The Lord's Supper
God Changed My Sermon • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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I plan my ways but the Lord directs my steps. I pray and plan for the sermons I preach months ahead of time usually based on what is going on in the world around us, in the church or just because I like a certain book of the bible and I think it will be fun to work through. Not very often do I change course but it happens. I was driving to the rapid view dump on Thursday listening to the radio and then I remembered what Carson said about when He was doing that in the tractor and shut it off and decided to pray instead. So I shut off the radio and started to pray. Something came to mind I was was praying that I started to wrestle with God against for a bit. I did not want to do it, did not want to preach on it but felt like I needed to today. This is what God has laid on my heart today. It is a passage we go to a lot for it is the passage I read through every time we do communion. Today was supposed to be communion Sunday, and no I did not forget to do it this time, I left it out of the service on purpose. I have not been this fearful to preach a sermon in a long time. What got me thinking is we are supposed to be celebrating the Lord’s supper on Sunday, yet there is something wrong in our midst.
It has been a bit of a rough past few months with a few sleepless nights for many of us. There has been a lot going on and I was reminded of something as I was thinking about communion for Sunday and all that it entails. Ya we could just go through the motions and do it but I don't believe that is right. Let us just get into the passage and I will explain what has been bothering me as we go through this.
Divisions and Factions
Divisions and Factions
In dealing with the Lord’s supper there are a few things that Paul lets us know. The Lord’s supper had become a mockery because of some of the things going on at the time. What we practice in communion they had turned into a feast. They would have a meal together and then do the Lord’s supper after. What is talked about following this refers to both things as they did it all together as one feast.
17 Now in giving this instruction I do not praise you, since you come together not for the better but for the worse. 18 For to begin with, I hear that when you come together as a church there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it.
When you come together as the body of Christ it is telling us. When coming together for this love feast there where problems. The purpose of the feast at the time was to care for the poor, which though the feast is not declared in the bible, it was a good thing to do. but remember, they did it all for the end goal of celebrating the Lord’s supper. So this does all go together.
The following instruction that he gave is not for praising and encouraging but rather a warning and incitement against them for what they had been doing. In a sense He is saying this is not going to be fun, I do this because of the attitudes and behavior of the people. Today I do not encourage and praise but rather to teach and to warn all of us, myself included.
The problem, when they came together for the love feast and for the Lord’s supper there where divisions among them. The word for divisions here is where we get the word for Schism’s from. It means to divide or tear into opposing factions. They where no longer unified and broke into different groups. In their case, the divisions where due not to heresies or anything but the point is that they where no longer unified and according to Paul this was a problem.
The next part can get a little tricky and needs a bit of explaining.
19 Indeed, it is necessary that there be factions among you, so that those who are approved may be recognized among you.
Knowing people though Paul knows that factions, or different groups of people that separate from one another happen sometimes.
The factions that happen there must be factions it says to prove those who are of God in your midst. A cross reference to this is
1 “If a prophet or someone who has dreams arises among you and proclaims a sign or wonder to you, 2 and that sign or wonder he has promised you comes about, but he says, ‘Let’s follow other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let’s worship them,’ 3 do not listen to that prophet’s words or to that dreamer. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul.
This does not create divisions then, but unifies the people of God together while those who are going against the word of God are recognized and separated out, this is different and should happen Paul says.
20 When you come together, then, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper. 21 For at the meal, each one eats his own supper. So one person is hungry while another gets drunk!
22 Don’t you have homes in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I praise you? I do not praise you in this matter!
They are getting together for all of the wrong reasons. they where supposed to come to celebrate the Lord’s supper but what was really happening was divisions and disunity and the Lord’s supper and what it was supposed to mean had lost meaning because they came together in sin. The tried to celebrate Communion while violating the unity of the church.
Before I want to get to one of the points of today's sermon I want to get into the next part.
The Lord’s Supper
The Lord’s Supper
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
It is a serious thing to come before the Lord in Communion with an unprepared heart. Paul here is more focused on the significance of the Lord’s Supper. It was passed on to Him and He passed on the tradition to them. The way it was passed on to him, they where going against the meaning of it.
There is so much I could get into when it comes to these four verses but I will not delve to deep into them today other then to say a few things about the significance of the Lord’s supper. It was originated in Jesus by Jesus. It came from Jesus Himself while He was ready to die.
There are different theories and practices for the Lord’s Supper but what we read here is a symbol of what Jesus was going to do for us. The bread was broken as a symbol of the breaking of the Lord’s Body and it was passed around and they ate together as one.
It is perpetual. There is no end to when we are to stop doing this, it is a perpetual institution to do till the lord comes back again.
25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Holy Communion shall be done as a body of Christ in remembrance of what He has done for us. Every time we do it, we proclaim the Lord’s death. It is also a meal of confession where we are saying that we believe in the birth, death and resurrection and second coming of Jesus. We are declaring that he died for our sins.
the timing of it is not said, just that we are to do it perpetually.
That being said, there is great significance and meaning behind what we are doing in taking the Lord’s supper together. It is not just another meal that we eat together, it is not just something we do once a month because it is in our constitution.
But what we read here in the first two parts of this passage is that they where divided, they where split amongst each other, they had problems and Paul called them on it and said this is not good, you can not do this. My sleepless nights in the past month is over the fact that we to have been divided. There is no communion in front of you today because of some of the things that have been going on in the church. This is what has made me fearful of preaching this sermon today, this is what the Lord put on my heart on Thursday as I was praying on my way to the dump. We have anger in our midst, we have division in our midst, we have problems with our brothers and sisters in our midst that have not been dealt with. I could not in good conscience serve communion today. I have been struggling and praying over this, I didn't want to say anything, it hurts to say this but what could I do.
The Warning
The Warning
as We are short on time here I want to end with the same warning that Paul gave to the church in Corinth about partaking in the Lord’s supper together in an unworthy manner. But we must remember that it is not just when we take communion but is a reminder for the rest of our lives as well.
27 So, then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord.
28 Let a person examine himself; in this way let him eat the bread and drink from the cup. 29 For whoever eats and drinks without recognizing the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.
Let a person examine himself we are told. We sing the song refiners fire but I wonder if we really mean it sometimes. Lord purify my heart, search my heart and make it new. Do we really know the consequences of our prayers for God to search our hearts. We must pray for God to examine our hearts and humbly take the steps necessary to do deal with the anger, and the divisions and whatever else is going on.
To be guilty of the body and blood of Christ means to break the body of Christ and to shed His blood. To sin against Jesus. We are called to sift out the evil in our lives and arrive at the point of one who is proved and refined by God. This is not just here that this mentions this either.
22 But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Whoever insults his brother or sister, will be subject to the court. Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be subject to hellfire.
23 So if you are offering your gift on the altar, and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.
we don't have an altar to offer anything at, but the meaning remains the same. Jesus is the new great high priest, He is the one we come to offer our lives to. When we go to worship the Lord and realize we have done wrong or someone has wronged us even we must deal with it with some sense of urgency. We don't deal with it by telling others what they have done or what we think they have done we go to the person and deal with it with them.
30 This is why many are sick and ill among you, and many have fallen asleep. 31 If we were properly judging ourselves, we would not be judged, 32 but when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined, so that we may not be condemned with the world.
In Conclusion
In Conclusion
What are we doing? By not coming to the table in the right manner we are not regarding the body and the blood of Christ as it should. What we are told to do is to deal with it in a biblical way. This has possibly been one of the hardest sermons I have ever had to preach.
I know I am not perfect, I have made mistakes and I ask that if I have done anything to hurt you or you think I have done anything wrong then please come to me and talk to me and we will work through it. I ask that you do that with eachother as well.
the beautiful thing about our God is that He is a powerful God, he forgives our sins. When we do this we are promised that the Lord will forgive us and give us peace. We must move forward in unity. We must stand and separate out what is false so that people will see us standing for God. We must go forward from here working together under the commands of God for the glory of God. Knowing that we may not be perfect, we will make mistakes but we will deal with those mistakes as they come and strive to live for God.