Helping One Another in Christ’s Body

We've seen that the Lord's table is like the cross, two directions, one vertical and the other horizontal. The vertical is where we say, Lord I lay down my life, my self-life, as I follow you. That's the meaning of breaking the bread.

Jeremy told you all to listen to the daily devotion and one of the things I mentioned there is that if you are not willing to be broken with the others and just, then when the bread, when you take the bread you should really admire it, not break it. That means I, yeah I agree with it but I don't want to be broken. But when we take part in the broken bread, I'm saying Lord I'm willing for my relationship with you, I want to be broken so that your will is done.

But also in relation to one another, because we've seen that a number of times in 1 Corinthians 10, it says, we who are many are one bread. And in that brokenness means that in my relation with you also I am willing to lay down my self-life in encounters with others in the church here. Not with every Tom, Dick and Harry, no.

With those who are committed to the church and that's why we don't invite other people for an occasion like this. And Jesus said in John 15 and verse 13, greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his, I would say his self-life. We're not going to lay down our physical life but to lay down our self-life in our relationship with each other.

And this is my commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you. That means we are here to help one another whatever the other person's need is. If I see a need there, I do what I can to help my brother.

Not everybody in the world, I can't do that, but those who are committed in the fellowship here. I want to show you a little clip now, just about half a minute, where two brothers are running a race. It's called a triathlon where they first swim for a mile and then bike for 25 miles and then run for five miles.

And at the end of it, one of these brothers, there are two brothers, they were the champions in the world, both of them. And the younger brother is exhausted and collapses before he reaches the finishing line. So just see what his elder brother does.

That was a race for which the first prize was $30,000. And these two brothers are coming first. The first one fell down and the second one could have gone ahead and got the first prize.

But in order to pick up this person, he let the third fellow. He got the first prize and these guys didn't get the prize. And the other thing, did you notice when he came to the finishing line, he pushed his brother forward so that his brother would come second and he himself would come third.

That's a tremendous example of how we can help one another if we say we are brothers in Christ and we see a brother stumbling and falling instead of criticizing him or a sister stumbling and falling or something happening in their life. Our job is to help pick them up and even make them go ahead of us. Sometimes the people in the world show us a better example.

These were blood brothers. They were so committed to each other. And in the church, our commitment is to be greater than the human relationship.

So greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. And when especially when we think of the when we are told that we are part of one body, this it says the bread we break is originally one bread cut up into pieces that we take part of and that original one bread symbolizes that we are all one body. So then think of the other person not as someone out there, but it's just another part of our body and then it's even more how quickly we react.

If any part of the body is hurt in any way, an injury or a bone broken, immediately the other parts of the body, you know the hand or something comes in immediately to help to repair that and pick that up and keep on doing the work for the other until it's ready. For example, if my right hand is when I use all the time is injured in some way, the left hand will keep on doing the work for the right hand until it is healed. You know, when you meditate on these things, it's a tremendous example of what it means to be a part of the body of Christ.

And I believe that more and more we should seek to manifest that as a church. That should be our goal, that we get better and better to manifest our love for one another. And that is what we should think of as we break bread now.

Amen.