If someone died for you, would you remember them? Well, even before Jesus died for you, he gave you a way to remember him. And I want to invite everybody to open your Bible and turn to Mark, chapter 14. As we have been going through this gospel together, we come now to a famous scene, the Last Supper, the Passover meal that Jesus has with his disciples. And so, Mark, chapter 14, verses 12 to 25 will be our text that we will study together this morning. And if you don't have a Bible, it is printed out for you on that handout there in your bulletin, so you can follow along as we're going to read this passage. We're going to see three powerful truths about Jesus here today. So once again, out of respect for God's word, I invite everybody to stand up and let's all give our full and undivided attention to these words of Scripture in Mark 14:12-25. Please follow along as I read.

And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.” And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, “Is it I?” He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead and grab your seat. And the disciples begin with a question: What are we doing for the Passover? Now I don't know what everybody here understands about the Passover, but we're in Jerusalem at this part in the Gospel of Mark because it is the feast of the Passover, and the Passover is like a holiday to the Jews, and it's going all the way back to the Book of Exodus to when they were slaves in Egypt, when God delivered his people, Israel, out of Egypt, and he instituted the Passover meal. So that's what Jesus and his disciples are celebrating. If you want to take notes about this, you could write down the Passovers described in Exodus, chapter 12.

And so, just like what Jesus is doing in our passage, giving us a way to remember him before he even dies on the cross for us, well, God gave his people, Israel, a way to remember his deliverance out of Egypt before he even delivered them out of Egypt. He told them that they should keep the Passover, and it was a meal that he clearly instituted that they would do to remember throughout generations. But there was a part of this where they would take a lamb, and maybe you've heard about this before, the Passover lamb. And when they would take this lamb, it would live with them for a few days, and then on a certain day, at the time when the sun is setting, everyone would sacrifice their lamb, and they would take the blood of the lamb that has been sacrificed, and they would put the blood on the doorposts of their house. They would put the blood on the two sides of the door, on the top beam of the door, and then when the angel of the Lord was going to go through Egypt and he was going to kill the firstborn son of every family in Egypt, unless you took the blood of the lamb and you put it on your doorpost, then the angel of the Lord would pass over your house on this day of judgment, and that was the tenth and final plague.

And finally, after that plague, Pharaoh let the people of Israel go, and God did a great work to deliver them out of Egypt. And so, ever since Exodus, they have been keeping this feast of the Passover, and so that's the question. The disciples are like, "How are we going to keep the feast of the Passover?” And Jesus gives them instructions here. These are very interesting instructions. This is the kind of thing you could read through very quickly and not realize how epic this is! In verse 13, he sends two of his disciples, and he says, "I mean, think about if somebody gave you these instructions. You're going to go into the city. You're going to see a man carrying a water jar. Follow the man carrying the water jar. When he enters a house, go in the house, even though you haven't been invited, and say to the master of the house, “The teacher says, where is my room?” And then he'll show you a room, and that's where you should prepare the Passover.

I want somebody to send me on a mission like that. That is so cool. Like just go say, the teacher says, "There's a room for me,” and the guy's like, "Of course there is, right this way,” right? So, don't just skip over this. This is Jesus sending two disciples, and he already knows what's going to happen. In fact, I think it's more than him just knowing what's going to happen. He's controlling what's going to happen. Now, if you're taking notes, put down that, according to Luke 22, the two disciples are Peter and John. So, he sends Peter and John out here to be the two who see the man with the water jar, who go to the house, who prepare for the Passover. One of the strategic reasons Jesus might be doing this is in the verses right before this, Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, promised to betray him to the chief priests, and so if Jesus sends Peter and John ahead, then Judas doesn't know where they're going. He can't have the chief priests and the scribes come and arrest him during this important scene of the Last Supper.

If you know about the Last Supper in the Bible, you know that this is John 13 to 17. There is a lot that is discussed and happens at this Passover meal that Jesus has with his disciples, and so he's sending two ahead, and he's saying, "You're going to see the man with the water jar. You're going to follow him to the house. The owner of the house is already going to have a room. That's where we should get ready for the Passover.” Go back to chapter 11, where Jesus did something very similar. So, this is the second time he's kind of flexed like this, or shown off like this, or drawn attention to the fact that he already knows what's going to happen. And in chapter 11, it was about getting the donkey to ride into Jerusalem. If you remember this, back in chapter 11, he told two of his disciples in verse 1. He sent them out, and in verse 2, he said to them, "Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it, you're going to see a colt or a donkey there. You're going to see it tied. No one has ever sat on this donkey.” We’ve got a brand new colt of a donkey right there waiting for you. When you go into the village, you'll see it tied there. Okay? And then he says, "Untie it and bring it. And if anyone says to you,” verse 3, ‘Why are you doing this?’ Say, ‘The Lord has need of it.’ So, when somebody asks you, "Hey, where are you going with that colt of a donkey? You just say, "Hey, password. The Lord needs it,” and they're just going to let you take that donkey, right? And then what happens? They go into the village, and guess what? A donkey is tied there. And someone asks them, "What are you doing? And they say, "The Lord needs it.” And they're like, "Oh, that sounds good to me.” And then they walk off with the donkey. And now we've got a guy who the teacher says we're ready for the room. Oh, right this way. I mean, Jesus is calling his shots ahead of time here.

Let's get this down for number one if you're taking notes: “See how Jesus is in control.” See how Jesus, in a small way here, he's showing you that he controls the future. He controls what happens. This is more than just foreknowledge. How is that donkey actually there? How is the man with the water jar actually there? How does this guy actually know that the teacher said we're ready for the room now? Jesus is making this all happen. I think that a lot of us who believe in the sovereignty of Jesus, who believe that Jesus is calling the shots of what happens in the world, I think a lot of us still think that things are just naturally happening when actually Jesus is the one causing things to happen. Can I get an amen from anybody on this?
You could write down under point number one, Hebrews, chapter 1, verse 3 says that “Jesus upholds the universe by the word of his power.” And when the universe seems too big to comprehend, well, just know that Jesus, he's got a donkey tied up right where he wants it to be, and a man with a water jar is going to be passing in front of you when you go into the city. Here are some small ways that you can see what Jesus is doing on a macro level. I mean, sometimes I wonder when we gather together on a Sunday morning how many churches all over the world have gathered together in the name of Jesus, and is Jesus there with every single one of his people? Is Jesus there hearing their praise and encouraging their hearts? Jesus is operating on a level far beyond our comprehension, and we get a glimpse into it here that he's already got the room, he's already making sure it's ready, and he's sending Peter and John ahead, and he's giving them detailed instructions because Jesus is in control. And when you think about how much stress there is in many of our lives, just about what we're doing for dinner on a daily basis, or maybe at a holiday time, what are we doing for Thanksgiving or Christmas or some kind of special gathering like the Passover? How is it all going to come together? And it's so easy for us to be anxious and worried about all the details of things. Man, it would be good for us to realize Jesus has already got a man with a water jar going to the house that he wants us to go to. He is in control of all things, and he's setting up a scene here.

Look at the next paragraph here. If you go back to chapter 14, you can see that after they get to the place, he shows up with the twelve. So, the reason it says there in verse 17 that he came with the twelve is that to show us kind of the intimacy of this gathering. When you would celebrate the Passover meal, you would often do it with your family, and if your family was too small, maybe you would join with another family. So sometimes we think of holiday meals being maybe many extended family members, but in this case the idea might be more your immediate family or your family, and another family are celebrating this together. And so, this is just Jesus and the twelve. So, the idea here is this is his inner circle of these twelve disciples. You get the impression that a lot of times there were many people following Jesus, but at this dinner it's just him and the twelve. And they're reclining, which was the posture of the formal meals at this time. If you're familiar with John's gospel, you know that Jesus washed all of their feet for them to have this meal together. And so, here they are. And Jesus says at this meal, the thing that Mark wants to draw our attention to is “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, the one who is eating with me.” So, notice here when it says, “one who is eating with me,” wait a minute, this is like the team, this is the squad, the crew. This is Jesus and the twelve. Jesus handpicked, he appointed these twelve. He is making these twelve to become someone they are not. He is making them his disciples. And now we're saying the betrayal is going to come from someone who's eating with us, from one of us.

Jesus has been saying that he's going to be betrayed, and we know as the reader, from the moment that Judas is introduced, we know Judas is the one who will betray him, and we know that Judas just went to make a deal to betray him. But these disciples, they don't know that, and so now this hits them very hard. No, no, you mean one of us is going to betray you? See, maybe when they heard about the betrayal before, they just thought, yeah, there are a lot of people that don't like Jesus. One of them will get him, but no, it's one of you that's going to do this. And so, you can see the reaction here in verse 19. They began to be sorrowful and say to him one after another, "Is it I? Like they're shocked by how close the betrayal is going to come from, and he said to them, "It is one of the twelve.” And then notice this line: "One who is dipping bread into the dish with me.” So we're sharing the same dish. We're having the same Passover meal. Well, who are you having the Passover with? You're having it with your people. One of your own people is going to betray someone you're dipping the bread with, and this is revelatory to the disciples. It's shocking to them. Something that Jesus has known all along is now becoming clear, and then he says in verse 20. Notice what he wants to highlight here. “For the Son of Man goes at it as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” Can you imagine anything heavier being said to you by Jesus, can you imagine being Judas, hearing Jesus say, "It would have been better for you, Judas, if you had never been born”? Such is the consequence that's going to come from betraying Jesus.

But notice what Jesus wants to draw our attention to, and I was so interested in this that to prepare for our time together this morning, I reread the entire Gospel of Mark all the way up to this point, and I read it for one purpose. My goal when I was reading through Mark was how many times does Jesus himself directly quote or refer to Scripture. And so, you can see here in verse 21 where he says, "The Son of Man goes as it is written of him.” That is the seventeenth time in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus has either quoted a Scripture or directly referred to a Scripture about himself, or something that he expects people to know. Have you not read? Is it not written? Did Moses not say? Or he'll just quote the scripture himself. So not only is Jesus in control, and can Jesus tell you the future, and does Jesus know what's going to happen? But Jesus wants you to see that the scripture tells you how to think about life. The Scripture tells you what's going to happen before it does. And if you search the Scriptures, you'll find out not only about Jesus, you'll find out all the things you need to know for life. And so, yeah, I'm being betrayed, and yeah, I'm being betrayed by someone close to me. Yeah, because I'm going as it is written of me. What's happening, even in this moment, even in this scene that we see how Jesus was careful to set up this scene. Why? Because even in this scene, prophecy is being fulfilled. Things that were written are happening now.

Go with me to Psalm 41. I want to take you to two psalms of David, two things that David says in his psalms that sound very similar to what's happening to Jesus now being betrayed by Judas. So, if you could turn to Psalm 41 with me, I would really appreciate it. I think that when we talk about prophecy today, I don't think we're all really understanding how awesome prophecy is. I think that most Christians these days think of prophecy in a very kind of linear sense, where it's like there's a specific prediction, and then the specific prediction happens. And so, when we hear prophecy, that's kind of what we think. You say something before it happens, and then it's fulfilled when it happens. But in the scripture, there is not just that kind of predictive prophecy. There are so many different pictures, so many different stories that begin here, and then you learn more here, and then, the payoff comes later. And one of the real ways that that happens is through David.

When we were going through the Psalms, we saw this idea of a greater David and a lesser David. Like David, the ancient king of Israel, things happen to him. But some of the things that happen to him, they're like glimpses of what's going to happen to the real king of Israel, the Messiah, when he comes. So, sometimes, David says the Holy One will not see corruption, and he makes a specific predictive prophecy about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But other times David's just describing what happens to him, and then wait a minute, when it happens to Jesus, you're like, whoa! I'm pretty sure David wrote about that a thousand years beforehand. Look, they're casting lots for the clothes of Jesus. Didn't David say something about that? Look, they nail his hands and his feet. He's pierced in his hands and feet. Didn't David say something about that? And now, when Jesus is dipping the bread with his betrayer, that's supposed to be one of those. Wait a minute! Didn't David say something about this? Look at Psalm 41. Pick it up with me in verse 8. “They say a deadly thing is poured out on him. He will not rise again from where he lies.” So, we know there were many people trying to kill David, not just Philistines or people from other nations, but King Saul tried to kill him. His own son Absalom tried to kill him, and here they are saying, David's not going to rise. He's going to die. Look at verse 9. “Even my close friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me, but you, O Lord, be gracious to me and raise me up that I may repay them.” So, you have this idea here that they're trying to kill David, and who's it going to be? Oh, it's going to be someone close to him. Oh, it's someone he shared bread with. Someone we know that he ate at King Saul's table. We know his own son Absalom, they would have shared countless meals together. And so, this idea of an intimate betrayal that Jesus is drawing attention to now by saying, I'm dipping bread with him. I wonder when Jesus says, "I'm dipping bread with him,” is that just like about dipping the bread there in the upper room, or is Jesus drawing attention even to things that David said?

Go over to Psalm 55. You'll see another example of this kind of foreshadowing here. That through David's life we get a glimpse into the greater David's life, the Messiah's life. In Psalm 55, a beautiful psalm. You could read the whole thing later on, but this is another psalm of David. Look at verse 12, and you can feel the pain of the betrayal that all the disciples are starting to realize is happening. The pain that Jesus must have experienced himself here when it says in Psalm 55, verse 12, "It is not an enemy who taunts me, then I could bear it. It is not an adversary who deals insolently with me, then I could hide from him. But it is you. How could it be you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend? We used to take sweet counsel together within God's house. We walked in the throng. See, do you see the stab in the back here? Can you see the broken heart? Like, oh, if my enemies were coming after me, if my adversaries were out to get me, that would be one thing. But you, how could you betray me? We were friends. We used to have great conversations together. We used to go and worship God together, and now you're coming after me. See, that's what Jesus is expressing is the intimacy of the relationship equals the pain of the betrayal, and he's saying it's one of you, the 12, and the 12 are like, "What? It's one of us.” That's the kind of idea we see here. And then look at verse 15, talking about the one who betrays. Let death steal over them. Let them go down to Sheol alive. Sheol, the place of death, for evil is in their dwelling place and in their heart, and that sounds very similar to me to Jesus saying to Judas, "It would have been better for you if you had never been born,” because that's the place you're going to.

And so, this idea of we need to have a scene. Hey, Judas can't betray me right here, right now, because we're going to go have a scene and we're going to dip the bread and we're going to let all the disciples know that the betrayal is happening. The Son of Man goes as it is written, and here we can now turn back and see David describing an intimate kind of betrayal over bread. Wow, that's now happening with the greater David in the Christ. So, there are many more predictive prophecies about Jesus and how he's going to be killed. But when it comes to the betrayal here, you see some of these pictures in the life of David now being fulfilled in the life of Christ.

So, let's get this down for point number two: You want to “See how Jesus is fulfilling Scripture.” I hope it encourages everyone here to take this thought away that Jesus is in control. Jesus is upholding the universe by the word of his power. But how do I know what Jesus is doing? Well, how you're going to know what Jesus is doing is when you understand the Scripture, when you get your eyeballs in the Bible, when you begin to see how God has said life is going to go, and how he wants you to live, and what you should expect and pray for. See, Jesus is trying to show you, yeah, everything that's happening, everything that I'm doing, I'm going to go exactly as it is written. Now things happen because God says they're going to happen. We have all experienced the rare delight of calling our shot and being right. Have you ever experienced that before, where you say something and then it happens, and you quickly let everyone in your household know, including your pets, that you let them know this was going to happen before? Yes, and you like to, in that moment, pretend, maybe even fooling yourself, that you can predict the future. Look at me now, right? There is one who actually does that. See, and the beautiful thing is he tells you many times what he's going to do before he does it, and if he says he's going to do it, you can know for sure it will happen. The Son of Man goes as it is written. You want to find out where the world's going? You want them to find out what's going to happen? It's all in this revelation from God. And so, Jesus, you see how he's drawing our attention seventeen times in Mark, and I'm not talking about all the references the narrator Mark has given us to the Scriptures. I'm just saying in what Jesus says. And he doesn't say a lot in Mark compared to the other Gospels. But seventeen different times, Jesus has drawn our attention to the Scripture. Like you should know what the Scripture says. You should be building your life. This is where faith comes from. Faith comes from hearing the word of Christ, and here's Jesus at dinner trying to say to his disciples, it's all happening just like it was already written it was going to happen. Everything you're seeing play out is what God said.

And so, I hope that inspires you to pay more attention to prophecies and to the Scripture, and even I want to encourage you to share the prophecies you discover with other people. People watch a movie, and at the end of the movie, when there was foreshadowing, and they realize that the ending of the movie was given away in the first act, but they didn't realize it till they saw it in the third act, they'll run around and tell everybody that was an amazing movie. They'll say, I want to watch that movie again because now I'll see things I didn't get before. And we're impressed by somebody writing a fictitious script and telling everybody how to act and then creating that effect. And we think, wow, that's awesome! What genius filmmaking! What a great TV show! They told me they were going to do it here. I missed it, and then when they did it, I'm like, they were showing it to me all the time. That's amazing. God's doing that in real life. God's doing that with real people. God's doing that over hundreds of years, and it's a story that you live in in the real world, and you don't want to go share that with other people. You want to talk about movies and TV shows that people made up, or do you want to talk about the real thing that God is working in the world today? He's doing what he said he would do hundreds of years ago. It's all happening as it is written.

See, prophecy is a compelling reason to believe in Jesus and to read the Bible. Now, go back to Mark 14 because let's get into now specifically the Son of Man is going to go as it is written of him, and even though he spends time talking about the betrayal there, and you got to see the pain of the betrayal, I mean, it's amazing to me that the disciples don't know which one of them is the mole, right? Because have you ever been around somebody who doesn't like you? Have you ever had that experience before? Have you ever felt that way before? Do you realize that Jesus knew Judas was going to do this the entire time? Three years they've been together, and he's washing Judas's feet just like the other eleven. And when he says it's going to be one of you, they are so shocked because in their mind, it's not obvious to them that Jesus treats one of them differently than the other eleven, and so to me the betrayal it cuts deep here. What's happening with Judas, and it's shocking. It's unsettling to all of the disciples. And then he says, as they were eating, verse 22, “He took bread, and after blessing it, he broke it and gave it to them. And he said, ‘Take, this is my body.’ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, ‘This is my blood.’”
Okay, now you can see when Mark is writing this, he doesn't give us a lot. He’s just about the bread, it just says take this is my body, and then about the cup, it says this is my blood, and it says it's “my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” So, Mark just has this idea of Jesus' blessing. I don't know if he's blessing the bread or he's blessing God for the bread. Right? He's saying something good to God for the bread, or he's asking God to bless the bread. But he's breaking the bread. And they would have had unleavened bread as part of the Passover feast. And so, he's breaking the bread, and he's handing it out to them, and he's holding up bread, and he's saying, "This is my body.” Okay, so this is what we would think of as the institution of communion, the Lord's Supper. Sometimes it's even called the Eucharist. Well, the reason it's called the Eucharist is because of what it says in verse 23. He took a cup, and when he had given thanks, the Greek word for given thanks is Eucharisteo. That's the verb there. So, he gives thanks for the cup, and then they all take a drink of it, right? So, he's saying when he holds up the cup, the cup is the wine that they're drinking at the Passover meal, but he holds it up and he says, "This is my blood,” or he holds up the bread and he says, "This is my body.” Now, if somebody holds something up and they say, "This is,” and it represents something else, you don't think they're literally saying that's their body or that nobody is practicing cannibalism at this meal. Can we all see that here? No one's eating the body of Jesus. The blood of Jesus is still inside of his body at this point. So, this is representative. Okay? In fact, in the Gospel of Luke, he says, "Take, this is my body. Do this in” what is the word? Does anybody know? Remembrance. Can we all write that down? It's not one of your points, but communion is meant to be a way to remember. It's a representative. Many people throughout the history of the church and today are trying to say that it is the actual body of Jesus, that it becomes the flesh of Jesus, or it becomes the actual blood of Jesus, or something holy is happening when you get the bread and the cup out. But Jesus is just referring to the Passover unleavened bread, and he's just referring to this wine that they were all drinking, and he's using it in a symbolic representation kind of a way to remember him. The point is not the bread. The point is not the cup. The point is Jesus. Can I get an amen from anybody on this?

And really, this is already a symbolic meal that they are eating. Okay, this is the Passover. All right, and I understand some of us are Jews. Most of us are Gentiles. So maybe we're not totally tracking with the Passover, right? But there is something massively symbolically representative that is happening, that fact that Jesus dies on the cross at the time of the Passover is supposed to be a woe revelation to all of us, because when John the Baptist introduces Jesus in John, chapter 1 to some of these very disciples who are in with the room with him on this historic occasion, what does John the Baptist say to introduce the disciples to Jesus? He says, "You see that man over there? Behold the Lamb of God.” Why would you look at a man and call him a lamb? Why would you call him the Lamb of God, because John the Baptist is referring to this idea that goes all the way back to the Passover. It goes all the way back to the idea of animal sacrifice and the law of Moses, and it goes back to you're going to have a perfect lamb, a spotless lamb, and on that day, you're going to kill that lamb. And where are you going to put the blood of the lamb? You're going to put it on the sides and the top of the door. And now John the Baptist wants everybody to know that Jesus is the lamb. Whose lamb is he? He's not your lamb, my lamb. He is God's lamb, the sacrifice of God that is going to take away the sins of who, everybody? The whole world’s sins will be paid for, will be atoned for by the sacrifice of God's Lamb. And you need to see Jesus up there nailed to the wood on the cross and where is the blood of Jesus on the cross? Well, they pounded a crown of thorns into his skull, so he's bleeding from his head. The blood's up there on the top beam, and then they've nailed his hands into the wood. So, where's the blood there on the sides? The same place the blood is on the door. The blood is now on the cross. There's the Lamb of God.

So, Jesus is fulfilling this picture of the Passover that God gave to the people of Israel hundreds of years beforehand. Jesus is the Passover Lamb, but now Jesus is saying, instead of remembering God's deliverance out of Egypt, I want you to remember me, and so I'm going to give you bread, and I'm going to give you a cup. And when you take the bread, I want you to be thinking about my body. And when you take the cup, I want you to be thinking about my blood. But we have misread this text, or I don't even know if people are reading this text because if you go back to the original context, nobody in this room is thinking that the big deal is the bread or the cup. What everybody's thinking is the big deal is that Jesus is going to die. That's what it's about. He's saying what's going to happen to him is that he's going to pour out his blood to make a covenant with many. That's the significance. And a lot of people are searching for spiritual experiences. A lot of people are looking for holy things, and if you're looking for holy things, you're going to be led astray. There is one who is holy. You need to look for him. And the point of taking the Lord's supper is the Lord, not the supper.

And we need to hear that because I've never seen so many people starting to think communion means something more than Jesus than I've talked to in the last year here at this church. So, he's saying it's about me, my body, my blood, and when Mark doesn't give you a lot, you really want to pay attention to what he does say because he says, look at that in verse 24, “My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” So, they're drinking out of this cup of wine. He's saying it represents blood that he's going to pour out for many. That's a key word. And then look when he says this about the drinking the wine, verse 25, “Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” And so, that's an amazing promise that I don't think enough of us have thought through or paid attention. Jesus is sharing this Passover feast with his disciples. They're having the unleavened bread. They're drinking the wine, as was the way that they did it to remember the Passover every year. And now Jesus is saying, I'm not going to have a drink of wine like this again until I'm drinking it in the kingdom. He anticipates a future time that won't be like this, where there's betrayal. It won't be like this, where the Son of Man's going to go as it is written in the kingdom. And remember, in the Gospel of Mark, the kingdom is where everybody wants to get to. These days, we might say you want to go to heaven when you die. Well, at this time they wouldn't talk like that. They would say, "You want to enter the kingdom.”

And so, we've seen the kingdom be a major theme throughout this gospel. In fact, the reason that everyone should repent and believe in the good news that Jesus is the Christ who died and rose again is because the kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom of God is drawing near. The kingdom of God is coming, and it could be here soon. So, you should get ready. You should make your way straight. Prepare for the way of the Lord now, because the King is coming. And we've heard that you can only enter the kingdom like a child. You can't earn your way in. You have to humble yourself. It has to be by faith. It's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom. We've learned about that. It seems like it's impossible for people who want to hang on to this life to enter the kingdom.

And if it's your hand, if it's your foot, if it's your eye, whatever it is that causes you to sin, you should get rid of that. You should remove that because it's better to go through life without that thing than to miss the kingdom. And so now Jesus promises his disciples at this moment where he says, I'm going to be betrayed and I'm about to die in my body, my blood, he says, but we will drink this again together in the kingdom. I don't think enough Christians are looking forward to the glorious day we're going to have when we get to raise the cup in the presence of Jesus, and we remember Jesus, all that he did. But we're not just remembering the past; we're celebrating him in his presence. Here's a toast to Jesus, and he's right there. That's what he's referring to here. So, he gives like a someday we'll all take this cup together idea, which is really profound. But let's zero in on what he said about the blood, the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” Now, going through Mark, that idea of being poured out for many, referring to the blood, that should remind us of chapter 10, verse 45. So, everybody, turn back to chapter 10, verse 45. Maybe you can remember in chapters 8, 9, and 10 of Mark, it was about Jesus teaching his disciples that we're going to go to Jerusalem. I'm going to be betrayed; the chief priests and the scribes are going to kill me. I'm going to suffer at their hands. They'll kill me, and on the third day I will rise. And the focus of chapters 8, 9, and 10 in Mark was him teaching his disciples what was going to happen to him before it even happened. And the conclusion of all of that was what he said in Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for” who? For many.

So, this is the main point that Mark wants to make in his gospel. This is what we're supposed to remember when we take the bread and we take the cup is we're supposed to remember that he poured out his blood for many, that he gave his life for many. The emphasis on taking communion or the Lord's Supper is not on us taking it today. It's on what he did for us, when he offered his body as a sacrifice to atone for sin, and he shed his righteous blood. See, it took pure righteousness to pay for our sin. This idea of redemption, this idea to give his life as a ransom, like your sin deserves death., your sin deserves judgment. The wages of sin is death. Like there's now a payment. You now have a debt before God because you have sinned against him. And how are you going to pay your debt with God? Well, see, you don't even have a shot at paying your debt. You don't even have an ability to pay your debt. You don't even have a righteousness of your own to offer God. That's why someone who is righteous, he had to give his life as a sacrifice in your place to pay your debt. He paid for you. He redeemed you, and in their mind, when someone was a slave, if you wanted to get them out of being a slave, you had to pay the ransom, you had to pay the redemption price, and so you were a slave to your sin, and you owed God a debt you could not pay. And the righteous one is the only one who has righteousness. He gives his life to pay for you. He pours out his pure blood as a redemption for your soul. That's what Jesus wants you to remember. That's what the point of the Gospel of Mark is that even the one who's in the highest place put himself in the lowest place for you. Do you remember what it's going to take? It's going to take his body, him literally offering himself to death, and it's going to get gory. Like if you think about Jesus on the cross, and there's blood coming down from his head.

I don't know how you guys do with blood, but some of you are my fellow Orange County citizens, and I can say confidently we don't do well with blood. Can I get amen from anybody else on that? Maybe some of you are tougher than us, and that's fine. We understand us suburbanites. We understand who we are here in Orange County, right? I recently got a checkup at a at a doctor's office, and they gave me an IV for this thing they were going to do. And the kind nurse says to me, "Sir, you can stop clenching your fist now,” right? Because to me, this is a big deal that you're sticking me with this needle and you're taking some of my blood, or you're putting something into my blood. Well, you and I would have struggled with the scene of Jesus Christ because it was gory. It was R-rated. It was something you wouldn't want your family members to be looking at. I mean, they beat him up, they whipped him in his back. They pounded a crown of thorns into his skull. They nailed him to a piece of wood, and he was naked up there. And they are all mocking him and shouting at him. And you got to just think, why is he doing this? He's pouring himself out. He's giving his life. He is literally dying in your place, and he's saying, when you take that bread and you take that cup, could you remember me? That's what he's setting up here.

Go with me to Isaiah 53, where this is all prophesied, where this is all predicted, and it's maybe not the part of Isaiah 53 we're as familiar with. Isaiah 53 is one of the epic predictive prophecies. Isaiah writing this about God's suffering servant, over 600 possibly 700 years before Christ dies on the cross. And the graphic detail here in Isaiah 53 has impacted many people, seeing the specific way it's written about here, and then how it's fulfilled by what happens with Jesus. But if you go to verses 11 and 12, the last two verses of this chapter, that aren't as commonly quoted, these are the verses that I think Mark has been regularly referring to. It says in Isaiah 53, verse 11, “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.” Okay, so he's going to go through agony, but because of the agony, he's going to end up satisfied. “And by his knowledge, shall the righteous one,” there's one who's righteous, God's servant. The righteous one “will make many to be accounted righteous, because he shall bear their iniquities.” This is the great exchange of the gospel. The righteous one gives his life. The righteous one pours out his blood. Why? So, you can be made righteous when you put your trust in Jesus. God now imputes the righteous. It's like He transfers the righteousness of Jesus over to your account. Your account is bankrupt. Your account has zero righteousness. The only shot that you've got of any righteousness is not based on what you could do; it's based on the righteous one and what he did. And so the righteous one is going to go through this agony so that you, the many, could be made righteous, and he's going to pay for all of your sins, and you're going to get a one hundred percent transfusion of his blood. You're going to get his righteousness in your life. And verse 12, it says, "Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to what everybody? Death.

See, that's what we're remembering. It's not about the act of us taking communion today. It's about us remembering that Jesus poured himself out for us, and because he poured out his soul to death, he was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many. So, you see how three times here it uses the word many. Many will be accounted righteous. Then he will divide him a portion with the many. And then the last part here in verse 12, “he bore the sin of many.” Now, this is this idea of many is what Mark is now referred to in chapter 10, verse 45. And now, about the blood, the blood of the covenant where you're going to have a relationship with God in this blood. He's going to be your God. You're going to be one of his people. And because of the blood of Christ that's how God is going to give you a new heart. That's how God's going to put his Spirit within you. God's going to write his law on your heart, and the Spirit's going to cause you to walk in God's ways. The way you're going to have this new covenant with God is through the blood of Jesus, and this is offered to many. Many will be made righteous. He will bear the sins of many.

So, Mark even talked about this. Remember when they accused Jesus of casting out demons by the power of demons? Does anybody remember that? And Jesus, he said something about how no, that's not how it works. Satan's house is not divided. The kingdom is not divided against itself. If you want to beat Satan, you’ve got to go in, and you have to plunder the strong man's house. You have to go get the spoil for yourself. And we saw that was right here in verse 12. “Therefore I will divide him a portion or a plunder with the many. He shall divide the spoil with the strong.” No, these are the people that were in the kingdom of darkness. But Jesus, by the sacrifice of his body and the shedding of his blood, Jesus is redeeming them, and he's making them his people. And they were in the kingdom of darkness, but now they're in his marvelous light. Once they had not received mercy, but now they have received the mercy of Christ. Jesus is defeating Satan and all that Satan did in deceiving Eve, and all that Satan did by bringing in sin, which leads to death, which leads to judgment. Jesus is destroying the work of the devil. He is paying for sin. He is dying in our place. He is taking the judgment that we deserve, and we are his plunder. We are his spoil in the victory that Jesus wins over the enemy. Many of us will be seen forever as righteous, not because of anything to do with us, but because the righteousness of Jesus has been given to us, because he sacrificed his body, and he poured out his blood. When you and I are in heaven, we will not be talking about what we did. We will not be talking about our repentance or our faith, but we will be saying, I am so thankful for him and what he did.

Let's get this down for number three: You want to “See how Jesus is sacrificing himself for you.” You want to see how Jesus is sacrificing himself for you. That is the goal for every single one of us today, as we take communion, that you would see Christ, that you could see him, see his body in such agony up there, his body at this point is just broken. We just need to make it clear that when Jesus is hanging up there on the cross, his body is shrinking in on itself. Right? You have to push yourself up to keep breathing because your lungs are going to collapse, because your body's not meant to be held up by nails in your arms. And so, your body's going to start shrinking in, and you're going to have a hard time breathing. You actually die on the cross by asphyxiation, where you can't get enough air to breathe, and so you have to use your legs to push yourself up just to get a breath, and that's why many times when it's describing Jesus dying on the cross, it'll be like, and he'll take a final breath because a breath is such a big deal when you're pushing yourself up just to even try to breathe, and with that last breath, he's crying out tetelestai, it is finished. What's finished? The sacrifice. So, go with me to 1 Corinthians 11, where we get specific instructions on how to celebrate the Lord's Supper. How do we do this thing we call communion? It's called the Eucharist. Well, we see Jesus instituting it, and I hope everybody can see that he's holding up bread as a representation of his body. It's not his actual body. He's holding up a cup as a representation of his blood. It's not his actual blood. And the point isn't the bread. The point isn't the cup. The point is the righteousness that comes through the sacrifice of Christ. The only hope we have to be righteous is through the death of Christ. And so, look at what Paul says in 1 Corinthians, chapter 11. He teaches the church how to take communion, and if you've ever studied the book of 1 Corinthians, the problem with this church is they are divided. They are not a united group of believers, and really the whole book of 1 Corinthians is Paul addressing one issue after another that they need to change their mind about in this church. And one of the issues that he has to address here is they're not even taking communion right. Some people are just having a feast, and they're not even waiting for other people to show up, they're just basically having their meal over here with communion, and they're not doing it all together in some kind of united way because they're not even united with each other. And so, he addresses that here, and he begins with a review of what the teaching on communion is.

Look at 1 Corinthians 11:23. He says, "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed.” Okay, that's what we were just studying, Mark 14, “The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” That's what we've already seen. The purpose of communion is a means of remembrance. It's a way to remember what Jesus did. In the same way, He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.” The point is Jesus, not the cup. And then it says something interesting that Paul adds here. That's not in quotes. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he” what, everybody? See, this is the part about communion, maybe you have an idea that it's to remember Jesus, but see here it says it's also a proclamation that Jesus is coming. And isn't that what he promised when he said, "I'm going to drink this again" where? In “the kingdom, the kingdom that's coming,” the kingdom that's going to happen when Jesus returns and he establishes his reign as the King. See, that's what we're supposed to be, not just remembering the sacrifice, but also proclaiming his death until he comes.

So, let's get that down, if you're taking notes, “Communion is a way to proclaim Christ is coming.” It's a way to keep announcing that his death is the way for many to be made righteous. If you want to be right with God, there is only one way to do it, and it is through the body and the blood of Jesus, you have to put your faith in his sacrifice as the way to be right with God, and we're supposed to keep proclaiming that until he what? Because someday, it’s going to be awesome to raise the glass with Jesus there, man. What would you say to Jesus when you get to see him on that day? When you know that it's because of his giving of his life, his pouring out of his blood, that you're one of the many who have been made righteous, what would you want to express to Jesus? Now look at what it goes on to say. It addresses here the issue with this in verse 27.” Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord.” So, that's very serious. We saw the seriousness of when Judas betrayed Jesus. It would have been better if he had not been born.

Well, if you take communion in an unworthy manner, you would be guilty of the murder of Jesus, is the idea. Whoa, that sounds intense. So, it says in verse 28, “Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died, but if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.” Wow! Do you realize how heavy what he just said is to this church of people here in Corinth? That he said some of them are weak physically. I think some of them are sick or ill. Some of them have even died because they have taken this Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner. Wow! So, Paul says that along with this time to take this bread and this cup, everyone should examine himself. Can we see that there in verse 28? “Let a person examine himself, and then you eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” So, I think the problem here is their lack of unity. That people are not even right with one another, and yet they want to remember the body and blood of Jesus that makes them righteous and act like they're right with God when they're not even right with one another here in the church. So, I think here the specific unworthy way they were taking communion was that they weren't taking it all together. They were divided from one another, and even Jesus says that in Matthew 5, right? “If you're going to come to God and give him your sacrifice, but you know you have a problem with your brother, go and make things right with your brother before you come before God and act like everything's right with him.”

So, I think some of that is what was going on here in Corinth. But when it says we're supposed to examine before we take the body, before we take the bread to remind us of his body, or the cup to remind us of his blood, look at what it says there. What are we supposed to see? See, when you examine what you're supposed to see is you're supposed to see Jesus. You're not supposed to think it's because of the bread or because of the cup. You're supposed to actually get your mind back on remembering him. And when I see that Jesus actually died to pay for my sin, I can't take that lightly. I actually am shaken up by the love of Jesus. I'm compelled by the love of Jesus. I'm convinced of this, that if Christ died for all, then those who know that Christ died should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised. Can I get an amen from anybody on that? See, this is the core motivation of why I live my life, because Jesus died for me, and I see him there on the cross suffering for my sins. I see him there on the cross offering me his perfect righteousness, and that has made all the difference in my life. It's made all the difference in my eternal hope. Like, everything has changed about me, and it's all because of Jesus. And when I take this little piece of bread and I take this cup, it's not about that at all. It reminds me of him, and it brings me back to my first love for him. It brings me back to that desperate need where I knew I was a sinner, and I knew I was going to die, and I knew I deserved to be judged, and I needed Jesus to save me. And I remember Jesus Christ. I remember what he did for me, and I give him thanks. And I'm reminded of why I love him and why I want to live for him. That is the point of communion. It's communion with him. You don't take it unless you can see him. And when you can remember him, now you're ready to take it. Can you see his body? Can you see what he's doing for you in his death? This is the point. The point is not communion. The point is Christ.

And so this is a chance for some of the members here of our church, some of our brothers and sisters in Christ, you need to remember why you fell in love with Jesus in the first place. You need to remember why you even had your eyes open to see him. Some of you maybe would have to admit here today that you don't love Jesus like you used to. Today is a time to get back to that, to see him again. We have so many people here this morning. It's wonderful. I thank you for being here. But some of you, I wonder, have you really been living in the light of the righteousness of Jesus that he gave his life and poured out his blood for you. Or perhaps this is you seeing Jesus really for the first time. Perhaps even though you've heard about Jesus, you've never really seen your need for him. You've never really seen that you need to be made righteous through his body and his blood. And maybe today is your introduction to Jesus. Maybe you don't need this reminder. Maybe today you need to call in the name of the Lord Jesus to be saved, and you can let communion pass. Communion is a way for believers to remember. But maybe today is the day that you need to believe and be saved. And you could talk to someone in the tent right after the service. But we're going to take communion now, and we're going to gather to see Jesus. So, we're going to give you a time to examine. Just do what it says here. Examine yourself, so that you could see what Christ did for you, to thank him, to worship him, to love and adore him. And then, after we give you a time to examine, we'll all take the communion together. Let's pray.

Father in heaven. We just want to confess that we take things that are profound and spiritual, and we make them physical, tangible things that we can do. And I pray that all of us could agree here today, I pray that all of us could see here today, there is nothing we could do to be righteous. It's not something that we're able to accomplish. There is only one who is righteous, your servant, the one who gave his life as a ransom for many, the one who poured out his blood of the covenant for many. It is only through the righteous blood, the pure blood of your Lamb, your sacrifice, and your one and only Son Jesus. It is only through Christ that any of us are made righteous. And I pray that when we take this little piece of bread, that we will see his body, and when we take this little cup, that we will see his blood, and that we will remember. This was my only hope. This was the one shot I had was Jesus dying on that cross for me. And I pray, Father, that we would seek Christ right now. I pray this for all of my brothers and sisters. And Father, please hear my prayer for those who realize today that they are still in their sins, and they need to see Christ. They need to put their faith in Jesus, so that you can declare them righteous even here today, so let us examine ourselves now before you, and let us remember Jesus.