SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, hello. Good morning, church. Uh, how's everyone doing? Uh okay. Well, hi. For for any of you in the room who may not know me, my name is Dwight. I am the Glindell student pastor. So excited to be here with you guys. Thank you. Thank you, Sigil students. Um, man, if you're new or visiting us, we've been doing a collection of talks titled What's the Deal With? uh where we've decided to take a look at different core or foundational subjects within Christianity. And man, we've just decided to talk about it. So far, we've addressed what's the deal with uh the Holy Spirit, what's the deal with the Trinity, what's the deal with prayer, baptism, the Bible, and the resurrection of Jesus. And today is no different. Today we're gonna keep it pushing, and today we're going to talk about what's the deal with the importance of communion. So, with that in mind, if you haven't had a chance to grab the communion elements and you would like to do so, you can head to the back of the room. We have communion uh baskets back there where you can grab them. Um, as some of you are making your way to grabbing the communion elements, uh, I want to let you know that today we're gonna be reading Luke chapter 22, verses 13 through 20. As you're finding Luke 22 in your Bibles, uh, a couple fun facts I would love to share with you. Fun fact number one is I am the oldest out of nine siblings, and I'm also one of the shortest. Um, fun fact number two, my wife Sarah, uh, her and I have been married for eight going on nine years. Uh we have two kids, Miles and Viviana. I like to call my daughter Aunt Viv, like from Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Um, and then the last one, but certainly not least, is uh I've been involved in student ministries for over a decade now. And I absolutely love it. Like, shout out to any of my youth leaders in the room. Like, man, you guys and Jesus make student ministries as impactful as it is. Okay, Luke 22. I hope you're there. Ready or not? Here I go. Verse 13 they left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover. When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table, and he said to them, I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God. After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took the bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, after the supper, he took the cup, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. This morning, I want to title this message, You Remember What You Celebrate. I'll say that again, you remember what you celebrate. All right, church, I gotta be honest with you guys. My my birthday, right? Like something I've celebrated for over 33 years. Yes, I am over 33 years old. And yes, I know what some of you guys are thinking. He looks good for his age. Thank you. Um, but my birthday, my birthday, uh, to be honest, it's it's something I've just I've developed a complicated relationship with throughout the years. Um, let me explain. The days leading up to my birthday, the day of my birthday, and even the days following my birthday, I would experience something that would feel a lot like seasonal depression. Okay? And I wouldn't understand why. If you were to ask me, like, Dwight, why is that? Right? Like, why do you feel the way that you do? I wouldn't have a great answer to give you. All I would say is that, man, for some weird reason, surrounding my birthdays, it's like the days leading up to the day of, and even the days following, man, I just feel low. Like if there was a Bible verse to best describe my feelings surrounding my birthday, it would have to be Psalm 42, verse 5. Right? Psalm 42, verse 5 says this, why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Almost like clockwork, I would start asking questions that I already know the answers to, questions similar to George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life. Questions like, Man, God, would anybody miss me if I wasn't here? Or Lord, am I actually making a difference? Or how about this? I know I'm not the only one who's asked this question. Like, God, out of the billions and billions of people that are here on planet Earth, like God, do you actually see me? And even more than that, God, do you care to provide for me? It wasn't until after several years of enduring this that I thought about doing some research as to why. Like, Dwight, why do you have such big feelings surrounding your birthday? So I did some research, and this is what I found. Fun fact number one is I found that my birthday just so happens to fall within one of the days in the winter months. So the days are shorter, the nights are longer, and that can really mess with your boy's sleep and mood. Number two, I didn't realize this, but I was vitamin D deficient. I didn't know that, I didn't know this, but according to the National Library of Health and Medicine, 70 to 80 percent of African Americans suffer from a vitamin D deficiency. And that can also mess with your sleep and mood as well. Timeout, real quick. Did you guys know that Arizona is the sunniest state in the country? So I thought if I just went outside, like I would get enough vitamin D and that would be a done deal. My body was like, uh-uh, like you need to take some supplements as well. But this is the last one, it's the most important one. One word, information. It's information. I was missing vital information surrounding my origin story and my birth that would forever change the way I would relate to and even celebrate my birthday whenever I entered this funk. I said it before and I'll say it again. You remember what you celebrate. So the reality is, the reality is that good, accurate, sufficient information is vital to any celebration. Like, don't miss this. You and I, we cannot celebrate without information regarding what we're trying to celebrate. Don't believe me? Is anyone, I'll give you an example. Does anyone in the room remember the first time you took communion? Anyone? Because I don't. Like, I some of my earliest memories surrounding the first time I took communion was like when I was in the second grade. I went to a church service similar to this. Pastor walked on stage, he said, take this juice, it represents Jesus' blood. Take the cracker. And I was like, man, it's snack time? This is awesome. I didn't realize church gave out snacks. Here's the thing I was missing. The thing I was missing was vital information that that um that prevented me from truly appreciating what communion was. And it wasn't until I was a little older, and it wasn't until someone had pulled me aside and explained to me what communion actually was that I was able to better appreciate it and celebrate uh communion in a meaningful way. See, to many Christians in the room, man, communion has become robotic and ritualistic. Like it's just something that we do at a very small part in our service, right before the message, and definitely before we head out to our lunch plans or dinner plans. To others, communion is just something that you've always done, right? Maybe your parents took you to mass as a kid or you grew up in Iwana and you're like, yeah, I've just always done this. And yet, to some of you who are just now starting out your faith journey, man, you walk into this place and you don't know what to do, but for some reason you feel compelled to take communion because you don't want to be disrespectful to God. You don't want to be disrespectful to anyone else in the room. So what do you do? You decide to take communion. For whatever reasons that you're here to take communion, I don't want to hate on it. I just want to, I just want to give you some information. Like I tell my students this all the time that God wants us to love him with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our strength. And yes, even with all of our mind. So it's super important for us to be informed as to what communion is, so that it just doesn't become another checklist of things to do, but it becomes our true act of worship. Central, please hear me when I say this that God wants you to worship and celebrate Jesus through communion. And because he wants that for you, God wants to inform you of what communion actually is. You and I, you and I remember what we celebrate, right? So if you and I uh are going to do that through communion, there are some things we need to keep in mind. The very first one is this that there are several variables or aspects that go into any celebration. Like when people think of a celebration, they often stop at party, people, gifts, places. However, I don't believe that those are the two most important parts of any celebration. See, I believe that the most important components to any celebration or the most underrated uh or unappreciated components of any celebration is information and acknowledgement. I'll say it again. Information and acknowledgement. Like without either of these two variables, you and I don't have something to celebrate. For some of you who feel caught up in a robotic and stagnant place in your relationship with God and to commute and to you, communion is just something that you do out of obligation instead of out of love. Man, for those of you in the room, I want to give you a 30,000-foot view of what communion is so that it will change your relationship with it. So, with that in mind, I want us to take another look at Luke 22, verse 13 and 14. This is what it says they left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover. When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles were climbed at the table, and he said to them, I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. Okay, let's stop right there. I want to highlight rhythms of communion and frequency. Like, how often should we be taking communion? I want to I want to answer this question by taking a look at this thing called Passover. See, Jesus is eager to celebrate uh Passover, celebrate and participate in Passover with his disciples. Now, Passover was an annual or yearly festival that the people of Israel would celebrate and participate in every year. I want you to think of Christmas but on steroids. No, seriously, think Christmas, but on steroids. We celebrate Christmas one day, but the people of Israel, how they would have celebrated Passover was for an entire week. Like imagine an entire week of no work. You're just reflecting and sitting and celebrating on what God has done. So for roughly 1300 to 1500 years before Jesus had celebrated Passover with his disciples and Luke 22, God commanded the people of Israel to celebrate Passover yearly as an act of remembrance and celebration for God delivering his people from enslavement in Egypt and bringing them into the promised land. This isn't too different from why Christians celebrate Easter, right? Like when we celebrate Easter, we celebrate Jesus coming to earth and to uh dying on the cross and delivering us from enslavement to sin uh through his death and resurrection. However, uh Israelites would have celebrated Passover to celebrate God delivering them from physical enslavement and bringing them to a physical promised land. So why is it called Passover? It's called Passover because in Exodus, when the people of Israel were experiencing slavery and mistreatment at the hands of the Egyptians, they were having what I would like to call a Dwight Crocker and a George Bailey from it's a wonderful life moment. Like an oh God, like where are you? Oh God, out of the billions and billions of people that are here on planet earth, like God, do you see me? And even more than that, God, do you do you even care enough to fulfill the promises that you made to my grandparents a long time ago? And will you provide a way out for me? Will you provide for me in this place of enslavement? So, what got what does God do? God desiring to lead his people, uh, leading the people of Israel out of slavery and into freedom. Man, God starts that process. And unfortunately for Israel, their oppressors stood in their way, attempting to prevent their freedom from even happening. So, what does God tell Israel to do? See, God tells the people of Israel to paint their doorposts with the blood of a lamb. He said, I want you to go find a spotless lamb, take it, uh, sacrifice it, and paint the doorposts of your homes with its blood, so that when my judgment goes throughout Egypt, it will pass over your homes and go on to the next. It's kind of weird, right? Well, not really when you think about it. See, last weekend we acknowledged Memorial Day weekend. Uh, by informing some of you uh about what about Memorial Weekend and what it was, but even more than that, we chose to acknowledge and appreciate the ultimate sacrifice that many men and women have made for us to experience the freedoms that we get to enjoy today. Truth is, church, is that that sacrifice, like to purchase one's freedom for another is no different in Christianity. Dare I say that our country got this idea and got this concept of a person sacrificing their freedom and their life for another. Man, we got all of that from Jesus. I want you to listen to what Jesus says in John 15, verse 13. He says, This greater love is no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friend. Friends, Jesus is the Lamb who laid down his life for you. I love how Jesus' cousin, John the Baptist, puts it. He's being inspired by the Holy Spirit and he says this about Jesus. Look at what it says in John 1.29. It says, the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Look, it's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Here's what you and I need to know. Here's what we need to know. We need to know is that God wanted his people to celebrate what he had done so they wouldn't forget his love and commitment towards them. So what does God do? God tells the people of Israel, he says, I want you to celebrate this every single year so that you will not forget that if I rocked with your ancestors back then, I'll still rock with you today. Like if I showed up and I was faithful for them back then, I'll show up and be faithful for you today. And what God is hoping that they would understand is, hey, as you go through these rhythms of celebrating and reflecting on what I did, you will not forget that I am for you and not against you. So that brings me to the question I started with. Communion, uh rhythms, and frequency. How often should we do this? And to that, man, I would say, however often you need to be reminded, however often you need to be reminded that God is for you and not against you, that God loves you, that he sees you wherever you are, like however often that you are tempted to forget, that you're experiencing doubt, man, it's a great moment to lean into communion, especially, especially when you're tempted to believe that God doesn't see you and that God doesn't care enough to provide for you. See, God thought it was necessary for Israel to celebrate Passover yearly, to be reminded of what he did back then yearly. Because similar, similarly, you and I, like you and I, we are, they are prone to forgetfulness. So here's the deal. Since you're I won't speak for our entire church, but I will speak for myself. Like I need to be reminded at least every week that Jesus has freed me from my old way of living, and that Jesus died for me, and just as just as he has died for me, like I too should also die to my old way of living. Said it before, and I'll say it again. You remember what you celebrate. Or dare I say, you celebrate what you want to remember. So why do we want to remember the juice and the bread? That brings us to Luke 22, verse 19. Let's start with the bread. This is what it says. And Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, This, don't miss this. This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Okay, let's stop right there. At the Passover dinner, Jesus and his disciples shared what would have been Jesus' last meal he would have before his death and resurrection. And Jesus chose for his disciples to eat uh foods that would engage with their senses, right? Like that would engage with their taste buds to remind them of God's faithfulness. I love how managing editor Scott Hubbard with Desiring God explains the importance of bread and wine in communion. This is what he says. At the most basic level, bread and wine sustained the life of God's people, as seen in Genesis 27, 28, and Leviticus chapter 26, verse 26. Says both were staples of Israel's diet. Bread because of the simplicity and reliability of grain, and wine because water could be so scarce in the ancient Near East. Central, here's what you need to know is that bread in the Bible often symbolizes God's provision and life. Like to better understand this, we're gonna have to talk about Passover just one more time. See, during Israel's exodus from Egypt, the Israelites would have had to leave behind anything, uh any unprepared bread, which would have been beneficial for sustaining strength and life during their journey from slavery and into the promised land. So when God tells these ancient Jews living in slavery, and he goes, Hey guys, it's time to go, what he was really saying behind that is he was saying, Hey, you don't have any time to wait until your food is done preparing. What God was trying to get them to do is he was forcing the Israelites' hands. He was essentially saying to them, he's saying, Hey, I need you to trust in me and me alone. You've leaned into some old things that sustained your life in slavery, and I want you to lean into me as I lead you from slavery and into the promised land. And he's forcing them to trust in him. This is huge. Because for many of the Israelites, all they've ever known is living hand foot or hand to mouth to the uh Egyptians, but now they're having to live in true trust and dependency on God. The beauty of this is that Jesus models this. Like he doesn't tell us to do things and doesn't expect to follow through on it himself, but Jesus models this for himself in Matthew chapter 4, when he, after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, is tempted by Satan to turn stone into bread. And listen to what Jesus tells Satan. He says this it is not good for man to live on bread alone, but to live off of every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. What is Jesus saying? What Jesus is saying is, hey, I'm I'm gonna depend on my heavenly father to provide for all of my needs. I'm not gonna depend on anyone else or anything else except for my heavenly father to sustain me. And essentially what Jesus is trying to get you and I to understand is, man, if we have Jesus, then we have all that we need to live this life out well. That's why Jesus also calls himself and John. In the Gospel of John, he says, I am the bread of life. So for a lot of people who are leaning into external metrics or external things in order to sustain them and get them from today into tomorrow, what Jesus has for you is he's essentially telling you, hey, if you lean into me, then you have all that you will ever need. And here's the beauty, here's the beauty of it all is that when you and I take the bread, essentially what we're reminding our souls and what we're forcing our souls to choose to acknowledge is that if we have Jesus, then we have everything that we need. I love what the apostle Paul says in Ephesians 1, verse 3. He says, This praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. See, Jesus' body, which was broken for our sin. Man, Jesus' body that was broken for our sins, it provided us a chance to permanently have clean hands, pure hearts, and a right standing with God. I'll say that again for the back, right? Like Jesus, when his body was broken on our behalf, what he was doing is he was permanently giving us clean hands, pure hearts, and a right standing with God so that we don't have to worry about tomorrow if we mess up again. Jesus is like, no, I already paid for it all. Past, present, and future. So when we take the communion element of the bread, what we're essentially acknowledging is that Jesus has done all of the work and you and I can enter his rest. We don't have to strive. The juice represents the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God that uh being poured out for the sins of the world, for your sins and for mine. For those of us who believe in Jesus, for those of us who have placed our trust in Jesus, the juice represents Jesus' sacrifice being painted over the doorpost of our souls. So when the judgment of God comes into this world, it will pass over us. And the reality is, is for some of you in the room who have yet to believe in Jesus, please know that it's our greatest desire that you would receive Him, that you would accept Him, so that when God's judgment comes into the world, it'll pass over your souls, and all you will experience in this life is God's grace, his forgiveness, his love, and knowing that he is here with you no matter whatever it is that you're going through. It's available. All you have to do is believe. Said it before. Now say it again. You remember what you celebrate. So when we take communion, so so we take communion often because we need to be reminded often of Jesus' sacrifice. We need to celebrate Jesus' sacrifice. We need to inform our souls, we need to force our souls to acknowledge that the freedom that we got that we get to experience that Jesus has purchased for us, it came out at such a high price so that this truth. Would change us, and even more than that, it would transform us, especially when we're experiencing doubt. Temptation. Earlier today, I told you that I had a complicated relationship with my birthday. And I want to share with you the piece of information that changed how I would forever view a relationship with my birthday, even when I entered into a function. In May 1992. I didn't know this, but my mom found out that she was pregnant with me. She was 18 years old. She was about to finish her freshman year of high school. The month before she thought she was having a night of fun. Little did she know that she wouldn't wind up pregnant a month later. So what does she do? She picks up the phone, she calls my dad. She lets him know, hey, I'm pregnant. My father's response to her. The child is not mine. My mom is a gangster. GG, don't cross her. My mom essentially was like, hey, you don't tell me that. She proceeds to curse him out and then hangs up the phone. She turns around and then goes to her parents. Hey, mom, dad, I'm pregnant. Their response was very visceral. You're ruining your life. You cannot have a kid. You barely know how to take care of yourself. How are you gonna expect to take care of a child? Their conversation reaches a tipping point. Where her parents say, Hey, you need to have an abortion. My mom is confused, she's like, I don't know what to do. Should I do this? Should I not? I don't, I don't know. And they're like, no, you need to have it. They're like, but this doesn't feel right. You need to have it. You did it before, you can do it again. You need to have this abortion. As a matter of fact, we're gonna schedule the abortion for you. So they end up doing it. They schedule it on a Monday. My mom stumbles into a church on a Sunday. And this is something that's phenomenal. It just so happens to be Mother's Day weekend. My mom is barely four weeks pregnant. She walks through the church doors, a lady hands her a gift basket and says, Congratulations, I'm so excited for you. My mom was beside herself. So I'm not even showing. But what she did, but which what God did in that moment was God was reassuring her, hey, I will provide for you. My mom wasn't a Christian at the time, but she was so conflicted. She was lobbying up prayers to God, like, God, will you see me? God, will you provide for me? And when that lady handed her that gift basket, she took that as a sign from the Lord that God sees me, that God will provide for me, that I should not follow through with this abortion. And the beauty of all of this is that I had no idea. So whenever I entered these fonts with my birthday, I was like, man, God, do you see me? Like, God, do you care for me? Out of the billions of people, little did I know that I almost did not come into this world. That before I took my first breath on planet Earth, God was like, I'm gonna pave a way for Dwight Michael Juar Crocker to have life and experience life today. I'll play churches and the places that his mom will need to go so that whenever she's experiencing doubt, fear, frustrations, confusions, whatever it is, that there will be beacons of hope and light that she can stumble into. And the cool part out of all of this was I had no idea. So then as soon as I'm informed by this, it now changes my relationship to my birthday. It doesn't mean that I never asked these questions. I'm human, I still do. But a quick response in my soul that that comes through right after, hey God, does anybody see me? Am I making a difference? Do I is do I don't forget what I did way back then. I don't know what it is that you're struggling with. I don't know what it is that you're going through, I don't know what it is that you're up against. But for some of you in the room that you're like, man, out of the billions and billions and billions of people in the world, does God see me? Does he care for me? Maybe God just wants you to hear this part of my story. Like maybe God just wants you to be reminded of this truth. Maybe God just wants you to just acknowledge the fact that he sees you and that he's paving a way. So when we take the communion elements, what we're reminding our souls is we're reminding our souls that our living hope is in Jesus and Jesus alone. Our living hope is not in fame, it's not in money, it's not in that relationship, it's not in success, it's not in anything else outside of the person of Jesus. So if Jesus paved a way for you when you first believed, trust that he'll pave a way for you again today. If he paved a way for these Israelites living in physical enslavement, trust that he'll pave a way for you today. If he's paved a way for all of humanity, when he died on that cross, when he rose from the dead, and he said, All who believe in me will have eternal life, then trust that he'll pay for you today, living in the 21st century. So when we take the communion elements, we're forcing our souls, we're forcing our souls to be reminded of the fact of what Jesus has done. We're forcing ourselves to acknowledge the facts that he's laid out at the table. And he goes, Hey, if I've done it before, I'll do it again. So here's my encouragement to you. Like, as we take these communion elements, like let's not be robotic about it. Let's not be thoughtless about it. Like, let's force our souls to acknowledge the information that Jesus has laid at the table. So when we take the bread, we're not just taking it thoughtlessly, but we're taking it and we're reminding our souls that there is a God who saw me, that there's a God who sought after me, that there is a God who provided a way for me to have a right standing with God, that I know that I can approach my Heavenly Father with confidence, knowing that He will receive me well, not because of anything that I've done, but because of what Jesus has done for me. And let's praise and celebrate our God for that. So here's what I want to do. We're gonna sing a song in a moment. But man, I want to encourage you. I want to encourage you to take the bread and hold off on taking the juice to just take the bread, and to just acknowledge that Jesus is body that was broken for you. It's the same thing that gives us life. Let me pray for us as we continue to worship the Lord. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for giving us this moment to acknowledge your body that was broken on our behalf. As we sing this next song, God, I pray that you would engage with our souls, reminding our souls that our living hope is in you and you alone. Father, I ask that as we would sing out these songs, that we would not sing out lies, but that we would sing out from the deepest parts of our souls, crying out for you to continue to show up today as you did back then. And God, I pray that you would remind us of how good you are. It's in Jesus' holy and precious name and all God's people saying. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

God, you are my living house.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Church, if you still have your communion elements, I want you to take the juice that represents Jesus' blood that was spilt on our behalf. This is the same blood that was spilled so that you and I could have a new life, that you and I could have a fresh start. Like, let's not take this and treat it as if it's an everyday occurrence, but let's really sit with this truth that God saw you, that God knew you would need a way out when you were in the deepest pit of your sin, of your muck and mire, and that God chose to pursue you so that you could have a right standing with Him, so that you would not have to fear the day of judgment, but that when God came, you wouldn't be scared, but that you would be overjoyed, that you would look with excitement saying, Yes, Lord, please come. Jesus paved the way for us. So as we take the juice that represents his blood for us, we're reminding our souls that we have nothing to fear, we have everything to celebrate and cheer because our God sees us and he's given us a new day and a new hope. Let's pray as we continue to worship our Lord song and praise. Jesus, thank you. Thank you that you see us. Thank you that you provided for us. God, when the day was so dark and we didn't know if we would have another day. You saw us in the midst of our depression, you saw us in the midst of our despair, and you said, I will step in and I will give you a new hope. And you have. It's only by your blood, Jesus. We celebrate that, we we rejoice over that. Thank you so much with hearts of gratitude and thankfulness. Thank you so much. Thank you that your blood has set us free from all of these, all of these superficial things. Thank you that your blood has given us new hope and new life for tomorrow. Thank you so much, Jesus. We don't ever want to take what you did for granted. Help us to be a people that would be overjoyed at what you did, never taking it for granted. But I have hearts of gratitude sitting with this and sharing this with other people. Jesus, it's in your holy and precious name, and all God's people in the room stay. Amen.