About a week ago, week and a half ago, we were there in San
Francisco, and we wanted to do something for the community and we didn't have
anything else scheduled for Sunday so we joined a local church, and we joined a
group who were going to distribute food to homeless people down in downtown San
Francisco. And so we gathered at the
church and made up all kinds of sandwiches out of good wholesome bread and good
ingredients. Fresh tomatoes and
different things and got them all ready and packed up all these bags and then
we went out and we drove clear down into the portions of San Francisco where
there were lots of homeless people.
And we found hundreds of these people. A lot of them live in cardboard boxes or little shelters or
alcoves of a store but a lot of them live in cars and all their possessions are
right there in that car. And that's all
they own. Now some of them were
executives. They lost their job. Their company was moved to India or China,
and so then because they couldn't make the house payments they lost their house
and here they were living in the car. No
money, no job, and so we would knock on the window of the car and they'd roll down
the window. “Are you hungry?” “I'm starved.” So we gave them food and we saw lots of homeless people and we
distributed two truckloads of food, and that was just an awesome experience,
and I stood there thinking after the food was gone. “Had we really made a difference?” I don't think so. I got
this strange feeling that all I had done is feed them for one meal, and they
would be hungry again at supper time, and what had we really accomplished? Maybe we should have trained them on how to
get food or, I don't know. Our
literature was all gone. The food was
all gone and I stood there and I thought, “You know, I really didn't help
anybody.” All that I had done was
temporary. Their hunger would soon be
back.
And I wonder if Jesus felt that way. Remember Jesus fed the 5 thousand, and they were probably hungry
again in a few hours. It was just
temporary, what He had done. The Jews
ate His bread, but they didn't really fully believe in Him. They were hungry the next day, and manna
sustained the children of Israel for how many years? 40 years, they ate manna.
They had baked manna, boiled manna, fried manna, pickled manna, dried
manna, manna soup, manna casserole, manna cookies and pineapple upside down
manna. But what good did all that
do? They all, eventually, died. God's manna did help, but it was just
temporary.
And today in our Communion service we have three symbols of
Jesus. Three ingredients here. On our table here today there are how many
ingredients? There are two. The bread and the cup. The wine.
The grape juice. And then we
have a third ingredient that is going to contact you today, and impact you, and
that is water. All three of these are
symbols of Jesus and they are the water, the wheat and the wine, and we are
going to make contact with these three ingredients in two areas of our
body. One would be your feet, and the
other would be your mouth. In other
words, you will be impacted from head to toe, and that's the way Jesus wants to
impact every one of us is from head to toe.
Totally. That's what baptism
is. Total immersion. That's what this Communion service is. Head to toe.
Now let's examine the middle of the sandwich of water, wheat and
wine. Let's examine the bread. So come over here in the book of John in the
New Testament. John, chapter 6, and I
would look for us to look at verse 35.
Now if you were dying and somebody said, “You know, in two hours you're
going to be dead.” And you think, “I
want to spend the last two hours reading the Bible, I guess.” What would you read? If I had a red letter Bible I would read the
words of Jesus. I think that's what I
would do. If I didn't I think I would
read the Gospel of John. But look here,
these letters, probably are red in your Bible.
Verse 35, Jesus said, “I am the”
what? “The
Bread of” what? “The Bread of Life, and he who comes to Me will never hunger,
and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”
He said, “I am the Bread of Life.” Now we don't really believe that we are
going to partake of His body today, do we?
That's called trans-substantiation.
The Roman Catholics believe in that.
They believe that when they're partaking in the Communion service they
are actually eating a chunk of the body, the actual body, of Jesus Christ. The Lutherans don't believe in that. The Lutherans believe in
trans-substantiation that as soon as you swallow it and it hits your stomach,
then[snap] it becomes a part of the body of Christ. Seventh-day Adventists believe it's a symbol of the body of
Christ.
Now, I think we misinterpret verse 35 where Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life and whoever comes to Me will never
hunger.” I think we misinterpret
that. We say that once you eat of the
Bread of Life you will never again be hungry, and that's not true, because I
hunger for more of Jesus everyday, don't you?
I think what it means is that once you taste Jesus, you will never
hunger for anything else. That Jesus
will be the primary hunger of your life.
The primary thirst of your life.
The old appetites will be quelled and you will crave more and more of
Jesus.
Now let me illustrate what I mean by this. Let's suppose that I was raised eating
boiled okra. Praise God I wasn't! My!
But let's suppose that I was raised eating that wretched stuff. And then one day, one wonderful day, I see
for the very first time in my life, a moist, freshly baked chocolate cake, and
somebody has a knife in their hand and they're cutting that cake and they take
a clean plate and they put on there a nice sized slab of that cake, onto my
plate. And they hand me a pretty clean
fork, and that thing is just out of the oven and I take that fork and I cut
through that moist, warm slice of chocolate cake, and I put it up to my mouth
and I eat it. Let me tell you right
there, at that moment[snap], my tastes have forever been altered.
Once you really taste Jesus Christ the desires for the old slimy
stuff of the former life die away. And
every day you're going to want more of the new taste, the new Jesus into your
life. Those old things aren't as tasty
anymore. You have discovered something
great. You have discovered Jesus.
Jesus tells us how often we should eat of this Bread. He says, “I am the
Bread of Life.” How often should
you do this? Once a quarter, here at
church? What do you think? The Communion service, once a quarter. “I am the Bread of
Life.” Well He tells us here in
Matthew, chapter 6, in verse 11, you can read this, you are very familiar with
these words. It's actually in the
Lord's prayer. He says, “Give us this day our” what kind of bread? “Our daily bread.” Every day you're supposed to eat chocolate
ca-- well, you're supposed to eat of Jesus, the Bread of Life. The Bread of Life. He’s fresh out of the oven.
He's fresh every day. As often
as you can you're going to desire to taste Jesus.
I read a quotation from Patriarchs and Prophets, page 596. Sister White says, “It is a law of the
mind.” Now listen to this. “It is a law of the mind that it gradually
adapts itself to the subjects upon which it is trained to dwell.” Did you know that? You train yourself to watch these midday afternoon TV soap operas
and you will be hungry for that type of stuff.
You train yourself to feed on the word of God and you will develop a
hunger for spiritual things. That's
what it's all about. “Give us this day our daily bread.” Look forward to that bread. Look forward to the Communion service. Look forward to Jesus. Keep feeding on the Bread of Life. Do it every day. Jesus is the wholesome, fresh, Bread of Life. He is the staff of life.
Look at verse 51 in John 6.
He says here, “I am the Living Bread.” Imagine having a loaf of bread that's
alive. “I am
the living bread that came down from heaven, and if a man eats of this bread,
he will” do what? “He will live,” how long? He’ll live forever. Don't
you wish you had some of that bread?
You can, because the bread is Jesus, and you can partake of Jesus Christ
and you can live forever. You will live
forever, if you do that.
The tree of life. How
far is the tree of life from Collegedale?
It's probably 5 thousand trillion zillion light-years away. It's a long way from here, so you say,
“Well, I can’t even get a taste of the tree of life,” but you can eat of Jesus,
the Bread of Life. You can do that, and
you can do it every day. He says He is
the daily Bread. So I urge you every
day to take one of these leaves of the tree of life, to eat of this Bread of
Life, to immerse yourself in the Bread of Life, to make sure that Jesus Christ
is the Lord of your life and develop a taste for Him.
We are going to, at this time, partake of the
Communion service. First of all, we are
going to divide into separate groups.
In the Seventh-day Adventist church we believe in the whole Communion
service, where Jesus washed their feet and then they had the meal. And so we wash one another's feet, and I
look forward to that. We have an area
where we will be dividing in just a minute.
We're going to have the ladies go to one area, the men to another area
or if you are a couple there's an area for you, for couples. There are signs on every door. Our deacons have set up and our deaconesses
are ready and so before we separate, what we would like to do is just bow our
heads because we want to invite Jesus’ presence.
I'm reading from First Corinthians, chapter
11, verse 23 to 26. “The Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed
took bread, and when He had given thanks He took of 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.” I’d like to invite all those who can, as far as possible, to
please kneel as we
pray over the bread and wine.
I would like for you to consider these two symbols of Jesus
Christ, and I would like for you to consider first of all the bread. Jesus said, “I am
the Bread of Life.” Now you
don't need the Bread of Life to pay for your sins. You are fully capable of paying for your own sins, if you give
your body to be broken. And you could
pay for your sins, but there would be nothing left, because the wages of sin is
death and you could give that, but then you wouldn't have anything left. But there's no need to pay for your own
sins, because Jesus has paid for them free.
I would rather be covered with His robe than covered with my robe. My robe won't give me eternal life. His will.
So considering the bread Jesus said, “Take eat,
this is my body.”
Then considering the cup.
The Bible says without the shedding of blood there is no what? No remission of sins. Could you pay for your own sins with your
blood? I suppose you could. Some people choose to do that. But they don't have eternal life. How much better to choose Jesus’ blood. Only Jesus’ blood can give us eternal
life. Ours never can. So I want Him to pay for my sins and give me
eternal life, which only He can do, and this cup is a symbol of the blood of
Jesus Christ and Jesus said, "Drink ye all of
it."
The Bible says they sung a hymn, and they went out to the Mount
of Olives. A mountaintop
experience. After you know Jesus has
paid for your sins with His body and His blood, anything from here is a
mountaintop experience.
There have been a number of people in our church that have lost
their jobs. They can't sell their
house, and they’re in a bad condition, so the deacons will be at the doors as
you go out and if you can and if you want to, you can drop something in the
offering plate to help those people.
Let’s sing our closing hymn now.
Hymn of Praise: #230 All Glory, Laud, and Honor Scripture: Luke 22:19,20 Hymn of Response: #407 Sent Forth by God's Blessing
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McDonald Road Sermon transcribed by Steve Foster 10/10/08