The Invited Guests to the Passover Feast

Q: What does the Bible say about feeding on Christ?

The Bible teaches that to feed on Christ is to embrace Him as our Savior, relying on His sacrificial death for eternal life (John 6:54). In John 6:54, Jesus states, 'Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, has eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.' Feeding on Christ signifies a deep, spiritual nourishment that believers derive from recognizing Him as their substitute and Savior. It is not a literal consumption, but a matter of faith where believers see Christ's body broken and His blood shed as the means by which they obtain salvation. To feed on Christ is an invitation to partake in the richness of His grace and to remember His sacrificial work on the cross, recognizing our dependence on Him for spiritual sustenance.

Q: How do we know that Christ's sacrificial death is sufficient for salvation?

Christ's sacrificial death is sufficient, as the Bible assures us that He died for our sins, offering redemption and reconciliation (1 Peter 2:24). The sufficiency of Christ's sacrificial death for salvation is declared throughout Scripture. In 1 Peter 2:24, we learn that 'He Himself bore our sins' in His body on the tree, indicating that He took upon Himself the punishment due for our transgressions. This act of atonement is the fulfillment of God’s redemptive plan, where Jesus acts as both the priest and the sacrifice. Furthermore, Romans 3:24 proclaims that we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. These texts assure us that no other sacrifices or works are needed for salvation, as Christ’s death alone is sufficient to reconcile sinners to God.

Q: Why is the doctrine of unconditional election important for Christians?

Unconditional election underscores that salvation is solely a work of God's grace, ensuring that our faith rests on His sovereign choice, not our own efforts (Ephesians 1:4-5). The doctrine of unconditional election is pivotal to understanding God's grace in salvation. This doctrine teaches that God has chosen certain individuals for salvation before the foundation of the world, independent of any foreseen merit or action on their part. Ephesians 1:4-5 states, 'According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself.' This doctrine assures believers that their salvation is rooted in God's eternal purpose and not contingent on human decision. It highlights God's sovereignty and grace, providing comfort and security to believers, knowing that their salvation is ultimately in His hands.

Q: What does it mean to discern the Lord's body during communion?

To discern the Lord's body means to recognize the significance of Christ's sacrifice and to approach the Lord's Supper with reverence and understanding (1 Corinthians 11:29). Discerning the Lord's body during communion involves a spiritual acknowledgment of the significance of Christ's sacrifice and the elements of bread and wine. In 1 Corinthians 11:29, Paul warns that those who eat and drink unworthily eat and drink judgment unto themselves, 'not discerning the Lord's body.' This means that believers must approach the Lord's Supper with a heart that understands and values the sacrificial nature of Christ's death. It requires self-examination and a recognition that the bread signifies His broken body and the wine His shed blood, both integral to the believer's salvation and life. Those who discern rightly will respond with gratitude and humility, acknowledging their dependence on Christ's atoning work.

Pray with me, please. Gracious and merciful Father, as we come to this Lord's Supper
table this morning, Lord, I pray that you might open our eyes
to see Christ clearly, to see him as our only salvation. Show us, dear Father, our need
for a Savior. And oh, how I pray that you might
show us Christ in a very personal way. Dying is our substitute,
taking our sin on himself, becoming sin in our place, making us righteous
in him. O gracious Father, enable me
to preach your word with power to hearts that you've made ready
to receive it. Show us, dear Father, spiritual
things which bring us joy as we look to Christ, remembering
that Christ died, that we might have life. Oh dear Father, let
us feed on Christ. Let us eat His flesh and drink
His blood. For it is His name that we pray.
Amen. Open your Bibles please to the
Gospel of John chapter 6. We heard some marvelous preaching
in the Bible conference from John chapter 6. I preached on
verse 48 to 65 about a year ago. in a sermon entitled, Does This
Offend You? But this morning I want to look
at John 6 verse 54 in detail. I don't believe that what we
most often look at in John 6 is really intended for believers.
This gospel is an offense to unbelievers, but not to believers. John chapter 6 is a chapter that
is very offensive to some people. Jesus says things that offend
people's pride and their self-righteousness. He says in verse 44, no man can
come to me except the Father which has sent me drawing, and
I will raise him up at the last day. And then again, beginning
in verse 64, Jesus said, but there are some of you that believe
not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that
believed not and who should be trained. And in verse 65 Jesus
repeats what he had said earlier in verse 44. He says, Therefore
said I unto you that no man can come to me except it were given
to him of my father. These things that Jesus was saying
are offensive. They are offensive when they
hurt our pride and our self-righteousness. But they are also offensive to
some people, because those people say to themselves, what if God
doesn't enable me to come to Him? What if God doesn't draw
me to Himself? They think to themselves sometimes,
if God doesn't draw me to Him, if I can't do anything to save
myself, then I'm going to be lost forever. I won't be saved. I'll go to hell. That's an offensive
thought, to think like that. To an unbeliever, it's offensive. But it shouldn't offend a believer. I don't know if you ever have
thoughts like that. I did it one time. But if you
have, And you've come to these conclusions in your mind that
God hasn't drawn you, then you will be very likely, you'll depart
from Christ. And you'll walk no more with
Him, just as these disciples of Jesus did. Not because you're
so much offended by the Gospel. You'll not walk with Him because
you're an unbeliever. You may think that you are a
believer. You may know something about Christ, but believers know
that they need Christ and they will never go away from Him no
matter what. Believers believe that Jesus
Christ will save them. That's the assurance of their
faith. The question isn't, will God
save me? My question is, why did God save
me? My question is, where can we
turn for salvation except to Jesus Christ? Believers will
always follow Christ, no matter what. They'll follow Christ because
they're believers. In John 6, verse 67, when many
of his disciples left and walked no more with him, then said Jesus
unto the twelve, will you also go away? And in verse 68 it says,
Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. Those are the words of a believer.
Those are the words of a sinner who desperately needs Christ
just to live. Those are the words of a man
who has been given the faith of Christ. Believers follow Christ
because they know that they need a Savior. And God has given them
the faith of Christ to believe that only Jesus Christ can save
them. They know that there is no life
without Christ, and they know that there is no place else to
turn except to Christ. What unbelievers usually do,
they do because they are unbelievers. They refuse to follow Christ
because either they don't understand their need for a Savior, or because
they don't believe that Christ can or He will save them. And
usually I think it's for both reasons. They fall away from Christ because
they are unbelievers. Another way of saying it is that
unbelievers trust in themselves, not in Christ. They have no faith. So without faith, they reject
the hard or the offensive teachings of Christ, and they turn to teachings
which are more pleasing to their flesh. And yet, to those who
are saved by Christ, not by what they've done, but they're saved
by Christ, by the faith of Christ, the doctrine of unconditional
election, which is what Jesus Christ is teaching to His disciples,
is the doctrine that they love. Because they know that if Christ
doesn't save them, They will never be saved. When Jesus said
these things, which were so offensive to the Jews, in John 6, verse
66, it says that from that time on, many of his disciples went
back, and they walked no more with him. The disciples that
walked no more with Jesus are not the twelve disciples we normally
think about when we use the word disciples. But they were other
disciples who had been following Jesus. A disciple, according
to my dictionary, a disciple is anyone who is a follower,
who is a student of someone else. And there were many who followed
Jesus. There were whole crowds of people who followed Jesus,
but it couldn't have been that they all truly believed that
Christ could or would save them. If they had believed that, they
wouldn't have fallen away, they wouldn't have left Him. But also
it doesn't seem like the twelve that were the Lord's disciples
were very pleased with what Jesus was saying either. Because in
verse 67 Jesus asked them, would you also go away? But please, please understand
this. The words that the Lord spoke
were spirit and they were life. But the carnal followers are
those who were hearing only with their flesh and not by the power
of the Holy Spirit, they put carnal or fleshly interpretations
on everything which Jesus said. In John 6, verse 54, Jesus had
said, Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, has eternal
life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Now if you take
Jesus' words literally, one word at a time, Those who walk no
more with him, I think did exactly that. If you are only hearing
with a fleshly understanding, then I think you have to conclude
that those who fed on Christ have to be, excuse me here, but
they have to be cannibals. They have to be understanding
that to be saved you have to be a cannibal. Is that what Jesus
is saying literally? Does God only save cannibals?
Of course that's ridiculous, isn't it? But taken literally,
I think they heard Jesus say, you must be a cannibal to have
eternal life. Because he said, you have to
eat my flesh and drink my blood. But that's not what Jesus was
saying at all, was it? Turn now please to 1 Peter chapter
2 and verses 7 and 8. Jesus is talking here about divine
mysteries. Mysteries which can only be known
by faith, the faith of Christ. They can only be known by the
teaching of the Holy Spirit. Bringing divine mysteries down
to a level where they can be understood by those who don't
truly believe, they don't believe with the faith of Christ, to
bring it down to their level is truly impossible. If you've
never truly believed that Jesus Christ died so that you might
have life in Him, you aren't going to understand the joy of
eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Because Christ won't
be your joy, and you'll only think literally and not spiritually. To understand the things of God,
to be able to see spiritual things, you must be born again. And of
course you know, that you can't enter into your mother's womb
a second time. To think that you could enter
into your mother's womb again would be literal thinking. Like
Nicodemus asked Jesus in John 3.4, Nicodemus said unto him,
How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second
time into his mother's womb to be born? To ask that question
is almost laughable to me. If it wasn't so serious, it would
be funny. God must do a miraculous work
in your heart before you can see the Kingdom of God. Turn
to 1 Peter 2, verses 7 and 8. God must give you the ability
to understand spiritual things. First, God must show you that
you need a Savior, and then you must have the God-given faith
of Christ to believe the things of God. Only then will Jesus
Christ become precious and important to you. I'm not sure of the order,
but without these works of God in your heart, you will always
reject the true Christ because he is spiritually discerned and
so Jesus Christ becomes your stumbling stone. Unbelievers
are people who stumble over Jesus Christ. In 1 Peter 2, verses
7 and 8, the Spirit of God tells us, Under you, therefore, which
believe, He is, Jesus Christ is, precious. He is your life. He is your salvation. He is your
justification. He is your all in all. He is
everything to you. But under them which be disobedient,
the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made
the head of the corner. and a stone of stumbling and
a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being
disobedient." In other words, refusing to come to Christ. "...whereunto
also they were appointed." Now turn to 1 Corinthians 2, verse
14. So because their reasoning is
only carnal, because their reasoning is only fleshly, those who are
without the faith of Christ can't understand spiritual things.
And so they take offense at spiritual things and reject them. They
stumble at the Word of God. They stumble over Jesus Christ,
being disobedient whereunto also they were appointed. Paul said
it this way in 1 Corinthians 2 verse 14. He said, The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they
are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned. Another example of this inability
to understand spiritual things is in John 4. There we see a
poor woman of Samaria that Jesus met at Jacob's well. And when
Jesus told her about living water, she immediately thought that
he was talking about the water that was there in Jacob's well.
She had no ability at all to see or to hear spiritual things
until God gave it to her. Praise God, I think he did. But
she had no ability to hear those things or see spiritual things
until God gave her that ability. She was an unbeliever when she
met Jesus. She talked about knowing about
Jesus, but she was an unbeliever. Her understanding was the same
as the understanding of these Jews about eating Christ's flesh
and his blood. It was a fleshly understanding,
not a spiritual understanding. The woman at the well couldn't
understand Christ's living water spiritually any more than the
Jews could understand eating Christ's flesh and drinking his
blood. And there are many people like this today who can't understand
these sayings with a spiritual understanding either. They can't
understand them because they are spiritually discerned. That's
probably where the idea comes from that the bread and the wine
of the Lord's supper table actually becomes, by some miraculous process,
actually becomes the body and the blood of Christ. People who
use their own understanding are doing what these Jews did. Because
of their lack of faith, they stop following after Christ.
Because there is no spiritual understanding of what Jesus was
saying, They have to invent an explanation for what they are
trying to do in their own religious exercises, and so they teach
what seems right to their own fleshly minds. In this case with
the Lord's Supper, they teach that the bread and the wine actually
becomes the body and blood of Christ, not understanding spiritually
that a believer feeds on the body and blood of Christ when
he remembers that Christ died for his sin, giving him life
in Christ. To feed on Christ is to look
to Christ for all things. To feed on Christ is to take
Christ into you. To feed on Christ is to fill
your mind and your heart with the things of Christ. To eat
Christ's body and blood is to live and to be sustained by Christ
as you walk with Christ and as you trust Christ. But even though
I know that you must be given understanding of spiritual things
by God, still it seems to me to be a strange thing that the
Jews who had worshipped God for so long worshipped Him under
the ceremonial law and who had been accustomed to daily offering
their sacrifices. Why is it, I wonder, that they
were unable to see any farther than just as far as the victim
that was being sacrificed on the altar. Why couldn't they
see that these were pictures of Christ dying for their sin?
The Jewish law was filled with accounts of sin offerings and
peace offerings and burn offerings, pictures of the atonement of
Christ, and every one of these offerings was a picture of their
coming Messiah. Why couldn't they see Jesus Christ
being pictured in those animal sacrifices? That speaks volumes
about the inability of the natural mind to be able to see spiritual
things. They couldn't see. Some did,
but most of them did not see. And even if they couldn't see
Christ in these sacrifices with spiritual eyes, Surely you would
think that they'd be able to see Jesus Christ in the Passover
offerings which were made by Israel that night in Egypt when
Israel was saved under the blood of the Lamb from the judgments
of God. The Passover was remembered every year, that Passover. Every
year they remembered it. Every year they celebrated it.
It was such a clear picture of Christ's redemption of his people.
But to me it seems very hard that they could not see how anyone
could possibly miss it. If this picture of the Lamb of
God dying for the sins of His people, Christ or Passover, seems
clear to you, then oh, praise God. Praise God if it's clear
to you and you can see it. Because millions of people, all
the way down through the centuries and even today, are unable to
see that the blood of the Lamb is what saved Israel in Egypt,
and that the blood of the Lamb is the only thing that saves
sinners today, giving life to all who are covered by the blood
of the Lamb of God. If this picture before us on
this table today, if it's clear to you, and if you're able to
see and to feed on it spiritually, feed on the memory that Christ's
broken body and His shed blood was sacrificed for you, That's
what the elements on this table picture. But if that's clear
to you, then praise God. Because it is God who has given
you the faith of Christ to see and to believe that Christ died
that you might have life in Him. By God-given faith, you know,
by God-given faith, you believe that it is only by the grace
of God that you can take this bread and wine and spiritually
feed on Christ. for everyone else. I mean everyone
else. It is only a religious exercise
and eventually the unbelievers, the unbelievers will go away.
They'll fall away because they do not believe. And I pray you
can see this too. In the time under the law before
the birth of Christ, some of the sacrifices which were made
by Israel were divided between God, the priests of God, and
the people. One part of the sacrifice was
made for God which clearly showed that the sacrifice was for the
satisfaction of sins. Another part of the sacrifice
went to the priest who offered the sacrifice to God and by faith
we see and remember that Jesus Christ is our great high priest
who offered himself as a sacrifice for our sin. So the third part
of the sacrifice went to the sinner who brought the sacrifice. that sacrifice that was to be
offered by the priest on his behalf. Both the person bringing
the sacrifice for his sin and the priest would eat the sacrifice
and that part that was given to God was burned. And if we
have the faith of Christ, this is exactly what we see by faith
today as we come to this Lord's Supper table. Jesus Christ, our
great High Priest, delighted in the redemption of our souls.
Jesus said in John 4.34, my meat, my sacrifice, my meat is to do
the will of Him that sent me and to finish His work. And as
1 Peter 2.9 says, but ye are a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people that you should show forth
the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His
marvelous light. Those of us here this morning,
who have been invited and affectionately called by God to this heavenly
feast, you will be, will by the faith of Christ, by his sacrifice
for our sins, we will find spiritual nourishment and satisfaction
in Christ for our souls as we come to feed on Christ at his
table. But why should this mystical
food as this food is before us, seem to be such a strange thing
to us when there is scarcely a person living who doesn't feed
mystically on something. In Job 20, verse 15, the covetous
are said to swallow down riches and to vomit them up again. And
it says, God shall cast them out of his belly just as he did
with Judas when Judas cast down the 30 pieces of silver in the
temple. That was when the wrath of God had made Judas so sick
to his stomach Then he went out and he killed himself, as Matthew
27.5 says. Judas went out and hanged himself.
Why should mystical food seem so strange to us when the whore
of Babylon is said to thirst for the blood of the saints and
to be made drunk with it? The destruction of God's people
is sweet entertainment to the revengeful souls of unbelievers.
As Proverbs 15 verse 15 says, the mouth of fools feedeth on
foolishness. The prodigal son would have filled
his belly with corn husks. That is, he would have filled
his belly with a form of godliness without power, without the power
of the Holy Spirit drawing him back to his father. And as Isaiah
44.20 says, the heretic feeds on ashes. A deceived heart has
turned him aside so that he cannot deliver his soul nor say, is
there not a lie in my right hand? At about Ephraim it is said in
Hosea 12.1, when he went to idolatry, that he feedeth on wind and followeth
after the east wind. In Proverbs 1.31 it says that
those who hate God's knowledge and despise His reproof eat the
fruit of their own ways and are filled with their own devices.
In Proverbs 4.17 it says about them that they eat the bread
of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. And in Proverbs
13.2, God says, a man shall eat good by the fruit of his mouth,
but the soul of the transgressors shall eat violence. God is describing
eating and feeding, not in a literal sense, but in a mystical way.
And all of this is said in Isaiah 55.2 to be spending money for
that which is not bread, and labor for that which satisfies
not, which is to buy food that only gratifies the carnal mind
or the evil desires of the flesh. But it could never satisfy the
desires of a soul which is conscious of guilt and sensible or aware
of his lost and helpless condition without Christ. In John 6 verses
48 to 50, Jesus said, I am the bread of life. Your fathers did
eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which
cometh down from heaven, talking about himself, that a man may
eat of and not die. Nothing but heavenly food will
satisfy the hunger and thirst of a distressed sinner. He searches
the scriptures earnestly because in them he hopes to find eternal
life and they are they, the scriptures are they, Jesus said, that testify
of me. A poor and needy sinner finds
himself like the Ethiopian eunuch. He finds himself too ignorant
to come to Christ in a spiritual sense, except that one guides
him. Now, because it seems that there
are some who perish for a lack of knowledge, so then it also
follows that the knowledge of Christ must be food for those
who perish not. In Proverbs 24 verses 13 and
14 it says, My son, Eat thou honey, because it is
good, and a honeycomb which is sweet to thy taste. So shall
the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul when thou hast found
it. Then there shall be a reward,
and thine expectation shall not be far off." To a believer, to
a believer, the Word of God is sweeter than honey from the honeycomb. In Scripture, Ezekiel eats the
roll. And John in Scripture eats the little book. And when they
were to learn and understand and inwardly digest the things
that were contained in them, they found them to be as sweet
as honey. A knowledge of Christ crucified?
Well, that's heavenly food. And God has promised to send
pastors after His own heart who shall feed His people with knowledge
and understanding of the Word of God. Again, let me say it
as clearly as I can. The self-condemned soul, a soul
who knows that he has broken every precept of God's law, a
soul who stands condemned by his sin, is under a sense of
God's wrath, and so he hungers and he thirsts for righteousness.
Christ crucified is the end of the law for righteousness to
everyone that believes. And it is in Christ's righteousness
only that a poor and needy sinner can find peace in his conscience,
but he can find acceptance with God only in Christ. Anyone who
labors under the intolerable weight of his sin, anyone who
has nothing before his eyes but his own transgressions, with
nothing but bitter reflections within him, expecting nothing
but torment in the world to come, that person is in a very painful
state. But it's a good state It's a
good state only if he'll look to Christ for salvation. It's
no wonder that a soul under the burden of sin, when he hears
that the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin, and the Redeemer
made peace and reconciliation by the blood of His cross, it's
no wonder he hungers and he thirsts after righteousness. Who would
want to go around burdened down with this tremendous weight of
sin when God has sent a Savior? Jesus said, My flesh is meat
indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. And so it is to those
who feel their need of Christ, to those who hunger and thirst
after Him because it is convicted sinners who by the eye of faith
see Christ bearing the weight of all the sins of His people
in His own body on the tree, enduring the wrath of God and
the curse of the law which are due to such sinners. By the mercy
of God, they are made to see Jesus Christ as their surety.
They are made to see Christ paying their dreadful debt and delivering
them from going down to the pit by Christ laying down His own
life, which is the price for their ransom. Jesus said, the
words that I speak unto you are spirit and their life. These
words are not to be carnally or literally understood. Jesus
said, I lay down my life as a ransom for many, and I shall take it
up again and ascend up into heaven in that human nature, which I
shall offer up as a sacrifice for sin. And the heavens will
receive me till the restitution of all things. And yet, as this
omnipotent God, Christ also says, I am with you always to the end
of the world. He goes to heaven, and yet he
is with us always. And though the world sees me
no more, Jesus said, yet you see me. And I will manifest myself
to them that the Father hath given me. And we will come unto
him, and make our abode with him. And I will come with all
the benefits of my cross, and I will sup with him, and he with
me. And such shall know that my word is spirit, and my word
is life, for I shall bring my reward with me." Yes, when we
come to this Lord's Supper table, As a believers, when we come
to this Lord's Supper table, we are feeding on the body and
blood of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Jesus is saying to every believer,
I will remove the veil of your ignorance. I will feed you with
the knowledge of myself and with your interest in me. Your guilty
conscience will be satisfied with a joyful sense of the remission
of all of your sins. Your dead souls will have abundant
life. Your hard heart will melt under
my dying love to you and you shall abound in hope toward me. And Jesus says to his people,
I will satisfy your self-condemned soul with my everlasting righteousness. I will renew your mind and make
it heavenly and keep its state on me in perfect peace. I will
fill you with love and joy and consolation. And you will see
me as your all-sufficient Savior. You will trust in me as the faithful
and true witness. And you will know God's election,
redemption, and reconciliation. You will know His justification,
sanctification, and new birth. And you will have an assurance
of God's eternal glorification. And to believers, Jesus says,
I will live in you, and you will live by my faith. because I come
to you and I will dwell in you and you shall be replenished,
filled, and infinitely satisfied with my fullness and with my
goodness to you. That's what it is to feed on
Christ. All my dear ones, as you feed
on Christ today, as you feed at this Lord's Supper table,
I pray that you might see that all of those things which have
been bought by Christ for you were purchased, purchased by
His sacrifice. All things are in Christ, and
they are all assured to His people by the satisfaction which Christ
has made by the manifestation of Himself to His people. It
is then, it is when we see these spiritual things of Christ that
we shall know that Christ's flesh is meat indeed. And when we see
Jesus Christ as our sin offering, and that he was made by God to
be a curse to save us from eternal death, then will the flesh of
Christ be made indeed to us. And when we see Christ our Savior,
we will know that Christ's blood is drink indeed, because we see
by the eye of faith that Christ's blood has purged us from all
our sins, redeemed us from the wrath to come, and open for us
a way to eternal bliss with God and Jesus Christ forever. And
so I ask you, as we come to this Lord's Supper table today, I
ask you, what do you see before you on this table? Is it a picture
by which you remember that Christ died for you on the cross? Are
you a sinner who comes to this table to feed on Christ by remembering
that Christ took your sin on Himself as your substitute and
sacrificed Himself for your sin? As you look at the elements on
this table which picture the body and blood of Christ, do
you feed on Christ, taking Christ into your heart, causing you
to praise God for sending you a Savior? And as you feed on
Christ, do you rejoice in Christ as your Savior? If so, if so,
then be assured. Take joy in the fact that you
are an invited guest at your Savior's table. Are you able
to see spiritual things with spiritual eyes and to hear with
spiritual ears and to understand by the teaching of the Holy Spirit
the spiritual things of God? Well, maybe not all of them.
But can you understand that this is a picture of the body and
blood of Jesus Christ? The broken body and the shed
blood? shed for you. Can you see that? If that's true
of you, then you are an invited guest at your Savior's supper
table. And I invite you as your pastor
to come and feast on Him. This is a holy supper. It's a
supper to which only the bride of Christ has been invited. This
is a supper for which you must be dressed properly in a robe
of righteousness before you can come to this table. This is a
supper that only saved sinners are invited to who have been
washed thoroughly clean by the blood of Christ. If you know
that you're a sinner, if you have seen and you have believed
that Christ died for your sins so that in Christ you have been
made righteous, then you're a proper guest. You're most welcome to
come and feast on Christ's body and blood, remembering, feasting
on the fact that Christ died for you. Don't be hesitant to
come to this Lord's Supper table. Unless, of course, these truths
offend you. But if they don't offend you,
then please, come. Don't hesitate to come to this
Lord's Supper table unless, like a religious cannibal, you are
eating and drinking damnation to yourself by not discerning
the Lord's body. But if, with God-given spiritual
eyes, you could see in the broken body of Christ and the shed blood
of Christ was broken and shed for you, then please do come
to this table seeking to feed on Christ Jesus, your Savior.
But please, only come if you are hungry and thirsty for the
righteousness of Christ. Because as 1 Corinthians 11 verses
26 to 29 says, as often as you eat this bread and drink this
cup, you do show the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore, whosoever
shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily,
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 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."
And so I ask you, I ask each of you who would come to this
table, that before you come, examine yourself. Examine yourself
just as Paul asked the Corinthian church to examine themselves.
And when you do examine yourself, what are you going to search
for? Are you looking for your own self-righteousness? Are you
looking into your memory to see if you have any unconfessed sin? If so, then you're thinking in
a carnal and in a fleshly way. It's a way which should indicate
to you that the Holy Spirit has not opened your eyes to see spiritual
things. The proper guests at this Lord's
Supper, the invited guests, are confessed sinners. They have
been called by God to come to this table knowing that they
are nothing but sinners. Sinners in need of the Savior. They come to this table hungering
and thirsting after righteousness. Because when they examine their
flesh, All that they see, all that they see is sin. They see
no righteousness of their own. All they see is sin. But they
also look to Christ. And when they look to Christ,
they see a Savior. They see a Savior who died on
the cross that they might have life in Him. When they examine
themselves, they see by faith that although they are sinners,
in Christ they have been made righteous. That's what they believe. That's what they trust. By the
God-given faith of Christ, they trust Christ, not themselves. Those who are invited to come
to this table are the bride of Christ. They believe that when
Christ died, they also died in Christ, their substitute, who
died as the sacrifice for their sin. They believe that when Christ
was buried, they too were buried in Christ. And when God raised
Christ from the grave, they believe that they too were raised from
death to life. and that they no longer live
except they live in Christ, resurrected to a new life in Christ their
Savior. Amen. Craig and Cass, would you come
now please and serve the Lord's Supper to those who are washed
in Christ's blood and who therefore will come to this Lord's Supper
table by the faith of Christ in union with Christ, confessing
Christ as their Savior and of their love for Him and for His
people which they have only, only by the faith of Christ. All gracious Father, we praise
you, Lord, for sending us a Savior. Lord, we
come confessing that we're only sinners. We see no good in ourselves,
but we do see, Lord, and we believe and we trust that we're saved
by your grace because we've been washed in Christ's blood. We
come to you in love, Lord, remembering together as your people. That
it was Jesus Christ who died for our sin, and that it is His
blood which washes away our sin. What love we see in that, Lord.
How I pray that we might feed on that love for all eternity,
as You enable us to feed spiritually on His body and His blood, which
is shed that we might have life in Him, even today. In Jesus'
name I pray. Amen. so And that first Last Passover night, the first
Lord's Supper night, as they were eating, Jesus took bread
and He blessed it. And He broke it. And He gave
it to His disciples and He said, take, eat. This is my body. Oh, dear Lord, help us, I pray,
Lord, to see Christ. We praise You for sending us
a Savior. We know that it's only Jesus Christ and by the washing
of His blood. But please, dear Lord, keep us
and preserve us in Christ. It is so easy that we might fall
away if we're left on our own. We pray, Lord, that as we come
to this table as sinners, as we come to your table saved only
by your grace and by your love, by your mercy, we pray that we
might see Christ's death as he died in our place. In your power,
dear Father, may we live as one with Christ. May we live for
your glory, serving you as your loving servants. In the name
of Christ we come. In the name of Christ we worship.
In the name of Christ we pray. Amen. So, So, After he had given the bread,
he took the cup and he gave thanks and he gave it to them saying
drink ye all of it for this is my blood of the new testament
which is shed for many for the remission of sins pray with me please oh dear lord i pray that you
might keep us and preserve us in christ we pray as we go from
this place that we might leave with full hearts, full hearts
because we feasted on the body and blood of Christ. May we leave
with hearts full of the love of Christ and of the love of
his body, the church, remembering always your love for us, which
was revealed to us in our Savior's death. And then while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us as our substitute. May we
leave today, Lord, looking to Christ, trusting only in Christ,
and as your people. May our constant testimony be
that we have died in Him, that we are buried in Him, and that
we are resurrected to a new life in Him. A new life in Him who
is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. Turn in your hymnals please to
hymn number 196. Excuse me, to hymn number 53. Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah.

The Invited Guests to the Passover Feast

What does the Bible say about feeding on Christ?

How do we know that Christ's sacrificial death is sufficient for salvation?

Why is the doctrine of unconditional election important for Christians?

What does it mean to discern the Lord's body during communion?

Sermon Transcript

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The Invited Guests to the Passover Feast

What does the Bible say about feeding on Christ?

How do we know that Christ's sacrificial death is sufficient for salvation?

Why is the doctrine of unconditional election important for Christians?

What does it mean to discern the Lord's body during communion?

Sermon Transcript

Comments

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