We’ve been doing a sermon series going through
our Communion liturgy, the stuff we say every month before we take Holy
Communion. And today we come to what may be--well, I don’t want to say
the most important part, because it’s all important, but perhaps the most
challenging part of the Communion liturgy.
But while it’s the most challenging part, it seems to me
that it also tends to be the part we just kind of gloss over the most.
Maybe we do that because it’s the most challenging, I don’t know. It’s only one sentence, but it’s incredibly
powerful sentence. Here it is:
And so, in remembrance of these your mighty
acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy
and living sacrifice in union with Christ’s offering for us.
Before we break that down, let’s go back to a couple of
things we’ve talked about earlier. We’ve talked about how Jesus said “Do
this in remembrance of me.” And we’ve
talked about how remembering what Jesus did should make us feel grateful and
thankful. We’ve talked about how we can receive God’s love and
forgiveness through the act of sharing in Holy Communion, and we’ve talked
about what an incredible gift from God that is.
And all of that’s true. But that gratitude and
thankfulness needs to do more for us than just give us a good feeling. It
should give us a good feeling, no question about that. And there’s nothing wrong with having that
good feeling. We all need to have that God feeling of knowing that God
loves us and that our sins are forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ as the
Savior.
But the thing is that a feeling is just that. A
feeling. We can feel good, but our
feeling good does not do anything if we don’t do something about it. It
stays just a feeling. And a good
feeling, but itself, does not help anybody else. It really does not even help us, in the long
run, because our good feeling will eventually fade away if we don’t do anything
about it.
When we get to this sentence of the Communion liturgy,
we’re promising to do something about it. We offer ourselves to the
Lord. We offer ourselves as a holy and
living sacrifice. A sacrifice that’s in
union with Christ’s offering for us.
A holy and living sacrifice. That’s what Jesus was,
right? Jesus was holy. Jesus was
perfect. Perfectly good, perfectly
righteous. And Jesus was a living sacrifice. He sacrificed his life for us. For you
and for me.
When we read the Communion liturgy, that’s what we’re
promising. Now, that does not mean that we’re all supposed to literally
die for our faith. There are people who are called to do that, of course. The original disciples knew it was a real
possibility that they might be killed because of their faith in Christ.
And there are people now, in various parts of the world, who run the risk
of death because of their faith in Christ.
But for most of us, that’s a
pretty remote possibility. It’s very unlikely, living here in rural South
Dakota, that we’ll ever be called on to literally die for our faith in Christ.
I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s not likely.
But when we say we’re going to
be a living sacrifice, we’re still making a promise. We’re promising to
give our entire lives to the Lord. We’re
not just promising to give Sunday morning to the Lord. We’re not just
promising to give the entire Sabbath Day to the Lord. We’re promising to give our entire lives to
the Lord. One hundred percent.
Everything we do. Everything we
say. Twenty-four/seven. It all belongs to God. That’s what it means when we say we are
offering ourselves as a holy and living sacrifice in union with Christ’s
offering for us.
That’s why this part of the Communion liturgy is so
challenging. It’s why we tend to gloss over it. To be honest, it’s not the easiest thing to
preach on, either. Because this is a really, really tough standard. And it’s not one that I think I live up to in
any way. Sacrificing my entire life to God, giving one hundred percent of
my life to God. I mean, I’m willing to
give some of my life to God. Maybe twenty percent. Or even forty percent. Or maybe, on a really, really good day, sixty
or seventy percent. But one hundred
percent? Everything? I should give
God every aspect of our lives?
Man, that’s--well, I just don’t
know if I could do that. In fact, I don’t really know if I want to do
that, even if I can. I mean, I really like my life the way it is right
now. There have been times when I was
not that happy with my life, but right now, finally, I really am. And
now, when I finally feel like I have my act somewhat together and I finally
feel like I’m on the right track and doing what I’m supposed to be doing, now
I’m supposed to change it? I’m supposed to be willing to give up all that
stuff that’s finally going right in my life and give a hundred percent of my
life to God? I don’t think so.
Well, that’s why it’s called a
sacrifice, right? Because if we’re going to do this, we are going to have
to give some things up. And that’s where it gets hard. Because the more we like the way our lives are
going, the harder it is for us to give things up.
But it fits in perfectly with
our reading for today. Look at what it says. Jesus says, “Whoever wants to be my disciple
must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
There it is, in a nutshell. Jesus
says we need to deny ourselves. And again, the more we enjoy our lives,
the harder it is for us to give things up--to deny ourselves--and follow Jesus.
Now, don’t take this the wrong
way. I am not saying that if we follow Jesus our lives will be miserable.
I’m also not saying that we need to stop doing everything we enjoy. That kind of sour Christianity--the kind
that’s always on the lookout for someone having a good time so they tell them
to stop--is probably the least appealing form of Christianity there is.
The point of denying ourselves is to gain something better. The point of denying ourselves is to be
better able to feel the joy and satisfaction of truly following Jesus Christ.
But still, to do that, we are
called to deny ourselves. And we do.
All of deny ourselves at one time or another, in one form or another.
Because what we’re talking about here, really, is doing what we should do
instead of doing what we selfishly want to do.
And we all do that, to an
extent. But the thing about that is, we do that kind of sporadically.
We do it when we have time. We do
it when the mood strikes us. And again, I’m no better. In fact, I’m sure I’m not as good at this as
some of you are. Again, I’m willing to deny myself to a certain
extent. Twenty, forty, maybe even sixty
percent on a good day. But I doubt that any of us does this the way we
say we will in the Communion liturgy. I
don’t if any of us truly makes ourselves “a holy and living sacrifice, in union
with Christ’s offering for us”.
Now, my point here is not to
ask us to beat ourselves up when we fail to meet this standard. But let’s
look at this thing. Why is this so hard
for us? I think the reason is what Jesus
said to Peter. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely
human concerns.”
I think that’s why we struggle
so much to truly dedicate our lives to God. We have in mind human
concerns. We get caught up in our own
stuff. We get caught up in our own desires.
We get caught up in all the things we enjoy. They make us happy. We all want to be happy, right? And it seems like taking care of these human
concerns makes us happy. And so we do them. And we do more of them. We get more and more immersed in our human
concerns.
The thing is, though, that
those human concerns will never really satisfy us. Not in the end. They may make us feel better for a little
while, but eventually we feel let down. Those human concerns, while they
may be a lot of fun at the time we’re doing them, don’t ultimately bring us the
kind of peace and satisfaction that we want out of life. We’re doing what
Jesus warned against. We’re gaining the
whole world, but we’re forfeiting our souls.
So what can we do? How do
we get rid of all those human concerns so we can truly dedicate one hundred
percent of our lives to God? How do we get to where we can be that holy
and living sacrifice?
Well, it’s not just accident
that the Communion Liturgy puts this in the place that it does. Because
what are some of the things we’ve talked about in this sermon series? Giving thanks to God. Holiness. Accept the promise of the new covenant, the
promise of salvation and eternal life.
The whole point of all those things is to take our focus off of
ourselves and put our focus on God.
Because those things are all
the keys to it. We get rid of our human concerns by being thankful to God
in all circumstances, no matter what may be going on. We get rid of our
human concerns by focusing on the holiness of God. We get rid of our human concerns when we
focus on God’s promise of that new covenant, that promise of salvation and
eternal life.
And we get rid of our human
concerns when we do one more thing. We get rid of our human concerns when
pray. When we ask for God’s Holy Spirit
to come into our hearts. When we do what we can to form that union with
Christ that our liturgy talks about.
We’ll have more to say about the Holy Spirit in a couple of weeks, as we
near the end of this sermon series. But for now, just know that we are
not supposed to do this alone. We could
not do this alone. We cannot, just by
the sheer force of our human will, get rid of our human concerns and give one
hundred percent of our lives to God. We can only do that with the help of
God.
But with God’s help, we can do
it. So let’s get started. As we go
through this next week, let’s take our focus off of ourselves, and put it on
God. Let’s make God the focus of everything we do: at home, at work, in the community. Let’s do what we can to give one hundred
percent of our lives to God. Let’s become that holy and living
sacrifice. Let’s put our minds on God.
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