Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Nibert. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 10.30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
9.45 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Todd Nibert. I want to speak this morning
on the subject of the Lord's Table. Now, in the gospel, the
Lord gave two ordinances, and only two, baptism and the Lord's
Table. Now I hear people refer to these
as sacraments and that is not a good term because the word
means sacrament that it brings divine grace to you. And grace
does not come through these ordinances, baptism or the Lord's table. If you're baptized, that doesn't
mean you will be saved. You may be baptized a hundred
times, and that is not going to save you. Christ saves you,
not the act of baptism. There are some that think you're
born again when you're baptized. That's just totally wrong. Baptism
is given to picture the life, the death, the burial, and the
resurrection of Christ and the union of the believer with Him.
The reason I don't believe in infant baptism is because it's
believer's baptism. There's no examples in the scripture
of an infant being baptized. And I've heard people say, well,
it takes the place of circumcision. The Bible doesn't say that. Baptism
is by immersion. It's what a believer confesses,
that when Christ lived, I lived. When he died, I died. When he
was raised, I was raised. That's all my hope. The other
ordinance is the Lord's table. Now let me say that grace is
not conveyed through the Lord's table. You're not saved because
you partake of the Lord's table. Judas Iscariot partook of the
Lord's table and it didn't save him. So it is given to cause
us to remember, cause the believer to remember. The broken body
and the shed blood of Christ is everything in His salvation. The Lord said this do, were to
eat bread and it's unleavened bread. It was the bread of the
Passover. And were to drink wine, the same kind of wine they drank
in the Passover. And he said, this do in remembrance
of me. So I want to look at what the
apostle Paul said with regard to this beginning in verse Corinthians
chapter 11, verse 23. He said, for I have received
of the Lord. Now he's saying the Lord gave
me special instructions with regard to this. Now, if you look
in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we have essentially the same thing
when the Lord instituted the Lord's table right after the
last Passover meal. And then in John chapters 13
through 17, we're given everything he said during that time. But he appeared once again to
Paul. Maybe this is when he appeared to Paul in the third heavens.
When he heard unspeakable words which are not lawful for a man
to utter, the Lord taught Paul directly his gospel. He said,
the gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for I
neither received it of man nor as I taught it, but by the revelation
of Jesus Christ. Now this is included in that
revelation when he was teaching him the gospel. He said, for
I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you."
It's something he had already delivered to them. Now, he said,
the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took
bread. Now, Paul had already taught
the church at Corinth this, but the church at Corinth had gradually
drifted away from the meaning of this. This church had so many
problems, so many problems, just like any other church does, because
you have sinners brought together. And Paul says in the 17th verse
of this chapter, now in this that I declare unto you, I praise
you not that you come together, not for the better, but for the
worse. When you gather together supposedly to partake of the
Lord's Supper, it's not for your benefit, it's actually hurting
you. You're gathering together for the worst. First of all,
when you come together in the church, I hear that there'll
be divisions among you. And I partly believe it. You
know, he began this epistle by talking about one saying, I'm
of Paul, another of Apollos, another of Cephas, another of
Christ, divisions and schisms. Well, it was true, he said, I
believe it, for there must also be heresies among you, that they
which are approved might be made manifest among you. Now notice
what he said, there must be heresies among you. Heresy means a choosing. You choose to believe error.
You believe the truth because it's true. You don't make a choice
to believe the truth, but you choose to believe error. And
the ones who believe error are the ones who are not approved.
Now he says in verse 20, when you come together therefore into
one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. You say that's
why you're gathering together, but that's not what's taking
place. For in eating, everyone taketh before his own supper.
One is hungry and another is drunken, literally intoxicated. And let me just make a comment
from that. They were actually becoming intoxicated at the Lord's
table, which obviously is wrong, but that lets us know they weren't
drinking grape juice. You know, so many people, when
they observe the Lord's table, they'll use grape juice instead
of wine. Well, they used wine in the New
Testament. The Lord drank wine. Don't look at that as a sinful
thing. It's sinful to get drunk, obviously, but of course they
drank wine and they used unleavened bread because it was the bread
of the Passover. There was no leaven. But he says,
one is hungry and another is drunken. You're getting together
to eat, to satisfy your flesh. What? Have you not houses to
eat and drink in? Or despise ye the church of God
and shame them that have not? They were having a potluck where
you brought food for yourself. And some people would bring a
lot of food, not to share, but to feast on, while others who
were poor didn't have anything to eat and were still hungry.
He said, what shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this?
I praise you not. Now he goes on to what the Lord's
table really is. He says, for I have received
of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus,
the same night in which he was betrayed. Now I think the Lord's
table ought to be observed at night because that's the way
they did it then. And somebody says, you're saying
it's wrong to do it, to say in a Sunday morning service? No,
I'm not saying that, but I know it's awfully more safe to do
it exactly as they did it in the New Testament. And they did
it at night. The Lord Jesus, the same night
in which he was betrayed, he took bread, and when he had given,
thanks. Now, the Lord's table is sometimes
called the Eucharist. And here is why this is the Greek
word for giving thanks, Eucharist, when he had given thanks. I remember when I was a kid,
I thought, what kind of weird word is that? Well, it just means
giving of thanks. And truly, when I take the Lord's
table, it ought to be with a spirit of thankfulness to the Lord for
what he did in my behalf. Now when he had given thanks,
he'd break it, he'd break that bread and say it, take, eat. This is my body which is broken
for you. This do in remembrance of me. Now, I have to make a comment
about this. Many people believe, the entire
doctrine of the Catholic Church believes that the bread and the
wine become literally the body and the blood of Christ. And
when the bread is eaten, you're taking in the body of Christ,
literally. Some kind of mysterious thing
takes place where the bread turns into the body of Christ, and
the wine turns into the literal blood of Christ. And the argument
for that is taken from this. Christ didn't say, this represents
my body. Christ said, this is my body,
which is broken for you. And thus we have the doctrine
of transubstantiation. The bread and wine becoming the
literal of body and blood of Christ. Now, Christ also said,
I am the door. And he's not a wooden door that
you can knock on. He also said, I am the vine.
He didn't say, I am represented by a vine. He said, I am the
vine. That doesn't mean he had leaves and branches coming out
of him like that. This is given to teach us something.
And when the Lord said, this is my body broken for you, this
is given to teach us something. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ's
body was broken. He suffered the wrath of God. On Calvary's tree, He suffered
the full equivalent of hell and his body was broken. Now, why? Because the sins of God's elect
became his sin and he became guilty before God. My sin, your sin if you're a
believer. He didn't die for everybody because
if he died for everybody, everybody would be saved. But he died for
his elect. He died for the sheep. He said,
I lay down my life for the sheep. And in dying, he was guilty of
their sin. My sin became his sin. He said, take, eat. This is my
body, which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. You see, I'm remembering that
he willingly, as my surety, taking full responsibility for my salvation,
died for me. My sin became his sin. And he said, this do in remembrance
of me. And one of the saddest commentaries
on any man or woman is that we can forget Christ. And yet we
always do. That's why we have to hear the
gospel over and over again. because we forget the Lord Jesus
Christ. We start looking to ourself,
we start looking to our works. He said, this do in remembrance
of me. Verse 25, and after the same
manner also, he took the cup. And when he had supped, saying,
this cup is the New Testament in my blood. Now the New Testament,
the Old Testament with the old covenant and salvation by works.
The New Testament or the New Covenant is salvation by what
he did. And his blood ratified it. Everybody he died for must
be saved. This is the New Testament. The Old Testament is salvation
by what you do. The New Testament is salvation
by what he has done. This is the New Testament. In
my blood this do as oft as ye drink it. in remembrance of me. Oh, the remembrance of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, what if his memory was like
our memory? Well, it would prove fatal to
us for this reason. If his memory was like my memory,
he'd forget me. the way I do him. But thank God,
he said, shall the mother forget her suckling child? They may
do it, but I won't forget you. He said, I'll never leave you
nor forsake you. If his memory were like my memory,
he'd remember my sins, because I remember people's sins. But
he said, there's sins and iniquities I will remember no more, and
here's why. His blood actually put them away
so that I have no sin. When I'm brought into glory,
I'll be one who has never sinned. You say, but you've sinned. But
Christ put them away. They're gone. I have his perfect
righteousness. This do in remembrance of me. Now, he says in verse 26, four. As often as you eat this bread
and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till he come. Now this is a message that every
believer preaches every time they take the Lord's table. That
word show is the word that's generally translated preach.
You do preach the Lord's death until he come. Now, every time
I take the Lord's table, I'm preaching to the world. My whole
salvation is found in the broken body and shed blood of Christ.
I'm not looking to anything else. I'm only looking to him, who
he is and what he did as everything that God requires of me. All
my eggs are in that basket. And I'm confessing that. when
I partake of the Lord's table. Now look what he says in verse
27. 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. Now, when I was a young believer,
that verse of scripture made me afraid to take the Lord's
table because I thought, and I'd even heard, you shouldn't
take the Lord's table when there's sin in your life. I even had
a brother tell me recently in another church he was told not
to take the Lord's table because of sin that was in his life. Now, the scripture says, let
a man examine himself. and so let him eat." To think
of some man standing over somebody else and saying, you can't take
the Lord's table, you're too sinful, you're wrong, you've
forfeited your right to do that. Why, that's ridiculous. The only
people the Lord's table is for sinners. I mean, that's what
the Lord's Table is all about, the Lord's sacrifice for sin,
what He has done about sin. And if you think you're not a
sinner, don't eat the Lord's Table. That's to eat and drink
unworthily. That's the greatest insult you
can, or I can give to God is to say that, oh, I'm worthy to
eat now. But even if you feel like you're not worthy to eat,
you're thinking, I would be thinking, well, maybe next month when they
have it, I'll be more worthy. That was just another form of
self-righteousness. This thing of eating and drinking unworthily
is not eating and drinking because you have too much sin in your
life. It's failing to discern the Lord's body. It's thinking
you can approach God some other way than the broken body and
shed blood of Christ. If you can deem yourself worthy
to eat the Lord's table, to drink the wine, and to eat the bread
because of some kind of way you're living, that's a desecration
of the Lord's table. That's the greatest insult you
can give to God. Why did Christ die if you could
make yourself worthy? No, not at all. But I did worry
about that. Now, understand this. The only
people who are to take the Lord's table are sinners. That's the
requirement. Sinners. You see, Christ died
for sinners. He didn't die for good people.
He didn't die for righteous people. He died for sinners. The scripture says when we were
yet without strength, In due time, Christ died for the ungodly. Paul said in 1 Timothy 1.15 that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am
the chief. Not who I was the chief, but
I'm not that way anymore since God saved me and I'm getting
so holy, of whom I am the chief. Paul said in Romans chapter 7,
O wretched man, that I am. Not that I was, but that I am. Now, this is the person who is
to take the Lord's table, the one who's a sinner. I'm saying,
this is my only hope. If I think that I can take the
Lord's table because I've made myself worthy, I deny what the
Lord's table means in the first place. That's to be guilty of
the body and blood of Christ. That's what Paul says. Look what
he says in verse 29. For he that eateth and drinketh
unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning
the Lord's body. Now, this is how serious this
is. Now, verse 27, wherefore, whosoever
shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily,
shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. Look what
verse 28 says, but let a man examine himself. Not examine
somebody else. You know, people have so many
different views of the Lord's Table. Some people use it as,
well, you have to be a member of a church in order to take
the Lord's Table. And if you're not the member of my church,
you can't take the Lord's Table. Now, wait a minute. It's not
your church's table, it's the Lord's Table. Any believer is
welcome to take the Lord's table. I don't care where they're at.
And some people use the Lord's table as a means of discipline. Somebody is not living as they
should, so they would say, and they say, well, we're going to
withhold the Lord's table from them. You know, that's just wrong. That's self-righteous. It's even
creepy to think that you could stand over somebody and make
a judgment over them where they shouldn't be taking the Lord's
table. What about you? Let a man examine himself, not somebody
else. Let a man examine himself and
so let him eat. He doesn't say let a man examine
himself and if you feel like your life is not up to snuff,
you better not eat. He said let a man examine himself
and so let him eat. You see, if you're a believer
and you examine yourself, you're gonna come up with one conclusion. All I am is sin. And the only hope that I have
is the shed blood and broken body of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I don't have anything else. I don't have anything else but
that. Now that is what a believer is
going to conclude. Now if a man is not an unbeliever,
He may look at his life and think, well, I'm worthy to take the
Lord's table. I do this and I do that and I
quit doing this and I quit doing that. But that's to take the
Lord's table unworthily. That's the way an unbeliever
would observe the Lord's table. Now, let a man examine himself. Now, if you have anything other
than Christ, you failed. But if you have nothing but Christ
to commend you to God, not works of your own, you don't look to
your experience, you don't look to your works, all you have is
Christ. If you're that man, eat. The Lord's table is for you. Let a man examine himself, 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." Now listen real
carefully. If you see that you are guilty of the body and blood
of the Lord, the Lord's table is for you. If you see your sin
is such that You're guilty of the body and the blood of Christ
because of the greatness of your sin and him taking it upon himself.
The Lord's table is for you. If you see yourself in any higher
light than that, you better not take the Lord's table. You're
failing to discern his body. You're failing to have any understanding
of what the Lord's table is all about. Remember, this is to be
done in remembrance of him, not in remembrance of your works,
in remembrance that he is all in salvation. Now, he says in
verse 30, for this cause, because people fail to discern the Lord's
body. For this cause many are weak
and sickly among you, and many sleep. And I believe that that
is speaking of believers. This is not talking about eternal
damnation to them, but it is a grievous sin to fail to discern
the Lord's body. And many are weak and many are
sickly, and many sleep. That means even die. Now look
what Paul says in verse 31. For if we would judge ourselves,
we should not be judged. Now, if you see someone get sick,
Don't dare think what sin have they committed to bring this
on them. Why is God afflicting this? What
have they been doing? That's what Job's buddies did.
You must have been committing some horrible secret sin for
the Lord to bring all these calamities into your life. If I think like
that, I am so wrong. Romans chapter two. Verse 1 says,
Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man. Whosoever thou art that
judgest, for thou that judgest, doest. Present tense, the same
things. Whenever I'm looking at someone
in judgment, thinking I'm judging them for what they're doing,
I'm playing the hypocrite because I do the same things. It's never
right to judge somebody else. Number one, it's hypocritical.
Number two, you don't know the story. You don't know the truth. You're incapable. I'm incapable
of making an accurate judgment about anybody. We don't know
what they're going through. And as far as me thinking, well,
God's chasing them and giving them this sickness, we have no
business even thinking that way. And if you think that way, stop
it. It's wrong. It's self-righteous. It's foolish.
But here's one judgment we are to make. If we would judge ourselves,
we would not be judged. Now what does that mean? When
I prepare to take the Lord's table, I see that I am nothing
but guilty in and of myself. I don't look at my life and say,
well, I've got rid of enough sin and eradicated enough sin
to make it to where I can take the Lord's table. Not at all. I see my own sinfulness. When
you examine yourself, that's what's gonna happen. When you
examine yourself, if you're a believer, you're gonna judge yourself.
You're gonna condemn yourself. Here's the one time where it's
good to judge. Judge yourself. If we would judge
ourself, and see our utter sinfulness and our need of Christ, we won't
have time to judge somebody else. We won't have the ability to
judge somebody else when we see ourself. You can't look at yourself
and see your own sinfulness and then turn around and judge somebody
else. Oh, you might do it two seconds later. I do it because
of the self-righteous sinful nature we have, but it's wrong.
It's wrong. If we would judge ourselves,
we would not be judged. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus. Now it's not, I'm not judged
because I don't judge myself. I'm not judged because Christ
bore my sin and put it away. And that's what we're observing
the Lord's table for. It's to bring this to remembrance. That's the purpose of the Lord's
table. Grace isn't conveyed through it, but I'm doing this in remembrance
of what he did for me. My sin became His sin. My guilt became His guilt. Now He never sinned. Even when
He was made sin, He never sinned. But He bore our sins in his own
body on the tree, all the defilement of him. And he was separated,
cut off from God when he said, my God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? It's because my sin was his and
God really did forsake him. He did not help him, his body
was broken, he bore the full equivalent of the wrath of God. And that wine, the blood of the
New Testament, his precious blood accomplished my complete salvation. Hebrews 1.3 says, when he had
by himself purged, made purification for, caused to not be, When He
had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down at the right hand
of the Majesty on high. And when we're taking the Lord's
table, we're remembering this is all my salvation. His broken
body, His shed blood, And that perfect righteousness that he
worked at is given to me. And now I stand before God as
every other believer does without guilt. What a beautiful, simple
picture we have in the Lord's table. Now, we have this message
on DVD and CD. If you call the church, write
or email, we'll send you a copy. This is Todd Nyberg praying God
will be pleased to make Himself known to you. To receive a copy
of the sermon you have just heard, send your request to todd.nyberg
at gmail.com. Or you may write or call the
church at the information provided on the screen.