Bread & Cup (Part 1)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendroff. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the Scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

Visual Arts in New Testament Worship

I was reading Christianity Today this week and it was talking about how visual arts in churches are on the rise. Things to see, banners, dancers, drama, mazes, incense, things that you can see and it's on the rise in local churches, they said.

And I've been to churches before where there's all kinds of visual arts and so the question this morning is, are there any visual arts for New Testament worship? What are the visual arts? And I would like to say to you that God employs visual arts in worship.

But it's interesting, they're not flashy, they're not like Old Testament temple worship with priests and trumpet and incense and gold. Music stands, it's a piece of bread and it's a cup. Those are the visual arts for the Christian.

And you can tell as churches become more and more desirous to go back to Old Testament tabernacle and temple worship with vestments and hats and staffs and gold and bowing and visual arts, they're moving farther and farther away from what Jesus did with a piece of bread and a cup.

The Corinthians' Selfishness at the Lord's Table

Let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 11 this morning as we're going verse by verse through the book of 1 Corinthians. If you're visiting today, you might want to grab a blue Bible that's around you because you'll need it.

If you've forgotten your Bible, grab your Bible and we'll look at 1 Corinthians chapter 11 and our new verses for today will be verses 26 through 34. But we'll really touch on the entire passage one more time just in case you weren't here last week and need to grasp the context.

And here's what's happening. I think I said last week that the Corinthians were thinking about all kinds of issues wrongly including the way they treated one another at mealtime. They'd get together as a church and have mealtime and the poor people and the slaves who got there late showed up and there really wasn't any food left because the rich people who didn't have to work, who could bring their own good food, didn't share anything.

Now if you think pot providence, pot luck back in those days like we have, everybody just brings a little food to share. You bring with the intention to share. If you think that way, you're not thinking the way these people would do it because that's not what they did although they should have.

They'd bring what they call basket lunches and so you'd bring a basket lunch if I was going to your house, I would bring my own basket lunch over and then I could just eat my own lunch. But in those days, bringing your own basket lunch if you were rich wasn't really enough because you should have brought a little bit more knowing that the church was going to get together, you were going to celebrate communion and the poor people would have nothing.

They'd show up at 8 o 'clock at night, they'd have no food. By then at 8 o 'clock, many of these Corinthian people were full and drunk. And so Paul says, let's take a look at the most self-sacrificial person and event to help you with your selfishness.

First Corinthians chapter 11 is not, these are the steps on how to do communion. Paul uses Christ's final Passover, first Lord's Supper, concept of Christ giving himself for other people to correct the selfishness in Corinth.

So let's read verses 17 and following to pick up where we left off and so you can see the context. Certainly there are elements here, how do we do the Lord's Supper? They're found here but that's not the purpose.

The self-sacrificial Christ as he gave himself for us should remind us not to be selfish, that we should be selfless towards other Christians. First Corinthians chapter 11 verse 17, notice the tone changes from chapter 11 verse 2.

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. It's actually making things worse when you come together to eat and then have communion.

From the first place when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you and I believe it in part. The divisions are no longer theological, philosophical. First Corinthians chapter 1 verse 10 and following, I follow Paulus, I follow Paul, I follow Peter, it's the rich and the poor.

I've got a basket lunch slash dinner and you've got nothing. And so all divides in the local church are wrong because we are equally justified in Christ Jesus. God does not love the rich more, he does not love the poor less.

The rich are not more forgiven in terms of their status and position before Christ. Verse 19, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. At least this factiousness, God can work together for good and part of that good is so you can know who's spiritual and who is not.

Verse 20, for when you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. Whose supper is it? It's the richest supper. It's the haves versus the have-nots supper. Not the Lord's supper because if it's the master's supper, then you would do what the master has done.

And if the master says, follow me, then these people who call themselves Christians should say I'm going to follow Christ in his demeanor and his attitude towards his self-sacrificial love and his special love for the poor.

This is all from review last week. Verse 21, see the specific problem here at Corinth. 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?

There's nothing wrong with eating. There's nothing wrong with drinking. But if you're going to have the love feast, the Lord's supper, the meal first, and then you'll celebrate the Lord's supper, or in this particular case, bread, supper, cup, then you should act like the Lord does.

You should be waiting for people. You should be bringing extra. 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. I'm not going to commend you. So how does Paul help them solve the problem? As I said last week, if you're selfish and struggle with selfishness, what do you do about it?

Just say no to self. Put up a post-it. The best thing you can do is focus on Christ Jesus. As I said in the marriage class, do you have marriage problems? What's the best thing you could do? Get a theology book about the cross of Christ Jesus.

That's the best thing you could do, to study who Christ is. Verse 23, for I receive from the Lord what I also deliver to you. Technical language. Paul receiving from Jesus, Galatians 1, directly. He didn't go to apostle school.

Jesus taught him this, that the Lord Jesus, notice all the Lord language, the king, sovereign, who's in charge, it's his supper. The Lord, the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was selfishly betrayed, by the way, took bread.

When he'd given thanks, you can just think of the Jewish Seder, the whole Passover. Took bread. When he'd 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 also, after supper, he took the cup. So they most likely in those days, bread first, meal, cup. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

Same thing here, the sacrificial death in our place, on our behalf, where Jesus freely dies for us, sacrificially dies for sinners. And if Jesus has the attitude of condescending love, of Philippians 2, kind of stooping down low to submit to the Father, shouldn't we do the same?

I think I said this last week as well, in verse 25, as often as you drink it. It doesn't say often drink it, but as often as you do. New Testament church would get together once a week and have the Lord's supper.

But as often as you do this, do this in remembrance of me. Now, before I get any farther, I don't want you to forget what the word remember means. Here's what Paul has been doing. He says, there's a problem, then I give you the solution, and then he's going to give them a warning.

And so in the solution part, he says, now get together, have the Lord's supper and remember me. He didn't say get grace from the wafer and from the cup. I want you to remember me. I don't know when the last, when was the last wedding that you went to.

But if I talk to a bride at rehearsal and we come in here and we say, all right, everybody up to the front and we're going to start where we're going to end. Let's have the bride up here and the groom up here and the maids of honor and the groomsmen and everybody gets ready.

If I were to whisper over to the bride-to-be and say, what are you going to wear tomorrow? Do you think she would say, I don't know, I kind of forgot. I don't really, I just, I forgot. I'll tell you what.

Talk to some brides-to-be and bridemaids-to-be and they've been talking about what they're going to wear for not a day, probably since they were this big. This is what I'm going to wear. This is what I was going to look like.

Can a bride forget her ornaments? Jeremiah said, can a maid forget her ornaments or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number. We're forgetful people, aren't we? We forget, brides don't forget what they're going to wear, but sometimes we forget who we are and why we exist and what God has done for us.

And in light of that, then how we are to treat other people. And so Jesus ordains that we just get together regularly and say, here's a piece of bread. Here's a cup. And we think about substitutionary atonement.

We think about the eternal love of the Father, sending the Son and the Son gladly going. We remember that salvation is all of God. The word remember emphasizes when used of God, God's faithful love and intervention on behalf of his own people.

When God remembers, he does something. Seventy-three times in the Old Testament, when God is the subject and he remembers, he rescues, he does something. And so now when we remember, we say things like, OK, I'm just not recollecting.

OK, it's Mother's Day and I want to remember my mother. She's dead and gone, but I'm just going to kind of think about mom for a minute. Well, it's nice to think about mom. But when you remember who Jesus is in this command, the solution to selfishness in chapter 11, do this in remembrance of me.

We do it and then we remember and there's recollection and then there's action. And Paul is trying to tell them the recollection is self-sacrificial love that Christ had should now be manifest in my life towards other people.

That's what Paul's after. Do this in remembrance of me. There's a past aspect of the remembering. I have forgiveness and reconciliation. There's present. I have a present fellowship with you, with Jesus.

And then there's future. Take a look at verse 26. This is really excellent. This could be a whole sermon right here and it might just turn into one. Ready? Verse 26, for he's still given the solution to their problem of selfishness.

For as often as you eat this, you can say often eat it. But as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, the cup, remember the Old Testament cup that signifies the wrath of God poured out on nations, except this time now it's the father pouring out the wrath that he has should be due us, but he puts it on Christ.

You proclaim. This is kind of evangelistic, isn't it? You proclaim or preach the Lord's death until he comes. Paul isn't so concerned about what you say. When I first became a pastor and I thought I have to stand behind this table and then say things about the Lord's Supper.

They don't teach you those things in seminary. They don't teach you those things in the Bible, even exactly what to say, what to do first. Paul isn't even that concerned about the words that are said during the meal.

It's the action that the people have that you have during the meal toward other people in the church. That's the most important thing, not the exact words of what the pastor says. The actions in their meal, the Corinthians showed that they weren't really proclaiming the Lord's death, the self-sacrificial death that Jesus had for others.

And here the Bible says in verse 26, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Jesus' coming back is what Paul is saying. In light of Jesus' coming back, love other people. Some people here are pre-meal.

Some people here are a meal. Maybe there's some post-meal people here. Maybe there's some other kind of meal people here. Maybe you don't want a meal is. What about the return of Christ? Is there a rapture?

Isn't there a rapture? When's the rapture? All eschatology is important to drive you to ethical implications like loving other people. Jesus is returning. Love other people. Be kind to other people. That's the point.

Paul says, you're going to see Jesus one day. And when my father used to go down to Tulsa to work, we lived in Omaha, and he'd go down to Tulsa for a couple months at a time and then come back. My mother was very kind.

I think I've told the story before. Dad would be coming back on Friday night, and on Thursday, she would say, your dad's coming back tomorrow. Translation, I haven't mowed for three weeks, mow. Haven't trimmed for six weeks, trim.

Wash the dog. Clean the cars. Vacuum the stuff up. Clean your room. Dad's coming back. Live in light of the expectation of my father's return. Here, Jesus is coming back with these very elements. Paul is saying, you're proclaiming Jesus is coming back.

He's going to come back and find you drunk and not sharing during communion service. What a group of motley people these people were. Say, well, you know what? I have family. And you know, the good thing about family is a lot of them are really nice.

The bad thing about family is you can't choose your family, right? You just get what you get. My brother is my brother. My sister is my sister. And you know what? You can't choose your Christian family either because God has chosen your Christian family.

And your responsibility is to love them. All right, I'll say it even if you don't like them. I don't like that person. Okay, then you love them. And remember, love is not, oh, I feel so wonderful every time I see them.

I'll just admit as a pastor, some people I see on Sunday mornings, I don't say, oh, I just so love them. I just feel so good. I think I got to go to the other side of the church building. And I'm never going to get away from these people.

I have other people to minister to, and I just have to kind of get away. But I say to myself, all right, what's best for them? That's what I have to do is to serve them and to love them. We can't choose our church family.

We're to love our church family no matter what in light of Christ's soon return. Christ's self-sacrificing commitment to the well-being of others should be manifest in our body during communion meals and during other days as well.

The Lord's Supper as a Festive Proclamation of Christ's Return

Now, I have to address this because I think it's important. Here's what we typically do. We're ready for the Lord's Supper. And in just in a moment, we're going to talk about the examination passage. But we have this funeral kind of attitude during the Lord's Supper too often when we have the elements, we're waiting.

And now the pastor says, everybody examine yourself to make sure there's no sin in you. And you're there like, you know, OK, and I'm a rotten sinner and I don't deserve this. And Lord, help me. And so those are all fine things to say.

But I'm wondering why we don't hold that cup and hold that bread thinking Jesus is coming back. There should be a festive part of it. And I don't mean jumping up and down with streamers. In your heart, you can do that, all right.

But we're holding that and thinking, you know what? Why is there less joy at the Lord's Supper than there is at Passover with Jews today who've denied the return of Christ or the first coming of Christ?

It's kind of gloomy. Yet Jesus is coming back. Maranatha, Lord, come. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus, Revelation 22. If Jesus is returning, then part of it, of course, Lord, forgive me for my sins. Lord, there are people in this church, we're going to talk about this in just a second, that I'm not stooping low to serve because they're just different than I am.

They're a different class than I am, or caste than I am, or color than I am. Of course, we should be doing that. But when you hold that, you're thinking, just like that church in Wisconsin, that at the end, like with the Passover, next time in Jerusalem, they might say, because they'd want to go to Jerusalem, the Jews would say, next time in Jerusalem.

And so that Wisconsin church said at the end of their communion service, they'd say, next time maybe with Christ. He's coming back. Well, Paul gives them a warning. The outline in this passage is simple.

The diagnosis found in verses 17 through 22, the solution found in verses 23 through 26, and now a warning found in verses 27 through 34. Let's take a look at this sober warning when it comes to the Lord's Supper.

There should be festivity in our heart. There should be joy. But there's an examination too. Both are true. I liken it to this. If you are a Romans 7 Christian, oh, wretched man that I am. I met some of those people.

Some of you are those people. I'm just wretched. And you never can kind of remember Romans chapter 8. There's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. The Romans 7 onlys need to get into the Roman 8s.

That sound right? I won't say that next service. Sometimes there's Roman 8 people, no condemnation. You can just kind of see them dancing around, tiptoeing around. And they're forgetting that Paul would say that he's the worst sinner of all.

A sinner yet justified. And so it's the same thing here. Communion should be both. Not just the first part where we say, do you know what? There's this joy that Jesus is going to return, but also a healthy dose of examination.

And so he gives the warning to this church for their selfishness. And if you're selfish, then the warning goes to you as well. This correction, don't you forget, congregation, please, beloved, don't forget that Paul is showing his love for the people.

People always say, well, that's not loving. This is a very loving correction. When you correct your children, it's because you love them. And so Paul is going to make sure that no one makes a mockery or a joke out of the Lord's supper.

No one would say, ah, this is a joke. This is nothing. But by their own lives, they're betraying that very thought. They're portraying that very thought rather. And here's the amazing thing. If you just read this passage fast and don't get the context, you'll think examining self means spiritually examine yourself.

But after you read this, you're going to say, I must spiritually examine myself as I deal with other Christians socially in the church. It's not just a spiritual examination. It's a social examination too.

So let's find out what happens. Verse 27. Oh, before I read this, there are no warnings that I can find of in the New Testament for if you don't sing properly, here's the correction. If you don't give the right way, here's the correction.

If you don't preach the right way, here's the correction. Now we should give rightly, preach rightly, listen rightly, do the baptism rightly. But there's nothing in the Bible that says if you don't do baptism just right, watch out, you could be killed.

And fascinatingly, this is the passage that Paul says, when you do it wrongly, some are even sick and dead. Not for incest in chapter five, not for divorce in chapter six, not for lawsuits in chapter six, not for a lack of theological unity in chapters one and four.

This is, if I can say it, the killer. Whoever, verse 27. Therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord. See how many times the word Lord is used there for a reason in an unworthy manner. Remember the context.

This is not general unworthiness. This is the unworthy manner. Jesus, the self-sacrificial Savior, gives himself, but I take. Will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord. When you say I'm a Christian and you take communion wrongly because you're not thinking about the social implications, you say, you know what, I just assumed march over here and I'm on pilot side.

Kill him. I'm on Caesar's side. Kill him. I'm on Herod's side. Kill him. I'm on the centurion's side. Kill him. Because this killing idea is selfish. That's the kind of language Paul uses right here. Boy, this makes me think this can't just be a ritual.

This can't just be something I just go do nonchalantly, superficially. Kistemacher said, a person who burns the flag of his native country testifies that he has no respect for his homeland. Granted that a flag is a mere piece of cloth, we nevertheless know that it is a symbol of a nation.

Disrespect for a flag is understood as contempt of the country it represents. Likewise, partaking unworthily of communion signifies sacrilege.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 830 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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