Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, Amen and Amen. So here we are, summer, finally. Praise the Lord on high. I tell you, I know summer doesn't officially start for a couple weeks, but it starts now, right? All right, so here's what I want you to do. I want you to think, what are two words that come to your mind when I say summer? Okay, don't shout it out loud. Think real quickly because I'm gonna have you share it with the person next to you. What two words come to mind when you think summer? Think about it. Ready? Share with your neighbor What?

What'd you do? All right, okay.

So, I asked some people this, and here's what I got.

I'm going to be curious if you had any of the similar ones. sun, Tigers baseball, beach and water, grilling burgers, yard work, or my personal favorite, no school. Even though I'm not in school, I still get excited that there's no school in the summer. All right, so let me throw a left hook at you. Here's another question. What two words come to mind when you think about what it means to be a Christian? Now, whether or not you are a Christian in the house, and everyone here is welcome at peace, but whether you are a Christian or not, I'm curious, what are two words that come to mind when you think about what it means to be a Christian? Now, I'm gonna share, I asked around, here's some things I got. One person said, following Jesus. Some might say, loving others. Eternal salvation. Glorifying God. Believing truth. Now, what's interesting is, as we start this new sermon series on the letters of John. When we read this first letter, this first chapter, I think John gives us two words that really do summarize what it means to be a Christian. And we're going to quickly see those words are life and light, life and light, life, that our lives in Christ are about having true, lasting, full, maybe not perfect or easy, but eternal life. And also, light, that we walk in the light, we don't walk in darkness, meaning we walk in the light, we walk with purpose, clarity, true destination, that we walk in the light means we show the world something good, right, and pure, that we don't adhere to the world's standards, we hold to a different kingdom as we walk in the light.

So let's fully see what John means here. Would you please turn as we look at life and light this morning, would you turn to 1 John chapter 1. And because I know this is not a book that we often get to, let me just help some of you out. We're not talking about the gospel of John. That's a different book. We're talking about 1 John. This is a much closer to the end of the Bible. Go ahead and turn to 1 John, that's on page 1301 if you do use the Bibles that we've provided.

John the Apostle

Now let me clarify a few things. Let's talk about John for a moment. Now we're not talking about John the Baptist, that's a different guy worthy of a different discussion. We're talking today and through this entire sermon series about John the Apostle, John the disciple, and John, one of the original 12 disciples of Jesus. In all likelihood, John would have been the youngest of all the disciples. In fact, Jesus, Jesus Christ himself, dubbed John and his brother the sons of thunder. They probably had a little edge to them. They're probably little rowdy guys. But what we see here is this younger, rowdy brother has grown now to become a father of the church. Now, John, at this point, when we read the letters of John, he's in all likelihood the last living of the original 12 disciples. All the other disciples have been killed, martyred for their faith. But John himself remains. But listen here, it's not for lack of trying. They tried to kill John. History shows us that at least on two occasions they tried to kill John once by actually boiling him alive in oil, which sounds horrendous, but he survived. And also there was a time when he was forced to drink poison and he survived. And so when they realized they couldn't kill this guy, what the Roman Empire did was they exiled him. They exiled him to the island of Patmos where he was left to die. But it was actually on the island of Patmos that John had his epic revelation and where he wrote down the book of Revelation.

Church History

So it was still within God's plan. But what happened was the Roman Emperor named Domitian, when the Roman Emperor Domitian died in 96 AD, John's exile ended. a very old man. He then went to spend the rest of his days dying peacefully of old age in Ephesus. Now this is actually somewhat of a fulfillment of prophecy because Jesus says that at the end of the Gospel of John Jesus kind of alludes to the fact that John will probably go to live a longer life but here's the question we're talking about this guy but was he actually a real person. Are we talking about someone from actual history or just from legend here? Well, we're talking about a real person. We've got an abundance of historical records to point to this. Now, when we look at church history for the first and second centuries, we see a lot of prominent figures, not least of which are two men named Polycarp and Ignatius, who wrote a lot and were great leaders of the church. Polycarp and Ignatius were personal disciples of John the Apostle. John personally discipled Polycarp and Ignatius. Now Polycarp went on to disciple Irenaeus, another powerhouse in the faith. Irenaeus discipled Hippolytus. Now I know those sound like weird names to you, but what's important to know is that they cover the first two centuries of church history and church leadership, all stemming from not just John the Apostle but Jesus Christ himself.

As we start this sermon series what I need you to understand is that we are not talking about myths or maybes here. The real person Jesus Christ, disciple, the real John the Apostle who went on to really write these letters that we're going to be looking at here today. In all, John the Disciple wrote five of the books of the New Testament. He wrote the Gospel of John, the blockbuster of the New Testament, the most read, most popular book of the New Testament, the Gospel of John. He also went on to write the letters of John, first, second, and third John. That's what we're going to be looking at in this sermon series. And lastly, because of his exile, God used that to have John write the book of Revelation. So five books. But here in this sermon series, we're looking at John's last letters and again he's an old man. He's gone from being the kid brother to the father figure of the church. All of the fellow disciples have been killed for their faith. Only he remains. And he writes what is seemingly an open letter to all of Christendom. Imagine the weight of these words this man felt as he wrote this stuff down. And so with that, would you hear the word of the Lord? 1 John 1.

John writes

1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

This is God's Word. Let's pray and we'll continue.

Let's pray together. Father in heaven, Lord, as we begin this series for this first part of the summer, I pray, Lord, as cliche as it may seem, I pray that the summer sun will at all times remind us of the light of your son, the light that we get to walk in. Father, we pray that you would help us by the power of your Spirit to walk in that light, ever reminded of what Jesus has done for us on the cross. Would you help us here and now, Holy Spirit, to hear your truth, that we would be not just transformed by it, but transformed more into the image of Jesus our Savior, because it's in his name that we pray these things? And everyone said very loudly, amen.

So church, as we get started today, there's one thing I want to kind of communicate to you. Everything else kind of falls under this, but it would be this here this morning.

The life and light of our faith are not based on myths or maybes but in reality. And as we look at this first chapter, we're going to see this theme of things being really broken down. I'll break it down for you like this.

Here's your outline for this morning. Our faith is founded in the physically real Jesus. Secondly, our faith is formed by spiritually real fellowship. And the third thing we're gonna see is that our faith is fulfilled through personally real integrity.

Our faith is founded in the physically real Jesus

So first thing, our faith is founded in the physically real Jesus. Now, as we open up this letter, again, it's this kind of this open letter to all of Christendom. John is clearly speaking about Jesus Christ. So let's look at verses one and two again. But as we do, please, I want you to take notice. Take note of the sensing words. Take note of the physical descriptors, because remember, John was there. He was with Jesus. He saw Jesus. He heard his voice, he touched Jesus, he knew the texture of Jesus' hair, he knew what Jesus smelled like, and he was an eyewitness to Jesus. Listen to this. Listen to the power of these words as we read this first chapter. It says, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, we've seen with our eyes, we've looked upon, we've touched with our hands, concerning the word of life, the life was made manifest.

Okay, so manifest. The Greek word there is pheneru. It means to be made visible. It means to be made known. It means to be manifest. To be seen. This means that even though Jesus is the Word of Life who existed from all eternity past, He stepped into reality into the creation he made and was made manifest and John saw him knew him Talked with him touched him the life verse 2 again the word of life That goes back to the very beginning the word of life was made manifest Jesus stepped into the creation that he created and John says we've seen it and we testify to it and we proclaim it to you the eternal life.

So John is being really clear here in these first two chapters or these first two verses. John's telling us something really clear that Jesus who was the Word of Life was made physically real because John is trying to tell us that our faith Jesus.

 So I'm kind of curious here, this won't go for everybody, but I'm just, I'm curious who here or in one of the other venues was born and raised in the state of Michigan? Raise your hand. Born and raised in the state of Michigan. Okay. One thing I can tell you about us Michiganders is that we're pretty good at pronouncing the weird names of things because Michigan has some weird names of cities and places. So I'm going to see if you know how to pronounce these Michigan places, the names of these places.

I'll start very easily. This is a very easy one. Okay. Not Mackinac Island, right? Mackinac Island. All right. Let's step it up a notch. Sheboygan. The junior hire in me giggles every time I hear that word. I drive through Sheboygan, I'm like, he named your city Sheboygan. Okay, alright, alright. Let's go really hard here. Only true Michiganders know how to pronounce the name of this place. Ontonagon.

Well done. Well done. Ontonagon well done alright so since we're so good with the weird names of things how do you pronounce the word Gnosticism okay it's not a michigan city narcissism is actually the name of an early heresy a faulty teaching that came from the early church see what happened was it was john near the end of his life as the church continued to grow and expand in the world, Gnosticism popped up.

Gnosticism again is a false teaching and what Gnosticism taught was that salvation came through secret knowledge. Gnosticism comes from the word, the Greek word for knowledge. And so coming to know Jesus was like this secret knowledge that would awaken this inner divinity in you and would Bring to light this light that was already inside you but it was a secret knowledge It was a secret thing that happened inside of you now Gnosticism with based on that description now that we know what it is. That is like That's like the anti-gospel That's like the flip gospel people would come in and teach and say, knowing Jesus is a secret knowledge that awakens an inner divinity in you. It lights a secret light in you. Again, this is the anti-gospel. Let's compare and contrast the two. This is the gospel. The true gospel is repenting and putting yourself aside. You turn from your sin and you receive Jesus, His light, and His life. You receive that into you Okay, you like you empty yourself you turn from your sin you empty yourself and you receive what Jesus has into you That's the gospel you receive what Jesus has done through his life death, and resurrection Okay Gnosticism on the flip said that you you you come to know Jesus But that awakens an inner divinity in you and that awakens that secret knowledge inside you that's waiting to be awakened. Now listen, it was a very attractive heresy back then.

And I'm telling you, and I'm going to expose to you now, the descendant of Gnosticism is alive and well in our world and in the American church. See, in our world and in our culture, our culture is all about finding yourself. It's all about awakening your true inner self, coming to know who you truly are on the inside, and then once you have that, well then you can attain glory or salvation or whatever we want to call it.

Either way, it's nothing short of the idolization of the self. And the fact that we are in Pride Month is just a stark reminder of how easily people fall prey to forms of Gnosticism. That it's all about us and who we are on the inside, expressing that. And so you can see here, as we look at these verses again, John is trying to punch a big hole through Gnosticism and any remnants of Gnosticism that creeps their way into Christian teaching.

Let's look at this for a second. So, verse 1 says, that which was from the beginning. Right off the bat, John is telling us, our faith, this Christian faith, predates us. Jesus is before us, he's beyond us. This is all coming from outside of us. It's not within us to be awakened. It predates us. It's from the very beginning, actually. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, we have looked upon, and we've touched with our hands." John is saying, this isn't some secret philosophy. We're talking about a physically real person. This is not an abstract belief. This is absolute. We're talking about something grounded in actual history.

Jesus, who was spiritually real from all eternity, became physically real, a physically real person.

John is telling us that the light and life of our faith is not based on myths or maybes or philosophy, but on a physically real person who lived and died on our behalf and truly rose again, and his name is Jesus. Our faith is founded in the physically real Jesus.

Our faith is formed by spiritually real fellowship

He goes on to say, in verse, summarizes, he says this, he says, our faith is formed by spiritually real fellowship. Now this is so key, church, don't lose this. Again, knowing that in many ways John is combating Gnosticism here, he's saying faith isn't some secret thing that you do in your private life that reeks of Gnosticism That's like a descendant of a new veiled form of Gnosticism If you think faith is the secret thing that only you do on the inside He's saying that's not faith he's saying faith is meant to bring us together, not separate us into a bunch of little individuals living our own truth. That we are brought together as a family living out God's truth. He says this, that which we have seen and heard we proclaim to you so that you may have fellowship with us.

Hold on a second here. Did you catch this? I thought that the message of Jesus was about salvation. Shouldn't he have said salvation here? That's what we've seen and heard we proclaim to you so that you too may have salvation. Well yes, the Bible's clear, that's what we get. But do not forget that what we also have is that we are brought into a covenant family.

And he goes on to say that indeed our fellowship is with God and with his son, Jesus. John is telling us our faith is not just in ourselves, it's not just for ourselves. As much as the world shows us that idolizing the self and personal identity is the highest good, John is pushing back against that, saying that our faith is meant to be had with each other, but in God. So Christians in the house, Christians who can hear my voice in the other venues, we are meant to go to church. We are meant to go to church. You guys know probably that the attendance rate among Christians these days is not just dismal, it's pathetic. It's absolutely pathetic. And it's only getting worse.

Now, I'm kind of preaching a little bit to the choir here because Peace Church bucks the trends almost universally with everything bad that's going on in the church right now, but as members of the larger church out there, we need to recognize that Christians are meant to make a priority of gathering together to worship Jesus and have fellowship with one another. And you know that when we say go to church, that's just a quick, shorthand way that reminds us of something even greater, that we are the church. And so what does that mean? Here's what it means. It means when Sunday comes, and you find an excuse not to come to church, when the church gathers, it means that we're not whole.

It's like a family dinner, but not everyone shows up. You know, when family dinner comes, nobody likes to see empty seats. The family's meant to gather. The church is meant to gather. We are meant to have fellowship. Now listen, I know life happens. I'm a father of four. I get it, life happens. But the excuses to not come to church need to be few, and far between, and really valid. Like John is trying to be so clear with us. Faith shouldn't be just part of your life, it needs to be the priority of your life. If Jesus is physically real, then our faith needs to be evidently real in all things. As we have fellowship with each other and with God, and I would say this, I don't think a Christian could ever develop a biblically true, spiritually real faith without one another.

Today, you saw, you heard that we welcomed over 50 members to our church family. Praise God, I'm so excited for every single one of these. Our new members are showing us an example of what it means to be committed to a church, to come and gather and worship, to sit under the accountability of the elders, to listen to the preaching, and to worship together. This is what Christians should be doing.

And so listen to how John talks about Christians who have fellowship with one another and with God. In verse 4, he says, we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. Don't throw away that verse. This gathering, this completeness of our faith, brings joy. It brings joy. It's joyous and meant to be joyous when the church is healthy and strong and gathers. But he's quick to say this is not our message. It's God's. Verse five says this message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. We've heard it from him. We've heard this message. The message I'm giving to you is the message of Jesus. In him, there's no darkness at all. God's message is what we call the gospel, and it's life-giving. Now, I don't know if you saw it, but in verses 1 to 4, we saw life mentioned three times.

Now, as we close out this passage in verses 5 to 10, we're going to see light mentioned three times. And this is important because this is our final point.

Our faith is fulfilled through personally real integrity.

Now I'm going to say some really challenging and controversial things here. So I want to go back and make sure that we're all on the same page. Let's go back a second here. Let's start over. Let's remind ourselves of where we're at. John, the last living of the disciples, writes an open letter to all Christendom, even to us here today. He's the last living of the disciples and he's trying to ground our faith in the knowledge that we're talking about what is physically and spiritually real.

And then he takes that whole premise and then in verses 6 to 7 he's going to present an argument to say, essentially, since our faith is real, it needs to be truly evident in our lives. Now listen, I'm like two-thirds of the way through the sermon, and I get at this point like people begin to like to think about what's for lunch.

Okay, so I'm going to go back and say that again, because I want to make sure everyone hears what I'm saying and the argument that John is making here. John is essentially saying, since our faith is real it needs to be truly evident in our lives and he does this he makes this argument through a series of if-then statements that he actually frames as if we all right look at verses six and seven let's start there John says if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth verse seven but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. Okay, so what's John saying here?

You can't walk in the light sometimes and in the darkness sometimes. If you're going to say a Christian, then we only begin to walk in the lights. We've got to stop playing like faith is just part of our life and make it the rightful place that it's the priority of our life. John is saying faith is to be the defining feature of our lives and that's evident because we walk in the light, not in darkness. We don't go back and forth. We only walk according to God's good and righteous way. But check this out. He's saying, while this is true, don't get all high and mighty on yourself.

Look what he says in verse eight. It says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. All right, so follow this rhythm real quick. On the one hand, he's saying, yes, we do have sin. But then he's saying, but that's not an excuse to walk in darkness. We are to only walk in the light. Because while sin is part of the equation on this side of eternity, we need to be the people who show the world that Jesus has taken care of our sin. That he's died on the cross and his blood is the spiritual soap that has now washed away our sin. Yes, sin is part of the equation, but it's not an excuse to walk in it anymore. That we are people who walk in the light. We show the world something different. We are now not made perfect, we are made holy. That means we are set apart. We show the world something different. There's a way that the world operates and there's things that the world celebrates that we don't. We do something different. We are part of a different kingdom now.

He goes on to say in verse nine, says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all righteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. Again, don't forget the backdrop of Gnosticism here.

Again, Gnosticism, is this secret knowledge of this divine light within you that needs to be awakened. John is saying, no, you don't have some divine light inside of you that needs to be awakened. What you have inside of you is called sin, and you need to repent of it and reject it and turn toward Jesus. But the good news is that Jesus has paid for those sins, that they're no longer over top of us, that by His death on the cross, as He said in verse 7, the blood of Jesus, His Son cleanses us from all sin. Sin is no longer part of our identity. We are the people who walk in the light now. The blood of Jesus, again, it's the soap that washes away our sins so that we are clean and seen as pure and righteous and holy before God, who welcomes us as his children. And this is because of faith in Jesus, not trust in ourselves.

 So with that, let me get real controversial here for a second. So let me clarify, because I'm going to get emails after this and I want to be able to forward them emails to you. I want to throw you under the bus, so let's all be on the same page about something, okay? We are not saved by our good actions, but by the good actions of Jesus. Amen? We are not saved by the good things we do, but by the great thing that Jesus did. Amen.

We are not saved by our perfect life, but by Jesus' perfect life. Amen. All right. So I want you to say this with me because I want to make sure we're on the same page here. Okay. Don't want to lose you. Say this with me. We are not saved by living good lives. We're saved by the gospel of Jesus. Okay good. Now, we're all square here.

So here's the thing. When we place our faith in Jesus, we are saved because of what He's done, not us. We're not saved by being a good person, but by believing in Jesus.

We have a term for it. It's called sanctification. And it's the process of becoming more holy, or more specifically, becoming more like Jesus. When we place our faith in Jesus, we all start a path of becoming more like Him. Meaning, our lives will begin to show more and more that we no longer belong to the world, but we belong to the King. And so, when we say that, do you know what the immediate pushback is? You can't judge what's in a person's heart.

Now, I'm going to expose to you that that right there reeks of Gnosticism. That is a descendant of Gnosticism reborn in our time. I'm going to take it to task right here and right now. So it's summertime, so let's use a summer analogy. Now, if I said to you, rather than saying you're saved by believing in Jesus, if I said to you this, let's say this, you're saved by jumping in the water. Okay, so then what we could do then is if we wanted to know who was saved, then we just go around looking for who is wet. Okay, but quickly someone would say, but you're not saved by being wet you're saved by jumping in the water. Well, yes. Yes. Yes Yes, but but if you jump in the water you you get wet you understand how that works, right? Yes, but you're not saved by being wet. You're saved by jumping in the water This is the endless debate of faith and actions through a form of narcissism Because what we want to say is it doesn't matter what is on the outside. All that matters is what's on the inside. That's a veiled descendant of Gnosticism.

Jesus Christ is the one who said a tree would be known by its fruit. You don't know what a tree is by cutting it down and looking at the inside. You look at what's on the branches. A tree is known by its fruit. You don't have to dig up its root system, take out a root and send it to a scientist who does a DNA sampling to know what's truly on the inside. You want to know what sort of tree it is, look at the leaves, what fruit is being born. Because what is on the outside is, according to Jesus, reflective of what's on the inside.

Now I'm saying this to you because the world is only going more and more dark and it should become more and more evident who is a true believer in Jesus and who is not. The world is not allowing us to ride both sides. The Bible never did, but the world's not either. Today is a day where you need to discern which kingdom are you going to be a part of, the kingdom of the world or the kingdom of the gospel, and stop trying to play both sides. And stop using the excuse that you can't judge what's on a person's inside. That's Gnosticism. No, it will show in your life. I'm not saying you will be perfect. John was clear, sin's part of the equation on this side of eternity. No one, I'm not saying you need to be perfect, but I am saying that we need to be holy because that's who we are in this world. We are set apart and it's because of what Jesus has done for us through God's great love, giving his own son so that we could have new life. Yes, salvation, but new life that's reflected for the world to see again. I'm not saying you're going to be perfect. If you say you have no sin, you're a liar and you make God a liar. But if you have new life, you're going to walk in the light. And it's easy to see who is walking in the light.

So this day, we said it, today is the day. Today is the day you need to discern. Are you walking in darkness or are you walking in light? To be reminded of the gospel, we are going to have communion together. Also called the Lord's Supper, and this is a time where we are physically reminded of the beauty of the gospel by eating and drinking. This is a physical act. This is something Jesus taught us to do, that we would be reminded and nourished by the gospel again, the gospel that Jesus died on the cross in our place for our sins, and then three days later, he rose again. He physically died a horrendous, torturous death, which paid the price for our sins so that we can live in light of God's love, pursuing God as he calls us to himself, giving us the spirit to do so. And so we are reminded and nourished by a spiritual reality. That Jesus' life is brought into our lives by faith in Him, and this is symbolized by communion. As we take the bread and drink, we are taking His light and life into us. Amen. Let's prepare our hearts for communion.

Please pray with me.

Father, we come before you right now. Father, we are thankful that the only perfect one is Jesus. He's the only one able to attain our salvation for us. Father, I pray, Lord, that as we walk out of here, as we take communion and are nourished again by the gospel, Father, we are people who are reminded that every good thing we have is from you, including our eternal life. So, Father, I pray, Lord, that we are nourished by the gospel, not because of what we've done, but because of what Jesus has done for us. And it's in his name we pray.

Amen. Amen.

As we come to the table, we invite all those who are followers of Jesus, who have put their faith in Jesus, and also who are seeking to live lives of obedience, following his way to join us at the table.

This is something that Jesus told us to do, and the Apostle Paul continues this notion of communion. And he says this in First Corinthians

Whoever eats the bread or drinks a cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord Let a person examine himself then and then so eat of the bread and drink of the cup For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.

Paul is not saying only perfect people come to the table, but he is saying people who have rightly approached God Recognize that they are falling short, but we have a good God. And because of that, we'd ask that children who have not yet made a profession, that they would refrain and they would just watch mom or dad or whoever they came with today. Because this is a weighty matter, but a joyous one.

And because we can only come to the table by faith, let's stand together and let's profess the words of our faith in the words of the Apostles' Creed.

Let's say these words together. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day, He rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. Amen.

Please be seated. And as you sit down, look around your seat and you'll find one of these cups that has on the one side the wafer and on the other side drink.

And Jesus, just before he went to the cross, he gathered with his disciples to have supper. And he took the bread in front of them and when he had given thanks, he broke it. And he said, this is my body, broken for you. Take and eat. It's a church. Would you taste and remember the gospel?

In the same way Jesus took the cup

And he said this cup is the new covenant in my blood. And he said this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

As often as you drink of it, do so in remembrance of me.