First Corinthians 11, 26, for
as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show
the Lord's death till he come. And we're not recreating the
Lord's death. It's just bread and wine in memoriam,
verse 25, in memory of him, remembering. So we're doing two things when
we partake of the Lord's table. We're remembering and we're showing. We're not perpetuating the Lord's
death. The Lord Jesus Christ died once
for all, the scripture says, and obtained eternal redemption
for those for whom he died. It is enough that he died. And
all for whom he died, or redeemed, we're not validating the Lord's
death. There's no merit whatsoever in
the eating and the drinking. What Christ accomplished for
us, his people, he accomplished alone. And we never add to or
take away from that. He completely saved us. And that
cup, which he said is the new covenant in his blood, was sufficient. We don't perpetuate that. We
simply remember and we show. To the world, I guess, if anybody's
interested, to each other, and to ourselves, we show. In showing the Lord's
death, what is it about the Lord's death that we show? What does
this ordinance show about his death? Well, this ordinance clearly
shows that salvation is a person. Does it not? How simply and beautifully
it shows that. My body, he said, my blood. That's it. That's the whole table. Remember when the angels announced
the birth of the Savior in Luke chapter two, let me read you
a couple of verses of that. and listen to the language of
it. And the angel said unto them, fear not for behold, I bring
you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
I bring you gospel. Good tidings is the definition
of the word gospel. I bring you the gospel today.
The joyful gospel in which you, all of his people will rejoice.
What is that gospel? A child. a baby, a person. Under you is born this day in
the city of David, a savior, which is Christ the Lord. Somebody is born. Somebody died. Somebody shed
his precious blood. That's salvation and the table
shouts that. That's what this ordinance says.
He is the gospel. He is salvation. Let's remember how God saved
us, Christ. Let's memorialize the grace of
almighty God in choosing and coming and rescuing the worst
worms on his earth. Let's celebrate how that God
who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved
us, quickened us from the dead. How are we gonna do that? How
are we gonna commemorate that? His body, his blood, his person,
his work, who he is, what he did. What does this ordinance show
about Christ crucified? It speaks of the union of Christ
and his people. His body and blood are salvation
and we partake of him. We partake of him, there's a
union. All other religions, including
what this world calls Christianity, it's just another false religion,
it's another false religion. All other religions are all about
you achieving a higher status somehow. Here's what you need
to do to be what you're not. taking advantage of what is available,
you getting saved, you making that all-important decision,
you becoming clear, and so on and so forth. It's all the same
thing. Paul said, not I, but Christ. That's a big difference. And it's shown now. And remember
the next part when he said, not I, but Christ? Christ liveth in me. I'm crucified
with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. It shows that union of Christ
and his people. We're accepted in the beloved
as the beloved. He loves us like he loves his
son. Because of that, what did he
say in that John 17, where he said, you've loved them as you've
loved me. What did he say? He expressed the unity of him
and his people and his father. This is what the table shows,
the eating and drinking. Unless we, by faith, eat his
flesh and drink his blood, there's no life in us. And the fruit of his spirit in
us, in us, in us, is faith. In him, faith just has one object
now. You can call it faith, I have
faith that everything's gonna be okay. That's not faith. Faith,
scriptural, biblical faith has one object, the son of God. The
fruit of his spirit in us, Christ in us, the fruit of that union
is our faith in him. It didn't come naturally to the
human heart. The fruit of his spirit in us
is love for him. He is the vine and we are the
branches. That unity is shown in the table. We partake of it. No life apart
from union with him. That's the table. What is it
that we show about the Lord's death when we partake of the
table? Well, we show the simplicity
that's in Christ. the all-inclusiveness. Not only
is salvation a person, but it's only Him. There's no ritual attached to
it, there's no complications, there's no weird stuff that nobody
even knows what we're doing. It's just us partaking of Christ
and believing. Remember what Paul said in Romans,
through faith in His blood, we believe in His blood. We believe
that his precious blood is the holy blood of God's lamb, sufficient
to wash all of our sins away. The all-inclusiveness that's
in Christ, is that not one of the beacons that shines
from this table? It's all here, it's simply here. There's nothing complicated about
it. You know, God's sovereignty is not complicated. He does as
he pleases, when he pleases, with whom he pleases. Did that
go over anybody's head? The doctrine of particular effectual
redemption is not complicated, is it? Everybody that Christ died to
save, he saved. His precious blood, Redeem them. To discern the Lord's body in
verse 29, we're gonna talk about that Lord willing in a minute.
To discern his body is to understand these things. It's to simply
understand by his grace that he died to save his people and
he died and saved his people. That's not complicated, religion
is complicated now. Isn't it weird to sit there and
say, oh, salvation, you know, Jesus died on a cross, but you
better live the Christian life or you'll go to hell. Huh? Then who was that that died on
the cross? What did he do? What was the point of that? If
I could just live in a way that pleases God, then why did Christ
come? You know, Paul asks those same
questions. That's why I ask him, because we have no other hope but him.
But we need no other hope but him. The nature of this table is such
that we show our vital need of Christ when we eat and we drink.
We're showing that this is our life. Food and water is life, food
and drink. Just as the physical body dies
without food or without drink, my soul dies without Christ. We partake of him, we show that
forth. We show forth his death. When we discern his body, we
discern what he did, who he was and what he did. Eating is not optional if you
wanna live. It's needful. Christ is not a decision that
you make, not if you want to live spiritually. Drinking is not a choice if you
want to live. It's needful, and Christ is the
one thing needful. We show that forth at this table. To say, isn't it time to try
Jesus? which religion does, I've seen
it many times, and that's their attitude, that's their whole
attitude. Give Christ a shot, you know. You've tried all this
stuff, you know, just give Jesus a chance. That's like saying
give drinking water a shot. You'd think somebody was crazy
to say that. They're a lot more crazy to say, why don't you try
Jesus? You don't try him. You've either got to have him
or you don't. We have one need, and we show
that at the table, that need is Christ, we show that until
he comes. We show that all other hopes
are abandoned. You think about this, to receive
Christ is to denounce self. Why are you eating and drinking
that which he said is his body and his blood? Because if I don't,
I perish forever, that's why. We don't run out and do good
deeds in order to have eternal life, we partake of Christ. Commemorating Him and His death
is not to go out and give to charities. No, it's to partake
of Him in symbol and type and say, this is my hope, this is
my life, Christ is all. And think about this now, to
receive Christ is to denounce self, far from being part of
a scheme of personal attainment like all other religions, this
ordinance says, I'm such a horrible sinner that if the son of God
doesn't give himself an offering for my sin, I'm a goner. That's
how bad I am. That's how desperate I am. God
Almighty had to give himself for me. to reach for him in the press
and see laying hold of him as my only hope is to have spent
all that we had on other cures and only grown worse. You see,
that's what we're saying. We're down to this and this only. There is no other to whom we
may go Our sin is so great that it's the blood or we perish. God's holiness and wrath are
so demanding that it's Christ or we come short. It's Christ
or we suffer forever. We're showing you what had to
happen in order for me to have acceptance with God. That's what
we're showing. We're showing what took place
in order for us to live and stand in the presence of God without
spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Don't tell us that Christ didn't
actually save us when he died for us, because that's to tell
us that we can't be saved. If his blood is not the difference,
then what is? You ever think about that? Does
do religious people have that? If the blood itself, if Christ
crucified is not the difference between spiritual life and death,
then you tell me what is. We oppose you who say such things
when we eat and drink this bread and this cup. We literally claim
by this ordinance all of the promises of God in the new covenant, which are according to his will
and his free grace, a covenant that as far as we're concerned
is unconditional. We claim those promises by what
right? Him and what he did for me. Is
that simple enough? Those promises of that covenant
that we spoke more particularly about last week, those promises
pronounce us blessed in Christ with no conditions put upon us. I like that song that says the
only fitness He requires is to feel your need of Him. And He
gives you that. Yes, He gives you. I'll break out into song if y'all
don't care. We reject your conditional available
grace in favor of the almighty conquering free grace of God
in Christ Jesus. When we drink that wine and we
eat that bread, we do that. We reject all other hopes. We reject an atonement that was
a best effort and show that we live by that which Christ accomplished
for us. When the Lord comes, there won't
be anybody to show this to. Not like this. His sheep will
see him face to face. We'll dine with the very one
that we memorialize now. Those in hell have no more advantages. What are we gonna show them? Those in hell have no more sure
word of prophecy to not take heed of anymore. No more tokens of God's grace
to ignore. No more word of eternal life
to reject. No more will they be shown the
Lord's death in any manner, at least not in hope. And never
again will it mean nothing to them. It won't mean salvation to them,
but it won't mean nothing. Verse 27. Wherefore, whosoever
shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Now this verse
is a monument to how that taking scripture out of context is deadly. It's, It's game over. You're not gonna
understand any scripture without the rest of scripture. You're
just not. To eat and drink this cup unworthily,
and of course, everybody says, well, you've gotta be worthy
then. You've got to measure up in some way. You can't have any
sin in your life, some say. Well, that rules me out. How
about you? Anybody in here coming to the
table? This doesn't imply that anybody's
worthy. We have to read the whole context
to understand what it does say, very clearly, by the way, when
you understand it in the context. First of all, the word unworthily
there means in an unworthy manner, to eat and drink in an unworthy
manner, or it means this, irreverently. irreverently, if it's just a
ritual to you. If it's like it was to these
Corinthians, for example, it was just a fleshly party of some
kind. They were getting drunk and having
big feasts and calling it worship. Paul said, just quit. It'd be
better if you didn't do this at all. That's clearly what he's
saying to them here, to eat and drink in an unworthy manner. He specifically told them what
was unworthy about the manner in which they were doing it.
The table was not being observed by them in the way that the Lord
ordained it. And so Paul said it would be
better if you didn't observe it at all. Verse 17, being guilty
of the body and blood of the Lord is our natural state before
God. Did you know that? This isn't
some special curse that God puts on people that don't do the table
right. That's our condition by nature.
We're guilty of his body and blood. We crucified the Son of
God. This is the condemnation, that
light has come into the world and men love darkness rather
than light because their deeds were evil. Again, look at the
context of that. That's talking about us murdering
God's Son. Paul is saying here that you're
not worshiping by what you're doing. You're just loving yourself
rather than Christ. And that's what happened at Calvary. It is the reason that they ate
it in an unworthy manner that was the real problem here. Look
at verse 28 and verse 29 together. But let a man examine himself,
and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup, For he
that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation
to himself. Here's the problem. Yes, there
was a problem with the way that they were doing it, clearly.
He points all that out. But here's why they did it the
way they did it, not discerning the Lord's body. If you know
what this represents, by faith you believe. In other words, by faith, Abel
offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. By faith, we discern
his body, who he is and what he did, his broken body, his
body and his broken body and the blood that was shed for our
sin. We discern that by believing on him, but you can't believe
on what you don't understand. To discern means to judge rightly. or to judge, to determine. You're
not determining properly what this is. If you did, you'd worship
instead of partying. So you see the context here.
To eat and drink unworthily is to eat and drink in an unworthy
manner. And the reason is not because
you're not good enough to partake of the table. It's because you
don't believe in Christ. At least you're acting like you
don't. He hadn't given up on him. You'll see that in a minute,
Lord willing. We will. They did this in an unworthy
manner because they did not discern the Lord's body. Discerning is
to determine and make a judgment. You're not doing that when you're
sitting around getting drunk and eating a fancy meal, that's fleshly, that's carnal,
not spiritual. This is a spiritual table. You
don't come to this table because your stomach's growling. You
come because you're hungry for Christ, his righteousness, the
redemption that's in him. It's to understand by God's grace
that it's not just a ritual that we do. It's an act of faith in
the Son of God. It's to understand by God's grace
who he is and what he did, all that we talked about before,
what he accomplished by breaking his body, by giving himself for
our sins, by shedding his precious blood. To determine how that salvation's
a person. Regarding the unity of Christ
and his sheep to make a judgment about that to understand that
To understand and perceive how that His precious blood was successful
the sin atoning power of That blood you can't discern what
this is and not worship And they weren't worshiping So Paul makes
the inevitable conclusion that they didn't discern. You don't
get it. If you're doing that, you don't
get it. But he says this, let a man examine
himself. Boy, that plays right into the
hand of people that think you have to be, you know, good on
a certain level to come to the table, doesn't it? Examine yourself
now, make sure that you're not, you know, you don't have any
sin in your life. I don't want to examine myself that way. I don't wanna, that's despair.
That's me not even being worthy to walk in this building and
even say the name of Christ. That's not it. Listen to what
it is. Second Corinthians 13 five, examine yourselves whether
you be in the faith. Do I believe on the Son of God? Answer in your heart the question
that Christ asked that blind man in John chapter nine. None
of the other stuff that the so-called church at the time was asking
him meant anything. There's one question that matters.
Do you believe on the Son of God? Answer that question in
your heart. That's how you examine yourself.
Not am I good enough? How much have I sinned in this
past week? Am I worthy to come to the, no.
Is Christ my righteousness? If he is, then I'm worthy. Has he washed me from my sins
in that blood? Then Lord, here I come. I come,
I wouldn't come into your presence otherwise. But my forerunner
has entered into the very presence of God with somewhat to offer,
not the blood of bulls and goats, but his own precious blood. And
so here I come. prove your own selves, know you
not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except
you be reprobates? There is nothing in this examination
that has anything to do with whether you are good enough or
not. Do you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and is Christ in
you? Is Christ your righteousness?
Can you say with Paul, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. In the life which I now live,
I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave
himself for me. That's my warrant to come into
the presence of God. Do you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ? Eat this bread and drink this
wine in faith. Faith which has one object. That's
to eat worthily and drink worthily. In the rest of this chapter,
we see that the Lord gave them strong chastisement. Many of
them got sick, many of them died. Is that a wake up call? Not always,
the Lord does that for many reasons. We know the lesson by his grace
of John chapter nine. Sometimes it's just that he might
show his glory when he rebukes or chastises his people. Puts trials upon them like blindness
in that chapter and death in this one. But Paul says, this is why that,
I don't know if the Lord especially revealed that to him or what,
but he said, this is why that there's sickness and death among
you. The Lord, it's not done in a
corner, is it? He'll wake us up. He'll wake
us up. And look at the hope here. What
a great hope this is. I lost my place. Let me get back
to... Look at what he says. For this
cause, verse 30, many are weak and sickly among you and many
sleep. For if we would judge ourselves,
we should not be judged. If we would just learn from the
word of God and not rebel and not do stupid things we know
we shouldn't be doing, we wouldn't have to be corrected. See that? The word would correct. I pray
that a lot, that I would learn from other people's mistakes
and not my own. Lord, teach me from the scriptures
and not with the whip, with the belt or whatever you wanna call
it. He does chastise us now. He knows how to do it. He's not a father like we were.
He knows how to do it. He dealeth with us as with sons.
And we have that hope here, look at it. But when we are judged, when
we are chastened of the Lord, not because he's gonna unleash
hell on us here on earth, but that we should not be condemned
with the world, with the ones who observe religion without
any discernment of the Lord's body whatsoever. They do that
to their own damnation. There's no ifs, ands, or buts
about that in this text. If you ever come to the table
and think, well, I haven't done a whole lot of bad stuff lately,
I think I'm okay to come. That's hell. That's hell, that's
damnation. You're eating and drinking damnation
to your own soul in your self-righteous pride. And man, if I ever do
that, if the Lord ever lets me go. He's doing it to correct
you. The Lord's gonna fix this one
way or the other. Isn't that what he's saying?
The Lord's gonna fix this. By rebuke and chastisement is
the hope and the prayer that the result of that would be correction. Humble submission to God. God-given faith in Christ that
will bring about worship rather than just fleshly celebration. Wherefore, my brethren, when
you come together to eat, tarry one for another. Remember the
specific things that he spoke about before. And if any man
hunger, let him eat at home. Don't come to the Lord's table
to satisfy the flesh. It has nothing to do with the
flesh. That you come not together unto
condemnation. Oh, let it be correction and
not condemnation. Let it be so. And the rest will
I set in order when I come. So let's close with
this thought. When we examine ourselves, let's remember that we're not
ever doing it to determine if we deserve God's blessing. We know better than that by His
grace. We're looking into two things only when we examine ourselves. Is Christ in me? And do I believe
on Him? We're looking to see some hope
in us. If we're looking at ourselves to see some hope, we better see
Christ there. Or we're not gonna find any hope. He that hath a son,