As many of You are aware, some of our local adversaries have officially complained about the worship service we will be having at the Kibbie Dome just before the Trinity Festival. Their complaint centers on the fact that we will be serving alcohol to minors.
For some years, we have been teaching you that our observance of this Supper is potent. We have been saying that the gospel is like wine, and not like grape juice. Grape juice is a fitting element for the modern and moribund church to use—an inert element for an inert sacrament in an insert church. But when God moves to stir His people up, what happens? We return to a biblical observance of this Supper which can be nothing other than a potent declaration.
But there is another issue as well. We have seen that if we were serving grape juice in our communion service, our adversaries would not care—a tame sacrament for a domesticated church.
The second issue is this: if we excluded you, our children, from the service, they would not care either. But because we eat and drink a potent gospel, and because we insist on including our children and grandchildren in this, their glorious inheritance, the whole thing becomes quite formidable.
When was the last time you heard about outsiders caring what was done inside a worship service like this? The whole affair should be greatly encouraging. God has prepared a table for us in the presence of our enemies, and as we sit down to eat and drink, we may know by faith that God is moving in our community in wonderful ways.
We have assumed the center, and we now see our adversaries beginning to recognize that it is what is being done in faithful Christian worship that will determine the future of our town, our state, our nation, and our world. It is here we are formidable—and nowhere else.