ALL IN - Breaking Bread
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Recap ALL IN: Purpose for the series, our connection to the early church, and where we are in ACTS (End of Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost)
42 They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Last week: Apostles Teaching and Fellowship
This week: Breaking of bread and prayer
These four things are inextricably connected… They cannot be separated in the greek construct. They are not a list of separate things, but four elements of a single thing: The gathering of believers…
I believe these four things are arranged strategically by the author, with Fellowship and Food central to the teachings and prayer.
7 On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight.
Unlike our gatherings today where the two elements are primarily worship and word, the gatherings in the early church included teaching, and fellowship around a meal, and prayers together.
Often, during the meal the believers would sing songs reminiscent of their jewish upbringing that looked forward to the Christ whom they now worshipped.
Notice this phrase: the breaking of bread…
Significant:
19 And when He had taken some bread and 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.”
Remind them of Luke-Acts authorship and language patterns
These references in the rest of the new testament that mention “breaking bread” are a literary allusion to this time when Jesus broke bread at the Last Supper…
In order to understand the pattern of the early church in what we call communion, we must understand it’s origin in the Last Supper as administered by Jesus…
But to understand the actions of Jesus, we have to look further back on the feast Jesus had gathered His disciples to celebrate… Passover…
The origin of Passover is found in Exodus 12.
Explain the context of the Passover
The Lamb
The Lamb
Explain the lamb
5 ‘Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
John looks at Jesus as this same lamb…
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
35 Again the next day John was standing with two of his disciples,
36 and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”
18 knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,
19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.
This passover lamb is a part of the origin of how Israel would learn to interact with God through a sacrificial system… A system that only looked forward to a better way that was to come:
10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins;
12 but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God,
13 waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.
The Passover began with the lamb that was slain, a lamb that represented Jesus who would be slain on our behalf…
For the sake of time, I won’t go through all the commands and traditions that develop, but I want to zero in on what Jesus emphasizes during the Last Supper:
14 When the hour had come, He reclined at the table, and the apostles with Him.
15 And He said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;
16 for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
17 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He said, “Take this and share it among yourselves;
18 for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.”
19 And when He had taken some bread and 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.”
20 And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.
There has been much debate about the command that follows this according to 1 Cor. 11, to do this in remembrance of me… But scholars agree that this was not simply a ritual, it was a meal.
In fact, it seems that Paul’s instruction seems to reflect this:
1 Corinthians 11:25 (NASB95)
25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
He broke the bread sometime during the supper and AFTER the supper He presented the cup…
In the traditional Jewish celebration of the passover feast, the supper included many symbolic elements, with songs and prayers to be recited.
One source regarded the traditional meal lasting somewhere around four hours…
This is the meal that was occuring when Jesus presented the bread and the wine during the last supper…
One of the symbolic elements during this meal was four cups of wine that were to be drank at different points in the meal.
Two were to be drank before the meal itself, then after the meal there was a third cup that was the cup of redemption…
This was the cup Jesus would have presented as the cup of the new covenant in His blood…
He was effectively saying, “This cup of redemption is the new covenant in my blood.”
Redemption is now found in the new covenant in His blood…
This is the parallel that is drawn between the original Passover in Exodus and the Passover feast celebrated by Jesus and perpetuated by the church:
Just as Israel was freed from their bondage of slavery through this act of passover, so too is the believer freed from the bondage of slavery to sin through the body and blood of the lamb represented in the bread and the wine…
34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.
But those who believe have partaken of a new covenant, buried with Christ:
6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
7 for he who has died is freed from sin.
This is what we celebrate, our freedom from the bondage of sin and God’s triumph over what was our ruler…
When we take communion, the bible says:
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
This is not just about eating the elements, it’s about celebrating the fact that we are freed by His death and resurrection!
The primary function of communion is to remember Jesus and His sacrifice for us and to look forward to another supper we will be having one day….
6 Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying,
“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.
7 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.”
8 It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
9 Then he said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ ” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.”
This act of communion is not just about remembering the past, but also about looking to the future!
There will be a day…
Salvation Altar Call
Call to unity: Paul rebukes the church at corinth because they were gathering together and eating the communion meal, but they were divided by class so much so that those who were rich were getting drunk and leaving none for those who were poor and leaving them hungry…
This is what Paul is talking about when he says…
27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
Notice the unworthiness is not about the state of the person, but the manner in which they eat!
Because communion is meant to be celebrated together…
Fellowship is the cornerstone of communion…
Take communion