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How can God possibly work through a shared meal?
At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
Hey. Thanks so much for listening to Sandals Church. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, God, and others. We hope you enjoy this message.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Last year, my wife, Ashley, and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary of being married. Yes, thank you. Thank you. And, we went out in style, man. We celebrated by going to New York City, which is arguably like the greatest city in the world, man.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And it was a beautiful time. And when we got there, we really just had like a few things on the agenda. 1st was to walk everywhere and then to eat everything we saw. And that's exactly what we did. And if you know anything about New York City, man, they are very limited on space.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:People are stacked on top of people. And you see this every day when it's time to eat. It's a beautiful thing. On any given moment as you're walking down the street, whether it be Broadway, 42nd, 34th, whatever it is, you see the light coming through, you see these buildings, you see the structure, you see the colors, and you start to smell everything that's in there in you know in New York. And then what you start to see are the restaurants just spill onto the sidewalks, and the sidewalks are filled with people not just walking, but eating.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They're stopping to sit down, to get at the table, and to have a meal. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. The food is just so rich in New York. I mean, because there's so many people. So if your food if you're gonna make it as a restaurant, it's gotta be good in New York.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And I think there's something deeply true about all of us wanting to have a good meal experience, whether you're in New York or wherever you're at. You think about even if you're going to travel somewhere, you you imagine, okay. What do we get to eat? Where are we going to eat? What kind of food do they have there?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Planning for food is an essential part of planning to go anywhere because sharing a meal, eating food is a deeply important part of the human experience, and I would argue it's because of this, that when you and I sit down to have a meal together, what we're ultimately after and what our souls are aching for is what the Bible calls communion. We want in this moment to have communion, which is both a moment of intimacy and acceptance over food, ironically. Now as important as food is, it's also the case that you and I struggle at a real human level to relate well to food and how we eat it. This is why every year we spend 50, listen, $50,000,000,000 on dieting. $50,000,000,000 on dieting.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It said that any given moment 25% of men and 45% of women are on some kind of a diet, and the average household throws away about $1500 worth of food every single year. Now speaking for Christians, it said that all of us or I should say sorry. Most of us will spend more money on diets than we will on world missions. That's telling. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's very, very telling. And so whether we realize it or not, our eating habits often reveal the state of our souls and the state of our lives. Now for believers, though, this isn't necessarily a new thing. When you go all the way back to the very beginning of everything in the book of Genesis, we find ourselves in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve living in perfection, a world that is full of life and love and beauty, harmony with one another, harmony with God, harmony with the world, and what is it that sends all of it into chaos? The serpent comes, speaks to Adam and Eve, and whether you think this story is historical, made up, somewhat of a myth, you have to wrestle with the fact that the serpent tempts Adam and Eve not with money, not with power, not with sex, but with food.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Food. It looked pleasant to the eye. And the serpent so confidently says, take and eat, which many have pointed out Jesus also uses those same two words in scripture at the Lord's supper that we'll read in just a second, take and eat. It's almost if if Jesus is saying what ruined our lives in the garden, Jesus can restore at the table. And that's what we get to experience.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Consider for a moment that what you need and really the power of us as a church is found at the table when we gather together and share a meal with one another. Something transformative can happen and to help us understand that we're going to read from Luke 22 where Jesus institutes the Lord's supper, what you and I refer to as communion. Took bread and wine and he shared it with his disciples. He had a meal right before he enters into the most difficult part of his entire life. And so as we get ready to read, I'm gonna ask if you are willing and able that you would stand with me for the reading of God's word and let's hear from Luke's gospel chapter 22 starting in verse 14.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Luke writes, when the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table and he said to them, I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God. After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, take this and divide it among you. For I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them saying, this is my body given for you.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way after the supper, he took the cup saying, this is the cup sorry, this is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you. But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table. The son of man will go as it has been decreed, but woe to that man who betrays him. And they began to question among themselves which of them it might be who would do this.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:This is the word of the lord. Let's pray together. Father, in this shared moment of prayer, god, we acknowledge that you are present to us and you have gathered here with us as well. And so we ask now, god, that you would speak to us from your word and that you would give us ears to hear today and you would give us eyes to see and that you, holy spirit, would make us what you call us to be in Jesus. We pray these things in his name.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Amen. Amen. Thank you. You guys can be seated. I want you to imagine for a second, a friend or a family member texts you, and they ask you a unique question, which is this.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They ask you, would you send me a picture of your church? They ask you to send a picture of the church to them. I'm curious to know what kind of picture would you send them. Would it be of the building? Would it be of something happening in the service?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Would it be a kind of the worship moment? Because you know we got great worship here. Would it be the teaching? Would it be the talking outside? Would it be the kids running around?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What kind of picture would you send them? And the reason why I say that is because one of the most important symbols for the church for all time has been the table. Many people argue that this is the most important symbol the church has. Even more than a cross or a fish is the picture of the table because that's where it all started for Jesus. The power of us, the power of who we can be as this intergenerational family is discovered when we find ourselves gathered together sharing a meal at the table.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And it's because at this place is where people encountered Jesus. Jesus started his whole mission at the table. In fact, his critics referred to him over and over in the gospels as both a glutton and a drunkard, which communicates to us that Jesus apparently loved to have a good time. He loved to get down with people, all kinds of people. People who were great, people who were scandalous.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:People who you and I would probably love and agree with, and people you and I would not see eye to eye on anything with. Jesus loved to eat. His mission started at the table as theologians have pointed out and it will be completed at the table as we enter into the new world, the new heaven, the the kingdom of God fully realized where we are all at the table together with Jesus. And he alludes to that in verse 16 where he says, for I tell you, I will not eat it again, speaking of this meal that he's about to share with his disciples, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God. So Jesus is gonna have this meal with his disciples, He's gonna pause and wait to have it once everyone is with him.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Think about that for a second. Jesus is waiting to feast with you. He's waiting to feast with you in a particular moment in which the world is restored to the way it was always meant to be, where everyone is invited by the love and grace of God to enjoy life at the table. He's waiting for this. Now this practice of Jesus that he modeled through his life and ministry was something that his disciples eventually picked up as well.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Something that we often forget about the church shortly after Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven was that they gathered in homes for worship. So church didn't necessarily look like this. It didn't even look like us all in a building together. The church looked like people gathering in homes. We see this all throughout the New Testament letters.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Paul at the end of Romans says this. Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my coworkers in Christ Jesus. They risk their lives for me. Not only I, but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them. Greet also the church, listen now, that meets at their house.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Then in Colossians he says the same thing, Give greetings to my brothers and sisters at Laodicea and to Nympha and the church in her house. Again to Philemon, a very short letter personally written to a friend, he says to Philemon our dear friend and fellow worker, also to Apiphia our sister, and Archippus, our fellow soldier. Am I good? Archippus for a name? Someone's parents named as an archippus.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:My goodness. Here's the point. Paul says, and to the church that meets in your home. The central point of Christian worship, of encountering Jesus, of being with God's people is the home for many years. For over 200 years it actually was the case.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Churches met in homes, and the the the focal point, the moment in which everyone gathered together was at the table. It's at the table. And so I want you to be mindful of this thought just for a second that that the greatest gift that you and I offer to a very fractured world right now is our dining room table. You don't need to have a lot of great knowledge. You don't need to have a lot of special things, you don't even need to feel holy about your life, like you don't gotta be a perfect Christian, you just gotta have a table to sit at and you can do incredible work both in blessing people and also in experiencing Jesus himself.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Because remember in this day, most people, if they wanted to have a divine encounter with the gods and have this religious experience, they had to go to a temple. They had to go to a religious kind of ceremony, but Christians in this day living in the Roman Empire, it was unique and bizarre and very ordinary but they could meet Jesus at the table and be with his people at the table. Man, I don't know about you but I am grateful today that Jesus finds me in the ordinary places of my life. In the places of my life that feel somewhat boring, mundane, repetitive, Jesus loves to encounter us in ordinary moments and the table is a reminder of that beautiful picture. Not only that, it's at the table where we are nourished by, listen now, our generational differences.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Our generational differences. It would be a simple misreading of this passage to see all of the disciples at this table of Jesus about to partake in a very sacred moment with him and to think that all of these disciples are on the same page with each other. That just wasn't the case. Read the gospels, you find them arguing a lot. They don't land on the same thing when it comes to the same kinds of issues.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Jesus even alludes to the fact that one of them who's sharing this meal will betray him will betray him. And then he even lament he says, woe to the that's a lament. It's not a curse. It's a lament. He's lamenting the fact that this person will go his own way, choose money, comfort, and selfishness, and hand over the son of God.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Luke, in this account of the story, even goes on to say that after this sacred holy meal, the the the disciples start to argue about who's the greatest. Can you imagine, like, you just had communion with Jesus and now you're arguing about greatness? But this this is such a telling and I think even a great picture of what meals look like for us today in our own lives. You take Thanksgiving, a moment that on paper and with a picture should look great, right. The family's together, you got grandpa, grandma, aunts and uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, siblings, like, the family, the the generations of who you are as a family is all together to enjoy some good cooked food that you probably didn't pay for.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And there's fighting, there's bickering, there's frustration, there's arguments over this and that. You see, it would it would be remiss of us to to imagine that at the table everything just goes so well. In fact, that's why probably some of you are a little bit bothered at this idea that the focal point of Christian experience is at the table because you've only known terrible experiences at your table. That's what you've known for a lot of your life. Your family swims and promotes and loves dysfunction at the table.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:There's not enough salt to put on that plate to make this go down easier. Right? It's hard for a lot of us. It's very hard for a lot of us to imagine anything harmonious, beautiful, or sacred about being at the table. But here's what I think actually begins to nourish us in our generational differences is as Jesus is looking at his boys, they all get the same meal.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Different kinds of people get the same meal. What a word for us today. There's not a different menu for democrats. There's not a different menu for republicans. There's not a different menu for black people, white people, latinos, asians.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We all enjoy the same meal at communion, the same meal. There is unity to be enjoyed and nourished by when we're at the table with Christ and with his people. Nothing different for for those of us who are who are rich, who are poor, who have a little, who have a lot, whose home looks like it would be great on Instagram, and whose home looks like you would never wanna show that thing anywhere. The same meal for all of us. Communion is this grand beautiful equalizer that unites us.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It brings us together. More than that, when you think about it, communion is a great place and even just having a meal together, it's a great place to disciple one another. We're in this series called The Power of Us talking about the inner generations of our church. The the boomers, the gen xers, the millennials, the gen zers. We're all together represented here at church.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:A profound simple place to meet together is over a meal together, to share the table. You you wanna reach the next generation? Share a meal with them. Open your home. Have a meal.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:If you're if you're a family, think about single people in your church who you can serve at your campus. If you're single, get out of your singleness a little bit and get time with family members. Right? And that's not a knock on your state of life at all. It's just to say that there's a profound experience of wholeness that you can receive in your state of singleness that you can experience at the table with a family.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That's it. And I think we offer this to one another in such a beautiful way. You can reach the next generation. You can learn from the older generation. Get at the table with one another.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's so simple. It's so practical. Open your home, open your space, and share a meal. And then in the process of doing that, ask ourselves, do do our tables at home actually reflect Jesus' table in his kingdom? In other words, do our tables represent anyone and everyone that can come and be blessed by the way that we have been blessed by Jesus?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Because meals are a profound key part of life. And and it's not just a religious thing, it's it's a social thing. It's something that a lot of people are starting to pick up on today. Just the other day I was reading this article in The Atlantic that was talking about the importance of family meals at home, and it was just giving some fascinating data around direct correlations between families that eat together regularly and families that don't. And families that don't have meals regularly together, they're at higher risk for obesity, anxiety, depression, teen pregnancy.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Higher risk. It's not a guarantee. Right? And then it said that in families where regular meals are shared, all of those things come dramatically lower. Now, again, it's not a guarantee, it's not a promise, but they're just showing you data, what they see from families who experience life together.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:More than that, they say in those families, the kids tend to graduate school. Those siblings tend to like each other, and they respect their parents. There's a shared life at the table. Now even with all that data there, we have to be honest about what's real because only 17% of us, it says, in America actually share meals together with our families on a regular basis. And out of half that 17% were in front of a TV doing it, which is astounding.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And maybe maybe what you have been missing, as ironic and strange as this sounds to hear at church, what you have been missing is a good meal in your life both both with Jesus and even more so with his people. How might things look different if you organized your life around experiencing time with people at a table? At a table. I I would go so far as to say that either your absence or presence at the table is an indicator of the state of your soul and the state of your life. What is it saying about you as a person and even me as a person if if our lives move in such a way that we don't have time to enjoy food with one another.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And to think about the words of Jesus, as often as you eat, you remember me. You remember me and what I've done. And what's so beautiful about this experience is not only are we nourished by our differences, but at the table is where the joys and pains of our lives meet the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. You see it's at the table where you can both come home from a long day, share what's happened, right? You sit down, you eat, and if you're at my house sometimes we'll ask our kids like, name something that was just great about the day.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What was like, what was your favorite part of the day? And then share something that was, like, hard about the day. Right? At the table you share the joys and the pains. And it's amazing that even food can be something that we enjoy in a beautiful moment like a birthday or a wedding and also in a moment like a funeral reception when life is gone.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I was just at a funeral recently for a family friend, and everything that was selected at the reception was this person's favorite food to eat. And I was kind of, like, blown away by that, like, wow. The same cake we would give her on her birthday is the same cake we're eating at her funeral. Profound. Food is so central to the ups and downs of human existence, to to the moments where we are celebrating and we just feel like, man, no one can touch us, and also in the moments where we are just in the depths of difficulty.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? Oftentimes, if you guys have to have a hard conversation with people, you'll you'll take them to coffee. Right? Because, listen, for me, it's always nicer to say things that are hard for me to hear if I'm enjoying a nice cup of coffee or a good plate of something. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so it's natural for us. You could have a hard conversation, take them out to eat, bless them in some kind of way like that. But I think it's also the case though that when you come to the communion table, you realize that in this moment where Jesus says, the bread and the cup, broken and poured out for you, what he's saying is, man, your life's ups and downs may not have the answers, but I can give you myself in that moment. A lot of us, we reach and process and seek help to to give us solutions to why we experience life the way we do, but communion doesn't offer you a solution. It gives you a person, and more than that, an experience with that person that you can return to over and over again.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You'll notice what he says there in verse 19. He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and then gave it to them saying, this is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Now Paul picks up the same exact phrase and he's writing to a church later on in Corinth who's lost their way with communion. We might say this church has forgotten the importance of what it means to be at the table.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They've lost sight of the power of us, and this is what Paul says in his 11th chapter of 1st Corinthians. He says, for I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you. The Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body which is for you. That is to say Jesus is taking an item of food and saying this represents something that I'm going to do later on your behalf. And then he goes on, this cup is the cup of the new covenant in my blood.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me. For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim, listen out of these two phrases, you proclaim the lord's death until he returns. Do you hear that? You proclaim in eating this meal both that life is full of trouble and death is coming, but he's coming back too. You see there's both of these things.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Both joy and pain is met at the communion table. Food is a place where you can embrace just the complexities of life, of everyday experience, and in a very tangible way through the tasting of something hopefully good, be reminded that there is a person who knows what it's like to walk in your shoes, and he calls you to follow him and to experience him at the table. This is beautiful. More than that, I think what Paul is getting at, because he says the word twice, Jesus says it once, but it's this word remember. Do this in remembrance of me.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I think what they're after here is is not so much when we take communion. Oh, we remember that Jesus, you know, 2000 years ago lived and died and he died on a cross and they took him down, he was in a tomb. Right? We're not just listing facts and I'm sorry if you sound like that when you're listing facts. I I do apparently.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:This this idea of remembering is not just intellectual exercise, but what they're what they're calling out of us is the reality that all of us suffer from spiritual amnesia in which we tend so quickly to forget who Jesus is and to forget who we are. One of the most repeated commands in all of scripture is to remember. Remember, remember, remember. We are a people who need to constantly be reminded because we so easily forget. Communion is is so important because it helps us not just to intellectually put thoughts together in our mind, but to in this moment experience as we taste and drink something that there is a God who loved us, saved us, lived for us, died for us, and rose for us, and there is a reason for why I should keep going.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Food helps you to keep going. Communion tells you you actually can keep going, and you can live in hope and you can live with life. And so as you are receiving the broken bread, you're you're able to be reminded that, man, the brokenness that I carry in my own body and life can be restored. And this brokenness, this situation, this family drama, this issue at work is not the end of my story. Communion reminds me I'm so much more, and there is so much more that is coming.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Lastly, as this begins to happen for us, at the table we also see that this is where God uses physical food to remind us we need spiritual nourishment. Physical food to remind us that we need spiritual nourishment. I'm reminded of the the the well stated words of Leonard Sweet. He wrote a book on the table for Christians, and in that book he said an untabled faith is an unstable faith. In other words, what you need in your Christian life more than you realize it is the table.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It is a good meal. It is the Lord's supper. That's what's been missing, I think, for a lot of us. It's a right understanding of what it means to be at the table with God, to be at the table with his people, and this is where we find the power to be this family that Jesus has called us to be. In David's words from Psalm 34, they're they're often recited, you know, when we think about experiencing God and worshiping him where he says there, taste and see that the lord is good and blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:For so long I read that as, like, oh, that's just good poetry. You know? David's on his game. It's a metaphor. But but then the more I think about it and the and the more I put together just the relationship of food in the bible I mean, it it shows up everywhere.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:When Abraham first meets God, he bakes him a meal. It's amazing. When Elijah is on the verge of taking his own life, an angel brings him a cake. It's beautiful. When Jesus is getting ready to be betrayed, he eats.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He eats. And so when I think David says, taste and see that the Lord is good, I don't know if that's just metaphor, you guys. I I think he's really wanting us to imagine that food is not just a sign that points to God's goodness. It is the very experience of God's goodness to us in that moment. I know God is good because this pizza in New York is amazing.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:The filet mignon is hitting right now, right? Every moment you enjoy something good and you're like, Man, thank you. God fresh food is good because God is good. Right? And we always, everywhere, have an opportunity to be reminded of that goodness, not just as a sign that, oh, yeah, one day God will be good to me, but, no, in this moment, he wants you to experience his goodness.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And I think what we so desperately need to to recover as a church is this just art of hospitality where where we slow down our lives, we open up our doors, we share our table with people. And for some of you, listen, I know you probably got the IKEA table where you skip steps and it's barely working now, but you still have something to offer and you still have people to meet with there. So so go go to the table. Go to the table. The spiritual practice of eating and drinking that Christians for 1000 of years have turned to and in our rush and hurried and modern life that I think I'll just read a book on it instead, we have completely neglected the gift of being face to face with people.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Face to face with people. Now this is why at Sandals, in more recent days, we have moved to having communion, yes, in service, but then also encouraging you to experience it in a community group with other people because there's something to be said for slowing down more than a service can afford so that you can experience the bread in the cup, the reminder that sin can be forgiven in Jesus and that you are in a safe place to share where you're at in life and to know Jesus meets you at that spot. What a gift that is. And then we would encourage every single one of you guys to to engage in that. And as we engage in this practice, I wanna close just by offering a few thoughts.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:1st, things to remember about the spiritual practice of eating and drinking. Let's be reminded that it's less about what is on the table and more about who I'm becoming at the table. So it's not so much how great things look and how wonderful this will look on your IG story or just how plain it is because some days it goes like that. I know, but it's about who you're becoming at the table. When you say no to yourself long enough to say yes to somebody, to give them the gift of listening, to offer to hear their confession, to give wisdom when it's needed and asked for, right, to ask good questions, man, there is so much transformation God is doing in us and through us when we slow down.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So it's more about who I'm becoming at the table than what's on it. Secondly, be mindful that food is the language of love when our words fall short. It's no surprise that when people die, we always think first, let me bring them a meal. Let me bring someone a meal. We don't know what to say, we don't know what to do, but I'll cook you this baked ziti and it might it might lift you up.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? Where our words fall short, food is is a language of love and care that we can communicate to each other. Remember that. Remember that. And so, you know, your buddy calls you up, a friend calls you up like, hey, this is going on in my life.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You you might not have the words. You you probably will get that through that entire conversation and meal and have very little to offer, but you were present to them and they liked what you cooked or what you purchased. Right? Let food be a language that you yourself can't speak yet. Thirdly, let's be reminded, especially for those of us who are in community groups right now, that consistency is more important than intensity.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:There are so many moments in group even from my own even from my own life where I realized, like, man, after that group, I'm like, okay. That was that was nice. You know? It was good. Like, we got through the questions.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We talked about the sermon. We talked about our lives, but then there's other times where I'm like, my I love these people. I am so I can't I I didn't wanna leave. And my wife and I we're the last to leave. We're the last to come in.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We're the last to leave. And there's times where I'm I'm so excited. Right? But but here's the thing, I wanna encourage every single one of us who are at Sandals Church, who are in a group, remain. Don't grow weary in doing good.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Don't grow weary. Remain committed and understand that the consistent practice of this is far more important than just the intensity of in any given night, where things just kinda felt, and the wrong person brought dip. Right? Whatever it is. Just just know the consistency is more important.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Lastly, I wanna say this specifically to all of us, not just those of us who are in a group, but even those who are not in a group yet, man, we are invited to the table by grace. And I wanna say this to you, if you are here, you're new, you barely started coming to Sandals Church, you're still unsure as to everything we're about, I just wanna say thank you. I'm glad that you are here. I'm glad that you sat here long enough to to hear us sing, to maybe sing with us, and to listen to this, and I wanna invite you to consider life at the table. The good news is, you know, you might not feel great already, but that's okay.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Communion is not for perfect people. The communion is for people who are broken. Communion is for people who need grace, and that's offered to you today through Jesus, through his son. I'm reminded that the greatest meal I had in New York on that trip was at this restaurant called Ketch, and it was amazing. Some of our best friends are like family to us.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They live in New York. They they live up in Harlem. My buddy pastors a church up there, and he said, oh, Fred, we gotta go to Ketch, man. We gotta go to Ketch. I'm like, alright.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Make reservations. So first night we're in town, we go to Ketch. And he was like, man, I was here last week on my own anniversary. We saw Ja Rule in here. It was it was crazy.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Some of you are like Ja Rule? Who is Ja Rule? Anyways, we get to this restaurant and on the corner of the street, there's this big bouncer already there, got a show ID, yadayada, reservations, all that. So we get through him, go up these steps, like, you can start to just feel this this moment coming. Hit another security guard, get through him, go to the hostess.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You know, Kenny's like, yeah. It's a table for 4. We get seated. We go sit down, and this place is just beautiful. I'm like, man.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:How am I gonna pay for this? And it's just a great moment. A great moment. And we're we're sitting there. We get our drinks, and and this, waitress comes by, and she she goes up to my friend Kenny.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:She's like, excuse me. Are you Kenny Hart? And, you know, he starts smirking. I'm like, well, you don't know. You know?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's not like that for you out here. And, he says, yes. I am. I'm like, oh, this dude. And so she walks away, And, a moment later, another waiter comes by, and it turns out it's, Kenny's one of his best friends from his college baseball team.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And they haven't seen each other in years. This dude's tall, handsome, like, oh, man. He's about to be a model or something. And and they're just catching up. I'm like, alright.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Cool. Cool. You know, I'm still looking at the menu. And then he he walks off, and I start looking at everything I wanna order, which sounds amazing, and then I see the prices. I'm like and I and I started to do calculations.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And I'm not just doing, like, how much is this bill gonna cost? I started doing life calculations. Like, are my kids gonna go to college? Am I gonna you know, I'm gonna blow the entire trip's money, like, tonight. All of it's going.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's all gonna be done at this spot. And and I look up, and here comes this guy that Kenny knew, his teammate, with with plates of food already. Now food loving Fredo is very excited at this moment. Financially worried, Alfredo, is starting to get a little panicky because who's gonna pay for that food that just came to us? And he food just keeps coming.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It just keeps going. I mean, everything that was an appetizer, he brought to our table. He brought almost half the meals, the steak, the fish, the chicken, I mean, everything, the pasta, The dessert came and it was it was, this cake that had lights and it was melted. It was nuts. I couldn't believe it.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It said happy anniversary. I was just losing. I was in tears at this point. It's amazing. It's ama all this food just kept coming.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And that night, I realized I I received more than I could possibly imagine that night, and I didn't have to pay for it. Amen. This is what it means to come to the table by grace, to receive more than you can imagine, and it doesn't cost you anything. What was so great at that table wasn't me. It was who I knew.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Who I knew got me access to everything, to everything. And this is what it means to come to the communion table is to realize you come with nothing, but someone at the table is ready to give you everything, everything. The bread broken for you, the cup, his blood poured out for you. You see, Jesus is saying, I'm I'm gonna go and and die on this cross for you because you have chosen in your sin to go to every other table in life. The table of career, the table of sexual desire, the the the table of individual freedom, the table of politics.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You and I have pursued life at every other table, but the one that we were designed for. That's sin. And Jesus invites you back to his table today to return to communion and to find in him what you've been looking for, and you don't gotta pay for it. It's grace. Let's pray as we get ready to go to the table together.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Heavenly father, would you move in us as a church today as we once again find ourselves gathered around the table, finding the power of us at the table. And so, God, as we receive the the bread and the cup today, would you help us to just be caught up in joy, to be reminded that, man, there is life in you, Jesus. There is forgiveness in you, Jesus. There is something for us that our souls have been aching for, and so would you help us to be nourished and to feast on communion today? We pray these things in Jesus' name.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Amen.