Thankful tonight to see this
good group who've come back to worship the Lord and to observe
the Lord's Supper. If you will, open your Bibles
with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. About all I'm going to be able
to do tonight is to read these notes from a message I preached
from this passage several years ago. And I pray the Lord will
bless his word to all of us, but reading verses 23 through
26, 1 Corinthians 11. For I have 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 had given
thanks, he break 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 when he had supped, saying, this cup is the New Testament. In my blood, this do ye, as oft
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. I call our attention, first of
all, tonight to the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ said two
times as he gave this ordinance to the Apostle Paul, The Lord
Jesus Christ two times said, do in remembrance of me. Notice at the end of verse 24,
this do in remembrance of me. And also at the end of verse
25, in remembrance of me. So the first thing that we realize
tonight is what we're doing here or what we desire to do is in
remembrance of Christ, in remembrance of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
we see that this is a very important part of rightly obeying our Lord's
command to remember Him. It's possible to go through this
ordinance and be very precise in every point, and yet not to
do it in remembrance of Christ. We've got to call our attention
to this fact. We would not think of having
a leavened bread because we know in the scriptures most of the
time, if not always, leaven pictures sin. And we know the Lord Jesus
Christ, this bread pictures his body, which was broken for us.
We know that he had no sin of his own. And then we also would
want to use red wine. You might think it's strange,
but there was a time in church history when there was a great
controversy over the color of the wine, if it should be white
wine or red wine. And of course, I come down on
red wine simply because it seems like blood is crimson or red. And we certainly would not like
to consider this in any way as a sacrifice. This is not an unbloody
sacrifice as some people teach. Because that denies the truth. that the Lord Jesus Christ, by
one sacrifice, by one offering, hath perfected forever them that
are saved. By his one sacrifice, which he
offered unto the Father there on the cross now over 2,000 years
ago, by that one sacrifice, he put away all the sins of his
chosen people. Those that the Father gave him,
and that eternal covenant of grace. What am I saying? I'm saying that we desire to
do this according to the scripture, but we must not overlook this
important point. Do this in remembrance of me. Most of us here tonight, if not
all of us, We have some loved one that has passed over the
river of death that we remember, a mother, a father, grandparents,
children. And part of our remembrance of
them is their images, their physical characteristics that are still
in our mind. But we cannot remember Christ
in this way because we have never seen him. We have never seen
him. I heard this story. I thought
it was cute. The other day, first grade teacher
told her students to put all the crayons up and the paper
up. And one young boy, he was just working over there with
his crayon. She went over to him and she
said, Johnny, I asked you to put up your crayons. He said,
but I'm not finished. And she asked him, she said,
but what are you drawing? He said, I'm drawing God. She
said, oh, but no one has ever seen God. He said, I'm not finished
yet. I thought that was cute. I'm not
finished yet. But no man has seen God at any
time in the scriptures. We have seen God, those who have
seen Christ, but turn with me back to John chapter 20. John chapter 20 and beginning
with verse 20. And when he had so said, that
is the Lord Jesus Christ appeared, The resurrected Christ appeared
unto his disciples. He showed unto them his hands
and his side. Then were the disciples glad
when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them, again,
peace be unto you. As my father has sent me, even
so send I you. And when he had said this, he
breathed on them and saith unto them, receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whosoever sins you remit, they
are remitted unto them. You might ask, now what does
that mean? Whosoever sins you remit, they
are remitted unto them. They were sent out to preach
the gospel. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and your sins are
remitted. That's a declaration, right? Men do not have the power to
forgive sin, only God can forgive sin, but men do preach the gospel
and the message is believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and your sins are put away. But Thomas, one of the 12 called
Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples
therefore said unto him, we have seen the Lord. But he said unto
them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails,
put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand
into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days again, his
disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Then came Jesus, the
doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be
unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach
hither thy finger, and behold thy hands, my hands, and reach
hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless,
but believing. And Thomas answered and said
unto him, My Lord and my God, Jesus saith unto him, Thomas,
because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they
that have not seen, and yet have believed. That's you. That's
me. Blessed. You've never seen the
Lord Jesus Christ with these physical eyes, but only with
the eye of faith, and yet the Lord pronounced a blessing. The Apostle Peter wrote his epistle
to those like us who had never seen him in the flesh, and he
said, whom having not seen, you love, and whom, though now you
seem not yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full
of glory. So what I'm saying is we cannot,
he said, do this in remembrance of me, but we cannot remember
Christ Like we can remember others that we have known, we remember
their characteristics, the way they look. How then may we remember
Him? Well, we may remember Him by
remembering certain things that we know about Him. And I'm just
going to mention four things this evening. Let us think of
these things as we remember Christ. First, let us remember His willingness,
His willingness, His delight to be our Savior. His delight
to be our Savior. That passage in Proverbs chapter
eight speaks of Him and His eternal state and tells us His delight
was with the sons of men. Yes, He delighted to be our Savior. in the everlasting covenant.
It was agreed that a savior would be provided for God's chosen
people. God would magnify his love, his
grace, and his mercy in providing a savior for fallen sons of Adam. And we read often that the father
sent the son, but just as often we remember that the son came
willingly. He delighted to come. He said,
lo, I come to do thy will, O God. In the volume of the book it
is written of me. I come to do thy will, O God. We know that it was a great condescension
on the part of the eternal Son of God to be made flesh. We read about that in Philippians
chapter two, a passage that Reminds us of our savior and his condescension
and coming into this world as a man. Philippians chapter two,
beginning with verse five. Let this mind be in you, which
was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought
it not robbery to be equal with God. but made himself of no reputation,
took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness
of men." In Romans chapter 8, it speaks about the fact that
he was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. He looked like
other men, didn't he? Other sinful men, but we know
he had no sin of his own. And being found in fashion as
a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. We see there's passages of scripture
which reveal unto us his anxiousness to do this work which the Father
had given him to do. In one passage in Luke chapter
12, we read, he said, I have a baptism to be baptized with,
and how am I straightened till it be accomplished? And by that
word straightened, how am I straightened till it be accomplished? That
word straightened there means his eager desire to finish the
work which the Father gave him to do. That's what I want us
to remember tonight, especially as we eat the bread and drink
the cup, His willingness to be our Savior, to be my Savior,
your Savior. Second, let us remember His love,
His love for us. This memorial service or supper
is all about His death, His body being broken, His blood being
poured out on the tree. what was his death, but the greatest,
the greatest demonstration of love. The greatest demonstration
of love. Someone said one time that the
Lord's hands extended out upon the cross is saying, God's saying,
I love you. I love you. The greatest demonstration
of love, the Lord Jesus Christ dying. The father, first of all, in
giving his son and then his son in giving himself. I always liked
that law in Exodus chapter 21 that spoke about the Hebrew slave
or the Hebrew servant. He could only serve for six years. In the seventh year, he was to
be turned out free. But if he desired, he could remain
a slave. He could remain a servant. And
they would bore his ear with an awl. And in doing that, every
time everyone saw him, they could say, that man loves his master. That man loves his wife. That
man loves his children. And when we think about the marks
in the hands and the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's
what they say to us. The Lord Jesus loves his father,
first of all, and his bride. He loved his bride. She was given
unto him, espoused unto him in eternity, but then she fell.
She fell in Adam. But his love followed her. His love did not cease. Having
loved his own, he loved them unto the end. Let's remember
his love. Third, let's remember his untold agony. That's a phrase that's used in
some of the Greek liturgy. His untold agony. In other words,
his agony that man does not have the capacity to even tell. What he experienced there as
he was made to be sin for his people. You know that Psalm 110 speaks
about him drinking of the brook in the way. The brook Kidron. He crossed over that brook that
night with his disciples as they went into the Garden of Gethsemane. And that brook, it was like a
cesspool. It cleansed all the filth of
the temple sacrifices, the blood and every gore and all of that
was washed out. of Jerusalem in that temple,
in that brook, Kidron. It was called the Black Brook.
He passed over that brook. But the psalmist said he drank
of that brook, his untold agony, and taking the impurities. That's
what that brook carried. It carried all the impurities,
the filth, out of Jerusalem. You ever think of the filth,
your filth? The sins that you'd be so, so
ashamed tonight if anyone in this room knew what you know
and what God knows. Filth. But he took that filth
in his own body on the tree. The untold purity of his person,
what agony that was. And the last thing, let us remember
his accomplishment, his success in saving us. He willingly came,
he loved us to the death of the cross, he suffered untold agony,
and he accomplished our redemption. There's not one sin, think about
this, there's not one sin that the justice of God can charge
you with tonight. If you're one of his children,
there's not one of the many millions Yea, billions of sin that we
are all probably guilty of. There's not one sin that God's
holy justice can charge you with. Why? Because he paid that debt. Yes, let's remember. Micah speaks
of our sins, the prophet Micah, as though they're cast into the
depths of the sea. I know how old these notes are
because of what I have written down here. I cannot help but think of the
search for that airliner in the Indian Ocean. You remember that? How long has that been? Five
years? And they've never found it, have
they? Never found it. But my point is, they'll find
that airliner, before one of God's people's sins will ever
be found, because he put them away. Thank God they're gone. They're
gone. I'm going to ask the men, if
they will, now to come.