Proclaiming the Lord's Death (Commuion)

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PROCLAIMING THE LORD’S DEATH  (Communion)

TEXT   - 1 Corinthians 11:26-26 "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes."

OPEN   If we are not careful, the Lord’s sacrifice on the cross, and his order for us to proclaim His death, means very little to us.  Some folks are really “in the dark” about the meaning Lord’s Supper.  * (Christian Reader shares a light hearted illustration) During a game of Bible Trivia, Beverly Paul asked her eight-year-old daughter, “What is another name for the Lord’s Supper?” She thought real hard then replied, “Pot luck!”

In partaking of the Lord’s Supper, the born-again believer proclaims several great Bible truths. Let’s look at three of these important truths.

I. THE NECESSITY OF THE LORD’S DEATH  (Why did He have to die?)

1. Because all have sinned: "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Romans
3:23  Q:  What is the one thing that keeps everyone from being like God? Sin. 

* A conscientious Bible teacher was trying to teach his class of small children about the nature of sin. He hit a snag when he started telling them we are all born in sin. One little girl gave him a puzzled look, then said very seriously, “I wasn’t born in sin. I was born in November.”  Christian Reader

*  Everything that used to be a sin is now a disease.  -Bill Maher 

I flipped by the Oprah show the other day.  She’s really messed up with out Dr. Phil’s plan talking form of “in your face” psychology.  She had some quack New Age psych shrink on there.  You know the type, She tells this drug addict that she isn’t a bad person, she just has a genetic disposition that caused her “Sickness”.  I could tell, Oprah had been hanging around Dr. Phil… she asked, “Why does everybody’s problem and stupid choices they make in life have to be a sickness?” 

YOU’LL NEVER GET HEALING AND HELP FROM YOUR PROBLEMS UNTIL YOU ADMIT TWO THINGS:  “GOD IS GOOD, I AM BAD.”  God’s way are always higher than my ways.  The Self Esteem have part of the truth right, You and I are genetically dispositioned to do bad things.  Paul said, “There is no good thing about me”.  This IMMOVABLE TRUTH FLYS IN THE FACE OF TODAY’S SELF ESTEEM MUMBO JUMBO THAT IS BEING TAUGHT EVERYWHERE WE GO. 

2. Sin’s deadly wages: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23.  Ever heard these:  Cheaters never win.  Crime doesn’t pay.  Sin may give you pleasure for a little short season, but eventually it leads to death.  CHRISTIAN – DON’T EVER THINK YOU CAN CHEAT GOD AND GET AWAY WITH IT.  IF YOU KNOW TO DO GOOD AND YOU DON’T DO IT, TO YOU THAT’S A SIN… YOU HAVE MISSED THE MARK!  Sin is more than just gross, ugly immoralities.  It can also be, ignoring God’s will.  Neglect.  Idleness, etc.  It all leads you into a trap of destruction, poverty, cursing, and disobedience of the perfect will of Christ.  It is Satanic. 

Sin takes us farther than we want to go, costs more than we want to pay, and keeps us longer than we want to stay.  Satan comes to take our life, and to make our life less abundant.  He comes to kill, steal and to destroy. 

3. The only remedy for sin: "And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." Hebrews 9:22.  Notice the Bible says that a blood sacrifice “ALMOST” purifies all things.  Heaven requires a better sacrifice for sin than we do down here on earth.  (In the O.T. they offered, the blood of bulls, goats, sheep, dove, etc.)  These were just symbols of something to come… the sacrifice of God’s Only Begotten Son, Jesus.

4. The only acceptable sacrifice: "Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." I Peter 1:18-19.

I have often asked myself, “Why is Jesus’ death necessary to forgive sin?  Why wouldn’t Jesus life on this earth been good enough… maybe instead of Him dying He could have just went up into heaven in a whirlwind or something.  Why did Jesus have to die?  The answer was so simple.  Jesus had to die, because he had to rise again.  If there is no death, there is no resurrection. You can’t beat death by just talking to him.  (Buddah lived, taught and died.  Mohommed lived, taught, and died.  Confucius lived, he taught and died)  Jesus came down here, he lived, He taught, He died… He rose from the grave.  When Jesus faced death in that great showdown, He didn’t just shake his fist or shed a tear at death, he took him on, He entered his realm, ripped the keys out of death’s lasting grip, and broke free from the grave and Hell to stand victorious!

Eph. 4:8   Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. 9   (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? 10   He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)

Rev. 1:18   I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

1 Cor. 15:55   O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?  56   The sting of death is sin  57   But thanks be to God, Who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.    

 

(Val’s research on the temple elements in a chamber of stones below the Crucifixion field. Geological survey reveals a crack in the sedimentary layers.  Traces of blood, with very untypical DNA chromisone patterns, were found at the support hole of a middle cross, )


II. THE FAR-REACHING EFFECT OF THE LORD’S DEATH

1. The universal effect:
"Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them." Hebrews 7:25.  Jesus’ sacrifice saves us not only 2000 years ago on the cross, but even today until the moment you step out of this time and into eternity.  The word UTTERMOSTGrk = Pantelace means “to completion”.  If you trust in the death and sacrifice of Jesus on the cross daily, He will stay with you and keep doing a spiritual work in you until He is finally finished.

2. The eternal effect:  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. Jesus told the believing thief who hung next to Him on the cross… Today you will be with me in Paradise.  The eternal effects took place immediately on that day He hung there and immediately on the day you received believed on Him.


III. BLESSINGS WE DERIVE FROM THE LORD’S DEATH

1. Forgiveness of sins:
"In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace." Ephesians 1:7

Margerie Holmes was struggling with some past failures in her life until she got an interesting letter from a friend. The letter recounted a recent visit this woman had with her granddaughter when they went to an air show where a plane wrote messages in the sky. The young girl loved watching the words being drawn in the air, but was puzzled when the letters started disappearing. She studied the situation for a moment then suddenly blurted out, “Maybe Jesus has an eraser!” When we find ourselves wrestling with our own fallen humanity, we can take comfort in the fact that God is able to erase all of our failures with his remarkable eraser . . . a cross.

2. Reconciliation with God:
"Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of recon-ciliation, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them." II Corinthians 5:18-19.

The word Reconciled means “To make up the difference”, Grk = Kat-allasso.  * If you owed a huge debt, maybe you received a heart transplant that was operated by a small microchip and connected to an elaborate system that was very expensive to maintain, so you owed millions of dollars to the Hospital, or else they would be forced to flip the switch off… would could you do?  There is something even bigger at stake, your eternal life… Jesus death on the cross pays the difference.  He reconciles it with His Father.

3. Justified : "Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." Romans 5:9. 
 
HE IS THE PROPITIATION
                           FOR SIN... God has provided Jesus as a "propitiation" for our sins
                           - 1 Jn. 4:10
 
The word "propitiation" originally
                           referred to an act or sacrifice that a man offered designed to appease a god, as used in the Bible, it refers to that which
                           God has done (not man).  I.e., what man cannot do for himself,
                           God has done!   He has offered His Son Jesus on the cross as a means to appease
                           His justice.  There is no TIME that can math the CRIME when it comes to sin.
 
           
                           * (Author Chuck Colson) writes, “In a particular
                           prison in South
                           America I
                           was amazed that 80% of the inmates had become Christian.  I traveled there for
                           a visit to see for myself what this fantastic revival was all about.  They took
                           me down to what they called “the hole”, a place where the worst offenders were isolated from the rest of the convicts.  Because off all the recent conversions, the cells were all empty except for one.  There was a line of prisoners waiting to get into one cell in the hole.  As the door swung open I entered the room, before me was a kneeling bench on a carpet, a few simple candles
                           for light and the only other thing in the room, which really stood out… a large crucifix of Jesus, which hung on the
                           wall facing the prayer bench.  My inmate guide’s face beamed with joy as
                           he explained; ‘Jesus is the only one down here, and we all say he is doing hard time for us.’  Some how this struck a cord with the prisoners and sent them rushing to this altar
                           in repentance.”


4. Eternal life: "That being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." Titus 3:7. 

There is nothing in this world that is eternal except the human soul.  According to Paul’s letter to Titus, this eternal life is either one of HOPE or of DREAD.  Christ’s death points to the promise of His Hope.  We either EMBRACE THE CROSS, OF REJECT IT.

 

IV. PROCLAIMING THE LORD’S DEATH TILL HE COMES!

In the Alps of Durnstein Austri stands the ruins of an ancient castle known as the Lion Heart.  It was built in the 1100's by the original owners the Kuenringers, but no one calls it by that original name.  That's because in 1192 Richard the Liion Hearted was held as a prisoner there.  The Castle is not remembered for it's owner but for it's prisoner.  It is the smae with the cross.  It was not even the Lord's cross, but a guy named Barabus.  Calvary is not even thought of as a place of death and the skull, a pile of ancient trash heaps, but as Mount Calvary, a place of salvation.


The Lord’s Supper is to be observed by born-again believers until the Second Coming of Christ. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup”

 

CLOSE __________________________

 

Ushers come to serve while (Special Song) is being sung   PROCLAIMING THE LORD’S DEATH  (Communion)

TEXT   - 1 Corinthians 11:26-26 "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes."

OPEN   If we are not careful, the Lord’s sacrifice on the cross, and his order for us to proclaim His death, means very little to us.  Some folks are really “in the dark” about the meaning Lord’s Supper.  * (Christian Reader shares a light hearted illustration) During a game of Bible Trivia, Beverly Paul asked her eight-year-old daughter, “What is another name for the Lord’s Supper?” She thought real hard then replied, “Pot luck!”

In partaking of the Lord’s Supper, the born-again believer proclaims several great Bible truths. Let’s look at three of these important truths.

I. THE NECESSITY OF THE LORD’S DEATH  (Why did He have to die?)

1. Because all have sinned: "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Romans
3:23  Q:  What is the one thing that keeps everyone from being like God? Sin. 

* A conscientious Bible teacher was trying to teach his class of small children about the nature of sin. He hit a snag when he started telling them we are all born in sin. One little girl gave him a puzzled look, then said very seriously, “I wasn’t born in sin. I was born in November.”  Christian Reader

*  Everything that used to be a sin is now a disease.  -Bill Maher 

I flipped by the Oprah show the other day.  She’s really messed up with out Dr. Phil’s plan talking form of “in your face” psychology.  She had some quack New Age psych shrink on there.  You know the type, She tells this drug addict that she isn’t a bad person, she just has a genetic disposition that caused her “Sickness”.  I could tell, Oprah had been hanging around Dr. Phil… she asked, “Why does everybody’s problem and stupid choices they make in life have to be a sickness?” 

YOU’LL NEVER GET HEALING AND HELP FROM YOUR PROBLEMS UNTIL YOU ADMIT TWO THINGS:  “GOD IS GOOD, I AM BAD.”  God’s way are always higher than my ways.  The Self Esteem have part of the truth right, You and I are genetically dispositioned to do bad things.  Paul said, “There is no good thing about me”.  This IMMOVABLE TRUTH FLYS IN THE FACE OF TODAY’S SELF ESTEEM MUMBO JUMBO THAT IS BEING TAUGHT EVERYWHERE WE GO. 

2. Sin’s deadly wages: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23.  Ever heard these:  Cheaters never win.  Crime doesn’t pay.  Sin may give you pleasure for a little short season, but eventually it leads to death.  CHRISTIAN – DON’T EVER THINK YOU CAN CHEAT GOD AND GET AWAY WITH IT.  IF YOU KNOW TO DO GOOD AND YOU DON’T DO IT, TO YOU THAT’S A SIN… YOU HAVE MISSED THE MARK!  Sin is more than just gross, ugly immoralities.  It can also be, ignoring God’s will.  Neglect.  Idleness, etc.  It all leads you into a trap of destruction, poverty, cursing, and disobedience of the perfect will of Christ.  It is Satanic. 

Sin takes us farther than we want to go, costs more than we want to pay, and keeps us longer than we want to stay.  Satan comes to take our life, and to make our life less abundant.  He comes to kill, steal and to destroy. 

3. The only remedy for sin: "And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." Hebrews 9:22.  Notice the Bible says that a blood sacrifice “ALMOST” purifies all things.  Heaven requires a better sacrifice for sin than we do down here on earth.  (In the O.T. they offered, the blood of bulls, goats, sheep, dove, etc.)  These were just symbols of something to come… the sacrifice of God’s Only Begotten Son, Jesus.

4. The only acceptable sacrifice: "Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." I Peter 1:18-19.

I have often asked myself, “Why is Jesus’ death necessary to forgive sin?  Why wouldn’t Jesus life on this earth been good enough… maybe instead of Him dying He could have just went up into heaven in a whirlwind or something.  Why did Jesus have to die?  The answer was so simple.  Jesus had to die, because he had to rise again.  If there is no death, there is no resurrection. You can’t beat death by just talking to him.  (Buddah lived, taught and died.  Mohommed lived, taught, and died.  Confucius lived, he taught and died)  Jesus came down here, he lived, He taught, He died… He rose from the grave.  When Jesus faced death in that great showdown, He didn’t just shake his fist or shed a tear at death, he took him on, He entered his realm, ripped the keys out of death’s lasting grip, and broke free from the grave and Hell to stand victorious!

Eph. 4:8   Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. 9   (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? 10   He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)

Rev. 1:18   I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

1 Cor. 15:55   O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?  56   The sting of death is sin  57   But thanks be to God, Who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.    

 

(Val’s research on the temple elements in a chamber of stones below the Crucifixion field. Geological survey reveals a crack in the sedimentary layers.  Traces of blood, with very untypical DNA chromisone patterns, were found at the support hole of a middle cross, )


II. THE FAR-REACHING EFFECT OF THE LORD’S DEATH

1. The universal effect:
"Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them." Hebrews 7:25.  Jesus’ sacrifice saves us not only 2000 years ago on the cross, but even today until the moment you step out of this time and into eternity.  The word UTTERMOSTGrk = Pantelace means “to completion”.  If you trust in the death and sacrifice of Jesus on the cross daily, He will stay with you and keep doing a spiritual work in you until He is finally finished.

2. The eternal effect:  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. Jesus told the believing thief who hung next to Him on the cross… Today you will be with me in Paradise.  The eternal effects took place immediately on that day He hung there and immediately on the day you received believed on Him.


III. BLESSINGS WE DERIVE FROM THE LORD’S DEATH

1. Forgiveness of sins:
"In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace." Ephesians 1:7

Margerie Holmes was struggling with some past failures in her life until she got an interesting letter from a friend. The letter recounted a recent visit this woman had with her granddaughter when they went to an air show where a plane wrote messages in the sky. The young girl loved watching the words being drawn in the air, but was puzzled when the letters started disappearing. She studied the situation for a moment then suddenly blurted out, “Maybe Jesus has an eraser!” When we find ourselves wrestling with our own fallen humanity, we can take comfort in the fact that God is able to erase all of our failures with his remarkable eraser . . . a cross.

2. Reconciliation with God:
"Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of recon-ciliation, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them." II Corinthians 5:18-19.

The word Reconciled means “To make up the difference”, Grk = Kat-allasso.  * If you owed a huge debt, maybe you received a heart transplant that was operated by a small microchip and connected to an elaborate system that was very expensive to maintain, so you owed millions of dollars to the Hospital, or else they would be forced to flip the switch off… would could you do?  There is something even bigger at stake, your eternal life… Jesus death on the cross pays the difference.  He reconciles it with His Father.

3. Justified : "Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." Romans 5:9. 
 
HE IS THE PROPITIATION
                           FOR SIN... God has provided Jesus as a "propitiation" for our sins
                           - 1 Jn. 4:10
 
The word "propitiation" originally
                           referred to an act or sacrifice that a man offered designed to appease a god, as used in the Bible, it refers to that which
                           God has done (not man).  I.e., what man cannot do for himself,
                           God has done!   He has offered His Son Jesus on the cross as a means to appease
                           His justice.  There is no TIME that can math the CRIME when it comes to sin.
 
           
                           * (Author Chuck Colson) writes, “In a particular
                           prison in South
                           America I
                           was amazed that 80% of the inmates had become Christian.  I traveled there for
                           a visit to see for myself what this fantastic revival was all about.  They took
                           me down to what they called “the hole”, a place where the worst offenders were isolated from the rest of the convicts.  Because off all the recent conversions, the cells were all empty except for one.  There was a line of prisoners waiting to get into one cell in the hole.  As the door swung open I entered the room, before me was a kneeling bench on a carpet, a few simple candles
                           for light and the only other thing in the room, which really stood out… a large crucifix of Jesus, which hung on the
                           wall facing the prayer bench.  My inmate guide’s face beamed with joy as
                           he explained; ‘Jesus is the only one down here, and we all say he is doing hard time for us.’  Some how this struck a cord with the prisoners and sent them rushing to this altar
                           in repentance.”


4. Eternal life: "That being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." Titus 3:7. 

There is nothing in this world that is eternal except the human soul.  According to Paul’s letter to Titus, this eternal life is either one of HOPE or of DREAD.  Christ’s death points to the promise of His Hope.  We either EMBRACE THE CROSS, OF REJECT IT.

 

IV. PROCLAIMING THE LORD’S DEATH TILL HE COMES!

In the Alps of Durnstein Austri stands the ruins of an ancient castle known as the Lion Heart.  It was built in the 1100's by the original owners the Kuenringers, but no one calls it by that original name.  That's because in 1192 Richard the Liion Hearted was held as a prisoner there.  The Castle is not remembered for it's owner but for it's prisoner.  It is the smae with the cross.  It was not even the Lord's cross, but a guy named Barabus.  Calvary is not even thought of as a place of death and the skull, a pile of ancient trash heaps, but as Mount Calvary, a place of salvation.


The Lord’s Supper is to be observed by born-again believers until the Second Coming of Christ. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup”

 

CLOSE __________________________

 

Ushers come to serve while (Special Song) is being sung