Text: 1 Cor 11:17-22, Title: Not Just Any Meal, Date/Place: NRBC, 4/19/09, AM
A. Opening illustration: Speak about a wedding being the initiation of a marriage and anniversaries being the renewing, or possibly the renewing of vows…
B. Background to passage: Paul began in chapter 11 dealing with improper behavior in Christian worship. He first talked about proper attire for worship related to gender (I’ll let you search it out, although it is not what you think). Then he moves on to their conduct related to the Lord’s Supper. And as you can see our services today will be centered around this observance. Many take the Supper casually, or thoughtlessly, and religiously, or even not at all. But Paul indicates here that God is very serious about the Supper, and especially about its abuse by the church members. Exp terminology quickly.
C. Main thought: How do we prepare to take the supper?
A. Church Prerequisites
1. In v. 20, Paul says that they are not really eating the Supper. Explain the Lord’s Supper in broad strokes about coming together as a body to remember Christ, demonstrate our unity, and proclaim the gospel. Decry its importance as a “church ordinance.” And its importance that we do it right and think rightly about it. And it has only been in recent history when questions of who could take communion were not talked about in Baptist life. Let me give you three areas of consideration. 1) Belief. Usually no one in Baptist circles will offer that the Supper should be given to nonbelievers. At the very least, most of us are unified in saying that this is the Lord’s Supper, taken by His church, which is made up of His people. 2) Baptized. Baptist have historically universally required baptism to precede communion. 3) Membership. There have been differing opinions to whether or not one must be member of the church who is carrying out the Supper, or just a church of a like faith and practice to participate together. And since baptism and membership are so linked together in Baptist life, it is no surprise. Again the Supper is a church ordinance! 4) In good standing. This last one kind of sums up the previous two. To rightly observe the Supper, we would seek to be clean before the Lord, and in good standing with His church.
2. Illustration: Jonathon Edwards’ firing after 23 years of pastoral ministry over open communion and the half-way covenant within the Congregational Church,
3. If you think that how we do the Supper is unimportant than you put yourself in disagreement with Paul, Jesus, and God. If you fail to take the Supper as a believer, or take it wrongly you are in sin. But you must be a believer. If you are here today, and are not born again, you are not welcome to partake with us. It is a continuation rite of the church, not of whoever is here today. If you are the family members of our church members, and you have never been born again, you cannot take with us. If you are children, who have not been saved, you cannot take with us. I am not comfortable excluding those unscripturally baptized, if they are truly born again. Nor am I comfortable excluding members of other churches of like faith and practice from the Lord’s table. If you are truly born again, you will want to walk in obedience, you will want to participate fully in the church, and you will remain in close communion with Christ. And although we are not the sin police, we trust that you will search your own heart as to your commitment to your Lord and to His church. We are going to REVIEW THE NRBC COVENANT.
B. Personal Prerequisites
1. The early church had what was known as “Love Feasts” where they would all gather and share a meal together, then receive the Lord’s Supper at the end. And what was happening in Corinth was doing more harm than good. Paul seems to imply that it would be better if they had not even come together. He tells them their practice negates, and even despising the church and the gospel that it is supposed to proclaim. The church is the manifestation of the body of Christ on earth, and to abuse her is to abuse Him. What was going on was that richer members of the church were eating the meal before the other “lower” classes of people got their, and getting drunk on top of it all. So that many were going without, and many were getting drunk. But the point was not so much, the excess, as the lack of love and unity. At the table of the Lord the church is supposed to proclaim and demonstrate the gospel in symbol! And Paul says that the consequences of such behavior will not only be a failure to proclaim, but the body will suffer if you don’t receive communion in unity and love! People are sick; they die, because they are not unified. So he pleads with them to examine themselves, judge themselves, or else God will purify them through whatever means necessary.
2. Illustration: It was related that once when the Duke of Wellington remained to take communion at his parish church, a very poor old man went up to the opposite aisle, and reaching the Communion table, knelt down close by the side of the Duke. (Immediately, tension and commotion interrupted the silence of the church.) Someone came and touched the poor man on the shoulder, and whispered to him to move farther away, or to rise and wait until the Duke had received the bread and the wine. But the eagle eye and the quick ear of the great commander caught the meaning of that touch and that whisper. He clasped the old man’s hand and held him to prevent his rising; and in a reverential but distinct undertone, the Duke said, "Do not move; we are equal here." “The Lord’s Supper is not just any meal; it is the meal;…and therefore they are not just any group of sociologically diverse people who could keep their differences intact at this table.” –Gordon Fee, One Sunday of every month, Bishop C. Vernie Russell Jr., chooses a family from the church to come forward, and the congregation takes up an offering to pay off their debt. Over the last 14 months, this group has collected $340,000 dollars to rescue 59 of the church’s families from debt. When we come to the Lord’s Supper, we remember another debt—a greater debt that no human striving, no double shifts, no church collections could ever repay—our debt of sin. Had a visitor to this church tell me that after several visits, he felt that people were always staring at them and looking down upon them because they were of lower economic status than most of us.
3. Far too long New River Baptist Church has tolerated division, hatred, grudges, hurt feelings, hypersensitivity, gossip, coldness, etc. Do you not think that our church is suffering for such things? Here are four areas in which we MUST examine our Christian commitment in our hearts as it relates to others in the body: 1) Social Class. Are there people within the body of Christ that you have looked down upon because of their lack of financial prosperity? Or maybe because of their financial prosperity? Do you think that you are better than they because you were born in different circumstances? 2) Length of time in the family. Do you know how hard it is to break into a church? Can anyone outside my SS class tell me the occupation of any of our new visitors? Anybody been to lunch with them? There is a huge gap between the generations at NRBC and also between the long-time members and those that are new. We must fix that if we are to have unity and love around the Supper. 3) Personality conflicts. There are members here that you don’t like; that you don’t get along with; that you do not speak to when you pass; that you are angry at; no big secrets. And everyone notices. And you disgrace the Lord, His gospel, and His church when you carry on like this. Remember Christ’s words on worship and unity. We will suffer the results of our disobedience until all of you take responsibility and deal with the hurt. And if you have been overly sensitive; repent from that too. Reconciliation is required. If you will not forgive, and act forgiving for the sake of the gospel, the authenticity of your faith is called into question. We will not tolerated it anymore! Fix it now. 4) Selfishness. Clicks, factions, personal agendas, anger fits, intentional absence, manipulation, gossip, etc. All of these things go on in your minds. And God will judge the body for your disobedience. NRBC may not grow because of your action, or lack thereof. We must love one another! We must unify around the cross at the expense of our personal feelings, traditions, schedules, and preferences so as to demonstrate that we are the body of Christ and His unity is more powerful that all the sin and forces of hell that work against us! INVITE TO SEARCH HEARTS AND RECONCILE.
C. Remembering and Proclaiming
1. These verses that are so familiar to us remind us of what we are to think of about Christ. And we must emotionally engage. Think about the night that He was betrayed. Think about the teaching, the foot washing, the Passover meal. With bread we remember the body that was given for us. Speaking of the suffering and killing of Christ. With the cup we remember the blood that was shed for the remission of sin.
2. Argumentation
3. Illustration: "I was a medical missionary for many years in India. And I served in a region where there was progressive blindness. People were born with healthy vision, but there was something in that area that caused people to lose their sight as they matured." But this missionary had developed a process which would arrest progressive blindness. So people came to him, and he performed his operation. They would leave realizing that they had been spared a life of blindness because of this missionary. He said that they never said, "Thank you," because that phrase was not in their dialect. Instead, they spoke a word that meant, "I will tell your name." Wherever they went, they would tell the name of the missionary who had cured their blindness. They had received something so wonderful that they eagerly proclaimed it. Communion is also a time of proclamation. The reasoning, I’m told, is that the strange practice of taking the loaf and cup frightens away “seekers” (formerly known as sinners). Don’t they realize that the Lord’s Supper is the greatest evangelistic tool we have? Paul says through the proper observance of the Supper “you proclaim the death of the Lord till He comes” (I Corinthians 11:26). The Communion service is certainly a greater aid to evangelism than a cross on a church building, on the baptistery wall, or on a necklace. Robert Tinsky was reared in Judaism. Dissatisfied spiritually, he visited a Christian Church for the first time, seeking some religious truth. He was astounded by the observance of the Lord’s Supper. He didn’t understand it. He asked some young people seated near him what it meant. They faithfully told him the gospel story as portrayed in the loaf and cup.
4. To simply go through the motions of the supper is a disgrace to Christ. Young people, what are you thinking about right now? What are you feeling now? Are you sending a text? Others, are you asleep, where is your mind? Does the sacrifice of Christ on your behalf not move you emotionally? But all is done in faith. What the reformers said was true: it is not just about doing the ordinances of the church; it is about doing them in faith! Share the gospel and speak about repentance and belief, selling out to follow Christ, taking up your cross and dying and living for Him.
A. Closing illustration: Bonhoeffer said: "Baptism incorporates us into the unity of the Body of Christ, and the Lord’s supper fosters and sustains our fellowship and communion … in that Body". During the Nazi reign, Bonhoeffer was cut off from other believers, and it took a toll on him. Donald LaSuer says "Bonhoeffer’s painful discovery is instructive for us. Cut off from the nurturing fellowship of other Christians, he felt a deeper hunger for the fellowship that was no longer available to him. Like a hungry man who knows the taste of bread though he can no longer reach and break from the loaf, he knew the power of fellowship when it was painfully absent". When we come to communion, we have the chance to experience a fellowship, a deep union that only comes when we realize the saving grace that must cover each of us.
B. Recap
C. Invitation to commitment
Additional Notes
• Is Christ Exalted, Magnified, Honored, and Glorified?
