Okay, brethren, let me ask you
to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. 1 Corinthians, the 11th chapter. This morning we've come together
to eat the Lord's Supper. And the only ones who are bid
to come to the Lord's table are those born of the Spirit of God,
whose hope is in Christ alone. Colossians chapter 1, Paul said,
We give thanks unto the Father, who hath made us meet, made us
fit, complete, to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness,
and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son, in whom,
in Christ, we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness
of sins. And just as the Father, through
Christ, through the Holy Spirit, made us meet to be partakers
of the heavenly inheritance right now, He made us fit to come to
His table. All the problems among the Corinthian
brethren were because many Those born of the Spirit, many who
were babes in Christ, were yet looking to, had their minds focused
on carnal things. Carnal things. And when our minds
are fixed on carnal things, it does, when it comes to the preaching
of the gospel, it does one of two things. It makes us to prefer
certain preachers over other preachers. which is what they
were doing, or it makes us to say, I'm of Christ, I don't even
need a preacher. That's carnal mindedness. Another
thing it does is it makes us either excuse outward, immoral,
lewd sin, and it makes us accuse one another for things we ought
to excuse one another for. That's what carnal mindedness
does. And they were bringing this same carnal-minded, fleshly
attitude even to the Lord's table. And for this cause, not discerning
the Lord's body in all things, and even at the Lord's table,
not discerning the Lord's body, not discerning Christ the Lord.
He said, for this cause, many are weak and sickly among you
and many sleep. And yet his exhortation to them
in the midst of all of that was, let a man examine himself and
so let him eat of that bread and take of that cup. Not examine
ourselves to see if there's a worthiness and a fitness in our flesh. That would be more of that same
carnal mindedness. not that, but examine ourselves
to prove our own selves whether or not we truly are in the faith,
truly trust in Christ our all. If Christ is made unto you, of
God, through the Spirit, wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption, if He is truly all in you, to you, And He not
only bids you come to this table, He commands you. You're not only
free to come to it, He commands you to come to it. And when we come to it, if so,
if that's the case with you, then let us focus all our attention,
all our mind, all our whole hearts on the Lord Jesus Christ. Discern His body. meditate upon
Him. He said this due in remembrance
of me. I want to focus your attention
this morning on the Lord of the Supper. The Lord of the Supper. And I want to do so by looking
at this. In the very things our Lord did,
the very manner in which He gave us this ordinance, we behold how our Lord has actually
made every believer complete in Him. Even in the manner in which He
gave us this ordinance, we see what He has done and is doing
for His people. Our text is 1 Corinthians 11,
23 through 34. Let's read this together. For I have received of the Lord
that which also I delivered unto you. This is the Apostle Paul
speaking. Here's where we're focusing our
minds this hour. The Lord Jesus, the same night
in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given
thanks, he break it and said, take eat. This is my body, which
is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he
took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament
in my blood. This do ye, as oft as ye drink
it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread
and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. Now, let's look at verse 23. particularly what the Lord did.
The Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took
bread. Now, the Lord Jesus says to us
here that the bread and the wine are symbolical representations
of His body and His blood, His flesh and His blood. And as they
were eating, the Lord Jesus took bread. He took it. This is the
first thing we see. In the very manner in which our
Lord gave us this ordinance, taking the bread, we behold that
in order to redeem us, the Son of God took part of our flesh. He took a body. He took flesh. The Son of God,
God who is Spirit, took part of flesh and blood. Look at Hebrews chapter 2. Hebrews chapter 2. Look at verse 11. Both he that
sanctifieth, that's Christ, and they who are sanctified, that's
you the believer, are all of one. For which cause
he's not ashamed to call them brethren. God is the sanctifier,
the Son of God. came and was made one with his
children in flesh and blood, took that bread himself. Look at verse 14, for as much
then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself
likewise took part of the saying that through death he might destroy
him that had the power of death, that is to the devil, and deliver
them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject
to bondage. If you're in bondage, what does
that mean? If you're in chains, what does
that mean? It means you can't free yourself. You can't. This is why He took
flesh. Look at verse 16. For verily
He took not on Him the nature of angels, But he took on him
the seed of Abraham, his elect chosen children. He took on the
seed of Abraham's true children. Wherefore in all things it behooved
him, in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his
brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people, and
also that in himself that he suffered being tempted, he's
able to succor or comfort them that are tempted. He's both a
minister to God in the flesh, in his flesh, as a high priest
and a minister unto his people. All right, look back at our text,
1 Corinthians 11, 24. It says, when he had given thanks and
when he had given thanks. This is the second thing. The
entire person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ, all that he
did and all that he is before God his Father was a thank offering
to God as the representative and substitute of his people.
He sat here at this table and representing all those that He
had called to that table, He thanked God on their behalf,
for them. He is the thanked offering to
God. He is the true bread. He is the
bread in whom is no leaven of sin. He is the only perfect faithfulness
and fidelity of His Father and the only perfect faithfulness
and fidelity to His Father. The joy which was set before
Him by the Father before the world was made was His pleasure
and His thankfulness. That's what Hebrews 12 says,
for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross. the joy of honoring and magnifying
his father, the law of his father, the joy of manifesting the righteousness
of his father, the joy of laying down his life to declare his
father, God, just and the justifier of all who believe, the joy of
fulfilling his father's will which was to redeem a people
from their sin, from all their bondage, from all their iniquity
in a holy and just way and perfect them forever. And that will He
gave to His Son and He said it was His joy, it was His thankfulness,
His whole life, everything about Him, His whole person was a thank
offering to God for giving Him the privilege to do that. This
is what he said in Hebrews 10, 5. When he cometh into the world,
he said, Sacrifice an offering thou wouldst not. No sacrifice,
no offering from me or you. Hebrews 10, 5. Sacrifice an offering
thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin, thou hast had no pleasure, no satisfaction, no eternal satisfaction
was brought to God by any of those things. Then said I, lo,
I come. In the volume of the book, everything
that was written in the Law and the Prophets, he said, was written
of me. And he said, and lo, I come to do thy will, O God. It was the joy set before him,
the thank offering of his heart, the blessing of his father to
do his father's will. He walked this earth and he was
walking along one day in the midst of a host of all these
bright, smart folks who were just dead in trespasses and sins. And he looked up and he said,
Father, He says He rejoiced in the Spirit and He said, I thank
Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid
these things from the wise and the prudent and has revealed
them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in Thy sight. And as He offered Himself, turn
to John 17. As He offered Himself, This was His prayer. This was
all His desire. He is that bread. Just as He
took this bread and He gave thanks, this was His prayer as He was
offering Himself. John 17.1. I think this probably
tells us something about that prayer He prayed when He thanked
Him for that physical bread, that bread that they were about
to eat. But he's talking about himself. Listen to what his prayer
was. John 17, 1. These words spake Jesus and lifted
up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify
thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee. That's the only reason he wanted
to be glorified, that he might glorify his father. as thou hast given him power
over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many
as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that
they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
thou hast sent. And he said, I have glorified
thee on the earth. I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou
me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee
before the world was." And Philippians 2 tells us, And all that He did, all this
thank offering that He is and that He performed unto His Father,
literally in His person and in His work and in His thanksgiving
unto His Father as in behalf of His people, He glorified the Father. And
the Scripture says, wherefore God also hath glorified Him and
given Him a name which is above every name. And at that name,
every kneel down and every tongue confess that He is Lord. He really
is. God was pleased with His offering. All right, back in our text,
1 Corinthians 11, 24. He took bread, and when He had
given thanks, He break it. He broke it. This is the third
thing. Just as He Himself broke the
bread, this one we remember this hour in this broken piece of
unleavened bread. Willingly gave His body to be
broken in the place of those the Father gave to Him. Here's the pinnacle of His faith.
This is the pinnacle of His faith and His fidelity. This is the
faith that our faith, God-given faith, rests in. Being found
in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto
death. Even the death of the cross. Now this is where we see the
height of His perfect faithfulness and fidelity to God. And this
truly is what our faith lays hold of right here. Look over
at Isaiah 50 verse 6. This is it. Isaiah 50 verse 6. I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked
off the hair. I hid not my face from shame
and from spitting. Now listen now, here is this
great height of faith. This is the faith in whom and
by whom even the weakest of faith in the believer is never failing
perfect faith. Here's how it is never failing
perfect faith. This is his faithfulness. Look
at verse 7. This is what he said. This is
why he gave his willingly, his back to the spiders. For the
Lord God will help me. Therefore shall I not be confounded,
Therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that
I shall not be ashamed." Do you see him perfectly trusting his
father? He said, that's why I give my back to the smiter. You see
those therefores? Therefore have I set my face
like a flint, and therefore I know I shall not be ashamed. In John
10, 17, he said, therefore doth my father love me. because I
laid down my life. No man takes it from me, I lay
it down on myself. The father loves him because
he completely, totally, thoroughly trusted his father. Perfectly. And the action of
that faith was, I give my body to be broken for your people. That's the heart he gives in
a believer. We don't have it like he had
it. We want to have it like he had it. This is a law he writes
on our hearts. We want to have it. We want to
trust our father so perfectly and so faithfully that we know
we can trust him to give our own selves even to those that
will smite us and break our bodies but we want to do it for Him,
for their good, for the good of them that oppose themselves.
And we have that faith in a very weak manner, but it's perfect
in this one who did it perfectly. All right, 1 Corinthians 11,
24. You remember now, think on what he did. He took bread. He
partook of flesh and blood. And He gave thanks. He is the
offering of thanksgiving to God for His people. And He break
that bread. He willingly gave His body for
the body of His children. He gave His body for the body
of His children. And then look at verse 24. And
as he was administering this ordinance, he said to those sitting
there with him at his table, take, eat. This is my body, which
is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. Now here's the fourth thing we
see in this. Christ Jesus is our life. You know, bread and wine is food. It's life. You stop eating your
natural food and you're going to shrivel up to nothing and
die. Christ Jesus is the bread from heaven, the nourishment
of his people. That's what he said to us this
morning when he said, I'm the vine, you're the branches. The
branches receive all its nutrients, all its nourishment from the
vine. That's why it says if you don't
abide in me, you'll just wither away to nothing and you won't
bear any fruit. Any fruit. Well, When he said
to many in one day that he said, I am the living bread which came
down from heaven, he made this statement. He said, verily, verily. And when our Lord says verily,
verily, it means this is extremely important. And he said, verily,
verily, except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His
blood, you have no life in you. We were dead in trespasses and
sins, completely dead in trespasses and sins. How's a dead man going
to eat anything? He doesn't have any life in him
to eat anything. And we didn't. But just like
he sat here and he gave this bread and this wine to his disciples
and said, take and eat. Christ Jesus sends forth the
spirit of life into those for whom he broke his body. And by
His effectual command, through the Word of this Gospel, through
His Spirit, He commands, take and eat. And when He enters in
and there's life and He gives us this command, you know what
we do? Just what His apostles did there. Just as easily, as
freely, as willingly as His apostles sitting with Him at that table.
You know what they did? But they took that bread and they took
that wine and they ate it and they drank it. And when He commands
this, we take Christ and we eat Him and we drink Him and He becomes
our life and we live upon Him, we feast upon Him, we delight
upon Him all the rest of our days. And then when He gives us this
hunger and this thirst for Him, You know, when you've had filet
mignon, spam don't taste too good. And when you've got a taste of
Christ, the chaff and the husk of this world and this world's
religion, it just doesn't taste any good anymore. It just doesn't. Oh, this is it. We don't ever
stop. We don't ever stop. Whoso eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. And I will
raise him up at the last day. Alright, look at verse 25. And
after the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped,
saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do ye, as oft
as ye drink it in remembrance of me. Here's the fifth thing. Through His blood we have redemption,
even the forgiveness of sins. Now, look over to Isaiah 51 with
me. I want you to notice here. He
took the cup. While he was administering there,
he took the cup and it says, and when he had sucked, the Lord
Jesus Christ He took the cup of trembling. He took the cup
of God's judgment that was the just due of every one of those
children that God gave him. And when he had sucked, when
Christ Jesus drank every last dreg of the cup of the fury of
God's wrath, instead of that bitter cup of wrath that was
our due, He hands you this cup of wine and He says, when you
drink this sweet cup of wine, you remember that I've taken
that bitter cup out of your hand and I've given you this good
cup to drink from. Now look at verse 22 of Isaiah
51. Thus saith thy Lord the Lord. Don't you love that? Thus saith
thy Lord, Christ Jesus, thee Lord, the Lord of hosts, God
of heaven and earth, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of
his people. Behold, I have taken out of thine
hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury. Thou shalt no more. drank it again." Oh, boy. Hebrews 9. Let's go there just one second. How sure is this promise? How
sure is this promise? Well, He said when He was given
this ordinance, He said, this cup represents the New Testament
in my blood. Now, without the shedding of
blood, there's no remission of sins. But when that blood is
shed, there is remission of sins. And where there's remission of
sins, there's no more offering for sin. Now look at what we who are called
are promised. Look at verse 15. For this cause, He is the mediator
of the New Testament, that by means of death, by His death,
by His shedding of His own life's blood, for the redemption of
the transgressions that were under the First Testament. You
know what redemption means? It means payment. You ever pawned
anything? When you go back to get it, you've
got to redeem it. You've got to buy it back. Got
to pay what's owed, buy it back. That's what he did. For all the
transgressions that we owed, he came and he paid it. He paid
it all. All the debt I owe, sin had left
a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow with
his own blood. And he says this, he did it,
that they which are called given spiritual discernment to discern
this glorious, great God and Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ,
they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance."
That day when Moses was given that first covenant, that Mosaic
covenant, that old covenant, that legal covenant that was
just a shadow and a picture and a type of what the righteousness
of God and of the righteousness of Christ and of the faithfulness
and fidelity of Christ and of everything Christ to come. That
was the sum and substance of that law. To shut our mouths
and to be a schoolmaster to bring us to He revealed faith in us
to behold Christ the Lord. And he said this, when he gave
that covenant, that first one, even then, he told Moses, he
said, now you take the blood of bulls and of calves, of goats,
and they made all these sacrifices and they killed those. They all
pictured Christ. They killed those and they took
the blood out of those. Blood, blood, blood. Blood, blood,
blood. Blood, blood, blood. Blood's
on every page of God's book. Blood is on every page of his
book. Blood ought to be in every gospel
message preached. If it ain't, there ain't no gospel
in it. Blood. He sprinkled everything,
the tabernacle and the testimony, the very law itself, everything. He sprinkled everything with
blood. Without the shedding of blood
is no remission of sin, no putting away of sin, no purging of sin,
no washing of sin, without the shedding of blood. And He said
to us, but those were patterns of heavenly things. And He says
those true things that He sanctifies, that He redeems, that He purchases,
His own children, this law and this testimony, this Word of
God that He had to fulfill, He did all that by His own blood. And He fulfilled everything. Some of the Bibles have everything
Christ said in red. You know, really and truly, everything
in this book is written in red. It's written in His blood. Everything. This whole Testament is written
in His blood and that's how sure it is. God Himself provided Himself
a sacrifice. And that's how sure, as sure
as God is. as sure as God is. Well, now
then, back in our text, 1 Corinthians 11, 26. Now you examine yourselves
right now. Is this broken body and this
shed blood of Christ Jesus the Lord all your fitness for glory,
all your hope, all the anchor of your soul, all your delight
and rejoicing? Then the Lord says, do this in
remembrance of me. And look at verse 26. For as
often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the
Lord's death till he come. And when we eat this bread and
we drink this wine, Just as they did that night at that supper,
when he gave this ordinance, that bread and that wine is going
to become one with us, isn't it? Well, even so, as one as Christ was
made sin, For you, you who are called by
His grace, one as Christ was made sin for you, you are made
the righteousness of God in Him. And as one is, as the Spirit
dwells in us, we dwell in Him. In separable union. And as one
as our Lord, or as sure as our Lord, is risen to glory, He shall return. The Old Testament
said all through it, He's coming. He's coming. He's coming. Behold, a King shall reign in
righteousness. princes, His princes. They'll
rule, they'll discern, they'll judge in judgment, truth, and
spirit. A man's going to be a covert
from the storm, from the tempest, from the hail, and from the rain.
A man is. And the Gospel says, He has come. Here He is. He's here. He's spoken
to us by His Son. Here He is. And all the epistles
tell us He's coming back. He's coming back. And He says
here now, as we did in the ordinance of
baptism, He commanded that ordinance. And you know what we did there?
We declared publicly to everyone that we believe Him. And He's
all our hope. And we're risen with Him. And
we believe he's going to deliver us. And he says here, when you
eat this bread and you drink this wine, you're publicly declaring
the same thing. It's all my hope. All my hope. Well, those who trust him, examine
yourself. Meditate on him, discern his
body, and eat this bread. And those who don't, don't take
it. Don't take it. Nobody's going
to be looking at you anyway. I'm not going to look at you.
Nobody's going to be even noticing whether you take it or you don't.
Don't have any shaming doing it. He said don't. So don't. But you who know Him, He commands
you. Do it and rejoice and remember Him. Now, to Him that's able
to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before
the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise
God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power,
both now and forever. All right.