John K. Jenkins Sr - The Bread

Father, we thank You for the privilege of being in the House of Prayer. We pray that You take these next few moments to speak to our hearts. Allow Your truth to permeate our hearts so that we can be and do all that You have called for us to be and do. Put a hedge of protection around this place, and not only here but at every place that is watching this service. Let hearts be prepared; let lives be impacted and changed. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

If you have your Bibles, open them up to Matthew chapter 26. There 's a familiar passage of Scripture. I’m going to preach for about five minutes, so that means you all need to jump on board quickly- I won’t be preaching for long. Matthew 26:26 says this: it is talking about the Last Supper. People often ask me why we don’t serve communion in the mornings, and let me tell you some reasons. First of all, it’s called The Lord’s Supper, not The Lord’s Breakfast, Brunch, or Lunch. It’s The Lord’s Supper. When we used to do communion in the morning services, we always rushed through it. Because we had multiple services, we had to have it at the end of the service, and we always had to rush through it. I think communion is too important and too sacred for us to rush through it. I believe the Lord is worth us carving out and dedicating time to what He did for us on the cross, amen? Also, the morning service is more of an evangelistic message service focused on bringing unsaved folks to church. Sometimes when unsaved people came to morning services, they did not know we were going to serve communion. Often, these individuals would participate in communion without being saved. We have a responsibility as a church to recognize that people are coming to the morning services and partaking in communion without knowing it would be served. The Bible says if you eat and drink unworthily, you eat and drink damnation to yourself. Therefore, the reason we do it in the evening is that I want to devote the appropriate time to it and give the sacred honor that communion deserves. If what Jesus did for you is not important enough for you to carve out an evening for an hour, miss a football game, and come to communion, then stay home.

Let me go ahead and get to the scripture right here. I’m sure I probably offended some people with that, but it’s okay. Matthew 26:26 says, «And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, 'Take, eat; this is my body.'» I want to spend a few moments talking about the bread. In fact, I want to discuss the meaning, the sacredness, and the power of the bread. This communion opportunity, this Last Supper, The Lord’s Supper, was really commemorating the Passover meal. It is the moment in Israel’s history when the death angel took the firstborn son in every home in Egypt while the Jews were slaves, but the angel passed over every home where there was blood on the doorpost. It is a historical moment, and at that time, Jesus met with His disciples before He was crucified and celebrated the Passover with them. It was during the Passover meal that Jesus unveiled this new practice of eating the bread and drinking from the cup. I often wondered, out of all the foods that Jesus could have selected to represent His body, why did He choose bread? The scripture says He took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it. This process symbolizes not only His physical body but also what happened to His spiritual body. His physical body was broken for you. It was Jesus who took upon Himself our sins, our sicknesses, our diseases, and all of our wrongs, and He took the punishment that you and I should have gotten. It should have been you hanging on that cross. It should have been you being whipped. It should have been you having the crown of thorns placed upon your head. But thanks be to God, He took our place! Somebody ought to thank God that He took our place. We have sinned and missed the mark, but thanks be to the Lord that He took our place.

Moreover, this bread conveys something rather significant. In Matthew 26:26, He said, «Take, eat; this is my body.» In some religious organizations, when they partake of communion, they actually believe that the bread becomes the actual body of Jesus and the cup becomes His actual blood. We do not embrace that belief because that would mean that Jesus is getting crucified every time we take communion. However, the scriptures are crystal clear: He died one time, and that was sufficient for all of our sins to be washed away. I wish I had a praying crowd with me here today who could thank God that His blood was significant enough to be shed one time to wash all of our sins away for all of the rest of our lives. Somebody ought to thank God for the blood of Jesus!