Pastor Allan Kircher
Shell Point Baptist Church
6 March 2011
I have PP's to go with sermon to bring out the visual, feel, hear, and see what the Holy Spirit does. For PP email me at shellpntbapt@embarqmail.com. 25-30 min sermon.
“Communion with Christ”
I will read you the text as it is given in the New International Version: 1 Cor. 10:16-17, “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.”
It is a sad fact today that some have fancied that this simple ordinance of the Lord’s Supper has a certain magical, or at least physical power about it.
So much so, that the mere act of eating and drinking this bread and wine that men can be made partakers of the body and blood of Christ.
It is marvelous that so plain a symbol should have been so complicated by centuries of genuflections, adornments, and technical phrases.
Forgetting through the process of repetition the true value and meaning of the Lord’s Supper.
When we come in communion do we just see some silver plates with wafers and plastic cups with grape juice?
Are these just elements of superstitions, whereby the blessed ordinance of Christ is likely to be again overlooked and symbolized?
What does the supper mean?
It means communion: communion with Christ, and communion with one another.
What is communion? The word breaks up easily into union, and its prefix com, which means with, “union with.”
We must, therefore, first enjoy union with Christ, and with His Church, or else we cannot enjoy communion.
Union lies at the basis of communion.
We must be one with Christ in heart, and soul, and life;
Baptized into His death; quickened by His life, and so brought to the members of His body.
One with the whole Church of which He is the Head.
We cannot have communion with Christ till we are in union with Him;
And we cannot have communion with the Church till we are in vital union with it.
The teaching of the Lord’s supper is just this—
We have many ways of communion with Christ, yet the receiving of Christ into our souls as our Savior is the best way of communion with Him.
1. Communion is ours by personal fellowship with the Lord Jesus.
We speak with Him in prayer, and He speaks with us through the Word.
Some of us speak more often with Christ than we do with our wife or child,
and our communion with Jesus is deeper and more thorough than our fellowship with our nearest friend.
In meditation and thanksgiving we speak with our risen Lord, and by His Holy Spirit He answers us by creating fresh thoughts and emotions in our minds.
Often times in prayer, when I do not feel I can say anything, I just sit still, and I hear His voice in solemn silence of my mind.
When we have this fellowship with Jesus of a closer nature, our soul melts beneath the warmth of Jesus’ love.
Think not that I am dreaming or have lost my mind, but I do assert that the devout soul can converse with the Lord Jesus all day long.
And we have fellowship with Him as if He still dwelt bodily among men today.
I speak to you from my heart, not by the hearing of the ear, but by my own personal experience.
I know with certainty that Jesus manifests Himself unto His people as he does not unto the world.
Oh, what sweet communion often exists between the obedient Christian and the risen Lord when there is no bread and wine upon the table,
For the Spirit Himself will draw to the renewed heart.
Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
Do you enjoy this charming fellowship?
Well next, we have communion with Christ in:
2. His thoughts, views, and purposes.
His thoughts are our thoughts according to our capacity and sanctity.
Believers take the same view of matter as Jesus does,
That which pleases Him, pleases us, and that with grieves Him grieves us also.
Consider the greatest theme of our thoughts, and see whether our thoughts are not like those of Christ?
Jesus delights in His Father, He loves to glorify the Father, don’t we also?
Is not the Father the center of our soul’s delight?
Do we not rejoice at the very sound of His name?
Does not our spirit cry, “Abba, Father”?
When we feel as Jesus feels toward the Father, and so we have true communion with Him.
3. We have also communion with Christ in our emotions.
Have you ever felt a holy horror when you heard a word blasphemy in the world?
Jesus felt it when He saw sin, and bore it in His own person.
Only He felt it infinitely more than we do.
As you looked upon sinners have you not felt a need to
weep over them?
Those are holy tears, and contain the same ingredients as those which Jesus shed when He lamented over Jerusalem.
Yes, in our zeal for God, our hatred of sin, our detestation of falsehood, our pity for men, we have true communion with Jesus.
4. Further, we have had communion with Christ in many of our actions.
Have you ever strived to reclaim the backslider?
If you have, you have been in communion with the Good Shepherd, who searches in the wilderness to find the one lost sheep,
Finds it, lays it upon His shoulders, and brings it home rejoicing.
Have you ever sought over a lost soul night and day with tears?
Then you have had communion with Him who has borne all our names upon His broken heart,
and carries the memorial of them upon His pierced hands.
Yes, in acts of self-denial, liberality, benevolence and piety, we enter into communion with Him who went about doing good.
Whenever we try to disentangle the snarls of strife, and to make peace between men who are hostile,
Then we doing what the great Peace-maker did,
And we have communion with the Lord and Giver of peace.
Wherever we co-operate with the Lord Jesus in His designs of love to men, we are in true and active communion with Him.
5.We have communion with Him with our sorrows.
Many of us have had much fellowship with the Lord Jesus in and through affliction.
“Jesus wept”: He lost a friend, and so have we.
Jesus grieved over the hardness of men’s hearts; we know that grief.
Jesus was exceedingly sorry that the hopeful young man turned away, and went back to the world;
We know that sorrow don’t we?
Those who have sympathetic hearts, and live for others, readily enter into the experience of “the Man of sorrows.”
The wounds of defamation, the reproaches of the proud,
The venom of the bigoted, the treachery of the false,
And the weakness of the true, we have known in our capacity.
And so we have had communion with our Lord Jesus.
6.We have communion with our Divine Master in His joys.
I suppose there never lived a happier man than the Lord Jesus.
He was rightly called “the Man of sorrows”: but He might with unimpeachable truth, have been called “the Man of joys”
Jesus must have rejoiced when He called His disciples,
When he healed, and gave pardon to penitents, and breathed peace on believers.
His was the joy of finding the sheep, and taking the piece of money out of the dust.
His work was His joy; such joy that, for its sake, He endured the cross, despising the shame.
The exercise of benevolence is joy to loving hearts;
The pain it costs, the more joy it is.
Kind actions make us happy, and in such joy we find communion with the great heart of Jesus.
Now I have given you a list of windows which you may come at the Lord;
But the ordinance of the Lords’ supper sets forth a way which surpasses them all.
It is the most accessible and the most effectual method of fellowship.
Here it is that we have fellowship with the Lord Jesus by receiving Him as our Savior.
We, being guilty, accept His atonement as our sacrificial cleansing, and in token partake in the bread and the cup.
Someone may say, “Oh, I do not feel that I can get near to Christ. He is so high and holy, and I am only a poor sinner.”
Just so. For that very reason you can have fellowship with Christ because that lies nearest to His heart.
He is a Savior, and to be a Savior there must be a sinner to be saved.
You are that one, and Christ and you shall at once be in union and communion.
He shall save, and you shall be saved,
He shall sanctify, and you shall be sanctified.
This table sets before you His great sacrifice.
Jesus offered it; will you accept it?
He asked you not to bring anything, no drop of blood, no pang of flesh; all is here, and your part is to come and partake of it,
I tell you that the communion of receiving him into your inmost soul is the nearest and closest fellowship possible to mortal man.
Such fellowship is eternal.
No power on Earth can take from me the piece of bread which I will have eaten in a few moments.
It is within me, and of me.
The cup of His blood will course through my veins and is part of my parcel and my being.
You see, once we receive Christ into our inward parts, all the men on earth, and all the devils in Hell cannot extract the living Christ from us.
By our sincere reception of Jesus into our hearts, an indissoluble union is established between us and the Lord, and this manifests itself in mutual communion.
To as many as received Him, to them has He given this communion.
I now look at another side of communion—namely, the fellowship of true believers with each other.
1. We communion by holy conversation.
I wish we had more of this.
Sometimes it seems as though we speak against each other more so.
It is a grievous thing that too often love lies bleeding by a brother’s hand.
While I believe we are not quite like that here at Shell Point, are we often silent and so miss profitable conversation?
Perhaps our narrow mindedness has made one Christian sit by another in utter isolation, when each would have been charmed with the other’s company.
Brothers and sisters of the congregation need not to wait to be introduced to each other.
Having eaten of this one bread, we have given and received the token of brotherhood.
Let us therefore act consistently with our relationship, and fall into holy conversation next time we meet.
I am afraid that Christian brotherhood in many cases begins and ends inside the place of worship.
Let it not be so among Shell Point Baptist church.
Let it be our delight to find our society in the circle of which Jesus is center, and let us make those our friends who are the friends of Jesus.
2. We communion together in our thoughts.
In the essentials of the gospel we think alike: in our thoughts of God, of Christ, of sin, of holiness,
In our intense desire to promote the kingdom of our Lord, we are as one.
All spiritual life is one.
The thoughts raised by the Spirit of God in the souls of men are never contrary to each other.
The marks that divide one set of nominal Christians from another set are very deep and wide compared to those who have nothing of religion but the name itself;
Yet living believers scarcely notice them.
Boundaries that separate the cattle of the field are no division to the birds of the air.
Our minds, thoughts, desires, and hopes are one in Christ Jesus, and there we have communion.
This in itself will make or break the Holy brotherhood in this sanctuary.
You sit down and tell your experience, and I smile to think that you are telling mine.
Sometimes a young believer enlarges upon the sad story of his trials and temptations,
Imagining that nobody ever had to endure so great a fight, when all the while he is only describing the common adventures of those who go on pilgrimage,
And we are all communing with him.
When we talk together about our Lord, are we not agreed?
When we speak of our Father, and all His dealings with us, are we not one?
And when we weep, and when we sigh, and when we sing, and when we rejoice, are we not all kin?
Those heavenly fingers touching like strings within our hearts bring forth the same notes,
For we are the products of the same Maker,
And tuned to the same praise.
Real harmony exists among all the true people of God;
Christians are one in Christ. We have no differences in God’s kingdom.
3.We have communion with one another, in our actions.
We unite in trying to save men. I hope we do.
We join in instructing, warning, inviting, and persuading sinners to come to Jesus.
Our life ministry is the same because we are workers together with God.
And certainly we have much communion with another in our sufferings.
There cannot be one poor sick or despondent saint upon the Earth with whom we do not sympathize at this moment.
We suffer with each other, and bear each other’s burden, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
If we do not, we have reason for questioning our own faith;
But if we do, we have communion with each other.
4. I hope we have communion in our Joys.
When we meet a brother with ten talents, do we congratulate ourselves on having such a man given to help us?
Or do we depreciate him as much as we can?
Such is the depravity of our own nature that we do not readily rejoice in the progress of others.
We ought to be happy in our brother’s happiness.
If we are ill, let it be our comfort that many are in robust health.
If we are faint let us be glad that others are strong in the Lord.
Thus shall we enjoy a happy fellowship like that of the perfected above.
When I have put all these modes of Christian communion together that I spoke of
Not one of them is so sure, so strong, so deep, as communion in receiving the same Christ as our Savior,
And trusting in the same blood for cleansing unto eternal life.
Here on the table in front of you, you have the tokens of the broadest and fullest communion.
This is a kind of communion which you and I cannot choose or reject:
If we are in Christ, it is and must be ours.
Here, in the common reception of the one loaf, we bear witness that we are one:
Washed in the one blood, fed on the same loaf, cheered by the same cup, all differences pass away,
And “we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one member is one of another.”
Now, then, dear friends, if this kind of fellowship be the best, let us take care to enjoy it. Let us at this hour avail ourselves of it.
Let us take care to see Christ in the mirror of this ordinance.
Have any of you eaten the bread, and yet have not seen Christ in your thoughts?
Then you have gained no benefit.
Have you drunk the wine, but have not remembered the Lord?
I fear you have eaten and drunk condemnation to yourselves, not discerning the Lord’s body.
But if you did see through these elements, as aged persons see through their spectacles, be thankful for such aids to vision.
But what is the use of glasses if there is nothing to look at?
And what is the use of the communion if Christ is not in your thoughts and hearts?
If you did discern the Lord, then be sure, again, to accept Him.
Say to yourself, All that Christ is to all, He shall be to me. Does He save sinners? He shall save me. Does He change men’s hearts? He shall change mine. Is He all in all to those that trust Him? He shall be all in all to me.
And there may be some here that say, “I don’t know how to take Christ?”
Well, if you have something in your mouth you desire to eat, what is the best thing to do?
You will swallow it. That is exactly what faith does.
Christ’s word of grace is very near you, it is on your tongue.
Let it go down into your inmost soul. Say to your Savior.
I know I am not fit to receive you Lord. O Jesus, since you graciously come to me as bread comes to the hungry, I thankfully receive you, rejoicing to feed upon you! Since you come to me as the fruit of the vine to a thristy man, Lord, I take thee, willingly, and I thank thee that this reception is all that you do require of me.
Believers, when you have received Jesus, fail not to rejoice in Him as having received Him.
How many are out there who have received Christ, who talk and act as if they never had received Him!
It is a poor dinner of which a man says, after he has eaten it that he feels as if he had not dined;
And it is a poor Christ of whom anyone can say, “I have received Him, but I am none the happier, none the more at peace.
If you have received Jesus into your heart, you are saved, you are justified.
Do you whisper, “I hope so?” Is that all?
Do you not know?
The hopings of so many are a poor way of going;
Put both feet down and say, “I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him.”
You are either saved or lost. There is no in between.
You are either pardoned or condemned.
If you have received the atonement, be as glad as you can be,
And if you are still an unbeliever, rest not till Christ is yours.
May you have the joy of continually entering into fellowship with Christ, in such a way that you never lose His company!
Be this yours, everyday, and all day.
May His shadow fall upon you as you rest in the sun, or stray in the gardens!
May His voice cheer you as you lie down upon the seashore, and listen to the murmuring of the waves;
May His presence glorify the mountain solitude as you climb the hills!
May Jesus be to you an all-surrounding presence, lighting up the night, perfuming the day,
Gladdening all places, and sanctifying all pursuits!
Jesus is the inseparable Companion of His loving disciples.
Those who have had communion with His body and His blood at this table have the Lord as a habitual Guest at their own tables.
Those who have met their Master in this upper room may expect Him to make their own rooms bright with His royal presence.
Let fellowship with Jesus and with the elect brotherhood of Shell Point be the atmosphere of our life, the joy of our existence.
This will give us a heaven below, and prepare us for a Heaven above.
Will the Deacons please come to the front of the altar.
