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Our sermon this morning is from
Luke chapter 22. It's a bit of a blessing as I preach
through the books of the Bible that we came to chapter 22, the
place where the Lord's Supper is instituted, around the same
time as we had planned to have the Lord's Supper. So here we
have the account, Luke chapter 22. We'll start the reading at
verse seven. Luke 22, starting with verse
seven. Then came the first day of unleavened
bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. And Jesus
sent Peter and John saying, go and prepare the Passover for
us so that we may eat it. They said to him, where do you
want us to prepare it? And he said to them, when you
have entered the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher
of water. Follow him into the house that
he enters. And you shall say to the owner
of the house, the teacher says to you, where is the guest room
in which I may eat the Passover with my disciples? And he will
show you a large, furnished upper room. Prepare it there. And they
left and found everything just as he told them. And they prepared
the Passover. When the hour had come, he reclined
at the table and the apostles with him. And he said to them,
I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before
I suffer. For I say to you, I shall never
again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And when
he had taken a cup and given thanks, he said, take. Take this
and share it among yourselves. For I say to you, I will not
drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom
of God comes. And when he had taken some bread
and 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. And in the same way, he took
the cup after they had eaten, saying, this cup, which is poured
out for you, is the new covenant in my blood. But behold, the
hand of the one betraying me is with me on the table. For
indeed, the son of man is going as it has been determined. But
woe to that man by whom he is betrayed. And they began to discuss
among themselves which one of them it might be who is going
to do this thing. Pray with me. Father, help us now. Show us
as much as we can bear the full picture of your vast love for
us. Please shine into our hearts
this morning. and burn away every fear, burn
away every doubt. Please use your rod and your
staff to protect us, to direct us, and to comfort us, that you
will be most glorified as we think correctly about your relationship
with us and our place in this beautiful, eternal relationship. It is in Jesus' name we pray,
amen. We look here and the picture
is given. It was time for the Passover
lamb to be sacrificed. We move back to the ugly, bloody
picture, the ugly, bloody scene that everyone in Jerusalem knew
all too well. Prayerfully and hopefully their
hearts hadn't become callous to it. Prayerfully and hopefully
as they were expected to have raised their own lamb and taken
the most perfect one and have brought it and that lamb was
to be killed and they saw that blood spilled, hopefully as something
came that was a part of their lives and a part of their own
house, they would be able to look and see, hmm, that's what
the consequences of sin is. The wages of sin is death. Jesus says he longed to have
this supper with them. He wanted to be with them. He wanted to take this picture
together with them for them to see it, for them to know it.
And he had been waiting to say, this is the new covenant in my
blood. this I do for you." He said,
take this and make this the new picture of your faith. Take this
and know this as the sign of my great love for you. That I was broken. that I was
poured out. This is why the scripture comes
and it brings this to us. And we all want that champion.
We all want that hero. Some of us want to be that champion
ourselves. Some of us want to be the hero
ourselves. Some of us are waiting and longing
and looking for a champion or a hero to come and to be brought
to us. Give us one good man to follow,
we say. Someone to rescue us. Someone
to champion us. Someone, dare we say it, to save
us. A great rescuer has come. He
has given us this picture. So the call for you this morning
is to look intently at Christ's great love for you. As we look at the concept of
the leaven in verse seven, then came the first day of unleavened
bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. Leaven
was a picture or a representation of sin in their mind. In the
older covenant, as the first day was coming, they had to remove
all leaven from their house. The Jewish tradition, as it's
been told to me, they would go through and they would have a
candle and they would have a spoon and a feather and they would
look in each corner of their cupboard and work to get every
little bit of leaven representing sin in their lives out and take
it and throw it out. So when Jesus says to the disciples
in Luke 21, Luke 12, one, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,
which is hypocrisy. It unfolded it all for the disciples. Our first step is beware of the
leaven of the Pharisees. We could say beware of the sin
of the Pharisees. The most direct way would be
to say, beware of your own hypocrisy. Now I could start banging my
head off of this pulpit as I say that to you. Because any time any of us has
any standard whatsoever in accordance with righteousness, I hate to
say we're all hypocrites. Because anyone who breaks one
of the commandments, James 2.10 says, is guilty of all. Now in one sense, this is a terrible
curse for each of us. It puts us in that sad place
where we say, I'm guilty. On the other hand, it brings
us to that other place, that humble place, where we see that
we are small in our own sight. And Christ is near to the humble.
Christ is near to the brokenhearted. A broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise, it says in Psalm 51, where we
see that we are all guilty of breaking the whole law. We don't make ourselves comfortable
in a place of sin. Saying, everybody sins. I knew
a deacon in another church that we served in. Whenever some sin
was talked about, he would shrug and apparently shrug it off and
kind of chuckle and say, but it's only natural. As if that
made it acceptable. Well, we understand, prayerfully
we understand from scripture, none of us are striving for the
natural anymore. But we're striving for the supernatural.
We're striving to gain real ground, to advance from strength to strength. We're striving for that place
where we're pressing towards the upward calling of God in
Christ Jesus. Where in real and actual ways,
we're putting off our sin. With accountability in our lives,
confessing our sins to one another, that we can pray for one another.
that real ground will be being taken. Romans 12, 9. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to
what is good. Let's take that statement and
apply it to our personal relationships. That we would hate what's evil
in the midst of our relationships. and yet cling to what is good
in the midst of our relationships. That we'll truly be committed
to each other's eternal good. That we will truly be forgiving
one another from our hearts. That we'll have patterns in our
lives of confessing sin, seeking forgiveness, and forgiving each
other. that that will be the reality
of our relationships, not a fake politeness that we address each
other with, but real hearts that are truly connected, real hearts
that are seeking one another's eternal good, where we're putting
off the hypocrisy, but being transparent and honest and having
our hearts knit together. Now, as we do this, We're transitioning
into the second step, but please see these as chain links that
are together. Set your heart on the good news. In verse eight, Jesus says to
the disciples, go prepare the Passover for us, that we may
eat it. There was an intimacy in the
fellowship and the sharing of the meal. We look back, and if
we looked at Exodus chapter 24, and we spent some time on that,
we would say, what? They went and they ate and drank
together with God? What? Moses walked into the mountain. He walked into the consuming
fire. What? Moses met with God face
to face as a man meets with his friend? What? And we see the reality of our
relationship in the Gospel. That Christ, even as it says,
He says, I earnestly desired to have this meal with you. He
wants to meet with you. He wants your presence. He loves you. And he knows you. And he would
still hold you. He would still hold you fast.
He still keeps saying to you, come unto me, all you who are
weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He loves you. wants you and will eternally
hold you. And as we live out our lives,
as we have called on Him, we can go back to that verse 13
and it says, and they found everything just as He told them. He's not
surprised by anything. When He chose you before the
foundation of the world, He already knew how messed up and sinful
you would be. He already knew. And He had already
chosen the end as well. That you would appear before
Him. They would burn away every shadow in your heart. And we
would take our crowns and the elders would throw the crowns
before him and we would worship with every tribe and every tongue
and every nation. You remember that you're going
to be a part of that assembly. This is just a foreshadowing.
This is just a taste of what we get to enjoy. our first international
conference. It was such a sweet moment as
we're walking through the crowd and you could hear the accents
of people from Scotland and Ireland and Japan and we're looking around
at all the people and New Song is singing the Psalms. There's
this lilt waving over our heads and they had distributed ice
cream and Nate's walking along as he goes, six years old, and
he stops and says, this is what heaven will be like. We have our ice cream, we have
our Psalms, and we have Scottish people. No, but we had everybody there. We
had everybody there. Different tribes and different
tongues. All of those who call upon the
name of the Lord. And it's beautiful. This morning we have just Just
a taste. Our fourth step is stand in the
good news of the kingdom. Verse 16, for I say to you, I
shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom
of God. I always want that capitalized,
the K in the kingdom of God. I want this demonstrated as a
reality. an official title. The truth
that is more true than the United States of America. That's more
true than Japan. That's more true than Cyprus.
That's more true than Scotland. The kingdom of God. An assembly, a real people that
are forever and ever as they are in Christ Jesus. We read
in Ephesians 2.14, he himself is our peace who has removed
the dividing wall. That we are in him and we are
brought together as one people. I was once speaking at a youth
conference and when I walked in, they had a giant American
flag up across the back with the image of a bald eagle flying
across it. And it had the scripture on it,
blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. And it inferred
that the United States of America was that nation that was God's
chosen people. And I actually had to say, I
can't preach in front of that. You're gonna have to take that
down. We did used to have an American flag and a Christian
flag up on the stage in here. We are so much more than an American
assembly. We are so much more than an assembly
of the United States of America. We are a kingdom assembly, kingdom
of God, and I'm going to force it with a capital K. an eternal
reality that people from every nation, tribe, and tongue are
a part of. An eternal kingdom under Christ
Jesus. This is the reality of the kingdom. We will read later in scripture
where when Christ was crucified, he leans back and he shouts,
it is finished. It is finished. The kingdom of
God has come. It is present. You and me, we
can say in our dealing with sin, it is finished. The kingdom of
God has come. You and I stand as royal subjects,
a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a people after God's own calling
to proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness
into his marvelous light. This is where we live. This is our reality. This is
our true citizenship. And this is the picture of being
a part of that. This is a sign, a seal of that
reality. It is finished. The veil has
been torn. He has brought us together. And
in verse 17, he says, as a sign for that, share this among yourselves. that together we take this sign
and we show forth the Lord's death until he comes. So our
fifth step is to remember proven love or stand in the midst of
that proven love. Verse 17, and when he had taken
a cup and given thanks, he said, take this and share it among
yourselves. And when he had taken some bread
and 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. And verse 20, in the same way
he took the cup and after they had eaten saying, this cup is
poured out for you. This is the new covenant in my
blood. Proven love. Proven love. How often has someone challenged
someone to prove their love? If you love me, you will do this. At one point, my mother took
a very firm stand and stopped me from doing something that
I wanted to do. And then she said, I'm sorry.
I said, if you were truly sorry, you would change your mind and
let me do this. She said, no, I disagree. Now, a demonstration
of affection in accordance with reality is what we're talking
about. A true love. Is there something else that
Christ needs to do to prove his love for you? Is there something more that
the Father could do to prove His love for you? Or has the perfect demonstration
already occurred? Oh, you are so loved. You are so loved. Everything that you have imagined
that you lack has already been given to you. The eternal reality
is already there. John 15, 13. Greater love has no one than
this, that a person lay down his life for his friends. Drink that in. Drink that in. Drink that cup
this morning. The greatest love. So our sixth
step is to love the greatest love. Verse 20, this cup is poured
out for you. This cup is the new covenant
in my blood. Christ says, here's our relationship. This is our relationship. He defines the terms for us. Leslie and I, we didn't come
from a culture where a man learned to define the terms of the relationship. I had been listening to different
sermons and I had been brought to a different place than our
culture was in. And we had been dating and I
called her up and I said, all right, here's how I see things.
And this is what my expectation is. I am going to continue to
pursue you. I am going to continue to seek
the Lord. And if this keeps going the way
that it is, I intend to marry you." And that blew her away. We came from a culture where
a guy was more like, do you like me? Because if you like me, I might
like you. The covenant relationship is
God shows up and says, I have laid my life down for you, I
have given you the gift of faith, and I have saved you based on
this gift. You're mine. The deal is done. It is signed, and we call this
a sign and a seal. It is the demonstration of His
love. It is His demonstration of the New Covenant. It displays. He says, you're mine. And we
take it and we say, I sure am. I sure am. You have loved me. And because you have loved me,
I love you. Look at this full love. straight
in the face this morning. Be moved by Christ's love. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank
you for accomplishing salvation. Thank you for your great love
and your compassion that you have shown us as your people. Please bless us now as we look
at this sign, as we receive this sign, and as we proclaim your
great love, as we proclaim Christ's death. And be glorified as we
are nourished in our hearts to know you and to love you and
serve you. It is in Jesus' name we pray,
amen.
Look intently at God's great love
Series Luke
| Sermon ID | 39211417433961 |
| Duration | 24:54 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Luke 22:7-23 |
| Language | English |
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