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The Lord's Supper was instituted during the final Passover that Jesus participated in with His disciples. The early church in Corinth, however, had forgotten the point of the Lord's table. They came together for a regular meal, bringing food only for themselves and not for the poor, and causing 'class' division between the rich and the poor. How should the Lord's supper really be practiced in New Testament churches? And how can we partake it "worthily"? Click below to find out more!
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07.14.2024 The Lords Supper is Not a Potluck
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.
Outline:
A. Introduction
B. Improper observance of the Lord’s Supper
1) Heresies and Divisions in the church
2) Confusion on the nature of the Lord’s table (potluck)
3) People were eating to excess at the Lord’s table
C. Proper observance of the Lord’s Supper
1) The Lord Gave Thanks for the Meal
2) Eating the Lord’s Supper happens because of our personal relationship with Christ
3) Christ Was Deliberately Crucified at Passover
D. Jesus’ Broken Body
E. Jesus’ Shed Blood (also sign of God’s betrothal/marriage to His people)
F. Each church decides when to observe the Lord’ supper (Lord’s supper is corporate, not individual)
G. Don’t Partake of the Lord’s table ‘unworthily’
H. Don’t Look for An Excuse to Skip the Lord’s Supper, Do it Properly
A. Introduction
First Corinthians chapter 11. Just about any Christian church you go to will hold the Lord's Supper, communion at some point, so it's pretty common. The way it's done is not always so common, but the actual service is.
Some churches use real wine, some use grape juice like we do. Some churches believe that the bread and juice are the actual body and blood of Christ, or change into it. We don't.
You'll find, especially in churches, there's terminology for who the church wants to participate in for the Lord's Supper. You have open communion, that means any Tom, Dick, and Harry that walks through the door, saved or unsaved, can take communion. You have closed communion, in which the church believes that the only people that can participate is if you're a member in good standing of that church, and usually they'll do their communion on either an off night or a time in which they don't expect any visitors.
Then you have close communion, that believes that it's for people who are born again, saved, have trusted Christ, had their sins forgiven, been baptized, and are trying to live a good life, whether they're a member of the church or not. That's what we practice, close. However, the Church of Corinth, they had gone a little further.
As we learned this morning in Sunday school, the Lord's Supper was instituted during the final Passover that Jesus participated in. And so what happened after that, you'll see this in Acts, they had what they called ‘agape’ feasts or love feasts, and they would actually do the Passover, the early church did it every day. When you see that they met daily and they ate together and everything, they're talking about [how] they had the Lord's Supper every single day.
B. Improper observance of the Lord’s Supper
But that always was a part of their idea of Passover. Then the Corinthian church, they heard about what they were doing, and so the way the Corinthian church, even though Paul told them the right way of doing it, they liked this part about eating a meal before. Paul's writing about eating a meal. That's why I call it the Lord's Supper is not a potluck.
That's why when, like last week, we were going to have a church dinner, that's why we moved the Lord's Supper to this week, so we don't have them together and get them confused. Look at verse 17, now in this I declare unto you, I praise you not, that you come together not for the better but for the worse. For first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear there are divisions among you, and I partly believe it, for there must also be heresies among you, that they which are proved maybe may manifest among you.
1. Heresies and Divisions in the church
All right, so the first problem that the Corinthian church had was they did come together for the love feast, their idea of Passover, they had a meal, but there were heresies, there were divisions in this church, and these divisions, when it says, it tells us a little bit, it says, those that are proved may manifest. They would set up tables for the meal. The best people got to set up here.
They got chairs to sit in. They may have got dishes to eat off of. The poor people, the non-important people, they just got to hang out wherever they could.
Now, I don't know about you, but I think most of our church would be considered by them non-important people. We're just plain, but they were dividing, and that's what the heresy was, it was a division caused by them saying, we have to divide everybody up between the important people and the non-important people. And so Paul says, listen, you think you're doing a good thing.
He says, I'm not praising you for that. I'm not praising you because you're coming together, you're causing schisms. I mean, he'd mentioned this in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 2 and 3. He says, I fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it neither, yet now are you able for you're yet carnal, whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are you not carnal and walk as men? They're causing divisions within the church.
But what's a church supposed to be? The local church should be united. We're brothers and sisters in Christ, we're family, we should work together. And yet the Corinthian church wasn't.
They divided everybody between the important people and everybody else, and was causing problems. And so what Paul is saying, listen, you're not united. You have divisions, you have heresies.
You're not divided even when you're eating. Verse 20, when you come together therefore in one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. He's not saying that we come together and have the Lord's supper together.
What he's saying is when you come together for the supper, that's not what you're really doing. You're not really doing the Lord's supper. You think you are, but to them the Lord's supper was a meal.
But remember they divided between rich people and poor people, those who had and those who didn't. And this caused even a bigger problem. Notice verse 21, for in eating everyone taketh before his own supper, one is hungry, another is drunken.
2. Confusion on the nature of the Lord’s table (potluck)
So what they were doing is, it was, you know, we have potluck. People bring different pots of food and we all share. One person brings the tater salad, everybody gets to dip and have as much as they want until it's gone.
It's not like, well, Bill here, he brings the potato salad. He goes, that's just for me. Nobody else can have it.
And that's what they were doing. They were bringing a meal, but they were only eating what they brought and they weren't sharing with anybody else. And Paul's saying, basically, what are you people thinking? What kind of Christian love is that? What kind of Christian unity is that? But he goes on.
3. People were eating to excess at the Lord’s table
He says, so one's hungry, another's drunken, that means they've eaten to excess. He says in verse 22, what? Have you not houses to eat and drink in, or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. So Paul's just saying, in verse 22, he's basically saying this, if you're gonna eat, do it somewhere else.
If you're gonna do it by only eating what you bring. Eat in your own house. If you're hungry, eat at home before you come for the Lord's Supper, because coming together is not so we can, we don't re-celebrate the Passover meal every time we do the Lord's Supper.
We only celebrate the very end of the Passover meal, as we learned today. Can you imagine if we did the Passover meal every time before we did the Lord's Supper? Aye, aye, aye, especially if we did it the way they did it. All right, I'm gonna bring all kinds of goodies, but they're for me, me, me, me, me.
Nobody else can have them, instead of sharing. And so they were causing divisions within the church. And you can imagine what kind of divisions these would cause, because if we had, imagine we had a meal, and we said we want everybody to come, but when everybody comes, you only get to eat what you brought.
If you didn't bring anything, you get to watch everybody eat what they brought. What's gonna happen to those who can't afford to bring anything? Pretty soon, they're not coming anymore. They're gonna say, I can't handle this, you know, and they're gonna stay home.
Divisions. So here's the first thing. When we do the Lord's Supper, we have to look at it in the proper perspective.
It's not really a meal to satisfy our physical hunger. If you're hungry, eat at home. All right? Not to say we can't have potlucks other times.
We just don't combine it with the Lord's Supper. Now, verse 23, now he's gonna tell them the right way to do it. We read this every time we do the Lord's Supper.
C. Proper observance of the Lord’s Supper
He starts off, and we're gonna delve into this just a little deeper. He says, for I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you. So where did Paul get his information? Paul wasn't at the last Passover.
Now, if you read in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, I'm not sure if it's in John, is it? But Matthew, Mark, and Luke talks about the last Passover. In fact, they all talk about these same things. But Paul, he wasn't part of that group.
He didn't become a Christian until much later. But remember, he spent time with the Lord. Now, do you think the Lord's Supper is important? Out of spending, Paul, separately taken to learn from the Lord, and one of the things the Lord made sure he taught him was, this is what I want you to do for communion.
If it wasn't important, I don't think the Lord would have taught Paul how to do it. So it must be important. Now, he says that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread.
1. The Lord Gave Thanks for the Meal
And we know from reading Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that the Passover night was the one when Judas snuck out and went, Judas Iscariot, and went and made a deal to have Jesus captured. So that's the last Passover. That's what he's signifying.
He says, first thing he did was take bread. When he'd given thanks, now, I can't remember exactly how Peter talked about that this morning. And Mark, when he talks about it, says he blessed it, which means to give thanks.
It doesn't mean, what he's doing is he's just thanking the Lord for providing the bread, okay? He's not thanking him for, you know, that it's going to turn into my body. He's not thanking him for anything. He's just saying, Lord, you know, you pray for your meal.
You give thanks to the Lord for providing. That's basically what this is. We should always pray for our meals.
And that's what he did. He says, when he'd given thanks, he broke it and said, take, eat. Now, we know that he had this big piece of unleavened bread, and he broke it.
The apostles, his disciples didn't break it. He broke it. You see, when we take the broken bread, we have to realize Christ voluntarily allowed his body to be broken.
2. Eating the Lord’s Supper happens because of our personal relationship with Christ
And then he says, take, eat. That's because it's a personal relationship with Christ. That's why, you know, the Lord's Supper is done by believers.
So we're going to see it's due to remembering him. And when he said, take, eat, it's a personal action we have to do to remember. It's voluntary.
If you don't, you won't lose your salvation because the Lord's Supper has nothing to do with salvation. But if you don't, then you're saying, I don't want to remember what he did for me. He says, take, eat.
It was a personal response. He says, this is my body which was broken for you. Christ is saying, my body broken, I am the sacrifice that the world has been waiting for.
The same thing with the shedding of blood. When we take the Lord's Supper, we remember that Jesus Christ was our sacrifice. That's why John said, behold the lamb that taketh away the sins of the world.
3. Christ Was Deliberately Crucified at Passover
That's why I believe it was no accident that Jesus was crucified at Passover time. That time in which the Egyptians had the Israelites in slavery, they cried out to God, God sent Moses, and the last plague was the death of the firstborn. They had to take a lamb, sacrifice the lamb, take his blood, put it on the doorpost.
So when the death angel came, what happened? He passed over that house, and all that were behind the blood were saved. And that's what reminds us for the body and blood of Christ. He was a sacrifice.
He died for you, but you have to accept what he did for you by faith. You have to accept that he died on that cross for you, that he was buried to show that he really died, that he rose again the third day. To show we have the hope of eternal life.
And yeah, amen to that. Take eat, this my body was broken for you. Who's the you? Everybody who accepts Jesus Christ.
D. Jesus’ Broken Body
In fact, as Peter mentioned this morning, first John says, not only is the propitiation for our sins, but for the whole world. When he broke his body, he didn't just do it for a select few. He did it for the whole world.
But until, as we know, until we chose to accept what he did by faith, we chose to accept the broken body that was broken for us. Until we do that, we're still in our sins. But when we do that, amen, we're saved.
He says what? This do in remembrance of me. Why do we do the Lord's Supper? To remember. To remember what? To remember he was a sacrifice.
To remember he broke his body. To remember he did it voluntarily. To remember he did it for the whole world.
E. Jesus’ Shed Blood (also sign of God’s betrothal/marriage to His people)
Verse 25, in the same manner, he also took the cup and when he'd supped, he said, this cup is the New Testament in my blood. So he took the cup and the bread. He said, this is my body I broke for you.
He said his blood was the New Testament. The New Testament can mean covenant, can mean contract. He says, this blood that I'm shedding for you is a new covenant, a New Testament.
It's totally different than the covenant he had with Abraham. It's totally different than the covenant he had with Moses. Both of those required what for salvation? Works.
But the New Testament, faith. Faith in his shed blood. He says, this is a new covenant.
This is a new contract. This is a New Testament in my blood. And so when we take that cup, we need to remember that there's only one way to Jesus Christ.
There's only one way to heaven and that's through Jesus Christ by faith. Not of works, lest anyone should boast. It's a New Testament.
I mentioned during Sunday school, so I'm going to tell the rest of you, the past few Sundays we've been going over the marriage of Christ, the bride of Christ. And one of the interesting things is that the man goes, asks the woman if she wants to be his wife. She says, yes.
They sign a contract. That's the betrothal. For legal purposes, they're married.
But then the final thing they do is they take a cup of wine and they drink it to basically help seal the contract and signify it's true. They save that glass because they both drink out of the same glass. Then after all the other parts of the marriage preparations, the building of the house, the coming and getting of the bride, bringing him back to the house that he just built, then they have a marriage ceremony to finalize the marriage.
When they have that ceremony, the final thing they do is take that same cup, drink wine out of it, then break the glass, signifying that their union is eternal. Jesus, when he instituted the Lord's Supper, he says this cup is a new contract, just like the marriage ceremony, and my blood. Then in Mark we saw, and it's also in Luke, after he had done that, he says, I won’t drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall come.
Just like the marriage ceremony, Jesus said, I'm not going to drink out of this cup. I'm not going to drink the wine until the marriage service is completed with the bride of Christ. I don't think that's an accident.
God wants us to remember, not only are we saved, not only are we the children of God, but we are his bride. We are technically, legally, because of the new contract, the New Testament, to live a holy, pure life, just like the wives of old did before the marriage was completed. It helps us to remember that in his shed blood, we have a relationship not just with each other, but with him, and we should live that way.
He said, this cup is a New Testament, blood. This do ye as often as you drink it. So he says, we're to do this as often as you drink it.
F. Each church decides when to observe the Lord’supper (Lord’s supper is corporate, not individual)
That means there is no set time to do the Lord's Supper. It's up to whenever the church decides as a local church. You say, well, does it have to be a local church? Well, in verse 17, 18, 20, I lost the others.
17, 18, 20, verse 33 and 34, they all use the same terminology. When you come together as a church. So they were coming together for the meal.
We should come together for the Lord's Supper. It's done as a group. It's done as a church, the local church.
Because over and over, he says, when you come together, this is when you do it. How often do you do it? As often as you decide to come together to do it. Years and years ago, how long ago? Before I was even born, when this church was founded.
That'll let you know how old it is. Before I was even born, they decided they're going to do it once a month. And that's what we do.
And as long as that helps us to remember, that's good enough. Because that's why we do it. We don't do it to keep our salvation.
We don't do it as some duty. We don't do it to show the world. We do it to remember what Jesus Christ did for you.
That he shed his blood, that he broke his body for the sole purpose of giving you a new contract, a new covenant, a new testament, salvation by grace, through faith. Amen? Now, what happens if you still want to be a little flippant about it? Because that's the way the Corinthians were. Eh, just part of the regular meal.
That's why in verse 20, he reminds us, for often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death when he comes. That means when we get raptured, we won't do this anymore. Why? Because we're going to drink that final cup with him new in the kingdom, and we won't have to remember.
G. Don’t Partake of the Lord’s table ‘unworthily’
We'll be with him. But he says in verse 27, wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink of this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. So what's it mean to be unworthy? That means to be irreverent.
You know, if you were to be handed a piece of the bread, and it's like, no big deal. Oh, I hate this stuff. No, that's irreverent.
The practice of remembering is we need to be reverent. We need to be understanding why we're doing it. But if you're just doing it flippantly, if you're just doing it, you know, because everybody tells you you have to, and you don't understand why, you're doing it unworthily.
Now, if you do that, you'll be guilty of the body and blood. Can I be honest? Every time I read that, I'm wondering, why are we guilty? I mean, what's he trying to... Many times, Paul and other writers in Scripture, they will say something, write a bunch of stuff, and then say something else, where the second thing has to be reverted back up to the first thing. He started this section on how to do it right by saying, the Lord Jesus, the same night he was betrayed.
When Judas Iscariot turned his back on him and decided that the Lord wasn't who the Lord was supposed to be in his mind, he betrayed him. So when we're guilty because we do it unworthily, we are betraying the Lord and what he did for us. We are saying it wasn't good enough.
So if you want to betray the Lord, you become guilty of his body and blood. Just like Judas Iscariot was guilty of the death of Christ, in a sense, because he's the one that turned him in to be arrested. When we decide that we know better about the body and blood of Christ, we know better about salvation, we know better about so many other things that Christ tells us in his word, we can become just as guilty as Judas was.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to be in that space. And so we need to do it reverently, worthily, believing why he did it. And how do we do that? Verse 28, but let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.
Before you do the Lord's Supper, make sure you're worthy. Make sure, you know, we do this, that the sins he died for, you've asked his forgiveness of. Make sure that the body that was broken, you realize he did it for you and your salvation.
The blood was shed for you. There is a new testament that we fall under, not the old one of the works and the law, but the new one of grace. And so we examine ourselves to make sure, yeah, I still believe this, I still believe that, I still believe this, I still am worthy to take the Lord's Supper.
H. Don’t Look for An Excuse to Skip the Lord’s Supper, Do it Properly
He says, and then let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. I believe that means that for every believer, the Lord wants you to participate in the Lord's Supper, but he wants you to participate in the right way. So if you can't do it in the right way, you examine yourselves, you seek forgiveness, then take the Lord's Supper.
I've known people in the past who said, no, I've got some things in my life I can't take the Lord's Supper. What this is saying is, take care of those things so you can take the Lord's Supper. That's how important it is to help us remember.
We're going to do that in just a minute. The rest of this chapter, we're going to finish up tonight, or this afternoon at two o'clock, talking about what happens if you don't do it worthily. But right now, bow your heads and just ask yourself, first of all, have I trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior? Have my sins been forgiven? Do I know for sure I'm going to heaven? Because that's the prerequisite of taking the Lord's Supper.
You can't remember his body and blood if you've never accepted it into your life, or had your sins forgiven. Then ask yourself, is there anything in my life now that's keeping me from remembering what he did? Examine yourselves, just ask yourselves. If there is, go ahead and ask the Lord to forgive you. Perhaps there's something else that you thought of that you need to talk to the Lord about, as we, in a moment, we do the Lord's Supper to remember what he did for us.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you, and we praise your name for loving us, for guiding us, for teaching us the truth, Lord, that when we do the Lord's Supper, when we do communion, it's to remember you, to remember what you did, and for no other reason than that.
Help us, Lord, to follow your word. Help us, Lord, to follow you. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.
Outline:
A. Introduction
B. Improper observance of the Lord’s Supper
1) Heresies and Divisions in the church
2) Confusion on the nature of the Lord’s table (potluck)
3) People were eating to excess at the Lord’s table
C. Proper observance of the Lord’s Supper
1) The Lord Gave Thanks for the Meal
2) Eating the Lord’s Supper happens because of our personal relationship with Christ
3) Christ Was Deliberately Crucified at Passover
D. Jesus’ Broken Body
E. Jesus’ Shed Blood (also sign of God’s betrothal/marriage to His people)
F. Each church decides when to observe the Lord’ supper (Lord’s supper is corporate, not individual)
G. Don’t Partake of the Lord’s table ‘unworthily’
H. Don’t Look for An Excuse to Skip the Lord’s Supper, Do it Properly
A. Introduction
First Corinthians chapter 11. Just about any Christian church you go to will hold the Lord's Supper, communion at some point, so it's pretty common. The way it's done is not always so common, but the actual service is.
Some churches use real wine, some use grape juice like we do. Some churches believe that the bread and juice are the actual body and blood of Christ, or change into it. We don't.
You'll find, especially in churches, there's terminology for who the church wants to participate in for the Lord's Supper. You have open communion, that means any Tom, Dick, and Harry that walks through the door, saved or unsaved, can take communion. You have closed communion, in which the church believes that the only people that can participate is if you're a member in good standing of that church, and usually they'll do their communion on either an off night or a time in which they don't expect any visitors.
Then you have close communion, that believes that it's for people who are born again, saved, have trusted Christ, had their sins forgiven, been baptized, and are trying to live a good life, whether they're a member of the church or not. That's what we practice, close. However, the Church of Corinth, they had gone a little further.
As we learned this morning in Sunday school, the Lord's Supper was instituted during the final Passover that Jesus participated in. And so what happened after that, you'll see this in Acts, they had what they called ‘agape’ feasts or love feasts, and they would actually do the Passover, the early church did it every day. When you see that they met daily and they ate together and everything, they're talking about [how] they had the Lord's Supper every single day.
B. Improper observance of the Lord’s Supper
But that always was a part of their idea of Passover. Then the Corinthian church, they heard about what they were doing, and so the way the Corinthian church, even though Paul told them the right way of doing it, they liked this part about eating a meal before. Paul's writing about eating a meal. That's why I call it the Lord's Supper is not a potluck.
That's why when, like last week, we were going to have a church dinner, that's why we moved the Lord's Supper to this week, so we don't have them together and get them confused. Look at verse 17, now in this I declare unto you, I praise you not, that you come together not for the better but for the worse. For first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear there are divisions among you, and I partly believe it, for there must also be heresies among you, that they which are proved maybe may manifest among you.
1. Heresies and Divisions in the church
All right, so the first problem that the Corinthian church had was they did come together for the love feast, their idea of Passover, they had a meal, but there were heresies, there were divisions in this church, and these divisions, when it says, it tells us a little bit, it says, those that are proved may manifest. They would set up tables for the meal. The best people got to set up here.
They got chairs to sit in. They may have got dishes to eat off of. The poor people, the non-important people, they just got to hang out wherever they could.
Now, I don't know about you, but I think most of our church would be considered by them non-important people. We're just plain, but they were dividing, and that's what the heresy was, it was a division caused by them saying, we have to divide everybody up between the important people and the non-important people. And so Paul says, listen, you think you're doing a good thing.
He says, I'm not praising you for that. I'm not praising you because you're coming together, you're causing schisms. I mean, he'd mentioned this in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 2 and 3. He says, I fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it neither, yet now are you able for you're yet carnal, whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are you not carnal and walk as men? They're causing divisions within the church.
But what's a church supposed to be? The local church should be united. We're brothers and sisters in Christ, we're family, we should work together. And yet the Corinthian church wasn't.
They divided everybody between the important people and everybody else, and was causing problems. And so what Paul is saying, listen, you're not united. You have divisions, you have heresies.
You're not divided even when you're eating. Verse 20, when you come together therefore in one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. He's not saying that we come together and have the Lord's supper together.
What he's saying is when you come together for the supper, that's not what you're really doing. You're not really doing the Lord's supper. You think you are, but to them the Lord's supper was a meal.
But remember they divided between rich people and poor people, those who had and those who didn't. And this caused even a bigger problem. Notice verse 21, for in eating everyone taketh before his own supper, one is hungry, another is drunken.
2. Confusion on the nature of the Lord’s table (potluck)
So what they were doing is, it was, you know, we have potluck. People bring different pots of food and we all share. One person brings the tater salad, everybody gets to dip and have as much as they want until it's gone.
It's not like, well, Bill here, he brings the potato salad. He goes, that's just for me. Nobody else can have it.
And that's what they were doing. They were bringing a meal, but they were only eating what they brought and they weren't sharing with anybody else. And Paul's saying, basically, what are you people thinking? What kind of Christian love is that? What kind of Christian unity is that? But he goes on.
3. People were eating to excess at the Lord’s table
He says, so one's hungry, another's drunken, that means they've eaten to excess. He says in verse 22, what? Have you not houses to eat and drink in, or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. So Paul's just saying, in verse 22, he's basically saying this, if you're gonna eat, do it somewhere else.
If you're gonna do it by only eating what you bring. Eat in your own house. If you're hungry, eat at home before you come for the Lord's Supper, because coming together is not so we can, we don't re-celebrate the Passover meal every time we do the Lord's Supper.
We only celebrate the very end of the Passover meal, as we learned today. Can you imagine if we did the Passover meal every time before we did the Lord's Supper? Aye, aye, aye, especially if we did it the way they did it. All right, I'm gonna bring all kinds of goodies, but they're for me, me, me, me, me.
Nobody else can have them, instead of sharing. And so they were causing divisions within the church. And you can imagine what kind of divisions these would cause, because if we had, imagine we had a meal, and we said we want everybody to come, but when everybody comes, you only get to eat what you brought.
If you didn't bring anything, you get to watch everybody eat what they brought. What's gonna happen to those who can't afford to bring anything? Pretty soon, they're not coming anymore. They're gonna say, I can't handle this, you know, and they're gonna stay home.
Divisions. So here's the first thing. When we do the Lord's Supper, we have to look at it in the proper perspective.
It's not really a meal to satisfy our physical hunger. If you're hungry, eat at home. All right? Not to say we can't have potlucks other times.
We just don't combine it with the Lord's Supper. Now, verse 23, now he's gonna tell them the right way to do it. We read this every time we do the Lord's Supper.
C. Proper observance of the Lord’s Supper
He starts off, and we're gonna delve into this just a little deeper. He says, for I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you. So where did Paul get his information? Paul wasn't at the last Passover.
Now, if you read in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, I'm not sure if it's in John, is it? But Matthew, Mark, and Luke talks about the last Passover. In fact, they all talk about these same things. But Paul, he wasn't part of that group.
He didn't become a Christian until much later. But remember, he spent time with the Lord. Now, do you think the Lord's Supper is important? Out of spending, Paul, separately taken to learn from the Lord, and one of the things the Lord made sure he taught him was, this is what I want you to do for communion.
If it wasn't important, I don't think the Lord would have taught Paul how to do it. So it must be important. Now, he says that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread.
1. The Lord Gave Thanks for the Meal
And we know from reading Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that the Passover night was the one when Judas snuck out and went, Judas Iscariot, and went and made a deal to have Jesus captured. So that's the last Passover. That's what he's signifying.
He says, first thing he did was take bread. When he'd given thanks, now, I can't remember exactly how Peter talked about that this morning. And Mark, when he talks about it, says he blessed it, which means to give thanks.
It doesn't mean, what he's doing is he's just thanking the Lord for providing the bread, okay? He's not thanking him for, you know, that it's going to turn into my body. He's not thanking him for anything. He's just saying, Lord, you know, you pray for your meal.
You give thanks to the Lord for providing. That's basically what this is. We should always pray for our meals.
And that's what he did. He says, when he'd given thanks, he broke it and said, take, eat. Now, we know that he had this big piece of unleavened bread, and he broke it.
The apostles, his disciples didn't break it. He broke it. You see, when we take the broken bread, we have to realize Christ voluntarily allowed his body to be broken.
2. Eating the Lord’s Supper happens because of our personal relationship with Christ
And then he says, take, eat. That's because it's a personal relationship with Christ. That's why, you know, the Lord's Supper is done by believers.
So we're going to see it's due to remembering him. And when he said, take, eat, it's a personal action we have to do to remember. It's voluntary.
If you don't, you won't lose your salvation because the Lord's Supper has nothing to do with salvation. But if you don't, then you're saying, I don't want to remember what he did for me. He says, take, eat.
It was a personal response. He says, this is my body which was broken for you. Christ is saying, my body broken, I am the sacrifice that the world has been waiting for.
The same thing with the shedding of blood. When we take the Lord's Supper, we remember that Jesus Christ was our sacrifice. That's why John said, behold the lamb that taketh away the sins of the world.
3. Christ Was Deliberately Crucified at Passover
That's why I believe it was no accident that Jesus was crucified at Passover time. That time in which the Egyptians had the Israelites in slavery, they cried out to God, God sent Moses, and the last plague was the death of the firstborn. They had to take a lamb, sacrifice the lamb, take his blood, put it on the doorpost.
So when the death angel came, what happened? He passed over that house, and all that were behind the blood were saved. And that's what reminds us for the body and blood of Christ. He was a sacrifice.
He died for you, but you have to accept what he did for you by faith. You have to accept that he died on that cross for you, that he was buried to show that he really died, that he rose again the third day. To show we have the hope of eternal life.
And yeah, amen to that. Take eat, this my body was broken for you. Who's the you? Everybody who accepts Jesus Christ.
D. Jesus’ Broken Body
In fact, as Peter mentioned this morning, first John says, not only is the propitiation for our sins, but for the whole world. When he broke his body, he didn't just do it for a select few. He did it for the whole world.
But until, as we know, until we chose to accept what he did by faith, we chose to accept the broken body that was broken for us. Until we do that, we're still in our sins. But when we do that, amen, we're saved.
He says what? This do in remembrance of me. Why do we do the Lord's Supper? To remember. To remember what? To remember he was a sacrifice.
To remember he broke his body. To remember he did it voluntarily. To remember he did it for the whole world.
E. Jesus’ Shed Blood (also sign of God’s betrothal/marriage to His people)
Verse 25, in the same manner, he also took the cup and when he'd supped, he said, this cup is the New Testament in my blood. So he took the cup and the bread. He said, this is my body I broke for you.
He said his blood was the New Testament. The New Testament can mean covenant, can mean contract. He says, this blood that I'm shedding for you is a new covenant, a New Testament.
It's totally different than the covenant he had with Abraham. It's totally different than the covenant he had with Moses. Both of those required what for salvation? Works.
But the New Testament, faith. Faith in his shed blood. He says, this is a new covenant.
This is a new contract. This is a New Testament in my blood. And so when we take that cup, we need to remember that there's only one way to Jesus Christ.
There's only one way to heaven and that's through Jesus Christ by faith. Not of works, lest anyone should boast. It's a New Testament.
I mentioned during Sunday school, so I'm going to tell the rest of you, the past few Sundays we've been going over the marriage of Christ, the bride of Christ. And one of the interesting things is that the man goes, asks the woman if she wants to be his wife. She says, yes.
They sign a contract. That's the betrothal. For legal purposes, they're married.
But then the final thing they do is they take a cup of wine and they drink it to basically help seal the contract and signify it's true. They save that glass because they both drink out of the same glass. Then after all the other parts of the marriage preparations, the building of the house, the coming and getting of the bride, bringing him back to the house that he just built, then they have a marriage ceremony to finalize the marriage.
When they have that ceremony, the final thing they do is take that same cup, drink wine out of it, then break the glass, signifying that their union is eternal. Jesus, when he instituted the Lord's Supper, he says this cup is a new contract, just like the marriage ceremony, and my blood. Then in Mark we saw, and it's also in Luke, after he had done that, he says, I won’t drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall come.
Just like the marriage ceremony, Jesus said, I'm not going to drink out of this cup. I'm not going to drink the wine until the marriage service is completed with the bride of Christ. I don't think that's an accident.
God wants us to remember, not only are we saved, not only are we the children of God, but we are his bride. We are technically, legally, because of the new contract, the New Testament, to live a holy, pure life, just like the wives of old did before the marriage was completed. It helps us to remember that in his shed blood, we have a relationship not just with each other, but with him, and we should live that way.
He said, this cup is a New Testament, blood. This do ye as often as you drink it. So he says, we're to do this as often as you drink it.
F. Each church decides when to observe the Lord’supper (Lord’s supper is corporate, not individual)
That means there is no set time to do the Lord's Supper. It's up to whenever the church decides as a local church. You say, well, does it have to be a local church? Well, in verse 17, 18, 20, I lost the others.
17, 18, 20, verse 33 and 34, they all use the same terminology. When you come together as a church. So they were coming together for the meal.
We should come together for the Lord's Supper. It's done as a group. It's done as a church, the local church.
Because over and over, he says, when you come together, this is when you do it. How often do you do it? As often as you decide to come together to do it. Years and years ago, how long ago? Before I was even born, when this church was founded.
That'll let you know how old it is. Before I was even born, they decided they're going to do it once a month. And that's what we do.
And as long as that helps us to remember, that's good enough. Because that's why we do it. We don't do it to keep our salvation.
We don't do it as some duty. We don't do it to show the world. We do it to remember what Jesus Christ did for you.
That he shed his blood, that he broke his body for the sole purpose of giving you a new contract, a new covenant, a new testament, salvation by grace, through faith. Amen? Now, what happens if you still want to be a little flippant about it? Because that's the way the Corinthians were. Eh, just part of the regular meal.
That's why in verse 20, he reminds us, for often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death when he comes. That means when we get raptured, we won't do this anymore. Why? Because we're going to drink that final cup with him new in the kingdom, and we won't have to remember.
G. Don’t Partake of the Lord’s table ‘unworthily’
We'll be with him. But he says in verse 27, wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink of this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. So what's it mean to be unworthy? That means to be irreverent.
You know, if you were to be handed a piece of the bread, and it's like, no big deal. Oh, I hate this stuff. No, that's irreverent.
The practice of remembering is we need to be reverent. We need to be understanding why we're doing it. But if you're just doing it flippantly, if you're just doing it, you know, because everybody tells you you have to, and you don't understand why, you're doing it unworthily.
Now, if you do that, you'll be guilty of the body and blood. Can I be honest? Every time I read that, I'm wondering, why are we guilty? I mean, what's he trying to... Many times, Paul and other writers in Scripture, they will say something, write a bunch of stuff, and then say something else, where the second thing has to be reverted back up to the first thing. He started this section on how to do it right by saying, the Lord Jesus, the same night he was betrayed.
When Judas Iscariot turned his back on him and decided that the Lord wasn't who the Lord was supposed to be in his mind, he betrayed him. So when we're guilty because we do it unworthily, we are betraying the Lord and what he did for us. We are saying it wasn't good enough.
So if you want to betray the Lord, you become guilty of his body and blood. Just like Judas Iscariot was guilty of the death of Christ, in a sense, because he's the one that turned him in to be arrested. When we decide that we know better about the body and blood of Christ, we know better about salvation, we know better about so many other things that Christ tells us in his word, we can become just as guilty as Judas was.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to be in that space. And so we need to do it reverently, worthily, believing why he did it. And how do we do that? Verse 28, but let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.
Before you do the Lord's Supper, make sure you're worthy. Make sure, you know, we do this, that the sins he died for, you've asked his forgiveness of. Make sure that the body that was broken, you realize he did it for you and your salvation.
The blood was shed for you. There is a new testament that we fall under, not the old one of the works and the law, but the new one of grace. And so we examine ourselves to make sure, yeah, I still believe this, I still believe that, I still believe this, I still am worthy to take the Lord's Supper.
H. Don’t Look for An Excuse to Skip the Lord’s Supper, Do it Properly
He says, and then let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. I believe that means that for every believer, the Lord wants you to participate in the Lord's Supper, but he wants you to participate in the right way. So if you can't do it in the right way, you examine yourselves, you seek forgiveness, then take the Lord's Supper.
I've known people in the past who said, no, I've got some things in my life I can't take the Lord's Supper. What this is saying is, take care of those things so you can take the Lord's Supper. That's how important it is to help us remember.
We're going to do that in just a minute. The rest of this chapter, we're going to finish up tonight, or this afternoon at two o'clock, talking about what happens if you don't do it worthily. But right now, bow your heads and just ask yourself, first of all, have I trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior? Have my sins been forgiven? Do I know for sure I'm going to heaven? Because that's the prerequisite of taking the Lord's Supper.
You can't remember his body and blood if you've never accepted it into your life, or had your sins forgiven. Then ask yourself, is there anything in my life now that's keeping me from remembering what he did? Examine yourselves, just ask yourselves. If there is, go ahead and ask the Lord to forgive you. Perhaps there's something else that you thought of that you need to talk to the Lord about, as we, in a moment, we do the Lord's Supper to remember what he did for us.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you, and we praise your name for loving us, for guiding us, for teaching us the truth, Lord, that when we do the Lord's Supper, when we do communion, it's to remember you, to remember what you did, and for no other reason than that.
Help us, Lord, to follow your word. Help us, Lord, to follow you. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.
