Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
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National Day of Prayer

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

The Lord’s Supper: Proclaim His Death

It’s Corinthians 11, if you would. If you’ve been a believer for any like the time, I’m sure you’re familiar with this passage. Paul is addressing the Corinthian church on the subject of the Lord’s Supper, what is also referred to as communion.

It says in verse 23, For I have received from the Lord that which I also deliver to you, that the Lord Jesus on the same night He took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, take eat, this is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same manner, he also took the cup after supper. Saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till he comes. Therefore, whoever eats this bread drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup for he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself not discerning the Lord’s body. For this reason many are sick or excuse me weak and sick among you and many sleep. For ourselves we would not be judged but when we are judged we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. A few observations on this passage. Paul tells us here that the purpose of the supper is to remember, remember the Lord. He uses that word remembrance twice in verse 24 and in verse 25. but also to proclaim the death of, [audio unclear] some churches do communion every week, some do it, some only do it like once or twice a year. I might forget if we only did it once or twice a year. Of course, Paul is not talking about forgetting the fact, but I think he is talking about forgetting the significance of the fact, forgetting the living reality of the fact. It’s very easy for us to fall I’m not sure what to call it, but kind of intellectualism where we believe, but our belief is not really connected to our practice. And I think that’s probably human nature. I think everybody does it. And so one of the reasons the Lord institutes these signs and these symbols is because He’s trying to get us out of our head and into our life, if you will. the doctrine which is an intellectual thing, it’s good. Truth is very important. But it’s not just truth that lives here. It’s truth that has to live here also. As the old saying goes, there’s 18 inches between heaven and hell. Right? Head and heart. Do we believe? Well, it all depends on how you define believe. believe is intellectual assent only, then you’d have to say a person doesn’t believe in the biblical sense of the word. Because faith in scripture is not only intellectual assent, but it is volitional trust. It is relying, it is embracing, it is casting upon. There’s many terms used, but it’s not excluding or belittling the intellectual element, but the The sense alone isn’t sufficient. So the Lord gives us these symbols, symbols so that, that what’s in our head, I think he wants to mind us by something very tangible.

Literally something that we can feel, something we can touch, something that we can taste. So he gives us this loaf, the bread, and it’s a symbol of the fact that when we died on the cross, his body was being broken, torn, ripped, shredded. That’s what Jesus did. And he did it in real space-time history. He did it in the same world we’re living in. Not in the mythical world where the gods live, not on Mount Olympus, but here on earth.

His body was broken for you and I, literally. Literally. Did you ever see The Passion of Christ movie? It makes it very real, very vivid. So much so that I can’t, I watched it once and I can’t watch it. It just hurts too much because it’s not a story. It’s not a myth. It’s the Jesus I love. And to see him suffer like that is just too hard for me. So we’re remembering not simply the fact, but the significance of the fact, the value of the fact that Jesus died for us, that his body was broken and his blood was shed. Well, if you were to ask me, what’s the significance of the fact, I’d have to preach to you for years. Truly. Because the fullness of the gospel, it’s that profound, it’s that deep, it’s that far-reaching, that it affects everything. Everything. We have, understandably so, we’ve truncated the gospel and made it, you know, Jesus died for you, He paid for your sins. If you trust Him, you get to go to heaven. And I understand why we’ve done that. But that’s just like, and people actually can get saved with that little bitty gospel. I got saved a very simple gospel. You’re a sinner. Jesus died to pay for your sins. If you don’t accept Jesus, you’re going to hell. So you need to accept Jesus and go to heaven. I was like, I’ll do that. And I actually got saved with that little bitty gospel. Little. Did I understand at the time, the depth, the richness of the gospel, and all that it really implied in terms of being justified, being sanctified, being transformed into the image of Jesus, that I was now a Son, I was now beloved by God, I now stood in His favor, I had an inheritance. I mean, I could go on and on and on and on and on, right? The Gospel is so full, it’s so rich, it’s so deep.

The Gospel of Grace, Not Merit

So really, the gospel is a gospel of grace, and grace entails all of the benefits of the atonement, whether it’s the objective benefits of being made right with God. I mean, listen, it says in Romans 8.1, there’s no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Amen.

If we understood that, When we came to church, the worship team would never have to encourage you to do anything.

They would be saying, calm down, calm down, you’re getting out of control.

You see, we, we, and this is where we got to go from here to here. Because if you said under my Babu teaching, you understand a lot of the terms. You know some of the theology, but that theology has to become life to us.

The Word of God is bread to our souls, but we can read it in such a way that it’s like eating gravel. That’s why Paul says the letter kills, the Spirit gives life. I was talking to someone recently who said, I should have brought the books in my office, never mind. I read this great quote by Calvin, where he talked about his conversion. He said every time he read the Bible, he felt condemned. Every time he read the Bible, I mean, even about Jesus in the Bible, He felt God’s condemnation. And then he finally threw himself on God’s mercy. And he didn’t use the word, I was born again. But basically, he spent an evening weeping before God.

And he was really getting saved. It’s like in the Grinch when he got the new heart, right? And then he said, whenever you open the Bible, he just saw Jesus. And it was like, the scales were gone. Reading the same words, it’s the same Bible. But in His unsaved state, they were words of condemnation. And in His saved state, they were words of grace. And I know Christians that don’t like to read the Bible. true because they read condemnation when it’s a word of grace to us, to us who believe.

Another thing, Luther said, after he said, I’ve been preaching salvation by grace for twenty years, or justification by faith for twenty years. And he said, but still I find in myself the old mire clinging to me. That when I come to God, I want to bring him something. That old mire, that human tendency to move away from grace onto some form of merit.

Some form of merit. Why is it so important? Because the salvation that we have, the salvation, the present salvation that we have entails the communion of the believer with God through the Holy Spirit. If you and I are going to be transformed into the image of Jesus, which is what God is about? It doesn’t happen from a distance. happen from admiring Jesus from a distance. It comes from knowing him. So the astounded thing about the new covenant, which makes it so different from the old, is that we have access. And I mean that. We have access.

The God of the universe, the God created you, the God that thought of you back in eternity past, the God that chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world, that God you can talk to And no. Not just no about, but no. That is not something weird. That’s the gospel. Jesus said in his last earthly prayer in John 17, He’s talking to God, this is eternal life.

And you don’t get it when you die. You get it when you accept Christ. Means you get it now. Eternal life begins at the moment that one truly receives Christ.

You pass from death to life. You are delivered out of the kingdom of darkness into the And it happens in space time, just as Jesus broke his body in space time, in human history.

So when we truly put our faith in Christ, the living Christ, we pass from death to life.

Now here, not later. And we must continually remind ourselves of grace being symbolized by these elements because of our tendency to step off of grace onto some form of merit. And the reason this is so important is because if we are leaning on any merit, we will not come into the presence of God. You wouldn’t dare. You wouldn’t dare. Now you might go to church, you might even read your Bible Psalm, you might even take the sacrament, but you wouldn’t dare in your heart truly enter into that holy place if it depended on you, would you? No. So you see, if we don’t remind ourselves of grace in a very practical way, very practical way, which these elements are designed to do, then we naturally incline toward some form of works or merit, and thus we lose access. Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve had this thing happen where I’ll get dressed in the morning and the lights in my bedroom really aren’t,t very bright. So then before I go outside, I think I better go in the bathroom and turn all the lights I like to wear black, so you know, lint, cat hair, I’ve cats, you know. So then I go, oh, get out the thing, get all the hair off. I think I look good. I’m looking good. I tell my wife, at least you got a good looking preacher. But then I walk outside and it’s sunny. I’m like, holy cow, how did I miss that lint? How did I miss that cat hair? You see, it looks good in the dark. And it looks good in the moderate light, but the brighter it gets, the more that you see. Right? So the Christian life is really, in a sense, you walking more and more into the light.

Right? The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn. It gets brighter and brighter. So in the morning, it’s dark. As the sun comes up, it’s kind of, you know, getting lighter. But then as the sun comes up, it’s very bright. That’s our path. We walk more and more and more into light, into knowledge, into understanding, into holiness and sanctification. And so the more we walk toward light, the more we see the lint. As Christians, as we walk toward light, we will see more sin in our hearts.

If you’re not seeing any sin in your heart, I don’t know how close you are to the light.

You might be in that dark bedroom with lint all over you. I’ve had Christians tell me straight up, I don’t like your preaching because you’ve talk about sin. It’s true. First I’m not here anymore, but I think it is. But when I talk about sin, I don’t talk about sin like for condemnation, for judgment. That’s not what the discussion is about. When you read Romans, you read chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, Paul talks about sin all over the place. But it’s right after, well after five, six, and seven, then right after seven where he says, oh wretched man that I am, not a very positive confession.

Then he says there’s no condemnation. Amen. I mean, on the surface you think this is a contradiction, but it’s not. Because the believer has to talk about sin and deal with sin because sanctification is God progressively removing sin from our lives. Not to condemn us, but to conform us. Can I say that again? I like the way that sounded.

Not to condemn us, but to conform us. Here, let’s say it together. Not to condemn us, but you conform us. So do you want to be like Jesus? Okay. Oh geez, I thought I’d see more hands than that. I know you all do. Well, maybe not all of you. I don’t know. Well, so that requires this process of sanctification in which God reveals things in our lives, in our hearts, our minds false thinking, uh, simple motives, different things that are just pleasing Him. Not so that He’s going to condemn us for those things, but so that He might sanctify us and remove those things from our lives because He is transforming us into the image of Jesus. And we must understand this because we must understand that when God works in our lives, sometimes the things He does don’t feel good. I don’t like the Lord showing me stuff in my heart. I don’t know about you. But it’s for my good. It’s for my good. You know someone was talking to me about preaching the other day and they said, they’re talking about this this guy preaching and they’re like, Like, well, what does that mean? [audio unclear]

Milk and Vegetables

So, this is my ideal diet right here. That if I could only have this, I would be happy. This is all I need. Right, right here. This is all I need. And my Bible students know it because they bring me little gifts to bribe me. My kids know it because I always get this stuff on my birthday and Christmas. This is all I need. Now, is it really true this is all I need? No. No, of course not. If I only did this, I would be a mess. Now, I use this illustration because the word is like Cheez-its and Diet Coke to me. Sometimes. sometimes it’s like those vegetables I don’t like. You know what I mean?

Amen. So what’s happening I think in the church today is they’re just offering everybody cheeses and die coat. Now it’s good, I like it, but the reality is I can’t live on it.

And if also we hear is good, good, good, good, good, and never hear warnings or reproofs or corrections, we’re not eating our vegetables. We’re not eating our vegetables. And I can assure you if you try to live on this, you will become ill. You will become ill. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. I wish it did. But the scripture is glorious I wish it did. But the scripture is glorious in its promises, it’s glorious in its offer of salvation. It’s just amazing. But part of what’s so amazing about it is the other side of the picture, which is we’re so unamazing apart from Jesus. Not in Jesus, but apart from Jesus. And so one of the reasons many people in our culture not hearing the gospel is because we’re offering them good news with no bad news. Now what’s wrong with that? Well they already have good news. They have their Twitter feed. No I’m serious. If you ask the typical American, they’re happy. If they have a job and they have a home and they have their smart phone and their whatever. they need to understand the reality of the bad news. I mean really. Because if we just offering them a a, you know just as Jesus to your list of personal trainers then I mean that’s something I came to Jesus a lot of people don’t need that Jesus at least they don’t think they do they don’t want that Jesus but they don’t understand the reality of sin and the consequences of sin and they’re real the real and the eternal. And so we have to take the good and the bad, although the bad is really good too, because it’s true. And how we need truth. We need truth.

We need the promises, we need the exhortations, the reproof, the correction, the rebukes, all of it, because that’s a healthy diet. So, do you mind if I have one of these? I’m just kidding. If Hannah had her way, we’d probably be having cheeses for communion, but we’re not doing it. No. I mean, I’m cool, but I’m not going there. Anyway, I told you about the peanut butter jelly guy. Yeah, I, use that story for you. He had a diet coke and a peanut butter jelly sandwich. He’s like, hey man, let’s have communion. Okay, I better pray about this. So, here’s the thing. Grace, right? We’re talking about grace. The thing about grace is that we can abuse it. Again, if you read Romans, you see Paul says, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound, may it never be? And yes, these series of questions are all saying, I’m preaching grace, but wait a minute, don’t make the wrong conclusion from what I’m saying about grace. In other words, grace doesn’t mean the freedom to sin. Actually, grace means the ability not to sin. That’s what he’s really trying to get us to see in Romans 6, that grace means the ability not to sin. So the gospel of grace that we can be forgiven and reconciled to God, that we can have eternal life, that we can stand in His favor, it’s all of of grace, it’s all offered to us freely, but we must receive it by faith. Well then the question becomes, on a personal level, obviously have I received it, have I received him the Savior, right? How do I know? I mean, that’s the question. I don’t know about you, but when I came to Christ, I remember vividly experiencing this transformation in my life, this transformation in my heart. It’s almost like a literal shackles fell off. Excuse me, it was so vivid. Yet, at the same time, I was determined not to deceive myself.

In other words, although I experienced phenomenal joy and peace and the sense of being clean and all these wonderful emotions, I remember distinctly saying, ah, is this real or is this what I want to believe? Is this just an emotional thing that’s happening to me and I’m deceiving myself? [audio unclear]

How Do We Know We Are Saved?

But how do we know? Well, we don’t know by our feelings. Some days I don’t feel very saved.

How about you? Ever feel not saved? I mean, I don’t feel saved at all. I know. There’s days I told God, can you like, lead the universe? He says no.

Because I don’t want that. At the time I don’t, my flesh doesn’t. So my feelings, I can have anti-God feelings. Other times I love God so much, I’m going to explode. So my feelings can vary. They can go back and forth and up and down. So that can’t be the basis or the evidence. I mean, my profession can’t be because words are easy, right. What about going to church? What about taking the sacrament of communion, that’s called, or the ordinance? Well, we believe that the ordinances have no power in and of themselves. They do not convey grace apart from faith from the recipient. So therefore, we can take communion, and it can mean nothing for us. We can go to church, we can’t mean nothing. We can, be baptized, and it can mean nothing. So how do we know? Here’s what Jesus said. Jesus said,

The Narrow Gate and the Fruit

He said, enter by the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. And there are many who go in by it. But narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life. And there are few who find it. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing. They will look real, right? But inwardly, they’re ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit. But a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear a bad fruit, nor a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.“ We’re talking about false prophets, right? Not by what they say, but by the fruit. Now notice this, he goes on, ”…not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. For many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, we have prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and done many wonders in your name. And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Therefore, whoever hears these things of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on the house. And it did not fall for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these things of I. And does not do them would be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on the house and it fell and great was its fall.“ Jesus here is telling us how we know. We know by the fruit. Now you can read this as if it’s law but But it’s not law. Jesus is not saying, if you do the fruit, meaning if you do good work, she will be saved. He’s saying if you are saved, you will do. My Father’s will. And that’s the only test that we have. I have many fond memories of when I think I got saved. And I really do think, I think, that’s what I would say. But whenever we are called to examine ourselves, and Paul says we are to do that, right? When we take the Lord’s Supper. I can’t look back 40 years. And say 40 years ago, okay, I’m good. I have to say now, Am I doing my Father’s will now? That’s the question I have to ask myself. Do I love God now? Do I cherish His Word? Do I value prayer? Do I yearn for communion with Him? Do I serve His body? Do I have a burden for the lost? Do I share the Gospel and do I give financially to his kingdom. I mean I could go on and on and on and on and on. Mind if I take it or you miss? On and on and on.

About things that would be evidence or marks of my, the reality of my salvation.

No one can determine that for you.

That’s something you have to do for yourself. But my exhortation is, like Paul’s, examine yourself. When Paul was reproving the Corinthians for how they were doing the Lord’s Supper, it was, they were, well, Let me just say this. One of the problems was they had an irreverent attitude, a careless and irreverent attitude toward the things of God. And they treated Lord’s Supper as a common meal. Not common, it’s set apart. It has a distinct function in the ministry of the church.

And so it was this careless, irreverent attitude that he was reproving. And we can be that way too. We can rush into church or not prepare it spiritually. We walk in late. We don’t care. We walk up, take the bread. We’re not really thinking about what we’re doing. And Paul says we are eating judgment to ourselves. That’s the vegetables. the vegetables. The thought that we could be doing that is ought to cause us to be very sober-minded about what we’re doing. And we take the biblical admonition to self-examination seriously. Number one, to ask ourselves, am I truly a Christian? Because the Supper is for believers. And if I can truly affirm that, then I have to ask myself, should I be taking it in light of my life right now? And no one can answer that but you. But my exhortation is to not treat this lightly and to truly really allow the Holy Spirit to examine you And to truly really allow the Holy Spirit to examine you as you examine yourself. Because it’s not a little thing. I mean, Paul is saying literally people are sick, people are weak, and people were dying in that church because of this sin. I mean, that’s heavy. That irreverence and carelessness regarding the things of God was bringing God’s chastisement upon them. I don’t want that for me, I don’t want it for my family, I don’t want it for our church. Do you? No. So, that’s not works, okay? I’m not preaching works. I’m not preaching guilt. I’m preaching light, honesty, integrity with God.

Examine Yourself, and Come Thursday

So let’s bow our heads and have a time of silent reflection. How do we just play the piano for us? I’m going to take a few moments and ask the Lord to give us the ability to genuinely contemplate ourselves and the supper. I wanted to remind you that this Thursday evening is the National Day of Prayer, and we’re going to hold a prayer service. We’ll have worship. We want to pray for our nation. We’ll also have an opportunity to pray for one another, have ministry time together. But I wanted to show a video briefly, and then we’re going to close them. Because I was thinking about that. You know, God’s everywhere, right? So isn’t he present? Well, in and through his church, that special, what is often called the gracious presence of God, is manifested. So, I had prepared some comments, but because the earlier part of the service went long, I’ll refrain, the only thing I need to say is, things are getting very dark in the culture. And if there’s any help, it’s going to be in response to God’s people calling him.

Yes. So let me just encourage you very strongly to try to be there. Thursday evening, 7 o’clock. We’re going to gather here. We’ll open a worship. We’ll pray for a nation. And then we’ll be praying also for one another. So we’re going to close with a few men who are going to pray. God we need you and we need your spirit and we ask that you would fill our church with your spirit God we need to know you and we need to know your love and God we ask that you would show us as a church how wide and deep and long and high Your love for us is God that you would give us the power to know that and walk in the power of your love God we ask for freedom from and from things that hold us down. God, I know that the enemy has people in our church enslaved, and that’s what he likes to do. And we ask for freedom from him and freedom from sin. And God, we ask that you would awaken our hearts, that you would wake us up from our sleep, and that you would show us how much we need to pray. God, move on our hearts to be here on on Thursday to come together as a body and come together as the church across the nation to pray. God, we know that you hear us and we pray to you. You are the God who can do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine. And God, we believe that you hear us. And Lord, we ask now that you would, you would give us faith and that you would awaken our hearts, that you would, you You would show us in a very real way that we need to pray in Jesus’ name.

A Prayer of Surprising Grace

Oh, Heavenly Father, we do praise You and love You, Lord, for Your grace and mercy. We praise You for Your everlasting life, that You have granted us through the death of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Lord, that You have bound us from the beginning of time, and have known us Lord that the bloodshed is cleansing for us.

And Father I pray that we would come together on Thursday and see your glory being present with us.

That we would honor you and praise you Lord. That we would glorify you in your loving grace. that your Holy Spirit would anoint us, Lord, that would bring us to an understanding of who we are in you. Father, I pray that as a body of believers, Lord, that we would trust in you, that we would glorify you, that we would honor you, Lord, that would be your hands and feet, that would serve and honor you in your grace and your mercy. We love you so dearly, Lord. We praise you for your precious, precious word. That it would renew our minds in your glory. We pray. Amen.

Lord, you’re surprising God. You tell us, your word says that you give life to the dead and you call into being that which does not even exist.

Lord, grace is surprising. Our expectation, apart from you, is condemnation and death, Lord.

And yet, and yet, you sent your son, lived, and died, and he rose from the dead.

That is so, so amazing. would have ever who has ever heard of a man coming back from the dead and yet you sent your son and you God you died and you rose again Lord being able to enter into your presence is surprising and often even though we know we can we don’t enter in we pretend to pretend like we don’t we don’t know that we can we can talk with you Lord we don’t know that that we’re commanded to to speak and to lift up and to pray before you we pretend that that we don’t understand Lord Lord you know what we ask what we pray even before we pray it Lord, I pray that you would encourage us to obey and faith and to be surprised and enter in. In Jesus name. I’m gonna pray for the offering.

Heavenly Father, you are a good Father to us, and you are so gracious to us.

We thank you, Lord, with everything that you’ve showered us from the heavenlies, the riches that we have in Christ, God. I believe we’ve only been able to scratch the surface of those riches, Lord. And I pray for us, my brothers and sisters, that we’d keep scratching, Lord, that we would see those riches, Lord, that we would experience those riches, that we would receive the fullness, Lord, of those heavenly riches, God, while we’re here on earth. Lord, I thank you that you’ve blessed us so much. We have so much to be thankful for physical things, Lord, spiritual things. God, most of all. The gift of life you give us in your son. It is a precious gift, Lord. And we do remember it, Lord. We do remember the bread with the juice, God, of what you did through your son for us.

And we thank you for that, God. And I pray for us, Lord, that your mercies would be new to us every day, God, that you would give hope to the hopeless Lord, that you’d breathe new life, Lord, into dead bones.

Have your grace, Lord, fall upon us. We need you so much to live for you to walk in your way as God. Bless these ties and offerings. The nations need you. We need you. This country needs you. This state needs you. This county needs you, God. We need you. As for you, bless this Lord. Use it for your purposes that you might be glorified through our finances. In Jesus name, Amen.