Communion Message
(Self-sacrifice)
March 17-18, 2001
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 often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." For as often as you 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.

We're entering a very, very beautiful time in the worship calendar of the church; soon it will be Good Friday and then comes Easter. At the Good Friday service our attentions are called to the words that came from the cross, the words of Jesus, 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?', 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do', and finally His closing words 'It is finished.' Now much is talked about those words, but I find interesting the words that were said to the cross. Those that walked by reviled Him and said, if He be the Christ; if You're the Christ, come down from the cross and we'll believe. And others said, You saved others, but You can't save Yourself. Interesting words. And I find that phrase, 'He saved others, Himself He cannot save', is absolutely the law of supreme sacrifice. For to help others, to save others, yourself you must give -- you must sacrifice.

It is when a high and holy purpose animates the soul that self-sacrifice puts on both strength and beauty. When a nation rises in revoltion at some horrible wrong as when did rids itself of the blot of slavery by a costly sum, or spends its sons in civil war to wipe out the stain; when a people dares to speak and to act for the oppressed; when a statesman sacrifices his career for the sake of a deep conviction; when a man gives his life to heal dissension and lessen disease; when a woman who might have lived in ease nurses the sick in the wards of a pauper's hospital; when a soldier saves the flag at the cost of his own life, or a shipmaster goes calmly down with his vessel while he sees that his passengers and his crew are saved -- it's then we realize how supremely great and how beautiful a thing sacrifice really is.

When we look at the cross of Jesus with these words, 'He saved others, Himself He cannot save' going through our minds, we are lost in wonder and in love and in praise. We see Jesus dying on a cross in perfect willingness. It was not the Roman guard that compelled Him to His cross, and not the driven nails which held Him to its beams, Jesus said, I, I lay down My life Myself. No man taketh it from Me. And then He said, the cup which My Father hath given Me shall I not drink it? Thus, it behooved Christ to suffer, and when we see Him dying for the noblest purpose that a human mind could ever conceive, saving of a soul. There's really no other purpose great but the redeeming of man from the dominion of evil, and the restoring of the image of God upon him. Every pure purpose among men is but its faint reflection, and every holy vocation only the fulfilling of its service. We see Him dying in an almost incredible and quite inexhaustible love, a love which no wrong could change and no sorrow could quench.

Sacrifice -- the giving of one's self for others. I told you some months ago a story that continues to fascinate my mind. It's the story of the airplane that took off from the airport in downtown Washington a few years ago. It didn't get airborne. It dropped over a bridge into the Potomac River -- a frozen river, ice and cold. The fuselage breaks apart, and people are clinging to parts of the fuselage, and crying out for help. And there's a man who walks by on the bridge and he dives in to those cold waters. He saves 1, 2, and if I remember the record I think he saves 7 or 8, but now he's so cold he freezes to death and dies in the river. That's sacrifice. And ladies and gentlemen, every time you and I come to this communion service we honor One who plunged into the waters of death so we could live -- Jesus Christ.

We could not save ourselves. We were headed to a Christless grave, and hell with its wrath awaited us. And then God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, and He came, took our sin, which the judgment was death, and He died so you and I can live eternally with Him. I have said in the last couple of services, if I were standing there on that bridge that day, and I watched that scene of a man pay the ultimate, I think I would have fallen prostrate on my face in absolute honor to a marvelous sacrifice. For years we used to stand as we took communion, then a few years ago I said I just feel like kneeling; and there are sometimes I just feel like falling prostrate on my face -- for a love so wonderful that He would die for us so we could live. That's what the communion service is all about.

Let's kneel before Him today, shall we? It's hard for us, Lord Jesus, to grapple with the great truths of redemption, to try to understand the dimensions of love that would cause You to leave heaven's glory and come to a world that ultimately nailed You to a tree. And You did it for us. You who knew no sin became sin for us so that we might be made like unto Your righteousness, O God. What a marvel. And we bow in gratitude, and in praise, and wonder before You today dear Jesus. And we thank you from the very depths of our being for being our Savior. As we kneel here, all of us need forgiveness because we've all sinned. There's none of us perfect. Please forgive us dear Jesus. Thank you. Let's take the bread together, shall we? And then the cup. Thank you Jesus, and everybody said, amen. Let's stand and greet one another, shall we?