The Lord's Supper

We're not going to have a sermon today as such.

At least not a three-point homily.

We're going to simply look at God's Word as it pertains to the Lord's Supper.

And I think it's important to do that every time.

Because not only is it educational in the part of understanding and comprehension, but it's also for some of us a warning.

And I think it's something that you need to take heed of.

I'm going to be in 1 Corinthians 11.

And what's cool about this is we're actually reading a third generational idea from the time of Christ at the Lord's Supper.

This is a third generation removed from that that is hearing the same thing.

I always love the little insecure guys that couldn't make the football team be the smartest guy in the room or the toughest guy in the room, and they know more than everybody else.

What's funny about that is we have 2,000 years of recorded church history.

We don't have to guess what the church has been doing.

We have sermons that were written in the time of John in the first century.

And it's important to note that the church took this to heart.

It was something that was very important to them, but it was also something that we've made into a religious service.

Guys, you have to understand what the first century church, and I don't herald them.

I hear all these little skinny jean mocha latte pastors saying, oh, I want to be like the first century church.

No, you don't, dummy, because they were stupid just like we were.

They weren't anything different or better than we.

But you have to understand that that first century church, what we did here for big breakfast was more what the Lord's Supper looked like than a bunch of dudes in a robe with incense chanting, you know, and hitting themselves in the head with a book.

Monty Python, come on, y'all.

Yeah, wake up.

It was literally kids running around.

It was a picnic.

That's what the Lord's Supper looked like.

But because in the total depravity of human beings, and it's something that's a universal trait in all of recorded human history, you give human beings anything resolving to grace and they will find a way to botch it and to avidly make it God's grace embarrassing.

And so, 1 Corinthians 11, verse 17, Paul says to the church at Corinth, hey guys, y'all need to pucker up here a little bit because y'all ain't doing good on this one.

And he writes, but the following instructions, I do not commend you.

And he's saying, you're being stupid.

Listen up, because when you come together, it is not for the better, but for the worse.

For in the first place, when you come together as a church, remember people, this is not a church.

It's a stupid building.

We can all go out in that parking lot and be as much of a church as we can in this building.

Ecclesia means a gathering.

When you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and I believe it in part.

So once again, Paul is wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove.

He knows that you believe only a small portion of what you hear.

But he's sitting there going, I believe this one.

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 Lord's supper that you eat.

For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal while another one goes hungry and another gets drunk.

What? He actually wrote that.

What? Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.

So here's what was happening.

And this is why Paul believed some of the rumors.

Because he knew of people who had showed up with nothing.

And they showed up in this church gathering.

And the little family from Collierville was over here eating their crumpets or whatever rich people eat.

You know, yogurt and tofu and all that other sizzy stuff.

They're eating that.

And then the people from Fraser over having neck bones and pork chops over here.

And the people from Millington, the wives, the sisters, same thing.

They're over here, whatever people in Millington eat.

But other people's stomachs are rumbling.

Their kids are going, hey mommy, hey daddy, do you got anything to eat? Listen to me, church.

And the church just kept on stuffing their fat faces.

Guys, I think Black Lives Matter is stupid.

I think this social justice garbage is just stupid.

But be very careful, church, that you don't miss the idea of what social justice is in the Word of God.

Because God took that job very seriously.

If you treat others differently because they're different from you, God in 586 BC took Jerusalem to task and there was much crying, death, and destruction.

Don't ever forget, being the church is not just simply coming into a building and hearing the Word of God singing a few songs and going home.

It means you actually care what happens to other peoples.

And if other peoples are getting looked down on or treated different, it is your job, not as an American or a Democrat or a Republican or some, it's sad that we actually have to have extra groups.

The church needs to be the one in the league going, that ain't right, we fitting to fix that or bust somebody's skull.

That's the way it's gonna be.

We have failed in our leadership position.

And so Paul's sitting there going, you people better start taking care of the others.

Verse 23, for I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you.

Christian, if you can't say that in your life today, wait a minute, hold on, let me do the Baptist thing.

If you feel like you're this far apart from God and your prayers aren't getting further than the ceiling, you have an institutional religion rather than a calling of God.

Are you sick and tired of living fake Christianity? Are you tired of it? I mean, your prayer life stinks, you don't care about reading the Bible, but there are actually some people that the height of their spiritual experience is they're not doing meth or they read their Bible five times last week or they did their devotions and got to check a little check mark on their phone.

God, how immature must you continue to live? To be a minister of God means you invest sacrificially your time, gifts, and talents into others.

Who are you discipling? Who are you discipling? Who are you teaching to be a better Christian? Well, I'm not, but I'm part of, I've been a member of this church for, you're an idiot, you're wasting your life.

God's call on us is to invest in our families, especially the household of God.

Guys, come to a place where you need and you can say from what I've received to the Lord, now I am also instructing somebody else.

And then it says, let me finish that, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you to do this and remember it's a me.

There's a lady, and I'm going to have a chat with her.

I don't have the snap TikTok stuff.

I don't understand it.

I think it's dumb, but I do have the Facebook thing.

And there's this chick that every time she posts something, she is in crisis, just crisis.

I mean, it's drama about something, her kids, her life, dogs are sleeping with cats, something.

I mean, there's always some sort of crisis.

And those folks, listen to me, if you have been wounded or hurt, I'm sorry, but I'm also sorry to tell you that is not plausible excuse to continue to living in defeat.

Well, pastor, you don't know what happened to me.

Okay, here's what I want you to do.

I want you to as horrible as, and I'm not downplaying that.

I want you to compare it to this.

On the night that he was betrayed by his friends, by his family, by his community, by his religion, by his government, he took bread and broke it and gave thanks and then served other people.

How about your scars? Well, I know a man who once took not just stripes and nails, but took my sin.

And there ain't no one else in here who can say that.

So when you take the Lord's Supper today, get a fresh perspective, okay? I know some of you in this room, especially here at Witten, half this church is in recovery.

Cool, the other half is, I don't know.

But we've all dealt with stuff.

You say everything okay? Okay, I just, my, my, my, okay.

Okay, okay, okay, no matter what you've gone through, it is not an excuse to be lazy and apathetic to the house of God.

Watch this, and he 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, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you, do this as often as you remember me.

Verse 27, and let me get moving here.

Verse 27, whoever therefore eats this bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty, guilty, guilty, concerning the body and blood of the Lord.

How many of you guys have looked at pornography in the last 72 hours? Don't raise your hands, don't raise your hands.

Don't raise your hands.

If you have, you are unworthy of the Lord's Supper.

How many of you women have gossiped in the last 24 minutes? How many of you have, during praise and worship, you were thinking about, when is this stupid crap gonna be over so I can get out of here? If you've had any of those sins today, I'm sorry, you cannot take the Lord's Supper, okay? Now, I'm gonna need to come over here.

So, if anyone is perfect in every way, I invite you to go up and take the Lord's Supper.

Yeah, I couldn't do it either.

That's not what this just said.

See, you're using church glasses and listening to a fat, bald preacher instead of the Word of God.

Fat, bald preachers are erroneous and stupid.

The Word of God just says, if you take of the Lord's body in an unworthy manner, well, hermeneutically in context, what did it just list out as being unworthy? It didn't say anything about pornography.

Yes, pornography, sin, okay? But that's not what it said.

The number one condemnation that it just gave is that I don't like you as my family.

I don't like you because, well, you're ugly and wear glasses.

I don't like you because you have tattoos and they're gonna send you to hell.

I don't like you because you got red hair.

I don't like you because you have a tackle box on your face.

I don't like you because you work for FedEx.

I don't like you, I just don't like you.

Your hair's green, you're short, you got a tarantula dead on your head.

Whatever you think is your sin, you need to put that in grace, okay? Or better yet, let God put that in grace.

In other words, stop thinking about everything you've done wrong.

Confess and repent today, alright? Then come to the Lord's table, okay? It's not your sin that separates you from the Lord's supper.

It's your failure to repent of it.

Now, watch this.

Most of us, when we think of unworthiness, we're thinking about sins of the flesh.

Those are bad, bad.

Mr.

Yup, bad, okay? But what our arrogance does for us because we sit in a church building and we get drummed to numbness by sermons and smoke machines and glitter bombs and whatever you other Gen Z queers can come up with, right? That's not what kills us.

It's the sins of our heart, man.

It's the hatred, the apathy.

It's the idolization of who we are and the degradation of who others are.

So I invite you, we're gonna have a time right now of invitation, okay? We're gonna have right now a time of invitation.

And yes, if you are a lost person in here, you need to get saved.

Now watch, look, look right here because some of you did this when you were like 13 at a youth camp and nothing changed in your life.

You're going to hell.

You are not a Christian.

And if no one's ever told you that and that makes you feel sad, sorry, okay? But the Word of God says, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.

Old things have passed away.

Behold, all have become new, okay? So I don't care what your stupid church religion or your pastor told you.

God's Word says if there's never been a change in your life, the Holy Spirit of God has not entered your life.

So you need to take a little baby aspirin and you need to suck it up, buttercup, because hell's hot and God's coming, okay? So if you are not a Christian, you can come talk and look, same spirit of God's in me is the same spirit of God's in Vicki.

I'm nothing special.

I don't have a higher power of the Holy Spirit, okay? If you know that you're not a Christian, talk to someone who is.

And if you don't know anybody in here, the pastors are good, but so is everybody else in here.

You can't swing a dead cat in here without finding a Christian, okay? All right? All right, second thing.

If you are a Christian, but you're living without the accountability, the accountability, I got some news for you that isn't news for you.

You are not living a very strong spiritual life, okay? Just listen for a second.

I just want to be real with you for a second because some of you are going to go back to your other church next week or go back to your lame life and just keep living like you always live.

I know.

I thought you were coming forward to get saved.

I mean, you know.

Listen, listen, listen to me just for a sec.

Christians, a church is not for you to worship God.

Okay, please listen to me.

If the only time you worship God is for five minutes on a Sunday morning, you are not worshiping God.

You're singing along.

Okay? Just a little realness for you.

A church is not for you to learn about God, okay? That's what the Holy Spirit in this is for, okay? Faith, you learn by faith, okay? Now, worshiping and learning can happen here, but the primary purpose of the church is to speak the name of Jesus and to hold our brothers and sisters accountable in that mission.

In other words, we're supposed to be all up in your business, okay? We're the ones who are supposed to come to you and go, your poop stinks.

You need to repent.

Stop walking around here acting like you're something that you're not.

I'm struggling with this.

Some of you guys are struggling with pornography.

You know, you're struggling with it, right? Pastor John came to me this morning, was like, I was on there again.

I was like, stop, get off my Facebook page, you know? Some of you guys that are struggling with that, listen, and you can't seem to get through it on your own, it's because you were never designed to get through it on your own.

You never were, you never are, okay? Some of you people in this room, they're quiet alcoholics.

It's not going to work by yourself, okay? Can I get an amen from my addicts? Okay? Amen, right? Right? Listen, the church is here to hold you accountable.

Well, pastor, I'm not studying like I should.

You can get another study Bible.

You can look up another Beth Moore video.

You can go listen to a really, pay another $300 in the name of the church to go listen to a special speaker, or you can use the tool that God gave you and get your brothers and sisters in Christ to help you out with it.

It's one of the two, okay? If you're not a Christian, if you are a Christian, struggling, need accountability, and then last thing, if you just need someone to pray with you, to realize that yes, you are a big, fat, stupid loser, we know you are, God knows you are, but that's why he sent his son, and it's okay.

If you need someone to sit there and go, no, it's not good where you're at, but let me show you a better way.

Instead of the guilt that's eating you alive, because God never uses guilt, people.

That's what grandmas are for, okay? God doesn't use guilt.

God uses conviction, and the difference between the two is repentance.

If you just need someone to pray with you, that's what we're here to do.

Now, for those of you that are gonna be in this invitation, your job is to get yourself right.

Once you get that done, your next job is to help get someone else right.

So unlike other churches, we expect you to actually move and speak, okay? Don't sit there and look up at a screen and go, oh my God, is he really gonna make another point? Or oh my God, are we really gonna do this again? Then once we finish with the invitation, here's how we do it.

There'll be five pastors and a deacon, I think, somewhere.

I don't know.

You'll see these little round tables.

You're gonna come as part of a family.

I don't wanna see one single person by themselves.

If you are a child of God, you're in a family right now.

I don't care what you look like.

I don't care what you smell like.

I don't care.

You're welcome here.

Everyone's welcome.

I don't care if you're gay.

I don't care if you're a Florida Gators fan, okay? Which is one under a gay guy.

But I don't care who and what you are.

You're welcome here.

Get yourself right by the power of God, and you're gonna come to these tables in groups.

We're gonna serve everyone the Lord's Supper.