What We Believe About The Lord's Supper Series

“What We Believe: About the Lord’s Supper”

Introduction:

A young boy was part of a group of young people from his church who, as a service ministry, took the Lord’s Supper to homebound or hospitalized members of the church. He and his friends visited one elderly gentleman in particular who was in the hospital--nothing serious, just a minor illness--and these young people were disappointed to find that the gentleman was fast asleep. Nothing they did, it seemed, could stir him from his sleep.

Well, they were crestfallen; they hated to leave without performing their duty. So, one of the eleven-year-olds pointed out that the gentleman’s mouth was open. The young boys looked at each other, as if to say, "Why not?" and they broke off a tiny little piece of a wafer, and placed it in the elderly gentleman’s mouth, and poured in a tiny sip of grape juice; and sure enough, the man swallowed.

He never woke up. Neither do many people today.

I believe that there are many people who go through the motions of taking the Lord’s Supper, but really are not in communion with the Lord.

Every week here we devote a portion of the worship service to the parking of the Lord’s Supper. Why do we do that? Is this just some church tradition that we have, or is this a Biblical principle? I believe that many people have a problem with the Lord’s Supper because they do not understand what it is. I hope that through this study this morning we can learn the importance and purpose of the Lord’s Supper and then be changed by the way in which we partake.

For some people they are doing no more than eating a piece of bread and drinking some juice.

If anything in the church has been dumbed down and forgotten about it is the Lord’s Supper. I would be willing to wager that many people in the Lord’s Churches don’t even know why they are taking Communion. For many people they just take it because they have been offered it and know nothing different. I think it is shame that there are so many people ignorant of this issue. I believe that the Lord’s Supper is a central part of our weekly worship and should be central. We know that in Acts the reason why Christians met together was to take the Lord’s Supper. They didn’t meet together to hear a sermon or to sing songs, even though that is an important part of worship, they met together to take the Lord’s Supper. Maybe we have forgotten the importance of this institution which the Lord has left us.

Some churches don’t take the Lord’s Supper, but once a month or quarterly…how do we know that we should take it weekly. First, we have a example set before us of how the Apostles did things. Apostolic example is just as good as a command of Jesus.

Church, if nothing else can motivate you to come together to Church on Sunday morning, if nothing else will get you out of bed in the morning, then looking forward to this memorial should motivate us.

Suppose you had a child that died to save someone. Imagine being at his funeral and everyone talking about how he is a hero. People probably would come from miles around to honor him, but imagine if the person he died to save was not at his memorial service…that may aggregate you and upset you a little. You may think that he was un grateful and your son should not have died for him. Maybe that is how God feels when we miss the memorial of the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is the memorial of the death of Jesus, and we have been invited to remember. Some say it becomes common place after we do it week after week, some say it looses it’s meaning, but those people who say that do not understand the purpose of the Lord’s Supper. Those who simply chew the bread and drink the juice don’t understand the seriousness of this institution.

Let us examine the scriptures to see what the Lord’s Supper is and why we should partake of it regularly.

Text: Matthew 26:17-30

I. The Lord’s Supper is an act of Obedience

I have heard many people say that taking the Lord’s Supper is no a command that is found in scripture, but I believe that it is.

I Corinthians 11:24

Partaking of the Lord’s Supper is a command given by our Lord. He said to “do this”. Why are there so many churches that don’t see the importance in the Lord’s Supper? Why is it that people do not obey this command of the Lord, in fact the so blatantly disobey these commands. I do not know how you can look to scriptures and not see that the Lord’s Supper was an integral part of their worship. The reason why they can do that is because they put equally as much weight in the opinions of man as the do the authority of the Bible. Years ago Martin Luther came on the scene preaching that we need to go back to the Bible and the Bible alone. A few hundred years later Alexander Campbell came on the scene saying that we need to go to the Bible and the Bible alone as our only rule for faith and practice. I think that those are great ideals, but they need to be preached again. I believe that people have lost that idea. The Lord’s Supper is an issue which separates churches and divides them, but it is a command to partake from our Lord, and we have the example of the early church recorded in scripture that each Lord’s Day they meet together in obedience to the command to take the Lord’s Supper. Why do we take the Lord’s Supper each Sunday? One reason is out of obedience to our Lord Jesus.