I tell you, if that song doesn't
prepare my heart to preach and your heart to hear, there's something
wrong with our heart, isn't it? That was so good, Isaac. Open
your Bibles again, if you would, to Matthew chapter 26. I titled
the message, The First Lord's Table. This is the very last
Passover. You might recall, I read there
in Exodus chapter 12, the Lord said, you'll keep this by ordinance
forever. So why is this the last one?
Well, he said, you keep it by ordinance forever. Now, by his
sacrifice, Christ is going to make an end of the law. So we
don't observe the Passover anymore. Now we observe the Lord's table. And the time when we gather together
to observe the Lord's table is one of the most special times
of worship that we have. The Lord's table is given to
us, our Lord said, for this purpose, to remember him. to remember
his character, who he is. He's holy, righteous, and just. He's merciful. His love and mercy
to his people. To remember his sacrifice, how
he sacrificed himself, everything that he is for the sin of his
people. The Lord's table is given to us so that each believer can
take the bread and the wine and remember the Lord. Remember this
is his sacrifice. This picture is his sacrifice
for me. And I can publicly take this bread and this wine As a
confession, my faith, my hope, my confidence is in Christ and
his sacrifice for me. This is public worship, the Lord's
table, but it's also intensely personal. I take the bread. I take the wine. I eat it. I
drink it. Nobody can do it for me. I do it. It's very personal,
yet it's done in a public worship service. And I love how the Lord
set the observance of his table. Observing the Lord's table is
not a big religious pageant, is it? There's no religious ceremony
and fanfare that goes along with it. The Lord's table is like
all of the gospel. It's simple. The Lord's table
is all the more glorious in how simple it is. How clearly and
simply this bread and this wine picture the sacrifice of Christ
for the sin of his people. And having just the bread, Just
the wine, picturing his body, his broken body, his shed blood.
It puts all of our focus on the Savior, doesn't it? You really
can't focus on anything else. It's his body, his blood, and
pictures of it. You just can't focus on anywhere
else. And when we focus on Christ that
closely, that's what makes this worship service all the more
special. And tonight I want us to look at three things. I must
look at the elements that were on the table that night, the
bread and the wine. And thirdly, I want us to look at who is around
the table. At first, let's consider the
elements, bread and wine. The bread and wine picture our
Lord's broken body and his shed blood. Now they don't, the bread
doesn't magically turn in after we pray over it. The bread doesn't
magically turn into the body of Christ. After we pray over
it, The wine doesn't magically turn into the blood, the actual
blood of Christ. There are people who believe
that, and they believe that by eating the actual body of Christ,
drinking his actual blood, a person is saved that way by putting
those elements into their body. I read this way, I did not know
this. People, when they, there are people who observe the Lord's
table, the bread that's left over, they take it out and bury
it, because they think it's the body of Christ. And I thought,
well, why bury it? It's not going to decay, is it?
His body saw no decay when it was buried. It came out of the
grave. All that is is idolatry. It's all it is. It's making an
idol out of the bread and the wine. The bread is going to stay
bread. The wine is going to stay wine.
These things are pictures of Christ. The Lord's table is not
a sacrament, and a sacrament just means this. It's something
that you do or something that you eat that actually puts grace
and holiness into your soul. This is not a sacrament. It's
a picture of Christ's sacrifice. It's a picture of salvation through
the sacrifice of Christ for his people. He's our holiness. He's our righteousness. The Lord's
table is an ordinance that pictures Christ. The Lord gave the church
two ordinances. to picture salvation, redemption
through the sacrifice of Christ. Baptism and the Lord's table.
That's the two we have. Some people say there's three,
the preaching of the gospel. If we preach the gospel, we're
preaching his death, burial, his resurrection and Christ crucified,
aren't we? But these things are given to
us as pictures of the redemption that we have in Christ Jesus.
And the first thing that was on the table that night was bread.
Verse 26, Matthew 26. As they were eating, Jesus took
bread and blessed it and break it and gave it to the disciples
and said, take eat. This is my body. Now this bread
is a very good picture of the sinless body of our Lord Jesus.
This was unleavened bread. It's the only kind of bread a
Jew would have on the table during the Passover week. Before the
Passover week even began, they scoured the house, got down on
their hands and knees, looked in the backs of cabinets and
in corners and everywhere. to make sure there was no leaven
in that house. Wherever they found leaven in
that house, they threw it away. So if they made bread that week,
it had to be unleavened bread, didn't it? And throwing away
that leaven, clearing the house of the leaven before the Passover
week, that's a picture of the holy sinlessness God requires
of you and me. Something we cannot produce.
We can't get rid of the sin that's in our body. And that's what
leaven is a picture of in scripture, always. It's a picture of sin. Remember the Lord told his disciples
when they beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees,
he meant the sin of that self-righteous religion. But Christ our Savior,
unlike us, he had no sin. He did no sin. He was perfect. He wasn't even acquainted with
any sin, scripture says. He obeyed God's law perfectly
because his nature is holy. and righteous, he is completely
without sin. So since his nature is without
sin, his body is too. And that's what makes his body
a suitable sacrifice to put away our sin. It's the only sacrifice
that will put away our sin, because he's the only one who had no
sin. Since the Lord Jesus had no sin of his own, that made
him able to take your sin and my sin, the sin of his people,
and take it into his own precious body on the tree. He had no sin
of his own, so he could take the sin of his people. If he
had sin of his own, he couldn't be a sacrifice for us, could
he? But he had no sin of his own, so he could take the sin
of his people away from them and make it his and put it away
by his sacrifice, by his body being broken, his blood being
shed. Even the lambs that they used as pictures of Christ that
they used in sacrifices, they had to be perfect. They couldn't
have any visible spot or any blemish. As far as the human
eye could see, you'd have to examine that lamb and look and
make sure that lamb has no visible blemishes, no visible damage
to it. To be a picture of Christ, He's
perfect. They took that Passover lamb at the beginning of the
week and they set it up and they watched it for days and days
and days to make sure that that lamb was perfect. They're not
going to offer a lamb to God that, you know, has got three
legs or got one eye or, you know, got kidney disease and is dying
already. Well, we'll just, it's dying already, so we'll just
kill it and offer it to the Lord. No, the lamb had to be perfect. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ,
when John the Baptist identified him, how did he identify him?
Behold the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the lamb of God was examined. He was examined
by men, and he was examined by his father. When it came time
to chief priest that they wanted to condemn him, you know what
they had to do? They had to find witnesses who would lie. Even
the chief priest who were trying to condemn him knew, this man's
innocent. We've got to pay somebody to
lie if we're going to condemn him. The chief priest even knew
he was innocent. Pilate examined him. Pilate said, I find no fault
in him. Matthew recorded this. The Roman
centurion who was there, I guess in charge of the crucifixion,
who watched the Savior die. When he died, he saw the earthquake
and the sun had gone out and all the things that happened.
This is the conclusion the centurion came to. Truly, this man was
the son of God. Luke said that the centurion
said, certainly this was a righteous man. Men examined the Lord Jesus
and found him to be faultless, didn't they? perfectly righteous.
Well, men can only see so far. Well, the father examined him
too. The father who sees everything examined his son in the flesh. And this is what he had to say
about him. This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. I'm well pleased for his righteousness
sake. I'm well pleased for his perfection. I'm well pleased in who he is.
The father examined him and found him to be faultless. Now this
man is false. Then why did he die? He had no
sin. Why did he die? If you don't
have any sin, you cannot die. It's sin that causes death, isn't
it? Well, the only way the Lord Jesus could die under the wrath
of his father is if he was truly made sin for his people. If the
Savior was not truly made sin, if God was just acting like it,
but wasn't truly made sin, The father put an innocent man to
death at Calvary. Now I know he didn't do that,
because that wouldn't be just. And everything God does is just.
If the Savior was not truly made sin, if the sin of his people
was not taken away from them and actually made his and put
on him, then our sin is still on us. And it's not being put
away. And we have no hope of salvation.
So we better hope he was made sin for us. And when he was made
sin, the father put him to death in justice. And that's what the
broken bread represents. Right now, the bread is in solid
pieces. In a few minutes, the man will
come up and the quiet of this room, you'll hear him breaking
it. That's his body broken for us. And they're going to hand
out the bread. You're gonna ask God's blessing
on it. You're gonna take it and put it in your mouth and you're
gonna chew it up. And you're gonna hear that bread being ground. That's the Savior's body being
ground under the wheel of God's justice. Being ground to powder
because he's taking the punishment that his people deserve. He's
standing as a substitute for his people. And how his precious
body was broken as he suffered for his people. His body was
broken. When he gave his back to those
who would lacerate his back with that cat-of-nine-tails, they'd
rake that thing across his back and rip skin and flesh off his
back and just fling it over here to the wall, you know. His body
was broken. He gave his face to the smiters.
He didn't hide his face. He gave his face to the smiters.
Then he repeatedly buffeted him, punched him in the face. His
body was broken when he gave his face to those that would
pluck out his beard when they pulled out that beard. It wasn't
just hair that came out. Flesh came out with it. His body
was broken and torn. His body was broken when he bowed
his head to be coronated with a crown of thorns that was shoved
into his scalp. And his body was broken. His
precious body was broken. He laid down willingly. upon
that cross and they drove railroad spikes through his hands and
through his feet. His body was broken. They picked
that cross up, dropped it down into a hole prepared for him.
His body jarred. Those nail holes tore. Tore and
his body was broken. And you know, all of this was
done by the will and purpose of the Savior himself. Now I
know wicked men did everything their evil hearts desired to
do. But in doing their evil desires, you know what they did? They
fulfilled the will of the very one they were hanging on that
middle tree. That's exactly what they did. The cross is an act
of God. And our Lord demonstrated that
in the way he instituted the first Lord's table. It says here
in verse 26, as they were eating, Jesus took the bread. He blessed
the bread. He break the bread and he gave
the bread to his disciples. The Lord did all that didn't
he? The Lord took the bread. He took on him flesh so that
he'd have a body to be sacrificed. God is spirit. Spirit can't be
sacrificed for the likes of you and me. Somebody has got to be
in our flesh, in our nature. The Lord Jesus took on him the
nature and the flesh of creature so that he'd have a body to be
sacrificed. and he's the one who broke the
bread. He suffered willingly. He gave himself to be sacrificed.
He wasn't hiding. That mob came out there and he
came out and said, you see? I mean, he said, he wasn't hiding.
He suffered everything his law, his own law, his own justice
demands so that his people would be redeemed. He broke the bread
and he blessed the bread and he gave it to the disciples.
Now that word blessed, it means what you think it means. It means
to ask God to bless a thing. But it also means this. It means
to praise a thing. To praise a thing. The Lord takes
the bread, he takes himself, and he gives himself to his people.
And you know how he does it? By praising himself through the
preaching of the gospel. By taking the fumbling, stumbling
words of a sinful man, sinful lips and a sinful tongue, and
praising himself through the preaching of the gospel and asking
his father to bless him and to give life to his child. And that
request is granted by the father every time because the father
is well pleased with the sacrifice of his son. So in a few moments
when we take this bread, this is what we're saying. All of
my hope of salvation is in the sinless life of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He lived the life. He did what
I cannot do. He kept the law for me. He is
perfectly sinless. And when the time came, he gave
his body to be broken as a sacrifice for my sin. When his body was
broken, when he was punished, he was taking what I deserve.
And since he took what I deserve, I'll never suffer. That's my
hope of salvation. We take the bread. That's what
we're saying. All right. The other element that was on
the table is the wine. Verse 27 and he took the cup
and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, drink all of it
for this is my blood of the new Testament, which is shed for
many for the remission of sins. Now the only proper way to observe
the Lord's table and to remember the savior is by drinking wine.
And I just point that out because you're going to run across people
that, uh, that just think it's wrong to drink wine at the Lord's
table and they use grape juice. And it just can't be done. It
can't be. Grape juice has yeast in it. Has leaven in it. The picture
of sin has it in it. Through the process of fermentation,
the grape juice becomes wine. The leaven comes out of it. The
yeast is taken out of it. You know, people say, well, you
know, the Lord wouldn't drink wine. Really? They say that like, you know,
the wine is evil in itself. You know, that makes you evil
and the Lord wouldn't drink wine. The people of that day called
the Lord a wine bibber. They said he drank wine. Everybody
knew he drank wine. Everybody did. They also say,
well, no, you know, the wine they drank then is lower alcohol
content than we have today. And, you know, so we shouldn't
drink this alcohol, higher alcohol content wine. They say that again,
like the sins in alcohol. Brethren, sin is not what we
eat and what we drink. Sin's what we are, what we are. Oh my goodness, I don't know
the higher alcohol content or not, but that doesn't matter.
The Lord was drinking wine at the Lord's table, and with the
leaven taken out of the grape juice, and that's the only way
we can picture the pure, sinless blood of Christ, is by wine. And that's what the wine pictures.
And besides all that, Besides all that, there's something far
more important. Maybe I should have started here. The Lord says
here he took wine. And what did the Lord say? This
do in remembrance of me. He didn't say, now, take what
you want to do in remembrance of me. He didn't. He said, don't
change. You're free to change what I'm
telling you. This is just a suggestion. He said, this do, this do in
remembrance of me. And that's what we'll do. We'll
take this wine as a picture of Christ's blood, which put away
the sin of God's people. And there is redemption in this
blood that the wine represents. There's redemption in the blood
of Christ. And the only place there's any
redemption to be found is in the blood of Christ. Let me give
you a few things about the blood that I see here in just this
one verse. There is redemption in this blood. First of all,
it's the blood of God. And we're not playing games here.
We're not just tinkering with things. This is the blood of
God. The savior said, it's my blood. Well, who is he? He's the son of God. He's the
God man. This is the blood of God. This
blood is going to be shed on purpose. And whatever the purpose
is, it's going to be accomplished in it. It's the blood of God. It can't fail to accomplish its
purpose. Second, this blood is the blood of the New Testament,
the new covenant. Now, the old covenant was the
law, and nobody was ever saved by that law because we can't
keep it. Nobody could ever make themselves righteous by keeping
that law because we can't do it. But the new covenant, there's
blood of the new covenant. Aren't you glad you're not just
left up to how well you can keep the law? We'd all be damned.
The Savior says there's a new covenant. But you know what? This new covenant is really the
old covenant. It's the eternal covenant of God's grace. It's
eternal. It's just newly revealed to men,
but it's God's eternal purpose. And that covenant of grace, God's
eternal purpose and covenant of grace is ratified and sealed
by the precious blood of Christ. The blood of Christ paid the
debt, the sin debt for all of God's people. It put away the
sin of all of God's people and that blood made it right for
God to be gracious to his people. Because the blood took away the
sin that made God angry. This is the blood of the new
covenant, the covenant of grace. Thirdly, it's sin atoning, redeeming,
saving blood. The Lord said, this is my blood,
which is shed for the remission of sins. He wasn't trying to
put away sin, it's shed for the remission of sins. It is the
blood of Christ, Jesus Christ, God's son, that fully cleanses
us, fully and completely cleanses us from all sin. So that the
guilt of it's gone, the stain of it's gone, the debt of it's
gone, it's gone under the blood of Christ. He fully paid the
debt. And since the blood of God paid
the debt, there is remission. They can never perish. Whoever
it is Christ died for, whoever it is he shed his blood for can
never perish because there can't be death where there's no sin,
can there? And the blood of Christ took away the sin of God's people.
Let me show you that in Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. Savior is going to the cross.
He said, this, this is a picture of my blood, which is shed for
the remission of sins. All right. That's what he said.
Did he get the job done? Listen to what the writer of Hebrews
says after the fact. Hebrews 10 verse 16. This is the covenant. This is
that new covenant. The covenant I will make with
them after those days, saith the Lord. I'll put my laws into
their hearts. In their minds will I write them.
And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Why won't he remember them? Because
there's remission. Verse 18. Now where remission
of these is, there's no more offering for sin. Christ offered
his blood as a remission for the sins of his people and he
put their sin away. And the covenant of grace was
ratified. Fourth, the blood of Christ is successful blood. You notice the way the Savior
said this, this is my blood which is shed for many. He didn't say
it's shed for all. He didn't say it's shed for everybody
and they might still perish anyway. This is my blood shed for many,
many. Well, who are the many? They're
God's elect. Whoever it is that Christ shed
his blood for, he put their sin away. And you know how I know
that? Go back to the first point about the blood. He said, it's
my blood. It's the blood of God. He put the sin of his people
away and they are eternally redeemed. And we take this wine, the men
are gonna distribute it in just a minute, we take the wine, this
is what we're publicly confessing. I am such a vile sinner. The
only way my sin could be put away is by the blood of God. He had to shed his blood to put
away my sin. When I take this wine, this is
why I'm saying, I trust the blood of Christ as the only way My
sin could be paid. It's the only way. I've got no
other option. I've got, I've got no other hope
and I don't want one. The only hope I want before God
that my sin has been paid for is what this wine represents.
It's the blood of Christ. I trust his blood so fully. I trust him so fully. I know
his blood sufficient so that I don't want option B. He's all I want. All right, that's
the blood. Now thirdly, the people at the
table. I think this would be a blessing. I just enjoyed this
so much. You know, when we come here,
we don't put any restrictions whatsoever upon the Lord's table.
You know, in order to take this bread, this wine, you don't have
to be a member in good standing. You don't have to get the seal
of approval of the elders. Like, hold out, you know, am
I going to give them the bread and the wine? Do they pass my
seal of approval? No, we don't do that. We put
no fences around the Lord's table whatsoever. It's not our table.
It's the Lord's table. Here's the thing about the Lord's
table. If you're going to take it, you have to be a believer.
You have to trust Christ. If you trust Christ, this table
is for you. The table is for believers, and
you decide that for yourself. We're not going to decide it
for you. Paul said, let a man examine himself, and so let him
eat of this bread and drink of that cup. You examine yourself.
That's up to you. That's between you and God. And
you know, the Lord showed us that when he served the first
Lord's table. The Lord himself served the table,
didn't he? He broke the bread. He distributed. He took the wine.
He distributed it. He distributed it to the 12.
He knew full well Judas was there. He knew Judas was gonna be trained.
He said so immediately before he instituted this table. He
knew Judas was there. He knew Judas was a reprobate.
And when he served the table, he allowed Judas to eat it. Let
a man examine himself, and so let him eat. Now, I would warn
you, this is what scripture says. Don't drink, eat and drink this
table unworthily. And unworthily simply means this.
You don't have to be worthy and be good enough and have no sin
in your life. That's not what it means. Unworthily means this. Don't eat this without faith
in Christ. The only thing that makes a sinner worthy to eat
this table is I trust Christ. I trust him to be my savior.
And we're not going to decide that for you. We don't put any
fences around this. That's between you and God. If
you believe Christ, you partake of this table as four believers. Here's something else I think
will be a real blessing to you, was to me. The Lord's Table is
for believers, isn't it? Bless our hearts. You don't have to be a perfect
believer to eat this table. You don't have to have perfect,
unwavering faith to eat this table. You don't have to look
and say, oh, there's sin in my life, so I can't eat this table.
If that was the case, we'd never eat it. There's always sin in
our life. You don't have to be perfect. The Lord served this
first Lord's table to 11 believers. There was one reprobate, there
was 11 believers. That very night, one of them
is gonna deny he even knows the man. And the other 10 are gonna
run away from him and forsake him. And he served him the table It
was weak faith, wasn't it? But the master himself served
them the table. And you know why? You know why
they were still worthy to eat this table? Because their sin
is forgiven by the sacrifice he's getting ready to offer that's
pictured by this table. So when we take this bread and
this wine, we're not saying, I've got perfect faith. We're
confessing, I'm just like those 11. I'm just exactly like them. I don't know about you, but boy,
I sure identify with old Peter. And I don't know about how much
I identify with John. He seems like a pretty good fellow
to me. But I identify with Peter, don't you? I'm taking this table
and I'm saying, I'm just like those 11. I don't have perfect
faith. There's plenty of sin in my life.
What faith I have is not strong. It's unwavering. But I do trust
Christ. I mean, the Lord could ask Peter,
Peter, do you love me? and the other ten were looking at Dad
saying, I'm not so sure if he does or not. Peter could say, Lord,
you know all things. You know I love you. People might watch me and say,
I don't know, that doesn't look like a lot of faith to me. I
eat this table and say, Lord, you know all things. You know
I trust you. You know the only hope I have
is your son. I don't even want to talk about
my faith because it's not worth mentioning. But my sin and my
weakness is forgiven by what this table represents, the sacrifice
of Christ. And he is worth talking about,
isn't he? He's worth remembering. He is
worth celebrating. And that's what we do when we
take this table. All right, Wayne, if you would, you may distribute
the bread. The Apostle Paul writes in 1
Corinthians chapter 11. For I received of the Lord that
which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same
night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he'd given
thanks, he'd break it and said, take, eat. This is my body, which
is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. Eric, would you give thanks for
the bread? Our God is in all of us. Thank you
for this opportunity to gather around and thank you. Look, how we thank you for our
Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus, you have paid sin
for us. You might have made a very unjustly
and godly thing. We thank you for that. Forgiveness
of sin. Thank you for salvation. We come in thankful for you and
pray that you bless this land. Bless us and take us to face all of our hope, all of
our righteousness. The West is very pretty. The apostle continues, he says,
after the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped,
saying, this cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do ye as often
as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat
this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death
till he come. Wayne, would you give thanks
for the blood? Greatness to the places that
you live, the earth, your day. Mindfulness to your work, the
moral workings, the harm workings, for you, what they've done. I can feel the pressure, what
he's doing, what you're doing, to you. Mindfulness. You can see the
blood. That's fine. Mindfulness. He proceeds to cross
the line. The city that put out us has
replaced it with a new agenda. It doesn't work the way we want
it to work. So, we need to keep on trying
to correct this. We'll have to deal with a lot
of things, but it's up to the city. It says here, after they observed
the first Lord's Well, they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount
of Olives. So I said, let's do that. We won't go to the Mount
of Olives, but we'll sing a hymn and go out, OK?