Romans 3:19-31

19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished - 26 He did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. 29 Is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

John 3:1-17

1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with Him.”
3 In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
4 “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!”
5 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
10 “You are Israel's teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven - the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”

A couple were doing a bit of window shopping in a mall one day, and the husband noticed his wife talking to an elderly man for a few moments. He could tell by their expressions that the conversation was quite serious – it wasn’t just a casual chat.
The man walked away and as the husband walked up to his wife, he could see she was clearly agitated. “What did he say to you?” he asked.
“He asked me if I was born again.”
“Why didn’t you tell him we are respectable and decent people?”
“He didn’t ask me that. He asked me if I was born again.”
“Why didn’t you tell him we go to church every Sunday?”
“He didn’t ask me that. He asked me if I was born again.”
“Why didn’t you tell him it’s none of his business?”
“If you’d seen the earnestness in his face and the concern in his eyes, you would have known that it is his business,” she replied.

Seeing people born into the kingdom of God is Jesus’ business.
Being ‘born again’ is a phrase we are very familiar with in the Church. Jesus Himself used it when He had His conversation with Nicodemus.
Within the confines of a Church building, to use the words ‘born again’ is absolutely fine, and everyone is quite comfortable with it, but take those words into the shopping malls, pubs and restaurants, and the atmosphere will be very different.
“I’ve always tried to live a good life and to treat people the way I’d like to be treated” is something we hear so often.
The problem is that doing the right thing does not overcome our greatest problem, put very plainly in Romans 3:23. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

I remember chatting to someone a number of years ago. He was a friend of mine and was well liked by everyone. He was a family man, and an all-round nice bloke. He attended Church occasionally, and we started chatting after Church one Sunday.
He said to me that he always tries to live up to the standards God expects of us, and in particular he often reads the Ten Commandments as a reminder of the kind of person he should be.
Of course, there are some real scoundrels in the world, but generally speaking, most ‘decent people’ are just like him. Doing the right thing is good, and when you make the occasional mistake the decent thing to do is take responsibility for what you’ve done wrong, apologise to those you may have hurt, and try not to make the same mistake again.
I’m sure we’d all agree that if we all lived like that, the world would be a much better place.

So what’s the problem then? Isn’t obeying the law a good thing? Absolutely.
The problem is that we cannot obey it to the level that God expects of us. If you want to please God by obeying the law, then you have to obey it perfectly. There is no room for the odd slip-up here and there. You must be absolutely pure and holy, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from your very first breath until you breathe your last. No little white lies. No bad thoughts. Not one angry word. Ever. Absolute perfection every single day for your entire life.
Now that changes things a bit. “Trying to live a good life” might sound all well and good to our ears, but to God it represents failure to keep the law.

So why do we have the law? If we are incapable of keeping the law, and God knows that better than we do, then what is the point of it?
Romans 3:20 says “No one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.”
That’s the simple answer.
The law is not only a picture of the perfect holiness of God – it is also a reminder to us that we need a Saviour in order for us to escape the condemnation we are now under because we cannot keep the law.

Jesus confronted Nicodemus with this same issue. Most of the people who Jesus interacted with were common people, but every now and then He would have an encounter with an important person; an aristocrat. Nicodemus was such a person.
He was a big name in Jerusalem. He was a ruler of the Jews, a member of the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court of the day. He was a man who the common people looked to for religious guidance, and he was very well respected as a good and sincere man.
There is something rather unique in the way Jesus spoke to Nicodemus. Usually He had little time for the general hypocrisy of the Pharisees, but this time it’s different. The conversation is sincere as Jesus was gentle and patient with Nicodemus. One of the reasons is that Nicodemus was a good, respectable man who took his senior position and his responsibility as a religious leader very seriously.
But Jesus still told Nicodemus the truth. “You must be born again.”
There’s an old expression, “It doesn’t make any difference what you believe, as long as you are sincere.” But the truth is you can be sincere and still be sincerely wrong.
Nicodemus thought that he was doing the right thing. As a Pharisee, a religious leader, Nicodemus’s moral life was above reproach. He would have been almost fanatical in his determination to observe even the minutest detail of the moral law of Moses.
But Jesus didn’t say, “Clean up your life.” What He said was, “Morality and decency are not enough. You must be born again.”
Nicodemus was a religious man too.

As a Pharisee he prayed, tithed, offered sacrifices, read the Scriptures, fasted, attended and even led services in the synagogue. He was the kind of dedicated religious leader who would always be at the temple. But being religious was not enough. Being zealous in religious exercises was not sufficient. Jesus said, “You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.”
Nicodemus would have known the law well, and as a result he would also know that it was impossible to live up to the perfection it demanded.
He was a Pharisee who knew the law and believed the law. He knew all about God. He had grown up with and was educated by the law of God. He knew and believed the prophesies in the Old Testament that God would send the Messiah. But orthodoxy and doctrine is not enough.
To put it into modern terms, reading your Bible every day, coming to Church every week, tithing faithfully and all those other things are not enough to enter the Kingdom of God. You must be born again.
Jesus’ words in John 14:6 say it very plainly: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” You must be born again.

Nicodemus was learned, cultured, refined, and wealthy, but Jesus said, “You must be born again.” Education does not make a person a Christian. Wealth does not qualify a person for heaven. Culture and refinement may get a person ahead in society but not in the kingdom of God. Nicodemus had gone as far as Judaism alone could carry him. Yet he felt an emptiness in his life. There was no peace, no joy, no assurance, no abundant life. So he came to Jesus, seeking true life in all its fullness, and Jesus gave him the simple, but profound answer. “You must be born again.”

I remember another conversation I had with a man who was dying of cancer in 2001. He was not a Christian, but his family was concerned about him, so they contacted the Church and asked if there was someone who would be willing to visit him. I was still studying then, and Dave thought it would be a good idea to throw me in the deep end, so off I went.
He was a man who when still in good health, was always helping others. He was the kind of person who would drop whatever he was doing if there was someone else in need.
But when I met him, he was frail and nearing the end of his life, and he knew it too.
Although he was not a Christian, he was very polite and he welcomed me into his home. He told me that he did believe that there is a God, but he simply could not accept that he had a need for a Saviour. “I have always tried to live a good life, and have always tried to help others,” he said.
So I took a deep breath, and asked him straight out, “But what happens when you die, and you come face to face with God? What will you say?”
I will never forget his answer. “I’m prepared to take my chances.”

There are some really nice people out there, who by their kindness and genuine concern for others put many Christians to shame. If you ever needed a reminder that Christians are not perfect, there are countless non-Christians who by their very behaviour remind me every day that they are much nicer people than I am.
But as Paul puts it so well in 2 Corinthians 9:15, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”
I’m not perfect, as my wife and children will tell you, and my mother could keep you busy for days if you’d like to hear a few more horror stories about me. (Not to mention the ones which only I know about…)
But I can stand here today and tell you with absolute conviction, that at the end of this life, I will enter the Kingdom of God. Not because I try to be a good person and not because I’m a minister, but because I have been born again.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Do you believe that? Are you born again?

Sin is a heart disease, and we all are afflicted with it. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
This disease cannot be cured by us. Acts 4:12 tells us “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
Unless a disease is stopped or cured, it gets worse. Sin is never static. It cannot be stopped - it must be healed. And only Jesus, the Great Physician can heal, and He heals by applying the remedy to the heart.
Some people make up and prescribe superficial cures: “Be decent. Go to church. Live a good, clean life.” As honourable as these things might sound, they do not cure the disease of our hearts.
You cannot cure sin without the new birth, without the miraculous transformation of the inner man.

At the end of 2 Corinthians 5 Paul writes, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
It is only through Christ, through being born again in Him, that we are made fit for the Kingdom of God.

Victor Hugo was a master novelist who lived in France in the 19th century, and in one of his books he tells a story that describes the terror of sailors on a ship in a storm at sea. As the waves keep pounding the fragile ship, the sailors feel a shudder and a thud. They look at each other and know: the cannon in the hold of the ship has broken loose from its moorings.
Each lurch of the ship in the storm sends the cannon crashing into the wooden hull of the vessel. Hugo then describes the plight of the terrified sailors who disappear into the dark hold, their faces drained of colour. They crouch and dodge as the monster cannon threatens to pin them to the wall and crush them. Finally, they desperately chain the cannon back in place, and the ship is saved.

This is a parable of our own lives. Something is wrong down inside of us. This monster threatens to wreck us. But a deliverer – a Saviour - is available. There is salvation from the raging storm. Put your soul, your life, your destiny, and your sins in the hands of Jesus, and you will be born again. And in that new birth there is safety and assurance and a safe arrival in the Kingdom of God when this life ends.

John 9:1-41

1 As He went along, He saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the work of Him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 Having said this, He spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes. 7 “Go,” He told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
8 His neighbours and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn't this the same man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some claimed that he was. Others said, “No, he only looks like him.” But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”
10 “How then were your eyes opened?” they demanded.
11 He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”
12 “Where is this man?” they asked him. “I don't know,” he said.
13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man's eyes was a Sabbath. 15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for He does not keep the Sabbath.” But others asked, “How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?” So they were divided.
17 Finally they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about Him? It was your eyes He opened.” The man replied, “He is a prophet.”
18 The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man's parents. 19 “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”
20 “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. 21 But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don't know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue. 23 That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
24 A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”
25 He replied, “Whether He is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
26 Then they asked him, “What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?”
27 He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become His disciples, too?”
28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow's disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don't even know where He comes from.”
30 The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don't know where He comes from, yet He opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does His will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.”
34 To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.
35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when He found him, He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
36 “Who is He, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in Him.”
37 Jesus said, “You have now seen Him; in fact, He is the one speaking with you.”
38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshipped Him.
39 Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
40 Some Pharisees who were with Him heard Him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” 41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”

It’s always important to understand the Bible in context, so in order to better grasp the deeper message in the story of the blind man being healed in John 9, we actually need to go back a bit first.
In 8:12 it says “When Jesus spoke again to the people, He said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
He spoke these words in the temple at Jerusalem during the time of the Feast of Tabernacles when the temple court was crowded with people. The Feast of Tabernacles was to commemorate a chapter in the life of the Hebrew nation when the Israelites wandered for forty years in the wilderness. It was held at the close of the harvest season, and people from everywhere came to Jerusalem and made little booths to live in that week, recalling the lifestyle their fathers had lived in the Arabian desert.

Two characteristic features of the feast were: Each morning water was brought in a golden vessel from the pool of Siloam and poured onto the altar of sacrifice. The water reminded the people of the miracle at Meribah where water poured from the rock, and pointed forward to the spiritual water which Jesus offered.
Then in the evening in one of the courts of the temple were two great lamps that are said to have cast their light all over Jerusalem. These recalled the pillar of fire that had guided the Israelites in the wilderness, and they pointed to the “Son of righteousness” who would arise with “healing in his wings.”
And it was here, in the crowded city one night during the Feast of Tabernacles that Jesus declared that He is the “light of the world”.

Of course, as we know, these kinds of things did not go down too well with the Pharisees, but it’s important for us to understand that the healing of the blind man happened during this festival.
So Jesus gave a man born blind physical sight to point out the spiritual truth that He was and is the Light of the World. This is not just a story of Jesus feeling sorry for a man with a physical disability.
The man was born physically blind, just as we are all born spiritually blind. Remember, there is always a deeper spiritual message in Scripture.

The disciples thought the man’s blindness was caused by sin, but Jesus explained that God’s power over both physical and spiritual darkness was about to be shown because of this man. Again Jesus explained that He is the Light of the World and proceeded to give a rather dramatic demonstration of this truth. He spat on the ground and began to make some mud. He applied the mud to the man’s eyes, and when the man went and washed the mud from his eyes, he could see clearly. Whenever we wash the mud and filth from our eyes, we, too, can see more clearly. It is difficult to see the finer things in life as long as we look at the worldly. We will always struggle to see and understand the true light while we remain confused by the murky darkness of the material world.
But of course, the healing of the blind man is not the end of the story – it’s really only the beginning.

As we know, this miracle caused an uproar among the religious leaders. They could hardly believe that the man now walking around was the one who had been blind. They asked him about it, and he gave them the last answer they wanted to hear: “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”
So he was called to appear before the taken to the Sanhedrin, the highest ruling body and court of justice, and asked to explain himself.
They warned him that he had not been cured by God and asked him to deny the miracle, but he could not. He said simply (and profoundly), “One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
The man’s logic was too powerful for them, so they took the defeatist attitude and chased him out of the temple. Jesus found the man and asked him if he believed in the Son of God. The man did not know who Jesus was talking about at first, but once Jesus revealed Himself to him, the man believed and worshipped Jesus as the Light of his spiritual life also.
But what is light really? I haven’t tried, but I’ve often wondered how I would explain what light is to someone who was born blind, and has no idea what light is.
To put it into a spiritual context, how do we explain what faith and salvation is to someone who is not a Christian and who really has no interest in finding Christ?

It’s no wonder that His words ‘I am the Light of the World’ confused and annoyed so many people. They still do today.
But Jesus’ words point back to the pillar of fire that led the Hebrews through the wilderness, the light that assured them of God’s presence. Now Jesus is that Light and is in their midst. The guidance of that light was uninterrupted and unerring. It was never mistaken for an ordinary cloud, and each night the flame burned brightly and assured the people that God was with them.
When we truly learn to trust Jesus, His presence is unmistakable in our lives. 

There are two things that light does, and it seems that Jesus had both in mind.           Firstly, it enables people to see. The man born blind could see with the light Jesus gave him. Walk into a dark room and you see nothing, but switch on the light, and instantly you see everything in the room.
Light also guides us. Harbour lights are there to guide ships. Lights on a runway are there to guide aeroplanes.
And the Light of Christ is there to guide those who love and trust Him. His light enables us to see what is in the world, so that we can determine what is good and what is evil.

Ephesians 3:14-21
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20 Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, 21 to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Luke 19:1-10
1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see Him, since Jesus was coming that way. 5 When Jesus reached the spot, He looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed Him gladly.
7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”
8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”

I just love Paul’s prayer for the Church in Ephesians 3. “I pray that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.”
And I want to begin this morning by asking, is Jesus Christ, the living Lord, real to you? Does He dwell in your heart by faith, or is He just a vague concept - a mere historical figure who walks through the pages of ancient history?
It is the witness of the New Testament, and it was the experience of the apostles, that Jesus Christ conquered death and made Himself real to those who had faith.
And until such time as we truly believe the witness of the Bible and the testimony of the saints who have gone before us, Jesus Christ will be not much more than an interesting historical figure.

But for the Christian, we trust and believe that He is so much more than that. We are able to experience the living presence of Jesus in our hearts. By faith we open the door of our life to receive Christ as Saviour and Lord and friend. By faith He lives in our hearts day by day and year by year.
In 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul speaks about Christians becoming more Christlike each day.
He says “We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord.” Ever-increasing. The implication here is that it is an ongoing process, and not an event.

 One of the most common objections to the Christian faith is that it is impossible to categorically prove the existence of God.  But the evidence is everywhere, and the most compelling evidence is in the changes we see in the hearts of those who believe. Are you walking, talking proof that God is real?
For virtually every argument for the existence of God, the doubters and scoffers have at least one counter-argument. If you are going to try and argue from logic and reason, trust me – they will tie you up in knots.
But they are completely defenceless against the living evidence they see in the way Jesus changes the hearts of sinners into saints. 
When Jesus is permitted to dwell in the human heart, He produces some radical changes in our attitudes and actions. Zacchaeus is an excellent case in point.
He was not only a tax collector, but a chief tax collector. There were junior collectors under his authority, and the chief tax collectors were renowned for helping themselves to what we might politely call an ‘administration fee’ from their subordinates.
The Romans couldn’t care less about the Jewish people. As long as taxes were paid to Rome, the Jewish tax collectors could help themselves to whatever extra taxes they wanted. There was no accountability, so the chief tax collectors in particular simply lined their pockets and became extremely wealthy. This is the kind of man that Zacchaeus was. His own people despised him.

And then Jesus came into his life. By opening firstly his home and then his heart to God, everything changed. There were unrecognisable changes in the life of this man who had been so hated.
The moment Jesus became Lord of his life, his relationship to God, his attitude toward others, and his evaluation of things changed completely. Because he let Christ come into his heart, there was a change in his bank account, in his business affairs, and in his relationships with other people. He suddenly became very generous and was eager to make restitution for past wrongs.
This is the kind of irrefutable evidence of the existence of God which cannot be denied. The world will sit up and take notice when we let Jesus dwell in our hearts, because He will always produce changes when He is permitted to dwell there.
And the assurance that we can have for ourselves that He is real is that we will see some of those changes for ourselves.

There are many things which Christ does in the hearts of believers, and one of them is that He fills our hearts with a new joy.
There is the joy of forgiveness. Jesus came to give His life as a ransom for us. He came to take our sins away on the cross, and it is through faith in Him that we not only receive forgiveness, but also that we believe it.
He also gives us the joy of knowing that we have been brought into the family of God.
John 1:12 says “To all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.” 
John was amazed by this truth, and he wrote in his first letter, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:1–2)

 We also have the joy of a continuing, eternal friendship in Christ. We all yearn to be loved. We need companionship and friends, but the greatest joy is the relationship we have with Jesus which will never end. The most wonderful friend anyone can have is Jesus. ‘What a Friend we have in Jesus’.

In John 15 He said “You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends.”
So Jesus fills the hearts of believers with a new joy.

Exodus 12:21-30
21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. 23 When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, He will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and He will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
24 Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. 25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as He promised, observe this ceremony. 26 And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 27 then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when He struck down the Egyptians.” Then the people bowed down and worshipped. 28 The Israelites did just what the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.
29 At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. 30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.

Luke 22:7-20
7 Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. 8 Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.”
9 “Where do you want us to prepare for it?” they asked.
10 He replied, “As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters, 11 and say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 12 He will show you a large upper room, all furnished. Make preparations there.”
13 They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover. 14 When the hour came, Jesus and His apostles reclined at the table. 15 And He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”
17 After taking the cup, He gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. 18 For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
19 And He took 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.”
20 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.

In New Testament times, the Roman Empire was at its strongest, and there were Roman garrisons all over the world. Despite the distances and slow means of transportation in those days, all Roman soldiers were required to return to Rome once a year from wherever they were garrisoned to renew their oath of allegiance to the Emperor. The soldiers were to salute the Roman colours from time to time or be guilty of treason.

One of the good things about celebrating Holy Communion on a regular basis is that each time we come to the Table of the Lord, we are in a sense renewing our oath of allegiance to the King of kings, and the Lord of lords.
When Jesus took the bread, and took the cup and said, “This is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me,” He was establishing a memorial that the Church was to continue until He returns. Attendance at the Table is many things – among them it is an act of obedience and the Christian’s salute to the Saviour.

As we all know, there is a very real danger of us taking this sacrament for granted. Doing it regularly is a good thing, but it can so easily become not much more than a habit or ritual.
So just what is it which we will be doing later this morning? Well, there are many aspects to the Sacrament of Holy Communion, but I’d like to highlight just a few for us to consider today.
The Bible teaches us that we participate in Communion because we have received grace – not in order to get grace. The bread and the cup contain no mystical or saving properties. When you were born again, you received the fullness of God’s grace. At that moment you received all the grace you’ll ever need in this life or the life to come.

Grace is not to be found in Church ritual. Grace is to be found in God, through Christ. This meal reminds us of His grace, and the mystical union we now have with God.
The moment that you turned to God in repentance and received salvation by faith, He credited your spiritual account with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Paul was writing about Abraham in Romans 4 when he said “The words ‘it was credited to him’ were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness - for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.” (Romans 4:23–25)
And in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

The perfect righteousness of Jesus is now given, imputed, to us. Exactly how or why this happens is a mystery which only God Himself fully understands, but we believe it, and we are reminded of it at the Table.
Holy Communion is a memorial of remembrance, instituted by Jesus Himself as an act of worship that is meant to remind us of His substitutionary atonement, and our union with Him.

Someone once said that when you participate in Communion you are preaching your own personal sermon of your relationship with Jesus, but the question is, what are you preaching?
There are at least four things we acclaim and proclaim at the Table.

1.   You are acclaiming your faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

The word acclaim means to praise enthusiastically and publicly. We come here unashamedly telling everyone who cares to see or hear us as we say, “Praise the Lord, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. He was crucified. He was buried, but He rose again. This is the core of my faith and I don’t care who knows it!”
Do we care who knows what we believe?
The historical background of Christian Communion is the Jewish Passover, a story which is rich in symbolic meaning for us. During that original Passover in Egypt, each Jewish family was commanded to sacrifice a lamb. They drained its blood and applied it to their door mantels in anticipation of God’s judgment on Egypt. That night the angel of the Lord went throughout the land and killed the firstborn of every home that was not protected by the blood.
That blood represented deliverance from bondage that comes only from God. As the angel of death saw the blood, he ‘passed over’ that house, and its occupants were spared.

Then we move to the New Testament, where Jesus gave a whole new meaning to the Passover. Because of our sin, we deserve judgment and eternal separation from God. But when God looks at us – when He looks at Christians, He sees the blood of Jesus, the perfect sacrificial lamb, and His judgment passes over us.
A tradition in many Churches (and one we observe in this congregation) is that just before we break bread, we say and are reminded three times: “Lord Jesus, you are the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

Just as when the angel of death passed over the homes with the blood on the door posts, so too does God pass over us His righteous judgment when He sees the blood of the Lamb of God in our lives.
So when we participate in Communion we boldly acclaim to the world our eternal faith in Christ to save us from judgment.

2.   Secondly, we proclaim the Lordship of Jesus over our lives.

Ephesians 2:4-5 says “Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved.”
These verses will help us to understand 1 Corinthians 11:27-29, a passage which has created much confusion and difficulty for Christians. “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognising the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.”
If you are a Christian, you are worthy to participate in Holy Communion, not because of who you are, but because of whose you are.
To paraphrase Colossians 2:13, once you were dead in your sins and your sinful nature, but now you have been made alive in Christ. It is because of this that you are worthy in the sight of God.
Remember that if you have proclaimed and acclaimed that Jesus Christ is Lord, that means He has Lordship over your life, and it is His infinite worth which makes you worthy to come to the Table of Grace today.

The word ‘unworthy’ in 1 Corinthians 11:27 is an adverb, and what Paul was taking those early Christians to task for was their attitudes towards each other, not their worth in God’s eyes.
The Message translation puts it so well: “I find that you bring your divisions to worship - you come together, and instead of eating the Lord's Supper, you bring in a lot of food from the outside and make pigs of yourselves. Some are left out, and go home hungry. Others have to be carried out, too drunk to walk. I can't believe it! Don't you have your own homes to eat and drink in? Why would you stoop to desecrating God's church? Why would you actually shame God's poor? I never would have believed you would stoop to this. And I'm not going to stand by and say nothing. Anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Master irreverently is like part of the crowd that jeered and spit on Him at his death. Is that the kind of ‘remembrance’ you want to be part of? Examine your motives, test your heart, come to this meal in holy awe.”

So this criticism which Paul levelled at the Corinthian Church had nothing to do with their spiritual unworthiness. They were Christians, and as a result, God had given to them infinite spiritual value and worth. The problem was their attitudes and behaviours, something which we also need to be aware of, because the truth is that our attitudes and behaviour towards each other often leaves a lot to be desired.
The point though is this: If you do not take Communion because you feel you are not worthy in God’s sight, then you are wrong. If you have confessed with your own mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, then you are worthy – not because of who you are, but because of whose you are.
This is where we proclaim the Lordship of Jesus.
God can and will deal with our irreverent attitudes, our selfishness and our petty squabbles amongst each other, but Jesus Christ is Lord, and we acclaim this truth when we celebrate Communion.

3.   You are proclaiming your hope in being glorified with Christ.

“Then He took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom.” (Matthew 26:27–29)

Holy Communion is a memorial that not only looks back to Jesus’ substitutionary atonement, but forward to His glorious appearing a second time.
We proclaim the Lord’s death “until He comes again.”
To give it a fancy theological term, when we come to the Table we come with a keen sense of eschatological expectation.
Are you looking forward to the return of Christ? Are you looking forward to being with Him for all of eternity, or as Paul says in Philippians 1:23 ‘I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far’?
That’s what we proclaim when we come to the Table.
Jesus Christ is coming again and He’s coming for all those who faithfully confess His name in this world.

4.   At the table we celebrate our union with each other.

“Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” (1 Corinthians 10:17)
As Christians, we are family, and we are all related to each other.
It’s been said that you can pick your friends, but you’re stuck with your family.
You may not have to like me, but you do have to love me, and you have to love each other too…
The early church was a model of fellowship of genuine love and affirmation.
“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” (Galatians 6:2–3)
To participate in Holy Communion means you are not embarrassed to call those in the seats around you as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Paul urged the Corinthian believers, and he urges us to be like-minded:

“I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.” (1 Corinthians 1:10)

When you participate in Communion you are saying that you are willing to love your brothers and sisters in Christ and that you will participate in the life of the Church. It means working at loving each other. Just as a divisive spirit has the power to kill a marriage and destroy a family, so a divisive spirit can eventually kill and destroy the Church.

A wise man once said “A long time ago I came to the conclusion that preaching is not the answer to filling our churches. Neither will dynamic personalities fill our churches. Neither will programs or evangelical campaigns fill our churches. What will fill our churches is when we love people into our congregations.”

At the Table we are reminded of the call to be at one with each other, and at one with Christ. We are family. This is not a place we simply come to on a weekly basis. It’s a place where we should feel at home – a place where we belong. You need us, and we need you.

If you are not involved in the life of the Church outside of coming to Sunday services, I’d like to encourage you to explore the different ministries we have. If you’re not sure where you’re supposed to fit in, come to the Alpha course this week – maybe you’ll find some of the answers there, but don’t be just a name on our membership roll. Join the family.

So just to summarise the 4 points we have looked at today – why are we here to celebrate Communion?

 

1.   You are acclaiming your faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

2.   We proclaim the Lordship of Jesus over our lives.

3.   You are proclaiming your hope in being glorified with Christ.

4.   At the table we celebrate our union with each other.

 

There is so much more which we could have explored today. Holy Communion means so much to us, and we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface this morning.

But what a gift God has given us!

“This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”