His love reaches to the heavens. His faithfulness stretches to the sky. Right? Amen. We come to celebrate that love. Commemorate the love. To understand more of it for us, So that by understanding and receiving it and just kind of being washed by it, we go in love. We're compelled by love to spread the name of Jesus to the many. Last week in this, we're attempting to take a look at the Lord's Supper. just inundating ourselves with the scriptural truth that God has left for us, this special meal that Jesus gave to His followers, a special meal that shows forth His death. And He calls us to it. In our confession of faith, we read these words. I'll paraphrase just a little bit. That Jesus, out of love, gave to us a perpetual remembrance of the sacrifice of His death. For the sealing of the benefits of that death for all true believers, for our spiritual nourishment and growth in Him, for the increased commitment to perform all the duties which we owe to Him, and for a bond and a pledge of their fellowship with Him and with each other as members of His mystical body. It's a lot to take in. It's a lot because this simple meal has much significance. A simple meal with eternal significance. Last week, we looked at the concept of Jesus gives us this meal and He says, whenever you eat this bread and whenever you drink this cup, Do this in remembrance of Me." It has a backward look for all those who follow Christ, to be brought again to the foot of the cross where the ground is level, where all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, where all who will be saved will be saved through Jesus' finished work. He says, this is My body given for you. This is My blood that was shed. for you." So it looks backward. It also looks forward. We see all of those who have been baptized and are members of the covenant via their baptism and then communicant members of the covenant by virtue of the fact that they have stood and proclaimed publicly faith in Jesus Christ. Acknowledging before a world that they are unfit and unable to come to God on their own. A sinner. Blackened in heart. Guilty. Polluted. That's what we admit. We publicly admit it. We boast in that. In our weakness. So that the strength of our Lord might be even more exalted. I'm weak. I'm frail. I need. He's strong. He's faithful. He supplies. And so we look forward to that day when Christ comes to claim His church. Whenever we eat the bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. You watching over my life, me watching over your life, us watching over each other's life, because a part of this communion means we want to live holy lives in a world We want to show forth the fact that that blood that was shed, that precious blood of the Son of God, cleanses my sin. I'm forgiven. I don't live as one who's trying to earn something from God. And it shows forth His death in that He provides righteousness for me to be robed in, so that I can take the critique when it comes. And so can you. We can submit ourselves to the discipline of the church. Because God is growing a people holy and blameless. We looked at the Lord's Supper in other words. It's the Lord's Supper. It's His meal. He determines who partakes. He determines the parameters of the meal. It's for those identified with His covenant. It's a thanksgiving meal. Eucharisteo. With thanks. We receive it. With thanks, Jesus broke bread. On the same night in which He was betrayed, on the same night in which He would enter into the garden and wrestle with drinking the wrath of God, that cup which was filled with the wrath of God, and eventually the cross where the Father forsook the Son. On that same night, prior to all that, He gave thanks. So what prevents us from giving thanks in all things? I don't know. It's the cup of blessing. We partake of Christ. 1 Corinthians 10 tells us. We participate in the body of Christ. We participate in the blood of Christ. We partake of Christ. He blesses us. We miss the meal. We miss the blessing. That's the clear teaching of Scripture. We wanted to inundate ourselves with the teaching about God's Supper for us, so that we might be drawn to love it because of Christ even more fully. Communion with the body of Christ, we talked about. The word fellowship, koinonia, is used there. We read in John's first epistle that we have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. We have that fellowship. And then John goes on a little bit further in the first chapter in verse 6, and he says, if we say that we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, then we lie and we do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, even as He is in the light, Listen, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. Do you see how even the Apostle John and the other writers of the Scripture, they mix fellowship with the Father and fellowship with the Son, and they just add in fellowship with one another? It's all a part. John goes on to say in that epistle, if you love God, you love the brothers. If you have not love for your brothers, John says, you should seriously doubt your love for God. It's a fellowship meal. It's a communion meal. It's the meal of the new covenant where Jesus Christ Himself mediates that covenant. This is the blood of the new covenant. He was ratifying the new and final covenant between a holy God and sinful man. This is the ratification. This is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for the many. For the forgiveness of your sins. Drink all of it. This is what Jesus instructs us who claim Him. I have fulfilled the covenant obligations. Because I fulfilled the covenant, you can enjoy the blessing of the covenant. That's what this meal signifies. And one other thing we looked at last week, in other words, it is the table of the King. The table of the Lord. The table of the King. When I was growing up, when I was just a little boy, when I was a little boy, it seemed like we spent a lot of time, now it may just be my recollection, but it seemed like we spent a lot of time in Boone's Mill, Virginia. southwest part of the state of Virginia, just south of Roanoke, going 220 south towards Rocky Mount, North Carolina, because that's where Grandma Flora lived. And my dad and his six siblings were born and raised in Boone's Mill, Virginia. The Flora grocery store is still there, although I think now it's owned by a seamstress or something. And we would go to Grandma Flora's house and she would make these big, huge meals And in the front dining room, they had this large round table. Ten or twelve, fourteen chairs could fit around this thing. And I loved those meals, you know, fresh green beans, bacon cooked in the green beans, you know, homemade rolls, dinner rolls, all kinds of stuff. But as soon as we were able, myself and all my cousins, we were excused from the table because we wanted to go to the creek or we wanted to walk on the railroad tracker. We wanted to cross the big 220 to Mr. Angel's farm and see the pigs. And we would spend hours away after dinner. And we'd come back and I was shocked and didn't quite understand why every one of the adults, they were still sitting at the table. They're still there. I didn't understand that as a young boy because I didn't know why they had gathered. It's not just for the food. It's for the fellowship. They gathered as a family for the fellowship to share stories and to recite and rehearse the things of their youth. They shared times of doctor's visits coming up and college trips and career changes and all manner of other types of things that the family shares. That's what they did. This is the table of the Lord. This is the fellowship with the King. I don't think we quite grasp that. I don't grasp what it means to be the subject of a king. You know, we've got late night pundits that, it doesn't matter who the president is, by the way, late night pundits are going to cut down whoever's in the White House. We don't have great respect for those in authority. We make fun, we joke, we cajole, you know, all this stuff. I don't think we understand the concept of what it means to be a subject of the King. And yet, the table shows us that. It's the table of the King. I alluded to this last week. It's the real presence of Christ. This is where a meeting with the King takes place. Jesus meets with us, His people, and He feeds us. He feeds us with Himself. Part of what Jesus said in instituting this meal has caused controversy for as long as there has been followers of Christ. You figure that out probably because we're followers of Christ and we kind of run to controversy. It all centers on that little word, is. What did is mean when Jesus said, this is my body, this is my blood? It's the difference between a real identity, an identification, a parallel, the symmetry, or the symbolic representation. We know all about this, don't we? I can hold up an apple if I had one and I'd say, this apple is a fruit. It's a real identification. Apple, fruit. Or I could get you all to take out those iPhones to put them on silence and say, this Apple is an iPhone, this Apple is an iPod, this Apple is an iTouch, this Apple is an i etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Right? Apple, same Apple, right? When you see that once bitten Apple sign, you know what it means. I'm a Mac. I'm a PC. I'm a PC still. I don't have an Apple yet. Maybe I'll get one. Jesus said, this is My body. And it's a perpetual remembrance. It's a regular and recurring supper. Is this bread and this cup, when I pray in a little bit, does that become in substance Christ's body? So there are several things that as Reformed believers we reject. We reject the Roman Catholic view that during the prayer of consecration for the elements, a miracle occurs wherein the bread and the wine actually become the body and blood of Christ physically. R.C. Sproul has been most instructive to me, who was raised in a Baptist home, went to a fairly conservative Baptist seminary and became the Reformed Presbyterian while I was down there. And I got a hold of some good teaching while I was there. Help me understand these two things that I'm wrestling with as a Baptist. The two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper. And Sproul is helpful in that he says you must understand the view that the church held was based in Aristotle's understanding of all things. Aristotle said that every material object has two aspects. its substance, what it really is, and the accidents, what we call the outward perceivable qualities. So that when Rome believed in that prayer, the miracle took place every time this literally, physically becomes Christ's body. We reject that view because we realize that In His humanity, Christ has a physical body. Are we literally, physically partaking of that body? The substance doesn't change. We also reject the view that Martin Luther took. Great Reformer. Have a lot of good content from Martin Luther, but Luther not wanting to swing too far away from the substance of Christ in the meal. For fear that people would trivialize the sacrament by viewing them just as mere symbols, Luther maintained that Christ's substance is in and through and over and under these elements. We also reject that view. We further reject the view that swung too far, that albeit important, these elements are mere symbols. That's all they are. Nothing more, nothing less. The Anabaptist view, the Zwinglian view, Erlich Zwingli, who kind of promoted that. We hold, however, we know that you're against him, what are you for, right? We hold to the Reformed view. The view that John Calvin, who celebrates his 500th birthday this summer, that John Calvin defended for the church. The view that Christ in His full divinity and His full humanity is present with us in this meal. Calvin denied the physical presence of Christ in these, while he maintained the real presence of Christ in these elements. He taught that Christ's presence is not tied to the elements themselves. Remember, Christ is fully God and fully man. Two natures without mixture. The Council of Chalcedon gives us that picture of one person with two natures. Fully God. Fully man. The God-man. The paradox. And your finite brain and my finite brain and our little hearts, we have a tough time with that truth. But it is truth nonetheless. Calvin said it this way, the finite cannot contain the infinite. So there is no real physical substance of Christ that we partake of. Christ nonetheless, in a real way. Calvin said that only Christ's divine nature can be everywhere at the same time. So we see this struggle. A holy God, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, majestic in His righteousness and glory. Holy God in love became perfect man to take my blame. Right? On the cross He died for my sin, for your sin, so that in Him we might live again. We have a picture of that. Jesus taught His full humanity. Jesus taught His full divinity. The Scriptures are true. When Jesus said in John 7, I will be with you just a little while longer, and then I'm going to Him who sent me. Jesus' full humanity in view. He ascended with a physical body. He rose from the grave with a physical body. He ascended into the heavens. And He's seated at the right hand of God the Father. Physical body. Full humanity. We will see those scars. But Jesus also said in Matthew 28, And behold, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age. His full divinity. His full deity. Without any mixture, those two natures perfectly exist in one person. The eternal Son of God. Who took on flesh. at a certain point in time, and retains it forever and ever. We have one Mediator between God and men, the Man, Christ Jesus. Praise be to God. Praise be to God. Sproul is instructive here at this point too. He says this, Calvin looked at it this way, when we celebrate the Lord's Supper here on earth, we are communing with Christ in His divine nature. Calvin said that in this act of mystical communion with the divine presence of Christ, the human nature of Christ is made present to us. In other words, when we meet at the Lord's table with Christ through His divine nature, that nature is still in perfect union with His human nature. Therefore, we are communing with the whole Christ. Stay with me. It is not because His body and blood are brought to earth or our bodies and blood are carried to heaven, it is simply that in this intimate meeting at the Lord's table, we commune with the perfectly united Person of Jesus Christ, not just with His divine nature. So even though we are apart from the human nature of Jesus, we really commune with Him in His human nature. This view keeps the human nature human, And the divine nature divine and strongly emphasizes that we are truly communing with the real presence of Jesus Christ at the Lord's Supper. Why do we make such a big deal about this? That's why. Because when we gather to receive by faith the bread and the cup, we commune with the real and living presence of the King of Glory. It is significant. And it is splendorous. I want to conclude with a picture. A picture of you and me I think we find ourselves in this picture, a picture of God, a picture of a covenant-making God, a picture of a covenant-keeping God. All week long I've had the privilege to work at the Upward Camp. Five times in the afternoon and twice in the evening, all week long, except for Friday. They gave us Friday off. Very gracious. We got to share the parables of Jesus. The story of the sower, the story of the pearl of great price, the story of the treasure that was in the field. And in each of those stories, we see a picture of the Kingdom of Heaven, a picture of God, a picture of Christ, a picture of us, a picture of salvation. We looked at the parable of the prodigal son, the father who had two sons. We looked at all these great stories. But in 2 Samuel 9, there is a story that was pictured for us. We see Jesus clearly here. We see ourselves clearly here. It's pictured in shadow and type. But it's here. It's the story of Mephibosheth. Many of you know this story. Some of you do not. I was in a Bible study with several men a couple of weeks ago, and I recited this as a point I was trying to make. And there was two guys there who had never, ever heard this. Listen on. Listen on. The background for this story goes back to when David and Jonathan... You remember, Jonathan was the son of Saul, the king in Israel. And David was soon to be king of Israel. And Jonathan and David were great friends. They had dear and devoted love for one another. Precious friendship. A kinship like that of one to a brother, where they would lay down their life for the other. And we read in 1 Samuel 20, David and Jonathan making a covenant, a pact with each other to show kindness to the other and to their line because of their great love for each other. And David agreed, and Jonathan agreed, and Jonathan and Saul were killed. There was a son of Jonathan, this little one called Mephibosheth, and the fear came among those in the line of Saul, that those in the line of Saul, who now could be a threat to the throne, were to be killed. Ish-bosheth, Mephibosheth's uncle, was slain, and others. And in the fear, as Jonathan's people were fleeing, the nursemaid that was caring for Mephibosheth picked him up, and as she fled, there was a fall. She tripped. And as she fell, Mephibosheth dropped. And it tells us in 2 Samuel 4 that Mephibosheth became crippled in both feet. Lame in both feet. Unable to walk on his own. We think poignantly of one of our own, Tom Beliveau, who in an accident fell and broke both his heels. to where he's laid up now in a chair. He can't put weight on those things. Now, the Bellevotes tell me he's recovering nicely. He would probably appreciate a car to revisit, I'm sure. But Mephibosheth was in a situation where not able to work would probably become a beggar for his resources. And Mephibosheth was in the line of Saul, son of Jonathan. And in 2 Samuel 9, David says, is there anyone left of the house of Saul that I may show kindness to for the sake of Jonathan? We can trust David here. We don't think he's up to something. We can trust David when he says, I want anybody left in the house of Saul to be brought to me. And the servant Ziba said, there is one. The grandson of Saul, he's the son of Jonathan, Mephibosheth. He is crippled in both his feet, verse 3 says. And David said, where is he that I might meet with him? And Ziba tells him he's in the house of Micah, the son of Ammiel, at Lodabar. Lodabar, Hebrew scholars out there, Lisa Ledekeinen is one of them, means nothing. They still use that term in today's Hebrew. How's it going? Going pretty good. You need anything? Load a bar. Nothing. So at a place called Nothing, Mephibosheth dwells. And he's summoned to the king. Now, we read also in 2 Samuel 5, I just discovered this in studying this passage. I've seen this story several times. I've never seen this point. that David is described in 2 Samuel 5 as one who loathed, he hated, loathed those who were lame and blind. I didn't know that, but I wonder if Mephibosheth did. Here's Mephibosheth summoned to the king, to the presence of the king, Mephibosheth lame in both feet. Mephibosheth, in the lineage of Saul, son of Jonathan. Mephibosheth may be aware that David loathes those who are lame and blind, and how he's brought before the king. David sent and had him brought from the house of Makar, the son of Ammiel at Lodabar. And Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David. And he fell on his face to pay homage. And David said, Mephibosheth. Called him by name. Please pay attention. It doesn't get any richer than this. Mephibosheth. The king called him by name. And Mephibosheth answered, Behold, I am your servant. And David said, Do not be afraid. For I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. And I will restore you. I will restore the land of Saul to your father. And you shall eat at My table always." Mephibosheth, do not be afraid. For behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. For your sins and my sins, God took on flesh. Do not be afraid. The price has been paid. For the sake of your father Jonathan, I will show you kindness. I will restore your land. You will always continually eat at my table." And he paid homage, Mephibosheth did, to the king. What is your servant that you should regard such a dead dog as I? You think Mephibosheth knew his place? I guarantee you did. Who am I, O Lord, that you would have anything to do with me? I know who I am. A dead dog. And the king called Ziba the Saul's servant, and he began to restore the lands. You, Ziba, and all your servants, you will work the land, you will produce the crop, and as that is produced, it will be given to Mephibosheth, and Mephibosheth will dwell with me in Jerusalem, and he will eat at the king's table. Verse 10. So Mephibosheth, verse 11, ate at David's table like one of the king's sons. He doesn't deserve to be there. He's not worthy. And Mephibosheth had a young son named Micah, and all who lived in Ziba's house became Mephibosheth's servants. In verse 13, Samuel ends the chapter this way, Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem and he ate always at the king's table, and he was lame in both his feet. Because Mephibosheth had a continual need for the grace and the mercy that the king displayed. And so do we. That's what this meal is. His body broken for you. His blood shed to cover your guilt, your pollution. And He offers it to us. Let me pray. Father, we pray that You would now work in us these elements. We pray that, Lord Jesus, we could see clearly Your body, Your blood. And Lord, as You now visit us with Your real presence, and we receive by faith, I pray that You would change us. because of our time here with you. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.