#9 of 12, in the series, 1 Corinthians: The Church Troubled and Triumphant
We come to one of the most important passages this morning on the topic of the Lord’s Supper. Here we find instruction for one of our two Baptist ordinances. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are our two ordinances as Baptists and both are essential to our faith. It seems that among many Baptists the Lord’s Supper has become the forgotten ordinance. This morning we find a passage, which can help us to recover the importance of the Lord’s Supper to our faith and practice. So, think about this. One of the single most importance things we do as believers has to do with eating and drinking. This morning we are going to talk about eating.
That’s right a sermon on eating! Eating is one of the most important things we do after all. If we don’t eat, we die. And, these days if we do eat, we may die. The airwaves are filled with discussion about eating. What can the FDA do to ensure the safety of food imported from China? Should we outlaw all foods containing transfat? Is the Atkins Diet safe or should we all go strictly organic? We spend a lot of time thinking about and talking what we eat and on staff here at Calvary we talk about the importance of eating while we’re eating lunch.
Eating is important after all. It is no accident that this passage on the Lord’s Supper follows immediately chapter 10 in which Paul says in verse 31’whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do. Do it all for the glory of God.’ The glory of God should be our central concern every time we eat and, usually, we eat every day! God is very concerned with our eating. Let’s think about this for a moment. What was the Original Sin in the garden? Adam, our first father, ate the forbidden fruit. He took one bite of the wrong piece of fruit and now our world is filled with cancer, and hurricanes, and diabetes, and MS, and death. One piece of fruit! It wasn’t a Big Mac. It contained no transfat. It was organic.
And yet, through that act the curse of sin and death entered the world and death has now spread to all people through that one act of eating wrongly. Now, the only way to be saved from the curse of sin and death is to eat something else. Our salvation has to do with eating. If you are to be saved this morning, then you must eat. In this passage we find that the Lord’s Supper is to be done as a remembrance of Christ and in this ordinance we find a powerful reminder of what we must eat in order to be saved.
I. The Lord’s Supper reminds us of the church. (17-22)
Two times in verses 17-18 Paul says ‘when you come together’. He uses the same phrase a third time to speak of coming together to eat the Lord’s Supper. He says you are not coming together for communion (as you should be, he means) but rather you come together for factions and divisions. Coming together as a church is meant for the building up of all the members but the Corinthians were worse off when they met then when they didn’t. It seems the rich believers would come together and have a gluttonous feast, while the poor believers stood a watch with grumbling stomachs.
This is a terrible example from which we must learn that we are to be united in the body of Christ. And we can learn from Paul’s emphasis on coming together that the church is very important. We are the church most fully when we do meet together. Paul speaks of the church of God in verse 22 and that is what we are. Those who believe in Christ are called to gather together for the purpose of worshipping Christ and as we gather around the table for the Lord’s Supper we are supposed to see clearly those who are trusting in Christ, those who make the church of God in this particular local body.
Our eating the Lord’s Supper, and to a lesser degree all of our eating, that we are the church because of our faith in Christ. Adam brought a curse into the world by eating what was forbidden and every single one of us has sinned in what we have eaten. Even if we are organic only we have sinned because we have not eaten every bite of food we have ever had to the glory of God alone!
Yet, there is one who did; Jesus Christ. In the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness Satan suggested that Jesus turn the stones into bread and eat. It seems but such a simple thing, He certainly could have. Why was that such a temptation? Jesus said, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ Jesus said, ‘I will not eat one piece of food unless I do so for my Father’s glory and right now He has commanded me not to eat.’
Christ did in the wilderness, what Adam did not do in the garden. When tempted to eat outside of God’s command He did not eat. So, this morning we eat a small piece of bread as a reminder that reminder that by believing in Jesus we are united in Him? We have fallen short of the glory of God even in the seemingly small act of eating but our faith, our hope; our trust is in Christ who ate to God’s glory for us.
We are sinners this morning. We deserve God’s righteous wrath this morning. Yet, because Jesus ate, and drank, and live a righteous life for us, we may be saved from God’s wrath. It is by such faith in Christ that we become the church of God and the Lords’ Supper reminds us these great things.
II. The Lord’s Supper reminds us of the gospel. (23-26).
In these verses we find the very important recounting of our Lord’s words to His disciples in the Upper Room on the night immediately prior to His death. Now, there is more to this important passage than we could hope to explain fully in section of one sermon, but we must understand certain fundamental truths about what Christ was saying in the Upper Room that night.
The significance of these words had roots in the Old Testament. Jesus was establishing the New Covenant spoke of in Jeremiah 31.31 and following. In that passage, God says that the New Covenant means God will put His law into the hearts of those who believe. It means, God will write His law on the hearts of those who believe. All who enter the covenant will know God from the least to the greatest. And, most amazingly all who come to God by faith in Jesus will be forgiven of their iniquity and God will remember their sins no more
That is the great promise held out in the gospel and portrayed in the Lord’s Supper. We are reminded that we have all sinned, we all deserve God’s wrath, but Jesus died to bear God’s wrath for us so that if we turn to Him God will forgive us and remember our sins no more. O yes, what a gospel, have you this confidence that the Holy One of Israel has put your sins away? Nothing is more important than that.
Now, this ordinance also has roots in the book of Exodus. The feast of Passover was established among God’s people as a reminder that they were delivered from the death angel by being covered by the blood of a lamb sprinkled on the doorposts of their homes. All around Jesus that night in Jerusalem was the sound of lambs being slaughtered for the feast of Passover. The meat would be cooked and the people would eat the meat. Along with the meat, the Jews would eat unleavened bread like the bread Jesus broke in the Upper Room. This was going on all around Jesus that night.
This is how we understand that we cannot be saved unless we eat. In John chapter 6 Jesus fed over 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish. Christ passed out the bread to the people and it was miraculously multiplied to feed all who ate. That’s an amazing story, but in that same chapter Jesus spoke these most important words.
John 6:51-53 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
Jesus said that if we are to be saved, than we must eat Christ! That is to say, we must forsake all hope of being reconciled to God in any way other than casting ourselves completely upon Him. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood was the most realistic way of speaking about he nature of true saving faith. If you are to be saved, truly saved, then you must so partake of Christ that He penetrates your very soul. As our food is eaten and absorbed into our bodies, so must Christ be believed in and received into the depths of our hearts.
And, in the Lord’s Supper we are reminded that though there is but one and only one death of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will never be sacrificed again; nevertheless we are to continually eat of His body. We are to continue to repent of sin and trust in Christ by faith alone throughout our pilgrimage on this earth. We must never stop feeding upon Him. We must never give up believing in, relying upon, and casting ourselves upon our Lord Jesus who lived and died for us.
The Lord’s Supper reminds us of the gospel as perhaps nothing else can do.
III. The Lord’s Supper reminds us of the judgment. (27-34)
For many reasons, I think Luke 24 is one of most rich passages of Scripture. It is filled with pure delight for the believer’s soul. One of them is this; in Luke 24:41-43 we read, And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.
Upon His resurrection Jesus appears to His disciples and He says, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ I can’t get over that!
One the most important things Jesus did with His disciples was eat with them. One of the most important things we do in life is eat and one of the most important things we do in the life of our church is eat the Lord’s Supper. Paul makes it very clear that we mustn’t eat unworthily. It is dangerous. It could bring God’s judgment. One might become sick. One might very well die for eating this supper in an unworthy manner. We must take to heart the word’s of Scripture here. Christ rose again and came eating displaying the fact that He will return in triumph some glorious day. When He does return He will bring sweet fellowship for His own and swift judgment for those who are not His. Christ is coming again and by taking in communion now worthily we can avoid His judgment then upon all who reject His atonement displayed in this ordinance.
What does it mean to eat this Supper worthily? Who is worthy to eat this supper? Although we would not agree fully with Martin Luther’s understanding of the Lord’s Supper, yet he is helpful for understanding what it means to eat worthily. Luther, in his small catechism, asked the question this way; ‘Who, then, receives such Sacrament worthily? To which he gave the answer, ‘Fasting and bodily preparation are indeed a fine outward training; but his is truly worthy and well prepared who has faith in these words, ‘Given and shed for you for the remission of sins.’
Eating worthily is about taking these elements with the realization that Christ died on the cross as a sacrifice for sins apart from which we stand hopeless before God. Trusting in the gospel is the only way to eat worthily, which is why of course the Lord’s Supper is only for baptized believers. Baptized believers profess faith in Christ alone for salvation and thus enter into the communion of the church.
Did you see those words in verse 24? One theologian wrote this, ‘We must grasp that the heart of the sacraments is in these words: it is given for you; it is poured out for you. The distribution of the elements would be meaningless, if his body and blood had not been given for our redemption.’ The Lord’s Supper means something because on a tree, on a hill, in Jerusalem, one marvelous and awful day; God Almighty Incarnate died on a cross. By faith in Him these words become ours, ‘given for you.’ Is that your hope? Is that your faith? O, if not when you came this morning, then I pray it will be before you leave. Trust in and cling to the Christ whose death is portrayed in this meal, for through faith in Him alone can you be spared the certain judgment for death and hell facing all who will not repent.
1 Corinthians 10:16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.
There is one final truth about eating that we must speak of before we take the Supper. Notice verse 26. We eat this morning in anticipation of another meal, in another world. Jesus promised to come again and when He comes there is one thing we know that He will do with His people. In Luke 22:28-30 Jesus said to His disciples, You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
When Christ returns He will establish His kingdom forever in the New Heaven and on the New Earth. In that kingdom, His people will eat and drink with Him at His table. Friends, I don’t know exactly what that will be like, but I tell you that’s one supper I don’t want to miss! So, much more could be said about this, but for today it must be enough to say, in the beginning man ate with God in a garden, enjoying God’s glorious fellowship until his wrong eating broke fellowship and brought a curse and death.
At the last day believers will once again eat in sweet fellowship with God not in a garden, but in a city. All will be restored and set right. No more curse, no more death, only feasting forever! But who will be in the kingdom of God on the New Earth eating with Christ at the table? Only those who have first eaten the very body of Christ our Lord; that is, only those who believe in Christ on earth will eat with Him in the coming Kingdom.
