1 Corinthians 11, verse 17. But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better, but for the worse. For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you, and in part, I believe it. For there must be factions among you, in order that those who are approved may become evident among you. Therefore, when you eat together, it's not to eat the Lord's supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first, and the one who is hungry and another is drunk. What? Don't you have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you." For I received from the Lord that which I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, in 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 after the supper, saying, This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Therefore, whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick and a number sleep. For if we judge ourselves rightly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world. Last week we were discussing what to share and I had planned initially a message on biblical model of eldership that if the Lord wills for next week I'll do that. But the topic came up in our discussion about communion, the Lord's Supper, and in particular the meaning of these verses in 1 Corinthians. And I think it's an excellent follow-up to last week's message, which was the basis of our unity in the body of Christ. For two reasons, I think. One is communion, or the breaking of bread, is essential to our fellowship. See the name? That's one right there. I mean, right in our name, we have the evidence of the importance of the bread of life. But also in our description as a congregation from Acts 2.42, that we're a fellowship of believers devoted to the apostles' doctrine, the breaking of bread, a fellowship and prayers. And it also appears in our statement of faith in that we believe that the church should regularly observe the communion of the Lord's table in remembrance of his broken body and shed blood as a time of introspection and personal repentance. So as we're doing these kind of preliminary services for the summer, we're covering some essential things, and certainly this is one of them. And I believe that one of the things that the Lord has laid out before us in the first year of our fellowship is to erase the pages, erase all the old pages and preconceived ideas of what a church should be and how a church should operate, and build biblical convictions. separate, rightly divide what is scriptural from what are our traditions, you know, that we have, because we all have them. Not only the churches we accuse of having traditions have traditions, but we have our own traditions. And certainly within the realm of communion, there's a lot to be that we do and say and speak about that I believe are not borne out in the scriptures, and that's what we're going to talk about here. When we're faced with this, where is our allegiance going to lie? Is it going to lie with our sword, the Word of God? And today we're looking at this very important scripture, and we're going to examine the practice of celebrating the Lord's Table, which is a practice that's been carried on for 2,000 years almost. And I would challenge each of you to allow the Lord to erase the pages with your preconceived notions of what the ordinance means and allow the scripture to build the convictions of what is communion. And the second reason it relates to unity and our fellowship is clearly communion and unity are tied. There's no practice that a church can do that more speaks of unity than the Lord's table, communion. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul talks about this, the previous chapter, he talks about the bread and the wine and he says that you are the bread, you're unity, that bread is represented. It represents your unity as a body. So as we are also very much burdened and have the feeling of the call of the Lord in our hearts to go towards koinonia, or true fellowship of believers, as it was in the first church, also we find that communion could very well be the greatest fortifier of that unity. And if we take it right, carefully, prudently, understand the power of communion, And the power that communion exerts on unity, unity in families and unity among our family, I believe we're going to be blessed with understanding of just how powerful the Lord will use communion for us here. On the other hand, the improper partaking of the Lord's table is going to be the quickest detriment to unity, as we see here in Corinth. When the Lord was with us on the earth, he gave us two ordinances, baptism and communion. Baptism he gave in the Great Commission. He said, go into all the world, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But then during the Passover meal, In the upper room, Jesus initiated communion, or the Lord's Supper. And he told the disciples to continue that ordinance in remembrance of him, as we'll be looking at in Luke chapter 22, verses 19 and 20, as we close in communion together. Paul had been faithful in establishing those ordinances in the church at Corinth. Although it says he didn't personally baptize any believers there, he certainly did affirm baptism. And by the passage here on communion, it's very clear that he's affirming the nature and importance of communion as well. So Paul is affirming these two ordinances to the Corinthian church. But what about Corinth? A little understanding about Corinth to put things in context of what's happening here. First of all, It's a church with a lot of problems, but nevertheless a church with many of God's people in it. Obviously a young church, had already been establishing methodologies by which to do things, and it fell into some bad habits. And many in the church were carnal. They had not been committed to separating from the world. Paul calls them babes. As a word of chastisement, he calls them babes. They had their eyes on the flesh. They separated, but their separation was always based on carnal means. They separated, they said, well, we're of Paul and we're of Apollos. And of course, that's a sinful way of separating. God says, separate. He says, come out from the world and touch not the unclean thing. I'll receive you to myself. But the kind of separating that they were doing was carnal in nature. They were separating based on personalities. And I would encourage each and every one, and as the congregation, Lord willing, would grow, that they would never look at Joe or Bill. And I would hope that it would never come to this case where we would never do this. but would never even be tempted to hide who's speaking. Don't say who's speaking because such and such might not show up that morning. They do. That's the carnal nature. That's Apollos and Paul and that's sin. They separated over rich and poor. As we see here, there were the hungry and then there were the ones who brought all their food to the banquet and ate all their own food and didn't even leave any for the hungry. So they separated over rich or poor. They separated over who was learned and who was simple. They had a tendency to define everything carnally. We would call it today an antinomian tendency, whereas Galatia was plagued with legalism. Corinth was plagued with the idea of let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. That kind of idea. They defended their own immorality that way. Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. And one of the things they did, as likely in many of the early churches, is they met on the first day of the week. They would share the word. They would pray. Maybe they would sing a song. And they would have fellowship over a meal. They were called love feasts or agape feasts. And traditionally, at the end of that meal, the emphasis of all those meals was, again, the fellowship, the building of unity. And at the end of the meal, they would close it with the Lord's Supper. The breaking of bread, which Luke tells us was an integral part of the early church, included in the early church a frequent remembrance of the Lord's death. Some scholars and historians even think that the early church celebrated the Lord's Supper at every meal, or at least every day, at their main meal. And people would ask us, how often should we celebrate the Lord's Supper? This question came up at our meeting on Monday. How often should we celebrate the Lord's Supper? And I would say the answer to that question is, how often do you want to be blessed? How often do you want to be blessed? So many evangelical churches today miss this, and they've replaced this clearly biblical ordinance that Messiah gave us clearly with other forms of worship. You know, I would venture to say that a modern evangelical service would never be without music, but yet they would so quickly dispense of communion with any kind of form of regularity. The supper invites us to the promises of salvation. The invitation to salvation has become a modern replacement of communion. But the Lord's Supper was meant to be the invitation. Calvin said of the Lord's Supper, he said, it's given to us as a mirror in which we may contemplate Jesus Christ crucified in order to deliver us from condemnation, in order to procure for us righteousness and eternal life. So in other words, the Lord's Supper, the culmination of the service, culminating in the Lord's Supper, is the invitation for someone who may not be saved to receive Christ as their Savior. Why create another form of invitation? And I believe the church today in prideful rebellion has spurned this decree, this ordinance of the Lord, which is so full of meaning. I was saved in a Pentecostal church. And in a Pentecostal church, we had communion one time a month. And I know why it wasn't more. It's because as good Pentecostals, you have to keep everything alive. Everything had to be alive. And anything that was associated with that Stoic tradition was kind of pushed aside. So communion, now that's good. We'll do it once a month and we'll remember him once a month. Modern evangelicalism, in an effort to remain modern, looking at communion as that old-fashioned, old thing that the old church does, we have to stay relevant. So modern evangelicalism has devalued communion to maybe quarterly, or maybe six times a year, or three times a year, or different patterns in there. We all come from a messianic congregation. Now, for all the good that we know about that, messianism has reduced communion very often, and in our background wasn't so, but in many, to one time a year only on Passover. One time a year. So I would ask again, how often should we celebrate it? And I would answer the same thing, how often do you want to be blessed? I'm not going to give you an answer, because we haven't decided that yet, but how often do we want to be blessed? So let's look at communion. Of course we know communion began, it was first started as the final Passover by Messiah, the night he was to be crucified. It's not incidental that he initiated Passover, a communion on Passover, because Passover celebrated deliverance. It celebrated deliverance of the people from the 400 years of bondage in Egypt. And they had a meal to celebrate that, that the death angel had passed over the house. And it was a sacrificial meal, because what did they do? They would take the lamb, they would kill the lamb, they would put the blood on the doorpost, and they would eat the very lamb they sacrificed. So it was a sacrificial meal. The Lord said in the book of Exodus, He said, Now this day, chapter 12, Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance. Now, it's a permanent ordinance, but it was also a foreshadow of something greater that was to come. And Jesus transformed this Passover meal into the celebration of an infinitely greater deliverance. Passover was the earthly deliverance from slavery, and of course, the communion celebrates the greater deliverance of our souls from the bondage of sin, death, and hell. And when we eat the bread and we drink the wine or the juice, we remember that this is representing not something temporal, but a spiritual and eternal redemption. We remember the high price that was paid. We remember the sacrifice that he made in purchasing and the blood that was spilled for our sin. One of the things that upset Paul, I believe, here in Corinth was that It was apparently reported to him that there were some problems in these feasts and problems in the celebration. And people were getting drunk and gorging themselves and others were going hungry. And the sin of the Church of Corinth, the Church of Corinth's sin was the sin of the Church and the Israelites, which is basically taking what is holy, what is meant to be holy, and treating it as common. They took a holy consecrated event the Lord's table and treated it as something common. And as a result, he says, you participate in this unworthily. Taking holy and making it common, that's the key that's going to run through the passages. So let's look at verse 17. Verse 17, but in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better, but for the worse. I love the manner that Paul is not afraid to say the way it is. You know, he doesn't beat around the bush. He says, you know, what you're doing isn't exactly right. There's a better way you could be doing it. I mean, I guess it's really not unbiblical, but you know, you can do it this way. You know, let me give you some advice on how to do it better. No, he doesn't. In fact, in Greek, it's even stronger. He says, I'm giving you instruction. I'm commanding you. I'm giving you a charge. That's a word there that is an order that would be given to a military commander to carry out, passed along the line to the subordinates. So he's saying here, I'm going to give you this command and I don't praise you because you're coming together not for the better but for the worse. He's making it clear, it's not personal advice, this is apostolic instruction that we're commanded to accept and to follow. He's obviously upset about the carnality that was displayed. And he says, basically, you're coming together. It's not even the Lord's Supper. Don't even say it's the Lord's Supper, because it's not. You're just basically there to feed yourself. In verses 18 and 19, he begins by discussing the first problem that he sees in this, and that's here. He says, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you. And in part, I believe it. For there must also be factions among you, in order that those who are approved may have become evident among you. So the first thing, Paul's about to give a list of why he can't praise them. The first thing on the list is that there's divisions there in your myths. In Greek, that's schismata. And schismata was used for the tearing of a garment. When a garment was torn, that word divisions. It only appears, besides the issue of the tearing of the garment, I think in the parable of the the weaving of the patch on the garment, it says it was torn. Besides there, it's only used in 1 Corinthians three times, which shows Paul's burden. He's saying, you're being torn here by this. You're being torn. And it's his primary concern for the church. And he's receiving these reports about disunity. He says, in part, I believe it. And if we read, you know what, let's look at 1 Corinthians, chapter 1. Look back to chapter 1, actually. 1 Corinthians. You see the burden of Paul on this issue of divisions, the tearing of the body. Verse 10, it says, Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree that there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each of you is saying, I am of Paul, I am of Paulus, I am of Cephas, I am of Christ. Has Christ been divided? Paul has not been crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, that no man should say that you were baptized in my name. Now I did baptize also the house of Stephanus beyond. Okay, so verse 74, Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, that the cross of Christ should be made void. Now, look over at verse chapter 3, I'll show you this again, the same issues come up. Verse 1, And I, brethren, could not speak to you as spiritual men, but as men of flesh and as babes in Christ. I give you milk to drink and not solid food, for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? So there's some divisions going on there, there's some jealousy, there's some strife, they're divided socially, they're divided based on their preferences of who they liked. They preached the same doctrines, so it was personality they liked ultimately. They had these divisions and this bothered Paul. And this certainly was a big strain from the first church. Remember in the book of Acts it said how they shared all things, had all things in common? And shared with all as anyone might need as in Acts 2.44. But here, instead of looking out for the needs of others, every person looked out only for their own concerns. They walked after the flesh, following their own will. I want you to permit me to go off on a tangent here for a few minutes because I found these verses very interesting. Verses 18 and 19, very interesting. I hear divisions among you. There must be factions among you in order for those to be approved. Paul was very well aware of the carnality, the carnal nature, he was very well aware that divisions were unavoidable under the fact that people are carnal. Until the Lord returns, there are going to be tears among the wheat, there are going to be false doctrines, there are going to be disobedient believers. So he says, there must be factions. In fact, that word must in Greek is one word. There must also be, that whole phrase is one word. It's the word dei, D-E-I in Greek, or the equivalent of D-E-I. And it means it is necessary, it must be. It denotes that there's a necessity or a compulsion. There needs to be this divisions among you. Word flesh, these factions. In Greek, the word heresies. It's the same word in English, heresy. But in English, the word heresy, we tend to take it as only relating to false doctrine. That's what it's become in English when I think of the word heresy. But in Greek, actually, it means far more than that. It's a very general word that means a choice. And according to Galatians 5.20, it says heresies are a work of the flesh. So a heresy, according to a biblical understanding of the word, is a choice. It's a different idea that someone introduces based on the flesh as opposed to the spirit. A heretic doesn't come into the church and say, I'm going to divide the church. A heretic comes in with ideas. Ideas. Doesn't intentionally initially seek to divide, but introduces an idea, a fleshly motivated idea, that gives the people a choice to believe something else, and then obviously unbiblical. And heresy, when it's accepted by a congregation or a group of people, will practically lead to schismata, division. There are two different words he's using here. Heresy leads to division. Hall knows, again, that there's no option. That's the nature of sinful man. Carnality will produce heresies. There's no question about it. They're evil. But the ironic thing is that the scripture here says God allows them and uses them to test and try and prove who in the midst is approved. See? For there must also be factions among you in order that those who are approved may become evident among you. So we can expect, as a young congregation, that God will, as we grow and as we move on in years, that God will continually allow heresies in our midst, in order to prove us, in order to prune us, in order that we would be a congregation that would be instant, in season and out of season, always ready to give an account for the hope that we have within us, that we would be workmen approved unto God, that we would rightly divide the Word. And how we biblically refute these carnal ideas, these heresies that would creep in, is the manner in which God will demonstrate to us who is proved, who is approved in our myths. Because obviously, we're not, the three of us are not standing here as elders and saying we're going to be the only three elders forever and ever. We hope that the Lord will continually add, continually add as we grow, that he will raise up others to be in those positions, in that position along with us. But how are they going to be proved to us? By the manner in which they deal with doctrine, by the manner in which they deal with heresies. How can we answer these heresies that would be introduced? Paul spoke to the Thessalonians of the Docomos, 1 Thessalonians 2.4. The Docomos were those approved by God. He said there are those among you, the Docomos among you, the ones who are approved by him, those he entrusted with the gospel. And in Corinth, he says to the Corinthians, and he says to us today, in the midst of all your arguing, in the midst of all your heresies, in the midst of all these divisions, I'm doing a work. I'm separating the pure gold from the dross. I'm separating what's approved from all the false junk that's out there. And while the factions are a necessary part, it doesn't follow that we always must allow them. When they're identified, then, if they're left unchallenged, if a heresy is left unchallenged, it ultimately will divide a church, no question about it. But the scripture says, if you leave it alone, you can't leave it alone, it says, reject a factious man after first and second warning. Paul wrote to Titus, knowing that such a man is perverted and sinning and being self-condemned. So, by the very fact that a man is factious or divisive, proves his carnality, says to the church, give him a chance, but if he doesn't repent, separate. They're unfit for Christian fellowship if there's not repentance there. So it's necessary that factions appear, but it's not necessary that they divide. Do you understand the distinction there? It's necessary that the faction be there, but it not be necessary, if it's dealt with properly, it not be necessary to divide. Does everyone understand the distinction between those two words in that passage? Division, faction. Okay. You know it doesn't come out when you just look at it in English. You could gloss by that whole thing. You think he's talking about the same thing there. Okay. Verse 20. And this is what Paul's up against here. And that's why he says in verse 20, therefore when you meet together, it's not to eat the Lord's Supper. He's basically saying, who are you fooling? You may be eating meals together, but it's not the Lord's Supper. You know, it's an agape feast with no agape. Christ is no part of it. It's just you getting together. Verse 21, it says, for in your eating, each one takes for his own first. And one is hungry, another is drunk. What? Don't you have houses in which you can eat and drink? Or do you despise the Church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you." Now, this is not saying that it's wrong to go to someone's house and have a fellowship and eat and drink at that fellowship. But, if that is the reason of our gathering, then it's carnal and it's fleshly. And then he would say to us, what? Don't you have houses? And you can almost see how upset he is. Don't you people have homes? Come on here. So the focal point here is the Lord's Supper. And this is the first time, by the way, in scripture that we see it called the Lord's Supper. It was the evening meal. The fact that it's called the Lord's Supper. Supper there is just the word for evening meal. And the fact that it's called the Lord's indicates that it's his. His ownership over that meal. The Lord's Supper. His lordship or his ownership of that supper. And it was to be a genuine meal that the congregants congregated. They ate. Again, the love feast. They would come into it reverence. But in Corinth, obviously, the divine purpose of what God wanted to do was being destroyed. In fact, it was not communion at all, and that's why he said it's not the Lord's Supper. They couldn't honestly say they were devoting their time to the Lord because all they were looking at were themselves and filling their own needs. They had in a sense a ceremony, they went through the actions, but there was no substance, no reality. A ceremony with no reality. Okay? It's not only the church traditions that have that, but it was basically just coming, nothing real, no heart behind it. The form without the substance. They got together, they called it an agape feast, but there was no substance to it. The whole thing became a mockery. The very purpose of the occasion, which was to bring unity, was bringing worse division in their midst. It was all a mockery. And we as believers, our attitude, our motives, when we come to the Lord's table, our attitude and motives need to be pure at all times. There's no question. We always, as believers. Of course, that's not always the case, and will not be 100% of the case in our lives. But when we approach the Lord's table, it's necessary to examine our heart, to examine our motives. And if there's any bitterness, or if there's any prejudice, or if there's any pride, or any feelings of superiority, Of all places, it doesn't have place at the Lord's table. It doesn't have place anywhere in our lives, but of all places, not at the Lord's table. Verse 23-26, we see the real reason for communion. Why is it that the Lord instituted communion? For I received this, verse 23, I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was to be betrayed took bread, and he had given thanks and he broke it and he 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. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's debt till he comes." Now it's interesting the phrasing here, the manner in which Paul writes this. If you look at the four gospel accounts, it's most closely related to Luke. which is interesting because Paul and Luke had a missionary relationship. Now, Paul said, I got this from the Lord, but I'm sure he got the details also from Luke, because Luke was very detailed. When you read the four accounts and then look at Paul's account, very much, very close to Luke's account. The wording is almost identical. Communion here is first and foremost a sign of the covenant. We talked about how Messiah chose the Passover meal to institute it. And he says, as often as you do this, do it in remembrance of me. Do what? Well, the Passover meal, the third, particularly, two elements of the Passover meal, after the meal was finished, he would take the third cup, which was the cup of redemption, and also the afikomen, which was the broken bread, and that's what he distributed to his disciples. So an understanding of communion is part of that. But what he did in essence was create a whole new ordinance. Because it was Passover, and this is where some of the Messianic congregations get it wrong. They say, communion once a year. Jesus said as often as you do it. He was talking about the Passover. And this is where they get it wrong. Passover was a sacrificial meal, remember? They slayed the lamb, that was the sacrifice, that's what they ate. It was a sacrificial meal. They ate the object of the sacrifice. Messiah didn't take the lamb and raise it and say, this is my body. He purposely waited till after the meal, the sacrificial meal was over, and then took the symbols, took two symbols, the bread, which represented his body, and the wine, which represented his blood. He knew that that night there would be no more sacrificial meal. There would be no need for a sacrificial meal because he was a sacrifice. He knew that from that, that was the very last legitimate Passover that they could celebrate. And he knew that because he knew that the next night he was going to be offered up. So rather than pointing back, he pointed ahead. He looked ahead. Passover looks back. But communion looks ahead. So he looked ahead to what the church would then do in remembrance of him. The final one-time atonement that was already accomplished. That's what we're celebrating. Of course, like anything of importance, if there is something important in the Scripture, we can be sure the church is going to get its hands on it and do something with it that's not good, that's not pleasing to God. And that's what's happened to communion. The church has perverted it. Very quickly, I might add, it was not long. Probably by the third century things started, maybe even earlier than that, things started to go off. It became ritualized. What happened, a little bit of the evolution of this, first of all, people began to bring gifts to the supper. The gifts were blessed by the elders. I think we can learn lessons from even the process that we don't fall into the same mistakes here. They were blessed by the elders. Gifts soon became seen as offerings. And the elders, because these were considered offerings, the elders soon became priests. Because why? They were blessing the offerings. People came, they brought the bread. Someone brought the bread. The most important people were the ones who brought the bread or brought the wine. The elders blessed it. Sounds fine so far, but it evolved into offerings, blessings, and suddenly a priesthood was developed. And then it took back... It slowly took back its sacrificial quality. It went backwards. Jesus stopped it, said, no more sacrifice, and we took it, the church took it, and went back. It became a sacrificial meal again. By the third century, the Lord's table evolved into an altar of sacrifice, which again is a giant step backwards to the Old Covenant. The church, the established church, set up a mass, which according to their catechism, and this is a quote, it's a sacrifice of atonement that produces remission of sins, not the cross. the bread and wine, a sacrifice of atonement that produced the remission of sins. And the Catholic Church to this day holds that the Lord's Supper is not only a sacrament, but a sacrifice. They call it, and this is another quote from somewhere in their writings, the unbloody renewal of the sacrifice of the cross. And they call it the sacrifice of the mass. And it's considered to have perpetuatory value. In other words, when that priest holds up that Eucharist and says Corpus Christi, which oddly enough is where we get the term Hocus Pocus from, and he breaks it and says Corpus Christi, that that literally transubstantiates into the body of Christ. It's called transubstantiation. The bread is transformed. So if that's the body of Christ, then we need to worship it. It becomes idolatry. We put it in a little golden display case and we offer prayers and we offer incense to it. Despite the warning of Paul, the Apostle Paul, that such things are signs and seals, the church made them into ceremonies by which people would be saved, and it continues to this day. And if you turn to Hebrews 10, I just want to show you. Just flies in the face of scripture, the one time sacrifice that was finished. And for thousands of years, Christians were martyred. Christians have been martyred because they refused to accept the elements as sacrificial, because they understood Hebrews chapter 10. For the law, since it had only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices year by year which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to offer it, because worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins, year after year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when he comes into the world, he says, Sacrifice an offering thou hast not desired, but a body thou hast prepared for me. In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou takest no pleasure Then I said, Behold, I have come, in the roll of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. After saying above sacrifices and offerings, and the whole burnt offering, and sacrifices for sin, thou hast not desired, nor hast thou taken pleasure in them, which he offered according to the law. Then he said, Behold, I have come to do thy will. He takes away the first in order to establish the second. For He, having been offered one sacrifice for the sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from this time onward until His enemies be made a footstool under His feet." That's where He is. We have no right to take Him down from the right hand of God and put Him on the cross day after day after day, and that's exactly what that is doing, what that church is doing. Let's fast forward a little bit in history now. The argument against that, they always go back to John chapter 6. Jesus said, eat my flesh, drink my blood. You have to eat my flesh and drink my blood to be part of me. Well, if you look at John 6.63, it gives the answer to that. He says it outright, he says, the flesh profits nothing. The words I speak to you are spirit and are life. He gives the answer. After all that they didn't understand, he gives the answer. The flesh profits nothing. So if we think we're going to do something by making that bread into flesh, we're going against his very words. The words he spoke are spirit and are life. Fast forward in history, Luther. And Luther steps forward with the cry of faith alone, and he nails his 95 ideas. Doesn't fully address transubstantiation, however. Instead, he develops some kind of a compromise, which Lutherans hold to today. They don't believe the substance of the bread and wine transfer into the body of Christ. They say the corporal, the literal corporal body and blood of Christ are linked to the elements. So we have this piece of matzah, we hold it up and we bless it. It doesn't become, it stays matzah, but the very real body of Christ is linked to it. This is called consubstantiation. Just as much false teaching as transubstantiation. The body is added. The blood is added to the elements as opposed to being changed into. And of course, again, that's no compromise at all. It's as unbiblical. A couple of observations. In 1 Corinthians 11.25, Paul said, he took the cup and after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Now I don't think anyone, anyone would say, even though it says the New Covenant, that this cup is the New Covenant. You can go to a Catholic scholar or a Lutheran scholar or anyone, no one's going to argue that the Covenant is literally the cup. But it says the cup is the New Covenant. See, using their own argument, you can show them how there is inconsistency in their arguments. They're saying that this is the body, okay? Well, this is the New Covenant. The New Covenant, anyone knows the New Covenant is God's commitment to save those who trust in Him. That's the New Covenant. Not a cup, not grape juice, that's not the Covenant. Also, I was thinking about it, and Jesus told his disciples, he lifted that first cup of the Passover meal, and he says, I'm not going to drink this with you again, drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God has come. In other words, his presence, his physical presence, will not be with us when we celebrate this meal again. Until when? The kingdom of God. He said, I'm not going to do this with you physically in this kingdom until the next kingdom in this life, until the next kingdom. So why is it that we have to have this corporal presence of Christ in our midst? He says it right there. There will be a time when He'll be with us. It'll be in the kingdom. Now, church history, as it often does, goes through a pendulum. So, the opposite extreme. Contemporaries of Luther debated with him over communion, and some reduced communion to simple, it's a mere symbol. It is a symbol, but a mere symbol with absolutely no power. Now, we would say that there's absolutely no power in those symbols in and of themselves. But, however, If there was no power in what we're about to partake in, then why 1 Corinthians 11, 26, which is where we're at? Think of that question. If there's no power in what we're about to participate in, Verse 26, For as often as you eat the bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. Therefore, whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink the cup. For he who drinks and eats drinks judgment to himself, but he doesn't judge the body rightly. For this reason, many among you are weak and sick and a number sleep. That is powerful. That's not an empty sign. That is a powerful sign. And when I had the brief opportunity to share along these lines previously, I tried to caution people. Communion is a powerful stop sign. I call it a stop sign. And if we ignore, if the church ignores the stop sign and enters into it flippantly, We're missing it. And this is the very proof of that here, in these verses. It's not a neutral event. It's not something that we can just come into with a cavalier, flippant, play church kind of atmosphere. We're coming to the table of Jesus Christ. We're coming into his true presence, not physical, but spiritual. And if we come with a haughty spirit, or if we come with unbelief, or if we come hypocritically, then we're tramping on holy ground, and we're eating and drinking to our own judgment. And that's serious business. That's a serious stop sign. Corinth. They came for their own selfish reasons. They wanted to eat. But I would never do that, Joe. Of course. I mean, it's a little thing. I'm not going to come to eat. The principle still applies very clearly. During the time of examination, I would ask each of us, before we participate, to examine yourself in this light. How do we use the table for our own selfish motives? Well, one is to manipulate others. Oh, look at me, I'm taking communion today, I must be worthy. Or, on the other side, oh, look at me, I'm not taking communion today, I really know how to examine myself good, unlike. Or, I can't believe you're taking communion with what I know about you? That is sin. No two ways about it. And we're guilty of the body and blood of Christ if we're bringing our own motives. If we're going to the table with our own fleshly motives. Selfish purposes. If we do this, we're no different than Corinth. If it's just a ritual, if it's just some empty sign, a naked sign, no big deal, it'll all come, it doesn't matter. Everyone, just go ahead. But we believe it to be real and that He is here in a special way to condescend to us, to assist us, to refine us, to help us to grow in Him. That we're truly fellowshipping with Him in a very real way, the way 1 Corinthians 10 describes it. That when you're partaking, you're communing with Him. And this has been the traditional reformed view of the Lord's Supper for hundreds of years. That there's no corporal presence in the elements, but a very real spiritual presence of Christ. 1 Corinthians 10 verse 16 says, Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread in which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? That word sharing there is fellowshipping. That we believe in his very real presence in our midst when we partake in this. What was the manifestation of God in the Old Testament in the temple? When God manifested himself. The Shekinah glory, right, between the wings of the cherubim, the Shekinah glory. Well, this is our Shekinah glory in the New Testament. This is God's manifest presence. God was not the fire, but He was present in the fire, revealed Himself in that way. In the same way, the Lord's table is His manifest presence in our midst. Not physical, but spiritual. but very real nevertheless. Communion is also a powerful preacher. It says it proclaims the gospel. It says it, as many times as you do this, you're proclaiming. It proclaims the gospel. How? It restates our salvation. It states how we're anticipating His return. It summarizes the gospel in one event. The gospel of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ in one event. It's a symbol of His death. It's saying in His death we live. Our substance, what we take in, His death, we live through that. It attests to the reality that He's our nourishment, that He's our life. It proves the reality of John chapter 6, where He says, My flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed. It's a demonstration of that, that He is our nourishment. The Lord's Table is a ceiling in our lives. Seals in our lives. Remember I said it's a sign and a seal. Seals in our lives. That we're completely nourished on Him. That we need nothing else. And again, today in our evangelical realms, we've relegated it to places where it's just not important anymore. And replaced it with other things. And I believe a large part of it is just because we don't study this, we don't look into the importance of these things. And these verses here, this is half a chapter of scripture devoted to the importance of this ordinance. The very last thing that Jesus did with the disciples was do this, celebrate this, before the prayer in the garden. And we can't do it in remembrance of him once a year or three times a year. I believe there's no frequency that's, you know, the argument is, so you know, the argument of not doing it more often is, well, it's going to become ritual. If we do it every week or if we do it every day or whatever, it's going to become a ritual. It can become a ritual without doing it. You can have it once a year and it can be a ritual. Ritual is a matter of the heart. There's no frequency too little or too much whereby something becomes a ritual. A ritual is a ritual because people are going through it without understanding. That's what makes it a ritual. Once a year, every day, if you go through it without understanding, then it's a ritual. We need to understand. Communion is very much worship. And as scripture says, to worship the Lord with understanding. So I believe to fully understand communion, we need to understand worship. And this is my last point before the last point, I think. We need to understand communion as worship to fully understand communion. And again, let's erase some pages in our minds. Worship, what is it? The 20 minutes or 30 minutes that we do on a Sunday morning before service. No, that's not worship. That may be congregational worship, But worship needs to be our lives. If we fall into the habit of equating worship with something we do when we meet together, we're missing the radical point of the New Testament that says everything, you do everything to the glory of God. And that we miss the whole element of the matter of spirit and truth. Worship me in spirit and truth. If we can only worship God when we're together, And we have a couple of guitars. We're missing that whole thing. The ones who worship me will no longer worship me on that mount, will no longer worship me at the Lassardo house, or at the DeSando house, or at the Olinsky house. But they will worship me in spirit and in truth. And part of the reason we enter into communion so flippantly is that we don't realize the week that is part of our daily lives, day after day after day. And if we don't practice the presence of Christ daily, and we just come to the table, and we're going to think that we're going to be in His presence then, it's all ritual. I'm just doing it because the next guy next to me is doing it. I don't really know what I'm doing. That's ritual. We don't know how to respond. And that's how it becomes common. And that's how it became ritual in the churches as well. If we understand it as an act of true worship, that we're about to dine at the table of the precious Lord, that He gives us an opportunity in this to express His worth, and that's what worship is, it's from an old English word, worth-ship, which means to express worthiness to someone greater than ourselves. God created life as worship. Whatever you eat, whatever you drink, do all to the glory of God, 1 Corinthians 10. Do everything. as your expression of your treasure to God. So the question for us is this, and I think this is on your notes. If the Lord's Supper is worship, how does it express our inner treasuring of Christ's beauty and worth to us? Let me just say this first. The Lord's Supper is never called worship in the New Testament. Then again, neither is the gathering of the believers called worship either. But it clearly is worship. Clearly. How? Well, it has all the aspects of worship. Worship is two things. Remembering God and proclaiming. That's what worship is. First, Christ gave us the Lord's Supper to help keep in memory. We're remembering Him. That's worship. Because if we have an authentic heart in this, if our heart is right, Why are we remembering him? We're remembering him because he's the most valuable person in the universe. And we're remembering that particularly this one event, his death, was the most important thing as far as our future lives is concerned. The most important event in history, in this one thing. Second, the Lord's Supper expresses the value of Christ because we proclaim it. What we remember, we can't proclaim something if we don't remember it. So we stop, we remember it, and then we proclaim it to one another by each other partaking in it. So we stop and remember. But it's interesting because the remembering gets us to proclaim, but also as we proclaim to one another, it brings it back to our memories. And that's what worship is. Worship isn't just standing up there and singing, having your words bounce up off the wall. That's what worship is. Remembering Him, our hearts, our minds are on Him. And then as we sing to one another, I don't know how long we'll have to be able to meet in a circle like this, but one of the blessings of meeting in a circle is that as we worship, we're proclaiming to one another. Not just to the back of someone's head. But we're proclaiming to one another, that's what worship is. And so the Lord's Supper is worship. If we're saying, this death is so valuable, not only do I need to remember it, but I need to proclaim it. Because that which we cherish, we proclaim. If we really cherish something, you can't hold it in. So as we partake today, remember the Lord's death. When you hold up those beautiful symbols, the matzah, and the grape juice. Remember the Matzahs without leaven? It reminds us of His sinless body. It reminds us of His holiness. It's a mirror whereby we see ourselves, because when we look into His holiness, when we compare ourselves to Him, we feel like David, our sin, is ever before us, and we're ashamed. And I want to deal with worthiness as the last point. Because if everything I've said up to this point is real in your heart, and you really want to worship God through communion, and here's this blaring scripture saying, boy, I can't do this, Lord, if I'm not worthy. So everything in our heart right now should be crying out and saying, Lord, how can I be worthy to do this wonderful thing that you want me to do, to worship you in this communion? What makes me worthy? And that brings us to the final verses, 31 and 32. But if we judge ourselves rightly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world. Now, I thought Bill did a wonderful teaching a few weeks ago on, if you're confused, about judgment and chastisement. wrath, and punishment for the world, and the discipline for his children. Listen to that teaching on Hebrews 12 again, because God disciplines his children. He doesn't discipline the world. And if this word says we're going to be disciplined by the Lord here, it's for disciples. There's the argument that people say the ones who are not worthy are unbelievers. The ones who this scripture is referring to, that's the unsaved. Believers are worthy because believers are made worthy in Christ. I'm just giving you the argument here. After all, we all sin. So therefore, since we all sin, we all can't take communion unworthily. And in fact, I believe this might be the tradition in the Jehovah's Witness that they all pass over the communion because they all consider themselves unworthy except for maybe one or two in their midst. And they pass it over because in that case they're right. They are unworthy. They're not saved. But the point of it is that we often look at it the same way. So we say that it has to apply to unbelievers. It doesn't. Now, definitely the unregenerate should not participate in communion. They can't. Because communion means fellowship. It's impossible. I mean, they may go through the actions. But I would argue with you, they can go through the actions as unsaved individuals. They're not going to be judged. They're not going to be disciplined. Because God disciplines his children. And this table is for his children. This is the bread for his children. This is for believers, and we need to take this warning on worthiness very, very seriously. In Isaiah 66 it says, he'll look upon in favor the one who trembles at his word. This is one of those words that we need to tremble at. Any true believer who's going to take this seriously, who's going to take anything seriously, needs to take this seriously. should cause us to want to know, okay, how, Lord, do I need to do something? Do I need to pray something? How can I be worthy to participate in this holy act of worship because I want to do it. I don't want to pass it over. The key is in this examining yourself. Examine yourself. Examine ourselves. The word examine in Greek is a beautiful word because it's reserved for believers, never used of unbelievers. It's two things. It means not only to test, but it also means to approve. Test and approve. See? It's one word that does both. So in examining ourselves, we're not only testing ourselves, but we're approving ourselves. We're allowing God to approve us. Some have been taught that self-examination is based on merit. That we have to merit the presence of Christ. Therefore, we better abstain from communion. And the Catholic Church believes this. That's why they have a mass that leads up to communion. Because they believe that the hearing of the mass makes one worthy for the elements to participate in the elements. It's a good work. But we know that grace earned is no grace at all. It's not necessary to bring anything. When you come to the Lord's table, you don't bring anything to the table. You don't bring any of your own good works. In fact, if you think you're going to merit the table by your good works, then you disqualify from the table. So, well, wait a minute. I don't understand this. Worthy, unworthy. What do we do here? The idea, again, is in this word, hidden in this word. I want to show you, and then show you the scripture that absolutely lays it to rest. And there's been a lot of bad exegesis on this verse. And many very well-meaning souls have abstained from observing communion because of not understanding these verses. Again, communion, sitting before the Lord's presence, is going to remind us of our own misery, but it's also going to remind us of what? Our hunger and our thirst for God's grace. Not unlike the beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs are the kingdom of God. The one who is poor in spirit, the one who recognizes his own depravity, the one who recognizes his own inability to come to Christ or even respond to Christ, that's the one that ultimately is the one who will inherit the kingdom of God. It's recognizing our own unworthiness that puts us in the state of humility whereby we can sup with Christ at his table. Let me read you this quote from Calvin on communion. He says, therefore, although, listen carefully, if you've ever felt, and I think everyone in this room at one point or another has felt unworthy to participate in communion or has abstained from communion. Listen to this quote and then we'll bring it down. I'll give you the Greek word and then I'll show you the scripture that proves it first of all. Therefore, although we feel our faith to be imperfect and our conscience not so pure, that it does not accuse us of many vices, that ought not to hinder us from presenting ourselves at the Lord's holy table, provided that amid the infirmity, we feel in our heart that without hypocrisy, we can hope for salvation in Christ and desire to live according to the rule of the gospel. Okay, let's back that up. That's the words of men here. Now let's back that up. First of all, the Greek word for examine is dokimazo. And again, it's examining and approving. It's one event. So if you're truly unhypocritically examining yourself, you are then approved. You understand that? By truly examining yourself, because if you truly examine yourself, you're going to be convicted and you're going to repent, right? So, by examining yourself, you're approving yourself. You're being approved. I don't want to say you're approving yourself. I take that back. I said it twice. You're being approved. The Corinthian church, if they would have just stopped and examined themselves, it never would have happened what happened. It's just that process. That's why each week we want to have the opportunity to stop and examine ourselves before the Lord. Now you say, I don't know Greek, how do I know you're right? Well, look at 1 Corinthians 11.28, don't have to know Greek, this says it right in English. 1 Corinthians 11.28, But let a man prove himself, or examine himself, and so let him eat the bread and drink the cup. Let him examine himself and sow." In other words, in the manner of examining yourself, once you've examined yourself, sow, eat and drink. It doesn't say let a man examine himself and if he finds himself worthy, then eat and drink. Examine yourself and sow. There's three imperatives here, three commands. Examine, eat and drink. And that's what we're required to do here at the Lord's table. Examine, eat and drink. And listen, if there is a... Scripture says whatever is not of faith is sin, and if there's a legitimate reason to cause you to hinder, to delay from partaking of communion, and you need to, then by all means abstain, but don't rest satisfied week after week after week not participating in this act of worship that God commands us. This is a command of Christ. Take and eat. and drink. This is the blood of the covenant. This is His command. And by not doing it, by not partaking of it often, or by partaking of it flippantly, without examination, or by partaking of it with carnal motives, we're actually spurning Christ's command here. So rather than depriving yourself week after week, fight every impediment. Fight the devil's lies that would say, oh, you can't examine yourself. Or fight the temptation to examine the person sitting next to you. Fight the pride that would keep you from repenting during this time. Because the only reason, really, that we shouldn't partake, threefold. One is, if you say, if your attitude is flipping, I'm as good as the next guy, I'm good to go, you know. Grace covers everything, so therefore, I could just eat it. No, no, nothing there. No examination. Or I don't really need to examine. Well, my examination is, I'm as good as the guy sitting next to me. That's one. Number two, another reason why, if you know your sin, and you're unwilling to repent of them, and you want to hold on to them. best not to partake. Or number three, you refuse to examine yourself to start with because that's the prerequisite to partaking. Examine and so eat and drink. So that's our challenge here for us as a congregation, is will we examine ourselves? Will we, when given the opportunity, repent? Will we confess our sins to one another? Will we repent of divisions that exist among us? When we go to our brother or sister in the assembly who's holding something against us, or who we're holding something against, and confess that to them before partaking in communion. You see how I said at the beginning how communion could be the greatest detriment or the greatest enhancement of unity? Because if it's done right, It's going to do nothing but build the body of Christ. If it's done with examination and hearts that are open. And that's my challenge. As we hold up the matzah and we see the stripes and we see the piercing, we remember that it was for our sins He was pierced. It was for our sins that put Him on the cross. And that makes us very vulnerable and that makes us stand naked before Him. But as we hold up the bread, It's a physical reminder that the Lord that paid the price for that sin is right there. It's right there. And where sin abounds, grace all the more abounds. What an honor it is and what a blessing it is to sup at the table of the Lord. God is so good to us, and we're blessed. We feel like David. Blessed is the man whom the Lord does not impute iniquity. Every time we partake of that communion, it's an opportunity to praise God, that He does not impute iniquity to us. And when Jesus said, this is my body, it's given for you, He meant for you. And you take that personally as we do that. Ask Him to show you the unbelievable, gracious sacrifice that was made. He became a man for you. He suffered for you. He was subject to mockery and hatred and crucifixion for you. That's love. That is an awesome love. A love that we can't even begin to fathom. And that's why we'll do it often. I don't know if every week. Maybe. But we'll do it often. so that all the blessings that flow from remembering His death will always and continually be fresh in our memory. As the showbread in the temple was changed every week, it was a reminder of that. Until the day that He comes and we'll eat with Him physically again, until that time, we'll do it in remembrance of Him. Amen.