Come back to Luke chapter 22. Luke 22. I just want to say a few things
tonight concerning the Lord's table.
I tried to put these notes down today between phone calls and
interruptions. I was telling these men, it looks
like I've sold the business. I've had phone calls and back
and forth and my mind has been, you wouldn't believe how scattered
my mind has been in the last really two weeks over this. But
I'm going to go visit a lawyer Friday and we're going to write
up the agreement. It just looks like the Lord has
opened the door for me to continue on doing this. But let me give
you some things that I thought of today. We don't need to say
a whole lot, do we? Our Lord kept it simple. Why
do we have to strive to keep it simple? I thought we have
to really strive to keep things simple, don't we? I titled this message, Remembering
Christ. Remembering Christ. He said,
This do in remembrance of me. And what he's saying is, take
the bread, the broken bread, which represents his broken body,
and eat it. Take the wine that's poured forth,
that represents his blood, and drink it. In one place he says,
all of it. Eat all of it. We're not going
to sip it, and sip it tastes good. We're not going to just
take a taste of the bread and see how it tastes. No, we're
going to receive all of it just as we receive Christ. You know,
we don't taste Christ. We don't just take a taste or
a sample. No, we receive Him by faith. And we receive all
of Him. All of Him. And note the simplicity
of this ordinance. Notice how simple this is. Notice
how simple it's set up. No ceremony, no fanfare. There's
no one dressed in a robe standing up here waiting for everyone
to get in line and come and kneel. So simple. Our Lord just kept
these things simple. And the elements are so simple.
Bread and wine. He says, do this, just as I have
showed you. Nothing more, nothing less. Don't dress it up. Just keep
it simple. Just do as I've shown you. Just
do it. Just take the broken bread and
the wine as I've shown you. Now what are we to do here tonight? We are to remember Him. Remember Him. Now there are many
things that cause us to remember Our Lord. Many memorials out
there to Him. Creation. The heavens declare
the glory of God and the firmament show us His handiwork. Day unto
day utter His speech. Night unto night show us knowledge.
Knowledge of Him. Providence. To the child of God,
everything that went on today was providential. And there are
some things, just like this situation with me right now, this business.
I was telling Jeremy just yesterday, or day before yesterday, I said,
my, how providential. Well, everything's providential.
But some things just make you just remember Him. Make you think
upon Him. It can only happen because of
Him. It's the only way it can be happening. Then reading His
Word. The Bible is a book about Jesus
Christ. It's all about Him. It's His
Word. It's His Word. And then this worship service.
The preaching of the Word. makes us remember Him. But this, this is the ultimate
right here. This is the pinnacle. We observe
the bread and the wine in remembering Him. Now we do remember Him first
in His goodness. It's the goodness of God that
what? Leadeth thee to repentance. It's
the goodness of God that led us to repentance. We remember
Him in His power. It is by His power that we have
life. He's commanded life. It's by
His power that we believe on Him. It's by His power that we
have a new nature. It's by His power that we can
even call upon Him. Then we remember Him in His sovereign
reign. It's the Lord. He reigns over
all things. This day our Lord reigns as all
other days. and all days to come. He reigns
over everything that lives, moves, and has its being. We remember
Him. We remember Him and His righteousness.
His righteousness is our righteousness. We have a righteousness of God
that's of God. It's of God. We remember Him
as all our hope. But this, this, when we take
the broken bread and the wine forward and forth, is remembering
Him who is our substitute, who substituted Himself in our place. He took the wrath of God. He
took my hell. He took a hell that I would have
had and deserved, rightly deserved. And He's the only one who could
do it and satisfy God's justice. You know why hell is eternal?
Because we can't satisfy justice. But He did. He did by His obedience,
by His death. He did. Oh, this here is the
pinnacle. This is the ultimate in remembering
Him. When we look at the bread and the wine, we remember His
incarnation. He said, a body hast thou prepared
me. This is God manifested in the
flesh. Not this literal stuff here, not this, but you know,
when he assumed a human body, that's God. That man is God in
human flesh. God hung on that cross. I mean, we can't comprehend that,
but God Almighty hung on that cross. God Almighty gave his
life for us. It says over in Book of Acts
that the blood of God was shed for us. There in the book of
Acts, over in chapter 20, I believe it. I believe it is. Great is
the mystery of godliness. God manifested in the flesh. God was manifested in the flesh.
God was revealed in the flesh. You want to know who God is?
What He's like? Find out who Jesus Christ is.
Find out who He is. And you'll find out who God is. We are called upon here tonight
to remember, listen, And this is so important. We are called
upon to remember a person. Remember me. As often as you
do this in remembrance of me. This is not a remembrance of
a doctrine. It's not a remembrance of His benefits. It's not a remembrance
of miracles. It's a remembrance of the person
who died. The Lord Jesus Christ. The Promised Messiah. The Son
of the Living God. God. That's who we're called
upon to remember. This is not a ceremony. This
is not a ceremony. It's a remembrance. It's a remembrance. It's not a funeral. Not a funeral. It's a remembrance of, listen,
it's a remembrance of a living person. This doing remembrance
of me. This is a remembrance of a person
who died and rose again and seated at God's right hand. It's a remembrance
of Him. We do not mourn over His death. I'm glad He died. I'm glad the
Son of God came into this world, took upon Him bone of our bone,
flesh of our flesh, went to the cross and died under the wrath
of God, took my curse. I'm glad He did it. If not, we'd all perish. I'm
glad he did it. We remember him as our substitute. He's the one who took our place.
He got what we deserved. And you know what? We are getting
what he deserves. One day when we stand in glory,
heirs of the kingdom of God, heirs of Christ, we are going
to get exactly what he deserves. Exactly. Now why are we commanded
to remember Him? It's sad, but we are so prone
to forget. So prone to forget. We get too
busy with the vanities of life. And that's what they are. Vanities
of life. We get so busy with them. So
caught up with them. We are so prone to forget Him. Or we can go through the service.
We can go through this service and not remember Him. Why are we commanded to remember
Him? Because you can't worship someone you don't remember. If
you can't remember Him, you can't worship Him. If you can't remember
Him, then don't take it. This is remember me. And you
have to know Him to remember Him. And here's another reason
that we are commanded to do this. It keeps everything in balance.
I don't know anything that will keep things in their proper perspective
than remembering Christ. It keeps everything in balance. I cannot emphasize enough tonight
just this. Remember me. Remember me. You think we could forget him?
Look over in Revelation chapter 2. Revelation chapter 2. Look in verse 1. Listen to this. Unto the angel
of the church of Ephesus write, These things saith he that holdeth
the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst
of the seven golden candlesticks, I know thy works, and thy labor,
and thy patience. and hast thou canst not bear
them which are evil, and thou hast tried them which say they
are apostles and are not, and hast found them liars, and hast
borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured,
and hast not fainted." Doesn't that sound good? Doesn't that
sound good? I have somewhat against thee,
because thou hast left thy first love." Isn't that amazing? You
wouldn't have thought that. I guarantee if you saw that church,
you wouldn't have believed that. I mean, you wouldn't have recognized
that. But our Lord did. He recognized.
He knew where the heart was at. He looks on the heart. I thought,
I do not want to become so religious and so caught up in religious
activities that I forget Him. I don't want to forget him. Now, our Lord says this bread
represents his broken body, and the wine represents his blood. And he says here, back over here
in Luke, he says it represents, in verse 20, likewise also the
cup after supper, saying this cup is the New Testament in my
blood. Now, let's read it like this.
This cup is the New Covenant. The New Covenant. When was that
established? When was that New Covenant established? I'll tell you when it was established.
Before the world was. This is the blood of the New
Covenant. It was established before the
world was. His blood has always been before
the Lord. God the Father saw the blood.
He said, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. He saw the
blood before you and I ever heard of it. When I see the blood,
I will pass over you. He said, and this is the blood.
This is the blood of the new covenant, of that New Testament. Now, who are to take, who are
to partake of this bread and wine? All who believe. All who believe. That's the only
fence around it. Do you believe? Do you remember Him? Listen, it's the Lord's table.
And He invites all His children to it. Now, let's remember this. It's the Lord's table. It's not
ours. This is not our table. It's the
Lord's table. I read to you in Exodus chapter
12. It was called what? The Lord's
Passover. But now you go over into the
New Testament and you know what it became? The Jews' Passover. It totally lost its meaning. It became the Jews' ceremony.
It became the Jews' religious service. This is the Lord's table,
and it always will be, and He's the host. He's the host. It's the Lord's table. He invites all who believe, all
His children, to come and take and eat. It's not those who are
good enough to do it. I don't feel good enough. I don't
feel worthy. I don't feel worthy to take it.
Well, if you ever do, don't take it. If you ever feel worthy to
take this, don't do it. Forget it. It's for sinners. It's for the ungodly. It's for
those who need mercy. This table is for those who are
helpless and hopeless, and their only hope is Christ. That's all
we want to do. And there's nothing saving in
these elements. That's why he said, remember
me. Remember me. He's the savior. He's the substitute. He's our all in all. We're not
going to parade around here and bow down on a knee and let me
put a wafer on your tongue as though there was something significant
to that or saving in that. There's not. The saving power is in the one
that represents the Lord Jesus Christ. Now how often, how often
are we to do this? As often as you do this. He didn't
give us a particular day, time, year like he did back over in
Exodus. He didn't give us that time. And here's one of the reasons
I believe he did not do that. If He gave us a particular day,
time of the year to do this, we'd make a ceremony out of it.
We'd make a ceremony out of it. But He didn't do it. He said,
as often as you do this, do it when you do it in remembrance
of Me. And what do we show by doing
this? His death. We show forth the Lord's death
till what? Till He comes. Christ crucified is our message. Christ crucified is our hope.
And we'll hold that forth until He comes. Until He comes. My death, my death wouldn't accomplish
anything. See, He said, you show forth
my death. It's what it shows forth through
His death. And I thought this today. My
death wouldn't accomplish anything. Not anything. It wouldn't satisfy
anything. But his death did. His death
satisfied justice. His death is the only death of
all the deaths that have gone on in this world. How many people
have died? How many billions and billions
have died? There's only one death worth showing forth. His. His death is the only death that
ever accomplished salvation. His death. You do show forth
the Lord's death until He comes. I'll tell you what else it shows.
I'll close here. It also shows faith. We take this by faith. This represents
His broken body and shed blood. This represents the one whom
we believe. This represents the one whom
we follow. This represents the one whom
we worship. It's an act of faith. It's an
act of faith. We believe that Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, became incarnate, died, rose, ascended back to
the Father. And there is right now, there's
a man in glory, a real man, seated at God's right hand, making intercession
for us. He's not dead. He's alive. But
this shows forth his death, his substitutionary work, until he
comes. And he says now, remember me.
Remember me. All right, now we'll have the
Lord's table.