The Lord's Supper

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Reading: 1Corinthians 11:17-34
For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. 1 Corinthians 11:26 (NIV)

I.    Receiving Grace

      A.  Amazing Grace in the Ordinary

            1.   The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread. . .

                   a.   Ordinary, everyday bread.

                   b.   The bread of the Passover - bread without yeast. Not even as tasty as regular bread.

            2.   After the supper he took the cup

                   a.   No special vintage. No special purchase. Just wine. As ordinary in those days as a can of soda.

            3.   Jesus changed an ordinary meal into a feast of God’s grace.

                   a.   The Passover had been celebrated for centuries, year after year.

                   b.   The Passover celebrates the night the angel of death passed over those who put the blood of a lamb on their door posts and killed the 1st born in those homes that didn’t have that blood.

                   c.   Jesus makes a “new covenant” in His blood — deliverance from the death of living in sin, when He offers to die for us - the 1st born of God for all who receive this gift.

      B.  What God’s Touch does

            1.   God’s touch in this ordinary meal, changes it into something holy.

            2.   God’s touch on us makes us new.

      C.  Swallowing God’s Grace

            1.   In the Lord’s Supper we get to swallow God’s goodness - Hook, line and sinker.

            2.   This is the most intimate act of receiving God we have in the Bible — We receive him into our bodies.

                   a.   Not that the bread turns into something beside bread, or the juice into something besides juice.

                   b.   God promises to us in this sacrament that He comes to us and to live in us in our eating of this meal.

II.   Unity through Grace

      A.  God’s Grace Unites us with Him

            1.   Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? 1Cor. 10:16

                   a.   When we celebrate Communion we share in the body and blood of Jesus.

                   b.   It is not “participate” in the weak sense - as in “at least you showed up” (get a “certificate of participation”), but in the strongest sense - to share in the substance of, to join with, to unite with.

                   c.   It is to have koinonia with Jesus, to use the Greek word we find here — an intimate fellowship with God.

      B.  God’s grace unites us with Each Other

            1.   In 1Cor.10:17 we read: Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.

            2.   Jesus prayer for His disciples wasn’t that they/we would razzle-dazzle the world with miracles and great speeches Instead his prayer was:

21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.John 17:20-23 (NIV)

      C.  Our disunity Offends God

            1.   In our passage Paul criticizes the Corinthians for their disunity — in fact their disunity turns the Lord’s Supper into something else. Paul says It is not the Lord’s supper you eat (20).

                   a.   It couldn’t be the Lord’s Supper because they weren’t united.

                   b.   Their division had turned a meal of remembrance into a meal of one-up-manship.

            2.   Because they didn’t realize what it was they were doing, God was punishing them (29-30).

III.  Proclaiming Grace

      A.  The Supper proclaims God’s grace

            1.   The breaking and sharing the bread tells us about Jesus Body being given for us and to us.

            2.   The cup tells us about Jesus blood which was poured out for us and is given to us.

      B.  Eating the Supper proclaims God’s grace

            1.   When we eat this supper we receive these physical elements into our digestive system

                   a.   At the same time, we receive the grace that these elements represent into our hearts.

            2.   When we take this goodness into ourselves, we tell ourselves and those around us that we depend on God to fill us with goodness.

                   a.   We don’t try to fill ourselves with enough goodness to get to God.

                   b.   We say

      C.  Proclaiming something Less offends God

            1.   When our celebration of the Lord’s Supper says “We deserve this,” or “We’ve earned the right to join in,” we’re talking about something besides what the death of Jesus is about.

            2.   It is a paradox that when we believe we are worthy to participate in this meal, we participate in an “unworthy manner.”

            3.   When we recognize we can never be worthy, but that Jesus has made us worthy anyway — by God’s grace alone we are worthy. 

The Bottom Line:

This meal is for All who gladly receive God’s Grace into every Cell of our being, and trust that His grace Alone is enough to save us.

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