I like your mask. What's on your mask? Ice. Are you talking about your-- Good morning, church family. I hope all of you had a good week in the Lord. We're going to go ahead and start off our worship set here with Doxology. Praise God. From whom all blessings flow.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him, all creatures here below. Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Hearth and heavenly saints proclaim the power and might of his great name. Let us exult on him with you. Praise God, the holy trinity. Praise God.

Praise God. Praise God, the Savior, Son. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise to the King, his throne transcend. His crown and kingdom never end. Now and throughout eternity. All praise the one who died for me. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God, the Savior, Son.

Praise God. Praise God. Praise God, the Lord, the Lord's Father. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God, the Savior, Son. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him, all creatures, hear his woe. Praise him, above ye all ye hosts.

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Good morning, Brigham Community Church and those of you who are online as well. We have a couple of announcements before we get started. First of all, on February 20th, the BAM is having a BAM group, our young adults are having fellowship with a seminar that's being led by Pastor Mark.

And so if you haven't signed up for that, email Pastor Mark Lim and he'll give you directions for that. So that's coming up on February 20th. If you have children in the youth group, this coming Saturday there is an all-day event for the students at 1 o'clock. And so you'll need to bring your students to church at 1 o'clock this Saturday and they'll be done at 8 p.m.

Okay, so they said to come and bring dinner money, I think it says $10, and to drop the kids off at church before 1 o'clock. And then you can pick them up after 8 o'clock for the youth group. Okay, and then for those of you who have children in the seats, so starting from today, obviously, the seats department is opened up.

Yeah, the seats department, the children's department are opened up. So just so that there's no confusion, if you have people who are coming that you'll, before you used to have worship here and then drop the kids off, they said to bring the children directly before the service and that they'll receive the children before.

And then they're going to see how things go. And if things go smoothly within the next month, they'll probably open up more classes for the younger ones. Okay, just to kind of give you a heads up. All right, so we'll give you a minute to take some time for the offering.

And then again, if you have physical offering, it'll be in the back. All right, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your continued blessing and guidance over us. Thank you for persevering, Lord God, even in our weakness. Lord, we praise you that it is not by our own righteousness, that our work that we can ever merit, Lord God, our presence with you.

I pray, Father, that as we pray in the name of Christ, that we continue to walk by his grace. Help us, Lord God, to recognize our continued desperateness without him. And even today, as we have time of communion, that it would refresh and renew and cause us to remember why we are gathered together.

Lord, help us to be anchored in Christ what we do, that even in our giving may it be multiplied and magnified for your use. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Church family, let's go ahead and rise together. If you can turn your Bibles with me to Luke 22, verse 15.

We're going to take some time this morning, before I jump into the book of Hebrews, to talk about the significance of communion. So there's some people who may go to church in and out, and they're, again, not really understanding the significance of some of the things that we do at church.

And so there's a tendency to think that the most important things that we need to practice is tell us what to do. How do we raise children about finance, about evangelism, about making disciples? But when it comes to maybe baptism and communion, those are things for religious people, for the pastors.

We learned this in seminary. But for the regular people, it really doesn't matter. There's nothing in the Bible that differentiates between-- these are important for pastors, but regular people, it doesn't matter. When the Bible says not to turn from it to the left or to the right, that's a command for the whole church, for all of us.

So we need to be careful that we don't participate in things that we don't understand for religious reasons. Because if you look at the nation of Israel, before they went into captivity, they were very religious. They were at the temple doing what God told them to do, and yet God would call them evil assemblies, that their worship was a burden to them, because they were going through it through the motion, obeying the letter of the law.

But they have no understanding of the spirit of the law, why God gave those laws to begin with. So we want to make sure that as a church, that we are not just reformed in theology, but that we are continuing to reform. That everything that we are doing in church, we're doing out of obedience to what we see in scripture.

And so obviously, this leads us to communion. Communion is one of those things that, if we don't understand what we're doing, it just becomes a religious practice that we do. And so, oh, it means the body, it means the blood, but why do we do it this way? You do it that way, this church does it that way, so it must not be significant.

Since there is no complete agreement, so whenever there isn't 100% agreement, it must not be important. And it's dangerous for us to approach the scriptures that way, because there isn't 100% agreement in anything in scripture, even the gospel. And so if we dismiss something simply because there isn't 100% agreement, we are in danger of us picking and choosing what we think is important, what's not important.

So we want to make sure that, as we continue to practice communion, that this is taught in our BCC class, but we also want to make sure that, whether you are new to the church or whether you've been here for a while, that there's nothing that we do, especially the communion table, which is so sacred, in a way that we don't fully get what we're doing and why we're doing what we're doing and how we're doing what we're doing.

So we want to take some time. And again, I'm probably already turned off some of you, right? We're going to spend the whole day just talking about communion. But again, we believe it's important enough that we want to make sure we're on the same page. Luke chapter 22, 15, again, we're going to be in various passages.

But we want to look at the central thing that Jesus gave us before and what initiated this communion, this Lord's table. In Luke 22, verse 15, he said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. This is before Jesus goes to the cross.

Verse 19, and when he had taken some bread and given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, this is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And in the same way, he took the cup after they had eaten, saying, this cup, which is poured out for you, is the new covenant in my blood.

So let's pray. And then we'll jump into the text. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your continued grace. Help us to have a deepening understanding of what you have commanded the church to practice, the significance of it, and what it was given us for, that we would be sustained, strengthened, and to be matured, Lord God, so that we may be anchored in Christ and Christ alone.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Again, if you've been raised in the church-- so maybe your parents were Christians, or maybe you went to church early, in elementary school or high school-- there are certain things that you can do without fully engaging, without fully understanding why these things are done.

Every once in a while, somebody might challenge you and say, oh, yeah, why do we do that? Or maybe you'll go to another church that practices it a different way. And then you might ask, huh, I wonder why they do it this way. And then so you might dig further to properly understand.

Or you might just say, well, we have differences of opinion, but we don't really dig further. And then we have the superficial questioning of, why are there denominations? Why can't we just get along? God clearly must not be happy with denominations. So therefore, anything that causes any kind of division in the church should not be emphasized too much.

Let's just talk about what we agree on. Jesus loved us, died for us, resurrected on the third day, and we should gather together to celebrate that. And outside of that, don't talk about it too much, or it'll divide the church. That is the misunderstanding, and again, a very dangerous approach to the scripture, because by doing so, all kinds of false doctrines enter into the church, because we're not paying attention.

We have to make sure that we understand all of scripture, that we are practicing all of it. In fact, I have found that the more we pay attention to scripture, the more we practice the details of what the scripture says, I actually find a greater unity, not only within the church, even outside the church.

Whenever I see another pastor, another church, that really is dedicated to the verse by verse, careful analysis of what the scripture says, I find complete union with that person, or with that church. More than, you could say you're a Baptist, or just have a name title, but you're not studying the scripture, and superficially we seem united, but in reality we're not.

You know where it first hit me, where there's so many traditions that we practice, that we don't really understand, was when I first started officiating weddings. 'Cause I grew up in the church, so I just assumed a lot of things, I just saw what my parents did, what my dad did, or what I was taught, and I just started practicing it in the church, 'cause the seminary doesn't, at least the seminary I went to, doesn't teach us how to do all these things.

We learn the scripture, but the practice of it, it's not really emphasized. But I remember the very first wedding that I officiated, I was very nervous. I was very nervous because it's a very important time, and you have adults, and children, and all different groups of people from various backgrounds coming, and I wanted to make sure that I did it right.

So I felt more nervous than the very first time I gave my sermon, 'cause I wanted to make sure I got it right. But obviously I didn't know what I was doing. So I was going off of what I remembered, right? I remember what my wedding was like, or a wedding that I participated, so I was just getting things from, just from memory.

And this is before Google, right? I couldn't just go to the internet and say, okay, what is a Christian wedding supposed to look like? What are the elements you're supposed to do and not do? So I was just going off of memory, I was asking people, but again, there weren't a lot of people that I could ask at that time.

So I remember the very first wedding, and it was a former youth student that used to be in my youth group, graduated, met her fiance, asked me to officiate the wedding. And I remember the practice. We showed up, and any of you who participated in that wedding, there's a lot of like, you should do this and you shouldn't do this, right?

So they started asking me questions. Where do we stand? So I'm just remembering. You just stand right there, you know? Well, where do the grooms, where do they stand? I guess you stand here. And during the ceremony, like, there's an announcement. Who gives the announcement? I guess the father does, so I'm just trying to remember all this stuff, and then all throughout the thing, I'm trying to remember the tradition, but I don't remember the significance.

And I remember thinking, I don't know if I saw it in a wedding or I saw it in a movie somewhere. You know, I know that they throw rice at people. Like, is that Christian? Like, it's like, okay, I don't understand that. And then there's a part of the wedding where they would ask, if anybody has anything against these two people getting married, you know, speak now, forever, hold your peace.

That's a weird thing to ask in the middle of a wedding. And I was thinking, they should have said that before they came to the wedding. Why are they waiting until right before they get married to say that? I said, no, I'm not gonna do that, right? And I remember just kind of trying to figure this out at the practice, and one of the moms asked me, the mom of the groom, you know, the side that I didn't know.

I knew the bride's side, but I didn't know the groom's side. She asked me, like, at the end of the wedding, who's supposed to go out first, right? Do the groom's side go out first, or do the bride's side go out first? And I was just like, hmm. And I hesitated for a minute, for a second, you know, 'cause trying to figure out, I'm winging this thing from the beginning to the end, right?

I didn't wanna act like I didn't know what I was doing. But the mother of the bride saw that I was hesitating, and she grabbed the other mother of the groom and pulled her aside and whispered in her ear where I heard, don't ask him because he doesn't know either.

That's what she said. (congregation laughing) And I was so nervous going into that practice, but after she said that, I was like, okay, there you go. Forget this, you know, this is gonna be a big joke. After that, obviously, after that wedding, we got through it, and starting from the next wedding, I wanted to make sure, right?

Why is the bride wearing white? Why is theirs a middle isle? Why do they light candles? Why is there thanking of the parents? Why is there this? Why is there benediction? Why is there, how do they pray for this? And so I wanted to make sure. And then, so I just kinda took out the things that I didn't fully understand, and I realized that there wasn't really a standard.

It's not like a biblical standard, like the Bible says to do this, 'cause there is no instructions in the Bible. It just came from tradition. So which tradition you follow. So you'll see, if you go to a wedding, their basic elements are similar. I would say 90% is similar, and then there's 10%.

You know, sometimes they take off their shoes and wash their feet and do various things. But there is no you can or cannot do because it's not instructed in the Bible, right? Now, I say all of that to introduce to you, sometimes the things that we do in the church, we don't really realize is that biblical or is that not biblical, because it's just been done.

It's tradition. If you go to church, you're supposed to be baptized, right? You give offerings, somebody gives a sermon, you know, and then we have fellowship, and then we have discipleship, we have evangelism, we have short-term mission. So you have all these elements that the churches do, and there's some things that are clearly biblical that's being taught, and then there are some things that may be biblical, but you don't understand the meaning behind it, but you just do it out of tradition, right, 'cause it was taught.

But because you do it out of tradition and you don't understand the significance of what it is, it doesn't benefit you the way it's supposed to. It is ordained for a reason. The Bible gives us two ordinances, the baptism and communion that is elevated above everything else that we do at church.

It's not because we elevated it, the Bible elevated it, and this is universal in all the churches. Whether you are a Presbyterian or a Methodist or whatever denomination you come from, the fact that these two ordinances were given to us in the church is agreed upon. The meaning and practice of it may be different, but the fact that they are ordained in the church to be elevated and to be taken seriously is universally accepted.

So as we practice communion, we wanna make sure that just like we're doing baptism, we're reviewing baptism, and are we practicing it the way that the Bible teaches, and are there biblical things that we can stand upon and give you evidence that this is the reason why we do what we do.

In the same way, we wanna make sure that our church, not just the pastors, not just the elders, our church understands this thing that we do every other month, right? Some of you may come from churches that do it every week. Some of you came from churches that did it once a month.

Some of you may have come from churches that don't practice it at all. Why do they do it that way? Why do we choose to do it every other week, right? What are the ways and what are the reasoning behind this? So the text that we read in Luke 22, 15 to 19, to start off, it clearly says that Jesus, as he was participating in the Passover meal, he says, "To do this in remembrance of me." In other words, what the Jews were doing, what the Israelites were doing to commemorate the Passover was now to be taken and to be applied to Christ, right?

So the most clearest understanding of the communion comes from the Lord's table, before Jesus goes to the cross, "To do this in remembrance of me." So the first part, I wanna make sure that we understand what did the Bible teach us about the meaning behind this? I'm gonna go over the first different views that people have of communion, and then I'll start with the meaning behind the Baptist meaning.

The Roman Catholics believe in transubstantiation, which literally means that the elements actually physically become the blood of Christ and the body of Christ. It actually converts into that. Obviously, we don't believe that, but that's what the Catholics believe. The Lutherans believe in consubstantiation, that they're a step below that, where they don't think that the elements actually turn into the body and the blood, but the actual body and the blood appears at the communion table, with, alongside.

That's what consubstantiation means. Obviously, we don't believe that either. The Presbyterians believe what's called a sacramental memorial. Sacramental memorial is the primary meaning behind it is a memorial, is for the purpose of remembering. But it's a sacramental memorial, meaning that they believe in the dynamic presence of Christ, that in the element of itself, when it is participated, there is grace given to everybody in the element itself.

So there is a dynamic presence of Christ in the communion. The Baptist view of the communion is memorial for the purpose of remembering, reviving. It's kind of like celebrating an event, and you have a memorial in order to remind people so that we do not forget, so that whatever it is that we are to do going forward, that we don't forget.

That's why when you have important events in history, they set up memorials, right? If you go to New York, they have memorials for the people who died there, and they have a memorial for the firefighters and for the police officers who gave their life in sacrifice. Why do they have that there?

So that people will not forget the sacrifice, that they may be honored for the life that they gave for that purpose. That's why they have memorials. So baptism, from our point of view, from what I see in scripture, what Jesus says, to do this in remembrance of me, in remembrance of me.

So when we participate in this communion, there is no power in these elements. You can't take this into your car and then drink it, it's like, I feel it, right? There is no power in itself. You can't just participate in it. Somehow God has ordained this bread and God has ordained this drink, and all of a sudden there's something supernatural going on inside because you happen to participate in it.

It's what it signifies, and what it causes us to remember as a memorial that has the benefit, right? So if we think that way, some people think that, well, if that's the case, if it's just a memorial, why do we take it seriously? It's just a symbol, can we do anything, right?

We're gonna get to that, right? Because the Bible doesn't present it, even though it is a memorial, the Bible just doesn't say, well, since it's a memorial, it's not important. In fact, it is very sacred, right? It is only one of two ordinances given to us. The word ordinance, before we get into the meaning of the Passover, the word ordinance, at some point, I forget if it was in November or December, remember the governor of the state passed an ordinance that there was going to be a curfew at 10 o'clock.

So what does that ordinance mean? A law, right? A law that is passed that everyone is supposed to obey, which nobody obeyed. I don't know a single person who even knows that that even existed, right? People didn't take it seriously, but at least that's what it means by an ordinance, like a set of rules that's supposed to govern wherever that law has authority.

And so the scripture, in the scripture, the local church, two ordinances have been given, the baptism and the Lord's Supper. So we want to make sure, we want to make sure that the Bible is handled correctly. We want to make sure that the fellowship reflects who God is, that we do evangelism.

But above all the things that the church has been called to do, there's only two things that are elevated as an ordinance, baptism and communion. So we want to make sure, right? We want to make sure that we don't just simply dismiss that and say, "Oh, we're not completely united, "so therefore it's not important." It's an ordinance.

You can't simply say, "We're not united, "so it's not important." It's because it's important that we need to pay extra attention that we apply it biblically. And so that's why we visited about the baptism and certain things are being taught and certain things being practiced, because we want to be, we want to respect what the Bible says, not to turn from it to the left or to the right.

And we want to do the same thing when it comes to communion, that you understand that this thing that we do every other month, what is the significance of it and what is it supposed to do and why do we practice it the way that we practice it? So, first of all, because Jesus said in the Passover meal to do this in remembrance of me, there's three things that the Passover meal was supposed to cause them to remember.

Three things. The first thing is, the first thing of the Passover meal was a celebration of God's deliverance of Israel. That's the clearest and the obvious and the plainest teaching of the Passover meal. So, you remember the Passover where God's Spirit comes and he judges the nation of Egypt and he says to put the lamb's blood on the doorpost and as a result of the lamb's blood, the angel of death crosses over and they are delivered.

So, that's why it's called the Passover. So, every time they commemorated this, the Passover, they would remember by God's protection, the lamb of the blood caused them to be saved. And that's what it says in Exodus chapter 13, three. Moses said to the people, "Remember this day in which you went out from Egypt, "from the house of slavery, for by a powerful hand, "the Lord brought you out from this place "and nothing leavened shall be eaten." And so, every time they had that Passover meal, it was to remind them of God's deliverance for them.

That the only reason why they even exist is because God was merciful. God delivered them. They didn't work hard to get out of slavery. They didn't overpower the Egyptians. God supernaturally had mercy, had a power encounter with the Egyptian idols and delivered them by mercy. So, it was to constantly cause them to remember, you live because of him.

That's what they were to remember. And so, when we come to the New Testament, when Jesus says to do that in remembrance of me, he says all of that, what Israelites were doing was to prepare for the real deliverance that was gonna come in Christ. In 1 Corinthians 11, 26, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, "you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes "just so that we would not forget." That we would not forget.

Again, I think in the last 10 years, there was this movement, the gospel-centered movement. We need to get back to the gospel. And I think the important part of that movement was it's true. The moment we begin to drift away from what saved us, we can easily drift to think and to be sidetracked to think somehow that if we work hard enough, if we find the right method, if we write the right books, if we had the right leader, somehow revival is going to come.

It was to constantly cause the nation of Israel to remember so that they do not drift from their salvation. And it is to remind us. Because there's so many things in our life that can easily cause us to be distracted. If you were going to Hawaii on a little, tiny little sailboat, right?

You may have heard this illustration before, but you don't need to change the boat from here to here to get you off target. All you need is a slight change of direction that in the beginning seems like nothing, but after you've traveled four or five miles, you could be hundreds of miles away.

And that's why when the Bible says not to drift, drifting is when we're not clearly anchored in Christ, little things that we do causes us to drift toward things ultimately will lead us completely away from God. So when people fall away from God, most of the time they can't point to something, it's like, oh, this is when I decided to fall away from God.

They can't have, there's not a clear point where it says, oh, I rejected God at this point. At some point in their life, they gave into their compromise. At some point in their life, they didn't take their faith seriously. At some point in their life, they began to slightly drift.

And that slight drift a year later, five years later, 10 years later, 30 years later, you end up waking up one day, how did I get here? I remember when I was in college, I was willing to give my life for Christ. I was going to missions, I wanted to marry a missionary, and I wanted to do all this stuff.

20 years later, after a tiny compromise, one after another, you realize you are so far away from God, and you can't pinpoint exactly when this happened. It just happened because we forgot. We just continued to drift. God knew. God knew exactly what our tendency is. And I think there's many of us, even in this room, and all over the world, who they can look back at a certain stage in their life and say, you know, man, I wish I could turn the clock back to when I was back then.

But now the worries of life, concerns about retirement, about paying bills, about raising children has got me all caught up, and I've drifted. And I know I've drifted, but how do I get back? You know, our human tendency is, when we see people drifting, like we have to switch programs.

We have discipleship programs. You know, we have leadership programs. We have one-to-one programs. We have older brothers looking out for younger brothers, senior to freshman. And so we establish all of these things, saying like, if we wanted to get back to God, we need to implement this. Well, none of those things are wrong, but none of those things are explicitly written in scripture.

The only thing that is explicitly written in scripture is to fix your eyes upon Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith. We've been studying the book of Hebrews because they were drifting away, right? They weren't denouncing his deity. They weren't saying that he wasn't resurrected from Christ. They just drifted.

They didn't take seriously the weightiness of what they had. So because they were drifting, the solution to their drifting is Christ. So we spent 10 chapters, from chapter one to chapter 10, and then in chapter 11, being reminded about the supremacy of Christ. Because what God gave us so that we do not drift is to constantly remember what saved us to begin with.

In the book, "Ask Guinness, No God But God," he describes three generations that lead to apostasy. The first generation are the ones who convert, and they're the builders. They're the sacrificial ones. And then their children are the second generation where they become lukewarm, where the passion that they had initially starts to wane at the end of their life, and their children remember who they were at the end of their life.

And so they inherit the form without the power. So they become lukewarm. But the lukewarm Christian, at the end of their life, begins to drift so far away from God that with the third generation, all they remember is the tail end of the lukewarm life. And so that's how he says in his study, by third generation, there's apostasy.

So if you're a part of the first generation that received Christ, tendency is, right, and don't accept this tendency. We need to fight this tendency. But the tendency is, if we do not continue to anchor in Christ all our life, our next generation is going to inherit the church, inherit the Sunday school, inherit VBS, inherit the form without the passion, without the faith.

But that's not where apostasy happened. Apostasy happens in the third generation because there was nothing for them to inherit at the tail end of the second generation, and the third generation just walks away from their faith. This is why the communion table is so important. Not the form. Not putting this in our body and say, well, I did it, so I have somehow sustenance, but why it was given to us.

As a pastor, my constant struggle is, when I forget what saved me, what I value, and why I came into ministry, it just becomes a job. It just becomes a job. And when it just becomes a job, it's unbearable. And so I have to constantly fight in my heart, not just through communion, but through devotions, through prayer, through fellowship.

I have to constantly remind it, why did I start this? For the moment I drift from that, and it becomes a job, it's not worth it. As Christians, if you forget and you start to drift, eventually, you have to salvage something from the church. Because if it's not your devotion, if it's not your love for Christ and Christ's love for you, that's drawing you to church, something else is drawing you to church.

And usually it's people. So when people are nice to you, when you fit in, and you're loved, and you're part of a community, it's great, but as soon as that starts to break down, I don't wanna go to church anymore, 'cause the church is filled with hypocrites. So at some point in their walk with God, the fellowship became the primary thing, because they've drifted away from what is central.

Again, when that happens, there's no, you can't pinpoint at one point that happens. But you know in your heart when that happens. It's no longer the love for Christ, it's no longer his sacrifice that's drawing me to him. It's the people. A church that forgets and begins to drift, it becomes nothing more than a social gathering for social purposes.

Where you know, we need to salvage, well why are we gathered together? We have these resources, we have homeless people, we have sex trafficking, and so we wanna do good. And so none of these things are bad things. The Bible tells us that those things ought to be our characters.

Those things ought to be things that we practice. But that is not the central purpose of the church. Chuck Colson, in his book, The Church, he writes of a story of this church in the South, where this tiny church, they wanted to help for social causes, and there was this lady who was really good at fried chicken.

And so she started cooking fried chicken, they started raising a lot of money, and everybody around town started to hear about her fried chicken. And so the fried chicken became the central thing at this church. The people outside the church would come and buy this fried chicken, but at the same time, the core things of the church, preaching the gospel, and teaching the Bible, and fellowship in Christ, started getting neglected, and this fried chicken started to really take off.

And they were doing good things with this money, helping the poor. And he talks about how this church eventually drifted away, ended up shutting down the church, and establishing a fried chicken business. A church that forgets why we are gathered together becomes nothing more than a social gathering. And sometimes we're not even aware of it, until we start having relational problems, and then the church has no longer any meaning.

That's why the communion table has been given to us, so that we do not drift. So that we would always focus on Christ. The reason why you and I are gathered together is because he is our salvation. That's what the communion table is to remind us of. Secondly, the Passover served to remind Israel of God's care and deliverance during times of hardship.

He says in Deuteronomy 7, 17, "If you should say in your heart, "these nations are greater than I, "how can I dispossess them? "You shall not be afraid of them. "You shall well remember what the Lord your God did "to Pharaoh and to all of Egypt." He says, as you wander in the desert, as you get into the promised land, there's gonna be nations that are much more fortified and stronger.

You're gonna experience some hunger. You're gonna experience some thirsting. You're gonna experience trials, and maybe some of it that you're not even gonna understand. But during those period, remember that God delivered you. God is your deliverance. He saved you, so he's also going to sustain you. And so that's what the Passover, not only to remember what he did in the past, but because of what he has done in the past, how will he not, who saved you from all of that, not sustain you, just kind of send you out into the wilderness and say, "Good luck, hope you make it." And it's to remind them that their strength is in God.

As long as they are in God, they are saved. That's what it was supposed to remind them every year at the Passover meal. And in the same way, it says in Romans 8.31-35, Apostle Paul says, "What then shall we say to these things? "If God is for us, who is against us?

"He who did not spare his own son, "but delivered him over for us, "so how will he not also with him "freely give us all things?" That's exactly what the Passover meal was for. If he delivered you, if he cared for you enough to deliver you, why would he not sustain you on the path to the promised land?

If we truly believe that he loved us enough to send his only begotten son. It is illogical, it is inconsistent. To believe in a God who would send his only begotten son and then question what God is going to take care of us financially. Whether we're gonna stay healthy or not, or worried about the future.

Now, obviously, we're human beings, so as long as we live on this earth, there's gonna be things that concern us. But in the big scheme of things, we're to constantly remember the communion table that not only has he justified us, it is by his mercy we are sanctified. So there is nothing that's gonna happen in our life that doesn't come through a sovereign and loving hand.

So whatever pain that we experience, whatever things that we cannot understand, once we understand that God is in the midst of this, all of a sudden, it's okay. We can experience pain, but if that pain is coming from somebody who's trying to hurt us, versus a doctor who's giving surgery, and this pain is going to lead to fixing the problem that we came in with, those two different pains have a completely different purpose.

How we approach it is completely different. So in our Christian life, there may be things that come in where we need sustenance, we need guidance, before we run to counselors, before we run to friendship, before we run to community, that we come to the communion table and remember, he who did not spare even his own son to deliver us, how will he not, along with him, give us all things that are necessary?

Sometimes even pain. Sometimes even pain is given to us for our good. That's what the Passover was to remind us of. God is with us, he's in our midst. Second part of Romans 8, 31, again, 33 says, will he bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies.

Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died, yes, rather who was raised. Who is at the right hand of God? Who also intercedes for us, who will separate us from the love of Christ, will tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness, peril or sword, in other words, nothing.

Because he justified us, he will sustain us, that's what that means. He doesn't justify us and then he send you off and he's like, try hard to be sanctified and see if you can make it. Said no, if he justified us, he will sanctify us and then he will eventually glorify us.

And that's what the communion table teaches us. It's not just in the beginning. Our very practical needs today, there's a tendency to think the church is good for religious stuff. When I wanna think about eternity, when I wanna talk about evangelism, then the church is necessary. But pay my bills, raising children, retirement, these are things that I need to do.

I need to be good at. And sometimes again, that causes us to get into trouble and that's what the communion table is. Past and present. But the third reason I think is the most relevant to us for the Passover. Because when trials and hardship comes, if you are a genuine believer, it causes us to be desperate and to cling to God.

So when persecution comes, it almost always leads to the purification of the church. You know, I was reading this week that because of the pandemic and so many people who've been online and not physically at church, as an able to be fellowship, participate in Bible study, the surprising number of people who fell away from church, they said 50%.

So we have no idea when all the churches open, what the church is gonna look like because at least on paper, their survey, 50%. Out of the 50%, some of them have gone for good. Out of the 50%, some of them have moved churches. Some of them are in between churches.

But the 50% is, if you take the totality of the churches, that the people who used to be at that church, 50% are no longer at that church. Now we may be shocked by that and say, well, I mean, we had hardship and it's actually destroying the church. No, that's not destroying the church.

In fact, when I talked to the Indian pastors, they said with all the persecution that's coming and literally, they don't know if they're gonna walk into the village, if they're gonna get stoned or not, how does that affect you guys? And he said, it's been good because it purified the church.

Only real Christians come now. And so he said, it's bringing revival. And so the few who are genuinely walking with God are more fervent in their faith. They share more boldly. So persecution is not what worries the church. If our end goal is not safety, if your end goal is safety, if your end goal is to live a good life where your children are raised in a godly home, go to a good church, go to VPS, and then they live a peaceful, comfortable life until they're 80, and then they, if that's your goal, yes, persecution's gonna disturb that.

If our end goal is to glorify God and to share the gospel, persecution is actually good. The challenge and the struggle is actually good for us than to live in peace. Our problem is not persecution, it's in times of peace when we don't feel pressure. And our natural tendency is we wanna live where there's a good neighborhood, where we don't have to worry about our children.

Of course, what parent wouldn't? But our natural tendency to live in comfort is what causes us to drift. When the storm comes, everybody anchors 'cause they see the danger. 'Cause if you're not anchored when the storm comes, I mean, you can literally die. But we don't drift during the storm.

We drift when we don't see the danger. And that's what he says in Deuteronomy 8, 11. "Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God "by not keeping his commandments and his ordinances "and his statues which I am commanding you today. "Otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied "and have built good houses and lived in them, "and when your herds of your flocks multiply "and your silver and gold multiply "and all that you have multiplies, "then your heart will become proud "and you will forget the Lord and your God "who brought you out from the land of Egypt, "out of the house of slavery." 17, "Otherwise, you may say in your heart, "my power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.

"But you shall remember the Lord your God, "for it is he," look at how many times he says he, "it is he who is giving you the power to make wealth, "that he may confirm his covenant "which he swore to your fathers, "as it is this day." So that was the problem.

The main problem of the Israelites was not when the enemies were coming. It wasn't the Midianites. It wasn't the Philistines. It wasn't the Egyptians. It was when they were financially stable, when the temple was being used at full force, when everything was being done and they were following the command, the letter of the law, and yet God says, "None of that is for me." Your singing has become a burden.

Your assembly is evil. He said, "Even the music, the instruments that you play," he said, "It's become noise to me." Hosea 13, five through six, "I cared for you in the wilderness, "in the land of the drought. "As they had their pasture, they became satisfied. "And being satisfied, their heart became proud.

"Therefore, they forgot me." If you look in the book of Judges, right before revival, right, there's judgment because they forgot God. So when they were in the greatest danger was not when the judgment was there, was not when the enemies were attacking because when the enemies started to attack, that's when they cried out to God, God had mercy and would raise up a judge and through the judge overthrow their enemies and then they would celebrate and after they celebrated, they became satisfied and once they became satisfied, they became proud and they forgot God.

So the most dangerous period in Israel's cycle is when they were at peace because next step is they forgot God. They became proud and they forgot God. Is when we are doing well, our bills are paid and things are going well, our natural tendency is I made a good judgment, I bought the house at the right time, I sold it at the right time, I put my money at game stop when it was $6 and so therefore, if I find two more of these, I can retire by the time I'm 35 and when things are going well, that's when we need to be careful.

Be careful when you think you stand because that's when you will fall. See, the communion, the Passover meal was given to us even in times of peace to humble us when we come before. Every time we come to the communion table is to remind us, you did not get here on your own.

You do not come to the table because you were good this week and you cannot resist the table because you were bad. The communion table humbles Nicodemus and it raises the Samaritan woman because the path to Christ is the same. It humbles the proud and it lifts up the humble.

That's what the communion table does and so we are to remember this and that's why we participate in this communion because once we forget that, what it symbolizes, what it was supposed to remind us and the moment we start to drift, we rely on our own resources, we are satisfied where we are at and we're no longer desperate.

And again, when we are the most in danger is when we don't feel this desperateness for Christ because our bills are paid, our children are doing well, you have enough money in the retirement, all these things that make you a good father, good mother and when you begin to take a step back and say, wow, I've done my job, he says, watch out because the communion table is to remind us of our constant need for Christ.

So after saying that, I said, well, if you believe in his symbolism, why do we take this so seriously if it's just a symbol? One, like I said, because it is an ordinance, it is law, this was not suggested, it was commanded in scripture. So we're gonna practice it but there are a few names that different denominations, different groups and even within the same church, we may use different names and it conveys some of the things that the Bible teaches why we should take this seriously.

We've already talked about ordinances, it's commanded, this is not a suggestion that every church that is obedient is to practices. That's why the parachurches, we don't call them churches 'cause they have, one of the key factors of what a church is is to practice the ordinance. You can't say we're not a local church so we don't practice it.

Well, that's not a suggestion, it was commanded in scripture, right? That's a side thing. Another word that is used is sacrament. We don't normally use the word sacrament because there's historical connotations attached to that in the Catholic Church but the meaning behind it is something that we need to understand.

Sacrament basically means sacred or set apart. Just like when the priests were entering into the Holy of Holies, there was a degree of seriousness that they were to take when they went into the Holy of Holies. Jesus was angered because the Jews were doing selling of other products and animals and making profit out the outer court where it was supposed to be a place of worship.

And that's why Jesus says he will be consumed with his Father's house, that it ought to be a place of worship, of prayer. And so that's what the word sacred means, that though it is symbolic and it is a memorial, it is to be taken seriously. Just like with the baptism, we don't just do it because that's what we think or I believe.

That's what I was taught. What is the tradition? That we do not turn from it to the left or to the right because it is an ordinance commanded in scripture. In fact, it is so sacred, in 1 Corinthians 11, 27, 28, some people were actually dying because they were disrespecting the communion table.

Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. In other words, you're taking something that is so sacred and you're treating it like it's very trivial. And so what was happening at Corinth, they were coming together and the rich people were eating and the poor people would not eat.

And so by doing that, causing division, right? If you have, you're gonna get together. So they weren't acknowledging the communion table itself and so they were participating in an unworthy manner. And because God wanted to teach the early church the significance of this ordinance, the consequence of that was some of them were actually dying from this.

And so though we may not experience that, but the point that God was trying to make in the Corinthian church of the sacredness of this event, we ought to take seriously because it is meant to be sacred. It is meant to be law, that we ought to practice it exactly the way or the way that honors God, that lends to the weightiness of what it is that we are doing.

The other word that we use in our church that we use commonly is the word communion. The word communion literally is koinonia, fellowship, to partner. And so the significance behind that is that the communion was to bring the church together, that this is what binds us together. So communion was never meant to be done in private.

It is not an event between you and God. It was meant to be done in the context of the body of Christ. And this is the reason why we do not practice communion at home, because it is to be done at the presence of the whole church. And we do not practice communion at the wedding, because the wedding is not a gathering of the whole church.

It is a segment of the church. It is not a gathering of the whole church. And so we practice communion when the physical body of Christ is gathered together. So I know that at the beginning of the pandemic, we're discussing about how come we don't let the people who are at home participate in the communion.

And again, as much as we would like to, we don't want to give disinformation about what the communion is. Communion was meant for the physical gathering of the church, not to be done privately between me and God. And that's why a long time ago, understanding this, we used to practice communion with the Hawaiian bread, and because that's kind of like the way I learned it.

And so communion, the Hawaiian bread basically means it's one body and everybody participating in one body. And so the way I learned it when I was young, again, like I said, I was never taught this at seminary. So as I was practicing communion, I was just kind of going off of my memory as a youth student what my youth pastor did.

And so I remember going up to retreats and he would pass around Hawaiian bread. And if he didn't have one loaf, it would be just coming in that bag. And then we would take pieces. And then we didn't have little cups, but he would give us the grape juice boxes.

So we'd have a box of that, right? Or a cup, but we'd have something with the juice and then Hawaiian bread, and then we would eat it. And then that would be our communion. And after we were finished, we would bring salami. And then, because salami tastes really good with that bread.

And then we would eat the, drink the rest of the, you know, grape juice and we would have lunch, right? So earlier part of the church, we kind of had a version of that at church, right? And I, you know, I know this is sacred, but that's kind of what I remember.

So I remember the first three, four years of the church, we'd have the Hawaiian bread, and then we would practice. I would pour the grape juice in a big, big bowl and then take a Hawaiian bread from one loaf and then dip it and then eat it and then go.

Like that was what we were practicing. And then after we're done, whatever's left over, we would drink and then get salami and then eat it. You know what I mean? So we were doing that. And then we had a brother who came to church and he was fairly new, and then he started practicing communion.

And he wasn't upset or anything. He just kind of passionately said, you know, he saw us like taking the bread and everybody was tearing it to pieces and eating it. It's like, "I kind of see you sacrilegious." (laughs) Should we be doing that? And then, you know, I just heard it in passing.

And I said, "Oh, we do that because, you know, it's one loaf, one bread, and we're doing all that." And then I went home, I was like, "Yeah, that doesn't seem right." Just after years of doing this, like maybe we shouldn't do that. So I had a meeting with our leadership.

It's like, maybe we shouldn't be doing that. And then we started thinking like, it's supposed to be unleavened bread. That's very, you know, sweet. Maybe we shouldn't be doing that. And then the wine part of it that, you know, we said, "Oh, we just stopped that 'cause it was unsanitary." You know what I mean?

So we found cups and we started doing it differently. So we started kind of like, what is the best way? What is the best way for us to signify what it means and convey the meaning of significance, right? And so that's why when we started practicing the communion, we want to make sure that we handle it with sacredness.

So every once in a while, somebody would see us stumbling up here, putting it together and throwing it away. And somebody would say, "Hey, do you guys need some help?" And you probably had to say, "Oh, we don't need your help, even though we're fumbling," right? A part of the reason why is because we wanted to convey the sacredness of what it is that we are handling.

That this is not just some bread. Even though it is symbolic, it's not just some bread. It's not some grape juice. That this is sacred enough that God has separated this as an ordinance, a command for us, the church, to practice. And so even this, you know, like this existed a long time ago, you know?

And there was some talk about, "Hey, why don't we do this? And it'd be so much easier than to set it up. We just buy this and put it on the thing, just throw it away, we'll be done with it." Obviously, we introduced this because we're in a pandemic, and so we're trying to be sanitary.

But once this is done, you know, we choose not to practice it this way because of the meaning behind it. We want the church to understand that the body of Christ is coming together. We're handling the body of Christ and the blood of Christ symbolically, right? Same thing with baptism.

The baptism signifies a death and resurrection. So we practice immersion, as the Bible teaches. So once we are done with the pandemic, we're gonna go back to that, but we wanna make sure that everybody understands that that's exactly what we're doing, right? To remember Christ's sacrifice, that he's sustaining us, that this is an ordinance, that this is a sacrament.

This is a communion to remind us that we are one together. That's why before we participate in communion, we ask you to think, are there relationship that has been broken that you need to confess? You know, and obviously, it's hard to practice that perfectly, but are there things that you're holding in your heart that you need to confess and reconcile in the body of Christ, right?

Are we acknowledging the body of Christ, or have we drifted away from the church, and we're no longer participating? And to remind us that this is supposed to galvanize us together, the body of Christ. Another word that is used is Eucharist. Sometimes the Lutheran church uses this term, but the meaning behind Eucharist basically is good grace.

That's where we get the word Thanksgiving, right? It's a table of celebration to give thanks, right? Maybe you come in and there's things that you're not happy about. You've been grumbling this week or last week, and there's a lot of things, and you have a tendency to articulate things that you're frustrated, and I catch myself doing that all the time.

And so at the communion table, it is a place to celebrate, right, in light of what he has given me, and recalibrate my thoughts, my heart. I have way more things to be thankful for than to be concerned about, way more things to praise him for than to complain about.

And so that's what the Eucharist is meant to be. And then the last one, again, this is a term that we often use as well, the Lord's table, right? It's meant to be a celebration, to remind us, ultimately pointing to the second coming of Christ. The Bible says in Revelations 19, seven through nine, "Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to him "for the marriage of the Lamb has come "and his bride has made herself ready.

"It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, "bright and clean, for the fine linen in the righteousness, "righteous acts of the saints. "Then he said to me, right, "blessed are those who are invited "to the marriage supper of the Lamb. "And he said to me, these are true words of God." So this communion table, the Lord's supper, is to remind us, not only did he die for us, but because he died for us, he's going to take us into eternity.

And in eternity, we're gonna be celebrating in his marriage ceremony. He's the groom and we are the bride and we're gonna participate in this joyous wedding. People ask me all the time, because I told you the first wedding that I did, since then, I've counted about 100, right? My guess is about 100 to 120 weddings.

And people ask me, doesn't it get old? You go to so many weddings, you do the same thing every time. My honest, honest answer, it does not. It does not get old, even though it looks the same, and sometimes you might hear the sermon and you say, oh, I heard that, right?

And I know I'm preaching to the same people 100 times. So I'm aware of the pressure, right? So I'm not dumb. So it gets harder and harder as it goes, right? But wedding ceremony never gets old because it's the beginning of two people starting a new life, right? Disneyland is not the happiest place in the world.

I think the wedding banquet is the happiest place in the world, where everybody's excited to see these young couple celebrate the beginning of a new life. They get to go home with their best friend and to be able to be a part of that and be a part of that ceremony, that part never gets old, right?

I never come back from a wedding depressed. So the communion table is to remind us of the real celebration, all of that to point to the celebration of the coming of Christ. And so that's why we wanna lift up the communion that we understand as a church, not just the pastors, not just the leaders who make decisions, but the church understands what it is that we are doing, right?

Remember who saved us, remember in times of hardship, remember when things are well, that God had given us this ordinance, not simply to go through the motion and say we did it, but to remember him and to celebrate him and eagerly anticipate. So those of you who are not doing well, by the grace of God, participate.

For those of you who are filled with pride, thinking that you're gonna come here because you've been good, to be humbled when you come to the communion table. And for all of us to eagerly anticipate, no matter what's going on now, we're just passing through, we're just passing through.

This is temporary, our eternity is coming, and we're gonna be at the wedding together with Christ. So this morning, as we participate in the communion table, we're gonna ask the praise team to come up, we're gonna sing the communion song together, and then after that, I will open up the communion with us, and then we'll do it at once together, okay?

the communion song. (gentle music) , (gentle music) , (gentle music) - Thank you. (gentle music) ♪ We hold the lamb who bears our sins away ♪ ♪ We wait for God ♪ ♪ We can remember the promise made ♪ ♪ That all will come in peace ♪ ♪ By making a sacrifice ♪ ♪ So we share in this bread of life ♪ ♪ We drink of his sacrifice ♪ ♪ As a sign of our bonds of peace ♪ ♪ Around the table of the king ♪ (gentle music) ♪ The body of our Savior Jesus Christ ♪ ♪ Torn from love ♪ ♪ We can remember the wounds that healed the dead ♪ ♪ That brings us up ♪ ♪ Paid the price to make us love ♪ ♪ So we share in this bread of life ♪ ♪ And we drink of his sacrifice ♪ ♪ As a sign of our bonds of love ♪ ♪ Around the table of the king ♪ ♪ The Lamb that brings his every stain ♪ ♪ He loves the dead ♪ ♪ We can remember the dreams that only enter ♪ ♪ To see the life that was so short ♪ ♪ So we share in this bread of life ♪ ♪ And we drink of his sacrifice ♪ ♪ As a sign of our bonds of peace ♪ ♪ Around the table of the king ♪ (gentle music) ♪ So with thankfulness and faith we rise to the sky ♪ ♪ And to remember our God to follow in his steps of light ♪ ♪ As his people we live in the flesh ♪ ♪ As we share in his suffering ♪ ♪ We proclaim Christ will come again ♪ ♪ And we'll join in the feast of life ♪ ♪ Around the table of the king ♪ ♪ Around the table of the king ♪ - So if you can take your communion cup and the bread, again, those of you who haven't done this before, there's a thin layer of plastic that you need to take.

And then the second part, you open that up. So as you hold onto this, let me read the passage in 1 Corinthians 11, 23. It says, "For I received from the Lord that which I also received, we deliver to you that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread.

When he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, he took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is a new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." So let's participate together. , anyone else stand up for the closing praise? (gentle music) ♪ How great the chasm that lay between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ , how great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪ ♪ In death's dark abyss I lay ♪ ♪ How great the chasm that laid between us ♪ ♪ How high the mountain I could not climb ♪