The Criteria of Communion Part 2

Let's pray and we will get started. Lord Jesus, as we again open up your word and study the sacrament of the altar and what is it that makes a valid observance of the

Lord's Supper, we pray for your Holy Spirit coming to you with empty hands knowing that we cannot rightly understand your word apart from your spirit.

So we ask humbly that you would help us and guide us into all truth and that you may be glorified in all that we do in Jesus' name.

Okay, all right. So today we're going to continue with our study of the

Lord's Supper. We noted that the Lutherans have a view that's different than Rome and different than much of Protestantism.

Rome claims... Yes, sir. Oh, we had a question about the sermon. We've got to get that taken care of first.

Yes, Mark. Mark, glad you're here. Yes. Probably just distribution.

You know, I mean, so here are your options, okay? You have everybody stand up and wait in lines.

That's not going to work. So Jesus was treating them like sheep and so he had them to divide up into smaller groups and then you'll note there were 12 baskets full left and so who was doing the serving?

The disciples, the apostles, the guys who become the apostles. So Christ was multiplying, you know, he was multiplying these things.

They were taking baskets and then distributing them and so who were the waiters? It was the disciples.

Yeah, that's right. That's why there were 12 baskets full left, you know, just a little, yeah. So that was, they used that text for small groups?

Okay, yeah, yeah. No, it's really just a matter of logistics and distribution and so that's the just, and so Christ willed that his disciples be the one, because remember what he said to them, you feed them, right?

And so they did. Yeah, they did. Now, it doesn't say how long the distribution took and it doesn't tell us if they were serving water and like, you know, you know, nice tortilla chips and salsa, you know, while they were waiting.

It doesn't say anything like that, but you get the gist of it. And then also, sometimes when

I preach on this text, I always point out that the liberals who deny that miracles take place, their explanation as to what took place is so ridiculous.

I mean, they say, well, in the Gospel of John, they said that the five loaves and two fish belonged to a little kid.

He had brought his lunch with him and so when everybody saw that he was selflessly giving up his own lunch, everybody broke out their coolers that they were sitting on and hiding.

Yeah, yeah, so yeah, it wasn't that either, you know, but yeah, you get the idea.

All right, so a little bit of summary. The Lutherans say that Rome is wrong in their doctrine of transubstantiation, and the reason why we say they are wrong is because they have forgotten how to count.

And Rome, when it comes to the Lord's Supper, if you ask them, what are you receiving? Only the body and blood of Christ.

Bread and wine do not exist. They are there, and it looks like bread and wine, tastes like bread and wine, because Aristotelian logic, that's the reason why, and this concept of an accident.

And so it only accidentally looks like and tastes like bread and wine.

And so we point out, okay, let's kind of work this out. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup, and by the way, that's an interesting phrase, drinks the cup, because, you know, you'll note that I don't actually drink a cup, you don't drink a cup.

What we're referring to are the contents of the cup. And so the idea here, eats the bread, drinks the cup of the

Lord and an unworthy man, he will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord. And so the idea then is that when we receive the

Lord's Supper, the Lutheran just counts to four and says, well, there's bread, there's wine, and Christ's body and blood are present.

We don't know how, you know, really when it comes to the actual process that takes place, we're not privy to that.

We stay within the bounds of scripture, and it is what Christ says it is. And then for those who are our evangelical brothers who like to point out that they believe that this is a symbol, we point out that symbol is not present, and that that's not a word that's in this text, and that the body and blood are also mentioned, and that to take the

Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner means to not recognize it or to, you know, to see that it's there.

And that was the presenting problem. The church at Corinth, they were getting drunk on the communion wine, so we say to our evangelical brothers and sisters,

I know it sounds Catholic, but it's not. Christ's body and blood are truly present. And this then, when we recognize that this is a covenantal meal, rather than it being an ordinance, a law that we're keeping, or a command, when we're having the

Lord's Supper, we're receiving from Christ something that's vital for our faith. And so as a

Christian pastor, you're going to note that I preach to you all as if you're Christians, right?

And funny enough, years ago, I actually had somebody come up to me after a sermon and go, you know, pastor,

I just figured this out. What'd you figure out? You are preaching to all of us as if we're all already

Christians. And I said, well, yes, of course. I mean, it was a Christian congregation that called me, and she said, well, don't you think that's dangerous?

I'm all, no, because if you're not a Christian, Christ will make you one, or his word will drive you away. You know, the

Word of God has this amazing ability to draw sheep, to care for them, and it also has this amazing ability to drive away goats.

Goats do not like the Word of God. They really, really are annoyed by it, and they bear a grudge against the men who preach it.

And so you get the idea. But that being the case, then, as Christians, we are saved by grace through what?

Faith, not by works. And now, this is not to say that good works aren't important.

They are absolutely necessary, and I want to make no bones about it, but they're not necessary for salvation.

They are necessary by virtue of salvation. What does James say? Just as the body that is not breathing is dead, faith without works is dead.

You know, you sit there and say, I'm a Christian, and I believe in Christ, but I have no good works. I say, you're a liar, okay?

They necessarily follow, absolutely necessarily follow. And so there is an aspect to good works that good works are the breath of faith.

They show that we actually have a living faith. But then that begs the question, what's a good work? I would say, see

Ephesians 5 and 6. Our good works are done in the vocations that God has put us into as husband, wife, father, mother, child, employer, employee.

So the vast majority of our good works are done in the mundane. They are not done in the super special, all right?

I love that picture that C .S. Lewis gives in the book The Great Divorce, which is a fascinating book on multiple levels.

C .S. Lewis, he held onto a form of platonic thought, and so in his literature, you'll always note that the evil characters, they have less substance than those who are good.

So those who are evil are described as kind of like having thin skin or almost being transparent in some way or another.

This is insipid Platonism that still kind of crept into his theology and his apologetics.

But in the book The Great Divorce, the story is about a bus trip from hell to heaven.

And apparently the way the story goes, the setup is that in hell, once a week, a bus shows up from heaven, and anybody who wants to, in hell, can go and visit heaven.

And that's the gist of it. They're not barred from coming. And kind of the punchline at the end is rather interesting, and I think

Lewis was onto something here, is that he noted that everybody who is in hell wants to be there. It's kind of a weird thing that he says, but I think he's right.

But in this trip to, this particular bus trip, which again, it's a once -a -week bus, you can line up for it in hell and then take the trip to heaven.

When you arrive, loved ones who are in heaven, either family members or friends or people that you know who are in heaven, they come to greet you when you get off the bus.

And so what's really fascinating is that Lewis describes that the people who get off the bus, they have a hard time walking around heaven because everything is so sharp and jagged to them.

To walk on the grass hurts their feet because their feet are practically nothing. And then there's this one fellow whose wife is in heaven, and he ended up in hell, and he was somewhat abusive to her.

You can kind of tell in their dialogue. And yet in this conversation, she was very patient with him.

And in the middle of all of this, one of the things he says, you know, I only want to get what I deserve.

You know, he's insisting on that, you know, he gets what he deserves. And his wife, who's in heaven, is saying, no, you really don't want that, you know, because you can have grace instead.

And so he has this self -righteousness that he's hanging on to, which is part of the reason why he's in hell.

And so what's interesting is that while they're talking, this parade goes by in the sky.

It almost sounds like a cat kind of thing. But in the parade, you know, the angels were trumpeting, and this very important person was going by.

And the guy says, wow, she must have really been an important saint. And his wife says, no, she was a wash lady.

She lived in the south of London, and in her good work, she cared for the orphans on the streets.

You know, you would have never known her. And I thought that was kind of a good point, is that this idea then is that our good works are done in the mundane.

And when I was in evangelicalism, and I've talked with a lot of people in megachurches who've come out of megachurches, they always have this belief that somehow their family, their children, their spouse, or even their current job is getting in the way of the good works that God has called them to, which is one of the insipid errors of the purpose -driven, dream -destiny kind of doctrines, that God created you for a specific dream -destiny purpose.

But Scripture is clear in Ephesians 2 .10, that we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, plural, which

God has prepared in advance for us to do. And so we can do our good works as children, we can do our good works as young adults, we can do our good works as adults who are raising children, we can do our good works as grandparents, we can do our good works as great -grandparents, and it's all done in the mundane.

How is it done? It's in the preparing of meals, the changing of diapers, and educating, and all the things that we do to care for those whom

God has put into our life, loving our spouses. These are the ideas then, so our good works are done there.

And I'm off on a little bit of a tangent, but you get the idea. So all of that being said, coming then back to the

Lord's Supper, to take the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner is to not recognize the body and blood of Christ that are present.

And so again, I say to the evangelicals, we recognize this sounds like Rome, it's not. In fact,

Rome has pretty much anathematized our view, because they've dogmatized their transubstantiation.

And the idea then is that the Lord's Supper is a gift, it is not a work. When you turn it into a work, it becomes something that you do for the purpose of gaining something from God.

I've done my part, God does your part. Instead, Christ invites us to the table, and you hear the words, this is my body, this is my blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins.

And I always like to point out to people, every time they have the Lord's Supper, they're receiving an individual absolution from Jesus.

And so it's really easy at the beginning of the service when we do the general confession of sins.

I confess that I am by nature sinful and unclean, right? That when you hear the absolution, if you've had a particularly difficult week or maybe a season where it seems like the devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh have just been getting the best of you day after day, stringing into week after week, and you're thinking, my kids are going to,

I'm going to murder them if I have to deal with them any longer, you know, things like this. What ends up happening is that it's really easy when you hear a general absolution to say, yeah, but.

That it didn't really apply to me. If pastor knew, you know, how sinful I've been, you know, and how struggling, how much

I've been struggling and not living the victorious Christian life, he would have never pronounced the absolution.

That's the devil talking. So when you come to the Lord's Supper and you receive the bread, wine, body, blood,

I say these words, take, eat, this is the true body of Christ given into death for the forgiveness of your sins, and it goes into your mouth.

No one else's, just yours, right? Because, you know, at that point you recognize, all right, so forgiveness of sins tastes like some chewy bread and some really cheap sweet wine.

It is, by the way, the worst stuff ever. Okay, I like wine. But here's the thing.

When you hear those words, given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins, you can't deny that that was given to you, put in your mouth, and that the promise of the new covenant is that God will remember to forget your sins.

That's the promise in Jeremiah 31. So it's easy then when the devil says, you know, do you really think you're a

Christian? Because, you know, you're sure, you're sure not being victorious, and you just sit there and tell the devil, go take a hike, you know,

I'm forgiven in Christ. And what it does is it strengthens your faith. It gives you something, it gives you something outside of you that's been put into you that your faith can hang on to, the promise that was attached to it.

Regardless of how cheap the wine is and how sweet it is, you can say, I have the blood of Christ that was given and shed, and I've consumed it, and the promise is there for me.

And so the idea then is that what the devil would always want to convince you your sin is special. It's not, okay.

It's really not. It's like, in fact, so many people think that the doctrine of original sin is like something that they do.

I've really found an original sin. No, you haven't. It's like everybody does the same stupid, dumb things.

There's no original sins nowadays, none whatsoever. And so your sin is not special.

You're not a super special sinner. Get that out of your head. Christ died for all of your sins. And so receive and believe, and that's the idea.

Now then, talking about the other aspect of this, and you'll note how the answer the questions that come up in 1

Corinthians 10, and I want to put it back in its context because we're talking here about idolatry and also a way of looking at the

Old Testament. I always like to point people to the fact that the New Testament tells us how to understand the old because if you've ever scratched your head and I said,

I can't understand the Old Testament, read your New Testament a few more times, and it'll explain it to you, okay.

1 Corinthians 10 then hits on the aspect of how some of the things in the

Old Testament are written as examples to us to warn us about how seriously

God takes sin, and it's a recalling us back to repentance.

Repentance is not a flu shot. It's not a COVID shot. Repentance is something that is a daily habit, a walk for Christians.

So Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud.

They all passed through the sea and all were baptized in the Moses. If you remember in the sermon today, I mentioned the fact that when

God brought the children of Israel out of slavery, he took them to the Red Sea, and that was their baptism.

The Red Sea is a picture of baptism. I remember years ago when

I was teaching junior high kids at a Missouri Synod congregation in Greenville, Indiana.

We were looking at the story of the Exodus, and I took them to this passage, and I marched all the kids into the sanctuary, and we were standing around the baptismal font, all right?

And I said, so what happened when the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea? They went through safely, one kid pointed out.

What happened to Pharaoh? Well, Pharaoh and his army chased them, and then what happened? Well, God smashed them to bits.

The water came in, and they all died. And then what does it say happened to their bodies? They came up on the shore.

I said, so a good way to picture baptism, I said, take a look at the baptismal font. Pharaoh and his army, they're a stand -in for the devil.

So when you were baptized into Christ, into his death, this was your

Red Sea moment. And so look very closely around the edge of the baptismal font. You can see the dead bodies of the demons on the basin on the outside of the bowl, and I thought that was kind of cool.

But that's really the picture there, right? So they were all baptized into Moses in the cloud, in the sea, and they all ate the same spiritual food, all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was

Christ. What? What? What? Yeah, that rock that Moses struck, that was

Christ, right? That rock is a type and shadow of Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased.

They were all overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things took place as examples for us. So note, there's an example portion of scripture, right?

The cross, Christ dying for our sins, is not a license for us to go and live like the devil, far from it, okay?

It says, these took place as an example for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.

Do not be idolaters, as some of them were, as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

You got to think kind of Woodstock here, you know, that whole golden calf incident, you know, Woodstock is probably a good modern reference to kind of what went on.

They rose up, so it was sex, drugs, and rock and roll, man, you know, all in the name of this ape as bull that they created, and named

Yahweh, which was weird, they were having a feast to Yahweh, this is weird. So we must not indulge in sexual immorality, as some did, and 23 ,000 fell in a single day.

Now, have you ever heard some yahoo say something like, well, how come in our day, God doesn't strike down all the people who are engaging in sexual immorality today, huh?

Does he not care anymore? Of course he cares. In fact, if you want to persist in your sin, you want to know what's coming, just look at what happened to the people who engaged in sexual immorality, they stand as an example for us.

So basically, God says, this is what's coming for you, just because God doesn't strike people down today, doesn't mean that somehow he winks at sin.

And you want to know the seriousness of sin, look at the fact that it took the Son of God, bearing your sin on the cross, in order to redeem us.

So you get the idea. So we see these examples, and they're held up as examples for us, not that God has to repeat it every generation, he doesn't.

He's done it once, and then that's your example. So then you get the warning in the book of Revelation, talking about those who are cast into the lake of fire, the cowards, the sexually immoral, the idolaters, you know, the list goes on, right?

And so their judgment in the Old Testament stands as an exemplar, an example for us, of what's coming in the judgment, and this is why we do not wink at these things.

So don't engage in sexual immorality, as some of them did, 23 ,000 fell in a single day. We must not put

Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. Notice here, Paul seems to think that that whole thing in the book of Numbers, regarding the fiery serpents, the nechashim, seraphim, that they weren't putting

Yahweh to the test, they were putting Christ to the test, because Christ is Yahweh. So who were they testing by grumbling against God?

They were putting Christ to the test. Or grumble, as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the destroyer. So these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.

Therefore, let anyone thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall. It's a sure formula for disaster, by the way.

When I am strong, then I am weak, but when I am weak, then he is strong.

And so don't think that somehow you have the ability in and of yourself to stand against the temptations of the devil, the world, your own sinful flesh.

The person who trusts in himself trusts in a fool. So don't think you're strong, lest you fall.

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man, but God is faithful.

He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. Now, this is an actual promise in scripture.

It gets twisted in different ways, but note this is in the context of temptation. So there you are.

You are tempted by evil. You have a clear choice in front of you. Do I go the way of the devil and my own sinful desires, or do

I go this way, right? In and of yourselves, you do not have the power to choose the right.

So what do you do? You faithfully say, Lord, your word says I will not be tempted beyond my ability.

I'm feeling I'm close to that threshold right now. Please, through the power of your Holy Spirit, deliver me from this temptation and from the evil one through the power of your

Holy Spirit, right? And so note that you sit there and go, but my temptations are huge.

Great, then your ability is a lot bigger than you let on. You know, that's the implication here.

So he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will always provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.

Now, no, that's the context. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

When idolatry leers its ugly head, you do what they did in the

Holy Grail. When they saw that bunny, run away, run away, run away, right?

Do not stick around for that stuff. When you see idolatry, you know, coming into the church, doing, you know, its wicked stuff, run away.

I speak as a sensible people, judge for yourselves, and this then is the context. Watch the question. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?

What's the answer to the question? It is, yeah. The cup of blessing we bless, it is a participation in the blood of Christ.

The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? You betcha.

So this is why the Lutherans look at the Catholics and go, there's bread and wine there, dude. No, there's not.

Then we look at the other guys and go, Christ's body and blood are there too. You're a Roman Catholic.

No, we're not. We're just sticking within the bounds of how this works.

So the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? And this is going to be an important phrase here as we look at this next question, and that is, what makes a valid sacrament?

Okay, because I've been in churches where, you know, they have the Lord's Supper maybe twice a year, and what they'll do is they'll set up a station with some

Ritz crackers and some grape juice, and they'll start playing the sappy music, and they'll say, when you feel the

Lord leading you, come on up and partake of the Lord's Supper. But they don't say any of the words that Jesus says, and of course they tell you, if you have any unconfessed sin in your life, do not come up, which always kind of begs the question.

It's like, of course I've got unconfessed sin in my life, because scripture is clear in the

Proverbs and the Psalms that we do not even know the depth and the magnitude of our own sin. So if I had to somehow recount and, you know, manually repent for every single sin that I commit,

I couldn't possibly pull it off. You couldn't pull it off, because I am sinning every nanosecond of every day that I do not trust

God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Yes, James? Yeah, I know, it's weird.

So it was Aquinas who formalized that. There were twinges of it prior to it when you read the

Catholic Fathers, but when you read the early Church Fathers, especially all the way up to anti -Nicene

Fathers, so, you know, through Augustine, they all recognize that Christ's body and blood are present, and they give no explanation other than Christ is the one who makes it, the

Lord's Supper. And so the best way to put it is that what Aquinas did is, Aquinas being a scholastic, he took the teachings of Aristotle, Aristotelian philosophy, and applied that type of logic to the question of the

Lord's Supper in order to dogmatize the mechanism by which it becomes the

Lord's Supper, and in so doing, then denied that there was any bread and wine present.

And Rome later adopted that mechanical Aristotelian logic, a dogmatized substantiation.

But when you read the writings of the Church Fathers, they sound kind of like as vague and as specific as the

Lutherans. It's the body and blood of Christ given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins. It's truly there, it's truly present, and they don't really give an explanation as to how.

And they will talk in terms of bread and wine also being present. I mean, and that's how this goes.

So when we talk about the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?

We're going to note then that when we talk about blessing the cup or blessing the elements, there's a wide sense and there's a narrow sense in which that takes place.

But it's Christ who's the one who makes it what it is. And then he asks the question, the bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

It is, because there is one bread. We who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

And so you'll note that in verse 17 then, this is the reason why Lutherans do not just throw the table open wide.

So if you're a Roman Catholic attending a Lutheran congregation, because there is an overt, by our bodily action, claim to unity when we have the

Lord's Supper, whenever I attend a

Roman Catholic mass, usually for a funeral or something like that, if they're having the Lord's Supper, I do not participate.

I can't. I don't have that freedom, because Romans anathematized us. And for me to have the

Lord's Supper in a Roman Catholic church would be me, by my bodily action, saying that we're in unity when we're not.

So I can't do that. So same reason also that when somebody's part of an apostate sect and they come here, things are not going in that direction.

You get the idea. And that's the idea behind it. Now comes the question then, how does it become the

Lord's Supper? Is there a quote mechanism that we point to as far as what makes a valid sacrament?

And you're going to note here, when the Lutherans talk about this, we'll talk about it being a valid sacrament versus an invalid.

And where we're going to put our emphasis is on the words of Christ when Christ says, do this.

So you'll note that in the first observance of the Lord's Supper, that it took place in an upper room.

There were dining couches. There were only men present. By the way, if we get this wrong, it's hilarious.

There isn't a single instance in the New Testament of a woman receiving the Lord's Supper. I'm saying that because when it comes to these things, we make a very careful distinction between what is described and what is prescribed.

And this is an important thing that you have got to do in all of your theology. So for instance, I brought this up before.

Y 'all are aware that the Jehovah's Witnesses, those people who annoyingly knock on your door and try to sell you.

They don't really sell you, but they'll give you the Watchtower Magazine or the Awake. Every time I move to a house, they only come once, and then they never come back.

It's the weirdest phenomenon. But the Jehovah's Witnesses, they do not celebrate birthdays.

Did you know that? Yes. Okay, you know that. Why? Well, if you ask a Jehovah's Witness why, here's the reason.

In the Bible, there are two instances of birthday celebrations, one by Pharaoh in Genesis, one by Herod in the

Gospels. And guess what happened both times? Somebody got killed.

It was Pharaoh's chief baker. He lost his head. And then of course, well, actually, it was

John the Baptist who lost his head. Pharaoh's chief baker, he was strung up. You know, in fact, the way he died kind of almost hints at crucifixion.

It's kind of weird. But so both of them died. Therefore, we know that this is not an accident, they would say.

This is not an accident. Therefore, God is telling us that he does not want to celebrate birthdays.

So what you're going to note here is that what they're doing is they're taking something that's described and turning it into a prescription.

And Romans 4 is clear in this regard.

Romans 4 says explicitly, where there is no law, there is no transgression.

Okay, so is it wrong for you to drink alcohol? No, there is no law against it.

Is it wrong for you to eat kale? Yes, but not biblically.

It is wrong, but God will not send you to hell for it. Okay, you get the idea.

All right, now real quick, I see that Carmen Navarro has his hands up. I'm going to ask you to unmute yourself and you can ask your question, sir.

Let's see here. Did you have a question? There we go. Oh, there we go.

Okay, yeah, I can hear you. Okay. Oh, you put it in the chat.

Okay, give me a second. Okay. Ah, got it.

Okay, I'll put your hand down. Hang on a second. I'm gonna say I have the power, I can lower your hand.

All right, so let me check the chat real quick. And and not get too far ahead here.

Oh, that's right.

Job's kids died when they had the party. That's right. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so they died while they were having parties are bad apparently. But my son

Joshua pointed out in the in the chat, he says that there was another birthday celebration.

The angel celebrated Jesus' birth. And nobody died there. So that's a good thing. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Thank you, Carmen. Okay, they Okay, these Okay, so we got we got that little port here.

All right, I'll come back to these other questions in a minute. So the question that I'm going to we're going to take a look at now is the question of what is it that makes a valid sacrament and we focus in on the words of do this.

And the question is do what? All right, what is it that makes a valid sacrament?

And so I've put together what I call 14 theses. And I might need to clean these up at some other point, because there's been some weird, let's just say, weird rebuttals to this that overlook something that's obvious.

But in the formula of Concord, which is part of the Lutheran confessions, Solid Declaration 7, paragraph 74 says these words, no human words or works create the true presence of Christ's body and blood in the supper, including the merit or the speaking of the minister.

Now, maybe we have to ask the question, what are these guys getting at? Because in Rome, you ask a

Roman Catholic, how does how does it go from being bread and wine to being the body and blood of Christ?

How does transubstantiation work? What's the mechanism for it? Answer, the priest.

Well, what about the priest? He's experienced the sacrament of ordination, and by going through the sacrament of ordination, there has been an indelible change in his character where he is now able to do the hocus pocus, abracadabra work of changing bread into the body and blood of Christ.

And you sit there and go, what? Okay, huh? All right.

So when we talk about consecration, this is where I have to explain this out.

It's not me who makes it the Lord's Supper. When I went to seminary, we did not have a class on here are the proper steps so that you, pastor, can make it the body and blood of Christ.

Even me speaking the words of Jesus do not make it a valid sacrament. Otherwise, it would be magic, right?

So the form of the concord says, no human words or works create the true presence of Christ's body and blood in the supper, including the merit of the speaking of the minister.

And this is important. So what we're talking about here, when we talk about blessing the elements, there's a wide sense and there's a narrow sense.

The narrow sense is the way in which now Christ's body and blood are present.

The wide sense is the sense in which you, the hearer, me speaking those words will kind of ignite faith within you.

But I speak those words because Christ said to do this. That's part of the do this. So here's the therefore of this.

Therefore, consecration of the elements in the narrow sense of the bread and wine, which then including both the body and blood of Christ, it doesn't occur by the speaking of the pastor.

It's not me speaking those words that make it the Lord's supper. It seems kind of weird, but you'll see how this then fleshes out in the remaining theses.

All right. Thesis number two, there is only one verba and that's what it's called. So when

I say the words, our Lord Jesus Christ on the night that he was betrayed, took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, take it.

This is my body. That's called the verba or the words of institution. There is only one verba that affects consecration in the narrow sense and that is the one and only verba spoken by Jesus in an upper room in Jerusalem on the night he was betrayed roughly 2 ,000 years ago.

I gotta give myself a pat on the back for being clever here. In other words, there's one verba to rule them all.

You like that? All right. Don't look at me like that. All right.

In other words, it's Jesus's words that make it the Lord's supper, not me, not mine. Okay. So a form of the

Concord solid declaration seven, paragraph 75 says it this way. So the true and almighty words of Jesus Christ, which he spoke past tense in the first institution of the supper were not only effective in the first supper.

They remain so they retain their validity and power and are still effective so that in all places in which the supper is observed according to Christ's institution and his words are used the body and blood of Christ then are truly present and distributed and received on the basis of the power and might of the very same words that Christ spoke in the first supper.

All right. Now a little bit of a note here. We had the Lord's supper here today at Kongsvinger. What are two ways in which we are separated from that first verba?

Time. It's roughly 2 ,000 years. Okay. And since we're on one of the arms of our galaxy, you know, if you were to rewind time, that galaxy is moving and we're moving inside of that galaxy and we're moving around the sun in our solar system.

What's another way in which we are totally separated from that first verba? Place. We're nowhere even close to it, right?

All right. Now a little bit of a note here. Here on planet earth, okay, are we still part of the same time and place?

Yeah. Okay. I wouldn't be able to talk to you if we weren't. Okay. Those of you who are joining us online, although you may not be in Oslo, Minnesota, all right,

I would note that you're still on planet earth somewhere because otherwise you wouldn't be able to join us live, right?

So we all still, even though we might be geographically disconnected in the grand scheme of time and space, we're all in the same spot, right?

Planet earth. You familiar with that place? Yeah. And what did Jesus say to the Samaritan woman that, you know, when she said, well, the

Jews say we have to worship in Jerusalem. You know, we say we have to worship here. What do you say? And he says, I'm telling you, woman, the time is coming and now is when people who worship me will neither worship me on this mountain or in Jerusalem.

Those who worship me will worship me in what spirit and in truth. Right. And you're going to note here, if you're joining us, you, you are present somewhere.

Okay. I assure that I assure all of you who are joining us online, that you're not floating around some server somewhere in Silicon Valley.

Okay. Yeah. You haven't been sucked into the matrix. You know, you actually exist somewhere.

You're, you're, you're, you're, so that that's kind of an important thing. And, and this is an, in a big aspect of it, because with this, then, because it says all places, the question comes up, what about those who are participating?

And I'm going to use my language carefully here. What about those who are participating in a church service via the medium of the internet?

Answer. You still live in a place. You live, you are in a local place and the internet, then how is it that we're, how is it you're joining us right now?

Those of you who are online, answer the via the medium of the internet. All right. So a good way to think about it is, is that if you were here present, if you were physically at Kongsvinger today, you, you would have noticed a very strange cultural phenomenon among Lutherans.

And that is, is that everybody sits in the back rows. Okay. It's the strangest thing.

Okay. And, you know, I always, I'm telling, I keep trying to tell the church council here that we need to fix this because I think we're going to end up putting too much stress on the foundation.

You know, I don't think it was made for that. We're supposed to distribute the weight evenly.

Right. But, but that being the case with everybody sitting in the back rows, how are they able to hear me?

I've got a microphone on, right. I've got a microphone and it has a wireless connection to a receiver.

And then that thing's plugged into our soundboard. And then in our closet over there, we've got some kind of an amplifier.

And what ends up happening is, is that people who attend Kongsvinger who are good Lutherans, who only sit in the back row, you'd always tell somebody new because they're not in the back row.

It's like, oh, you've never been here. Have you? Okay. You're new here.

Okay. But, but the way they're able to hear me is through the church's PA system. The PA system then becomes the medium by which my voice is able to travel and carry farther and easier than it would if I had to just raise my voice so that I can tend to those sheep that like to stay at the back of the church.

Right. So that, that being the case, we have, we have different mediums that we use. The internet connection that we're using right now and the, uh, those of you who are joining us online, think of it this way.

Zoom is like a really good, powerful PA system. So it's, it's able to make it to the

Carolinas. It's able to make it often to Baston and Massachusetts and, and, uh, often to New York and other places like that.

Right. New Jersey. Uh, yeah, sorry. You know, it was just there, you know, but you get the idea.

So what the internet is, is a PA system. It's a medium and you have, many of you are joined together with other people in your physical homes where, and I would note this, that Christ says where two or more are gathered, he's what?

Present. Right. And then you'll note that the medium of the internet makes it possible for us all to be gathered together into a bigger congregation, even though geographically we're disconnected.

All right. Now this is not the same then that if you, if you were to like watch a recording of a service, we all know that Memorex is

Memorex, but a live, a live service is a live service. And, uh, and I would note that some of the people who join us online, they're, they've been blown away by the fact that they can write a question and I answer it.

The reason why is because you're here. Even if you're not here physically, you're here in spirit and you're, and the internet is making it possible for you to participate.

So you get the idea here. So I, uh, those, those who say something weird like this, and this is their argument.

Well, you know, online church doesn't count because the internet's not a place. Okay. My, my response is, listen,

I don't have to prove that the internet's a place. You got to prove that Christ isn't present with the people who've gathered in their homes.

You, you got to prove Christ isn't present with them because, and I would say good luck on that because Jesus says wherever two or more are gathered.

So, um, you know, the, those of you who've been harassed by people who say they don't believe in online church, that there is no such thing as online church.

There just isn't. There's church and the internet is a medium that makes it possible for people who are disconnected geographically to join together into a larger congregation.

Right? And Christ is present with us full stop. And I haven't seen a single biblical text to the contrary or heard a biblical, an argument based on actual sound exegesis to the contrary.

So then we note then that Christ's words, they retain their validity and their power, and they're still effective so that in all places, all places that would be in your homes.

And by the way, when Christianity was illegal for the, almost the first three centuries, a little more, yeah, almost the full three centuries of its existence.

Where do you think Christians had church? Did they have nice elaborate Gothic style buildings?

No. With altars. No, they didn't have that either. Oh, and by the way, the, the,

I did a little research on that this week. So, they met in homes, they met in caves, catacombs, and when they were being persecuted, they would meet in actual like catacombs where bodies were buried.

And you know, the first altars, official altars in the early church were basically the shelves that people's bones were on.

Okay. This is one of the reasons why in the early church, once Christianity became legal, the altars that they put up, they would usually have somebody buried inside of them.

All right. So, you know, that was, yeah, no, it's kind of a thing. All right. But there is no requirement that, okay, how many altars were present when

Christ had instituted the first Lord's Supper? Zero. Okay. But there were dining couches and there were no women.

Okay. And they received them in a, in a reclining position. So, we make a distinction.

We do not require dining couches, thank God. And we do not require you to be laying down in a reclining position while receiving the

Lord's Supper. And we don't forbid women from having it either. Okay. You get the idea.

So, here's the idea that all, yes. No. The question was, can we get a lazy boy?

Yes. Okay.

So, the fellowship is important, but I would note that there are different ways in which people who are geographically disconnected can have fellowship.

So, one of the things we've made a point of here at Kongsvinger, and especially in our Aletheia outreach, is that when people live in a geography where there is a faithful church, we want them to attend that faithful church.

All right. To be, you know, that's, that's the right thing to do. If they live in a geography where, and this is a, this is a growing phenomenon, where there are no faithful churches, your choices are a dead

Lutheran church where the pastor doesn't preach Christ at all, a crazy NER charismatic church, or a

Roman Catholic church. Do you have any real options in this case? None. Okay. So, what the internet provides in a situation like that, and this is one of the things that we've been, we've been very careful of over the last seven years that we've provided, serving saints that are geographically disconnected from us for the last seven years, we want to encourage people where they can to get to a, you know, to be part of a faithful congregation locally.

If not, then we've noticed this among the people that we serve that are geographically disconnected, that they have their own way of fellowshipping with each other, and it's actually quite profound.

So, for instance, with the Aletheia Outreach, the Aletheians have their own Facebook group, and the people who've been there the longest have kind of grown into being kind of the leaders of that Facebook group, and they're there for mutual support, and one of the people who attends, she says,

I know that because you have the Aletheians around the world that any time of the day or night that I have a need or need prayer, somebody's up.

She describes Aletheia as the church that never sleeps, and so there is an actual deep meaningful fellowship among them, but they're using internet mediums for the purpose of facilitating that and fostering it, and I would note that in our day and age, it's very common for people now working from home, especially from COVID, that they're part of work groups that are scattered throughout the world or scattered throughout the country, and some of the most meaningful relationships that people have are with people that they are part of these work groups, and they don't even live near them at all, and they maybe see them physically once a year or once every couple of years.

Don can speak to that. Don, his closest associates, he sees once or twice a year physically, but you see them daily on every weekend and week out, and I would note too that some of you guys, it's like I feel like I know you even though I have not been in the same room with you.

I even tease you. The fact that I'm able to talk about Napoleon Dynamite when Louise and Bill are here and go, yes, you know.

You see, even Stephen Elliott knows exactly what I'm talking about, right? You know, and I already know some of the buttons for the

Bennett's, and I like to press them too from time to time, but you get the idea. So, the idea then is that when it comes to fellowship, we do have fellowship with each other, and the church service, you'll know the real meaningful fellowship actually takes place in the in -between times.

It takes place not during the church service or during the Sunday school. It takes place before the Sunday school, after the

Sunday school, in the conversations that we have, and so I absolutely am convinced that it is an erroneous and error to say that people who are part of a fellowship like Aletheia, that they can't have true

Christian fellowship. I would beg to differ. I think some of the Aletheians probably have better fellowship in some deeper relationships than some of the people here at Kongsvinger do with their other people that they attend church with, and that's just a reality.

So, all right, but that's a good point. I'm going to watch my time here. Obviously, we're not going to get through this all today, so I want to back up and watch out for, watch the questions, because I have to manage my time properly, because you'll know the status about my time management in class.

I'm not very good about that. All right, so let's see. Watch for the rain there. I just used this book and the scene for someone to reconsider their purpose driven theology.

What timing here? Ah, okay. Thank you. I live with a chronic illness. It's not my dream destiny, but I appreciate not being weighed down with the expectation of some grand design destiny thingy.

I would note that even those who have a chronic illness, they do their good works even in bed.

You know, I remember the first year that I was here, there was a gal who had, before my installation service, she had, in the winter time, had slipped and fallen and broken her hip, and her health just kept getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse, and I would visit her in the hospital every few weeks, and I drove down to Fargo and went in, and she was, that day she was particularly sad, and she said,

I feel worthless. I feel worthless in this hospital bed.

Everybody has to take care of me, and I said, well, you're now in the vocation of patient, so be a good one.

You do your good works even as a patient, right? Ah, okay, and I said, and you can always pray, and she goes, yeah, that's true too, so you just have to kind of retool these things, and I would note that years ago,

I had a fellow who contacted me because he was, he had just been sentenced to 10 years in prison, and rightfully so, by the way, rightfully so, he owned his crime, and he said, what am

I supposed to do? And I wasn't a pastor at the time, but I told him, I said, what you're supposed to do is you're supposed to be a good prisoner.

Prisoner is a vocation, and Joseph was a prisoner for 13 years, and a darn good one, so, you know, prisoner is a godly vocation, so do your good works that God has prepared for you as a prisoner, and I remember getting a letter from him a few years after, you know, he had been in prison, and he had communicated how much that really helped him to not despair, because now he's one of those prisoners who's, he's a model prisoner, you know, he does the work that he's supposed to do, and is an example of obedience, you know, to the other prisoners, so, all right,

Carmen says, I live with a chronic illness as well, and yes, it hasn't been the grand life, but it is, but thank

God I found Pastor Chris. Actually, he found Jesus, not me, I'm just the pastor, that's why I wear the slave shackle, because I too thought

I couldn't do anything for Christ. I've realized that I can pray for my fellow men with agape love, indeed, and by showing the fruit of the spirit of others, so, let's see here, bless you, very good, all right, makes all the way down,

St. Croix, wow, sit on the second row on August 8th,

Stephen, good, see if you, but the thing is, I gotta, I gotta warn you, Stephen, if you sit on the second row on August 8th, that they will think that you're a

Methodist, so, just, you know, yeah, so,

I think we have, Don, I, we can pull that sign out of the basement, right, it says, this row reserved for Methodists, so, yeah,

I, if you guys, you guys move around,

I could have a heart attack, you gotta, you gotta give me a warning, you can't jolt me like that, all right, so, so what about taking

Lord's Supper in relation to online church? Eric, we're going to talk more about this next week, okay, but you can see where this is going, what is it that makes a valid sacrament, but we're only part way through, so, we got, scattered ones are so grateful,

I am, it is an honor to be able to serve you, scattered sheep, because I know, and if you,

I hope you heard this in the sermon today, Christ cares for all of His scattered sheep, He absolutely does, and I think it's cruel, and I mean this, cruel in, in like, the worst demonic way possible, to somehow cast dispersions on Christ's scattered sheep, and to not lovingly reach out to them, and, and shepherd them, you know, and give them

Christ, I, I think that's a crime, personally, all right, yeah, Louise says, we're grateful also, despite your taste in movies,

I think we need to have a Napoleon Dynamite Marathon as part of our,

Louise just disappeared, Bill's all, yay, all right, let's see here, all right,

Bennett says, don't mind our buttons pressed, makes you go deeper in my studies, we appreciate you, ah, thank you, all right,

Dane and Bryce baptized by pastor, yeah, I was able to baptize Dane and Bryce Bennett a few, a few weeks ago,

Barb and I drove, we did a little bit of a tour, we visited some Elithians in Michigan, and then we drove to Horseheads, New York, and, and were able to baptize

Dana and Bryce, and that, that was just one of the highlights of my pastoral career, so, all right, we're going to end here today, because again,

I have to manage my time, and Lord willing, we'll see you next time, we'll pick up with thesis three next week.