Communion Message
(The heart and center of the Christian message)
February 24, 2002
Pastor Donald Sheley

For I have received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night on 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.

Paul reminds us that each time we participate in communion we're telling once again the wonderful story of the cross. We proclaim His death until He comes again.

Many years ago there was a wonderful, godly pastor named Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones, who served a beautiful church, Westminster Chapel, in downtown London. Before going into the ministry he had been a surgeon. He committed his life to ministry and became one of the great preachers of the last century.

He decided one day he was going to preach a series of messages on the cross to his London congregation, and he chose as his theme text: But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

And that great old preacher began his series on the cross with these words: The preaching of the cross, the preaching of the death of Jesus Christ on that cross, is the very heart and center of the Christian gospel and the Christian message. If you and I want to know what the message of the Christian church is, surely the thing for us to do is to go back to the beginning. How did the Christian church begin? What was the message?

This is what they preached, the apostles, and they did so in spite of the fact that it was not a popular message. The preaching of the cross has never been popular. It's not popular today. It never has been. The preaching of the cross was a stumbling block to the Jews. It was foolishness to the Greeks, and Paul says as many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised. And this is their reason; lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.

The preaching of the cross of Christ has always lead to persecution. Earlier in the same epistle the apostle speaks of what he describes as the offense of the cross. It's always been offensive to people. They did not like in the first century -- the Jews did not, the Greeks did not, nobody like it.

Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that it was not liked and that it was thoroughly unpopular, this was the very thing that all the apostles preached. They went on preaching and eventually suffered martyrdom and death because they insisted that the cross be the center of their preaching.

This then establishes the fact that it was the center and the heart of their message, and there's nothing that I know that is more important than everyone of us should realize that this is still the heart and center of the Christian message.

Now the old preacher said, now at the risk of being misunderstood I will put it like this, it is not primarily the teaching of the Lord that was the center of the preaching of the early church. According to the apostle Paul, the first need was the cross. So they did not preach His teaching.

Paul does not say, God forbid that I should glory, save in the Sermon on the Mount. Or God forbid that I should glory, save in the ethical teachings of Jesus. He doesn't say that even though they're extremely important. He said that the heart and the center of the Christian message is the cross. So what they preached was His death upon that cross and the meaning of that event.

The old preacher in his sermon series went through the life of Jesus Christ and he observed that the heart beat of Jesus was His focus on the cross. He had set His heart, His focus, on Jerusalem and there to die, and then He would rise again. But the heart beat of Jesus was the heart beat of the cross.

You journey on into the writings of the apostle Paul, and Paul again, when you boil it all down, his theme was always the cross. God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. It always has been, is today, the very center of our Christian faith. That's why here at our church in the middle of every worship service on the Lord's Day we drive the cross right in the center of the worship.

It was at the cross where your sins and mine were atoned for. It was at the cross the penalty was paid by Christ for our sins, and that penalty was death. He died so we could live forever with Him. It was at the cross we learned of a love beyond the description of human tongue, a love for the unlovely, including us, a love that is everlasting and ever lasts.

The old hymn writer says: At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light and the burden of my heart rolled away. It was there by faith I received my sight, and now I am happy all the day!

The cross is still the center, and it's the cross you need today. If you're here and you've never turned your life over to Jesus Christ, now is the moment for you to do that as you kneel with us in a moments time. Just say, Jesus, I'm here in this church today and my heart is wide open to You, and I want You to be my Savior today.

We all come to the cross because none of us claim one ounce or one degree of perfection. We all sin. I've sinned this week. I've said things I shouldn't have said. I thought thoughts I shouldn't have thought, and I come to this cross with you. I come to this moment and I need God's forgiveness.

He that saith, he hath not sinned, is a liar, and the truth is not in Him, said John. But he said, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It's a precious moment. Let's kneel in His presence, shall we?

Lord Jesus, although we are 2000 years removed from that scene of Calvary, yet the impact of Your love still touches the world today, and it has touched our lives. Some of us lived in sin for a long time. We still bear its scars. But when we came to You, You forgave us. You made us a part of Your eternal family. You cleansed us by Your precious blood of all of our sin.

There are those who kneel with us even now, who come to You, dear Jesus, their hearts are open. They came to church today searching. You really are their answer. Make Yourself, by Your precious Holy Spirit, very real to them now. All of us come to this moment needing Your forgiveness because our lives have not been perfect. We need Your grace. I need Your forgiveness.

I'm sorry Lord Jesus I hurt Your heart, but I hold the evidence of Your love for me in my hands in the emblems that I hold, for they tell me so profoundly that in Your body, which is represented by the bread, You became the substitute for me, and in the shedding of Your blood, which is represented in the cup, I have cleansing for all of my sins. I know that and I'm grateful for it. And I'm thankful that You love me dear Jesus.

So why take these emblems, simple as they are, yet eternally significant in their eternal meaning. Let's take the bread together, shall we? And then the cup. We linger for a moment in Your presence, dear Jesus, for it's here at the cross we found peace. It's here at the cross our burdens have been lifted, and it's because of the cross we're going to live eternally with You in heaven. Thank you, thank you very much. And everybody said, amen. Let's stand and greet the folks that are nearby, shall we?