he might sanctify,
he might make them holy and cleanse it with the washing of water
by the word, which is why the preaching of the gospel is so
important. There is no gospel, there is no word without the
gospel being proclaimed. How precious is the word of God.
How precious. How precious. that he might present it to him,
verse 27, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, but that it should be holy. He should gather together
in one. It should be holy and without
blemish. So ought men love their wives and their own body. He
that loveth his wife loveth himself. The Lord Jesus Christ loves his
body. Why shouldn't he love? She's perfect and glorious in
his sight. And verse 30 says, for we are
members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and
they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but
I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Christ and the Church,
so united. What's his work to do? Present
her, sanctified, A glorious church. This is that great gathering
that Graham read to us about out of Revelation 21 and 22,
but it all happens because of what happened on the cross. There
is no gathering without the cross and we are gathered together
in one. The Father and I are one. We
are gathered together in one. It is the eternal covenant in
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the gathering. That is
the place of gathering, brothers and sisters, at the cross. And
we are gathered with our brothers and sisters throughout time,
from Abel and Adam and Eve, to all of our brothers and sisters
around the world, throughout time, and they all believe the
same gospel. They all believe the same gospel. Our God is a good teacher. I did a whole lot of teaching
and I taught these same things in school in India. Every single
child in that class for the last 12 months heard the gospel proclaimed
as best I could for a whole year. And if you'd ask those kids in
class, I used to say to them, who did Jesus Christ die for?
And immediately the whole 20 or so of them would say, he died
for his sheep, he died for his people, he died for his bride. Do you know how many out of that
40 who heard that three or four times a week and then in Bible
studies and in discussions and other things? Do you know how
many still believe that? At the very most, two. My point is simply that to believe
and to believe to the end requires several things. It requires the
almighty grace of God, but it also requires the communion and
fellowship with God's people so that they're not in a place
where Our Father teaches us, it's written
in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God. And every
man, therefore, that has heard and learned of the Father comes
to me. There is a great gathering, isn't
there? There is a gathering. We're gathered
together in one. And in this gathering, there
is a oneness of love for him. There's a oneness of love. If
you love the Lord Jesus Christ, and I love the Lord Jesus Christ,
we've got a lot in common. We've got an awful lot in common.
And if you love the Lord Jesus Christ and he loves you as he
loves me, then we've got a lot of reasons to forgive each other,
haven't we? We've got a lot of reasons to forgive the frailties
and the fickleness of others. Why do we forgive? Why do we
forgive? Be kind to one another. Be kind to one another. Tender-hearted,
don't you love that? Tender-hearted, soft-hearted,
forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven
you. We have a oneness in affections. We have a oneness in desires. We have a oneness in care for
each other. There is in the Bible no clergy
and lady distinction. Not at all. We're all members
of a body. I'm going to have an operation
in a couple of weeks' time on the most insignificant part of
my body. I could possibly manage just one joint on one of my toes. And for the last 12 or 18 months,
it has just just destroyed so much of my sleep that I'm getting
it dealt with in a couple of weeks time and Norman, Simon
and Ben are going to be preaching for you. But it's just the tiniest
little thing and it's a tiny nerve. And when it reacts, I
have four nights without sleep. And I'm just completely and utterly
wasted and I have to pick myself up off the floor. Be kind. We're
members of the body. We have one, we are just one. And in that body, we're exactly
where God wants us to be. He's not making any mistakes
about knitting his body together. So as we come to the Lord's Supper,
I just want us to go back to 1 Corinthians 10. This gathering is a gathering
because of the broken body and the shed blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We have one goal, don't we? And
that is the glory of God. What was Caiaphas' goal? What's
the goal of all of us unless the Lord intervenes in our lives? The goal of all of us is me and
my position and my status and my throne that I believe that
I'm sitting on, where I exercise my free will and I am the master
of my own destiny. You're not, brothers and sisters.
You're not. You are not. God is the master.
What a glorious God we have, and what a glorious God we have
to call on and to cry on. A God that loved. Having loved
his own, John 13, having loved his own in the world, he loved
them to the very end. Our God has a love that cannot
possibly fail. We come to take this communion. We take bread from one piece
of bread and that bread is unleavened and it represents the sinless
body of the Lord Jesus Christ which was made sin and then broken. For us it has no yeast in it.
And the wine represents the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's
no sin in His blood, but He shed His precious blood to wash us
from all of our sins. And that's why in 1 Corinthians
10, verse 16, the cup of blessing which we bless Is it not the
communion of the blood of Christ? The common union of the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ? The bread which we break, is
it not the communion of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ? Is
his body perfect right now? Brothers and sisters, his body
is perfect. There's not a single thing missing.
There won't be any empty seats in heaven. There won't be any
dusty crowns up there. Everything is perfect in our
God. For we, first 17 and first Corinthians,
for we being many are one bread and one body for or because we're
all partakers of that one body. We being many are made one. We being many are made one in
our Lord Jesus Christ. The glorious oneness of him. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we thank you that we have a gospel which causes us to rest. We thank you, Heavenly Father,
that the Lord Jesus Christ came in this world to save sinners. We thank you that he comes for
the sick and the lame and the blind and the halt. We thank you, Heavenly Father,
that he comes to those and he creates in those. He comes for
a need of him, a need of his perfect righteousness. A need
of His holiness, a need of Him to do absolutely everything for
us to take us into heaven. A need for Him to bear our sins
in His own body on the tree. A need for Him to live before
you, our Father, in perfect holiness to your holy law. in perfect
obedience to that law, in perfect love for you, in perfect love
for humanity. Oh, our Heavenly Father, we thank
you and praise you for the glory of your dear and precious Son.
You alone can make this blood precious and you alone can knit
this body together such that this body, these gatherings of
your people around the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Lord Jesus
Christ are places where you come and you meet with your people
and you deal with the spiritual needs of your people and you
cause us to be thankful, to cause us to rejoice in having such
a husband, such a brother, such a friend, such a saviour. Bless your word to our hearts
Heavenly Father, unite us in one in our goals to honour Him
in this world. his name and for his glory we
thank you heavenly father that our prayers come to you in him
and through him we pray in jesus name amen