1 Corinthians 11, verse 23, the
apostle Paul is writing, the word apostle means sent. sent
one. Paul was sent by Jesus Christ. That means he was an ambassador
of Jesus Christ, the King. An ambassador is someone who
goes in the name of the King and on behalf of the King to
the people of the King in order to communicate the will of the
King to them. A faithful servant And a faithful
ambassador is what we need. Someone who speaks the word of
the King to us. And that's what Paul did. So
he says here, "...for I have received of the Lord that which
I also delivered unto you." That's the words of a faithful servant.
He delivered the words of Christ to us. And he's writing to the
Corinthians, but this is just representative of all the church.
So these words are not only to the Corinthians. They're to every
believer in Christ. And it's important that we understand
this, because if we don't take these words to ourselves personally,
then they really mean nothing to us. So take these words as
from the Lord Jesus, through His servant, the ambassador,
from His throne on high, to us. He says, I received of the Lord
that which I also delivered to you, that 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."
And so I've entitled this message, This Do in Remembrance of Me.
Notice that what Paul is saying here, this do in remembrance
of me, is a command, a gracious command, but a command no less. The Lord Jesus is saying to do
this in remembrance of Him. So we are to do this as His people.
But it's no labor, is it? It's no burden to us to do these
things. It's a delight. And so much so
in proportion to the delight that he had in giving himself.
But he says that he did this on the night that he was betrayed.
Remember that night? He had told his disciples to
go and find his room where they would eat the Passover together.
And it was the last Passover. The last Passover in all of the
Passovers that had been held by the Israelites since God instituted
the Passover in Egypt. The Passover was that sacrifice
that God told Israel to make of a lamb and to eat, roast it
and to eat it in their houses with unleavened bread. that night
that God delivered Israel from Egypt and from Egyptian bondage,
that night in which all the firstborn of Egypt died, and that night
in which all the firstborn of Israel were spared death, who
were in the house where the blood of that lamb was sprinkled. And
God told Moses two things. First, when I see the blood,
I will pass over you. So it was God's perception, God's
acceptation of the blood that caused God to pass over his people. He required it. And yet, this
Passover was eaten each year by the command of God, and it
was a very holy thing. And Jesus kept the Passover in
his life on earth. As a man, every year he would
keep the Passover because he kept the law perfectly. He didn't
just keep it, though, as a shadow. He kept it looking forward to
the fulfillment of it. And this night, that is referred
to here when Judas betrayed Jesus was that night in which the Passover
was actually fulfilled. And so the shadowy night of the
Passover gave place to the bright morning of its fulfillment in
what the Lord Jesus Christ would do for His people. In 1 Corinthians
5 and verse 7 it says, Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for
us. And so when they were together,
when he was together with the disciples, they ate the Passover. And it was after the Passover
was eaten that he gave them the Lord's Supper. That's when he
took the bread. And that's when he broke the
bread and gave it to them. And blessed it. And gave thanks
for it. And told them to take it and
eat it. And told them what it meant. This is my body which
is broken for you. And so we see here that it happened
on that very night that which he was betrayed. Why was it mentioned
here that it was the night in which he was betrayed? Well,
it's not only to anchor and fix the time that this Lord's Supper
was given at the end of the Old Testament era when the Passover
was actually fulfilled in Christ's offering himself and breaking
his body and shedding his blood in fulfillment of it for his
people. But it's given to us for other
reasons. That was the night in which he
was betrayed. Because Judas betrayed the Lord
Jesus Christ. Why do people betray others?
What does it mean to betray? It means to position in your
place of confidence and trust of someone else, you actually
pretend a loyalty to them. All the while, you're plotting
and scheming to take advantage of them in a time when they least
suspect it. and deliver them into the hands
of their enemies for an advantage to yourself, for profit. And
so Judas was looking for a time, he was pretending to be loyal
to Jesus so that he might be able, in his own mind, to get
an inside advantage and find the best time suitable for himself
to turn Jesus over to his enemies and to receive payment of 30
pieces of silver. That's like stabbing someone
in the back for some money. It's the most egregious, the
most disdainful thing you could think of to betray someone like
this. So Judas was unfaithful to the
Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus didn't deserve anyone
to be unfaithful to Him. He was faithful. He was faithful
and He was true. There was no falsehood in Him.
earned for him, someone to betray him. You could see where an evil
person might be betrayed, and you might think that they deserved
it. The enemy, we send in spies in
order to gain confidence with our enemies, and then our spies
betray the enemy to our hand. And we think that's a great thing
because they're false, they're untrue, and they're not faithful
to their friends. But here, the Lord Jesus was
true, He was faithful, He didn't deserve to be betrayed, and yet
He was betrayed. And so you see, first of all,
in this reference to Judas, that as, in contrast, though Judas
betrayed the faithful and true one, To his enemies, yet the
Lord Jesus Christ was faithful and true to his friends. He was
not unfaithful. In his love, he maintained his
purpose, even though he knew before that Judas would betray
him. He made Judas his friend. He trusted Judas as a friend. And you can read about this throughout
the Psalms. In Psalm 41 and 55 and 109 it
talks about this. In one case it was compared to
Ahithophel, who was a counselor of David. Who was David's trusted
counselor. But when Absalom, David's son, came in and took over the kingdom
from his father by force. Ahithophel betrayed David and
gave his wise counsel to Absalom, David's now enemy, even though
he was his son. This was very painful to David
and he cried out to the Lord. in the Psalms about this great
affliction that came upon him. Not only was he chased out of
his place as king so that he could no longer shepherd the
people God had put in his care, but he was also, his own son
had come risen up against him to overthrow his throne and his
trusted counselor had betrayed him. And so it helps us understand
the depth of sorrow and that the Lord Jesus felt when Judas
betrayed him. It wasn't a callous, well, I
knew he was going to do that and it didn't really impact me.
No, he cries out of the psalm, if it had been an enemy that
had done this, I could have taken it. But it was him who was my
friend. We took sweet counsel together
going into the house of God. And so it was between Judas and
Christ. He exposed himself to Judas knowing
that Judas was a son of perdition, knowing that what he would do
would cut him to the core because that pain of betrayal was necessary
to come upon the Lord Jesus Christ as part of his sufferings for
his people. And so we see in this the faithfulness
of Christ to His friends. He loved His own and He loved
them to the end, even though Judas hated the Lord Jesus and
betrayed Him for money. And that's the first thing we
see. And secondly, we see that in this Christ gave himself willingly,
voluntarily to suffer this disappointment. This betrayal of someone that
he put his trust in. Someone who turned the good that
he did for him into evil. So those are the first two things
we see. And then the third thing we see here is that we ourselves,
we ourselves are no better than Judas. On the very night that
Jesus took the bread and the wine and gave it to his disciples
and gave them the Lord's Supper, Judas not only betrayed him to
the enemies, to the chief priests and the rulers and the elders
who would take him and kill him, but he himself, after having
done that, went out and hung himself. And he died. And Jesus said that it had been
better for him if he had never been born. And so the fact that
this occurs on the very night that Christ was betrayed, it
teaches us that unless the Lord Jesus Christ had mercy and grace
upon you and me, Unless He Himself gave His body to be broken, and
shed His blood and gave it to us, we would be like Judas. We
would not only betray the Lord, but we would receive the full
justice for what we did against God's Son. It had been better
for us if we had never been born except for the grace of God.
And so all these things teach us the significance of the betrayal
of the Lord Jesus Christ on this very night. And one more thing
about this. Judas did it with an evil intent. But God intended for Judas to
do this in order to bring about the salvation of his people.
Had it not been Judas' betrayal, he had not been given over to
the hands of his enemies, he would not have suffered the betrayal
of a trusted friend, and all that suffering was part of the
suffering we deserved. Because we turned from God, who
was faithful to us and only good to us. We deserve that. So our
sin that should have come upon us, God forsaking us, was satisfied
in Christ's own betrayal and his sufferings for us. And God
turned the evil intent of this evil man, Judas. So that it would
be turned to our good. And so even though this was a
most horrible thing, it was turned by God for our salvation. And
all these things are significant because they're connected to
Christ giving to His disciples and to His church this ordinance
of the Lord's Supper. And so I mention that as we look
at this because these things are set before us in order to
set the stage for the significance of what Christ has done for us
here. The other thing I would say is we've been studying about
marriage the last couple of Sundays. And this ties extremely well
into that series on marriage. Because here we have the Lord
Jesus Christ. And here we have His disciples,
and they're sitting down together, having eaten the Passover together. The last Passover before He would
suffer, the last Passover of the Old Testament era, that would
be done away in Christ, so that the Passover would no more have
a significance in the Church, because it would be replaced
with the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper was the fulfillment.
the actual fulfillment of it, Christ breaking His body and
shedding His blood for His people. Not just the nation of Israel,
not just deliverance from Egypt, and not just voiding the destruction
of the firstborn, but an eternal salvation, a deliverance from
all of our enemies, sin and death, and the devil, and this world
which is part of the kingdom of Satan. and our own sinful
nature, and the curse of God's law against us. We were delivered
from all those things, and we were delivered from them by the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so that shadowy Old Testament
Passover, as glorious as it was, and as much as it teaches us,
teaches us that is brought to its conclusion in the fulfillment
of it in the Lord Jesus Christ and His sin-atoning blood for
His people. But this is such an intimate connection here between
Christ and His people that it teaches us, it springs from it,
it corresponds to and correlates with the marriage of a husband
and his wife. Because what is that marriage
really in its essence? Is it not love? Is it not the
union between the man and the woman? joined together not only
in a physical union, but in a union of commitment, a union of covenant
love, whereby the husband pledges himself to his wife publicly,
and openly for a lifelong commitment and delights actually takes delight
in giving himself for her and giving himself to her and having
her for his own. All these things are implicit
in what is said here in the Lord's Supper. If you look at Luke,
the book of Luke in chapter 22 in verse 15, Jesus says this
in Luke 22 in verse 15, He says, and he said to them,
in verse 14, when the hour was come, he sat down and the twelve
apostles with him, and it says in verse 15, and when he said,
and he said unto them, with desire, I have desired to eat this Passover
with you before I suffer. Now, it wasn't just because he
was hungry, and it wasn't just because he thought a lot about
the Passover, because he had taken the Passover many years
before. Even during the years of his
ministry, he had taken the Passover. But this Passover was extremely
important because he desired, it says, with desire, I have
desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." So
the significance of his desire was that he would be eating it
with them. And the significance of it was
that he was about to fulfill it in his suffering for them. And so thinking about the husband
and the wife and the love of the husband for his wife, we
can see that the desire of Christ is the end the truth to which
that physical marriage points to. The word desire here, everywhere
else it's translated in scripture, is a word that means lust. He
lusted after eating this meal, this Passover with his people.
This is something that he had an appetite for. Not an appetite
of hunger, but an appetite of being with his people. And he
said to suffer. He didn't look forward to suffering
as an end in itself, but as it says in Hebrews 12, verses 1-3,
for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross. This
joy, this desire, this appetite He had to be with His people
was in order that He might suffer for them, because His love for
them was so strong that it was a love that took delight in giving
Himself for them. There's no comparison to the
love of Christ for his people. But it teaches us something about
love. If you're about to be married and you think about your wife
as a husband, you have to ask yourself this question. Does
it give me excitement? Does it give me joy? Do I anticipate
the marriage to her in order to give myself in my entire life
for her? Does that give me a desire that
I have to do this? I want this more than anything
else. That's what's fulfilled here in the Lord Jesus giving
himself for his people. Love gives and love takes delight
in giving. And so he loved his people and
gave himself for them. So many places in scripture speak
of this. So, back in 1 Corinthians chapter
12, we see that it was that night that the Lord Jesus Christ, facing
the betrayal of Judas, knowing that he had already betrayed
him into the hands of his enemies, and that he would suffer the
pain of that betrayal, he would suffer because of that betrayal,
He would suffer for his people because the betrayal is part
of the sufferings they deserve, and suffer in order to deliver
them from the perdition they deserve because of their unfaithfulness
to God and their betrayal of God, and also bring good out
of the evil. That gave him a joy. even though
it meant, at that time, great suffering. And that joy was a
joy of love for his people, an intimate love, that could find
no satisfaction until he actually gave himself in suffering and
death for them, and the results of that death, to save them from
their sins. And so, we go on in 1 Corinthians
chapter 11. It says that that same night
in which the Lord Jesus was betrayed, he took bread. Bread is used
throughout scripture to signify food. Man shall not live by bread
alone, but by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of
God. But also, it's a spiritual food. And it says in many places
in scripture, for example in Isaiah 55, why do you spend your
money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which
satisfieth not." And he goes on in Isaiah 55 and verse 2 where
he says that he said, Harken diligently unto me and hear that
your soul may live. Harken means to give your attention. And diligently means do it as
the highest importance. And hear, not only with the ear,
but with the faith that God gives to us, that your soul may live. So, through hearing, it's compared
to taking and eating through our spiritual, the way that we
would consume spiritual things, which is through hearing. Let
me give you a verse that helps me understand this a little better. In Job chapter 34, he says this
in verse 3, For the ear trieth words, as the mouth tasteth meat. So now the ear is compared to
the mouth, and the words are compared to the meat. And this
is set up for us by God, through the inspiration of the Spirit
of God, in the book of Job, through this man, Elihu, who was given
to answer Job. And he says, for the ear trieth
words, as the mouth tasteth meat. In order for us to understand
how do we eat spiritual food, hearken diligently unto me, and
eat ye that which is good." Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the Word of God. It says we're born by his own
will, by the will of the Father. We're born of God by the Word
of Truth in James 1.18. And in 1 Peter 1.23, he says,
being born again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by
the Word of God. And this is what Jesus was referring
to in John 3 verse 5, where he said, unless you're born of the
water and of the Spirit. The water of the Word given to
us by God, applied by His Spirit, so that we hear it with a spiritual
ear, and in that hearing we eat it, we consume it. It goes into us and becomes our
life. And so this is speaking here
of this bread. We hear the word of God. That
word is the testimony God has given of His Son, and in hearing
it with God-given faith, we consume it. But we don't just consume
it as an abstract doctrine. We consume it as consuming Christ
Himself sacrificed for us. So let's go on in verse 24 of
1 Corinthians chapter 11. And when He had given thanks,
He break it. And he said, take, eat, this
is my body which is broken for you. Now, I want you to turn
back to Matthew, in chapter 26 of Matthew, where this actually
occurs. Matthew 26, and verse 26. It says, as they were eating,
this is eating the Passover, the last Passover. As they were
eating, Jesus took bread. Notice, where's the spotlight
in the room? What do you see? You see the
Lord Jesus. The light's on Him. He's the
center of attention. He's the focus of the scripture. He's the reason this was written.
He is the actor. He took bread. It speaks of how
the Lord Jesus Christ voluntarily and willingly, of His own will,
made Himself bread, the bread of life for His people, according
to the will of God. It says, as they were eating,
Jesus took bread and He blessed it. And now it says in 1 Corinthians
11 that He also gave thanks for it. So, it says here, He took
bread, He blessed it, He break it, and He gave it. And we know
He also gave thanks for it, which is part of this blessing. Think
about what's being done here. The Lord Jesus Christ is doing
everything. The disciples are completely
unaware of what's about to happen. He took bread. He gave thanks
to His Father for the bread. He blessed this bread. And then
He broke it. And then he gave it. And then
he explained it. And he said, this bread is my
body which is broken for you. And then he said this. Let's
see. Take, eat. Isn't that significant? The Lord Jesus Christ delighted
to do his father's will. He delighted with his people.
With desire, he desired to eat this Passover with them. And
so when he took the bread, If I had been doing this with this
comparison of excitement, my hands would have been shaking,
my voice would have been shaking, and everything in my whole body
would have been focused on what was about to happen here. He
took this bread. The culmination of eternal purpose
is about to take place in picture. And He took it and He blessed
it. Because he meant this bread to be for the eternal life of
his people. And that excited him with an
excitement of love. And he himself gave thanks for
it. Because he gave thanks to his
father that he could so offer himself in sacrifice instead
of his people, for them, to take away God's wrath from them. and
blessed them. And he saw that in their bread.
So he took it, he blessed it, he gave thanks for it, and then
he broke it. Because he himself, voluntary,
gave himself to this. It says in Isaiah chapter 50,
I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that pluck
off the hair. I did not hide my face from shame
and spitting. He did all that. That's called
the breaking of his body. He gave himself, the body he
says in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 7, he says, a body thou
hast prepared me. Why? So that in my body he might
carry our sins as his sins up to the cross and on the cross
bear the outpouring of God's wrath against him in his body. Look at Psalm 38. where this
is spoken in prophecy by David in Psalm 38 in verse 1. The prayer
of the psalm is, 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. What is this? The pain and suffering
of the conscience and the body because of personal sin. because
of personal guilt. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the subject of this psalm. David speaks of it in his own
experience because of the pain of his conscience and the sickness
that it brought in his body. If that's just a prophecy of
the true, how much greater is the true that the Lord Jesus
Christ in his body suffered the arrows of God's wrath sticking
fast in him and God's hand of justice pressing him sore? Doesn't it say in Zechariah chapter
13, I think it is, that That the Lord himself would smite
the shepherd and that the sheep would be scattered. That he who
was the fellow of the Lord, the shepherd, would be smitten by
the Lord's sword. And so it is here. His arrows
stick fast in him. And his bones, this is all part
of his body. In verse 4, For mine iniquities
are gone over mine head, As a heavy burden, they are too heavy for
me. My wounds stink and are corrupt
because of my foolishness." The Lord Jesus Christ never sinned.
He never knew sin. He never did sin. In Him is no
sin. He's holy, harmless, undefiled,
and separate from sinners in every way. And yet he bore our
sins in his own body upon the tree, that we, being dead to
sins, should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes we are healed. That's substitution. He stood
in our place. He took our sins, the guilt of
them. He felt the guilt of them. He
felt the shame and the reproach. Reproach has covered my face,
he says in Psalm 69. And here he's speaking of that
in this comparison of wounds in a body and stinking sores,
a plague in his flesh and in his bones and in his body. Because
it was in his body that he was broken for our sins. I'm troubled. I'm 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. I am feeble and sore broken."
There's the word. My body broken for you. That's what the Lord Jesus is
saying. He takes the bread. It's His will. He blesses it
to us, His body, His church, His people, His bride. He gives
thanks to His Father that He could so give Himself in love
to His people for their eternal salvation, to bring them to God,
to make them holy, to make remission for their sins in the breaking
of His body under the wrath of God as a substitute for us. He
actually He actually bore our sins as His own. And He actually
bore all the wrath of God against us for our sins, which included
His betrayal, the suffering of it, which for anyone who was
true and faithful was unjust. But for Him, since He stood in
our place, it was as our surety and He took it. And so He says
back in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, He says, Take, this is my body, he says,
when he had given thanks he break it and said verse 24 of 1st Corinthians
11. Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you. For you. To be sitting at that table,
to hear his words, to see him break that bread, to take that
bread and break it and give thanks for it and bless it and then
give it to you to put it in your hand and to hear him say to you,
this is my body which is broken for you. Is there anything else
that you need for all of life and all eternity but to know
that those words spoken by Christ were for you? I can think of
nothing else. Nothing greater, nothing else
is needed if Christ died for me then I need nothing else. That's enough for God. That's
enough for me. I have nothing to bring. I'm
a sinner. I deserve to be broken. I haven't
kept God's law one day in my entire life. By God's law, I
deserve the wrath. And yet, he says, broken for
you. But I find in myself a cause
and I don't understand it, of doubting. There's something in
me that doubts that I could take these words of Christ to his
disciples and take them as my own, as an application to myself. Do you sense that, even in your
own conscience? That there's a reluctance to
take these words for you and say, it was for me? And why is
that? Think about that. Why do we have
such a doubt arise in our hearts? Was there something in his words
that makes it doubtful? Was there something in His accomplishments
that make it doubtful? Did the Lord Jesus Christ offer
Himself and His body broken for us, and yet there was a possibility
that He did not put away our sins, did not endure the wrath
of God, and remove God's wrath from us and actually reconcile
us to God? Is there a possibility of that?
Is there a possibility that He is not the Son of God? That He's
not the Christ of God? That He did not make a full atonement
for our sins and obtain our eternal redemption and by His one offering
perfect us forever before God? There's no possibility of any
of that being less than true. And yet there's this doubt. So
where could the doubt come from? It couldn't come from him. It
couldn't come from his accomplishments. It must come from me. And why
would I have such a doubt? Isn't it because I look for some
reason in myself why God would not say these things about me.
Don't I think that way? Or maybe it's for some reason
that I need to find in myself why God would not say these things
to me. Well of course there's my sin,
but the reason his body was broken was to remove my sin. To satisfy
for it and make a full remission of it. And yet there's this doubt. Because we doubt naturally, we
think, I don't know for sure if I'm chosen of God, if I'm
one of God's elect, if Christ died for me, if the Spirit of
God actually called me by His grace, if He now lives in me.
We doubt these things, don't we? But the problem is, the problem
with our doubt is that we're considering something of ourselves. Isn't it that reason? that we
doubt. If we were to just take the words
of Christ and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and focus all
of our attention upon Him, we would have no reason for doubt,
would we? But we think about these things and we want to find
something substantive that we can hang our confidence and assurance
on. And yet God leaves us with nothing
except the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to look at a couple
of scriptures with me concerning this. Look at Hebrews chapter
10. Hebrews chapter 10. The book
of Hebrews is all about how the Lord Jesus Christ perfected forever
All that was written before and done in ceremony and spoken in
the law before, He actually fulfilled it in completion and perfected
all that God intended to be done in the New Covenant, in the New
Testament. And so in Hebrews chapter 10,
at the end here of explaining this, that the Lord Jesus Christ
by Himself has purged our sins. He sat down on the right hand
of God and He sanctified forever, obtained our eternal redemption,
put away our sins. It's said over and over in the
book of Hebrews. And now look at Hebrews chapter
10 and verse 14. We'll pick it up in verse 14.
By one offering, He Hebrews 10, 14, For by one offering
he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Amen. Wherefore the Holy Ghost also
is a witness to us. This is the message the Spirit
of God gives to the church. He has perfected forever them
that are sanctified. And then in verse 16, this is
the witness before of the Holy Ghost. He says this, quoting
from Jeremiah 31, 31-34, This is the covenant that I will make
with them after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws
into their hearts and in their minds will I write them. And
we think, well that means the Ten Commandments. Isn't that
what you normally think? But realize that what Christ
did fulfilled the law. And faith appropriates that fulfillment
of God's law, looking to Christ as God looks to him and sees
the righteousness of God in him for his people. He's the end
of the law for righteousness. Isn't that what God has written
on our hearts? That we're convinced with a God-given persuasion that
what Christ did has magnified God's law, fulfilled it in completion,
and that that was done not for himself but for his people. And
so he says, I will put my laws into their hearts and in their
minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will
I remember no more. God said this. They're in the
past. They're put away. The book of
accounting where our iniquities were recorded and kept to account. God has blotted them out as a
thick cloud. Isaiah 43, 25 and 44, 22. He's put them away from his own
mind. There shall be a search done.
In that day, in Jeremiah 50 20, and there shall no sin or iniquity
be found in all of God's people. Because the Spirit of God records
in prophecy and here in Hebrews in fulfillment that Christ by
himself put them away. He says, and their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Now, where remission of these
is, there is no more offering for sin. Why? Because they're
done. They're put away. Having therefore
brethren. This is the exhortation. This
is why he's writing. He says, "...having therefore,
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest, not by what we are,
what we shall be some day, our intentions, our sincerity, not
our sorrow, nothing in us, but by the blood of Jesus." That's
the only way you could enter into the veil. by the blood of
Jesus, by a new and living way, a way newly revealed, a way newly
fulfilled, a way that's living, that gives life, which He, Christ,
hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His
flesh, His body. And His body was torn like the
veil was torn, and the way was made for us to go into the presence
of God by the blood of Jesus. Now, having a high priest over
the house of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, 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 water of the gospel, pointing us to Christ, applied to us by
the Spirit of God, teaching us that all Christ did is enough
to bring me, a sinner, to God. Let us hold fast the profession
of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promised."
You see, the promise was made by God, the one who fulfilled
it is God. In Christ, He's faithful, He
promised, Christ fulfilled it. Look to Him, look no further,
and be assured. And so He says, take it, take
this bread, eat it. This is my body broken for you.
How do I know it's for me? If there was a place in scripture
where I could say, there's my name. There am I described. That's for me, therefore. Well,
I'm going to give you one. And it's familiar. But we have
to have these things reminded to us. In 1 Samuel 25, 25, Abigail
told David regarding her husband, Nabal, as is his name, so is
he. Nabal is his name because foolishness
is with him. So the name in scripture describes
the person. If you could find a place in
scripture where your name was written, here is who Christ died
for, would it satisfy you? Let me take you to one. It's
not a pretty name. It's not a name that gives us
any confidence before God. It's not a name that removes
our shame. In fact, it increases our shame.
But it puts us in the place where we truly are. It's in 1 Timothy
1 and verse 15. Listen to these words from God's
Word. This is a faithful saying. A faithful saying. One you can rely on. This is a faithful saying, and
worthy of all acceptation, no doubting, but every bit of it
should be received by you, that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, of whom I'm chief. That's my name. My name
is sinner because sin is with me. It describes me. It's who
I am. In myself, I have nothing but
sin. The highest, the first and greatest commandment is to love
God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. And I've
broken the very most important commandment. Never kept it once. Have you? Isn't the carnal mind
enmity against God? Do we ever find love in our heart
towards God that's not mixed with some amount of sin. And so he goes on in 1 Corinthians
chapter 11. Broken for you this do in remembrance
of me. Remember me. Isn't that what
the thief on the cross asked Jesus to do? Lord, remember me
when you come into your kingdom. Hear the Lord Jesus Christ about
to go to the cross. He says, take this bread Eat
it. It's my body, broken for you. Remember me." Why would we need
Him to give us this to remember Him all the time? Don't we as
sinners continually hang upon His words and His works as all
of our hope in our salvation? Well, we do, but we don't, because
there's this constant mixture of doubting and forgetfulness,
and we need to be reminded. Or, you could think of it this
way. In this great, broad book called the Bible, what is the
one thing Jesus wanted his disciples to remember? Him. Remember me. Remember my body
broken. Remember my blood poured out.
It's my blood and body. My blood shed for you. My body
broken for you. Remember me. And then in verse
25, after the same manner also he took the cup which he, when
he had supped, saying, This cup, listen carefully, is the new
testament in my blood. This do ye as oft as you drink
it in remembrance of me. What is this blood? He says,
it's the New Testament in my blood. Now, when God gave Moses
the law, that was called the Old Covenant. And God gave it
to Moses in the form of Ten Commandments, and the people had to agree to
it, and they did. They agreed to it. And that law
was both cursings and blessings, which if a man do, he shall live,
but if not, he would be cursed. It was a two-party covenant.
It depended upon the conditions the people would meet. And all
the blessings of it hung on their fulfilling the conditions of
that covenant. And yet they were under it. And
Moses went up to the mount, Sinai, and he got the law from God on
two tables of stone. And he came down the mount and
he gave it to the people. And then he said he sprinkled
both the book and all the people with blood. He took the blood
of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer and with the hyssop
he sprinkled the book and the people and all the tabernacle
and the vessels of the ministry. Because the blood sealed the
covenant to the people. And this is spoken of in Hebrews
chapter 9. If you want to look at Hebrews chapter 9. Jesus said,
this blood, this cup, is the New Testament in my blood. Now
Moses went up to the mountain to get the law, the covenant
from God for the people in order that the people might fulfill
that covenant and therefore receive the blessing and avoid the cursing.
But the Lord Jesus didn't go up to heaven to get the covenant. He came down from heaven. Remember
what he told Nicodemus? No man has ascended up to heaven,
not like Moses. But the Son of Man who came down
from heaven with the New Testament in His blood. He made it before
He came down. He was the one who was the mediator
of this New Testament. That word testament is used instead
of a covenant in Hebrews 9.15 in order to show that to us it
was a one-party covenant. A one-party testament. It was
like a will, where the testator of the will makes the covenant
on condition of his own death. That would fulfill the conditions
of this covenant. And so when he speaks to his
disciples, he says, take this cup. This cup is the New Testament
in my blood. He's comparing it to what Moses
did. He sealed the covenant to the
people when he sprinkled the blood of animals on them and
the book and everything else because they had to fulfill the
conditions of it. And they agreed to it. But, of
course, no one ever fulfilled those conditions, therefore they
were under the curse. But the Lord Jesus Christ, having
made the New Testament, which included the removal of that
curse by burying it Himself, He came and He fulfilled it.
And He sprinkled His own blood, not on the book on earth, but
in heaven, on the altar of heaven. And He sprinkled it for the people
and therefore sprinkled it on the people. And that's why they're
sanctified by His one offering. And that's why it says here in
Hebrews chapter 9 verse 15, Because everything God required is met
in His blood and God applies it to us. when we hear the gospel and believe
it. Verse 15. Meaning he removed the curse. against us because we broke that
first testament, they which are called might receive the promise
of eternal inheritance." All the blessings in the New Testament
are brought to us by the blood of Jesus. And so he says, take
this cup It's my blood which is shed for you and for many
for the remission of sins and is the blood of the New Testament. The remission of sins are made.
There's no more offering. The iniquities are forgotten
by God because they're put away. He's blotted them out. The account
is cleared. God looks at the record. There's
no sin there. He looked and nothing was found
because Christ fully satisfied for them. This is what he's saying
here in verse 25 of 1 Corinthians 11. Do you see it? Body broken,
blood shed. The cup and the bread are pictures
that point to the blood and the broken body of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The life of the flesh is in the
blood, therefore he had to die. His body had to be broken and
his blood poured out. And so we do it in remembrance
of Him. As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you
do show the Lord's death till He comes. What do we do as believers
when we eat the bread, the physical bread that we eat, we're about
to eat and drink that fruit of the vine, which we're about to
take. What are we doing? We're preaching the gospel we
believe. We're preaching how our life
In believing Christ, we are actually consuming the benefits of His
own sinatoning death for us, so that we're declaring this.
He desired with desire to give Himself for us, and with desire
we desire to show our reverence for Him, our admiration of Him,
our submission to Him as His wife and as His bride. Who wouldn't? What does it mean to eat it unworthily?
It means to eat it in unbelief. Can we make ourselves worthy? Can we clean up our life like
I was always under the impression that in order to take the Lord's
table I had to have all my sins confessed and I had to clean
up all these things that had been a problem, you know? You
can't make yourself worthy before God, can you? Is there one thing
the gospel has taught us that we can't do that? But in Acts
13.46 it says that the people there who would not believe Christ
as preached by Paul They proved themselves unworthy. Acts 13.26
for David. Let's see, Acts 46. He says,
Acts 13.46, Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said, It was necessary
that the word of God should first have been spoken to you, but
seeing you put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of
everlasting life. How did they do that? By not
believing Christ. They refused to believe Him.
Look at 1 Peter chapter 4. Just this one verse in 1 Peter
4. See how this works. We're unworthy in ourselves,
aren't we? What makes us worthy? Is it not the blood and righteousness,
the broken body and the shed blood of Christ? It's only in
believing that, that we can come to God. We come to God by the
blood of Jesus. That's what Hebrews 10, 19 is
telling us. If we can come, if we have access
through Christ, then it's Christ who makes us worthy, not we ourselves. And faith in Christ is that gift
of God to us that shows us, that proves that we are looking as
God to Christ alone for all of our worthiness and acceptation.
But in 1 Peter 4, verse 6, it says, For this cause was the
gospel preached to them that are dead, that they might be
judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to
God in the Spirit. What does the gospel preached
by men do for us? It says, For this cause was the
gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might
be judged by men in the flesh. Men in the flesh preach the gospel
to us. And what does that do? Well, by the Spirit of God, it
judges us. And what is judgment? It convinces us that we're sinners,
doesn't it? That we're unbelieving in our heart. And it convinces
us that there's only one righteousness. It's Christ. He finished it.
You see me no more. John 16, 7-11. And it convinces
us that God has finished judgment. He's justified his people and
he's judged the kingdom of Satan. And all these things in the blood
of Christ, convincing us in the Gospel. And if we judge ourselves,
we will not be judged by God. We judge ourselves in hearing
the Gospel, we believe it by God-given faith, and we're convinced
of it, and so we live to God in the Spirit. That's what He's
teaching us there. Back in 1 Corinthians 11, We
don't eat and drink in unbelief. We don't eat and drink not discerning
the Lord's body. Because to not discern the Lord's
body is to not discern that I am a sinner and my only hope is
Christ and not living upon Him and coming to God by Him in the
full assurance of faith, but coming with a mixture of my own
contribution and Christ's. And so he says, it goes on, And
verse 30, What did Paul judge about himself?
I'm a sinner. And nothing at all. I'm the chief
of sinners. But Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners. That was his judgment. That's
what the gospel convinces us. And so we judge ourselves guilty,
we judge Christ righteous, and we judge God's word to be true,
and we come to God by the blood of Christ. For when we are judged,
we are chastened to the Lord, that we should not be condemned
with the world. Wherefore, my brethren, when you come together
to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him
eat at home, that you come not together unto condemnation, and
the rest I will set in order when I come." He's saying here
that we don't take the Lord's Supper individually in our own
homes. We do it as a body, because Christ
broke his body for his spiritual bride, his church, his body. We don't eat and drink by ourselves. We do not forsake the assembling
of ourselves together as the manner of some is. We come together
and we feed on Christ together. I was talking to that man I mentioned
earlier. on the phone yesterday and we
were noticing, he noticed it first, that as he was at his
age looking back on his life and trying to condense things
in words, he was having to draw from his thoughts what he was
convinced of in his heart and expressing them in words because
that process of speech requires us to pull from our conscience
and our heart things that we know to be true, and he expressed
it in words, and he said, as I was doing that, I was benefited
by it. He himself benefited from speaking
the truth that was resident in his heart God had convinced him
of. So as a body, when we eat the bread and drink the wine,
we're preaching the gospel until the Lord comes. It's both a looking
back in remembrance and a looking forward in anticipation and hope
of Christ and Him crucified. who now reigns for us, one day
we're going to be with Him. In fact, in Luke 22, when He
said, I'm not going to drink of the fruit of the vine until
it be fulfilled in my Father's kingdom, He was speaking of that
time in glory, when with the church before Him and with Him,
He would consummate the whole work of redemption, and they
then would see His face, and they would know as they are known,
and they would freely partake in the most intimate communion
with Christ that cannot be described. For which we look forward to
and he looked forward to that he said that's when I'm going
to eat with you again When in the New Testament in the New
Covenant is fulfilled in heaven And so He told His disciples,
I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go, I'm going to come
again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, you may be also.
This is speaking about the remembrance and the anticipation. And we
do this as the Lord's people, as His body. We live upon Christ. We take His broken body and shed
blood to ourselves by faith. As the ear tries words, so the
mouth tastes meat, and so we eat. hearing the gospel, believing
Christ, leaning upon Him, and we come to God by Him, the body
and the blood of Christ are signified by the elements of the Lord's
Supper. And our eating of it is preaching this, that this
is what we believe, this is how we come, this is what God has
taught us. through His Son. The Lord Jesus
gave us warrant to do this. In fact, He said, do this in
remembrance of Me. So it's an obedience to Him,
but it's an obedience of love and admiration and intimate fellowship. So we're going to pray now and
then we're going to pass out the elements of the Lord's table
and if you have been convinced that you have no hope as a sinner
before God but Christ. And because of that persuasion,
you come to God by Him and you live upon Him in your heart by
faith. Then you take these elements
because this is what God has told us to do. And we do it in
honor of Christ. And we do it in preaching the
gospel. This is our way of sharing this with one another. And in
that preaching of the gospel, we're drawing from our heart
what's true, what God has planted there. Let's pray. Lord, we thank
you for your word. It clarifies things for us. It
reveals things we would never know. And it assures us of things
we could not believe had you not spoken to us these things
over and over and assured us of them. You've pointed us in
every way to Christ. You've removed all possibility
of us finding hope in ourselves. And you've warned us not to take
of the bread and the wine or the body and blood of Christ
unworthily. as those who do not believe,
as those who do not understand, but only as those who trust Christ
and look to Him for all of their salvation. And we rejoice that
the Lord Jesus has such a strong desire for His people that He
would give Himself for them and then give Himself to them and
anticipate that day when with them He would hold intimate communion
in heaven in fulfillment and consummation of this. So we pray,
Lord, that as we do this, you would be with us and you would
convince us in our heart of the truth of it and help us to understand
it by faith. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.