The Lord's Supper Service - 3-28-2021

The Remembrance Lord’s Supper Service

3-28-21

EASTER

If you’re joining us online get your communion kits ready. Or juice and crackers.

PRAY

Have you ever forgotten anything? I am good with faces but horrible with names. If I don’t see you every week I won’t remember yours.

I also forget where things are. Specifically the TV remote. I lay it down and forget where.

How about walking into a room and then forgetting what you walked in there for? Me.

Hey, married guys, ever forgotten your anniversary? I would if it weren’t for my smart phone. BTW, why is the anniversary weighted towards the wife? It’s our anniversary but it’s my job to remember. Kind of like we need to cut the grass thing I’ve talked about before.

Once I forgot to pick up Gracie at school

I have a pastor friend who planned this huge prayer breakfast on the national day of prayer for all the business owners and leaders in his city. I pull in the parking lot and he calls me. He’d overslept. I had to stall. 

Forgetting names and anniversaries or forgetting to pay the power bill or pick up a child at school are all part of the human experience. In a perfect world there’d be no such thing as forgetting.

I am glad we have a God who never forgets. The Bible teaches us in a big way that our heavenly Father always remembers his people. We see this in the very first book of the Bible. God judged the earth’s wickedness with a flood…

1 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.  Genesis 8:1 (ESV)

You know the story of how much later on God made the Israelites his chosen people and how they became enslaved in Egypt for 400 years. They cried out to God for deliverance. After so many years of silence they though he might have forgotten them. No way…

24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.  Exodus 2:24 (ESV)

Many years later after they had been brought into the Promised Land and set up as a bona fide nation, they rebelled so badly and for so long God had to discipline them. He raised up nations to conquer them and carry them into exile. Even then, when it was their own fault, God remembered… 

14 But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” 15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. 16 Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.  Isaiah 49:14–16 (ESV)

Think about that and get this. The same God who always remembers his people made us his people through a new covenant founded with the work of Jesus in his living the life we should have lived and dying the death we should have died.

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.  1 Peter 2:9–10 (ESV)

As God’s new covenant people we take comfort in knowing he will never forget us. He will always remember us. 

I am about to throw you for a loop here with a question I’ve already kind of answered. Does God ever forget anything? Yes, and thank heavens he does. 

Our God is a God who remembers his people, but he is also a… 

God who forgets his people’s sins

25 “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.  Isaiah 43:25 (ESV)

I know what some of you might be thinking. How can God be God if he forgets something? Here’s how. He can choose to! God can decide to limit himself in some way to accomplish his will if he desires. The same way he chose to limit himself in human form when Jesus came to us as God With Us.

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:5–8 (ESV)

God chooses to forget our sins when we come to him through Jesus, but often we have a hard time doing the same. We hold on to our past while the guilt piles up. We can’t get past our past. Instead of resting in God’s grace and forgiveness, we punish ourselves by not letting it go.

The prophet Micah wrote... 

19 He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.  Micah 7:19 (ESV)

He referred to the Israelites, but this is true of all God’s people. I love what Corrie ten Boom says about this, “God has cast our sins into the sea of forgetfulness and he puts up a sign that says ‘No Fishing!”’

As we celebrate the Lord’s Supper today, let’s rejoice that we have a God who remembers his people and a God who forgets his people’s sins. Because of that, we should be a people who remember what made it possible.

You see, God isn’t just being lenient when he forgets our sins. He’s not just turning a blind eye. Somebody had to pay for such an unthinkable privilege.

24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.  1 Peter 2:24–25 (ESV)

13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.  Colossians 2:13–14 (ESV)

In earthly economies, we work and our wages are used to pay off debt. But in God’s economy it’s the opposite. The best of our efforts are like filthy rags to him, and our daily sins pile up increasing our debt. But through the cross, God made a way for that debt to be wiped out and forgotten.

This is what remember this every time we gather for the Lord’s Supper. We remember the self-sacrificing, all loving, risen Jesus. This is why Jesus said… 

19 And he took bread, and when he had 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.”  Luke 22:19 (ESV)

In just a minute we are going to have the Lord’s Supper like our brothers and sisters have been doing for 2,000 years, a very appropriate thing to do on Palm Sunday. But before we do know that it is reserved for Christians. For those who’ve had their sins forgiven and forgotten by coming to God through Jesus. For those who took God up on his offer…

13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  Romans 10:13 (ESV)

That’s not meant to sound mean or exclusionary, I promise. You see, the Lord’s Supper points to something so special and precious — the crucifixion of Jesus, his resurrection, the new covenant sealed by his blood, and his return —  it would be crazy inappropriate for people who haven’t become a part of that to participate. 

If you’re watching this morning or here in person and can’t participate because you’re not a Christ-follower yet, please don’t feel bad or awkward. We are so glad you’re with us! You can just observe. But why wouldn’t you take care of that? Why wouldn’t you take God up on his offer? In just a minute we’ll have a time of reflection. You can pray right then. Or you can slip up to the front row and I can pray with you. Christian, make where you are an altar and get your heart ready.

Let’s Pray.

INVITATION

Serve the bread…

Pastor Brad:

“For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”  

PRAY & Partake 

SONG

Serve the juice…

Pastor Brad:

In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

PRAY & partake 

SONG

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:23–26, ESV)