Sunday School - Lord Supper

Is that what it was, Alex? OK. Good morning. Well, we are going to go ahead and start. I was hoping more people would be here this morning. We're going to study the Lord's Table, just a one Sunday school study of the Lord's Table, the communion, Lord's Supper, all the different names we have for it.

I want to be sure that we have ourselves a biblical understanding of what it is, what we are doing when we participate, and importantly, whether participation is even an option. And there's some miscommunications that have occurred that have been from me.

I've been saying, there's something I'll say, and I'll get to it a little bit later. And I mean one thing, and then I thought about that. Oh, I wonder if this is taken another way. So we're going to go through 1 Corinthians 11.

We're going to study what the Lord's Table is about and make sure we really understand what it is that we're engaging when we take the Lord's Supper every Sunday. But let's start with hymn number 286, We Gather Together.

And we'll open in prayer, and then we'll get started. So please stand when you have that. Number 286. We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing. He chastens and hastens His will to make known. The wicked, oppressing, shall cease from distressing.

Sing praises to His name, He forgets not His own. Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining, ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine. So from the beginning, the fight we were winning, Thou, Lord, wast at our side, all glory be Thine.

We all do extol Thee, Thou leader triumphant, and pray that Thou still our defender wilt be. Let Thy congregation escape tribulation. Thy name be ever praised, O Lord, make us free.

Be seated.

Your Assembly Father, we come to you for another day of worship, for which we give you the thanks, and we pray that you would hear the praises that we will call out to your name, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ this day, that you would be pleased, Father, with the worship that you receive, and that you, Lord, would be honored in this place, and that we would be transformed more and more into the image of Christ our Savior.

In His name we pray. Amen. So the Lord's Table, the Lord's Supper, the communion is our subject here this morning. We're going to take it largely from 1 Corinthians 11, verses 17 to 34, the core of which is what we read every Sunday when we take the Lord's Table.

The Importance of the Lord's Table and Its Authority

But why study the Lord's Table? Why would we take a Sunday out? Now, everybody's been to Confession Club. Raise your hand if you've been through Confession. You've been through 1689. So you're experts in the Lord's Table, right?

There's a whole paragraph about it. We got it, right? Now, there's a lot to be understood about it. Not that the Confession says anything incorrect about it. It doesn't. It says things that are correct, but there's a lot to be understood.

What's the importance of the Lord's Table? Somebody tell me. Why is the Lord's Table even important? Why is there any controversy? You do it once a month, or every week, or whatever. Signifies the death of Christ, OK?

It's a remembrance, right? Right. It's a remembrance. It signifies the death of Christ. Sarah? Displays to the world who is a believer. It's an acknowledgment of our faith in Christ. And I'd like to also say that it's sort of like baptism.

This ordinance is a living parable, if you will, of the gospel itself. As we acknowledge his death on our behalf, and we proclaim his death until he comes, which signifies and implies the resurrection.

How many continuing ordinances does the church have? Continuing ordinances that we do again and again? One. So there's two ordinances that the church has. One is baptism, which is done once, when you make confession to the church.

You're baptized. That's a one-time act. And it's an ordinance given to the church. The only continuing ordinance we have that we do, as long as the Lord is tarrying in his return, I should say, is the Lord's Table.

It's the only continuing ordinance. So I like to say it's one out of one of the continuing ordinances. Instituted by whom? And the class said? Jesus Christ. Confirmed by the apostle, and we'll get to that in 1 Corinthians 11.

We do have to admit that as we look at the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we're not going to take a lot of time in those this morning. Jesus never says explicitly to the disciples, now we're doing this tonight.

This is the day before my death on your behalf. And you're to teach the church to do this regularly. So how do we know that it's a regular ordinance from Jesus Christ to the church? How do we know this?

It's really important before we dig into the text. The epistles, specifically. Yeah, Paul's epistle. For I received from the Lord, also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you.

In the same also he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant of my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. Now, if you look at Matthew, Mark, and Luke, of course, this is not recorded at all in John, though John 13 to 17 is the same time frame, but we don't have the same incidents as recorded by John.

We do have to understand that in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, when Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper, which is what we celebrate every Sunday, and God willing, will again today, what Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11 is different than what we have in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

The words are different. We know that they're the inspired word of God. We know that it's from Jesus Christ to the church through the apostle, because he says, so I received from the Lord. We can tie this back to Galatians, and perhaps there was some training that Paul went through one-on-one with Jesus by his spirit, if you will.

There's a lot of different controversy and theories about that, but we understand that Jesus Christ, at some point, personally taught Paul about the Lord's table, which Paul wasn't there. He wasn't converted yet, and said, this is what you're going to do.

This is what I want you to give to the church, OK? So the Lord's table, by apostolic command, through the Lord Jesus Christ, is given to us. So the authority of the table is as high as it can be. We need to understand that.

So it's one out of one of our continuing ordinances. We take it every Sunday. We used to take it every first Sunday. Many churches still do first Sundays. A lot of churches do every Sunday. Anything wrong with either one of those, anything advantageous with either one of those, what do you think?

Say again, please. Oh, OK, well, they do it once a year. What were you going to say?

Because technically, wasn't the Lord's Supper an actual meal? Well, we'll get to that.

You got to hold that thought. Manuel is saying, wasn't the Lord's Supper an actual meal? We'll get to that in 1 Corinthians 11. I would make the case, go ahead. Exactly, there's some leeway. The point is, you do it regularly.

You plan to do it. You can prepare yourself for the Lord's table, because you know when it's coming. We used to do it first Sundays. So some Sundays, you'd wait three Sundays, or some months, you'd wait three Sundays, sometimes four Sundays, depending on whether it's a four or five month.

Big deal. You know it's coming, and you're able to prepare yourself for it. Here, we do it each week. And I would argue the same thing. You're able to prepare yourself, because you know what we're going to do.

And we do it the same way each time. The point here is, as often as you do it means regularly. Now, I would say once a year is not often enough. I believe, I can't cite this anymore, but when Calvin first became known in Geneva, they'd do it once a year.

And he wanted it to be something, or maybe it was once a quarter. Do you know, sir? Yeah. Anyway, it was not as often as we do. And it was because he wanted people to prepare for it. He wanted you to consider it, and to let it build up in your spirit, so that by the time you took it, you really were ready for the table.

So it tells you it's of high importance. So as one out of one of our continuing ordinances, the participation in the Lord's table is something that's often misunderstood. We sometimes think of it as an option.

The individual, meaning you, me, we decide for ourselves whether we're going to partake today, depending upon our assessment of our spirit, our relationship with others, how I feel about things today, all these different things that could come in.

And this is something that I have perhaps inadvertently perpetuated by saying from the Pope, and I stopped doing this. I don't know if anybody noticed it. I say, please don't partake if you don't fulfill these three requirements that we lay out, or for any matter of conscience.

I say, for any matter of conscience. What I meant by that is, you know, if you don't believe that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, who never didn't exist, and that they're trying to eliminate the Mormon and the Jehovah's Witness, think about this for a second.

Don't partake. That's a conscience issue. I may have implied that we each get to look at ourselves subjectively and decide for ourselves if we're going to partake, which is not what I intended to communicate, so I've stopped saying it that way.

Lord's table, God willing, we'll see when we go through this, is not an option. And it doesn't depend upon completely your relationship with others. We often say that, that, OK, well, I have an issue with this person or that person.

I haven't resolved it. Therefore, I cannot partake. I'm in sin over this or that issue. Therefore, I shouldn't partake. We have all kinds of different things. I'm going to try and dissuade you of those this morning.

What's the table meant for? Have you ever thought about this? What is the table meant to do? We said remembrance.

Go ahead. It's a means of, like, well, actually, if someone is in sin, aren't they demanded a table? Negative. Guardedly. Hang on. But go on. In the confession, you learned. It was a way of confirming that this person is a Christian.

Mm-hmm.

OK. So it's a testimony that we make, and we'll get to that. It's our personal testimony that, yes, I'm participating in Christ Jesus. And we'll get some of the texts that prove that out for us. The table is meant for our spiritual nourishment.

The table is meant to build us up in Christ. The bread and the wine, which represent the body and blood, remaining just what they are, are used by the Spirit of God to grow us into his image. That makes it somewhat of a miracle, if you think about it that way.

It's a means of sanctification. It's a means of grace. We're eating just bread. We're drinking just wine. Chemically, we can decide. We can analyze and say what they are. We can give all kinds of technical definitions of these things.

And yet, by our participation, by faith, by remembering the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ on my behalf, we're built up into his image. It's something the Spirit of God uses, just these regular, ordinary things, and does a remarkable work in us.

Miguel, you're going to?

If you're in sin, you'll struggle with things. I thought it was like you look, you analyze yourself and say, well, now is not the time for me because I'm struggling with it, or is that correct or not?

Or even though you're in struggling, you're in sin, you're still in particular.

Self-Examination, Church Discipline, and Who May Be Denied the Table

We're jumping ahead, but I don't mind. Because I like the discussion rather than me just reading my notes to you. So first of all, OK, we get this idea that I've got to be in such and such a pure condition, without sin, without known sin, in relationship with my brothers or sisters.

We get these ideas going in our head that this is what it's about. If we have to be sinless to participate in the Lord's table, who could partake? No one. And let's say the pastor who helps out, whether standing at the pulpit and reading the scripture or one of the guys who's serving the elements.

Let's say one of the pastors had an argument with his wife that he didn't resolve. Is he supposed to stop and say, well, I'm not living in proper unity with my mate, therefore I can't? That's not what the Lord's table is about.

Hopefully, we'll be able to bring this forth. One of the important things about what we're saying here is you don't decide in that sense whether or not you can partake, OK? OK? We talked about denying the Lord's table.

It's going to jump us way ahead, but that's OK, because we started late and I didn't do this. Trying to think how to say this. So who has the authority to deny someone the Lord's table? We haven't even jumped into the text yet.

Who has the authority to deny you the Lord's table?

I would say the church. Good. You're going to say the church?

How many say the church? Raise your hand if you didn't raise your hand. Raise your hand now. The church. The church who has accepted you. The church who heard your testimony and said, yes, this one's a Christian.

We've heard their testimony. We've seen their life. We accept them as a believer. And you are now a member with us. And what do we do? What's one of the privileges that comes with membership? Many of you waited for this until you were members.

What's one of the privileges that the church holds to members? The Lord's table. So who can deny you the Lord's table? The church. And how does the church then deny you the Lord's table? What's the process that ends up in that determination?

Process of Matthew. Be specific. Call it out to everybody so that we've got it before us.

Talk to him again. And if he refuses that, then you bring him to the church. Good. If he refuses the church, then you treat him as if he didn't expect the question. Good. Everybody get that?

It's a process of discipline. Matthew 18, 15 to 22. Emmanuel hit it right on the head. You've been brought into membership. Many of you waited to take the Lord's table until you were members. And one of the joys you had in becoming members was taking the Lord's table with us and making that declaration of the gospel and your participation in Christ and his sacrifice, your faith in him.

That's what we do on Sundays. So the church determines that this person has sinned. We heard the two or three witnesses. Maybe the church is going to say, you know, we're not quite on board with this.

We don't think it was sin. We need to let love cover it. I'm just throwing out that as a theoretical possibility. The church might not agree. But it is the church, if they agree, so this person is a tax collector, an unbeliever, and is to be put out.

We cannot longer confirm their testimony of Christ. And then denied the Lord's table. So the question then, given that, and again, we haven't even jumped into the text yet, can you deny yourself the Lord's table?

Is it that much of an option? Is it up to you? The class should already say, no, it's not. It's up to Christ. And Christ says that you partake as often as you do this. And I'm not saying we treat sin lightly.

And I'm not saying you come and say, well, I don't care what condition I'm in. I'm just going to take the Lord's table, because Pastor Josh said I should. We're not trying to minimize in that way. What I'm trying to do is take the subjectivity out of it.

This declaration of our participation in Jesus and his sacrifice. So that's kind of a little bit of a precursor. So you know where we're going to go with this. Open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 11. I'm going to read 17 to 34.

As I read this, I want you to hear, and we're going to talk about how we know for sure that this is the section that tells us about the Lord's table. Okay, now it seems pretty obvious to you, but there's some clues in here that I want to bring out and make sure we understand them so that it's really locked into our minds that this is really the place to go, okay?

1 Corinthians 11, 17. But in the following instructions, I do not commend you, because when you come together, it is not for the better, but for the worse. For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you.

And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal.

One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What? Do you not have houses to eat or drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this?

No, I will not. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is a new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

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. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, he eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.

But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home so that when you come together, it will not be for judgment.

About the other things, I will give directions when I come. Now, I'm gonna make the case that that's an inclusio. Ever heard the term inclusio? An inclusio marks off a section, a thought, a single thought, if you will, and we call it inclusio because it begins and ends with a single concept, usually found in a phrase or a word.

So what we had here is inclusio, and I don't have the screen going, so it's not really fair to ask you to remember all those words I just read, but I'll give it to you. In verse 17 and verse 34, an inclusio brackets a section and tells us that we have a thought, okay?

First Corinthians 11, 17, because when you come together, and then in verse 34, if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home so that when you come together, it will not be for judgment. One of the things we learn here right away is that's why many of you are sick, that's why many of you have died.

You can come together for judgment, tells us what about the Lord's table. It tells us that the Lord takes it pretty seriously, okay? Miguel, were you gonna? Mm-hmm. Well, that has to do with the discerning, okay?

Let me put my finger on it, give me just a second. Yeah, verse 29, for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. Now, discerning is the word diacrino, diacrino.

Crino means judgment, diacrino means to judge between things, to understand the difference amongst things. Okay? So Paul says that you need to eat and drink discerning the body and blood of the Lord. You need to make a judgment about this.

Can anybody pick up from the context of what I read what Paul wants us to judge and discern properly? Remember, we're talking about worthy participation. We're talking about whether we can take ourselves out of it.

What does Paul want us to determine just from what I read? What's the judgment? Significance, okay? The significance of the Lord's table is that, as I think it was Sarah who said, it's our declaration of our faith in Christ, his sacrifice for me, his return, which implies his resurrection, it's all of that.

Part of the problem that was happening in Corinth is that they were treating the Lord's table like a meal. Who asked if it was a meal? Yeah, it was being treated like a meal. In other words, it's the Lord's table, it's the Lord's supper, man, let's go eat.

Man, let's have a feast here. This is gonna be fun. Let's have some merriment about it. So all the sobriety of the occasion is gone. All the dignity, if you will, was gone, and they had more problems.

We don't wanna go into all the Corinthian stuff because we'll never get out of it. But elbowing each other out of the way, the rich people lording it over the poor people, that sort of thing. There's a whole lot going on there.

I would argue that what Paul wants us to discern, wanted them to discern, remember diacrino, is to judge between things, to see the difference of things, is that it's not a meal. It's called the Lord's supper, but it's not supper.

It's not steak and eggs breakfast, or potatoes grotten for dinner. The Lord's supper is a special occasion. It's called the supper, and that's a perfectly good name for it. It's called the communion. It's called the Lord's table.

Those are all proper names for it. What is it not? What's he asking them to judge? I just said it. It's not a meal. It's not a meal. It's not dinner. It's a special commemoration of the Lord Jesus Christ and his sacrifice.

It is a section that is really our instruction there, not just because it's obvious, which it sort of is, but I want you to understand that the reason we know that 11 .17 to 34 is our instruction on the Lord's table is because it's when you come together in verse 17, and when you come together in verse 34, that marks it out as a single unit of thought.

It would be a pretty good preacher who could preach all that in one sermon, even though it's one thought. I think I want to break it up into five or six messages, but that is really that subject. It's one subject.

It's one thought. Paul is saying, I do not commend you. I don't commend you because you come together not discerning what you're doing here. You're not judging rightly because you're treating it as a meal.

I want to ask you, do we fail in this regard? Do we mistreat the Lord's table and present it to you as a meal? No. No, I would say not. I think, and I don't mean to be self-congratulatory here, but I think we do a good job with that.

I think this church always has done a good job with the dignity of the occasion, whether it was on first Sundays, as we did for a very long time, or now every Sunday. I think we maintain the sobriety and the spiritual importance of what we're doing.

Any questions or comments yet? Please. If you look at verse 29, well, let's go up a little bit, starting verse 27. 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.

Now, that's a little scary sounding, to be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Does that mean, okay, I don't have him? I'm not gonna be saved? We have to go on and keep the whole context in mind.

Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Okay? So, unworthy manner, no. How do we cure that? Examine yourself. Verse 29, for anyone who eats and drinks, without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

So, what Paul's saying here is, you're to discern that this is not a meal. You're to discern, you're to judge, you're to think carefully about what is being represented here, the body and blood of the Lord.

Okay? So, it's not dinner. It's a special commemoration given to us through Jesus Christ, by Jesus Christ, through the apostles, is a better way to say that. Okay? Did I answer your question? What was your question again?

Yeah, I would argue that examining yourself is tied to the discernment of realizing what it is that's being served and what it is that we're participating in. And see, when we take that wrongly, or take that too far, the self-examination, then we get into the subjective, where we say, okay, I examine myself, and I've decided I'm not worthy, and I would say, time out.

The church, and this is what Emmanuel was saying before, the church is the one who decides you're not worthy. And I think that would be a failure of discernment. Yes. Is that what you're saying, Charles?

Okay. And again, you're examining, and this, you know, this sounds, to some people, this must sound overly simple. It's like, well, who wouldn't know that this little cracker and this teeny little bit of wine, though it was probably more than that back then, but who wouldn't know that that's not a meal?

Goodness, pastor, that's not gonna sustain me through the morning, much less, you know, be dinner. I mean, who wouldn't know that? Well, they didn't seem to know it. You gonna? Sure? Okay. Well, I'm not sure I understand your question.

Are you asking, did the Corinthians just serve lots of bread and wine? I blame the congregation. Couldn't be the pastors. No, that's a good question. I hadn't thought about that, sir. I think the leadership of the church obviously has the higher responsibility to serve it correctly and in a dignified way, but the church also has a very high responsibility to receive it that way.

Hang on, Sue, you, James?

How Corinthians far? They're very rich and plenty full. I think it drives to the meaning of the Lord's Supper back then, to lose it. So it's not the blaming game. It's more on really bringing back the essence of the true Lord's Supper.

So it's that. When you say checking ourselves, it's really more on how we really look at the Lord's Supper and check ourselves in the Lord's Supper if we are acceptable in the church. Now, remember, there's a sin in the church wherein more so it became more tested in terms of the Lord's Supper.

And just because of the sin in Corinthians back then, then it loses the sin it was covered by,. Okay, let's make it just a big feast.

Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, so it's almost ignore my spiritual condition. Exactly. And just looking forward to the celebration.

So now we're looking at the Lord's Supper with, we don't care if you say you just partake with us. So it's like if you say, if you hear the pastor during the Lord's Supper, check yourself, that's where you know that you're sick and then you're partaking.

And he's also partaking. That in itself loses the essence. And myself, am I doing it the proper way? How can I say to him? Well, even that's kind of the blame where he or the person is sinning, I will, and then now we're partaking at the same time.

That loses the essence.

Yeah, I see what you're saying, James. I would still, in a cautionary way, say the Lord's Table is of such importance and is such a privilege of membership that we have to be very careful about. We cannot recuse ourselves.

It's commanded to you.

So taking ourselves out. Yeah, the grace of God that brought you here, that brought you to take the Lord's Supper, then that actually is the meaning of Lord's Supper, meaning we understand the grace of God.

Yeah, that's good. And one thing you're bringing out here, too, is Paul says, let a man examine himself, which of course means let a woman examine herself as well. It's the generic sense. It does not say, let a man examine his neighbor, okay?

Now, anything can be taken to the point of ridiculousness. So if a husband and wife comes in and the wife's got a swollen nose and a black eye and is limping, we're gonna say, no, wait a second, time out here, obviously.

So we can always take things to the point of absurdity. We're not gonna do that, okay? And Paul even says, I got this from Alistair Begg and you're probably gonna find out that Paul says it. He says in this section, I speak as to sensible people.

So we can make examples that would blow anything out of the water. We just have to stay reasonable about it. Back to this idea of taking ourselves out of the table. Who can do this? An actual thing that happened here, actual person, not here anymore, I'm not gonna give any names, but it actually happened where one brother was talking to another brother and that brother decided that the brother he was talking to was in sin and was unrepentant about it.

He decided this. Now, a lot of details, we can really dig down into it, but he came to me and said, this brother's living in sin and cannot take the table anymore. Well, have you gone to him, shown him his fault between the two of you, gotten two or three witnesses, brought it to the church?

No, no, no. He's in sin, you need to deny him the table. If you don't deny him the table, you're in sin. This actually happened. And it got to be a very intense controversy. And my point was, and it was then, and the point is now, that a pastor, as much authority as God gives a pastor in the church, I always say it's a deep authority, but it's not wide.

Okay, we don't have authority over every aspect of people's lives, but where the church has authority, pastors have deep authority. That's just what the scriptures teach us. But I refused then, and I refuse today, to believe that a pastor on his sole authority can take someone off the table.

And say, hey, I've decided this, I've heard all the cases, I'm the arbiter. No, back to Emmanuel's point. It's Matthew 18, 15 to 22, and we're all pastors and congregation accountable to that passage.

And that's the passage. That's the authority of the church. What did you say before? Keys to the kingdom. That's part of the keys to the kingdom that Emmanuel was referring to. That the church then says, yes, this person's acting as an unbeliever, and should be denied the privilege of membership, which includes the Lord's table.

This other idea about being in sin. I'm gonna argue that, again, remember, we can always draw together an illustration that makes this incorrect. You can always take it too far, but we're not gonna do that.

If you, in examining yourself, this self-examination, which begins with, this is meant as a remembrance, a memorial of the Lord Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for me. That's the first discernment. It's not a meal.

It's that special commemoration. If you find yourself in sin, you do this self-examination, you just can't get that off your mind. I would argue that the place for you to be is at the Lord's table. And I would argue that the place for you to reconcile that disturbance in your conscience is by taking the bread and the wine.

In faith, remembering that Jesus Christ died for whatever it is that's stirring up your conscience. You got that? In other words, rather than taking myself away for the means of grace, I would argue that not just, well, it is commanded by Jesus Christ and through the Apostle Paul is commanded to you.

I would argue that the place to be when the Lord puts that on your spirit is at the Lord's table. And as you're dealing with that sin, as you're dealing with that thing that you didn't reconcile with the brother or sister, as the Lord is disturbing you about it, and you take the bread, remember Jesus Christ died for this sin, and you drink the wine, remember this is the new covenant in my blood where I have forgiveness.

I would argue you're then strengthened in your spirit to go to your brother, perhaps before we have lunch because we have the meal afterwards, and take care of things. Did everybody get in this? Does this make sense?

Is there any question about that? It's a little bit new, okay? It's a little bit different way for most of us to see the Lord's table. And I'm not saying gross sin. Okay, remember, we can always weave together an illustration that won't be answerable.

We're not gonna go that far with it. You find yourself disturbing your conscience because of sin, whether it's lack of relationship or unity with a brother, sister, whatever it is. I'm still arguing, and I'd really like some feedback if anybody has a question here.

The place to be is taking the Lord's table in obedience to Jesus's command. Amen. Good. Yeah. And it could be taken care of. The Lord put it on your heart. The Lord's table will remind you that you have in Christ the strength to go to your brother, sister, and be resolved.

That Jesus Christ says, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them. That's at the end of Matthew 18, 15 to 22. What's that context? That context is a brother or a sister trying to reconcile.

That's when we really need Jesus especially. And that's exactly when he promises his special presence among us. The Heidelberg Catechism number 75 says this way. Just what is the Lord's table? It says, and I quote, as surely as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup given to me, so surely was his body offered for me and his blood poured out for me on the cross.

Now when I read this, honestly, I like our catechism a little better than the Heidelberg, but this really gets to the point in a lot of ways. It gets to the heart of the matter. So when I see the bread coming to me and I'm thinking this is Jesus Christ, and what's his body broken for me?

What part of his life does that refer to? Somebody. The cross? I would argue, yeah, the cross. I actually go a little before the cross. I go to the flogging, to the thorns pressed into his eyes, to the beating he could, they just took that scepter and they beat him with it.