Read the Word

Have you read the Scriptures?  Have you read through the whole Bible? Have you read through the New Testament?  Have you given yourself to reading and re-reading, to meditating, to studying, to memorizing, to thinking through your own applications of believing, changing, doing for your life?

Fathers, are you taking your children through the Scriptures?  Are you modeling what it means to love the Word of God?  Mothers, do your children find you reading and considering a passage of Scripture as though it was fine gold – as though it was better than fine gold?

What will 2013 have for you?  Are you prepared?  How will you prepare?  At rock bottom, give yourself to the Word of God.  If you are in Christ, it is food – food for your soul.  You live in an age and in a nation where your access to the Word of God is unprecedented.  It has not always been that way – it may not always be that way.  Do not squander the gifts of God.

 

If you do not have a Bible reading program, find one, grab one, find one on the back Information Table or look up at our website.  Use your new Smart Phone – you can probably find an app.  Or here’s one for you – open up to Genesis and read a couple chapters.  Then open up to Matthew and read one.  Then pick up where you left off the next day – and then the next.  And there you go – food for your soul, direction for your life, and anchor for your faith.  Simple as that.

 

What would this congregation look like if all of us read through the Scriptures this year?  What would we look like if 20 years from now we had, all of us, read through the Scriptures 20 times?  Do you think it would make a difference in your life?  Many, many brothers and sisters could testify to you that in fact it has made an incredible and profound impact on theirs?  Are you any different?

Communal and Individual

The Lord’s Table is both a communal and an individual rite.  It is not to be taken normally alone, in the way baptism is administered, one person at a time.  It is a communal activity – both with the Lord but also with one another.  This is why you are called to discern the Lord’s body as you partake.  Look around you and see the body of Christ feasting with Him at His table.

 

But it is also an individual rite.  In order for there to be a community, individuals of that community must come.  And so, if you have been baptized, identified in that community, and are able, physically, to partake – then you should come.  Jesus is communing with you and with you personally as well.  He has particular nourishment and particular fellowship for you in just the situation you find yourself in.  But remember, that individual relationship is like a member of a body – it relies and depends on all the rest of the body as well – and God is specially feeding and equipping those members too.  Just remember this – He is most likely equipping you to be part of that encouragement and support for the other parts in the week ahead.  And so come, and be fed and then given away yourself – by Your good and giving God.

Jesus and His People

“And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins”  Matt 1:21.

 

And that is why this Table has been prepared for you – His brothers and sisters, His family.  Our elder brother has saved us from our sins.  His body was broken for you.  His blood was shed for you.  It is at this Table that you give your AMEN to just such a glorious truth as this – and you are summoned to do so over and over and over again after your baptism.

 

Look around you as you prepare to partake – look around you and see that in Christ, there are no divisions.  There is neither Jew nor Gentile, free nor slave, male nor female, rich or poor, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.  Look around you and discern the Lord’s body.  We are that body.  We are His family.  We are His people.  That is what it means that we are the church of Jesus the Christ.  And that is why we partake together.  Come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

Speak Comfort at the Table

“Comfort, yes, comfort My people!” Says your God.  “Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, That her warfare is ended, That her iniquity is pardoned; For she has received from the LORD’s hand Double for all her sins.”

 

If you are God’s people, then you are called to hear this comfort, you are summoned to come to this Table where you can see comfort, and you are called, by faith, to taste this comfort in the bread and in the wine.

 

Taste the peace, for your warfare is ended.  Christ put an end to death and enmity – you are friends with God.  Taste the pardon, for your iniquity has been dealt with.  Christ paid with His own blood for your sins and you are reconciled with God.

 

Come and hear.  Come and taste.  Before you is the ultimate Christmas feast – the ultimate and perfect comfort food.

Joy and the Present Love of God

Paul writes of sufferings of the Christian in Romans 8; things, none of which can separate us from the love of God.  Paul does not say that conquest is found in escaping these things, nor in their removal from our lives.  Conquest is found when even in the most horrible of situations, these things cannot separate us from the love of God.  Of course this means that we can experience and live in the love of God in the midst of the most horrible of situations.

Jesus Himself did not cry out over the pain of the nails in His hands and feet, nor in the shame of His naked and humiliating public crucifixion.  His cry of despair was over the departure of God from His presence, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?"

One man wrote, "Joy is not the absence of pain, but the presence of God."

Winnowing Fan at the Supper

In addition to the Bread and the Cup, the Winnowing Fan of the Lord Jesus is here as well at the Table.  The same fan that came when the Spirit was given by Christ, the fan that separates the wheat from the chaff, remains at work here at the Table as well.  The Table is a dangerous place to come.

 

Paul warned us that there is a way to come to this Table in an unworthy manner – and it could be summed up this way:  proclaiming yourself to be a follower of Jesus but refusing to act like it – especially in how you are treating others here with you at this Table – right now.  You must come with faith and with the faith that is connected to honest repentance and a contrite heart.  The Table is a dangerous place.

 

But the only place to escape the danger of this place if you are a baptized member is to come and find refuge here in faith and with that contrite heart.  There is no safety in not coming and there is no safety in coming with any hypocrisy.  But thanks be to God, through Jesus, there is the Way, the only Way, to escape the danger of this Table and receive all its benefits.

Trust and Hope

This Table is a Table of Trust and Hope.  It is a place that we are to come to where our trust and hope is nourished in the One who is worthy of our undivided trust and hope.  His body and blood were given on behalf of us, to redeem us, to pay for our sin, to set us free from the wrath that we were due.  This Table recalls and memorializes our past rescue.

But it declares our present and future rescues as well.  In His providence, His perfect providence over all things, God promises to provide for us everything that we need for life and godliness in Christ Jesus.  “Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy.”  This Table is therefore our help and shield for He is our help and shield.  In which ways do you need to trust today in the LORD?  In which ways do you need to hope in Christ today – this week – this time in your life?  Well then, welcome to the Table of trust and hope.