WWUTT 1572 You Are Not Eating the Lord‘s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:20-22)

The Corinthians were abusing the Lord's table, even with conduct that Paul calls heresy, and says that they should be under church discipline for the ways that they are conducting themselves.

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you Becky. We're back to 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul is addressing the church in Corinth about their conduct at the

Lord's table. I'm going to begin reading in verse 17 through verse 26 in the

Legacy Standard Bible. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. But in giving this instruction,

I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse.

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. For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you.

Therefore when you meet together in the same place, it is not to eat the Lord's supper.

For in your eating, each one takes his own supper first, and one is hungry and another is drunk.

For 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.

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the

Lord Jesus in the night in which he was being betrayed took bread, 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.

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. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the

Lord until he comes. We're picking up where we left off yesterday.

In verse 20, Paul says, Therefore, when you meet together in the same place, it is not to eat the

Lord's supper. For in your eating, each one takes his own supper first, and one is hungry and another is drunk.

Now, remember, this is right after Paul has said, There are factions among you. In other words, there are heresies that have come in among you.

And these false teachings, these false doctrines that deviate from the sound teaching of our

Lord Jesus Christ, they've separated you. Any other teaching but that which comes from our

Lord Christ does not bring the church together. It breaks us up. And we've seen this in the church in Corinth throughout this letter.

From the very beginning, Paul has been addressing those things that have caused separations in the church.

And even the way they conduct themselves at the Lord's table is a kind of heresy.

For it is not humble. They don't humble themselves before God, and they don't consider one another.

In fact, they're greedy. They're stuffing themselves with these huge elaborate meals that they have.

It's not the simple breaking of the bread and drinking of the cup. There's these whole,

I mean, you might call them potlucks, but not really. Everybody's bringing these elaborate feasts, or they're contributing to these feasts.

Those who are really rich, they bring more food. Those who don't have a lot of money don't bring as much food.

So in that way, it's not a potluck or a pot providence, if you want to call it that way. Nobody's bringing dishes and just kind of setting them out on tables, and then everybody is free to take as they want.

People are eating what they brought to eat, and those who have more eat more.

This is called an agape feast. It was referred to as a love feast in the church in Corinth.

So it wasn't truly the Lord's table, and that's why Paul says in verse 20, when you meet together in the same place, it's not to eat the

Lord's supper. These things that you're doing, these agape feasts that you're having, this is not communion.

It's not what the Lord prescribed for his church to be done in remembrance of him.

Eating of the bread that represents his body, which is broken for us, drinking of the cup, which represents the blood that was spilled for the forgiveness of sins.

Very simple elements that we have there at the Lord's table. But that's not what the

Corinthians are practicing. They're having a huge big get together. The Lord's supper?

Yeah, let's do a supper. Let's do a feast that would be fit for a king. They may even have good intentions with what it is that they're doing, but it's not the

Lord's table, Paul says. And in the way that they conduct themselves, in the way that they're acting, there's divisions arising among them.

You can see the class separation at these love feasts. Those who have a whole lot of food, well, they're the rich.

They're the ones who have more. They're the ones who are probably even the most powerful in the church, and they have influence and sway even in the city in Corinth.

Those who do not have as much, they're the poor, and they don't receive anything.

They come with very little, if anything at all, and those who have more are not giving to those who have less.

So you can tell who is rich and who is poor in the church in Corinth when they come together for these agape feasts, where the

Lord's table is supposed to be something unifying. Everybody is eating of the same bread and drinking of the same cup.

Everyone comes to that table as equals. We are all sinners desperately in need of a

Savior, and Christ is that Savior. And we are being filled up not with food that perishes, but we are filling ourselves up with Christ.

Now, I'm not saying that when we eat of the bread and drink of the cup, we're filling ourselves up with Christ, but those things are tangible symbols that point us to the filling, the spiritual filling that we get in Christ.

Jesus said in John 6, 35, I am the bread of life.

He who comes to me will never hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst.

Now later on, Jesus says, I am the bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever.

And also the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

In verse 53, he says, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the

Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. Now the

Catholic Church takes that to mean that Jesus offers his literal flesh that we must consume in order to receive the kingdom of God.

You have to eat his literal flesh and drink his literal blood. And so in the mass, the

Eucharist becomes the literal body of Christ. The cup becomes his literal blood.

That's the way they read that passage, that it must literally become this thing and we must actually be as cannibals in order to enter the kingdom of God.

It's funny that they interpret that passage as meaning we must eat his literal flesh, but they don't interpret verse 35 where Jesus says,

I am the bread of life. They don't interpret that as his flesh being bread. I don't know.

I always kind of found that funny. Why is it you interpret one verse to mean we have to eat his actual flesh, but you don't interpret another verse to mean that his flesh is actually literal bread?

It's inconsistent the way that the Roman Catholic Church interprets that, but we should know that about Roman Catholicism.

There are many other heresies that are built into that particular religion. We come back to Paul confronting the

Corinthians here about the heresies that have come into their church that are causing factions among them.

When you meet together in the same place, you're all together. You're all here. You're physically, you're here, but what you're eating is not the

Lord's supper. Verse 21, for in your eating, each one takes his own supper first and one is hungry and another is drunk.

So one doesn't get anything again because the poor people don't have as much food to bring so they don't get as much.

They go hungry. Others come and they bring a whole lot of stuff, not just a lot of food, but even a lot of wine.

So they're filling themselves up with these things and they're getting drunk. They're even leaving church drunk.

We don't talk about that regarding the church in Corinth a whole lot. We talk about how there was sexual immorality that was going on there that they weren't handling.

We talk about how they would sue each other, taking one another to court, that they weren't loving one another, that they were abusing spiritual gifts.

We don't talk about how they were literally getting drunk in church. People were coming in, drinking a lot of wine, going home drunk.

And so the pagans are seeing this. The rest of the polytheists there around Corinth, they see these

Christians gather together for their love feasts, but they leave drunk just like the pagans were doing in the temple.

They would go into the temple to eat their meat that had been sacrificed to their false gods and they would drink a lot of wine and they're leaving their pagan temples drunk.

So to a pagan, what's the difference? What's the difference between being a Christian and then worshiping these false gods that I worship?

It looks to me like we're all kind of after the same thing. You worship your God, I worship my gods.

You leave your place of worship drunk, I leave my place of worship drunk. This was going on in the church of Corinth as well and the church not loving one another.

There were class separations and factions in the city in Corinth and we're seeing class separation even in the church in Corinth.

So Paul rebukes their conduct. He rebukes their behavior. You're letting one person go hungry while somebody else is leaving the church drunk.

Verse 22, 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?

Those who are coming in with a whole lot of food and they're filling themselves on it and they're not sharing it with others. They are ostracizing their brothers and sisters in the

Lord who don't have much. They're looking down upon them. They're exalting themselves and looking down on others.

Do you despise the church of God? That you would look at brothers and sisters in the

Lord and think less of them than you think of yourself or those who have as much as you have?

You shame those who have nothing. What shall I say to you, Paul says, shall I praise you?

No, in this I will not praise you. Very stern rebuke

Paul has for this church because of the way that they're acting, the way that they conduct themselves at the

Lord's table. It's not even the Lord's supper that you are eating. Each one takes his own supper first,

Paul says in verse 21, and one is hungry and another is drunk. Now there's nothing wrong with drinking wine.

There's nothing inherently sinful about drinking wine, but the Bible does discourage drunkenness.

Remember that back in 1 Corinthians 6 verses 9 and 10,

Paul says this, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals.

Remember reading that, right? That tends to be the half of that particular passage that we focus on because of Paul's condemnation of sexual immorality and homosexuality.

But then in verse 10 he says, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Thieves, the greedy, and drunkards. That's exactly what you have in this version of the

Lord's table, this heretical version of the Lord's supper that the people in Corinth, the church, was practicing.

You had greed and drunkenness happening at this table.

Paul had previously said in chapter 5, I am writing to you not to associate with any so -called brother if he is a sexually immoral person, or greedy, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one.

Now when we read that passage and when we use it, Paul says something similar to the Thessalonians in 2

Thessalonians chapter 3, that when there's a brother who is under church discipline, you're not even to eat with such a one.

We'll take that and we'll say, you shouldn't go out to restaurants with him, or you shouldn't invite him over to your home for supper, and there could be some application in that.

But the direct application is going to be that person does not get to partake in the

Lord's table. If they are under discipline in this way, you are not even to eat with such a one, because they have shown themselves to be separated from the body of Christ.

So they are to undergo discipline, they're to be removed from the church if that's what is necessary, and in so being removed, they cannot partake of the body which is broken for us and the cup which is spilled for the forgiveness of sins.

That place where we're all able to gather and eat of these things that represent for us the body that was given for our sins.

We remember, we proclaim the Lord's death when we partake in the Lord's table, as Paul talks about here in 1

Corinthians 11. It should grieve you when you can't partake of the

Lord's table. Now when the lockdowns were going on and churches were shut down, there were some places where the

Lord's supper was being practiced virtually online. I mentioned this a little bit yesterday. Some were doing the

Lord's table remotely or they were doing it privately at home with the family or something like that.

And even as a pastor, I've fielded all kinds of questions about, hey, I'm infirmed and I'm at home.

Can I have somebody bring me the Lord's supper at home? We should miss the Lord's table.

We should want to get together as a church to be able to partake in these things.

We long for that. So it shouldn't be a matter of, we're going to make it as available to people as possible.

No, there is a very specific way that this is supposed to be handled.

And there are qualifications that a person must meet in order to partake in the

Lord's table. If a person is under church discipline that might remove them from the church, they don't have access to the table that causes them to miss it.

They recognize that they are separated from the body in more ways than one.

They're separated from the body of Christ and they're separated from being able to eat of that which represents

Christ's body that is broken for us. I'm walking in sinfulness means

I'm not walking in the grace of God. I'm not walking in the forgiveness that has been given to me by Christ.

So that a person would grieve in their spirits and turn from their sin that they may be restored to the church and once again be part of his body and once again be able to partake of that table that we are welcome to by the broken body and the spilled blood of Jesus Christ.

So there should be a longing for that table and when a person is conducting themselves in such a way that puts them under discipline, they are not allowed to eat there.

They are not to be shown as one of us that they are in the body of Christ because instead they're in the world.

They're partaking in the world's passions rather than having a passion for Christ and for his people.

And so Paul says do not even eat with such a one. So you see the order in which

Paul puts these things throughout his letter, right? As he's gone through these things in a particular order, it was necessary for him to address this back in chapters five and six before we get to the conduct that they have at the

Lord's table because it turns out there are a lot of Corinthians that may be disqualified themselves.

If they're not willing to discipline this one man who's guilty of this particular sexual sin that Paul had talked about in chapter five, then they're not disciplining one another over some of these smaller things either.

Things that would not be as extreme as a man who's sleeping with his father's wife. That's what the incestuous man was guilty of in chapter five.

But there are others that are doing other things that should put them under discipline that should cause them to grieve over their sin and repent because they don't belong.

This practice does not belong at the Lord's table. In some sense then it's good that they're not eating the

Lord's supper. But Paul says, I do not praise you in this. There's no commendation for the

Corinthians for the ways that they are handling these ordinances. In Ephesians chapter five, beginning at verse 15,

Paul says, therefore look carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time, as it says in the

ESV, making the best use of the time because the days are evil.

On account of this, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is and do not get drunk with wine for that is dissipation.

That leads to debauchery, but be filled with the spirit. Don't be filled with those things that gratify for a period of time and then it disappears and then you're looking for that buzz again, trying to get your fix.

It only fulfills you for a time and it only satisfies your flesh. It does not fill your spirit.

Instead, you must be filled with that which is eternal and that is the Holy Spirit of God. And that is not what the

Corinthians were doing at the Lord's table. They were filling themselves up with those things that are temporal.

Things that are temporary, food, wine. They needed to be filled with Christ.

That's what's represented there at the table. They needed to put off their fleshly desires and put on Christ, a desire for Christ, even waiting on one another so that they could build one another up in Christ.

After Paul condemns their wrongful practice there at the Lord's table, he gives to them the right practice of the

Lord's Supper, and that's what we're going to consider tomorrow picking up in verse 23. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of this table.

As Jesus had gathered with his disciples in the upper room, broke bread among them and said, eat this.

This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. He took the cup and he passed it among them.

This cup represents the new covenant, the blood that is spilled for the forgiveness of sins.

Drink this in remembrance of me. So these things have been passed on to us, Jesus' disciples, that we might remember the death of Christ, proclaiming his death until he comes.

And may we walk in the grace of God that has been given to us by faith in Jesus Christ.

We don't see the forgiveness of God as a license to sin. Now I can go do whatever

I want, and I know that God is just going to forgive me for it. That we've been set free from the bonds of sin to do righteously, even at the

Lord's table, to partake in this in a righteous way that we proclaim the righteousness of Christ.

May this be with our whole lives. Fill us up, Lord Jesus. It's in your precious name we pray.