The Lord's Supper

Well this morning, let's talk about the Lord's supper. I'll return to familiar texts.

First Corinthians 11. We have the most I guess there are descriptive teaching all the Lord's supper. We looked at this numerous times over my almost 40 year tenure here but let's look at it again this morning is so helpful and is so concise. The apostle is writing to this church at Carteret to try to get them straightened out. There's a lot they're doing wrong. A lot of pride, a lot of recklessness, a lot of immaturity, a lot of indulgence. Apostle even says they are abusing the fellowship meal around the Lord's table. Even becoming drunken at such an event, and so one of the things the apostle said was that all things should be done decently and in order so this is the apostle Paul writing to the church at Corinth say this is the way to view the Lord's table. Let's get this right. The corsets left for all of us to use as a guidance for us. I like to say again that the Lord didn't give us any real strict precise elements are aspects to this supper. We know to turn this into some sort of rigid law that's not what it is but there is a proper way to approach the Lord's table and go will not deal with it unique extent this morning.

The great weight is on the condition of your heart. My heart as we come to the Lord's table is what the apostle says in verse printings 1123 through 26. Fry received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus said the night in which he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said this is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

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 as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes first oddball I let's remind ourselves of the divine origin of the Lord's supper. Another words the church did not come up with this early apostles and here specifically the apostle Paul did not think this is a good idea.

The point is, it came from God. In verse 23 Paul simply had pointedly states for I received from the Lord when I delivered to you Paula saying I got this by revelation from the Lord himself and this is very interesting. The scholars point out that this gospel was written before, possibly before the Gospels were written, so this may be the first full revelation in written revelation from God about the Lord's table so is this divine, the authoritative revelation of the importance and the significance of this ordinance, we don't call it a sacrament because it has no saving power within it.

It is an ordinance though, that Christ has left the church in verse 23. The Bible says it was the night in which he was betrayed. That's interesting you didn't say it's the eve of the Passover, which it was. This was begun during the traditional Jewish Passover meal doesn't say that because saying that it was the night in which Christ was betrayed Hyden's the contrasts setting the beauty of the Lord's table against the backdrop of his terrible betrayal. Such a black backdrop makes all that he did for sinners. That's but that's much more beautiful manifest his great sovereignty is power and his wisdom all the great power and wisdom of God and his plan to save sinners and build his church. The two's significant ordinances. Course the Lord has given the church our baptism we observe the ordinance of baptism just a few moments ago and the Lord's supper of the Lord's table. These are both instituted by the Lord and commanded by the Lord in effect when your church or local church announcements were going to take the Lord's supper together.

You need to understand that God has invited you to his supper. This is an optional is not salvific know that saving power, but it is God inviting you to his supper. It has divine authority. It has a divine origin. It is the night of Jesus betrayal when he initiated the supper there gathered together in the upper room to take the traditional Jewish Passover medevac today when an Orthodox Jew observes the Jewish Passover.

He still recalls the great historic deliverance from slavery that God gave the Jews from Egyptian bondage. But tragically the Orthodox Jew as he looks back at that great redemptive event when God brought them out of Egypt, he misses the greater deliverance that that he bit foreshadowed and that's our deliverance through the cross of Christ. So the Passover cut commits or rates the deliverance out of bondage, but we now know that that's been transformed into the Lord's supper that commemorates our deliverance out of the bondage of sin and Satan, and being brought into the kingdom of God. Now, historically speaking chronologically the next day.

The Passover lambs were sacrificed and Christ himself was sacrificed on the cross.

So what we have in effect as Jesus is taking the Passover meal and that upper room.

He transforms the ancient feast of the past over into the Lord's table. He gives the Passover a new meaning, but that's to leak.

He does more than just give it a new meaning. He now gives it its true meaning.

The Passover was always meant the port forward to the Lamb of God, the Paschal Lamb, Jesus Christ. So now the Passover, if you will has been fulfilled. The Passover has been completed because Christ is, and he will be sacrificed for the sins of his people. Calvary has now superseded deliverance from Egypt as the greatest redemptive event in history.

We don't look back today and look at blood applied to the doorpost of Jewish households in Egypt. We look back today and remember the blood on the beam of cross where our Savior was crucified. Now little historical context of the earliest Lord's supper is as we see in the New Testament. First of all I want to say this is a local church ordinance heard of people who maybe have a fellowship at their house and even one youth group that had Pepsi and potato chips and they called it the Lord's supper.

Well I'm not going to question the sincerity in the motives of folks doing things like that but I would say that that's not what God's ordained. This is a fellowship for those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ have been baptized and have come together coveted together as a local church body together and we are to commune together with our Lord and the Lord's table medevac acts chapter 2 versus 41 and 42 speaks of how they were first baptized and then verse 42 they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles teaching, preaching the word. The fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer that includes the Lord's table and that frightens now fellowship in the breaking of bread and prayer was an interesting phrase because it included a feast meal and there are several reasons why the early church had a great big dinner if you will. Great big feast and then out of our baby at the end of the dinner they would have the Lord's table several thoughts on that first of all, the but the Bible tells us it's partly because of the poor.

The poor in this day were the legitimately poor they didn't have enough to eat. So when you put a big feast on the poor would, need to eat literally just to eat to get their minds settled in their stomachs full. It was a it was a needful thing so they would throw a big banquet to take care of those who had little to eat. Secondly, the Gentile converts of the day were very used to feasting when they had their religious observances. The, the love feast of the New Testament mostly grew out of that kind of cultural accustom. They had of having these great fees together when they would meet together for their religious observances so they just brought that over in the church. There is a place to bring decent things and give them a proper meaning it. Be careful with that but some of that can be good and of course Jewish tradition think it is that the Jews had five annual feast that they celebrated when God gave the Jews a memorial I day ER a week. It might be of remembrance. He always included in that feasting together so godlike assist people to get together and eat a lot of good stuff is just biblical. It's celebratory and I think it it it's symbolic of God, caring and giving plenty to his people and caring in in great ways. If you will for his people, so it was just in the custom of the day the poor need to eat anyway so they would have this big meal and then they would have the Passover. Now let's go further. II. Not only is it was all this of divine origin and God put it together and it's ordered of him but secondly he gave it to us to remember him by his is very simply, in verse 24, and we do given thanks, he broke it. That's the bread and said this is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. He broke it to distribute it. I always have thought that that is a beautiful and vivid picture are Lord taking a piece of unleavened bread and tearing it apart as soon his body would be at least figuratively speaking, torn apart in the agony of the cross as he took his place for his children under the wrath of God. So he tears it apart breaks it and begins to pass it out. This is my body, as he breaks it a lot of symbolism there but surely as the bread gives physical sustenance to the body so he is bread his body gives spiritual life to the man. He said this is for you. This statement of unparalleled love and unparalleled sacrifice for his children. Then he turns to the cup in verse 25 in the same way he took the cup, also after the supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. It's there's there's a new promise. That's the idea of a covenant. Jesus said there's a new promise. God's given to you is going to be ratified is going to be firmed up, made sure by my blood.

The old covenant was ratified by the blood of animals. Whether it was a pigeon turtledove's are a bowling bar go to our Lamb but not the new covenant companies based on much better blood than the blood of an animal. Jesus said, it's my blood always this new promise comes to you a new agreement, and no promises come from God is something like the way a signature can ratified contract in our day portraits of much greater magnitude than that Jesus is my blood is ratification of this new, contract God promised Israel deliverance if they would sign on the dotted line there in Egypt and in effect at the seal of blood over the door posted over the lintel.

You know the story that not God sent the judgment on Egypt and the death Angel visited all the households that did not have the blood applied all the Jews had the blood applied to their doors so the death Angel passed over them. Thus, the Passover, that's why they remember it as the Passover, but the death Angel visited the homes of the Egyptians and killed the firstborn. It was through that judgment that Egypt relented on holding Israel as slaves and captives and release them to go free to meet with their God and be one with him will they signed on the dotted line in Santiago they sign on the dotted line in Egypt but Jesus, if you will, signed on the dotted line for us with his own blood he said I'm making a contract between you sinners you that are woefully offensive to a tri-unit. Only God on establishing a new covenant between you and this God and I'm establishing it in and through the FAA ineffectual nature. The efficacy of my own blood. Jesus signed on the dotted line with his blood for us now under the old covenant day after day, month after month, year after year I brought grain offerings and wave offerings and's and goats and pigeons and lambs in the night bring them again and they would bring them again and I would bring him again under the old covenant that was the continual reminder of CN that wouldn't enough you gotta bring another one that wasn't enough, your center, you had to bring another one.

You have to bring another one and you have to bring another.

Never in but the new covenant.

The Bible says is one sacrifice for all time.

The blood of the old Jewish Passover is replaced by the blood of the cross and just as the juice we would drink in a moment is pressed out in a press. His blood was pressed out of his precious body in the winepress of the fierce wrath of God as he hung on all the old covenant continually reminded us of CN the new covenant continually reminds us of the removal of CN that you get that you don't take this supper. Somehow a piece of God to relive the morning to judge you for sin you take this supper to remind you that he's already released you from sin is glorious is wondrous supper is for remembering his suffering for us and the result of that suffering now. Maybe a practical note here there is some debate among professing Christians as to how often boots to the church take the Lord's supper with the text says.

Look at verse 25. The same way to the cup. Also after supper, saying, this is a cup. The new company my blood. Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. No specification of a certain number of times brothers and sisters. It's not a law. This is not a law, there are those who would like to insist on us that Christianity in the new covenant is setting aside of the old Jewish laws and statutes in establishing a new quote Christian set of law. You gotta keep these new laws now to make it into our right standing before God, and somehow get home to heaven one day. That's not true that's not what Christianity is at all Christianity is that the law has been fulfilled in and through Christ that hour lacking in our failure and are wanting before God's law has been remedied in the person of Jesus Christ and now we live devoted to him, loving him and serving him not to gain God and to gain heaven, but because he has gained it for us.

That's what makes grace and a true church so special. I've actually had people ask me how do you get your people to serve and work like that when you just teach grace and I feel like I'm saved and secure in Christ, no matter what is it what it takes God to change their hearts to do that there there's been false structures of Christendom. All of the world where they put you under this coercive threat of judgment if you don't live riding give ride and attend and pay penance and do whatever some very dear and good people may be in that system. But that's not Christianity. You're not here out of threat of judgment here. You're here out of joy of redemption.

That's what brings us together.

Well, back to the practical statement about how often do you take it was not a wall. It's an observer to do as often as you do it. We know in exchequer to the very first church did it daily. I mean they were practically living together. Then there was practically always together during those several weeks around the Pentecostal revival that God poured out in member Peter preached thousands, tens of thousand hundreds of thousands being say and so they just daily took it together. We know bags. Chapter 20 things had settled down. The church at coming to a more regular routine in the Bible says they took it on the first day of the week Sunday once a week but really, if you want to be our want to follow the earliest biblical example you take the Lord's supper. Daily you take it after a big meal and you would take it and haul.

That's not where we are contextually today these things in the narrative were not written as laws they were written as guidance and the principle behind what they're involved in. I think God's much more pleased with the church that takes it every few months, but it means something than this. Go through the road and ritual of doing it a lot because you're checking a box trying to please God with your good work that Sunday will us to do it some divine origin.

God gave this supper to his children. Secondly, it's that we might remember him take the juice and we think about the new covenant in his blood. We eat the wafer and we think about his body that became the vicarious atoning sacrifice for us on the cross listen to me. Christ was a true literal actual physical human being is literal body actually found their actually endured the physical agony and then the unimaginable agony of his father pouring our wrath upon him take that juice and it's like eyeglasses look at the juice will believe that juice is going to turn into something some superstitious thing will happen if we drink it like it's a potion that we look at the juice and we look through it to his blind look at the wafer think there's something magical that could happen if I get this in my mouth and swallow it know we look at it and we look through the bread, his sacrificial body on our back so we remember him divine origin.

We remember him and then thirdly supper is to proclaim him, not really remembering him and proclaiming him are two sides of the same coin you, you remember him and you proclaim him and you proclaim him, and it causes you to remember him. Look at verse 26 pieces for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. The word proclaim there's an interesting word. It can be translated preach Cornell's is to be done openly this to be done unashamedly. There's a statement that's being made five things about this number one when we take this supper. We show forth his death to ourselves were preaching to ourselves, were reminding ourselves again South don't you remember your center sample to grasp and comprehend that the triune holy God naturally and righteously only could judge you self you not understand that this Christ took your place on the cross, he is your Savior, and he is your Lord, you, you proclaim something to yourself when you take the Lord's table.

Secondly, we not only proclaimed ourselves. We proclaim to God we say afresh to our Lord as a brand-new confession of faith if you will know there's only one true confession of faith are should say profession of faith in the Bible. That's baptism but there's hundreds and thousands of ways that we confess Christ openly and in this case we take this and we say to our father in heaven. We believe we accept and we honor you and we are thankful to you for your son, our hope is in him. We believe your way is wise in your way is right in your salvation is the only true salvation father we proclaim to ourselves. We proclaim to God.

Second, are thirdly rather we proclaim to our fellow church members. This supper is meant to be taken together when you take it you're saying to that brother or sister around you list remember who we are brother and sister around me. Remember Jesus we are brother and sister. Remember Raven remember what the foundation of our lives is all about were centered in Christ. He's our hope. He's our all and all this time of the year in our country when this election thing is just bowling over, we remind ourselves the Democrats cannot save us and the Republicans cannot save us. Only Christ can save us.

We proclaim to each other. The centrality, the foundational element of our faith in Christ and our trust in Christ and what we have together. Listen to me. What we have together supersedes and is greater than any connection we have been anyone or anything else in the earth.. You can't know Christ and love Christ and grasp the glories of your salvation yet take lightly. Your connection here, but be happy in your connection all kind of stuff out there. Yes, we live in the world. There's things we do out there people we connect with. I know that I did that you do that, but those are secondary to our church proclaimed ourselves remember him. Remember what he did remember how he's put us together as one. We proclaim to ourselves. We proclaim to God's. We proclaim to our fellow church members, and fourthly, we proclaim proclaim to the world.

I said so many times that we take this supper. We just say unashamedly to the world. This is our hope were his. We love him. He's our Lord ridiculed the Nazca off whatever we proclaim to the world. Christ is our hope and lastly we proclaim to sinners who do not come to this Christ. We proclaim to sinners. Would you not receive him. Bob sisters many as received him, he gave the power of the right to become the children of God, even to those who believe on his name, save sinners come to Christ turned him