is Jeremiah 31. And here, Jeremiah speaks of the new covenant that God made with His people, and he speaks of His great love for His people, even after they had gone astray, and of His restoring mercies. And of course, in our New Testament passage today, we see how Jesus tells His disciples that they are going to stumble, but He also promises that He will gather them together again because of His mercies. Hear now, then, as I read to you from God's holy and infallible Word. Jeremiah 31, verse 1. At the same time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. Thus says the Lord. The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness. Israel, when I went to give him rest, The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness, I have drawn you again. I will build you and you shall be rebuilt. Oh, Virgin of Israel, you shall again be adorned with your tambourines and you shall go forth in the dances of those who rejoice. You shall yet plant vines on the mountains of Samaria. The planters shall plant and eat them as ordinary food. For there shall be a day when the watchman will cry on Mount Ephraim, Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God. For thus says the Lord, Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations. Proclaim, give praise, and say, O Lord, save your people, the remnant of Israel. Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them the blind and the lame, the woman with child, and the one who labors with child together. A great throng shall return there. They shall come with weeping, and with supplications I will lead them. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way in which they shall not stumble. For I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn." Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd does his flock. For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of one stronger than he. Therefore, they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, streaming to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat and new wine and oil for the young of the flock and the herd. Their souls shall be like a well-watered garden, And they shall sorrow no more at all. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance and the young men and the old together, for I will turn their mourning to joy, will comfort them and make them rejoice rather than sorrow. I will satiate the soul of the priest with abundance and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, says the Lord. Thus says the Lord, a voice was heard in Rama lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children because they are no more. Thus says the Lord, refrain your voice from weeping in your eyes from tears for your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope in your future, says the Lord, that your children shall come back to their own border. I've surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself. You have chastened me and I was chastened like an untrained bull. Restore me and I will return for you are the Lord my God. Surely after my turning I repented, and after I was instructed, I struck myself on the thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even humiliated, because I bore the reproach of my youth. As Ephraim, my dear son, is he a pleasant child? For though I spoke against him, I earnestly remember him still. Therefore, my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him, says the Lord. Set up signposts, make landmarks, set your heart toward the highway, the way in which you went. Turn back, O Virgin of Israel, turn back to these your cities. How long will you gad about, O you backsliding daughter? For the Lord has created a new thing in the earth. A woman shall encompass a man. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. They shall again use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities when I bring back their captivity. The Lord bless you, O home of justice and mountain of holiness. And there shall dwell in Judah itself and in all the cities together farmers and those going out with flocks. For I have satiated the weary soul and I have replenished every sorrowful soul. After this, I awoke and looked around and my sleep was sweet to me. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass that as I have watched over them to pluck up, to break down, to throw down, to destroy and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. In those days, they shall say no more. The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. But everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Jacob. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant, which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. 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. Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, who disturbs the sea and its waves roar. The Lord of hosts is his name. If those ordinances depart from before me, says the Lord, the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before me forever. Thus says the Lord, if heaven above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that the city shall be built for the Lord from the tower of Haniel to the corner gate. The surveyor's line shall again extend straight forward over the hill. Then it shall turn toward Goethe and the whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes and all the fields as far as the Brook Kidron to the corner of the horse gate toward the east shall be holy to the Lord. It shall not be plucked up or thrown down anymore forever. Amen. May God bless the reading of his very encouraging word to us. Let's turn to our New Testament reading, Matthew 26. And this is the portion I'll be preaching from today, Matthew 26 and beginning in verse 26. Twenty six, twenty six. You remember that Jesus had gathered his disciples together to celebrate the Passover, and we saw that he had announced to them that one of them would betray him. And now we pick up in that supper in verse 26, and it says, 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. Then he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. 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." When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, all of you will be made to stumble because of me this night. For it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee. Peter answered and said to him, Even if all are made to stumble because of you, I will never be made to stumble. Jesus said to him, Assuredly, I say to you that this night before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. Peter said to him, Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you. And so said all the disciples. And there we'll end the reading of God's Word. May He bless it to our hearing this morning. Now let's unite. A component of our worship at Covenant Reform Presbyterian Church. It was about three years ago that I presented a series to you, a four-part series on the Lord's Supper from Luke's Gospel, chapter 22. And that was when we began having communion on a weekly basis. I don't intend to go into all the detail that I went into three years ago. If you're interested, you can find those messages on our website to provide you with more details. But as some of you were not with us at that time, we now come to Matthew's account of the Lord's Supper in our morning sermon series. And I'm going to be, as I am expounding Matthew, I want to focus in particular on what Matthew focuses on in his account. While Luke mentions the command of our Lord Jesus to do this in remembrance of me, which if we translate, if we bring out the tense in our translation, we could say Jesus said, keep doing this in remembrance of me. In other words, he was instituting it as an ongoing thing that was to be done in the church. Luke brings that out, but Matthew omits that. His omission tends to put the focus on the disciples and on the moment and what the Lord's Supper at the moment that it was instituted meant to them. what Jesus was saying to them. Now, this has a way of drawing our attention to what the Lord's Supper meant to the disciples on the night He was instituted to lead us to consider what it means to us in the context in which we live, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. So in Matthew, you can see how Jesus was preparing His disciples for His soon to come suffering and death. He was showing them before the fact, right before the fact, precisely what the horrendous events that they were going to witness over the next few hours would entail. Because it is recorded for us in God's Word, we know that it is there not only for the disciples, but it is there for us. God has preserved it for us. It's therefore my intent this morning to bring this marvelous instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ on the night that He was betrayed to bear upon all of you, to show you how it pertains to you. My prayer is that God will speak into your life so that you will benefit from what Jesus said to His disciples with reference to the Lord's Supper. So, first of all, I want you to see that the Lord's Supper is an aid to your faith. It is given as a help to your faith. And that in two ways. First, it is an aid to your faith because it points you to Christ crucified as the object of your faith. It's that which your faith is to rest upon. The very fact that Jesus took bread and said, this is my body, and that He then took the cup and said, this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for many, showed His disciples that the death that He was preparing to die was to be a sacrificial death, that it was an offering for sin. Now, the disciples were quite familiar with the Old Testament sacrifices, with sacrificial offerings that were offered regularly in their day. On that very night, they were celebrating the Passover with the Lord Jesus. The Passover was that great event in the history of Israel when God had delivered His people out of Egypt and had passed over their children rather than bringing His judgment upon their firstborn sons. And He had placed that curse and that judgment upon a lamb in place of the sons of Israel. The Passover then was commemorated every year thereafter as God had commanded, or at least it was supposed to be. They didn't always keep it. But at the time when Jesus met with his disciples, Josephus tells us that there is something like two hundred and fifty thousand lambs that were slain within a two hour period at the time of the Passover every year. It was an amazing time. In these offerings, the body and blood of a sacrificial victim were separated. The blood was poured out. Before they were offered to God, the blood was poured out to show the pouring out of life in the place of those for whom the sacrifice was made. And if each of these animals had a gallon of blood, This would have been enough to fill three 30 by 60 foot swimming pools with a regular deep end in them and the whole thing. The blood would flow and fill up from the temple down to the Brook Kidron and fill it up so that it flowed red for several days at this time of year. All that blood was to show Israel that the wages of sin is death. and that there must be a substitutionary death in order to take away sin. What death that would be was still not revealed fully to them. They did not understand that God's Son was the one that would come and would bear their iniquities as a substitute in their place. And so it was that when Jesus took this bread now on this event with his disciples and said, this is my body, and then he took the cup and said of the wine, this is my blood of the new covenant shed for the remission of sins. He was doing the same thing that was done in those Old Testament sacrifices. He was separating the body and the blood because it was a sacrifice. He was showing His disciples in a crystal clear way that He was being offered as a sacrifice to atone for sin. He was declaring plainly that His death has a purpose. That it was not just the result of His enemies finally catching up to Him. It was a deliberate offering to atone for sin. It was God the Father striking His Son with His dreadful curse so that we, the human race, might be set free. It was an act of marvelous mercy and condescending love. This teaches you a very important lesson. Namely, that not just the person of Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ crucified is the object of your faith. If you would be reconciled to God, you must not only believe in Jesus Christ, but you must believe in Jesus Christ crucified for sinners. You ought to believe that He is kind, and that He is powerful, and that He is full of love and mercy, and that He is an example to us. This is all well and good, but you cannot be saved unless you look to Him as the One who offered Himself as a sacrifice to take away your sin. You must look to Him as the One who bore the wrath and curse of God. You need to ask yourself this this morning. Is Christ crucified? the object of my faith. Am I simply trusting in the general benevolence of God as I understand it? Or am I depending on the Lamb of God who was slain to take away the sins of the world? As a minister of the Gospel, I would declare to you in the name of the Lord that if you are only trusting in the general benevolence of God, you are still under God's condemnation and will remain so. until you repent and believe on Christ crucified. I wrote a letter to my great aunt shortly after I became a Christian and told her what God had done in my life. And she wrote back and said, I don't worry about any of those things of judgment, because I believe that God is a God of love. She refused to look to Christ crucified. She thought He was a good man. Someone to follow, but not one who had to be crucified for her sins. But you see, there's nothing else to trust in. Nothing else can take away your sin. The Lord's Supper teaches you to put your trust in Christ as the one sacrifice. My body. My blood, He says to you. So then you see that the Lord's Supper is an aid to your faith because it sets Him before you in this way. It shows you to trust in Him. Secondly, the Lord's Supper is an aid to your faith because it makes visible his ongoing invisible work in you as a Christian. There is action in the Lord's Supper on your part. Baptism is passive. We receive it. But with the Lord's Supper, we are told to take and to eat, to drink. In this way, Jesus makes visible to you something that's invisible. the fact that He is the source of our spiritual nourishment to whom we must continually resort. We must draw from Him life and salvation. He gives us something that we understand quite well in our daily lives, eating and drinking. We all know that without food that we would soon die. Jesus is showing us that without receiving the life and the cleansing that comes from His sacrifices, we'll spiritually die. Our life in communion with God will terminate. He is showing us that He is our very food and drink. Again, Christ sacrificed is our very food and drink. You need this visual reminder because you can't see His life-giving power strengthening you. And you can't see His cleansing blood cleansing you. By making it visible to us through these signs and symbols of spiritual food and drink, it encourages you to keep looking to Him, to make sure that you are feeding on Him. With these visual signs that are connected to His promise that His body and blood are given for you, He gives you confidence that He really does provide you. with the essential nourishment and cleansing through His sacrifice. I want you to take a moment to think about the bread and the wine separately. The bread, first of all, represents Christ crucified to nourish us. Nourishment is not something that just happens all at once. God sometimes brings radical changes. into our lives. Some of us have had marvelous conversion experiences. We can tell about how I was in the darkness and God brought me into the light, just like it was with the Apostle Paul. Some of us have that. Not all. Sometimes we have those times when God has really taken hold of us in our Christian experience. When we've been wandering and kind of going this way and that, and everything comes together and He brings everything in a marvelous way so that we're radically changed in a very short time. But this is not what we are to look to as His regular manner of working. The Lord's Supper shows us this visually. The bread teaches you to look to the Lord Jesus crucified as that which you ingest over time. It teaches you that growth comes for you in the same way that it comes to your physical bodies. Just as you eat every day, so you must feed upon Christ every day. You must come to His Word. You must pray. You must sit under the regular preaching of the Word. You can't see such growth occurring through these means with your physical eyes. You can't actually see Christ putting nourishment into you the way that we see ourselves putting food into ourselves. The Lord's Supper puts it before you symbolically. with God's promise attached to the symbol to say, I give you my body for nourishment. This is so important to understand. So often I see people living to be zapped with new life. They're looking for that great moment when they'll get stirred up at some meeting or some spiritual event and it will happen to them. They want their children to go to the summer camp and have an experience, or to have some encounter at some point where all of a sudden there is that experience. Well, we can pray that God will work in our lives in those dramatic ways. But the Lord's Supper teaches you to rely on Christ day after day, to feed on Him. And week after week, the same way that you rely on food. That's how real growth occurs. No one would think of sending a child to some great feast a couple of times a year to provide for his physical nourishment and giving him nothing the rest of the year. No. You feed them a little each day. And that's what makes them grow in a solid way. In creation, God called oak trees into being all at once. He's able to do that. He could still do that. But in the ordinary workings of His providence, He raises oak trees up from acorns. He does it all the time. It's marvelous. It's a miracle. A little acorn grows into an oak tree. He changes them. Day after day and week after week, just a little at a time. And how great the change is over time. You can actually see the growth, or you cannot actually see the growth. If you set an oak tree, a little sapling in front of you, and you stare at it all day, you won't be able to see any growth. But you see, God is telling you at the Lord's Supper, that He's giving you what makes you grow, so that in 20 years you can see the growth that has occurred. He is saying to you at His table, keep on looking to Christ to feed you. Keep on looking to Him to nourish you. Do not despair if you don't see immediate growth. Keep on feeding and He will change you. The change will come. You will grow. You are being fed. You know, one of the reasons why the early church had the Lord's Supper on a weekly basis and why we've started doing it now as well is because we so easily forget that our nourishment comes from Jesus Christ, unless it is set before us in this visible way. What happens when you hear a convicting sermon about your duty? Is it not common that you think, oh, I'm such a failure? I've got to try harder. I suppose that's true enough. You are a failure and you do need to try harder. OK, we'll grant that. But there's something so much more important. You must remember that Christ crucified is there to nourish you in your time of need in the Lord's table. He calls to you and he says, take this is my body given for you. You can try harder. But what you need for real and lasting change is to feed on the Lord Jesus Christ crucified. He is the bread that came down from heaven to give life to the world. You can try all you want, but you cannot make yourself grow and be nourished. He, by virtue of His death, gives the Holy Spirit to all who ask Him and strengthens us that we may live for God's glory. Now let's look at the wine. The wine, of course, represents the blood of Jesus Christ. The blood that was shed for the remission of our sins. By giving us this symbol week after week, the Lord reminds us that we must continually look to Him for forgiveness as we do for nourishment. Justification is complete at conversion. From the moment that you put your trust in the Lord, justification is complete. But those who are justified still sin. And because we still sin, we need to continually look to Jesus Christ for forgiveness. Not only do we commit actual sin, but we find that there's sin that still remains in us just as a part of us. The corruption is still there within us, the nature. And we need to seek Him for forgiveness. The wine that we drink at the table teaches us then to look to Christ alone for this forgiveness. Christ crucified. In giving it to us, there is a pledge that the blood that He shed is there for us, accessible to us, to cleanse us, that it is available for all who are trusting in Him. It's a visual reminder that we need Christ crucified and Him alone to be cleansed. When you drink the wine at the Lord's Supper, you hear the words, This is my blood of the new covenant. Shed for the remission of the forgiveness of the sins of many." When you hear that, it calls you back to put your confidence in Him. The blood of Christ. Shed for me. It's your response. Surely the death of God's very own Son is sufficient to take away all of my sins. I'll look to Him for my cleansing. Now, how good it is to be brought back to Christ in this way, to be reminded. Too often, you try to deal with your sin by avoiding God, trying to hide from Him. We looked at that a little bit last week, the way Adam did. But at the table, you're told, stop that, you fool. You can't hide from God. You can't hide and you don't need to hide. Here is the blood of the covenant that Jesus shed to atone for your sins. Why are you hiding? Come to Him. He's got what you need to cleanse you so that you can stand before God with a clear conscience. Forgiven. Rejoicing. Trusting. And then there are those times You sin and you beat yourself up. You feel that you must do penance. Your service to God is done out of guilt rather than gratitude. I must do this or God will be angry with me. And so much worse, I must do this because God is angry. I've got to go do something for Him to make up for what I've done. Well, the Lord is angry with sin. But at the Lord's table, He reminds you that Christ is crucified for you. That His blood has been shed. This is My blood of the new covenant, He says. Shed for the remission of your sins. This blood is well able to cleanse you from all defilement so that you can render cheerful service to God out of gratitude instead of the bondage of guilt. And so you see that the Lord's Supper is an aid to your faith. Because first, it points you to the object of faith, which is Christ crucified. And secondly, because it makes visible to you the ongoing work of God to nourish you and cleanse you by the crucified Christ. Having seen then the Lord's Supper is an aid to faith, I now want you to see the Lord's Supper as an assurance of hope, an assurance to your hope. is all too easy for us to lose hope as we go along in the Christian life. And one of the reasons for this is because we have misplaced expectations. And so, for our well-being, Christ teaches you at His table to expect the cross before glory comes. You know how the disciples were. All along, they kept thinking that Christ was going to set up His kingdom of glory at any moment. They thought that He would destroy the Romans. And that they would be seated on thrones ruling over the twelve tribes of Israel. And that Israel would be ruling the whole world. They certainly had high hopes. But their hopes were false hopes. And those hopes kept being disappointed. They were not hoping for what God promised. It was rather their misguided interpretation of what God had promised, rather than His promise. And now as Jesus was moving toward the cross, He knew that the disciples were headed for a time of very great disappointment. The greatest disappointment that they had had yet. In their minds, it would seem like the Kingdom of God that Jesus came to establish had completely failed. But when Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper, He called them to reality about their false hopes, as He calls you to reality whenever you come to the Lord's Supper. We have seen that He told them plainly that He was going to be offered up as a sacrifice. This is My body. This is My blood shed. He told them that His blood was going to be poured out. Then in v. 29, He goes on to tell them that this is going to cause a physical separation between Jesus and His disciples. He tells them that He will no longer eat with them, as He was doing on this night, that He won't drink wine with them until the Kingdom of God is fully come. Consider now, up until now, the disciples had been with Jesus. He had been physically present with them. He had revealed Himself all along the way as the One who abolishes the misery that comes through sin. The miseries of this world. While He was with them, sick people came and they were no longer sick. He healed all their diseases. Wherever He was physically present. When there was shortage of bread, He multiplied the bread. When there was shortage of wine, He turned the wine into water. He calmed storms. He even raised the dead. Jesus showed Himself to be Lord over all of these things, and the One who brings peace where the curse is. But now at the supper, Jesus tells them, I'm going to be removed from you, physically. You know that, as it was at this time, they had to go to Jesus in order to have these things. They'd bring someone to Jesus, or they would come and tell Him about them, and then He could heal people far off. But He only healed those with whom He somehow had contact. Well, now He's going to go away. He tells them He's going to the cross to be crucified. He won't sit at the table anymore, as He has done in the past. As He told them in Matthew 24, after He's gone, there are going to be years and years of tribulation and affliction. Remember, He told them that they would even die in His service. He didn't say it's going to be great. But He said, these things are going to happen. There's going to be wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes. And the end is not yet. It's still going to go on and on for a long time before the end comes. Well, while He was bodily present, you see, none of that happened. But now He was to be crucified. And from that day onward, it would be their lot to suffer in this world for His sake. They would enter now into the fellowship of his sufferings that he was getting ready to experience in a very full way. Jesus would no longer be sitting at the table with them drinking wine. Oh, Christian, do you have false hopes about what it means to serve Jesus in this world? If you do, then you will be discouraged and frustrated. Many who come to follow Christ think that they will have less affliction in this world. But Jesus promises us persecution, tribulation in this world if we follow Him. He tells you not to be surprised if all hate you. Persecution shows that you belong to Him. Because He says to us, as they have persecuted me, so they will persecute you. Don't be discouraged then when it comes. Nothing's gone wrong. You're having fellowship with Christ and His sufferings. It has been given to you, the Apostle Paul says, not only to believe, but also to suffer for His sake. This is not the time to have physical fellowship with Jesus Christ embodied. It's the time to enter into the fellowship of His sufferings. To be mocked because you believe that God made the world in six days. To be hated because you affirm that sexual immorality is wicked. To be despised because you believe that Jesus is the only way of salvation. When you come to the Lord's table, He guides you away from the false hopes that there will be no cross to bear in this world. He presents Himself as crucified at the table. And He calls you to enter into the fellowship of His sufferings. He teaches you not to expect His physical presence that abolishes death and sufferings, but to expect a cross at this present time. In this way, then, He steers you away from false hope at the table in order that He might establish you in real, true hope. The true hope that He assures you is that you will enjoy His physical presence at the end, at the last day of this world, and then for all eternity in the world to come. He says, I will not eat 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." Everything hinges on that word until. You see, the day is coming when our gracious Lord will be physically present with us in a fresh, new way, better than He was when He walked in this world. We will sit at the table with Him. He will drink wine with us. And He will abolish death and suffering and tribulation of every kind. There will be no more sorrows and no more shortages we will share in His glorious inheritance. While He walked in this world, He showed us how He chases away the curse and its effects when He is bodily present. Sickness and death and hunger could not remain whenever He came on the scene. All who came to Him were healed. And in His Father's Kingdom, it will be that way perpetually. It will be that way forever and ever. These things will be completely taken away for all eternity and we will have blessed peace. So what's the point here? The point is, is that when you come to the Lord's table and Jesus presents to you His body and blood, himself crucified, rejoice that his sacrifice has purchased this inheritance for you in his father's kingdom. Set your hope on the promise that you who believe will one day sit down with Christ in that kingdom where there is no sorrow. But know that before you get to that kingdom, there will be much tribulation. You must take up your cross now and follow the Lord. You will not have to bear the full weight of God's wrath the way Jesus did. Only He could do that. It would take you all eternity to bear that wrath and that curse that He bore for you. But you are called to suffer with Him and to tread the path that He trod. This world does not look kindly on our Lord. And so, if you are like Him, you will suffer with Him. But know that those sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us at the last day. Jesus' disciples did not think He should have to suffer. Neither did they think they should have to suffer, but they were wrong. Jesus told them that they were wrong, but they didn't believe Him. They didn't receive His words. Don't make the same mistake. Your Lord has told you that now is the time of the cross and that glory comes later. He tells you that every time you come to the Lord's table. Believe Him or you will stumble. This leads to our third point this morning. I want you to see the Lord's Supper. I want you to see the Lord's Supper as a test of your allegiance to the Lord. Jesus knew good and well that though he had spoken very plainly and had told his disciples that he was going to be offered up as a sacrifice, that his disciples had not received this. And so he tells them that they're going to stumble. As soon as they come away from that table, he says, you're going to stumble tonight because of me. He tells them that they're going to be offended. Look at verse 31. All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night. For it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. God the Father was going to strike His Son. He was going to make His soul an offering for sin. His wrath and judgment were going to fall on Him. He was going to be wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. He would be stricken for the transgression of God's people. Jesus had told His disciples that He was going to be offered in this way, but His words had gone past them. He had told them what ought to have prepared them for His death, but they were not at all prepared for His death. Because they were not prepared, they were going to stumble. as soon as these things began to happen. What is it that made them stumble? Was it merely that they were cowards? That they were afraid of the chief priests and their armies and their courts? I don't think so. The disciples insisted beforehand that they were prepared to die for Him. And they meant that they were ready to fight. even to the point of death. They would have gone to battle for Jesus Christ that night if there had been 10,000 troops that had come against the Lord to arrest Him. It was true. You know Peter. He drew his sword out. And he cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest. Jesus said, put away your sword. And He healed the man's ear. He stumbled. Because Jesus did not fight. Even though He told them, even though Jesus had told them that He was going to offer Himself up willingly as a sacrifice for sins, for the remission of many. When He set out to do it, when He went to that cross without a fight, when they knew that He had power to fight, It made them stumble. In their minds, it wasn't supposed to happen that way. So just as Jesus predicted, they all stumbled. Even Peter. The boldest one. Things often don't go the way we think they should in our service to God. The cross surprises us. We're not ready for it. And we struggle. Because God doesn't seem to be doing anything about all the problems. He's just letting it go on. We don't realize that the cross is what He's doing. We think He's not doing anything about the cross. The cross is what He's doing. The cross is what He brings. Now let's go a little deeper. What made these disciples stumble? It's the same thing that makes every sinner stumble. The very idea that there needs to be suffering. The very idea that it is necessary for the Son of God to die. The very idea that He would have to die. You see, none of us, coming from Adam as we do, are naturally disposed to think that our sin is a very big deal. Oh yes, it's there. But God ought to surely be big enough to overlook it. It's a little thing. It can make Peter fall down and say, Lord, depart from me for I'm a sinful man when he first encounters Christ. It can make you say that. It can make you see your sin. But to say that our sin is so serious that the only way it can be pardoned is through the death of God's only begotten Son is quite another matter. You mean to tell me that God can do nothing with us but send us to hell unless God's Son offers Himself to die in our place? Do you mean to say that this is true of my dear, sweet grandmother? My dear, sweet, loving grandmother who is kind to everyone, do you mean to tell me that this is true of my little baby that was just born? Do you mean to say..." This is the real question. Do you mean to say that that's true of me? "...that God can have nothing to do with me but curse me unless the Son of God Himself shed His very blood to atone for my sin. Do you mean to say that I am that corrupt in your eyes?" This is what the disciples had not yet come to fully accept. This was the glorious truth that was yet to be revealed to them under the New Covenant after Jesus had suffered and risen again. the glory of God's perfect justice, the glory of God's awesome vengeance, the glory of His great grace to provide His Son for wicked sinners. All of these glorious truths were yet to be revealed to the disciples and to the whole church. They had been revealed in a shadowy way, don't misunderstand, through the Old Testament worship. But now, by the cross, they were to be revealed like they had never been revealed before in all the fullness of the glory of God. And now these glorious truths have been revealed, brothers and sisters. Jesus has risen. The disciples saw it. And they worshipped. And they went forth gladly to preach the cross. and to suffer for the name of Jesus. And now, you must also believe the glory of God that has been revealed in the face of Jesus Christ through Jesus' suffering. You must also be reconciled to God now in these New Testament times through this that He has presented. You must believe in the glory of the cross, the glory of God that is revealed in the cross, or you cannot be saved. Now that Jesus has actually offered Himself and been raised up again, there is no place for the ignorance that the disciples had before He had been crucified and raised again. Those who are yet ignorant today are yet to be reconciled with God. So you see, the test of your allegiance is right here at the Lord's table. You must not come away from this table the way the disciples came away from the table. Now, what were they thinking? They should have been thinking, our gracious Lord is willingly offering Himself up as a sacrifice for our sins. But it seems that instead, they were thinking about how they would boldly fight for Him even to the point of death. They were thinking about what they would do instead of what He had just told them that He was going to do. You know, there are many baptized Christians who do exactly the same kind of thing. Today, nominal Christians, they come from the table where Christ has just been revealed as crucified, and they see nothing more than a moral example to be followed. They see a man so committed to a cause, the cause of goodness and justice, that he's willing to die. And they are inspired to do likewise. Lord, they say, we are willing to die for you. And they are. They're willing. They mean it. But these persons have not grasped what Christ has done. He's not just an example. He's an offering to take away your sins. It's not, first of all, what you are willing to do for Him. It's about what He has done for you. And until you start trusting in Him as crucified for you, you're going to stumble at the cross. You're offended. with God's way of salvation. You change the meaning of the cross to suit yourself. And as long as you remain offended at God's way of salvation, you have no salvation. And then there are others who come from the table. Christ has just been revealed as crucified. Instead of being excited about what they're going to do, as this first group we looked at, they're excited about what they've just done. Of course, I don't mean to say that you shouldn't be excited about having come to the Lord's table. But that's not all that you should be concerned about. For them, the mere act of coming to the table is something they have done for salvation. They suppose that by ingesting bread and drinking wine, everything will be taken care of. You know, they have faith in the sign. rather than in the thing that is signified. Faith in the bread and wine, rather than faith in Christ crucified. Faith in the priest at the altar, rather than faith in Christ, the only High Priest who offered Himself on the cross 2,000 years ago. These persons also stumble at the cross. They are trusting in their act of coming to church, in their act of eating at the table, instead of in Christ who is presented to them at the table. If this is the case with you, then you need to repent. You too are offended with God's way of salvation. And as long as you remain so, there is no salvation. But look at what our Lord does. For persons like His disciples. For persons who have stumbled at His cross. And as I say, that's the first reaction of most human beings when they hear the Gospel. When they understand it. That God's Son had to die? For my grandmother? For my baby? He gathers you People like you. And He makes you allegiant to Him if you are His chosen ones. This is His gracious promise to His eleven disciples. And in principle, it applies to you also. Look at verse 32. He says, But after I have been raised... In verse 31, He said, you're going to stumble. In verse 32, He says, But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee. They're all going to stumble. Jesus knows they're going to stumble. But He schedules a meeting with them after they stumble, after He is raised in Galilee. Of course, He makes some surprise appearances to them before He met them in Galilee after His resurrection. But here is a scheduled appointment. I'm going to meet you in Galilee, He says. A meeting after His resurrection. which resurrection he speaks of as a certainty here. He says, you see, then they will understand that His offering was made for them. And they will accept it, even as the Father accepted the offering of Christ for their sake. Then they will believe and will put their trust in Him alone as the one from heaven who was crucified. Then they will go forth not to obtain salvation, but rather in the power of His saving grace which they have received by faith. They will go forward as those who are nourished by Christ, crucified, and cleansed by the shedding of His blood. They will have communion in the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ when they meet Him in Galilee. That is what Jesus does for you also. He gathers you to Himself. He awakens you He shows you that God the Father accepted His sacrifice and raised Him from the dead. He shows you that He has conquered sin and death. That He has defeated Satan. That He has broken the bonds of the curse for you. He opens your eyes to see the glorious things that He has done. And instead of stumbling at the cross, you believe in the cross. Instead of relying on what you have done or what you're going to do, you rely on what He has done for you. And so, He feeds you His flesh, cleanses you with His blood, and you move forward with Him and for Him in joyful fellowship of His sufferings until the day that He at last brings you to heavenly glory. Brothers and sisters, this is the One who is presented to you every time you come to this table. He calls you to look to Him as the One who was crucified for you, and so is the only source of life and salvation. It is in Him that we ought to glory, joyfully rest in Him. And if we do, in Christ crucified, then we will never stumble. Please stand. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we come before You with joyful thanksgiving because You have gathered people like us who stumble when we hear that You are such a God that would demand nothing less than the blood of Your Son to atone for our sins. Father, we come to You with thanksgiving because even though we are such a people, You gather us to Yourself. And You present Christ to us, crucified, and our acceptance in Him as the One who laid down His life for us. And Father, I pray that we would live in Christ. That we would live continually resting in Him, continually resorting to Him for the nourishment that we need, for the cleansing that we need. Father, we pray that You would guard us from going astray. For we see how common it is that there is apostasy in the church. That those who have been shown the way of salvation drift away from it. And that church leaders rise up who no longer teach the cross. Who tell people how to be good. who tell them how to do good things in their own flesh, but do not lead them to Messiah, our only hope. Father, we thank You so much for what our Lord Jesus has done. And Father, we pray that our hearts would be filled with gratitude and faith as we contemplate it. Father, give us strength and wisdom to carry this message to the nations. It is a glorious message. It shows us your character in a way that we would never have seen it. Shows us what you are like, reveals your glory to us. Glory of your holiness that requires so great a sacrifice and the glory of your love, mercy that provides such a great sacrifice. Father, what marvelous things you have done, what a great God you are. May we go forth. Proclaiming that glory. Father, we pray for our own city too. There are so many here that are in the darkness. We pray, O Lord, that You would open their eyes. That You would gather them to this glorious fellowship at the table of the Lord Jesus Christ where we behold the Lamb that was slain from before the foundation of the world in order that we might be saved. Father, we pray that You would bless us wherever we go and that we would adorn the doctrine of the Gospel with holy and godly lives. That we would show that Jesus does nourish us in the way that we live. That we would show that we are free and have been cleansed by the way we love you and the way we respond to you. Father, we need these things. We need them to be continually set before us. We need to be continually reminded because we so soon forget Father, renew our faith and strengthen us, we pray. Keep us in the way everlasting. For we pray these things in the glorious name of Jesus our Savior. Amen.