Communion Message

Looking Around at the Communal Meaning of the Lord's Supper

Well, this morning we have a little extra time for preparing for the Lord's Supper, and I felt it was appropriate given where we left things last week in Exodus 12 to perhaps delve in a little bit deeper on the matter of partaking of the Lord's Supper.

Partly that's because of some helpful interactions I had during the Lunch Fellowship last week. You recall we spoke of this relationship between the Passover, which at the end of chapter 12, God said was only for His people, only for the circumcised, and that connection between the Passover and the Lord's Supper.

It's a table and a meal only for the baptized, that is all the congregation of Israel. And so as we said last week from Philip Rykin, Passover was exclusive, it was only for the people of God. Outsiders had not yet put their faith in the God of Israel, and so they had no right to receive the atonement He provided through the Passover lamb.

It was not appropriate for them to receive the sign of salvation because they had not trusted in the blood of the lamb. And then Rykin rightly states, the church maintains the same restriction on the Lord's table.

It is only for those who have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, last week we clarified eligibility. Who is able to partake? What we did not clarify is how we ought to partake. So we spoke to who may partake, but we did not speak at great depth on how we are to partake.

And that's what I'd like to spend some time doing now. When we think of the Lord's Supper, we're called to look in different directions. First, the Lord's Supper calls us to look around, that is circumspect, looking around.

Secondly, the Lord's Supper calls us to look within, that is introspect, looking within. Third, the Lord's Supper calls us to look behind, that is retrospect. And then fourth, the Lord's Supper calls us to look ahead, that is prospect.

So looking around, looking within, looking behind, looking ahead. First, the Lord's Supper, looking around. In 1 Corinthians 11, beginning in verse 17, where Paul gives intense focus and application on how the church at Corinth was failing to keep the Lord's Supper, he writes this, in giving these instructions, I do not praise you, since you come together not for the better, but for the worse.

For first of all, when you come together as a church, 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.

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. One is hungry and others drunk. What? Don't you have houses to eat and drink in?

Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? Verses 33 and 34. Brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment.

Now what stands out in that sort of cursory reading of verses 17 through 34? You'll note this Hebraic way of emphasis through repetition. We have the phrase, come together, five times in the short amount of sentences.

So Paul is getting across the significance of actually coming together, which as we can see, is deeper than just showing up at the same place in roughly the same time. That Paul is speaking more importantly to coming together as a corporate function, a corporate unity for the partaking of the meal.

Remember with the Passover, this was also emphasized. Every household must eat together simultaneously. There's no hint of isolated spirituality. As we said last week, Eleazar doesn't put his head down and say, you know, dad, this Passover this year, I just need to go to the woods and kind of be alone, really reflect on my relationship with the Lord.

That's not an option for Eleazar. It's not an option for you. The Lord's supper is communal. There is no privatized experience for this feast. As we saw in Exodus 12, all the congregation must partake.

So Paul is concerned, as the Lord is concerned, for bodily unity. All the congregation, whether it be of Israel or of Corinth, must partake together without division. So the thing we see as far as looking around is communion is communal.

Why do we call it communion? It's not only that vertical dimension of communing with the Lord, but it's also the horizontal dimension of communing with the Lord's people. Communion is communal. First Corinthians 10, a chapter earlier in verse 16, Paul says, the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?

The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? Now the word communion there, you may well remember from our time in Philippians, is koinonia, fellowship, right? Working together, joining in together towards some end.

And that's what Paul is speaking of. Notice the ambiguity. The cup of blessing which we bless, is that not the communion of Christ's blood, partaking of Christ's blood? The body which is broken, the bread which we break, is it not the communion, the fellowship of the body of Christ?

So Paul is already speaking to the corporate, the communal reality of the Lord's Supper. He says this right after, for we though many are one bread, one body, we all partake of one bread. It's easy for us to think, just because we're here, and we have some sort of synchronized manner of eating, that we're actually partaking together.

But that is not necessarily the case. So part of looking around, is actually acknowledging this family of God that you have been adopted into by the Holy Spirit. That means we may be eating in the same place, at the same time, but we're not partaking together if you go in your special place to partake.

It's the horse blinders are on, and you know, the room is now vanished, and I am alone in the presence of God. Well that's not partaking together. That's not the communion of the body of Christ. So part of looking around is acknowledging this family of God.

You are surrounded by blood-bought brothers and sisters. Do you notice that? Do you eat with them? This is a meal. How strange it would be to be one of the households among the Israelites, at keeping the Passover, and everyone comes and grabs their portion of the lamb, and they just head off to the little room.

Johnny sits in front of the TV, and then dad's, you know, sprawled out on the couch, and mom's upstairs putting things away. No, no, no, no. This is a family meal. You come to the table. There's no TV dinner trays, or anything parallel to that, when we partake.

Part of looking around, then, to your family, means there's absolutely no place for jealousy, no place for bitterness, no place for clamor, or envy, or outbursts of wrath. There's no place to have a tantrum, and say, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.

Look at them, so high and mighty. What about me? There's no place for us to look down upon who we're sitting with, nor with envy to look up, Oh, if only. We rather sit together, we all eat, we all partake of one bread, one cup.

Here, at this table, truly, as Paul says in Galatians 3 .28, there's no longer these divisions, whether they be distinctions of gender, or class, anything that the world might use to so separate us. In Christ, we are all one.

All these distinctions have passed away, when we come together before God, and are justified by our faith. Is there unity in this body? Do we truly love one another? More to the point, can I say, I love my brothers and sisters, and part of me partaking is to express this love.

I eat with them. I eat as them, as part of this family, at this table. Am I watchful for them? Do I care? This is what it means to discern the body of Christ during the Lord's Supper. It's not just the body, His broken body, His poured out blood represented in the elements, it's also discerning this body, His body, His members here on the earth.

So there's more than one way that we're called to discern the body. The remembrance of this cross, shown forth in these elements, doesn't just cause us to reflect on His death, but it causes us to reflect on what His death has brought about.

It's brought about this body that we've been called into. We've been united together by one spirit, one baptism, one calling in the Lord, one hope in the gospel. All of that is shown forth in the meal we eat together.

So we need corporate consumption. And if we have corporate consumption, we will have corporate celebration. And I love when churches say, now is our time to celebrate the Lord's Supper. That's really what it is.

It's a celebratory meal. Usually we say partake, that will do, but I love this language. Now we don't just observe, now we celebrate the Lord's Supper. And the preacher shouldn't come up and say, now we celebrate the Lord's Supper.

Please form an orderly line, right? There should be some mirth, some gratitude, some awe mixed into even the solemnity of this observation. If I could put it this way, it's a solemn observance, but it's clothed with joy.

It's clothed with gratitude, with wonder. So there's a place for solemnity, but it is still a celebration. And a celebration requires a group, right? The Lord would not have us party alone. No one sits alone in an empty living room with a little cupcake in front of them.

Now happy birthday for me. Now if it's going to be celebration, it needs people. It needs a group. And this meal, this feast is a celebration and we have a group. So that's the first point. The Lord's Supper calls us to look around.

Looking Within by Self-Examination and Hunger for Christ

Secondly, the Lord's Supper calls us to look within. And I might rely for the rest of these points on the Heidelberg Catechism, which I mentioned last week. Heidelberg Catechism question 81. And the question is this, who are to come to the table of the Lord?

And it begins with this answer, those who are truly displeased with themselves because of their sins. Now it has more to say, but let's just start there, right? We began with looking around. Now we're looking within.

There is a place for us to examine ourselves. Who is able to come to the table? Those who are truly displeased with themselves because of their sins. If we only look around, we'll err on one side of missing the point of the Lord's Supper.

If we only look within, we'll err on the other side. We need to look around and within. Paul writes this in 1 Corinthians 11, but let a man examine himself. So you discern the body, you look around, but then you look within.

Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Later he writes, for if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. Let a man examine himself. Let a man judge himself in light of that examination.

So we look not only outward, but inward in order to rightly come to the table and rightly partake. We follow Paul's exhortation to examine ourselves as only we can. No one can examine yourself quite like you can by God's enablement and in such a way that we're showing not only our displeasure for our sin, but also we're building up a hunger pain, if you could put it that way.

So when you look at your sins, you're longing to be delivered from them, longing for a day when you will not struggle in these ways. And so your soul is becoming hungry, saying, when, when will I be delivered from this body of death?

When, when, Lord, will I no longer have all of these sins and failures and shortcomings to bring to you weakly? Just the offenses that I enter into your house dressed in. And you have this longing in your soul, this hunger in your soul.

And God says, with that hunger pain, come and eat. Come and come and be nourished. God calls us to examine ourselves that we might be hungry so that he might feed us. Spurgeon talks about fencing the table.

And he says this, there's a very right and necessary thing to do, but some have so guarded the table that very few have even dared to come to it. And often those who have come are people that were filled more with conceit than with grace, while the better part, the truly humble, the broken hearted, have been frightened away.

There's always a danger that when we examine ourselves, those who have actually examined themselves rightly, who recognize their sin, are actually afraid and feel unworthy to come. Whereas those who don't even realize, oh, is it time to go up?

They haven't even had a thought about their standing before the Lord or the remembrance of his death and what that means and what that calls them to. All of a sudden they're just going, oh, people are going up.

I guess I should go up too. So it's very easy for people thoughtlessly to partake. And sometimes it's very hard for people who are introspective and have a very sensitive conscience to come and partake.

So how hard do we examine ourselves? In the same sermon, Spurgeon goes on to say this. Am I spiritually alive? Have I ever been quickened and given new life? Has the Holy Spirit brought me into this spiritual realm?

If so, am I hungering for Christ? Do I long for the water of life? If so, I may come to the table because here the Lord supplies the want of all those who live with him in Zion. The dead cannot feed, corpses don't eat or drink, dead sinners don't come to a feast for the living.

But if there's even a spark of spiritual life in you, though you are fainting, though you are sick, you have a right to come. And the next question is this. Here is a feast. But am I a friend of the Lord?

Who is the host at this table? It is the Lord Jesus. And Jesus invites all of his friends to feast. Well, have I taken him to be my savior? Am I trusting in his blood for my salvation? And in return, do I love him?

Do I love his cause? Do I love his people? Do I talk with him? Does he know me and do I know him? If so, I need not be afraid to come to his table for every friend of his is welcome there. And Spurgeon simply says, ask yourself these questions.

Now, in the Lord's Supper, we remember that God has not given us a weekly confessional booth. We're not going back to Luther's pre-Reformation days where we sit for 15 minutes and wallow in our sins and try to go through the Rolodex of any possible offense as though that is the means of our atonement.

It's not a means where God stirs up our guilty memories. Neither is the Lord's Supper an altar where we go through some form of rote penitence. This is how we show our penitence. This is how we express repentance.

No, no, no, no. The Lord's Supper is not a confessional booth and it's not an altar for guilt. The Lord's Supper is a table for a feast. This is not a means of guilt. This is a means of grace. So you look within not to stay within, but having actually reckoned with your sinfulness, you then look up to see what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us.

Brothers and sisters, so often we come to the Lord's table like the prodigal son came to his father's table. He came oblivious to the fact that the father was preparing a feast and we come begging like slaves.

Can I just have a scrap, just a crumb, just something to get me through the next week when I'll have to do this all over again? I feel really bad about what I've done. Don't be ignorant to the fact the father has spread a feast at such a great cost.

It would be an insult, an offense. To come to him begging when he's welcomed and invited you and robed you, put a ring on your finger and given you the best seat. This is why the lamb has been slaughtered, so that we may feast upon him.

Thomas Watson says it so well. Our sins should humble us, but they should never discourage us from coming to the Savior. The more bitterness we taste in our sin, the more sweetness we'll taste in Christ.

Looking Behind to the Cross and the Objective Work of Christ

So we look around and then we look within, but we don't stop there. In fact, it's a very dangerous thing to be morbidly introspective and never look toward the cross. And in order to look at the cross, we have to, third, look behind.

So we look around, we look within, and then having truly looked within, we look behind. Heidelberg 81. Who are to come to the table of the Lord? Answer, those who are truly displeased with themselves because of their sins, and yet trust that these are forgiven them and that their remaining weakness is covered by the suffering and death of Christ.

This approaches the very heart of the Lord's Supper, which is the very heart of the gospel. Just like the Passover, God has made a provision for our redemption. Paul writes this. He took bread, broke it and said, take, eat.

This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me, not in remembrance of you. What you have done, what you should have done, what you resolve to do.

No, no, no. Jesus says in remembrance of me, of what I have done for you. Thinking back to how God instructed his people during the Passover, we see that he intended for every Passover celebration to be like a reenactment.

They were to somehow get into the mind frame of eating in haste and being prepared to go and thinking through what it would be like to be there on that very night when God saved his people and spared the firstborn and brought them out of Egypt in their armies.

And so we have this reenactment, what Watson calls a visible sermon. When it comes to the partaking of the Lord's Supper, if I can put it this way delicately, we also are reenacting. Not reenacting the once for all sacrifice.

No, no, no. But rather reenacting, entering into the mind frame, re-experiencing the way that we came to repentance and faith in the gospel. Whenever we partake of the Lord's Supper, we are reenacting our repentance and the wave of assurance that we have truly closed with Christ.

That he is ours and we are his and we've been washed in the blood and we truly have been saved. We weakly reenact our hope in the gospel. Not as a hollow remembrance, but as an overflowing embrace. Not as a solitary confessional, but as we said, a communal celebration.

With these elements we're engaged with the symbolic manifestation of his grace. We hear it in the words with our ears. We see it in the elements. We touch it with our hands. We taste it just like we read in Exodus 13.

Between our eyes and in our hand and in our mouth. And it's the objectivity of these elements, these concrete, physically present elements that intrudes our subjective fears and anxieties. Am I really his?

Is it really possible that I could be a Christian after this length of time and this amount of failure? And such a pathetic return on his grace. Could it really be that even still I am worthy to be called his?

That I am named by his name? Maybe at first, when I first believed and I was flooded with assurance and I knew that his blood had done something in my soul. Maybe then, but 5, 10, 15 years on. The anxiety, the subjective groaning, the fears set in.

And these elements, as sure as we hold them, as sure as we taste them. As sure as we hear the words. So sure is our salvation in Christ. Are you eating? Are you drinking?

In faith?

Then you can be assured your sins are forgiven you. As surely as you eat. As surely as you drink. So sure is your partaking of Christ. So easy to lose the power of remembrance in this way. And very often we quickly step over the grace of God held forth in this feast.

And we quickly go back to that subjective fear.

I'll try harder. I'll do better.

Next week won't be like this week was. And all of a sudden we've turned away from the gospel. Away from the means of grace. And we're back to the means of guilt. Which is no fuel for grace at all. It's so easy to do this.

We can take a true statement and then put all of the emphasis on something without any balance whatsoever. And the devil will be happy to throw us in that direction. Let me give you an example of this.

A statement.

A well said and true statement. And I don't deny any part of it. It's very well written, well said. But our minds, our fears, our guilt cause us to ignore one thing and fixate on another. So here's the true statement.

Only sinners need the death and resurrection of Christ. And so sinners are welcomed to his table. Not all sinners may come. Only those who have trusted in Jesus alone for salvation. Yes, yes, okay, we know that.

Now we leave that behind. And this is what we fixate on. This trust bears fruit in submission to his lordship. That's what we fixate on. Sinners may come.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

If I've come rightly. If I have faith and it will bear fruit and I will submit. Lord, I'll be more fruitful this week. Lord, I'll submit better than I have. Please just give me more time. We're like the prodigal son.

Give me a crumb, give me a scrap. I'll be your slave. Thomas Wilcox, a Reformed Baptist from a little before in the 1650s and 1650s had a tremendous pamphlet called A Choice Drop of Honey from the Rock of Christ.

And he published it the year of the great fire in London. It was about a 40 page pamphlet. It was so wildly cherished that it went through five printings within 30 years. And this is what he says. I love this.

Do not legalize the gospel. The law, as we have heard and as we will see, the law has its rightful, needful place in the life of the Christian. But do not blur the distinction that is made between gospel and law.

Do not legalize the gospel. This is what he says. Do not legalize the gospel as if part remained for you to do and suffer. As if Christ were but half your mediator. As if you must bear your own sin and make your own satisfaction.

No, let sin break your heart, but not your hope in the gospel. We look behind at the objective accomplishment. Redemption accomplished. And that causes us lastly to look ahead. So looking around, discerning the body rightly, looking within.

Examining ourselves, judging ourselves that we would not be judged. And with the things that we find, that we see the guilt and we feel the sting of, we bring those to the cross. Looking behind. We objectively partake of what Christ has done for us.

Rather than partaking and resolving as though that will atone, we look at the atonement that God has provided. And we eat and drink in faith rejoicing. And that causes us to look ahead. The last part of Heidelberg 81.

Who are to come to the table of the Lord. Those who are truly displeased with themselves. Because of their sins and yet trust that these are forgiven them. And that their remaining weakness is covered by the suffering and death of Christ.

And who also desire more and more to strengthen their faith and amend their life. Grace bringing gratitude and gratitude bearing fruit. The more we embrace what God has accomplished through the cross, the more that accomplishment bears fruit in our lives.

That is causing us to look ahead. A memorial in the Old Testament is always something pointing back as it points forward. It points us back to what God accomplished. And points us forward to what God will ultimately do at the very end.

And that's what Paul says. As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the Lord's death until He comes. You see the Lord's death behind until He comes ahead. We look behind that we may look forward.

The Lord's death is not so that we will have weekly routines of confessing and examination. That may be the case now on this side of glory. But the Lord did not die for that to be the next three trillion years of our existence.

The Lord died so that the day would surely come when we are delivered fully from our body of death. And we're given a body like unto His. When we're delivered fully from our sinfulness and our failure.

When that alienation and separation, that gulf that stands between us and our maker is no longer perceptible, tangible in any way. But as much as we can eat together, we will eat with Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.

That is what it means to look ahead. As John Calvin says, here we see only bread and wine. But we do not doubt that the Lord accomplishes in our souls that which He shows forth in these signs, namely this.

He is the heavenly bread that feeds and nourishes us for eternal life. So this calls us to look at our status of being in the Lord. It causes us to examine His work of sanctification in us. And when we're looking at sanctification, we can't help but look forward to the day when that sanctification is consummated, which is glorification.

We look ahead to when He comes. And so this excites our hunger and thirst. As Jonathan Edwards said, here are the glorious objects of spiritual desire represented visibly by these signs. Christ set forth visibly.

Here we have spiritual meat, spiritual drink, given in such a way that excites our hunger and our thirst. Here we have a feast represented which God has provided for our poor souls. And here we hope in some measure to have our longing soul satisfied in this world by the gracious communication of the Spirit of God.

I love that. Here we hope in some measure to have our longings satisfied in this world.

In some measure.

In this world, it will always be in some measure.

It will not be whole.

This is a feast, but it's a relatively small feast compared to the marriage supper of the Lamb. There, all of our hunger pains will be satisfied. This is a holdover. This is a meal before that great feast.

It calls us to look ahead to that great marriage supper when we will eat with the Lord together. Not only as believers in this body, but with all believers of all time, from all places, of every tribe and every tongue.

When we will all sit down and feast together. The Lord's Supper calls us to look ahead. To see Him represented in these signs calls us to look to see Him with our eyes. To see Him in a way that faith becomes sight.

To see Him that we may be with Him and being with Him we may be like Him. May God help us as we partake now to look around. Look within.

Look behind. And look ahead.

Amen.

Fencing the Table for Baptized Believers

So let me fence the table. This is a meal for believers. And we would not withhold anyone who has confessed faith in Christ and has been baptized with a Christian baptism. We also ask that if they're visiting or not a part of this church, from wherever they're coming from, if there's a reason they could not partake there, that they would not partake here.

That they would go and have reconciliation there before they partake here. Other than that, we welcome every believer, anyone who has a spark of spiritual life that's been professed in faith and followed through in baptism.

That they would come and eat this meal in this way.

Let me pray.

Father, thank You that You have provided for us this great meal, this great feast. Lord, a piece of bread and a small cup of wine is not enough to nourish us physically, but it's more than enough to nourish us spiritually.

If we understand it aright. If we have examined ourselves not to stay within, but to look outward to You, to Your great provision. That You sent Your only Son. And that when He was with His people, He instituted this meal.

That they would partake of His broken body, which was broken for them. And His poured out blood, which was poured out for them. And even so, 2 ,000 years later, it is no different. Anywhere in the world this morning where this meal is being celebrated.

Your people are being brought to thank You for sending Your Son, our Savior, to die on our behalf. To assuage all of our guilty fears. To draw us close through that blood. Help us, Lord, to never, as we heard, legalize the Gospel.

But let us actually recognize the wonder and the awe of the Gospel. That it may truly bear the fruit that we often seek in the wrong way. From the wrong motivation. May we recognize, Lord, as we look around, that these are our brothers and sisters.

And this is the household of God. And this is a family meal. Is there any bitterness, any envy, any wrath, any distress, any irritation or faction or division within this body? Lord, rectify it now. Lest we eat and drink judgment upon this body.

May we eat as one body. With one bread and one cup. For this is what You died to bring about. Do this work, Lord, for Your glory and for our good. We pray in Your Son's name.