The Significance Of The Lord's Supper

Today is a special day when take the Lord’s Supper together. In a just a few minutes we will take what is known as the Lord’s Supper. You should have picked up the elements on the way in. Find 1 Corinthians 11 with me. I wanted to see what God’s Word says about the instructions in taking the Lord’s Supper.

Two Ordinances

The Lord Jesus told the church to do two things until He comes back: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Baptism is the act of showing everyone you are a follower of Christ. This is the beginning of the Christian life. Baptism is when you are publicly not ashamed of following Christ and you’re happy to tell everyone that, “I’m counted as a Christ-followed.” If you have not been baptized, please come see one of our pastors in the Encourager’s Room. Please take out the communication card and write down the words, “I want to be baptized” and give us your contract information.

Now the second thing Jesus told us to do is the Lord’s Super. The Lord’s Supper is be done repeatedly throughout our Christian lives, as a sign of continuing in fellowship with Christ.

Many people don’t understand this why the Lord’s Supper is important. They take a wafer or they take a cup and there’s maybe this general understanding of it. But if we really understood the Lord’s Table, the Lord’s Supper as it is called in Scripture — it would be a transforming experience in our lives.

Today’s Scripture

23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when 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 also he took the cup, 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 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. 31 But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world” (1 Corinthians 11:17-32).

Sicke Freerks

Again, the church has two things we are to do until Christ returns: baptism and Lord’s Supper. In the early 1500s, a man named Sicke Freerks was both an honest man and a quiet man as contemporaries tell us. He was also a tailor. But none this makes him noteworthy. What makes Sicke Freerks noteworthy is that he died after being accused of heresy. Because he was rebaptized or baptized as after professing his faith in Christ, he was martyred. “Sicke Freerks, on this 20th of March, 1531, is condemned by the Court to be executed with the sword; his body shall be laid on the wheel, and his head set upon a stake, because he has been rebaptized, and perseveres in that baptism.” All this was done because he was baptized as an infant and then baptized later when he professed faith in Jesus Christ. His body was tied to a wheel and his head put on a pole in order to deter others from being rebaptized.

Martyred for the Lord’s Supper

Around twenty years later during the reign of bloody Queen Mary, 288 Christians were burned at the stake for taking the Lord’s Supper. They burned children, women, and pastors among the nearly 300 people that day. Why were they burned by the Roman Catholic Queen? It was because they disagreed with Bloody Mary on the Lord’s Supper. “The doctrine in question was the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the consecrated elements of bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper. Did they, or did they not believe that the body and blood of Christ were really, that is corporally, literally, locally, and materially, present under the forms of bread and wine after the words of consecration were pronounced? Did they or did they not believe that the real body of Christ, which was born of the Virgin Mary, was present on the so-called altar so soon as the mystical words had passed the lips of the priest? Did they or did they not? That was the simple question. If they did not believe and admit it, they were burned.” Think of it: nearly 300 men, women, and children martyred for their belief in Bible’s teaching on the Lord’s Supper. There are some things worth dying for.