We need the Lord to be the Lord of our hearts and to be the Lord over his church and to shape us and to keep us and to shepherd us until we see him face to face. And one of the ways he does that, one of the ways he's pleased to do that is through his sacraments. We observe two sacraments of the Lord commanded in scripture. That is the Lord's prayer and communion. Sorry, what am I saying? Distracted by too many things that is baptism and the Lord's Supper When the pastor makes no sense whatsoever pay no attention Okay, so we have served two sacraments that are commanded by our Lord in scripture, and those are baptism and the Lord's Supper. Baptism is the one-time sacrament that brings us into the household of faith, into the people of God, to be named by the name of God, to be called by his grace, to follow after him. And then the Lord's Supper is the regular ongoing as often as you eat and drink remembrance and proclamation of the Lord and the feasting upon Christ and all of his benefits. So today we're going to focus our attention on the Lord's Supper. It's strange for me that we're doing this as we're in this virtual environment because of all the things that we do as a church, the Lord's Supper is a reminder to us of the goodness and necessity of the incarnation and of our call to physical communion with one another and to participation in Christ as one body. And so it is strange for me to be preaching this sermon in this virtual environment when we're physically disconnected from one another. But I'm thankful for the technology that allows us to gather together virtually. But I'm really looking forward to two weeks from now when we will be able to share in the Lord's Supper together. Lord willing, please, may we be able to share in the Lord's Supper together in two weeks at the Deer Creek Overlook 4-H Camp and to be able to share together as the body of Christ in this wonderful sacrament, this wonderful ordinance, this wonderful means of grace that we're going to be learning about today. So with that introduction, let's go to the text, 1 Corinthians chapter 11. And we'll see that it divides into three parts. The first part is the problems that existed at Corinth with their celebration of the Lord's Supper. The second part is the true meaning and significance of the Lord's Supper. And then the third part is the correction. How do we correct our approach to the Lord's Supper? So the problems, the meaning, and the correction. Let's hear from God's Word. 1 Corinthians 11, verses 17-34. But in the following instructions, I do not commend you. Because when you come together, it is not for the better, but for the worse. For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you, in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What? Do you have no houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the Church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when 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 also he took the cup 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 death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined, so that we may not be condemned along with the world. So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that when you come together, it will not be for judgment. About the other things, I will give directions when I come." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would indeed take your word which is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, that you would take your word, which is truth, the words of life, and that you would write it on our hearts. For we need to hear from you, O God. We don't need to hear the opinions of men. We need to hear the Word of God. We all need to hear from you, Father. So would you please speak to us through your word, by your spirit? Would you please write your word on our hearts? Would you please make it clear to our understanding and convict our hearts where we need to change and conform us to the likeness of Christ, our savior and our righteousness. It's in his name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, there are good things. that can actually become bad things if they are used badly. How is that possible? Well, there are actually things that God has ordained and established in his word that are to be for our good, that are to be for the building up of his church, for the glory of his name, for the blessing of his people, that can actually be turned into such a condition that they are no longer doing good, but they are actually doing harm, and it would be better to stop doing them altogether. How is that possible? On the surface of it, that seems impossible, doesn't it? On the surface of it, that seems as impossible as trying to knock someone out with a feather, or as impossible as trying to find someone in the world who doesn't like Baby Yoda. Someone with a soul, that is, who doesn't like baby Yoda. But it's not impossible. Sadly, our sin, our own corruption of our hearts, makes it actually almost the opposite. It's hard to find anything that God has given us for our good, for the blessing of his church, for the glory of his name, for the furtherance of his kingdom. It's hard to find anything good that we have not corrupted into something that is a gross distortion of what it was supposed to be. Let's look at a few examples. What's the first thing that God gave to man, to Adam and Eve, male and female? What's the first thing he gave them to be a blessing to them and to be for the glory of his name and for the spread of his kingdom in the world? Marriage. Marriage and childbearing. What have we done with that over the years? Not such a good track record, is it? Abuse, abandonment, adultery, neglect, lack of love, self-centeredness. I mean, you guys know. You know the track record of human beings when it comes to marriage and childbearing. And so that's not that surprising. But that's a, you know, that's a creational ordinance. And we know the whole creation has fallen. and is under the curse of God, so maybe we should look at some redemptive things. Can we take even redemptive things and corrupt them? I wish we couldn't, but we can. Take the gospel, for example. Is there anything more redemptive than the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ? Well, sadly, we've corrupted that, too. What have we done with the gospel? Well, we've brought in substitute gospels. We've talked about how Jesus saves us, but we've made it the prosperity gospel, so that Jesus saving us means we're going to be healthy and wealthy. We're going to be prosperous and happy all the time. You can have your best life now, right? Or we have replaced it with the gospel of self-esteem. Jesus came to save us, which means to make you feel good about yourself, because if you have high self-esteem, you'll be very productive. or the gospel of psychological fulfillment. Jesus came to save you, which means that you're going to have a fulfilled life. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, and we interpret that not as saving us from our sin and reconciling us to himself, but that we can be fulfilled. We can feel that we've self-actualized on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Or there's the political gospel, that Jesus came to save you, and that means he's come to establish a revolutionary socio-political institution of sort of a Christian Marxism. That's the gospel preached by liberation theology. And I could go on and on. Sadly, there's a dozen or more different false Gospels that I could just rattle off the top of my head. Ways that we've perverted the good news that Jesus saves, and we've made it into something that Jesus never came to do. What about the preaching of God's Word? There surely is something that we can't mess up. It's God's Word. We open the Bible, we preach His Word, right? Oh, if only. If only. You know, even on my best days, when I'm most conscientious, I'm aware of flaws in my preaching, things that I get wrong, ways that I fall short. Sometimes after worship, someone will ask me a question about the sermon, and I'll be able to know by the question they ask that I did not clearly communicate the main point of the passage. These past two weeks have been hard, by the way, the passages we've been in. And so... You know, sometimes I swing and miss. And I'm trying. I really am trying to be faithful to God's Word by His grace. And there are many who don't even seem to be trying. They just get up to preach whatever. Right? It'd be better for them not to speak at all if they're not going to speak the words of God. What about baptism? What about the sacraments? Baptism? Surely? Well, unfortunately, the Roman Catholic Church has deceived about a billion people into thinking that just the physical act of baptizing an infant will spare that child from hell forever. and will seal them for God's kingdom. And that's not true. And there are others who teach that baptism is necessary for salvation. You cannot be saved unless you're baptized. Or that God saves you in the moment of baptism in the waters of baptism. All those things are such a distortion of what baptism is that it would be better to stop baptizing altogether than to teach those things. And so we come now to one last example. Aren't these so much fun? Isn't this such a great encouraging message on the Sunday before Thanksgiving? I mean, come on, couldn't we have a message about Squanto and the pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving? Well, this is the text we have in front of us. And I promise you, if you hold on, we're going someplace very, very good together because God's word is always good as it points us to Christ. But we need to see the problems before we can see the solutions. So what's the problem with the Lord's Supper? Well, in Corinth, they had problems with the Lord's Supper. And today we have problems with the Lord's Supper that are different, of course. They're not exactly the same. But the problems in Corinth with the Lord's Supper was a hot mess. I don't know how else to say it. It was a hot mess. Let's go back and look at that text together again, and we'll see what was happening. When you come together as a church, first of all, Paul says, it is not for the better, but for the worse. So that very act that was supposed to build the church up, to edify, to improve the church, was actually tearing it down and tearing it apart. So it was so bad that when they came together, it was not for the better, but for the worse. He says, for in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And the word he uses there is schisma. There are schisms among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you. And the word he uses there is actually the word that we have for heresies. There must be factions, heresies among you, in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What? Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not." It's a pretty strong word. It's a pretty strong condemnation of what was happening in Corinth. And it's pretty clear what was happening. First of all, the Lord's Supper in the early church was obviously celebrated as part of a fellowship meal. So they would actually have a full meal together and then as part of that meal they would observe the Lord's Supper, the bread and the wine, the body and the blood of Christ. But this church had really messed things up. And it was because, if you follow the logic of it, it was because of the the presence of schisms and heresies that the church had messed it up. The church had gotten things so bad because they were divided, right? They were divided from each other into factions. Remember the factions from the early part of 1 Corinthians? I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas, right? Those are schisms. Those are divisions within the church, right? And those were apparently even being reflected in how people were taking the Lord's Supper. So over at this table or around this bit of meal would be the I follow Paul crowd. And over on this part around this would be the I follow Cephas crowd. And over here would be the I follow Apollo's crowd. And over here the truly spiritual ones, maybe they were the genuine ones, were the I follow Christ crowd. Now, Paul says there need to be these factions, these heresies, so that the genuine may be recognized. Now, I think he's being sarcastic. I think he's so frustrated with them and angry with them. This is one of the clear passages in Paul where he's angry. Like, he says, what? Don't you have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the Church of Christ? Do you humiliate those who have nothing? That's very righteous indignation language. And so I think this is dripping with sarcasm when he says, there must be factions among you. Because imagine apostles saying, there must be heresies among you. That seems very odd, right? There must be factions among you so that those who are genuine may be recognized. And so what we can pick up from that, reading between the lines just a little bit, is that for many of them, the point of the factions is that they were saying, we are the genuine ones and you are not. We are the true Christian church at Corinth and you are not. That's pretty devastating, right? I think if we understand the background a little bit more, it's probably worked something like this. Most Lord's days, right? there would have been these house churches, right? These house churches that met. And then Paul says, when you come together. So this is, I do believe that in those house churches, they probably celebrated the Lord's supper every week, but it would seem that from time to time, when you come together, he says it a couple of different times. And I think it's referring to those house churches that were scattered throughout Corinth. coming together as one church in Corinth to share in a special observance of the Lord's Supper. And he says, when you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper that you are eating. And so there may have been a house church that identified itself as the I Follow Apollos house church and a house church identified itself as the I Follow Cephas house church. And then when they came together as the church of Jesus Christ in Corinth, They kept to their house church groups. They kept to their factions, to their divisions. And what's more than that, it was a fellowship meal that everyone was to share in together, but each group only brought enough food for themselves and not for everyone. They only brought enough food for them and their close circle of friends. It's pretty messed up. In fact, it was so messed up that there were people getting drunk, like fall down drunk. and stuffed to the gills while other people were going without. They had brought nothing, and so they received nothing. And Paul says that such action despises the Church of Christ and humiliates those who have nothing. Now, this seems very foreign to us. We could never imagine a church doing such a thing, but it wasn't such a strange thing in the ancient Roman world. In the ancient Roman world, when you hosted a feast at your house, there were oftentimes, if it was a large feast from a wealthy person, there were oftentimes three distinct categories of guests. There were the inner circle of friends, there were the outer circle of friends, And then there were the freedmen, the servants who used to be slaves. The slaves, of course, wouldn't be at the feast at all. They would just be serving. But three types of guests eating the feast, the inner circle, the outer circle, and the freedmen. And the best wine and the best meat would only get served to the inner circle. The cheaper meat and the cheaper wine would get served to the outer circle and the leftover scraps that fell on the floor, metaphorically, the leftover scraps would go to the freedmen and they would get the cheapest wine watered down even more. So that was culturally normal. That's what they were used to doing at their house. That's why Paul uses this language of, what, don't you have houses to eat and drink in? And if you're hungry, eat at home, right? It's clear they're bringing in this culturally normative practice into the church. We get into so much trouble when we let the culture and its standards set the agenda for the church and our worship and our fellowship. Well, the culture does this, so we should do that, too. The culture does this other thing. We can lose sight of God's standards altogether, and we can just be torn apart. And so this is a real problem. Now, of course, in our churches today, this isn't so much of a problem, is it? We don't have this kind of fellowship meal where, you know, somebody brings food only for themselves and their household and maybe their few close friends. And then if someone shows up and didn't bring a dish, well then you go hungry. I hope no church is ever like that. Certainly Forest Hill is not like that. I miss our days of being able to have fellowship meals together. Lord willing, we'll be able to do those again in a few months. But we are called to this fellowship, and so our meals don't look like that. But think about the other ways that the same root might manifest itself with different fruit in our church. Snobbishness, cliquishness, being closed off to newcomers, especially if they're not like us, being worldly, bringing worldliness and worldly concerns into the church and allowing it to poison our conversation. So these are ways in which the same root, which is a selfishness and a worldliness, can bear fruit in different ways and can still poison and divide the church. Well, how do we correct it? Well, the first step in correcting these kinds of divisions is to understand more deeply what Paul says about the Lord's Supper. And he gives us instruction in the Lord's Supper in verses 23 to 26. But we're also going to go back and pick up some things from chapter 10 that would be helpful to us as well. But here's what Paul says in verses 23 to 26. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when 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, also, he took the cup 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 death until he comes. We remember, we proclaim, until he comes. That's the heart of it, but let's flesh it out a little bit more. And like I said, we're going to just go back a little bit to chapter 10 to pick up where Paul first starts talking about the Lord's Supper. We covered this several weeks ago, but I just want to refresh your memory of the opening verses of 1 Corinthians chapter 10, where Paul begins using Lord's Supper language in talking about the Exodus generation. He says, For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the sea and the cloud, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. Now, because Paul is intentionally using Lord's Supper language, we can make some pretty strong connections here. One thing is to see that the Lord's Supper is our spiritual food and spiritual drink, and it is given to us as we have been delivered out of bondage and slavery to sin, and we are on our way to the promised land of glory." So, it is spiritual food and spiritual drink to fuel us on our way from deliverance to the promised land. So, the Lord's Supper is only for those who have been delivered from their sins, who know Christ. That's part of what it means to eat and drink in a worthy manner, discerning the body, examining yourself, is you have to know that you've been delivered by God's grace through Jesus Christ. It's for those who have been delivered out of the house of Egypt, out of the house of slavery to sin, and are on their way to the promised land. And notice Paul says they ate the same spiritual food, and they drank the same spiritual drink. Now, it was the same in kind. Everybody got manna, and everybody got water from the rock. But it was also the same in quantity. If you remember from the Exodus, those who gathered much had none left over, and those who gathered little found that they had enough. God miraculously made it the same. This is why what was happening in Corinth was such a distortion, because God ensured that the weak, who could only collect a little, and the strong, who could collect much more, would get the same in the end. Christ is the same Christ to the weak and the strong. Christ is the same Savior to those who are strong and to those who are weak, to those who are rich, to those who are poor, to those who have much, to those who have little. Christ is sufficient in every way for every need we have. We get the same. And it is Christ that they got. He's the manna from heaven. Jesus said, I am the bread. of life that comes down from heaven. I am the true bread that comes down from heaven. Your fathers ate of the manna in the wilderness and they died, but whoever eats of the bread I give will never die. The bread that I give is my body, which I give for the life of the world." The manna was a picture of Christ's body. And the rock, Paul says, the rock that followed them was Christ. And so when the rock was struck once by Moses rod outflowed water just as when Jesus was struck in his side outflowed blood and water blood to cleanse our sin water blood to forgive our sin water to cleanse us of sin and we remember that when we drink the wine which is the cup of the blood of Christ and that leads us into our second point which comes a little bit later in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. If you have your Bible, look down to verse 14 of 1 Corinthians chapter 10, and we will see the next thing that Paul says about the Lord's Supper, and that is that it is a participation in Christ and a consecration unto Christ. verses 14 to 21. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. 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. Consider the people of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything or that an idol is anything? No. I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. So, The Lord's Supper is a meal of participation, koinonia, fellowship, partnership in Christ, and of consecration to Christ. It is a meal of participation in Christ, and it is a meal of consecration to Christ. Just as they ate the manna, which was symbolic of the body of Christ, and they drank the water, which flowed from the rock, which is symbolic of Christ, We also eat and drink in a participation in Christ and all of his benefits. As we eat and as we drink, we are taking to ourselves the tokens, the signs, the seals, the emblems. We are physically digesting them and they're becoming part of us. And so we are spiritually feasting on Christ and all of his benefits, his body, his blood, his righteousness, his peace, his life, his death. His forgiveness. It's all represented to us, and it's received by us in the supper. It's really the same thing we get through the preaching of the Gospel, right? Through the preaching of the Gospel, what does Romans 10 say? Faith comes by hearing, and hearing the Word of Christ. We hear the Word proclaimed, the Word of Christ, and so we believe. And as we believe, we come to share in Christ, and in all of His benefits. So we hear the Word, We believe through the hearing of the Word, and we partake, we share in Christ and all of his benefits as we respond to the Word in faith. So many people have thought, well, if you get all that from the preached Word of the Gospel, then why do you need the Lord's Supper? I mean, you heard it. You heard the Gospel preached. Jesus saves. John 3.16, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life. You hear that, and you believe it, and you have everlasting life. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing the Word of Christ. Why do you need the sacrament of the Lord's Supper? Well, Sinclair Ferguson has an excellent, excellent sermon on the Lord's Supper. There is a link to it in the description of the video on YouTube. I would recommend this afternoon, if you have an hour and you want some more better encouragement in this passage, watch Sinclair Ferguson. It's a brilliant unfolding of this text. And he, in that sermon, references Robert Bruce, not Robert the Bruce from Brapeheart, but Robert Bruce. Robert Bruce was a Scottish Presbyterian minister who followed after John Knox in the 1500s. And he said that in the Lord's Supper, we don't get a better Christ than we get from the Word, but we get Christ better. We get Christ better. Here's the Fuller quote. This is a little bit lengthy, but it's really worth thinking about. He says, therefore I say, we get no other thing in the sacrament than we get in the Word. Content yourself with this. But if this is so, the sacrament is not superfluous. The sacrament is not unnecessary or just an extra something we don't really need. So what do you mean? Would you understand then what new thing you get? I will tell you. Even if you get the same thing which you get in the Word, Yet you get that same thing better. What is this better? You get a better grip of the same thing in the sacrament that you got by the hearing of the Word. That same thing which you possessed by the hearing of the Word, you now possess more fully. God has more room in your soul through your receiving of the sacrament than he could otherwise have by your hearing of the Word only. What then, you ask, is the new thing we get? We get Christ, better than we did before. We get the thing which had more fully, that is, more sure apprehension than we had before. We get a better grip of Christ now, for by the sacrament my faith is nourished, the bounds of my soul are enlarged, and so where I had but a little grip of Christ before, as it were between my finger and my thumb, Now I get him in the whole hand. And indeed, the more my faith grows, the better grip I get of Jesus Christ. Thus, the sacrament is very necessary, if only for the reason that we get Christ better and get a firmer grip of him by the sacrament than we could have had before. This shows us that the sacrament is a sign and a seal, it is a physical sign and a seal of our union with Christ and the benefits that we receive from Christ. In this way, it is a covenant sign and seal, and so it is a covenant commemoration, it is a covenant memorial, which brings us into chapter 11 where it talks about remembrance. A good comparison, and again, I'm getting this from Sinclair Ferguson. He says sometimes young men would come up to him and would say, why do we need the sacrament though? If the word communicates Christ to us and all of his benefits, why do we need the sacrament? And he would look at their hand and he would see a ring on their finger. And he would say, try this with your wife. Try this with your wife. For the next six months, Tell your wife that you love her, but don't touch her. Let it be only communicated through words that you love her. No more kisses, no more hugs, no more scratches on the back, no more affectionate pats, no touching. Just say how much you love her. How long do you think it will be before she starts to doubt your love and starts to say, do you really love me? Not long. I've been in this self-isolation because I've been exposed to COVID. So that's something I can't kiss my wife right now or hug her or hug any of my kids right now. It's terrible. It's terrible, right? That's what it is to have the Word without the sacrament. We are pledged to Christ. He is the groom, we are the bride. He is our beloved, and our beloved is ours. And He gives us His words of love through the Word, but He gives us tokens of His love. he gives us tokens of his love in the sacrament. Or imagine this. Imagine I went up to Beth and I said later today, okay, Beth, I love you. I'm married to you. I'm going to be faithful to you. But from now on, I'm not going to wear this wedding ring. I'm just sort of tired of it. I'm just going to put it down. And you know, I just, you know, feels better to not have that on. It's kind of inconvenient. So, but I still love you. I'm still married to you. I still plan to be faithful to you. Is she going to buy that? Uh, So, does this ring have special magical power? The one ring to rule them all? No, it doesn't have special magical power. And marriage is not a sacrament. But marriage is a covenant commitment. Just as Christ has made a covenant commitment to us, marriage is a covenant commitment. And this is a sign and seal of the covenant. And that's why we say, with this ring, I thee wed. Right? I give you this ring as a sign and a token. That's what the Lord's Supper is to us. It's the sign and token. And as we get to chapter 11, we see it's not only a spiritual food, it is not only a participation in Christ, it does not only mark our consecration to Christ. By the way, one quick thing about our consecration to Christ. If you're receiving those love tokens from your spouse, of the hugs and the kisses and the pats, you better not be receiving them from someone else. And that's what it is to eat at the table of the Lord and then eat. in the idol temples. Don't go and get from the world. Do not go and get from the world the hope, the assurance, the peace, the promise, the security that is yours in Christ. Get it from Christ and Christ alone. Trying to get it from anything else is idolatry. So in chapter 11 we see that it is a commemoration It is a remembrance, it is a proclamation, and it is an anticipation. When Jesus shared the Passover meal with his disciples, what we call the Last Supper, he shared this final Passover meal with his disciples. This was something that they had done, all of them had done, all their lives. Since they were little boys, they had every year participated in the Passover meal. This was a regular part of Israel's worship of God and had been for 1,500 years. And so this was something that they were familiar with. And yet Jesus took the meal, right in the middle of the meal, and he transformed it. There's a part of the meal where you take bread, unleavened bread, matzah. You take bread and you say, this is the bread of affliction, which our forefathers ate when they left Egypt. And then you distribute the bread. Jesus takes that same bread and he says, this is my body, which is given for you. Not the bread of affliction, which our forefathers ate, but this is my body. So he will fill up in himself the affliction of God's people in his body, which is given for us. And then the cup after supper, the third cup, probably the cup of blessing, Remember, 1 Corinthians 10 said the cup of blessing that we bless is it not a participation in the blood of Christ. The third cup of the Passover meal, the one right after supper, is called the cup of blessing. And then there's a fourth cup. He takes this cup of blessing and he says, this is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins. Do this as often as you drink of it in remembrance of me. So he's doing two things at once. He's instituting a new covenant in his blood, symbolized by the cup. The disciples would not have thought at all that what was in the cup was the literal physical blood of Christ. That's nonsense. They wouldn't have thought that because he was sitting right there handing it to them. They didn't think that the bread was his actual physical body, that the cup was his actual physical blood. They would have understood it to be covenant sign and seal. Covenant symbol. And so they took it from him and they ate and they drank. So he's instituting a new covenant. And he's saying, as often as you do this, do it in remembrance of me. He's calling them to remember him and what he's done for them, his body given for them, his blood poured out for them. And then Paul adds to that, that as often as you eat and drink, as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death. until he comes." So we can actually see, we can summarize now seven things that the Lord's Supper is. Did you catch them all as I was going through? Seven things that the Lord's Supper is. First, it is spiritual food for our journey from deliverance to the promised land. Second, it is a participation in the body and blood of Christ. Third, it is a consecration unto Christ, to be faithful to him, forsaking all others. It's marriage language, covenantal, exclusive consecration to Christ. It is, fourth, a new covenant commemoration, that it is the sign and the seal of his new covenant in his blood. It is fifth, a remembrance of the finished work of Christ, what he has done for us, how he has accomplished our salvation. It is sixth, a proclamation of the saving power of his death until he comes again. And then those final words, until he comes again, leads us to the seventh thing the Lord's Supper is, and that is, it is an anticipation of when we will be in the promised land. and when we will eat with him at the marriage supper of the Lamb. So spiritual food, a participation in Christ, a consecration unto Christ, a commemoration of the new covenant, a remembrance of Christ's finished work, a proclamation of the saving power of his death until he comes again, an anticipation of when he comes again. So if that's what it is, how can we partake worthily? And I need to wrap this up quickly. So let's look at the last part of the text one more time when Paul talks about partaking worthily. Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined, so that we may not be condemned along with the world. So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that when you come together it will not be for judgment. About the other things I will give directions when I come." Now, this instruction, that we not eat and drink in an unworthy manner, has caused a lot of angst for God's people over the centuries, because the language here is very strong. But remember what they were doing in Corinth. It was totally unacceptable. Completely wrong, wrong, wrong. what they were doing in Corinth. So the strength of the language makes sense considering the sin that was rampant in Corinth. The biggest way that this is misinterpreted by God's people over the years is to take eating and drinking in an unworthy manner to be eating and drinking as an unworthy sinner. Another way to put it is, Paul does not tell us that we need to be worthy to eat and drink. He says we need to eat and drink in a worthy manner. And there is all the difference in the world between those two things. I'll say it again. Paul does not say we need to be worthy in order to eat and drink. He says we need to eat and drink in a worthy manner. What does that mean? We need to eat and drink by faith. by faith trusting in Christ for his salvation. Those genuine believers in Corinth, those wealthy, well-off, super spiritual people, they thought they were worthy people. And that's why they were not eating and drinking in a worthy manner. So here the kingdom of God turns itself on its head. We don't. We don't. eat and drink because we're worthy. We eat and drink because we're hungry and thirsty. Jesus said, blessed is the one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, for he will be satisfied. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. That's our attitude when we come to the Lord's table. Come believing. Come expecting. Come hungry for Christ. And that's what it means to examine yourself, and that's what it means to discern the body. I examine myself and I see my own need. I discern the body and I see Christ's all-sufficiency. I need forgiveness of my sins. Christ's blood is the forgiveness of my sins. I need a true and perfect righteousness to be acceptable to a holy, holy, holy God. Christ is my true and perfect righteousness. I need to be reconciled to God from my alienation from God. Christ is my reconciliation to God who heals my alienation from God. I need God's grace to strengthen me and sustain me on my journey from deliverance to the promised land. Christ is the embodiment of the grace of God who is the spiritual food and drink to nourish and sustain me on my journey from deliverance to the promised land. Everything I see in me that I need. I need hope. Christ is my hope. I need joy. Christ is my joy. I need peace. Christ is my peace. He's everything. And so we come hungry for Christ, and we come feeding on Christ, and that's how we partake worthily. We partake unworthily when we're just bored, apathetic, careless, when we're self-satisfied, When we're really finding our righteousness and our hope and our joy and our peace and everything else but Christ, that's what it means to partake in an unworthy manner. It means, ultimately, to not be trusting in Christ. And that's why it leads to condemnation, because it's making a profession that you belong to Christ without actually trusting in Christ. The Lord's Supper is a tremendous blessing. It is a great gift. It's one of the best things that Christ has given to His church. It is a regular token, a seal, a sign, an emblem, spiritual food and drink for us to be reminded, to remember, and to proclaim to one another that we are needy sinners who need Christ. That Christ is an all-sufficient Savior for sinners. And that together, we are on our way to the promised land, where we will be with Christ when he comes, until he comes again. When he comes again, we will be with him. We will eat with him. We will dine with him. We will enjoy him forever. And until that day, we get just a taste. And that's why the Church has developed this practice of giving us just a taste. Because it's just a taste. that makes our hearts long for more. It's just a taste that makes our hearts look forward to that great day. Let's pray together. Father, you have given us the best gift in your Son, Jesus Christ. He is everything we need. Our life, our forgiveness, our righteousness, our hope, our joy, our peace. Train our hearts by your grace to feast upon Christ and Christ alone for salvation. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.