The Lord’s Supper

July 13th, 2013. This is the date that me and Brittany stood before our friends and family, took vows to one another, and said that we wanted to be married to one another so that we may glorify God together. Each year, on July 13th, we set aside a time for us to celebrate what we promised to do in our marriage. It is a tradition.

In the church, there has been this great fight against tradition. But the bible commands things that are considered tradition. One of which, is the practice of The Lord’s Supper. Tradition can be a wonderful thing. People like tradition. People think that tradition is a wonderful thing, as long as it stays out of the church. It is a perplexing thing. We have traditions that we do all the time. Maybe it is a day of the week where we get together with family to share a meal. Maybe it is the birthday party that gets celebrated every year. Maybe it is a particular holiday where you do a certain thing with others. Maybe it is, and should be, the marriage anniversary. Tradition is good.

Today, we are going to talk about The Lord’s Supper, a tradition that was instituted for the church, by our savior Jesus. A tradition that we are commanded to participate in as believers.

Our passage today is going to be looking less at the institution of the Lord’s Supper but more at the tradition of the Lord’s Supper and how we are supposed to focus on it today.

1 Corinthians 11:23–34 (ESV)

Prayer

We can read back through the gospel accounts and we can find the institution of the Lord’s Supper. It took place right before the crucifixion of Jesus. It was during Passover. Jesus was with his disciples in the upper room. He had just told them that one of them would betray him. We know that it was Judas. And then, he proceeds to institute the Lord’s Supper.

Mark 14:22–25 (ESV)

Even though Jesus had told them several times that he would be killed, they still hard a hard time believing him. With the institution of the Lord’s Supper, he took this to another level. He had the cup of wine and the bread. He said that the cup represented his blood. Well, his blood was still in his body. For the contents of the cup to represent his blood, that means that his blood would have to be shed. The same goes the bread representing his body.

We have this institution of the Lord’s Supper at Passover right before his arrest, conviction, and crucifixion. And we know that this was the beginning of the tradition in the church of commemorating the death of Jesus for the forgiveness of sin.

As we go through our passage in 1 Corinthians, I am going to point out a few things for us. But if you leave here with one thing, I want you to remember that,

A Proper View of the Lord’s Supper Will Cause Maturity in Believers

It should be our goal, as believers, to constantly be maturing. To be in God’s word and learning his commands. To be identifying sins in our life and killing them. To see the love that Jesus had for us while we were still sinners and to show that love for others. For us to do this, we must remember the death of Jesus and how that has been applied to us as believers. When we remember this, it shapes us and molds us into more mature believers that understand that our sins were what sent Jesus to the cross to die.

The first thing we see in our passage today is that…

The Lord’s Supper Produces Obedience

Whether you are training a pet or raising a child, you know what the word obedience means. To have specific instructions and to follow them. We must obey things all the time. Do you have a job? You have a boss that you have to obey. We all live in America. We have laws that we have to obey. Men, are you married? You have a wife that you have to listen to. Same as obey, right?

We also have scripture that we need to obey as followers of Jesus. As a believer, you believe that the Jesus of the bible is your savior. For you to believe that, you must believe that scripture is true. And if you believe that scripture is true, then you must believe that it has authority over your life. Therefore, what the bible says, we must do. By rightly participating in the Lord’s Supper, our obedience will be deepened.

1 Corinthians 11:23 (ESV)

Paul is writing this letter to the church at Corinth. If you don’t know who Paul is, quickly, he was an opposer of Christianity to the point that he was killing Christians. He was radically saved. He now because a missionary and a church planter(he started new churches). He has kept in contact with many of these churches and has continued to write letters to them and even to churches he hasn’t been to. This is one of those letters where he gives encouragement and instruction to churches.

The point of this letter is that he is giving them instruction on what God has taught him. And in this part, he is instructing them on the Lord’s Supper.

1 Corinthians 11:23–25 (ESV)

We have the blood and the body of Jesus that are represented by the cup and the bread. We won’t get into a debate today about the contents of the cup. If you want to believe it was wine, that is fine. If you want to believe it was grape juice, by all means do that. But we know that there was a “fruit of the vine” and the bread. For all intents and purposes today, because it is what we use, we will call it juice.

So we have the juice and the bread. The juice representing the blood of Jesus that was shed during his beating and execution on the cross. Blood represents life. Without blood in the body, there is no life. The shedding of blood represents the laying down of life. In the Old Testament, they would sacrifice unblemished lambs at the temple to God in order for their sins to be covered. The problem was that this was only temporary. The blood of an animal was not equal to the blood of a human. We needed a perfect, lasting sacrifice. And that came in the form of Jesus. Jesus was sinless, he was perfect. So, because he was fully man, the sinless, perfect sacrifice of Jesus was enough to cover our sins for eternity.

At the same time, the bread represents his body. His body was broken for us. Isaiah 53:5 “5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” This was prophesied about hundreds of years before Jesus that he would go through these things. And that it was because of the body being broken and the blood being shed, that we could receive eternal, spiritual healing.

Maybe you are here today and you feel like you are broken down and you need healing. Us observing the Lord’s Supper, as believers, is a way for us to acknowledge the healing that Jesus has given us on the cross. But maybe you have never came to a saving faith in Jesus as Lord and savior. When you turn to Jesus as lord and savior, you receive the eternal, spiritual healing that Jesus gives us.

But what does all of this have to do with obedience. We are commanded to observe the Lord’s Supper. This is clear in scripture. There may be some debate on how often we should do this. There are some that believe that we need to do it weekly because of how 1 Corinthians talks about meeting together earlier in the chapter. But there are also some that think it should be kept yearly with Passover because that is when Jesus established it. You will find me somewhere in the middle of those two. As your pastor of this church, I have neglected it recently. I want that to change.

This is an act of obedience for us personally but also for us as a church. If we neglect being obedient in this area, then what other things are we not being obedient in? It opens up the door for a church to be rogue and feel like they don’t need to observe the things that are clear in scripture. Let this act of observing the sacrifice of Jesus for the remission of sins be what moves us to become more obedient. Not only does the Lord’s Supper produce obedience, but also…

The Lord’s Supper Produces Worship

We often think of worship as us singing songs in church. And yes, this is a way that we can worship. But it isn’t everything. Worship is often more of a shift in mindset or of an attitude. Worship is our thoughts towards Jesus. And for us to have correct worship to Jesus, we must have correct thoughts towards Jesus. I cannot wait to preach in a few weeks on how correct worship produces health in a church.

1 Corinthians 11:26 (ESV)

When we worship Jesus, we are proclaiming things about him. Just think about the things that we have proclaimed just this morning in our worship.

Jesus is Holy - a line from the hymn - only Thou art holy, there is none beside Thee, perfect in pow'r, in love, and purity.

Jesus is a friend for sinners - friends may fail me, foes assail me, he my savior makes me whole

Jesus is faithful - All I have needed Thy hand hath provided

Jesus is our only hope - In Christ alone my hope is found, he is my light, my strength, my song

People can sing those catchy songs all they want. I heard someone call new worship songs 7-11 songs. You sing the same 7 words over and over again 11 different times. We love the hymn style songs. We love songs with deep theology. Wow, is there some deep theology in the songs we sing here. I am thankful for it. When we sing these songs together here, we are declaring to one another the things that we believe about Jesus. But worship doesn’t just stop with words. Worship carries over to actions. Actions are deeper than words.

I think of things that we as Christians should do. I see things in our world today going on and I think that if a Christian sees that, shouldn’t they do something about it.

Charles Spurgeon - As many pastors do, I look to the life of Charles Spurgeon in many ways as an inspiration of being a pastor. There are many things that Spurgeon was involved with. In fact, he oversaw more than 60 different ministries within his congregation that he helped to start. One of which was an orphanage. See, when Spurgeon saw a need, he made a way to take care of that need. He used actions for his worship. See, his worship made him realize that he needed to show others what Jesus had done. And he was able to do that by meeting tangible needs.

We, as a church, do that as well. Our mission as a church is to build the kingdom and impact our community. We are able to do that by recognizing needs and finding ways for us to take care of them as best as we can. Our ultimate goal in what we do though is worship. We want to glorify the name of Jesus. We want others to glorify the name of Jesus. That is what we are doing when we take the Lord’s Supper. It is worship.

This is why we must proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. This is worship. Worship is a proclamation of who Jesus is. We do that through singing songs. We do that through baptism. We do that through the preaching of the word of God. We do it through our actions. But, we do it also when we gather together, around the Lord’s table, and participate in the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper produces worship.

The Lord’s Supper Produces Health

Every church should have a goal to be a healthy church. What has happened over time is that the metrics for what makes a church healthy has changed from biblical obedience to cultural relevance. Most of the time when I go to conferences or meetings with other pastors, they always ask questions about the church you are pastoring. Inevitably, there is always one question that gets asked. “So, how many people are you running?”

This should never be a metric to determine the health of a church. Does some sort of numerical growth play into the health of a church? Absolutely it does. But if the numerical growth is not stemming from biblical obedience to the scriptures, then you are producing unfaithful, shallow disciples as a church. A healthy church will focus on things like biblical membership, regenerate baptism, correct leadership structure, biblical worship, Christ centered prayer, evangelistic missions, a healthy servant deacon ministry, and a proper view of the Lord’s Supper. that isn’t an exhaustive list but are things that are necessary.

Just like you go to the gym and have an eating plan to become or to stay healthy, a church must have a plan to stay healthy. We go to scripture and to God’s word to see what we must do to be a healthy body of believers.

Over the last few months, I have done a lot to focus on becoming healthier. I still have a long way to go and I am still working at it. But you know what has never happened to me? I have never once had someone come and ask me for tips on how to get in shape. You know why that is? You don’t go somewhere that is unhealthy to get tips on health. The same is true in the church. Churches that go to the world for tips and tricks to be healthy churches will only become unhealthy like the world.

The church in Corinth was letting worldly values infiltrate the church and specifically the Lord’s Supper.

1 Corinthians 11:27–34 (ESV)

There are some things in these verses that give us some boundaries on who can participate in the Lord’s Supper.

At the get go, Paul tells them that if they do not follow these, then they will be guilty concerning the body and blood of Jesus. The meaning of this is that if you are doing this in an unworthy manner, you are actually in sin. This would mean that you would come and gather together with a church, take the bread and juice, do it together, and actually be in sin.

This is just as much for us today as it was for the church in Corinth. See, the church in Corinth were having their communion services become corrupt with unhealthy aspects. They had people that were making a full meal out of it. There were some who were getting drunk off of it (must have been some strong grape juice). And there were others who were starving and were not getting fed at all. This is where Paul stepped in and was correcting them. He is telling them that there is a right way and a wrong way to take it. And if you are doing it in an unworthy manner (a manner that is opposing what scripture says), then they are in sin. So what are the parameters that Paul gives us. It is real easy.

Self examination - We must take the time to examine ourselves. How is my relationship with Jesus? Is there sin that I must deal with before I come to the table? Have I truly repented of my sins and have faith in Jesus? Do I really believe the gospel? (gospel presentation) (God, Man, Christ, Response)

The table is for believers. See, what was happening in the church in Corinth was they were having unbelievers and unconfessed sin coming to the table and it was causing all sorts of issues. Sickness and death. Yes, this is real. The bible is real so when it says that people coming to the table in an unworthy manner was causing people to become sick and some even died, this means that we should not take this lightly. There is a weight that comes with taking the Lord’s Supper.

If doing it in the wrong way may cause sickness and death, then doing it correctly will produce health. Now, let’s take this away from the physical aspect of it. And let’s bring this to the context of the whole church. When we as a church have a correct understanding of the Lord’s Supper and we come to the table with a right heart condition, this will produce health in the local church. See, it produces unity, and health is a byproduct of unity. A church that is not unified cannot be healthy. But a church that is unified is a healthy church.

The Lord’s Supper produces health.

We are about to begin preparations for us to participate in the Lord’s Supper. Here, at Immanuel, we follow what would be called close communion. Open communion is when anybody and everybody, no matter the state of salvation, can come to the table and take communion. We do not follow that. Closed communion is when only members of our church can participate. We do not follow that either.

So what are the boundaries of who is able to take communion here. First of all, we ask that you do a self evaluation. See if there is sin that you have identified that you need to confess to God. You have heard the gospel. Is the gospel real to you? Salvation and repentance are absolutely necessary.

Also, you may be a member of another church. That is okay. But we ask if you are not in good standing with the church you are a member of, that you not participate.

Also, we ask that only believers who have been baptized after salvation come to the table. Baptism is a public proclamation of your personal faith. If you have not done this as a believer in Christ, we ask that you abstain from participating.

I am going to ask our servers to come down and prepare the table. And while we do this last song, I ask that you stay seated. Take this time to reflect, confess sins, ask God to show you your own condition so that you are prepared to take the Lord’s Supper.