Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

We are continuing our sermon series called “Being the Church” where we are taking an in depth look at what the Bible says the church is and how local congregations are to gather themselves to celebrate and proclaim the gospel.

Just to remind you of where we have been in this study, we started by saying the church are all those who are called out of sin through the gospel to be God’s holy people.

Then, we looked at how the Bible expects all those that are part of God’s holy people, to gather together in local churches so that they can grow in their discipleship.

And the way these churches are to gather is in church membership which we said is nothing more than the way we describe the mutual commitment we make with a local body of believers to help one another grow in Christ together.

After that, we spent a whole sermon talking about how if we are going to have membership at this church that actually makes a difference in our lives and helps us grow in Christ, then it must be a membership that is marked by fellowship.

And biblical fellowship is not just being friendly with one another.

It is loving one another enough to help each other follow Christ.

Then last week, we started looking at how the church marks off and celebrates this fellowship by practicing the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

As Josh taught us about Baptism, we saw that baptism is how the church marks off those who have been called out of their sin through their faith in the gospel.

When someone gets baptized, it is a proclamation that they have died with Christ and now live for him, and it is the church’s way of affirming that this person has been forgiven of their sins and now follows Christ.

And today, we are going to spend our time focusing on the second and last ordinance given to the church, the Lord’s Supper.

The reason we call Baptism and the Lord’s Supper ordinances is because these are acts that were ordained, or instituted, by Christ.

And Jesus gave us Baptism and the Lord’s Supper because both of these acts symbolically proclaim the gospel, and by practicing them, we remember and celebrate our salvation as God’s people.

I. What is the Lord’s Supper?

Where Baptism is a one-time act in an individual Christian testifies that they have been justified and saved through faith, the Lord’s Supper is how Christians regularly and repeatedly celebrate that salvation together as God’s people.

The church, in baptizing us, recognizes us as one of God’s holy people, and we are gatheredt and are gathered with God’s people in his church.

It may be imperfect, but think of Baptism as the vows of a marriage ceremony, a one time event where a couple makes a commitment to one another.

The church, in baptizing us, affirms that faith and welcomes us as a member of their local body.

And think of the Lord’s Supper as the anniversary where we renew our commitment again and again.

Though in recent years, the Lord’s Supper has become nothing more than a religious ritual in many churches, it is of vital importance for every Christian and every church to recapture its meaning and purpose because it is a Christ ordained practice that allows us to celebrate the gospel and to worship him.

If we are going to honor Christ in this church, we must practice the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper biblically.

And my hope today is to show you the glory of the Lord’s Supper so that as we practice it in our church, it is rich in meaning for us as a body and builds us up spiritually instead of just being an activity we happen to do when we go to church.

I. What is the Lord’s Supper?

Now let’s start with what exactly is the Lord’s Supper?

What I think will be most helpful in our time together, is to give you the whole definition and meaning of the Lord’s Supper up front, and then back track and show you how we come to that definition and meaning biblically.

Basically, to help you track with this, the sermon is going to be organized like this.

First, we are going to define what the Lord’s Supper is and exactly what it means.

In this section we are going to take a 30,000 foot view looking at the basic theology of the Lord’s Supper.

My main goal here is to give you the big picture of what the Lord’s Supper actually is.

Then, in the second section of this sermon, we will look at what the we are doing when we take the Lord’s Supper.

Here we will do a deep dive on all the biblical texts that inform our theology of the Lord’s Supper.

Basically, we will look at what the Bible says in regards to the Lord’s Supper and explain how that informs our definition from the first section and shapes the Lord’s Supper more explicitly.

Finally, we will look at how Christians should then celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

After we define the Lord’s Supper and walk through the passages that give shape to its meaning, we will look at how we should celebrate the Lord’s Supper so that it can be something that is spiritually beneficial to us as opposed to just being another religious ritual.

So to start, what is the Lord’s Supper?

As simply as I can say it, the Lord’s Supper is The church’s act of remembering Christ’s death and celebrating their union with him and with one another by renewing their commitment to the Lord and each other through receiving Christ’s benefits by partaking of bread and wine which represent Jesus’ body and blood.

Now some of you are thinking, I thought he said simple.

So let’s walk through this line by line before we dive into how we come to this definition from Scripture.

The church’s act

What this means is that the Lord’s Supper is an act that is practice by an entire local church as one.

In Paul addresses the church and how they ought to take communion saying four times “when you come together,” implying that Paul understood the Lord’s Supper to be an act practiced when the church gathered together.

Now this does not mean that every time we take it, we need to take attendance of our membership roll and if someone is absent, we are unable to then celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

After all, every week we have volunteers who are serving in LM who are not present in our main service to where they can take which would mean we could never take the Lord’s Supper as a church.

All this means is that we only practice the Lord’s Supper at gatherings where it is understood that the whole church is gathering together.

So in other words, the Lord’s Supper is not a private meal that is able to be taken among friends or as individual families.

It is also not something that even small groups of Christians can take even if that small group is a part of the church like CG.

The Lord’s Supper is a meal celebrated by the church.

Take away the gathering of the church, we take away the Lord’s Supper because it is the church’s act.

of remembering Christ’s death

In giving the Lord’s Supper as told in the Gospels and 1 Corinthians, Jesus took the bread and the wine and said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

The act of partaking in the Lord’s Supper reminds us of Jesus’ death and its meaning.

Taking of the bread that is broken and drinking of the wine that is poured out dramatically portrays the events gospel to our sight and taste because Jesus’ body was broken to pay the debt of our sin and his blood was poured out to wash us clean.

Therefore, the Lord’s Supper is a meal where we remember what God did to save us and make us his people.

When we eat and drink, each of us says, together, “I eat this bread and drink this cup because of what Jesus did for me on the cross when he died for my sin.”

and celebrating their union with Him and one another

Not only is the Lord’s Supper an act in which we remember Christ’s death.

It is also an act where we celebrate our union with him and one another.

In , Paul says that when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we participate in the blood and body of Christ.

Now what does it mean that we “participate in the blood and body of Christ?”

It means that when we partake of the bread and wine with faith, then we participate in what Christ’s broken body and shed blood obtained for us.

That means that we participate

It means that when we partake of the bread and wine with faith, then we participate in what Christ’s broken body and shed blood obtained for us.

That means that we get to share in and enjoy our forgiveness, reconciliation, adoption, and all the other blessings that Christ has given us.

In fact, the Greek word for “participate” is the same Greek word translated as fellowship in .

That is why the Lord’s Supper is often called “Communion.”

In participating the Lord’s Supper, we commune, or have fellowship, with Christ because we share in the salvation he won for us on the cross.

In a very real sense, when we take communion by faith, we get to experience our salvation anew.

Not that we are saved again, and again, and again, but that in remembering, we celebrate again and are reminded anew all the blessings of salvation.

Therefore, when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we share in the body and blood of Christ.

Now what exactly does that mean?

And the “we” is crucial there.

As we commune with Christ and have fellowship with him together, we therefore have fellowship with one another.

The Lord’s Supper gives expression not only to our union with Christ as individual Christians who have died with him in his death, it also gives expression to our unity in Christ with one another.

It means that when we partake of the bread and wine with faith, then we participate in what Christ’s broken body and shed blood obtained for us.

It means that we participate

It’s not like we are a few dozen people who are having a private devotion to the Lord in the same room.

We are actually one body in Christ.

We are God’s family ,and we celebrate that in our meal together.

by renewing their commitment to the Lord and each other

As we saw in the last section, the Lord’s Supper is first a foremost a celebration of Christ’ finished work on our behalf to save us from our sins.

But just as much as it being an act that proclaims the gospel, every time we take the Lord’s Supper we also reenact our response to the gospel.

When we take the Lord’s Supper, we are effectively saying, “Jesus’ body was broken for me.

His blood was shed for me.”

By taking the elements of communion you are confessing, “This gospel is true, and it is true and effective for me.

Jesus is my Savior.”

And to receive Christ as Savior is to submit to him as Lord.

We can’t say, “Jesus saved me from my sins,” while we still walk in the very sin that he died for.

To be forgiven of our sin is to be given a new heart that wants to love Christ more than we desire our sin.

God gives us new desires and fills us with his Spirit to walk in obedience as an act of worship.

When we take the Lord’s Supper as an act that confesses Christ is our Savior, we are also renewing our commitment to Christ and committing ourselves to live for him.

In addition, when we commit to Christ in partaking of the Lord’s Supper, we also commit to Christ’s people.

The Lord’s Supper is an act that says, we have fellowship with Christ through faith and share in his salvation.

And the Bible is clear, because we have fellowship with Christ in taking the Lord’s Supper, we also have fellowship with one another.

As If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

That tells us that when we take the Lord’s Supper, not only are we renewing our commitment to follow Christ, we are also renewing our commitment to love our brothers and sisters in the church.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Taking the Lord’s Supper entails that we are willingly taking responsibility for other members in our body.

It is an act that says, because we love God, we are committed to following him together and helping each other on the way.