Our Reminder of Deliverance | Associate Pastor Chad Erickson

i feel the holy ghost in this place so strong i i don't believe that it's going to take me very long to keep us in this vein to move into our communion service but if you will look with me at joshua chapter 4. if you'll give me about 15 minutes we'll go into our communion service joshua chapter 4 in verse 1 says as it says and it came to pass when all the people were clean passed over the jordan that the lord spake unto joshua saying take ye twelve men out of the people out of every tribe a man and command ye them saying take you hence out of the midst of the jordan out of the place where the priests feet stood firm 12 stones and you shall carry them over with you and leave them in the lodging place where ye shall lodge this night so joshua in verse 4 and 5 joshua speak to these 12 leaders what the lord has told him to tell them in verse 6 he tells him that this may be a sign among you that when your children ask their fathers in time to come saying what mean ye by these stones then ye shall answer them that the waters of jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the lord when it passed over jordan the waters of jordan were cut off and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of israel forever somebody say forever these stones these 12 stones brought to this place to this pile by one of every tribe try i want to preach just for a few moments on our reminder of deliverance that's what communion is all about tonight it's our reminder of our own personal deliverance come on let's put our bibles down let's pray together father we love you and we're so thankful for the holy ghost that is falling in this place lord it just didn't fall it's still falling your presence is still here in a mighty way you're you're still moving among your people you're still healing oh god i i feel the same spirit that senior pastor felt i i feel a healing vom of gilead in this place today lord i just believe lord hearts and lives and minds are going to be restored oh god because your healing power is in this place lord i pray as we take a remembrance of what you did on calvary lord as we reflect back of the pain that you suffered oh god the blood that you shed oh god the bread the body that was broken for our sin lord i pray that lord we would remember exactly what it took to get us to the place we are today and we'd have a reminder of deliverance through the taking of the lord's supper somebody just lift up hands don't clap your hands just lift up your hands to heaven and come on lift up your voice and just tell the lord i love you lord i'm thankful lord for what you did for me way back at calvary i i thank you lord god how that you saw fit lord god that you allowed lord even before i was born before my ancestor lord god people lord god in my family tree were ever born lord god you already set aside lord a moment in time in the year 2020 lord where we could take into memory exactly what you did for us lord we bless your name and we praise your name you may be seated just for a moment it's just natural for the people of god to forget it's natural it comes honestly it's not something we try to do it's just what i would call sometimes a spiritual amnesia it's the forgetting it's the momentary forgetting when you get into a place where you think what else can go wrong anybody ever been in that place where you wonder what else could go wrong in my life could could anything else go wrong in my life there comes a point when something in our minds shut down something in our minds just cease to work and we we forget about the greatness of our god in moments of desperation and all throughout the old testament matter of fact if you read your old testament almost every single book of the bible is filled with people who forgot genesis exodus leviticus numbers deuteronomy we start going into the kings into the quran we start going through in every single time the people of god forgot who they were and forgot whose they were they always went into false religion and following false gods and false idols and god always had to punish them to bring them back to the beginning it's just natural it's it's natural to forget the chin of israel horrible about forgetting trapped at the red sea look behind them what did they see they saw pharaoh his army of chariots as they as they came and as they they began to get closer and closer matter of fact the lord says that he on purpose if you read your bible the bible says that on purpose god placed the children of israel in a place where the people of egypt could see them it wasn't enough that ten plagues had just occurred it wasn't enough that the firstborn from every family of the egyptians had just died and was it enough that they had had all their cattle dying all their crops died and there was there was blood shed all over the country of egypt god said i want to show my people one last time that i am able to deliver them but don't you know the people forgot about the plagues the people the people forgot about the past victories the people forgot about walking out with a high hand as as the egyptians threw gold and silver and as they threw their jewelry out in the street before them it was so quick that they forgot the power of their god and so they cried at the red sea it wasn't much after that that the the ten spies or the twelve spies went into canaan and came back in 10 had a bad report you know the story i don't i don't have to take you back to sunday school but what did they do they didn't believe the two they believe the 10. they believe the 10 with the negative report they they believe listen it's easy for the people of god to forget it doesn't matter how often the red sea splits it doesn't matter that you see pharaoh and his armies as you see them drown as they come up face down upon the sea and you watch your captors die in the red sea it doesn't matter there's things in our life we've got to be reminded of day after day we can't just think that that that 20 to 30 years from now we're going to remember the testimony we have today there has to be something in our lives that keeps in remembrance the very goodness of god in our lives somebody shout amen forgot all about what the food tasted like come on somebody they were crying to moses and saying moses what it what is this man or what what is this that's falling from heaven back when we were in egypt we had we sat by the flesh pots and we ate leeks and onions i don't know about you but that doesn't sound very appetizing to me leeks and onions are these are the things that i tell the waitress or the waiter to leave off the menu bring me a salad with no onion bring me a burger hold the onion yet these people had had forgotten all about the great in the goodness of their god and here they are sitting and they're complaining to moses moses here he is he said what are y'all complaining about there's food that's falling from heaven pastor preached about it this morning food that's falling from heaven that tastes like honey wafers now that's something i do buy when my wife's not around going to the gas station you're like oh i'll take you some of that right there but what happened they complained they complained over every situation because they could not remember the greatness of their god he understand god understands how quickly a generation can forget and he wants his people to remember great acts that he performs in their life and so he commands them to set up memorials which is why in our text he told the people it's not good enough that i deliver you and i i separate this jordan it's not good enough that i separate it for you because there's going to come a generation that doesn't know anything that you're talking about there's going to come children of your children of your children who are going to say how in the world do we get into this promised land and unless there is some type of memorial and i like how how the text said that there was something it was a memorial the bible says forever for all generations because why because it's so important that our children ask us why we shouldn't be afraid of the question why god god help us you know in my generation growing up and mom and dad said something we didn't ask why mom and dad are here today i i probably got some some some beatings good godly beatings for for standing up and saying why you we just didn't do that we were taught not to do that but right here it's very it's very clear that god is telling his people i want you to set up a memorial a monument with these stones then anybody that walks by from this generation or the next generation or the next generation that looks at this pile of stones they say these stones didn't get here on their own what meaneth this i thank god listen we got to be careful because in this generation that we're living today it's okay to say why what's not okay is to start removing the stones that have been piled up what's not okay when you get people together they start asking say well i know what the pastor says i know what the church says and i know i know what the choir handbook says but listen i've got some different views and if we're not careful we start to take away stones off a pile that god said i need a pile of stones that the children would ask their fathers what meaneth this i'm going to get to communion in a moment but before we get to communion we got to understand some things there are things in the word of god that god spoke to men directly whether it was a prophet whether it was a minister or whether it was a pastor and he says i want you to tell the people this i want you to tell the people that and it may not be something that's written in black and white but the pastor we've been given a pastor that he can spiritually hear from god and he can direct us that's why submission is such a huge word in the bible all throughout the word of god you find submission if people are out of submission their lives go haywire but if they find themselves in submission their lives always somehow turn out okay story after story after story when people would forget the commandments of the lord they would get out of submission of their leader they would get out of submission of god but when they would return to god and return to submission they would ask the question why is this monument here and there was always a forefather that would say i know you weren't here when it happened but god has delivered us out of so much i know you didn't experience i know you didn't experience walking across on dry ground across the jordan and walking into canaan i know you didn't experience what we experienced but i still want to tell you the story because there has to be a remembrance somebody say remembrance and even today and we can't throw off we can't throw off too much on the people of the old testament because even today god saw us centuries later in jesus jesus said i've got to have something that they'll remember me by and if we read about these scriptures of communion and pastor carpenter he's going to lead us in communion in a little while but when you start reading the scriptures on communion what really just stood out to me when i was reading was he said do this in remembrance of me he didn't so much say do it in remembrance of the cross or or do it in remembrance of the great gospel that i've shared with you he said do it in remembrance of me and that's why when sister lauren was singing songs about the blood of jesus those are songs that go along with communion because that gets us in tune to the memory of what jesus did for us because if it was not for the blood of jesus if it wasn't for a god who made a decision to robe himself in flesh i'm thankful we don't believe in in one person sending another person to do the dirty work and to die for the children oh no we have a god who loved us so much he said i will be creator and i'll also be the savior i'll be the one that forms them out of mud and i'll also be the one that sheds the blood of humanity so here we have here we have jesus as he's speaking to his disciples and we find this in first corinthians 11 because this is something that paul is instructing the church in corinth straight out of the gospels but this is paul verse 23 he says for i have received of the lord that which also i delivered unto you that the lord jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and said take eat this is my body which is broken for you this do in remembrance of me in the same manner also he took the cup and when he had sup saying this cup is the new testament in my blood this do ye as oft as he drink it again in remembrance of me for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you do show the lord's death till he come i it seems unlikely that the followers of jesus would forget him as a person so we just got to believe that he's saying right here i want you to remember the sacrifice the sacrifice we're talking about a king who left his kingdom we're talking about a god who did not have to come back to earth we we're talking about a god who left his throne and put on humanity became he lessened himself as a man jesus christ the man he lessened himself in order to walk the streets that we walk to feel the infirmities that we feel bible talks about he was lowly he didn't come as a king he he didn't come in some majesty but he came as a lowly servant to feel or to feel what we feel to touch what we touch to understand what we understand and here he is jesus who would soon go to the cross the most shameful death of a hebrew that they could ever suffer he needed his followers to remember that the point of his death was his purpose and he reinterpreted listen to me he reinterpreted the passover meal because we understand that when they sat down they were eating the passover feast and he reinterpreted and it was his way of embedding the significance of the cross into the hearts of his believers its original setting the the passover was a reminder for the israelites of the redemption from the slavery by the power of god we remember that we understand that all throughout the old testament there were feasts for remembrance sake even today the jewish culture they still follow many i believe there's seven of them that they follow very religiously and strictly that they follow these different days and different feasts and different holy days because they always want to keep in remembrance the victories they won even in the old testament but now the bible says that one greater than moses was here and jesus is about to rescue not only the israelites but all creation he's about to redeem not only the hebrew race but all sinners and i wish a gentile would say amen in this place thus he offered them bread not as a reminder of temporary manna falling from heaven but as a reminder that he is now the bread of life he offers us a cup not as a reminder of the blood of animals spilt at a temple to forgive sin until the next passover however he offers us the blood or he offers us the juice in the cup to say this is my blood i am now the temple that has been broken for your forgiveness forgives us of sins and he releases the curse that adam put upon mankind through sin so first corinthians 11. i want to continue i'm going to i'm going to hurly continue through this because we must understand what paul is trying to tell the corinthians as they get prepared to receive the communion the last supper for as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup you desho the lord's death till he come wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the lord but let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the lord's body another translation says if you give no thought or worse if you don't care about the broken body of a master when you eat and drink you're running the risk of serious consequences a lot of people a lot of people they get the idea well you know if i'm not perfect if i'm not well none of us are perfect i mean if we had to be perfect in order to receive the cup and and eat of the bread if we had to be perfect in order to do that i don't think that anybody anybody in this place could receive it however what they're saying right here paul is saying you better when you take that cup and when you put that bread that unleavened bread in your hand you better have thoughts of the broken body of christ you better have thoughts of the shed blood of jesus the spotless lamb there better be something in your mind because if we're not careful a ceremony can become a ritual there's a lot of religions out there that have turned this beautiful ceremony and it is a ceremony it's a time of remembrance they've turned this beautiful ceremony into nothing more than a ritual something that is due every week when i walk by this altar this is what i pick up this is what i chew this is what i drink i keep on going around to my seat this is what i do this is just i've always been raised like this this is what i think this is how it and some of you brought out a religion like that and i say oh god help us because if we ever make communion a ritual we're going to do exactly what paul was telling the corinthians about he was saying listen if you take an unworthy if you don't think about and if you don't even care about the cost listen it might be free to us but i promised it cost jesus something we might look and say well mercy is free come one come all come just as you are it's free receive it is for oh it's free for us but it wasn't free it cost our savior something it cost our messiah something and here we have as paul is explaining he's saying listen don't turn this into a ritual because god hates rituals i'm going to say it again god hates rituals he he wants nothing to do with rituals god is all about putting things into our remembrance he's all about us setting up things that will make us remember what he's done for us but he doesn't want things to turn into a ritual the last supper took place on the celebration of passover and jesus took a passover meal and gave it a brand new meaning the bread his body the cup his blood by his death he has freed us from death just as the lamb did in the exodus jesus is using a holy day that had already been celebrated and he was changing the meaning of the celebration do you see what he's doing here he was saying instead of celebrating a lamb's blood on the doorpost and a death angel they passed over your home and none of your offspring died he said instead of celebrating that we're going to celebrate a new type of blood from a spotless lamb who's never seen sin who's never partaken in sin a spotless lamb who shed his blood he didn't have to shed his blood but he decided to shed his blood we're going to celebrate on the same day in the same feast we're gonna celebrate the freedom from the spotless lamb of god he declared that he was making a brand new covenant with them the old covenant on mount sinai with moses i believe it was jeremiah in jeremiah 31 that prophesied a brand new covenant in jeremiah 31 31 i love what he prophesies he says behold the days come saith the lord that i will make a new covenant with the house of israel and with the house of judah not according to the covenant that i made with their fathers in the day that i took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of egypt which my covenant they break although i was a husband unto them saith the lord but this shall be the covenant that i will make with the house of israel after those days saith the lord i will put my law in their inward parts and i will write it in their hearts and will be their god and they shall be my people and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying know the lord for they shall know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them saith the lord for i will forgive their iniquity and i will remember their sin no more right here he's put in place he's saying i want you to take communion i want you to take the cup and take the bread so that you can remember and at the very time that you the very time that you're remembering i will remember no more i don't know about you but that's a good deal for us that's a good deal for us as a sinner that's a good deal for me that i'm taking time to remember what jesus did for me and he's taken time to remember no more the writer of hebrews explains in hebrews 9 12 he said neither by the blood of goats and calves but by his own blood he entered into in once into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us for if the blood of bowls and of coats in the ashes of a heifer sprinkle the unclean sanctified to the purification of the flesh how much more shall the blood of christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to god purge your conscience from the dead works to serve the living god and for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance so now today when we take on this communion and we take into remembrance what jesus did for us at calvary what he did for us at the cross we celebrate communion we celebrate the last supper we remember the significance of his death for our sins and we remember the new covenant we enjoy because his death and because of those things i think we should just praise him just for a moment in this place i believe he's deserving and worthy of glory and honor to say thank you jesus you didn't have to you were on a crossing you could have called down ten thousand angels they could have took you off their cross you did not have to shed one else of blood you didn't have to die for us but lord we're here to praise you and we're here to give you glory because you chose to do the very act of salvation for us god help us first corinthians 11 and 20 paul goes on he says when you come together therefore in one place this is not to eat the lord's supper for an eating every one taketh before others of his own supper and one is hungry and another is drunken they had all it had turned into just a it was a potluck dinner it was just a religious rituals all they were doing the rich that had food were eating the poor they didn't have food they weren't eating and they were calling it the lord's supper and paul was saying that is not the lord's supper the lord's supper is not about big eyes and little yous it's not racial doesn't matter what color you are it's not about gender male female it's not about who you are what you are every person is equal at the foot of the cross paul said it's not about what you're reciting in the technicalities of how you're doing he said you're going through the motions you're saying the right things you're doing but the spirit that you're doing it with is the wrong spirit and so tonight oh god help us as a church to understand that if we do not take this communion and partake in the lord's supper without the right spirit it could turn our savior off i don't want to turn him off i don't want him to turn his face from me when i send up prayers because i'm doing it for the wrong reason for the wrong purpose it was nehemiah 1 and 13 that says bring no more vain oblations uh incense is an abomination unto me the lord said this new moon in the sabbath the calling of assemblies i cannot away with it is iniquity even the solemn meeting and that might not make sense to us today but let me read it from another translation he said quit your worship charades we know what charades are we play that game i can't stand your trivial religious games your monthly conferences your weekly sabbaths your special meetings meetings meetings meeting this is i'm not making this up meetings meetings meetings i can't stand one more meetings for this and meetings for that god said i hate them you've worn me out i'm sick of your religion religion religion while you go right on sinning when you put on your next prayer performance oh my god i'll be looking the other way i'm not saying that this is the word of god right here i'll be looking the other way he said i'm not listening and do you know why because you've been tearing people to pieces well and your hands are bloody god said go home and wash up and clean up your act stop coming to church and playing the part go home and get right and come back in here and next time you come and worship me don't be playing no games don't be putting on no show paul said you're coming into the house for the wrong reason you're coming to show what you've got you're coming home you see in that day in paul's day the houses they would have these formal dining rooms where all the special guests came you know it's kind of like that room in our house that our kids are not allowed in what they say is it's the front room it's the one clean room no that's not true this is the formal dining only the elite guests get to sit at the formal dining and then everybody else in paul's day everybody else was out was that what we call into the foyer or out in the entryway and so you pack all these these insignificant people into the foyer area and you have all the elite would be around the table and paul's saying your hearts are not right the way you're treating each other is not right this is not the will of god when jesus wanted you to come together and remember his suffering it wasn't so one can eat a feast and the other could starve to death and so i plead with the church today if we're going to get the attention of god if we're not going to be a turn off to god if we want god to love what we sing if we want god to love and love when we get up here and pray to him we've got to be able to have the right spirit that says god i'm doing this in remembrance of you it's not about me it's not about my will it's not to display what i'm wearing or what i think or my philosophies but instead oh god it's all about you and what you've done for me somebody shout praise the lord come on somebody shout praise the lord jesus told us his followers he said do this in remembrance of me i want you to stand your feet here in about two minutes pastor's going to come and if they want to go ahead and start bringing in i believe they're going to bring in they're going to bring in the unleavened bread and the juice of the vine but here we have here we have people that not only should take into remembrance the whole reason why there were feast days the whole reason why they were there were altars that were built and stones that were piled up the whole reason the the pudding remembrance we got to remember what he did for us but we also got to follow after him because when he talks about i want you to remember me it's more than just about the cross it's more than just about the pain he's saying i want you to follow in my footsteps he's like i want you to take up your own cross and follow me we take communion so much more listen we're going to sing about the blood of jesus and we ought to sing about the blood of jesus but it's so much more than that jesus said i want there to be something in the church even in the 21st century that causes them to remember salvation causes them to remember that they've been brought out of so much causes them to remember their testimony i don't know about you but i don't ever want to forget my testimony god help me to remember everything that i've ever done in a way that i'm so celebrating the fact that i've been delivered from so much come on we should we we shouldn't be taking time out just to think about and look at old pictures and and watch old videos of ourselves in a lost state but at the same time we have got to always remember that god has brought us out of so much god help us i i told the saviorville church today there's there's there's things that god just made sure we're always in front of the people he had the ark and inside the ark where the stone tablets stone tablets where the law was written on these stone tablets they were stored inside of the ark of god they were there so when people were looking upon the ark would look inside the priesthood looking inside the ark they would remember the law that brought them liberty from the world he would see he would see the pot of manna that would never spoil and it doesn't make sense that the pot of manna won't spoil because we understand pastor preached about it today that every day the the manna would spoil you couldn't you can collect more than one day's worth but somehow someway god said i want to put remembrance that i always provided for you in your time of need and then they would see that rod that butted aaron's rod his staff that had butted and he wanted to say i want you to always remember there's a man of god in your life that i have anointed that i have put over you that i have chosen to lead you and so tonight as we partake of this communion as we take into our hands the unleaved bread that stands for the breaking of his body and we take the cup of juice the cup of the vine that reminds us of the blood jesus went a little bit further because with the stone it was a visual reminder with the tablet it was a visual reminder with the rod it was a visual reminder with a pot of manna it was a visual reminder but to us today he says i want to add one of your senses to the visual reminder i want you to taste don't you know that our senses will bring back memories memories we forgot we we could hear a song that we haven't heard for 30 years and it will put us right back in that moment 30 years ago a smell can enter into our nostrils maybe a perfume that your grandmother wore and she might be gone for decades but it puts you right back into her presence and jesus said i'm gonna give you a supper i'm gonna give you something that you're gonna taste and see and remember my goodness for my people the deliverance that i brought you out of so much i i wish every hand could be lifted pastor's coming he's gonna lead us but i wish every hand could be lifted right now before he comes in and you can say god help me o god put me in remembrance o god of the very things that you've done for me lord my testimony lord god that you've brought me out of so much and you've delivered me not only deliver me o god but you paid the price to do it all for me