Amen. Well, if you would turn with me in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 26, we're going to be looking at verses 26 through 30, Matthew 26 verses 26 through 30. Last time we saw Jesus in complete control as He revealed that one of the twelve would betray Him. We also saw that the disciples responded very well on this occasion. Each one humbling his own hearts, wondering what the evils that He personally was capable of, not looking at the others, thinking He was better than the others, or blaming the others. But each one is at eye, Lord. Each one in humility, going to the Lord, for help, for strength. This kind of self-examination we saw as crucial to our growth and graces. Each one of us also needs to humbly look entirely to Christ. For all of our strength, in order to grow in godliness in the order to resist temptation as we walk in and seek to walk in a growing faith, a growing repentance, a growing obedience, we have no natural innate ability for that. We have to go to God for that, even we who have been regenerated and who have a new nature. We need to continually feed upon Christ and His benefits by faith that we could grow. And we saw that even as it was God's eternal, unchangeable predestination, that Judas would betray Him. We also saw that Judas was fully responsible and accountable for His betrayal of our Lord because He did what He wanted to do. And He did it freely. He chose to do it. Our perfect Lord willed and ordained from eternity past to bring about His plan to offer Himself on the cross to satisfy God's wrath for our sins and in His infinite wisdom and power. He overruled the treachery and intention and thoughts and acts of one evil man that He Himself had willed from all eternity to bring about the sacrifice that takes away the sin of the world. This is the power of our God, whose plan includes even those who rebel against Him, yet they are held accountable because they do it freely, they do it willingly. And God is able to turn their evil intentions and acts even to bring about the salvation of the world, to take away the sin of the world. It was Judas' betrayal that caused the Lamb to lay down His life. And so this is the power of our God. Well in today's text, I want to examine the sacrament of the Lord's supper that Christ institutes in the gospel of manual, Matthew, what we often call communion. What is this sacrament and how should we view it today and make a proper use of it? Let's turn to God's Word and let's turn to Him in prayers we do. So Father, we thank You for Your Word. Again, we just pray for wisdom, for understanding. I pray that You would anoint me, Lord God, according to Your Spirit, according to Your will and Your gifts and graces. And I pray that all of us would be anointed according Lord God to that Spirit that each one has. And if there are any who do not know You, Lord God, let Your Word today regenerate them by the power of Your Spirit, Father. Let Your Word bring life from death, bring life from darkness, Lord. We know You do that every day and us, and so save our loved ones who may not know You, Lord, who might hear this Word. And sanctify each one who does know You, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well, this is God's Word, Matthew 26, beginning in verse 26, this is the Holy Word of our God, give attention to it. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed, and broke it. And He gave it to the disciples and said, take eat, this is my body. 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 has 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 and my father's kingdom. And when they had sung to Him, they went out to the Mount of Olives. I want you to notice, first of all, this morning a new covenant. I want you to notice a new covenant. A covenant in Scripture is an agreement between two or more parties, and when a covenant is made by God with man, it is made with the ceiling of blood, the blood of a sacrifice. We saw the first covenant that God made with His people, Israel, in our Scripture reading, and we saw after they sacrificed those bulls that Moses put some of the blood on the altar, and He put some of the blood on the people, no doubt throwing it on the people. And by doing so, He initiated and He ratified that covenant ceremony. They had pledged to be God's people to receive all of His Word, to do what He said. They were right to do that. And therefore God puts upon them the blood and holds them accountable to that covenant. By the way, that wasn't a covenant of works on Mount Sinai. That was the covenant of grace. They were already saved from their sins by God's mercy and grace, and He was their God. That's why He saved them. He was keeping His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They weren't going to be His God if they kept the covenant and were good enough. That would be a covenant of works. This was a covenant of grace. It was an administration of a covenant of grace that God had already announced in the garden of Eden as soon as man fell. We'll notice that in a moment. But this particular administration of the covenant was in response to God's deliverance and salvation of Israel from Egypt. And God was commemorating that salvation, and He was showing them that He was their Savior. Now that He had purchased them from the bond of Egypt that they were to be His people. And therefore respond to Him in covenant obedience, and again, not to earn their salvation, but because He had already saved them. You have been brought out of Egypt. Now keep my commandments. We're in the same situation. We have been saved. Now keep my commandments, God says to us. The children of Israel were no more commanded to keep God's commandments than we are. And for the same reason, because we already are His people, not to become His people. We ought never to confuse that. But in saving His people from their sins in Egypt, God gave them various ceremonies to commemorate that. And the very first one He gave them is the Passover. In fact, they're still in Egypt when God gives them the Passover. The other ones all come at Mount Sinai when He gives them the feast and the laws and the different ceremonies and laws for the priesthood and the temple and so forth. But while they're still in Egypt, He commands this Passover feast, which He says to them, they're going to do every year. And He gives all sorts of minute and specific ceremonies that they are to do when they do that. Even the way they eat, they have to eat, they have to eat it standing with sandals on their feet, with their staff in their hand, ready to go. Such was the nature of the ceremonial law and Old Testament with these minute details in order that Israel keep them, according to God's commandment. And so the Passover was given, if you look at it in Exodus 12 as a memorial. That's what it's called. Exodus 12. As a memorial that you would remember, every year they would repeat this ceremony, that they would remember God delivered them from Egypt. But that deliverance in and of itself was anticipatory of a greater deliverance, right? The essence of covenant is that God would be our God and that we would be His people and that we would dwell with Him as if there was no sin, right, that we could dwell with Him again. That was why Adam was kicked out of the garden because he sinned against God and he no longer can dwell with God. Well, in God's covenant of grace, God is bringing man back to dwell with Him in His land and Israel gets a type of that, a picture of that, as God saves them from the bondage of Egypt, from the death that they had there, and He brings them to His land, where what? Where He will dwell with them. God with His people, God's people with Him, and they had this all through the wilderness, that pillar of smoke in the day, and the pillar of fire in the night that would be over the tent of meeting, and then that would move when it was time for them to move. That was God dwelling with His people, and yet it was partial. It was incomplete. That couldn't have been the final hope because even though God was with His people, and you could see that, if He would look down on the valley as Balak and Balam did that time and they could see the God dwelling with Him in the midst of His people, yet He was also separate from them, right? Though He was in the tent of meeting, though He would meet Moses yet around the tent of meeting where the Levites, and nobody could go near that area where the Levites were, they'd be put the death, because of God's holiness, and the Levites couldn't go into that tent of meeting either, or they would have been put to death because of God's holiness. So even though God's with His people, He's separate from His people. In fact, the whole ceremony of law is God dwelling with His people at the same time, keeping them away, right at the temple. No one could go in the holy place except the priests. The priests stood as a kind of mediator between God and His people because God would consume them because they were still, in some sense, accounted sinful. They couldn't dwell with God again. They couldn't have that communion, that fellowship that God had intended, that Adam had with God in the garden. There was a partial restoration and anticipation God was doing it, but there was all these go-betweens, the animals, the blood that had to be continually offered. This separation that was continually kept up with the priesthood, no one being able to actually go into His presence, and then only the Holy of Holies, or only the high priests in the Holy of Holies, and then only one day a year as we looked at this morning in the New Members' class. So there is this coming together and yet there is this even in this Old Testament sacrifice, only Moses, as we saw in our scripture reading, only Moses goes up on the mountain. So God is dwelling with them, but it's not full, it's not final. This is why in the Old Testament, God had promised His people a further covenant, a new covenant. You can read about it in Genesis chapter 31, beginning in verse 31, that's why it's really easy to remember. I'm sorry, Jeremiah 31, 31, 31, to 34, listen to this new covenant. This isn't a brand new covenant, this isn't a new covenant in a sense of completely different. It's a renewed covenant. It's a fuller and really the final version of the covenant that God had made with His people in the garden, the covenant of grace. This will be the final version until Christ returns. God prophesied about it in the book of Jeremiah, 500 years before Christ, and He says, this, 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 Judah, 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. You see how that was the ultimate sort of preview, the ultimate first understanding of this delivered. When I took them out of Egypt, that's the ultimate picture. In the Old Testament of the fullness of the salvation that we have in Christ. But this covenant's beyond that crisis, or the word of God says, 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, now listen, says the Lord, I will put my law in their minds. And I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Now, in some ways, that was already true. But in a much fuller way, in a much more direct way, no more priesthoods, no more going between, no more keeping the people back. Now we can come and dwell with him. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, no the Lord, where they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. There's a sense in which every Christian is a priest. We don't need to come to God through anyone else, no matter who you are, if you're a believer in Christ, if you're a man, if you're a woman, if you're a child, you don't need another human being to come to God. You don't go to the high priest anymore, you don't come to Pastor Appleton or me. You go directly to God. You have his spirit. You don't need anybody to teach you. That's what he's saying here. You don't need anybody to teach you to know the Lord. You know the Lord. You can recognize, you're supposed to search in the scriptures, is what the pastor's saying true. I have this spirit. I don't need to go to the altar of the pastor. You have this spirit. You know the Lord. Search the scriptures. Paul accounted the Bereans more noble for checking him out. Why? Because they knew the Lord. They had this spirit. Every Christian is a priest. Every Christian goes directly to God. There's no teacher in that sense of the Christians. Yes, there's the teaching office. I hold it, Pastor Appleton hold it. That's in the church. But in your relationship to God, who is the teacher of every Christian, the Holy Spirit? Who teaches you how to pray? Who brings you that presence of the Lord, the Holy Spirit? We have use, and we have needed the use of one another's gifts in the church, including the teaching office. But this is what he's saying here. They shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them says the Lord for, and this is the key. I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. I will remember no more. Do you see that in our text in verse 28 where Jesus says it, for this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins, for the remission of sins, not just for a temporary covering over, which is what the Old Testament sacrifices in a sense did. They would offer these animals, you had to offer an animal whenever you sinned, a whole burnt offering, or a guilt offering, or a free will offering, or a sacrifice of peace offering, and you had all these offerings in all these different minute circumstances with a bull you had to offer it with three tents of a hint of wine, and with a ram, it was two tents, and with a lamb it was one tent, precise intricate details, because these things were just a picture and a type of fullness hadn't come, and so they had to walk in all these details and ceremonies because they didn't take away sins. The book of Hebrews talks about how the day of atonement in which one sacrifice that goat was offered to God, and then the other goat, the skate goat was, you know, sat in the loose in the wilderness, that goat was offered for all the sins of the year, but those sins in the year had already been covered as it were by offering, because whenever you sinned you had to go to the temple and given offering, and then every day there was the morning offering in the evening offering for the sin of the people, and on the Sabbath there were two morning offerings and evening offerings, so every day there were already offerings, there was already animals burning, and yet still at the end of the year for all of those sins that supposedly were covered, there was another offering, and it had to repeat itself every year. Do you see how this whole system begs of an end? It can't satisfy, it can't complete, the eye will be their God and they will be my people. There has to be something more, because as the New Testament says the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins, this is why all the way back in the Old Testament, God promised a full word covenant, a new covenant, a renewed covenant that would fulfill and satisfy everything that these placeholders, that these pictures were promising, were presiding, there would be the reality that would come, and that's what we're seeing in our text. That's what's happening in our text. The time is now, when Israel was on the mount where they were at the Mount Sinai and Moses went up and received the commandments, and we saw the ceremony where Moses throws the blood on the people, that was making the covenant with the people. The elders got to go up on the mount and have the meal, not all the people, see the difference then. They were a little bit closer, but even they couldn't go all the way up on the mount after that, only Moses, so all sorts of tears of differences and separation and so forth, and they have that meal, but that meal is just an anticipation of a fuller meal and a fuller fellowship and a fuller communion that Jesus Himself brings in here in the upper room. Notice it again in our text, and it was 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. This is after, if we look at the all four of the accounts of this, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 1 Corinthians, John doesn't give an account of the supper, we'll see it according to Luke, it's after the supper, he takes the cup, in fact in Luke we see two of the four cups. After the supper, so this is after the supper, that's important, because this isn't the Passover, they've already completed their meal at this point, they've completed all of the ordinances, and no doubt they completed them, Jesus kept all the ceremonial laws, so they would have eaten it, stabbed the hand, and so forth, but the supper is over now. And the supper was a full mandated meal, you had to eat the lamb, and you had to eat the bitter herbs, and you had to eat the unleavened bread. The cups of wine were added later, probably in the Babylonian captivity by Jewish tradition, they weren't part of the commandments, you won't see anything in Exodus about cups of wine, or some of the other traditions that they added, which were good in another themselves. In fact, one of the reasons why we know this is a Passover meal was verse 30, they went out and sang the hymn, because it was part of the Jewish tradition that you would sing the halal at the end of the meal, the halal was songs 113 to 118, and it was almost certainly 118 that they sang, and I wish I had time to really expound Psalm 118 to you to show you just exactly what Jesus was singing, hours, before he would be betrayed, before he would be crucified, just one small portion, Psalm 118, verse 22, Jesus would have sung this with the 12, this well with the 11, because Judas is gone at that point, the stone which the builders rejected has become, the chief cornerstone, this was the Lord's doing, it is marvelous in our eyes. That was about to happen for real, and they're singing it together. Save now, I pray, O Lord, send now prosperity, that's Hosanna, that's what they said of that previous Sunday when he came into the city, and they were looking forward to the coming of the Messiah who would save now, and that's what Christ was about to do, he was about to save now, and not just from Egypt, not just from the Babylonians, the Assyrians or maybe in our case today, the Muslims, the terrorists, the atheists, the secularists, those who hate us, that's not our ultimate danger, that's not the ultimate thing we need to be saved from, what we need to be saved from ultimately, is God, because He's holy, because He will punish sin, and His wrath is visited in so many ways, in this world, the Bible says that God's wrath is revealed from the heavens against the unrighteousness and the ungodliness of man who suppress the truth, but the day of wrath is coming, and we need a sacrifice that can atone for our sins before a holy God, and the blood of bulls and animals can't do it ultimately, you can just take the place while we're waiting, while we're waiting for the final one to come, and that's what Jesus is pledging, that's what He means by take and eat, this is my body, take the cup and drink, this is my blood, I'm the sacrifice, I'm the one you're waiting for, I'm going to take away the judgment and the wrath and the curse by taking it upon myself, Jesus ushers in the new covenant, and they take the blood just as the Israelites had the blood thrown on them, and they take here a piece of bread, just as the Israelites would have had to eat the matzah, the Passover bread every year to celebrate again and look back on what God had done, but also with this anticipation of what God would do, and so I want you to notice secondly a past history, I want you to notice a past history, the one thing that everybody agrees on because the Lord's Supper as many of you know there are various theories of what the Lord's Supper is and how it works and Christians divide on this sort of thing and historically it's been one of the most divisive doctrines that there's ever been, right? The Reformation itself divides over the doctrine of communion at the call of Quay at Marburg when Luther and Melanthin get together with the reforms wingly and acompatious and they agree on everything, right down the line, 14 out of 15 articles, but when it comes to the Lord's Supper they can't agree. The factrament and the sign and seal that was to symbolize our union with Christ and one another, that was the thing that separated them, if Satan didn't get a little bit of a laugh out of that part of the Reformation I can't imagine, but there is one part of the Supper that everyone agrees on and that is that it is a memorial, that we are just as Israel was commanded to remember what God had done to save them from Egypt. In the Lord's Supper we are commanded to remember what God had done to save us from our sins, from his wrath on account of our sins in the sacrifice of Christ. We don't get this so much directly in Matthew, it's indicated when Christ says this is the blood of the covenant, covenant is a ceremony and again an agreement which is made which is going to continue, so that looks on to a continuance. Even more in verse 29 where he anticipates a time where they're going to be celebrating this without him because he said I'm not going to drink of this anymore so there's some of that there but but we get it explicitly in Luke and in 1 Corinthians where Jesus says to them do this in remembrance of me, do this in remembrance of me, it's a memorial. We do this in remembrance of him, everyone agrees that it's at least a memorial and that we look back on what Christ has done. It was in remembrance of his atonement. I mean think of it even the types of atonement were remembered with ongoing repeated ceremonies. How much more should the actual atonement be remembered with the ceremony that we would repeat, that we would continue to do? You realize if it wasn't for Luke in 1 Corinthians, we wouldn't necessarily know that we're supposed to repeat this because they're the only ones that command to do this and remember it's Mark and Matthew give the account but it's not said for us to do it until we look at 1 Corinthians and Luke which again shows us how scripture is to be taken as whole and we take it together but we remember what our Lord did. What did he do? Well he became incarnate for us because in the covenant of works which we were in, our father Adam sent and the curse of God's judgment came upon us. That's sort of the background to this covenant of grace that I talked about. God promises to save his people by grace. He does that in Genesis chapter 3 verse 15 where he says that by the seed of the woman, the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. Remember it was by the woman that death came so by the woman salvation would come. The seed of the woman would crush the head of the one who has caused the human race to fall. He would win for the human race because God had already entered into a covenant of works with man because he made man in his image and therefore he formalizes that when he tells Adam do not eat from the tree and the day you eat of it you shall die which is the agreement that they have Adam is to live by his works. He'll die if he he sins he sinned and therefore the judgment came and the covenant of works was failed. That's how God promises in this covenant of grace salvation by grace. Believe in my promise. Believe that someday I'm going to say in the seed of the woman and that's what Adam's faith would have been in Eve's faith and we receive we see them responding in faith as Adam names his wife Khaba. Eve. Life. He names her life. She was death in a sinfulness. He would have said the woman that you gave me she brought the curse to me. She is the mother of all death. No Adam in believing the promise says she is the mother of life. She's going to bring life because from her seed life will be restored. So he names her. Eve herself names her first son Cain because she has gotten a man from the Lord. Again trusting that the promise that the seed would come through her. So we see that faith in the seed in Adam and Eve as the covenant is passed on and we see this covenant go on in this covenant of grace the promise of the seed right Abraham then is selected. It's going to be through your seed that all the world will be blessed Abraham and then Israel enters into that covenant again in fulfillment of that promise. God says I am the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. That's why he saved them. He was keeping his word of them. That wasn't something new. That was a furthering of that covenant of grace. I brought you out of Egypt because of my promised Abraham Isaac and Jacob because of my promise of salvation by grace through faith and so they were to believe and so Christ when he comes now has to fulfill that covenant. But that means that righteousness has to be established and that atonement has to be made because that's what we're guilty of in transgressing the covenant of works. We're guilty of sin and we don't have righteousness and so Jesus when we remember Jesus we remember that he he became a man for us that he became incarnate for us so that he could keep all of God's laws and earn our righteousness and then that he took on our guilt and he was for us rejected for us cast out for us condemned because he has to pay the penalty that we have earned by our sins and so his body was broken for us his blood was poured out for us don't have trouble with that I know sometimes people Christians will have trouble with. Well wait not a bone of his is supposed to be broken. How can you say his body was broken? Well first of all Chris first Corinthians does say his body was broken in the majority text at least and second of all that's just a euphemism for death. Oftentimes it speaks in scripture of somebody being broken being dead he was broken his blood was poured out his body was broken he died that's all that means Christ died for us his body was that's why we break the bread we're remembering his death his body was broken his blood is poured out that's another symbol of death he did it for us we're remembering that these are the two concepts of expiation and propitiation that in Christ suffering on the cross what happened? Well he takes our place we deserve God's wrath so Jesus in an agreement with the Father from eternity past becomes the sin offering comes down earns the righteousness that you and I fail to earn and then takes upon himself our sin and God as our substitute imputes that sin to Jesus so that on the cross Jesus is suffering not for himself but for us that's what we remember in the supper he's suffering for us he is our lamb who takes away our sins and that's what we symbolize by eating the by eating the bread if his body's the bread and we eat it just like the Jews when they offered the lamb and put the blood on the door and then they ate it the death of the lamb saved them from God's judgment and that then they eat the lamb which gives them life food gives us life now it's just temporary and physical but it was a picture of the spiritual life that we have from Christ that even as his blood saves us from the wrath of God when we eat the bread which symbolizes his body we're saying this is what gives me spiritual life as my faith feeds on Christ I am confessing he is my source of a spiritual life before God he is my source of righteousness he is my source of atonement that's why we drink his blood his blood poured out takes away the wrath of God we drink it because it gives us life we're saying I trust in his body I trust in his blood that I am right with God and that's what the Jews did when they would eat that lamb that they're going to be spared because the blood of the lamb was on their door we're spared not only spared but loved because all of our sins are taken away not just covered anymore Christ expiates us of our sins God pours out his wrath the other big word that we need to know is propitiation God is angry with sin I know so people will say oh God's not angry that's not the God of the Bible the whole reason we need to cross is because God is furious with sin his wrath burns forever with sin on account of sin God hates sin because he's holy and his wrath must be satisfied or God himself has been dishonored how's his wrath going to be satisfied by our being punished forever because our sins are an infinite insult against him because he is infinite and so we need an offering that can pay that price and that's what Jesus does on the cross God's wrath really was poured out on Jesus he was the sin offering all of God's wrath an infinite amount of wrath is poured out on Christ how can that be how can Christ the finite man be able to save all of us right if he was just a man if he was just one man he might be able to substitute for one person in hell right Christ could go to hell forever and then one person could be set free but that's why he had to come as the God man that's why the son of God had to become a man because when the son of God takes a human nature now in Jesus the God man suffers it has eternal value do you see that Christ on the cross now can take an infinite amount of wrath because he's not merely a human being he's a human being united to the infinite God and so all of God's infinite wrath can be poured out on Christ and he can he can take it away he's the only one that could and this is what we remember beloved this is a it's it's an historical fact that Jesus came and died on the on the cross and he gives us his body and blood in this ceremony that we we anticipate or I'm sorry that we replicate on occasion because we remember it and we're confessing it again this is a past history then I want you to notice thirdly a present reality I want you to notice a present reality we remember what he did in the past but we celebrate what we have in the present we have forgiveness we have fellowship restored we have eternal life we have all of our sins removed all of our gods wrath gone we're no longer just sort of placating God for a time so that we need more animals down the road all of them all of the sins gone all of the righteousness imputed to us God is now pleased with us we are now his children we can now enter into the holy holy which the scripture says we do by faith when we pray we come boldly before the throne of God every Christian without a mediator because Christ is our mediator we don't need human beings in priesthoods and other things anymore the present reality that we have because of the supper is access to God is adoption as his children is his holy spirit in each one not just now in a few gifted folks but all of us have the spirit all of us now being accounted righteous and accepted as righteous there is no more anticipating anything except for the fullness that we have and we have all of this by faith in the blood of Christ by faith in Christ Calvin says it is impossible to feed on Christ in any other way than by faith because the eating itself is a consequence of faith why do we eat because he said do this and if we believe we eat and if we believe in him and not in the eating and the drinking and not in what I do or what Pastor Appleton says but we believe in what he did then we have the reality confirmed again to us the sacraments are assigned in the seal right the sacrament points to something that Jesus did points to something that he's still going to do will notice that in a minute but it's also a seal it's also saying to you yes this is for you now if we believe that sign and we believe that seal that's meaningful to us and then it becomes a means of grace a means by which we grow in our faith because we have again before us in a visible way a tangible object that's given to us so we can see that we can touch that we can taste that we can smell that we can hear when we chew it in our mouths and we need that sort of thing God gives us these signs because we're body and soul and we need something that we can with our bodies experience in order to confirm us more and grow in our faith that's what theologians repeatedly say these signs and seals come as a help to faith that's what our Westminster Confession says we need these things they're not something in addition to there's something that come and strengthen our faith because we get to see it because to see something played out it helps us to grow in our faith and that's how we receive the benefit only by faith it's not by eating it's not by drinking it's by the believing that accompanies the eating in the drinking and the eating in the drinking help us to believe because again it's a physical reminder that Jesus did this for us and so we're supposed to look beyond the eating and beyond the drinking to what it symbolizes which is Christ and what I hate and what seems to happen all the time is Christians get all caught up with the sign part and the seal part and we want to nitpick whether or not the sign is exactly what it ought to be or the seal is exactly what it ought to be the same thing that happened in the Reformation and get hung up on this things like well what's the proper posture for the Lord suffer you know in this church they kneel and that's not right because you know they were sitting so we should sit or maybe we should stand or is it a blessing or is it a giving thanks because the one manuscript says Jesus blessed the bread the other one says he give thanks so we divide over that and then we want to fight about frequency oh well we need to have it every week or every month or once a year because the Passover was once a year our forefathers in their form face some of them had these communion seasons where they would have once a year like a two week communion season and we're going to divide about that or we want to divide over the consistency of the bread or the consistency of the cup and all this nitpicking about the sign and the seal and is it the right kind you're not supposed to be hung up on that you're supposed to look to Jesus the sign points to Jesus could you imagine if I was going to Pittsburgh and I want to find Pittsburgh and there I am standing at this sign Pittsburgh 10 and I'm like I'm not sure if that sign says it the way it should and I don't go on path the sign to Pittsburgh what good did that to me or the seal I get a seal from the mayor that says I get I don't know a thousand dollars or something and I'm like I'm not sure if that seals proper I'm not going to open the letter to get the check it's only as we believe the sign and seal and move beyond it I grew up in the Lutheran church we had communion every Sunday we communion every service and we had real wine every Sunday and I remember my buddy Richie was in the Catholic church and we always thought that we were the two best churches because we had communion every Sunday we had real wine every Sunday there was Baptist and these others drinking their grape juice once a month or something with that stuff with that and I tell you what when I got to seminary I did I wrestled with that I wanted to know from Dr. Keneer who was teaching the class on the Westminster confession how could I serve how can I serve greatges when I know when everybody knows that the Lord Jesus Christ served for men and wine you know this argument against that oh well maybe you know it was was greatges they they didn't have greatges fact then it wasn't invented until the night 1800s because they didn't have refrigeration it would have been vinegar we all know that that's just foolishness or well maybe you know maybe an alcoholic might be in the congregation and you know that they take the wine oh yeah Jesus wasn't aware of alcoholics when you see how they reflect badly on him those arguments are non-arguments they're non-starters they don't answer they're false I'm ready for Dr. Keneer I go into the class I said Dr. Keneer we're all training to be ministers how can I administer the gospel give people greatges when the Lord Jesus Christ gave them for men and wine and Dr. Keneer paused and he didn't give any of those foolish arguments that I was expecting you know you hear all the time and he put his hand to his chin like this and he looked back at me and he said is obedience to Christ really contingent upon how long the grapes sit in the skins I had no answer for that I wasn't expecting that I realized that Dr. Keneer pointed something out to me that was important for me to know yes we know that they served wine on that day but we are able to serve a kind of great pure great juice an unfermented wine today and it's interesting to me that just as much as we fight ever that we fight ever the bread you know I come to this church and there's a sweet cracker and every once in all we get some people saying well that's not on 11 bread we had on 11 bread and the Lutheran churches little wafers we were told not to chew them right coming to stuff like that guys if it said bread product if it's the product of the fruit of the grain move past it to the reality let's look to Christ our fathers in this church set up a communion service that is legitimate when I first became senior pastor there's some people who wanted things a little bit different and I said number one providence is a broke and number two I'm not here to fix it I'm not going to change anything that doesn't need change because that just causes problems for people the communion supper that art broadwick and men like Jerry Timberlake and Bob Parker and the others instituted it meets the requirements of the Lord there's not a reformed denomination in the world that would say otherwise you realize that there's not a reformed denomination in the world that says you have to have communion every Sunday or once a month there's no reformed denomination that has legislated frequency or has legislated fermented or unfermented wine or has legislated this or that kind of bread no reformed church in the world has done that no denomination not in nape park not in the world reformed fellowship maybe some tiny little group that I don't know about and neither did our fathers in the faith neither did Calvin he wanted communion every week but he was satisfied to have it every quarter these are not the things to fight about what we should be doing is pressing on towards the communion that we have in Christ that's real when we move beyond the sign in the seal to receiving Christ in his benefits beloved and so this brings me to my fourth and final point a future certainty a future certainty the communion looks back to the past it looks to the present reality that we have because of Christ but it also looks to the future Jesus says in verse 29 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 there's coming a day when Christ is going to return that's what that refers to Luke just says when the kingdom comes when I drink it with you when the kingdom comes another sense in which it came with the coming of Christ but not in its fullness right we don't sit down and eat a full meal do we they did on the mountain because that was a picture they sat down and they ate and drank and saw God we get one piece of bread we get one sip of the cup why because we're not eating the meal Jesus has offered the sacrifice that justifies us but we're looking forward to the marriage sufferer of the lamb because not all the electrician yet we can't have the meals so everybody can come to the table and that won't happen until Christ returns and that's why he says I am not going to drink this again with you he's not meaning and he's not excluding some people say well you know when he rose again he did eat and drink that's not what he's talking about he's talking about the celebration with food and drink that cup at the wedding feast of the lamb it's not going to happen until the fullness of the kingdom of God comes then we'll sit down at the meal then we'll have it now we get a four taste what we do in the Lord suffer is a four taste one piece of bread right one drink of the cup Paul talked about this in first Corinthians remember the first the Corinthians were abusing the Lord suffer some were getting drunk some were going hungry they were having full blown meal time Paul says if anyone is hungry let him eat at home the Lord sufferer is not meal time it's a token it's an anticipation it's a it's a covenanting again where again we repeat the covenant formula as we see in the Old Testament we take the cup we take the bread that's why by the way only an authorized minister is to present it's because it is a formal covenant ceremony again somebody that's been called to bring that is able to do that again only because Christ is promising again to be with his people now and then to come in his fullness in the future and this is the thing that we need to look forward to that Christ who has remitted our sins right now is promising us a future reality that will bring in all the promises that will cause this this God to be with us and us to dwell with him perfectly and fully we have it by faith we're seated with him in the heavenly by faith right he is with us by faith but some day it will be by by sight and that will be when he returns and that's what we look forward to in the Lord sufferer let's pray father we thank you for this sign and seal of the covenant of grace we know by itself Lord God it is nothing it's not magic you can't do something for us because we drink but it's a sign and seal of what you have done Lord Jesus of what we do experience right now Lord Jesus and of what you will do when you return you have done all that is necessary to reunite God and man we have communion with you and Lord God we have communion with one another help us to not break that communion with one another over fighting about communion but help us Lord God to truly realize the communion that we have with you and recognizing that your spirit and that your family is in each one we are the body of Christ that we are to discern that your body is in each one bless us Lord God as we do and cause us Lord Jesus to truly look forward to your coming again by faith we pray in Jesus name amen