The Lord's Supper: Self Examination - Christopher G. Brenyo

Ascension Presbyterian Church Longwood

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1 Corinthians chapter 11, we begin reading in verse 18.

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This is God's holy and infallible word. For first of all, when you come together as a church,

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I hear that there are divisions among you. And in part, I believe it, for there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you.

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Therefore, when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others.

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And one is hungry, and another is drunk. What? Do you not have houses to eat and drink in?

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Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall

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I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you. For I received from the

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Lord that which I also delivered to you. But the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread.

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When he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you.

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Do this in remembrance of me. In the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, saying,

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This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.

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For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the

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Lord's death till he comes. Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the

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Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the

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Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

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For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the

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Lord's body. For this reason, many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.

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For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the

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Lord that we may not be condemned with the world. Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.

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But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment.

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And the rest I will set in order when I come. Please pray with me.

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O Lord, we pray that your spirit would illumine our understanding of your holy word, that we would take to heart the warning from Paul, your servant, to the church at Corinth, that we might examine our own lives, and there might be any defect in our thinking, any impropriety or irreverence in our way, and that we would repent and turn and purge these behaviors and attitudes from our hearts, that our worship would not be impeded in any way.

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And we ask these things in Jesus' name. Please be seated.

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Lord's Supper. Self -examination. Self -examination.

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As you recall, Paul is setting in order the things that are out of order at the church at Corinth.

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He has addressed a host of issues, and this is the third installment for us on this section dealing with the

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Lord's Supper. And today we get to the warning from Paul about an improper kind of conduct in the church.

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Today's message we'll cover from verses 27 to verse 34. Paul clearly calls us here to self -examination.

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In verse 27 it says, Those are very strong words to be given to the people of God.

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At the start there's an error, I think, in our thinking that we have to quickly dispel.

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Paul is not calling for self -excommunication. This is very important that you understand this.

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He is not calling us to excommunicate ourselves from the

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Lord's Supper. And one of the reasons this belief has come into pass is because of that translation of the word unworthy.

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And in the Old King James Version it says unworthily. And that actually might be a little bit better than unworthy.

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We are not to come in an unworthily manner, but we're still to come.

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If we ask questions about our worthiness, then none of us are able to come.

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And so there is a trend in the churches to excommunicate yourself from communion as an act of piety because you're so unworthy to take the

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Lord's Supper. And this is actually contradicting the very spirit and essence of the

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Lord's Supper. None of us are worthy. You're not worthy.

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That's the point. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the great news that those who aren't worthy can come.

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That those who are unworthy can have a place at the table. However, in our belief and faith in Christ, we better come in a proper, reverent manner.

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We can't come in an unworthy manner, but we still come. So at the outset,

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I think we need to settle that matter. First, we look at Paul's warning.

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Really, the conduct of the Corinthians threatened the whole peace and unity of the church.

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We've said it in a number of different ways, but this is clearly the most consequential expression of our union with Christ and each other is the

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Lord's Supper. Nothing comes close to communicating our union with Christ and our fellowship in that union with one another than the

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Lord's Supper. And so it defies logic. And it's why it's so scandalous that it would become the occasion for division and faction and separation and hatred within the body.

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May it never be so at Ascension. May it never be so that we would come to the table divided.

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We have many different philosophical and theological differences within the body.

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We have minor points of disagreement among each member, no doubt. Finer points of theology, there are differences.

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But we are unified in our allegiance and our devotion to Christ. And what comes with that is an allegiance and a devotion to be obedient to his word, to obey all of his commands.

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That should unite us and bring us together when we come to the table.

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So what does it mean to be unworthy? Well, in order to have a proper understanding, we want to set aside that notion of self -excommunication, self -barring from the table in favor of self -examination.

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We don't want to excommunicate ourselves. We want to cut ourselves off. Which for the

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Christian, and I should stop here.

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I can tell you the condition of the church today. Is that the concept of excommunication doesn't bother us.

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Excommunication is worse than death for the Christian. Our culture, if you're excommunicated, you just go to another church.

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They don't honor discipline. So being cut off from God's people for us is not a big deal because we don't treasure and value what it took to make us to be

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God's people. Christ had to die on the cross. We treat it in a very frivolous, very superficial way.

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So even the notion of approaching the table in an unworthy manner is, I don't really care,

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I'm not really bothered. I'm not concerned if maybe we're violating this principle in the text of scripture.

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We'll be warned today, we cannot come in an unworthy manner.

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What does that mean? To come to the table unworthily would be to come in a manner that is unsuitable to the purposes for which it was designed or instituted.

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And this set the very heart of the Corinthian era. They're coming to have a feast with their rich friends.

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They're coming to get hammered and get drunk at the table. They're coming and treating the feast, the love feast of Christ, the agape love feast, they're trying to treat it like every other party in the world.

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And it's a low view of the church and a low view of the supper that tends toward that end.

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It's not a big deal, I can miss the Lord's Supper. I can take it again next week in our church, you might say.

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To come in a manner unsuitable to the purposes for which it was designed.

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It's interesting, there was irregularity and indecency in the observance of the

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Lord's Supper at the church at Corinth, where even gluttony and intemperance in eating and drinking prevailed under the design of the

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Lord's Supper. This is not about filling your belly. This is not about getting drunk.

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This is about remembering what Christ has done. Second, to observe the sacrament properly is to distinguish it from common and other ordinary meals.

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They did not regard it as designed in its essence to show forth the death of Jesus Christ.

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They had made it just another feast. So when we think about this, we don't want to come in an unworthy manner.

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We can't be divided. We can't take the things of the Lord lightly.

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And I was thinking about this last night and in the middle of the night and early this morning. I asked a question that bears more study.

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Is nothing sacred anymore? Is nothing sacred?

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Everything is treated commonly. Is there nothing sacred left in the church?

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There isn't in the world, but in the church, can there be sacred things that we uphold and we preserve?

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Things like the preaching of the Word, the reading of the Word, prayer, the Lord's Supper, baptism.

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Can there be and shouldn't there be things that are sacred, that are holy, that are consecrated and separate?

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Or do we just want to blend everything together? These are sacred matters, holy matters, consecrated matters.

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We consider the Lord's Supper. And this question of being guilty of the body and blood of the

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Lord is really striking language. It's as if Paul is saying to come to the supper in this way.

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And I believe it's reserved for this kind of way the Corinthians were coming. It's not you coming, having a sinful bad week to the table.

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That is the unworthy. It's a little bit more than that. But I believe what Paul is saying here is that it's almost like you're taking it lightly that Christ was sent to the cross.

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Do you remember those Jews who said, crucify Him, crucify Him. You remember Pontius Pilate and the

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Sanhedrin. Paul says to take this in a very trivial and in almost a blasphemous way, you would be guilty of the body and blood of the

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Lord. And it's very strong language. The bread and the wine, of course, are symbols of that event and the person of Christ.

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And it's designed, again, to set these things before our senses.

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Our eyes see it. I break symbolically the bread so we see the breaking of the bread.

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Our senses are touched with the truth that Christ's body was broken.

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And our nose picks up the faint hints of the wine and we taste it. And for some of us, it's not as sweet.

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It's a little bit bitter. And we taste, as it were, the picture of the blood of Christ. It touches our senses.

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God gave this to us to help us to think rightly about it. ...come treating it with contempt.

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What a scary thought for a Christian to be guilty of the body and blood of the

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Lord. It's also important that we treat it with reverence.

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We live in a time of irreverence. People are not generally reverent.

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Everything is a joke. Nothing is serious. Everything is light.

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But there are some things, there are some matters that need to be preserved in their reverence.

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And the Lord's Supper is one of them. We should be filled with thanksgiving. We should be filled with joy.

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But there should be an air of reverence around it. Because it's something holy.

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It's something consecrated. It's something that God himself has set apart.

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To treat the symbols of his body and blood with profaneness, with contempt, would have to be an abomination.

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And it's interesting, Paul doesn't even charge them with this. I think we also think that he's saying to some

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Corinthians here, you guys are now not part of the kingdom and you're excommunicated. He doesn't do that.

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He says, your behavior is tending toward this end. He warns them against this.

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So Paul isn't even excommunicating these believers who are going about it wrong. He's being patient and long -suffering.

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So we, in heeding his warning, if we're going about it wrong, today we stop.

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Today we turn and go a different direction. The Lord is not excommunicating us through the preaching of 1

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Corinthians 11. The Lord is saying, when you come, you come rightly. I want you to come, but you come and go about it in the right way.

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An emphatic, exclamatory statement I have is, we must not trifle with sacred ordinances.

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Do you trifle with the things of God? Do you trifle with things like the Lord's Supper?

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Do you trifle with the prayers? Do you trifle with the reading of God's Word?

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The preaching of His Word? The institution and offices of the church?

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The ministry and mission of the church? The communion of the saints? Do you treat these things lightly?

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If you do, you need to stop. It's totally improper. We need to think rightly about God's holy things.

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Let's go back again to verse 28. We have the second thing.

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We have first a warning, verse 27. And then we have an imperative statement.

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Let a man examine himself. And so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

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There's something really beneficial to self -examination and in connection with the weekly observance of the

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Lord's Supper. You and I should be keeping very short accounts with God and very short accounts with each other.

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If I'm starting to feel bitter towards someone in the body, someone in my family, I need to go to them and confess.

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I need to go to them and seek to be reconciled with them. If I'm not caring so much about God and His Word and His commands,

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I need to repent on Saturday and on Sunday when I come and start afresh anew. The Lord's Supper and the wisdom of God, and I think the blessing of taking it each week, keeps us having short accounts.

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That's a wonderful thing, but it requires self -examination. And it brings me to this point of a principle.

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I don't think we ever examine ourselves, really. We don't change very often.

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Our bad behavior and our bad habits, we persist. Maybe we persist in those things and those sins and those behaviors and those attitudes because we refuse to compress them and to confront them and to examine them in the quietness of our heart, in the mirror of God's Word.

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The Christian life is a life of self -examination. Am I living in a manner that's pleasing to God, not just for communion, but for everything?

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And if I'm living a daily life of self -examination, you can say, well, that would be morbid and I would be depressed and I would feel sad all the time.

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And certainly that's a possibility, but I think you'd be reminded of the great forgiveness of Christ, the great hope that we have that He is doing a work in us, that He's growing us in maturity.

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I think we wallow in despair when we let it go. It's like having a health condition.

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You know, just go to the doctor on day one, you'll be okay. We wait a few years.

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I think it's like that in our sin life. We don't confront it. It's uncomfortable.

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It's unpleasant. We don't want to go there. It's a dark place for us. It's a hard thing to deal with.

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So we avoid it. We procrastinate it. We push it down the road a little bit.

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So a principle here is we need to live lives of self -examination.

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There's very little Christian -to -Christian help in this area, but it's probably even more sparse for many believers to never examine themselves, to never consider that what they're doing may be wrong, that they might need to change.

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So we come to the Lord's Supper. There's a great occasion for this. Am I upholding the spirit of the greatest commandment and the one that's like it?

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Do I have wholehearted, unreserved devotion to Christ? Do I love my neighbor as myself?

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In my deficiencies, I need to confront, to repent, and I need to change and walk in newness of life.

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So the Corinthians here, there's a lot of problems at the church, and Paul says you get to the business now of dealing with all of it.

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You go examine yourself, confront this attitude of party spirit and sectarianism, this hatred you have for one another, and you repent, and you turn, and you start going about it the right way.

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There's something amazing about the faith that we are a part of, and I wish we laid hold of it more.

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We're the only religion, that's true, obviously, but we're the only ones who believe in forgiveness and second chances and new starts.

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And Paul's giving the Corinthians a chance to change. He's giving them the instruction they need to amend their practice.

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There is so much power in forgiveness, to forgive those who have wronged you, to ask for forgiveness for those whom you've wronged.

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There's something beautiful that knits our hearts together like nothing else in this area of forgiveness.

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Husbands and wives, you need to forgive each other often.

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It's the chief business of married couples. Don't hold grudges toward one another.

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Really sincerely forgive each other. Parents and children, your relationship is one marked by forgiveness.

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In our household, sometimes fire and brimstone comes down, but there's always forgiveness and restoration.

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At least in our hearts, it's our desire that it would be that way. Children, you should always forgive your parents for failing to lead you well and for making the mistakes and sins that they make.

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Parents, we need to confess to our children that we sin and that we need to repent and that we need forgiveness, that they might have a model to see their own pattern of life being one of forgiveness and restoration and reconciliation, both with God and with others.

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So today, there's a real imperative for us. Not only at the Lord's Supper, but in all of life, we must examine ourselves.

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Next, in verse 29 and 30, we need to understand something of discerning the

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Lord's body. And I think this switches here in this section from what was saying in verse 27.

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I believe in this case, the Lord's body is referring to the church for those for whom

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Christ has died. The only way that we can have contempt and have hatred for another

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Christian is to forget who they are in Christ. If I look at my mortal enemy in the

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Christian faith, whoever that might be, who I perceive to be, and if I'm filled with hatred,

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I'm saying, in effect, that Christ's blood has not covered all of their sin.

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I'm saying that there's no possibility that God is sanctifying them.

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I am demeaning and diminishing the glorious work of Christ in other believers.

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And you have to be on guard for this. In our contempt for one another, other

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Christians, we can say effectively, there is no efficacy for Christ's sacrifice in that person.

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What a hateful thing to say to those for whom Christ has died. So at the start, and not discerning the

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Lord's body, at the start, I have to think wrongly about my brothers and sisters in Christ.

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I have to deny the work that has happened in Christ to cover their sin and to make them alive in Him.

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And so the Corinthian era, they weren't ever thinking about the consequences of their actions and their attitudes.

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They weren't thinking about anyone but themselves. And so often, you and I fall into this problem.

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Well, there's something else, and this is terrifying. The language of 27 and the language of 30 are terrifying.

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And I think we always want to soften the language and make it easier and more palatable to absorb.

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But Paul says, people have died. People are weak and sick among you because of their contempt for Christ and His people.

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I hope it doesn't ever happen, but boy, it would shake up the Christian church, wouldn't it, if people started dying because they didn't love their brethren and treated

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God's things in a blasphemous way. And we have examples in the

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Scripture of people dying. Ananias and Sapphira, disobedience to God, lying blasphemously in the

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Holy Spirit, quenching the Spirit. They were struck down.

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Paul says, maybe there were people in the church at Corinth who had died, and there were people who were suffering from illnesses that were unexplainable to them.

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And Paul says, the cause of this judgment, the consequence of this is your contempt for Christ, His holy things, and His people.

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For this reason, many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. And as you know, in the

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New Testament, that language of sleep is connected to death. What a terrifying thing.

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How serious is this business in the church? How serious is this business of communion where impropriety could lead to sickness and death?

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Serious business. I wonder if you and I have been coming with the proper reverence and sobriety to the table.

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Have we treated it as an ordinary thing? Have we treated it with contempt? Well, Paul warns us against that notion.

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And if there be any tendency in you, you don't need to self -excommunicate. You need to examine yourself and repent and to turn.

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In verse 31, there's another principle, and it's a wonderful principle, the principle of self -government.

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Children, I want to address you, because if you will embrace this, you'll be wildly successful in your life.

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I'm not a professional, motivational speaker, but this is really true.

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It would be very helpful to you. Do you know that if you possess the wisdom to discipline yourself, other people and the

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Lord won't have to discipline you? I want you to think about that. If you possess self -discipline, your mom and your dad don't have to punish you.

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The Lord doesn't have to chasten you. Because we don't examine ourselves, we don't judge ourselves.

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You see, we have to look at ourselves and our attitudes and say, is this consistent with God and His Word?

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Is this consistent with me loving my brethren? If it's not, I need to make a judgment about myself.

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I need to stop what I'm doing. Isn't it a radical idea? If I go the speed limit, the police don't give me tickets.

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It's a strange thing, isn't it? If I pay my taxes, they don't come and seize my property.

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It's amazing how it works. There's something in us that wants to rebel against this notion.

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What an amazing thing if our little ones learned at a very young age to discipline themselves, to judge themselves.

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Paul says, if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. Let's turn back to 1

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John pretty quickly, which is the time I've minimized some of the cross -references today, but I'd like to look at 1

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John 5. 1

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John 1 .5 This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

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If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

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I think the Corinthians, the erring ones, are guilty of verse 6.

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And there may be some of us who are today. We can't say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness.

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You remember a few weeks ago from chapter 10, can we drink the cup of blessing and also drink the cup of demons?

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It's not possible. So, that navigation that you're wrestling with, being worldly and being a good

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Christian, and that tension you're trying to uphold, is impossible. We have to be full on for Christ.

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100 % sold out, radical for Jesus. Verse 7.

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If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.

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And here it is. If I don't examine, if I don't judge myself, that we're so fragile, no one can say a crossword against us.

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I'll collapse into a heap of my own frailty if you say something against me. We fail because of our sensitivity.

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We fail to look at ourselves. I don't want people to tell me all the things I do wrong. I get that.

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But will you look in the mirror? Will you hold up the Scripture to your life and examine yourself?

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And the answer is, most likely many of us aren't. If we would examine ourselves, if we would judge ourselves, we could never say we have no sin.

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The only way you can say you have no sin, the only way you can deceive yourself, is not examining and not judging.

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So it's impossible to be guilty of verse 8 in a perpetual sense if I'm regularly examining myself and judging my actions and attitudes in the light of Scripture.

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So it sounds pretty bleak. Truth of God, Zionists, all of that. But then comes the

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Gospel rushing in again. You're a desperately wicked sinner.

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And there's a sense in which you have to be honest about that. Because if you get to that place, then you see the wonder of His grace.

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If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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If you're avoiding it, you never get to that place. You've got to confront it.

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You've got to examine. You have to judge. If we say that we have not sinned, we make

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Him a liar. And His Word is not in us.

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Well, we have to rightly discern the Lord's body. We have to judge ourselves.

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Let's go back to our text. We have to consider one another now. In verse 31, we would judge ourselves.

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We would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the

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Lord. Loving fathers correct their children.

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If you're suffering some chastening from the Lord, thank

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Him for loving you like a father would love his child. I would be eager to get out of that situation by new obedience, true repentance.

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But if you are being chastened by the Lord, rejoice. The Lord loves you.

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He's not going to let you keep going down that path. He's going to correct you.

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When we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord that we may not be condemned with the world.

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Have you ever in recent days thought, I don't know how lost people do it, how they live their life without Jesus, and such with some of us, of course, prior to our conversion to Christ.

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They don't know what it's like to receive the correction of a loving father, to be chastened by the

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Lord in this way. They live life in their own blissful ignorance, unaware of the danger that lurks all around them.

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They live in ignorance about their condition before God, but that's not true for us.

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We know the laws. We know that we've broken them, and we know that we have to be corrected.

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That's how it is, isn't it, for children and their parents? When children violate commands, they don't know the law.

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We're very gracious to them, aren't we? We say, well, you didn't understand this, but it's not okay for you to burn down the barn.

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It's not something we're allowed to do. So now you have the law. Don't burn down the barn. You're three years old, okay?

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Don't do this ever again. You're not going to burn down the barn. But see, for us, we have the commandments of God.

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We have the word of God, and now we have the responsibility, the obligation, and it's really a blessing, the duty, to obey.

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If we don't, we're corrected. So I believe some chastening was coming upon the

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Corinthian saints, and Paul says this is the reason the chastening was coming, and the

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Father loves you, and that's why you're being chastened, that you may not be condemned with the world.

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Finally, a word of unity and consideration. When you come together to eat, wait for one another.

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If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment.

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And Paul says, and the rest he will set in order when he comes.

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There's something very subtle here. I hope you can catch it. He uses this very familial language, brethren, this idea of coming together and one another.

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This is a big part of the Christian life. We have to not betray the essence of our religion by acting crazy around the

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Lord's Supper or in the worship of his church. When you come together, wait for one another.

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Be considerate of one another. Be unified in a singular allegiance to Christ.

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Don't come for gluttony. Don't come for drunkenness. Come for the right reason.

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Well, what do we do now? I'm going to give you five things to meditate upon for application, and I think these will be helpful to you even today.

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First, we come to the Lord's Supper, and this is so exciting. On Saturday night and Sunday morning, you should be meditating upon the finished work of Christ.

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You should be thinking, Christ has done it. He's atoned for my sin.

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The finished work, the accepted work. God's wrath is satisfied.

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The justice of God, kids, you have to understand this, it's so remarkable. The justice of God demanded that sin be paid for, that God's wrath be poured out.

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Demanded. And all of that wrath was directed at Christ in our place.

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There is no wrath of God left for the people of God because of what

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He's done. Isn't that a wonderful thought? Isn't that amazing? There's not an ounce of wrath left because it's been satisfied in Christ.

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We will not suffer penal sanction from our God as the people of God because of what

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Christ has done. Meditate on that. And come with a spirit of reverence, joy, and thanksgiving.

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Number two, very simply, examine yourself. Is there any strife?

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Are there any signs of disunity? Any lack of love for Christ's people?

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Any scandalous sin? If so, repent.

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Make the change right now. You're enabled to do this in the power of the Holy Spirit.

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Number three, I want lots of self -examination, but I want zero self -excommunication.

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Don't be so falsely pious and say, I'm too unholy to come to the Lord's table.

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You're drawing attention to yourself and it's a false piety. None of us are actually worthy.

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That's the whole point. That's the wonder and mystery and greatness of His grace.

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It's why we need Christ. Fourth, let's not forget, in the absence of time

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I skipped over a little section and it's in my application again, but there are obligations that are imposed upon us in the supper, and that's very foreign to our very selfish tendencies.

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There are heavy obligations laid upon us at the supper. We must be singularly devoted to Christ.

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We must obey His commandments. And there's a very real sense in which we're renewing this pledge every week we come.

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We say, Christ is my Lord, and I am obedient to Him. I follow Him. I walk in His ways.

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He died for me. I live for Him. Those are obligations that He has put on us.

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They're glorious obligations, but they're real obligations. And fifth, finally, you need to talk about this with your family.

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You need to train your children to love this sacred ordinance and treasure all the holy things of God.

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And you say, okay, I've got a message, I've got a job to do in teaching my children.

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It is required that you fully embrace this yourself. If you're teaching them something you don't believe, they're not going to believe it either.

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If you have an abysmal view of the Lord's Supper, your children will. So not only do you have to instruct the truth, you have to live it.

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You have to believe it and live it before them. And this could be a hard thing.

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We need to examine ourselves. We need to judge. In the power of the

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Holy Spirit, we need to change. And all of this is done in the safety and security of the love of Christ who has died for us, that we might be enabled to even undertake the task of striving to do it right.

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Let's pray together. Lord, I confess for us corporately, for my family, for me personally, our sheer and utter lack of reverence.

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You are a holy God. You've called us to be a holy people. We've treated you as if you are not holy, and we've treated ourselves like we're not called to holiness.

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What a blasphemous thing to be irreverent, to trivialize the holy, all those things that belong to you.

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Lord, so I ask that you would grant forgiveness to us, that you'd give us true repentance and a change of heart and mind, that we would highly esteem your holy things.

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Lord, there's something else where we're so selfish. We tend to make the

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Lord's Supper about us individually, and we cry out,

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I'm not worthy to partake of the Lord's Supper. I'm so spiritual that I could never do it.

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Lord, help us to see it for what it is. Help us to see our unworthiness, and that being the point of why we so desperately need

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Christ. Lord, when we come, I pray that you would not let us come in an unworthy manner.

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I pray that you would grant us a spirit of self -examination and courage, a spirit of self -excommunication.

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Lord, finally I ask that we would have so much love for you that the overflow of that would be love for our brothers and sisters in Christ, that we would love our spouses and our children and our parents and our extended family, our brothers and sisters, all those who belong to the body of Christ with Christ -centered love, demonstrate the royal love of love, that we would love others as you have loved us.

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Lord, today I pray that the significance of the Supper, our senses would be heightened today because we've been thinking about it these last three weeks.

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I pray that that would yield good fruit, knowing that this is a means of grace, and you're pleased to spiritually nourish us as we partake.