If you would, I would ask that you please turn in your Bibles with me over to the book of Acts in chapter 2. The book of Acts in chapter 2. Now last week we took a little break from this series that we're in as Brother Short preached for us and I have to say I really enjoyed the message that he brought last week. It's always good to be preached to when you're a pastor or preacher. It's always good to be preached to sometimes and certainly it was a very convicting message to me and I think many of you all enjoyed that as well from the feedback that I got as well. But prior to that, we had spent the last two weeks in the last few verses of chapter 2, and that is right back where we are headed to today, this afternoon, as we continue to look at seven habits, seven habits of a highly effective church. Seven habits of a highly effective church. Now, if you would, begin reading with me in verse 42, and we will read through the end of the chapter in verse 47. Verse 42 begins and says, And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, and fellowship, and the breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. Now, the church at Jerusalem was, by God's grace, a highly effective church. It still amazes me when I consider how fast this church really grew at one period of time, and how the church bonded together, came together for the glory of God. Now, we know eventually the church at Jerusalem has some issues here and there, but right now, at this point in time, after Pentecost, we see that there is no single black mark that is mentioned on it. All is well, and these things are mentioned here that are going well within the church. I've told you in this series that we've identified seven things, seven traits in this passage that we believe that are pleasing to God. And again, they are continuing in the Apostles' doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayers, care for one another, worship together, and lastly, evangelism. Now, and again, it is my desire to look at each one of those seven habits to examine ourselves as well, to see if we are expressing these seven traits as well. If it was an effective way, something called out by God as being something good in his word, then it is something indeed that we should have here at our church as well. Now, so far we have looked at the apostles' doctrine, which of course was not to say that it was their own personal doctrine, one that they made up themselves, but indeed was the doctrine, was the words taught to them by Christ. It was the words of the Old Testament as they were illuminated and brought to remembrance by the Holy Spirit. Now, today we are not lacking in the Apostles' Doctrine because as those books that you have on your lamps, those Bibles that you have on your lamps, we have the complete revelation of God's Word for us today. We don't look to councils. We don't look to these kinds of things that were written after the time of the Bible. We look to the Word of God, the Apostles' Doctrine, as the revelation for us today. And then we looked at the subject of fellowship. And it is indeed not Christ's intention that we practice what I like to call go-it-alone Christianity. Go-it-alone Christianity. That is, is that you're saved and then you just kind of set it home and read your Bible when you feel like you need to and say a prayer when you feel like you need to. God is not in to go it alone Christianity, but for many reasons he desires that we unite ourselves with a good church where the apostles doctrine is taught, where fellowship is made as priority. Christians indeed need one another. We need one another. There is great exhortation in coming into the house of God as encouragement to one another to keep on keeping on until the Lord comes back. Our fellowship is encouragement to one another to serve the Lord with greater diligence. It is comfort to one another when we go through those trials in our lives. Indeed, to lift us up out of the muck and mire of this life that we often go through. We have no idea sometimes the effect a few encouraging words are of a brother and sister in our lives. They certainly have been to us. Now today we want to begin by looking at the subject of the breaking of bread. Now, the breaking of bread in this portion of Scripture that we're talking at today, here in verse 42, is not the breaking of bread like if you would have me over to your house and you might have beans and cornbread and we break that cornbread. That's not the bread that is spoken of here in this verse. And even though we'll talk more about this here in a few minutes, but it's not the kind of breaking of bread if we have a dinner next door and have a fellowship dinner like we did last week. It's not that kind of breaking of bread in this portion of Scripture. Now, the question is, well, how do you know that? Well, if you look in verse 46, you'll also see another breaking of bread. And you'll see that followed up, of course, by the meat that is shared there as well. Did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. That is the sharing of a meal together. The sharing of a meal together. If you would indeed have us over to your house or whether we have a fellowship dinner or something like that as we eat together. That's the kind of breaking the bread there. But here in this first portion it is not talking about that and this is In verse 42, it is speaking of what we would typically call the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper. That's what we call it here. Now, it is known by other names throughout Christianity, and I want to go through some of those names. I at least want you to be familiar with them and maybe why they use those names to describe what we typically call the Lord's Supper. One of those names you might have heard before is Eucharist. I don't know. Some of y'all may have heard of that name. You may not have heard of that name. But the word Eucharist comes from a Greek word that simply means thanksgiving or gratitude. That's all the word means. So there's nothing really wrong with that word per se. So that is one word that people will use for the Lord's Supper. Some people in the realms of what we call Christianity use the word sacrament. Now that's a word that Baptists will run from all day long, isn't it? We're kind of scared of that word because we associate that with the Catholic Church, of course. It is from the Latin that we get the word sacrament. The Catholic Church has several sacraments, and the Supper is one of them. But in the purest form of the word sacrament, it's not altogether a wrong term. You see, it is again from the Latin, and it simply means a physical representation of a spiritual reality. physical representation of a spiritual reality. So, again, there is nothing really wrong with that word sacrament unless you twist that sacrament into a way or a mean of obtaining grace or salvation. And that's the problem with the Catholic Church, the way of doing it. It's a means of of gaining grace in favor with God to try to build up your works through life. And yet another word that it is commonly called, and probably the one that you've heard it called the most outside of the Lord's Supper, is the word communion. Communion, and of course, that emphasizes the coming together of the breaking of bread and the drinking of the cup. Now, for those that haven't been with us necessarily so long or visiting, we have here at this church, we take the supper about four times a year. And four times a year before that supper, I typically preach a message that revolves around the Lord's Supper, revolves around the table. And for you that come and are regularly part of those services, then you know that's how we do things. Now, I have to admit that it has always been kind of hard to me to try to figure out how to preach a message about the Lord's Supper that is preach the same basic events four times a year and it not sound the same every time that we do it. It's like when you teach on a subject over and over again, sometimes it's hard not to sound the same or to sound like you're just, you know, pulling the same message from the same file base or something. So typically, sometimes I will preach, you know, one aspect of the supper each time. But I have to confess, as I have preached now the supper four times a year for the last ten years, at some 40 times. And that is a hard thing not to sound a little bit repetitive or to sound a little bit not say fresh in nature, but that is exactly what I'm endeavoring to do again this afternoon even though we're not taking of the supper. So, for some of you all these things will be a matter of hat. You've heard them over and over again, no doubt. But to some of you it may be something that you maybe haven't heard in a while. And that would be unfortunate. Now, I know that when we have our supper here, we do it as part of the morning service. And we have reasons for doing that, but, and I understand that there may be some reasons that people cannot come to that early morning service because of health and because of depending upon a ride or whatever it might be. But I want you to understand the exceptions for not coming and taking part of the supper should be few and far between. A highly effective church is not only a church that has the Lord's Supper, a highly effective church is one where the saints of God partake of the supper as well. I want to first consider the institution of the Lord's Supper and where it began. So, if you would, turn with me over to the Gospel of Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew. And we're going to be looking in chapter 26. And in verse 26, we want to begin our reading. We're going to be reading down through verse 29. Matthew 26 and verse 26. It says, and as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and break it and gave to the disciples and said, take, eat, this is my body. And he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, drink ye all of it. For this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day where I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. Now, I want you to notice in verse 26, It says, as they were eating. When we come together and we take of the Lord's supper, we have before us the bread, we have before us the little cups of wine, and it's all divided up. We don't start with an appetizer and move to a soup and a salad and all the fixings. We take of the supper in a very isolated way. But when Jesus Christ instituted the supper, he did so while having a meal. There was a meal that was going on. In fact, he instituted the supper during a very important meal to a Jewish person, and that meal was Passover. He instituted it out of the Passover meal. Now, because it was Passover, we also know a few things about the elements of the supper itself. Number one, we know that when Jesus Christ broke the bread, it was not a nice loaf of Jewish rye or pumpernickel. It was nothing of the sorts. It was not your favorite multi-grain bread that you would make a sandwich out of. Why is this? Because during the Passover meal, those kinds of bread were not allowed. They were not even allowed to be in the house. All the bread that was to be offered during the Passover meal was to be unleavened in nature. Now the Jews have a name for that bread, and that's called the bread of affliction. That's a good name. They call it the bread of affliction. It is a reminder of the toil that was going on down in Egypt. Now some of you in your daily reading, you've been reading about some of those things going on down in Egypt this past week, and to God be the glory for that. I hope you continue on in that reading. But on the Passover, they had to bake their bread in haste. They were not able to let it rise. So, following that time, as you look in the Word of God, leaven has become a representation or a symbol of sin as well. Now, when Jesus broke the bread, That evening, he would have done so with unleavened bread. And that's important. It's important because Jesus also makes comparison of his body to this bread of affliction. Because leaven is a representation of sin. A French baguette would never do. Any other kind of bread would not do because it would have represented sin. But Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5.21, For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. We're told in Scripture that Jesus was in all points tempted as we are tempted, and yet he was without sin. Any bread with leaven in it, then, does not show forth adequately the intent of what the bread is to show in the supper, what it is to represent. It is to represent a sinless body of Christ. And that is why we use the unleavened bread. Now secondly, in verse 27, we're told of a cup here. And again, because this is Passover, we know of the drink that would have been used as well. Now, Some drinks, in particular, were not allowed at the Passover table. Namely, the ones that would have still contained leaven. And that is why grape juice would have not been used for the Lord's table. During the fermentation process, we understand that the leaven is removed from wine. It's worked out of it. And again, we want the leaven to be worked out so that it might represent what? The sinless nature of the blood of Christ. Peter speaks of it this way. In 1 Peter 1 verse 19 it says, But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. To honor Christ as we take the supper, we don't use things that contain leaven and we do not use things that clearly are not outlined in scripture for us to use. Now, Randy and Nancy can tell you a story about a man who was a local pastor and he served, one time, milk and cookies to his congregation because he believed that they were acting like babies. Now, That's hard for us to believe. And I can't believe hardly the flippantness of anyone who would do such a thing. But rest assured, there was nothing God honoring about anything that took place that day. All they had was maybe a snack time. And I understand he's no longer pastoring, is that right? So praise the Lord for that. I don't care what name's over the door, but praise the Lord for that. Now, whenever we take of the supper, here we usually turn to 1 Corinthians in chapter 11 because of the methodical nature that Paul lays out before us. And I want, if you will, to turn with me there. I understand that some of the things we're going to read here are very similar to what we read in Matthew there. But I want you to turn with me here, and as we read this scripture, we're going to then go back and make some points of what the supper does for the body of Christ when we come together and take it. Now, we are going to begin reading in verse 23. We're actually going to read all the way through the end of the chapter. So pay attention. Try to read with me along as we read through here. It says, For I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you, 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 had subbed, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood, this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat of this bread, and drink of this cup, ye 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, has died. For if we 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 tarry one for another, and if any man hunger, let him eat at home, that ye come not together into condemnation, and the rest will I set in order when I come. Now, these words of Paul came about because there was an abuse going on when it came time for the taking of the supper here at Corinth. And you can read all about that beginning in verse 17 on your own time, and hopefully you will. But we know that as this church was coming together that there were lots of divisions among them. You had some who didn't get along with others because of different things, all kinds of different things really. At Corinth, as very common in this time period, whenever they would come together to take the meal together, they would come so and have it with a larger meal, that is a big meal. And again, there wasn't anything inherently wrong with that. It's pretty common in scripture for them to do it that way, but the problem is, again, the way that they were coming together. You had some that were coming, they weren't sharing food. You had some that were coming and overindulging in wine and getting drunk. There was all kinds of things going on that was hard for us even to really imagine today. Paul's solution, basically, was to put an end to that dinner. To tell them to eat and drink at home, but gave them directions for how to take of the Lord's supper. He said, do it this way. Now, I want you to notice, first of all, as we read this, that Paul did not make this up. As a matter of fact, he wasn't even taught this by another person. In verse 23, we are told that these instructions were given to Paul by whom? The Lord. The Lord instructed Paul in these things. And by the way, what comes next would then be Apostle's Doctrine, right? As he gives those things to us. And what comes next also increases fellowship within the church as we come together in one accord and do these things. Now I want to bring out about five or six things. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on each one. But about five or six things in the text that we just read here. Different points. Now first of all, I want you to look in verse 24, and you look at that phrase that says, this do, this do. Now who said the this do? If you're looking down, you'll see very easily, most of you that carry a red letter Bible, that those letters are written in red and you might say, well that was Jesus that said that, right? And you'd be right in that. In fact, you look in verse 23, we see that Jesus Christ was indeed the source of the instruction. Not Paul, but rather Jesus. So the first thing I want you to understand as we look at this subject is that we have a command from Christ to this do." Or we might say, do this. There is a command by Christ to do that. As a church, we have a command to take the Lord's Supper. And as a member of the Lord's Church, you also have a command to take it. There is a command in Scripture. The supper that we have is not based upon the traditions of man that we might drop it out and consider it of little concern. It was instituted by Christ and Christ said, this do. And folks, that is just as significant as when Christ in the Great Commission says, go ye therefore. because Christ commanded it equally in both cases. Now we often agree of the importance of the commission, but for many the supper seems to be something that is on the back burner, something that seems to be of little importance. Listen, Christ said, this do. He didn't say, necessarily, how often to do it. He didn't say, do it every single time you come into church. He didn't say, do it when the seasons change. He didn't say, do it in the morning service, the afternoon service, or even the evening service. None of those things that He gave us instruction in. But one thing He did give us instruction in, and that is, He said, this do. We are to do it. So I want you to just do a little bit of self-examination here when I ask this question. How long has it been since you did? Since you did this do? You know, the last time that we took the Lord's Supper was the last day of the year last year. I can't really remember when we've ever done that before. But the way it worked out, it was the last day of the year. And I'm going to tell you, there was a lot of people gone that day. There was a lot of sickness going on, people getting flus and things like that. But, you know what, that was one of the best services I can remember, just that whole day, for those that were here. And you know what it started with? The Lord's Supper. It started with coming together around the Lord's table. Now the next time we are scheduled to take the Lord's Supper is April 1st. Now I post that in the bulletin immediately after we take the Lord's Supper. I want you to have plenty of notice so that you can make every effort to be here. Why? Because it is important for you to be here for that. It's important for the health of this church to this do. Secondly, we see in verses 24 and 25, we are to do this in remembrance of Him. Remembrance of what? Well, in particular, here Christ is drawing our attention to the cross, where His blood was poured out for the remission of sins for many. To the Christian, folks, that is a story that should never grow old. And it is a story that should always have preeminence in our lives. But you know what, I know that that's not always the case. You see, it's very possible sometimes that after we're saved, we become so excited about the other doctrines of the Bible, and we get in there and we start studying everything from total depravity to perseverance and preservation of the saints, and we can study the end time things and get all excited about that. And you know what happens sometimes when we get all caught up in all kinds of doctrine? Not that doctrine is bad, but we lose sight of the very beginning. We lose sight of Christ. We lose sight of our first love and we leave Him behind and we forget about the importance of Christ and the preaching of Christ. And you know what is a good remedy for that and not falling into that trap? It is coming together and purposely remembering Christ as we take the supper. Purposely remembering what had to be done for Him to save us from our sins. Purposely remembering that God Himself in the flesh came to die for us on that beautiful and terrible cross to save us from the wrath to come. To save us from His own wrath to come. The truth is, is that ought to be in our minds daily. I know sometimes it's not as close in our hearts as what it should be, but taking the supper together always brings back those things to mind. Thirdly, The taking of supper then becomes then a time in which the preaching of Christ is proclaimed to the lost that are present. Now the lost are not invited to the table, but they are often present when we take it. And as we go and we preach the supper and often we look back on things and we'll look back at things like the Passover and show how Jesus Christ was manifested even in that Passover dinner in the past and how it pointed to Him. We might look at other sacrifices. We might look to Him as the High Priest of Hebrews. We might look at many different pieces of Scripture before we take the supper. But the supper is a wonderful time to preach the Gospel to the lost. And the truth is that we may not be having the supper today, but the fact is that you may be here and lost. And you perhaps have never known Jesus Christ as your own personal Savior. Before you leave here today, I want you to know, just as I would point you out if we were having the meal here today, that Jesus Christ came to save sinners, even the worst of them. And you might say, well, you don't know what I have done. And you don't know the baggage that I'm dragging. Well, you know what? Christ said come. And we preach come. Because you can't out sin the forgiveness of God. And He saves indeed from the uttermost to the guttermost. And my prayer is today that you know Him. And if you don't know Him today when this service ends, you grab me by the hand and say, tell me about Christ. And we'll do that. Fourthly, in verse 26, we see in that ending phrase, till he come, till he come. You know what he is speaking of? Well, ultimately he is speaking about his coming. And his coming is in two parts, right? First, his coming is to receive the saints in the air. We affectionately call that the rapture. Understand that's not a word we find in scripture, but there's a lot of words we use theologically. that are not found in Scripture. But what we do find in Scripture is the hope of Him coming again in the clouds of glory. We are told to be waiting, to be expectant of that at all times. We have a lot of people running around today trying to figure out who the Antichrist is. They speculate on who it might be. But you know, nowhere in Scripture does it ever tell us to be watching and waiting for the Antichrist. We're told to be watching and waiting for Christ. for Christ to come. But that's just the first part, right? When He calls us up into the clouds, right? That's the rapture. But the second part is actually when He will descend as Lord of lords and King of kings to take this earth for His own to set up His kingdom here. And earthly things are going to pass away. Peace is coming when King Jesus comes to rule and reign. Are you watching and waiting today? Maybe some days you don't really think of it like you should. I hope that's not the case, but you know what? Whenever we come together for the Lord's Supper, we remember His coming. And we look forward to that cup. that we'll have with Him in heaven. Now fifthly, taking of the supper promotes for us the confession of our sins. Look in verses 27 and 28 again. It says, Wherefore whosoever shall eat of this bread and drink of this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself So let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. So when we come and take of the Lord's Supper, there ought to be an inward inspection of our lives going on. Inwardly looking at those deep and dark places of sin in our lives. Those little sins that easily beset us, the ones that we write off as not really that bad, taking of the Supper causes us to look at ourselves to see if we are doing so in the right manner, in the right way, in the right heart. Now I know that none of us are perfect and none of us are ever going to come to the table being wholly clean without sin in our lives. I understand that we all have sins and I don't cast stones at you and make you think that I'm far greater than you because I'm not. I sin way too much, far more than I want to. But coming together as a church to take supper is a time to reflect and a time to cry out that the Lord might forgive us. Quit making excuses for our sins. Ask for forgiveness. Ask for help that we might not sin against Thee. Paul tells the church at Corinth that there was such sin going on that was unrepentant of in nature that as they came together to take of the Lord's Supper that it was so displeasing to God that some were sick and weak among them and some had even died. Folks, that's a scary thing. Now I told you earlier the commandment is to do. Here's a caution. If you're truly saved in living in sin, without a repent of the heart, stay away from the table until you set things in order with God. And lastly, the supper brings about oneness in the church. Look again at verse 33. It says, wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. Corinth was divided. Some would take it before others in the meal that they were having. Others may have none to take. Some didn't have anything left to take it with. It had become something for families and just instead of about a church thing. Paul says, tarry one for another. That is, wait for one another. You know, they weren't all, they didn't have watches on their wrists. They didn't have, okay, service starts at 10. Okay, time was a little bit harder to go with. They didn't carry sundials on their wrists. They said, tarry one for another. That is, wait for one another. Come together as you do this. Now, I'm going to confess to you, I don't know fully how they did all this at Jerusalem with so many Christians. They didn't have a banquet hall at the Civic Center. I don't understand how they got everybody together to do all this in places, and we can speculate that on it as much as possible, but you know what? I do know this, that as the saints of God, of grace, the members of grace, you have the opportunity for us all to be here at the same time to take it together. We got no problem with room and you got no problem with a clock on your hand or your cell phone or wherever it is. Coming together unifies us together, helps set us in one accord. So truly as you go back and you look at those six things, you can see how all of those things help us to be a healthy and effective church. Now next week, Lord willing, we're going to move on to the subject of prayer in the church. Prayer for one another. That's a great topic. You want to be here for it.