What We Must Do? - 10/02/2016

WARNING PREACHY…

(NOTE: These are sermon notes for the World Communion Sunday service.  I'm sorry if they are hard to follow and nonsensical, I prefer what I post to be less congested and clearer but I ran out of time.  Please forgive me.)

Mark 10:17-27

¹⁷ As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
¹⁸ “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. ¹⁹ You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
²⁰ “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
²¹ Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
²² At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
²³ Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
²⁴ The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
²⁶ The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”
²⁷ Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

·         “What must I do”

o   This is the question all of us have, “What must we do?”

§  When we are invited to someone’s home for dinner we often feel that we have to take something, a salad, a dessert, or maybe the wine.

§  When I take my mom to dinner at a restaurant, she insists on leaving the tip. 

o   The question shows our misunderstanding of the nature of salvation and eternal life.

§  Please don’t misunderstand me, there are things that we must do in our Christian lives, but these are things that WILL NOT cause us to inherit eternal life.

§  We are baptized, we are confirmed, and we are repentant but our actions ARE NOT the causative event that makes eternal life possible, the things that we do is always, only, responsive in nature.

§  In Acts chapter 2, the Apostle Peter delivered the first official sermon of the Christian church.

·         He began by pointing them to the words of their own prophet, and then he showed how Jesus was the subject of that prophet’s words.

·         Peter then pointed out that Jesus was accredited by God to them by many miracles, wonders, and signs, but they handed Him over to the Roman’s and executed him.  But God brought Him back to life.

·         Then Peter told them about their historical hero King David, how God had approved him, but that David died and is still in his grave to this day.  But David prophesied of the resurrection from for the One who would take the throne to be king of Israel forever.

·         And the Scripture reads: “³⁷ When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” ³⁸ Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

o   Notice here that the question of the people was a “what can we do” question, but the question was in the context of a response.

§  The people in Acts chapter 2 asked the question of response when they recognized their own sin and folly, they were repentant and sorrowful,  but the young man who asked Jesus what he could do, did so desiring to make his own luck, to author his own destiny, to secure his own future.

o   Jesus responded by pointing to the religion that the young man already knew.  He brought up the 10 Commandments, about not murdering, not committing adultery, and not lying or stealing.

§  And proudly the man pointed out that he has done all of this since he was a young boy.

§  Jesus saw this was true and he genuinely felt emotion for him when he informed him that he lacked just one thing, he needed to go sell everything that he had and give it to the poor and come follow him.

§  At this the young man walked away sad because he had great wealth.

o   In response to this Jesus told his disciples that it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than to enter into the kingdom of God.

§  Some bible commentators explain that Jesus was not speaking of an actual needle but rather it was a nickname for the gate of the city.  It was difficult but not actually impossible.

·         If that were true, the disciples would have let out a collective breath of relief and known that it were not actually impossible, but merely just difficult.

·         Instead though they asked the question…  “Who then can be saved?”

·         “Who then can be saved?”

o   Jesus answered with the words “with man it is impossible, but all things are possible with God.”

§  The words of our Lord forces us to address the very nature of Salvation and eternal life.  Getting the inheritance of the Kingdom of God is not something that we can possibly secure for ourselves, by our own efforts, or by being a good person, but it is only in response that we can possibly receive it.

·         This then brings us to Communion…

o   Communion forces us to remember what it is that we receive when we participate in it.

§  Back in the days of Moses, God caused the Egyptians to release them from their slavery.  God did this through a series of miraculous signs and plagues upon the Egyptians, and with each one Pharaoh would not release them.  On the 10^th plague God was sending the Angel of Death to kill the first born male of men and animals.  Pharaoh could not ignore this one and so it was coming.

§  God told Moses that the Angel of Death would not distinguish between race;  Egyptian and Israelite alike would be destroyed in this plague. 

·         However, God gave the Israelites an out.  He gave them the Passover lamb.  Each Israelite family was to take a perfect one year old lamb, slaughter it and brush its blood over the door jams of their houses.  And in this way, the Angel of Death would come upon the house and see the blood and Passover it, sparing the people inside.

§  God told Moses that every year the people were to celebrate this event with the practice of the Feast of Unleavened Bread - the Passover Meal.  And in this way they would remember what God had done to deliver them from their slavery in Egypt.

·         When their children would ask “Why were they doing this?” they were to tell the children of God’s deliverance to their people.

·         That’s how they Seder Meal works to this day; the youngest generation asks the oldest generation.

·         Every year they remembered that God used the sacrificed and broken body of a lamb to deliver the people from their destitution and bondage AND He used the lamb’s blood as the sign that they were God’s people who trusted in deliverance by the promise of the sacrificed lamb.

§  Jesus, the night before his execution, shared with his disciples in what is commonly referred to as “The Last Supper”.  This was literally the annual Feast of Unleavened Bread or the Passover Meal that the Jews observed each year as a remembrance of God delivering the Israelite people from their slavery in Egypt during the time of Moses.

·         It is from this scene Jesus instituted what we now call the Lord’s Supper, the Communion, and the Eucharist.

Luke 22

¹⁴ When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. ¹⁵ And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. ¹⁶ For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”

¹⁷ After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. ¹⁸ For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

¹⁹ And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

·         “Do this in remembrance of me.” 

o   Today is World Communion Sunday, where churches around the world will unify together remembering Jesus the savior of the world from our slavery to sin and death.

o   I may not be approved to offer you the elements of Communion today, but I want to help us, still, to participate in Communion together.

§  As a blind man may not experience the world the same way that the sighted man does, sight is not the only way in which to experience the world.  Likewise, the bread and the wine of the Lord’s Supper are not the only way to experience the spiritual reality they represent.

§  And so I invite you to remember with me the body and blood that has set us free from sin and death.

·         Think of the bread.  Envision it in your mind’s eye.  It may be a wafer, a piece of cracker, or piece of actual bread.  What exact form it has in this physical world doesn’t really matter, what matters is what it represents for us.

·         The bread is the broken body of Jesus.

o   The body of a man who showed taught of God and loved his fellow man.

o   The body of a man who touched and healed lepers, cripples, demoniac, women, children, and the downtrodden and destitute.

o   The body of a man who is desperately loved by those who know him.

o   The body of a man who was wrongly accused, beaten, spat upon, and literally nailed to a Roman cross.

o   The body of a man who was sacrificed to redeem us from sin and death.

§  And this bread, which represents Jesus to us, when it touches your tongue, should taste bitter.  As bitter as the flavor of parsley, an aspirin that dissolves on the tongue, or even like earwax. 

§  The bread should make us shudder with the knowledge that Jesus’ body was broken and sacrificed in order to set us free from the slavery of sin and death,  just as the Israelites were set free from their slavery in Egypt.

§  As we partake of the bread, we are reminded that we did nothing to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven but are recipients of what is impossible for man.

²⁰ In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”

·        The wine reminds us of the promise of salvation from the Angel of Death.  But this time it is not the blood of a lamb spread on the doorposts of our homes, but rather the blood of Jesus which covers our souls by faith in his death upon the Cross.

o   The wine is new and it is refreshing. 

o   It washes down the bitter taste of the bread and comforts us in faith knowing that the wrath of God is going to Passover us on that Great Day that we will stand before Him on Judgment Day.

o   The wine is the promise that in the Blood of Jesus we trust in God

o   And in unity with the Christian world today, we give thanks to our God who has redeemed us from our Egypt.