Sermon Notes 12/28/2014

IS your church a hotel or Home?

 And communion! 

Why we do what we do!!

So why do we do what we do??? Why do we give? Why do we serve, and why do we take that little chunk of bread and spit cup full of wine and eat it??? Well ask different denomination and you will get different answers to them all!!

And can I tell you these are all secondary issues??

Nowhere in the bible does it say you have to be baptized or take communion to be saved!

·      Does that mean we shouldn’t?? No

·      Does that mean it’s not important?? No

·      The most important thing for you as a Christian is your salvation and others

o   We do the others out of our love for Jesus!

o   Obedience is showing our love in the ceremonies and acts of love

So know I hope to take a little time to explain why we do it and why we do it the way we do??

And at the end of the service you will have a chance to participate in communion!

Giving and Serving

Hotel or Home? That’s the question!

Matthew 6:19–24 (NIV)

¹⁹“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

²⁰But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

²²“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.

²³But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

²⁴“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Where is your treasure?

·      Are you storing it all up here?

·      Are tired to things more than Jesus?

·      If things matter more than Jesus your heart will never truly be his!

Stewardship

·      What is a steward?

·      Do you see yourself as a steward of God’s wealth?

·      How is that tangible or not tangible in your life today?

·      Where are you tempted to see your possessions as yours and not God’s?

·      What conflicts does the idea of stewardship raise up in you?

·      Where do you need to grow in you stewardship?

·      What can you start doing today to be a better steward?

Money and Worship.

·      How is money related to worship in your life?

·      Where do you see money/things competing with Jesus for glory in you your life?

·      What things have you sought after for joy but left you wanting after you possessed them? What do see as the highest purpose for the use of money?

·      How does your concept of money need to change for you to realign your worship with God?

Prayer:  Take time to Reflect and meditate on the death of Christ.

·      Praise God for his faithfulness and generosity.

·      Pray for correction where it is needed in regards to stewardship.

·      Pray that the money we steward is converted into souls won for Jesus.

Do you worship God or money?

·      To truly serve money has to be a secondary issue

·      To truly give your heart has to belong to Jesus

·      Are you giving first fruit or the leftovers?

Communion

Know it get confusing!!

The Lord’s Supper is not as cut and dry, in every other instance in the bible for a ceremony there are specific instructions as to when, where and how. Not so much for the Lord’s Supper!

Feast of Passover (Erev Pesah or Ta'anit Bechorim)

The 14th day of the 1st month

The Day of First Fruits (The Omer)

The 16th day of the 1st month

5. Trumpets (Rosh Ha-shanah)

The 1st day of the 7th month

6. Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)

The 10th day of the 7th month

7. Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth) - An eight day feast of ingathering.

The first day was the 15th day of the 7th month

So as you can see God was very specific about when his feast and festivals were to occur, so why did God leave the Lords Supper so vague???

·      So we could screw it up??

·      Because he forgot??

I don’t think so! I think it has a simpler answer than we think it does!

·      But again we have over complicated it and we see it in the bible

1 Corinthians 11:17–22 (NIV)

¹⁷In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good.

¹⁸In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it.

¹⁹No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval.

²⁰So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat,

²¹for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk.

²²Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter!

·      The only time there was a problem with the Lords Supper was when they come together corporately

·      Go figure, like a family reunion, some is getting fat, some get nothing, and someone is always getting twisted off!!

·      I don’t think Jesus designed it this way

·      I don’t think this what he had in mind

  

So when was it right??

Acts 2:42–47 (NLT)

⁴²All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.

⁴³A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders.

⁴⁴And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had.

⁴⁵They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need.

⁴⁶They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—

⁴⁷all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.

Luke 22:14–20 (NLT)

¹⁴When the time came, Jesus and the apostles sat down together at the table.

¹⁵Jesus said, “I have been very eager to eat this Passover meal with you before my suffering begins.

¹⁶For I tell you now that I won’t eat this meal again until its meaning is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.”

¹⁷Then he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. Then he said, “Take this and share it among yourselves.

¹⁸For I will not drink wine again until the Kingdom of God has come.”

¹⁹He took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this to remember me.”

²⁰After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.

START PASSING OUT SACRIMENTS!

Matthew Henry:

The Lord’s supper is instituted to be a memorial of Jesus Christ, that has by dying delivered us; and it is his death that is in a special manner set before us in that ordinance.

1.           The breaking of Christ’s body as a sacrifice for us is here commemorated by the breaking of bread This bread that was given for us is to be food for our souls, for nothing can be more nourishing and satisfying to our souls than the doctrine of Christ’s making atonement for sin, and the assurance of our interest in that atonement; this bread that was broken and given for us, to satisfy for the guilt of our sins, is broken and given to us, to satisfy the desire of our souls.  

2.           And this we do in remembrance of what he did for us, when he died for us, by doing this we are joining ourselves to him in an everlasting covenant.

3.           The shedding of Christ’s blood, by which the atonement was made, as represented by the wine in the cup; and that cup of wine is a sign and token of the New Testament, or new covenant, made with us. It commemorates the purchase of the covenant by the blood of Christ, and confirms the promises of the covenant. This will be reviving and refreshing to our souls, as wine that makes glad the heart. In all our commemorations of the shedding of Christ’s blood, we must have an eye to it as shed for us; we needed it, we take hold of it, we hope to have benefit by it; who loved me, and gave himself for me. And in all our regards to the New Testament we must have an eye to the blood of Christ, which gave life and being to it, and seals to us all the promises of it. Had it not been for the blood of Christ, we had never had the New Testament; and, had it not been for the New Testament, we had never know the meaning of Christ’s blood shed.