The Dimensions Of The Lord’s Table

1 Corinthians 10:14-33, 1 Corinthians 11:17-34

The Lord’s Table is a continuing memorial of the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is the one thing Christians have celebrated from the very beginning. Jesus said to the early Christians concerning this, “This do in remembrance of Me.”

The whole focus of the Lord’s Table is the Lord Jesus Christ. When we allow it to become something other than that, we are disgracing the Lord Jesus Christ.

What we want to see in this is that we are celebrating not a memory alone or a point in history. We are celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The three elements go together. His death, his burial, his resurrection. You cannot separate them; you cannot have one without the other two.

We are serving a completed Savior who is not a thing of the past or even of the future, he is of the present, right now.

As we come to the Lord’s Table, we do so in honor of this one that we are serving and worshiping.

To understand the dimensions of the Lord’s Table is to fully grasp the character and nature of our Christian experience. Not only are we celebrating Christ and honoring him, we also are celebrating the fruit of his death, burial and resurrection, which is Christianity. A life delivered from sin.

Today in our culture, we have all kinds of memorials. We like to celebrate aspects of history and people who have made history. And that’s wonderful and well and good. But our memorials today have to do with things of the past and people who have long since gone.

The difference in the Lord’s Table memorial is that we are celebrating a present reality. Once I begin to understand that this is part of my life today, I begin to have a different perspective and outlook on life.

Notice how Paul puts it in Romans 8:11 – “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”

If you are a Christian then you have within you that same Spirit, the Holy Spirit, that raised Jesus from the dead. To really understand that is to change my thinking about my Christian experience.

My Christian experience does not rest upon my strength or knowledge but rather upon the Holy Spirit. The more I get to know the Holy Spirit the more I will begin to appreciate what it truly means to be a Christian.

This Lord’s Table sets before us the dimensions of what the Christian life is all about. Let me try to lay it out for you and apply it to our hearts and lives this morning.

I. The Warning to Me

1 Corinthians 10:16-17,

“16 When we give thanks for the fruit of the vine at the Lord’s supper, are we not sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread we eat at the Lord’s supper, are we not sharing in the body of Christ? 17 There is one bread, and many of us Christians make up the body of Christ. All of us eat from that bread.”

I believe the basic warning here to me personally is that I’m not in this alone. There are no Lone Ranger Christians. We must understand and appreciate the fellowship that we have with brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Too many Christians are trying to live the Christian life on their own strength and it is not working. God never intended for us to struggle in our own strength, but rather to experience the amazing grace of God.

Paul makes a comment in this passage where he says, “Are we not sharing in the body of Christ?”

To come to the communion table and share in the elements is to celebrate the union that we have in Jesus Christ. We must appreciate one another because we all are on the same level.

The Lord’s Table does not have divisions about it.

This is what Paul says in 11:18.

“First of all, I hear that when you meet together in the church you are divided into groups and you argue. I almost believe this is true.”

To have divisions in the church is to mock God’s grace. God’s grace does not affect one group different from another group.

Divisions started in the heart of the devil himself.

I cannot imagine how much he hates the Lord’s Table. Everything that the Lord’s Table is, is a symbol of that which the devil hates with a hellish hatred.

If only we could understand that these divisions come from the devil, we would stand up against it to the glory of God.