[0:00] Yeah, so Josh was gone this week to BC for the general general Baptist conference meetings.
[0:14] ! So rather than have Josh come back and try and do a full service, Dave and I said we'd split this up.! So today, today is communion. Today is communion. The remembrance of Christ.
[0:30] And as we worship Christ, we look at the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and understand the who, what, where, and when of his life clearly.
[0:43] Like, it was Jesus. He died on the, he was born, he died on the cross, he was resurrected at Calvary 2,000 years ago.
[0:54] The letters that are written later focus mostly on the why and the how of the story. Like, the epistles, they fill in the rest of the blanks. Romans chapter 8, and we're going to use that, yeah, it's coming up.
[1:13] Explains the assurance of who Jesus is and what we see by faith in him. Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life, has set you free from the law of sin and death.
[1:33] So this explains better than, in a way, than the Gospel, what happened. So we are free from the law of sin and death, if there's those who are in Jesus Christ.
[1:47] We see no rules or extra costs to becoming free from sin and death. It is through faith, and faith in Christ alone. In the Old Testament, the law included many sacrifices of blood to be a substitution for the penalty of death.
[2:05] Christ dying on the cross fulfilled that need for reconciliation to God. Romans next, try this. Romans 8, 7 to 11.
[2:22] Make clear the distinction between believers of Jesus through faith and those who reject the faith. Even though those who feel they can earn their way by doing good, honorable things, that they feel they can earn a place in heaven.
[2:38] Romans 9, 7 to 11.
[3:08] Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. These verses make clear the how and the why of Scripture.
[3:21] Not submit, nor can do so. Cannot please God. These are definitive, not allowed for wishy-washy, I'm better than I am bad type of acceptance of God.
[3:36] I have heard that. I have heard a guy say, yeah, on the scale of things, I'm a little bit better than that, so I'm going to go to heaven. This is very definitive. You cannot please God in the realm of the flesh.
[3:51] There are many who want his acceptance without repentance and faith in Jesus. One of the smallest yet most powerful words in the Bible is if.
[4:07] God's grace allows eternity with him if we have faith in him. An example of this is if you do not make any payments of your car, the finance company will repossess it.
[4:23] No ifs, ands, or buts. Legally, the company has the right to take it back after a length of time. So in this passage, there is implied a no argument case.
[4:35] If indeed the Spirit lives in you, you are a believer. Here. 8 verse 9 says, You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh, but are in the realm of the Spirit.
[4:52] If indeed the Spirit of God lives in you, and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.
[5:03] So this is a, you do not, you are not in the, you, however, are not in the realm of the flesh, but in the realm of the Spirit. So we are, this is the born again.
[5:14] This is the living in the Spirit. This is the Spirit of God that lives in us. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.
[5:26] So this is a very definitive if. And again, but if Christ is in you, they do not belong to you.
[5:43] Yeah, okay. If Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death, because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.
[5:55] So no matter what happens, if you have Christ as your Savior, even though your body is subject to death, because of sin, we're all sinners, we all deserve death, the Spirit gives life.
[6:10] So this is the born again. We are allowed to have Christ's reconciliation with us. And later on, 11, it says, And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit who lives in you.
[6:41] So this tells us we will have our bodies when we get to heaven. He promises that. So we will go farther down in the passage.
[6:54] We read about the power of Christ. There are a series of questions that demand an answer. What then shall we say in response to these things?
[7:11] If God is for us, who can be against us? There is a saying that rings true. One plus God is a majority.
[7:23] The God, Jesus, who in six days created the universe by His word, alone has no equal. We talked about this in the Alive program with the six kids this morning, emphasizing that there is a six-day literal creation, and God spoke it into existence.
[7:42] He didn't have to take stuff and make it. He created it by His mouth. He made it. This God, there is no equal. There is no another God.
[7:55] There is no one else that could do this. We are promised that we will be rejected and hated for faith in Jesus, but having the Spirit who lives us gives you us the endurance to face these trials.
[8:11] So we are promised that the world hates us, and it's proven that over and over. We have the strength of God Almighty on our side.
[8:23] If God is for us, who can be against us? Next verse. He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?
[8:42] Gravy train. Luxury. Prestige. Stuff. Not all things is the knowledge.
[8:54] No, all things is the knowledge that no matter what happens, we have the faith that God gives us, the strength through His Holy Spirit, to endure hardship, even being martyred.
[9:07] And martyred means being killed for our faith. There's been thousands of martyrs. Even a couple years ago, there were 12 guys in, I don't know if it was Afghanistan, and they got marched out, and they said, if you rescind your faith in Jesus, we will let you live.
[9:25] You just have to bow to Mohammed. They said, nope. They lost their heads. They were martyred. They went to heaven because of their faith. Paul wrote the book of Philippians to encourage people that this world and that all it offers is temporal.
[9:42] No matter what we think about this world, no matter about the luxuries, all the fun stuff, all the great stuff we have, it's just temporal. There's no U-Hauls behind a hearse.
[9:54] Remember that. The message that Paul had was to live is Christ, to die is gain. So I have three examples given us that comes from the autobiography of Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place.
[10:12] This is the story of a Christian family who hid Jews in their homes during World War II. After being caught and spending time in a Nazi concentration, she lived to be a powerful witness for God.
[10:26] She, yeah, they had a little hole in the wall and they hid Jewish families and one of their own friends gave them in and the Nazis put them in a camp.
[10:39] So the three, there were three things that really stood out from her autobiography. And this is part of the, the blessings that we get from Christ.
[11:01] Graciously giving us all things. Here are the three things. First, she did not want this blessing at all. Lice. Lice.
[11:14] The barracks that the internet, that the intern lived in, were infested with lice. So the guards would not enter there. This enabled Corrie and her sister to lead Bible studies and sing hymns to God uninterrupted.
[11:29] The guards would not, like, there's lice, I am not going in there. So they didn't. So they, even though they were bitten and they, it was infested, she got to be a believer, she got to minister to others uninterrupted.
[11:44] The second, 10 days after Corrie's sister died of starvation and disease, Corrie was released due to a clerical error on the paperwork.
[11:57] So instead of stamp, you're going in the gas chamber, it was stamped, you're going out the gate. This mistake saved her from the execution that was shortly scheduled. And the third, and probably the hardest, years after the war, she met one of the guards who brutalized her and her family.
[12:16] Can you imagine, here's somebody that you knew killed your sister, killed your father, killed your friends, stuffed them into the gas chamber, made your friends haul out the bodies and the...
[12:34] Through the strength and grace of God, she was able to forgive this person. This does not come from our own power, but the strength God gives us at these times.
[12:47] So God believed that God could give her the strength and she was able to forgive this guard. It's worth watching.
[12:57] You can look this story up on YouTube. I looked it up yesterday. There's lots of places on YouTube. Corey Ten Boom. There are some who teach that we can live our best lives now.
[13:14] And honestly, for them, it might be true if they do not have salvation in Christ and reside forever in heaven. That's the false gospel that some people teach, that things, material things now are great.
[13:28] But we realize for someone like Corey Ten Boom, the great things were fleas, clerical errors, and the ability of...
[13:40] Who will bring any charges against those whom God has chosen?
[13:53] It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus, who died, more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
[14:08] There is one who tries to bring allegations against us. That is Satan. We read in Job that Satan brought accusations forward to God in heaven about Job.
[14:20] He is full of hate and deception, desiring that those redeemed by Christ will be condemned. So we have a spiritual battle. There is a spiritual battle in heaven and Satan and his demons are fighting, wanting every person to spend eternity in hell.
[14:44] But Christ is interceding for believers. In effect, because Christ is the judge, he's our redeemer, but he's also interceding for us.
[14:56] So he's already done, the case is done. There is no case for rejection. Case is closed if we are a believer. Devil can't talk God into kicking us out of heaven if we are believers.
[15:11] Next. Is that 30?
[15:24] Yeah. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
[15:37] As it is written, for your sake we face death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No one in all these things, no, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loves us.
[15:53] You know, we realize in Davidson these threats are symbolic for now. There is no one at risk of famine or sword and even nakedness is only a choice but in many countries these are real threats.
[16:11] And we want to support those people in Iran and Afghanistan. Like that's why we're wanting to support that school that takes and teaches the true gospel because they don't have the chance to even hardly go to church in some of these countries and to give them a deeper knowledge so that they're not led astray with, oh man, you can have your best life now.
[16:38] if you're in Afghanistan and you're being persecuted that's not your best life. So we want to make sure that we support people with a deeper knowledge of scripture so they can stand up against these threats.
[16:52] And don't think that right now that we are immune from these threats. God has given us this time to read and study his scripture and pray to him and seek his guidance for what we can know so that we can know him who loves us.
[17:08] So that is that is why we have the ability to read. God has enabled people to have the ability to read and comprehend. He's given us the scripture so that we can know him.
[17:20] We can understand him. Finally, for I am convinced that neither death nor life neither angels nor demons neither the present nor the future nor any powers neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
[17:54] Yes. Powerful. This is the assurance the assurance that we can have faith in Jesus as Redeemer and nothing nothing can separate us from him.
[18:07] In heaven there is nothing that can change us. By rejection Christ by rejection Christ's invitations people already are separated from the love of Christ for all eternity.
[18:23] So if you don't accept Christ you have rejected him. there is no changing of minds after a person dies. Nothing a person can do or pay will ever change the amount.
[18:37] Not the idea that we're going to be in purgatory and if we spend a bit of time there that God will let us into heaven. This lifetime is all we got.
[18:50] This is why Christ's invitation is serious. Christ's love is reserved for those who believe in his substitutionary death in our place and it's available to everyone.
[19:05] So he loves everyone. He gives the opportunity. He says believe in him. So to finish off why is heaven going to be so great?
[19:20] Heaven is going to be absolutely wonderful. Why? The answer is in Hebrews chapter 2 and I don't I think I do have it.
[19:36] There. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 14 and 15. Hebrews chapter 2 14 and 15 give us the reason why there will be joy in heaven.
[19:50] Things will never be like they are on earth. Never. It's never going to be the same and the reason is since the children have flesh and blood Jesus too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death that is the devil and free those who all their lives will be held in slavery by their fear death.
[20:20] Jesus has promised that and this goes right back and this again we talked about this in Sunday school that Jesus crushed Satan's head Satan bit Christ's heel.
[20:37] This is the fulfillment that Jesus by his death on the cross and resurrection he might destroy him who holds the power of death that is the devil so the devil is gone there is no devil in heaven there is no he will tempt us to do things there is no devil going to God and accusing us the devil is permanently in hell but he's not there yet he does not live in hell right now but he comes to the presence of God to make accusation so as we wrap this up we realize communion is a solemn occasion reserved for those who are being saved who have a saving faith so please pass the emblems by if at this time you feel you do not have this faith we look at ourselves and reflect on our lives and how we have fallen short of perfection also we look at life and sacrificial death and resurrection of Christ to realize that we have eternal hope so that is communion is to look at that it is only through his blood through his resurrection that he destroyed sin that he died in our place and as we think about ourselves what we have done why we deserve punishment and then we look at
[22:08] Christ and realize he paid that punishment so as we pass the emblem it's a chance to really think about Christ not about ourselves but about Christ well ourselves and the fact that we don't deserve his grace and the fact that we can look at Christ and realize he gave us grace thank you and that we take him take him and and him him him!
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