If you want to turn in your Bibles
to the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 11 As I mentioned earlier
we're going to be observing the Lord's Supper today, and I want
to Take this directly from scripture We've looked at these things
before but I myself benefit from them and am reminded of the depth
of of the message that God has given to us in the Lord's Supper. Hold your place in 1 Corinthians
chapter 11 and turn with me back to Matthew chapter 26. I'm going
to do that myself. Before we read in 1 Corinthians,
I'm going to read from Matthew. chapter 26, but we'll spend the
bulk of our time in 1 Corinthians. The setting is the last Passover
and the first Lord's Supper. It's called the Lord's Supper
in 1 Corinthians 11, so we know we're using the correct description
of this when we use the term the Lord's Supper. In Matthew
chapter 26, Jesus is assembled in the upper room with his disciples,
all 12 of them, including Judas, and they're observing the last
Passover. I call it the last Passover because
Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. Therefore, there's no
need to observe the Passover after the Lord Jesus Christ was
offered up, when he offered up himself. But in Matthew chapter
26, it says in verse 26, and as they were eating, Jesus took
bread and blessed it and break it and gave it to the disciples
and said, take, eat, this is my body. And he took the cup
and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, drink ye all of
it, all of you, drink of it. For this is my blood of the New
Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not
drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when
I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. And when they
had sung a hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives. That's
the account in Matthew. In Luke it says that with desire,
Jesus desired to eat this last Passover with the disciples and
then also the Lord's Supper. It was a great desire on Christ's
part to eat this with his disciples. I mention that because we see
Christ's desire for his people. And we see in this ordinance,
this way that Christ has given to
his church to remember him, to observe his doing and dying for
us, that he has a great desire to do this with his people. And
that desire is really reflected in all that he did. in all that
he did and suffered and died, in his resurrection, in his ascension,
in his reign, in glory for us, in his intercessions for us,
in all that he does, it is all done for his people out of his
heart of desire for them. Isn't that an amazing thing?
That the Lord Jesus Christ would actually desire his people, desire
us, desire me? Now that's something to consider,
isn't it? that the Lord Jesus Christ would
desire to eat this with his people. It's even more amazing when we
realize that what he is desiring to eat with his people and to
give to them was his own body and blood shed, his body broken
and his blood shed. Now that's something to consider.
Not only does he want to be with us and partake of this, but he
himself provided the supper in his broken body and shed blood.
That tells us that his desire is to give himself for his people,
and that's why he thanks his father. He thanks his father
that he has prepared for him a body, a body to be broken for
us, blood to be shed for us, in order to make us holy and
bring us to God by his own suffering, a suffering of substitution.
That's amazing. And then not only does he desire
in his soul to do that for us, but then he desires to give himself
to us. Amazing. Amazing grace. So in 1 Corinthians chapter 11,
we see in the context that the church in Corinthians were not
observing the Lord's Supper as it was intended to be observed.
Some of them were eating and eating before others ate. Some of them didn't have food
of their own to eat because they were poor. And some were drinking
and drinking wine and getting drunk. And this is, you can read
this chapter before verse 23, and Paul corrects them. It's
amazing that he didn't correct them more sternly, you would
think, that he would even spend time writing to them. But he
wrote to them as believers, and so we see how low believers can
actually go and still be believers in Christ. But there's a warning
given because of the way that they were abusing this time where
they were supposed to meet with God's people, the body of Christ,
and observe this most holy ordinance that Christ himself gave to us. It's interesting that there are
only two things that the Lord Jesus told his church to do like
this. The Lord's Supper is one and
baptism is the other. And both of them, both point
to his sufferings, his death, his burial and his resurrection.
and our death to sin, our burial in his burial, so that our bodies
died, the body of our sins were put in the grave, and God remembers
our sins no more, and then he was raised for not only his justification,
but ours too. That's amazing. Both ordinances
are given for us to, in a physical way, preach and reflect in that
physical ordinance what's true spiritually and what we hold
most truly, most dearly to be true by God-given faith. So in
1 Corinthians 11, the apostle writes in verse 23, for I have
received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you. And now in those words, you can
see that this was given by the Lord Jesus It was given by him
to the apostle Paul for the purpose that he would give it to the
church. That's incredible. In the Lord's Supper, the first
one, Jesus was with his disciples in that upper room. And we would
think naturally that all that he did there was for them only.
But this is amazing that Jesus didn't do anything for just one
of his people. What he did for one, he did for
all. And here the apostle is giving this that the Lord Jesus
gave to him as a faithful minister. And he's giving it to the church
at Corinth, but not to the church at Corinth only. Remember, Paul
was a minister, a servant of Christ to the Gentiles, an apostle
to the Gentiles. So he was sent by Christ to the
church with the message that the Lord Jesus Christ had given
to him. In what way did he serve Christ? Because he said in Romans
1 and throughout all of his epistles, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ. In what way did the Lord Jesus
require Paul to serve? by serving his people, the church. And what did the Lord Jesus give
Paul to serve his church with? The gospel. Now, if we understand
that, then we see all that Paul did, he did according to that
service. Everything that he taught, he
said in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 17, Christ did not send me to
baptize, that wasn't the principal thing, but to preach the gospel.
And in chapter two, verse two of the same book, First Corinthians,
chapter two, verse two, he said, for I determined not to know
anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. That
was his message, and that's what the Lord's Supper teaches us. And so he says, I deliver to
you what the Lord gave to me. He was a faithful minister. And
so is every minister of Christ. A faithful minister of Christ
preaches one thing, Jesus Christ and him crucified. Is there any
more than that? Isn't the fullness of the Godhead
bodily in him? And aren't we complete in him?
Is there anything more that can be said than what God has said
in His Son? In these last days, God has spoken
to us in His Son. We don't need to fear that we're
missing something by limiting, if you would think of it that
way, the message to Christ and Him crucified. We're not limiting
it. We're actually making it full
and expanding it. If we deviate from that, then
we're limiting it. But when we focus on Christ and
Him crucified, this is the message that glorifies God, the message
that glorifies our Savior, the message sinners, believing sinners,
love to hear. It's the message on which we
live. And it says here in 1 Corinthians 11.23 that not only did Paul
say, I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto
you, but this is the way he started that message. That the Lord Jesus,
the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. The same
night in which he was betrayed. Now in this betrayal, we see
that even Judas served God's purpose. And I wrote this article
in the bulletin, if you get a chance to look at that, how that by
God's sovereign will, even the wrath of man shall praise him. And this was part of that, this
was an example of that. In Proverbs 16, four, it says,
God has made all things for himself. The Lord has made all things
for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. And you
see in several places in scripture how God by his determinate counsel
and foreknowledge determined that these men who crucified
Christ would by wicked hands take him and crucify him, but
it would be according to God's purpose. So everything that God
does, he works to the good of his people and the glory of his
son. And so we see that even in Judas' betrayal, here we have
a message from God to us concerning His greatness and the greatness
of our Savior. See how in Judas, even the wrath
of man will forever praise His grace to us. Let this sight of
His unchanging and faithful love and His unfailing power endear
Christ to us. May we never presume that we
are any less in need of saving grace than Judas was. May we forever ascribe our salvation
not to the smallness of our sins, but to the greatness of our Savior's
loving and sovereign purpose of grace. That's the message
here of Judas. We're not better than he, but
God's grace was sovereignly given to us in a way that was greater
than anything given to Judas. May we see with faith something
of God's exceeding great grace in Judas's betrayal of Jesus,
that we ourselves could never earn this gift of God's Son to
us. We ourselves could never earn
the willing offering of the Son of God for our sins. We may see
something, may we also see something of the exceeding sinfulness of
our sins in Judas' betrayal. Because that's what sin is, it's
turning our backs on our faithful God. That exceeding sinfulness
of our sins required such a sacrifice as one so high as the Lord Jesus
Christ, so holy that he would be able to justify us before
God in his own death. And may we see something in Christ's
sufferings and death of God's holiness, that he would require
the death of his own son to save us and cleanse us and forgive
us and justify and reconcile and redeem us and make us holy
in his sight. And may we also be given that
greatest of all blessings to join that redeemed group around
the throne of God in the chorus and thank and praise our Savior
and worship our Father both now and forevermore that he would
save us by this betrayal of Judas. Because Judas' betrayal was the
beginning of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ for us.
If it had been a friend, Jesus said in Psalm 55, 12 through
14, if it had been a friend, then I could have born it, but
it was you, my friend. I'm sorry, if it had been an
enemy, I could have born it, but it was you, my friend. That
was striking to the heart. Not only did it hurt our Savior
to be betrayed by a friend, you know what that's like? It's like
a punch in the stomach. But it happened right when the
fury of the wrath of God through the enemies of his soul was unleashed
against our Savior. So he was weakened in this. His
heart was broken in this. And so we want to be there thinking
about this and as we think about what he says here. So he says
in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, Not only does he mention that
the Lord gave this to the apostle to give to us, and that it was
on that same night when he was betrayed, to point us to the
faithfulness of our Savior in the dark contrast of Judas' unfaithfulness. To point us to the fact that
it was for our betrayal of God that he suffered what we should
have suffered for our unfaithfulness to him. It's all about what he
did for us. My body broken for you, you see. And so it was on that night that
he did this. But here he says in verse 23
of 1 Corinthians 11, that on that night when he was betrayed,
he took bread Because remember, he said, I
am the bread of life. He took bread, and when he had
given thanks, there's that underscore we see, that his heart was set
on his people, and he thanked God that he would allow him to
give himself so freely for his people, though it cost him everything.
He had given thanks, and he'd break it, and said, take. Eat, this is my body, which is
broken for you, this do and remembrance of me. He took the bread, signifying
his own body, and he break it. He broke the bread because he
laid his life down of his own will. It was a voluntary submission
of obedience in love to his father for his people. We can't describe
this kind of love. But he took that bread and he
visibly broke it in order to show that he himself, of his
own will, in the delight for his father's law, in the love
for his people, in the honor of his father. He took what God
had prepared for him, and he broke it for us. And he took
that and then gave it to his disciples because it's his broken
body for us that he gives to us for our life. And we ingest
it not by physical, That's not the emphasis here. It's the spiritual
partaking of Christ by faith. Many people in the Old Testament
in the wilderness ate the manna. Remember the manna? God rained
manna down from heaven. Many in the nation of Israel
ate the manna, who yet perished in the wilderness for their unbelief. So it's not the physical eating
of the manna, nor the physical eating of the bread that saves
us. But it's the spiritual faith
God gives to us in Christ and Him crucified by which we see
and live upon Him as all of our life before God that we take
and eat it. We do physically to outwardly
picture in a physical way what's true on the inside. And so the
Lord Jesus himself gave this to us. He established this on
that night for his whole church. Take, eat, this is my body. It signifies believing Christ
so as to live upon him, to live in him, and to live upon him
by faith. And you can read about that in
the sixth chapter of the book of John. But notice what he says
here. This is my body broken for you. You see that, that little word
for you? Substitution. Do you see it?
This is my body broken for you. It's done for your benefit. It's done instead of you. My body broken instead of you
being broken. And my breaking of my body is
done for you, for your salvation. That substitution, the Lord Jesus
Christ substituted himself for his people. I like to think about
this. This is, I think, the most prominent
truth in the gospel, Christ for me. Christ for his people. In Isaiah 53, the whole chapter
is about substitution. But in verse 8, he says, for
the transgression of my people was he stricken. Isaiah 53, verse
8, for the transgression of my people was he stricken. He had no sin. He knew no sin. He did no sin. He was holy, harmless,
undefiled, separate from sinners. But for the transgression of
my people was he stricken. And he did it willingly. He submitted
himself to that eternal will of God, which he had in his heart
and delighted in, when he said, I lay down my life for the sheep,
in John chapter 10, verses 11 and 15. And he goes on in verses
17 and 18, said, I received this commandment of my father. No
man takes my life from me. I lay it down of myself. I have
power to lay it down. I have power to take it up again.
This is the commandment he received from his father. So he did it
willingly, a substitution of love. That's what you call this.
Love at the highest level. John 15 and verse 13 says, greater
love hath no man than this, than that a man would lay down his
life for his friends. for his friends. He made them
his friends. His love was set upon them, even
when they were his enemies, and he befriended himself to them,
though they didn't know him, and laid down his life for them,
to have them for himself, to bring them to himself as reconciled. This is a substitution that delivers
us from being broken. That's what Isaiah 53 teaches. Look at Isaiah 53 with me. We're gonna look at a couple
of places in the Old Testament about this substitution. Isaiah
53 in verse 4, he says, surely, speaking of Christ, surely He,
our Lord Jesus, has borne our griefs, our diseases, in other
words. our anxieties. He has borne our
griefs and carried our sorrows. He himself took our sorrows.
He was a man of sorrows, it says in the first, in verse three
of the same chapter. A man of sorrows because he carried
our sorrows. Yet we, this is what we thought,
In looking at him being afflicted and bearing our griefs, our diseases,
and our sorrows, we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God,
and afflicted, just like Job's friends. Look at him, smitten
for his own sins. But he corrects that wrong thinking. Verse 5, But he was wounded for
our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement
of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. Isn't that substitution? We sinned. He had no part in what we did.
We did it in rebellion, in wickedness against God. But what we did,
apart from him, became his in God's sight. Our guilt was laid
on him, and the shame of our guilt before God became his shame. He bore our reproach, it says
in Psalm 69. The reproaches of them that reproach
thee have fallen upon me. So here we see this, that the
Lord Jesus Christ stands as our substitute. And though we sinned,
and He bore our sins, and the sorrows and the diseases of our
sins, all the consequences, and the suffering and the death of
them, though He had done no sin, yet in His obedience and in His
submission, though we had no part in that, By those stripes,
by the submission of his obedience to the will of God, by his stripes,
we are healed. And now, in his death, now we
died, and now we live to God. You see the substitution? All
we, verse six, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned
everyone to his own way. Each one of us uniquely have
this bent toward evil that's unique to us, and we go that
way. without exception, and the Lord
hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Of us, his people. Praise God. Hallelujah. He was
oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth,
because he bore it by the will of God, knowing it was for his
people, and that he assumed our guilt, and therefore he bore
the pain and suffering of it, as a just reward, a just condemnation
from God on himself in our place, instead of us. He did not open
his mouth. He's brought as a lamb to the
slaughter. That's submission. And as a sheep before her shearers
is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison
and from judgment. And who shall declare his generation?
Because his life ended. He was cut off out of the land
of the living. For the transgression of my people was he stricken.
Like a man who had no children, no posterity, When he suffered
and died, it was as if they looked upon him, his generation has
ended. But his generation actually was begun in his death because
he bore fruit to God, the fruit of God's people. And he made
his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death because
he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth,
yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief,
when thou shalt make his soul an offering for our sins. I put the word are in there.
He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure
of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the travail
of his soul and shall be satisfied. That's propitiation. God is satisfied
with the sufferings of his son for our sins. He's satisfied
with us by his knowledge, He's our wisdom. Now, therefore, God
will divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide
the spoiled with the strong. because he poured out his soul
to death and he was numbered, he was counted with the transgressors
and he bare the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. Father, forgive them. And he
continues to make intercession. Here is substitution. This is
my body, broken for you. Amazing. I wanna read another text in
the Old Testament to you, a couple of more, in Psalm 38. In Psalm 38, the whole psalm,
I want to read the whole psalm even though it's a few verses
here because this psalm is a prophecy of the mind and heart and prayers
of the Lord Jesus Christ as our substitute. Oh Lord, he says
in verse 1, rebuke me not in thy wrath, neither chasten me
in thy hot displeasure, for thine arrows stick fast in me and thy
hand presseth me sore. There is no soundness in my flesh
because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones
because of my sin. He assumed our sin, didn't he?
In Leviticus 16 verses 21 through 22, the high priest laid his
hands upon the head of that scapegoat and he confessed on the head
of that goat all the sins of all the children of Israel putting
them on the head of the goat and then sent that goat away.
Who's the high priest? Who's the Lamb of God? The Lord
Jesus, right? Our great high priest confessed
our sins upon his own head. My sins, he says here. Verse
four. For mine iniquities are gone
over my head, as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. He's
praying as a man to his father in the place counted as a transgressor. Bearing our iniquities and praying
this prayer. They're too heavy for me. He
says, my wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness. See how he felt what was laid
upon him? It wasn't a pretending. The Old Testament priest pretended. When they confessed the sins
on the goat, they, in a sense, were pretending, even though
by faith they were looking forward to the actual transference of
our sins to Christ. But here, he wasn't pretending.
What was true in heaven, in the eyes of God, is that our sins
became his. Therefore, he felt the shame
of those sins and the reproach of them in his own soul. That's
the pain of it. That's why he's praying this
way. Verse 6, I am troubled. And I am bowed down greatly. I go mourning all the day long,
for my loins are filled with a loathsome disease, and there
is no soundness in my flesh. Remember 1 Peter 2.24? Who? His own self. There are sins
in his own body on the tree. There's no soundness in my flesh.
I am feeble and sore broken. This is my body which is broken
for you. I have roared by reason of the
disquietness of my heart. Lord, all my desire is before
thee. My groaning is not hid from thee. He was praying to be delivered
from the wrath of God and the burden of our sins by his own
satisfaction of his sufferings and death in order that we might
be delivered from it. It's broken for you. His bearing
the wrath of God was an equivalent to what we should have borne.
His betrayal, all of his sufferings were this. And so he prays for
deliverance for our justification and his own because he now stood
guilty. Lord, all my desire is before
Thee, and my groaning is not hid from Thee. My heart panteth,
my strength faileth me. As for the light of mine eyes,
it also is gone from me. For my lovers and my friends
stand aloof from my sore, and my kinsmen stand afar off." Isn't
that what happened at the cross? They also that seek after my
life lay snares for me, and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous
things, and imagine deceits all the day long. Wasn't he falsely
accused by those, and wasn't the high priest and the Gentiles
and the Jews, and didn't they take the very law they said they
trusted in and use it unlawfully to put him to death? Verse 13,
but as a deaf man, I as a deaf man heard not, And I was as a
dumb man that openeth not his mouth. Thus I was as a man that
heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs. For in thee,
O Lord, do I hope thou wilt hear, O Lord my God." Why would a sinner,
really a sinner, one of us, ever pray this way? How could a sinner
actually say, O Lord, and my Lord, my God, For I said, hear
me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me when my foot
slippeth, they magnify themselves against me. For I am ready to
halt, and my sorrow is continually before thee. For I will declare
mine iniquity, I will be sorry for my sin, but mine enemies
are lively and they are strong, and they that hate me wrongfully
If he was truly a sinner as we are, then it wouldn't be wrongful,
are multiplied. They also that render evil for
good are my adversaries, because I follow the thing that good
is. I follow the good. Forsake me not, O Lord, O my
God. Be not far from me. Make haste to help me, O Lord,
my salvation. He's praying as us, bearing our
sins for our salvation. His heart was broken, it says
in Psalm 109 verse 16. And he says here that he was
broken by God. In Psalm 51, when David prayed
as a sinner to God, confessing his sins, it says in verse 17
that the sacrifices of God are a broken and a contrite heart. Do you see it in our Savior?
His heart was truly broken and contrite. This is my body, broken
for you. For you, what grace is this? Oh, my soul, the substitution
of obedience that removed our sins and established our everlasting
righteousness. He who knew no sin was made sin
for us, that we who knew no righteousness might be made the righteousness
of God in him. Our righteousness is Christ's
sufferings. Our sins became His, and His
sufferings were what we deserved. He had no part in it except that
He bore them for us. And we had no part in His obedience,
but that He did it for our righteousness. Amazing grace. The next thing
we see in this is the reason why the Lord Jesus did this.
Have you ever wondered about this? For me? This is my body broken for you,
take it and eat it. Can you imagine when Peter was,
when Jesus was about to wash Peter's feet, he said, oh no,
you're not gonna wash my feet? And Jesus said, well if I don't
wash your feet, you have no part in me. And suddenly Peter said,
oh, then just not my feet, everything, wash my head and everything.
And Jesus said, well, you don't need to be washed because you're
already clean. Because by the blood of Christ,
Peter was fully cleansed. But in washing our feet, the
Lord Jesus stoops to bring again to our remembrance his own substitutionary
death in order that the effectual satisfaction he made to God for
us would once again sprinkle our conscience and wash our bodies
so that we would be enabled to see again and fresh that though
we've fallen, he washes our feet continually. And so we're to
do this for one another, to bear one another's burdens. But when
Peter received that bread from Christ, he didn't say, no, no,
I'm not gonna eat that bread. It couldn't have been for me.
Here the Lord Jesus himself gives the bread, he breaks the bread,
he gives thanks for it, he blesses it, and he gives it to his disciples,
and he tells them, it's broken for you. And my response is,
the natural reaction of my heart is this question, for me? And here we have to come to the
conclusion of the truth of scripture. That it's not for something found
in you. It wasn't a reason in you. And
therefore, the question for me has to boomerang back to why
this occurred. Why did the Lord Jesus break
his body? Well, we could say it was for
the will of God, but why? What moved God? to do this, to
give his son and deliver him up and not spare his son for
us. And what moved the Lord Jesus
Christ in his grace, for it was his grace that caused him to
be made lower than the angels for a time, that he might suffer
death in order to taste death for us, our death that we deserve
for us. What in me could deserve the
love of God? Nothing. could possibly, who
could possibly earn the gift of God's Son? There's no one that could. To think such a thought reveals
to us our great need to have the Lord find a reason in Himself
and save us from such thinking. What in me could ever have moved
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to assume a body and
nature that's mine, like mine, and in that nature give himself
for me. What in me could possibly move
the Lord Jesus Christ to give me his own spirit? Did God as
the creator look, before he created all things, to his creation for
a reason, to create? Of course not. How much less,
then, does he look to a dead sinner to find reason in that
sinner for any reason, for any cause of giving his son and laying
his life down and sending us his spirit to quicken us with
Christ? Surely, then, these words for
me must be all one-sided. Aren't they? We have to admit
that it has to be all entirely the grace of God, don't we? And it has to be all a motive
that arises out of God's heart and not in ours. He must find a reason in himself
alone. And he must, by himself, satisfy
his own reason. And he must do it for his own
good pleasure because it seems good to him for himself. In other
words, the death of Christ was a death God required because
it seemed good to him. It was a death God required in
order to make reconciliation for our sins, propitiation for
our sins, and to reconcile us to Himself. It was a desire on
His part to have many sons and to bring them to glory through
the suffering of Christ. It was all of God, this body
broken. for you. The motive came from
God. The work was done according to
God's will. It was God's work entirely. We
had no part in it. He brings it. He takes it. He gives thanks for it. He blesses
it. He breaks it, and He gives it. Everything is directed to the
activity of the Son as the one doing the action. And we are
recipients, passively recipients of this. And so it is in saving
grace, God gives us faith simply to see the work of God in Christ
for us. And so seeing, we realize, this
is all my salvation. What a Savior! What a God. In Ezekiel chapter 20 in verse
44, it says, and you shall know that I am the Lord when I have
wrought with you for my name's sake, not according to your wicked
ways, nor according to your corrupt doings. This is why. For my name's sake. In Psalm 106, he says this in
verse 6, we have sinned with our fathers, we have committed
Iniquity, we have done wickedly. Our fathers understood not thy
wonders in Egypt. They remembered not the multitude
of thy mercies, but provoked him at the Red Sea, at the sea,
even at the Red Sea. Nevertheless, He saved them for
His name's sake that He might make His mighty power to be known.
That's the reason for His name's sake. He forgives us for Christ's
sake. He forgives us. He provided and
accepted Christ to glorify His Son for His name's sake. Glorify, He says, the Lord Jesus
says, Father, glorify Thy name. Glorify thy son that thy son
also may glorify thee. If the Lord doesn't do all that
is necessary to save me in spite of me for his own sake, then
I cannot do one thing and I will not be saved. Well, we have to move on. He
says in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, I have to go on here. Let me
get beyond this. Oh, I do want to... Just looking at my list here
of things to cover. I guess I've covered that. I want to move on now to verses
that follow. He says, verse 25, I'm sorry,
verse 24 at the end, he says, this body which is broken for
you, take it, eat it. And then he says, this do in
remembrance of me. In remembrance of me. He says,
this do ye as oft as you drink in remembrance of me. Now, we
think about this thing of remembering the Lord Jesus in this. In 1
Corinthians 15, he says, I'll read this to you, 1 Corinthians. Chapter 15, which is just a page
over. He says, moreover, brethren,
I declare unto you the gospel which I preached to you, which
also you have received, and wherein you stand, by which also you
are saved, if you keep in memory what I preached to you, unless
you have believed in vain. Why did the Lord Jesus ask us
to do this? To remember Him. To remember
Him in His broken body. to remember him and his shed
blood, to remember that he did it as our substitute. that he
did it as our substitute by the will of God, and that he did
it for us in love, for our salvation, that we might not suffer, that
we might be saved and brought to God. To remember all this,
and so remembering what he did for us, to remember him. And
this memory is actually the operation of faith. God brings it to our
mind, and in our mind we're brought back to the center. We're brought
back to the stake at the center of the tent of God's purpose
and God's glory. It's Christ and Him crucified.
Everything hangs on this. Our life, God's glory, everything
is on this. His eternal covenant. And so
he says, remember me. And then he says this in 1 Corinthians
chapter 25, after the same manor 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 you drink it in remembrance of me. Both
times, the bread and the cup in remembrance of me. So here
he's teaching us that his blood is the New Testament. This cup
is the New Testament in my blood. If you want to look over at Hebrews
chapter 13, it says the same thing in a slightly different
way. He says in Hebrews 13 verse 20, this everlasting covenant or
this New Testament, he says in verse 20, now the God of peace
God who made peace in the blood of his son, the God of peace
that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, justifying us
and reconciling us, that great shepherd, our Lord Jesus, that
great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting
covenant. Everlasting. So we see it's a
covenant of peace, made peace, peace made in the blood of Christ,
that covenant, Here's what flows from that covenant because of
the blood. The God of peace make you perfect in every good work
to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in
his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and
ever, amen. The New Testament in my blood.
His blood made the testament. In other words, the covenant,
that bilateral agreement between God the Father and God the Son,
for us, is one-sided. It's a last will and testament
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're beneficiaries and we receive
the promises in that covenant when He shed His blood. So all
the promises of God are yes and amen in the Lord Jesus Christ,
2 Corinthians 1.20. And because there are yes and
amen in him when he shed his blood as the one who made the
testament for us, then all the blessings, all the promises are
given to us because his blood fulfilled all the conditions
of that covenant. It's a New Testament in His blood. And so Hebrews chapter 9 verse
15 through 17 teaches us this, that just like with men, when
we make a last will and testament, it doesn't go into force until
the one who made it actually dies. And then the beneficiaries
receive what he set up in that will. So, in the New Testament,
in Christ's blood, because he as our testator died, then all
the blessings come. But he rose in order to make
sure that all those blessings are actually given to us. And
that's why he's interceding now in heaven for us, to give us
all that was promised in that new covenant, that everlasting
covenant. His blood fulfilled the conditions,
His blood put it into effect, His blood brought the promises
of it to flow freely according to God's, the grace and the mercy
of God that were bound up in the satisfaction of His justice
and truth and the fulfillment of His righteousness. And when
those things were done, then He lavished that grace upon us
in bringing all the promises. He sent His Spirit to quicken
us with Christ and give us faith to see that in Christ, He did
everything in our salvation. That's what we think of when
we eat this. This is the blood, the cup is
the blood of the New Testament in my, or this is the New Testament
in my blood. And this is why we're to do it
in remembrance of him. And then he says this in the
same section of scripture in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 26. He says, for as often as you
eat this bread and drink this cup, as often as you do this,
every time you do this, you do show the Lord's death till he
come. You're preaching the gospel. You're saying that all that Christ
did as my substitute is all of my salvation. It's everything
from God to me. Everything that God has for sinners,
He provided in Christ. And now we, as the sinners, believe
in Him. We take it and we say, this is
all my life. This is what God has said. I
believe it. I agree with Him about myself, about Christ, about
what He found and provided and gave to us because of Christ.
I'm taking this and eating this according to the mercy of God,
the blessing of his salvation to me. And I am so happy, so
happy that it's for me. We show this, this is our delight,
and this is the way in the church. We don't do this before another,
we all do it together. Wait for one another, he says
later on, wait. Open up your lunchbox and start
chomping down. Don't pop a cork and start guzzling
it down and getting drunk. This is not about you. It's about
Christ. It's about the body. You're doing
this to confess your salvation in Christ and God's glory in
it, but also to edify the whole church in preaching this. It's
for the church. We do it together as a body. So the next thing he says here,
but let every man examine himself. I'm sorry, verse 27. Wherefore,
whosoever shall drink this bread and drink this, or eat this bread
and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of
the body and blood of the Lord. Are we worthy? Are we worthy
to take this? That's a question here. Don't
do it unworthily. So the next question is, how
can I be worthy In Acts chapter 13, when Paul
had preached the gospel, the Jews who heard him, they didn't
believe it, and he said, you prove yourselves unworthy of
eternal life by your unbelief. So we're going to go to the Gentiles.
You are unworthy of eternal life because you rejected Christ in
unbelief. So he says, examine yourselves.
In 2 Corinthians 13, verse five, he says this. He says, let me
read it to you. In 2 Corinthians 13, verse five,
he says, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. Prove your
own selves. Know ye not your own selves,
how that Jesus Christ is in you, except you be reprobate? And
how do we know whether Christ is in us? Are you in the faith? Is Jesus Christ and Him crucified,
your life? Is He all of your salvation?
Do you bring anything to the table? Or do you receive only
at this table? Then you receive only in faith,
you're only receiving from Christ. You're not bringing some worthiness.
You're receiving from Christ all that He did as all of your
worthiness. We are worthy to eat only because
Christ set his love on us and chose us and an uncoerced submission
died for us. Because his body was broken and
his blood was shed. If this is enough for you, if
it's enough that it is Christ that died, if this is the only way and even
the way you come to God in boldness because of the blood of Jesus,
then this is what he says. In Hebrews chapter 10, I'll read
this to you. Hebrews chapter 10. In verse
19, having therefore brethren boldness to enter into the holiest
by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath
consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his flesh,
and having a high priest over the house of God, Let us draw
near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our
hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed
with pure water. The conscience is sprinkled by
the Spirit of God when He takes what Christ has done and says,
this is enough for you to come to God. Come by Him. And our
bodies are washed with pure water when we hear the Gospel and we
realize that all of our works in our body is accepted by God
because of Christ. and because of Christ alone.
We don't bring worthiness to God. We don't make ourselves
holy. This is God's work. And Christ
makes us acceptable. Therefore, we only bring our
thanksgiving. And so he says so in Hebrews
13 and verse 15, when he says this, he says, by him, therefore,
let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is, the fruit of our lips
giving thanks to his name. That's what we bring. Thank God
for Christ, broken for me. Am I worthy? Well, he says that
we are to prove ourselves in 1 Peter 4. I'll bring this to
your remembrance again in 1 Peter 4. In verse 6 of 1 Peter 4, he
says, for this cause was the gospel preached also to them
that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in
the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. The gospel is preached to men
who are spiritually dead. That's what he says here in 1
Peter 4, verse 6. The gospel was preached to them
that are dead, dead in sins. And why? That we might live to
God in the spirit. When the gospel is preached,
Jesus said, the words that I speak to you are spirit and they are
life. The Holy Spirit falls on us. gives us faith in Christ, opens
our eyes to see him by faith. And what is that? That's a judging.
We're judged by men in the flesh. Those ministers of the Gospel
who preach Christ to us, when we read the Word of God, when
we meditate on it and the Spirit of God takes it and applies it
to our hearts, then we live by the Spirit of God to God. We don't live to ourselves. We
see that Christ is enough. And so the Gospel causes us to
confess we agree with God, we're sinners. We have no hope in ourselves. In ourselves we are unworthy.
That's what the gospel teaches us. But in Christ you're worthy. And so when we examine ourselves
to see if we're in the faith, we come to God in our hearts
by the blood of Jesus to find all of our holiness and our worthiness
to God in Christ. Any other outcome of this examination
will leave us in pride and in blindness of thinking, well,
I was pretty good this week and therefore I'm worthy to come
and take of the Lord's Supper. That's the way I used to think.
Sometimes I wouldn't take of it because I thought, well, I've
done this and I've done that. I didn't do these other things
I know I should have done. I can't take of this in good conscience
because I'm thinking about what I did as the basis for my worthiness. But that's false. That's wrong
thinking. We can only be worthy before God if, like Thomas, we
see when he shows us his hands and his side and his feet pierced
for us, we say, my Lord, my God. You see, God's overwhelming gift
of faith to us persuades us and melts our heart. He's broken
for me. He shed his blood, the New Testament,
in his blood for me. Amazing, so we take and we preach,
this is all my hope. He goes on in First Corinthians
chapter 11, for if we judge ourselves, we should not be judged, verse
31. When we are judged, we are chastened to the Lord that we
should not be condemned with the world, because they were
taking of the Lord's Supper in a way of unbelief. The Corinthians,
there were those who were eating and drinking, and it was in unbelief,
just like in the wilderness, the Israelites often ate manna
in unbelief. So he says, wherefore, my brethren,
now that you understand, when you come together to eat, Wait
for one another, and if any man be hungry, let him eat at home,
that you come not together into condemnation, and the rest will
I set in order when I come. Here we see this great gift to
us of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am not worthy in myself, but
in the Lord Jesus Christ I am worthy. I do not deserve the
gift of God's Son, but God has given His Son to save sinners.
No, I cannot do what God requires. I cannot even believe Christ
except by God's gift of faith, out of His grace, through His
life-giving Spirit and Word. And so we come with everything,
needing everything, and finding everything in Christ and Him
crucified. And this is the reason we praise
God. This is the reason we thank God.
This is the cause of all peace and joy, the only valid cause
of peace and joy in our hearts, and love to God. We see that
what He did is His love to us, and therefore we love God, we
love Him. And we don't do this in a way
where now we can look on our brothers and sisters with a superiority,
because we find ourselves worthy. We all take the same place here.
Around the throne of God, casting our crowns at his feet, saying
worthy is the lamb that was slain. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you. We thank our Savior, and we praise
our God and our Father, and we glory in our Savior, the Son
of God, that He would give, He would
find the reason in Himself and fulfill that reason by Himself
to have us for Himself and give His Son for us and Christ Himself
sacrificed for us to make us worthy, to justify us and reconcile
us and redeem us and to make us holy in love before Him as
His sons. What a blessing, unspeakable
grace, unspeakable righteousness that you would do this, our Lord
and Savior, according to strict holiness, to unleash your grace,
where once we deserved the unleashing of our enemies. Thank you that
this came upon our Savior, that the breaking of our bodies wouldn't
come upon us, and the shedding of our blood we could never satisfy
for our sins. Lord, you found a way to raise
the dead that you might bring praise to yourself from those
who were raised for what you've done for us in our salvation.
Thank you for your great grace. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.