East Baptist Church – Denison, TX

The Hope of the Church Ordinances

Mathew 28:19 and Luke 22:19-20

My beloved church, we are blessed to be able to be part of the two ordinances that the church is not only told to observe but is demonstrated by the Lord God when He walked this world in the flesh. 

Each of these ordinances is symbolic of what Christ has done in the heart of the believer. This Lord’s Day we observed the ordinance of baptism, but I would like us to look at the Lord’s Supper in combination with baptism. 

My dear church family, I do not think it is any accident in the order Our Lord lived out the two ordinances. First was baptism and then the instituting of the Lord’s Supper. 

Let none of us here forget that just as Jesus came to be baptised by the will of the Father so it is the reason we too must be baptised.  Jesus came “from Galilee to Jordan” for the express purpose of being baptised by John (Matthew 3:13). Jesus was not acting on impulse; being baptised in the Jordan was part of the “Father’s business.”

I can almost hear the Father say as each of those that I have had the great privilege of baptising as their own public witness to Accepting Christ come up out of the water.  This is My beloved child, in whom I am well-pleased.” 

Once again this is an ordinance of the church, no other institution is to do this, and it has to be done by the agent of the church.

Now we come to the founding of the Lord’s Supper, one that the church has commemorated for the past two thousand years and will do until Jesus comes again.

Luke 22:19 (NASB77) ¹⁹And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

What startling words: He took bread… He gave thanks… He broke… He said, “this is my body.” What an awesome thing! He actually gave thanks for the breaking of His body, which would occur in just a few short hours. He was to be beaten and bruised. He was to be scourged and spiked and stabbed. And yet He gave thanks. 

None of us deserve to come to the table yet my Lord invites all of us to come, yet so many do not think of the privilege of coming.  The people of God always ate bread when they celebrated Passover. But here, by the words that instituted the Lord’s Supper, Jesus invested the breaking of the bread with new and surprising significance. It is not simply what Jesus did that is important here, but also what he said. The words “do this” indicate that Jesus intended the sacramental acts of breaking the bread (and pouring the cup) to be repeated in the worship of the church, until He returned.