Till He Come

“Till He Come”

I Corinthians 11:23-31

I want to direct your attention to one word found in verse 26. It is the little word “till.”

The central ideal of what Paul is saying that in the Lord’s Supper we are proclaiming to one another and to a lost world that Jesus died (yet He rose again) and one day He shall return again. The Lord’s Supper was a standing provision against man’s forgetfulness of what Jesus has done and is yet going to do for us.

That is why the word “till” is there.

I. “Till” is a WAITING word

Have you ever said to a friend or a child: “Stay there until I get back?”

John records in his Gospel that Jesus said it to His disciples (John 14:1-3).

“Till” is a waiting word. Jesus said to His

disciples as He says to you and me, “The Lord’s Supper is until that great celebration in the skies.”

The people of God are waiting for someone. Jesus is coming again, and in the communion we affirm that fact.

“Till” is not speculation but anticipation.

II. “Till” is a WORKING word

Have you noticed, in the parables of Jesus, how many times that note is struck. You see, “till” is a working word; we are called to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

Perhaps the best known is Matthew 25, the parable of the talents. The man gives to his servants, to one five talents, to another three, to another one. He goes away. He comes back and there is a reckoning of their labor.

That’s the sense of this word “til”; it’s a working word. The master says ’Get on, and do what you will with what I’ve given you until I return.’

“Till’ is a working word.

We will work till Jesus comes.

II. “Till” is a WILLING word

“Till” is a word which comes out of our hearts with a great sense of longing and desire.

Have you ever wondered about the last few words in the Bible, in the Revelation of John? How he could contain himself, as he wrote some of these things that are so amazing, so hard for the mind to comprehend? But he comes to verse 20 of the last chapter of the book of Revelation, he says this autobiographically: “He which testifieth these

things saith, ‘Surely I come quickly soon.’” And then John adds, “Amen . Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”

As death takes our loved ones and we come to a communion service without them this word “til’” then becomes a willing word. It becomes a word that looks forward to that day when Jesus shall come again.

Heaven is a place of reunion. It’s a place where there are no more tears. It’s a place where there is no more separation. We look forward in faith, to that great reunion of God’s people.

When you come to the Lord’s Supper with a sense of longing that the Lord might come soon so that you might be reunited with friends, may I remind you that God had a purpose in your being left behind. God has a plan for your begin left behind.

A visiting preacher once stayed in a house of a widow. He’d arrived on the Saturday before he was to preach on the Sunday, and the lady of the house, being that sort of person, had given up her bedroom for the guest. When he got up in the morning he threw back the curtains and looked out on a beautiful scene:

hills way in the distance with a beautiful green pasture in the valley. But he was intrigued to notice that in the comer of the window pane a child-like writing was scratched in the glass. He could just make out the words: ’This is the day’. At breakfast he asked his hostess, was it done by a grandchild who had been playing around with something sharp? “No,” she said. “I did it myself, and I did it with the diamond on my engagement ring.” And then she explained how, having lost her husband some years previously, there were many times when she would

throw open the curtains and not see a beautiful country scene but pouring rain. She would then be plunged into despair and depression, and she would have no wish to go out and face the world. Having lost her life-partner, she felt that meaning had gone.

Then one morning, in a moment of bleak despair, she opened her Bible for her daily reading and saw the words, “This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psa. 118:24). And the Holy Spirit reminded her that God had a plan. And now, as every day began, no matter what the weather, she threw back the curtains and (as she explained to the preacher) “I want to look into the day through the promise of God. This is the day and whether the Lord calls me or whether He comes for me, I want to live this day for him.”