Let's open our Bibles up to Luke
chapter 22. Tonight we are going to observe
the Lord's table. And as Gabe said, he has asked
me to speak on the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. So for our
setting, We're going to read the account of the Lord's table
in Luke chapter 22. Let's look at verse 7 and verse
8. Then came the day of unlaven
bread, when the Passover must be killed. This is the day that
the Passover must be killed. And our Lord, he sent Peter and
John saying, go and prepare us the Passover that we may eat. Now look down at verse 13 for
the sake of time. And they, Peter and John, went
and found as he had said unto them that they made ready the
Passover. And when the hour was come, he
sat down and the 12 disciples with him. And he, our Lord, said
unto them, with desire, I have desired to eat this Passover
with you before I suffer. For I say unto you, I will not
any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of
God. And he took the cup and gave thanks and said, take this
and divide it among yourselves. For I say unto you, I will not
drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall
come. And he took the bread, and gave
thanks, and break it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my
body, which is given for you. This do, when you do this, this
do in remembrance of me. Now tonight, as I was reading
this passage, I realized that my task tonight
is really a very straightforward task. It's not to tell us anything
new, nothing that we have not heard, but it's to remind us,
to call us in remembrance of our Lord's body. And by His grace
tonight, I want to simply turn to some passages of scripture
and look at our Lord's body. Now, if you will, turn with me
to John chapter 1. And as you turn there, let me
say this, of this bread that's sitting right here in front of
us, This bread is a picture of our
Lord. There is no life in this physical
bread right here. In John chapter 6, the Lord said
to the Pharisees, you did eat of that manna, your fathers did
eat of that manna in the wilderness and are dead. Everybody in here
tonight who takes this bread, if the Lord tarries, just like
those Pharisees, you will physically die. So, this bread is a picture. It is a picture of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, let us look at the body
of our Lord. John chapter 1 and verse 1, let
us begin. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Now look down
at verse 14 with me. And the word God was made flesh
and dwelt among us. When the Lord said, this is my
body, this is the body that he's talking about. This body that
God became flesh. and dwelt among us. This is Emmanuel, God with us. This bread that he gives is God,
not was God, but he is God. It is that bread in John chapter
6 where he says, I am the bread that's come down from heaven.
It is God. Oh, I wish I could see this more
clearly, more plainly as we partake in this physical bread. I wish
I could remember that when I take that bread, it is a picture of
God with us. And when I was in Daniel this
last week, this passage in John chapter 1 was read, and it came
to my mind, knowing that I was going to speak. In John chapter
14, it says, The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. and look past the parentheses
full of grace and truth. And I was sitting there in Danville
and my heart rejoiced and I thought, you know, when we take this bread
and put it in our mouth, it is taking grace and truth and taking
it spiritually, not physically. And this passage come to my mind,
oh taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that
trusteth in him. And I was thinking there, that
bread full of grace and full of truth. Oh, what it would be
to take truth without grace. I could not bear it. Truth without
grace? A simple illustration. I love
butter. But could you imagine eating
butter without the bread? So it is that grace makes truth
palatable to us. So the grace of God that is found
in our Lord Jesus Christ the truth of God that is found in
our Lord Jesus Christ, how they come together to make such a
tasteful, such a tasteful bread for a poor sinner. And then let
us remember he is the truth, full of grace and truth. That truth is without laven. That bread that come from heaven
is without laven. In him is no wrong. In him is all truth. And then
let us remember he is the Passover lamb. Look at the next verse. John bear witness of him. Do you remember back in Luke
chapter 22 that it said the day came of unlavened bread when
the Passover must be killed? Well, look at verse 29. John
saw Jesus coming unto him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God. The Passover, the day of the
Passover is come. Where is the Lamb? Behold, the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. And then let us remember that we are reconciled to God
in the body of his flesh through death. Turn with me to Colossians
chapter one. We are reconciled, and you that were sometime alienated
and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
in his body of his flesh through death to present you wholly unblameable,
unreprovable in his sight. Remember, that we are reconciled,
we have been made holy. Remember, when we take the bread,
we are holy. How difficult that is to say. The psalmist said, preserve my
soul for I am holy. The Lord has reconciled us by
his body and has made us holy. And as Gabe said, what a joyful
thing it is to partake of this bread. And not only are we holy,
but we are unblameable. That unblameable means without
blemish. Remember the lamb that is without
blemish? We are made partakers. We are without blemish. And when we take of this bread,
and I speak spiritually, we are unreprovable. We cannot be called
into account because there is no guilt. And then let us remember
what we were. We were alienated. We were separated
from God. We were enemies in our minds
by wicked works. And those wicked works was really
our works of righteousness. And then let us remember also
that when you eat this verse, or when you eat this bread, first of all, I'm sorry, here
in Colossians, turn over to chapter two, While we're here in Colossians,
let's look at verse 14. I'm sorry, verse 22, my notes. Verse nine. In him, Colossians 2.9, in him
dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Remember what the Lord said, this is my
body. In him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. Well, what does that mean? Look
at the next verse. Ye are complete in him. So when we take this bread, let
us remember that in him the bread of life dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily and we are complete in him. And then now let us remember
the communion of his body. Turn over to the first Corinthians
chapter 10. And I'm about, we're about finished. We've heard this term, this word
communion and communion and most of the time what we think is
we think of this service. But let's look at this word communion
first. Communion, fellowship, intimacy. Communion, association through
the body of Christ. Communion means joint participation. to the body of Christ. So now
let's read 1st Corinthians chapter 10, about middle ways, verse
16. The bread which we break, is
it not fellowship of the body of Christ? The bread which we
break, is it not association of the body of Christ, the bread
which we break, is it not joint participation of the body of
Christ? And what is these things saying?
It is speaking about our union in Christ. Look at the next verse. For we, being many, are one bread
and one body. For we are all partakers of that
one bread. This oneness, this singleness
speaks of our union with the Lord Jesus Christ. It speaks
of substitution, of how God could take the place of his people
in his body. And tonight, as we pass out the
bread and as we receive the bread, let us remember his body. Let us really, really pray that
the Lord would help us remember his body. He said, as often as
you eat and as often as you drink, do so in remembrance of me. Let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father,
Lord, we thank you that you have come into this world and you
have taken a body that I, a poor sinner, can approach. And oh, Lord, we thank you, Father,
that you gave your body your body, a body of flesh, to be
broken for your people. And Lord, I pray tonight as we
observe, Lord, this table, Lord, that we can enter in in our hearts
to this bread. And Lord, we can truly give thanks,
Lord, for what you have done for us. Lord, bless this bread,
we pray. Bless this, your body. Lord,
fitly joined, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, Brother Tony. What
a blessing. What a blessing. Well, the Lord
orchestrated this. Let's turn right back to Luke
22. Luke 22. And I want us to notice in the
two verses that Brother Tony's already read in verse 19 and
20. I want you to notice that our
Lord said of his body, it is given, given. You see that there? It says it's
given. That means nobody took it from
him. Not the soldiers, not Pilate,
not the high council of the Pharisees, not the mob, nobody took it. He gave His body an offering
for the sin of His people. Jesus Christ, as Tony so aptly
said, is the body of God. He's the God-man. He's the body
God chose and sent. He gave His Son. God Himself
gave this body. God Himself break this body. Broke this body. Nobody could
take it from Him. You know why? So God in justice
and judgment would never have to take the body and soul of
His people and break it. And put it in a place where it
do no more harm. And you notice in verse 20 it
says Likewise, that means in like wisdom, as in the wisdom
of God to make his son a man and give that body and break
it. In like wisdom, this says the
wisdom of God in having Christ our substitute being broken and
crushed and whipped and nailed and speared, enduring a terrible
hell so that we as people could one day appear before God in
His spotless, perfect, unbroken body. We understand the body
on that tree is us. It's our body. And He gave us
His body. That's why it had to be broken.
But in like wisdom, verse 20 says, with the divine wisdom
of God The blood of His Son was shed for you. His body was broken
and given for you, His people, and His blood was shed for you. And this goes back to the time
where Adam was given the Old Testament, the Old Covenant.
Do and live. Obey and live. You do these things,
you live. You don't do these things, you
live. He did him. He didn't do what he's supposed
to, and he did do what he shouldn't have done. And therefore, he
was supposed to die. And he did die spiritually, but
he did not at that point die eternally. You know why? God
said, take a lamb, take a lamb, and kill that lamb, shed its
blood, so I won't kill you. And he said, make a coat, make
a covering for that, and I won't kill you. It goes all the way
back to there. And then his brother Tony talked
about, we come along and hundreds of years later, when Israel had
made itself a slave to Egypt. That's a picture of us as slaves
to sin. God set them free by the shedding
of blood. They took a lamb, a spotless
lamb, which is a picture of the spotless, sinless lamb of God
who is Christ. and they kill the lamb and they
put the blood on the lintel and the doorpost where they were
and when God came through and saw the blood, he passed over
them. Death had already come to that
place. Blood had already been shed in
that place. And he could therefore say, I
see the blood. I see the blood. And if we're
in the Lord Jesus Christ, one day he'll see the blood and he'll
pass over us. God requires a blood payment
for sin. How much blood does he require?
All of it. All of it. Oh, the ways they
shed our Lord's blood. Do we realize when those big
burly soldiers slapped him in the face, it split his lips and
the inside of his mouth hit his teeth and the blood ran out and
down his throat? And then those fellows grabbed
him by the beard and pulled it out by a handful. And the blood
ran down his face. And they pushed that crown on
his head. You ever see somebody with a cut in their scalp? The
blood just runs everywhere. Then they took a lash and whipped
his back, all the flesh off. And the blood ran down his back
and legs. And then they drove nails in
his hands and in his feet. And the blood just flowed down
that tree. And then finally, that centurion
took the spear He ran it up under his ribs, through his stomach
where the water ran out, and up into his heart where all the
blood, every drop of it, flowed out of his body. Why did that
have to happen? Number one, the price of sin
is the shedding of blood. It's death. All the blood we
have. The price of forgiveness is blood. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission. There's no forgiveness without
the blood. So at the judgment, you see,
you say, well, if I shed a little blood, will God be satisfied? Will I be forgiven? No, no, it's
not enough. No, the blood of bulls and goats
can never put away sin. And I'm sorry, but you know what
you and I are? We're a bunch of bulls and goats. And the shedding
of our blood will not put away sin. Only the blood of the God-man,
the spotless, perfect Lamb of God can put away sin. But oh,
look what it says in verse 20 about His blood. It was shed
for you. The question is, who's the you?
He said right there, He said, My blood was shed for you. Now,
we know that Peter and James and John and Andrew and some
others were there, but more importantly, we know that this is God's recorded
word to what? All of God's people. It says,
for you. Well, why not for you? Why not for you? Why not for
you? It says right here, my blood
was shed for you. Are you a you? I want to be a
you. Do you want to be a you? Someone
says, well, I'm afraid to presume that for you means me. I don't
want to presume about it. Well, we don't want to presume,
but I tell you what, we better be a lot more afraid not to lay
claim to this, to this promise for you. If it's not for you, we got no
hope. If this is not for me, there is no hope. When he says
it's for you, say, Lord, make me a you. You know what a you
is? It's a little lamb. It's not
a play on words. It's God ordained that from the
foundation of the world, called them you because they're you.
His you are little yous, little lambs. Let's come like the publican
in the temple who said, Oh, God, be merciful to me, the sinner.
Oh, that your blood was shed for me, he asked, he said. You
know what that man did? God said, you're going down to
your house justified, forgiven. Be like the woman who came to
him and said, I can't get out of the mess I'm in. And he said,
well, you know, the bread's not, it's for the children, it's not
for dogs. And she said, yeah, but can I be your dog? Can I
have the crumbs off your table? Can I be your dog? He said, Be it as you wish. You wish you're a you? Ask him. Make me a you. And they were justified and satisfied. God's broken body and shed blood.
Can that be for you? Well, another thing here, notice
at the end of verse 19 it says, do this or this do in remembrance
of me. And Brother Tony covered this
so well. Someone might ask, why do we do this over and over again?
Wouldn't once be enough? Well, not really. You see, if
we were doing it so that God would save us, once might be enough. But if
we're doing it because God has saved us, how could we do it
often enough? How could we do it too many times?
Here's the key as to why to do this, which we call observing
the Lord's table. You see in verse 19, it says,
do this in remembrance of me. These are people worth remembering. Let me see if I can make this
illustration. Does anybody here remember a
fellow named Charlie Payne? Oh, Hannah does. Anybody here
remember a fellow named Cecil Roach? Hannah does. Yeah, me too, Hannah. 37 years ago when I came to church
for the first time, these two men were there. And after time
went on and the Lord saved me, the men would meet in the study
like we do before services and someone would read scripture
and pray. And I'll never forget the first
time I was asked to do that. And I sit down in the chair,
and Charlie Payne is on my right, and Cecil Roach is on my left.
These men are giants. They are elders of elders. They're
just Henry Mahan's right and left hand men. They are. Well,
I read and prayed, and afterwards got up and left. And fast forward
about 20 years. And I come into the study one
night and sit down and Charlie Payne's on my right, Cecil Roach
is on my left. And there's a young fellow across
the room who's going to read for the first time. And we all
know it's his first time. And he reads and he prays and
in the midst of his prayer, he says something cringeworthy. You all know that word? Do you
ever have, I'm watching somebody or listening to somebody talk
and they say something and you go, Oh, oh, oh, I wish you hadn't said
that. Oh, bless your heart. Have you
ever done it yourself? The instant that young man said
this cringeworthy thing, I raced back in my mind 20 years or whatever
it was, and I remember what I said in that prayer. Something to
the effect that God should save everybody everywhere, which is
so unscriptural. But nobody said a word to me.
And after this young man finished and left, I turned to Charlie
and said, Charlie, do you remember, and that's all I got said, and
he patted me on the knee and said, I remember. And I turned
to Cecil and he said, me too. I remember those men. They were
so kind, so sweet, so forgiving, so loving of me, who was, I wasn't
worthy to be reading God's Word in that room, much less leading
these men in prayer. I remember those men. Let me
tell you what, if you ever met the Lord Jesus Christ, And you
have any concept of His love and His kindness and His mercy
and what He's done for us, for you. I don't have to tell you
to remember Him. Every time you come here, don't
we? I can think of so many things of what our elder brother, the
Lord Jesus Christ, has done for us. It's easy to remember. It's
not hard to do this. It's easy to do this. Verse 19
says, this do. It does not say consider doing
this, ponder doing this, thinking about doing this. It certainly
doesn't say worry about doing this. It just simply says this
do. And if we met and know the Lord
Jesus Christ, do this. And I realize that the Corinthians,
as Gabe read, were warned not to do this unworthily. And one
word I I looked it up and it said, carelessly, maybe is a
word that we would use now. Don't come in here flippantly.
We ought not come in here careless. Ah, we're doing the Lord's. No,
no, let's not be careless about this. This is serious business.
Remembering Christ is serious business. And I don't know, I
really don't know what all that was, they were being warned about.
I trust that if we ever need to be warned, the Lord will warn
us. And I want to heed His warning, don't we? but not understanding
all that that means. I do understand what this means.
You know what this means? Do this. Do this. This do. That's easy, isn't it? Let's do this. Into verse 20,
our Lord said, there is a new testament. A testament is one's
written or expressed will. Adam was told of the Old Testament,
which is basically do and live. Obey the law. Don't break the
law and live. We know what happened. He didn't
do and he died. And that same thing is true of
all men and women. If we don't do, if we haven't
done, then we got no hope in ourselves. Our Lord, however,
came and you know what he did? He did do. He did do perfectly. He did do. But he died the righteous
for the unrighteous. He did do for you, if you know
Him, He did do this for you and He gave His body for you. His blood was shed for you. The Old Testament is do and live.
Listen to what this testament is. Live and do. Live and do. You know, We still
want to do, don't we? We want to do what God's law
commands. I want to do. I want to love
you like myself. I wish I could. I want to love
God with all my heart. We want to do, don't we? But
how's that working out for you? For me, it's not working out
very well. No matter how much I want to
do, I just always seem to do the wrong thing. Our Lord always
did do. And therefore, because He did,
we did in Him. And therefore, we have life in
Him. So it's not, the Testament is
not for us do and live. Ours is, we have life, we live,
so let's do. And you know what? He knew. He
knows our frame. He knows we can't do what we
ought to do. So what He did was He gave us something we could
do. You know what we can do? It's this simple. Can you do that?" He gave us something we can do.
And he said, do this. And why do we have to remember?
Because we're so prone to forget. I'll be out of here in 30 minutes.
I'm sorry, I'll have forgotten most of what I said or heard. But we can remember him and what
he said and what he did. One of these days, we won't have
to remember anymore. You know why? We'll see him face
to face and we'll be like him. We won't have to do anymore. We'll give up this ordinance
for sitting at the feet of him whose body was broken and whose
blood was shed. In the meantime, this dude, Shall
we do this? We shall do this. All right,
let's bow in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful
for the broken body and the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ,
your perfect sacrifice. Lord, we're thankful for the
forgiveness of sin in our Lord. We're thankful that you've made
us one with him. Lord, may this be a glorious,
rejoiceful, grand occasion where we have the opportunity to partake
of the bread and the wine in remembrance of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Bless us now in the days ahead
for Christ's sake. Amen. Brother Caleb, I think
he's coming.