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All right, if you have your Bibles,
we'll be in 1 Corinthians 11 tonight. 1 Corinthians 11 for
much of our text. Am I on? I'm on, right? Okay,
I can't tell which mic I'm on. As you get older, there's weird
things that happen to you. I mean, it's just crazy. Some
days I can hear fine, and some days I feel like I have no hearing
at all. I'm only like 43. Am I 42 or 43? I'll be 43. I don't even know
how old I am anymore. So, it happens. Anyway, so, yeah,
okay, I'm not sure how I got there. Oh, because like everything
sounds weird right now, but I think it's just in my head because
it's one of those wonderful days. So, everybody who understands
that, say amen. Amen. All right, got a bunch
of y'all do and a bunch of y'all are still too young for that.
All right, so, 1 Corinthians 11, stand with me. Last week,
or a couple weeks ago, as we were looking through and beginning
to study the Lord's Supper, we read the accounts in Matthew,
Mark, and in Luke. Tonight, we're going to jump
to 1 Corinthians and look at what Paul writes about the Lord's
Supper. And so, as you begin reading
it, it says there, verse 23, it says, And then you stop there and you
just kind of think we have the accounts in Matthew of a first-hand
account of what happened at the Lord's Supper. Matthew's there.
They've got Mark and Luke and they're kind of retelling what
the Holy Spirit has led them to say but based on the accounts
of Peter and Mark's estimate as Mark wrote and then as Luke
writes, it's much from what he would have got from Paul, but
Paul here is saying, look, I am writing to you about the Lord's
Supper, what God revealed to me, right? So we think about
the three years where he's called away into the Arabian desert,
and he is tall. He has like Bible college 101,
and Christ is there teaching him, right? That's what it says,
for I have received of the Lord that which I've delivered also
unto you. And again, you find in Galatians that he was there called away
into that desert where he studied for about three years, with God,
which is an incredible thing. So this account is not the retelling
of the account that the apostles sat through, those 11 on the
night before Christ was taken. This is an oral account from
Jesus Christ given to Paul, which is just incredible to think about
the account as we think of it here in 1 Corinthians 11. So
this is what it says. It says that the Lord Jesus,
the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when
he had given thanks, he break it and said, take eat. This is
my body, which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of
me. After the same manner also, he took the cup. When he adds
up saying this cup is the New Testament in my blood, this do
ye as often as you drink in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat
this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death
till he come. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink.
This cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and
blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself,
and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he
that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation
to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause,
many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we
would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are
judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned
with the world. Wherefore, my brethren, when
ye come together to eat, wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together
to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him
eat at home, that ye come not together unto condemnation, and
the rest I will set in order when I come. Let's pray. Father,
I thank you for all that you preserved for us. As we think
about the singing of the Lord's Supper, Lord, you have preserved
it from many angles and many different ways because you knew
that we would have many questions, Lord God. And I thank you just
for preempting those and giving us your word so we can know exactly
that which you'd have for us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, so we are in systematic theology. We're looking at ordinances.
Specifically, we're looking at the Lord's Supper, and we know
the Lord's Supper goes by several different names. It goes by the
Lord's Supper, communion, the Lord's Table. You go to 1 Corinthians
10, 16, and it's referred to as breaking in bread, as well
as perhaps in Acts 2, though I think it's a little more ambiguous
there, whether that's speaking of the Lord's Supper or people
actually fellowshipping. And then in other places you
find different, those are the main things, and you find them
in different varieties throughout the New Testament. And so, just a
note, right, that the word Eucharist would be like the Catholic term.
It's also the term that's always used in legal terms. Why? Because they like to use Latin
and it sounds fancy, right? So, if I say Eucharist, it's
because I've read it in brief after brief after brief, studying
like religious freedom types of things, so often that's the
word that comes to mind. Just like nativity, they use the word
Kretsch, and that comes to mind very often, and the first time
I said that to my wife, she's like, what are you talking about?
It's just a lot of legal briefs, and that's what they write. So
that's neither here nor there. If I start using those terms, that's
why, because I've read it in too many legal briefs at this
point in my life. And so we're thinking about this thing, we
looked at baptism, now we're looking at the Lord's Supper,
and it's something that has a lot of questions drawn to it because
there are a lot of opinions on it, and there's a lot of religious
beliefs about it, and there's a lot of things that people don't
understand, and a lot of people want to make assumptions, and
it's one of those things where when you start talking about
it, people say, I think, right? But we're not looking at the
what I think is, we're looking at what the Bible says so we can
know the truth. And so, to know the truth, we
must be able to comprehend it, And so we step back and we look
at what others believe. Why? Because if I know what I
believe, I need to be able to defend my belief. And when somebody
else brings me their position, I can say, look, this is why
I believe what I believe. And I know why they're wrong because
I put substantial thought into it. So we began looking last
week and we're just going to, a couple of weeks ago, it's been
a couple of weeks. If you want more detail, go back to the service on November
the 6th and watch it online. There's three major schools of
thought. Well, there's four major schools of thought. There's what
we believe, but we're looking at the three others that aren't what we believe
so that we can have some comparison, right? The Roman Catholics believe
in what we would call transubstantiation. They believe that when the wine
and the bread is brought and the priest prays over it, at
that point, it becomes the body and blood of Jesus Christ. And
so, It was fascinating, last time after service, I was talking
to Brother Joel. I didn't realize he had been like an altar boy.
And he was there for a lot of this as, from his perspective,
as he would prepare it for the priest and he'd get it, or for
the priest, yeah, for the priest and they'd get it ready and take
care of it and cleaning up. And so I had a very fascinating
conversation after the last time we talked about it. But he said,
yeah, we absolutely believed that it becomes the body and
blood of Jesus Christ. Within Catholicism, they believe
that when they, the Catholic partakes of that, that Christ
unites with the participant from his spirituality into the human's
mortality, I suppose, into humanity, right? And so there's this bonding
of Christ with the flesh that happens in the belief of the
Catholic. And so, That's one way or one
set of beliefs. The Lutheran Church believes
in something called consubstantiation, and it's kind of like this middle
ground. They believe that because God is omnipresent, he is within
the Lord's Supper, and so when a person takes of that, a very
similar thing happens, and the person again is united, the physical
with the spiritual with Christ in some degree. The Calvinist
believes not that there's consubstantiation or transubstantiation. They believe
that the bread and the wine are symbolic, but they also believe
that they are symbolic instruments through which one receives Jesus
Christ. Right? So, Lutherans, Calvinists, as
well as Catholics, all believe that this thing of the Lord's
Supper plays a role in salvation. And, you know, it's kind of like
Baptists, different Baptists will kind of believe different
things, you know what I mean? If we have, like, Independent
Baptists versus Southern Baptists versus Free Will Baptists versus
all the other Baptists, there's differentiations Each one of
these within the Catholics or within the Lutherans or Calvinists,
they have a varying level of belief, it seems like, about
whether a complete salvation is offered through it or some
part of salvation is made available through it. And so, any way you
look at it, though, they believe that salvation in some regard
or another is received with the Lord's Supper. We think of that
because now, as you talk to people throughout life, they likely
are going to bring up different things and you have this question,
right? Somebody's like, so what do you believe about the Lord's
Supper? And they're going to say, well, this is what I believe.
Well, we need to be able to defend that. And the only way to defend
that is to know what they believe and know what the Bible says
so that we can make logical arguments against it. But more than that,
we just need to know what we believe. Why am I a Baptist? Why do I believe in the Lord's
Supper like we believe in it? So that's what we're looking
at. And the way we are working is our first point, the first
thing we've been studying is the purpose of the Lord's Supper.
If we can know the reason behind it, it'll start to inform our
minds to something about what is going on and what is the truth
of the Lord's Supper. So last week, or a couple weeks
ago again, we began with the first thing was a notification
that Jesus' blood matters, right? So, and in Matthew and Mark,
we saw there is very similar language. Matthew 26-28 says,
So, Matthew and Mark's accounts, they are very similar. No, it's not plagiarism. It is
quite simply a stress on the importance of what God is trying
to teach in these two very similar accounts, right? It's that idea
of repetition kind of builds something. And so God is saying,
the first thing I want you to know, right, the first thing
I am revealing, I am revealing to you that there is great importance
on the Lord's Supper. And the first thing you need
to know is that it is my blood that is the New Testament, which
is shed for many. And so we start to see that Jesus is letting
his disciples know that it is his blood that is the only way
to salvation. While it has always been the case, when he dies,
it will no longer become necessary to look to the sacrifices that
the Levitical priests were offering, now the salvation will be complete,
there will be no more sacrifices necessary, and Jesus is basically
saying, my blood's gonna settle it all. So we're taking communion
for the first part, for the first reason, for the first purpose,
so that we understand that there is a stress in our beliefs on
the blood of Jesus Christ. His death was necessary. His
blood was shed so that we could have salvation. So, we think
about Old Testament, God instituted the original testament, the Old
Testament of obedience through sacrifices, again, which indicated
faith. And now, once Jesus Christ died,
the New Testament is sealed by faith, but indicated by obedience.
Right? So you see that it's by faith
in either case, but one was obedience pointed to faith. Now my faith
is lived through obedience. And so we see two very similar
things, but that's what Jesus is making known to us. It is
his blood and his blood, our faith in his blood is what brings
salvation. And so that's the first purpose we saw. The second
was to remember all that he did in his life. Luke 22, 19, through
this doctrine of progressive revelation, we see not only is
it just the blood that matters, in Luke 22, verse 19, the next
passage on the Lord's Supper, it says this, And he took bread,
and gave thanks, and break it, and gave it unto them, saying,
This is my body, which is given for you, this do in remembrance
of me. So now we see that it's not just the blood that matters,
it's his life. He says, do this in remembrance of me. Remember
me. Remember who I am. Remember that
I came. Remember that I lived. Remember
how I lived. Remember my sinlessness. Remember
my helping people. Remember my love. Remember my
kindness. Remember everything about my life because he is the
perfect example for us. And so we see the second purpose,
the second reason we engage in the Lord's Supper is to remember
His life. We have that solemn moment and
we're sitting there and we're partaking of the Lord's Supper
and it's all about Him. We're remembering His blood sacrifice
and we're remembering the life that He lived as we seek to draw
closer to Him. Tonight, we move on to the third
thing, and that's to remember his sacrifice. And that's what
we see revealed in 1 Corinthians, where we found our text tonight.
Again, Paul's saying, look, I received this from the Lord. Perhaps he
received more details than what the apostles did. Perhaps he
was just more ready to absorb it because the apostles were
in the moment and Christ was about to be taken from them,
and there was a lot going on there. And More than anything,
we know it's just the leading of the Holy Spirit. This is how
he had them to write, one after another. In this thing of progressive
revelation, we see a little more as we get to the book of 1 Corinthians.
And in chapter 11, we see a repetition of the other two, right? Verse
25 says, again, and we had take, when he had stopped saying, this
cup is the new test of my blood. So we see that rehashed. And
then he says, this do as often as you drink in remembrance of
me. And so we see twice, We see a third time on the idea of the
blood. And we see a second time now
on the idea of remembering his life. But now in verse 26, it
gives us a little more. It says, for as often as you
eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death. till he come." So, we see the
third purpose is to remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. You read through this and it
says the purpose is to show or shew, s-h-e-w, and it comes from
the Greek katalēgōl and it means to proclaim or promulgate, to
declare, preach, show, speak, or teach. And so it's to really
make known, right? It's to make you understand,
to make you to remember, to bring back to mind in a very vivid,
a very real way that Christ died for us. the Lord's Supper is
something that is meant to proclaim his death, right? And we know
that very logically, perhaps from having engaged in it, right?
It's the bread and the wine, and the wine is symbolic of the
blood. And so there's just a wonderful picture there, but we're told
here very specifically, it's to focus on his death. So Jesus's death, again, is what
makes life possible for us, right? If he had not died, we had not
had a sacrifice for our sins. His life showed what life is
like in God, and his death showed that we can have it, right? His
death made it possible. His death made it available for
us to be like him. It's because of his death that
we can have our sins taken away. It's because of his death that
we can conquer sin in our life. And it's because of his death
that we can have eternal life. And so we see these three reasons
articulated through what God is saying, right? Each of these
are, and he said. So Christ is saying, I want you
to partake of the Lord's supper for three reasons. One is to
remember my blood. Two is to remember my life. And
three kind of sounds like number one, right? I want you to remember
my death. But he categorizes them as three different things
because in the blood, we see the New Testament. In his life,
we see an example to live. And in his death, we see the
sacrifice that he made. And so we understand that there's
these three things that he wants us to remember. And so that leads
us to a comparison with where the Roman Catholics are, with
where the Lutherans are, with the Calvinists, where others
are. And so we're looking at what is a correct understanding
of the Lord's Supper. What is the thing that we are
to understand in it? If the declared purposes of Christ
are what they are, then they stand in complete opposition
to transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and Calvinism, right? So if Christ
says the purpose of the Lord's Supper is for you to remember
my blood, remember my life, and remember my death, that's not
the same as saying the purpose of the Lord's Supper is to get
saved, right? I mean, those are two distinct
purposes. One is a memory, the other is
an action. And so Jesus's literal words,
which is what they take, they take part of Jesus's literal
words, right? He says, take ye, this is my body. Drink, this
is my blood. And they say, well, because of that, we are literally
taking of his body and his blood. But Jesus goes on to say it's
symbolic. And they ignore the rest of his
little words, right? His literal words, take eat because
I want you to do this in remembrance of me. Drink of this because
it is a picture of the New Testament on my blood, right? He explains
what it is, but to get to transubstantiation or consubstantiation or even
the Calvinist view of it, you have to do away with part of
what Christ is saying. But they don't do that. They
just say we're taking of his body and his blood and we're
eating it and it's going to make us saved. We're to take these
items, though, as we find, not because they are the literal
giving of Christ himself anew to us, as they might believe,
but they are symbols to stand as a time of reminder of the
greatness and gravity of what Jesus Christ did by coming to
this earth, giving his blood for us, and dying on the cross.
That's the truth of what we find in the Lord's Supper. It is a
reminder, it's symbolic, so that we focus on the greatness of
our God, we focus on the wonder of his life, we focus on his
death, and we focus on his blood. But those who believe in these
other things, this transubstantiation, consubstantiation, or Calvinism,
they believe that it actually is an action that brings them
to salvation. If they will take the bread and
pray sufficiently over it, they ingest it, they will be saved.
But now you think about that and it conflicts with much of
the rest of this text. Verse 27 says, wherefore, whosoever
shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. So Paul tells
us that God revealed to him that if a person takes of the Lord's
supper and he does so unworthily, they are guilty of this sin.
They're guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. They have
violated God. Again, what do these other groups
believe? They believe in this thing of transubstantiation,
which means that the elements become the body and blood, or
consubstantiation, God's in the body and blood, or they believe
that they are an active part in salvation. Now, if you were
to partake of the Lord's Supper and it was to save you, how could
you ever eat or drink unworthily of the Lord's Supper? Right,
because it does save you, it removes sin. That's their belief.
They believe that as I take it, it saves me. If it saves me,
it is pardoning me of my sins. Well, if that is the case, if
I took it, I could never have a violation based on verse 27,
which says that you can eat and drink unworthily and be guilty
of the body and blood of the Lord. So there's just conflict
in the plain language of the Bible, right? So you start to
see that it can't be what they are saying. It cannot be that
there's a literal infusion of Christ into our mortal souls
upon the taking of the Lord's Supper. His blood is perfect,
and it would act as an agent of righteousness, and it would
change us, and it would render this verse an act of mental gymnastics. Rather, it's better to compare
the Lord's Supper to David and his men when they were hungry
and they were running from Saul and they went to the tabernacle
there and they needed bread. And they went to the priest and
they said, we would like some bread. And the priest said, okay,
it's only for those who have been clean and kept from women
a certain amount of time. And David says, that's us. We're
all living righteously. We haven't engaged in these certain
acts. We're good right now. And so he says, okay, you can
take of something that is holy, but it was just a symbolic holiness,
right? It wasn't going to physically change within them. And it was
something that represented holiness and the temple there. And so
the Lord's Supper is akin to that, I would say. It's much
more akin to that than it would be in something that we find
in transubstantiation. The Lord's Supper is a, great
solemn assembly whereby we as a church gather and we focus
on the wonderful works of Christ and it's to be taken seriously
because of what it represents. And in the Lord's Supper, there
is an expectation that those who are taking this are understanding
it's a symbol of what He has done, and so we engage it in
purity, and that is how we don't violate this thing of eating
and drinking unworthily. We're to be in a place to where
we are doing the other things that we are supposed to do, save
members of the church, baptize, living righteous, holy lives,
and we'll get to those things in a little while. Just from
a high-level view, as we start to compare ourselves with other
religions versus what the Bible says, does that make sense? So
I'll stop here and say, does anybody have any questions? I
know transubstantiation is kind of a confusing thing, but at
the same time, it's something a whole lot of people believe.
I tried to articulate it clearly and why we can show in the Bible
that we don't believe in that. So, anybody have any questions
or comments on any of that? Gonna be one of those nights,
huh? I don't like the quiet nights. All right, very good. That or I'm
just explaining it perfectly. So that, well, I'll just assume
that. Very good. All right, so that's where we stand. The reason
that we take of it, the correct understanding, the purpose of
it is a symbolic time of identifying with Christ, right? It's us drawing
closer to him, communing with him as we focus on his life,
his death, and his blood. And so that's the purpose of
the Lord's Supper. Second thing we look at are the
participants. the participants. All right, so the purpose of
the ordinance largely puts things into perspective for us as to
what's going on, right? If the purpose is an identification
and a remembering of what Christ has done for our lives, just
very logically, it kind of lays out who is to take it. You don't
have to put a lot of deeper thought into it, though we are going
to. You don't have to because who would want to identify with
Christ? Those who are His. So it's pretty cut and dry about
who should take it. It's those who are His. But at
the same time, these assumptions, God knew people would challenge,
so He gave us a lot more on them. And so we'll begin to look at
those at this time. The first thing we see in regards
to the participants in the Lord's Supper, it's for those who are
saved and baptized. We think about the Lord's Supper,
the first one that was taken, it was there with the 11 faithful
apostles, and we'll get to Judas getting out there in a little
bit. But from this fact, we can begin to infer that the participants
were godly, right? We got the 11 apostles, we're
going to assume that they were saved godly men. So we have kind
of this foundation. God started the church, Christ
started the church through them. But we have more than this inference
to go on. We look to Acts chapter 2, and we are there at the time
of Pentecost, and in verses 41 and 42 it says, And so, Here we have the basic elements
of a church. The church is made up of those who receive God's
word, that is those who are saved, right? So those who received
his word and then those who were baptized and those who were baptized
were then added to the church. And so we see the foundation
of a church, the building of a church, it's those who are
saved and who are baptized can then be brought into the membership
of the church. As way of review, a prerequisite
for membership is again, salvation and baptism, but baptism is only
baptism when a person is saved first and then is baptized in
a church of right doctrine and full immersion. And so a person
who has engaged in salvation in that form of baptism can be
added to the church. And it is that group of people,
people in the same place who have done that, that join together
and they form the church. And that church then is a unified
assembly of local believers and they begin fulfilling what God
wants. Why am I rehearsing all of that?
Because when we go to 1 Corinthians and we start reading the account
that Paul is writing there, he is telling the church there something. Right? Who does he write to in
1 Corinthians or in the book of Corinthians? He writes to
the church that is at Corinth. And so we see that it's a saved
and baptized group of believers that have gathered together.
And Paul says again there in verses 27 and 28, Wherefore,
whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord
unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread
and drink of that cup." So as Paul's writing this to the local
church, we understand that he is speaking to people who are
saved and baptized, right? It's written to a local church,
so they are saved and they are baptized. And if all we had in
Matthew, Mark, and Luke's accounts, we may question, right? If we
just knew that it was just the apostles there, we may just think,
well, that was just the first happening. We don't really know
what's supposed to happen after this. But now, it's been a while, it's
been a few years, and Paul starts writing to the church at Corinth,
and he's writing to a group of people that we know would form
a church appropriately under Acts 2, and those group of people
that he would be writing to would be to the church, those who are
saved and baptized members of that body. And so it's the church
that comes together and partakes in the Lord's Supper. Communion
is meant to be a corporate reflection on what Christ has done for those
who are a part of his church. If someone is not saved and or
has not been baptized, then they should not take of the Lord's
Supper. because they would not be part of the church. Because
an unsaved person has no reason to remember what Christ has done
for them, and a person that is not scripturally baptized has
not followed the Lord in the first ordinance that he commanded,
and so should not engage in partaking of this thing of the Lord's Supper
because they have not appropriately identified with Christ. They
have not taken the very next step that they know biblically
they are supposed to take. They have fallen short of what
God has requested next of them in their lives, and so they should
not be taking of the Lord's Supper. The first thing we know about
participants is that they are to be saved and baptized individuals. Does anybody have any questions
about that? All right. Next thing is they're supposed
to be members, members within the local church. This is an
issue that people have many different thoughts on, many different philosophies
about, many different beliefs on. It's a question that, you know,
I'll I apply to be a pastor here,
right? I don't know how that goes. Did I apply? How did that
work? Anyway, I got put in contact with Brother Ard and submitted
my resume and this, that, and the other. And one of the questions
at some point is, okay, in regards to the Lord's Supper, are you
open, closed, or close? Right? Like, why? Because it
matters. What does the Bible say? And
maybe you're sitting there, and you're like, I have no idea what
that means. So we'll just give a brief highlight, and then we'll
come back to it in a little bit. Open communion is where you allow
anybody in the church to take of the Lord's Supper, right?
We have the Lord's Supper tonight, and we bless it, we pray over
it, we pass it out, and anybody who's here can take of it. Different
thoughts on that. Some is just anybody who wants
to take of it. And some is anyone who says they're saved. And you
know, it can be as open as you want it to be, right? Just anybody
you want to allow to take it can take it. And then you have
close, which would be, okay, we have the Lord's Supper here
and there are individuals from another church of like doctrine
and they're here. And some would say, OK, well,
they can take of it, right? This thing of close, it can have
degrees, I suppose, as well. Some people may say, well, it's
any church of similar doctrine can take of it. Or some would
say, well, it's just got to be another independent fundamental
Baptist church can take of it. And so that's the idea of close.
They would be here. They would be in a service. We're
holding it. And they would say, I'd like to identify with you
all in this, and I'll partake of it. That's the idea of close.
Closed is, it is for our church. members of our church and members
of our church only. And so, you see three levels
of it. And the way that closed communion
can be had can be had in different ways as well. Some people hold
closed communion and they ask everybody to leave except for
those who are members of the church. And so, all the children
who are not saved and baptized yet, they'll be excused to the
back. Every member who is or everyone who is not a member
is asked to leave. Oftentimes they will hold it on like a Tuesday
night or a Friday morning or sometime when other people wouldn't
just naturally show up and they keep it to just the church body.
And then there's the type of clothes that we engage in and
that's Closed, but I guess not exclusive, right? So it's for
our members, but I don't ask people to leave, because the
Bible says, let a man judge himself, let a man examine himself. And
so we'll get to all of that. But if you're wondering what
I'm talking about, in a nutshell, that's what it is. We have open,
close, and closed. And so we are closed. If you
have any question about that, we can discuss that as we go.
So that's what we're looking at as we look at membership within
the local church that's going to lead to that issue. So some
may argue, well, Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, but what
about the other believers that were there, right? He's writing
to Corinth saying, look, you're messing communion up, this is what you
need to do. And I guess they got a visiting missionary, they
have another person stopping through, you know, somebody from
the church of Antioch stopping by the church of Corinth, and
they're like, hey, I want to take the Lord's Supper today.
That's kind of the issue going on here. And so our first clue,
though, is found, I guess, in 1 Corinthians 1 and verses 1
and 2. And there it says this, it says, Okay, so who's he writing
to? The church that is in Corinth.
Well, when you're writing to a church, who are you writing
to? You're writing to the members of that church, right? There
may be visitors there, but they're not part of that church, right?
There may be a traveling evangelist there, but they're not part of
that church. There may be people who are passing through on vacation,
but they're not part of that church. That church is the called
out assembly of believers who are members there together. They're
the ones that are called into that body of Christ. And so that's
who Paul is writing to. He's writing to people that he
would expect to be there. Those that he would expect to
be the members. That's who he was specifically
addressing. And then he goes on in chapter
11 and starts telling exactly what he expects of a person or
a church engaging in the Lord's Supper. And so we see that. But
what about the Last Supper? Or I guess the First Lord's Supper,
right? And so people want to have different thoughts about
this. Was Judas there or not? Because if Judas was there, then
the whole thing's blown up, right? If Judas is there, then we have
an unsaved individual there. And though God or Christ said
he was part of the church when he founded it, Christ knew who
he was, right? He knew he was a liar and a thief. He knew he
was the one who would betray him. So how do we know that Judas
wasn't there? Was he there or was he not there?
And we can know that he wasn't there as we kind of synthesize
verses in the Bible. And I know I've gone over this
each time we have the Lord's Supper, but it's always good
to think about. So Mark chapter 14 and Luke chapter 13. And these
two dovetail together, right? They don't overlap. So turn to
them both if you would. Mark chapter 14 and Luke chapter
13. And we see kind of a parenthetical
in John that fits beautifully within Mark. So Mark in chapter
14, verse 17 through 20 says this, And in the evening he cometh
with the twelve, and as they sat and did eat, Jesus said,
Verily I say unto you, One of you which eateth with me shall
betray me. And they began to be sorrowful,
and to say unto him one by one, Is it I? And another said, Is
it I? And he answered and said unto
them, It is the one of the twelve that dippeth with me in the dish. All right, so who is it? It's
the one that dips with him in the dish. We'll turn to John
chapter 13. John 13, verse 27. It says, and
after the sop, right, the thing that's dipped in the dish, that's
the sop. And after the sop, Satan entered into him, then said Jesus
unto him, that thou doest, do quickly. Now, no man at the table
knew for what intent he spake this unto him. For some of them
thought because Judas had the bag that Jesus had said unto
him by those things that we have need of against the feast or
that he should give something to the poor. But look at verse
30. And it was night, all right?
So Mark chapter 14, verse 20, it's the one of them that dippeth
with me in the dish. Luke, or John chapter 13, 27,
he receives a sop. Jesus says, what you're going
to do, do quickly. Verse 30, having received the sop, he immediately
went out. He's gone. Then we go back to
Mark in chapter 14, picking up in verse 22, and it says, and
as they did eat, Jesus took the bread and blessed it and break
it and gave it to them and said, take ye, this is my body, right?
And he goes on to give the Lord's Supper. So we see now that Judas
is not there during the Lord's Supper, right? He's there at
the beginning part of the Last Supper. They have the Passover meal together,
but as Jesus then starts to shift things from the Last Supper to
this idea of the Lord's Supper communion, you see that he excludes
Judas. Judas is gone. So, Judas was
welcomed by Jesus, right? Judas is fed by Jesus. Judas
is allowed to be there at dinner, and he could certainly learn
from Jesus, but before communion, before the Lord's Supper, Judas
was excused. It was just a time for those
who were true servants, those who were members of his body. And so in 1 Corinthians, we see
this kind of followed up with a more clear example. There,
Paul is writing again to the local church, to the people at
Corinth, and is instructing them on many things, and one of the
things is the errors in how they are viewing and partaking in
the Lord's Supper. And verse 20 through 22, it says,
And when ye come together into one place, this is not to eat
the Lord's supper. For in eating, every one taketh
before other his own supper, and one is hungry, and another
is drunken. What have ye not houses to eat in and to drink
in? Or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have
not? What shall I say to you? Shall
I praise you in this? I praise you not. Now we see
not only is Paul addressing the church of Corinth and talking
to them specifically about it, it's the church that has an irreverent
manner about it, right? So you dig even deeper now into
just the membership and he says, look, it's y'all, right? He's picking some people out.
He says, a couple of you, a few of you over there are being a
little bit irreverent about it. Well, who would that be? That
would be the members of the church. Right? I mean, you're not calling
out people passing through. He doesn't have any idea what
they're doing. Imagine the time that it takes to get information
at this period of the world. It's not happening quickly. It's
not like somebody called up Paul and was like, hey, man, we got
a situation over here. Brother Doug and Brother Ard,
they're... They're doing this weird thing in the Lord's Supper.
I mean, it just don't even make sense, okay? And then, you know,
Paul called him up and was like, hey guys, you guys aren't even
part of that church. You guys are fools. Get out of there,
right? No, it wasn't like that. It was like a long drawn-out
thing. It would have taken somebody
getting to him or getting a message to him and he knows he's addressing
the church and he sends a letter to... When he wanted to address
a person, he did. I mean, just look at Philemon.
He said, I'm gonna let you have it now. I want my boy back. You
need to leave him alone. If you don't, we're gonna have
a problem. You know you owe me, right? So he was more than willing
to address a person, but he doesn't do that here. He addresses a
church because there is an issue within the church. All right,
what questions do I have about this, about the need to be a
member to take of the Lord's Supper, a member of this church
or whatever church you're a part of before you take of the Lord's
Supper? I know perhaps I didn't articulate that the most clearly.
I hope I did, but what questions may you have? Okay. Yeah, Brother Michael. You know, is that something you
can go to another fundamental Baptist church and partake or
you just have must be at your local church before you can?
I believe it's completely your local church. So and again, we
like you haven't had like, you know, for a year or so. No, I
get it. But we prioritize what's important.
You know what I mean? Like if it's important to you,
it's time to say, hey, I need a vacation. I got to take a few
days here or there. You know what I mean? It's it's
there's a lot of things in Christianity that are like this. If we really
prioritize God the way that we say that we do, Sometimes it
takes some sacrifice, right? You've got to call work and tell
them you need a day off, you've got to cut back on this, that,
or the other, and it's hard, but look at the things we're
willing to sacrifice for work, and look at the things we're
willing to sacrifice for family, but that's God. Are we willing
to sacrifice a day or two of travel and say, listen, okay,
I've got to maybe buy an extra plane ticket, that costs some
money. Yeah, but the Christian life is supposed to be about
sacrifice. It's about giving to our God and giving to others.
It's a great question, but I believe the sacrifice is to be made so
that we can do it in our local church the way that God wants.
Andrew. What is the reason for the different
stances on how to hold a closed communion, and why do we do it
the way we do it? Well, so the different reasons
for closed community, you're talking again about everybody
being excluded or holding it a different way versus allowing
people in. Well, the two reasons would be this. One, you exclude
everybody because you have the picture of Jesus Christ and Judas,
and Judas physically gets up and leaves. Right? And so you
can see that perspective of it. But when you go to 1 Corinthians
in chapter 11, it tells us that we are not the judge, right?
It says, for if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we
should not be condemned with the world. But who's he saying
that to? He's saying that to the people that are supposed
to be examining ourselves. It's saying, you as the pastor,
you're not supposed to do this. You're supposed to preach the
word. You're supposed to tell the people exactly what's going on. but it's not
up to you. Let a man examine himself. That
doesn't say I as the pastor can do that, right? Somebody could
come in here and say, well, I'm a member of the universal church,
and I'm a member of this church because I'm a member of the universal
church, and while that's a bunch of hogwash, it doesn't say I'm
supposed to judge them. It says God will judge them,
right? For this cause, many are weak and sickly among you. And
so God's doing the judging here. God's doing the chastising here.
God's doing the very specific that a person needs, and it excludes
the pastor, it excludes the church from doing this, which is why
we do it the way we do. We tell people not to eat it, because
Judas didn't eat it, but it doesn't say here that you should exclude
everybody that's there. It says that those who are there
should not do it, and they need to make that decision for themselves.
Does that make sense? It's a good question. All right,
other questions? Ms. Carmen. Yes, this is the first time I
hear the closed and open, but in some occasions, like when
we visit a friend, and probably, I don't know if the church has
the open, but But I'm understanding now, like, it's up to me to partake
of the Lord's Supper. It's my decision. Because they're
open, they're offering it to us, right? Sure. Yeah, I mean,
a church may allow you to do it, but we need to do what the
Bible says. So it's up to me. Yes, always. And it's up to that
pastor to teach it and preach it right. But sometimes shortcuts
are taken and we just wanna look fully at what the Bible says.
And I think as we look through all the verses, that's the clearest
example we get everything we see, we can point to it was closed,
it wasn't open. All right, anyone else?
Ordinances: Lord's Supper Part 2
Series Systematic Theology
| Sermon ID | 1125241617453630 |
| Duration | 41:54 |
| Date | |
| Category | Midweek Service |
| Bible Text | 1 Corinthians 11 |
| Language | English |
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