Coming Together for the Good

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Take out your Bibles with me and open them to 1 Corinthians chapter 11.
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We're going to be looking at verses 17 to 34.
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Might be better if I turn that on.
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1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 17.
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But then the following instructions I do not commend you.
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Because when you come together, it is not for the better, but for the worse.
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For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you.
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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.
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When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat.
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For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal.
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One goes hungry and another gets drunk.
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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.
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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.
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And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you.
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Do this in remembrance of me.
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In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
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Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
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For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
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Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.
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Let a person examine himself then.
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And so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
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For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.
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That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
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But if we judge ourselves truly, we would not be judged.
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But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
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So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
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If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home so that when you come together, it will not be for judgment.
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About the other things, I will give directions when I come.
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Father of mercies and of all glory, we come to you in Jesus' name.
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And Father, as we look to open this text together and to look at the wondrous truths that are contained within it, I pray as I always do, Father, that you would keep me from error.
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For Lord, I know of my own fallibility.
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I know of my own failures.
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I know of my own weaknesses.
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And Lord, I don't want to bring them into the text.
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But I pray, Lord, that you would protect me from that and protect your people.
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For the sake of their conscience, for the sake of your name, for the sake of my own heart.
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God, keep me from error.
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And Father, as we go to this text today and we look at the wondrous truths of it and the amazing amount of impropriety which was happening in the Corinthian church, Lord, may we not allow such impropriety among us.
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May we not let the devil have his hand among us.
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May we not give the devil a foothold to stand upon in our church to cause these types of divisions which are ungodly, irrational, and unloving.
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Father, may we be united in the person of Jesus Christ and in his ministry.
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And it's in his name we pray.
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Amen.
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We have arrived at a text which contains one of the most well-known sections of the New Testament.
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In fact, if you have been a believer for any length of time, you have probably experienced the Lord's Supper and heard someone read the portion of text that I just read to you, at least a portion of it.
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Verses 23 to 26 are some of the most common words read at the institution of the table.
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And a lot of people have them memorized because they've heard them so many times.
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I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that on the night that he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread and broke it, and so on.
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We're familiar with that text because of how common it is.
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It's interesting, too, that that particular section represents what would be the oldest written account of that event.
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1 Corinthians was written before Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
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So in the scheme of writing, even though in the narrative it comes later, it was written earlier.
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So this is the first written account of the words of Jesus on the night that he was betrayed.
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And there are two things that I want us to consider regarding the context before we ever even get into the text itself.
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The first thing is this.
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Chapter 11 through chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians is in a specific context where Paul is addressing the subject of corporate worship.
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Do you understand? He's talking about what we're doing right now.
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We have gathered together today as the corporate body of Christ to worship together in communion with one another.
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We are in union with one another.
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That's why we are here.
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And in chapter 11 through chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians, it's all about this.
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He talks about the distinction of men and women.
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He talks about communion.
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He talks about spiritual gifts.
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He talks about the priority of love.
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He talks about the misuse of gifts and how people ought not be doing things in church and how things ought to be done decently and in order in the church.
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And that's all 1 Corinthians chapter 11 through 14 is focused on the priority of corporate worship and the propriety of corporate worship.
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How is it to be done? So that's the first step when we think about the context.
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What's the context of this? The context is corporate worship.
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But then also, I want you to notice, if you open your Bibles to chapter 11, look at where we just looked at, verse 17, where he says, I commend you.
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Rather, he says, I do not commend you in verse 17.
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If you go back to verse 2, he says, I commend you.
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So what we have there, I mentioned this last week, is bookends.
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Paul says in the beginning of 1 Corinthians chapter 11, I commend you that you have remembered me and that you've kept the traditions that I taught you.
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But then in verse 17, he says, but in this, I do not commend you.
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So he's changing his attitude.
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He's changing his point here.
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He's gone from giving a commendation to a condemnation.
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Wherefore, I'm going to tell you what you've done well.
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Now I'm going to tell you what you're doing wrong.
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As a result, what we need to understand is verses 17 to 34 is corrective in nature.
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It is corrective in nature.
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The Corinthians have done wrong, they are doing wrong, and Paul is coming to them with a stern criticism and an important warning.
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I have learned over the years, and I am not immune from this, but I have learned over the years that people do not like to be corrected.
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I didn't hear many amens, so maybe it was the grunts of, well, maybe he's talking about me.
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Well, people have an allergy to correction.
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Who are you to criticize me? Why do you have to be so judgmental? I've heard that more times than I can count.
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Common attitudes in the church.
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Nobody wants correction.
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And yet the Bible says that correction and rebuke is one of the most loving things that we can do for a brother or sister in Christ.
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Proverbs 27 says, Better is an open rebuke than a secret love.
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And faithful are the wounds of a friend, but profuse are the kisses of an enemy.
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Your enemy comes up and he kisses on you, and he pretends to be your friend, and he pretends to love you, but the faithful friend will tell you like it is.
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And even if it hurts, he'll be honest with you.
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Proverbs 28, Whoever rebukes a man will afterward find favor, more favor than he who flatters with a tongue.
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I can always tell when somebody's flattering me.
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Not that I get it that often, but every once in a while.
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People will flatter me, and I hate it because I can tell when it's happening.
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I can tell they're either trying to gain status in my life or they're trying to gain status maybe here at the church or maybe in some other area of my life where I have some position of leadership and someone's trying to get that.
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And I can always tell because they never have a negative thing to say.
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It's always just, right? Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss.
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But that's, profuse are the kisses of the enemy, but faithful are the wounds of a friend, right? Psalm 141 says this, Let a righteous man strike me.
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It is a kindness.
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Let him rebuke me.
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It is oil for my head.
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A rebuke can be oil for our head, right? Now I say all this.
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You say, why are you talking about this, Pastor? Because this is what Paul is doing.
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Paul is attempting to apply oil to the head of the Corinthians in the form of a rebuke.
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He's attempting to apply to them what they need to hear because you aren't even going to believe what they're doing.
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Some of you who've never studied this passage, this whole section is amazing.
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And when we get to what's actually happening here, you're going to be amazed at what's being allowed to happen within the Corinthian church.
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And Paul is providing for them a rebuke.
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This ought not be.
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And remember this.
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Paul is not doing this in anger.
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He's not doing this out of spite.
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He's doing this out of fatherly love.
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You know what the Bible says about fathers who don't discipline their children? It says they hate their children.
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It says a father who doesn't discipline his children does not love his child.
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I've often heard people say, well, I love my child too much to get on to them.
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No, you don't love them enough.
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You love yourself too much to get on to them.
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Same thing with Paul.
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Paul's not their father, but in spiritual matters, he is their authority.
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He's their leader.
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He's the apostle, and he's giving them words of rebuke.
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And my hope is this.
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This is my hope for today's message.
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One is that it doesn't go two hours, but that's a secondary hope.
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But my primary hope, because I got a lot to say, but my primary hope is that by hearing the corrective words of Paul to the Corinthians, that we too might have our own hearts corrected in any way in which we have erred, not only in the Lord's table, but in all aspects of fellowship and corporate worship.
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Because that's the point.
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The church has come together, Paul says, not for the better, but for the worst.
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The title of today's sermon is, We Need to Come Together for the Better.
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Always.
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Never for the worse.
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All right, so let's go to verse 17, and we'll begin to go down.
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We're going to look at the first four verses as a whole.
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He says 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.
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For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear together 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.
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When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat.
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Notice the repetitious phrase.
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And I've taught this before.
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If you've ever sat and I teach how to study the Bible and teach hermeneutics, I say one of the things you always look for when you're doing a Bible study of a passage, look for the repetitive phrase, right? Anytime you see a repetition of words or a repetitive phrase in a particular section, that lets you know there's a focus on that point that you need to key in on.
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And the repetitive phrase that's here is the phrase, When you come together.
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It's in verse 17, When you come together.
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Verse 18, When you come together as a church.
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It's in verse 20, When you come together.
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Then later, it's in verse 33 and 34, When you come together to eat, and when you come together, it will not be for judgment.
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That phrase is five times in just this short section of text.
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So this tells us the coming together is the focus.
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And notice in verse 18, Paul adds the word church.
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And when you come together as the church, and by the way, the church, you've heard me say it a thousand times.
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It's not the building.
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And I've heard people say, You don't go to church.
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You are the church.
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Well, kind of.
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That's true.
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But let me correct that too, because I've heard people say, Well, I am the church.
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I don't go to church.
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No, the church is assembly.
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You are not the church by yourself.
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We are the church in assembly because that's what the word ekklesia means.
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So, no, it means the called out ones.
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Ekklesia does mean called out or the called out ones.
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But televizio means farseeing.
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Tele means far, vizio means to see.
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But we know the television has a word meaning that means different than farseeing, right? That's etymology.
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That's not how you do understanding of words, right? So, ekklesia doesn't just mean the ones who are called out.
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It means the assembly of those who are called out.
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That's the point.
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In fact, I get into a way different subject now.
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The point is the word church in the New Testament, everywhere the word church is used could be translated assembly.
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And oftentimes should.
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Because that's what the church is.
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It's the assembly of those who have been called out.
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It's the assembly of the faithful.
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That's the point of this text.
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The assembly of the faithful.
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And what is he saying about them as they come together as a church? He's saying, when you come together, when you form the church, when you create the assembly, it is not for the good.
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I actually like the NIV.
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And I know, oh, don't shoot me.
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I'm going to tell you, I like the NIV here.
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I look at you.
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Anybody, let me tell you what the NIV says here.
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In the following directives, I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good.
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That's actually what Paul, that's the dynamic equivalent of what Paul is saying.
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Isn't it amazing that sometimes when people come together for worship, they do more harm than good.
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You say, but the Bible commands us to assemble together.
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Yes, but some people have the attitude, well, it's better to gather than not gather.
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So I'm going to gather however I want and do what I want when I get there.
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And I don't care what kind of heart I bring when I go.
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And as long as we call it church, then God's going to accept it.
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Tell that to Nadab and Abihu.
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You know who Nadab and Abihu were? The sons of Aaron.
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They offered up the strange fire before the Lord and the fire came out and consumed them where they stood and they died before the presence of the Lord.
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Yeah, do it your way.
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Do worship your way.
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That's smart because there's great precedence for that.
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Ananias and Sapphira, they're going to offer it up their way.
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Do it their way.
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They lied to the Holy Spirit.
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They died.
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They were DRT, dead right there.
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Right? God will reject worship that is not governed by His word.
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Some people believe God is obligated to accept any kind of worship as long as it's sincere.
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I will tell you this.
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God is not obligated to accept anything sincere or not.
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You know what it says in the book of Malachi chapter 1? Listen to this.
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This is the prophet speaking on behalf of God.
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Oh, that there were one among you who would shut the door of the temple that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain.
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I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord, and I will not accept an offering from your hand.
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God decides how we are to worship.
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God regulates worship.
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And Paul says, when you gather together, you're so out of order.
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It'd be better if you didn't gather.
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You're doing it so wrongly.
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It'd be better if you didn't do it at all.
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It's not for your betterment.
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In fact, it's for the worst.
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That's verse 17.
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Now, verses 18 and 19.
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He says there's divisions among you.
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Now, I want to tell you, this is going to be a three part sermon this week, next week and the third week.
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I've already planned everything out next week.
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I'm going to it's Reformation Sunday.
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We're celebrating next week.
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I'm going to I'm going to preach just verses 7, 18 and 19 on the divisions and why divisions sometimes point out those that are true, because that's what Paul says.
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He says, I believe there's divisions among you.
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And it must be because the divisions show the true from the false.
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And we're going to talk about the history of the Reformation and how the history of the Reformation divided the true from the false church.
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So that's next week.
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So instead of dwelling on that today, let me, in a sense, skip over verses 18 and 19 to get to verse 20, because verse 20 sets up the focus of this message.
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Because in verse 20, he says, when you gather, it's not the Lord's Supper that you eat.
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That's the focus.
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That becomes the central conflict of the rest of the chapter.
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The thing that has brought division in the Corinthian church was the Lord's Supper.
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And that's what makes their worship for the worst, according to the Apostle Paul.
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And Paul actually says that they were, that things were so bad that it wasn't even the Lord's Supper they were eating anymore.
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They had deviated from God's command regarding the supper, and thus it was no longer the supper.
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But how had they deviated? Verse 21.
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For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal.
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One goes hungry, another gets drunk.
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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.
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Now, this makes very little sense to us.
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That whole section, verses 21 to 22 there, that makes very little sense to us because most of us don't understand the context that's going on here because what's happening here in the early church is something called the agape.
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Now, most of you are probably familiar with this term in a different, maybe a different accent.
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Agape.
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You've heard that phrase agape, right? What is the agape or the agape? In the first, the word agape means love.
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But in the early church, the agape was actually a meal.
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It was a meal, but it was called the love feast.
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In fact, if you look up Jude chapter 1, which is only one chapter of Jude, if you look up Jude verse 12, it says that there were false teachers who came in to their love feasts, right? The false teachers had infiltrated their church meals.
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And we think about a church meal, we think about it like, okay, we come in and have worship, we're going to do worship, then we're going to stop doing worship, we have a benediction, and then we're all going to go and have our fried chicken and our sweet tea, right? Because that's the anointed bird of the Southern church.
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We go and we have our, we have our chicken and our sweet tea and that's how we have a meal.
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That's not how the first early church did it.
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Their worship included the meal.
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Worship was centered around the meal, much like the Passover was centered in worship around a meal.
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The early church had their worship around what they called the agape.
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And during that, a leader would take a piece of bread, he would break it, he would pass it out, he would share it with the community in remembrance of the body of Christ and he would take the goblet of wine, he would drink from it, he would pass it around and everyone would share.
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This was the event that was happening.
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And in Corinth, it had become distorted.
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Paul tells us that people were eating their own food and refusing to share it with those who did not have.
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What was supposed to be communal and in a sense generous and open was now personal and cut off.
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Instead of graciously sharing, they were stingily not sharing.
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They were selfishly being stingy with what they had.
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John Calvin, in referencing Christostom, who was an early church father, said this, he said, Christostom is of the opinion that the love feast originated while the rich had become accustomed to bringing with them from their houses the means of feasting with the poor indiscriminately and in common, but then afterwards began to exclude the poor and to guzzle, that's the word, guzzle over their delicacies by themselves.
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Calvin says this in addition and I want you to hear this but I'm going to explain it.
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He said, it is truly wonderful and next to a miracle that Satan could have accomplished so much in a short time.
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Did John Calvin just say Satan was wonderful? What he meant in that phrase is full of wonder.
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Isn't it wondrous or full of wonder that Satan could get so much influence in the church so quickly? It's almost like a miracle because it starts with those who have sharing with those who don't have and they come together as a church and they share this meal and everybody gets to eat but then eventually the rich and those who have begin to see the ones who don't have and boy, he's eating too much of my fried chicken or boy, I know they didn't have fried chicken, whatever.
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He's eating too much of my food.
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I don't want him to have it.
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So they would come with their food early and they would gulp it down and they would guzzle their food and drink their wine to the point of excess and drunkenness and when the poor people showed up they said, well, there's none left for you.
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It'd be like this.
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It'd be like if my wife cooked a really good roast and it was church Sunday and we all showed up at 8 because nobody gets here before 8.30.
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And we came in at 8 o'clock and we guzzled it down so that we're sitting there with our shirts unbuttoned and our big bellies are open and we're so full.
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Thankfully, we didn't have to share it with any of you.
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You say, that sounds so drastic.
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That's what Paul's dealing with.
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That's why it's such a big deal.
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It is drastic.
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Such a drastic and horrible thing is happening.
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The meals began as an open opportunity for the people of God to share in their love for one another and it became a place of division between the haves and the have-nots and the people of God became like the man in Luke 16 who would not even allow the poor person to eat the crumbs that fell from his table.
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And look at the passage.
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It says, Those who have nothing.
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You remember the Corinthian church is a mixed bag, right? Just like every church.
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There are people in this room of all different economic backgrounds.
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Some of you have more than others when it comes to what your job provides or what you're able to make or maybe what you were able to save in life.
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Some of you are retired and you were able to save more than others who have retired.
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And the same way in the Corinthian church.
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There was a mixed bag of economic backgrounds.
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You had the very poor and you had the very rich and they were in community together and the poor would look forward to the agape.
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Can't you imagine that the poor would look forward to getting to eat with the rich and instead of being happy to share those who were willing to separate themselves from those who didn't have, did so with no intention of sharing.
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And I've told you, I think, imagine this at dinner on the grounds.
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Everyone comes with something to share.
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But during the meal, we say, OK, if you didn't bring anything, you don't get to have any.
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If you didn't bring anything today, you're not welcome to stay.
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I've seen that happen.
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I've seen that attitude.
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If not the words, I've seen the attitude.
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They didn't bring anything.
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They don't deserve to stay and eat.
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What? The very essence of our faith is to love and share with a gracious heart.
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What if they have nothing to bring? Or what if they don't understand the value of bringing something yet? In Corinth, you had some eating and some not eating.
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And it was a shameful and humiliating reality.
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And it was so humiliating and so shameful that it had made its way all the way to the Apostle Paul, who is writing this letter from a great distance.
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So not only was the shame known in the church.
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And one commentator said this, he said the houses in that day and age had different areas of the house.
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And what had probably happened was the poor people had probably been pushed to one area of the house where the food just wasn't there.
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So you had the banquet room and then the poor room.
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And this scandal had become so, and I know some of you are looking at me like, I can't believe this is happening.
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It still happens.
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Just a different attitude, different way, same attitude.
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And Paul hears of it and he addresses it.
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And I love his question, by the way.
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If you look at the text, Paul says, don't you have homes? He said, what does that mean? Why would you come to church to be stingy? You could have eaten your food at home.
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If all you were going to do was eat your own food, why'd you even come? If you had no intention in sharing, if you had no intention in showing love, if you had no intention of being a community in this meal, why didn't you just eat at home? You think you're going to be commended just because you show up at church? Not with that attitude.
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You will not be commended for doing that which is wrong just because you come to that place which is right.
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You will not be commended for doing that which is wrong just because you're assembled as a church.
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Again, earlier, as I said, just because you assemble doesn't mean you're assembling for the good.
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Paul says you're assembling for the worst.
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Now, in response to their shamefulness, Paul goes through verses 23 to 26 explaining the meaning of communion and the words of Christ and instituting.
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And just like I did with verses 18 and 19, I'm about to skip a little section because in two weeks, I'm going to go through that whole section very clearly verse by verse.
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But because I'm trying to keep a context here, I want to jump ahead just a little because Paul gives the words of institution.
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Verses 23 to 26.
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And then in verse 27, he says these words.
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And I know you know this.
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If you've ever been here long enough, you've heard this.
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Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.
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And let me tell you something.
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So much ink has been used to write and identify what the phrase unworthy manner means.
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But I'm going to tell you what it means right now.
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Because honestly, the word unworthy manner can apply to a ton of things.
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It can apply to unbelievers.
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It can apply to a believer who's unrepentant.
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It can apply to somebody who's underdisciplined.
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There's a lot of things that it could apply to.
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And certainly those applications are not wrong, but there's one that it does apply to.
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It's the immediate context.
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And it's the person who comes to church without a desire to worship and fellowship and communion with other believers sharing what they have and giving of themselves.
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That's the unworthy manner that Paul's addressing in this context.
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The primary unworthy manner.
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And like I said, it can apply to other things.
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It can apply to unbelief.
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It can apply to discipline.
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It can apply to all those things.
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But the primary unworthy manner is selfish, greedy, unloving, and unwelcoming hearts.
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That's the primary unworthy manner that Paul's addressing.
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Selfish, greedy, unloving, unwelcoming hearts.
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Jesus said, if you say you love...
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Actually, John said, if you say you love God and do not love your brother, then that is a lie.
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What worse way could we approach the table than with hatred toward our brother who has less than we do? Or a feeling of superiority about our brother who has less than we do? When we participate in communion, it is a community act of corporate worship.
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And if we are treating each other with contempt outwardly, or even inwardly, we are guilty of profaning the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
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What's one of the primary rules of worship according to Jesus? You might not remember it, but it's in Matthew chapter 5.
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Primary rule for worship.
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If you are offering your gift at the altar and you remember your brother has an offense against you or has something against you, leave your gift at the altar and go and reconcile with your brother and then come and offer your gift.
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Remember that? That's a primary focus.
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What that means is this.
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Is that our relationship with God and our relationship with the table is often dependent on our relationship with others.
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If we're holding hatred in our heart, if we're holding animosity in our heart, if we're holding pride in our heart and lack of humility in our heart, then that creates a divide between us and the Lord that we need to reconcile before we come and feast on the bread and cup which represents His body and His blood.
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And here's the thing you have to remember.
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This text says that whoever takes in an unworthy manner.
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I want to tell you this straight up.
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None of us are truly worthy.
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You understand that, right? That none of us by ourselves are truly worthy.
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We are made worthy because of the work of Christ which means this.
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At the foot of the cross, all of the ground is level.
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I don't care if you make more money.
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I don't care if you have more things.
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I don't care if your toys are bigger or your house is better.
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At the foot of the cross, there is no economic inequality.
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At the foot of the cross, there is no racial inequality.
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At the foot of the cross, there is no sexual inequality.
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At the foot of the cross, there is no national inequality.
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Every person at the foot of the cross is equally deserving of the punishment of God and because they're at the foot of the cross, equally recipients of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the sacrifice that He made.
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And He didn't pour out more blood for you than He did for me.
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He poured out His blood once for all.
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And so there's great equality at the foot of the cross.
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None are worthy.
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But if we come thinking we are or more worthy than another, then that's taking it in an unworthy manner.
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So verse 28, so let a person examine himself.
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We examine ourselves.
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We examine ourselves on two fronts.
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Where are we with God? Where are we with others? Where are we with God and where are we with others? Do we need to repent? Do we need to reconcile? If reconciliation is not possible because you know it's not always possible, have we a forgiving heart? Not everybody is willing to reconcile with me, but I have to stand ready and willing and able to forgive them even if they have hurt me badly.
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You know what the Bible says? It says as much as it depends upon you, live at peace with all men.
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Sometimes it doesn't depend on you because some people are going to hate you regardless.
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But you have done all you can do to love them.
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And then he says in verse 29, for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.
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That is why many of you are weak or ill and some have died.
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You mean to tell me people have died because they mistreated the Lord's Supper? According to this text, I have no other answer but yes.
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According to this text, this, what? They've eaten, drink, and judgment on themselves.
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And this is why many of you, many have become weak or ill and some have died.
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Like Nadab and Abihu who offered up strange fire before the Lord.
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Like Ananias and Sapphira who lied to the Spirit.
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There are those who have sinned against the table of the Lord and have died as a result.
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You understand that's why we fence the table, right? You say, what are you talking about? There's an imaginary fence around this table.
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There's an imaginary line that we draw around this table.
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I say it every week.
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Every time I administer the ordinance of the Lord's table, I say this.
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I say, if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, that's first, right? Primary fence, number one line.
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If you're not a believer, the table isn't for you.
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And then I normally add the words, and you've examined yourself.
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Because that's what Paul says, right? That's the second line of defense, right? The second line of defense is you don't just come up here willy-nilly.
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You don't come up here with a flippant attitude.
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But you've examined yourself and you're ready to partake.
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You're discerning the body and the blood and you're discerning the bread and the cup and what it represents.
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And so we put that invisible fence up.
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And then it's up to you.
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Oftentimes I'll add the phrase, if you've been baptized.
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And the reason why for that is simply an issue of priority.
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Because in the issue of the ordinances, baptism is once for all and the Lord's table is a continual ordinance.
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And so in priority sense, it seems like baptism would come first.
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Not always necessarily, but at least in the sense of priority, I will say, have you been baptized? Because if you're taking the Lord's supper and you're a believer, because you have to be a believer to take the Lord's supper, it would seem to me like you should be baptized.
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Maybe you haven't, and that would be a call to that.
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So that's the reason why I often introduce that as well.
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But the most important thing is you're a believer and you have searched your heart.
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You know where you stand with the Lord and where you stand with others.
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And you're ready.
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You've discerned the body.
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You're there.
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That's why we fence the table.
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And we don't open it up to everyone.
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It is not for everyone.
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And it's dangerous to be flippant with that which God calls holy.
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And God calls the table holy.
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Verse 31, But if we judge ourselves truly, we will not be judged.
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That means if we're serious about how we look at ourselves, we will protect ourselves from judgment because we'll actually have judged our intentions of our heart and we'll say to the Lord when we stand there, Yes, I have examined myself.
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Not finding perfection, but in any area that I have found I need to repent.
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I have gone to the cross and I've repented of my sin.
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Verse 32, But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
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Discipline is an entire subject and sermon on its own.
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But that's part of what the table is.
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People ask why we take the table every week.
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Very few churches anymore participate in communion every week.
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But I believe it is a good practice of discipline because it forces us to have to face every time.
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And I have heard people say, Well, we only do it once a month because we really want to prepare.
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We really want to get ready and only do it once a month.
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Or we only do it once a year because we really want to prepare.
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We really want to get ready.
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The whole service, the whole worship service is the preparation.
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You gather together.
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Do you only get right with God once a month? You only get in your state of repentance once a month? You're supposed to live in a state of repentance.
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Repentance is not a one-time thing that gets you in the gate.
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It's not how you get your ticket punched and you move in.
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Repentance is a lifestyle change.
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You live a life of repentance.
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And so when you come around the table, you're doing what you do every day.
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Verse 33 is important because it takes us back to the context of the beginning.
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He said, So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
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What's that talking about? Why wait? Here's the reason why wait.
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Because if you go back to the beginning, you read it.
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Remember what it said.
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It said there were people who were coming in and they were eating their food not to share with the others.
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They were coming in and they were scarfing their food.
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They were guzzling their food so as not to have to share.
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And Paul says, When you come together, wait until everyone's here.
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Wait until everyone is here and you can share in communion and in community together.
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Beloved, communion is not a personal thing.
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Communion is not a personal thing.
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Communion is not for you to do by yourself in your house all alone.
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Now, there are times where someone might be sick and we might take two or three people together and go and bring communion to them.
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But in doing so, we're taking a small group and we're creating a small little body there to share together where they are.
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Some people don't even think we should do that.
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But in regard to that, we are still going in community to them.
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But the primary time of communion is when we're gathered.
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We gather together as a corporate body and we wait for one another.
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You realize that's why when I hand out the bread or when the guys hand out the bread, I say, hold this until what? All have received.
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It's a sense, a symbolic way of living out this text, which says, wait for one another.
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Don't sit there.
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It's not this is not snack time.
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Right.
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And that's that's important, too, for small children.
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If your child is not yet a believer, it's not for them.
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Not that we don't love them and not that we don't believe Christ loves them, but it's not yet for them.
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We wait until the body.
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The professing church has received and then we eat.
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And this is verse 34.
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If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home.
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What's Paul saying? He's saying, look, this meal is not about filling your stomachs.
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It's about filling your souls.
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And if you're just coming in to gorge yourself, do that somewhere else.
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Do that at home.
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If you're hungry, if you're that hungry, eat at home.
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When you come here, you come here to be nourished spiritually, not to be filled and gluttonized physically.
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This is a sacred time.
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It was a sacred feast.
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It was a sacred moment.
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So if you're that hungry, eat before you come.
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So that when you come, you have the right attitude and the right heart.
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And you won't come together for the worst.
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You won't come together for judgment.
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Now, at the end of verse 34, Paul says, he said, about other things, I'll give you directions when I come.
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I think that what he's saying there is the Corinthians had sent him a letter of questions.
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And this is the end of Paul answering those questions that they started back in chapter 5 or chapter 6.
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They was answering questions.
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Paul says, about that, I'm going to come to you and I'll answer some of those things when I get there.
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So that's how chapter 11 ends.
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But I want to say this.
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I want to add an epilogue to this text.
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The saddest thing that history shows us about this entire situation is that the problem with the Corinthians did not get better.
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Even though Paul commends them to repentance, he commends them to love, and he commends them to self-sacrificially share everything that they have in common when it comes to food during the Agape Feast.
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Even though he did all of that, history tells us they continued to divide.
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The first letter of Clement to the Corinthian church, which is one of the early church fathers who wrote to the same church, was still writing about the same issue.
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The next generation, leaders of the church, still dealing with the same issue.
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By the time of the 4th century, the Agape Feast was forbidden by local church councils because it had gotten so divisive in the church.
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You don't believe me? The Council of Laodicea, 364.
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Canon 28.
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It is not permitted to hold love feasts as they are so called in the Lord's houses or in churches, nor to eat or to spread couches in the house of God.
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By the 4th century, councils had to come together and ban the practice.
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Oh, and it also says that in the Council of Carthage, 397.
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Canon 42.
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And the Council of Trulon, 692.
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Canon 74.
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It is not permitted to hold what is called the Agape or the Love Feast.
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Isn't that a shame? Isn't that a shame that the church, it became, because here's what happened, by the way, you said, why would it become such an issue that a church council had to deal with it? Because it became a point of revelry for the church and debauchery in the church.
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And all kinds of paganism had come into the meal to the point that they had to say, Stop it! Just stop it! If you can't do it right, don't do it at all.
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Incorporating drunkenness, revelry, and debauchery to the point of having to cancel the entire, the church can't have a love feast.
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What a shame.
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So how do we apply all this? As I said, in the weeks ahead, I'm going to dig a little deeper into two portions.
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But for now, I want to make application of the entire section.
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Because the entire section, I believe, holds one primary truth.
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And that is this, when we gather together, it's either going to be for the good or it's going to be for the bad.
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And Paul says, when they were gathering, it was not for the good, but it was for the bad.
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And we need to be thinking about when we gather, we need to gather for the good.
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This tells us that how we worship matters to God.
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We cannot simply say to God, I'm here, and I'm going to do it my way.
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I'm here, and I'm going to do what I want.
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We must understand what we do when we are here is as important, if not more, than our coming together.
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Let me say that again.
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What we do while we're here is as important, if not more important, than our actually coming here.
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Because if we come here for the wrong reasons, if we come here with the wrong heart, if we come here and do the wrong things, it would have been better if we didn't come.
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You see? So the question I ask you today, church, the question I ask you, beloved of God, do you...
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I'm not talking about your neighbor.
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I'm not talking about the child next to you.
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I'm talking about you.
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Do you take worship seriously? Do we take our prayers seriously? Do we take our praises seriously? Do we give attention to the message with a mindful spirit? Do we participate in the table with a repentant heart? Unfortunately, the answer is not always yes.
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And so our reliance on the grace of God.
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We turn to Him and we say, God, I know that there have been times where I've not done this right and I've never done it perfectly.
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God, help me.
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God, help me to worship you.
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He told the woman at the well, Jesus said, God wants to be worshipped in spirit and in truth.
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Are we doing that, church? Are we coming together and worshipping in spirit and in truth? Or are you just really anxious for me to stop talking so we can get on with the day? Are you really anxious for me to just close up so we can move on to the lunch? Or move on to the next part or go watch the Jaguars or whatever else is more important to you today? Thank God that Jesus died for all my imperfections, even my worship imperfections.
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But we don't say because Jesus died for my imperfections that we don't strive to please the Lord.
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We do.
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So what do we say today? We say this.
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I wrote this as a prayer.
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God, give us the grace to worship you aright.
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Give us the strength to be honest with ourselves when we come before the table of the Lord and give us the love which is necessary to love our neighbors as ourselves.
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Because, beloved, if those things don't come from the Lord, we will not possess them at all because none of that will come from within us.
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We are totally inadequate in and of ourselves.
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This is why Augustine said this.
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Lord, command what you will and Lord, grant what you command.
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Lord, tell me what you want and then give me the ability to do that.
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Well, we know what the Lord wants.
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He wants to be worshipped in spirit and in truth.
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May it be the prayer of all of our hearts that we can do that by the power and the grace of God.
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May God let it be that when we come together, it be for the good.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the truth of the word.
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I thank you that, Lord, you tell us in your word that when we come together, it ought to be for the good.
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But Lord, only you can make our worship good.
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Only you can give us a heart that wants to worship you.
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Only you can fill us with your spirit and give us a worshipful mind and a worshipful spirit.
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Father, we lay ourselves unworthy at the foot of the cross and we say thank you for making us yours.
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Thank you for saving us and making us saints.
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Thank you for saving us and making us children of God by which we cry, Abba, Father.
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And we say to you, Father, this morning, Lord, may our worship, may our participation in the table, may our participation in love for one another be totally and fully and completely driven by the Holy Spirit of God living within us, pushing us forward in the work and in the service and in the worship of God our Savior.
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Father, it is in that through the matchless name of Christ we pray.