The Final Exam? - [1 Corinthians 11:27-34]

I was reading Christianity Today this week about visual arts in worship services and Protestant services, bringing back things like drama, big murals, walking through labyrinths, maybe streamers, incense.

Should visual arts be used in a local worship service? After all, you look at the old temple, the

Old Testament temple, trumpeters, the vestments, incense, it was beautiful, gold all over, it was the most visually impressive sight in the world.

And now Protestants are wanting to follow the Roman Catholic Church back to worship services with gowns, with hats, staffs, with visual arts.

Are there visual arts in the New Testament worship service? There are.

It's a piece of bread in your hand and it's a cup in your other hand. The visual arts in New Testament worship.

Let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. As churches move back towards the

Old Testament, the visual arts increase. And I think our passage today will help us settle again in 1

Corinthians chapter 11 that God wants us to remember Him with two very simple, very basic, very plain, common household items, if you will, a piece of bread and a cup to remember what

God has done. And He picked these two things, the cup and the bread, because they are very simple yet they symbolize everything.

Christ's self -sacrificial death on behalf of sinners like us. That He would give

Himself for us. Now here's what Paul is doing in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 17 through the end of the chapter, verse 34.

He's addressing one of the Corinthian problems. And as we know, the church of Corinth only had one problem. I just want to see if you're awake.

They had lots of problems. This particular problem was selfishness.

How do you remedy selfishness? Well for Paul it was to show them the selfless Christ. We always go to 1

Corinthians chapter 11 for communion and I'm glad for that. We have some insight on communion service here and what should be said and how things should be done.

But Paul doesn't use communion for this is how we do it in chapter 11. He says this solves a problem.

Don't forget about Christ's self -sacrificial love. To see this passage in context is wonderful and I think it will encourage you because we all suffer with selfishness.

So what's the remedy? Paul very simply says in this passage, there's a problem, here's the cure, and then he gives a warning at the end.

And by the way, the warning is wilder than you've seen in any place else in the New Testament. Can you imagine if you do something wrongly with this particular ordinance, you could get sick, you could become ill and weak, or you could die.

Don't you think he would have reserved death for incest in chapter 5?

Don't you think he would have used judicial execution by God for divorce in chapter 6, lawsuits chapter 6, lack of unity in chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4?

But here, out of everything that the Corinthian church did,

Paul says, this is very, very critical because it might cost you your life.

You should see your faces. Paul didn't say this about singing. Make sure you sing with right motives or God might kill you.

Make sure you give with right motives or God might kill you. That's relegated to TBN preachers.

That's not true. They try to say that. Preach in such a way so God doesn't kill you.

Listen to a sermon so God doesn't kill you. But here, when it comes to the Lord's Supper, what we're celebrating should affect the way we deal with other people.

Jesus was selfless and we need to be selfless to other people as well. Let's see it in context.

We go verse by verse here at our church. We're up to chapter 11, verse 17 and following.

There's the problem, the solution, and then the warning. Let's have a little review from last week. First, the problem found in 1

Corinthians 11, 17. If you're here visiting, you need a blue Bible handy, grab one, otherwise you'll be lost.

But in the following instructions, I do not commend you. Remember he commended them earlier in the chapter.

But when you come together as a church, you'll see that many, many times here in this passage.

When you come together, it's not for the better, but for the worse. It's worse when you come together for communion.

You shouldn't even do that. Why? Verse 18, for in the first place, when you come together as a church, there it is again, come together.

Aren't we to be together? Didn't Jesus die for us all equally? Aren't we all equally forgiven? Aren't we all equally justified?

Don't we all equally have the Spirit of God dwelling within us? Aren't we all equally not condemned?

I hear that there are divisions among you, verse 18, and I in part believe it, or I believe it in part.

For there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. At least something good comes out of factiousness.

We know who the spiritual people are. We know who the unspiritual people are. So God even does something through that.

It says in verse 20, when you come together, it's not for the

Lord's Supper that you eat. Whose supper is it? It's not Yahweh's Supper, the

Master's Supper, the Sovereign's Supper. It's the richest supper. Now remember what was happening last week?

The church would get together and they would celebrate a big meal and they'd have communion. They'd have the bread first, then the big meal, and then have the supper.

Now if you're rich, you can get there early, and if you're poor, you'd have to get there when you're done being a slave or whatever you were being, a day laborer, a worker out on the farm, and you'd show up late.

Now our pot providences are, our potluck meals is, you bring something with the intention to share, right?

So when Mrs. Abendroth buys 48 hot dogs, she knows we can't eat all of those.

So we're bringing some of that really rich food, that succulent kind of brie kind of stuff to you.

But we bring enough to share. Back in those days, they didn't do pot providence, potluck. They did bring your own basket full.

So it'd be like a basket that you would make for yourself. You'd go meet as a church in someone's home, and you'd have everything you needed.

You'd have all you needed in a basket, especially if you were rich, and you'd get there early and you'd think, well, we can't wait for all these other people, and let's just eat and let's just drink, and they're becoming gluttonous and drunkards, not waiting for the other people.

They should have brought more, and they should have waited. And so it's not the

Lord's Supper. We're not celebrating the self -sacrificial Lord, because if we were, we would sacrifice for other people.

We would bring enough for other people. We would share. We would wait. So that's what Paul is addressing.

Verse 21, still looking at the problem, for in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal.

One goes hungry, hungry, another gets drunk. Just listen to how biting this is.

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. And so Paul says there's a problem with selfish living.

How do we, how do you as a parent, you have selfish kids, right? You put a kid in a room with another kid, and you give, you give, oh, let's say there's 50 toys out there, and your particular kid isn't happy until that kid has all 49 toys plus the one toy in that other kid's hand.

I guess my kid's too. We're just selfish. And so what would you say to a kid? Stop being selfish.

That's half of it. Stop being selfish. Share. That would be good.

Share with other people. Share your toys. But what Paul does is he says, stop being selfish, share like Christ shared.

Christ didn't discriminate and say, I'm only dying for the rich. I'm only dying for the big givers. I'm only dying for the men.

I'm only dying for the free. I'm only dying for the Jew. And so how do you solve the problem of selfishness for Paul?

Paul, you study Christ Jesus's vicarious substitutionary death.

If you have a marriage problem, you ought to get a book on the cross of Christ by John Stott and read it. If you have a selfish problem, you ought to get a book on the meaning of the atonement by John Murray.

And Paul gives that to us here through the inspiration of the Spirit of God through Paul the apostle.

The solution for selfishness, Corinth, than anyone else? For I receive, verse 23, from the

Lord what I also delivered to you. I learned it at the feet of Jesus. I didn't go to apostle school.

And I delivered it to you that the Lord Jesus, he's Lord, he's master, he's sovereign.

He's the one whose meal it is. He's the host of the meal, if you will. On the night when he was selfishly betrayed, took bread, and here at the great

Passover, God has here Christ Jesus, this is the last Passover and the first Lord's Supper.

And when he had given thanks, just like they do at a Jewish Seder for Passover, he broke it and said, this is my body which is for you, self -sacrificially for you, at my expense for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. Who could say that?

This Passover, celebrating deliverance for Israel, now you start doing this and you think of me every time you do it.

In the same way also, verse 25, giving more of the solution to the problem, he took the cup after supper, so you've got the bread before supper, then you've got the meal, and then you've got the supper.

He took the cup, remember when you think of cup, you think of the wrath of God in a cup and Jesus drinking it down to the dregs.

He took the cup, it doesn't say he took the wine or he took the juice, it's the cup because you want to think substitutionary atonement, the holy wrath of God has to be on someone,

Jesus steps in our place as our advocate and he takes what we deserved, the cup, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

Now he doesn't say do this often, that's not what the text says, it says what? As often as you do it.

It should be done often, we are not told how often. New Testament church once a week, but as often as you do it, you remember me.

And I said last week, we're a forgetful people, aren't we? We need to be reminded. I love doing weddings, at least

I love this part, I love to see during the rehearsal everybody's up here, what

I'll do is I'll say, alright, let's start where we're going to end and so bride and groom up here and the matrons of honor over here, the bridesmaids and let's have the groomsmen over and I've never done this, but I probably should,

I should say to the bride -to -be, what are you wearing tomorrow? Oh, she'd tell me, but what if I ask her the question, do you have what you're going to wear tomorrow already picked out?

What do you think she'd say? No, I'm going to buy it later today, on the way to the reception.

No, she's had that thing picked out for five months, she's gone over it for five months, this is what it's going to be, this is what they're going to wear, this is what my maid of honor is going to wear, they know.

Who doesn't know what they're going to wear if they're a bride, they probably picked it out since they were ten years old. Who could forget that?

Jeremiah says, can a bride forget her ornaments? Can a maid forget her ornaments or a bride her attire?

Yet my people have forgotten me days without number. It's hard to remember who

Jesus is when you have a credit card, when you have a home, when you have food. So Paul says,

I want you to remember, when God remembers, He acts. When we remember, we're to think with our minds and then we're to act, and we're to say, you know what,

I'm so self -sufficient, I ought not to be. I should throw myself on the self -sufficiency of Christ. I'm so self -dependent,

I ought not to be. I'm so sinful, I ought not to be. Jesus did everything, and our response should be wanting to think about Him so that we will be like Him in His self -sacrifice.

So with communion, we remember the past. Oh, yes, I'm declared righteous.

I'm judicially not guilty based on the work of Christ. There's a present aspect we should remember.

I have fellowship with all of you, and I'm currently having fellowship with God. And then there's a future. Let's take a look at this.

Look at the future aspect of what we're to remember when we have the bread and we have the cup. For, as often, verse 26, as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the

Lord's death until He comes. It's like an evangelistic service that's good for Christians.

Should you preach the gospel to yourself? Yes, especially during the Lord's Supper, Jesus is coming back. Now maybe you're into premillennialism, amillennialism, postmillennialism, pre -trib, post -trib, mid -trib, pre -wrath.

But you know what you shouldn't be in? You should be into Jesus is coming back very soon. I ought to love other people.

I ought to see people who aren't any different color, any different background, any different gender.

I ought to see people who are, even if they're poor, I love them. Even if they're rich, I love them.

Everybody's equal when it comes to a worship service. That's why we all wait to eat. When we proclaim

His death until He comes, we're trying to say to ourselves what we're proclaiming we should be emulating by our motivations.

What a day is that going to be when Jesus comes back? No wonder they prayed, come O Lord, Maranatha.

So, while I'm all for, when you have the cup, you're waiting, you examine yourself.

We'll get to that in a second. What I'm not for is, Jesus is coming back. Funeral, autopsy, gloom, self -examination, everybody quiet, no one looking around, no smiling in here, this is the

Lord's Supper, examine yourself or else. I think most evangelical churches, we've forgotten that if Jesus said in Luke 22,

I eagerly desire to have this Passover with you. Can we say to ourselves, I eagerly desire to have the

Lord's Supper? I think one of the reasons we don't say we eagerly desire it is because we're not thinking through the issues and we think it is, there it is again.

I've got to examine myself and I just am not worthy. I'm wondering, shouldn't we say to ourselves during communion,

I can't wait to see the Lord. It's like that church in Wisconsin. The Jews would say, next time maybe in Jerusalem we have the

Passover and for us we say maybe next time this is with Jesus Himself. I don't know how to create joy in you, that's the work of the

Spirit. But having six guys up here with dark navy suits on, all looking at you with kind of scowls, doesn't help with the festive atmosphere.

You know, Vinny and Guido and we're all up here. So I don't want the guys coming up until at the end where they serve.

And I don't want to make this fake where, okay, everybody feel up, one, two, three, everybody smile. But there's something to be said when you have that cup, you go,

Jesus is coming back. He died for me in my place and He's coming back. Maybe today's the day.

That's what should be going on in our hearts. We look back to His death, we look forward to His resurrection.

The risen Christ. And as that's all happening, if Jesus is coming back today, how are you thinking even today about other people in the church?

Are there people here that are below you? Are there people here that aren't as good as you? Are there people here who don't own as much as you?

And you kind of think, well, we're the haves and they're the have -nots. See, all that should be wiped out.

It's been said you can't choose your family. Right, did you choose your brother or sister or uncle?

You can't choose your family, you just get them, right? And you can't choose your

Christian family either. This is your Christian family. You didn't choose them, you didn't die for them, you didn't bring them here.

Sometimes I try to run people away from here. When they stay, this is my family, this is it.

And so when you take the cup, here's the context. The cup is, Jesus died for us all equal,

Galatians 3 .28, in Christ. No male, no female, no Jew, no

Gentile, no slave, no free, no Greek, no barbarian, no

Jew, no nothing. And especially in this context, no rich, no poor.

The rich don't get served communion first. Actually, we should probably serve them last. Eschatology, Jesus coming back, should matter because it should change the way we live.

I told the story of the first service and I'll tell you. When my father used to go down to Oklahoma to work, he'd come back every three months.

Mom nicely would remind us on Thursday, your dad is coming back tomorrow, Friday. And what did that mean?

That was mom's nice way of saying, clean your room, vacuum the stairs, mow the lawn that dad told you to do once a week that you haven't even done yet.

It's hard, why wait? So when you wait, the grass is like four feet tall and you're just pushing that mower and it takes you five times as long, so just mow it five times instead throughout the summer.

Dad is coming home, it should change the way I live. Christ is coming back, I ought not to look at any person with pride because I am the worst of all sinners.

If you honestly think you're better than anyone here, you ought to study the holiness of God.

You ought to say to yourself, I am the most unworthy sinner in this entire congregation, bar none.

I outsin everyone, I'm the worst sinner. Not pridefully, but just humbly, truthfully and honestly,

I'm the worst sinner. Until you can think you're the worst sinner in the congregation, then it's going to be hard for you to say to yourself,

I'm not better than this person or that other person. Actually, you're worse. That's what

Paul's been telling the church of Corinth. He says, you're proclaiming Christ's return.

You're proclaiming Christ's death for all kinds of people. And then he gives the warning. Let's take a look at the warning found in verses 27 and following.

So there's the problem, the diagnosis of selfishness. The cure, which is Christ Jesus' life, as you ponder that and remember

Him. And then he gives a warning, correction. Now, when people say, well, that's unloving to say, this is very loving of Paul.

Is it loving to spank your children? The answer is yes. Hebrews chapter 12 talks about chastising your children.

So here's loving correction, even though it's tough, it's sober, and it's a warning about taking the

Lord's Supper wrongly. It's one thing to be festive. It's another thing to take this wrongly.

Let's take a look at the passage here, verses 17 through 34, the correction.

Verse 27, whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the

Lord, there it is again, the Lord's Supper, the King's Supper, the Sovereign's Supper. He's the host after all.

How do you act if you go to somebody's house? And that host is generous to the poor, gracious to the poor, kind to the homeless, and you go to his house and you are despising those very people.

If you drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, we'll be guilty concerning the body and blood of the

Lord. Here's what we do at the Lord's Supper. Okay, let's take a time and examine our hearts, and if there's unconfessed sin, please confess that.

Is that good to do? Absolutely, fine to do. But how about saying, Lord, examine me spiritually as it fleshes out in my life socially.

There's a spiritual examination, and for Corinth, and I'm sure it could be here as well, a social examination.

How do I love other people who aren't like me? In this context, it was the poor.

Take a look at the passage again there, in an unworthy manner. Now, when

I was growing up, I hated English. I hated grammar. I didn't like Greek grammar either.

I didn't like Hebrew grammar either, but it's very, very helpful. That word, worthy manner, in Greek, is one word and it's an adverb.

It modifies the verb. It modifies the verb on how you eat. This has nothing to do with, if you're unworthy, don't take the supper.

How many here are unworthy to take the supper? The answer is, everybody's hand should go up, although nobody's hand's going up.

Everybody's unworthy. As a pastor, I deal with this all the time. People say, I'm too unworthy to take the cup today.

Well, then you need to know L -Y, what an adverb is. But if you can say to yourself, I am unworthy, yes, but my worth is found in Christ Jesus, you are to take it.

But you're not to take it unworthily, looking down on other people who aren't like you.

In other words, we are unworthy people told to take the Lord's Supper, because we have someone,

Christ Jesus, who is our worth. We are told to take it even though we sin. If you sin this week, and next week, and then we have the

Lord's Supper, and two Sunday nights from now, I think it is, and you say, you know what? I haven't sinned in two weeks,

I can take the Lord's Supper. Then we're going to use these microphones for you, for the other two people who would dare. Hi, I haven't sinned this week,

I'm worthy to take the Lord's Supper. Other people aren't worthy, I know, but I'm worthy.

Okay, you have the floor. But we're all unworthy, because even though we're declared righteous, and therefore not condemned, we still sin, don't we?

We still sin until we're glorified. So we are unworthy to take it. But Paul says, don't take it unworthily, looking down on people who aren't like you.

Context poor, but it could be any other way. It could be, do you know what? These people at church, all these people that don't know what

TULIP is, I can't have any fellowship with them. If you don't know the five solas of the

Reformation, you're not in my crowd. It could be public school people who say, you know those homeschool people?

They're pretty weird, and I don't know what's going on over there. It could be the homeschoolers who would say, you know what?

Those public school people are worldly. Hey, is it okay to have friends? Is it okay to say, you know what?

We tend to be friends with parents who have children about our age. That's perfectly fine.

But if you won't minister to them, and if you think wrongly and poorly about them, you become the person who is self -righteous, that they're no longer self -righteous.

So Paul says, when you come to the Lord's Supper, it doesn't matter what background you have, and what you're doing, and who you are, unworthy sinner, take the cup.

But don't take it unworthily. Aren't adverbs nice? They're so nice.

Say, I've struggled this week with sin, and I take the communion cup. Pass it on. No! Take it!

And say, Lord, forgive me for my sins. I'm so glad I have an advocate, a captain, a pioneer of my salvation.

He accomplished all salvation for me, and I'm not going to act like a Pelagian or a semi -Pelagian, and think, now what

I do or don't do contributes to who I am in you. And in you, I am a child of God.

Forgive my sins, grant me repentance, and I, the unworthy one, partake a cup remembering the worthy one, and I remember all the other people he died for, and I'll think about that in a worthy manner.

So we're not trying to tell people, don't take communion. We're trying to tell them, take communion, but don't be arrogant.

How can you take the cup and say, I'm a sinner, I'm the worst sinner, and then you drink it with a prideful disdain over other people?

Yeah, they don't look like me. They don't have the money I have. It's not consistent with Christ's death, who died on behalf of all kinds of sinners, all sorts of sinners, all manners of sinful people.

Unworthiness in the person, Paul doesn't have anything to say about, because they're all unworthy. Unworthily communicating a message by sinfully and pridefully looking at other people,

Paul's after that. And look it to the degree. Look at the end of verse 27. We'll be guilty concerning the body and blood of the

Lord. Here's what Paul says. If you're going to take the cup, and you've got issues with these other people, and you think you're better than they are, and you don't see that Christ's death is for people equally, from all different kinds of countries, from India to Africa to Germany to America, all tribes and all tongues and all nations, and all these people he saved from different groups.

When you take that cup and you go, I'm better, they're worse, then Paul says you move from this side to the side that says,

I with Herod want to kill Jesus. I with Caesar kill Jesus. I with the

Centurion kill Jesus. I with Pontius Pilate kill Jesus. I with the Roman soldiers kill

Jesus. You move over to these men who are all selfish, and who think about classes and races.

Guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. As guilty as Pilate. Well, Paul says take with care, but take.

And then he gives us some help on how to take it with care. Verse 28. Let a person examine...

Stop right there. The Corinthians were great at examining. Let a person examine everybody else.

That's what they were doing. People come in, check them out, you got them all sized up, and the Corinthians did exactly that.

They examined everybody else, and Paul says, but no, let a person examine himself or herself.

And so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. It's not I'm unworthy so I couldn't. It's I'm unworthy, but I don't want to be unworthily taking it.

I'll examine myself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. I'm remembering

Jesus had to die for me because of my sin. But I just need to check my pride.

Check my class divisions. I'm not better than anyone. I'm worse. I don't want to examine all that.

I need to examine myself. By the way, it's just a small thing, but that's why when I hold the communion plates and deliver them down the aisle here,

I just turn and look over. I don't say, oh, why is that person not taking communion today? Oh, that person is.

Oh, that person shouldn't. Oh, that kid shouldn't. Oh, this. Oh, that. I just say, you know what? I'm just here serving this.

I'm not the host of this meal. I'm just holding this tray for right now, and I hand the tray, and then

I go like this. I'm not trying to spy on who does what to whom and how and where. I don't want to examine anybody here.

I should be examining my own self. Do I love my brothers, or am I selfish? He says in verse 29, discern the body.

He's trying to help the church. He's not mad at the church. Oh, he might get out the rod and spank them some, but it's for their own good.

You hear my father say this is going to hurt me a lot more than it's going to hurt you. I didn't know it.

Was he telling me the truth when he said that? For if anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, discerning the body of Christ, rich, poor, slave, free, male, female,

Jew, Gentile, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

You've got a problem with somebody else's social strata, but you're drinking judgment on yourself when you do that.

Sinning against the body of Christ, this is serious.

By the way, this is why unbelievers ought not to take this. Verse 30, this is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have...

ESV slaughters it here. It's wrong. Some have slept. It's a number, sleep, as should the translation should have been.

But it means the same thing. When you see a body and they're dead, they look like they're what?

Eyes are closed. It's like they're sleeping. Why does Paul use sleep here?

He takes the edge off of something. Why does Paul say he didn't say dead? Why does he say sleep? Because the

New Testament only uses the word for sleep for believers who have died. Now, will unbelievers have their body resurrected for that last resurrection time?

Yes. But here, the sting of death is taken away even by the word.

Paul's not afraid to say the word dead like some people today. He passed on. He expired. Paul is trying to say this is for believers this happens to.

And even though God has chastened them, they're still going to heaven. They're sleeping. Of course, their conscience, their soul, that is their spirit is with God.

Their body will show up later. But God is softening this through Paul.

Some are asleep. They're Christians. Now, when you're sick, you ought to say to yourself, it's a fallen world, maybe

I'm sick because of that. This is just general sickness. But you ought not to say to somebody who's sick,

I think maybe you're sick because of your sin. They might be sick because of their sin.

Do you know you can sin and have physical effects to your sin? Super easy to look at the

Psalms in the 30s. There are all kinds of chapters in the 30s. I could prove it easily with just an ulcer. You can have sinful anxiety and have an ulcer.

Simple. So when someone's sick,

I was sick. I had those headaches last year for five months. I didn't know what was going on. But I did say to myself, Lord, if there's sin in my life, and I'm sick because of this sin, would you please forgive me and would you please remove it?

Now, thankfully, nobody here to my face came up and said, do you think you may be sinning? Is that the problem? But maybe the answer was, yes,

I was sinning. Similarly with this, the people in our church who are sick and who are ill and who have died recently, we don't know that they died and or are sick because they took communion wrongly, right?

I don't want you to have that automatic default, oh, that explains why they're dead. We don't know.

But what we do know is it's just such a big deal when we take of the bread and drink of the cup, we want to do it in a worthy fashion because there are consequences to following a

Savior who dies for horrible sinners and then acting like the person in Matthew 18 who says, now that I've been forgiven,

I won't forgive you and you're different than I am. Ignatius said, when the

Lord's Supper is misused, it can become a mortal toxin. People want to argue, is this wine?

Is it diluted wine? Is it grape juice? Well, if you want to take it in an unworthy fashion, it doesn't matter, it's poison.

And not just one person, not just two people, but at the end of verse 30, and some have died.

You could translate that word, a number. Or you could possibly translate it, quite enough.

Quite enough Corinth are dead. So don't do that anymore. Enough have died.

Again, it wasn't the sin of incest in chapter 5. It wasn't lawsuits or sexual immorality in chapter 6.

It was the Lord's Supper. God purifying His church. Cleansing His church.

Verse 31. Here's the remedy in the warning. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.

Not judging other people, but judging ourselves. I deserve nothing. I deserve hell.

I've earned hell. I've merited hell. My wages are death. Christ has taken those on my behalf, in my place, because of sovereign, free, generous, gracious, distinguishing grace.

And when that's the case, we judge ourselves truly, we would not be judged. That's why it's so important when it comes to communion.

Forget everybody else. Because if it's just you and God, you'll be like Jeremiah. I'm black and unclean in my heart.

You'll be like Isaiah. Woe is me. You'll be like Peter. I'm a sinful man. Jesus is in my boat.

He's God. Get out of the boat, Jesus, because I'm so sinful. Don't be thinking about other people. And if that's the case, then, at the end of verse 31, we would not be judged.

Esteeming others rightly. I don't want to take the holy Lord's Supper and make it profane.

Can you imagine 2 ,000 years ago, taking a big old pig that you've already killed and just carrying it into the family's house and plopping it right on their dinner table for Passover?

How much worse is it to think not like Christ frivolously in a trifling manner when it comes to the

Lord's Supper? We're equal. But when we are judged by the

Lord, verse 32, we are disciplined, not eternally condemned. He doesn't even use the word punish.

They're disciplined. I try to teach my kids all the time. I'm not punishing you. I'm disciplining you so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

Out of love to shape us up. Premature death so we don't go all the way.

Not possible, but that's the idea. And then he summarizes it, verse 33 and 34. This could be the second great commandment.

Love your neighbor as yourself. But Paul explains it this way. So then, my brothers, we're brothers in Christ.

We're sisters in Christ at this church. Everybody's equal. When you come together to eat, notice that language again, you come together to eat.

Simple. How does love manifest to other people? How does love manifest to people that have to work the late shift and they don't get there until the very end?

How does love manifest? Answer? Wait for one another. I don't want you to use this next verse out of context when you're running errands with your kids someplace and they're hungry.

If anyone is hungry, let them eat at home. It's not the context here, although if you're going to take a verse out of context,

I guess that's the one. Should've ate something before we got in the car. If anyone is hungry, let them eat at home.

If you say, I get there at 10 o 'clock in the morning and I can't eat until 8 o 'clock at night and I have to wait and all this other stuff, well, just eat something before you go.

That's all. So that when you come together, there it is again, it will not be for judgment.

Fellowship of judgment. About the other things, I will give directions when I come. So what about you?

If you're a Christian man or a Christian woman and the Lord's Supper is provided, you ought to say to yourself,

I'm the worst of all sinners. Just imagine, if you could just quickly flash through all the things in your life and mind that you've done,

God knows them all, all the skeletons in your closet, all the things that you should've done but didn't, all the things that you did but shouldn't have, all the times you didn't love

God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and God said, out of my free love, generosity,

I'll punish my son, the sinless one, in your place. In my place condemned he stood.

And I'm going to treat you sinner like I would Jesus and grant you His righteousness.

He gets your sin, to His account, you get His righteousness. I confirm that by raising

Jesus from the dead and now I love you as much as I love Jesus Christ because of what Christ did. And if I love you as much as I love my son, then that means

I love every other Christian as much as I love my son and that means you ought to love every other

Christian here. Is there anybody here that you have a hard time dealing with in terms of practical application?

Because they're pretty filthy sinners. Now I will make a confession.

It's very hard for me to see some people and not want to run to the other side of the church.

You think, well that's kind of a bad disclaimer. I just meet some people and I know

I just as soon go talk to somebody else because I'm trying to greet these other people and they just want to talk about themselves and it's that way every single week and I just need to get away.

I just need to run. I don't like it when they do that.

But then I have to say to myself, Mike, it has nothing to do with like. It has nothing to do with want to.

It has to do with what's best for them. What's best for this person? How can I minister to this person?

And I might not do it every time but I know I want to do it and I say, alright, I'm going to minister to this person and it's best for them.

Now that's not a direct application from 1 Corinthians chapter 11 but it's a secondary application.

Who is there in this church that you really don't want to see? You're in the bathroom together, only two people, it's you and the person that you don't really want to be with.

Who's that person? The good news is some of you probably don't have that person.

Isn't that nice? I'll just love all those rotten sinners at BBC the same. They all bug me.

I'm just kidding. Now, I will say this.

You don't have to like everybody at the church. Hallelujah. You don't have to like everybody but you do have to love them.

Agape love. I want what's their best and I will try to help them. At my expense,

I want to try to help them. I don't want any cliques.

Who would ever think that Jesus disdains social cliques as much as He disdains theological, personal, and other kind of cliques?

No cliques at the church. I want you to have your friends. I want you to have your ministry partners.

It's fine by me. Some people you hang out with more. But then I think you should go a step beyond that and say, how can we reach out to people who aren't in our group?

Who are on the outside? Especially visitors. And I think, by the way, congregation, you do a great job with visitors. The pulpit preaching is tough but then we soften them up with a little bit of cookies over there.

So thankfully, I don't think we've got a huge social problem at this church. The good news is,

West Boylston, we are more diverse economically and racially at this church than West Boylston is.

I think that's a good sign. If we were less, I mean, if you're in Antarctica and everybody there looks like they're from Norway or Antarctica or something like that, then

I don't say, well, you need to be more inclusive. Of whom? The polar bears?

I mean, I have no idea. But I want there to be people from every background here.

I'm happy. I'm happy for that. Because we worship a

Jewish Savior. Thank you,

Father, for our time today in the Word. May it run swiftly in our hearts. Help us to be more like Your Son, humbling ourselves to serve others, not esteeming ourselves, to think of ourselves more highly.

Thank you that Jesus humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on a cross, and that You, therefore, highly exalted

Him. Lord of lords, King of kings, help us to act commensurately to our position in Christ and help the theological unity at Bethlehem Bible Church, the methodological unity, the philosophical unity, the racial unity, and the social unity and the economic unity as well.