The Supper // 1 Corinthians 11:17-34

The letter of 1 Corinthians is a treasure. It contains more teaching on the resurrection, spiritual gifts, marriage, and the virtue of love than any other book in the Bible.

But it is not cold theology. 1 Corinthians is an urgent call for us to remember the gospel. And as a result, it's a call for us to be a cross-centered, holy, and united people until he returns.

Listen in to what God has to say to us through this inspired letter. Amen. If you would remain standing and you can look up the screen or grab a Bible, turn to 1 Corinthians 11.

We're going to begin reading in verse 17. So 1 Corinthians 11, verse 17. I'll say this is the word of the Lord after I'm done and you will say thanks be to God.

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 goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk.

What? Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you?

Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you. That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread.

And when he 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 the cup of the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you drink this bread and drink the cup, Eat this bread, 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 each 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, 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. This is the word of the Lord. Hallelujah. Please be seated. Martin Luther, The ever quotable Martin Luther, Once said, Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple trees.

Now what would you do tomorrow? Or what would you do today If you knew tomorrow the world would end? Perhaps you would deny it And live like that didn't matter.

Perhaps you would seek to escape it, To build a bomb shelter, Stockpile ammo and canned goods, To wait it out. Perhaps you would party down, Do something crazy.

Live like tomorrow would never come. But in actuality, Knowing what to do on our last day Would not be hard. We would tell others about eternal life Through Jesus Christ. But what would you do tomorrow?

What would you do if you knew tomorrow Was going to be just as ordinary as today? After all, It probably will be. One columnist put it this way, Everydayness is my problem.

It's easy to think about what you would do in wartime, Or if a hurricane blew through town, Or if your guy wins the election, Or if you win the lottery And bought the thing you really wanted.

It's a lot more difficult to figure out How to get through today without despair. It's the everydayness of life That drives you crazy, Unless you're an engineer, Which you like routine.

You know, Our greatest fear Is actually not Usually something really terrible, But what Mark, C.S. Lewis called The same old thing.

The same old thing. You know, If we're not careful, Our gatherings together Can be just like so many things in our lives, Just routine. Ordinary. Same old, Same old, Same Z.

We can begin to do church, We can wake up the kids, Throw on their clothes, Gather in to worship, All the while keeping our best face forward, And head home Without giving it much thought.

And it's not surprising, You know, Church includes the same things every week. It includes praying, And singing, And reading, And preaching, And encouraging, And celebrating the sacraments.

So it's so easy to stumble here. Well that's what was going on In the church of Corinth. They were getting up, They were getting together, They were doing church, And nowhere was it more evident Than the Lord's Supper.

One of the sacraments, That it was meant to set apart The people of God As the people of God, Only revealed among them That they were more Corinthian Than they were Christian.

When they received the Lord's Supper, They were marked, As we're going to see in a few moments, By division, Selfishness, Pride, Irreverence. They were gathering together, They weren't taking it to heart.

The Lord's Supper That was meant to deeply shape them, And their understanding of the gospel, Wasn't doing it. You know, They were just going through the motions.

They weren't having anything to do with it. So much so that Paul said, It's, When you gather, It's not for the better. Can you imagine that? Like, You know what? I know your church.

I know church means gather, But it would be better, Just cancel Sunday. And we're vulnerable To the same thing. Maybe not the same expression, But same type of just going through it.

These verses urge us To not go through the motions. These verses urge us, And invite us, To let the ordinary sacrament, One of the central pieces of what we do When we gather together, Celebrate the sacrament.

Let it shape us deeply and profoundly. Where we're going is, Let us lay aside every hindrance To receive the Lord's Supper with reverence, As one people brought together through Christ.

Let us lay aside every hindrance To receive the Lord's Supper with reverence, As one people brought together for Christ. We're going to break this out. Four points. Just kind of unpack the feast. Four headings.

A feast of unity. What is the Lord's Supper? It's a feast of unity. The Lord's Supper is meant to be a feast of unity. He meant to point to how we're one people in Christ. And yet, It seems that the only thing it revealed in Corinth Was that they were disunified.

There was division. If you remember, At the beginning, We studied this book. One of the first things, Actually, The first thing he addresses in this book Is division. You know, It's so common among the church To draw lines, Pick sides, And turn backs on one another.

Paul says somewhere that You're not much of a church. You just bite and devour one another. And that's what was going on. But later on, Here in this text, When he addresses them for division, It's not about rivalry Or something like that.

He's addressing them about division Over money and status. You probably saw that. Look down at 21. He says, One goes hungry And another gets drunk.

When they gather, The rich eat plenty, But the poor are left with want. Maybe they were getting drunk. I think the idea, though, Is they were eating to excess, Drinking to excess, And the poor were hungry.

He says, Verse 22, Do you not have houses to eat in? Identifying the rich Were those who had houses And full cupboards. And yet, You send away the poor hungry.

You humiliate, Verse 22, Those who have nothing. See, In Corinth, As we pointed out At different times in this letter, In first century Corinth, It's a Roman colony In Greece.

There was a social ladder. The powerful, The influential, Many Roman soldiers settled there. So there was kind of In crowd, Out crowd. There were influential power brokers, Ones who had money, They were high up on the ladder, Much like our culture.

There were the wise, The well educated, Kind of the ones In the sophist type, Greek scholar. They were high up on the ladder too. And it seems, When they gathered together, Everyone knew, Which place the other was On the ladder.

And there was an etiquette That came with it. There was a social etiquette. If you're anything like me, You hear the word etiquette, And kind of get a nauseating feeling, Because you don't know Which of the 14 spoons You're supposed to use When you eat.

Or being, Yeah, whatever. And so there was an etiquette there. But etiquette, It's just the rules and customs Of a certain culture. And when it came To gathering in Corinth, There was an etiquette.

And we know this From excavations, But there was kind of A central living room With couches, Where the rich would sit In this central living room, Recline. And then there was An outdoor living room, Or living space, Atrium type space, With no seats in it, Where the commoners would gather, The slaves, The servants.

The rich and powerful Would eat the best, You know, The fattened calves, So to speak. The poor ate what was left. And what Paul is saying Is when you gather together, You're going back To the same seats.

Now you may think, Oh, this is just A little etiquette concern, But that's not what he's saying. He's saying, The church that was meant To communicate That there's no longer Poor or rich, Slave or free, Successful or unsuccessful, All are one in Christ.

You are undoing With the way you gather. He's urging them. And we see this In 1 Corinthians 10, 16 and 17. He said, The bread that we break, Is it not a participation In the body of Christ?

Because there is one bread, We who are many Are only, Are one body, For we all partake Of the one bread. And so what he's addressing here Is not etiquette.

Now he's not saying The rich should share more. What he's addressing Is the problem That their values Haven't been transformed By the gospel. So he says, Look down there in verse 20, When you come together, It is not the Lord's supper That you eat.

The Lord's supper Is one in which Anyone can come to receive. But with you, Each, In verse 21 he continues, Goes ahead with his own meal.

The Lord's supper Is a feast around unity. The Lord's supper Is meant to make clear That the foundation Of our unity Is the gospel. Not some worldly standard.

Not some socio-economic standard. And that's what Paul Is incensed about. So much that he says It's better that you didn't gather Than that you do.

It's so easy though To stumble When we gather together As a church. When attending a church It's so easy To make a list Of the folks That are not like us. Or different than us. We often have this Going on in the background Without thinking about it.

You know, I'm not married like her. I'm not straight laced like him. Not really into flannel Or flare jeans Or man buns Or tattoos like them. I don't school Like those people over there.

I don't have the things they have. So, I think I need to find A church with people That are more like me. I think this stuff Is kind of at root When we say, Man, I don't have any friends Here anymore.

I don't enjoy fellowship Here anymore. Rosaria Butterfield says, What does it mean What does it really mean To lack fellowship? At least as it regards A handful of families That showed immediate excitement And then after a month A changed heart.

This is what Lacking fellowship means. It means that the family Needs to be in a church Made up of people Who are just like they. Who raise their children Using the same Child rearing methods.

Who take the same stance On birth control. Schooling, Voting, Breastfeeding, Dress codes, White flour, White sugar, Gluten, Childhood immunizations.

She concludes, I believe that there is No greater enemy To vital life, Breathing faith Than insisting On cultural sameness.

Now, Rosaria Throws strikes But it gets right At the issue. You gotta be aware You know, Part of the tension is We live in a culture That insists on sameness.

It is An iron out All the differences Culture. We're threatened By differences Actually. What do you, You don't like the things I do? You don't like how I Spend my money? Or you don't like this Or that about me?

And then we look down On the people That are not like it But the mission Of God In the gospel Is not to create A church Of a bunch of people Like you Or me, Praise God. The mission Of God Is to create A lot of people Like Jesus Christ.

A people From every tribe, Tongue, And nation. A bunch of people That would never be together Were it not for Jesus Christ. We all believe This principle In principle.

But the test Comes into practice And so he's Kind of pushing This into them. You know, It's not surprising. You know, It's not a surprising stumble. We all stumble In this way, I think. At the Lord's Supper, Though, It's a feast around unity And so they need to They need to feast it right.

But it's also a feast That the church receives together. If you notice Running through this passage You had to have noticed. He says, When you come together When you come together As a church When you come together When you come together It occurs five times In here.

Most commentators Believe this is a reference A specific reference To the gathering together Of a local church When the church Gathers for worship When they're gathering together To worship the Lord Jesus Christ As a church Ecclesia Which means gathering This is what they're called To do together.

It's pointing out That like the sacrament Of baptism The Lord's Supper Is not a sacrament It is a sacrament Given to the church. It was not given to me Or to you. It's not to take privately Or even just to take With our friends That you know Share the same Socioeconomic status With us.

It's a sacrament The church receives together To express our unity In Christ To dwell with him Be like him. Point two A feast of remembrance So a feast of unity A feast of remembrance So it's this feast Of unity And a feast of remembrance The idea it is a feast Of looking back And remember all that God has done in Christ.

Verse 23 through 26 Retell the story Of the last supper Of Jesus Christ. These verses are You know The semblance of these verses The account Of the last supper Of Jesus Is told in three of the gospels And told here And nowhere else In Holy Scripture.

These verses Are an account Paul says That he received From the Lord. Look down there In verse 23 He says For I received From the Lord What I also delivered To you.

Now you remember The last supper In our gospels The night That Jesus was betrayed The night Before Gogatha And his crucifixion Jesus was celebrating The Passover Any Jewish reader Would have known That immediately The Passover And This wonderful story Of what God's done Actually Taylor read From Exodus 19 Right after the Passover The people Of Israel Were stuck in Egypt They continue They continue To grow In strength In numbers You remember that They kind of Stumbled into Egypt Because Joseph Brought them there In the midst Of a famine And Jacob And his father Died Or Jacob Died there And his sons And this king Treats them well But then They continue To grow In strength In number And another king Arises Another pharaoh Arises And doesn't like it The people cry out To the Lord And the Lord Sends Moses

To deliver them You remember Moses was drawn up Out of the water As a boy And raised By some Hebrew midwives And then He was sent in To deliver But you know He didn't just go in And knock on the door And says The Lord said He wants his people back Doesn't work like that So one of the great Showdowns in Holy Scripture Is Moses' showdown With Pharaoh's heart Actually And the Lord Sends down All these plagues He turns water Into blood Frogs And lice Fall down And flies The death Of the livestock Boils You know It's just getting Too close You know Hail Locusts But still Pharaoh Hardens his heart And will not Let his people go And so the Lord Says prepare For the last plague And he says To the people of Israel Take a lamb Without blemish Kill it at nightfall And roast it Take some of the blood With a hyssop branch And paint it on the Doorpost of your house And then eat the lamb

At home And watch And wait In Exodus 12 The Lord said It is the Lord's Passover Because on that night The angel of death Was going to come Through the land Of Egypt And strike down The firstborn Of every family Except the ones Who had the blood On the doorposts Can you imagine The people of Israel On that night Trusting in this word I mean they've seen You talk about chaos Well the people Do what God Tells them to do And God does What he said He's going to do He strikes down Every firstborn Of Egypt And passes over The house Where the blood Was on the doorpost And Pharaoh Let's his people go After that Each year The people Gather to remember That fearful night Of the Passover And celebrate What God did So it's very common Yearly The Passover meal Began at sundown

And continued To almost midnight It included Certain order Questions that the kids Would ask It was vital To their history To remember the Passover Because that's what Set them apart That's what made them The people of God The people of Israel The people that Belong to God And all of it Centered around The Passover lamb To remember the lamb That was slain On that night And the blood That delivered them But in each of The gospels And the accounts Of the last supper And our Lord's Final Passover Celebration There's one thing That's conspicuously Absent There's no reference To the lamb There's reference To bread And wine And these verses Tell us why Jesus says Look down there In verse 23

On the night The Lord was betrayed He took bread And when he had Given thanks He broke it And said This is my body Which is for you Same way He took the cup After supper And said This cup Is the new covenant In my blood Do this As well as the bread As often as you eat And drink In remembrance Of me Jesus was saying As it were Obviously the bread Is not him The juice Is not him The wine Is not him He's saying This is what I'm gonna do This is my body That will be broken Imagine what the disciples Thought three days later When they realized What that meant This is my blood Why?

Because without The shedding of blood Scripture says There is no forgiveness Of sins What Jesus is saying It's so clear Jesus is the Passover lamb The lamb that will be slain Not just for the sins of Israel But for the sins of the world The perfect spotless Son of God Became the sacrifice That's what's going on here It's not a last supper Like you'd have a last meal Before you go do And this or that It's pointing out Something dramatic Is taking place God is delivering over his son So that the judgment Of God That we deserve Might pass over us forever And fall squarely On Jesus Christ And so what the Lord Is saying What Paul's saying Right here Is that the Lord's supper Is a feast of remembrance In the same way The people of Israel Look back And they remember The deliverance For the Passover night They delivered They remember going To the Red Sea So too The Lord's supper For us Is a remembrance

That all that God Has done on our behalf Is objective Is complete Regardless of the way We feel about it From day to day This work is done It's also a reminder That what God has done On our behalf Is historical What sets Christianity As part From every other religion Is history matters We believe In the fullness of God The fullness of time God sent forth His son And it is our story We also remember All that God has done On our behalf Is finished So we eat To remember Not to add to it Or improve it God forbid Take away from it But to remember So we receive The Lord's supper Because we must remember And we receive it Because there are Some things We must not forget I was reading The other day About a couple of guys Who had days They will never forget I trust One man As reported By a Minnesota News paper Went skydiving I don't know Who does that Type of thing But you know He went skydiving

He jumped Out of the plane But his parachute Didn't work He found that out In the 90 seconds As he fell From 3,000 feet In the air To the ground And somehow He lived I wouldn't forget That I don't think Another man Woke up In a morgue Refrigerator After 12 hours In a coma He woke up From the coma In total darkness He felt around And surprise He was laying With the dead The report said He started shouting The paramedic Who opened the door This is really sad Collapsed in shock And died I mean I think I might die too You know Someone was raised From the dead Like that But just crazy These are days They will not forget And it's striking to me 2 Timothy 2 2.8 says Remember Jesus Christ You know So many ways

You're like Is there one command That is unnecessary In the Bible Remember Jesus Christ And yet It's in there Because we're so prone To forget The story of the people Of God Throughout history And the story Of human nature Is they soon For God And so we gather We gather to remember Jesus Christ We gather to receive The bread and the wine We gather to remember him You might be in The deepest Of darkness But you gather To remember That the deepest Darkness Is darkness Of alienation From God You take This bread And this cup You're reminded That though everyone else Might have left you Jesus Christ Never will Went into the depths Of darkness Fear and death So that he might Bring us Into

The light But it's a word We need When we gather We take up The bread and the cup We're meant to remember That life is not found By getting But by giving I think that's what Paul was getting at With this church Can you imagine They're kind of Insisting on their Serving size Insisting on their seats And he's saying Remember Jesus Gave up his life Remember that Life's not gained Found by gaining But by losing It's a life Where we eat together Remember what Christ Did on our behalf But it's a life We commit to Walking out together Laying down our lives For Christ To a feast Of unity

A feast of remembrance Thirdly A feast of communion Feast of communion The symbols Of the new covenant Are bread and wine Bread and the cup But what exactly Are we receiving When we eat the bread And drink the cup Roman Catholics Believe the substance Of the bread and wine Become the physical Body and blood Of our Lord Jesus Christ Sometimes we can Begin to believe That's the oldest Teaching about The Lord's Supper In fact One popular pastor Francis Chan Said I didn't know That for the first Fifteen hundred years Of church history Everyone saw The Lord's Supper As the literal Body and blood Of Christ And it wasn't Until five hundred Years ago Which is around The time of the Reformation Someone popularized The thought That it was just A symbol And nothing more That's not accurate As much as we can Respect Francis Chan That's not true

There's some who Believe this doctrine Early in the church But it didn't become Official teaching Of the Roman Catholic Church Until 1213 In the Reformation Actually There was more Talk about The Lord's Supper Than anything else Even justification The Catholics Held their position From 1213 on Lutherans believed Martin Luther The camp that he was in Believed that Jesus Was in with And under The bread and the wine But was not The bread and the wine Not his physical Body and blood Others took The opposite position Which is what Francis Chan Is referencing A Zwinglian position Which just said That the bread and wine Are just pure symbols Nothing more We would argue That Christ is Spiritually present In the Lord's Supper We do not believe He's literally present We're not trying To get Christ Out of the Out of the Lord's Supper though We're just trying To get bread and wine Back in We believe that

Even though these Symbols are here They're not They're just bread and wine And yet God by his spirit Is spiritually present To work in us To cause us To grow more like him The bread and the cup Are just outward symbols Of this profound Spiritual truth That in the Lord's Supper We commune with God And are strengthened By his presence You know When we eat food And sometimes We're painfully aware Of this It becomes one with us Something that hits The stomach That the stomach Is not ready for We become one When it takes A hold of us Well you know And the food Enters our bodies We digest it Though on the good days We're strengthened by it Supplied with energy And the same thing Goes on when we eat And drink the Lord's Supper If we could put it this way Christ enters us Dwells with us Comforts us Assures us Strengthens us Keeps us Supplies us With energy So that we can say Like Paul I worked hard Though it was not I who worked By the grace of God

Christ Who worked in me That's what Paul means When he says In 1016 The cup of blessing That we bless Is it not a participation In the blood of Christ Participation It's fellowship It's communion Strikingly in this text All the words for communion Are here I think the best Name for What we're going to do At the conclusion Of the service Is the Lord's Supper Just like it was The Lord's Passover It's the Lord's Supper But the Eucharist Is there as well That's just That's just the Greek word For giving thanks And so it is a meal In which you give thanks To the Lord But communion is there too In 1016 Referencing the fellowship We share Through Christ With the living God And so the Lord's Supper Is a precious gift You know To receive again From the Lord To be built up in Him To commune with Him To grow more like Him Sometimes we receive The Lord's Supper We don't feel a thing

Sometimes We receive And we're aware That God's at work You know Just like He does In our normal lives Several months ago I was at Dude Perfect In Knoxville We took the The boys To Dude Perfect And I've watched Like 10 videos So I'm not A Dude Perfect guy But we watched And there's all sorts Of crazy things At night You know Different Archery type things The best thing Was Go-Kart Soccer That was pretty awesome Throwing it around And so they're doing This go-kart soccer And it's a Saturday night So I know I've got to Get home to preach And the next morning And Tyler One of the Dude Perfect guys At the end Says Hey we want you To stay around We're going to tell you You know We're going to take A quick break But we're going to Tell you why we do The things we do And you know What motivates So I was like Alright cool And we started Walking down And we're like Okay we're going to Stay And they came out And it was Thompson Bowling 30,000 people

Came out And I was Unprepared for it Tyler And the Dude Perfect Guys began to Share the gospel And share how You know They're thankful To God They're Reached a lot Of success YouTube platform A lot of influence In the sports world And then So they're just Sharing the gospel And then they Led us in song And I just remember Being blown away Because I was just Reminded of What life is all About And on the one Hand I was struck By 30,000 voices Singing It could only make Me imagine What heaven's Going to be like But then I was Struck by how God was Ministering to me At Duke Perfect on a Saturday night When I was Anxious about My message And I was Communing with

The Lord And all these Other people That I didn't Know were To And That's what The Lord's Supper Is Offering Paul said Rich in gold I don't Have But I Have the Power of The Lord Jesus Christ Rise and Walk What's he Saying The preciousness Of the Supper is One day We'll see This Beautiful Savior Face To Face But now We're Eating To be Reminded That he's At work In us That he's Going to Complete This work He's Going to Bring us All the Way Over The finish Line We can Be built Up him And walk In him As Colossians 2 says It's Such a Tremendous Gift To us Remind us That he Loves us That we Belong to him It's a Feast of

Communion Fourthly It's a Feast of Preparation Feast of Preparation Unity Remembrance Communion And Preparation It's A Feast Of Preparation Because We're Preparing To Meet God You Know What's Striking About The Sacrament Lord's Supper And The Sacrament Of Baptism We're Passive We saw That Last Week Tim And Robin Were Baptized As a Passive Verb Why Because They Didn't Do Anything Somebody Else Taylor Dunked Them Into The Water When We Receive The Lord's Supper We're Active It's Different We Take Up The Bread Into Our Hands Sometimes We Look At It We Take Up The Cup We're Like Man Somebody Skimped On This One But You Take It Up You're Taking It Into Your Hands You're Active By Faith There's A Warning Though There's A Warning That Paul's Trying To Make Clear Here We Must Not Go Through The Motions This Feast Is About Unity It's And

Lightly That's What Paul Is Reproving This Church For There's Division And They're Not Giving Any Thought To It There's Selfishness Stinginess And Indifference And Yet He's Saying You Must Wake Up To The Seriousness Of Taking The Sacrament Without Thought And Care Look In Verse 27 He Says Whoever Eats The Bread Drinks The Cup In An Unworthy Manner Will Be Guilty Concerning The Against Christ God Will Not Be Mocked He Says All Those Who Do So Will Be Judged The Seriousness Of Just These Symbols Of Bread And Wine Could Not Be More Serious He Says Many Of You Are Weak And Ill Some Have Died So He's Tracing It Out Maybe You Thought It Was Pneumonia Or Something Like That He's Saying Some Died Out Of Judgment For

Taking This Sacrament Carelessly The Idea Of Judgment Runs To This Passage Five Words Used For Judgment Are In Here It's Reminding Us That We Are Before The Face Of God Every Moment And So He Urges Us To Reprove Our So That We Not Be Condemned Along With The World That We Examine Ourselves What Does It Mean We Discern The Body Discern What The Lord's Supper Signifies Who Is Present With Us When We Eat To Judge Truly It Urges Us To Think About Who The Lord's Supper Is For We Shouldn't Take The Lord's Supper If We're Not Christians Wonderfully It Is For All Who Turn To Christ But It's For Only Those Who Turn To Christ To Eat And Drink The Cup

Is To Do So In A Personal Self Conscious Intention I Believe Believe Believe In Jesus Christ We Must Not Take The Supper Because Everyone Else Is Doing It Or Because We've Always Done It To Eat Or Do So Is To Drink Judgment On Ourselves We Would Add That We Should Not Take The Lord's Supper We Haven't Been Baptized Baptism An Initial Unrepeated Sacrament That Marks Out The People Of God From The World It's The Beginning Of Fellowship With The Church The Lord's Supper Is The Repeated Sacrament Of The People Of God Paul Baptized When He Arrived In Corinth But He Commenced The Lord's Supper Here As A Repeated Sacrament A Continuing Of Fellowship One In Which We Continue Our Fellowship With God And Our Fellowship With One Another We Should Not Take The Lord's Supper If We've Been!

Indulging Some Hidden Sin Now I Realize We Could Confess All Day Long So I'm Not Say There's Limitations To That But The Idea Is We Shouldn't Take The Lord's Supper If We Know Things Aren't Right Between Us And God We Shouldn't Take The Lord's Supper If We Have An Open Offense With Someone In The Body I Take That From Matthew 5 When The Lord Says So If You're Offering Your Gift And Altar And Remember That Your Brother Has Something Against You Leave Your Gift At The Altar Go And Be Reconciled To Your Brother Then Come Offer Your Gift What Is He Saying To To Take The One Cup And The One Bread With Open Offense To Lie About The Lord's Supper And

So It's Wise To Do Some Heart Surgery Say Lord I Want To Walk In The Light Psalm 130 Mind Search Me Oh Lord And Know Me See If There's Any Unclean Way In Me And Lead Me In The Way Ever Lasting It's A Feast In Which We're Preparing Our Hearts To Meet With God The Final Judgment Is In View For Our Lord I Mean For Paul In These Verses He's Saying We Prepare Our Hearts In The Lord's Supper We Prepare Our Hearts We Kind Of Confess Our Sins Why Because We're Preparing To Face God Right Now We're Facing The Lord And As He Revealed Himself In And Through This Sacrament But One Day We'll Face Him And We Don't Want To Be Condemned Along With The World So We Prepare Our Hearts And So We Come And Trust In The Gospel Again There

Is No Condemnation For Those! In Christ But The Fainful Reality Is All Those Who Are Outside Of Christ Will Be Left On Their Own On The Final Judgment And So We Prepare Our Hearts Because We Want To Be Prepared To Face God On The Final Day To Meet Him And As We Do This Together We Proclaim His Death Until He Comes Again We Confess It In Faith We Proclaim Why Because It's Public We're Confessing Publicly Again Just Like We Did In He's The One Who Lived Died Rose Again And Will Return Let Us Lay Aside Every Hindrance To Receive Our Lord's Supper With Reverence As One People Brought Together Through Christ Let Us Press Through Doing Church To Be Built Up To This Sacrament Let's Pray Father In Heaven We

Thank You We Confess Our Need For You We Hide In You This Day We Pray That You Would Build Us Up In Our Most Holy Faith Strengthen Us And Help Us Pray That You Would Use This Sacrament God To Strengthen Us Now Unify Us As A People To Root Us And Ground Us Even More Deeply On The Finished Work Of Jesus Christ To Draw Near To Us Even As We Draw Near To You To Rid Our Hearts Of Anything Unpleasing To You Last Thing We'd Want To Do Is To Just Go Through The Motions With These Things God We Pray That You Would Come And Work In Us And Finish Your Work For Your Glory We

Pray Amen Amen