Anchored in Remembrance - Week 4

Father, thank you again for this beautiful day. Thank you, Lord, that you are the King of glory. Thank you for Jesus Christ, our Savior. Thank you for the Holy Spirit, our comforter, who makes and impresses on our hearts the reality of Jesus Christ, that he can be close to us. We pray this all in Jesus' name, amen. You know, Jesus was with his disciples, 12 disciples in the chapter 22 of the Gospel of Luke. And in this story, he says to them, do this in remembrance of me. There's something that Paul said, I don't know if it was 10 years later or whatever the case may be, but Paul said to the Corinthian church, he says, as the Lord passed to me, gave to me, I now give to you. And then he tells the same story, almost word for word, as what Jesus said about the bread and the wine and the remembering of the covenant, right? And so what we see is we have a transferring from the original 12 disciples, and then Jesus said, go to all the world, preach the gospel to obey everything I've commanded you, right? And so now we have Paul literally in Corinth, and he's saying, I want y'all to do this. And so there's something that for us now, 2026, is good for us to do. I'd love for us to read together this scripture,

which is gonna be first starting in verse seven, and then it'll pick up there with a little bit more of the story. Remember this as we read it, Luke was a doctor, a physician, a Gentile, and he was writing to Theophilus so that his friend, his colleague, would understand from the perspective of not growing up in the traditions and the heritage of the Jewish people, he'd understand the importance of the traditions and the heritage of the Jewish people. God had a plan for salvation. He used the lineage of Abraham as a Jew to land this plan. And so Luke is saying, I want you to understand why this matters. And so here we go, we can read this together. Verse seven, then came the day of unleavened bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So if you pause for a minute, there's a whole depth of teaching that growing up in a Jewish home, you would actually have gone every year to the temple. Jesus went every year with his parents to sacrifice this lamb. But now he's saying, there is such a thing as a Passover lamb that had to be sacrificed. So we can continue here, verse 14. When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table, and he said to them,

I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover. Are you reading with me? With you before I suffer, for I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God. After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, take this and divide it among you. For I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. Amen. 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. 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. Amen. The reading of God's word. It's good, right? So I'd love to begin with the fact that they were reclining at a table. And we can have a picture here of Leonardo da Vinci. It's kind of our like entering the Western mindset with a painting of the Last Supper. And so this is a little bit of our Western heritage, right? It's a long straight line, you know? Cassie was up here earlier talking about math. Like we just love to hammer in like mathematics and science and you know, there's the perspective.

Everything kind of comes to one point. So this is kind of what we grow up with, our perspective on Jesus and a gathering is that even now we're sitting in rows. If you look to what it actually was like if you grew up in the culture. So my sister, and actually we could put this picture up of something a little different. You guys see the difference here? This is reclining. This was actually commissioned. I did some research and looking into Middle Eastern gatherings. And this was commissioned by a Christian to a Muslim artist. And the place that shared this actually kind of fuzzed out the image of the. artist because just keeping it safe in that culture. But the person when he was commissioned was just explaining that there's a story, there's a teacher with his fellow disciples and they're at a supper, can you paint this? And this is what he came up with without knowing, in my understanding, without knowing the actual that Jesus was Christ, that Leonardo da Vinci has a halo around Jesus. This is what he came up with. And I was in, I had the privilege of going to Kurdistan earlier this last year in April and visit my sister there. And that's northern Iraq, so similar culture.

And we went to a refugee camp. And when we went there, we were walking along the streets. It was dusty, hot, still beautiful terrain. And as we passed by one of the homes, this man who had one leg, kind of the crutches, saw us and he said, how are you, my friends? Please come, please come. We said, no, no, thank you, thank you. We're just walking. He said, no, no, my friends, you must come in, come in. So, you know, not to be offensive, absolutely, let's come in. And he welcomed us into his home, which consisted of two large tents together. And he was in a refugee camp, essentially displaced because of the troubles in the region that he was in. And he said to his wife, please, get some things for them. We're like, no, really, it's okay. No, no, sit down, get some things. So she made some tea. She got some fruits, some fresh bread. And we sat down in their dining room, living room experience, which was a large rug with these cushions. And we just sat, kind of kneeled, did our thing. You know, I'm a little older now. You know, we got in there. And he just was happy that we were with him. Like, overjoyed that we were his guests that day. And we reclined together, we talked, we enjoyed the tea.

And that culture, that sense is what I want us to feel here that Jesus was in. That sometimes as Westerners, we have a lineal perspective on this is norm. Like we each have our perfect home, front porch, back deck. This is where we do our cooking back there so no one sees us. That was not the way that Jesus promoted as far as just relational gatherings, right? Can we hear a little amen on that? The next thing Jesus says is very cool. He says, I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. You know, that's the NIV translation, the New International. The original King James says with desire, I have desired. So you're like, okay, that's kind of interesting. So what Jesus was doing was he was creating this exclamation like as strong sense as possible. He's literally using two words that are very similar. I'm not a Greek theologian, verbologist. I just made that word up, Pastor. But epithemia and epithemia, epithemio, both are very similar. One means desire, craving, longing. The other one following it is desire and even to covet or to lust. So oftentimes the words that Jesus used twice in a row were used when you had like an illicit longing, like something that was controlling you

and you knew you shouldn't be doing it but you went after it anyways. Like the flesh kind of came over and this is, and I regret it, but it was such a fierce feeling, fierce sense. Jesus with his disciples in the purest of ways is taking two extremely powerful, potent words and saying them twice. Like I've desired to be with you right now, right here. And what I want us to understand as much as we can is that Jesus emphatically loves you. He emphatically wants intimacy with you. One of my friends back here, our brother, Sean, he's our production tech leader. Can we just say thank you to Sean and his team? We love you, an amazing team. You guys rock. He is, and I kind of got permission, I really didn't get permission, but he's getting married to Esther this spring, early summer, and it's super exciting. Literally, we just found out and I was like, am I in the wrong that you find out too? I might be, but he loves her. And I cornered my friend Sean this morning. I said, Sean, I need to ask you a question. And he's like, what's going on? Like, what's wrong? There's always something wrong in tech, everything breaks. And I said, Sean, why do you want to marry Esther?

I think it's a fair question. It's a very fair question. He says, do you want the, like the human, the Christian? I'm like, I just want the Sean. I love her, and I want to be with her forever. That's a good answer. You know, that's all I needed. You know, I love her, I want to be with her. And then he says, and I think God wants us to do ministry together. Like, we're going to work together for God in this, you know, in this life. I just keeps getting better. And then he says, then he says, and I want to have kids. So that's enough. You're kind of crossing the line of like church. You know, it's a sacred space here. Well, amen to that, Sean. And by the way, you're going to make a great dad and Esther will make a great mom, you know. Oh yeah. And then he says, and we've been careful. Like she stays in her home, I stay in my home. We're very careful because one day when we come together, we want God to be like so pleased, so joyful with our lives. And I was like, man, I'm going to have to say that to everybody because it's so good. Like the way that you're choosing to live now is actually by saying, I'm going to wait for you.

It's actually saying that you can trust me when we're together because you knew I was crazy about you, but I waited for you. And now we got a lifelong journey. No one's perfect. We're all going to have times we say, hey, I got to say sorry for something here. But man, what a beautiful place to be anchored, right? And so when I asked him that, I knew that's what I would receive because I know Sean. I knew I would get something like the heart of Jesus about with desire, I have desired. And by the way, Jesus says at the end of this last supper, he says, I can't wait. We're going to have this again when the kingdom is fully established. Like there will be the wedding supper of the lamb. That's what Jesus says. That's like the actual marriage, the wedding, right? So this is the engagement. And so we're remembering that literally Jesus sent the Holy Spirit and he says, this is a seal for you. Guess what we have on our hands? A seal, a covenant seal, right? And so there is this promise that will come to completion. And that's how he starts. There is something that I think who in this room might not be aware that God loves you this much. There's something that Tim Keller, he's someone I've appreciated as a teacher

and lover of Jesus. He's passed recently, but he wrote in Counterfeit Gods, he wrote, he loves the unwanted, the weak and unloved. He is not just a king and we are his subjects. He is not just a shepherd and we are his sheep. He is a husband and we are his spouse. He is ravished with us. Even those of us, no one else notices. Isn't that good? He is ravished with us. Even those of us, no one else notices. There's a lady that we've come to love dearly at downtown. Her name is Miss Renee. She may be watching right now. And she has not had the privilege of having a home that will keep her safe and warm. So she was at our Life Center yesterday and my friend George sent a picture and he said, she's warm, she's had breakfast and it's great that we can be together. Renee came down to our Life Center, had a nice hot breakfast we do once a month on Saturday mornings. And this is so important. Jesus sees my friend, someone I wanna be like, Renee, and Tim Keller saying, some others might not notice, but I notice. As Darren mentioned earlier about suffering, there is suffering in this world. This is a reality.

And God wants to help each and every person that is hurting. But man, God sees you, Renee. He loves you so much. So no matter how you feel, know that God sees you. There's something that John shares around the table and that's a posture of feeling, the Apostle John right now, feeling the love and the being loved by God. Four times in his own book, the gospel, he says the disciple whom Jesus loved, right? He felt so much God's love that he actually decided, that's my name. I'm the disciple whom Jesus loved. Around this table, he was right next to Jesus. You leaned in close, and I love that place. Later in the New Testament, he's got three letters. The first one says this. So if y'all can read with me here. This is gonna be 1 John 2, 12 to 13. And not that one. Yeah, yes, that one. I'm looking at a different one up here. Okay, y'all wanna read with me? Okay. So I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name. And I am writing to you. I gotta stop looking up there, because that's a father's, actually, that was right, and I was wrong. Can we all forgive me right now?

I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. And I'm writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. Before we talk about the bread and the cup, there's something that was just in my heart I wanted to speak on. And that is simply, if you are a child, if you are a young man, young woman, if you're a father, a mother, there's something here that God says I'm writing to you. But there's also the possibility that you're here in this room, or you're joining us online, and you don't know that you're forgiven. You haven't known that there is a Savior who's decided to and intentionally done everything to radically transform your life. You don't know that even, you might have a child and think, I wanna do everything to help this child. You don't know God as your father. And I just wanna give you an invite that the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, God did everything so that it would be by faith through grace, not by works that none of us can boast. What that means when we say faith is that we see Jesus, what he did for us on the cross, and we see that he died in my place.

That's faith. I believe Jesus as the Son of God, the Father sent him to this world to redeem me. He took my place. Jesus, I receive that. Please forgive me. The minute you do that, the grace of God adopts you as his child. It's free. You cannot earn it, right? I have amazing parents. They're free. They gave everything to help me, right? Marie, I know you're an amazing mom. You did everything to help your girls, right? This is the posture of salvation. And two gentlemen came up to me after service, after first service, and they said, we have a problem with your teaching about this gospel. We need to talk. And I could see where this was going. It was gonna go somewhere fast and hard. I said, listen, I'm here all week. I'll give you my number, let's talk. But right now I can't, but I'm here all week. They said, no, this is important. What you said was just a little misaligned. But I'm here to emphatically say to you, Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, the life. Can I say that any more emphatically?

Jesus Christ, the son of God, is the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through him. And he is made a way. When he says I am a way, that's because of the cross. When he bled and died and was beaten, and he took the suffering that was my deserved payment because of what I've done wrong, from the simplest motivation being off a touch, could not stand, I could be a good deed for the wrong reason, I cannot stand before a holy God. Jesus Christ, the perfect, spotless lamb of God, came to earth, took on the form of a human being, skin and bones, because he knew we would have to identify with him to know that we can come close to him. And he walked a journey that no one else could walk, a perfect journey, a perfect decision, perfect submission. And he loved everyone that he saw. And the only people who got mad at were the people that made it hard to enter the kingdom of God. He said, that's not my way, but he never threw away the Old Testament in the process. He said, this is the rock that will build my church and the gates of hell will not be able to stand against it. What is that rock? It's when Peter declared, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. So when we come and we understand, if you don't know Jesus, please know him today. It's so simple.

But then there's people here, and you have said, I'm a child, you're forgiven. First of all, I'm grateful for being forgiven. There isn't one day. that goes by that I don't say the Lord's prayer not only in the morning but later on sometime I'll say please forgive me I've had to sit down with my kids and say what I did why the way I said that was wrong there said to my wife please forgive me for this especially if I didn't do the dishes you know like there is so much that we need to be forgiven for but notice what Jesus did in the last supper he washed his disciples feet Peter said wash my whole body so I can have part of you he said you're already clean it's just your feet when you come to Jesus and been forgiven of your sins you cannot lose your salvation like this it might be a long path that you've gone on now this is dangerous territory according to scripture by the way that's another during the week conversation but listen we need our feet washed because we step places we shouldn't step sometimes let's continue to be forgiven amen and then he says I'm right I'm going to skip to the young men because you have overcome the evil one God intends for us to have victory in this life you know sometimes someone's going to fail like a public leader and another leader will say except for grace that'd be me like and that could be me right now it's just an accident that we switch spots I'm going to emphatically say no God gives us yes he draws us and the word says over and over he draws all of us all the time and then God gives us what we need for life and godliness and guess what you can look at Ephesians 6 and put on the armor of God the shield of faith the helmet of salvation the sword of the spirit which is the word of God the feet shod with the gospel of peace that was bad I'm gonna take the glory amen because it's God's word when we hear and the belt of truth when we hear about these weapons this arsenal the intent is that we are meant to be overcomers by the way there's there's uh some beautiful folks in this room that are about to start a life's healing choices group most likely launching in the end of February times might be determined with some other community things and when they do it's for those of us that say you know what I've kind of been stuck and I need to get unstuck and so be aware there is God has given you all you need for life and godliness and we're going to do this together amen amen there are fathers and mothers that is when you realize I can't keep this to myself anymore you know uh sometimes American perspective is I've gotten all I need now let

me make sure I have all I need until I die right I need an RV to travel I need to get to different places I need this much income coming in each month nothing necessarily wrong with good planning that's in the word of God financial stability wisdom but there's a place where we say you know what God who do you want me to sow into as a father because I'm meant to actually help the next generation thrive I'm not meant to hold it tight to the end when you were a father and a mother you realize what I have is to help grow and I'm going to live in that tension I'm going to live in a little bit of a mess I'm going to lean in I'm going to I'm going to get to places that are uncomfortable because I'm called to love as a father and a mother amen by the way anyone new to church when we say amen it basically means that's right that's good so now we're going to go into as we've examined ourself this is an invite to anyone that says Jesus I believe and this is our opportunity for communion communion is intimate intimate time with our savior and so the bread the bread represents the body of Jesus and if you're online you're welcome to get a cracker a morsel the the metaphor of bread Jesus used often um and it translates to knowing it's his real body that he sacrificed once and for all so online feel free to get juice and a wafer of sorts a body that was human as we are human was tempted in every way and yet was without sin the bible shows us Jesus body tortured stabbed nailed whipped pouring out water and blood mingled this body was the appropriation for our sins it took our place the atoning sacrifice the highest cost of a love payment this world has ever experienced This is the bread. We're going to have a time with some music, a song, and I encourage you during this, go ahead and drink and eat of this bread. Hallelujah, I'll live my life in remembrance Hallelujah, I'll live my life in remembrance Hallelujah, your promise I won't forget Hallelujah, I'll live my life in remembrance Hallelujah, your promise I won't forget So the word says, 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, amen. Hebrews chapter 9 says, for this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. So Lord Jesus, we thank you for the new covenant, we thank you, you set us free from the law

of sin and death, we thank you, Lord God, that you gave of your life the source of life that was running through your veins, that you knew that would be exactly what we needed, so we can have freedom, joy, that we can be redeemed as your bride, so we receive this You've been so good to me, all to me, where I would be, if not for you, if not for you, so good to me, all to me, where I would be, if not for you, if not for you, if not for you, if not for you, amen. There's a quote by a gentleman named J.C. Ryle, he says, crucifixes and pictures at best can only show us a human being agonizing in a painful death, but of the length and breadth and depth and height of the work transacted at the cross, of God's law honored, man's sins borne, sin punished in a substitute, free salvation bought for man, all of this can tell nothing, yet this lies hid under the crucifixion. You know, when Jesus finished this moment of communion, that's when Judas Iscariot got up and left, by the way, no one look at these ladies leaving right now, I love you Julie, love you Helen, yeah, we're watching y'all though, we're watching y'all, alright everyone look at them real hard, okay, cut that from the, cut that, so Jesus says this, cause then he went into like four chapters of really good One of them was the new command I give you, By this everyone will know that you are my disciples.