Communion Message
(When is the altar call?)
June 30 - July 1, 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 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.

Sunday after Sunday we have the joy of being here in the house of God, and we also have the joy of having many visitors. And so frequently on the blue registration card I receive a number of requests for information, and one request that comes up frequently is this: Pastor, don't you have altar services in your church? Now I understand the question because my background was that at the close of the service the pastor would invite anyone who would like to receive Jesus Christ to come forward, as Billy Graham does in his great crusades, or if someone wished to come and make a dedication of their life to Christ. For various spiritual reasons, the pastor would invite people to come to what was called the altar service. And so my reply when the question is asked is this, yes, we have an altar service at every service, because to me communion time is that time when we handle spiritual matters between our heart and God.

When we kneel before God there are some who will kneel with us today who--they've been searching and their heart has been reaching out and they have not found satisfaction for the vacancy inside them that is never filled. They've not found that in the world and the things of this world; so they're here sitting amongst us today searching for God. For every service there comes to us the information that people have made decisions for Jesus Christ, and they've opened their hearts. And so if you're one today and you're here in the service as we kneel you just say, Jesus, I'm here and my heart is open and I want to trust You as my Savior. I tell you, heaven listens to that prayer.

Now there are others who will kneel amongst us today who are backsliders, that is, for a long time they've neglected their faith. They've wandered off into the pathways of sin and they've found that it's just not rewarding, and so they're coming home today, coming home to God. So they're going to be seeking God's forgiveness, recommitting their lives to Jesus Christ. There are others of us who are wanting to admit that we've covered some secret sin that needs to be confessed to God. You can't live with secret sin. God sees everything inside of us. So this altar service, the communion time, becomes that glorious moment when I can just say, God, I really am guilty of this sin, and I need Your forgiveness, and I want Your help to turn from it.

So we do have an altar service and great spiritual transactions take place; people will walk out of these doors today because they've made commitment of their lives to Christ during this time. Others will walk out with a happy heart knowing they've been totally forgiven by a gracious God. Let's go to our knees, shall we?

Lord Jesus, this beautiful, beautiful day of worship, to be able to kneel in Your presence, to pour out our hearts to You, and to know that You're listening. Ah, what privileged mortals we be. Some of us are here today and we've been on a journey. We're searching. We haven't found our answers yet but we've come to church today hoping that this is our answer in You dear God. May it be that Your precious Holy Spirit open our hearts and open our minds, and do an eternal work within us that will make us a new creation in You, O precious Christ. Some of us are here today and we've wandered for weeks, for months, for years down life's pathway without You; and we've come home today, dear Jesus. We ask you to forgive us for our waywardness, for our stubbornness, and for our sin.

Others of us kneel here today and our heart is not right because we know that we've tried to cover sin and we found out we can't. For to You, the darkness is as light, and the night is as day, and You see through us thoroughly. So we are here to seek Your forgiveness and to turn from our sin. Please cleanse us. These emblems that we hold tell us that on that cross the bread, which bespeaks Your body, You were the substitute for us. You died so that we could live because sin, its curse is death and we deserve to die, but You died in our stead, dear Jesus, so we could live eternally. The cup bespeaks that cleansing portion--Your life, the pouring out of Your blood that washes away all of our sin. And even though we don't understand in depth the great mystery of this moment, there is something profoundly divine about it because we sense Your presence amongst us this morning, and we thank You for that. Let's take the bread together, shall we? And then the cup. Thank you for Your love. Thank you for Your patience with us, dear God, and for Your mercy that surrounds us, and for Your grace that overflows us today. Thank you. And everybody said...amen. Let's stand and greet one another, shall we?