Communion Message
(Family healing)
September 9-10, 2000
Pastor Donald Sheley

For I have received from the Lord that which I also delivered unto you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me. In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me." For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes. Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

I'm going to ask you to be seated for a moment. We have a number of new folks with us today, and just for some words of explanation, we have communion here every Sunday morning at all of our services as well as Saturday evening. We honor Christ and His death, and as Paul says as oft as ye do it, you do it in remembrance in proclaiming the Lord's death till He comes. So each of us come from various fellowships and our communion services differ, but really at the heart of it all our participation is an act of identifying with Jesus Christ as our Savior and proclaiming Him as our Lord in the participation of the supper. We've looked at our table from various points of view. And as each of you know, Sunday after Sunday we have time to contemplate some aspect of the cross, some aspect of the supper. So the communion time has become a very precious moment to all of us.

We've looked at the table as the table of salvation. We've looked at the table as a table of love. It tells us how much God loves us. It's a table that can be a table of reconciliation. It's a table that's wide open to whosoever will may come. It's a table of healing. You see there's something very interesting about the table. It has two elements. It has the bread and it has the cup. And the scriptures make it very clear that by His stripes we are healed and, of course, with His precious blood we are cleansed. So if in reality and we were wanting simply this to identify with salvation, we could say that the cup would be sufficient because it’s because of His precious blood that we have cleansing. For some wonderful purpose in the intent of God Almighty He included the bread, and that bespeaks of His body. And the Scriptures tell us that with His stripes we are healed. So the great old theologians of history, most have agreed, that within the death of Christ there's not only spiritual healing for our souls, but there's physical healing for our body.

Now I'm not here to say that everybody is healed. We don't follow that school of thought. God is a sovereign God and He heals who He chooses, and sometimes His healing is perfection in heaven. What I want you to do today is I want you to think of the table as a table of healing. And this, maybe I have never in my fifty years of ministry done this before, but I feel intensely led to do so today. I have a family that I shared with last Sunday and we talked about their family needs, and after talking to them I suggested that they think it over and should they so choose, when they came to church the next time, we as a congregation would join them in a much-needed prayer. So I'm going to ask Vangie and Romi and the children to come today, and I'll explain what were going to pray about. We've discussed it as a family. Are they here, the Sanchez family? Come join me folks, all of you as a family. And I do this because we as a body of Christ love you. You're surrounded by love today. Right? Come over here a little further mother.

Vangie called me and said, Pastor, we need your prayers for our family. It's being torn apart in so many ways and I want God to do something very, very special for our family. There is in their background occultism, so there are times when Satan really becomes very active in disturbing their home and taking away peace. And Romi comes here, as Dad, and he needs healing from his alcoholism. He just stands here and says I want you all to pray. Because of that and the frustrations of the occult background, we're all going to kneel. They're going to kneel at the table with me and I would like, if you're here today and you're needing a healing. Now healing comes in many areas of life. Some of it is physical, but some of it is spiritual. You might be here today and you say, I really - I'm reaching out for God and I really want to open my life, so why don't you just come and kneel along with us because we're going to kneel here at the table.

Some of you have wrestled with pain for years. Life has dealt you some terrible blows and you can't get over it. The burden of it, the hurt of it, the pain of it is still there. I know, because I've talked with some of you. We can kneel here with Vangie and Romi and the children, and we can walk away from this table and we can claim a glorious victory for this family. When they go home there's going to be peace, and that home can be filled with God's joy. And these children want to grow up loving Jesus Christ, and so this to them is a very important spiritual moment for the family. Romi can go home today and never want another drop of alcohol. I believe that. God can just take it all away today and heal him. I'm going to turn around and kneel at the altar, and family, I just want you to kneel here around the table with me. Do you have your communion elements with you? All right, let's kneel here together.

Let's all kneel here, shall we family? And I'll kneel. If you'd like to join come join the family prayer or if you're an elder today and you'd like to come and just kneel behind this lovely family. We're going to claim this as a great day of spiritual victory. Why don't you just come with your elements. And by God's grace we're going to walk away from this table today new people in Christ Jesus, and this lovely Sanchez family is going to go home to God's peace and His presence in their family. That's why we're here to pray.

Jesus I kneel here with Romi, Vangie, and all the children, and others who kneel here with us. This is Your table and we recognize that by kneeling here we are proclaiming our trust and faith in You as the Christ who died for us. We believe that in Your death You included our healing, not only spiritual, but psychological, emotional, and physical because You want to make us whole dear Jesus. And I pray for this lovely family today who so openly, so honestly stand here and say, Jesus, please help us. Please help our family. Please heal us. Take away the pain. Take away the addictions. Come and fill our home with Your wonderful presence. That's our prayer today dear Jesus, and these elements that we hold in our hands remind us that that's exactly what You want to do. You died on that cross to make us whole in every way, and we're going to take these elements and in faith we're going to claim our victory, O Christ, in You.

Let's take our bread and just lift it in our hands and say, Jesus, I need You to heal me and I accept Your healing. Let's take the bread together.....and then the cup. Lord Jesus, I want You to speak peace to these hearts today, and I pray that Romi and Vangie and the children will experience something today of Your grace, and Your healing, and Your peace, and Your deliverance that makes them the happiest family in our city rejoicing in Your grace and in Your goodness dear Jesus. For You set them free from the past to have a joyous, wonderful Christian home complete in You dear Jesus. And everybody said, amen. God bless you folks. We're all behind you 100 percent. God bless you Vangie. God bless you sir. God bless you Romi. God bless you.