Well, praise the Lord.
How many of you are excited about gathering at the Lord's table today?
Well, that was the sum of the Bible study.
You're in good shape.
See you next week.
Yeah, no.
Yeah.
My pleasure.
Now, today is a special day as we gather together as the body of Christ, and particularly special
because, yes, we are celebrating at the Lord's table.
This morning, as you can see, after my ordination last Sunday, I am dressed in the requisite
Calvary Chapel pastor tuxedo, and we're good to go.
So today's message is entitled, In Remembrance of Me, and we'll be obviously centering around
1 Corinthians 11, 23 through 25.
So if you want to turn there and follow along as I read.
1 Corinthians 11, 23 through 25, this starts off with Paul speaking, and in verse 23 he
says, For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you.
On the night that he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread.
And when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, Take, eat.
This is my body, which is broken for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way, he also took the cup after supper and said, This cup is the new covenant
in my blood.
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
Do this in remembrance of me.
What does that mean?
You know, as a worship leader, I've had the awesome privilege of leading the body in literally,
I think, thousands of songs at this point.
And a long time ago, we had done a song called Consuming Fire.
And many of you probably remember that song, but the song starts off like this.
It says, There must be more than this.
O breath of God, come breathe within.
There must be more than this.
Spirit of God, we wait for you.
Fill us anew, we pray.
You know, when we started doing this song, I was a young and stupid worship leader.
Right?
When we first started doing this, I actually looked at this song from an outward focused
perspective.
Right?
As you often do when you're young and stupid.
You have a lot of angst and you want things your way.
And, you know, that's just the way of things.
And I would look at those words, There must be more than this.
And I would look at it from the perspective of God.
I'm looking at the church, I'm looking at the people, and there's gotta be more than
this.
And God in His graciousness gave me time and filled me more with the Spirit so that
I wasn't young and stupid anymore.
And after a while, I realized, nope, this song is a hundred percent pointed inwardly.
And in reflection, looking at myself and realizing, God, there must be more than this.
Tell me anew.
Sometimes I kind of look at it from the perspective of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
And they're up in heaven in glory and they're having a conversation and Jesus turns to the
Holy Spirit and motions Him over and says, So, I hear you're working with wrong love
today.
What's that like?
And the Holy Spirit says, Well, He's young and stupid.
There's a lot there.
There's an arrogance, there's, you know, kind of stuck in His ways, His perspective is kind
of askew.
But you know what?
He has a heart for wanting to know you and He has a heart for wanting the people in the
body to know you.
And I can work with that.
And so I imagine the Lord saying to the Holy Spirit, Then do that.
And that is what has happened.
The problem is that many, many years later, I'm sure this is the conversation that Jesus
and the Holy Spirit are having.
And that is, I hear you're working with wrong love today.
Any change?
The Holy Spirit says, Yeah, there's some good change there.
But you know, He's got, He still has rough edges.
And I mean, dare I say barnacles, some calcification even.
But you know what?
I can scrape that off and I can work with that.
And Jesus says the same thing.
And that is, Then do it.
That's my hope for each of you today, whether you're here in the room or whether you're
online and you're joining us as we walk through on this journey through this passage of Scripture.
Whether you're young and stupid, you're in the middle of the journey and everything's
going great, or you're more, maybe more towards the end, very mature, but maybe there's a
little bit of calcification there, you know, that God has to scrape off.
I mean, we're all in this together.
My hope is that as we go through this, you find where you're at and that you hear what
the Lord has to say and that you are ready to move forward because He is saying, Okay,
then do that.
So let's talk about this.
Let's talk about this phrase that Jesus presented to the disciples at the, what we call the
Last Supper, but at this Passover communion time with His disciples, when He says, Do
this in remembrance of Me.
So I think it's important and it just kind of presents itself that there are a few groups
that are involved here, right?
And the very first group is the obvious one, and that's the disciples.
So what does this mean to the disciples, Do this in remembrance of Me?
You know, when you look at, and again, I've said this before, when you are studying the
Bible, always feel free, and I encourage you to look at other translations in addition
to the one that you particularly like because it's very helpful.
The language outside of English is much more descriptive and broad, and so it's just good
practice to see, especially in translations that go specifically back to the Greek or
the Hebrew or anything like that, to see what are the more descriptive meanings of some
of the words.
So when you look at that phrase, and in this case, you know, I was looking at it in the
Amplified Bible, what it does is it renders the phrase, Do this in remembrance to Me to
this.
Do this to call Me affectionately to remembrance.
So when we look at the disciples and what this means to the disciples, to do this in
remembrance of Me, the obvious one that they only can participate in, we will never be
able to do this until we are in heaven with Christ, right?
And that is that they could remember and have remembrance of the personal time that they
spent with Jesus.
Nobody else can do that.
That is their particular gift and frame of mind, right?
So what does that mean?
Well, it means that those times when they're, you know, sitting at the campfire, right,
on their journeys throughout Judea or Samaria, and they're telling jokes about, you know,
that Old Testament prophet, you know, and just enjoying their time and their fellowship
together.
That's something that they can remember affectionately about Jesus.
You know, when they're running on the beach of the Sea of Galilee and just having a good
time, you know, knowing His joy and His tenderness and His goodness as He just fellowships with
them, that is something that they could draw on in remembering Him, remembering their personal
time with Him.
They also can remember that personal time that they spent with Him as He was teaching
them, in particular, as His disciples.
When He was speaking one-on-one with each of them, again, something that the rest of
us, we don't have that opportunity today, right?
But they did.
They heard His voice because He was right there.
They saw His face, the look in His eyes.
They knew what He was talking about.
They understood, sometimes they didn't, but for the most part, as He explained it, they
understood, you know, what He was trying to show them, what He was trying to teach them.
They could see it and hear it all right in front of them.
They can remember those, they could remember those times, those teachings that were just
for them as His disciples.
They could remember that.
They could also remember the lessons that He taught the crowd.
They were right there.
They heard it all.
And not only did they hear those lessons that Jesus taught the crowds, they also could talk
to the people who were hearing Jesus talk to them.
And they were able to find out what they thought about what He talked about, what changes were
being made in their lives because of His words, because of His actions and deeds.
They were able to hear their testimonies and rejoice because of the work that Jesus was
doing in their lives as well.
There's a very well-known pastor, I'm sure many of you will recognize him, and that is
Alistair Begg.
Alistair Begg is a Scottish-born pastor.
He pastors at Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio.
This is what he has to say about memory.
He says, memory is surely one of the great and most precious gifts that God has given
us in terms of our physical existence.
And it is for that reason that the loss of memory is one of the saddest and most cruel
things that really can happen to an individual.
And it's in that vein that God, through His word, causes people to remembrance.
He does that many times and in many different ways throughout His word.
Let me give you a couple of specific examples in the Old Testament.
One example is you'll read when you're studying the book of Samuel, and I'm excited to get
to Samuel at some point.
Maybe in about a year we'll get there.
But in the book of Samuel, the call is given out to set up altars or stones of remembrance
in different places.
And the reason why they were called to erect these altars or stones of remembrance is because
God had done something in the lives of the Hebrew nation, the Jewish nation, and it usually
was in the saving of them from invaders, the vanquishing of an enemy, but it was always
God in His hand that had delivered them.
And so He would tell them, or they would instinctively know because of past instruction, that what
they needed to do was set up an altar or a stone of remembrance so that future generations
would see that altar, or they would see that stone, and they would ask, what is that for?
And then the people who erected it, their forefathers would be able to tell them, that
stone is there in remembrance of God's deliverance when we were fighting the Amalekites.
You know, or fighting in certain name.
And God alone saved us and redeemed us.
And so when we see that, we worship and we remember God's providence and His delivery
for us and His people.
Another example, certainly to the disciples, right at this moment when Jesus is giving
them the instruction for communion and to remember Him, and also for the early Jewish
church is the implements or the elements of the Passover meal, right?
The Passover meal, each element actually has a significance of a remembrance.
So for instance, the different elements were there to remind them of their bondage in Egypt,
God's salvation, through the blood of the Passover lamb, you know, with the blood on
the doorposts and the lentil, right?
Also you could look at the element of the unleavened bread.
The unleavened bread was a symbol of sin, of having no sin, right?
So the leaven was sin, you would take the leaven out of the bread, and that was to represent
being sinless and pure before the Lord.
We do that with the striped cracker, right?
That is in essence unleavened bread.
It doesn't rise, it doesn't puff up, whatever.
That's the symbol for it.
The bitter herbs, they would eat bitter herbs and they would dip them in salt water.
Well, the bitter herbs were to remind them of the bitterness and harshness of their bondage,
of their slavery, and the salt water was to remind them of their tears and their cries
out to the Lord for salvation, right?
There was even the symbol of, I think it was chopped up apples or something and nuts, and
that was to represent, remind them of their hardship in having to build the bricks with
the mortar and all that.
I mean, all these elements mean something, not just for the sake of meaning something,
but for the sake of causing them to remember what God had done, what the purpose of the
Passover meal really was for.
You know, the words remembrance, remember, or the derivative of either of those words,
that is found over 200 times in the Old Testament.
The call to remember, or remember this, or remember that 200 times.
So what I want to do is I want to share with you that just as the early Jewish church and
as the Jewish nation had been called to remember God through the Old Testament, I want to show
you what that looks like.
So I'm going to read through some verses just so you can get a feel for what that would
mean to them as they see God in the Old Testament Scriptures.
So Genesis 9 verses 15, for example, it says, I will remember my covenant between me and
you and all the living creatures.
Water will never again become a flood to destroy every creature.
Genesis 9, 16, the bow will be in the clouds and I will look at it and remember the permanent
covenant between God and all the living creatures on the earth.
Genesis 19, 29, so it was when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham
and brought out Lot of the middle of the upheaval when he demolished the cities where Lot had
lived.
Genesis 30, 22, then God remembered Rachel.
He listened to her and he opened her womb.
Exodus 2, 24, God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant with Abraham,
with Isaac, and with Jacob.
Exodus 3, 15, God also said to Moses, say this to the Israelites, the Lord, the God
of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent
me to you.
This is my name forever.
This is how I am to be remembered in every generation.
Exodus 13, 3, then Moses said to the people, remember this day when you came out of Egypt,
out of the place of slavery, for the Lord brought you out of here by the strength of
his hand.
Nothing leaven shall be eaten.
Exodus 28, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
Exodus 20, 24, make an earth an altar to me and sacrifice it on your burnt offerings and
fellowship offerings, your flocks and herds.
I will come to you and bless you in every place where I cause my name to be remembered.
Numbers 10, 10, also in the day of rejoicing and in your set feast and at the beginning
of your munch, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and your peace offerings.
Thus it may be a remembrance before your God.
I am the Lord your God.
Numbers 15, 40, this way you will remember and obey all my commands and be holy to your
God.
Deuteronomy 5, 15, remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord
your God brought you out of there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.
That is why the Lord your God has commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
In Deuteronomy 32, 7, remember the days of old, consider the years of past generations,
ask your Father and He will tell you, your elders and they will teach you.
Remember, remember, remember again and again and that's only the first five books of the
Bible.
This is how important God believes that your remembrance of Him truly is.
It's not just the remembering of the specific events or the characteristic of God in that
particular situation, but really the meaning behind remembrance and I believe God's desire
in you remembering Him in these things is so that you recall the gravity of it all behind
it.
For instance, it's not just that He wanted them to remember that they were slaves, right?
Anybody can remember that, right?
But what it meant to remember was that you remembered what it was to be a slave as an
individual and as a people.
You remembered what it meant to be delivered and not by just a mere man, but by their God.
And they remembered what it meant that God was righteous, that God was holy, that God
was powerful and that strength and full of strength and what that meant in comparison
to themselves, being a people who were unrighteous, unholy, impotent and weak in comparison to
their God who loved them and who delivered them.
True remembrance is not just recall or a casual reminder.
It's a deep consideration of the event and the ramifications of what has transpired as
well as a deep reflection of all those involved.
So what about the early Gentile believers who would later on hear the words of Jesus
when He said, do this in remembrance of Me?
What does that mean for them?
I mean, really, they are obviously different than the disciples, right?
They came later, right?
They're a little different than the early church that was made up of Jews, right?
They didn't have the same history, the same instruction that they had already been drawing
on to look back and remember what God had done and incorporate that into their understanding
then of who Jesus was as they were celebrating communion and recognizing who He was.
They didn't have the direct interaction with Jesus like the disciples.
So what did the call to remember look like to them?
Well, I think maybe instead of looking at what they didn't have, maybe we should look
at what they did have, right?
So what they did have was that some of them, at least some of them, had memories of hearing
Jesus speak, right?
They actually had been in the crowds when Jesus was teaching, like say when He was in
Judea and He was giving the, what we call the Sermon on the Mount.
Perhaps they were part of that crowd or perhaps they were either a Greek or a Roman that was
in Jerusalem, you know, when Jesus was in Jerusalem and teaching in the outer courts
of the temple.
Maybe they actually did hear Him or His word.
So they would have that memory to draw from.
Also there were others that had testimonies from those who had heard Jesus speak, their
friends and their family, right?
Who happened to be in those same types of circumstances, but now they're getting it
maybe second or third hand.
But they can draw then on that what their testimonies were of having heard those things
personally.
As you continue on, you know, down the line, kind of like as I said in first service, kind
of like telephone, but not really the game telephone, right?
But more and more as you go down the line, their interaction with Jesus' words are the
words, the letters, and the teachings of the apostles, right?
Testifying that Jesus is the Messiah and Savior of the world, the only true God and the only
one who could save them.
And also they had the testimony of their own family members or friends who had experienced
forgiveness, restoration.
Maybe they even experienced healing or a filling of the Holy Spirit, all in the name of Jesus,
the Creator and Lamb of God.
And then lastly, what they had was their own testimonies.
Testimonies of what God had done in their own lives, now transformed and changed, works
that He had begun to do in their lives, changes that they had seen.
They were once like this, but now they're like this in Christ.
They have that to draw on, coming from Jesus.
So kind of what you see is you go from the very personal and central, and you keep going
farther and farther removed, and then farther and farther removed.
But the beauty of that is that these people over here who seem to be farther and farther
removed, they actually have more tools and resources maybe than the disciples themselves,
right?
That's God in God's providence.
We get to, just like the Jews did, look backwards and see what the Lord has done.
So they weren't left out in the cold, right?
The early Gentile church certainly had the tools to work with.
But here we are 10,000, no.
So here we are 2,000 years later, right?
So what do these words mean to us today, right?
We're very far removed.
We don't know anybody personally who knew or heard Jesus.
We're left with writings.
We're left with testimonies.
So what does it mean?
Well, it essentially means the same thing that it meant for all of those who came before.
But again, we have the greater blessing because we get to draw from all of it.
Not only those testimonies of people who were with Jesus or knew Jesus, but we actually
get to draw on the Old Testament.
Just like the Gentile church, the early Gentile church, even though that wasn't their history,
they got to draw on that knowing that Jesus Himself had talked about Himself as being
God, that same God, God the Son.
And so they could dive into that word as well.
And they weren't looking at it though from their own perspective of this is my shared
history, but they're looking at it from the perspective of this is what God did in the
life of the people that He set aside for Himself.
This is how He revealed Himself to them.
This is the work that He did in and within them.
This is how He saved them, delivered them, redeemed them.
This is all the plan that He has done.
And the glory to God, He has extended the same thing to me and grafted me into that
family.
This is what I think it means or should mean to us today.
This is what I believe Jesus is saying.
If I were to, of course, this is what we all do.
We take God's simple words and we expand them all when the simple words are probably enough,
but play with me.
This is what I believe Jesus is saying.
Remember and cause your heart, soul, and mind to dwell upon every time you gather and partake
of the Lord's table.
Everything that I am, everything I've done, my faithful and unyielding love in your life
as it was in the lives of those who came before you.
Remember my teaching and abnitions to hear my voice and follow me.
Remember that you were a lost sinner who dwelt in darkness and faced judgment.
Remember your need for forgiveness and your need for me.
Remember my suffering.
Remember my horrific death and sacrifice for your sake.
Remember my power over sin, hell, death in the grave as evidenced by my resurrection.
Remember the gift of my Holy Spirit to you and those who came before you.
Remember my complete word as a means and a tool to help you remember all of these things
and remember the hope of my glorious return for my church.
Did you do that before you came today?
Do you remember all that?
Let me ask you another question.
This question is not, I repeat, is not to bring condemnation because I ask the question
of myself.
I know that I am woefully lacking in this area, so I ask myself this question.
But ultimately, my hope is that what it does in asking the question and finding the answer
is that it builds up or it shores up the walls, so to speak.
So here's the question to you.
What did you do to prepare for the Lord's table this morning?
Where have your thoughts been as we made our way here today?
Where have your thoughts been while you're sitting here listening to me ramble on?
Perhaps your answer is, well, my thoughts have been on Jesus.
It's Sunday, of course.
How could I ever forget about Jesus?
You know, to what degree is it possible for us to forget about Jesus, right?
And I'm not talking about the wholesale forgetting that Jesus existed or that He did this or
He did that while He was on earth.
I'm not even talking about similar forgetting of God and the things that He did in the Old
Testament or the New Testament.
What I'm speaking of is a forgetting or a laying aside of all that that truly means.
In other words, having a head knowledge rather than a heart knowledge.
And I don't know about you, but one of the most difficult times to remain focused on
Jesus is when I'm getting ready to come to church on Sunday morning, right?
So this is how this generally goes for me.
First, the alarm doesn't go off or more likely, I don't get up on time.
Then the water in the shower is too cold or too hot.
My clothes are wrinkled because, well, the dryer didn't get them drying.
The coffee maker didn't work.
My car is out of gas.
We're running late.
Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.
And then if you have kids, multiply that by 20.
Where was my remembrance of Jesus during all of that?
Or what about when you get here and you're in the sanctuary, right, during service?
This is how my thoughts track, right?
What is that person doing over there?
Who is that guy with the funny hair?
Who's that guy without hair?
Why does the worship team insist on picking that song?
The sound guys are not on their game today.
The media guys can't seem to flip the slides.
Genesis again?
It's too hot in here.
It's too cold in here.
I wonder how long this is going to go today.
What do I want for lunch?
Communion too?
Maybe they'll cut the last song.
How can we possibly lose our memory of Jesus?
The preacher Charles Spurgeon put it this way.
He said, alas, alas, our thoughts, if left to themselves, are as a cage of unclean birds
or a den of wild beasts.
And as Hercules needed a stream of water to clean out the filthy stable, so our Lord Jesus
Christ needed to pour rivers of water out of His own heart to cleanse the foul stable
of our corrupt thoughts.
And that's the key, right?
We can't remember Jesus without exercising the tools and the power of the Spirit that
He's given us.
And what are those tools?
Well, it's as we've been saying since the very beginning.
The tools are our remembrance and deep reflection on the Word of God, our testimony of the work
of God in our lives and the testimony of others and the work of the Spirit of God in and around
us.
And it's only through the exercising of those tools and the power of the Spirit that we
can enter into a true remembrance of Jesus.
Not the surface factual cursory remembrance of His existence, but the deep remembrance
of all He was and all He is and all He will be and all He has done and all He is doing
and all that He will do as Lord and King of all.
A true flooding of your heart, soul, and mind of His very being and essence.
And what is the effect of beholding Him in His glory, His power and strength and remembering
all that He's done in order to ransom your soul from hell and judgment?
Well when we focus on Him and acknowledge His position as Lord and King of all, our
Savior, our forgiveness, the one who bore our stripes, our sacrifice for our sin, our
comfort, and the very air we breathe.
It's at that point that humility comes in and we see our position compared to His and
realize the depths and unthinkable lengths that Jesus went to redeem us, to redeem me,
a wretch, unworthy of even a glance from the Creator King.
And it's out of this humility that gratitude and praise can be birthed.
It's at this moment that I slide off the throne of my heart and the King takes His rightful
place.
Now I can worship and proclaim my remembrance of Him from my heart and my soul and my mind
and mouth for His good pleasure and as my testimony to the world.
So I'm sure some of you are saying, Pastor Ron, that all sounds great, but how do we
begin to practically put this into practice?
Well I don't know what to tell you because how you begin is the same way you begin with
so many other points of your walk with God and that is it begins with opening up His
Word daily.
No way around it.
You have to open up His Word to see Him.
You have to read what He reveals about Himself in that Word.
The entirety of the Book speaks of Him.
And I'm not merely talking about reading it like you would a grocery list or a history
book.
I'm talking about reading His Word with the intention of finding Him in the pages and
then the testimonies within the Book just like the disciples did when remembering the
words of the Torah, the story of the first Passover, the Psalms, the prophets, just like
the early church did and just like each of us is encouraged and instructed to do.
Sometimes it's easy.
It's just there.
When you read it, you see God, you see Jesus in all His glory and wonder.
But sometimes it takes more work.
But He is always there.
I'm going to give you one example real quick.
You know when Pastor Nathan so graciously asked me to teach today and this was a number
of weeks ago, I had an idea of where I was going to go and what I was going to teach.
What I thought I was going to teach about was in the Book of Ruth.
I have a history with the Book of Ruth because when I first started coming to Hosanna, before
then I had been at several different types of churches and denominations throughout my
early life.
It wasn't until I was here at Hosanna that I heard the Word preached verse by verse and
chapter by chapter in context.
It wasn't until that journey that I started to actually see, really see God in it all.
I think the second book that we were setting in when I first started here was the Book
of Ruth.
The Book of Ruth is a beautiful story and I'm excited to eventually get to that book
too.
But the Book of Ruth, just as a quick reminder, is the story of Ruth who was a Gentile widow
who had a mother-in-law named Naomi and famine in the land.
They came back to Israel and Ruth committed herself to taking care of Naomi and staying
with her and Naomi's God being her God and putting away her Gentile gods for forever.
And then in the story, there's this question of what's going to happen to Ruth as a widow
and the Lord leads her to Boaz.
Boaz has the title that will be brought forth and is often brought forth that he is the
kinsman redeemer.
Boaz is the picture of Christ and Ruth is the picture of us in our lost state and the
one who is being redeemed.
It's a beautiful, beautiful story, not just because it's a beautiful story about Ruth
and Boaz, but it's a beautiful story because it's about Christ and us, right?
So I'm reading through the Book of Ruth and it's been a while since I had read the book
and I'm just going through it verse by verse and I can't tell you how many times I just
had to stop and go, wow, he's right there.
God is right there.
And one verse in particular where Ruth has gone into the threshing floor and she's laying
at Boaz's feet at night and he wakes up in the morning and finds her there and it's like,
what are you doing here?
Well, don't worry about it.
I'll take care of this.
And what the verse says, and I don't have it in front of me, but in essence what the
verse says is that Boaz looks at Ruth and he says, Ruth, I have seen you and I know
what you have done in committing to Naomi and the love that you've given her and I've
seen how you've committed yourself to our God and I've seen how you have conducted yourself
in all of that and you're respected and admired by many.
And then he says, stay here, close to me.
Don't go anywhere or with anyone else.
And then he says, I know what has to be done and I will do it until it is completed.
That's the kind of reading that I'm describing because how can you not see the Lord?
How can you not see yourself in that place?
And where he says, I've seen you and you've committed yourself to me and so I tell you,
do not leave me.
Stay close.
I need to perfect your salvation.
I know what has to be done.
I know what I have to sacrifice.
I know what I have to give to pay and I will do it until it is completed.
Maybe you're sitting there and you're going, Ron, you're really emotional and I'm just
not that way.
I'm just not built that way.
And you know, I can only say this to you, is that when I get emotional about seeing
God in the Bible, that comes unbidden.
I am not looking to be that way.
It's downright embarrassing to do that, right?
I want to be strong.
I want to be seen as strong and all that, but it's simply a response to the revelation
of God's greatness and His goodness towards me.
Me, a sinful and undeserving worm who doesn't have to die now.
Again, it's not just the head knowledge of knowing the fact of it all, but knowing it,
truly knowing it and feeling it through every fiber of my being, my heart, my soul, and
my mind.
You know, I think about the angels in heaven and in Revelation, Revelation 4 verse 8, and
you've read this before with me before, and it says, day and night they never stop saying,
holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was, who is, and who is to come.
Such is the power and the outcome of seeing the glory of God, even the smallest glimpse
of it, and I think these angels know more about it than we currently do.
And I hope that someday we're all right there in the same place, but until then, the only
thing I can tell you is practice, practice, practice.
Just be on our guard not to fall into the place of the church in Ephesus in Revelation
2, who had forgotten their first love.
And if you're still not convinced or don't believe that the memory of Jesus is contained
in the very life manual God has given us, the Bible, His Word, I'd like to read something
for you that was recited many years ago by a young man named Josiah Willis from Bent
Tree Fellowship in Texas.
And perhaps you've heard this before, you watched the video and saw it, but let me tell
you, this bears remembrance.
Okay?
You ready?
We're going to see how far I can get, how far I can get.
And this is what it says, it's called Jesus Throughout the Bible.
In Genesis, Jesus Christ is the breath of life.
In Exodus, He is the Passover lamb.
In Leviticus, He is our high priest.
In Numbers, He is the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.
In Deuteronomy, He is the prophet like unto Moses.
In Joshua, He is the captain of our salvation.
In Judges, He is the judge and lawgiver.
In Ruth, He is our kinsman, Redeemer.
In 1 and 2 Samuel, He is our trusted prophet.
In Kings and Chronicles, He is the reigning king.
In Ezra and Nehemiah, He is the rebuilder of the broken down walls of human life.
In Esther, He is our Mordecai.
In Job, He is our ever living Redeemer.
In Psalms, He is our shepherd.
In Proverbs and Ecclesiastics, He is our wisdom.
In the Song of Solomon, He is the loving bridegroom.
In Isaiah, He is the prince of peace.
In Jeremiah, He is the righteous branch.
In Lamentations, He is our weeping prophet.
In Ezekiel, He is the wonderful four-faced man.
In Daniel, He is the fourth man in life's fiery furnace.
In Hosea, He is the faithful husband, forever married to the backslider.
In Joel, He is the baptizer, the Holy Ghost in fire.
In Amos, He is our burden bearer.
In Obadiah, He is mighty to save.
In Jonah, He is our great foreign missionary.
In Micah, He is the messenger of beautiful feet.
In Nahum, He is our strength and shield.
In Habakkuk, He is God's evangelist crying, Revive thy works in the midst of the years.
In Zephaniah, He is our Savior.
In Haggai, He is the restorer of God's lost heritage.
In Zechariah, He is the fountain opened up in the house of David for sin and uncleanliness.
And in Malachi, He is the son of righteousness, rising with healing in His wings.
In Matthew, He is the King of the Jews.
In Mark, He is the servant.
In Luke, He is the son of man, feeling what you feel.
In John, He is the son of God.
In Acts, He is the Savior of the world.
In Romans, He is the righteousness of God.
In 1 Corinthians, He is the rock and father of Israel.
In 2 Corinthians, He is the triumphant one given victory.
In Galatians, He is your liberty.
He has set you free.
In Ephesians, He is the head of the church.
In Philippians, He is your joy.
In Colossians, He is your completeness.
In 1 and 2 Thessalonians, He is your hope.
In 1 Timothy, He is your faith.
In 2 Timothy, He is your stability.
In Titus, He is truth.
In Philemon, He is your benefactor.
In Hebrews, He is your perfection.
In James, He is the power behind your faith.
In 1 Peter, He is your example.
In 2 Peter, He is your purity.
In 1 John, He is your life.
In 2 John, He is your pattern.
In 3 John, He is your motivation.
In Jude, He is the foundation of your faith.
And in Revelation, He is your coming king.
He is the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
He is the keeper of creation and the creator of all.
He is the architect of the universe and the manager of all times.
He always was, He always is, and He always will be.
Unmoved, unchanged, undefeated, and never undone.
He was bruised and brought healing.
He was pierced in His pain.
He was persecuted and brought freedom.
He was dead and brought life.
He is risen and brings power.
He reigns and brings peace.
The world can't understand Him.
The armies can't defeat Him.
The schools can't explain Him.
And the leaders can't ignore Him.
Herod couldn't kill Him.
The Pharisees couldn't confuse Him.
People couldn't hold Him.
Nero couldn't crush Him.
Hitler couldn't silence Him.
This age can't replace Him, and science can't explain Him away.
He is life, love, longevity, and more.
He is goodness, kindness, gentleness, and God.
He is holy, righteous, mighty, powerful, and pure.
His ways are right, and the Word is eternal.
He is unchanging, and His mind is on me.
He is my Redeemer.
He is my Savior.
He is my guide.
He is my peace.
He is my joy.
He is my comfort.
He is my Lord, and He rules my life.
Let's pray.
God, thank You.
Thank You for reminding us of who You are.
Thank You for reminding us of what You have done, what You are doing, and what You will
do.
Thank You that You have saved us and You have redeemed us.
Thank You that You gave Your life for us as a sacrifice.
God, we want to remember all of this about You and more.
So Lord, thank You for Your Word that You've given us to always look back to.
Thank You for the testimonies of those in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.
Thank You for the teachings.
Thank You for the letters and the encouragements within the words of the apostles and the letters
to the church.
Thank You, God, for the people that You surround us with today as we hear their testimonies
of the wonderful works of God alive and in motion in the lives of Your people today.
Thank You for what You have done in our lives and You continue to do in changing us and
molding us and shaping us.
Thank You, God, that You don't leave us where we begin, but You carry us forward until the
work that You started is completed.
Thank You, God, that You have given us the means and the tools to remember You that as
we enter into a time of communion, that as You have commanded us and as we do this, we
remember and do it in remembrance of You.
Thank You.
And it's in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
So with all of this now in mind, I'm going to ask the men of the communion board to go
ahead and please come forward at this time as we gather together as the body of Christ,
His bride at the Lord's table.
And let us enter in through the totality of remembrance of who He is, what He has done,
and what He is doing and what He will continue to do until all things are complete.