Corinthians 11:17-34 The Celebration of Sacrifice

But last week we wrapped up a series on the book of Esther and it ended with a memorial celebration.

The entire book was about a really dark time in the history of the

Jews where they were set to be destroyed and God saved them. God reached down into human history and worked through the circumstances to bring about their salvation.

And we saw at the very end this feast that the Jews call Purim that was basically mandated throughout

Jewish history that they were to celebrate. And this morning we're going to carry that concept forward with a message on the primary memorial celebration that Jesus left for us to follow because he has provided salvation for us in a new covenant way.

So under the old covenant he was saving his people, he was saving the Jews, but now he has provided a way for us to be saved and we're going to be talking about the celebration that he instituted for us to celebrate.

And I think in reality when I mention communion I would dare say that if I were to just ask you to just raise your hand and shout out some thoughts about communion

I think we'd have a diverse, a bunch of different things that would be said about communion because I think we can be confused about it.

It is something that is joyful but somber. It is serious but it's a celebration.

It is about our unity with Christ but it is also about our unity with each other as we partake together.

It's about looking inside of us, internal introspection, right? Have you heard that about communion before that we ought to look inside and consider where we are at spiritually and what's been going on in our lives?

And in reality we ought to look inside and as we look inside, how many of you have ever seen crud inside your own heart?

You see that and you realize why Christ had to die, why he went to the cross. And so there's this internal introspection, there's also a looking out and considering others in the body.

It is remembering the death of Jesus and our sinfulness that caused him to go to the cross, but equally it is a remembrance on the great love that he has for us and is shown towards us.

Do you see the multi, there's all different kinds of facets to this thing, right? Would you agree with that? All different kinds of aspects to this thing that we do every week.

It's a mix of emotions and yet as we come to this text this morning I hope that we leave with a deeper clarity and understanding about the celebration that we do every week here at Recast Church.

We've been gathering together now for three years as a church and every week I think minus maybe one or two that we haven't taken communion together since we started.

So I want you to open your Bibles please to 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 17 through 24, the central text on communion in the

New Testament, that's page 821 in the Bible in the seat back in front of you. So if you want to pull that out, that Bible in front of you, it's page 821, easy to turn there.

If you don't own a Bible please take that one with you, we want everybody to have a copy of God's Word. But follow along as I read 1

Corinthians chapter 11, 17 through the end of the chapter.

So let's dive in. But in the following instructions, this is Paul the

Apostle speaking to the church in Corinth, he says, but in the following instructions I do not commend you because when you come together it is not for better but for worse.

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.

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. One goes hungry and another gets drunk.

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. For I received from the

Lord what I also delivered to you, 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.

Do this in remembrance of me. And 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 drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the

Lord's death until he comes. Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the

Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then and so eat the bread and drink of the cup.

For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.

That is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died. But if we judged ourselves correctly, truly we would not be judged.

For when we are judged by the Lord we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

So then my brothers when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry let him eat at home so that when you come together it will not be for judgment.

And about the other things I will give directions when I come. Let's pray. Father we come to a text that I think many in this room have heard many times and yet it's been challenging to me this week to open my eyes to see communion from a different perspective.

To see this memorial celebration that we do every week here at Recast in a new light and in a different light.

And Father I pray that you would press on our hearts the awesome, amazing, glorious sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

That you would turn our hearts to the cross regularly and routinely and not just in communion but throughout the week

Father that you would transform us and change us. And that as we have an opportunity now to sing songs before you

Father that our hearts would be raised, raised up. That we would genuinely worship out of hearts that have been changed and transformed because the price has been paid for us.

Our hearts now experience purpose and delight and joy and hope and love because of what you have done in our hearts because you are transforming us.

You are changing us. Not us trying to make ourselves look better for you but you turning us into what we ought to be from the inside out.

I pray that you would be with us and allow our songs to be genuine worship before you. I ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well thanks a lot to the band for leading us this morning. I'm grateful for that. I also just wanted to just for some reason this morning

I want to just thank Mike Rogers. I don't know if you realize he comes early every day and every Sunday and makes the coffee and gets the donuts together.

Him and Joe Clift. And so just thanks to them for doing that. And there are some more coffee and donuts available for you. I know we just took a break but you can get up at any time during the message.

Make yourself comfortable. Restrooms are back here. But as we dive into the text this morning, obviously our song's focused on communion, right?

I mean I love that last song. I mean it just really walks through a lot of what this text is.

I mean it almost preaches a sermon in and of itself, right? If you're really listening to the words and paying attention to them.

We're going to be looking at an epistle which is a big fancy theological, you know, seminary word for letter, okay?

So why don't we just call it a letter and that would be better. But it's a letter written by Paul to the church in Corinth.

He started this church. So in a sense he's kind of like the church planner slash pastor. He was traveling through that area.

Some believers came to faith in Jesus Christ. They started a church and then he moved on and he's right.

So when we see those letters in the New Testament, we're actually looking at mostly Paul's interaction. At least obviously

Paul's letters. We're looking at his interaction with churches that he started, he's moved on. And so what ends up happening a lot of times is that through the letters we find teaching from Paul based on what not to do.

Now how many of you have experienced that level, that kind of teaching? Maybe you experience that from your parents to some degree.

Maybe there have been seasons in your life where primarily the lessons in your life have been things not to do.

Raise your hand if you've been in those, been in that place in life before. It's where we're at in the text is oftentimes we find out things by what others are doing wrong.

And hopefully we can tend to learn our lesson, but more often than not we have to experience our own failures before we actually get it.

Because if you're anything like me, we can tend to be thick that way. And so it can be hard to learn from other people's lessons.

But as we come to the subject of communion, we're going to see that Paul took some issues with the way that the church in Corinth was going about communion.

The way that they were partaking in the Lord's supper. Now there's different terms for this. You've already heard a few of them.

Communion, the Lord's supper. How many of you are familiar with the term Eucharist? Eucharist is a Greek word that means

Thanksgiving. But you can call it what you want, but you need to also equally understand that by giving it different titles, you actually tend to align yourselves more with different theologies.

So you can call it Eucharist if you want, and that's fine, but that tends to be the word that more Catholic and Lutheran churches would use.

And so if you use that word in certain settings, they're going to think, oh, you must go to a Catholic church, or you must go to a

Lutheran church. So we tend to call it communion here or the Lord's supper. I use communion probably more often than not.

But Corinth was a church, we're going to see, I think it's important that we understand the setting to understand what

Paul is saying about communion. Corinth was a church full of divisions. There were wealthy hotshots in the church who thought that they were

God's gift to the church, and those in poverty were pushed to the side, those who didn't have.

So what you're looking at in Corinth was a church of haves and have -nots, and there were strict and strong lines drawn up, but not just that.

But then there were some people who began to section off and say, well, I'm a follower of this elder. Well, I'm a follower of this elder.

And they began to basically pick their favorites, if you will. Well, I like this guy better when he preaches, or I like this guy better when he preaches.

And they ended up kind of like forming small groups around that, and all they would want is to hear from that one individual.

And Paul earlier in the book actually said, well, you ought to really be of Christ, not of these individuals, not of these people.

So all kinds of divisions were going on in that church at the time. And Paul says outright in a strong tone, look down at your

Bibles in verse 17, he says, when they gather together, this is strong, think about this phrase, when you gather together, it is not for better, it's for worse.

Like, okay, how many of you think that gathering together as a church ought to be a good thing? Would you agree with that?

And he's saying that's not a good thing, Corinth. When you guys get together, this is a bad thing. Is that a pretty significant indictment that he's bringing down on them?

When you get together, it's for worse. You're making yourselves worse when you get together. Wow, that is strong.

And you see, what we have is him hearing through the grapevine, he's removed by hundreds of miles from Corinth. So he's getting word back and forth from travelers and different people who have been there.

And he's heard through the grapevine that even their gatherings are in division. Now, how many of you know that you can go out from this place this week and go out and have divisions out there, out in the community, right?

And you could even go out from here and have divisions out in the community pertaining to people here in this church, right?

You could have all kinds of frustrations and problems. But we tend to at least, unlike Corinth, mask those when we come in, right?

Oh, that's not good either. But in Corinth, they weren't even masking it. Are you getting what

I'm saying? I mean, they're coming together and there are divisions in their gathering, like a little group sitting over here, and a little group sitting over here, and a little group back there, and they're not mixing.

They're not friendly towards one another. They're insulting towards one another. They're not sharing with one another. Are you getting what I'm saying? This is pretty dramatic.

This is pretty intense, what's going on in the text. In essence, Paul says, rumor has it,

Corinth, when you get together, it's like a middle school cafeteria in there, okay?

This is bad news, okay? And you walk in with your tray and you're like, I don't know who to sit with. Oh, if you were me.

I mean, maybe none of you were that way, but just don't let me drop the tray. Just don't let me drop the tray.

Okay, sorry. Those of you laughing would have been laughing at me then, too.

There have only been a couple of times in my adult life that I've experienced that, and God forbid, I pray, and I pray diligently that nobody experiences that here in our body.

I mean, we have that connection time that could feel awkward to some, and it depends on if you're an introvert, an extrovert, and we just spent, what, five to ten minutes, kind of like with nothing to do, go get some coffee, go get some donuts.

How many donuts can you get before you got to go back to your seat? And it's like, will anybody talk to me? I hope that that's not your experience, but I've had that.

Have any of you experienced that in your adult life, where all of a sudden you kind of felt like you were in high school again, or middle school, or, you know, it's just like, oh, nobody will talk to me.

This is awkward. People aren't going to last a long time in a church where they feel that way, are they?

And let me just encourage you directly. It was very early in the life cycle of Recast Church that I came to realize

I cannot make this a friendly church. Now, to your credit, when

I talk with people who have visited here, they say that this is a friendly church, and that's to your credit, not to mine. I cannot make this a friendly church.

Did you realize that? I mean, it was early on at Recast history that I kind of went, wait a minute.

I can't make this friendly. It's all about how we interact with others, right? It's whether or not you're willing to lean over to the person next to you and say, hi, how's your week going?

And having that interaction is I can't do it all, right? And so I hope that that's the case.

And in reality, there is no room whatsoever in the church for cliques and divisions.

There is no room for that. We are to be one in spirit. Now, you might have a follow -up question to that.

Well, wait a minute. Am I allowed to have friends? I mean, does that kind of come to bear on this?

Like, okay, if you just have to be friendly to everybody, and you are certainly allowed to have friends, people that you should be connecting with and having a deeper, deeper accountability kind of relationship.

Like, I mean, you know, there's some people that you're kind of like, how's it going? And you have like a surface -y level. And then there's some people you're like, how's it going?

And there's a different conversation that happens after that. So you're completely, I'd encourage those kinds of relationships.

But here's the point. You are not allowed to pick and choose in the church who you are friendly to.

Do you hear the difference? Sure, you're going to have friends, okay? But you don't get the freedom to choose in the church who you will and will not be friendly to.

Paul makes what I think is a sarcastic side note in verse 19. If you want to look at it, it seems like it's out of place. And then as I started to study it and kind of think about it,

I think I understand where he's coming from on it. He says, well, if you just read it, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.

It almost kind of sounds like you're saying, well, well, there should be factions. Like, doesn't that kind of sound like that at first blush?

Well, sure there are. I think he's being somewhat sarcastic and it seems a little bit confusing, but it ultimately means, of course there are factions among you because not all who are genuine.

Not all of those who are in the church, there are actually false teachers in the church. Not everybody is genuinely in love with Christ.

Not everybody that's there. And he's like, of course, because how else are those who are genuine and true going to stand out unless there's different groups in the church?

So there's a little bit of a sarcasm that's involved in that. But now we come to the main point of the passage. He says that when the

Corinthians come together for communion, for the Lord's supper, he cannot even rightly call it the

Lord's supper. He says, you're doing something else. You Corinthians think you're taking the Lord's supper, but it is something else that is going on there.

Maybe it'd be more accurate to call it your supper. It's not the Lord's. It's more like your supper that's going on.

Because you all bring, and he goes on, he says, you all bring your bagged lunches from home and some are starving and have nothing to eat and others are getting plastered because they've had too much to eat and drink.

You see, in the early church, they had a regular meal associated with this. And so part of it is understanding the structure of what's going on here, right?

Because it's kind of like, what is this about meals and things like that? They had an early meal that was associated with their gathering.

They'd usually probably go over a meal time and it was a long service, even longer than ours.

And people would bring their meals and they would eat. And sometimes I think they would probably even eat during the discussion, during the talk in different parts like that.

And they would be eating, but the culmination of that meal was then for one of the elders to get up and to break bread, to pass it around, and then to take a cup of wine and to pass it around.

And they would have communion together. Communion was the culmination of that meal that was going on in the early church.

So does that make sense to you? Another thing that you need to understand is the structure of the actual physical location where churches met.

They met in homes. Now, these homes were not just mansions and huge, so they had limited space.

And what was happening is that the wealthy were coming in, at least what many scholars see in the understanding of this passage, that the wealthy would come in and get the preeminent seats.

So there would be like a nice dining area where all of the wealthy would sit and have this immaculate feast.

And then everybody else was kind of left out in the courtyard and in different places of the house to kind of fend for themselves.

And some didn't even have food to eat. They didn't even have anything to bring. Some were eating bread and water, and others are just dining on this awesome meal.

So they had this regular meal that was associated. I used to think that that was an idea that should almost be like required.

I remember going through a stage in my understanding of this text where it was like, okay, wait a minute. If they had this meal associated with communion, then shouldn't we as well?

Have any of you been there or kind of thought that notion in your mind as you've read this before? Like, why don't we do this?

When we lived in England, it was actually quite common. In the small church that we attended there, an awesome on -fire evangelical church in a little town called

Batley, they met on Soot Hill. And Soot Hill was called Soot Hill because everything just was covered with soot, okay, industrial north of England.

And when they would do communion, we would have a potluck. Everybody would bring food, and then at the end of that meal, we would take communion.

It was a pretty cool thing. I remember thinking, why don't we do this? But after studying a little history on this and studying this passage,

I have grown in my conviction that it's not required of us. It's not necessary that we take a meal, and we're going to see that here in a minute.

It would be okay for us to do that from time to time, and I think it might be a good exercise for us, but it's not necessary.

You see, verse 22 highlights that this meal was not a required part of the communion. Paul even says in verse 22, what, do you not have houses to eat and drink in?

Like, wouldn't it be better for you, rather than offending brothers and sisters in Christ, to just eat before you come? Wouldn't that be better, he says?

So, he's encouraging them, eat at home if you cannot control yourself, and actually share together. Paul puts some sarcasm in and asks them, what shall

I say to you? You guys are offending each other and not sharing. Shall I commend you for doing that?

And I want to say to Paul, that's a clown question, bro. I mean, that is, the answer is obviously no, absolutely not.

I mean, it's like, what? I mean, of course you shouldn't commend somebody for doing wrong, right? You should commend people for doing good things.

And now we come to possibly the most quoted text in all scripture, okay? Because almost every church reads this during every communion service, right?

Basically, verses 23 through 26. How many of you have heard that read before in a church around communion time?

How many of you heard it multiple times? How many of you almost had it memorized because it's been used so much for communion? Now, I don't want to bash anybody on this, but I just want to point out something that's kind of interesting.

I think reading this part of the text during a communion service is bringing us to the place of remembering that Jesus told us to remember something.

Okay, did I lose any of you on that? It's like we are reading the part where Jesus tells us to remember something.

And if we leave it at that, all we know is he's told us to something. Okay, are you getting what

I'm saying? As we read through this and as we study it, you're going to see what I mean. But the point of communion is remembering the cross.

It's not remembering the institution of the Lord's Supper. Are you getting what I'm saying on that?

So often we read about him telling us to take the Lord's Supper and to remember something, and we read that and we don't get to the point.

We don't get down to the heart of it, which is bringing the cross up in people's eyes, is lifting the cross high and showing the immense and awesome sacrifice that he made for us.

But if we just leave it at that little gathering that we're going to talk about here, where he's going to quote from Luke, if we just leave it at that little intimate gathering of the twelve, and we don't get to what happened the next day at the cross, we've missed something.

Paul says that he received these instructions straight from Jesus and had already given these instructions to the

Corinthians, and his instructions take the form of a story from the Gospel of Luke. And he basically is going to quote that story and walk us through it.

And so he says on the night that Jesus was betrayed, he and his twelve followers took a Passover meal. Now the

Passover meal is something that still happens in Jewish tradition, a very significant meal that celebrated the deliverance of the

Jews from the bondage and slavery that they were under in Egypt, ultimately celebrating a salvation of sorts.

And remember, if I can take you back to that account, ultimately in your mind you remember that they had to eat fast because God was going to deliver them in one night.

And so they ate a lamb, and what did they do with the blood of that lamb? Does anybody remember?

They took the blood of that lamb and they put it over their doorposts, right? Put it on the header and on the two sides of the doors.

And any house that had the blood of the lamb, the Passover lamb, on its doorposts was passed over by the angel of death, therefore it was called

Passover, right? So that's what that's all about. And all kinds of rich symbolism so that the

Jews, in commemorating that Passover, that first Passover in Egypt, every year around Easter time they take a

Passover meal, and it's high in symbolism. All kinds of symbolisms that are involved in it.

There's the lamb that is killed and the blood that is shed. So all the symbolism.

But Jesus, in the presence of his closest 12 followers, gave the celebration a whole new twist.

And that's what Paul's going to point out. His point is that there's something more that's going on here than just Passover.

So Jesus took the bread at the heart of the Passover meal. Again, this is something that's amazing.

This tradition has not changed for centuries. And so when we see, if you were to go into a

Jewish synagogue and talk with them about the way that Passover is celebrated, you see it reflected in this text.

At the middle, at the very heart, at the center point of the meal, the head of the household will stand, or the most preeminent individual that is there will stand, ask a blessing, pick up a loaf of bread, and break it and offer it to others.

That is part of the Passover meal. And we see Jesus actually did that on the night he was betrayed. He did.

He was the most preeminent individual there. He stood up. He was in charge, kind of master ceremonies, if you will, and actually did it.

And when I say a loaf of bread, you need to understand it would have been unleavened. Very, very important in the Passover meal that there was no leaven involved, a symbol of sin, and all different kinds of things that were involved in the symbolism of that.

So it would have been like the matzah. Have any of you had matzah bread? Or it's basically a cracker, like what we have, something without leaven in it.

And Jesus took that bread, he gave thanks, and he broke it.

Everything just like normal. Everything just like every Jew was doing that night during the

Passover. And then he did something radical. And I'm sure somewhat confusing to his followers that were present with him.

He said, this bread, adding new symbolism to it. He said, this bread is my body, which is given for you.

Do this. When you eat this bread, when you break bread together, eat it in remembrance of me.

Jesus took what was the center of one of the most sacred Jewish rituals and inserted himself right into the middle of it.

That points to the fact that Jesus thought he was a pretty big deal. There's no getting around it.

Jesus thought he was the center of the Passover meal. And you have to wrestle with that.

You have to deal with someone who actually says, you know, all of this Jewish history, it's about me.

Either he was nuts or he's God in flesh. It's fairly clear.

He said, this is about me. And when you take it, when you do it, think of me.

Wow. I mean, it gives me chills to think about how radical that would have been to them sitting there.

Those 12 followers would be like, whoa, like blasphemy, like lightning or something.

I mean, are you saying what we think you're saying? Of course, he was sitting there alive with them at the time that he's saying these things.

And his statement that this was his body given for them, I'm sure made little sense to them.

Your body is right there holding the bread. And it's kind of like, not catching where you're at,

Jesus, but I think they were kind of used to that by this point. Not always getting it. Any of you there yet?

Not always getting it, but I'm sure it made complete sense to them a few days later after he had gone to the cross and he was raised again to new life three days later.

I'm sure it kind of connected with them and they were kind of like, oh, oh, we're getting it. And then at the end of the

Passover meal, so there's all of these symbolisms, there's the bitter herbs, there's all different kinds of spices and different things that they do during the ceremony and go check the door and see if Elijah's there and some kind of funny, strange things that have symbolism.

And I want to point out, it's all towards Christ. Christ is the lamb. Christ is the bread of life.

Christ is the blood of the new covenant. All of those things do point to him and all that symbolism. But at the very end, they would then share a cup of wine together.

All Jews still do this at Passover if they're following what they're supposed to be doing. And so he took the cup and suggested that the cup containing the wine was a new covenant pertaining to his blood, a new covenant that his blood was about.

Now, if reinterpreting the bread was a big deal, this talk of a new covenant in his blood was even more radical because the phrase new covenant, they understood covenant.

You see, under the old covenant, under the covenant that was in their mind, it was all about the blood of animals.

Goats and rams and oxen sacrificed day in and day out. That's what their religion was, the sacrifice system to try to basically cover their sins in an attempt to do that.

And Jesus says, no, no, no, that's old covenant. My blood is ushering in a new covenant.

Do you understand how radical a statement that is? There is a new way to relate to the Father, and it's me, and it's my blood.

That's intense. He's like turning everything in the world, in the cosmos, on its head.

He says, I'm it. I'm the way. My blood, my body is going to be broken for you, and this is the way.

The old covenant based on the blood of animals, not sufficient. I am the way.

And as often as you drink this wine, think of me, remember me.

Pretty significant statements. Notice that they're commands. Do it. And it's interesting because although it's a command, we can add some things to it that aren't there.

He says, do it as often as you take it. Well, that leaves us some question marks, doesn't it? He doesn't say how often.

He doesn't say how to pass it out or whether to pass it out or have people stand and come forward, which we don't do anymore because of just logistics.

He doesn't say whether you should all drink it at the same time or whether you should drink it on your own like we do here.

Drink it when you get it. Obviously, in that first situation, they had one cup, so they drank it as they got it.

That's the way that they did it, but he's not giving any instructions on that. He says, drink wine and eat bread in remembrance of him.

That's it. And then Paul goes on to add meaning to this thing Jesus has just instituted.

He says, as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the Lord's death.

There's a proclamation going on every service at Recast. There is the text that we're looking at.

There's a proclamation of the word, which is what I'm doing right now, but there is equally a proclamation every time we take communion together.

I like to do communion every service at Recast because it genuinely drives my thoughts, my preparation, my mind, and the text, whatever

I'm preaching, whether it's Esther or Jonah or Joshua or it's in the New Testament or it's going to be

Galatians coming up. Whatever it is, it turns my mind as I'm preparing, as I'm studying, as I'm working.

It's constantly driving towards the cross. My mind is constantly working towards the cross because that is the focal point.

That is the purpose. And so we take communion here every week at Recast with that intention of bringing things back to the point of proclamation of the cross of Christ.

I'm convinced that the cross makes sense of everything we find in Scripture and that every sermon should be brought back to that fundamental place where forgiveness and wholeness and completeness and the wrath of God is appeased.

Paul not only goes on in the text to indict the Corinthians for the manner in which they have taken communion, he wants them to know that by taking it in a manner that is unworthy, in other words, by taking it having just neglected others in the body.

I have to point this out. It is an adverb and not an adjective and some of you that just doesn't work for, you know, but it is not saying that you need to make sure that you are worthy.

You get it? That is not what the text is saying. That you ought to sit here and reflect on your worthiness to take communion.

None of us, none of us are worthy to take communion. None of us.

If it is about our worth, our worthiness, have we done enough good for God? Have we been on his side enough?

Have we crossed all of our t's and dotted our i's? And boy, if you sin this week, you better not take communion.

How many of you have ever felt that way before? It is not about your worth. Your worth is in Christ at the cross.

If you have asked him to forgive you, you have become, been declared, been made worthy.

You're not worthy. You've been declared that. Does that make sense? It is about, in the text, taking it in a manner, an unworthily.

Okay, there's a difference. Are you getting what I'm saying? There is a manner of taking it, a way of taking it that is not worthy.

Now, is that confusing? Let me get back to my notes here because I can't say it as good as I wrote it.

I did write it, I promise. This isn't somebody else's. I just have to stay on my notes or else my mind just starts to wander.

What he's basically saying is they have dishonored the sacrifice of Jesus by their lives and then acted like they are remembering the body and blood of Christ by a ceremony.

In other words, by taking it, having just neglected, and I said this earlier, but this is the key point about unworthy versus unworthily.

By taking it, by taking communion and having just neglected others in the body of Christ, they are guilty of not truly remembering the body and blood of Jesus.

Does that make sense? They are not even reflecting on the body and blood of Jesus at all.

They're not remembering him because if they were remembering him, if they were thinking about his sacrifice, if they were thinking about his bloodshed, if they were thinking, then they would not be able to treat others poorly in the body of Christ.

See, some people nodding and some people I think are a little bit confused and I can understand that. We can talk about it a little bit more afterwards, but that is what it means to take communion in a manner that is unworthy.

Many of us misunderstood, like I said, that they need to be worthy before communion and that is not the point. Verse 28 does encourage, and so this is where I think people can tend to go back on what

I just said. Verse 28 does encourage a self -assessment as we come to communion and I think that's a proper time for it, but this is not a self -assessment about how worthy we are, but whether or not we are recognizing our connection with others as we take the juice and the cracker.

Are we connected with others? Are we doing it in a way that is remembering that we are a part of a people purchased for him, that we are connected to one another and we are to love one another, we are to be gracious to one another, and we are to be giving to one another.

You see, Paul states outright the problem in Corinth and it was that some were taking communion without this phrase, discerning the body.

That could be a confusing statement because we've got body used in kind of mixed metaphors here. So we've got the body of Christ, we've got the body that was broken, which body are we talking about here?

What does it mean to discern the body? Well, it's they are not considering others in the body of Christ.

They're not accurately recognizing or even truly remembering that Jesus died for the church and anyone who does this is in danger of judgment.

Anyone who takes communion in a manner of not thinking about others or thinking that they are more worthy than others is in danger.

What kind of danger? Well, their lives are making a mockery of the sacrifice of Jesus, Paul says.

By taking the juice and the cracker, we are acting upon the belief that Jesus died for us and we are supposed to be remembering that.

But if you've been insulting, if you've been condescending, if you've been unwilling to love others in the body, if you've been unwilling to share with others, then you have missed the point and you ought not take communion.

Is that making sense? That's the reason. Verse 30 gets kind of dicey here.

It's just kind of, that's why many of you, he says, are weak and ill and some have died.

Seem dicey? Seem like what? Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Paul is saying that some in Corinth have become physically ill because they did not take communion correctly?

Some have died because they did not take communion correctly?

Anybody kind of like, whoa, wait a minute? Raise your hand if you're like, whoa, wait a minute. I am.

Okay, my hand is up. Like, what in the world is going on here? I believe, along with all the scholars, this was a unanimous decision by many scholars on this that I read at least this week, that this is a divinely revealed correlation.

Paul is making this correlation by the Spirit of God showing him what's going on in Corinth. In other words, we cannot point to people who are sick and ill and say it's because you've abused the

Lord's Supper that you're sick and ill. But he could because the Spirit of God had revealed that specifically to him about Corinth.

Certainly not every sickness is a direct result of specific sins in our life. Does every illness go back to sin?

Original sin. There would be no illness, there would be no death, there would be no disease without Adam and Eve's first sin.

So sin is, I mean, we can always point to sin and say, in a general sense, I'm sick and ill because this is a fallen world, right?

But it doesn't always go back, and I don't think Paul believed that it always goes back to specific sin.

But it can, and this text is pointing that out. There can be times and instances, and at the bare minimum we see evidence that God may even take our lives because of sin.

There could come a point in our lives where he takes us because we have gone far enough.

I believe that. I think that's real. That's about a believer, a follower of Jesus Christ.

But before we jump to fear in this, because, I mean, this is not meant to be a fear message, but I can understand how some would be kind of like, well, wait, have

I gone too far? How would I know if I've gone too far? What do I need to do? Well, I think there's some reality where we ought to repent of our sins and have short accounts, right?

Would you agree with me on that? As much as we can, have short accounts. But Paul softens this a touch in verse 31 and 32.

Verse 31, he says, but if we judged ourselves, and another way to translate that word judged, two different words for judged in one verse, but if we discerned ourselves truly, we would not be judged.

Talking about the judgment of God, if we correctly assessed ourselves, then we probably wouldn't have taken communion because we would have known that we were backbiting and maligning others, and we would have went to get that straight, then we wouldn't have been judged.

Does that make sense? And so he basically points to that, and he also softens it by saying, by pointing out that when believers are judged by the

Lord, it is for discipline, but not for condemnation.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Is there discipline for those who are in Christ? Yes. Do you understand the difference?

One is eternal, and one is temporal. Do you get that?

I would rather come under the temporal judgment of God and be taken out of the world, than come under the eternal condemnation of a holy and righteous

God. There's a difference, and that's what he says here. So we have nothing to fear about our eternity, but is there some real, genuine, physical, potential repercussions to our sin here on this planet?

Yes, there are. And I've literally asked for that. I've literally said,

God, would you, before I defame your name to the degree that I destroy my church, before I defame your name to the degree that I would destroy my family, would you just take me out?

And I mean, I talked with Kyle a little bit about this this morning. We were kind of talking, and he's like, I don't know how that hits me when

I hear you say that. That's my prayer. He wasn't saying it like in the second.

Thank you. That's good. No, you got my back. Okay. I say that as a church leader, okay?

And I don't expect everybody to say those words, but I say that from a heart genuinely, not out of arrogance, not out of like,

I am so superior to everybody, and boy, because how many of you know I have sins? And in reality, sins in my life could tear things down as they are, right?

It's not about measures or degrees. How many of you know that a little white lie could tear

Recast Church down, right? There's all different kinds of things that Satan could use to bring this down, but that's my prayer.

I really genuinely mean that from a sincere heart, that God, if I would defame your name before my family and destroy my children or destroy this church or destroy your testimony in this community,

I'd rather be in heaven. And you think about that? Wouldn't you rather be in heaven with him and just say, please?

And maybe there's a little bit of selfishness in that, in all honesty. God, don't take me through that. Don't take me through that mess.

Could you just take me out beforehand? A little bit of desire to not go through that tragedy, right?

But that's where I'm at, and I don't know, that's something for you to wrestle with as well, and that's why I say it, is I really do believe that there is a sense in which

God will at times, and you're not gonna push it, you're not gonna force his hand. I mean, it's not like, how many of you know somebody that's gone down a road of significant sin and they're still alive?

They're defaming the name of Christ and they're still alive. It's not like he has to, but it is a tool that he can use to get things straight.

But now we get down to verse 33 and the solution is given. Again, it's confusing in its translation in verse 33, but he ultimately says that when they come together to eat, they should wait for one another.

And I had a funny image in my mind, you know, have any of you been to that potluck meal where it's like, no, you go first?

No, you go first. No, no, no, really, you go first. No, you go first. And I'm picturing the food getting cold while everybody's standing around saying,

I'm just waiting for you, just waiting for you. You know, is that what that, is that what that phrase means?

That they should wait for one another? It's not a great translation because in all honesty, it's got a little bit more of the notion of like waiting tables, like that kind of wait, okay?

So maybe it might be even a little bit better to say something along the lines of wait on one another.

It's the notion of hospitality is in this word here. Share life together.

And in its most general sense, that word could be translated, give preference to one another.

Just be thinking about others. So the answer to this problem of communion in Corinth was make sure you are humble and putting others before yourself in the church.

And what does that have to do with communion? Everything. If you are truly remembering the body of Jesus that was broken for us, if you are really contemplating and considering the blood of Jesus that was shed for us, how can you have room for pride in there?

Where does, how does pride get into that? If we're thinking like we should, if we're remembering

Jesus on the cross, bleeding and broken for us, not for me, for us, we don't have a corporate enough sense in America.

We've got a very individualized sense. We like to personalize. We like to put ourselves in John 3 .16,

right? Put your name in there. God so loved Don, fell sick. I can understand there's room for that kind of thing, right?

I mean, did he love me? Yeah, that's awesome. And it needs to be personal and I need to understand that. But boy, do we so quickly leave out that God loved us with all of our quirks, all of our oddities, all of our weirdness.

He loved and purchased us. Think about that.

That's what we should be thinking about when we come to communion. Us and his great price for us.

If you're really thinking about that, I don't find a lot of room for pride in that. How could we put down others in the church knowing that we've been bought with that same awesome price?

How could there be room for cliques? In the body of Christ, there should no longer be race.

There should no longer be rich and poor. There should no longer be Michigan fans and Michigan State fans.

Okay. I mean, in an ultimate sense, and I say that really tongue in cheek, I actually know an individual who left a church over a

Michigan, Ohio State issue. For real. Okay, I know.

Kyle. That didn't come out in the

Q &A, did it? Uh -huh. Yeah, you noticed that he steered clear of that. Now we're stuck with him.

But really in a practical sense, there's another part to the solution in the text. He says, if your packed lunch gets in the way of unity, then just eat it at home.

Take the bread and the wine together, but can the meal beforehand. Get rid of that. And that is just what the early church did.

And so that where I said what I once thought was ideal, I find that the early church couldn't even handle.

That when it came down to it, just a few generations removed from this writing to the church in Corinth, which by the way, this letter gets spread all throughout the known world at the time.

It ends up being disseminated and people are reading it and understanding it. And what was a problem in Corinth, I'm sure was a problem in other places.

And what they end up doing is they begin to stop having those meals before communion and just stick with a communion time together as a church.

Although I think there could be some benefit to having meals together that concluded in communion, the early church proved themselves immature enough to not be able to handle it.

So we get to put this into practice here in just a few minutes, hopefully with some new understanding about where this thing that we do every week comes from.

It's obvious that in the early church, human nature got in the way. And I pray that it does not get in the way for us.

And there are four main points from this text I'd like to emphasize to you. These are going to be quick. If you're taking notes, just jot them down.

Four main things that I want us to be thinking about when we come to communion this morning. Number one, it is about unity.

That is what we're celebrating. We're demonstrating by taking in the juice and the cracker.

We're demonstrating unity with Jesus Christ and His sacrifice. We're saying, yes, that is true of me.

That sacrifice was for me. And if we're not unified with Jesus by faith, we should not take part in communion.

If you have not asked Jesus Christ to save you and you do not have this unity with Him through His cross, then you ought to just skip it.

But it's also equally about unity with others. And therefore, if we do not have unity with others, we ought to skip it as well.

But if you have a faith in Jesus Christ that has brought you into the family in a way that you see love in your heart for others in the body of Christ, then please feel free to participate.

The second thing that this is about, it's about remembering the body and blood of Jesus. The cracker is about His body that was broken and crushed for our sins.

The juice is about the blood of Jesus that He shed for us. Really, to remember our sins, to remember the cross, to remember

His sacrifice that brings us forgiveness, that is the point. And the third thing, this is a proclamation when we do this.

By taking this together, we are in unison every week proclaiming to one another that Jesus Christ died for us.

We're remembering that. Nothing points out our unity more than the reality that we were all hopeless and in need of a

Savior. So desperately wicked that it took the sacrifice of the Son of God Himself to save us.

The church really is a beautiful mess. We are a bunch of messed up people that have been purchased and forgiven by the blood of Christ.

And the last thing, it is to be done with others in mind. We are to think of others.

We don't do communion alone. I do not recommend that you take communion with your spouse at home or that you just do that like kind of like a small group of friends.

It's to be done in community. And it is thoroughly appropriate to skip communion if you know that you have been mean -spirited, divisive, or done anything to belittle or marginalize others in the body of Christ.

It is appropriate to skip it. I would welcome people getting up during communion and reconciling with others.

I think for many of us, we don't have to go far. Maybe just a little nudge to the person beside you that sits with you that you know.

And maybe there needs to be some healing between marriages and relationships that are going on here. Maybe there's some disunity that happened in the car on the way here that needs to be reconciled before you take communion.

But I would welcome that. Jesus said this, if you come to the altar to offer a sacrifice and remember an offense you have against a brother, leave your sacrifice at the altar, go and reconcile with them, and then come back and complete the sacrifice.

And although that's about sacrifices, we don't do that anymore. I think that bringing that over to communion makes sense.

Some may need to go and correct some things before you take communion again. Some might require a road trip or a phone call or I don't know what it might be for you.

But doing this communion service every week is a great way to keep short accounts.

Every week we are to be thinking about how have we treated others in the body of Christ. Are there those who we need to be reconciling with?

Are there those that we need to be correcting things with? The song we're going to play during communion, we've played it before and it's by a

Christian musician who had an impact on me back in the day. And so when I say back in the day, I mean back in the day.

And the problem with it is that the style of the song, you might get some interference in your preferences.

But I think we run that risk with any music, right? It's by an artist named Rich Mullins. Again, you've heard the song before.

But he weaves a theme of relationship and communion that I think is worthy of highlighting or pointing out. And although some may see this as cheesy,

I recognize that. I mean, music is kind of personal. Music is kind of powerful. Music has the power to both push, to draw us in or to push us away depending on what we like.

I'm not a big country fan, you know, and it doesn't really draw me in that much. And it's funny because this is kind of a folksy song.

But this is the lyrics that open it up and the words are going to be on the screen when it plays. But I just want to highlight this, this first opening part because this is kind of the core.

He says this, though we're strangers and in reality, look around you.

Go ahead and take just a minute to look around. We know each other to some degree, but in a sense, we're strangers.

I only know as much about you as you're willing to let me know. And the same goes the other way.

Would you confess that as much as we know each other? We can be strangers. And it says, though we're strangers, still

I love you. I love you more than your mask. And the reality is many of us are wearing masks right now.

There are many who are hurting. There are many who are struggling. There are many who are suffering. And you're sitting there and you're kind of smiling, but you're hurting.

And you know, you have to trust this to be true. And I know that's much to ask, but lay down your fears, come and join this feast.

He has called us here, you and me. Let's pray. Father, as we come to this communion,

I am so excited. As I've been studying it, I'm more excited than I've been about communion in a long time because you have opened my eyes to see the reality of this awesome and amazing unity that you have brought to us.

Those of us who didn't know each other, even just a few years ago, if we had walked into a grocery store, might have courteously said hi as we walked past, but most likely not.

And you have brought us together for your worship and for your honor and for your name. And we are here recognizing the blood of Jesus, the body of Jesus, broken and spilled out for us, crushed for our sins.

Father, I rejoice in that awesome and amazing sacrifice that has been given for us. And I ask that as we remember, we would equally remember that for others as well.

That we are here and those who are in Christ are welcome to join in this together and we are unified in you.

Father, if there are any here who have not reconciled with you, I ask that they would do so this morning.

That today would be a day of reconciliation. Today would be a day of prayer and offering their lives up to you and recognizing what you have done for them.

And then if there are any here who are not reconciled with others on a on a horizontal level, that we have broken relationships with others, that we would pass these elements by not taking the juice, not drinking, taking the cracker, but committing this week to reconcile with those that we have broken relationships with.