Being With Jesus - Communion

Introduction

In most sermons, the application for the sermon is really intended for you when you leave the building. If I were to preach on reaching out to the lost, the application is for when you get home or to work or meet with a friend. To apply what you have heard, you would reach out to the lost.

If I preach on loving others well, you could certainly apply it to those in the building, but mostly, you would apply it at home and in your neighborhood.

There are a few things that I can preach on that need to be applied in here. In the church. If I were to preach on corporate worship today, then next Sunday, you should apply that message and sing loudly and clap your hands and shout to the Lord. Amen?

Today, we are continuing our series called Like Jesus, where we are looking at how God transforms into the image of His Son. And one of the big ways that he does that is through Being with Jesus. By Being With Jesus, we are changed to be Like Him. That’s a big point I’ve been making over the past several weeks.

I want to look at communion today. I want to explore the idea that communion is one of the primary ways of Being with Jesus as a body of believers. Let’s read together from Luke 22. I have the notes loaded into the app for you if you’d like to follow along that way.

Luke 22:14–20 ESV

And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

In all three synoptic gospels, you get the story of the Last Supper or the Lord’s Supper as we call it today. Each gospel has a slightly different phraseology here and there, but by and large all three gospels are pretty close in terms of what happened at this supper. No major differences.

The Apostle Paul, also recounts this story in a similar way as Luke does in our passage today when he writes a letter to the church in Corinth, in dealing with some issues that had arisen involving the Lord’s Supper in that church. In other words, this meal most certainly happened and we can be sure that it happened in the way it was described in our text today.

But as far as an exposition as to what this meal means, we are not given much. There is not a lot of teaching on this meal and I’ll be honest, I can’t recall ever hearing a sermon preached on this meal. And to top it off, even though a lot has been written on this meal, most of it comes from the Roman Catholic point of view and not very helpful to us as a whole.

All that to say, I had to spend a lot of time studying and trying to distill this down into what I felt like was God’s heart for us today. So let’s start by defining some terms.

There Are Two Different Words For The Lord’s Supper

If you want to study into this theological subject, there are two different terms that are used to describe what is called the Lord’s Supper, The Last Supper, the Lord’s table, etc. Here’s the first.

Eucharist

The Eucharist is typically what the high church calls this meal. The word Eucharist is a derivative of a greek word found in our text today. The text says in verse 19 that after Jesus took the bread, he “gave thanks” and he broke it. The Greek word for giving thanks in this passage is eucharisteo and it means exactly that, to give thanks.

So in one sense, this is a wonderful description of the Lord’s Supper. It’s a meal where we give thanks. It’s a meal of remembrance and of appreciation. Let’s look at these two ideas.

1. A Meal Of Remembrance

When I say a meal of remembrance, Jesus instructs his disciples during this meal to eat the bread in remembrance of me. Jesus was advising his disciples before his death of something that He wanted done after his death, even though they did not understand what was really happening at the time. This is a memorial meal. We eat the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of Him.

What are remembering exactly? We are remembering his death on a cross around 2000 years ago for the forgiveness of our sins.

Matthew 26:27–28 ESV

And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

In other words, the death of Jesus on the cross, the shedding of his blood for the forgiveness of our sins is the thing that we are to remember and celebrate when we take the Lord’s Supper. This isn’t just a victory in a battle, it’s not just a miracle that God did at some point that we are celebrating, IT IS THE PRIMARY POINT IN CHRISTIANITY. This is what our faith is built on!

The death of Jesus Christ which resulted in the forgiveness of our sins and his resurrection from the dead three days later, conquering death and bringing new life to everyone who believes in Him is the primary article of our faith. This is what we believe. If you are a Christian today, this is the number 1 tenet of our faith. We can disagree about a lot of different minor issues, but this is not just a primary issue, this is the primary issue. If you do not believe in Jesus or that he died on the cross or that he was raised from the dead, then you my friend may be a kind person and well liked, but you are not a Christian and you are headed to hell.

The death and resurrection of Jesus is the determining marker of our faith. You must believe this if you want to inherit eternal life. If you want to be set free from demonic oppression, if you want to be healed from anxiety or depression, if you are wanting to be set free from addiction or if you desire to be rescued from hell and spend eternity with God the Father, this is what you must believe to do it.

Without this, you are lost in your sins. You are dead in your trespasses. You have no forgiveness and you have no hope. This is the linchpin of our faith - that God took on the form of a human, lived a sinless life and was crucified on a cross. The blood that he shed was for your salvation. Do you believe that today? If you don’t, I pray that you will before you leave today. It’s that important.

And that is the reason we celebrate this meal together. It is remembering the greatest thing to ever happen to us. It’s remembering that we are now free from sin and darkness and we have been adopted into the family of God through Jesus Christ. That’s why you will hear me call it a meal of celebration! This is something to get happy about! This is something to rejoice over! Jesus has set you free! Rejoice and be glad! He has purchased your salvation with his blood, shout it from the rooftops! You are redeemed by the blood of the lamb! Praise God!

2. A Meal of Thanksgiving

This is why calling it the Eucharist is an apt name for the meal. It’s a meal of thanksgiving! We are to give thanks to the Lord for what he has done! He deserves our thankfulness and appreciation. This is meant to be a meal of profound gratitude because Jesus did for us what we could never do for ourselves! He saved us and set us free! Let’s be thankful for that. Let’s have a meal to celebrate.

In fact, that was the pattern that we see in the early years of Christianity. This wasn’t celebrated in the same way do today. They celebrated it by having a full meal and that meal ended with what we call the eucharist today. The pinnacle of the meal was the breaking of bread and drinking of wine in celebration and thankfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I’ve told people this before, but my vision or my dream would be to get this church to a point where we celebrate a meal every Sunday together. That God would supply us a building like the old McCall’s building where we could have a meal cooking in the back while we worship and after worship, we gather together as a family eating a meal together and celebrating the Lord’s table as a part of that meal. Oh I’d love to see that day when that is done here in Clayton.

I think God is calling his church back to the days of the early church. Back to a simplicity of living. Back to true deep fellowship with one another. I believe He is calling us back to a first love with Him and that is one of the ways I see that happening.

Acts 2:42 ESV

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

The early church lived a simple life. They devoted themselves to teach and fellowship and to “the breaking of bread”, which I believe is the Lord’s Supper and to praying. If our church would grab ahold of this simple concept, I think it would change Clayton and Garner and Johnston County. I think its something worth praying into and believing for. I haven’t given up and I hope you will catch that vision too.

Communion

The first word used to described the Lord’s Supper is Eucharist, the second is Communion. This is a word that we don’t get from our text today, but it is found in the Bible and it’s a powerful idea that is being presented by using this word, so let’s look at it as well.

I mentioned earlier that one of the only other places that this meal is described or talked about in any way is found in Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. In 1st Corinthians 10 and 11, Paul is dealing with an issue involving how different classes of people were celebrating the meal. Some were eating in excess while others were going hungry (presumably because they were very poor and couldn’t afford a celebratory meal every week). Some were getting drunk on the wine and some would eat before everyone even arrived. So Paul essentially chastises the church about how they were handling this meal in Chapter 11.

But in chapter 10 before that, he is talking about food offered to idols and says that when food is offered to idols, it’s actually being offered to demons. Even though the idol is nothing but a piece of wood or metal, there is a power behind them, a demonic power and when you eat the food offered to the idols, you are essentially having fellowship with the demonic.

Now this is tough for most of us to understand because we live in the 21st century and have such a natural mindset, but what he is saying is this, something spiritual is taking place by what you are doing in the natural. You may be just eating a piece of meat sacrificed to a piece of wood, but in the spiritual realm, there are ramifications to that. In other words, what happens in the Spiritual world can and does have consequences in the natural world.

It’s in the midst of this explanation that he offers this statement to help the people understand the connection between the natural action and the spiritual connection to that action.

1 Corinthians 10:14–21 ESV

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.

Now, I bring all of this up, because this is where we get the word communion from. When Paul asks, whether the cup we bless is it not a participation in the blood of Christ and the bread, is it not a participation in the body of Christ, that word participation is where we get the word communion.

Koinonia

The greek word that Paul uses here is Koinonia. This word means communion or fellowship. What it means is not just a surface level fellowship, but a deep intimate relationship.

As Christians, we love the word fellowship, but in loving it, we’ve kind of destroyed its meaning. We say just hanging out and watching a sports game with our Christian friends is fellowship. And it could be, but truly this word here is talking about a deep fellowship, not a surface level one. This is the kind of deep connection that many of us long for and hopefully many of you have found through the people here in this church.

If you take the word communion apart, you would get the word “common union”, signifying how deep and intimate this word actually is. You are participation or partnering with something.

In the natural, you are eating a piece of bread and drinking from the cup, but in the spiritual you are communing with God.

In Communion, Jesus is Present

When scholars talk about communion, one thing that most of them agree on is this, because Paul uses this word koinonia, they agree that Jesus is present in communion. Now, where they disagree is the exact meaning of that phrase.

Catholics believe in what is called transubstantiation, which is a fancy theological term that means they believe that the bread literally turns to flesh in your mouth and the wine literally turns into blood as you drink it. They say they believe this because they are taking Jesus literally at his word in John chapter 6.

This is not what we believe. The Protestant Reformers challenged Rome on this and said essentially what they are saying is that Jesus is re-sacrificed each week if it literally becomes flesh and blood during consumption. So Martin Luther developed his own view regarding how Jesus was present in the meal by saying essentially that the bread and wine become Jesus spiritually, not physically.

John Calvin, the French Reformer though frames is a bit differently. He says that Luther and others get it wrong in one sense because they are attempting to bring Christ back down to earth in communion, whereas he looks at it as US being brought up to Christ in Communion.

In other words, Christ is in heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father and when we celebrate his supper, we celebrate it with Him, where He is. And that makes a lot of sense to me.

If this all sounds like it’s over your head or that you are having trouble grasping this, don’t feel alone. Here’s what Calvin said about it and it gave me great comfort, knowing that Calvin, who wrote a theological tome called the Institutes of the Christian Religion which is massive and incredibly deep, had a hard time understanding and explaining communion.

Although [at the Lord’s Supper] my mind can think beyond what my tongue can utter, yet even my mind is conquered and overwhelmed by the greatness of the thing. Therefore nothing remains but to break forth in wonder at this mystery, which plainly neither the mind is able to conceive nor the tongue to express.

John Calvin (French Reformer)

In other words, what happens at communion is beyond our imagination and words. Christ himself is present with us in the elements and when we share the elements we are connecting the past, present and future of our faith together in a beautiful and inexpressible way.

Conclusion

Now, I’ve said all of this for one purpose and one purpose only. I wanted to create in you an awe and appreciation for communion that you may have never experienced.

We have been talking about the importance of being with Jesus. When we take communion there’s a few things that are happening, we are communing with Jesus himself. We are being transported into the heavenly realm and we are having supper with Him.

In communion we are also getting a foretaste or an appetizer of the great Marriage Supper of the Lamb that is mentioned in Revelation. As we are having this meal with Christ, we are getting a small taste of what that heavenly meal will be like one day when the scroll is rolled up and time is no more.

In communion we are drawing close to one another. One way to look at communion as Christ being in the center and all of us as a circle around Him. As we take communion, we are taking a step closer to Christ and closer to one another. So not only do we grow closer to Christ in communion and become more like Him, but we grow closer as a body in communion. Again, it’s a common union. This is a meal we share together and it draws us closer to each other and most importantly closer to Him.

So with these things in mind, we are going to celebrate the Eucharist, the remembrance of our Lord’s death and resurrection and give thanks to Him for his sacrificial death on the cross. We are going to celebrate Communion, the Koinonia of the Lord. The fact that we get to be in an intimate relationship with Jesus together as a church body. Let’s stand and receive the body and blood of our savior.