Forgiveness of Sins

This is theme 2 b Forgiveness of Sins -- Self Examination

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates said that at his trial for heresy. He was on trial for encouraging his students to challenge the accepted beliefs of the time and think for themselves. The sentence was death but Socrates had the option of suggesting an alternative punishment. He could have chosen life in prison or exile, and would likely have avoided death.But Socrates believed that these alternatives would rob him of the only thing that made life useful: Examining the world around him and discussing how to make the world a better place. Without his “examined life” there was no point in living. So he suggested that Athens reward him for his service to society. The result, of course, is that they had no alternative and were forced to vote for a punishment of death.

Luckily, we don’t have to choose between an examined life and death. But the sad thing is, most people avoid leading an examined life. It’s not that they don’t have time or make time. They actively avoid examining their lives.People who do examine their lives, who think about where they’ve been, how they got here, and where they’re going, are much happier people. No one has all the answers. And no one’s life is free from trouble and strife or sin.

The unexamined life is the unforgiven life. The apostle Paul says, 1 Cor 11:27-28 Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.NIV

Building upon that theme, John says in 1 John 1:9-10 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. NIV

One reason we avoid examining our lives is because we do not want to confront our sins. To confess our sin is to agree with God, "You're right-- I was wrong". It's not always easy, but it is necessary for us to be able to live in 2008 with a clear conscience before God. I urge you this morning, to examine your life, confront your sin, agree with God that you have sinned, and then lay it at the feet of Jesus and let him forgive you.

Another Christmas Meditation

Clip from Narnia Chronicles http://www.wingclips.com/cart.php?target=product&product_id=16429&substring=spiritual+warfare

Start with Clip

That clip was from the Chronicles of Narnia. Lucy and her siblings receive weapons of spiritual warfare. CS Lewis intended that we should understand Aslan to be Jesus, the Lion of Judah.

At Christmas it is always tempting to think of soft cuddly Jesus in a manger. We have bought into a Hallmark Christmas rather than a true birth of Jesus experience.

When Herod became aware that Wisemen were worshipping Jesus, he immediately wanted to find and kill him.

Christmas was God, as an undercover, or rather under swaddling clothes, agent, coming to earth to fight the ultimate fight and defeat Satan so that we could live forever. Christmas ushered in the age of Aslan, the lion of Judah, who will sit upon the throne and right all wrongs and bring peace for eternity.

As the clip says, Long live Aslan. This morning, as we partake of the cup, let us raise our cups and say, Long live Jesus, Long live the King.

A Christmas Sunday Meditation

A colleague of mine, Dennis Murphy sent me this clip and meditation for Christmas and I share it with you.

I must warn you that the Wingclips clip is a bit long, but it is very powerful.

We remember so easily at Christmas that God came in the form of a child, but we forget why...

The 3 gifts help us refocus on the ultimate meaning of Christmas: Gold-power/king of kings; Frankincense-incense for priests. he's our intercessor/go between making God and His Holy Spirit accessable to all of us; Myrrh--spice for embalming, he came to be the sacrifice for our sins. Which is why we take communion. to remember he wasnt just a baby...grown to be a good, holy man...but he was God himself giving up his life for us, so that we may know that we have eternal life.

To be absolutely correct, we're not sure there were three kings, only three gift, we don't know if they rode camels, although it is probable, and we don't know if they came to the manger or at a little later time to the house where they were living--most likely, but artistic and popular assumptions aside, three gifts were brought by wise men to worship Jesus.

This morning, let us focus on Jesus, King, Priest, and one who willingly sacrificed his life for us.

Video clip: http://wingclips.com/cart.php?target=product&product_id=16552&category_id=549

1a-- Remembering his Death

Tips on Presenting this meditation thought:

Begin with the clip below:

http://www.wingclips.com/cart.php?target=product&product_id=16278&category_id=332

It's free from Wingclips.com ( for a low res version) If you are going to use these meditations, you should get a Wingclips account as many of the meditations will use Wingclips.

Then after it over, give people a few seconds to let it sink in before speaking. The clip is 1:17 long.

Use the thoughts below as a spring board. Don't just read them. Remember, you only have 90 seconds left after the clip is over to make your point, so you can't go very long in your thoughts.





When we think at the Lord's Supper about Christ's death, what do we think about, his suffering, the Passion of the Christ so graphically grabbed us with it. Do we think about his loneliness on the cross--"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

When we think about death, we are often afraid. We are afraid that there will be nothing, that all of our efforts in this life are gone. We do all we can to postpone our death, sometimes the most devout of us, is afraid of dying, yet, as we think of Christ's death on the cross today, let us remember what The author of Hebrews says,

Heb 2:14-16
14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death-that is, the devil- 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. NIV

When we remember the death of Christ during communion time, all of those thoughts about Christ dying are accurate, but this morning, let us remember, that by His death, he was destroying the power of death and releasing us from the fear of dying. Most of us will still go to great means to prolong our life here on earth, but because of Christ, we no longer have to be afraid.


Prayer: Thanks for freeing us from the power of death and releasing us into eternal life.
Thanks for the suffering that you did for us. For the pain you bore.

The 13 Themes

As I put these themes into place I realize that there are numerous other themes that can be recognized. I think of the church around the world, the connection with the saints of all ages, etc, etc. These will be the ones I focus on this year.

With each I would like to have a video clip and/or a song to lead into it as a suggestion.
In my next post I will also include a few tips for speakers who are untrained.

1) Remembrance
A) Of His death

B) Of His love

C) Of His resurrection

2) Forgiveness of Sin
A) Power of the blood

B) Self-Examination

C) Asking for Forgiveness

3) Passover Sacrifice

A) Jesus as Passover Lamb

B) God’s mark of protection

C) Similiarities between Pass. and Lord’s Supper.

4) Unity in the Body

A) Celebration together.

B) Leaving your gift to be reconciled

C) In Christ we are all one

D) No divisions or hard feelings.


5) Coming Again of Jesus

A) Remembering his coming again

B) Celebrating his coming again in power

C) His coming again means our victory


6) The presence of Christ

A) Where two or three are gathered together

B) A communing with Christ

C) Bread of Life


7) Personal Benefits

A) Time of Self—examination

B) Body was broken for YOU

C) Time of recommitment

D) For this cause many have fallen asleep.

8) Priorities

A) Priority for Christ at Last Supper

B) Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together

C) Gathered together on the first day of the week

9) The emblems

A) Symbolism of the bread

B) Symbolism of the cup

C) Simplicity

D) This is my body

10) The qualifications for participation

A) Open to all believers

B) Jesus is the inviter

C) Let a man so examine himself

D) Should Children participate

11) Figures of Communion

A) The Bread of Life

B) The Blood of the New Covenant

C) New Covenant

D) Love Feast

12) Special Holy-days and Celebrations

A) Christmas

B) Thanksgiving

C) Pentecost

D) Easter

E) Ascension Sunday

F) Memorial Day

G) April 15

13) Assorted themes not yet chosen

To allow for variety and to meet needs as may be deemed necessary, we will leave 10 slots open to be used as needed.

Why this blog?

I just figured out that I've heard or given more than 2900 communion meditations in my life. Actually, I have sat through that many. I would guess that at least 25% I didn't really hear because it became obvious that the speaker was just using the same old scripture that was used last week and so I went off on my own thoughts about communion.

When I was young, we had an elder in our church who droned on the same prayer every week for communion. Matthew 26 and 1 Cor 11 are wonderful passages about the Lord's Supper, but they are not the only words of God to help us think about this wonderful part of our faith.

When we consider that in the Christian Church communion is served every week, if we take 52 times a year multiplied by 3 minutes, we have a chance to do 156 minutes of teaching every year without increasing the length of our services. That's five sermons. Yet, most of the people in our pews do not increase in their awareness of communion from year to year unless they do it on their own.

I believe there are at least 13 major themes that can be developed in communion. It is my desire to develop each of these 13 themes with four meditations. I plan to rotate them so that there will be 4 repetitions during the year of each theme.

I plan to make them just outlines so that people aren't reading them, but so that they have something from which to work.

I also plan to put songs, video clips that would help, and objects that can be held in the hand, to help the speakers.

I believe that communion meditations are a place in which we can develop leaders in a couple of ways.

First, they can learn to prepare a short public teaching.
Second, they can speak a short public teaching.
Third, it exposes them to people who may learn to follow them.

In our modern era of highly polished services, we have eliminated places to train up leaders in our efforts to be slick. I think we have lost something very valuable.