“The Feet Of Our Soul”

If you have a Bible with you this morning I'd like you to find the Book of Colossians in the New Testament, Chapter 1.  If you would like to follow along in a pew Bible if you don't have one, I would suggest that.  You can find Colossians Chapter 1 on Page 983.

We also have a group of middle school students who have come back from camp and I know the Lord has spoken to them greatly and I specifically want to encourage them to listen closely as God has awakened their ear, and the Devil does like to go to work on us just about as soon as God does anything in us, and listen closely this morning.  Sometimes it seems that it is the young people of the church that God so stirs, that then stirs up the church, and may He do it through them.

Maybe you've had this experience before.  You are going somewhere with some friends, you wanted to get there first.  I don't know, maybe it was the swimming pool, maybe it was the store, it was something, but you wanted to get there first and there was a path around this field that you had to take or else you had to run through the farmer's field to get there.  Now, the direct route was to go through the field, but the road where it was high and dry went around, and it was springtime and the field had been plowed and it had just rained.  You knew your buddy could outrun you but you wanted to get there first, you had to be there first.  So, you look and you think about it, you look and you think about it and before you know it, you're off the path headed through the field.  Two steps into the field you know you have made one huge mistake.  Have you ever run through a field that is wet, fresh plowed?  What happens?  You're lucky if your shoe doesn’t get sucked off your foot.  Have you ever had that happen?  Shlurrrp!  You like that sound effect don't you? [Laughter]   You get these big clods of mud on your feet and you are shaking them off and you run and you take another step and every step your feet get a little heavier and a little heavier and you just give up.  Running is absolutely useless.  Your friends are there 5 minutes before you are there because your feet have gotten weighed down with the clods of earth.

Samuel Rutherford said, "Our affections, our deepest feelings, those feelings within us that cause us to act toward that which we want, our affections are the feet of the soul."

And sometimes we love things that cause us to run through the mud of the world.  And we don't love what is most lovely and so we step off the dry way where we should be content with food and clothing; instead Christ can't make us content, the world has to make us content and the feet of our soul, our affections cause us to want to take a shortcut to the end and step in the muddy ground of the world and we pick up all of this thing on our soul, stuff of the world that slows us down.

Today we come to the Lord's Table and we're going to ask and answer three questions:

1.                 Who should come, does it matter who comes to the Lord's Table? And indeed it does matter who comes to the Lord's Table, not because of what we say but because of what it is and what God says.

2.                 What happened to make anyone ready to come to take this table? What was it that happened, to use our word, the Bible word, what happened to save us?

3.                 Who was able to do that?

Now, essentially most of you in here already know the answers or most of the answers to each of those questions.  But this is a memorial supper and it calls us back to remember those things, to highlight what we are doing.  So, who can come? Does that matter?  What happened to make us able to come? And who was able to do that?

Now, for those of you who have grown up in the church, you know Christ, you know the gospel of free grace that has come, that through Christ's death on the cross you can confess your sins; through his resurrection from the dead he gives you new life and you know that Heaven is your home because once he has given you life it is eternal and it can never be taken away.  But, [we will come back to this] we need to realize there is some preparation for this table and we'll think about that in just a minute.

So, who can come?  Jesus told his disciples, the first night this was established and that's why we call it The Lord's Supper, you can't find that name, as a matter  of fact, you can't find a name for it in the scriptures.  Some people call it The Lord's Supper, some people call it Communion, some people call it the Eucharist, which means give thanks.  We don't have to squabble about what it's called, but we need to be specific about what it is.  So, the Lord after the supper, the Passover supper which was the remembrance supper for Jewish people, remembering how God had taken them out of bondage in Egypt and redeemed them not through the miracles, but through the shed blood of the lamb, they remembered how the angel passed over their household, did not slay their firstborn because the blood of the lamb was on the door post.  This also was to become a memory supper remembering the Lamb of God that was slain from before the foundation of the world to take away the sins of the world.  So he took bread, he broke it, he said 'this is my body given for you.' He took a cup and he said, 'this is my blood in the New Covenant which is for you, do this in remembrance of me.'

Paul told the church at Corinth that he had received this truth from the Lord and now he's delivered it to the church that we should take the bread and the cup and receive them and do it in remembrance of him, and then he said, 'For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do proclaim or show forth the Lord's death until he come.'

There are two ordinances that Christ delivered to his church: One was baptism, the other was the Lord's Supper.  They have to do with who comes to the table.  Let's think this through for just a minute.  Baptism is something that happens to someone one time.  The Lord's Supper is something that happens to someone a multitude of times. 

So who can come to this table? The first thing is those who have believed in Christ.  I don't mean just an intellectual belief but those who have believed that he is the Son of God, that he came to this earth in flesh, that he died on the cross, was buried, was raised from the dead and they placed their faith in him.  They know he is their savior.  They know their sins are washed away.  They know when they die, because of Christ, they are going to heaven.  They have believed.  And so they are invited to come, taking the bread and the crushed grape juice to remember that Christ has died for their sins and all the things that we're going to talk about.  But they are invited first to come to the church through the waters of baptism.  So, there is this essence in which whoever comes to the table needs to have a clear understanding of who Christ is, what he has done and that they have received him by faith. 

Then in doing that, the Lord gave us baptism and that is our first step of obedience that proclaims to the world 'I'm a Christian!  I am Christ's.'  It pictures that we have put our faith in him and then, therefore, we have died with him in baptism and we are raised up with him by the Glory of the Father to walk in newness of life.  That only happens one time, because that pictures our salvation.  It's the initiatory rite into the church.  It doesn't save us; it is what our first step of obedience is.  It's how you are received into the membership of the church.  There's believing, there's being baptized and then there is examination.  All three of these are required to take of the supper. 

What does examination mean?  When Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, they had troubles of the Lord's Supper.  They were doing all kinds of terrible things at the supper; they were being rude, they were getting in front of each other, they weren't sharing, they had a meal before the supper, they weren't sharing the feast with others; some were even getting drunk at the Lord's table, hardly imaginable for us today, at least for some.  And he said, he told them what the supper was and he said then, "Let one therefore examine himself, then eat of the bread and drink of the cup." As baptism pictures the beginning of our life with Christ, the supper shows and pictures the continuation of our life with Christ. Just as the body needs to eat food to continue to live and grow, the soul needs to eat food to continue to live and grow spiritually. And so when we come to these elements that represent the body and the blood of Christ, we are taking tem into us as if we are taking Christ into us because we live off of him.  He is our life; our life is hidden with Christ in God.  That's why we come repeatedly, not because the elements save us, not because they become Christ, but because God is once again reminding us what Christ has done and showing us that if we are to live, we are to take him in again and again, and it is also the time the church comes, and this a bit ensures the church's holiness as we do the third thing and examine ourselves.

Now, some people are terrified of the Lord's Supper because they read in the King James Version that they need to be worthy or in other versions that they need to take of it in a worthy manner or worthily.  It has nothing to do with you and I being worthy to take the supper.  It has to do with the manner in which we take it.  Worthy would mean I have by my own self earned the merits to take the supper.  Nobody does that.  Jesus does that for us, just like for baptism.  We do that by faith, we believe in him, and then we're baptized to show he's given us new life, we've died with him, we live again.  Here he died so that we can come and continue to take his life in us. 

The issue of worthy has to do with how you take it.  Do you believe, have you been baptized, and are you walking with Christ today?  When I was a kid growing up, I don't think anybody ever told me that.  All I knew as a Southern Baptist kid was that the Lord's Supper happened once a quarter because our by-laws said it was supposed, and what that meant was, as I just heard a preacher say this week, it extended the service because it was always tacked onto the end of the sermon, so as a kid do you think I liked having the Lord's Supper? It made church longer, and I can tell by the looks on some of your faces you're still afraid that's going to happen.  [Laughter]  I didn't know exactly what it meant.  I knew it had to do with Jesus shedding his blood and giving his body and giving us new life, but I didn't know the seriousness of the necessity of faith and following him in a believer's baptism, and examining my own life until much later I was taught that by a good pastor in a great church.  And that's why this morning we're going to take our time at the table. We're going to look at what had to happen so we could come.  That's what makes us worthy, is we come in Christ's worthiness, but so that we take it in a worthy manner, it is my responsibility to share with you what the Bible teaches about this supper.  Because for me, frankly, it didn't mean much, except it was really cool to watch the lights reflect off the brass plates onto the ceiling of the church.  That's about all it meant to me.  The preacher would finish and then we would go down have the Lord's Supper, they would pass out the bread, they would pass out the juice, they would put them back up and we'd go home! 

How could, how could we remember, stop  to remember something so awesome as the death and burial of the Lord Jesus Christ?  Don't you find it interesting that when Jesus did the most significant thing to help us remember him, he wants us to remember his death?  Yes his resurrection is in there, but the focus of the supper is his death because of what it bought for us, so it cannot be something so light and simple and unthought through, so, today when we come to the table, I want it to be a celebration of life! 

Colossians Chapter 1

I'm going to be just a little rude and interrupt Paul's prayer right in the middle; it's really bad when you interrupt somebody, it's double-bad when you interrupt them in prayer and it's triple-bad when you come in in the middle of the prayer, but that's what we're going to do because Paul is praying for these Colossian Christians.  He's not seen them; he's praying for them, and in the middle of his prayer he's not trying to teach them through praying, but yet at the same time, every prayer has an instructional element to it because we're praying truth.  It's like Christian singing, it always ought to have an instructional element to it.  So, in verse 12 he's told them how to live and now he's telling them some things as he prays.

Col. 1:1-29

[12] Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light: [13] He has delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son: [14] In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins:

[20] And, through him [that is Jesus] to reconcile all things to himself; whether  on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross. [21] And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, [22] he has now reconciled in his body of his flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him:

It is that which makes us ready to come to the table, but then there are some things that we need to take care of.  Before we come to partake of the bread, I want us to answer that question, what had to happen?  Now, I'm not certain what all it's going to take to get you to think with me to think of this intellectually, to think of it feelingly, to use a proper imagination to remember and think through this issue, so let's cover just  a few basics that you already know, but think with me.  You and I have life, we are alive, we wouldn't be here if we didn't.  But we know we did not give ourselves life.  We are created, we are designed by God.  He created this earth for us to live on, he planted us on this earth. There is a God whose magnificence is shown in every day of life!  And yet, some days, aren't there days that we basically forget him?  We kind of live as if he is not even there.  We either show it by worry or by forgetfulness or by ignorance or just out and out sin. We choose to do what we want to do.  Then, on top of that, God has revealed himself in these last days, the Bible says, through his son.  Mos t of us in this room have a good knowledge of Jesus if not a personal faith in him.  Some of you may not have that personal saving faith in him, but you've placed your faith in him and you know him.  But, let's think about how we've come to know him.

Verse 12:

[12] Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light:

Did you know you can't go to heaven if you're not qualified? You and I, my friend, are disqualified.  Why?  Because Jesus said, "Be you therefore perfect even as your Father, who in heaven, is perfect."  Are you perfect?  I am far from it, my friend.  As a matter  of fact, I've got enough pride in my soul to think I might not be perfect, but I'm better than most people. [Laughter] You're laughing because you can think the same thing.  I've talked to I don't know how many people in this life about their salvation, whose answer is "I've tried to do the best I can."  "I'm better than most people."  "I think my good is going to outweigh my bad."  Do you want to try that with God?  Do you really want to try that with God?  We are disqualified, but, according to the gospel, God has qualified you to share in the inheritance  of the saints in light, so you, through the Lord are qualified to go to heaven, to share in everything that God has given us.  Not only that, the Bible says in Verse 13,

[13] He has delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son:

Not only are we disqualified, but we are in bondage, a heavy relentless bondage that will not let us go.  Don't you know the battle in your own soul of wanting to do right, but you still choose to do wrong? Don't you know the battle of the temptation so strong you know it's wrong, you don't want to give into it, you pull away, but it still sucks you back in?  It's called bondage, my friend.  And that's why the Lord's Supper is also a picture of the Old Testament Passover because the Children of God then were in literal bondage to Egypt and Pharoah.  We are in literal bondage to our flesh and the Devil and the world, and unless God redeems us, we can't get out.  Look at the words:  "He has delivered us"  he has paid a ransom price.  Why?  Because we were in the domain [that's the authority] of darkness. Do you ever wonder why the world is the way it is? Because the Devil is the Prince of the Power of the Air, and so much of the world is under his domain of darkness authority, but He [God] has transferred us, he has made us fit.

I'm looking at all the people who are either as gray or as bald as I am.  Can you remember when your body was fit? And how hard you had to work to get it that way?  And now you just think about how hard it is to get out of the bed?  You cannot work hard enough to make yourself fit for heaven.  It takes an immense thing to make us fit for heaven, but God says that he is able through Christ to not only deliver us and then transfer us out of this domain of darkness, but then to put us into the kingdom to make us fit for [that's the word transformed] the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption [there's the purchase price] the forgiveness of sin; there's the real problem.  It is our sin that keeps us out of heaven.  Not sin as I register it, not sin as is registered against other people, but sin as a human registered against a Holy God that we have ignored. 

A word before we take the bread.  Now, what we're going to do is we're going to take the bread.  We're going to come back; I've got just a few other words and then we're going to take the juice.  Christians understand that Christ is our savior and that he forgives us of our sins.  I have two perspectives on that.  One of them is sometimes we as he people get lazy.  We lose our fire, but we remember the basics of the gospel and we somehow want to hold onto our pet sin and hold onto our sweet Savior at the same time, and we know that the Bible says we have eternal life and it can never be taken away, and we know that the Bible says if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness, so what we do is in a false safety we hold onto this sin and then we confess it.  We hold onto this sin and then we confess it.  We hold onto to the sin and then we confess it.  Do you know what that is?  That's like using Christ as a pack horse to carry your filth for you through this world.  That's now what confession is.  Do you know what confession is?  Confession is when we see a Savior so mighty and so strong that he can shoulder the sins of the world, so pure of love that he would die in my place, that I see myself scrawny and shriveled with sin before God and I take my sin and I heave it over onto this might Savior because, my friends, it is a pity that a Savior so strong should not be burdened properly with our sins.  Some of you think he can't take them.  There is no sin he can't take, so don't use him for a pack horse.  I'd be very scared if I did that, but use him for what he is, a Savior who can take your sins.  So as we prepare to serve you the supper, you prepare your heart.  We're going to serve you the bread, I'll have a few more words and we'll serve you the juice.  Let's stand together gentleman.

Father in Heaven, we thank you that you have qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  We thank you that you have delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of your beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, and it is in his mighty name, the name of Jesus, that we pray.  Amen.

Who is it that could do such a work? I'm aware that intellectually we know the answers, but it is time to think it through just a bit again before we take of the juice.  This is a time of remembrance; it is a time of celebration; it is a time of thanksgiving for what he has done for us, so there is a measure of joy that we should have in us.  There is a measure in which we should think about us, but all through the light of which what He has done for us.  So I simply want to read where God has put through the apostle's pen what he has done and then who did it.  So, let's look at Verse 15 of Colossians 1.  Now remember in the first part we read we were reading that what the Father has done for us and then at the end he tells us who he did it through, in whom [that is Jesus] we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.  Then when we get to Verse 15, we begin to read about the one, the only one, the unique one, the only one qualified and the only one able to bring this about.  Had there not been the Son of God the world would be without hope and without life and without God in this world.  But he speaks of the one who did this for us and made us able to come to his table and in time, to come to heaven.

Col. 1:15

He [that is Jesus] is the image of the invisible God; the firstborn of every creature:

What that means is Jesus is the manifestation  of God, he is the condescension of God though he is also God Himself, so our human created eyes that were created only to see matter, not the invisible, can actually see God.  He's God.  He's not less than God.  He is the express image of God.  He is the firstborn of all creation.  That does not mean that he was created, then he created everything else.  This is a word of rank or place.  He is the begotten of God, that's his relationship to the Father.  It has always been his relationship and he is firstborn in rank above all creation.  Why?

[16] For by him were all things created, in heaven, and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities: all things were created through him, and for him:

It kind of makes you think twice about putting your arm around Jesus and buddying up with him, doesn’t it?  We should be his friend but we should never be irreverent.  Verse 17:

[17] And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [Gravity is not holding this universe and solar system together, but the word of the power of Christ is.]

[18] And he is the head of the body, the church: He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in everything he might be preeminent.

Can you get the picture?  Nothing exists in all of life without the word of Christ.  He's the one who created us.  He put us here on this planet that he made.  We know what he expects of us and do the opposite.  That's what the Bible calls sin!  Sin separates us from God, sin is the cause of death, and the wages of those sins, the Bible says, is death!  And without a go-between between us and God there is an eternal death called Hell.  Archaic? No! Just true! 

Have you ever had anybody betray you? Go back on you behind your back? Say they are going to do one thing for you and do something differently? Does that make you angry? Does that make you want to take vengeance against them?

Do you know what God's response was?  This one who created everything became like us.  He took on flesh.  And when he was on the earth those whom he had made would not receive him and crucified him!  Can you imagine what the disciples thought that day?  They couldn't imagine a resurrection from the grave, just as we really can't without the scriptures.  He was laid in that grave.  He was dead!  But the Bible says "he is the firstborn from the dead." 

We get fearful in life.  We wonder if we're going to make it through.  We wonder about heaven.  We wonder about life and death.  We wonder how we're going to get on in life.  It's like children hanging onto a man who is dragging them through a roaring and a raging river that is coming up to his neck.  He's got the children on top of his shoulders; they are screaming and crying and he says, 'Hush, children, I will get you across.'  We come to this valley of the shadow of death.  We're going to go through this valley of the shadow, we know that, we come to the edge of death, we've never seen the other side, we don't know what it's going to be like.  And every child of God is legally hanging about the neck of Christ and held within his arms, and every sin of ours was on the cross, and every worry of ours went into the grave.  Every guarantee and promise of salvation is laid in the grave with Christ.  Every promise that God ever made is there and we're clinging to his neck and the hymn says, "Up from the grave he arose; he triumphed o'er his foes."

THAT is the message of the supper.  That when we take this we are reminded of this one who shed his blood, who gave his body, went in the grave and we proclaim his death until he comes because he is alive and he is coming back!

That's why we can't come to the table lightly.  That's why life can never be taken lightly, but also can be found to have its fullest joy.  And there's only one who can do that for us and his name is Jesus.

None of what we have thought about, said, has been made up a human mind.  As Paul said to the Galatians, his gospel came from God and not from man.  If you think hard about the story you'll know no man could have ever though it up, and if they possibly could have, no man would have executed such a plan to save others.  It is this juice that reminds us that the blood shed on that cross is the blood that cleanses all sin.  John wrote, "If we walk in the light as he is in the light, the blood of his son, Jesus Christ, cleanses us from all sin."

Father, thank you for such love, for such power, such unimaginable grace. May we experience more of it for your own glory and our own good than we have ever experienced in our lives, in Jesus Name. Amen.

We sing to close our service.  During the singing, some of you are thinking, "What does it really mean to know God?" It is such a serious thing.  It was a serious thing, but it was a real thing that bought your salvation and salvation for any who would believe.  So, as we sing, you even have the opportunity then to say, you know, I would like to talk with somebody about that.  I'm going to be down front.  Our staff will be here.  You can step out during the hymn if you like, come down and speak with one of us; we'll have people to pray with you.  If you don't want to do that then, you can wait until after the service and speak to one of us then, or you can take your bulletin and make a little note on the perforated part, turn it in at the Welcome Center saying "I'd like an appointment with one of the pastors or someone from church to talk about these all important things." You may be a believer who has recently been refreshed in your life and made a new commitment and you want to share that with God's people; you feel free to do that also.  Let's stand together as we sing.