Whosoever shall eat this bread
and drink this cup, the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of
the body and the blood of the Lord. Now, starting in verse
28, we begin to find that there is an examination that begins
to take place. For a long time I grew up believing
there was one examination, but Paul here teaches that there
are two examinations. There is an individual examination
and there is a corporate examination. A lot of people put off the second,
but everything that's been in context leading up to this very
point has shown that there is a corporate responsibility of
discipline within the local gathered assembly. There is a watching
over each other. And again, when I say this, I'm
not talking about sitting in judgment as some holier than
thou, I'm more righteous than you are, nitpicking after everybody,
and I'm gonna look into everybody's life and see who's doing what.
I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about as we gather
together, as we live together, You know, we're gonna know things
about each other. And if I see a brother or a sister
who is stumbling, you know, not only am I commanded to come beside
them and to reprove them, but brother, don't, I mean, someone
you love, if someone you love, you see going astray, don't you
want to do that? I mean, whenever I see one of
my child, one of my children, Whenever I see them varying and
doing something that, to me, is going astray, it isn't just
because it's my job as the parent to correct them. It's my love
for them. I don't want to see them go in
error. I don't want to see them go astray. So I'll come along
saying, you really shouldn't be like that. You shouldn't do
that, whatever. It's because of my love. Are we commanded
as a parent? Yeah, I'm commanded to teach
my children correctly. But it goes a lot deeper than
just the command. Again, brethren, that's what
all this is about. Even whenever it comes to the commands of Christ,
it isn't just command for command's sake. It's because we desire
to do what Christ has commanded. We desire to do those things. We desire, we have love for the
brethren, and that love is something that will come alongside of you
and say, hey, I notice you're having some issues here. I notice
that you're kind of going astray, whatever the case might be. If
it's open sin, we confront them about that. Why? Because we love
them. Because listen, I can tell you right now, it's not fun to
do that. I mean, I don't find enjoyment
in having to be contentious. I don't find enjoyment in having
to go somebody That's awkward. And because of that, that's why
a lot of times that don't ever happen in a lot of churches. Listen, I grew up my whole entire
life in the Southern Baptist churches, and hardly ever did
I see church discipline in the church I grew up in. And other churches that were
out there that I would ever go to for certain things or visit
or just know people from there, you never heard. of church discipline. You never heard of, and knowing
there were people in open immorality, in open sin, unrepentant, and
I'm not talking about for a few days or a few weeks. I'm talking
about long-term open unrepentance that never was dealt with. And
whenever someone would say, do you think we ought to go to Brother
so-and-so or Sister so-and-so, say, well, I'm just not good
at that kind of thing. Well, I don't know. That's not
my place. That's the pastor's place. Or they would say, you
know, you're not ever going to change anybody. There ain't no
sense in messing with it. Or it's none of my business.
Well, I don't want people looking into my life, so I ain't going
to look into theirs. That, brethren, is not love for the brethren.
And so we see here, Paul goes into verse 28 and he says, but
let a man examine himself. Examine himself what? Whether
or not he's coming unworthily to the table. But let a man examine himself,
and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he
that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation
to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. Okay? For this cause, many are weak
and sickly among you, and many sleep." Now, let me remind you,
this is an Old Testament here, okay? This is New Testament. There were many that were sick
and had went to sleep. I'm not talking about go to sleep
for the night. We're talking about dying. There
were many who were sick and have died among them because There
were people who were eating and drinking, coming to the Lord's
table unworthily. And so there is a self-examination
that one makes on whether or not you are coming worthily. Are you born again? Have you
been scripturally baptized? Those are the prerequisites to
the Lord's table. Are you in open immorality? Are you in unrepentance? See,
it isn't the fact that we all sin. Yes, we all do. I'll probably
sin since this afternoon. That's not the issue. The issue
is, is there unrepentancy? Are we living a habitual life
of sin? But look in verse 31. He goes
from an individual examination to a corporate examination. Says,
for this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many
sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. See, the church was experiencing
people weak, sickly, and falling asleep among that gathered congregation. And he said, number one, the
person going into the table should examine themselves to see whether
they're worthy or not. And this doesn't mean worthy
in the fact of sinless perfection, because we all know none of us
are worthy. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking
about in a temporal way. Are we worthy in the manner of,
do we meet the prerequisites to be at the table? If we don't
meet the prerequisites to be at the table, then we shouldn't
be there. Okay? Because if it had to do with
worthiness on a righteous level, then there would be no Lord's
Supper because the only person that would be able to partake
of that would be Jesus himself. So the whole argument of worthiness,
whether or not I'm worthy or not, has nothing to do with righteousness,
a self-righteousness. None of us have a self-righteousness
that's worthy to do anything for the Lord. It has to do with
obedience to his command, and it has to do with those who are
admitted to the table. But in verse 31, he takes it
to the assembly or the gathered corporate level. He said, for
if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But
when we are judged, we are chastened to the Lord that we should not
be condemned with the world. And so what Paul is telling them
here is there are gonna be the individual examinations, but
then there are gonna be those who are self-deceived or just
careless, who are unrepentant, who show the outside and know
these things. If we would judge ourselves as
a corporate body If we would judge, we should not be judged. If we would go to that person
and say, you're an unrepentant sin, you need to repent of that. And
then, if there is repentance, then come to the table together
with that person. But if not, that person needs to be excluded
from the table. See, there is an aspect of discipline
to the Lord's table. It isn't just about whether or
not you've been born again, it isn't just about whether or not
you're a child of God, whether or not you were purchased by
his blood. It isn't just about that, because the Lord's table
is a table that shows unity, that shows doctrinal unity, spiritual
unity, and it's a place where we come together and commune
together around what the Lord has done for us. And so if someone
is living in a lifestyle that is antithetical to all of that,
then there is grounds to wonder, is that person got the prerequisite
to be here as one born again? Because someone who is born again
is brought to repentance for their sin. And if they're not
repenting of their sin, something's wrong. Something's wrong there,
if they're not repenting of their sin. And so there is this corporate
judging, and Paul just spoke about it in the previous verses
we've seen. There is corporate judging that
we do, okay? It isn't that we set astringent
rules that, you know, for Socrates Baptist Church, you gotta meet
this, this, this, this, this, this, this. No, it's what did
the Lord say. When we look at the example of
scriptures, we've seen that no one particular Lord suffered
that wasn't baptized. Not one person in scripture has
ever been shown that. Now, does that mean that person
is not a Christian? Absolutely not. Does that mean that person
is not a child of grace? Absolutely not. It has nothing
to do with that, but we are commanded to be baptized. There was a way
that a person was to be baptized. And there is a profession of
faith in that baptism. But if you're baptized under
a false gospel, then that baptism is invalid. And so that person
has not been baptized. And so that keeps them from being
able to come to the Lord's table until they follow the Lord in
obedience to his command and be baptized. It isn't saying
that they're second rate citizens. It isn't saying that they're
outside of the election of God. It's just saying that there is
a proper service, just like Paul was saying to this person. He
didn't say that that person there was not a Christian, but a moral
man. He said this. He didn't ever
say that. He said you should have put him out, though, and
not led him to the table. You should have put him out of
the church so that the work of putting him out would have its
rightful work. He never brought condemnation
on him and said, well, you're not elect. But he did say you're
to put him out of the fellowship. You're to put him out of the
gathered assembly whenever they meet together until he repents. And I know a lot of people say,
well, that's not our place to judge. You've got to take it up with
the scriptures that says that we're to do that. Ask the corporate
body where to do that. And again, it isn't about one
man doing it, it isn't about The group of elders doing it,
it's about us as a gathered body. That's why the Lord said that
you bring them before the church. Can't do that millions of people
everywhere. You got to bring them to the
gathered assembly where they're meeting. He said, so, but when
we were judged, we were chastened of the Lord, that we should not
be condemned with the world. Wherefore, my brother, when ye
come together to eat, again, there's this phrase, when you
come together, when you come together to eat, tarry for one
another, and if any man hunger, let him eat at home, that ye
come not together under condemnation, and the rest will I set in order
whenever I come. Those things that we've looked
at here in Corinthians is one of the reasons why we believe
that the Lord's Supper is a church ordinance, and that it is limited
to the gathered assembly, that local fellowship together of
those who are in doctrinal unity and spiritual unity, who are
living there, caring for one another, correcting, instructing,
rebuking, coming alongside of each other, and that the gifts
are being edified one towards another. Another reason why we
find that there is to be unity is because this is all about
a unity thing. Christ has set it down to be
for unity, that's communion. He has talked about the one loaf.
He has talked about the one body. And so we do that together. And
that's also why we believe that the Lord's Supper is not a social
feast. And we also believe it's not
a sacramental feast. Unfortunately, you look back
at a lot of Baptist writings of some, and you'll see where
they call the Lord's Supper a sacrament. The Lord's Supper is not a sacrament,
it is an ordinance. There is a difference between
sacrament and ordinance. That's, the word sacrament means
there is a conveying of grace in that ordinance. The Roman
Catholics, they believe in transubstantiation, and whenever they take the body
and the blood of Jesus, they believe it physically becomes
the flesh of Christ and the blood of Christ, transformed into the
flesh and blood of Christ when they take it. Okay, and that
they receive grace, that is a meritorious thing to them. Matter of fact,
the Catholic Church has certain things that are meritorious for
you to do and you have to follow, and that is one of them. The
Protestants believe in co-substantiation. They believe not in transubstantiation,
but a co-substantiation in the fact that it is now a mystical
thing. It's not an actual thing, it's
a mystical thing. That whenever they take the body
and the blood of Jesus Christ, it's bread and wine, but there's
a mystical aspect to it. that it conveys grace to them. If you remember, I don't remember
if... Do you remember the Presbyterians
that were coming to our church when we was in the other buildings? I don't really want to say their
names. I don't know if they still live around this area or not. There
were some Presbyterians that have come here, very prominent
people in the community. Anyway, they came for a long
time because they were wanting Doctrines of Grace preaching.
And the two Presbyterian churches here in town that preach the
Doctrines of Grace, one was too orthodox in their liturgy for
them, and the other one was too millennial-oriented, you know? And so they came, and after coming
for a long time, and we'd had our discussions about baptism
and about the Lord's table and things like that, They wanted
to know when we were having the Lord's Supper because they said,
you know, we need to have that on a regular basis because You
know, we can be spiritually drained not having that. See, there's
this mysticism around the Lord's table to the Protestants who
think that there is not only a, they don't believe it's transformed
in the body and blood of Christ, but they believe that whenever
they take that, that that is a spiritual, an actual spiritual
food that keeps them spiritually refreshed. And so in both those
cases, those are sacraments. The Baptist, or I would say the
New Testament church, throughout the centuries, has looked at
this as these are ordinances of symbol and remembrance, of
celebration. These two things are celebration. He says, that we do this in remembrance
of him. So the ordinance of the Lord's
table is to remember him, but it's twofold. It's not only to
remember him, but it's also to show in symbol the Lord's death. So he said, whenever you do this,
you not only remember me, but you do show forth the Lord's
death until I come again. So we are showing the gospel,
we are showing the Lord's death in symbol form. And that's one
of the reasons why we're so particular on the elements of the Lord's
Supper here. That's why we adhere to the unleavened
bread that Jesus used and the wine that Jesus used is because
we believe that, and that's a totally different sermon there, we believe
that that does convey the symbol that Jesus was intending in the
remembering of his broken body and his blood. But anyway, so
that's why we remember us now. A little bit on the personal
level. Jesus said, this is my body, which is for you. And so he was proclaiming that
he was giving his life. The son of God was giving his
life. And what strikes me in that every
time I read it, is he says, for you. See, whenever he said that, he
could have said for ye, which ye means a corporate group, a
single corporate group, but he didn't say ye, he said you. He brought it down to a personal
level. While yes, Jesus has died for the church, while yes, Jesus
has died for all the election of grace, He said, I died for
you. This is my body, which is for
you, Louetta. You, Larry. You, Mark. You, Beth. You, on and on the
road. This is for you. He became man
for you. He suffered for you. He died
for you. See, it wasn't for him that he
came. It wasn't for him that he was
subjected. It wasn't for him that he was hated. It wasn't
for him that he was mocked and killed. It was for you. See, whenever the Lord went to
the Garden of Gethsemane, why did he go there? Was he going there to pray for
strength that he might be able to endure what was before him?
He went to Gethsemane for you, right? He went to Gethsemane
to pour out His heart and anguish because He was going to fulfill
the Father's will for you. And so we see that in the phrase
that this body is for you, we see a very huge act of divine
love for us. See, even though we don't deserve
it, he still gave his life for you. Christ still lives for you, even
today. He lives, excuse me, as Hebrews
chapter four says, he lives as our sympathetic high priest who
can identify with our sufferings, who can give divine comfort to
us. Why? Because he ever lives to
intercede for you. So not only did He die for you,
but He rose and lives forevermore for you. So in response to all
that He has done for us, Christ asks us to remember Him and what
He has accomplished. Now, sharing in the Lord's Supper
is a command that the Lord Himself has given us. We shouldn't neglect
the Lord's Supper. See, there's a lot of speculation
on the way that We should do this in the frequency. I don't
believe the Bible tells us that there's a frequency. It says
as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup. Some take
that often, meaning every time you meet. Some take it to mean
once a quarter. Some take it once a year, you
know. I don't think that he gives a
specificness on them. And so, you know, we don't hold
anybody in judgment of anything like that. We've been held in
judgment on that because we don't do it every time we meet. But
we don't do that, we don't hold anybody to that. If they have
convictions one way or the other, then we don't hold them, you
know, in disfellowship They believe that it should be one way or
the other. But we ought to not neglect it. We should observe
it whenever the church gathers to partake of it. I remember
growing up, you know, we'd always announce ahead of time, you know,
that we'd be having the Lord's Supper together. And usually
we had it on Sunday evening is when we usually had it. and everything. And there would be close to maybe,
you know, 250 people on Sunday morning. And usually whenever
we had the Lord's Supper, you know, we'd just come together,
we'd sing a few hymns, and have the Lord's Supper, and that was
it. And, you know, 250 people on
a Sunday morning, and then Sunday night, there would probably be
15 people show up for the Lord's Supper. And, you know, you just
wanna, you know, is it not important to you that you Have the Lord's
Supper. Don't you follow the ordinance
that Christ has given us? You know, as I was reading through
a lot of things about not just the Lord's Supper, but in the
way that things were remembered and passed down, if you look
through the Old Testament, Jesus, The Holy Spirit, through the
writers, mentioned how often things were done to remember
certain things. They would set up altars, they
would set up sepulchers, they would set up headstones, and
all these different things that they would set up. God even gave
his name and said, my name is to be a memorial to all generations. And so there were these certain
things and names given to remember things. And so the remembering
in the Hebrew mind meant more than just simply recalling something
that happened in the past. It meant recapturing as much
of that reality and significance of a person or a situation as
possible in that person's conscious minds. That's how they did that.
That's one of the things that, you know, I think our culture
here has failed to see the importance of or even
experience the richness of when you look in some of the other
cultures of the world where there is a lot of verbal tradition
passed down. And I'm not talking about, you
know, spiritual tradition. I'm talking about, you know,
where they conveyed to their kids and they retold the stories
of their ancestors and told them how things happened. and they
relived those things in the mind and as that was passed down.
Well, brethren, that has been kind of what it has been like
for the New Testament church in the ordinances of the Lord
Jesus Christ, in the gospel, in the word of God that's been
given to us. He's given us this word. He's given us the Holy
Spirit that leads us into all truth, to know what this says,
and to know Isn't it funny how you can be studying something,
the scripture, and you come across something, and you begin to,
the Lord teaches you something, and you say, you know, that's
not something that I was ever taught growing up. And you think,
well, I'm the only one that sees this. I've never heard anybody
else. Then all of a sudden, you begin to meet this person, and
that person, and this person, and they have this same interpretation
of that scripture that you had that you never did know growing
up. But all of a sudden, you've come into this new truth to you
But you come to find out that, man, there's people that God
has raised up and taught the same thing all over. That's the
Holy Spirit leading us in the truth. And he is leading us in
finding other people who believe this truth. Well, brothers, sometimes
whenever we have that, we have that passed down from generation
to generation in the preaching of the gospel, in the gathering
of the assembly, and the observing of the ordinances. We are doing
that very thing. And so Jesus was requesting that
the Christians continue to ponder the meaning of his death on their
behalf through the Lord's table. We also see that it's the covenant
that God has made, the cup and the covenant. He said, in the
same manner also he took the cup, and when he had said, saying,
the cup, this cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do
as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. So whenever Jesus took
that third cup after the meal had finished, he said that represented
the new covenant or the promise that would be ratified by his
blood. The Scripture said that everything was to be purged with
blood. That that's what ratified the
New Covenant. See, in the Old Testament, the
Old Covenant was ratified by the sacrificing of sheep and
goats and animals. But in the new covenant, it's
ratified by something better than that. It's ratified by the
blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus promised God that he would
redeem his people, that he would save his people, and he ratified
that covenant with God. Not the covenant with man, it's
not a conditional covenant. Okay, he ratified it if we'll
just believe, or he ratified it if we'll just do so many good
deeds or follow the law. No, he ratified it by saying,
I'll sign my name in blood, basically, if you'll allow me that illustration. So the practice of ratifying
a covenant with blood was very well common in those days. And
Jesus said, this is the New Testament in my blood. of that covenant that I made
with the Father before the foundation of the world. The very hope that
lies within you lies in the fact that my blood is enough for the
Father. So the Old Covenant required
continual sacrifices, but Hebrews tells us that Jesus' sacrifice
was a once-for-all sacrifice for all time, for all his elect. It was on the cross that Jesus
was taking his blood and signing, so to speak, on that dotted line. See, it looked beyond the temporal
blessings of the Old Covenant. See, the Old Covenant had temporal
blessings. Remember, if you did this, you lived, right? There
was temporal blessings. If you did this, God would increase
this or that. But in the New Testament, it's
by the blood, and it's eternal blessings. See, that blood of
the covenant secured for you all the eternal blessings that
Ephesians chapter 1 says was given to us in Christ Jesus before
the foundation of the world. You want to know why you were
born again? You want to know why you were preserved until
the fact that you were born again? You want to know why you were
given repentance? You were converted by the gospel? Why you have a
love for the brethren, a love for God, a love for his word?
Why you desire holiness and righteousness? Why you desire the things of
God? Why you understand the word of God? Those are the eternal
lessons. Why you've been justified before
God, sanctified for his work? while you will be brought to
him for all eternity. That's the eternal blessings.
And all of those was secured by the blood of Jesus Christ. So brother, every time we celebrate
the Lord's Supper, we're declaring God's salvation and renewing
that remembrance of what he has done for us. He said, as often
as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you show the Lord's
death until he's come. So we proclaim the death of Christ
every time we remember him in the table. And so the world is
reminded that God became man, that man as God, or God as man,
died a substitutionary death for his people, and that in that
we look forward to the day whenever we will commune with him in his
presence for all of time. It's a comprehensive ordinance. We remember what Christ has done. We refresh our commitment to
him. We commune with each other. We commune with him. We proclaim
the gospel. We anticipate his return. So
that's why it's very important that we observe this very thing. But even if we don't understand
that particular part, he said, do this. If anything, the Lord
has told us to do this. And so we want to follow our
Lord's command. And so we're going to end our
session now and enter into observing the Lord's table. Everyone can
just stay seated.