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Introduction
Two things to accomplish this morning
Introduce us to Joshua
Second to help us better understand the significance of communion and celebrate the Lord’s Supper together.
Why read OT, and specifically why should we pay attention to OT narrative, the history of Israel as a nation?
God has a purpose for us in the OT.
Narrative is a story.
Narrative is the preferred genre of the Bible.
One way of counting and categorizing the text, narrative could make up half of the content of both OT and NT.
This is because the message of scripture is not simply a bunch of do’s and don’ts, rules to be followed.
Scripture is itself the story of the redemptive plan of God.
Ever since we were children, almost all of us have loved to hear or tell a story.
It should be no surprise then when we see the most important disclosure ever made to mankind given primarily in the form of a story.
If we read our Bibles with the mindset of it being the story of God, it can make it easier and more desirable to read.
Rather than reading for a list of rules.
Within this book, we have God’s story, written to each and every one of us.
Possession of the word of God is no small favor or treasure, it is second only to the importance of the gift of God’s Son.
Simple possession of the word alone will not be enough though to fortify the community in times of need.
In fact, continual neglect of the word can lead to God himself making the word scarce so that few can find it and profit from applying its message.
Such a scarcity of God’s word would be a sign of God’s judgment on his people and their leaders who had helped to create this barrenness.
It would represent a setting similar to those horrible words found in Amos 8:11–12
It is important for us to look at the whole of scripture, not just what we like or what we think best suits us.
The whole Bible is God’s story, his love story of redemption for His creation.
That being said, I don’t have a specific text for us this morning because I want to introduce us to a person.
To the man Joshua.
I want to give us an introduction to his life before the book of Joshua.
If you would please pray with me as we begin.
Joshua in the Pentateuch.
Joshua - Moses’ Assistant
He has saved becomes the Lord saves
At Mt Sinai
Joshua did not participate in the worship of the golden calf.
Joshua - Military leader
The first mention of Joshua that we see in scripture actually shows him to be a great military leader.
Joshua earned the respect of the people as a great military commander.
Joshua the spy.
Num.
13-14
Not only was Joshua a spy but he was a chief among the tribe of Ephraim.
Joshua and Caleb were the only two of the twelve to look positively on the peoples ability to take the land.
In turn, they were the only two men from that generation who were allowed to enter the promised land.
The rest wandered until each man that was 20 or older at the time died in the wilderness.
Joshua - Moses successor.
God reiterates this to Joshua in the beginning of the book as we will see as we begin - be strong and courageous.
Joshua in turn passes this on to the people.
The important thing for us to take away from all of this -
Joshua wholly followed the Lord.
He followed Moses example and trusted the Lord, even though so many of his piers did not.
Joshua did not follow the crowd, he followed the Lord.
Communion
Shifting gears a bit, that is one thing that we are doing when we celebrate communion together.
We show that we are following the Lord.
I believe that our taking of communion together is an important act.
How often though is it reduced down in minds though to munching on a cracker and drinking a little grape juice to wash it down.
If we leave our understanding of communion at that level though we are missing the point.
The Lord’s Supper, Communion, is set as a sign of the new covenant that is found in Jesus.
The covenant that is sealed by Jesus sacrificial death.
This covenant is also set as a meal.
Various meals in scripture set up by God help us to see the abundant and gracious character of the blessings he provides us.
They point in different ways to how God gives himself to his people.
The feast of Passover, which is what Jesus and the disciples were celebrating when the Lord’s Supper was instituted, was set for the Jewish people to remember the Lord’s deliverance from their bondage in Egypt.
God provided the way for them to be delivered from slavery.
Out connection, the connection of Jesus in the New Testament, is that Jesus is the passover lamb that is slain that we would be passed over.
The Lord’s supper then is a reminder of the blessing we receive in God’s delivering us from our captor, sin.
The people of Israel deserved judgment just as much as the Egyptians, but that judgment fell not on them, but upon the sacrificial lamb that took their place.
Jesus, God’s own son, bore his own body on the cross the cruse that sinners deserve.
He did this in order that through faith, we might find forgiveness and acceptance in His name.
Closely related to and immediately following the passover meal was the feast of unleavened bread.
This feast ran for a whole week, and began and ended with specific time of worship.
The passover was to be eaten with unleavened bread to remind the people of God’s deliverance.
The people gathered their things and their provisions to leave Egypt before the leaven was added to cause the bread to rise.
The people were in fact commanded to remove leaven from their homes for the week.
Mark and Paul write of leaven as a metaphor for sin.
This was something that God’s people are to put away.
This connection reinforces the calling of God’s people to be a holy people, set apart from bondage to sin and for the Lord and the liberty of His service.
Throughout the Bible, God uses the image of a feast, meal, or banquet to give us a picture of His provision.
God prepares a bountiful table and invites the undeserving to sit with him there.
The table in all its abundance, points to the spiritual blessings that God gives his people - life, joy, peace, and glory.
It points us more importantly to the chief blessing, the host, God himself.
The table represents God’s willingness to lower himself, to draw sinners to himself, redeeming them, and inviting them to communion with him.
The best part of all of this though is that this communion is not limited to this life.
Death cannot rob us of our seat at the table.
The truth is that Jesus stresses that the best is yet to come.
Guy Prentiss Waters writes “We have been treated to an appetizer in this life.
The fullness of the meal awaits us when the savior returns.”
What we do together today, celebrating the Lord’s supper together, is designed to bring blessing, to help us as we journey through the wilderness that is our life.
To remind us of the promise that God has made.
That Christ will return in glory.
The Gospels help us to see that the Lord’s Supper has three important parts.
First it is a covenant meal where we as individuals come and communicate intimately with Jesus for our spiritual nourishment.
It is not to create new faith but to strengthen the faith that is already present.
Second, the Lord’s supper is a family meal in which the covenant family of God gathers together under God, in Christ.
The supper should promote among us the bonds of a family, like getting together for a holiday meal.
Third, the Lord’s Supper serves to distinguish the church as a society that God has set apart from the world.
Not out of pride, smugness, or self-righteousness, but in a manner that testifies to the saving grace of God, that draws sinners away from their sin and to the Lord, Jesus Christ, for salvation.
It is a family meal among believers but it also serves to show those who don’t know Christ that they have an opportunity to come to Jesus in faith, and when they do, they may then join at the table as well.
They become part of the family.
I would like us to read from the book of Matthew today, as Jesus gathered his disciples together to celebrate the passover meal together.
The broken bread at the time represented Christ’s body, soon to be crucified.
Today we look back to the work Jesus did on the cross to bring us into a right relationship with God.
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