Communion

1Co 11:25 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."

1Co 11:25 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."

 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes.

We will look at this topic from three points

1. Past – the exodus
2. Present- proclaiming
3. Future- till he comes

• There will be 5 main points I want to get across to you as we look at this subject

Exodus and Passover

First major event- creation

Second major event –selection of Abraham

Third major event is the exodus

• The story begins in Genesis with the promise he made to Abraham
• Bit we know that God had to deliver them from the bondage in order to fulfill his covenant with Abraham
  • In Egypt there were many different false God’s
    • We do not know what exactly what they knew about God but we do get a glimpse of what he begins to teach them about who He really is.
    • But what we do know is that He will begin to teach them about about Himelf.

1. That He is God overall.
2. That He rules over nature, proven by the miracles He performs.
3. God is teaching them that He can be Trusted – as HE begins to keep His word
   • God set up a covenant with Abraham and his descendants
     • In order for us to understand what communion is we have to understand what a covenant is.
       • a covenant is an agreement
         • Where God tells them they will inherit the Land of Israel it was sealed with a sacrifice. Genesis 15:17-21
         • All the events that took place while God was delivering them from Egypt these things were recorded in the Bible so that they could remember what God did for them and to help them know who God is.      
   • The exodus: God had chosen to save His people from a famine in the Land.  In preparation for that time, He sends Joseph to Egypt to prepare a place For his father's house.  The famine comes and forces His family to flee to Egypt. His family stays there for about 400 years.      
   • The family grew into a nation.
   • At the end of the time, they are still there but it is not the same they are now in slavery.
   • in Exodus 1 Pharaoh afflicted them to stop them from multiplying but it did not work so he ordered the baby boys to be killed. 
   • God protected a baby named Moses whom he would use 80 years later to deliver them out of Egypt.
   • Moses was living in the desert after fleeing from Egypt where God met him in the form of a burning bush.

• Exodus 6:4-8 the Lord said to Moses

Ex 6:4 "I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers.

 5 "And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant.

 6 "Therefore say to the children of Israel: 'I am the LORD; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.

 7 'I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

 8 'And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the LORD.'"

• God is telling Moses He will keep His covenant with them
  • part of His promise to His people is that he will save them 
    • God begins to perform miracles that only God can perform chapters 7- 12
      • Nile into blood
      • Frogs
      • Nats/lice
      • flies
      • lives stock-diseased
      • boils
      • hail
      • locusts
      • darkness
      • firstborn (pharaoh broken)
• the last plague is that the death angel will Passover the land and kill the firstborn of every family.
  • in order to be spared, they had t do something, they have to kill a lamb...
  • exodus 12:3 10th plague
    • Exodus 12:3 "Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: 'On the tenth day of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household.
      • They took the blood and put it on the door posts
  • God is starting a ceremony where truth is being taught – to remind them that their time in Egypt was bitter.
    • The Passover meal consists of lambs, bitter herbs, and unleavened bread
    • His night the first will die and the Children of Israel will be sent way by Pharaoh.
      • Those who took part in the sacrifice of the lamb were saved
  • This Passover is a picture of communion:
  • we need to understand what we are doing when we take communion

• After they left Egypt Pharaoh decided he did not want them to leave and begins to preserve them
  • the greatest army that the world had ever know was destroyed in an instance in the Red Sea
  • God is our salvation
    • Ex 15:11 "Who is like You, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, Fearful in praises, doing wonders?
    • There is no one like our God.

• About 1500 years have passed and we come to Jesus.
  •  at the Lords Supper Matthew 26:26-29,

Mt 26:26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is My body."

 27 Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you.

 28 "For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

 29 "But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom."

• 1 Corinthians 11:26
  • 1Co 11:26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes.
• the Jews have been celebrating the Passover yearly for over 1000 years and many other significant things have taken place
• probably the most significant thing that happened is a prophecy by Jeremiah
  • God had established the Old Covenant based on Laws and so forth, but Jeremiah speaks f a New Covenant. 
  • Jeremiah 31:31-33
• The last supper is so important for us to understand because when Jesus and His disciples ate the last supper it was the Passover celebration.
• for the last 1500 years before Jesus the Jews reenacted this Passover feast, and this is the last supper meal
  • The bread and the cup are part of this Passover meal and gives new meaning to them.
  •  He passes the bread out as usual but he says this is my Body, and like wise with the Cup and says this is my blood
    • now the bread and cup point to His body
    • a necessary sacrifice to save us from our sins
      • God gave us His only son to save us fro our sins
      • The bread and the cup that in the past pointed to the Passover now points to His sacrifice and His body.
        • We can see that God is the same, in these instances, exodus or cross our god is a god of salvation.
        •  John 3:18

2000 years have passed

1 Corinthians 11:17-34 problems

1 Corinthians 11:25-26 lord’s supper

Paul hears of some problems in the church at Corinth

• this ceremony was to be taken seriously, our sins have cost God much
• Examine our selves before we get this.
  • What does this mean
  • Has saved, does save, and will save, continue to save.
  • Examine our selves in the right way…
  • How can we declare the powerful work of Christ and yet continue to struggle in sin…
    • If you are in sin and it is having victory over you and you cannot get out f its grip think about taking it… instead come and repent of it and receive prayer for this sin.

1. Past – the exodus
2. the time of Jesus and the last super
3. in our day and examining our selves

II Communion and atonement

1Co 11:26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes.

• as often as we do this – here and now
• we proclaim something in the past , the Lords death
• And we will proclaim it until He comes, speaking of the future.

• Proclaiming the Lord death is about atonement.

Exodus to revelation

• The tabernacle is build and the Lord dwells there.
  • God is Holy
  • And if he is to dwell where people are then they to must be Holy. 
    • God deals with sin in the book a Leviticus.
    • God provide a way of temporarily forgiving their sins through an animal sacrifice.
    • Leviticus 4:28-31
    • Le 4:28 'or if his sin which he has committed comes to his knowledge, then he shall bring as his offering a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, for his sin which he has committed.
    • Le 4:23
    •  29 'And he shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering, and kill the sin offering at the place of the burnt offering.
    • Le 1:4; 4:4,24
    •  30 'Then the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger, put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and pour all the remaining blood at the base of the altar.
    •  31 'He shall remove all its fat, as fat is removed from the sacrifice of the peace offering; and the priest shall burn it on the altar for a sweet aroma to the LORD. So the priest shall make atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him.
      • You do it because you sinned
    • Leviticus 17:11 'For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.'
      • This is about the cross
      • And how all the sacrifices and this system is pointing to the cross
        • If anything taught about sin
        • The transfer of sin from person to the animal is done by laying hands in the head of the animal
        • This animal becomes a substitution

Sin is so horrific and God is so Holy that sin requires punishment of death the animal dies in their spot and

• Hebrews 9:22 without the shedding of Blood there is not forgiveness of sin
• If I were in Moses day and sins… I would lay my hand on the animal and it would die in my place… why or how it works is only by the grace of God and a picture of His son and His sacrifice.
  • This is God’s provision for the need of man.
  • To Jesus Day
  • John the Baptist said “Behold the lamb of God”. 
  • John understood that this was an eternal sacrifice to the sins of man kind.
  • Matthew 20:28 to give his life for the ransom for many
    • Ransom is paid and then comes freedom.
    • Jesus died for our sins
      • The establishment of the new covenant is in the blood of Jesus Christ and this is the time of the New Covenant.
      • Jesus became sin for us and God turned from him for he cannot be connected with sin.
      • And Jesus said from the Cross “it is finished”
      • Everything has been done now sin can be forgiven completely and for eternithy
        • Ps 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
        • Jer 31:34 "No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."
        •  Heb 8:12 "For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more."
      • In this Jesus abolishes this sacrificial system
      • Hebrews 9:25-28
        • Heb 9:25 not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another--
        •  26 He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
        •  27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,
        •  28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.
      • The catholic cross Jesus is still on the cross because he dies every day, during the mass or Eucharist, But the Cross in the protestant church and in Calvary the cross is empty because he die on the cross and finished the work or redemption for eternity and rose again and he never has to die again.  
      • Paul continues to elaborate on this topic.
        • What happened on the cross?
          • Like we read in Leviticus when the person laid the hand on the animal and the sin was transferred to it SO when Christ hung on the cross your sins and mine were transferred to Him and He was made to be sin.
            • 2 Corinthians 5:21  For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
          • Galatians 3:13  Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"),
          • Jesus became sin and if we understand this we will never look at sin the same way again.
            • Regardless of what type of sin Jesus became that sin for us. And it was judged.
            • How do we respond to this?
              • We follow the guidelines he established.
              • When we simply believe what the scriptures say regarding this sacrifice we are made righteous.
              • Our response: communion with Him and remembering Him and His death.
              • We deserve death, but he died for us.

What does it mean to proclaim His death?

III. Proclaiming the Lord’s Death in communion

• As we the church come together to communion with God we are fulfilling this passage from John 17
  • John 17:20  "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word;
  •  21 "that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
• This gathering is a witness to the world of our relationship with God, and with the people.
  • Proclaiming the Lord death means with words and deeds
    • Proclaiming has to do with the gospel
    • Communion is proclaiming with our behavior that we believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ
      • The act of communion it a public proclamation of the gospel
      • And you are saying you are part of this community that God created by sending His son.
      • You see a man standing before you who understand the That God is real as he has changed me

IV. The Unity of communion

Eph 4:4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling;

 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;

 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

• We are one in Christ
• 1corinthians 10:16-17
• 1Co 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
•  17 For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.
  • Our base for communion is that we in fellowship with one another and with God
  • The problem with 1 Corinthians was that they thought it was some ort magical ceremony that removed sin but communion is not that
    • Two things happening
      •  You are in a present and continual relationship with Christ
        • we are partaking in His death With Him through faith in and remembering what he did on the cross.
        • This is a reminder that we are joined with Christ and the benefits from His death on the cross  are applied to us through Faith.
      • the other in the connection between the verses 16 and 17
        • Because we are doing this together there is a fellowship that exist between us.
        • we are part of something much greater
        • we eat and drink at the same time as an act of saying we are of one Body
          • John 6:35 And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.

• 1 John 2:
• John says: This is the commandment that you believe in Jesus Christ and love one another.
• Just after John said that in 1 John 2 he said test the spirits.
  • 1Jo 3:16 By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
  •  17 But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?
  •  18 My little children let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
    • A real Love based on Real Truth in action
• We cannot play church we are the church and this is how we should behave

Future aspect of Communion

            We must live in the present but with anticipation of what lies ahead in heaven

• We have been born again… into a new family with a new father, and new brothers and sister.
• A new hope and a new inheritance
• 1Peter 1:3-5
• 3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
•  4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,
•  5 who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
• Related by new Blood that is the Blood of Jesus.
  • The bible tells us we are sojourners, pilgrims.
  • 1Pe 2:11 Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul,
  • our citizenship is in heaven Ephesians 2:19-22
    • Eph 2:19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
    •  20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone,
    •  21 in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord,
    •  22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
  • This place is not our home
  • 1Jo 2:15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
    • Philippians 3:20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
      • We cannot ignore the present…
        • We are called to action now and our hope is in the future.
        • Communion is declaring our hope in meeting the Lord Jesus.