Episode Transcript
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You know, when I was young and my parents, you know, saw that it was communion, we would find another church.
So, man, it's so great that so many people want to celebrate because this is a high Sabbath.
So before we start, because this is a high Sabbath especially, let's bow one more time for prayer.
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Good morning, Father.
We are yours.
We came because we love you.
We want to praise you.
We want to worship you.
We want to surrender our lives to you.
We are yours.
Please show us what you want us to see.
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As we open your word, please open our hearts more
and give us your spirit.
We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
It was about seven years ago.
I was supposed to have special music.
The song was going to be Just a Closer Walk.
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And it was Friday night and I was practicing the song.
And I got a phone call from my stepdad that said,
your mother just had a massive heart attack.
She's in the hospital.
I don't know what's going to happen,
but they're working on her now.
You don't need to come yet.
I don't know how bad it is, but I'll give you a call in the morning.
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The next morning, I'm still practicing.
I'm praying.
I'm worried about my mom, and I got a phone call that said,
if you want to see her one more time, you need to come now.
So instead of going to church, I got on a flight that morning.
By about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, I was standing by my mom's side
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in the ER, or in the ER, yeah, in the ER, and she was in a full coma, and I just held her hand,
and after about 30 minutes, she kind of blinked. They said, she's been completely unresponsive.
She's not going to wake up again, but you can be with her. So I held her hand, and after about 30
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minutes of that, she kind of blinked, and then she opened her eyes, and she looked around and saw that
and they had these breathers in her and they got the breathers out.
We don't know what's going to happen and we don't know if she can breathe on her own,
but we're going to try.
So they took the breathers out and to spare the long story, miraculously, she was able to go home.
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But the doctor said she's only going to live another four days.
The heart attack has killed half of her heart.
Four days at the most.
Now, my mom lived 10 days after that.
And I got to spend almost the entire time with her.
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When she got home, she kept saying, I'm not ready.
I'm scared.
Now, this is a woman that had dedicated her life to helping others that had served God.
And we could see God working so many things in her life.
And she had just, so many people had been blessed by her just doing whatever she could for others.
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And I'm like, how could this person not be ready to meet Jesus?
But she had made some serious mistakes and she struggled with forgiveness.
And I kept trying to give her, okay, look at this promise in the Bible.
Look at this promise in the Bible.
And nothing helped.
She just couldn't get to the place where she could sense God's forgiveness.
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Has anybody else been there?
You know all the promises, but you don't feel at peace.
I found out that her pastor called me and said,
hey, it's communion this week.
I know your mom can't come to church,
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but as communion this week, do you mind if I come have communion with your mom? And I said,
thank you, but I have a request. I would love for you to come and bring the communion and
plebents, but can I have communion with my mom? I'm an ordained elder. You know,
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I would really like the opportunity to give the last ordinance of communion to my mom.
And he said, great, that's wonderful. So I'm going to share with you what I shared with my mom.
And I will tell you, when the communion was finished, my mom had total peace.
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Let's go to John chapter 13.
And John chapter 13 sets the stage.
John chapter 13, verse 1.
He kind of sets the stage and he says,
Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come,
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that he would depart from this world to his Father, having loved his own who were in the world,
he loved them to the end.
During the supper, the devil, having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon,
to betray him, Jesus, knowing his father, had given him all things into his hand, that he had come
forth from God and was going back to God. So he's set the stage, right? It says, doing all that,
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he got up from the supper, laid aside his garments, taking his towel, he girded himself. Why would he
do that? Well, when Jesus, we find out from the other gospels that when Jesus walked into the room,
they were arguing. The disciples were arguing. They were saying, who is going to be the greatest
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in God's kingdom? Now, Jesus is about to be crucified. He's about to die. He's about
to suffer everything for our sins. And they're arguing about who's going to be the best.
And why are they arguing this point?
Now, I don't want to go into detail because of time, but if you look back at Matthew,
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there's James and John's mother kind of take them by the side and take Jesus.
And he said, hey, can these two sit on your right and your left?
I don't know which one's going to be the right or the left, but we want these two to be higher than the other 10.
And Jesus says, well, it's not mine to say, but are they willing to drink from my cup?
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He's about to drink the cup of the cross.
And they said, yeah, we got it.
And he says, you will drink from my cup,
but I can't say who's gonna be on the left or the right.
They did drink from the cup.
James was the first to suffer martyrdom.
And John was the last to suffer insults
as the others all died.
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They did drink from his cup.
But what they're really asking is,
can we be crucified one on the right and one on the left?
and they didn't realize it. And Jesus says, no, that's not mine to say. They're saying,
who's going to be the greatest? Now all the disciples are arguing and Jesus is about to give
them the blessed promise of a future with him. This is a sacred tradition that he's instilling.
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Is it Passover? What is Passover? Passover is the reminder of what God has done
and passing over the Israelites and forcing Pharaoh to let them go. It's the promise of what God has
done for them. It's also a promise of what God is going to do for them, that he's going to give them
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a lamb to take away all of their sins. So it's a reminder of the past and it's a promise of the
future. He's about to give them the communion, which is a reminder of the past, Jesus' sacrifice
and his death for our sins, and a promise of the future and everlasting life with Jesus.
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This is big, but the disciples are not ready. They are arguing. They're a focus on everything
except the communion. So Jesus, he goes over, he grabs a basin.
My apologies for the microphone. He grabs a basin.
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He starts washing one by one, taking the place of a servant, washing their feet.
Whose feet do you think he washed first? Judas. Judas is sitting right beside him. John is sitting
on the other side of him. Peter probably sitting across. We can get that all from John chapter 13.
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So as he's washing the feet, different things happen. He washes Judas' feet,
And Judas doesn't accept it, right?
We don't hold communion for just the people that say,
yes, my life is perfect with God.
Jesus washed Judas' feet
because Jesus' invitation is to every single person.
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He gets around the table, he comes to Peter.
What does Peter say?
Verse six, so he came to Simon Peter.
He said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet?
Jesus said, he answered to him,
what you do, what I do, you don't realize now,
but you will understand later.
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Peter said to him, never will you wash my feet.
And he says, Peter, if I don't wash your feet,
you have no part with me.
Why?
The washing of the feet is a very important part of communion.
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You see, as we walk through life, we make mistakes.
Even if our life is right with God, we are not perfect.
And we need that continually washing of our hearts from the sins that we commit intentionally,
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the mistakes that we make, the guy that cut us off in traffic and we honked our horn.
We need forgiveness for the dirt that we get on our feet as we walk through this world.
Jesus says, if I don't wash your feet, you have no part with me.
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Right?
And Peter says, well, shoot, give me a bath.
And Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You've been baptized.
You've already dedicated your life to me.
You are already clean.
But I still need to wash your feet.
You see, just because we make one decision sometime in our life,
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just because we get baptized,
doesn't mean that we don't daily, continually need Jesus to cleanse our heart.
So then there's the story about Judas, and he hands the bread off, and Judas walks away.
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Peter gets into this little bit of an argument with Jesus.
Jesus tells, hey, okay, I'm about to die. I'm about to be glorified. I'm about to go and suffer
everything that's about to be, you know, that's been prophesied against me. And Simon says,
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verse 36, chapter 13, verse 36, he says, Lord, where are you going? And Jesus answered,
Where I go now, you can't follow.
But you will follow me later.
Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now?
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I will lay down my life for you.
And Jesus answered, will you truly lay down your life for me?
Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow.
And that means like it's going to happen this night, right?
A rooster will not crow until you deny me three times.
This very night, you're getting an eye on me three times.
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And then what is the very next verses in the Bible?
He's still talking to Peter.
He's still telling Peter how he's going to mess up,
how he's going to make this huge mistake.
And he says to Peter, do not let your heart be troubled.
You believe in God, believe also in me.
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In my father's house are many dwelling places.
If it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go to prepare a place for you, Peter, I will come again
and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also.
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See, communion is a reminder of what Jesus has done.
What is the reminder?
It's the bread and the cup.
Let's go back just one more text.
to Luke chapter 22. Luke chapter 22. And this is interesting to me. It says, verse 14,
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Luke 22, verse 14, it says, when the hour had come, he reclined at the table,
the apostles with him, and he said, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover
with you before I suffer.
As I've kind of wondered about, you know,
if you're on death row and you get a last meal,
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would you really have an appetite for that last meal,
knowing what's about to happen?
But Jesus says, I have been so looking forward
to this communion.
He didn't go to a different church, right?
He says, I have earnestly desired
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to have this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say to you, this is important. I will not
eat again of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And we had taken the cup and he
said, share this among yourselves. For I say, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now
until the kingdom of God comes. And he took this bread and he says, this is my body broken for you.
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When I take the bread of communion, I hold it in my mouth.
I don't chew immediately.
Because this bread is a reminder of everything that Jesus did in sacrificing for my sin.
He was broken.
He was beaten.
He was spat on.
He was ridiculed.
He was crucified.
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He died a horrible death because of my sin.
And that bread is a reminder that it was my sin that put him there.
and I don't want Jesus to be there.
I hold that bread in my mouth,
not wanting it to break.
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But the trick is,
Jesus went there willingly.
He was a willing sacrifice
because he loved me so much.
He said, I am willing to be broken,
bruised and crucified for you.
And when I take that first bite, I just can't stop chewing because I want as much of Jesus in me.
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When I take that cup, that is the promise of Jesus, new life living in me.
Martin Luther compared it to a marriage.
He said, when you get married, all of the assets are combined.
Jesus takes on our sin, our death, our horribleness,
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and we take on his righteousness, his life.
It's a promise of a rebirth.
The bread is the remembering Jesus' suffering and death.
The cup is remembering that Jesus gave us a promise
of living with him forever.
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Jesus said, I'm not going to partake of this
until we can all do it together.
Let not your heart be troubled.
You might have made all kinds of mistakes in your life.
You might have messed up left and right.
Let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God.
Believe also in me.
In my Father's house are many mansions.
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If it were not so, I would have told you.
there is room for every single one of us
that will surrender ourselves
and let Jesus wash our hearts
I go to prepare a place for you
and if I go to prepare a place for you
I will come again
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to receive you unto myself
that where I am there you may be also
we are going to get this meal again
with Jesus
Now, the first part of this is the foot washing ceremony to prepare our hearts.
We don't have to wash our feet.
Some people are uncomfortable with that.
What I would suggest is if you are uncomfortable with a foot washing person part, please find a person.
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Pray with that person.
The most important part is to prepare our hearts for the ordinance.
The next part that comes.
As we take the bread, remember what Christ has done for each one of us, for you, for me.
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As we take that cup, remember the promise that Jesus said,
I am going to do this with you very soon.
It's a reminder of what Jesus has done and a promise of what's to come.
We have places set up and Robert is going to explain where to go and we're going to meet back
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here. When we meet back here, please sit every other row to make it easier for the deacons.