Adult Sunday School Going Public Summary

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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us and purchase for God an eternal salvation unto his elect. We praise you

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Father for your goodness. We ask Lord that you would now in this time help us to set aside all the earthly cares, the woes, the stresses, and anxieties that may so easily entangle us and that would rob us of the joy that is set before us.

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We pray God that you would in this moment and in this time consecrate this as holy and separate unto yourself and that our time together and our prayers, our study, and our worship, and the proclamation of the word that these things would be pleasing to you and we pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ for the edification of your church.

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Amen. So over the last several months you've been going through a teaching on baptism which is one of the

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Lord's ordinances. We've concluded that teaching in our book last week on baptism and we want to now take the last couple of occasions that I have with you as your pastor to focus on another important element of the

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Lord's ordinance and that is the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. So in the arguments that we've been making over the last year really, if you've been paying attention in our

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Sunday School series, we've been trying to make an apologetic argument to the church on what baptism is.

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We started that last summer when we started to teach to you what baptism is and is not and so the position that we've come to is that baptism has a particular meaning and anything outside that particular meaning is not baptism, right?

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Similarly we have to come to that conclusion in a lot of aspects of life. So for instance, take, you know, the world likes to redefine terms.

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The world is confused in many aspects. What is a woman? What is a man?

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What is a marriage? All of these very fundamental questions that have been settled for thousands of years in human civilization and history have now all of a sudden come into question, have been, you know, been turned upside down and now we have to ask ourselves these really basic questions.

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And so what makes a woman? Well, it's more than just a feeling. What makes a man?

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It's more than just a feeling. There is an objective reality, a biological reality that we have to contend with and so what

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I'm saying is every word has a particular objective meaning and anything outside of that objective meaning is not what that word is.

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Same is true for baptism as we examined it over the last year. Baptism means full immersion.

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That's what the word baptizo means. It means to be dunked, immersed in water. So anything that is not that is not baptism.

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It's something other than because it does not fit the etymological meaning of the word.

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And it comes outside the historic use and context of that term as well, especially as you examine the scriptures.

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So our argument is clear. Baptism is full immersion in the name of the one true and triune

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God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Why? Because that's what Jesus gave us. Jesus was not sprinkled.

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He was immersed. The early Christians were not sprinkled. They were immersed. This is the only model that we have in Scripture.

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And again just the meaning of the word itself, baptism, means to be immersed, dunked in water.

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So anything outside of that is not baptism. Pretty clear?

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Similarly when God says what marriage is, marriage is between one man, one woman, anything outside of that is not marriage.

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The world can call it whatever it wants, right? When you look at the world in terms of the politics of homosexuality and other things, the world may want to redefine these terms, redefine what a man is, redefine what a woman is.

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But where do we get our definitions from? From God's Word. God's Word speaks to us in a better way.

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And so we hold on to the confession of faith that has been handed down to us in Holy Scripture. Now we turn our attention to the

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Lord's Table. What is the Lord's Supper? What is

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Holy Communion? There's a lot of theories surrounding or theological frameworks surrounding communion, but I want to just get to the basics.

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What is and is not communion? Let's turn to our

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Bibles in Luke chapter 22. And let's start with verse 7.

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It says in Luke chapter 22 verse 7. Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the

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Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. Okay, just a quick note, look at verse 1 as well.

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It says, Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover. So if you have any questions of what that feast is, the

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Feast of Unleavened Bread is the Feast of Passover. Passover being what? What is that feast?

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What was that a memorial of? That's right.

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And so if you remember the story of Exodus, I don't think we'll have to go back to Exodus to read the text, but just to recap what

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Exodus teaches and what it says, Jehovah had gave his people directions as to how they would exit after the ten plagues the land of Egypt.

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And so the Lord had commanded Moses to instruct the people of Israel to prepare for Passover.

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So essentially it was their last meal before they get out of town, right? I don't know about you, but I'm a manic,

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I travel a lot, and I'm a manic planner in how I travel. And so when we do road trips with the family,

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I have, I literally print out like two, three pages of where we're stopping because I do not want to, like,

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I want to beat time. You know, when you put the GPS, it gives you a time when you're gonna arrive. I'm like, uh -uh, I'm gonna get there like 20 minutes sooner at least.

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And so we make very intentional stops. And so I know when

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I'm gonna stop, where I'm gonna stop. I know where we're gonna eat, where we're gonna do bathroom breaks. Yes, with small kids it's a little hard, but we've managed to do it because we have this little device that if they have to go, they can go, and we don't have to stop for it.

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So we're very intentional in that, and God was very intentional in how he wanted his people to exit

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Egypt. So he gave them a roadmap. He says, this is how I want you to go. And he says, this is what you're gonna do.

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This is how you're gonna prepare. This is what you're going to, so in some verses, this is also called the

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Feast of Preparations because it's a time in which they're going, they're preparing to leave the land of Egypt.

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And so God had given them instruction on what they're to eat. And the food is very interesting because the food items that are described in the

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Passover, obviously there is the Passover what? Lamb. Okay. One of the instructions that God gave to the people of Israel was that when the

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Passover lamb was to be sacrificed, it had to be sacrificed on that particular day, and then it had to be roasted over fire, so the quickest way to cook the meat.

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And sometimes, I'm not sure if you've ever had lamb. Lamb is a kind of a tough meat. It's a little gamey compared to other, you know, meats.

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And it, you know, the best way to cook it is like in a slow, methodical way. If you cook it too fast, it's kind of almost gummy, right?

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But he says, this is how you're gonna cook it. You're gonna cook it fast over fire, and then you're gonna eat it and you can't leave anything behind.

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You gotta eat it all, right? God preparing his people to consume this. It's gonna be quick.

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It may not be the best tasting, but it's gonna give you the energy you need to leave Egypt. And then he says, as well, with the bread.

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There's bread that's associated with this meal, too. And this is a certain kind of bread. What kind of bread was this?

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Unleavened. Okay, so I don't know too much about, I'm not a baker, but what is missing from unleavened bread?

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Yeast. What does yeast do typically in bread? It takes time, right? So you gotta let it proof sometimes, and you gotta let it rise, and then you bake it.

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But God said to his people in Israel that we don't have time for that. So don't put any leaven in it. Don't put any yeast in it.

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It's gonna be unleavened bread, so that you can consume it, and maybe even take some with you, because there's no time.

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And one of the things that the Exodus says is essentially you're gonna be in a rush, okay? So you begin to see some of the reasoning behind the

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Exodus, or the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the reasoning behind some of those elements, and how they're prepared, and why they're prepared in certain ways.

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Back in Luke chapter 22, verse 8, so Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, go and prepare the

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Passover for us, that we may eat it. And they said to him, where will you have us prepare it?

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He said to them, behold, when you've entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters, and tell the master of the house, the teacher says to you, where is the guest room where I may eat the

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Passover with my disciples? He will show you a large upper room furnished.

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Prepare it there. And they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the

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Passover. So kind of a similar setup here.

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If you see the overarching meta -narrative of Scripture, Jesus sends them the day of, so they're kind of in a rush, aren't they?

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And he says, go and prepare. This idea of preparation is very much in line with what we see in the

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Exodus. He goes on to find a place for the disciples to eat that Jesus had already prepared beforehand, but they had to go and seek it.

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In the Exodus story, we also see that God sends his messengers, namely

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Moses, and also his son. Oh, not his son, his brother. Who was

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Moses's brother? Aaron, who became the priest. And they had to go in and essentially do what the disciples are doing.

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They had to go before the Lord and tell the disciples, tell the people of Israel of what it is that they have to do.

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In verse 14, it says, and when the hour came, he reclined at the table and the apostles with him.

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And he said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.

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This is really important. Jesus is telling us what he is observing. What is he observing?

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The Passover. So it's not, we're not, we're talking about the

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Passover. A lot of theologians have said that what Jesus is doing here is the first communion service.

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And I agree with that in a sense. But what he's also doing is the last true

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Passover. Okay? This is the last true Passover celebration. Because now in this institution, it is now different from the

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Passover. Do we celebrate Passover as Christians today? No. I am of the opinion that it is not necessarily wrong for us to celebrate some of these ancient feasts.

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If you do so, with the understanding of as this pointing to Christ. But it is, so to me,

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I don't necessarily see wrong in it. Some people would say this is, you shouldn't. And because it is, right, because it's an old covenant arrangement and we're in the new covenant.

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And to look at the old covenant and to do the regulations of the old covenant would be to undo what we are doing in the new covenant.

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I don't necessarily take that perspective. But it's a valid perspective.

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And so what Jesus is celebrating here is the last Passover of the old dispensation.

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Okay? That word dispensation just means epoch, era, age, as we understand it in the scriptures.

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And so not to, again, don't lump that word in with dispensationalism.

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Simply put, this means an epoch of time. And so Christ is establishing a new thing.

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And here's how he establishes it. It says, and he, in verse 17, he took a cup and we had given thanks.

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He said, take this and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.

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And he took bread and we had given thanks. He broke it and gave it to them saying, this is my body which is given for you.

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Do this in remembrance of me. This is very important.

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What Jesus is doing, he's also setting the model for the new covenant arrangement of Holy Communion.

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Okay? Just like we have the mindset now of baptism, what baptism is and what it is not, based upon the biblical criteria.

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We want to approach communion in a similar fashion. What is and is not communion, what are the elements involved in the communion service?

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And then we have to ask the self -examination question, are we as a church following this model to the biblical standard?

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In the next couple of weeks, every week we administer communion. Over the next several weeks we will be administering communion differently than what we have done in the past.

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And some of the things that we will be doing differently are the things that we believe align us more closer to scripture.

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Among the changes to communion, when we have communion, just like most typical churches, you have the elements already kind of broken.

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And you have the cups kind of already filled and stuff. And then we kind of just, you know, disperse it through the deacons or others who are helping serve.

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One of the things that we're going to be doing differently is, again, to align ourselves more closely to scripture, is we will be taking one loaf of bread, or a bun -load of bread, and we will be breaking it there at the table.

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What does Jesus do here? Again, notice the intentionality behind what Jesus is doing here. It says, and he took bread.

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And when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them. You might just think this is just, you know, kind of nonchalant details in a narrative that, you know, maybe we're reading too much into it.

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I don't think that's the case. Everything in scripture is very intentional and very purposeful.

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Again, let's break this down just a little bit more in that same text. And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, what is to give thanks?

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That is to pray, right? Currently, how we do it is when we have communion, we pray once over all the elements, and then we disperse them, and we do take that corporately.

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We will now be praying for the elements individually. So he prayed for each element, the bread first, and so we too will now start praying for the bread first, and then we will break it, and then it will be dispersed.

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Now, we've thought of some of the objections that people might have, and that sounds unsanitary.

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You know, pastors, we know we're shaking hands with everybody, and then we're going up there, and then we're going to break bread, and then we're going to use hand sanitizer before we eat.

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We're going to actually have hand sanitizer there, and we're going to wash our hands because we want to be clean. We don't want to spread germs.

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Another objection might be that, well, this sounds kind of Roman Catholic -y, right? Where in the

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Roman Catholic system, you know, you come forward to receive the Eucharist, and the priest will, like, put it in your mouth.

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I promise you I will not be putting the bread in your mouth, okay? We will not be following that model, and particularly, they don't do what we're doing.

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They usually have a little wafer. It's not unleavened bread, and then they will hand it to you. There's no breaking aspect, and I think that there's something that is very intentional about what

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Jesus is doing. Then we're going to examine elsewhere in Scripture how this is practiced and see whether this lines up, but Jesus breaks the bread

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What significance is there behind the breaking of the bread? It signifies really two or three things. His body that's broken.

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That's exactly right. What else do you think that the breaking represents or signifies?

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Say again? Yes, that's beautiful. I love that.

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What else can come to your mind? Yes, sir? She says the one becoming many, so the one bread being broken, dispersed becomes much.

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Yeah. You had something else, or you just wanted to hear that? Another thing that it represents is fellowship, right?

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Another thing that it represents as well is authority.

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Who is breaking and who is dispensing? That aspect is very intentional.

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It's not something that should be overlooked easily, and so what Jesus again does is that He takes the element.

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He prays for them. He breaks it, and it flows from Him. It represents

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His broken body. It represents the fellowship that we all enjoy in Christ because what is these emblems a representation of spiritually?

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His body, right? So we believe we take the spiritual presence view of the communion.

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This is truly Christ's body, spiritually speaking. We don't take a transubstantiation or co -substantiation view of Scripture, I mean of the elements where they become mystically the literal body of Christ.

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Rather, we understand that Christ is nourishing us spiritually by means of the elements, and so something is actually happening.

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We don't take a memorialist view which just says this is just totally a memorial and that there's no significance outside of the memorial aspect.

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No, we believe that there is a true transfer of spiritual life and power as we do these things, as you partake of the spiritual elements of Christ, and we are feasting on Christ in a very tangible way.

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A memorialist view is actually more akin to a Gnostic view, right?

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And so the two extremes would be the Catholic view where the substance actually changes mystically, that's mysticism, and then there's

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Gnosticism where everything is just kind of ethereal and everything is very detached from the world and the physical elements of life, right?

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And so those two views are extreme opposites. We believe in the true spiritual presence of Christ in the communion elements.

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Any questions so far on that? Yeah, so their view would be that, again, that there are graces that are extended in the communion, and I wouldn't disagree with that use of language.

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I would maybe disagree on the application on how we get to certain aspects. Are you forgiven of your sins by taking communion?

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Yes and no. What is the avenue by which our sins are forgiven? It's His atoning work, particularly in our confession, repentance, and faith toward Christ.

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So if we partake of the communion table and we have not done those things, are we forgiven automatically?

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Not necessarily, right? And so, again, if we turn communion into a work rather than an act of grace, then you begin to have some errors like in Lutheranism where this is a means of grace outside of Christ because it now becomes a work.

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So I don't have to confess. I can just take communion and I'm good, right? So it becomes a false covering.

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But there is a sense as well in which communion does put you in right fellowship with Christ, but it needs to be preceded by true faith and repentance, right?

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So if you have true faith and true repentance, you're welcomed in that table and you're partaking.

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There's a tangibility to the graces or the effect of God's grace as you receive the communion table.

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And so I think that would be a more healthy and biblical view of communion. This is the renewing of.

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That's right. Amen. Any other thoughts or questions? This is making sense, right?

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Okay, so I haven't lost anybody. So again, one of the practical things that we'll be doing differently is that we'll be praying for the elements individually.

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And when it comes to the bread, we will be breaking the bread so that the one becomes many.

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Scripture says, do we not eat of one bread? Do we not partake of one cup? And so that is significant.

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And so let's continue to see what the Lord Jesus does and how he administers communion.

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He then again says in verse 19, he took bread and we had given thanks. He broke it and gave it to them saying, this is my body, which is given for you.

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Do this in remembrance of me. I had a conversation with Jehovah's witnesses recently.

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I love talking to Jehovah's witnesses, of course. And they ramp up a lot of efforts in this time of year because they have a celebration coming up.

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If you know anything about Jehovah's witnesses, they do not celebrate anything. They don't celebrate birthdays, Christmas, holidays, secular holidays, none of those things.

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But there's only one thing on their calendar and it's what they call the memorial. The memorial is their yearly Passover slash communion service.

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So our church, we practice communion every week. Most churches in evangelicalism will practice it maybe once a month or once a quarter or whenever the spirit moves.

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And then other churches will maybe do it yearly. Jehovah's witnesses are among the groups that will do a yearly memorial service because they link it correctly so to the

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Passover and the Passover was celebrated yearly. But then they don't recognize that not only is the

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Passover, not only is communion connected to Passover, but it's also a new thing.

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It's a new covenant arrangement. And it was done weekly by the early church as is referenced numerous times in the book of Acts.

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And the Jehovah's witnesses believe that... Has anyone ever been to a memorial service of Jehovah's witnesses by any chance?

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All right, good. You don't want to go. What happens there is it's the strangest ritual you'll probably see.

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They have about 30 minute sermon and it falls on the

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Jewish calendar day of what's called Nisan 14 or Nisan 14. Nisan 14 is the biblical

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Passover day and so it changes every year. So for us, we follow the Gregorian calendar, solar calendar.

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So Easter always falls on Sunday. Good Friday always falls on Friday because we follow a

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Gregorian calendar, a solar calendar. The biblical calendar is a lunar calendar. It's not a solar calendar, which means it goes based upon new moons.

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And so they go by the Jewish calendar of Nisan 14. And so it's different every year.

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Some days, some years it's in March, some are in April, depending on the lunar cycles that are associated in the

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Jewish calendar. And when you go to this memorial service of Jehovah's witnesses, again, the only thing they celebrate in their calendar, they'll have an elder give a talk.

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And there's usually, this is like their big deal. Like there's a lot of people at the kingdom hall. Sometimes they rent out like huge venues because there's going to be a lot of people that are going to show up to this.

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About 18 million people worldwide attend this event on that given day. And so they have a sermon, they'll have songs, and then they'll give you a sermon on basically what the elements mean and what they're about to partake in.

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And then they have the wine and they have the unleavened bread. Good. I like that. Those are what the elements are.

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And we're going to go more into the wine aspect of it in a second. You have these elements, and then the elements are passed.

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And so they kind of like what we do, we bring the elements and people take, and everyone grabs the cup and everyone grabs the plate, but no one eats of it.

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No one eats. And so every single person is grabbing the plate and passing it to the next person.

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Every single person is grabbing the cup and passing it to the next person. Do you know why they do that? Erroneously and very sadly, and truthfully as well, they do not believe that the great majority of Jehovah's Witnesses are part of the new covenant.

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The majority of Jehovah's Witnesses believe and teach that there are two classes of Christians.

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There is a heavenly class and an earthly class. Other terms that they use is there's the great crowd from Revelation 7 -9, and these are the ones who are going to inherit the paradise earth.

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And then there's 144 ,000 from Revelation 14. And these are the other sheep or rather the little flock and the great crowds, the other sheep and the 144 ,000 are the ones who are going to go to heaven.

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And these Christians are elect. They are part of the new covenant. They are brothers of Christ, but all the other ones, all the other

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Jehovah's Witnesses, the vast majority of Jehovah's Witnesses are part of what is called, again, the other sheep or the great crowd class.

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And they are not members of the new covenant. They are not spiritual brothers of Christ. They are subjects to God's government,

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God's kingdom, which is namely Jesus Christ and his cohorts of 144 ,000 elect from the earth.

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And so unless you're part of the 144 ,000 at this memorial service, you cannot partake.

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Because you have to be amongst part of the new covenant arrangement. So the truth in that is that Jehovah's Witnesses correctly understand for the vast majority that they're not members of the new covenant and that is true.

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They're not new covenant members. They also believe that they don't have to be born again because only the 144 ,000 have to be born again.

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All these very strange beliefs and doctrines. In fact, official Watchtower teaching teaches that the vast majority of the

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New Testament doesn't apply to them directly because it was written to the 144 ,000.

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So for instance, when it says that we are sons of God, no, that's the 144 ,000. We're not sons of God, we're subjects.

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Because their view is that God has a kingdom and so the kingdom has subjects.

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The vast majority of Jehovah's Witnesses will be subjects of God's kingdom, but they won't be in God's kingdom.

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Does that make sense? So it doesn't make sense, but it makes sense as I'm explaining it that this is what they believe.

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The question I ask, is that communion? They've got the elements, right?

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They got the bread, they've got the wine, they pass it around, but is that communion? No, it's not communion.

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Because communion is not only the involvement of the right elements, but it is also the right doctrine, teaching, associated with those elements.

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Because if not, it's just bread, and it's just wine, right? Emmanuel, you had your hand up? Lost, rightfully so.

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And that's why I always bring that up to Jehovah's Witnesses, because they have a false paradigm. Again, they believe that there's two classes of Christians, that within the faith that there are the great crowd, which is the vast majority of Jehovah's Witnesses, and then the little flock, the 144 ,000, and they believe that to be a literal number of 144 ,000.

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And so those are the ones who go to heaven. Very erroneous. And so I always, when I talk to Jehovah's Witnesses, I try to make the

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New Testament distinction clear that if you're not in Christ, if you're not born again, then you're lost.

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There is no other subcategory of Christian. Paul says in Ephesians 4, verse 5, there is but one faith, one baptism, one

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Lord, and one God and Father of all, right? So there's one faith. There's not, actually, and it says even, interestingly, in that same text, there's one hope to which you were called, okay?

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So there's not two hopes. They usually use that term, well, we have an earthly hope, or you can have a heavenly hope. Well, the Bible says there's only one hope, and that's the hope of seeing

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Jesus. That's the hope of the upward call in Christ Jesus. It's the hope of glory, okay?

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The blessed hope that we have in Titus 2 .13 is to see our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

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There's no other hope. So communion is, in a sense, it's where we get a taste of that hope.

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It's where we taste and see that the Lord is good. Not because we don't see Him face to face, but we will see

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Him face to face. But before we get there, before we have that final Lord's Supper in heaven, we enjoy the earthly benefits of that supper here as we gather on the

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Lord's Day. Does that make sense? And so, again, Jehovah's Witnesses have an erroneous doctrinal view and practice, because what is being practiced here?

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Notice again the text of Luke 22, verse 19, and the latter part of that text.

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This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

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What is the this part? Was it passing a plate? It was partaking.

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It was being a partaker. And so the Jehovah's Witnesses use that term a lot, partakers. Like, well, we're not partakers.

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And they call themselves observers. We are observers of the Lord's Supper. We're not partakers of the

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Lord's Supper. There are no observers. It's not in the text. We're in the text of Scripture.

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So the conversation I had this week with a Jehovah's Witness, that's what I brought up. I said, we're in the text.

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Is there an observer? Because you're not going to find it. It's just not there. What is the this that we're doing in remembrance of Him?

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And if we're doing something other than this, are we actually doing this in remembrance of Him?

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No. If we do something other than what the Lord has prescribed, we are doing something other than.

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That's the point. So if we don't do it as the Lord says, because this is, in the

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Scripture, it's called the Lord's Ordinance. It's the Lord's Supper. It's the Lord's Sacrament.

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It's not ours. It's His. So He's the Lord who determines what it is and how it is that we do this.

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Right? This is, again, very much in line with what's called the Regulative Principle of Worship. Who regulates it?

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Us or Him? It's the Lord. The Lord has spoken. He has given us what is good.

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He has given us what is right. So we do what He says, and He blesses it. And that's where the spiritual blessing of the communion comes forward, is in our obedience and doing what

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He has commanded. Right? The Mormon Church also does weekly communion, similarly to us.

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Now, I've brought this up before. The Mormons do communion very interestingly as well. If you ever go to a

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Mormon service, of which I have, they will provide communion every week, but it's in a different form.

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They do not use unleavened bread. They literally have loads of bread from Walmart, from Wonder Bread, and they just break it into pieces and they put it.

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So it's not unleavened. And then they don't put grape juice. They don't even put wine.

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They put water as an element. Now the question is, is that communion?

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Apart from the doctrinal issues that we have of Mormons, why is that not communion? It's not the same elements.

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Okay. It is different from what He has given us. It is different from what He's instructed.

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So it is something other than what He said when He said, do this in remembrance of me.

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Okay. So we're talking about something totally different. Yes. Okay.

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See that? Scenario again. So there's a lot of scenarios that we can point to that might make communion difficult.

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And none of them would be cause good enough to change what the

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Lord has ordained. Right? And so when we look at, there are times in church history where, or maybe even circumstantial reasons in a person's life where they may be sovereignly inhibited from practicing the

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Lord's table. And so I would say that that might be a scenario in which you are sovereignly prohibited from observing the

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Lord's table as prescribed by the Lord Jesus. Right? Yeah. Go for it.

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You can bring it up in the next members meeting. We're in California.

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We're in like Napa Valley. It's like an hour away. I think we'll be okay with our wine industry.

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But yes. Okay. Again, and those are areas in which a people for a time may be sovereignly prohibited from partaking of the elements, but we don't, we don't have, there's just no scenario in scripture where we're giving the flexibility of the freedom to change the elements.

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One would have to come up with, you know, there's, and this is kind of where we get into the sliding door of, of, of how we got, you know, pedo -baptism in a sense.

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Right? So we have this document, the Dake, and, and it says, well, here's the best way of baptizing.

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You baptize in water with, and not just water, but living water, water that's moving.

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It's like a river or a lake or an ocean. And, and you baptize, but if you can't do that, you know, here's what you can do.

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And then if you can't do that, here's the next thing. And if you can't do that, you know, then you can maybe sprinkle and then, and it kind of gives you this, this, this slippery slope.

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And then that's how boom. Oh, and all of a sudden in church history for, you know, 1300 years, we're all pedo -baptists.

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Okay. And that's a slippery slope of taking hypotheticals and taking circumstances and then forcing the scripture to fit those circumstances.

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Right. And, and that's why we had, you know, the medieval dark ages for so long was because we kept compromising on scripture.

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Similarly today, where you have churches compromising on the issues of, you know, women being in the pastorate.

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Well, you know, it's an antiquated, it's old, you know, you know, we've changed.

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No, the scripture is the authority. So what we're arguing for here this, after this morning is simply obey what the

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Lord has given us as a means for His ordinances, namely baptism, they must be by fully immersion and the

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Lord's supper, having the right and correct elements and the right elements in the breaking, praying, imparting, and also making sure that those particular elements are what is prescribed in scripture.

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So I don't think I have to make too much of an argument for unleavened bread. Right. It's clear as we looked at the context, this is a celebration of the

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Passover. So it had to be unleavened bread. We know that this is the bread that was used in, in, in this observance.

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You had your hand up Dale? So we use grape juice and wine.

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I will address that in just a moment. And so no one argues that this is unleavened bread.

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I mean, even those who practice other forms of communion, I've been to churches where they do have unleavened bread.

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And, you know, other, I've been a part of a church where they actually take the bread and then they dunk it in the grape juice or the wine and then you partake of it.

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And it was like a really cool, trendy way of doing it, like back in the early 2010s. And so like all the new cool church plants, that's how they were doing communion.

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So you'd walk up and you'd take the bread and it's a really good like sourdough bread. And then you soak it and it tastes kind of really good when it soaks up the wine or the juice.

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And, you know, it was, it was a kind of a cool way of doing it. But let's, let's, let's hold that to the biblical standard.

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Is that communion? Not according to God's word. It is something other than.

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Why? Because the elements are not there. And not just the elements in particularly in regard to the wine or the bread, but also in the ceremonial aspect of it.

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One of the things that we kind of are suspicious of in Protestantism is the idea of ceremony, right?

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Especially amongst evangelicals, like anything that's like too ceremonial, like, oh, that's high church. Oh, that's too liturgical.

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That's too religious. Oh, that's Catholic lights. That's all these things. And, and so we kind of have a allergic reaction in some regard to things that seem too liturgical or seem to, you know, you know, high church.

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But I would say that part of this is the ceremony. There's a particular ceremony that is being conducted here.

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And we want to make sure that we follow the elements of what Jesus has laid down. So again, for those of you who came a little bit later, one of the changes that you'll see in communion is that we will be partaking of one bread.

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And so instead of having the bread already, you know, prearranged kind of cut, we'll have one loaf of bread unleavened.

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And the pastor who is going to dispense that will break the bread, as Jesus says, it says in the word that he took the bread and we had a given thanks where he broke it and gave it to them, right?

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And so we will be breaking the bread. Again, we will have hand sanitizer. We will sanitize our hands.

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We want to transfer grace, not germs. So we're going to do that hopefully rightly and correctly.

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And then when it comes to the cup, notice what verse 20 says. And likewise, the cup after they had eaten saying, this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

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But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table for the son of man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he's betrayed.

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And they began to question one another, which of them it would be, it could be who was going to do this.

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Notice what it says again. He took the cup and it says, this cup that is poured out for you.

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So he's pouring the elements. So we will be, I think what's the main idea here is that it's being poured from one cup.

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So one of the things that we will be doing is that we're going to ensure that the elements that are used for the wine will come from one cup.

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And so we're not going to be two different wine bottles here and there. It'll come from one cup.

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Paul says in 1 Corinthians, I think chapter 9, do we not drink of one cup? There's a significance there, ceremonially and spiritually.

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Now the question that is raised often is what is in the cup? What's in the cup?

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What was that famous movie that says, what's in the box? Yeah. What's in the cup?

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It's wine. How do we know this? Okay.

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Let's turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 11 and let's look at verse 17.

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And we may not have time to go into all this, but we'll pick up next week as well. But in the following instructions,

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I do not commend you because when you come together, it is not for the better, but for the worse.

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For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part.

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For there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. When you come together, it is not the

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Lord's supper that you eat. This is important. What am I telling you? That biblically, there are people who celebrate communion who are not celebrating communion.

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Why? Because the elements are not correct. It is not being correctly administered.

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And Paul says as much. His criticism here is not so much on the elements that are passed in regard to the bread or the wine.

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His criticism is that it is not being rightly administered because you are doing it out of sync.

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You're not doing it together. So in fact, what he's highlighting here is the need for ceremony. He's highlighting the need for order in that ceremony, particularly.

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He says, when you come together, verse 20, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. But what do you mean? Verse 21, for in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal.

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One goes hungry, another gets drunk. Okay. Now I come from a, after being

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Jehovah's Witness, I come from a pretty fundamental Southern Baptist background.

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And my tutor in the faith, hardcore Southern Baptist, he does not drink alcohol of any sort.

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And he swears that it is grape juice that you have to drink for communion. And that it's not wine because a good

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Baptist would never drink wine. Right? A good Baptist would never cuss, he'll never swear, he'll never dance, and he'll never drink.

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Okay. And so, so a lot of Southern Baptists take the position that, you know, no wine, it has to be grape juice.

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As long as it's the fruit of the vine, it's good enough. But the question is raised here, well, can you get drunk off of grape juice?

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I haven't been able to yet. And neither have my kids. And so I don't think that grape juice is what's in view here.

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Because if you can get drunk off of this, then clearly it's alcoholic. It's not, you know, just a little grape juice.

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It's wine. And this is the cup that is shared amongst the brethren.

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And so what Paul is criticizing here is not the elements themselves. It seems like they have the elements down. They've got the bread, they've got the wine.

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What he's criticizing, however, is that they're not in sync. They're eating sporadically.

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You know, one will eat before the other. They're not taking it corporately. So they're not recognizing the importance of the ceremony and the unity that it is to represent.

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Because we are partaking of one body. We are partaking of one bread. We are partaking of one cup that demonstrates the unity of the new covenant arrangement of Christ.

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And so they were being criticized for not following that particular arrangement.

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So it's not the elements that are in question here. Rather, it's the arrangement. So both have to come together in a synchronistic way.

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You have to have the right element in terms of the bread and the wine. And then you have to have the right administration of those elements.

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Because if not, it's like what Paul says in verse 20, when you come together, you're not celebrating the Lord's Supper. You're doing something other than because you're not administering it correctly.

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Okay? Can we see this? Verse 21, again, in eating, each one goes ahead of his own meal.

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One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What? Do you not have houses to eat and drink in?

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I just love how Paul's sarcasm just leaps out of the pages of Scripture. Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?

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What should I say to you? Should I commend you in this? No, I will not. So there's a class warfare that's at play here as well in this context.

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You have some brothers who were bringing their own wine, bringing their own bread, and they were not sharing it with the brethren who could not afford it.

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So again, circumstances are considered here. You have poor brothers, you have rich brothers, and the rich brothers are not sharing with the poor brothers.

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And so they're not able to partake. And Paul shames them and says, shame on you. That's not the

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Lord's Supper. You are not rightly administering this sacred covenant, this sacred oath.

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He goes on to clarify. This is a text that we read every week. Verse 23, for what I received from the

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Lord, what I also deliver to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread.

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Okay, we know this is unleavened bread because of the context we just examined in Luke chapter 22. And when he had given thanks, he broke it.

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Again, all the elements are there that we discussed earlier. He broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you.

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Do this in remembrance of me. Again, if you're doing something other than this, verse 20, you are not doing communion.

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You're doing something other than. Okay, verse 25, in the same way also, he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is a new covenant in my blood.

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Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. And so another key thing that we learned from this text is that this is to be done yearly.

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No, it needs to be done often. And what we see in the book of Acts is that this was a weekly affair.

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This was a weekly ordinance. The church met together in houses to proclaim the word of God and to dedicate themselves to the apostations and to the breaking of bread.

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That's communion, to the breaking of bread. And so you have, again, this arrangement that is to be done often.

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And it's the breaking of the bread, it's the drinking of the cup, and it's to be done in remembrance of Christ. For as often as you eat this bread and you drink the cup, you proclaim the

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Lord's death until he comes. And this is an ordinance that lasts until when? Until he returns.

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This also shows the folly of false doctrine called preterism. Preterism is an eschatological view that says that the end of the ages have already come, that we are in the world to come right now.

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And boy, if that's true, this really sucks. Because this is not the world to come that I was looking forward to in scripture.

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Yes. I mean,

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I agree with what Jesus says, because he's the one who said the initial words. He says this age and in the age to come.

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So I believe that that's true. There are two ages, this age, that Jesus was in and the age to come.

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I know that some post -millennialists would interpret the age to come as being the post -resurrection age of Christ, the

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Christian era. But I don't think that's what Jesus has in view. I think that when

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Jesus says this age, he's referring to this eon of time that encompasses both the old and new covenant.

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And then you have the age to come, which is the eternal state. And so I think that's a more likely interpretation of that text.

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But you have to slice that one way or the other because Jesus says there are two ages, this age and the age to come.

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And that's why I like to use the term dispensation in regard to the difference between the old and new covenant ages.

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And so I use the term dispensation because the word dispensation just means administration of time, is what the word dispensation means.

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And so that word is used in scripture in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 10. And so the King James, I think, would translate that as in the dispensation of time.

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Other translations says the fullness of times or the administration of times. That is the

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Greek word that's used for dispensation in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 10. So I like to use that term in relation to the old and new covenants.

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And so, but in terms of the actual ages of the eons, I think that there are two.

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Does that help clarify? Okay. And so we participate in this arrangement until the

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Lord returns. And so a preterist has no basis to participate in Lord's Supper because he believes that the

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Lord already came, that he came in the year 70 AD and that, you know, we're already in the eternal state.

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Yeah, that is clearly wrong and it's heretical. And it's a doctrine that a couple years ago we had a contend with even here in this church and that we rightly, you know, divided and made a clear distinction on what is truth and what is false in that regard.

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Myself, I'm a partial preterist. Preterism just is a perspective that says some, like preterists would say all the prophecies fulfilled.

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As a partial preterist, I'd say most of the prophecies have been fulfilled. What is missing mainly, of course, is the coming of Christ.

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But that is a lesson for another day. In verse 27, I got just like two, three more minutes here.

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I just want to touch briefly on this and we're going to pick up again next week on the same subject. And then on my last

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Sunday, which would be Easter Sunday, I'm going to give you a beautiful recap on Revelation. So just to get your appetites wet for something that I had hopefully longed to have shared with you, but I did not get the chance to in my time and tenure with you.

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But it says here in verse 27, whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the

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Lord. Let a person examine himself then and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

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Okay, notice the singular uses of those terms, the bread, the cup, not the breads, not the cups.

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It is singular in that usage. This is significant in many ways because this text has also been misunderstood to say that the communion is actually personal ordinance.

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And what is meant by that is that, well, if you come to church on Sunday and you feel like you're not worthy, then you can just wave the elements by.

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And that's actually not a right administration of communion either. That's a misunderstanding of this text.

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Because what is the reference to an unworthy manner? That's right.

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And so they were out of line because, A, they were not participating corporately.

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So they had in that sense already individualized communion. They saw it as a personal ordinance rather than a corporate ordinance.

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And that's what Paul is fixing in his statements is that, no, you do this together. It is the one cup.

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It is the one bread. It's significant in that respect. Now, he also is correcting the misunderstanding here that you have this class distinction within the brotherhood as well, right?

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Some of you are poor, some of you are rich, and the rich is not sharing with the poor. So he's saying, you know, if you don't share with your brother, then you are being unworthy.

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If you do not participate corporately, you are bringing judgment upon yourselves.

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And another important aspect of this is what he's saying is, if you misuse the elements, such as in getting drunk, you're also bringing judgment upon yourself.

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So those are the three main things that Paul's correcting with the Corinthian church, okay? So if you are getting drunk on the elements, if you are not considering the poor, and if you are not taking it corporately, then you'd be guilty of what verse 27 and verse 28 is talking about, right?

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Does that make sense? Okay. So whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner would be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the

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Lord. A really important distinction that he made here, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the

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Lord. Not the Christian, not the church, it's the Lord's ordinances.

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It's the Lord's body, it's the Lord's blood, it's the Lord's cup, it's the Lord's bread, and it's singular in that usage, okay?

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Are you beginning to see the picture that's being painted here? And so the question might come up, well, why make a big deal about this?

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What's the fuss all about? That's right.

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Next week, we're going to examine why we're making a big fuss about this. It's because the

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Lord does, and particularly the significance of what we see elsewhere in 1

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Corinthians and then how it's used in the book of Acts. So we're going to go in more detail next week by looking at some other statement

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Paul makes and then how communion seemingly is administered in the New Testament Church of Acts.

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And so stay tuned for that. We will be, again, changing how we administer communion starting

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Easter. So Resurrection Sunday is going to be the first Sunday in which we administer communion newly, differently, joyfully with the people of God so that we participate in the one body and the one bread and the one cup of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Any last questions for this teaching this morning?

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I know it's a lot to take in. It's a lot of data. But hopefully, if you have any questions, feel free to ask now or later.

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Sure. Correct.

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Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, we don't do this in a legalistic spirit to like the stances that we take on baptism, the stances that we take on communion.

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It's not to be legalistic in any sense, but it's to have a high view of Scripture, to have a high view of the

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Lord's ordinance, recognizing it's not our own, it's His. And if He's given us these things as a gift to administer, boy, is that a responsibility.

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So I don't want us to think in terms of if you don't do it exactly like us, you're a false church or you're this or that.

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No, that's not the spirit we want to harbor. Certainly not. Far from it. Well, the spirit that we want to harbor instead is how can we come closer to the perfect image of Christ?

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How can we emulate Jesus and honor Him all the more as we exercise these keys to the kingdom and as we exercise the

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Lord's ordinances in a way that would be gratifying to Him? So the heart posture should always be how can

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I please Him more, not how can I trample on fellow brothers or sisters, right?

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Because then once like the text shows, if you're not considering your brother, then you're dishonoring the

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Lord. You're dishonoring Him. So certainly, thank you for that. We don't want you to have a legalistic spirit concerning these things, but we just want to come to a closer image of Christ, to closely emulate what is shown in Scripture.

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And surely the Lord is pleased in that. He must be because He tells us so in His Word.

01:00:01

So any other thoughts or questions? Let's pray. Good and gracious God, we come before You in Jesus' name.

01:00:09

Thankful Lord that You have given us an arrangement, that You have given Your people, Your church, the holy keys of the kingdom and Your holy

01:00:18

Word by which we are to rightly dig out these things and see if these things be true.

01:00:24

Father, we pray that we would be Bereans in this moment as we examine the holy communion, as we examine the elements that are shared in Scripture, how it is that we can come to a closer unity in the body of Christ and then also, even more importantly, closer unity to You, our

01:00:40

King and our Redeemer. Lord, help us to rightly see these things and to see the great weight and authority and the privilege that's ours as we study this topic of communion, that we would do so for Your glory,