May 16, 2004 Communion Dedication - Baldwin Christian Church

John 6:3-7

And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh. When Jesus then lifted up [his] eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.

We receive this communion because Jesus said, "do this in remembrance of me," but remembrance is only half of the equation.

It's very easy for me to go to church on Sunday and listen to the pastor tell me about Jesus. It's easy to sit in my regular pew and be reminded again about the significance and meaning of the sacrifice Jesus made for me. It's easy for me to stand and sing songs of praise and then patiently wait to be served the sacraments. These things are easy because they're visible, outward expressions. Everybody else is doing it, and it's easy to go with the crowd. All these things are very easy for me to do, and then after church I go on my way, ready to meet the world in a new week.

So what's the hard part of communion? To paraphrase Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, the difficulty with communion (the scary part) is that we can eat the bread and drink the cup in a way that is shameful and unworthy of the Lord Jesus. The hard part is what Paul called "examining ourselves." I must not separate the outward appearance of communion from the inward condition of my heart. If I participate in this celebration without letting Jesus know how much He means to me, and confess to Him how much I really need Him, then what have I done to His memory? What have I done to Him?

The best way I've found to examine myself and appreciate Jesus is to read the Bible. In these pages I read about people in all sorts of situations, and I can learn about myself when I see their reactions to the situations. It doesn’t matter if their reaction is good, bad, or ugly, or even indifference, the Bible never pulls punches where truth is concerned. When I begin reading, I ask for the Spirit to help me, and it never seems to fail that He will show me myself in these people; their shortcomings are the same as my shortcomings! I can’t help but examine myself when I read about these people’s lives. Every day it's something new for me, but God is always the same. In the Garden of Eden, He asked Adam, "Where are you?" and He's still asking me the same question today.

Philip and Jesus were relaxing on top of that hill, looking down at all those hundreds of people, when Jesus asks him, "Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?" It's the same thing here with Philip as it was in the Garden of Eden. The question, "Where are you?" gave Adam a chance to examine (to prove) himself and confess his shortcomings.

Jesus asks the question, and I can just picture Philip looking at Him, then looking down the slopes toward this hungry multitude (this huge problem before him), then he turns right back around to look at Jesus, and what does he say? He answers by saying, "It would take a fortune to feed all of them." He doesn’t even give a direct answer. Even though Philip didn't realize it at that very moment, his words prove that he believed money has more power than Jesus. Keep in mind that by now Philip has already witnessed Jesus turning huge vats of water into wine (John 2), and Matthew 4 shows that even Satan knew Jesus had power to turn stones into bread.

Philip saw an insurmountable problem, and Jesus tested him that day. John tells us that the question was designed to let Philip examine himself. God did the same thing with His question to Adam in the garden, Jesus did this all the time with His disciples, and the Holy Spirit continues to do it today. How? Sometimes I'm confronted with an impossible question, an impossible situation, and sometimes it’s an impossible person, and it's usually then that the Spirit whispers the question in my ear, "Do you trust Me?" There's two ways I can handle it. If I react the "normal" way, it becomes obvious to everyone around me that even though I go to church, I don't really trust Jesus as much as I trust in the things I can see. The second reaction (the second way) is a path less traveled, that is, to cast all my cares upon Him, and by this Way the world can see how “mission impossible” can become “mission HIM-possible.”