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Communion Sunday
I would like to begin a discussion this morning about the Lord’s Supper.
God’s provision of the Supper is part of a long standing patter of His gracious dealings with His people throughout history.
We see throughout scripture, evidence of God’ making covenants with His people.
In scripture we see covenant signs and covenant meals as tangible signs, reminders of the promises that are tied to them.
The word covenant is not often used in our modern western society.
One example that is primarily in a Christian context would be the covenant of marriage.
The term is generally unfamiliar to us.
If you think with me to a couple of prominent examples, the rainbow is a covenant sign from God that he would not destroy the world in that manner again.
One of the most notable covenant meals is the Passover, which is where our meal today has its roots.
The people celebrated God freeing them from slavery in Egypt.
In the Bible, covenants are used in two basic settings, between people, an example of this is the covenant that David and Jonathan made as Saul, Jonathan’s father was out to kill David.
Jonathan pledged his allegiance to David through that covenant.
The most important covenants we see in the Bible though are those made between God and people.
A significant example of this is when God made a covenant with Noah that He and is family would be saved from the flood.
God committed to saving Noah and his family.
He promised to do so and followed through on His promise.
What we celebrate today is a covenant.
Communion, the Lord’s Supper is a covenant mean.
It is a promise form God.
Jesus called it to be so.
So what is this covenant, this promise that we celebrate
First a covenant assumes and existing relationship between two parties and serves at a ratification of that relationship.
The relationships are elective in that God was not obliged to enter into the relationship.
God chose to establish the relationship.
Second, this covenant addresses important life and death issues.
Jesus death rescues us from the eternal condemnation and wrath.
Third, this covenant is a sovereign administration of God’s promise.
This covenant that we celebrate is a covenant of grace.
In obedience to God, Christ died on the cross to pay for the penalty of our sin.
We eat and drink out of the remembrance of what Jesus has done for us.
We eat and drink in celebration of Christ taking the punishment for our sins.
A sacrament gives a dramatic sign that points beyond itself to some truth of redemption that is crucial to the life of the people of God.
As we partake together, let us remember this truth.
The truth that we are redeemed because of Jesus.
We can have a relationship because of Jesus.
Pass Bread
Jesus left the standard tradition of the passover when he attached a new significance to the bread.
Pray Eat
Pass the cups
Jesus also attached a new significance to the cup saying “I am the Passover, I am the Lamb, the one who will be sacrificed for you.
It is by my blood being marked over the door of your live that you will escape the wrath of God.
From now on, this is my blood, which is shed for you for the remission of your sins.
This is the blood of the new covenant, a covenant of grace.
Pray Drink
Intro
I would like to begin this morning by building a picture in our minds.
Picture with me if you will a wild horse, unbroken, free to roam and do as it pleases.
This horse, is young and strong, it can work for its own purpose.
Doing what it wishes.
This horse expends its great strength running the fields, but doesn’t accomplish anything in terms of work.
Now take this same horse, break it, tame it, make it meek, and that same strength, now brought under control can be used for the purpose of its master.
The horses strength is now harnessed for a purpose.
We all like this horse have strength.
Without a
We also, like the horse must put on meekness.
We must put on this trait in order that we be best used by our Lord.
It is when we put on the meekness that Jesus modeled that we will grow in Christ.
What is meekness?
Meekness is a funny often misunderstood word.
It’s one of those words that we don’t frequently use so what it means is not on the tip of our tongues.
On another note, what little that does come to mind is not a good thing.
Our culture does not hold meekness to be a virtue.
The term meekness often conjures pictures in our mind of mildness or gentleness and even suggests weakness.
This leads us to some problems when we are reading our bibles and come across the word.
Meekness has nothing to do with weakness.
You may have heard the phrase, meekness isn’t weakness, and it is true.
Weakness, when not used in physical terms, has to do with lacking in judgment or good sense.
We must address the discrepancy that has formed for us to properly understand why Paul is telling us to put on this trait.
The meaning of the word meekness is difficult to express which is why it is often misconstrued as weakness.
If we look to the King James version, it uses the word meek or meekness 31 times, modern translations change many of these to the words gentle or humble.
Biblical meekness is usually not simply gentleness and humility but those qualities displayed with integrity during times of trial.
the quality of not being overly impressed by a sense of one’s self-importance
Think for a moment, what makes you feel good, what makes you feel important?
What happens when something gets in the way of that feeling?
Perhaps a situation or another person.
A typical human response these circumstances include frustration, bitterness, or anger.
Which is the opposite of meekness.
I’m not saying we don’t feel these things, but in putting on meekness we don’t act upon them.
Meekness is therefore an active and deliberate acceptance of undesirable circumstances that are wisely seen by the individual as only part of a larger picture.
Meekness is not a resignation to fate, it is not a passive and reluctant submission to events.
That is not the virtue that Paul is calling his readers to put on.
Paul is calling for the patient and hopeful endurance of undesirable circumstances that identify a person as externally vulnerable and weak, but inwardly as resilient and strong.
Meekness does not identify the weak but more precisely the strong who have been placed in a position of weakness where they persevere without giving up.
Meekness is not only about our response to situations.
To put on meekness really has to do with our approach to one another.
Most all difficult situations involve other people.
If we look to the context where this word is set, each of these virtues have to do with Christians ought to relate to others.
The virtues listed in Colossians include words that carry a profound emotional content referring to how one feels when responding to another in need.
Meekness has to do with having the strength to be gentle with one another.
Does anyone remember the movie Kindergarten cop?
I am not referencing anything specific in the movie so much as the idea.
A big burly guy, teaching a bunch of kindergartners.
A picture of strength under control, with the gentleness to teach a child.
This is the sort of meekness that we are called to put on as followers as Jesus that we might grow in Him.
Put on meekness.
As followers of Jesus, we then must look to His teaching and His life as the example.
Jesus’ teaching.
The first place I would like us to look together at is the sermon on the mount.
There is a theme in these first three that we can’t miss.
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