2009-07-31
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Today, I am led by the Holy Spirit to continue this segment of messages on judgment with a comparison of MT 7: 1-2 from the Sermon on the Mount with 1 COR 11: 27-32, an important passage just following the description of the sacrament of communion. MT 7: 1-2, “Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you, for God will judge you in the same way you judge others, and He will apply to you the same rules you apply to others.” Because communion is such a tender and intimate connection with the Lord, it is only fitting that I begin citing this next passage with the communion itself from 1 COR 11: 23-26; then I will go on through verse 32. “For I received from the Lord the teaching that I passed on to you: that the Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took a piece of bread, gave thanks to God, broke it, and said, ‘This is My body, which is broken for you. Do this in memory of Me.’ In the same way, after the supper He took the cup and said, ‘This cup is God’s new covenant, sealed with My blood. Whenever you drink it, do so in memory of Me.’ This means that every time you eat this bread and drink for this cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” This passage gives us a capsule explanation of the symbolism of communion. This is so essential to a relationship with the Lord that our congregation spends three years of a child’s life, from grade 6 through grade 9 preparing our young people, so that when they take First Communion, they really understand what they are doing and the commitment they making. They also understand the connection between the vows their parents and godparents took at their baptism and that commitment they are making at First Communion.
Having written all of that, we can now turn to the spiritual responsibility we have as adults in the faith to avoid God’s negative judgment seen in 1 COR 11: 27-32, “It follows that if anyone eats the Lord’s bread or drinks from His cup in a way that dishonors Him, he is guilty of sin against the Lord’s body and blood. So then, everyone should examine himself first, and then eat the bread and drink from the cup. For if he does not recognize the meaning of the Lord’s body and blood when he eats the bread and drinks from the cup, he brings judgment on himself as he eats and drinks. That is why many of you are sick and weak, and several have died. If we would examine ourselves first, we would not come under God’s judgment. But we are judged and punished by the Lord, so that we shall not be condemned together with the world.” God wants us to know Him well and be in an intimate relationship with Him. His motivations are obvious; He wants us to repent of our sin, live righteously, and come ever closer to Him [JN 6: 39-40; EPH 1: 4-5; 1 PET 1: 16]. But He also wants us to know ourselves better too. He wants us to expunge the remaining sin, even those subtle ones, that plague us and keep us from being fully perfected by Him. One of the toughest courses I have taken since I finished university was Beth Moore’s “Believing God.” It wasn’t scholastically tough; it was emotionally tough. The reason was an assignment we had to build a time line of our lives, dividing them into five equal parts. Then, we were asked to put the important milestones of our lives on the time line. Lastly, we were to examine this assignment to see God’s work in our lives. For me, two important revelations came out of doing this. 1) God was always working in my life, even through I was totally unaware of it for the first 25 years. Those were the years when I was existing, not really living, and when I had little but trouble and heartache. With perfect 20/20 hindsight ?, I can look back and see God’s purpose was to wake me up from this misery and to see the contrast between when I was conscious of my Lord Yeshua [Jesus Christ] and when I wasn’t. 2) The second revelation was my need to totally submit to the Lord’s leadership. My habit had been to rely on myself or other people for the help I needed when in a jam. My Lord Yeshua has convinced me to turn to Him first . The net result of this course was to uncover still-lurking, subtle sin, and believe me, this was painful emotionally! Was it useful and important for me to have gone through this? You bet it was!
MT 5: 23-24 tells us to not offer gifts to God unless we have worked out the problem of someone having something against us first. I think that God sees a genuinely faithful heart coming to the communion table with Him as a gift to Him. However, if that person hasn’t examined himself before coming to the table, he is committing a sin against the body an blood of Christ, as our passage above states. We must remember that the Lord Jesus has given His life for us, just as He discusses in JN 15: 13, “The greatest love a person can have for his friends is to give his life for them.” Last Memorial weekend, we sat in church and for a full five minutes, listened to the plaintive sound of a bag pipes as we viewed pictures with names of soldiers who have died on the battlefield, so our freedoms could be preserved. Imagine the enormity of taking on the world’s sins on the cross, so that those who will repent and believe in Him could not have to suffer spiritual death! That’s what our Lord Jesus did for us. Many of those soldiers were believers, and so, they are with Him now. As for our examining ourselves before taking communion, it could go a long way to helping in reconciliation between humans and between God and His human creation.
PRAYER: O Lord, none of us wants to continue sinning. Nor do we want to face Your adverse judgment for approaching You at the communion table without either understanding what communion symbolizes or properly preparing ourselves for this experience. This morning we come to Your mighty throne to ask You to intervene in our lives, helping us to uncover hidden sins, face ones of which we are already conscious, and to have the courage to follow Your direction in expunging them from our lives. David’s confession, in PS 51: 10-12 is on our hearts too. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirits, to sustain me.” What follows this is a commitment to testify to others, praise and thank You, and to approach You with a contrite heart. Facing our sins is difficult and painful. With Your intervention, perspective, and encouragement, we can and will do this. Liars and deceivers are sometimes in our lives. These people bring out the worst in us. However, PHIL 4: 13, tells us, “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” Yes, Lord, even facing our worst sins. I knew a man who was a leader in his company. He was very proud of a plan he devised with the help of others, to save his company a lot of money when hard times hit. Many of his fellow employees lost their jobs in the execution of this plan. After his own retirement, this man went through a Via de Cristo weekend, one that completely changed his outlook. He remembered RO 14: 13, “So then, let us stop judging one another. Instead, you should decide never to do anything that would make your brother stumble or fall into sin.” At the end of the weekend, at time when lots of hugs are happening, this man’s shirt was soaked with his humble, contrite tears. He had examined himself with honesty and was finally able to take communion without fear of God’s adverse judgment. That is one example of the power that You have to bring goodness and forgiveness into people’s lives. We love You, praise You, and thank You for Who You are and what You do. In Christ’s holy name, we pray. Amen.
Next week, we look at when godly human judgment is not forbidden, as this is shown in MT 7: 1-5. In the meanwhile, we must think of ways that we can take the values that Christ teaches us in the Sermon on the Mount and the rest of the NT and those God has for us in the OT, and realize they are wholly consistent. Our giant-sized task is to bring them into the secular world of our homes, our work, and our relationships with those who might be potential believers. Living righteously is not easy, but God promises us wonderful rewards for it [PS 89: 14-16; PS 146: 8]. We must be careful not to become judgmental in self-righteous ways, because that gives our faith a bad reputation. In examining ourselves each time before taking communion, we must be entirely honest, even if it is painful for us. The idea here is not bring guilt into our lives, but instead, to clean out the sin from them. We must also remember a very important truth. We are created in God’s own image [GN 1: 27], and God loves us very much. RO 15: 13, “May God, the Source of hope, fill you with all joy and peace by means of your faith in Him, so that your hope will continue to grow by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn