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1 Corinthians 11:17-34
To 1 Corinthians chapter 11, and I forgot again, Alex, I apologize.
1 Corinthians chapter 11, we'll
begin in verse 17.
This will be, I am preaching tonight, it'll be a little bit different as far as we're going to read
this Scripture, we're going to read a little bit out of the Confession, and then we're going to quickly read
what our bylaws say about the Lord's Supper before I preach tonight.
But a great, kind of give you a
background of Paul, he's addressing the Corinthian church here
and he's addressing, he's talking about the Lord's Supper.
And the background of it is that there was a great misuse of the Lord's Supper
taking place here.
And Paul is rebuking them for partaking of the Lord's Supper wrongly.
They were using it as a time to make social
distinctions between rich and poor, they were seeing it as a time where the wealthy were eating
and even getting drunk while the poor were left without.
And so Paul rebukes them for this and then he corrects them and correctly
tells them how to observe the Lord's Supper.
So we're in 1 Corinthians 11.
If you found that, if you'd please stand tonight as we reverence the reading of God's Holy Word.
1 Corinthians 11 beginning in verse 17.
But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come
together it is not for the better but for the worse.
For in the first place, when you come together as a church, 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, 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 gave thanks, He broke it and said, This is my body
which is for you, do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way, He also 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 the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
Whoever therefore eats the bread and 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 so that he may
eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
So that examine himself then and so eat of 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 truly, we would not be judged.
But 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.
About other things I will give directions when I come.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Father God, once again we thank you for these that have gathered here
tonight.
Lord God, we thank you for the prayers that were prayed, for each one who prayed and
those who prayed silently.
Father God, we are thankful for the song that was sung.
We pray, Father God, that you would receive all the glory that is due your name, that no one in here
would desire any glory for themselves, but would desire that you be glorified.
And we pray that you are glorified in the preaching of the Word tonight.
I pray, Father, that you would help me as I preach this Word, that you would help me to preach it rightly.
We might understand this ordinance rightly, Father God, so that when we partake, we do so
according to your Word.
Father God, I just pray, Father, that Lord, even through this, Lord
God, this is a great opportunity for those who are without you, those who have never
been born again.
This is a great opportunity for them to see the Gospel, to see and maybe
understand, Father God, what you did on Calvary.
And so I pray that through tonight that you might draw sinners under repentance, that you might
draw these that are among us, even these children, Father God, that have never been
born again, that they might be drawn, that they might truly repent and trust in you.
We ask all these things in Christ's name.
Amen.
There's a lot more than just the Lord's Supper in these verses that we could cover.
Tonight, we're only going to address the things pertaining to the Lord's Supper.
And I do want to read just a few paragraphs out of the 1689
in regards to the Lord's Supper.
If somebody brings one with them every service, I'm on page 55.
If not, I'm going to read it to you.
But we're going to read just a few paragraphs.
There's a couple that I skipped.
It's not that they're not important.
It would take a long time to read all of them.
Paragraph 1.
The supper of the Lord Jesus was instituted by Him the same night He was betrayed.
It is to be observed in His churches to the end of the age as the perpetual remembrance and display of
the sacrifice of Himself in His death.
It is given for the confirmation of the faith of believers in all the benefits of Christ's death, with their
spiritual nourishment and growth in Him, and their further engagement in and to all the duties
they owe Him.
The supper is to be a bond and pledge of their communion with Christ and each other.
Paragraph 2.
In this ordinance, Christ is not offered up to His Father, nor is any real
sacrifice made at all for the remission of sin, of the living and the dead.
It is only a memorial of the one offering Christ made of Himself on the cross once and
for all.
It is also a spiritual offering of the highest possible praise to God for that sacrifice.
Thus, the Roman Catholic sacrifice of the mass, as they call it, is utterly detestable and
detracts from Christ's own sacrifice, which is the only propitiation for all the sins of the
elect.
Paragraph 4.
Denying the cup to the people, worshiping the elements, lifting them up or carrying them
around for adoration or reserving them for some pretended religious use are all contrary
to the nature of this ordinance and to the institution of Christ.
Paragraph 5.
The outward elements of this ordinance, properly set apart for the use ordained by Christ,
have such a relationship to Christ crucified that they are sometimes called, truly though
figuratively, by the names of the things they represent, that is, the body and blood of Christ.
However, in substance and nature, they still remain truly only bread and wine as they were
before.
Paragraph 7.
Worthy recipients who outwardly partake of the visible elements of this ordinance also by faith
inwardly receive and feed on Christ crucified and all the benefits of His death.
They do so really and truly, yet not physically and bodily, but spiritually.
The body and the blood of Christ are not present bodily or physically in the ordinance, but spiritually to the
faith of believers, just as the elements themselves are present to their outward senses.
And then finally, all ignorant and ungodly people are unfit to enjoy communion with Christ
and are thus unworthy of the Lord's table.
As long as they remain in this condition, they cannot partake of these holy mysteries or be admitted to the
Lord's table without committing a great sin against Christ.
All those who receive the supper unworthily are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, eating and
drinking judgment on themselves.
So that was quite a few chapters of chapter 30 of the 1689
confession of faith.
And then our bylaws come from this.
The Lord's Supper is an act of obedience whereby Christians through partaking of the symbols of the bread and the
cup commemorates the saving death of Jesus Christ and anticipates
His second coming.
See chapter 30 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession.
The Lord's Supper will be held monthly or more often as the pastor may deem necessarily appropriate.
The pastors will administer the Lord's Supper with the aid of the deacons.
All members who are not under church discipline of the church and are not in secret sin are expected to
partake of the Lord's Supper.
Members in good standing of churches of like faith and practice are welcome to partake of
the supper.
And so now we get into our text.
I did want to remind us of that this is something that we see in Scripture
and this is something that our Baptist forefathers have adhered to a long time and
we as we were going through our confession of faith, as we were going through the
bylaws, we desired to be obedient to Scripture.
And so that is why I have read that this evening.
So this morning we looked at church discipline by asking questions about it.
Why we do it, who it was for, how that it is done.
And I want to do the same thing here tonight for the Lord's Supper as we examine our text
in 1 Corinthians 11.
The first question that I want us to answer, I want us to look at is where does
the Lord's Supper come from?
So look in verse 23 in chapter 11 of 1 Corinthians.
It says, 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 He goes on to say, and took the cup.
So where does the Lord's Supper come from?
It comes from Christ.
It is recorded in Matthew and Mark and Luke.
It is not a man -made ritual.
What we do tonight is not man -made, but it is rather a Christ -ordained ordinance.
That is what it is tonight.
And we know from Corinthians that this was practiced by the early church as
it was laid out first by our Lord and Savior.
Therefore, we also are to practice this.
But where does it come from?
It comes from the Lord.
When and where is it taken?
So we know where it comes from.
And while we have no exact specifics for how
often it is to be taken, I do believe Paul is arguing or rather highlighting
that it is to be taken very regularly.
You say, why do I say that?
Well, look at our text.
There are several verses here that I want us to notice what he says.
Look at verse 17.
He says, when you come together.
Verse 18, when you come together as a church.
Verse 20, when you come together.
Flip over and look at verse 33.
So then my brothers, when you come together.
Verse 34, so that when you come together.
He over and over and over, five times there in just our short text,
he says, when you come together.
And it could be argued that he's saying every week when you come together you partake, but we know for
sure that he is meaning very regularly.
Very regularly, at least.
That Paul is stating that they were taking part of this on a
regular basis.
When is it to be taken?
On a regular basis?
When you come together.
When we come together.
Where is it to be taken?
Where they are coming together.
Where they are meeting to worship.
For us, it is to be taken here in our place of worship.
Where we come together and we worship.
This has been overlooked by many believers in our day.
I was one of those that, you want to take it at a wedding?
That's fine.
You want to do a drive -thru?
If you want to take it at home, that's fine.
But I was, and too many are missing, number one, the point of the ordinance, and number
two, the example that Paul gives us here in Corinthians.
That this is an ordinance that we take as a body.
He distinguishes.
He makes a distinction between their meal at home and the Lord's Supper when they gather.
And so that's an important distinction.
That we partake of the Lord's Supper when we come together.
And when we come together, it's here as a body.
It is a local church ordinance to be administered and practiced by the local church.
Not at a home, not at a wedding, but where the local church meets.
So we have, when was it, where did it come from?
When and where was it taken?
And then we have, who takes part?
Who takes part in the Lord's Supper and what we are doing tonight?
When you, so who takes part?
Verse 18, he says, when you come together as a church.
When you come together as a church.
What does he mean by church?
What do we mean when we say church?
We mean the body of Christ.
And he is specifically talking here to a local body of believers in a
local church.
And so he is referencing those who have been born again.
You're not part of the body of Christ.
You're not part of the true church unless you have been born again.
Unless you have repented of your sins and trusted in Christ.
He is referencing those who have been born again.
It is reserved for Christians only.
We welcome unbelievers to be present and to watch the taking part
in that we do as a body.
But this is an ordinance that is for believers.
This is an ordinance that is for the church.
This is an ordinance of the Lord.
And this is a serious one.
We'll talk a little bit more about that in just a few minutes.
But as an ordinance of the Lord and as something that we take serious, we guard it the best that we
can.
That is why we have it in our bylaws.
That is why we say the things that we have in our bylaws.
Those who we believe to be believers who have been baptized, as we believe all
believers are instructed to be, who are part of a local church as is consistent with the
New Testament teachings.
And there are many churches today that we believe are in error in their view of baptism
and biblical church membership.
So to better guard this ordinance and those taking part, we limit it
to members of our church or another local church of like faith and practice who are not under
church discipline.
It is not our desire to put man -made restrictions on this, be mean or to have our own secret
club that we just leave people out of.
Because there's two ditches that we want to avoid here.
I think these are important.
One ditch is that we do not want to deny baptized believers the Lord's Supper.
We never want to be a church that we're denying people who have been born again, who have been baptized.
We do not want to deny them the Lord's Supper.
And we also want to avoid the ditch of not protecting the importance of this ordinance or
the people partaking.
It is our desire to guard this ordinance.
It is our desire to guard those who partake.
It is done with the souls of Christians who partake in mind as well as unbelievers
who should not take part.
As well as the unbelievers who should not partake, we have their souls in mind as well.
We do not mind if, like I said, we don't mind if unbelievers or lost people are here when
we partake.
It is great for them to see that they do not participate.
Neither do those believers who we do not believe to be in
accordance with the Word of God by not being both baptized and desiring to be a
part of the local church.
And this is our best effort to ensure that unbelievers and Christians living in
disobedience to God don't drink judgment upon themselves.
So that is who takes part.
What takes place?
Whenever we come up here, whenever Quatro and myself, when we talk about the body,
when we talk about the blood, when those of you who are participating come up and you receive the bread and you receive the
cup, and we pray over it and you partake, what is happening?
What are we doing here?
Simply you could say this is an act of worship.
This is an act of worship to a holy God.
There's three things I want to point out about what takes place here.
And the first one is it is a physical action.
Look at our text.
Verses 23 -25 says, 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.
In the same way He also 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.
It is a physical action.
We are physically taking the bread and the cup.
And we shouldn't get caught up in the debate of whether the bread was cooked just right
or is it supposed to be juice or wine.
There are many that tend to go beyond Scripture in their arguments and their demands on these.
However, it should be viewed as serious.
We don't come up here and take Mountain Dew and Doritos.
I think Quattro's used that illustration before.
We don't do that.
Because this is a serious matter.
We do not mock the death of Christ on our behalf.
It is also a mental action.
Look at verses 24 and 25.
He says, and when He had given thanks He broke it.
This is My body which is for you.
In the same way He also took the cup after supper saying, This cup is the new
covenant in My blood.
It is a mental action.
We are remembering what Christ has done.
When we take part of this, we are not just daydreaming about what we're doing after church tonight.
We're not daydreaming about what we have to get done at home or our week of work that is coming up.
We are doing this in remembrance of Christ.
We are focused upon that.
Our mind is set upon remembering what Christ has done for us on Calvary.
Remembering His body that was broken.
Remembering His blood that was shed.
Consciously remembering it and thanking upon it.
His body that was broken as a punishment for our transgressions.
His blood that was spilled for the forgiveness of our sins.
We remember this.
It is on our mind.
His body and His blood are not physically present as some may falsely claim,
but we do have two ditches we want to avoid here as well.
We don't want to wrongly view this ordinance as in some way giving salvation,
but also this is a serious and important matter and not something
that we should be willy -nilly about or take lightly.
What we are doing tonight is important.
It should be met with seriousness and we should be thanking upon and remembering upon the sacrifice that Christ
has made.
It is a spiritual action.
Look at verses 27.
We're going to go down to verse 30.
Whoever therefore eats the bread and 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 of the bread and drink of the cup.
He says, examine yourself.
Let a person examine himself.
First off, to see whether you are in the faith.
To whether you are a believer and are you in obedience to God in your life.
You say, I'm a believer.
Are you in obedience to God?
Are you harboring unrepentant sin?
Examine yourself for this is serious.
For if you drink unworthily, you are guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
And you drink condemnation.
You drink judgment upon yourself.
Turn back a chapter.
1 Corinthians 10 beginning in verse 14.
Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.
I speak as to sensible people.
Judge for yourselves what I say.
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
Because there is one bread for we who are many are one body.
For we all partake of the one bread.
Consider the people of Israel.
Are not those who eat of the sacrifices participating in the altar?
What do I imply then?
That food offered to idols is anything?
Or that an idol is anything?
No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons and not to God.
I do not want you to be participants with demons.
You cannot drink of the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.
You cannot partake in the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy?
Are we stronger than He?
This is another passage that highlights the seriousness of it.
Verse 17 he says, because there is one bread, we who are many
are one body.
We are one body who by faith, in verse 16 of what we just read, are
participating in the blood and the body of Christ.
Meaning that we are remembering the gift we have been given in Christ and the gift
of being part of the body of Christ.
And we are aligned with Christ in our participation at the Lord's table.
Further illustrating that this is an ordinance for believers alone.
It is done in praise from our soul offered to Christ our King.
And so may we as a local body partake of the Lord's supper with a love
in our hearts for God and one another, a hope in Him alone and faith in the One
who was broken and bled for us.
And may we approach it with reverence, with joy and the utmost
seriousness.
Let us pray.
Father God, we are so thankful, Lord, for Your Word.
We are so thankful for the supreme sacrifice of Your Son.
Father God, while we were guilty and we deserved damnation, we deserved Your wrath
in a very real place called hell.
Father God, You have shown us mercy in the offering of Your Son who came
and was born of a virgin.
He came and He lived the perfect life that we could not live.
He came and He took upon the curse of us all.
Father God, if He endured Your almighty and Your
all -powerful wrath, for our sins, Father God, that His body was
broken and His blood was shed, that we might be forgiven.
Father God, He rose on the third day to signify
that the payment was accepted, that it was paid in full.
Father God, and as we gather here and we partake at Your table, pray,
Father God, that it would be done, Lord, with joy in our hearts and with love for You and with love for one
another.
Father God, but that it would be done, Lord, with reverence.
Father God, that as we partake, that we would not be worried about the cares of the world or
what we're going to eat for supper tonight or a busy week ahead at work, Father, but that we
would have our minds fixed upon Your Son and the sacrifice
that was made for us.
Father God, help us, Lord, to be in obedience to You in all of these things.
Lord, I pray that when you look down, that you're pleased with what you see,
that you're glorified in Christ.