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Communion

Romans 1:28  “And even as they did not flike ||to retain God in their knowledge, xGod gave them over to ||a reprobate mind, to do those things gwhich are not convenient;” [1]

 I.  Retain

     A. Ignore

     B. Intelligence

II. Reprobate

     A. Insolent

     B. Intolerant

III. Ready

     A. Inconvenient

     B. Indefensible

Introduction:  Last week we considered what Jesus said about those who are not against us.  Though I had read that passage many times before it never affected me in the way that it did in preparing for last week’s message.  In most conversations my understanding was backwards.  It seems natural that those who are for you cannot be against you but that is the opposite of what Jesus said.  His way is much more inclusive.  “50 And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.” [2]

This morning we will once again observe the ordinance of what we know as “The Last Supper”, or  “Communion.”  The root of that word has been used to describe some things that are offensive to some.  Communism is a form of government that was against the form of government that our forefathers decided on for our United States of America.  Back in the sixties there was a movement to free society from all predefined values.  The people who fell into the trap of false freedom were known as Hippies.  They moved out of the cities and took over areas where they could escape civil society and called their places of refuge communes.

So what do you think of when you hear the word communion?  The first syllable of the word sounds inviting.  Come involves moving from where you are and meeting at a place that is neutral and has been decided as the place to meet.  It often requires both sides to meet in a place that is foreign to both sides.  In Luke 9:57-58 there was one who came to Jesus and said, “Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. 58 And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” [3]  When Jesus was here He was in a place of His making but here is not His place.  He was always a foreigner here.  Yet He left His home in Heaven to come to us.  When we finally decide to come to Him we must also decide and follow through on leaving our place that we have established as home and go to Him so that He can lead us to wherever He decides.  Most will never do that.

The last two syllables of that word communion are what this nation once was.  We were a union.  Our forefathers decided to come here and form a union that would stand with God in the center of what He stands for.  Remember Stephen and what he said as they were stoning him to death about seeing Jesus?  "55 But he, pbeing full of the Holy Ghost, qlooked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing ron the right hand of God," [4]

In death Stephen was united with Jesus and Jesus was standing for Stephen.  What does communion mean to you?

Scripture:  The scripture today is Romans 1:28.  Please stand if you can for the reading of God’s Word.

Prayer:  Please be seated.

Message:  Today we will continue on in Paul’s letter to the Romans.  Why are these things happening indeed!  My prayer is not to have this sermon to be remembered as a slam against our nation that God has brought us to.  My prayer is that today we consider what it means to be in communion with God.  We will commemorate the observance of Communion today as this church does on the fifth Sunday of the month.  It should not be only an observance of the ordinance that is prescribed for us to do as Christians but should be a reminder that when we came and united with Jesus we became Christians not only on special days but every day.  We should make an effort to come together as the bride of Jesus as His church every day so that the world will see that we love Him always every day.

Last week we saw what happens when we say one thing as our actions show something different.  Are we against Jesus in the things that we support?  Jesus said that if we are not against Him then we are for Him.  Are we doing the things that He left for us to do or are we falling in line with the world?  Let’s hear what is against Him as we read Romans 1:26-32.

If you did not blush to hear things in these verses that the courts have told us that we must accept, I wonder where you have been.  These things are most certainly against what it means to be in communion with God.

The first third of our focal text says, “28 And even as they did not flike ||to retain God in their knowledge.” [5]  They did not like to keep God in their knowledge.  That is the definition of ignorance.  They chose to ignore God.  They had intelligence of God in some ways but only head knowledge.  They let their likes ruin them.  They didn’t like to retain or keep God in the forefront of their knowledge where He can influence them.  That is where The Holy Spirit must be if we are to be led by Him.  Many are not so much being led by The Holy Spirit as we once were.  There are other things taking the place of where He should be to retain our relationship with God.  Other things have taken that place and we have let them.  That is not communion.

“xGod gave them over to ||a reprobate mind.” [6]  There is a lot here in these few words.  First, God is sovereign!  He decides!  If He understands that there is no coming back and a person has made up his/her mind to ignore that which God has that is best for us, God gives them over to a reprobate mind.  If a person refuses to come to God then God will prevent them from their ability to come and will turn them over to the enemy.  I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be there but this sanctuary has a bunch of open seats.  Where is everybody?

What is a reprobate mind?  In the Greek the word here for reprobate means not appropriate.  The Greek-English Lexicon translates this part of the verse this way, ‘God has given them over to corrupted minds so that they do the things they should not do’ Ro 1:28. [7]  Now instead of wanting to do the right thing, it’s not possible.  Should we hate people like this?  I would say that it’s never too late until it’s too late so we should certainly pray that they will accept Jesus but we should also certainly not be in communion with them lest we become adversely affected.

We Christians are accused of intolerance.  Those who are against God say that we must tolerate the views of others and give up our values as antique.  Isn’t it strange that the first thing to go is so often church attendance?  Even those in our own families say things like, “I just can’t tolerate those people in that church, they are just too judgmental!”  That used to be me by the way.  It’s easy to be distracted.  Who is intolerant of whom?  There comes a point that the decision to have communion with God and those who wish to commune with Him is not the person’s decision anymore.  There comes a time when God knows enough is enough.

“To do those things gwhich are not convenient.” [8]  He gives those who won’t follow Him a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient?  What things are convenient to do?  Back in verse fifteen Paul said this, “So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.” [9]  In other words, there was a time that I was not ready.  For whatever reason the time was not right before but now it is convenient because I am more than ready.  Who got Paul ready?  Who makes things, which are for His kingdom, convenient to do?

It always amazes me how ministry sometimes moves everything else out of my way.  When there are obstacles that cannot be overcome so that things are inconvenient and I push on anyway it causes other things to fall into disarray.  Some times our good intentions are not God’s intentions.  When that happens, those things become very inconvenient.

You cannot be anyone’s Savior.  Jesus will most definitely have the Holy Spirit to guide you into the work that He will do through you but never get it into your head that you are someone else’s Savior.  You are not!  Keep messing around and He will allow you to mess up.

Even Paul was mistaken as He wrote this letter to the church in Rome.  Jump down to Romans 15:24, “Whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will come to you: for I trust to see you in my journey, and uto be brought on my way thitherward by you, if first I be esomewhat filled †with your company.” [10] Paul thought sure that he was going to stop in Rome on his way to Spain.  Not only that, he figured that while he was there with them that they would help him make the trip from there to Spain.  According to tradition, Paul died in Rome.  He had good intentions but it was never convenient so he never got ready to leave Rome.

When we expect God to allow us to do a thing that we have not been prepared for by Him, we fail on our own and we only have ourselves to blame.  No matter how much we question why we can’t do what we want to do on our own we are indefensible.  Jesus knew that.  He prayed for another way.  Jesus was in such dread of being out of communion with God as He carried our sin that He sweated droplets of blood in the garden of Gethsemane.

What is communion with God?  What it is not is leaving God out of anything that we decide to do.  To be in communion with God is a constant that we cannot live without no matter how hard we try.  Isn’t it convenient how your heart just pumped blood?  No matter what we attempt to do, if we attempt it on our own it is inconvenient.  We must strive to be in constant communion with God.

Prayer:

Invitation:  He often makes wrong things right.  Romans 8:28 tells us that so we should know that, “And we know that kall things work together lfor good to them that love God, to them mwho are the called according to his npurpose.” [11]  Talk about convenience!  He is always ready!

We often don’t even recognize when we are in His will.  We are so used to being comfortable with sin that we sometimes don’t realize that God is with us working His will through us.

We are about to observe Communion or the Last Supper.  As we do I pray that after this that we commemorate this today that we remember what happens when leave here to return to having our own way.  Jesus told Judas Iscariot to leave to do his own thing even after he dipped his bread in Jesus’ cup and Judas never returned to communion with Jesus.  The rest also left for a time but they came back into communion with Jesus when the convenient time came.  Let us always be ready. Let us always be in communion with Jesus and each other.  Let us partake…

f See ch. 2:18.
|| Or, to acknowledge.
x ver. 26, 28. Ephes. 4:19. See Ps. 81:12.
|| Or, a mind void of judgment. See 1 Cor. 9:27.
g Eph. 5:4.
[1] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Ro 1:28). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
[2] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Lk 9:50). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
[3] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Lk 9:57–58). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
p ch. 6:5.
q See Luke 4:20.
r See Ps. 110:1.
[4] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Ac 7:55). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
f See ch. 2:18.
|| Or, to acknowledge.
[5] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Ro 1:28). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
x ver. 26, 28. Ephes. 4:19. See Ps. 81:12.
|| Or, a mind void of judgment. See 1 Cor. 9:27.
[6] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Ro 1:28). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
[7] Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 754). New York: United Bible Societies.
g Eph. 5:4.
[8] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Ro 1:28). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
[9] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Ro 1:15). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
u See Acts 15:3.
e ch. 11:25. ver. 24. 2 Cor. 1:14. & 2:5 in the Gk. So 1 Cor. 12:27. & 13:9, 10, 12.
† Gr. with you. Comp. ver. 32.
[10] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Ro 15:24). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
k So ver. 32. 1 Cor. 3:21. 2 Cor. 4:15. Comp. Ecclus. 39:27.
l So Ezra 8:22.
m Jude 1. So ver. 30. See ch. 1:6.
n ch. 9:11. Eph. 1:11. & 3:11. 2 Tim. 1:9. See Acts 27:13.
[11] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Ro 8:28). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.