If you would, open up your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. We will be starting or reading, starting in verse 23. Hear the word of the Lord. For I deliver to you what I in turn had received from the Lord. that on the night he was betrayed, our Lord took bread, and after he had given thanks, he blessed it and said, take, eat, for this is my body for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also, he took the cup after the supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink of it in remembrance of me. For as long as you eat of this bread and drink of this cup, you do proclaim the Lord's death until he returns. Christ, our Passover, is sacrifice for us. And so we're to take the elements of the new covenant sacrament, called the communion, and feed on them with our bodies. And as we do so, we feed on Christ with our hearts by faith, knowing that he was lifted up for our transgressions was also raised for our justification. We are starting a new tradition in this church, not only a weekly service of worship, but also a weekly communion. And that has often raised questions among certain believers. Why do the communion weekly? Why is it so important that we even do the communion? Some people have asked the question, maybe the communion is so sacred and holy we should do it less often, lest we take away from its significance. And so what I would like to do is address this morning, or this evening, I keep forgetting what day it is, time of day it is. I think that we should address certain questions concerning why the new covenant sacrament of communion is so important. What is it that makes the sacrament important? Or why is it so important to Paul and the apostles? So much so that we should do this every week. So the first point that I'd like to make is it is important because it is important to the apostles. If you look at 1 Corinthians 11, you'll notice that Paul gives these words, I deliver to you what I received from the Lord. That language is very similar to another text that Paul gives us in the book of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 15, if you flip just two pages over, you'll see these same words. Paul says, starting in verse three, for I deliver to you what I in turn had received. that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and he was buried. And that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas and then to the twelve. Notice that Paul says, I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received. Paul is indicating here that the gospel message is of first importance. So imagine Paul going and founding the church in Corinth. What process would he do or what process would he engage in when he establishes this church? I would submit to you that he establishes the church by first and foremost preaching the gospel. And it's summarized in this four-line formula we find here in 1 Corinthians 15, verses three through five. The four lines, Christ died for our sins, and he was buried. He rose again the third day, and he appeared to his earliest followers. We find Paul doing something very similar to this, that is the delivery of the gospel in Acts 13. In Acts 13, he comes into a situation, a city, Thessalonica, where he delivers the gospel. And what we find in Acts 13 is an expanded version of this delivery of the gospel that we find here summarized in 1 Corinthians 15. In Acts 13, we have, if you will, a summary of the passion, a summary of the crucifixion, a summary of the resurrection and Christ's appearances to his followers. In a lot of ways, the gospel of Mark is really just a further expansion of that gospel message. And so what we have is Mark writing a gospel and or Matthew writing an early version of the gospel and the apostles taking that message and summarizing it as they go out and deliver the gospel to the people. So you can imagine when Paul first shows up in Corinth and he delivers the gospel to the Corinthians, the first thing he does is he delivers this very gospel. In that delivery, of course, is the story of the Lord's Supper. And so the same language of delivering, receiving, that is found in the delivery of the gospel is found here in 1 Corinthians 15. He delivers the story of the communion to the people of God. He says, I receive from the Lord what I also deliver to you. He receives this from the Lord, meaning that this was a tradition that the Lord himself gave to the people, and Paul is receiving that tradition from the apostles. We know that not long after his conversion, Paul goes to Jerusalem and has a sit down with the apostles. And when he sits down with them, we learn in Galatians chapter one that Paul actually receives the basic contents of the gospel from the apostles. And I would suggest that this tradition of the passion contained right here in 1 Corinthians along with the tradition of Christ's resurrection contained in 1 Corinthians 15 is the exact content that was given to him when he first came to Jerusalem. And so he says, I receive from the Lord what I deliver to you that on the night that he was betrayed, he's referring to the betrayal of Judas, He, that is Jesus, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and he said, this is my body. Some traditions read broken for you, some manuscripts do, but it at least says, this is my body for you. Do this in remembrance of me. What are we doing in remembrance of him? We're partaking of the bread, we're eating it. In the same way, he took the cup after supper, saying, this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink of it in remembrance of me. And then he says, as long as you're doing this, you're proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes again. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 that he wanted to make nothing known to the people except Christ and him crucified. And notice that this supper is that very proclamation of Christ's death. So as long as we partake of the supper, we are proclaiming Christ and him crucified every time we partake of it. And herein lies the importance of the supper. The supper itself is a visible sign of the gospel itself. In partaking of the supper, we are proclaiming the gospel. Well, what is another reason why the Lord's Supper is so important? It was important for the apostles. It was important for the apostles because in partaking of this supper, we proclaim the gospel. It's also important because as Jesus says right here in these words, this is the cup of the new covenant. The Lord's Supper represents a radical change in which the way God relates to his church. were moving from the prophetic gospel of the prophets to the historic gospel of the apostles. In the Old Testament, the church participated in an expanded sacramental life that was limited to a single nation. What do I mean by an expanded sacramental life? Many of you know what the people of God participated in according to the Torah throughout their yearly lives. Each year, year in year out, certain months represented certain holy times for the people of Israel. And the sacramental life consisted of Passover's and sacrifices. It consisted of holy days and days of atonement. It consisted of meals beyond just the Passover meal. So that day in, day out, this expanded sacramental life that was limited to the nation of God showed the world that we are representative of God. If you want to come to Yahweh, you must come through this sacramental life. Gentiles were welcome, of course, but they had to stay in the outer court. With Christ's coming, the new covenant sacrament of the Lord's Supper represents a radical change. The shadow has now become reality. And so we've shifted from an expanded sacramental life to a very contained sacramental life. We go from many sacraments to just two. What are the two? Communion and baptism. But it's a contained sacramental life that is now expanded to everyone. Jew and Gentile alike have equal standing before God, because the veil in the temple has been written to, and Christ is now communicated to everyone. When a church gives the communion, there's a certain worship or posture that is given in their worship, in the deliverance of the communion. And so we, in the Reformation churches, actually deliver the sacrament in a very particular way. Why is it that when you participate in the sacrament in this church you don't come before John and kneel before him as he hands you the element? The answer is that John is not a priest. The priesthood is gone. The priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek is now established. Christ is our only priest. Christ is our only mediator. The posture of kneeling before someone and receiving the element indicates that you're now having to come before him and receive the sacrament through him because he mediates between you and God. That posture, according to the Reformation churches, is unbiblical. And therefore, the posture of delivery is one of receptance by faith, where all people have an equal standing before God. And so we accept two ways of delivering the sacrament. You can either come and stand, but in our church, we actually all sit down. Some of you have come into me and said, why does John sit down when he receives the sacrament? And I say, because he's really tired. No, that's not actually why he sits down. When John sits down, he's communicating the fact that he's a sinner just like the rest of us, and he too needs the gospel. And so you'll notice all of you sit and we deliver the gospel to you, and then John sits and one of the elders, usually Steve, will deliver the sacrament to him, the gospel communicated in that sacrament. So that's the second reason why the Lord's Supper is so important. It symbolizes this radical change in relationship between God and his people. It's the same people, but before it was the people looking forward to the gospel. It was the prophetic gospel. The people of God now look backwards at an historic gospel proclaimed by the apostles. And it's only appropriate that we have a new sacrament celebrating that gospel. A third reason why the sacrament is so important is because it is the foundation of unity and peace between believers. Paul says this starting in verse 17 of this very text. In 1 Corinthians 11, he says, but in the following instructions, I do not commend you. He's about to scold them. He says, 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." And then he goes on to say, when you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat. Now notice what he's saying here. He's actually contradicting a common belief that the Corinthians have. The Corinthians think that when they come together, they are celebrating the Lord's Supper on a week-in, week-out basis. In other words, when they come together, they are celebrating the Lord's Supper. But Paul is saying you have profaned the Lord's Supper so much that you're no longer really partaking of the Lord's Supper. Now, by the way, what does that assume? It assumes that whenever the church came together in those days, they participated in the Lord's Supper. He goes on, for in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry and another gets drunk. Apparently these Corinthians were showing up at the church and some of them would raid the dinner table before other people had a chance to get to it. And some drank so much wine that they actually got drunk off of the wine in the Lord's, taking of the Lord's supper. He says, what? Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Hey, if you wanna eat like that, go home and eat. Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I command you in this? No, I will not. Or excuse me, shall I commend you in this? No, I'll not. Now, notice he goes on then, If you skip over some of those verses and go to verse 33, he says, so then my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry, let them eat at home. If you're coming to participate in the Lord's supper just to fill your belly, go ahead and just eat at home. When we come together for the Lord's supper, it's for something different. It's to celebrate the communion of believers. He says, so that when you come together, it will not be for judgment. And then he goes on to talk about other matters that he will deliver to them in person. So the Lord's Supper is actually a celebration of our communion together. It's a recognition of our unity in Christ with one another. And so as long as we participate in the sacrament, we are declaring that we are one people of one faith. This is actually the posture of worship that we give when we celebrate the sacrament. Notice that John tells us all to wait until the elements have been passed out to everyone, and then we all eat together. This is actually in recognition of this very text, isn't it? That Paul's saying, hey, wait, don't hog the table, don't eat so much bread, don't go after food for the purpose of filling your bellies, wait for one another and eat in unison to celebrate our unity together in Christ. Now, there is a fourth reason why the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is so important. And that is what Paul is communicating here in verse 27 and following. He speaks about eating the bread in an unworthy manner. He says, 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. What this is communicating is twofold. First, this is a very special meal. This is not just any run of the meal. meal that we have when we're eating together. We don't just come together and eat just another meal. This is a special sacramental meal that we eat in celebration of the Lord's death. And it is so special that Paul is saying you must examine yourself when you partake of it. If you partake of it with unconfessed sin in your life, you are eating unto your own judgment. You were to come to this meal in holy reverence of who it is that it represents. In fact, notice how seriously Paul takes the claim that this is the body and blood of our Lord. He says, you were guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord if you eat this in an unworthy manner. Now, in this message, I'm not gonna go through all the views concerning the sacrament that exist among the various churches. In Sunday School, in fact, we actually talked about that. But I will simply say that we in the Reformed churches take this language so seriously that we say that in some special sense, there is a real presence of Christ in the sacrament. So that when you are participating in this meal, God is sanctifying you in a special way through the participation of the sacrament. Why do we believe this? Well, one reason we believe this is because Paul wouldn't be speaking so soberly about the meal if this were not so. So these are the four reasons, and I could give you many more, but these are the four reasons why I think the sacramental meal is so important. First, the apostles thought it was important. It was one of the first things that Paul delivered to the Corinthian churches and all the churches that he planted. Second of all, it is the cup of the new covenant. It's the fulfillment of prophecy. Christ is giving a new covenant sacrament to his church to celebrate the historic gospel, the redemption that is accomplished in Christ in space-time history. Thirdly, it is a communion meal in the sense that it is a celebration of our unity with one another. And then fourthly, Christ himself is really present in the elements of this sacramental meal. so that when we come together, let us make sure that we constantly examine ourselves to make sure we are in fellowship with God, that there's no one confessed sin in our life when we come to the meal, that our accounts with other people and our relationships with other people have been settled before coming. And as John is going to do, as he must, as a pastor of our church, he will give a fencing of the table, meaning he's going to make sure that those who come to celebrate the meal are believers who are members in good standing of a gospel church, that is a church that really does proclaim the unobscured gospel. This is why we're doing this as a church. And so I would like you to reflect on these points, especially as we participate in the meal now and even in the weeks and months to come. Let us pray. Father, we do thank you so much for this time together. We ask that you be with us now as we participate in this sacrament and that we do this unto our sanctification and not to our detriment. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.