The Beautiful Canopy of Oneness

Last week we looked at the passage
and essentially I referred to those as seeds of a grace that
is to be sown in the church. The Philippian church wasn’t
tremendously beset by persecution. Not yet. Not like the churches
to which Peter was writing. as Roman citizens, largely enjoyed
kind of a very curious comfort zone there under the shadow of
Rome. Things weren’t perfect and always
the church is going to feel as even Peter referred to as aliens
and strangers in the world. And yet, even with that relatively
safe climate in which to establish a little local church, the Philippian
church was in danger. And the Philippian church was
experiencing a danger that almost every church experiences at one
time or another. Some churches are almost characterized
by that danger. The danger that the Philippian
church was threatened by was disunity. There, as I said, is
a sense in which every healthy church is endangered by that kind of disunity. When people, especially those
that really know the word, become intense and hold to their beliefs
strongly as they should, try to carry out their own plans
and desires and affect those beliefs, that’s when sometimes
difficulty arises. It’s not that we’re not supposed
to hold strongly to our opinions, but we do need to make sure that
love is at the core of those great doctrines. The greater
our enthusiasm at times, the greater the danger that we may
collide with others. I believe that is kind of the
spirit of the Philippian church. That’s what Paul was up against
when his little church plant, now probably near 10 years old,
when he wrote to them, appealing to them in the strongest possible
terms to rekindle that unity that the Spirit had worked in
them. If you would, I want to pick
up, we’ll just look at two verses this morning in preparation for
the Lord’s Table. I want to look at chapter 2,
verse 1 and 2. follow along as I read, if therefore
there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation
of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection
and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining
the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Paul, as we saw last week, had
already initiated this conversation all the way back in chapter one
near the end. He had spoken initially to the
Philippians and then primarily about himself, his own ministry,
the gospel and how the gospel was affected by the persecution
he was enduring. But at the end of that epistle,
he turns his attention once again to the Philippian church. And
now he picks up this element of unity with great zeal. Last week, we looked at essentially
the seeds of oneness and that we are called by Paul here to
germinate those seeds. The seeds simply were these.
The encouragement in Christ that we saw, the consolation of love,
the fellowship of the Spirit and affection and compassion.
And I call them seeds and I speak of them as these seminal properties
that must be germinated within the church, because that’s how
Paul speaks of them. He says, if there is any, that
infinitesimal amount, a tiny little seed, if there’s any encouragement
in Christ, if the fact that you in coming to Christ has brought
your own heart any encouragement. We talked about the hope that
a believer has, the hope that is communicated to the Christian
when they close with Christ. That hope is such an encouragement
to us, the hope of heaven. What an encouragement it is.
But there was another seed that we are supposed to cultivate,
and that is the consolation of love. Did we not come to know
the grandest love of all in the love of God? I mean, it’s one
thing to expect the love of family. It’s another thing to expect
the love of friends. It’s even reasonable to expect
the love of your fellow man. But to come to know the love
of God who looks down on vile sinners, and simply because His
own mercy loves us, and loves us in such an incredible and
complete and thorough way. Paul says if there’s any inkling,
if there’s a seed of consolation in the love of God that has been
shown to you. And there’s a third seed that
we looked at last week. If there is any fellowship of
the Spirit, And there we looked and spent no little time on the
fact that that is the Holy Spirit that he’s speaking of, if there
is any fellowship with that Spirit. And you begin to think fellowship
is so great and it’s so great to be among Christian people,
but to have fellowship with God Himself through the Spirit, to
even have that Spirit dwell within us. Paul says if there’s any of that,
If there’s the slightest amount, if you’re a baby Christian, if
you’ve just now come to Christ, you have an encouragement in
Christ. You have a consolation of love.
You have fellowship of the Spirit. But there was a fourth seed.
If there is any affection and compassion. It’s the fact that
God and His love for you and that axiomatic love that ought
to flow from you to others because of what God has done for you.
That compassion that looks on the lost. That compassion that
looks on your fellow man and sees the struggle, the common
struggle that we’re all in. The pains, the difficulties,
the heartaches. That God had compassion on us
and can we not have compassion on another if we have just a
little bit of that? That’s all he needs. That’s in a sense what Paul says
here. If there is any encouragement
in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship
of the Spirit, if there is any affection and compassion, make
my joy complete. Then he goes on. He goes on to
talk about This fruit bearing tree that now has grown up. This
fruit bearing tree that has grown up and now sheds a grand canopy
of unity over the entire church. You know that I’m a gardener.
I love to garden, love to grow trees. Most of those trees that
I’ve germinated and planted and grown up, I’ll never see the
shade. Because of Colorado, because of the slow growth of the trees,
I’ll never enjoy the shade of those trees. It’s kind of a sad
irony, but it’s true. But here is a tree, here is an
organism that we can participate in germinating, that we can actually
watch grow, that we can actually enjoy the shade of this tree
once it’s full grown. That’s the image. that Paul meant
to portray there. If there’s any of that, plant
it, cultivate it and let it grow. What does it look like when it’s
grown? What I want to look at is elements of church unity.
That’s been Paul’s subject ever since chapter one, verse 27.
That’s where we find ourselves again, dwelling on this theme
of unity here. He takes the positive approach
in the verses that follow. He’ll take a more negative approach,
telling us what to avoid so that that unity isn’t torn or damaged. But I want to look this morning
as we prepare for the Lord’s table. at the elements of church
unity, what does it look like? First of all, a church united
is a church that is like-minded. If there is any encouragement
in Christ, make my joy complete by being of the same mind. I take these to be couplets.
In other words, there in 2.1 where it says encouragement in
Christ, the first thing that comes in 2.2 is like mindedness
and so on and so forth. And I take them as kind of pairs. And what essentially I believe
Paul is saying there is that if we have come to know the encouragement
in Christ, we ought to be just relishing in that encouragement
with one another, like minded. And he’s concerned that all of
them be unified. It’s kind of an interesting theme
in the opening chapters of Philippians. He had already prayed for them
all in chapter 1, verse 4. He thinks well of them all, chapter
1, verse 7. He acknowledged there that they
all share grace with him. He yearns in chapter one, verse
eight, after all of them. And here he wants them all to
be united. The problem was in the Philippian
church wasn’t that they weren’t all in the church. It was the
fact that they weren’t all united. There were factions in the Philippian
church. And really, we don’t even know
what all of the issues were, but it shouldn’t even surprise
us. We’ve all been in those churches. We’ve all been in factions, whether
we cause them or not. We’ve all found ourselves to
be on the other side of the aisle of particular issues. You know,
we have literally what Paul says is think
the same thing. That’s an interesting word. Think the same thing. And basically
what it refers to is just a general unity that He desired be manifest
among them. A general oneness of heart and
spirit. This word occurs three other
places in Scripture. It occurs in Romans chapter 12.
In Romans, chapter 12, verse 16, be of the same mind toward
one another. Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the
lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. It occurs again at the end of
the book of Romans, chapter 15, verse five. Now, may the God
who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind
toward one another. There you see clearly, just as
Ephesians articulates that unity is a gift, a fruit of the spirit. It is something that the spirit
works into the church. And really all we can do is tear
apart at that unity. We don’t produce it. Here, Paul
indicates that it’s God that gives that Oneness of mind. The other place that it occurs
is 2 Corinthians 13, 11, be made complete, be comforted, be like
minded, live in peace. Interesting companions there
in that verse, we’ll look at it in a moment. But this oneness
of view. has reference to the areas of
vital importance in the church. If you want to start with the
core beliefs of the church, that there’s got to be some kind of
unity around those things. That’s why when we have those
interested in the church, we’ll give them our constitution, we’ll
give them our confession and we’ll say these are the things
that we believe. We let them sift through them. We’re not
trying to force their conscience. We’re not trying to ram anything
down their throat. But this is where we are. We desire to be one in those
things. And there are provisions, even
in our own constitution for peaceableness, if you have a different matter
of conscience on a particular issue, as long as you’re peaceable.
But having this oneness of view, Christians will also, to the
degree that they yield up their hearts in this common faith,
they will have a substantial oneness of disposition with one
another as well. It isn’t just doctrine. He’s
not asking us to be able to sign on the dotted line on every point
of doctrine. What he’s asking us to be is
of one heart, one mind. He’s calling for unity. But he’s doing it with that word
that is explicit here. It has to do with the mind. It’s
a way of thinking, is what Paul is saying. This mind or this
inner disposition is elementary to this whole process in the
church, this whole element of unity in the church. The mind
is essential. According, if you look at the
context, the oneness that Paul is pleading for is of a distinctly
spiritual nature. He’s talking about spiritual
unity within the church. One said it this way, one Puritan
said, this precept refers to unanimity, cordiality and harmony
in conducting all the business of the church. It is the Word
of God with which believers are to be in accordance and not with
the opinions of each other. Oneness of belief in everything,
even in the least part of the revelation of God, is of importance.”
He’s not calling us to be submitted to one another’s preferences.
But we are all supposed to be on the same page when it comes
to spiritual things. It doesn’t mean that we all have
to think exactly alike on every subject. We don’t have to be
affiliates of the same political party. We don’t have to go to
the same clubs or participate in the same things in the community. But it is necessary that the
lives of all of God’s children in the church share a commonality in the love
of Christ and reflect that love in the body of Christ. Ephesians
4, Paul addressed some of these same things. Hear the echo. Therefore,
I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner
worthy of the calling with which you’ve been called with all humility
and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another
in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the
bond of peace. There it is. We don’t create
it. All we can do is help to preserve
it. There’s one body and one spirit,
just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord,
one faith, one baptism. And you can hear where Paul’s
going. That’s essentially what he says is there’s one church.
There’s not supposed to be five little churches within one body.
There’s not even supposed to be two. Away with these factions is essentially
what he says. It means to be of the same familiar
feeling with your brothers and sisters in Christ. Christians
are, as one said, to maintain a mutual agreement with one another,
which is the basis of peace. Now, I said that this word was
used in the book of Romans. Flip over to Romans 12 just for
a minute, because I want you to see how he uses it in context. Romans chapter 12. We pick it
up in verse 15. The passage is so fascinating
because if you remember when we studied just that chapter
of Romans, everything in the rest of that chapter hangs on
verse 3. Verse three goes like this. For
through the grace given to me, I say to every man among you. Paul uses the same device here
that he did in the Philippian church. He says, look, all of
you pay attention. I want all of you to listen to
this. I say to every man among you
not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think. There’s
the problem. That is the typical problem in the church, is that
we’ve gotten in our heads some way of thinking that makes us
believe that we are more important than we really are. Not to think
more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think
so as to have sound judgment as God has allotted to each a
measure of faith. I believe what he says there
is that, look, you are in a group of believers to whom God has
given each a measure of faith. You’re not the only one. You’re
not the only player on the team. Look down, if you would, at verse
16. Pick it up in 15 of Romans 12.
Rejoice with those who rejoice. There’s that like-mindedness.
When one member suffers, we all suffer. When one member rejoices,
we all rejoice. In fact, those are usually interesting
times to see what’s lacking. When one is given some magnanimous
gift, when one experiences some joy, when one experiences some
great difficulty, how do the members react? Watch their faces. Are they rejoicing? Are they
truly happy for this brother? Or inwardly, are they gnashing
their teeth that he got this blessing over them? Rejoice with
those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Be
of the same mind toward one another. Do not be haughty in mind, but
associate with the lowly. That high mindedness, that haughtiness
of spirit of which he speaks, said one is a potent source of
danger to peace. When once you begin to think
that you’re better than the others, peace will soon be a victim. Basically, it refers here to
an estimate of self in comparison with others. That’s kind of our
national pastime, isn’t it? It kind of gives our conscience
some soothing. When we’ve stumbled or fallen in some way or offended
somebody, then all we’ve got to do is find somebody who’s
worse than us and immediately our conscience is soothed. Pride, said William Ames, is
an inordinate affection for one’s own excellence. What an indictment, isn’t it?
that we can be so proud. Ultimately, what that’s caused
by is an affection, a love, if you will, of self. Paul calls us again to unity
at the end of the book of Romans. Flip over to chapter 15, verse
5. Paul tells the church that they
are to be united in their feelings, in their interests, in their
ultimate object, their goal. He says there shouldn’t be any
discord or disagreement. There shouldn’t be this ambition
that strikes at the heart of the unity of the church. In Romans
15, he brings it up again. Look at verse 4. Whatever was
written in earlier times was written for our instruction so
that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures,
we might have hope. Now, may the God who gives perseverance
and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind. with one
another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord, you
may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, I could build a case very
simply that a disunified, quibbling, fighting, backstabbing church
cannot possibly worship God properly. That’s what this says. If you want to worship the Lord,
if you want to really bring Him honor and glory in worship, put
aside your fighting and your quibbling. One pastor wrote of this section
when he said, here is a subtle and beautiful sequence of thought
from patience and comfort and the hope of glory. Paul passes
it once to the duty of affectionate unanimity. The stronger the sense
of peace and hope in each individual believer, the more we would the
believing community be lifted above the bitterness and littleness
of these secondary controversies. He says if we were focusing on
heaven and focusing on Christ Jesus, our Savior. We wouldn’t
have time to gouge the eyes of our brothers. I already said that Paul made
a similar appeal near the conclusion of his second epistle to Corinth.
Turn over to 2 Corinthians 13. In much briefer fashion, he used
the same word. And now you begin to see how
common was this disunity, how common were these church fights,
these church splits, these rancoring, quibbling, senseless fights that
go on in churches. Where Paul writes in verse 11
of chapter 13, Finally, brethren, rejoice, be made complete, be
comforted, be like-minded, live in peace, and the God of love
and peace will be with you. This is the Corinthians that
Paul is writing to. And I believe by the time he
writes this, they have made great progress. If you read 1 Corinthians,
you see a church that is just ready to fall apart at the seams.
The opening verse or the opening chapter of 1 Corinthians says
in strong terminology, I exhort you, brethren, by the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree. And that there be
no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same
mind, in the same judgment.” And he goes on through those
next 16 chapters to outline the grave division and the points
of division that existed in the Corinthian church. Everything
from ministry itself, to how they’d been converted, to all
those little elements of ministry and worship. Those were the elements
over which they were dividing. He says here, just be made complete. The work was underway in the
Corinthian church, but it was far from over. One of the greatest evils prevailing
in the Corinthian church were the contentions. The various
parties that the church was divided into. The existence, said one, of love
and peace is the condition of the presence of the God of peace.
He withdraws the manifestation of His presence from the soul
disturbed by angry passions and from a community torn by dissensions. And that’s why I say to you again,
really proper worship, healthy worship, worship that glorifies
God and pleases God is impossible in a church that is coming apart
at the seams. No wonder Jesus in one of His
first lessons said, look, if you remember that you’ve got
something against your brother, go make it right. Get up off
of your knees. Go home from the worship service
and make it right with your brother. He tells them they shouldn’t
merely just try to think the same thoughts or all be on the
same page doctrinally. It’s oneness of heart and spirit.
But there’s a second element of this unity. A church united
is a church not only that is like-minded, but secondly, affectionate. Affectionate. They like each
other. Not only do they like each other, they love each other.
And I thought specifically of this church. This church reminds
me of what Paul likely thought from what we gather of the Thessalonian
church, a very loving church. A church that when they see needs,
they respond. When they see hurts, they respond.
They call, they care, they pray. That’s this church. Maintaining the same love. In
other words, it’s the same on all sides. There aren’t these
factions. There aren’t these cliques. There
aren’t these sections of church that are excluded. It is mutual,
mutual love. Paul urges them to cultivate
this mutual love for one another and obviously the love of God
in all. One pastor said, we regard this
as the greater only source and accompaniment of unity. Equal
love would develop equal opinions. The head would be ruled by the
heart. The effect of mutual affection in creating oneness of sentiment
is of daily experience.” He says, in other words, look around you.
You know it to be true. You can’t tear the eyes at someone
that you are practically and actively loving and serving.
You can’t do it. They go hand in hand. These exhortations
to love are so plenteous in Scripture, I could hardly begin to give
you a grocery list, as it were, of all the places where we’re
exhorted to love and expected to love. I picked out only a
few. Colossians 1.4, since we heard of your faith in Jesus
Christ and the love. As I said, they go hand in hand.
This love, this unity, this faith. It’s Christianity is what it
is. First Thessalonians, his beloved church, that almost every
time that he spoke of them, he spoke in glowing terms of how
they related to one another in such a loving fashion. First
Thessalonians 3.12, May the Lord cause you to increase and abound
in your love for one another. He’s not looking at a church
that it was feeble or weak in their love. This was one of the
flagship churches when it came to love. This was one of the
churches that had mastered love for one another. But he says,
let it grow, let it increase and abound and overflow. I hope
that you’re the most loving church of all, Paul says. And he said
it again in 2 Thessalonians. We ought always to give thanks
to God for you. Chapter one, verse three, brethren,
as is only fitting because your faith is greatly enlarged and
the love of each of you toward one another grows ever greater. He says, you blow me away every
time I come, your love for one another gets greater and greater
each time I visit. And that’s how it should be in
the church, shouldn’t it? That’s how it should be in this
church. I mean, are we done? Are we finished? Have we loved
our last? Have we served our last? What tears at this love is a love of self, a love of the world, a love of
sin. We can’t love the saints and
love the world at the same time. John Brown, the great Puritan,
said it this way, envy, wrath, selfishness, love of the world
with coldness and all the concerns of spiritual things have possessed
the place of it. He said, in other words, look
in your heart. If you lack the love for the
brethren, for the saints of Christ, he says, look at your heart.
Your love is displaced. And in vain, he says, shall men
wrangle and contend about their differences in opinions, faith
and worship, pretending to advance religion by an imposition of
their persuasion on others. He says, these strongly opinioned
people that want to come in. And if you would only conform
to what they want you to believe, then they’ll love you. He says,
forget about it. Unless this holy love be again
reintroduced among all those who profess the name of Christ,
all the concerns of religion will run more and more to ruin.
In other words, he says, forget about any gospel testimony in
the community if you don’t love each other. Forget about it.
The very continuance of the church depends primarily on faith in
Christ. But secondly, on the continuance
of this love, where this faith and love are not, there is no
church. I mean, those are strong statements.
And that’s why I said a minute ago, faith and love. That’s Christianity. If you don’t have those, you
have no church. Thirdly, we’re looking at the fruit bearing
tree, that grand canopy shading over us as those seeds grow up.
The elements of church unity, a church united as a church,
not only that is like minded and affectionate, but thirdly,
bonded. You could tell I’m scratching.
I’m running out of words here. I’ll tell you the first two.
They were elves. You had like mindedness and you
had love. But then I fear that one of these days I’m going to
come. If I don’t alliterate those four little letters that stack
up, we’re going to spell something a little too colorful. And so
I really had to craft this thing here today. The church united
is a church that is like minded, affectionate and bonded, united
in spirit. Literally, it means soul with
soul, a unity of sentiment, We’re all on the same page. We all
want the people of Fort Collins to hear the gospel of Christ.
We would all love for more people to come to know Christ. We all
want God’s Word preached and Christ magnified and God glorified. That’s what we want in the church. What he speaks of is beyond just
love. But it is a binding, each to
each, that makes us all to have, as it were, one soul. That’s
the language that’s used here. I mean, it’s strong and graphic
language. It is a kind of brotherly love
that springs from a common faith in the great truths of Christianity
and the great doctrines of the Word But it produces that mutual
helpfulness and oneness in the service of Christ where we’re
all in it together. One pastor said it this way,
as fellow Christians, with all their diversities of ability
and temperament, they should be united in what is essential,
namely the love and doctrine of Christ. It is Christian unity,
not artificial uniformity or submission to the mind of an
authoritarian official which binds together. I don’t want
you to believe it just because I believe it. I want you to believe
it because God said it, because Scripture teaches it. This unity
is something which human nature, being what it is, Christians
must look to God to grant. There again, we cry out. to God
that He would produce in us and among us this oneness of spirit,
this unitedness of spirit. The Christian fellowship, the
Christian church on a local level should be marked by harmony. One seasoned veteran put it this
way, He said, however ornate a church building may be, and
there are some doozies, aren’t there? However perfect its worship
and its music, however liberal its giving, it has lost the very
first essential of a Christian fellowship if it has lost harmony. This is not to say that there
will not be differences of opinion. It is not to say that there will
be no arguments or debate. But it will mean that those who
are within the Christian fellowship will have solved the problem
of living together. They will be quite sure that
the Christ who unites them is greater by far than the differences
that could ever divide them. What a beautiful thought. If
you name the name of Christ. If you have a friend or an acquaintance
that names the name of Christ, you have a common bond beyond
all others. And the church ought to be most
aware of that. Fourthly, a church united as
a church that is like minded and affectionate and bonded and
focused. If there is any encouragement
in Christ, any consolation of love, any fellowship of the Spirit,
affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being intent
on one purpose.” You see, there’s something that tears at the church,
isn’t it? We all get our own little isms. We all get our own little things,
our own little focus groups. And we even want to bring it
into the budget of the church. We want to say, well, we need
some budget for this. That’s why we don’t do it. We
don’t have these dedicated offerings. If you write a check, you write
a check to the church. If you give, you give to the
church. The elders of the church will shepherd those things. They
will talk with the brothers and sisters of the church. And together
we will decide what the Lord would have us to do. But we’re
not getting into this dedicated, designated giving. Because it
tears at the unity of the church. We are to be thinking the one
thing. We’re supposed to have this common feeling among brethren. The word there is very similar
to the first. And you get this feeling that
Paul just rattles these off as being just part of the core of
what the church is to be. The same mind, the same love,
unity in spirit, intent on one purpose. He basically ends where
he started. He calls them to be driven by
the same urge and desire, directing their thoughts and endeavor to
that one thing. the cause of Christ and the furtherance
because of the unity and the oneness among the believers to
that cause. In other words, we should be
so fearful of damaging the cause of Christ that everything within
us yearns to be at one and yearns to work together to cooperate
with our brothers and sisters in Christ at the promotion of
Christ himself. John 17, Jesus, this is exactly
what Jesus prayed for. We’re not just trying to create
a club where unity is the thing for our own sakes so that we
feel good about ourselves. Oh, we went home unified today. We do it for Christ and we do
it for the lost. This is what Jesus prayed for.
John 17. I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those
who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one,
even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they may be
in us so that the world may believe that you sent me. It’s for them,
too. And that’s why I said if we are not unified, forget about
a gospel testimony. Forget about people looking at
us and saying, you know what? There’s something there. The glory which you have given
me, I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are
one, I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected in
unity so that the world may know that you sent me and love them
even as you loved me. The very purpose of Christ. the very prayer that he made
just hours before his death. One said it this way, agreement
among themselves is something which Christians owe to the world.
The only reason that God leaves us here is a testimony to the
world. Otherwise, he’d zap us all and take us to heaven and
things would be done. And one at a time, as you get
saved, boom, you go out to heaven. I don’t know who would run the
Bible bookstore, but get done. Agreement among themselves is
something which Christians owe to the world. It must also be
remembered that the only agreement in question is agreement in faith
in Christ and loyal obedience to him. Again, we don’t we don’t
have to be cowed by other people’s strong opinions that are extra
biblical. They can hold to whatever they
want to a degree. They don’t have to put it on
everybody. That’s what led Charles Hodge
to say, let self be forgotten. Let your eyes be fixed on God.
Let the promotion of His glory be your object in all you do.
Strive in everything to act in such a way that men may praise
the God whom you profess to serve. Isn’t that the issue? Isn’t that
the goal, the desire? That when believers are what
believers were made to be by God’s grace, when believers manifest
that oneness of spirit which God desires them to have, others
see. And they cannot ignore. They
cannot explain it away. They cannot but see a divine
work in them. That’s what Paul wanted for the
Philippian church. And that’s what God wants for
us. Our great and merciful God, we
thank you that you have gifted us in such a marvelous way that
we, for such a lengthy season, have enjoyed peace and unity
and oneness. Like no other church in which
I’ve ever served, your people have rolled up their sleeves
and are serving and laboring, not for me and not even for the
people around them, but for Christ. Lord, we see the oneness of heart. We see that those so often who
have a difference of opinion so often will peaceably submit
and yield. Lord, we thank you that you are
doing a work among us. We pray for the sake of Christ
and the gospel ministry in our midst, that you would preserve
the unity of the Spirit Work it through us, Father, according
to these great principles. We pray these things in Jesus’
name, Amen. Fine. All right, as we prepare
to come to the table this morning, I’d like to read the passage
that we typically go to for the Lord’s table. It’s 1 Corinthians
11, starting with verse 23. It says, For I received from
the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus,
on the night when he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given
thanks, he broke it. And he said, this is my body,
which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying,
This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often
as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat
this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death
until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the
bread or drinks of the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner
will be guilty of profaning the body and the blood of the Lord.
Let a person examine himself in, and so eat the bread and
drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks
without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.”
We talk about this a lot. When we come to this table, we
need to examine our hearts. We need to examine what’s going
on in our lives. We need to be coming to the Lord
and confessing our sins and asking Him for the strength to get over
those sins. We come to this table because
the Lord Jesus Christ commands us to come to this table. But
we also come because we love what it symbolizes and what it
represents, don’t we? We come to it because it represents
that agonizing death that He paid on that cross to secure
our salvation, to secure us a place before God. So we need to remember
that when we come to this table. As believers, we are commanded
to all come. If you are part of this church
and a believer in Jesus Christ, we ask you to partake of it.
If you’re not part of this church, but your body belongs to another
church, and you’re in good standing with that church, we ask you
to partake. Now, children, we ask that we
have, as the elders, that we have talked to you about what
this entails, because this is very serious. We have a responsibility
to protect this table. And so we are very careful about
letting children just take communion, take the Lord’s supper. So, as we come to this table,
let’s renew our love for the Lord Jesus Christ and the price
that He paid. And let’s also renew that hatred for that sin
that caused Him to have to go to that cross. so so It’s Knock, knock. Good morning. Thank you, sir. Okay, all right. Let’s pray. Gracious God, we
pray that you would examine our hearts and that especially in
context of the word we’ve just heard, if there are matters where
we need to address and make right with our brothers, there’s any
bitterness or any lingering dispute, we pray that you would bring
it to mind and help us to do all in our powers to resolve
that dispute. Father, we thank you for Christ
who resolved the great dispute between us and God through his
death on the cross. We rejoice in what this bread
represents, the forgiveness through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
We thank You and praise You in Jesus’ name, Amen. In the night in which He was
betrayed, Jesus took bread and when He had given thanks, He
broke it and said, this is My body which is for You. Do this
in remembrance of Me. It’s a beautiful thing to do. It’s a beautiful thing to do. It’s a beautiful thing to do. It’s a beautiful thing to do. It’s quite a sound system you
have. Let’s pray. Gracious God, we thank you for
the blood that was shed on our behalf and that It was perfect
blood, blood of a spotless. Unblemished lamb, the lamb of
God, we thank you, Father, that that blood to you was precious.
Far beyond any gift that could ever. Been given you more precious
than silver and gold, your word says, and. Lord, we thank you
and praise you that it was shed for us. It’s in this that we
have forgiveness. We pray for your grace as we
go that we would seek to glorify you and how we live and serve
with one another, with oneness of spirit and mind and purpose. We thank you and we praise you
in Jesus name. In the same way, also, he took
the cup after supper saying, This cup is the new covenant
in my blood. Do this as often as you drink
it in remembrance of me.” Let’s pray. Dear God, we thank
You for this wonderful service we have today, Lord. Just thank
You for the opportunity that we’ve had to come and to worship
You. Father, the chance that we’ve had to come and to hear
Your Word preached, Father, the chance to come and sing and to
pray, and Lord, the opportunity and the privilege to come to
Your table and to just celebrate what You’ve done for us, Lord.
Father, I just prayed this morning that as we go on about the rest
of our day, that everything we say and that everything that
we do brings honor and glory to Your name. Your son’s precious
name we pray. Amen.