Discerning The Lord's Body (Part 3 - Judgement)
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Secular -
Secular -
A Priest and a Taxi Driver Were Waiting in Line for Judgment at the Pearly Gates
The taxi driver was first. He went to St. Peter and said," I am Brandon Wilson. Taxi driver in New York for fifteen years." Saint Peter looked at his list and smiled. "Welcome Mr. Wilson. Take this silken robe and this golden staff and enter the gates of Heaven." The taxi driver walked through the gates wearing his silken and robe and bearing his golden staff.
The priest then walked to Saint Peter and boomed," I am Father Dan Snow who has preached at Saint Mary's Church for fifty years." St.Peter looked at his list and smiled. Welcome Mr. Snow take this wool robe and this wooden staff and enter the gates of Heaven." "Wait a minute", the priest said,"Why does the taxi driver get a better robe and staff than me? I've spent almost my whole life dedicated to the church!"
"Up here we work by results." said Saint Peter."While he drove, people prayed, while you preached, people slept."
Historical/Cultural Context -
Historical/Cultural Context -
Paul preached the gospel in Corinth in the early 50s AD during his second missionary journey (Acts 18:1–18). When opposition grew fierce there, the Lord Jesus spoke to him in a vision assuring him that he had ‘many people’ in the city (Acts 18:10). With this encouragement, Paul stayed on for eighteen months, ‘teaching them the word of God’ (Acts 18:11). God used Paul’s ministry to bring about the birth and establishment of the church in Corinth.
Biblical Text -
Biblical Text -
Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.
For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.
For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.
But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment. And the rest I will set in order when I come.
-[Prayer]-
-[Prayer]-
Life Principle - See Communion In A Holy Light Without Sin. Be Humble & Selfless So That You Won’t Be Judged.
Life Principle - See Communion In A Holy Light Without Sin. Be Humble & Selfless So That You Won’t Be Judged.
Life Point- To Approach Unworthily Is Sin
Life Point- To Approach Unworthily Is Sin
Exegetical -
Exegetical -
Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
Homiletical -
Homiletical -
Christianity today in America has a problem, well several problems but one of the main ones, is that people don’t believe God anymore.
Today all we hear is, God is a God of Love. This is true, but what is your definition of Love?
Christian Love is not acceptance of sin, it is not bowing to sin, it is not letting a brother or sister live in open sin. It is not allowing unbelievers to think they are believers and not dealing with sin.
Love is calling sin, sin and preaching repentance from sin.
What is sin?
Sins of Commission - Sins done against God. That is, any act or behavior that is against the clear mandates of Holy living found in the Bible.
But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy.
For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”
Sins of Omission - Not doing something you know that God wants you to do.
God wants you to spend time with Him, to not do so is sin.
God wants you to loving restore a brother in Christ by gently confronting open sin in others’ lives.
“If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back.
But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses.
If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.
“I tell you the truth, whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.
“I also tell you this: If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you.
For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.”
We have several churches in our denomination who are in sin. One very big church not too far from us. What is going on? They are baptizing openly homosexual couples without calling them to repentance.
accepting sin is not loving, it is not discerning the body. To be a pastor and allow someone to take communion in this manner means not only is the sinner subject to judgement but so is the pastor.
God made this abundantly clear to Ezekiel.
“Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman to the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from My mouth, warn them from Me.
“When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.
“Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself.
“Again, when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I place an obstacle before him, he will die; since you have not warned him, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand.
“However, if you have warned the righteous man that the righteous should not sin and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; and you have delivered yourself.”
To approach the communion of Christ in an unworthy manner is about the state of your relationship with Christ and other brethren within the church, which is manifest in action.
To be guilty of the body and blood of Christ is a huge deal.
We so often hear these words today and let them pass through us.
But when Jesus died, it was not a humane death. It was not lethal injection. It was painful and involved lots of gore. For example the Greek word for blood hear is very descriptive. It literally means a gushing and rushing of blood. A large amount, not a trickle, not a paper cut, but a large amount of blood.
To treat this sacrifice and this supernatural event as something that is mundane is not just a slap in the face of God and every Christian throughout history, but it is a grievous sin!
May you nor I ever find ourselves so familiar, so desensitized by the language of the body and the blood that we ever treat it as something that is mundane.
Illustration -
Illustration -
Life Point - Sin In The Believer Brings Judgement
Life Point - Sin In The Believer Brings Judgement
Exegetical -
Exegetical -
For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.
For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.
For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.
But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
Homiletical -
Homiletical -
To come to the Lord’s Table with such apathy and self-centeredness is a sure way to be sure that you are inviting God’s judgement on your own head. not discerning the Lord’s body. Not realizing that what you do is Holy and important.
This judgement from this scripture gives us an example of the judgement they brought upon themselves.
Being weak in body and sick
Some have even died.
Why does God choose some for being weak or sick and some for death?
I have no idea. That is God’s business. I just don’t want to be the one who is weak, sick or dead!
I will tell you this, though I can’t be dogmatic about it, I have seen where people in a church have been mad at one another, who haven’t made their relationship right with God then sit down and do communion like nothing ever happened.
I have seen those people be judged personally and the church itself being judged corporately too.
You know that you are the body of Christ. Paul will write that in the next chapter.
All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.
Paul said this about it just a couple of verses earlier
that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another.
And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
You see when one of us is judged, then the entire church is judged with them. How? Because you can no longer fulfill your purpose in Christ. What He has called you to do.
Sometimes people wonder why their church isn’t growing. Could it be because they have treated the body of Christ unworthily? Could it be that they have taken communion without making things right with other believers?
The church then becomes weak and sick and some even die.
I looked up the greek for theses words.
weak: Is to be of small stature. Not strong, not able produce the works that someone is able to produce who strong bodily.
Sick: To be sick or ill is to be powerless
Trust me I have been really sick, and really sick here lately. I had no power to do the things I once did. I just existed in a powerless state.
This describes some churches and many churches across America today.
Dead: When your dead, your dead. You are done. There is no life left in you.
That happens everyday to churches all over the world. We have once live and thriving churches in our Southern Baptist Convention who became weak, then sick, and now are dead. They have closed their doors.
The quickest way to destroy a church that is thriving, growing , and doing things for God is to have a schism or a separation happen in it.
Don’t let that stuff fester. Get it out of your life. Get that apathy toward Christ and others out!
Get back to your first love. This is what Christ admonished the church at Ephesus to do in Revelation
“But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!
Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.
So how dos a church that is weak, sick, and almost dead come back to Christ? The solution is easy, carrying it out can be hard.
If you get every person left in a church to repent and seek God and Do what He says, then it will happen. But it takes the members, the individuals to do it.
Where does one start?
“If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back.
But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses.
If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.
Let’s start here. With our sins and confession to God and one to another. That is how it starts.
What next?
if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
Then it’s time for humility and prayer. Do this individually and then do this corporately and you will see God cause a miracle in your life and your church.
After all this Paul gives us an “oh yeah moment.”
If we would judge ourselves, we would have no reason to be judged.
Yeah, that’s true. It is always best to come to God on our own than have him discipline us through life circumstances and come that way.
One way or another, if you belong to Christ then you will repent and if not, you will be disciplined and then repent.
And have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children? He said, “My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s discipline, and don’t give up when he corrects you.
For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child.”
As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father?
If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all.
Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn’t we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits, and live forever?
For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness.
No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.
Illustration -
Illustration -
Your dad or mom ever tell you that “this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” Yeah? me neither. But there is some truth to that. I don’t like disciplining my kids, but I do it so that maybe they will learn to be better people.
Those who spare the rod of discipline hate their children. Those who love their children care enough to discipline them.
Life Point - Humility & Selflessness Is God’s Expectation
Life Point - Humility & Selflessness Is God’s Expectation
Exegetical -
Exegetical -
Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment. And the rest I will set in order when I come.
Homiletical -
Homiletical -
Remember people were coming to communion, what we would call fellowship dinners, unworthily. The remembrance of the body and blood were treated as mundane and their spirit was wrong.
They were being selfish, preferring themselves over others. They were even getting drunk during a Holy time.
So Paul comes up with a simple solution. eat at home, so that you don’t take from others. So that there won’t be a need for judgement upon the individual believers and the church corporately.
He then says he will fix the rest when gets there.
You know often times there are simple solutions to problems. Sometimes the solution may be hard on us emotionally or physically but we will be better off for it.
So if your eye—even your good eye—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
And if your hand—even your stronger hand—causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
I call this the radical amputation procedure of handling sin. Sometimes you got be radical in order to get sin out of your life. That’s OK so long as you are able to serve Christ in Holiness.
If going down the road you know you will be tempted to stop in at a bar if you see it. Then go another way.
Illustration -
Illustration -
You know I was in a Circle K and there is a bridge between it and Paisley that goes over Crows bluff where the Saint John’s River is. It is the quickest way to get there from DeLand. That draw bridge went out twice in one day. It didn’t latch properly. One young lady was upset about it, talking in the story that she was going to go the other way because she is afraid to be on the bridge.
Me being helpful pointed out that would take her an hour and a half longer because she would have to go all the way down to Pierson on 40 and then Cross over the river in Astor, then run 20 miles on a washboard dirt road to get to Paisley.
She said “better than that, than getting hurt on the bridge.” I personally think there is enough safety measures in place, but that is a good analogy of how to handle sin. Better to go way out of your way than have to deal with it.
Life Principle– See Communion In A Holy Light Without Sin. Be Humble & Selfless So That You Won’t Be Judged.
Life Principle– See Communion In A Holy Light Without Sin. Be Humble & Selfless So That You Won’t Be Judged.
Call to Action – altar call….
Call to Action – altar call….