Then came the day of unleavened bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John saying, go and prepare the Passover for us that we may eat it. They said to him, where will you have us prepare it? He said to them, behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters and tell the master of the house, the teacher says to you, where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? And he will show you a large upper room furnished, prepare it there. And they went and found it just as he told them and they prepared the Passover. And when the hour came, he reclined at table and the apostles with him. And he said to them, I have earnestly desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took a cup. And when he had given thanks, he said, take this and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom comes. And he took bread and when he had 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 likewise, the cup after they had eaten saying this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. Father, we come to worship you this morning and to remember what you have done for us as we will eat together at your table. And so would you teach us this morning? Would you encourage us this morning? And would you help us through the Lord's Supper, remember what you have done for us? We pray this for your glory and your honor. Amen. Amen. You can have a seat. It is a delight to be with you this morning. Those at home, we welcome you as well. One of the things that you learn as you read the Scriptures and study the Scriptures is you begin to see themes. show up over and over again throughout the Scriptures. And one of those themes that comes up, a word that comes up often is remembering. Both the encouragement for us as God's people to remember what He has done, but also God saying that He will always remember His covenant with us. It's throughout the Old Testament and even in the New Testament. I wonder why is remembering so prominent in the scriptures? Well, I think it's because we tend to be a forgetful people. Have you ever forgotten anything? I bet you have. Maybe even this morning you forgot something as you left the house. All the kids, you forget an assignment. College students, you forget an assignment. Show up to class and realize and panic ensues. Maybe you've forgotten an important event or you forgot your car keys or you forgot your glasses only to remember. They're sitting on top of your head. Some of you are at that stage of life, aren't you? Maybe names even. You ever struggle to remember names? Here's a secret. This is why for guys, younger guys maybe, they call each other bro. Because then you don't have to remember his name. You just say bro and you can get away with forgetting someone's name. So it can be frustrating for us to forget everyday items or appointments or names, but when it comes to our relationship with Christ, to forget, to not remember what God has saved us from and saved us to. There can be serious consequences for that. It can begin this real struggle in our life. In 2 Peter, Peter says one of the reasons that we don't display certain characteristics of the Christian life, he says it's because we've forgotten that we've been cleansed from former sins. So when we forget, we can tend to go back and begin to live like we used to be instead of who we are in Christ. In fact, God cares so deeply that we remember what he has done for us, who we are in Christ, that he's given us two very special events. We call them sacraments. John Murray, the theologian, defined the sacrament as a sign of participation in saving grace. We have baptism and the Lord's Supper. Both are outward signs of an inward reality that one has been saved from their sin by Jesus' work on the cross and now they have eternal life. Many call baptism the sacrament of inclusion. It's the time we celebrate somebody has gone from death to life and they are baptized. They're dunked in the water, symbolic of being washed clean and brought into the family of God. But then there's the Lord's Supper, which is the sacrament of continuing fellowship, that we partake of this consistently. We also call it communion. It's to remind us that we still are a part of the family of God. These sacraments remind us, all of us who are in Christ, they help us remember God's faithfulness to us and Him saving us from our sin. Well, this morning as we continue just through the book of Luke, we get to the place where Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper. It's what we call the Lord's Supper. And so this morning I want to examine first the importance of suppers. or meals, but the scriptures often use supper, so the importance of suppers. And then, what exactly is the Lord's Supper? Why do we still take the Lord's Supper even today? And then finally, who is invited to the Lord's Supper? And then we'll partake together. Okay, take a moment. This is dangerous, but I'm gonna do it. Take a moment, close your eyes, and think about one of the favorite meals you've ever had in your life. and try to smell the food, and taste the food, and see who's sitting around the table with you. Okay, open your eyes, don't get lost in this. Lunch is coming, don't worry, you'll get there. I bet you if you had even more time, you could smell the food of this meal. I had a couple, I remember, I can smell the crab cakes and the beaten biscuits my grandmother would make when we would visit her, and the lemon butter, and just the smell comes back. or I remember sitting in the ground round restaurant on my first date with now my wife, Lisa. It'd bring back all these memories, right? We love meals and it's not just because the food can be good, it's because of who we're with. We're celebrating something with family or friends. God knows this, he created us in his image. He loves for his people to feast And so he instituted throughout the Old Testament, in particular, certain feasts or meals or suppers as a means for his people to remember what he has done for them and to celebrate over this food. For example, one of the feasts was called the Feast of Booths, and it was held every year. It was the time for the people of Israel to remember as God brought them out of Egypt, as they wandered through the wilderness, he provided for them, he took care of them. So they would set up these booths and they would celebrate. God's provision for them as they left Egypt and were brought into the Promised Land. Well, our passage today actually touches on three different meals, three suppers, and they're all connected. First, the most obvious is right here, starting in verse 7, is with the Passover. It's the Passover meal that Jesus is eating with His disciples. Now Passover was also a meal for the nation of Israel that they were to eat every year. It was a time for them to remember specifically the moment that God took them out of Egypt, out of slavery in Egypt and gave them freedom and then led them to the promised land. During the Passover, back in the Old Testament, when it actually happened in Egypt, God told every family in Israel to sacrifice the lamb and then take the blood of the lamb and put it over the doorpost of their house, because God was going to bring judgment on Egypt for their sin. And when God came in His judgment and His wrath on the sin of Egypt, when He saw the blood on the doorpost, He would pass over that house. That's why it became known as Passover. Now the Passover supper was celebrated and there were many elements that were included that we don't have time to get into every detail, but every element of the Passover was a moment to remind. It had all the senses involved, but it was to remember as the people of God, together, what God had done to provide for them, to take them out of slavery. And so here Jesus and His disciples are eating the Passover meal together. They're doing it all together. Now, quick side note. Did you notice here in verse 13 as He sent Peter and John out to get everything ready? And everything that He told them would happen, happened exactly as Jesus said. It shows that Jesus is sovereignly in control of all things. You can trust Him. He's in control of all things, even a room where they're going to eat a meal. He cares that much about His people. And so He gathers His disciples together, and they're eating the Passover. And Jesus, during this meal, He's going to make a transition from the Passover to a second meal, a second supper. This happens, there's two cups. If you noticed when you read this, there's two cups that show up in this text. The first is one of the cups of the Passover. There would be four cups as part of the Passover supper and celebration. And so Jesus takes one of those cups as they're celebrating the Passover, and He uses it to say, This is the last time I'm going to drink this until the kingdom comes. I'm not going to partake of the Passover anymore. In fact, I'm not going to drink of the fruit of the vine, he says there in 18, until the kingdom of God comes. Now, what does he mean he won't drink it again until the kingdom of God comes? Well, He's here in the past, at the Passover, and He's looking all the way to the future. He's looking to the marriage supper of the Lamb, which we would find in Revelation 19, verses 6 through 10. It's in that, in verse 9, Revelation 19, 9, where the Apostle John records, Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. So there was the Passover supper that was to commemorate what God had done in the past. And Jesus is saying, I'm gonna not do this anymore. I'm not even gonna drink the fruit of the vine until one day there's this future supper to come when all the people of God will be together. This marriage supper of the Lamb is where the bride of Christ, those of us who are in Christ, part of the church, will be fully and perfectly united with our groom, with Christ, and we will enjoy our marriage to Him for all of eternity, and that will be ushered in with this incredible feast, this supper. So Jesus is painting, He's taking the past and He's pointing to the future, but we're not there yet. And so while we wait for the future to come, we've moved from the past, we're in the present, and this is where He institutes the Lord's Supper. So what is the Lord's Supper? What does it involve? Well, look back in your scriptures there in verse 19. And he took bread, and when he had 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. So Jesus explains that the bread that he has just taken and broken is his body given for them. Now this statement by Jesus has called much confusion and even disagreement in theological circles over the years. Some argue that when Jesus said this, he meant that the bread actually becomes, when we partake, it actually becomes the flesh of Christ. That is not what Jesus means. We are not actually eating the flesh of Jesus. This is a metaphor to illustrate a spiritual truth. And Jesus did this often. He called himself the bread from heaven. He's not a loaf of bread, but he's symbolic of the feeding of God's people. He also said later that he is the door. Well, he's not actually a door either. So he uses this language to illustrate something important and spiritual. And here, the bread that Jesus breaks is a symbolic of his body, which is about to be broken on the cross. At the Passover, a lamb was sacrificed. And by him saying, this is my body broken, he's saying that he is now going to be the sacrifice for sins. He will be, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, our Passover lamb who has been sacrificed. Jesus becomes the lamb of God. He suffers and he dies. His body is broken as the sacrifice to pay for sin. But it's not just his body. Look again in verse 20. He continues about what is included in the Lord's Supper. And likewise, the cup, after they had eaten, saying, this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. the new covenant in my blood." Again, it's not the actual blood of Christ, it's symbolic of the blood of Christ. And this is so significant because it is in the shedding of blood that we see the forgiveness of sin, the covering over of sin. The scripture talks about the wages of sin being death. And so to cover sin, something must die. Blood must be shed. And it's the covering over that provides forgiveness. See, sin is so grievous to God. It can't just be ignored or it can't be covered in some kind of other way like trying to be good enough. It's so horrendous that blood, death, must come from those who sin. And so blood must be shed. And God set up in the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, this sacrificial system where people would bring animals to the priest and the animals would be sacrificed, the shedding of blood, and it would atone for sin. The problem was they had to keep atoning for sin. They had to keep sacrificing over and over and over again, year after year after year. The writer of Hebrews tells us why, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. See, a better, a perfect sacrifice was ultimately needed. A perfect sacrifice, a lamb without blemish, who would be just like the people who sinned. And so here we have Christ fully God, fully man. Again, the writer of Hebrews says, but when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God. He sat down. The priest didn't sit down. They had to keep sacrificing. But when Christ, who is the sacrifice, and He's also the priest, the one who can offer the sacrifice, He sacrifices on the cross and says, He sits down. His work is finished. There is no more need for sacrifice. The perfect Lamb of God, covered over through the breaking of His body and the shedding of His blood. covered over sin. This is what Jesus means when he says, this is the new covenant in my blood. The old covenant was the sacrificial system and now because Jesus is the perfect sacrifice, when he suffers and he dies and sheds his blood, the new covenant has come in and anyone who trusts in Jesus now can be forgiven. No more do they ever need to sacrifice. It's been done. I want you to notice even interesting here in verse 14, a hint at the new covenant to come. Luke records that he's with his apostles, not his disciples, his apostles. See, the transition has happened. These 12 guys are supposed to be the ones now. They're going to take this message of the sacrifice, the suffering and the dying of the Lamb of God, of Jesus, and spread it all over the world and build God's church. So that's what is included in the Lord's Supper, the bread and the cup, the body and the blood of Jesus. But here he does it for the apostles. And so we should ask the question, why do we partake of the Lord's Supper even today? And even here at BCF, why do we take it so often? We have a Lord's Supper service every week, which I'll explain in a moment. Well, one of the things that is true in our family, we have some athletes in our family. We have a couple swimmers and a golfer in our family. And one of the things that amazes me with our kids is the amount of work they put in to be good at swimming or to be good at golf. If you've never been a swimmer or been around swimmers, the amount of hours spent staring at the bottom of a pool is incredible. right? And sometimes hours and hours and hours and then they race and it's like 50 seconds and it's over and that's it. Or for my son, who's a golfer, just hours on the range over and over again, coming home with blisters. and on the putting green over and over and over again. Why do they do that? Because this repetition is what builds into them this muscle memory. It's what provides for them when the moment comes when they need to compete. They've done all the work. Now that's true in lots of other areas, isn't it? If you've ever tried to learn a language, you don't just show up on occasion and remember it. You gotta practice. You gotta get your cards out and remember vocabulary and grammar. For me, it was math. I mean, I just had to work hard at it, and I didn't. That's why I'm not good at math anymore. Right? Consistency and repetition is so vital if we ever want to be good at something. Now this is not, we don't repeat this to be good at something, but we repeat it because we understand. We understand that by repetition, by consistently, we help ourselves not forget what God has done. And we don't start to then slip back into the old lifestyle we had, the sinful ways which marked our previous life. No, we do this because it helps us. It reminds us, and we need that reminder all the time. I know I do. This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 26. He says, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, That's consistency, often, as often as you do it. And we know in Acts chapter 2, when the church is beginning to meet, and part of what Luke records in Acts chapter 2, what distinguishes the gathering of the church, four things, the apostles teaching, fellowship, prayer, and the breaking of bread, the Lord's Supper. When they would gather, every time they would gather, they would listen to the Word of God, they would be in fellowship, they would pray, and they would celebrate, they would remember what God has done through Christ through the Lord's Supper. So this is why we at BCF, we celebrate the Lord's Supper each Sunday, and then on occasion we celebrate it here in the main services. Now a little detail, if you've never been to the Lord's Supper Service, it's at 9 o'clock each week in room 160 for now, probably one day to be moved back to the chapel. But it is a unique service in that everyone who comes We gather for about 30 minutes, and the first 20 minutes are just an open time for anyone there to request a hymn to be sung, or to offer prayer to God, or to share something God taught them from the scriptures that week. It's open. Anyone there who's in Christ is willing and able, can share, can pray. And so we get to be part of the body together. And then after about 20 minutes, one of the elders or another man in the church will transition to the time of the taking of the bread and the cup. See, when Jesus said in this teaching, do this in remembrance of me, we take him at his word. He wants us to do this. And so we do it as often as we gather together on a Sunday morning. There's a benefit of coming each week or as often as you're able to enjoy the Lord's Supper. It's what theologians call a means of grace. James Montgomery Boyce defined it this way. It's to encourage and strengthen faith in believers and to remind them of the faithfulness of the one who gave himself for them. So when we gather around the table, even today, it is a reminder of God's grace, a reminder of God's grace to His people in the past, a reminder that in the future, God is going to once again provide for us and bring us before Him and celebrate. But in the present, it's a reminder that God continues to hold us in His hands, to hold us fast, and that nothing can separate us from Him because of Christ's broken body and shed blood. were now forgiven and made members of God's family. I mean, you know, I hope when you come and gather on a Sunday that it's a moment to begin your week, to praise God, to hear from His word, to be encouraged and reminded what God has done for you so that you could go out into the world and stay faithful to Him. You're reminded each week and you come back week after week after week. This is what the purpose of the Lord's Supper is, to remind us what God has done. So now we know how important suppers are to God, what is involved and why we partake of the Lord's Supper even now. But who is invited to the Lord's Supper? Who is the Lord's Supper for? Well, each of these meals we've talked about, the Passover, the Lord's Supper, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Therefore, the people of God, those who God has chosen, who have faith in the Messiah, in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. In the past, it was trusting that God was going to send the Messiah to cover sin, to be the ultimate sacrifice. And so their faith is what God counted as righteousness. And in the end, you notice in Revelation 19, John says, those who are invited, it's those who have had faith in Christ. And the Lord's Supper is the same. It's those who have trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, that they are sealed with the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of their inheritance kept in heaven. So all who have trusted in Christ are invited to the table. You don't have to be a member of this church or any particular church. If you've trusted in Christ, you are welcome to feast at the table and remember what Christ has done for you, what Christ has done for us. So if you're here and you have yet to trust in Christ, yet you have not yet believed in Him, we are so thankful that you're here. We're delighted that you are here with us and I think maybe perhaps there's no better morning to come and to worship than to when we as believers in Christ partake of the Lord's Supper together. Because it says we believe that Jesus did die for us. He was raised from the dead and we are forgiven because of His work on our behalf. And so if you're here and you have yet to trust in Christ, you're not a Christian, we're glad you're here. But we would ask, when we take the Lord's Supper, that you would just watch and observe and listen. There will be no judgment because you're not taking the Supper. We're glad you're here, but just watch and observe. Our ultimate prayer is that through the worship and the singing and the observing of the Lord's Supper, that you, if you have not placed your trust in Christ, that you would, even this morning, believe on him, that he is the one who sacrificed himself to pay for your sin so that you could be forgiven and be made right with God. You could even turn to Christ this morning and trust in him. Now, for those of us who are believers, we are invited to take and eat and drink together. However, there is one other clarification that we need to be reminded of, and it's from Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, when he says, let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. Paul warns us not to partake of the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner. What he means by that is that we examine ourselves, is that we take a moment before we eat and we drink and we confess sin before God. We acknowledge that we have sinned and yet Christ has paid and we're about to remember that through the Lord's Supper. But it also means that if there's a broken relationship that you may have with another brother or sister in Christ, that you should probably work that out before you come to the table. Because to hold that sin against someone, to not be forgiving of someone else or seeking forgiveness, well, that kind of negates what happened on the cross. We're forgiven and so we forgive and we reconcile to each other because we have been reconciled to God. And so if you have someone that you need to reconcile with, I'd encourage you, before we partake, that you do that, even if you have to slip out together. Again, no judgment, work that out, and then come back in and partake together. This table is a time to remember. It's to rejoice in what Christ has done for us, His suffering and His dying and the shedding of His blood so that we would be forgiven. be made right with God and adopted into His family forever. So before we partake of the Lord's Supper, let's take a minute, in our own hearts, in our minds, to pray and confess sin before God.