Christopher: When we come to this table, something is happening. It's not nothing happening. It's not just like, oh, let's remember something. Something really happens here. By the grace of God, by the spirit of God, by the mercy of God, by the will of God, something really happens when his people come together.
A grace is really received, fellowship is really renewed. Christ is really known in a way that would not happen if I didn't come to the table.
Caleb: The following message was recorded at King's Tree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
Christopher: This morning, we're going to be taking a pause once more on our journey through first John to look together at something unique, something unique for that I've never done here before, and that's to consider together the Lord's Supper, What this is, what this meal is that Jesus has given to his church, and through which he continues to meet with his church. But before we do that, children, if you would like to head downstairs, they can go down now for children's church. Can head down there. There's also the nursery available downstairs as well. The rest of us will be we're not going to be in first John.
We're going to kind of jump around today. The main text for us is going to be in first Corinthians. We're going to start in chapter 10, so you can turn to first Corinthians if you'd like. But as I said, this is going to be different than something I've done before. I don't usually do thematic sermons, and this isn't even just a theme like a theme that in your own life.
This is specifically about our observance of the Lord's Supper together. So why are we doing this? Why am I taking two weeks to preach about the Lord's Supper? Well, one answer comes from over the last year, the elders have been gathering together to pray, to study, to think about what it looks like for King's tree to be more deeply rooted in the central stream of the church. What is the deep center of the church that has been flowing from the beginning?
Because as you know, there's all these different expressions, different ways of doing church and all this stuff, but at the center, when you look at a river, you know, the edges are a little bit more shallow. There's a deep center that's been carved out because that's where the river's always flowing and that's where we want to anchor King's Tree as best as we can. Where where is this deep center that we can come to? And really asking about how to do that, how to anchor ourselves in the proven history of God's people is just another way of saying how can we enter most deeply into all that God is for us in Jesus Christ? All that he gives himself to be for us in this word.
How can we enter into it? If the stream, if the river has been opened and is flooding, we as the elders of King's Tree, we don't want to just sit on the edge of that river and take our typical little Dixie cup full and say, this is good enough for me. We want to be plunged into the center of it. So what does that mean? What does that look like for us?
That's what we've been praying toward. That's what we've been studying toward. And as we did that one answer that came to the surface was the Lord's Supper or communion. This gathering that Jesus himself has given to the church that has been central to the coming together of God's people from the very beginning, from the book of Acts. This has been at the center and specifically we as elders would like to propose the idea that we return to weekly observance of communion.
That we take the Lord's Supper together weekly each Sunday. Used to be how we did it here back when this was Community Christian Church, and then there was changed a little bit and we're proposing we return to that. Now, we're not gonna do that unilaterally. If that happens, that's something we want the whole church to move toward together. So that's gonna be part of our vote.
I mentioned that December meeting. Part of our vote is going to be moving back to taking the Lord's Supper each weekend together. And in preparation for that, I wanted to give us two messages about the supper, not just to prepare you for a vote that would be kind of utilitarian. It does do that, I hope. Prepares your mind and heart for that vote, but the goal here is to refresh our understanding.
What what is this? Why do we do this? What happens when we do this? Does anything happen when we do this? What is this observance that Christ has given to his church?
That's what I want to consider with you this week and next week as we pray toward bringing this back as something that we do every single week here as a congregation at Kingstree. Let me start us in the book of first Corinthians. In fact, I mentioned first Corinthians 10, but let's start in verse in first Corinthians 11. I think this is the passage that I want to read for us as we begin and it's very familiar. This is the one I read almost every time we take the Lord's Supper together.
It's first Corinthians chapter 11. So turn with me if you will to first Corinthians chapter 11, and we're going to be starting in verse 23. So let's look at that together. This is what Paul says, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way also he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often, Paul adds this, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Let's pray together. Father, we come to you this morning as a people, as a people brought together only because of Christ.
The only reason we're all in this place right now, hearing these words right now, is because the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we've seen his glory. Glory as of the only begotten son from the father, full of grace and truth. So father, it's because of Christ, because of his death and his resurrection that we're here, and we want more more of him, father. We want to enter into all of him. Not that there's any more to pour out, but that our hands can be opened more widely, that our hearts can be opened more widely, that our mouths can be opened more widely to receive all that you are for us in him.
And so father, I pray for your spirit to overshadow me now that I would speak and teach faithfully to your word. I pray for your spirit of discernment to be upon your people that they would discern what is said faithfully, and Lord that your Holy Spirit would lead us together into all truth. All truth, which is Jesus Christ. May he be lifted up now in our midst, and may we be built up in him as we taste and see that he is good. We pray this, father, in Jesus name.
Amen. So let's begin by asking that question. What is what is the Lord's Supper? What is communion? And we could say a lot of things.
Of course, we could approach this study from a number of different directions. If this was a college classroom, we'd do it one way, but it's not. This is a sermon. And so I want to just look at three elements that we can see in scripture and that is this, remembrance, participation, and communion. When we come together to the table, at least those three things are happening.
Remembrance, participation and communion. Let's look at each one briefly for a moment. First remembrance. We just read that. First Corinthians chapter eleven twenty four to 26.
Paul says, when we come together and he recounts the words of Jesus and Jesus says both times, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And after cup, he said, after the supper, he gave the cup. This is the new covenant in my blood. Do this in remembrance of me.
So that's that's clear. Remembrance. That's what's happening when we put these elements on the table and as we come to them. We're there's a remembrance of Christ that's taking place. But what does that mean?
Does it just mean when we, you know, when we say remember, we mean, oh, it popped back into my head. Do we mean when we come to the table, Jesus kind of pops back into our head for a moment and we say, oh, yeah, that's right. He did die for us. That's that's good. Certainly, that's true.
Certainly, it is that kind of remembrance bringing to our mind again what Christ has done and who he is. But there's also a sense in which the kind of remembrance that is happening here is a remembrance before God, a remembrance in God's presence. Think about how the psalmist says, remember me, oh God. He's not worried that God forgot about him. Oh yeah, you exist.
That's right. He's saying, let me be in your presence. Let me be attentive to me. Remember me. And there's that kind of remembrance is happening here.
Christ crucified, the representation of his body and his blood is being set again in the presence of God as a remembrance before God. Let me show you a passage that teaches us that. The word for remembrance here in first Corinthians is not terribly, it's not used that often, either in the New Testament or the Old Testament. But one of the places we find it in the Old Testament is back in Leviticus chapter 24, and what's interesting is this is talking about bread. So you've heard of the bread of the presence or the show bread.
This is a bread that was in the tabernacle, 12 pieces of bread representing the people of God in the presence of God. Here's what it says about this bread. And you shall set them the bread, the 12 pieces in two piles, six in a pile, on the table of pure gold before the Lord. And you shall put pure frankincense on each pile that it may go with the bread as a memorial portion, as a food offering to the Lord. What the ESV here translates memorial portion in the Greek Old Testament is the exact same word we find Paul using when he says remembrance.
So Paul, the author of Leviticus is saying, take these breads, put them before the Lord, pour frankincense on them as a remembrance before the Lord. As a remembrance before the Lord. So what's going on there? Well, it's not that the priests needed to remember that there was bread there. It's not that Yahweh needed to be reminded, Oh yeah, oh yeah, that's right.
The idea was the bread is bringing God's people, it's representing his people, it's bringing them into the presence of God and being placed in his presence saying, Look, here they are. Here are your people before you. Look upon them in grace. See them. That's the idea that's going on here.
And so when Jesus says, Do this in remembrance of me, He's not just saying, Do this and remember about me. He's also saying, As this bread, as this cup is set upon the table and fed upon by my people, you are bringing me to remembrance before God. You're bringing my supreme sacrifice once for all finished and completed in the Holy Spirit on the cross. Christ offers himself through the Holy Spirit. You're bringing that sacrifice again before God, putting it in his presence, bringing it to remembrance before him.
So when we do this, one thing that's happening here is we are setting Christ himself as it were, his broken body, his shed blood in the presence of God. Setting it again in the presence of God. Not because God's forgotten, Jesus is alive in the presence of God. There's no forgetting. But what's being done is it's as if we, as his people are saying, once again, putting the sacrifice of the Messiah before God and saying, Father, all our righteousness is because of this work that Christ has done.
All of our hope is because of the breaking of this body and the shedding of this blood. All of our purity is because of this once for all sacrifice that was completed on the cross. All of our peace with you and with each other is because Jesus Christ offered up his body and blood on the cross for our sake. And so that is also happening here. It's a remembrance to us, and it's a remembrance or a setting into the presence of God of this one great work.
And we as his church are saying, Father, our only approach to you is here. Our only standing before you is here. Our only hope is because this work was done, and because the one who gave his body and blood is risen now in your presence interceding continually for us. That's being said by the church when we set the table like this as a people. So first, remembrance.
Second, participation. Participation. Just one chapter earlier in first Corinthians chapter 10, Paul says this, first Corinthians ten sixteen through 17. He says, The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
Because there's one bread, we who are many are one body because we all partake of the one bread. And then he uses an example from the old covenant. Consider the people of Israel, are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? So he's saying just as Israel, they make a sacrifice and then they eat that sacrifice as a way of appropriating the benefit. He's saying, isn't isn't it the same thing?
When we take this bread and this cup, we are in the spirit participating in that real sacrifice that Christ made once for all on the cross. What's this idea here? Participating. Participating. Well, the word underneath it is a common one that Paul uses quite a bit, but one other place he uses it in first Corinthians that can help us get a bead on what it means is first Corinthians chapter one verse nine where Paul says this, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship, participation, same word, into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Okay. So the kind of participation we have when we come to the table is like that participation that we're called to have with Christ when God calls us into faith, calls us to come to Jesus. So what kind of fellowship or participation do we have with Christ? Well, deep, intimate union of soul, like a branch in the vine, that's the kind of fellowship we're called into with Jesus, and Paul uses that same word to say that's the kind of fellowship, our participation we have in the body and blood of Christ, in the sacrifice Christ has made, in Christ himself given from the cross, that's the kind of fellowship we have with him when we come to these elements. So the in faith, when we come to these elements here, the bread and the cup, when they are received in faith and by the working of the Spirit, they become for us a means of really sharing in Jesus's body given from the cross, in Jesus's blood shed for our sins.
Spiritually, we truly are sharing in the work of his sacrifice when we come to these elements. So you could think of it similarly. You eat physical food, calories come into your body, and you really are strengthened by those calories. So too, in a spiritual sense, when we eat this food, we really eat it in faith. Yes, faith must be there.
The spirit must be working, but we really eat it. When we eat this food, when we take this cup, we really do receive the potency, the purity, the soul sustaining goodness, the life giving presence of the crucified and risen Christ into ourselves. It's a mystery. Yes. But we really are woven into him and he into us as we come to this table.
And that's not wild. That's not out of off the wall because like Paul says here, it's analogous to the Old Testament sacrifices. The sacrifices that were made on the altar, many of them were then eaten by the people, and it was that eating that brought one into fellowship afresh with the Lord. Think about the Passover. What if somebody said, I will slay the lamb, we'll put the blood on the lentil, but I don't want to I don't want to eat it.
You know, I don't I don't want to eat it. The eating is how you entered the covenant community. The eating of the lamb made you participants in the benefit of what the lamb did when it died. So too the eating of these representative elements really does cause us to be participants in what Christ has done, participants in his death and resurrection and the benefits that are in that for us. So this is a remembrance for us and before God.
This is a participation, a genuine participation in the work of Christ, and this is a means of communion. That's the third one. We call it communion. Communion means come with union together. It is a coming together, a fellowshipping together, and that really does happen as we come to this table.
Now for this, I'm going to sail a little close to the wind as it were and take us to John chapter six. And I say that because John chapter six has been used to do a lot of interesting things with the Lord's Supper. A lot of times people are like, look, it's, you know, literally, this is where Jesus says, eat my flesh and drink my blood. And you'll get people saying, no, no, like if you can do a DNA test and find that the bread is actually flesh, that's not what I'm talking about. That's not what John is talking about.
But I do think as we come to this text, Jesus does have something for us to learn about what happens when we take the Lord's Supper. So let me let me read for you these words. And yes, they're jarring. Jesus meant them to be jarring. John meant them to be jarring.
The Holy Spirit meant them to be jarring. Here's what he says starting in chapter six verse 53. Jesus says this, If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. Now the Jews disputed among themselves saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?
So Jesus said to them, truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. As the living father has sent me in his I live because of the father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.
So words that cause us to stand up and say, woah, what's what's he talking about? What's he talking about? Well, let me just be clear here right now as we start into this passage. When Jesus uses the language of flesh and blood, mainly what he's talking about is his own death. Himself given in the violent death of the cross.
He doesn't have in view primarily the bread and the wine. Some people will take it straight to that. He has primarily in view himself given from the cross. So let's be clear. Flesh and blood here means myself violently offered up on the cross.
And when he speaks about eating and drinking, he doesn't first and foremost have in view the physical actual eating and drinking. He first and foremost has in view the eating and drinking of faith, the belief in Him, receiving Him. He's saying, your belief in me, your reception of me, it needs to be so viscerally real. It is like an eating and a drinking. It is a feasting of faith.
So what he's saying when he says, Eat my flesh, drink my blood, what is being said here is, Believe in the crucified and risen one as Lord and God. That's the point. So hear me saying this is first and foremost about our faith in Christ, slain and risen as Lord God and savior. That's what this text is primarily speaking about. But that being said, the spirit who inspired these words knew, and Jesus, when he said these words knew that when this gospel was received in ninety AD or whenever it would have been, surely everyone who read it would have been thinking of the meal that is eaten every single Sunday in the midst of the church, the body and the blood, the cup, the bread and the cup.
So this has secondary implications for what's happening when we come to the table. Not primary. Primary, it's about receiving Christ in faith, but secondarily, there are implications, and that's precisely because this is about believing in Christ, and this is about enacting that belief. When we come to this table, the belief we have in Christ is manifest, is enacted, is worked out in our bodies. And so what Jesus says is truly achieved by faith is also really being worked out in us when we enact that faith, when we live out that faith by taking this meal together.
So look what he says in six fifty six. This is where I want us to focus. He says this, Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. Abides in me and I in him. Now we know that's primarily about faith because later on in the gospel, he says, whoever has my words, receives my words, abides in me and I in him.
But secondarily, he's saying, when you feast upon me by faith and this is the the manifestation of faith's feasting. When you feast upon me by faith, there is a genuine intimacy, a real coming together, a real abiding one in another that happens and this an application of what we see in chapter six here is that this really does happen when we enact our faith at the table. When we enact our faith by taking this bread and this cup. We are taking Jesus genuinely into ourselves. Not physically, but really and spiritually, he is by the Spirit, by the Holy Spirit, entering afresh into his people, he into us, we into him, so that we are truly being woven into Christ into Christ.
So as truly as truly as the material of the food you're going to eat for lunch enters into your body and is incorporated into it. So truly and more so the person of Christ given for you from the cross enters into you, enters into your soul, enters into your spirit, a fresh and in a unique way and you into him when we take this cup together in faith. When we eat this bread together in faith as a working out of our faith. That happens. That happens as we do it.
Benefit is given to us. Communion is received by us. So what happens when we come to this table? Remembrance for us before God. Participation in the work of Christ and communion with the slain and risen Christ genuinely happens when we come together here and that communion that we have with him, it's not just me and Jesus, but it's a communion altogether.
Remember what Paul said? He said, Don't you know that the cup of blessing that we bless is participation in the blood of Christ and the bread that we break is a participation in the body of Christ? And then he says right after that, Because there's one bread, we who are many are one body because we all partake of the one bread. So as we come together and feast upon our one savior, we really are brought together in unity as a people. Think about a wilderness with one oasis, one lake in the middle.
All the animals come and are drinking from that, and as they are participating in the water, drinking from the water, plunging themselves into the water, they are also sharing with one another. They're also gathered all together around one hub, around one center. Same here as we come to this table to truly commune with Christ, we are truly united one to another in the Holy Spirit around our savior. So remembrance, setting before ourselves and before God, this one sacrifice of Christ saying our only hope is here. Our only righteousness is here.
Participation in the broken body and shed blood of Christ such that by receiving these elements, we really are plunged afresh into Christ, given in love for us from the cross, given for us, received for us in this way. And genuinely communion is had with him and with one another. So that is an overview then of what's happening here. Now we might say, let me summarize it in this way because you kind of get you can kind of make two camps with the Lord's Supper. And what I'm saying, what the elders are saying, what I we believe scripture is saying and has always said is that when we come to this table, something is happening.
It's not nothing happening. It's not just like, oh, let's remember something. Something really happens here by the grace of God, by the spirit of God, by the mercy of God, by the will of God, something really happens when his people come together. A grace is really received. Fellowship is really renewed.
Christ is really known in a way that would not happen if I didn't come to the table. That's the point. Some a good is received when his people come to this table that we would not receive should we not come to this table. Just as surely as an ancient Israelite received a real good by partaking in the Passover that would not have belonged to them if they said, nah, not, I don't want to do it. I'm not going to be part of it.
Well, then you're not part of God's people. The benefits are lost if you don't eat the Passover. In a similar way, a real good is given to God's people when we come together to this table. Now you might hear that and say, Well, isn't that kind of like magical or legalistic or materialistic to say, so you're telling me grace is genuinely experienced by putting something in my mouth, by drinking something, that's a little materialistic of you to say that it's better for my soul that I eat than that I don't. You might think that.
But to think that is not actually the mind of scripture. You and you maybe it sounds spiritual. No. No. No.
No. No. I don't have to come to the table. I just I just meet with the Lord in my own heart. Sounds spiritual.
But that division between the material and the spiritual, that in that sense in the way that it's being presented there is not biblical. That's actually sounds spiritual, but it's actually a modern post enlightenment scientific rationalism speaking. That's not the mind of the Bible speaking. Let me give you some examples. When we come to scripture, one thing we see over and over and over again is that God uses matter to do stuff.
Matter matters to God. I don't like cheesy pastoral slogans, but that one helps. Matter matters to God. Let me just give you a few rapid fire examples. I'm not going to turn to any of these, but we can follow-up on them.
Genesis three. Remember what happens in Genesis three? God says, Don't eat that fruit. Okay? Adam and Eve, when does the fall happen?
When does does everything shatter around us? The real change of the breaking of this world. When does that happen? Is it when Adam and Eve think about eating the fruit? Is it when they believe it would be a good idea to eat the fruit?
Is it when their hearts desire the fruit? It happens when they eat the fruit. Their teeth broke the skin of the fruit and that brought about spiritual destruction. It really did something. That's a negative example, but all of us as bible believing Christians say, we don't want to say, oh, it's just a spiritual idea.
There was never a tree. There was never a fruit, blah blah blah. No. We say there was a tree. There was a fruit, and it mattered that they bit it.
And I'm just saying, how much more does it matter that we eat this on the other side? Should it be surprising if the world was destroyed by eating that it would be healed by eating? Should that be a surprise to us? No. It shouldn't be a surprise to us.
The Passover. I mentioned this before. I'll go through it quickly. In Exodus 12, the lamb really had to be slain. If an Israelite said, Boy, Moses, that sounds great.
Kill the lamb, put the blood on doorpost and then feast on the lamb and we're saved. I believe that. I'm not going to do it, but it doesn't matter if I do it, right? That's just material stuff. I believe it in my heart and that's what matters.
No, They had to kill the lamb. They had to dip the brush in the blood. They had to put it on the door literally. They had to cut up the meat and eat it to be saved. If they didn't do those material things, their firstborn died.
The material mattered. Moses' arms in Exodus 17, he's lifting his arms and Israel's winning the battle. When he puts them down, Israel loses. You might have thought he'd say, Lord, I'm praying in my heart. Why do I have to lift up my arms?
But God said, Nope. Your hands up. I'd say because this is what the cross looks like. And God's saying, my people win when the cross is over them, but that's for another day. The point is Moses had to keep his hands up.
And if they were down, it didn't happen. So the Lord cares about spatial proximity of physical objects. And then Naaman in two Kings, remember he's leprous and he's told, Go and dip in the Jordan. And if he just said, Oh, I believe you. Okay.
Wouldn't have worked. He had to go down in the water. He had to really do that. The going into the water brought about his healing. The blind man in John 9, he could have just said, you're healed.
Go on. You're healed. But he takes mud, puts it on his eyes, and says, Go wash that off. And if the guy just said, I believe I'm healed. Can you just take this off my eyes?
It wouldn't have done anything. He had to go do it. The physical matters. And of course, that brings us to the main thing when mentioning Jesus. The ultimate proof, the immovable and controvertible proof that matter matters is Jesus Christ.
God has taken matter to himself forever, forever. Could have Think about this. He could have saved us by just saying, oh, you're forgiven. I heal you. You know what?
Imagine I did all these things and let's just I'm going to make them real now and do it. He has the power to do that with his words. He did not. God saved us by plunging into the dense weave of matter, by entering into this world. God saved us by taking on flesh in Christ, enduring the stuff of this life.
If we are ever tempted to think, What matter doesn't make a difference? What I do with my body doesn't make a difference? Look at the body of Jesus Christ and say, did that make a difference? The physical material beating heart of God had to stop if I would be saved. The the the heart of God ceased beating physically so that we could be saved.
If it didn't, if that didn't happen, we're damned. If the physical heart did not stopped, we have no hope. And if that physical heart did not begin to be again, literally, we have no hope. Our hope is anchored in flesh. Our hope is anchored in matter in material.
And if we confess the physicality of Jesus as necessary for our salvation, which we do, then it should be no surprise that God employs physical elements to save and bless his people. It should be no surprise. If God saves us through the material of his body, we should not be surprised that he continues to pour out that saving grace upon us through material things. There's no surprise there. He saves us through matter, the matter of his body.
He saves us through the matter of his body, and because God takes material creation to himself in Christ and makes matter the vehicle of his grace, all matter now, all the physical world now is charged with the capacity of mediating that grace to us. So here's an image. Think about this image as we wrap things up. You've got a pool. You take a live wire.
You plunge it into the pool. We all know what happens. That whole pool, electrified, charged with power. Okay. Now you've got the pool of the created universe and the live wire of God himself plunges into that pool in Christ, and now the whole pool of creation is charged with the capacity of communicating his grace to us.
The matter is charged with grace because God himself has taken matter to himself. Habakkuk two fourteen says, The whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea, and I'm just saying that's happened in Christ. It's happening in Christ, and the outpost of the church is able to experience that. So the actual physicality of this food and this drink become real conduits of grace to us in Christ, a real means of participation in his life in Christ. That really happens.
Because the word became flesh, all the flesh, all the stuff of this world can be by his word, can be a vehicle of his presence to us. So we don't need to say, well, it's material, so it can't do anything spiritual. Right? No. Unless if the body of Christ is material, then material can indeed do spiritual things for God's people in his will under his purposes.
So taking the wrapping this all up. Taking this bread and this bread and this cup in faith means setting the offering of Christ before our own minds and in the presence of God, participating in the saving grace of Christ's passion, and communing with the slain and risen Jesus and with one another. Now wrapping things up. Wrapping things up in the last six minutes here. Let me give you three reasons very briefly of why I think why we think it's fitting to take this every week.
First, scriptural. I'm not going to go to each one of these. They're in your notes and you can look them up over the week, but there's three passage in scripture four passages in scripture that I draw your attention to. The first is Acts two forty two, where it talks about the breaking of bread. When when the Christians come together, they break bread.
Then again in Acts 27, it's talking about coming together to break bread. They came together in order to break bread as if the reason the Christians were gathering was to celebrate this meal. Then in first Corinthians eleven twenty, which I'll read for you because it's right here. Paul says this, when you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you're eating. For eating, each one of you goes ahead in his own meal.
Some goes hungry, some go hungry, another gets drunk. The point to see here is simply that he says, when you come together, he's assuming you're coming together for a meal. When you gather and eat, obviously, because that's what we do when we come together, Here's the problems. But our point is to see Paul saying when they come together, they were having this meal. They were having this commemorative meal.
And then Revelation five:six-fourteen, that vision of the slain and risen lamb on the throne of God with all the cosmos orbiting and worship around him, that's a heavenly vision of the worship of God's people, of the coming together of God's people, of gathering of the church. And what is that vision? It's the slain and risen lamb on the table throne of the cross, in the middle of everything with all worship orbiting around him. And so we can extrapolate out of that, that the representation of that slain and risen lamb in the earthly gathering of God's people is also to be similarly central for them. That's scripture.
We can you can see why I wanna do home group tonight, but we'll do it next week. Historically, historically, the historical account is not infallible, but it is it does give us a good sense of what the teaching of the apostles would have been. When we go to the historical account, we see over and over and over again that the people of God gathered together to take this meal. The Didache, which was written five or ten years around the end of the New Testament, says we gather on the Lord's Day and that gathering is built around the communal meal. I'll I can send out the links to that if you want to read that for yourself.
Ignatius of Antioch writing right at the beginning of the second century, like 100, 110, continually talks about the centrality of this meal for the people of God. Justin Martyr, who wrote in the mid January, so a little bit over a hundred years after Jesus, he also talks about this as central. He says, on the day that's called Sunday, all who live in the cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets are read. Then the ruler stands and gives instruction exhorting to the imitation of these things. Then we all stand up together and offer prayers.
And as we said before, when we finish the prayers, bread is brought in and wine and water, and the ruler offers up prayers and thanksgiving. So when he's saying, here's what we do on a Sunday, the Lord's Supper is in the center of it. So scriptural, historical, and finally, lastly, theological. So much we could say, but for the sake of closing, I'll say this one thing. When we come together here, why do we do it?
To receive Christ and so glorify God as the one who gives all things. That's why we gather as a church, to drink from and receive the fullness of God given us in Christ. That's why we're here together. And if what I'm doing at this pulpit is preaching Christ crucified and risen as I pray it is, then there's no better way to conclude every sermon than to tangibly feed upon the same Christ who is proclaimed from his word here. There's no better way for us to end a time in the word than to not just hear the word of the cross, but to eat the word of the cross, to taste and see that the Lord is good.
May that be what happens for us. Let me pray, and then we're going to take the Lord's Supper together. Father, these are mysterious things. These are things that we cannot nail down with with specific language, but we'd see in your word that there is an awesome thing taking place here, that there is an awesome mystery into which you call your people, the mystery of Christ. Christ in us, the hope of glory.
Lord Jesus, we thank you that you have given this meal to your people as a remembrance, as a participation in your work, sharing, receiving the benefits of your passion, and of a genuine means of communion with you, soul to soul, spirit to spirit, communing with you and so with one another. We thank you for this and we pray that we might grow in it, grow in our understanding of it, grow in our our benefit from it, grow in our strength from it, that we would be made father more and more and more like Christ and that one means you really use to do that would be our faith filled spirit anointed sharing in this table. So father, come now and give us grace as we join together and as we remember Christ our Lord, our savior, and our God. It's in his name we pray. Amen.
Caleb: Thank you for listening to this message from King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God and the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.