(Based on a message preached 1-29-2023 at First Baptist Church, Chamois, MO. This is not an exact transcription.)
Introduction: We celebrate the Lord’s Supper when there’s a fifth Sunday. Some of us may have never taken part in one of these, and for some, it may have been a while. That’s one of the reasons I’ll be preaching about the Lord’s Supper, namely, what it is and why we do it.
The text comes from 1 Corinthians 11, so let’s turn there. The text says,
Text: 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, NASB: 17 But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better, but for the worse. 18 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part I believe it. 19 For there must also be factions among you, in order that those who are approved may have become evident among you. 20 Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper, 21 for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk. 22 What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God, and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you.
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed, took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly. 30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. 31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged. 32 But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world. 33 So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. 34 If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that you may not come together for judgment. And the remaining matters, I shall arrange when I come.
Now let’s pray.
The Lord’s Supper is one of the “ordinances” or things Jesus commands all believers to do. Baptism after salvation is the other. Now, neither one of these ordinances has anything to do whatsoever with whether nor not you’re a believer. It’s important, though, for us as believers to do this. And that’s why we have this passage of Scripture, to guide us in what we should do.
1 A time to regather or regroup
Paul wrote these words to believers in Corinth. It’s not very big now but back in Paul’s day it was one of the five or so largest cities in the Roman Empire, behind Rome itself, Athens, and maybe Antioch in Syria. As it was so large, and had so many people, it would not always be easy to make or keep friends.
Besides that, there were no buildings dedicated like churches for many years, maybe 300 years, after these events happened. Believers were increasing in number, but they didn’t have a single, designated, place to meet on a regular basis. The believers would meet in homes or anyplace they could in order to worship the Lord and hear messages from the Word.
Even so, there seemed to be times when larger groups of believers would meet, Paul doesn’t say when, where, or how often, and celebrate the Lord’s Supper together. It would be about the same thing as several churches in this Association coming together—if we were closer together, that is! Most of the churches are miles apart from each other!
All in all, it seems the believers in Corinth had regular meetings in small groups and some other meetings when larger groups of believers met together. And one of the reasons why these larger groups came together was to take part in observing the Lord’s Supper; to remember what our Lord did for us and why He did it.
2 A time to remember
I mentioned “remember” just a moment ago. How many, if any, believers in Corinth actually saw the Crucifixion of Jesus is not known, but it wasn’t that long ago when it did happen. Possibly many of the Jews in Corinth would have known about it during their journeys to Jerusalem. And every time these believers observed the Lord’s Supper, they couldn’t help but remember.
We’ll not go into detail here about how much our Lord suffered during the last hours of His life on this earth. The gospels each give an account of what He endured. To put it mildly, some of you may have seen the movie from several years ago, “The Passion of the Christ”. Now, I never saw it, but several people did, including some that I know. Most of them say it was the most realistic portrayal of our Lord’s suffering anyone could come up with. Be that as it may, even with the best of what the best Hollywood makeup artists could do, they didn’t even reach first base in what really happened. Oh, how Jesus suffered—and He did it all for us.
He did it for me. Thank You, Lord.
But as we remember, there’s something else we need to do. Each one of us, individually.
And that is to review or examine ourselves.
3 A time to review or examine ourselves
Paul had mentioned in the text that the believers were coming together, allegedly to eat the Lord’s Supper, but it had turned into something else. Some teachers have called it “the love feast” or the “agape meal”—some churches still do this. We’d probably say it was a fellowship meal or potluck, where each family brings something for themselves and a little more for the others who might be attending. We had something like this back when we had the concert in December, remember? Someone brought some home-made noodle soup (note: she raised her hand and laughed), and I mean some _bodacious_ soup! We also had some other goodies but the unspoken rule was “don’t touch before the concert’s over!”
And Paul added that while the concept was good, what the Corinthians had done to it was not. He said some were bringing food, all right, but they weren’t waiting for the others to come. They ate what they brought, and didn’t share with anybody but themselves. It’s as if the feast was to start at, say. 7 p.m. but they arrived at 6:30 and ate all the food. When the others came at the announced starting time, they had nothing to eat.
Even worse, Paul said some of the Corinthian believers were drunk! Whether that meant they came drunk to the feast, or got drunk while they were there, I can’t say for sure but at any rate, this was becoming a disgrace to the Church and to the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m glad we don’t have that problem here, amen?
I’d like to take a little more time to talk about this. Paul’s message included “let a man examine himself”, and to me that speaks of a couple of different areas. First, it’s no secret that some people who claim to be believers or “Christ-followers”, as some say, just plain aren’t. It’s also evident that a number of Christian performing artists, authors, and others have openly said, “I was just kidding, I was never a believer” or words to that effect. This is sad.
But even worse than being sad, it’s sobering. There are only two possible meanings when someone says this. The one is that the speaker is or has been genuinely born again but has been badly deceived. No surprise, in that Jesus Himself said the thief (Satan) only came to “kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10) and destroying the faith of any believer is something Satan is proud of. If this is the case, that believer will have little if any reward from the Lord—how can anyone earn rewards when they do nothing for the Lord Jesus?
The only other possible option is that the person was never saved or a believer in Jesus at all. If that’s the case, punishment will be more severe at the judgment because these people were hypocrites, pretending to be something they never were. Paul of course was many miles away when he wrote this letter and couldn’t possibly know the spiritual status of those who had (allegedly) become believers after he left Corinth.
Then, briefly, I’m sure he wanted them to verify just why they did what they did. How many of the readers were among those who did the Lord’s Supper wrongly? How many others were among those who came on time, but found nothing to eat or drink—and even worse, suffered shame because of this?
What’s our motive?
If our motive is wrong, or impure, then there is something to do. And it’s easy to do, too.
That is, to repent.
4 A time to repent or judge ourselves rightly
One of the strongest warnings in the New Testament is right there in verse 27. The King James Version has the word “damnation” in verse 29, but it really means “judgment” “Damnation” has had several definitions over the years (https://www.thefreedictionary.com/damnation ) and does not always mean eternal condemnation. Paul added that many of the Corinthians were “weak” and “sick”—both physical ailments—and that many “sleep” or died before their time.
Sobering, isn’t it? These folks were having a great time, as they thought, but they were paying dearly for it. The same thing could happen to anyone who does not partake of this Supper with the right motive or reason. Again, we don’t have to worry about anyone being drunk here today, but in Corinth that problem was real.
This self-judgment, then, involves repentance or changing one’s mind resulting in a change of action. Remember, in those days, “wine” was diluted or cut by 30 to 50 percent and wasn’t much more than stronger grape juice. The pagan Greeks, apparently, drank the strong stuff and that carried over to some of these first generation or pagan background believers. So, for one of these folks to say, “I was wrong about drinking wine” and changing what he drank would be proof of genuine repentance.
5 A time to rejoice
I’ll close in just a moment by reminding all of us that the Lord’s Supper observance is not only a time to remember, review, and repent, but also to rejoice. We as Christians have something the rest of the world never had—a living Saviour! True, Jesus died, but even more true, He rose from the dead, and we have the chance to receive salvation through Him alone (Acts 4:12). It’s absolutely true, we need to remember what Jesus did, yet we can rejoice in all He has done for us ever since.
We will now proceed to the Lord’s Supper after our closing song. If the Lord has spoken to you in any way,. now is your chance to respond to Him. I pray you’ll do so, even now.
Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Version of the Bible (NASB).
