Books hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff. We don't need atonement We just need to listen to the God within Well Do we need weird things like crosses and blood dripping weird stuff? I do we need atonement or do we just need to listen to the God within? The choice is pretty clear what is it about blood? It's such an integral part of the gospel story I'd like to make a few observations or applications of the role of blood. First of all most obviously blood is essential for life Blood is essential. We know that the average adult has around 10 or 11 pints of blood five liters But I can't do metrics very well 10 or 11 pints of blood in our body at any given time Blood is an amazing substance ladies and gentlemen Blood is an amazing thing it carries oxygen and nutrition in the forms of the form of glucose and carbohydrates and so forth to the muscles in the body It distributes vitamins and minerals and hormones Throughout the body it takes what is needed to where it's needed? It carries carbon dioxide to the lungs To be breathed out it carries all the other toxins and waste products like sodium potassium and chloride it takes them to the garbage dump in Manors that we don't really need to dwell on here on Sunday morning. Basically it takes out the garbage It carries white blood cells and antibodies to the side of injury to the side of invasion Into the body and it enables the body to fight infections and to heal itself and to make us immune to a lot of disease Are you in this there could be a quiz when I'm done here? Are you writing this down? You don't get this in every other church Blood helps the body regulate its temperature and it's constantly being replaced That's why you can donate blood and a little while later your body reproduces enough to fill That's why when you get a cut you don't have to worry about oh no I've got that much less for the rest of my life if that think about that If the body didn't replace it's on blood every time you got a paper cut or nicked yourself shaving You'd be in a world of trouble The body is an amazing thing It does not our blood supply does not run out imagine having somebody who came to you every day Every day constantly throughout the day and brought you food and Vitamins and medicines and bandages and it cleaned your house for you constantly and as soon as you threw something out in the trash He picked it up and took it away as soon as you spilled something he mopped it up whenever you tore something He meant it wherever you broke something he repaired it all without being told to do it every day 24-7 365 it would be like being married to me to have somebody like that around Just checking to make sure you're still with me Blood is an amazing substance. It's essential to life To growth to health blood is life you're out of blood You're out of time Malcolm muggages that name ring a bell with you some of us that are a bit more Rarified vintage might remember Malcolm muggish Darling of the intellectual set of great Britain of the last century High up on the social elite lists Editor of punch magazine for many years and again the darling of the social and intellectual elite until late in life He embraced Jesus as his lord became a member of a church at 79 years of age scandalized scandalized polite community Like society in great Britain He wrote a pivotal tract SA if you will called the humane holocaust. I would encourage all of you to go online and find in fact I'll try to make sure we link that under our website You can main holocaust which is the a pro life Treat us a pro life manifesto in it. He says this and I'm quoting now He said years ago the person whom I have most loved in this world my wife Kitty was desperately ill And as I was informed by the doctor attending her had only an outside chance of surviving the medical details are unimportant Probably today with the great advances that have taken place in medicine her state would not be so serious But as a situation presented itself then she was hovering between life and death Though needless to say there was no voice as there might well be today Just to suggest that it might be better just to let her go The doctor explained in her emergency operation was essential And in honesty was something of a gamble Her blood had appeared was so thin as a result of a long spell of jondus that before he operated a blood transfusion was desperately needed This was before the days of plasma As he said this an incredible Happiness a man into ecstasy surged inside of me if only I could be the donor My blood was tested found to be suitable and the serial gear was brought in very primitive by contemporary standards Just a glass tube one end of which was inserted in her arm the other end in mind with a pump in the middle drawing out my blood and sending it into her I Would watch the flow shouting out absurdly to the doctor. Don't stint yourself take all you want and Noting delightedly the immediate effect and bringing back life in your face That before it seemed gray and lifeless It was the turning point from that moment on She began to mend at no point in our long relationship as there been a more ecstatic moment Then when I thus saw my life blood pouring into hers to revive her we were at one blood to blood as no other kind of union could make it to give life This is what love was for blood Essential a life blood essential sanctification Sanification is a process by which God takes us where we are What we are as we are it makes us more and more useful in his hands mold us to be more and more like Jesus You got your Bible open your bullet and they look at verse 14 How much more than with a blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God? Cleans our consciences from acts that lead to death So that we may serve the living God His blood cleanses us and makes us more fit for service for God's service Let's Mr. shorter catechism one of our gathering documents put to this way. What is Lord suffer? Lord suffer is a sacrament. We're in by giving and receiving bread and wine according to Christ's appointment His death is showed forth and the worthy receivers are not after a corporal and a carl man But by faith made partakers of his body and blood with all his benefits to their spiritual nourishment and growth and grace We refer to the Lord suffer as a means of grace by which we mean This is one of the ways that God's people encounter and experience God's love His mercy, his transforming grace in our lives Assermin his God's word and auditory form a sacrament. We only have to baptize it in the Lord suffer a sacrament is God's word invisible Sensory form a gust and gave a classic definition when he calls a sacrament an outward and physical sign of an inward and and spiritual grace an outward and physical sign of an inward and spiritual grace In a little while when these plates are passed around with his elements It's unleavened bread when we use grape juice When these plates are passed around when you take this unleavened bread and you put it between your teeth and you crush it You are caused in a sensory way to remember That he was wounded for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities When we follow that by drinking of the grape juices in the cup here We're reminded that he said this cup is the new covenant in My blood We take these sensory reminders to ourselves we're motivated the godliness and gratitude as a lifestyle in a supernatural but a very real way the blood of Christ is and has an ongoing molding transforming renewing refining effect on us. That's why the Westminster short recaticus and says that it contributes to our spiritual nourishment and growth and grace night and here's to my soul I don't understand how how could that possibly be joined the crowd. I don't know It's mystery folks how Christ can meet with us in these elements and at this place, but he says he does faith in Christ does not go against reason, but it certainly goes beyond it We are in the realm of mystery and Christ meets with this people at this table for the 14 again, how much more than with the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblumished to God cleanse our Consciousness from acts that lead to death So that we may serve the living God Every single person in this place has something Or many something in our past That if it were to be made public and brought out here in front of everybody we would die We would die of humiliation Something we said or did or wanted to do towards somebody else Something that was said or done Toward us Maybe once maybe if you tell me that the entire period of our lives it may have been passed it may be present And if others were to find out about it We would die The blood of Christ cleanses our consciences from acts that lead to death It removes that guilt and that the stain The shame humiliation John Kleining is a Lutheran pastor city Had an experience with the power of Christ's blood to cleanse some years ago when he's preaching in Malaysia. Let me just quote Did I was helping the pastor distribute the Lord supper after the sermon? I was struck by a young woman who was crying as she received the cup from me She was dressed and drab closed and stayed on long afterwards at the front by the rail When the service was over Pastor told me that something remarkable had happened He did not have time to tell me about it because we needed to greet the people at the door When that woman came to us She took both my hands and her It's all her knees before me saying Thank you Thank you After all the people had left the pastor told me more about her Last time she had communed with her confirmation eight years earlier But her life had been ruined soon afterwards by sexual abuse from a member of her own family No matter how much her pastor to try to help her They could not remove the awful taint the crippling sense of shame from that abuse Since then she always sat at the back of the church Coming in after the service had begun and leaving before the service was over But that night for a lion a l'blood of Jesus for cleansing Changed all that You feel unclean and unworthy to take these elements Good news You are better news This place is for sinners This table is for sinners we are unclean we are unworthy But this table is for those who are broken And we know it is for those who have defiled themselves by their own sense and then defiled By the sins of others Issues and sin folks were all sinners the issue is Do you care do you know Do you want cleansing do you want the cleansing power and effect of the body and the blood of Christ and if so Then in Christ's name we welcome here Tablish for you blood is essential for life for sanctification. It's essential for reconciliation Verse 22 again without the shedding of blood There is no forgiveness We don't know who wrote Hebrews, but we know who wrote Romans and Paul says in Romans chapter 5 verses 9 and 10 Since we have now been justified by his blood How much more shall we be saved by God's wrath through him say from God's wrath to him For if when we were God's enemies we were reconciled to him through the death of his son How much more having been reconciled so we be saved through his life Listen if you're new to us new to church maybe near the Christian faith Let me tell you very briefly what the bible's message is for you And it's very simple this you are created by God in his image To be like him to reflect his dignity in his glory and that's your glory But you're also a sinner and that in your life two things you have said and done and attitudes and relationships and behaviors You have come short of God's glory. You have transgressed his loss You have broken his commandments and you stand in the state of condemnation before the one who made you to know you and to be in relationship with you That's the bad news The good news is God has looked upon us in our simple and lost estate Every other religion religion or face system on the planet has something like that in it and then it says now Here's what you have to do in order to get back with God You gotta do certain acts of penance You gotta say certain prayers you gotta do certain good works And you take your acts of penance of things you don't do and things you do and you stack them up one top the other And if you're really lucky and you try really hard you just might build that ladder to reach back up to God Every other faith system on the planet says a version of that except Christianity The the chasm between you and God. It's real and you put it there If you couldn't do enough acts of penance You couldn't refrain from enough sin You couldn't do enough good works to build that ladder to reach up to the hand of God as your Broadway place as your arms too short to box with God And arms too short to reach him too Only in the gospel of Jesus Christ God takes the equation turns it on his head and says I will come down and reach you And I will carry you out of the castle because you'll never do it and the price But that reconciliation taking place with the body and the blood The son of God Frontier times in northwestern United States two tribes the stickings and the sitkas At war each other for many years and finally finally one day The sit the sticking chief went to the sitka chief And said let's put it into our war winners coming Our people are going to star our people are afraid to go out and hunt They're afraid to go out and harvest and gather because they're afraid they'll be killed Our people will starve to death if we don't put it into this war And the sitka chief said well, that's fine for you You might very well want the war to stop you have killed ten more of my men than I have of yours Now you give me ten of sticking warriors We'll put them to death then let them call a truce A sticking chief replied very well You know my rank You know that I am worth ten sticking warriors and many more take me and let's have peace And so the bargain was struck and I appointed day the sticking chief came out And was killed by the sitka warriors His blood Paid for the ransom for the truce for the reconciliation of the tribes The missionaries came to preach to them the gospel of Christ Let's stick in and the sitka said we know this story We've seen this story We understand the story of how God sent the greatest chief of all the chief of all cheese Jesus who laid down his life in order that there might be peace We get this we understand this story God had planted Eternity in their hearts Bloods essential for life for sanctification the reconciliation Bloods eternal for bloods essential for eternal life too for life. Yes Sanification yes reconciliation and also for eternal life Blood is essential for salvation. We're not very comfortable with that That's why Professor William said I don't think we need Weird stuff like people on crosses and blood. I don't think we need atonement Why why did she think that why did she say that because if we need that man on that cross dying his blood dripping it means We put him there We don't like that We don't like that the idea of being indebted or obligated to God Almighty For other reasons there was so much uproar over the passion of the Christ if you saw it you know It was bloody It was hard to watch People said they didn't want to see it because nobody wanted to be reminded What he did for our sins? Oh, they said it was anti-Semitic. It wasn't They said it was all these other There's two Catholic it was the gospel folks You're not comfortable seeing the price That our sins cost Jesus there was a an Italian writer of a Ricardo's Coney In USA today he said he would refuse to allow his children in Italy the movie got a G-rated If you saw it, you know that was Was misplaced the best but the Coney said he wouldn't allow his children to see the film He said because and I'm quoting I want them to have this idea of the spirituality of Christ Not this debauchery the soul of Jesus is important Not his body Writer said he'd have his son watch a 30-year-old film called The Gospel According to Matthew That film he said is very deep and you don't see a drop of blood He said he plans to see the movie himself and I quoted he said I think sometimes I will shut my eyes To preserve myself from all this blood That reaction says more about him than did about the movie that reaction says everything About our contemporary view of and our response to the brutal real physical Death of the Son of God how his body was broken and his blood was poured out People want the spirit of Jesus without the incarnation. They want his death without the pain They want to sacrifice without the blood without the body and the pain the sacrifice and the blood the crucifixion is meaningless Sacrifice Cannot be sanitized. It's always been bloody. That's the point The sacrifice now when you know this this text I mean you did this is not some isolated fringe Corner of the scripture the Bible uses the word for blood 356 times 84 then in the New Testament 21 of those are in the book of Hebrews 14 of them in Hebrews chapter 9 and 10 there are 10 mentions of blood in the passage I read you the hardest part for me and figuring out what to preach today is where I began where I stopped The theme of blood runs throughout Think of the hymns we sing which talk about the blood of Christ Alas and did my savior bleed O sacred head now wounded There's power in the blood No camps on it. There's power power wonder working power I'm looking to dug here keeping straight here in the precious blood of the lamb How about closer the reform camp? Help me out here and can it be that I should gain and interest in the Savior's blood My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness The churches one foundation is Jesus Christ or Lord she is his new creation by water and the word From heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride With his own blood he bought her And for her life he died here's one you know What can wash away my sin Nothing but the blood of Jesus what can make me whole again Nothing but the blood of Jesus Old precious is the flow that makes me Why does snow no other fountain? I know Nothing but the blood of Jesus The Lord's Williams may not think we need people hanging on crosses and blood dripping in that weird stuff the churches thought so For two thousand years. It's why we're here today. It's why we're at this table It's why we take this unleavened bread we drink this fruit of the grape Crushed grapes. We do it to remember the time When a man was nailed to us to a cross his body was broken his blood was poured out Has life was surrendered So we could be redeemed His blood is essential for our life for our sanctification for our reconciliation For our salvation our eternal life While I was out You two we see all I got to catch up on a couple of film classics How to eat fried worms Oh, yeah, it's in your theaters and I got to see the pirates of the Caribbean The curse of the black pearl Not the one that's in theaters now. I'll see that one in a couple of years too Now I got to see the first pirates of the Caribbean our kids having on DVD It's a very well done movie But as I watched it if you haven't what I'm gonna tell you by if you haven't seen it yet I'm gonna assume you're probably not gonna see it. I don't think I'll ruin anything Story's very simple men sailing board the black pearl come across an Aztec treasure of gold It's got a curse on if you steal any of that Aztec gold you and your whole crew will be cursed to be sort of a A living dead is what it is And the only way to undo the cursed reverse it is to put back what was taken And to shed the blood of the guilty party in this case man my name a William Turner Which is all finding good except they can return the gold but William Turner is dead Hard to shed his blood over the treasure. What are they gonna do? Well, they find the son of William Turner young will turn her who returns the gold to Aztec treasure And he willingly sheds his blood over that gold To save the life of his beloved young Elizabeth And after I thought after I saw that movie I thought it's amazing how often the deep Trues of the gospel show up in popular culture how many popular stories really just echoes of the story The Bible says We're under a curse our first parents took something it wasn't theirs to take Ever since that time we've been under a curse and it will take a son of Adam and Eve To willingly shed his blood in order to reverse that curse The son of Adam has come he's willing to shed his blood So we can be redeemed Let's take a few moments now of silence to prepare our hearts in our minds We get ready to receive these elements and in just a few moments we'll direct us to have a proceed Amen, please be seated Lastly elders to come forward if they will to assist with a certain community We're welcoming in Christ's name to this celebration of the Lord's Supper for many of us Celebrating the Lord's Supper communion Is a normal part of our Christian experience. It's time remember the sacrifice the Jesus made on the cross Nor to make payment for our sins and to thank him for what he has done for us There's a warning attached First Corinthians 11 verses 27 and 28 Paul says there therefore Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner We guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord A man ought to examine himself before he eats the bread and drinks the cup You believe that scripture is clear that Taking the Lord's Supper Observing Lord's service for Christians only those who believe in the God of the Bible who believe that Jesus is his son and human form Came to live a perfect Sinless life and to die a sacrificial toning death for our sins and we place our trust in him and him alone For our salvation We also believe that the Lord's Supper is for those who are truly repentant of or sorry for our sins None of us lives a perfectly righteous life. You heard me say earlier. It's not the issue isn't sin. We're all sinners Issues do you care about your sins? That's why the cross was necessary But if you are here today, you're not sure whether or not you know Christ is Lord Or if you are here today and you're a Christian, but you know you are in a lifestyle ongoing sin and you have no intentions of changing A repenting Of coming to God and asking for his help to change that we would invite you on the basis of scripture Not to participate in the Lord's Supper again. It's not about sin. We're all sinners It's about whether or not you care enough to bring those sins before God and ask his help and leaving a life of repentance There also believe the Christians ought to be members under the authority of a local gospel-based Bible-leading church. They have some measure of accountability. We're not trying to exclude anyone This is Jesus's table and he decides who should and who should not come. We're simply trying to be faithful to what he says We believe these elements are exactly what they are unleavened bread grape juice They're not physically his body and his blood, but he is present He is present really. He's present spiritually. He's present with us as we receive communion together Paul says for I receive from the Lord what I also passed on to you if the Lord Jesus the night he was betrayed took bread When he had given thanks he broke it and said this is my body which is for you Do this in remembrance of me the elders who now pass the elements out to all of you If you would take them and hold them we'll receive them together in just a moment
Take and eat this in remembrance the Christ died for you and feed upon him in your hearts by faith that thanksgiving
In the same way after supper he took the cup saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood Do this whenever you drink it and remember it's of me For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes Again the elders distribute the cup we ask you to hold them and we'll take them all together in just a moment
Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood will shed for you and be thankful
The Lord's supper is a time perhaps more than most of our other services where We recognize our communion with God Almighty Father Son and Holy Spirit And also our communion in our solidarity with the church throughout the world throughout all time It's one of the reasons we like to do the more ancient creeds like the tedium We talk about the noble army of the prophets praise you and the white robes of the martyrs praise you With the whole church throughout the world all eternity ages past praises you The time of solidarity with our brothers and sisters all over the world and past present future If that in mind, I'd like to close our time of communion with the prayer of the John Calvin used to pray at the end Of communion services in Geneva. We pray with me these will be his words about the intentions of mine and our hearts Now grant us this other benefit Father The vow will never allow us to forget these things But having them imprinted on our hearts You may grow and increase daily in the faith with it which is at work in every good deed Thus may we order and pursue all our life To the exaltation of thy glory and the edification of our neighbor and the advance of thy kingdom throughout the world We pray in Jesus name Amen