Well, we come this morning to the second sacrament of the church, the Lord's Supper. I'd invite you to keep your Bibles open both to Exodus 12 and to Luke 22. We're gonna be referencing these texts this morning. When we think about the sacraments of the church, there are two biblical sacraments of the New Testament church. which are baptism and the Lord's Supper. And we've looked at baptism the last three weeks in respect to the question of why do we baptize our babies? And if you missed any of those lessons, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to them and I can get those to you. But now we turn to the Lord's Supper. And I have to confess that what was going to begin with a one week focus on the Lord's Supper, I think we're going to be covering over three weeks. It was probably perhaps foolish of me to think we could cover the Lord's Supper in just one week and to do any kind of justice to it. So we are going to take three weeks to look at this sacrament. When we think about this sacrament, it is quite amazing to think that it goes back over 3,000 years. If we take it all the way back to the Passover. Now, what kinds of traditions or things do we partake in that have come anywhere close to that kind of antiquity? I cannot think of any. We're born, we die, The next generation is born, it dies. We come and go, but these sacraments of the Lord. go on and on and on as a testament to God's faithful, eternal grace to his people and the communion of saints that we have through our Lord Jesus Christ from every age that by participating in this sacrament, we are participating with the saints of old and the saints yet to be who will come And in this sacrament, we come together as one new man in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a sacrament that is only for those who have received the entrance sacrament of baptism. Just as in the Old Testament, you could only take the Passover if you had been, if you were a male, circumcised and you were a part of a circumcised household. So in both the Old and New Testament, we have an entrance sacrament and a continuing sacrament. And we will see the same thing here over these three weeks as we study the Lord's Supper together. It is a most ancient meal. It is a most sacred meal. It is a mystical participation in the body and blood of Christ. And we'll look more at that part next week. But this morning we're going to look at the historic origins of the Lord's Supper from the teachings of scripture. We are going to first look at the Old Testament foundations. And then we'll look at the New Testament fulfillment. So that'll be the structure of the message this morning. Old Testament foundations and New Testament fulfillment. And the theme this morning will be remember. So you see in your worship folders there, part one, remember. We are going to look at the Lord's Supper as a memorial meal. A feast to remember, a way that we remember our salvation as the people of God, past, present, and to come. So each week in this series, I'm gonna give you a key word so you can kind of remember. And hopefully as we approach the Lord's Supper in the future, you will have these three ideas. So the one word if you wanna take away today is remember. Remember. What is the Lord's Supper? It is a remembrance of our salvation. So let's begin with Old Testament foundations. We begin this ancient practice by being reminded of the covenant of grace that God made to Eve all the way back in Genesis 3, 15, when he said, the seed of Eve will crush the head of the serpent. So Adam and Eve fell into sin and they brought that corruption and sin to the whole creation, including all of mankind that would come from them. But even in their fall, we have a promise of grace. The seed of Eve will crush the head of the serpent. We have this promise. And this promise continues in the book of Genesis to Abraham. God calls Abraham from among the nations and says that in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. And I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. Abraham is called in chapter 15 of Genesis. He is promised many offspring. The Lord tells Abraham, look at the stars in the heavens. And he says that as innumerable as the stars are, so will your offspring be. We have this promise of a people that will come from Abraham And then Abraham is given the sign of that as we looked in week one of our series of why do we baptize babies? That God was called Abraham to give his children the sign of the covenant, the sign of this gospel covenant. However, even in this promised blessing, there is also the promise of suffering. And in Genesis 15, God tells Abraham that for 400 years, his people will be afflicted. He's foretelling of the events that will happen in Exodus, or in, yeah, in Exodus, when God's people are in Egypt, and they begin in prosperity, but they end in cruel slavery and affliction with a Pharaoh, as the text says, who dealt with them ruthlessly. He made their lives bitter and suffering 400 years Think about how far your family goes back. Which of your ancestors can you get to 400 years back? I mean, many of us can't go that far back in our genealogies. So from a human personal perspective, from a human personal perspective, you've been in slavery from time out of mind. So think about that. Slavery, time out of mind. but there's this promise that after 400 years, the Lord said, I will deliver you. And so we come to the events of the Passover. We're in Exodus 12. We're right between the ninth and the 10th plagues. And we're not gonna unpack all of the plagues this morning. I'd encourage you to read. Exodus is a wonderful book. It'll give you the context to this. It'll help you appreciate the Passover better, but we're gonna look in detail in chapter 12 this morning. After 400 years, God promises that Abraham's people will leave with great possessions. But now in the midst of the plagues, all seems dark. Pharaoh will not let God's people go. And what is going to happen? So they're in slavery. The plagues are raging. Pharaoh is raging back in return. And what is going to happen? Well, the Lord speaks to Moses at the start of chapter 12 and says, this month is going to be the beginning of months for you. In other words, God is giving Israel a new calendar all of a sudden. So throw out the calendar you know, this month is now going to be the beginning of months for you. Because something is gonna happen in this month that is gonna be central to your life and existence for all eternity. It's gonna be the thing that will still be sung about when we are all gathered around the throne of grace and glory. It is the beginning of months for you. In other words, Israel's entire life and existence is going to center around this event that is about to transpire. And Moses, or the Lord tells Moses to gather for each household a sacrificial lamb, each house. needs to gather a lamb that will represent and cover their household. God even makes provision for the poor that can't afford a whole lamb that the households together can go together. But this lamb is going to be sacrificed for their salvation. They're going to, at midnight, every one of them slaughter their lamb. They're gonna take the blood of that lamb and paint it on the lintel, which is the top of the door, and then on the two door posts together. So the whole door frame will be covered by the blood of a lamb without blemish. And then they are all to eat of that lamb together. They're participating in the death of the lamb by feasting on it. And the Lord gives Moses a name for this event. It is the Lord's Passover. The Lord's Passover. And in verses 11 to 13 of Exodus 12, we see both. God is going to unleash judgment on Egypt that will result in the death of the firstborn of every male, whether man or beast. But for all those who have the blood of the lamb covering their doorposts, the entrance to their household, the Lord will pass over them. and save them and deliver them. This is the Lord's Passover. In verses 14 to 28, we get more details, but in summary, we see that this Passover is to be a memorial feast throughout their generations. Something to remember God's judgment and salvation From age to age, this is to happen and to go on perpetually. And in 26, verse 26, it says, the Lord says, and when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service? You shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses. It's remarkable to think that even if you were an Israelite and you did not obey this commandment, you would suffer the plague and the judgment of God as well. Israel by themselves, by virtue of being an Israelite, was not enough to be spared the judgment of God that was going to come upon the land. They too needed a mediator. They needed a Passover sacrifice. They needed a substitute that would die in their place. We also see that this meal was not for everybody. This meal was only for those who were circumcised or who were part, if you were female, part of a circumcised household. No foreigner, the text says, shall eat it. And then later on, we're given a qualification. If there be a sojourner among you, that would be a foreigner who wants to partake of it, let him first be circumcised. And then he will be as us. He will become as an Israelite and can partake of this sacrament of grace. So throughout every age in Israel, from the time of the Exodus, to the conquering of the land in the days of Joshua, to the tumultuous period of the Judges, to the days of the united monarchy, to the divided monarchy, to the exile that would come after, right up to the time of Christ, Israel kept the Passover. And I'm sure there are exceptions along the way when they were in rebellion to God, but this was a feast, a memorial feast that reminded them of God's covenant of grace to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to David, to the exiles waiting for their redemption. Every year they would be reminded that God saves his people through the sacrifice of the spotless lamb. So this brings us then to the New Testament fulfillment. In the desert, there cried a voice, prepare ye the way for the Lord. John the Baptist is in the wilderness preparing the way for the Lord. And then one day, the word made flesh, walked out of the crowd, and was baptized by John. Not long later, seeing Jesus, John the Baptist says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And in John's words, we not only see the fulfillment of all that Israel did in the Passover up to this point, We also see the articulation of a far greater enemy than Egypt. Our greatest enemy is not Rome. It's not Herod and his corrupted priestly class and the corrupted temple in Jerusalem. The greatest enemy of God's people is their own sin. Our own sin. And seeing Christ, John says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Our greatest dread should not be any person on this planet, or a political entity, or power, or any force in the heavens or the earth, but God himself. For the wrath of God hangs over creation. And we've seen in biblical history Moments where the wrath of God is poured out even on his own people as they were exiled from their own land. Dealt with them with bitter affliction at times. It was God who sent Assyria to drag away the Northern 10 tribes. Many of whom were drug away with literally with fish hooks in their mouths. Israel, Assyria would chop the hands off of their victors. They would kill the kings in front of their people. And if we read Isaiah, which we will not go in this morning, it is God who's doing these things. We have exile, we have affliction. And at the end of days, hell. which Jesus ascribes as the eternal fire, Gehenna, the fire that burns outside of the camp. That should be our greatest fear. And it is not undeserved because the scriptures are clear concerning the wickedness of our hearts. Jeremiah 17, nine, we're told that the heart is deceitful above all things. It is desperately sick. So much that Jeremiah simply ends saying, who can understand it? Who can understand the corruption of our hearts? We're deserving of this wrath also because of the waywardness of our affections. Israel and many times is called a whore by the prophets, by the Lord, through the prophets, that they have been faithless to God and have gone off after other idols. They've prostituted themselves to gods that are not gods. The things made with hands and to people and foreign powers. In Romans 3, we are reminded that no one is righteous. No, not one. No one seeks God. We are so far gone that we don't even have the ability to seek God without God first doing a work of grace in our hearts. So in other words, in this situation that we as a sinner find ourselves in, we are, to use Paul's words in Ephesians, without hope and without God. Total darkness, without hope and without God in this world. And later, or elsewhere, he says that we are dead in our transgressions and sins. We are dead. There's nothing you can do for a dead person. They're dead. They're rotting. They're returning to dust. And their souls before the judgment of God. The greatest enemy we face is not a political enemy. It's not a relation of ours. It's not a boss. It's our own sin and the wrath of God that awaits us as sinners. But God, as Paul says, but by God's grace, this would be our eternal destiny. But God in his goodness and grace sent his own son that we might be spared from God's wrath and adopted as his child. Paul says in Romans 5, while we were still sinners, but while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have been justified by his blood, Much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. Paul knows full well what our greatest fear should be, as well as full well what our only means of escape is. And that is the sovereign covenant electing God, who in his grace has called us from the nations And he called his people from the Jews. He made one new man in the place of two and is building up, building us together as a holy temple in the Lord. And that that dividing wall of hostility was torn down by the flesh of Christ. So that both our barrier to God and our barrier to man has been torn down because of the blood of the lamb. And so that leads us then to the Lord's Supper, when in Luke 22, Jesus says, do this in remembrance of me. And these thousands of years after the inception of the Passover, the Word made flesh who came to dwell among us, arose on the day of unleavened bread, Now on the day of the Passover, the day that the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed, and he told his disciples to prepare for the Passover. But something unlike any other Passover that has ever happened was about to happen. Jesus was going to show that the fulfillment of this ancient sacrament, would be in himself. And it would be transformed and yet continued until he comes again in his kingdom. Christ is the greater Lamb. But again, even as the promise to Abraham, the man of faith, promised amazing and wonderful things, His people would go through a period of affliction. And on our behalf, the same is true for Christ, who though He's going to fulfill this Passover, it's going to be through betrayal and through crucifixion. Indeed, the betrayal of one of His own. We actually sing about that. When we sing Psalms, like we have this month, when we sing Psalm 41, Even my familiar friend has lifted up his heel and Christ would be betrayed by one of his own disciples. He would be brought through a kangaroo court and he would be tried for sins he never committed. But all of this is in keeping with Christ. needing to take our place by literally taking on flesh in the incarnation and to live the life we should have lived and to pay the penalty that we deserve. He bore the wrath in our place. As we say in the Apostles Creed, he was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. So in verses 14 to 20 of Luke chapter 22, we have the introduction, the institution of the Lord's supper. And I think it'd be good to read it again and then meditate on a few points. And when the hour came, he reclined at table and the apostles with him. And he said to them, I've earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took a cup and when he had given thanks, he said, take this and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.' And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' And likewise, the cup after they had eaten, saying, this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table. For the son of man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed. And they began to question one another, which of them it could be who was going to do this. We see three things that I wanna highlight briefly here in this memorial feast. Three things that we can remember when we participate in the Lord's Supper today. Number one, the passion. The passion. Passion is the Latin word for the sufferings, crucifixion of Christ. The passion. When we participate in the Lord's Supper, we remember that Jesus's body was broken for his people, broken for us. It was a body sacrificed. When we drink of the cup, we are reminded this was his blood that he poured out for us. So principally when we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we are reminded of the passion of Jesus, his death, his burial, his trial, his betrayal, all of these elements. the passion. I'll give you another P for number two. The promise. When we partake of the Lord's Supper, we are reminded of the promise. That is God's covenant promise. Even all the way back to Genesis 3, as we said, and to Genesis 12 and 15 and 17, to the Exodus. and on, we are reminded of God's covenant promises, covenant faithfulness to his people from age to age, far before we ever existed. And it will continue far after we go to our children and our children's children, we pray to the third and fourth generation. So we remember the passion, we remember the promise. And then lastly, number three, the perusia, the perusia, this is a Greek word, this P-A-R-O-U-S-I-A, which is Greek for the revelation, the appearing, the coming, the coming of Christ. When here he tells his disciples, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. See that in verse 16 or in Matthew 26, 29, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom. So we remember these three things, the passion, the promise, and the parousia when we celebrate the Lord's supper together. It is truly a memorial feast that looks to the past, to what God has done, to the present, to what God is doing right now, even as we participate in the Lord's Supper and what God will do. So it is a memorial feast, the thing for us to remember for God's covenant grace, past, present, and future. So what is the Lord's Supper in summary? Well, in part number one today, we've seen that the Lord's Supper is a memorial meal. It is a feast in which we can remember God's grace to us in Christ. It's part of the covenant given ages ago, and that will be fulfilled at the return of our Lord. Next week, we are going to look at the Lord's Supper as a mystical communion with the body and blood of Christ. And I hope that's an enticing enough statement to get you back here next week. What do we mean by the Lord's Supper being a mystical participation in the body and blood of Christ? But until then, let's remember the covenant grace of our God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray.