The Eucharist

The Warning Against Divisions and Selfish Communion

Now in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, since you come together not for the better, but for the worse. For to begin with, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it.

Indeed, it is necessary that there should be factions among you, so that those who are approved may be recognized among you. When you come together, then, it is not to eat the Lord's supper. For at the meal, each one eats his own supper.

So one person is hungry while another gets drunk. Don't you have homes in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I praise you?

I do not praise you in this matter. For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, broke it and said, this is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, also he took the cup after supper and said, 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 the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

So then whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself. In this way, let him eat the bread and drink from the cup.

For whoever eats and drinks without recognizing the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. This is why many are sick and ill among you, and many have fallen asleep. If we were properly judging ourselves, we would not be judged.

But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned with the world. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, welcome one another. If anyone is hungry, he should eat at home.

So when you gather together, you will not come under judgment. I will give instructions about the other matters whenever I come. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word and your faithfulness to us.

And Lord, we understand the gravity of these instructions, and we understand the great proclamation that is made when we take of this Lord's Supper to proclaim your death. And what a powerful, majestic thing your death accomplished for us.

And so, Lord, we come humbly to you and ask you this day, teach us and Lord, humble us so that we may walk in a way that exalts you to the highest and diminishes us. Use your preacher today, Lord, to proclaim the.

Truth in Christ's name. Amen. Good morning and welcome. Today's sermon is titled, The Eucharist. It comes from Greek for Thanksgiving. I will be honest, I have never been more nervous. Today's task was laborsome and difficult, taking so much of what our fathers in the faith have surmised about this mystical and beautiful event.

It's been humbling and difficult to parse out what I hope to have discerned is the most important information for you to know about this. I'm going to go to the Lord in prayer, and I just ask that you would pray for me.

Lord, I thank you for your body and blood. You are kind. We praise you. We praise you that we could take part in such a wonderful, beautiful expression. Father, we thank you for this ordinance that you've blessed us with.

I ask that you'd help me, that you'd hide me behind your cross and that your teaching would be clear. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, church, this topic deserves its own series. It is a big one.

As I said, difficult to try to funnel down as much information that there is and has been discerned from our fathers in the faith into this little primer that I'm trying to give us today. So I ask you, what are your thoughts and feelings when partaking of the Lord's Supper?

What comes to mind for you? We often participate in something that we don't understand, but have hope because that does not negate the power. We know a few things as we participate in Lord's Supper. We know that it's an ordinance set by Christ.

We just heard it from Lanny regarding Paul. We know that we are led to repentance as we take the Lord's Supper. We also know that we receive blessings, but we may not know what they all are. We also know that there's judgment involved.

And lastly, that unbelievers should not participate. But there's a lot of unknowns, and my aim today is to bring some parts of this Holy Supper to light. But keep in mind, it's still a mysterious thing.

Be comforted that we do not know all the mysteries of God regarding the Eucharist, and your knowledge is not required. But it does give you thankfulness. It does give you insight. It does help you understand the blessings of God that you are walking in.

So as a primer, we're going to explore what I think are some important aspects of Lord's Supper, or rather questions. One, what do the elements in the Supper mean? The bread, the wine, the blood, and the body.

And in this sermon, you're going to hear me synonymously use flesh and body. I'm going to use them one and the same. Second question, what's actually happening? We're kind of wondering, what happens during this thing?

And third, what does it mean by take in a worthy manner, examine yourselves, and discern the body? That said, we're diving into the elements and their biblical themes. This is going to be the longest part, and you might think it's a little bit of a slog, but I promised your soul will be happy, and you will be blessed.

Wine as a Sign of Blessing, Prosperity, and Restoration

So we're going to start with wine. In Genesis 14, we see this event where Abraham has just conquered some eastern kings, and he has people and plunder with him. He comes down, and we're introduced to a man named Melchizedek.

Hebrews tells us this is a typological figure of Christ. He's a priestly king of Salem, which we think was the precursor to Jerusalem. Not all are in agreement of that, but something in this passage we notice is that Melchizedek delivers bread and wine to Abraham, and then he blesses Abraham.

And in scripture, typically, you see blessing from greater to lesser, and all scriptures do not contradict this idea that Melchizedek is greater than Abraham. So in this passage, we're having a hint that, okay, there's wine delivered here, and with this wine comes this divine blessing that Melchizedek delivers to him.

We're going to be going over a lot of passages today. I would love to explore them all, but your children would probably hate me for it, okay? Again, this is a primer. There's a lot in here that I want to address.

I cannot. The questions that raise up in your minds as I'm going over this, I am well aware of them, I promise, and please feel free to talk to me afterwards. So we have this idea that wine has an idea that has a theme that's coming with blessing, and we're just going to see this repeated and repeated through scripture.

Deuteronomy 14 actually points to this as well. When we see Genesis 27, and we see Isaac's blessing for Jacob, although it was for Esau, but wine is associated in this passage with prosperity and abundance.

Okay, so we're seeing prosperity. We're seeing divine blessing. Jacob's blessing for Judah reverberates this idea. Jacob blesses all the tribes of Israel after him, but specifically for Judah, he says, the vines will be so abundant in your land, to choice vines, you're going to tie your donkey to them and your livestock because we got plenty.

It's overflowing. Matter of fact, you're going to be washing your garments in the blood of grapes. Well, that sounds familiar. We see this foreshadowing typology. He washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes.

Obviously, we see a fulfillment of this in Revelation as the saints are singing to the Lord and their garments are white because they've been washed in the blood of the Lamb. And that's true prosperity.

So the theme is morphing into something greater than just prosperity in the moment. It is migrated to covenant richness. The holy God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob accomplishes this blessing to Judah and his covenant to Abraham and makes Judah wealthy beyond fathomable.

Solomon's reign being the pinnacle of this. We see a greater and divine fulfillment of prophecy as we spoke about Revelation 7. With us being citizens in heaven, what greater prosperity do we have? All the promises that are talked about in heaven, is that not fullness of richness?

I get to another point in Deuteronomy. With prosperity, blessing, and the covenant, there's this joyful celebration with wine and libations before the Lord. Matter of fact, Josh spoke to us about this before.

That as they give their tithe, they will spend this on wine and strong drink. And it's meant to be consumed before the Lord. So we don't have to just shamefully drink it in private. There's this holy endeavor that we drink it before the Lord that we see in Deuteronomy.

And then Psalm 104 follows that very same theme. So we're seeing this repeated theme with wine. And my last passage on wine is Isaiah 25. It's this future tense of a feast of rich food and well-aged wine.

But what it's really describing is future joy and restoration. See, the hope that had come with Solomon's reign on prosperity being abundant, this is quickly on the decline. And they're looking for restoration.

And they get shadows of it. So thematically, we see prosperity. We see joy, divine blessing, covenant richness, and restoration. All in this element of wine. But we also have bread. In Genesis 3, by the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread.

This is a daily nourishment that's worked for. It's a daily nourishment. And you will see this all through Scripture. Genesis 18 and 19. Abraham, Lot, and the angels. Not only is it nourishment, but it also invites fellowship.

Abraham invited the lords that he saw to partake in bread with him. Lot also did the same with the angels that came. And he invited them to have bread with him. And you'll see this repeated through Scripture.

This is not exhaustive. There is much more of this. Genesis 14 with Melchizedek. There's nourishment here given to Abraham. Bread and wine. So again, an invitation to fellowship. But now we see divine blessing.

And then obviously, the one that comes to mind with divine blessing with bread, we get to Exodus. The Lord showers the Israelites in manna. And they take this manna and they make loaves out of it. The Lord is sustaining them daily.

He provides for them daily. It's divine blessing. And we see the most covenantal peace with Leviticus with a bread of presence. This bread that's laid before this table before the Lord for a certain amount of time.

And then the priests get to partake in the bread. So with the themes of bread, we see daily nourishment, invitation to fellowship, divine blessing, just like wine, and covenantal presence. But these two physical elements that we see here, they're combined with flesh and blood.

Flesh, Sacrifice, and the Passover Fulfillment in Christ

So now we talk about flesh. Genesis 2, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. This is the idea of a shared nature. Abraham is talking about Eve, not Abraham, Adam. Adam is talking about Eve. This is shared nature.

He was lonely among the animals. But God delivered him shared nature. Genesis 15, we see the Abrahamic covenant regarding flesh, the punishment for breaking covenant. The promise that God makes to Abraham is that I will be like these animals sawn in half if I break covenant.

Praise the Lord that we're in the hands of the one who can't make mistakes. But we see this idea coming here, this covenant involvement here, exampled by God as the payee. And then we migrate into Leviticus 1 through 7, lots of rules for sacrifices.

But the main ideas we're getting is this idea of propitiation, not the propitiation, but a propitiation, and worship. Animals weren't the fullness of propitiation, but a shadow. But then we see this other part, along with the priests eating the bread, which only they could eat, we see the priests ate portions of the sacrifice, a holy food shared between God and priests.

And eating is participation and worship, just like the bread. Church, the only reason we can take part in this meal is because we have been made a holy priesthood. We are a royal priesthood. We could not approach this meal if not a priestly class would have to.

But thank God that's us. You're conducting holy worship that our Old Testament fathers couldn't imagine. Think of all the Judaites, the Benjaminites, the Naphtaliites. They couldn't participate in this, but we get to.

We also see in Genesis 15 this idea of sacrifice starting, and we see sacrifice given to God in different places. We see it in Leviticus. So there's this idea that there is a substitution, a propitiation.

But we get to Exodus 12, and this is probably the most profound typological component of all this regarding the coming of Christ and what He does. Scripture teaches us that the Passover is completed by the work of Christ, and the fullness of the Passover is now the Eucharist.

This is the fullness and the completion of Passover for us on this side of heaven. We also see that the Israelites were commanded to eat the flesh during Passover to be ready for deliverance. They were to have sandals on their feet, their belts tightened up because they were leaving.

They were being delivered from bondage, from oppression. And so the shared theme we see with the body and flesh is a shared nature. It's propitiatory, a life given for a life, holy worship, and eaten for deliverance.

This, again, is not exhaustive. I know there's other things coming to mind. To our last element, we're almost through it. Leviticus 17, you're commanded not to eat the blood of animals. And it's stated because the life of flesh is blood.

Blood is life. And this is repeated through Scripture. Genesis 4, Cain killing Abel. We see this idea that the Lord said to Cain, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground.

Spilled blood is proclaiming an injustice done. That something usually has gone wrong. Again, we're back to Passover, but this time we're examining the blood and the blood was taken to cover the doorpost and the frame of the door.

And this represents a passing over. That you've been passed over from a judgment. Genesis 15, Abrahamic covenant, we have blood spilled. Blood also has this dynamic component that it is representative of what's called a ratification of covenant.

What does ratification mean? If I propose, when I proposed to my wife years ago, that was a promise. The wedding day is the ratification. This is when a promise is realized. And blood represents promises being realized.

Have doubt in your mind? When the Israelites agreed to the commandments of God, they said, we will surely do these things. And Moses took blood and sprinkled it on them. Ratification. We also see in Exodus that it's to be smeared on altars.

Similar to what we see with the doorpost. Again, another idea of passing over judgment. My last point on blood. When Christ's blood is spilled on the cross, the covenant promise is ratified into reality.

Our trace themes of blood is life, guilt demanding justice, protection from judgment, and ratification of a promise. Now that you see some of these themes of the elements, you're going to have different eyes to see what we're participating in.

The Hypostatic Union and Spiritual Participation in the Lord's Supper

Now, how do they associate together? How does the blood and wine associate? How does the bread and flesh associate? We know that Christ has two natures in one person. That's called the hypostatic union.

A human nature and a divine nature. In a similar fashion, not exactly. Don't call me a Catholic. The elements we have have a duality of nature. The physical bread is spiritual flesh at the same time. The physical wine is spiritual blood at the same time.

And we consume these to receive a mystically delivered but very real heavenly blessing. How can you do anything but marvel and dumbfounded humility at this invitation? An invitation to the divine altar.

The divine table to feast on our God. To have life in our God. To be passed over by our God. For propitiation to be served to us by our God. He is wrapping all the promises that He's given to His people in this event.

He is showing it to you in all the symbolism, in all the themes that you're doing. He's showing you a memory of it and something to look forward to. Now with all this marveling going on and awes going on, we must wonder what's actually going on.

Which leads me to my next point. What is actually happening during the Eucharist? I want to start with not reinventing the wheel. 2nd London Baptist Confession 37. Worthy recipients who outwardly partake of the visible elements in this ordinance also by faith inwardly receive and feed on Christ crucified and all the benefits of His death.

They do so really and truly yet not physically and bodily but spiritually. The body and blood of Christ are not present bodily or physically in this ordinance but spiritually to the faith of believers just as the elements themselves are present to their outward senses.

So what happens? Your spirit's appetite is being filled. The Lord has rewarded you with a banquet feast to sustain you and to grow you until your next participation. Glory unto glory. In this feast believers are blessed and united fellowship with brothers and sisters administered by the Holy Spirit.

All these blessings administered by the Holy Spirit. The participants are given assurance that the life that they are eating and the blood that they are drinking are satisfactory representatives of the work of Christ to give us assurance of faith and salvation.

Believers are declaring memory of the resurrection and hope for the return. The Lord is sanctifying believers through repetitive repentance. This is an ebenezer given to you every Lord's day and you can't ignore it.

It's repetitive thankfulness, faith and renewal in His promises and our obedience. It's a strengthening against sin. Oh, you think you're the one resisting sin? You think you're alone? No, you are being given strength to resist sin and ultimately you're having holy communion with the divine bride and groom.

The Eucharist is worship of the Godhead, not the Mormon Godhead. It's ordained by God, achieved by Christ and administered by the Holy Spirit. The altar we come to is not for dead animals, sacrifices of oil, drink and grains, but of the living triune God.

Just reflect. I want you to reflect on this. Do this thought experiment with me. Think of your own experience with communion. Are you not in awe that God died to save you? Is there something happening there that you were elected to be his adopted heirs before he crafted the moon?

Are you not encouraged and renewed in your faith as you participate? Aren't you spurred on to good works? You are as sure of things in communion as you were when God saved you. Just as you were dead and resurrected with Christ in baptism, so you are renewed in the Eucharist.

Think about when the Lord saved you. Your lens changed. Your sin became filth to you. You desired the righteousness of God. This is a spiritual pouring out into your body and mind, and you can't help but to ooze it.

It's just coming out. I can't help it. It's the same thing with the Eucharist. The Lord is pouring into you spiritually. Can you help to be dry after? And if you are, are you praying? Pray for the Lord to bless you.

But he promises it. Church, spiritual participation is not ethereal and inconsequential. If there's anything I want our enlightened, naturalistic, materialistic minds to understand, this spiritual thing is not new age garbage that has nothing to do with anything.

I'm not a Scorpio that means a whole lot of nothing. This is a reality in the spiritual blessings of God. And if your eyes are blind to what God is doing spiritually, maybe you're dead. I say it again.

Behold your loving God who invites you to the table. Take comfort that you don't have to understand the why's and the how's of this feast to receive the blessing he desires for you. It is truly a mysterious event, just as mysterious as your salvation.

If there's any repetition in all the works that I've seen from our forefathers, the word mysterious is everywhere. What is mysterious? Yeah, don't know. Yet church, we've spoken about the blessings so far.

And that was my second point. But now we're going to move on to Paul's cautions. Point three, Paul says, an unworthy manner, examine oneself and discerning the body. There's no need to rip these questions out of the context that they are delivered into.

And with that, we can easily answer. The unworthy manner was addressed from the beginning. So unworthy was their conduct that they would be better off not doing it. Matter of fact, they were worse off for doing it.

He says the disingenuous are partaking of the holy meal. That is unworthy. Paul says people are getting drunk from the supper. That's not enough. Praise God. Others are in gluttonous buffet. And worse, some never receive it.

The Corinthians forget whose table they're sitting at. Paul specifically says each one goes ahead with his own meal, Lanny. The unworthy summarized are unbelievers, irreverent, unthinkful, and unrepentant.

So let's examine ourselves to know if we're that. One of my few points of application today, does the previous summary of unbelievers, irreverent, unthinkful, and unrepentant describe you? Do you approach the table knowing you're about to dine with God Almighty, the one who tells the lightning where to strike regarding the unthankful and the irreverent?

Do you eat and drink, feeling righteous and proud, ungrateful for the humility, pain, mockery, and sacrifice that was expended for you? Are you satisfied in your own righteousness before the Almighty?

Woe to you. Christ tells a story of beggars invited to a feast, yet one wasn't reverent in their apparel before him and was cast out. If this is you, plead to God for help, make course correction, beg for gratitude, beg for fear, the unrepentant.

How's that sin going? Are you gossiping when the opportunity to spill the tea comes around? Do you send those verbal feelers out to test the water before you fully indulge, to see if she will match you in the gossip, to see if that's a free avenue to go down?

And when someone doesn't bite, do you lie to yourself and then retreat behind a veneer? How's your perverted porn problem going? How's our beta soy boy effeminate passivity going? Are you struggling with your sin?

Struggle? We must stop softening the language and just say it. We like it. We really like it. I'd say we love it. Repentance is not feeling bad about how sin makes you feel. Repentance is mourning that you've offended a holy God.

Beg his forgiveness as you confess. Beg him to give you tremendous fear of him. Then turn away from your sin and do everything short of plucking out your eye. Don't lie to yourself and say you repent with a no course correction for salvation.

I've got this porn problem, but I've done nothing. I confess to a brother, oh yeah, I struggle too, brother. Wrong person to confess to. Confess to someone who can say imitate me as I imitate Christ. That sin is gone from my life.

Now hold you accountable. Don't lie to yourself and say you'll repent with no course correction for salvation. You keep telling yourself just this time, but God is going to forgive me anyway. It's a foolish road to manipulate the only one who knows everything.

Paul speaks of your temporal judgment, illness and death. Jesus says, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So if you're unrepentant, you're on this side of, am I bearing holy fruit?

Am I bearing spiritual fruit? Or am I dead in trespass? We do want you to have assurance of faith. Don't get me wrong. But we don't want to be assured in false faith. We want to be insured in sincere faith to unbelievers.

Woe to your participation. After Judas took the bread and wine, Satan entered him. He hung himself. And scripture says it was better for him to have never been born. There is no one who goes to the Father except through the Son.

And the Son does not invite blessings for you at this table. But the way to this table is not hard. In fact, the yoke is light. Faith in Jesus to save and hope in his promises is what you need. Repentance from sin and pursuit of life in Christ.

The table is never far. It's just right here. Let repentance be near. If you don't feel it, beg for it. Be the woman at the door of the judge. Just give me justice. The Holy Spirit will guide you to repentance, faith, and good works.

And you are not alone. The church is to build up one another. So regarding the church and discerning the body, how do we do that? How do we discern the body? How ought the body of believers to behave?

We have different things to discern. The Lord blesses us with the spiritual gift of discernment. The Lord gives us his word to know. We can beg the Lord in prayer to know. We can use our faculties. We must discern those divisions to foster reconciliation.

Paul is talking about a divided people here, so unconcerned for one another. So is the corporate body of believers divided, seeking self-gain over one another? We must be concerned and active for one another's holiness, allowing grace, proclaiming truth, and declaring judgment.

We must be charitable and hold one another in high regard, better than ourselves. Love for the body is the fullest expression of discerning the body. Do not allow yourself to take Eucharist if you've offended a brother.

Take care to reconcile quickly so that the world would know that you are disciples of Christ. They don't know, and Josh and I have repeated this ad nauseam, and you might be nauseated at this point from how much we've said it.

The world does not know or care that you're disciples of Christ by how much theology you know or how many gifts you have, but it's love for one another. They'll know we're his disciples by our love for one another.

So it is your job to discern the body. You are accountable to one another. So once you reconcile, come back to the feast table of the Lord and enjoy it. So in summary, God in his whole counsel of his word has shown us the beautiful themes of the elements in the Eucharist and has promises to us as we participate in his holy body and blood.

In faith we receive these promises as we approach the altar in a worthy manner discerning the body. Participation of believers outside of this worthy manner will incur disciplinary judgment because God loves you.

All unbelievers participating will suffer spiritual injury, yet the hope of all is that repentance is sweet. It's not far from you. The yoke is light. Your participation in the Lord's Supper is normative.

With all this said, your participation is normative and expected. Participation is the usual and it's blessed. If your conscience is always torn by your pietism, that's not pleasing the Lord. Your insufferable pietism pleases nobody.

Seek after the Lord. Christ makes you worthy and you are called to participate. With all that said, let us pray. Lord, we praise you for your word, for what you teach us over your elements, for what you teach us of blessings and precautions.

Father, we thank you for this gift that you give us, this renewal of covenant promises that you give us, that you would allow us to participate in your spiritual blood, in your spiritual body, that we would feast on you for life and blessing.

We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.