Communion Message
(The cost of saving others)
June 29, 2003
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 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 blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

Paul tells us that each time we come to the communion table we are reminded of the death and we proclaim the salvation procured by Christ at Calvary. Matthew paints an interest insight to a moment at the cross. He says, the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, " If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, "I am the Son of God."' Thus we have the taunts thrown at the cross -- He saved others; Himself He cannot save.

A little child was brought into a London hospital suffering from a most virulent form of diphtheria. And it was seen that all hope of saving his life lay in one operation, and that was the sucking up by means of a tube of the obstruction in the little boy's throat. Although he knew that death was a great probability the physician, Dr. Samuel Rabbeth, young with a brilliant future opening before him, willingly stooped over the boy and put the tube in his lips and sucked out the poisonous pus. He paid the penalty.

In a day the disease appeared in him; in a week he was dead. The boy lived. This young physician with all his prospects to tempt him from his heroic deed made that decision to save others. He would not save himself.

When we look at the cross of Jesus with this transfigured saying -- He saved others; Himself He cannot save -- in our minds we are lost in wonder and love and praise. We see Jesus dying in perfect willingness. It was not the Roman guard who compelled Him to His cross, and it was not the driven nails that held Him to its beams. Jesus said, I lay down My life of Myself, no man taketh it from me. He also said the cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?

Thus, it behooved Christ to suffer, and we see Him dying for the noblest purpose the human mind can conceive. There is really no other purpose greater than that of the redeeming of man, body, soul, and spirit from the dominion evil, and the restoring of the image of God upon the his fallenness. Every pure purpose among men is but a faint reflection of the holy vocation, only the fulfilling of its service. And we see Him dying in an almost incredible and quite inexhaustible demonstration of love, a love which no wrong could change and a sorrow that no sorrow could quench.

The necessity of His sacrifice of Himself for our salvation touches those infinite mysteries which seem to grow darker the more eager we look into them. If God and man are to be reconciled, if the sense of guilt is to be taken from the human conscience, if the love of God is to be manifested to man, if man is to see and know that God's love for man and His longing this for his holiness are the constant passion of God's heart, then the sacrifice of the cross seems to any man to whom God and His law a reality and absolute supreme necessity.

Millions now living do testify that the sacrifice of Jesus on His cross has done these very things. For them the necessity has been felt in the hours of their holiest experiences and the issue of it that they have been saved; saved from a dark fear of God, from the awful judgment of their sins, from the power of it and the love of it. The consequence which by universal testimony has only one cause and it affirms that cause to be its necessity -- He saved others; Himself He cannot save. It becomes an anthem for redeemed adoring men and women.

I thought much about that taunt -- He saved others; Himself He cannot save -- and I learned that it's one of the sacred aspects of living, one of the great rules of life, to minister to others costs you something. To reach out and help others, to save others, we cannot save ourselves.

I think of this in terms of an experience we had some years ago: Vernita's mother had a stroke and after many weeks in the hospital we brought Grandma home to our home and simply a vegetable. We couldn't talk; she couldn't talk. For one whole year we had a lovely lady move into our home, place her bed beside Grandma's bed, and seven days a week 24 hours a day she poured out her life for Grandma. And all other aspects of living were denied to save and to minister to Grandma she set everything else aside; her own family, her own life.

To save others we cannot save our self. When you think that in terms of this communion service we come to this moment realizing that in order for Jesus to save us, He didn't save Himself. The hymn writer was right, he said, He could have called 10,000 angels to destroy the world and set Him free. But He didn't do it, He died in agony for you and me. To save you and me, He could not save Himself. Now that should bring to our communion service a profound wonder and a deep thanksgiving to our wonderful Christ, to our wonderful Lord. When you kneel with me today I want you to express your gratitude and love to Jesus Christ, that in order to save you, He didn't save Himself. He gave everything. And ladies and gentlemen, because that is true He deserves everything from us. He should be Lord of all of our life, every aspect of it. Let's kneel together, shall we?

Lord Jesus, we come to this beautiful moment in our worship service. We have the joys of blending our voice with the congregation in singing the great expressions of our faith in melody, and we've done that today. In the song that we sang our heart cries out for You, dear God, as the deaf long to hear a song, so our hearts cry out to experience Your presence. But at this moment we hold in our hands these simple but profoundly important elements, the bread and the cup, and You gave them eternal significance dear Jesus when You said that the breads bespeaks of Your precious body and the cup of Your precious blood. And by us partaking we are witnessing, we are proclaiming, our faith in a very visible form, we're saying that we believe with all of our heart dear Jesus, that there on that cross You became the substitute for us. We should have died. We're the ones that sinned, but You died on our behalf so we might be made the righteousness of God.

Lord Jesus, this precious blood, Your precious blood that cleanses us from all sin, is represented in this beautiful cup and thus today we proclaim our faith. You're our Savior, our Lord, our God, our Redeemer, our matchless, wonderful Christ, and we love You today. Let's take the bread together, and then the cup. Lord Jesus we may have allowed this entire week to go by without saying it, but we want to say it now, we love You dear Jesus, we love You, and we thank You for loving us. And everybody said, amen. Let's stand and greet one another, shall we?