Dennis Tuuri

# Reformation Covenant Church Sermon Transcript
**Pastor Dennis Tuuri**

Scripture is Psalm 100. Psalm 100. Psalm 100. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord, he is God. It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name. For the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and his truth endureth to all generations.

I were to ask most of you or probably most of your children, “What meal is it that emphasizes Thanksgiving to us? And what food is it that we eat to emphasize Thanksgiving?” Probably many of you, if I caught you in an off moment, would say the day we’re going to celebrate this Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. But this morning, we’re going to sum up what we’ve been saying over the last few weeks and months about communion.

And I guess what I want you to think about is that essentially it is the communion meal that we have once a week that really is the focus for Thanksgiving for our lives. And it sets the model for all the other meals. And if we don’t understand the Thanksgiving being given at the Lord’s Supper and the thanks that we give on Thursday, turkey day as it were, probably will not really be what it should be.

I am going to use this morning, as you already know, Psalm 100 for the text. And then we’ll bring in all the other things we’ve talked about communion for the last few months. Psalm 100 happens to be the psalm that President Bush ended his Thanksgiving proclamation with. I don’t know if you read it in the paper this last week or not, but it is a very good proclamation in many ways, and it ended with quoting Psalm 100 and encouraging the people to give thanks to their creator.

Now, in God’s providence, we’ve come to this part of our series on biblical worship. And I think if you’re counting, it’s about part number 24 or something. And what we’re going to do today then is sum up communion the way we spent one week summing up the synaxis, the first half of our formal worship service together. And so this is summing up communion. And it has to do with the Eucharist. The Eucharist, as in terms of being communion, is Thanksgiving.

And the term Eucharist is important in all this because Eucharist means Thanksgiving. That’s really simply what it means. So if you hear people refer to the Eucharist, they’re talking about the Thanksgiving specifically in context of the Lord’s Supper. It’s another word for the Lord’s Supper. And it shows us just in the name itself the centrality of Thanksgiving to communion. And we want to emphasize that today.

And in God’s providence, as I said, it comes during the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the day Thanksgiving that we celebrate once a year in this country as a day of giving thanks. And so it works together nicely that way.

Now, as I said, the word Eucharist means simply Thanksgiving. And when our Lord, for instance, gave thanks for bread at the last supper, the word used there in the New Testament is a Greek word that is essentially Eucharist. And so it means Thanksgiving in that sense.

I have had a difficult week leading up to today’s sermon and I think that’s always interesting. Again, in God’s providence he, several times, and I’ve found myself in his providence preparing a sermon on Thanksgiving or the correct antipal response to his providence, etc., had very difficult weeks—tests of my own level of Thanksgiving. And I would be the first to acknowledge that this last week I didn’t pass those tests very successfully. I’ve had a hard week.

Last Sunday morning it began with getting up and realizing that our kitchen and dining room were somewhat flooded from some real bad leaks. After the rain last Saturday morning, a roofer came out, fixed it, and then the leak happened again Friday morning and flooded everything and got the microwave wet, etc. Our car broke. We had the car fixed, went to pick it up, it broke again, had to go back, get the thing towed.

I had to pick up Chris W. in downtown Portland at 5:00 Friday evening. I bought some stereo, an amplifier. Plugged it in, played it for a day, and the next day it blew up. That smoke pouring out the top. Fire inside this cabinet of this beautiful box. Had to take it back and get another one. I bought a CD player at the same time. And I don’t know if it’s broken or the CD I bought the same day is broken, but something’s making it skip. All kinds of things happened this week, and we’re trying to prepare this week for the coming of my brother Mike and my parents for Thanksgiving this coming week.

We’re preparing and that was happening—that was the context of all this. Many other things happened and I—you don’t need to be bored of the details of my life. The point I’m trying to make here is that I really look forward to this sermon this week because I needed to remind myself of a proper perspective and a proper need to give thanks in all things to God for whatever happens. So that’s what we’re going to be talking about this morning.

Now, one other thing I might mention before we get into the content here is that as a result, you know, I felt pretty good about when we summed up the synaxis and the biblical teaching on the first half of our formal worship service in terms of what we’re doing here at RCC. I felt less comfortable about how we’ve structured our communion service and I will be redoing that liturgy as a result of the studies we’ve done over the last two or three months about communion.

And essentially what I’m doing today and reviewing what we’ve talked about will also be to give you a picture of how I think our communion liturgy should flow from now on. And so this is starting to work into that model, if you know what I mean by that. And so there are some things that we want to incorporate.

Now it’s interesting that at the end of my studies for this particular sermon, yesterday afternoon or evening I read in James B. Jordan’s book *Through New Eyes*, section on Thanksgiving at the Lord’s Supper and accounts of the historical church liturgies—particularly the Western liturgies of the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper—and the giving of thanks at different parts of it and how that flowed through. And after I had kind of rearranged my outline prior to reading that, in terms of what our communion is summarized as, these historic prayers of Thanksgiving in the historic liturgies of the church fit very nicely into this pattern.

So I think we’re going in the right way here and I will work some of those references in this morning in terms of our text and in terms of the outline. Before we get into, however, a discussion or a thinking through the content of eucharistic worship—and by that I mean worship that is essentially Thanksgiving-oriented and in nature, and particularly we’re talking about the Lord’s Supper half of the worship service—before we talk about the content of eucharistic worship, let’s look very briefly at a few scriptures that talk about the requirement of Thanksgiving in worship or eucharistic worship.

From Psalm 100, verse 4, we read, “Enter into his gates with Thanksgiving, okay? And into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name.” A two-fold repetition there in verse 4 that worship—going into the courts of God, coming together in the special presence of God in terms of holy convocation of worship on the Lord’s Day—is to be characterized by a thankful heart as we come forward for that worship.

We’re to enter into his courts with Thanksgiving and we are to be thankful unto him—requirement of God’s Word. The word of God commands us to do certain things. Here is a command from the Old Testament that says our worship should be accompanied by Thanksgiving.

Hebrews 12 and we’re going to be talking about Hebrews 12 and Revelation 4 throughout this morning’s talk, Revelation 4 and 5. Remember Hebrews 12:23-24 is where it talks about how we’ve come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to an innumerable company of angels, to the church, etc. We spent some time on that in terms of our communion with the saints in heaven, our communion with the saints on earth around the whole world and then locally here as well. So we’ll be thinking about that some. And then also Revelation 5, which is a picture of heavenly worship around the Lamb.

We’ll be talking about that as well.

Well, Hebrews 12 talks about this new worship that is characterized in the New Covenant as opposed to the Old Covenant worship. It talks about the need to have a correct attitude. Then, as a result of all this, in verse 28 of Hebrews 12 in the New American Standard Version, we read as the culmination of this section of Hebrews 12: “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe.”

Aaron Gingrich says that “let us show gratitude,” which some—the King James Version says I think—”let us have grace.” Aaron Gingrich says the phrase should be “let us be thankful.” Let us be thankful. And this thankfulness then is thankfulness. This gratitude is the way which we can offer to God an acceptable service, worship with reverence and awe. And so if you worship God without thankfulness, according to Hebrews 12:28, it’s not acceptable. Okay? And same thing with Psalm 100.

There’s a consistent witness in the scriptures—Old and New Covenant—that thankfulness is a required part of worship.

And then indeed in terms of what actually happens in the heavenly worship in Revelation 4, we read the same thing. And we have a picture in the Book of Revelation with the four beasts who are worshiping God. And verse 9 says that those four beasts give glory, honor, and thanks to him that sitteth upon the throne who liveth forever and ever. And so heavenly worship includes the giving of glory, honor, and thanks to God.

The elders then repeat the worship of God. And then in Revelation 7, verse 12, we read—and now this is in the context of the angels and the elders and the four beasts that fall before the throne of God on their faces and worship God. In verse 11, verse 12 says that they say, “Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom and Thanksgiving and honor and power and might be unto our God forever and ever. Amen.”

And so there is a requirement for eucharistic worship. When you come to church on Sunday, your coming here is supposed to be characterized by Thanksgiving and thankfulness for what God has brought into your life and for the great things that worship teaches us about.

What are what is the content of that eucharistic worship? What have we been talking about, particularly again in terms of the Lord’s Supper? And the outline, as you’ll see, as I’ve done this before, reads as a sentence: The content of eucharistic worship means that we are. We have Thanksgiving when we come into holy worship before God for a heavenly perspective, for our realizing our fellowship with the church and our fellowship with Jesus whom we remember and whose death we proclaim, as recipients and dispensers of his grace.

And so when we—the content of eucharistic worship—we thank God. Our worship thanks God for a heavenly perspective. It thanks God for the fellowship we have with the church triumphant in heaven, militant on earth, and locally here as well. We thank God for the fellowship we have with Jesus, whom we remember as the slain Lamb, is the Lion that reigns and tears apart the foes, and is the root of history that reveals what history is all about.

And we thank God for the death that we proclaim at communion. And that death opened the book of life, the book of the covenant. It secured redemption for the people and it assures the saints of their earthly reign. We thank God for all of that and we thank God because we’re recipients and dispensers of his grace toward us, and that is the content of eucharistic worship. That’s what we’ve talked about for the last three months about holy communion.

And now we’ll go through that in some detail.

First, our eucharistic worship thanks God for a heavenly perspective. In Psalm 100, verses 2 and 4, we read, “Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing.” We’re in terms of worship in Psalm 100—we come before God’s presence. In verse 4, “Enter into his gates with Thanksgiving.” We’d go someplace and worship. In the Old Covenant, you would go to the temple or you’d go to the tabernacle before the temple. You go to God’s presence.

And we talked about from Hebrews 12 that we go someplace in terms of biblical worship as well. We talked about the *cerseum corda*. Remember that phrase? “Lift up your hearts.” And historically, in the Western liturgies, at the beginning of communion, the minister would say, “Lift up your heart.” And the people would say, “We lift them up to the Lord.” Remember we said there, we’re not talking about a physical ascent to heaven. We’re talking about a heavenly perspective on what we do.

I was watching—I mentioned this I think before—but I was watching *The Hobbit* with my son. He’s been watching it a lot. We taped it many several years ago. And I don’t know if you remember that story or not, but Bilbo and the other people that he’s with are going through Mirkwood Forest where it’s real dark, real dreary. Everything is uncomfortable in Mirkwood Forest. And they have to send Bilbo up to the top of the trees to see where they’re at. And he goes up at the top and he sees the sun shining up there and he sees a wider perspective than the little narrow perspective that he has down in Mirkwood Forest.

Now, it’s interesting because that same thing happened to me this week, Monday, when I flew up to Seattle for the Bible study up there. I flew up in the morning and it was dark and dreary here. And as we took off from the airport, we got above the clouds the way he got above the forest. And up there the sun shines. And I thought about that as we were getting ready for church today. We come here and it looks dreary and dull out. But if we have a heavenly perspective, you know, we realize the sun is shining. It may not be evident to us through the clouds, but the sun is shining.

And that’s what we’re talking about—getting a different perspective when we come to church during worship. We leave the clouds behind. We leave the dark forest that we can’t understand why it’s dark or whatever, behind. And we come to realize we come before God’s presence in the heavenly perspective where he sits on the throne. Okay, we come before his throne room where all things are clear to us then in worship and we take that realization back to the forest in which we live.

I was listening to a tape by Otto Scott about Reverend Rushdoony. I think it was made in June. They talked about how they went down to a missionary work in Mexico and their experiences there at this excellent missionary work—church reconstruction, Christian reconstruction going on, etc. And they were talking about the evening service when they were there and there were several speakers. And it turned out the evening service ended up almost two and three-fourths hours long.

I thought it was interesting how Rushdoony knew just how many minutes it was. I guess they actually timed it. I don’t know. But the point they were making was that although it was almost three hours long, it wasn’t tiring at all. Everybody had a good time. Nobody was upset. The children all did well. And they were talking about the reason for this. And Otto said, “Well, you know, the world outside the walls of the church that night didn’t really exist for those people.

You see, they went someplace and worship. They got a heavenly perspective on what they’re doing. And because of that, time was no longer a big deal.”

Now, we run around in our world today—fast cars, fast things here and there, lots of tasks to do. We get all sped up. And it’s real difficult for us to transition into a perspective that says, “Let’s not worry about time today. Let’s move ahead. Let’s worship God the way we’re supposed to worship him.”

And one day a week during heavenly worship, as it were, we’re supposed to understand our perspective is to be heavenly. And the heavenly vision is reality. I’m not saying it’s a flight from reality. It tells us what really is happening down here. Okay? And what really is happening is that God’s on the throne and Jesus at the right hand and that redemption’s been accomplished and history moves in relationship to the Christ and his people.

And so we worship God and we remember that. We take that heavenly perspective not just into worship—books of Ephesians and Colossians, the references are on your outline—tell us that we have a heavenly perspective in all of our lives. We’re supposed to have our hearts lifted up throughout the week, not just on Sunday. And it helps us to remember that in spite of the stereo breaking or the rain coming through the house and leaking and all this stuff, all these bad things that might happen during our week—that all this is a result of God’s reign on the throne.

And his reign on the throne centers around the reality of Jesus Christ and is for the benefit of his church. That heavenly perspective is incredibly important for the correct giving of thanks.

Now we get that heavenly perspective to the end that we bring that to pass on the earth. We pray that thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Remember we talked about *do-ology* and saying the Reformation needs an external point outside of our normal existence, so to speak, to tell us what to do here, how to change things.

And Jesus—Moses went up to the mountain to get a pattern of worship and to get a pattern of ethics and get a pattern of civil government. He got that pattern at the top of the mountain, like at the top of that big tall tree in Mirkwood Forest. We get the heavenly perspective from God and we take it down then and that drives what we do during the week. And so we have a heavenly perspective. We go to the scriptures and they instruct us then how to pray and how to work for his kingdom.

The pattern we see in heaven being manifested here on earth.

After the *cerseum corda* in the traditional liturgies of the church, the minister says, “Let us give thanks unto the Lord our God.” So he says, “Lift up your hearts.” People say, “We lift them up to the Lord.” And the response to that is thanks for that lifting up of our hearts. He says, “Let us give thanks unto the Lord our God.” The people then reply, “It is fitting and right to do so.”

And so during holy communion we have this heavenly perspective and we should remember that as a result of that perspective that God gives us our response is thankfulness to him for that perspective. The season of Thanksgiving we must realize that in worship God calls us to and enables us to engage in a heavenly perspective—to go outside of the world so that the world might be remodeled in what we do after that heavenly perspective—and we should give thanks the way the churches have historically done.

Secondly, we give—this heavenly perspective has results for it. This heavenly perspective reveals our fellowship with the church. It reveals our fellowship with the church triumphant. Remember we said that’s a term that the church historically has used for the church in heaven. Remember we talked from Hebrews 12:22 and through 24. We also have communion or fellowship with the angels. Remember the angelic *psireia* that we talked about—the festivities of worship—and so that’s certainly true. But also we’re supposed to remember we have fellowship with the church triumphant.

You know, rarely a Sabbath goes by anymore for me without thinking of Judge Beers at some point during the service and that’s good and proper. You see, because God wants us to remember, from that heavenly perspective, when we come together and particularly at communion, that we have communion with the saints in heaven as well, and we do have that sense of increased fellowship with them during holy worship.

This morning when I woke up, my oldest son, he was tired, didn’t want to get up. And I said, “It’s time to give thanks to God. We get to go to church now, and we get to worship with your grandma, my wife’s mother, who is dead in the body and is now with Christ in heaven, worshiping around the same throne that we worship around during holy worship.” And it’s real important that we understand that.

You know, in terms of Judge Beers, I almost always think of him at the end of our communion service. We sing that psalm at the end. We sing it through a second time at a real rapid clip and you all probably, some of you who are new, probably think what are they doing? And really it was Judge Beers who got us doing that. He was a thankful man and his thankfulness shown in the little twinkle he had in his eyes. And when we did that Geneva jig—it was done at Geneva during the time of Calvin and was characterized negatively as the “Geneva jig”—we sang that at the end of our communion service.

The Judge said, “Let’s do it again quicker,” and we did it again quicker and we started to clap. And I have no doubt that if he had remained with us here on earth instead of just having a heavenly fellowship with him, that probably by now we’d be dancing as well as singing more quicker. Judge Beers was a thankful man.

I used to feel real bad that I didn’t get to know him as well as I could, and I had been very depressed for about a year or so after his death. And part of that’s correct. You should want to make use of the people that God brings you in his providence and contact with who have special things that not many people can give you. And he was one of those types of men. But part of that was incorrect because I’m going to see Judge Beers again. I’m going to see Chris W.’s mother again. We’re going to know each other in heaven. We’re going to rejoice together around the throne of God. And the type of that now is the rejoicing that we do in heavenly worship.

So we have fellowship with the church triumphant and that’s got to be part of our communion liturgy—reminding ourselves of that, reminding ourselves that’s something to be very thankful for. And remember we talked about there’s an eschatology associated with that. Hebrews 11 and 12 before it reminds us of that heavenly worship with the church triumphant. It gives us a whole list in Hebrews 11 of saints of the past that we have fellowship with.

And then the beginning of Hebrews 12 it says, “You know, looking at these guys, at these witnesses we have, let’s press toward the mark now. Let’s move ahead in victory.” You see, and remember he talked about the remembering of the martyrs—it was always an occasion for the early church to say, “Death’s been swallowed up.” How can you see a martyr, remember a martyr who danced in the face of death, as it were, of his body, and not realize that death has been conquered for that person in the work of Jesus Christ?

There’s an eschatology associated with that communion with the church in heaven. It means we move forward, we look back, we look up, and then we move forward triumphantly, realizing the victory that we have in our Savior who has accomplished the death of death.

We also have fellowship with the church militant here on earth, the extended church across the face of the world. Remember we said that one of the aspects of that is that there’s a present reality. Jesus prayed that they might be one, and Ephesians 4 says maintain the unity that you have in the Spirit. So the church across the whole face of the world—you don’t know most of those people. You don’t even know of their existence maybe. And yet we have a union, unity, a communion with them in Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit that is real. That’s the heavenly perspective. Again, it is real.

Now, there’s a growing manifestation of that will happen throughout history. And Ephesians 4 makes that clear—that we mature in the faith and we mature in our unity. The manifestation of the unity we have in the Spirit as we work in relationship to his law and as we understand these things. And let what we do on earth be modeled by that heavenly perspective on worship.

There is a growing manifestation of it. And we should remember therefore to work for that manifestation and to pray for it. Remember we had a prayer for intercession when we talked a couple weeks ago about communion with the saints on earth. And it’s very important that to this liturgy I’m developing, we somehow move into that liturgy the sense of the prayer of intercession for all the saints across the face of the world who are being persecuted by governments or false churches, who have needs, who need physical needs, etc.

It’s important we remember that we’re part of a much larger organism—the Reformation Covenant Church and additionally—we’re supposed to work that way. I had a real good call this week. I mentioned before there was a gal we had excommunicated, went to another church. They served her communion. We found out about it, went to the church—we said you shouldn’t do that. Went through a whole process and they came to realize they shouldn’t have done that.

That they should have been more Catholic in a truly biblical sense and gone to the church that had exercised discipline and say, “We think that maybe she should be restored. Now, what do you guys think?” And work together on this thing.

Well, the call I got this week was that this particular person has now gone to another church. They’ve left that church and they’re attending another church in town. And the pastor of the church that this person now has left, we had the original problem with. He called me and said, “Look,” and he said, “I really made some mistakes.” And I called this other pastor down here and I told him I’d made some mistakes in terms of not being Catholic in a truly biblical sense. And I think he heard me and I think they’re going to give you a call and we’re going to try to work on this thing in terms of true biblical unity and manifesting that unity.

And so I was real pleased that while we did something that was uncomfortable for us to do originally—because people would characterize that as us, you know, wanting to rule everybody’s lives or something, which it wasn’t—we did that and God blessed that obedience. He’s blessed it now not just in the life of that church but in terms of the whole presbytery of that church, or the whole PCA Northwest Presbytery of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which is what that church is a member of. And now it’s also had an impact on the PCA, which is the new church this person is going to.

And so there’s this manifestation of unity here in this local area in Oregon because of a situation that literally looked terrible in terms of an excommunication. Remember Psalm 84—I believe it is—we go through deserts and make them into well-watered places. You see, we take that heavenly model, the unity of the church on earth. We come back down. We understand that’s the basis of reality. We work that way and there’s a growing manifestation of that.

And there’s an eschatology associated with that. Remember Jesus when he prayed in John 17, he prayed that they might be one, that might become more manifest to the world. And then that the world would know that Jesus was sent by the Father—the whole world. So as that manifestation, that unity increases in history, that is the mark to the world that Jesus, his message is real, and in God’s providence, that’s what drives those people to repentance and faith in him.

And so the eschatology of the church—our communion, our fellowship of the church triumphant—is eschatologically optimistic. But the church militant here on earth is also eschatologically optimistic because people see that manifested unity and come to faith and repentance in Jesus Christ.

And third, we also have fellowship with the church locally, of course. And while we have fellowship with the church across the whole face of the earth and with the church in heaven, we also have fellowship here at our own little body of believers, the cell of the body, as it were, of the members of Jesus Christ. And we have fellowship because remember we talked about how communion—1 Corinthians 10 says that we all partake of the same bread. We’re one body, it says.

And when we think of one body and we think about the manifestation of Christ’s body during holy communion, it is sin not to see that the implications of that, according to God’s scriptures in 1 Corinthians 10, is to recognize that as part of the body here of fellowship with believers—not just the mystical body of Christ, but the body of Christ, which is the church, the local church.

And remember, the Corinthians didn’t have that down. They sinned against the local church. And they were judged by God because of that. And so a proper communion and a Thanksgiving at communion time must be for the local church we have here at Reformation Covenant Church. That is the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 10 tells us. And if we fail to do that, that violation, as it was in First Corinthians, is actionable by God.

That’s what brings God’s judgment against people that partake unworthily. In the case of First Corinthians, it was a failure to act with love toward that extended household, as it were, that is the local church. And we said that in terms of discerning that body—discerning the sense of community we have—is heightened again by the heavenly perspective that we bring to our agape or love feast together.

Remember we talked about that in terms of this second half of worship. There’s the Old Covenant model where part of the tithe was supposed to be used for rejoicing. Three times a year you go up to Jerusalem. You buy whatever your heart desires, strong drink, food, etc. You have a good time together with your family with the other saints who are convocated at Jerusalem. And then we said that the examples of that from Nehemiah 8 and from other times—Hezekiah’s reform—people would have the Passover. They would rejoice and be happy together during that worship, during that rejoicing time.

We said that Jesus when he instituted the Lord’s Supper, the last supper as it were, was in the context of a meal. What kind of meal was it? Well, they were in Jerusalem. Why were they there? Well, it was Passover week. What were they supposed to do during Passover week according to the law? Well, they were supposed to go and rejoice in God’s presence. They’re supposed to buy whatever their heart desired.

And so the last supper was in agape. It was a rejoicing time. It was a love time together. And it included, of course, the communion portion of the meal. And so we have that same thing taught then in the New Testament epistles. Jude says people have broken into your love feasts, your agape. And so the agape is a necessary part of biblical worship. And it’s costing us in terms of a church.

We’re going to have to probably go to an afternoon service to be able to maintain that. But that’s okay because what time we meet is far less important than what we do when we have that heavenly perspective. The agape builds a sense of community around the covenant and builds a sense of love around each other.

Remember we talked about that love that the agape is characterized as being in relationship to 1 Corinthians 13, where love is said to be patient, love is said to be kind. We’re supposed to be long-suffering with each other, not believing the worst, believing the best. We’re supposed to be loving toward each other, kind—which means useful to the body. Okay? And so 1 Corinthians 13 is the model for that for us. And it tells us what we shouldn’t do as well as what we should do in terms of the agape and the communion we have with the local church.

Remember we said that you’re not supposed to tally wrongs according to 1 Corinthians 13. You’re not supposed to flare up to anger. Instead, you’re supposed to bear all things in terms of the local body. You’re supposed to endure all things. You’re supposed to be long-suffering. And that’s all part of being patient. And that has a purpose, too. That has an eschatology.

The end result of that is that you’re useful to the person in the pew next to you. And you’re useful to other members of the church and you’re useful to other families of the church here because you don’t blow up at him and get alienated from him. No, you’re long-suffering and you want to be useful to him. You want to believe all things and hope all things and that’s supposed to characterize our agape.

And that’s the heavenly model again that we thank God for. That’s what we’re supposed to do and that’s what we bring to pass on earth as we obey these ethical commands of God relative to our conduct.

We’re not supposed to be conceited, arrogant, prideful. We’re supposed to consider one another and the interests of each other before our own interests. And we said that the context of all that, of course, includes not just the adults at church. We have a meal. Our kids eat too. We don’t make them starve. And so we talked about the biblical warrant for paedocommunion, child communion, their participation at the agape and their participation at the love feast and as well as at the holy supper itself of communion.

Remember we said that a failure to give the communion elements to children is a failure to discern the body of Christ—the very thing 1 Corinthians 10 through 12 condemned the Corinthians for: a failure to discern the body correctly. And to discern the body correctly means you’re discerning a covenantal community. And that includes children. And so we have obligations. We thank God for the fellowship we have with each other, the adults, for the fellowship we have with the children as well in the church.

And we walk in terms of 1 Corinthians 13 being helpful to them.

You know, if my remarks last week at the end of the service struck some of you as harsh, you know, I’m sorry for that. But please be long-suffering toward me. Please realize that what I desperately want to happen here is for all of us to move in terms of being useful and kind and patient, not just to the adults, but to the kids, too. We have that obligation.

I’ll repeat what I said last week. When we’re going to baptize the Samson’s newest child, and you’re all sponsors of that baptism here at this church, and you pledge yourselves in whatever way possible to help that child be brought up in the faith. And that means more than just telling the parents when they got to be disciplined. It means that sometimes, but it also means helping the child. Maybe sharing some things that you know about, something you can do with that child, with other people here at Reformation Covenant Church.

It means building that sense of community. You see, that’s part of the thing that we’re supposed to thank God for at communion and then have that translate into what we do in terms of our actions.

So we thank God for the heavenly perspective. We also thank God that this heavenly perspective reveals our fellowship with the church triumphant in heaven, militant on earth, and locally here at the local body.

And traditionally, of course, this has also been part of the Thanksgiving proclamation of the Eucharist. After the minister reminded the people that they were supposed to go up to heaven and then to give thanks to God for that heavenly perspective, he then prayed, “It is truly fitting, right, and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto You. Therefore, with angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Your gloriousness.” The heavenly perspective was understood in the historical liturgies to include the fact that we give thanks in context of the heavenly hosts that Hebrews 12 were in context. And in the fellowship, the historic church recognized that in their liturgies.

The third thing we give thanks for at communion is our fellowship with Jesus, whom we remember at communion. And going back to Psalm 100, it says in verse 5b that his mercy is ever—his excuse me—”For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting.” New American Standard reads that his lovingkindness is everlasting. And while Psalm 100 gives us a picture of convocative worship with other people—we’re sheep in a pasture. We’re not individually worshiping God. We’re the sheep of the pasture going into his presence.

Verse 5 says that his mercy is everlasting. His lovingkindness is everlasting. And how can we possibly think about the lovingkindness of God apart from the demonstration of that lovingkindness with the gift of the Savior to the human race, Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ is the embodiment, as it were, of God’s lovingkindness.

Psalm 100 says biblical worship should be thankful for lovingkindness. And it means we should be thankful at the core of our worship—the conclusion of it in a sense, at the end of our day—reminding ourselves of the core of liturgical worship is the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Remember Jesus tells us in 1 Corinthians 11. Paul says that Jesus said that when you do these things you’re supposed to do it in remembrance of him. We remember somebody and then it says when you do these things you proclaim his death. Remember what he did? Hebrews 12:24 says you know it says we come to the heavenly host, the earthly host, the angels, and it says it comes—we come to Jesus personally, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, his death.

You see the continuity there? The lovingkindness of God is demonstrated in remembering Jesus and proclaiming his death. And we thank God for the Jesus whom we remember at communion time. And communion must include a remembrance of the Savior at the very core of the worship service.

We come to Jesus and we come to the one according to Revelation 5 that is characterized in three ways. You can do it in other ways. Revelation 5, the picture of heavenly worship, says that we come to the Lamb that was slain and yet he’s a Lamb that is alive. John said he’s provided redemption. We come to the Lion, the Lion of Judah. He reigns and he tears apart his foes. Remember we looked at Micah 5, how the Lion destroys the foes of God’s people.

We come to the Lamb who was slain. We come to the Lion of Judah and we also come to the Root of David. The meaning of history. How can he be the Root of David and yet be David—an coming out genealologically after David? Well, it’s because he’s the Alpha and the Omega. He is the source of meaning for all of history. All of history flows in relationship to Christ and to his church, his elect people. And we remember that at communion time.

We’ve got to build it into our liturgy somehow to remember that and to be thankful to God for the Jesus whom we remember.

Revelation 11:17 says that we give thee thanks, Oh Lord God Almighty. We give thanks. What for? It says that we give thee thanks, Oh Lord God Almighty, which art and was that art to come. Why? Because thou hast taken to thee thy great power and hast reigned. We thank God for the reign of the Lion of Judah, the Root of David, the King of Kings. And that’s important at communion.

Eucharistic Thanksgiving is the fact that God has begun his reign. Thou hast reigned, according to Revelation 11:17. So we’ve always taught in this church that communion means that we have to understand that we have a Christ who reigns and it must be victorious. And that’s part of the Eucharist—its eschatology, as it were. Again, as we’ve talked about that—there’s eschatological implications to all this and they are that victory is sure because we follow the Lion who tears apart enemies and the King of Kings, the Root of David, the meaning of all history. And all history flows in relationship to him.

We remember Jesus and we give thanks for the Jesus we remember and we give thanks for Jesus’s work. We come to Jesus. We come to the sprinkling—that’s of his blood—that speaks better things than other sprinklings, the Old Covenant sprinklings. We come to Jesus. We remember him and we proclaim his death—the sprinkling of his blood, what that effected.

And again, Revelation 5 tells us what was effected by that. Revelation 5 reminds us what were the results of his death on the cross. You know, in First John, you read—we’re talking here in terms of Psalm 100, remembering God’s lovingkindness is everlasting—First John says, “The definition of love is not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to die for our sins.”

And so when we think of a model for Thanksgiving for God’s love for us, we should think of the death of our Savior on the cross. And Revelation 5 tells us what that death accomplished. That death accomplished the opening of the book, according to Revelation 5. That book was a book of the covenant, a book of blessings and cursings, the book of history. And the death of Christ opens all that. It opens the book of blessing to his people.

And one of the liturgies we’ve developed talks about that. And it’s important we understand that in terms of it being a book of the covenant—communion is also covenant renewal. Remember we talked about all those Old Covenant meals where people renew covenants with each other, with gods, with false gods, with friends, with enemies, etc. And so communion is a meal and it’s a meal at which covenant renewal takes place.

And there’s renewal of the covenant that is new. Jesus said this is the new covenant. The renewal of the covenant in its newest, most defined sense because he has come now and effected his work. And because it’s a covenant meal, we thank God for the covenant that he’s brought us into through the death of Christ. And we also remember to thank him for the obligations that covenant puts upon us.

1 Corinthians 13 isn’t good advice to us. The need to have Thanksgiving isn’t good advice to us. It’s a commandment from God. And because we have covenant meal with God every week—remember in Exodus 24, the elders and Moses go up to the mountain and they have a meal with God and they see the glassy sea and they see the throne room of God and they have a meal with him.

And in the Old Covenant, three times a year, you got to go up and have a meal with God and rejoice. We rejoice every Sunday. Because every Sunday we go to God’s presence and we have a meal with him. That’s a meal of covenant renewal and that’s a thing that should produce great Thanksgiving in us. And that covenant is on the basis of the secured redemption.

When we turn to Revelation 5 to look at that—I know I’m going over it awful quick. This is all review. And so if you get lost somewhere in the middle of all this, you can always go back to the appropriate tape.

Revelation 5: Remember John is weeping because nobody can open the book. And then verse 5, one of the elders says unto him, “Weep not, behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.” And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne, and of the four beasts—I’m reading in Revelation 5:6—now, in the midst of the throne, and of the four beasts, in the midst of the elders stood a Lamb as it had been slain.

So there you have it in verses 5 and 6: the Lion of Judah, the Root of David, the Lamb that was slain. And the Lamb comes forward. He has seven horns, seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne.

And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, worshiping him. Each one of them had harps and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints. And they sang a new song, saying, “Thou art worthy to take the book and open the seals thereof. For thou was slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation, and hast made us unto our God, kings and priests, and we shall reign on earth.”

The model for our worship there—remembering the Lion, remembering the Lamb, remembering the Root, and then remembering his death—and the death effected the opening of the book of the covenant to us. And the death effected—what does it say? It says that thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation.

And the Eucharist is Thanksgiving for the redemption effected with the giving of Christ’s blood—that’s sprinkled, the sprinkled blood of Christ—that speaks better things than Old Covenant sprinklings. That’s the death we proclaim. But it doesn’t stop with simple redemption. It goes on to say that thou hast redeemed us and hast made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth.

The heavenly perspective is that we reign on the earth. We reign because we’re one now with Jesus Christ, who is the King of Kings, and who’s the Lion of Judah. The tribe of Judah was the tribe of reigning, ruling. We’re one with him. And the heavenly perspective says that we then reign on the earth.

And we go to the mountaintop of worship, so to speak, on Sunday. We thank God for redemption and the book of the covenant being opened. And we thank God that he has made us on the basis of his death to be reigning saints with him with Jesus Christ. And we come back to earth and we take that seriously. And we exercise self-control over ourselves.

We reign over our own passions and over our own sinful behavior. And we conform ourselves to the covenant word. And we reign in terms of our households correctly according to God’s word. And we reign in terms of the church according to the revealed word of God. And we reign in the civil sphere as well according to God’s covenant word.

So when we proclaim the death of Jesus, we proclaim these things again with an eschatological optimism to him. You see, it doesn’t stop at the death. The death effected something. The death effected victory. And that victory should be a source of great Thanksgiving to us.

And we thank God remembering this death, remembering Jesus because we are recipients and dispensers of his grace.

Point D: Under this point, we—our worship is on the basis not of our own works but on the works of the Savior. And so we are recipients of God’s grace.

Now the word Eucharist comes from several Greek words put together. And in the middle of that you can probably guess: *charis*, right? Eucharistic or Eucharist, okay. *Charis*—the word in the middle of that—is the Greek word for grace. And there’s a very close correlation between grace and Thanksgiving in the scriptures and there is in our lives, too, isn’t there?

What do we do before meals? We say grace. Well, what does that mean? Well, we give thanks for the food. We recognize our dependence upon God and our gratitude to God for what he’s given to us. So there’s connection between grace and Thanksgiving.

And the final thing here in terms of remembering what Christ has done is remembering that we are recipients of grace. And on the basis of that, we’re supposed to turn around then and demonstrate grace. We’re supposed to dispense grace. And God says that if you don’t dispense grace to others, it’s probably because you don’t think you got grace from God. You earned it somehow.

My wife and I were talking about Ted Turner on the way in here and some of his ridiculous comments that he made. Some Christians would give up on guys like Ted Turner. But, you know, they forget when they do things like that they’re recipients of grace. We don’t get here because we decided we were going to be good people and that God saw that we were going to be better than other people, so he chose us.

God’s election has nothing to do with who we are. It’s his sovereign choice. And he may well elect to bring Ted Turner into the household of faith. I pray that he does. You see, we’re here because we’ve received grace and we’re supposed to be dispensers of grace as well.

Remember we talked about how the almsgiving was an essential part of Reformed liturgy, the giving of grace. Because we recognize the grace we’ve received from God, we dispense it to others. It’s the royal virtue. We become friends with the King. We invite other people to be friends as well.

And so we give grace in terms of the dispensing of alms, remembering that the core behind that is the meeting of needs. And people’s needs includes more than just money. Remember we talked about people having spiritual needs. They need the proclamation of this death that we’re talking about on Sunday. And one means of dispensing grace is to preach the word of God to our neighbors and to our friends and to our communities.

They have spiritual needs. They have intellectual needs. They need to know the contents of this book once they’ve been brought into submission to Jesus Christ. They have doctrinal needs. They need to know that we’re supposed to reign with Christ, having been saved. That reign is supposed to have an effect in our lives because people aren’t self-governing anymore.

And of course, they have economic needs as well. And those economic needs, we talked about the biblical law. They’re met through gleaning, through poor loans, through alms, and through the mercy aspect of our tithe. Remember the little acronym we drew out there. These things are important to remind ourselves of at communion. We’re to be thankful for the grace God has shown us, or to be thankful that we can dispense that grace and show it to others.