Well, let's turn in our Bibles tonight to Matthew chapter 26.
Matthew chapter 26. And as I've mentioned several
Times Now, obviously this is this is something that can very
easily just become something that we do because there's
something that we do and oh, it's the same every time.
And, you know, it's, it's something that if we don't take
it seriously, if we don't see the importance of it, we can get
to the point where it's just something we do because this is
what we do. But the Lord's Supper in Matthew
chapter 26 was, was instituted as a, as a memorial.
And of course, the night before Jesus Christ went through
everything that he was about to suffer.
And it just, he said, he said, and we'll read later on in First
Corinthians that we should do it in remembrance of him.
But I, I always try to think through the story and, and read
through the passage and, and try to give you something that, that
will make us think a little bit. And, you know, kind of in light
of, of what I preached on this morning and, and what I've said
many times before about the fact that, you know, very often it's
easy for us to pretend that everything is OK to everybody on
the outside, right? It's very easy for us because we
know the, the drill. Most of us have been in church
for a long time and we know it's, it's very easy to to fool
the people around you into thinking that your heart is
right with God, that you are having a, that you have the
relationship with God, that you are walking with the Lord, that
you are doing all the things that that's being preached, that
you that you're doing all the things that are expected of you
because you're a Christian and all of those things.
But here's I think The thing is, Judas was actually very, very
good at that exact same thing. Because look what the Bible says
in Matthew chapter 26 and verse #20 Now when the even was come,
he sat down with the 12. And as they did eat, he said,
verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.
And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one
of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I?
You know what that tells me? If everybody knew that it was
Judas and Jesus said, one of you is going to betray me, guess
what? Everybody would have done,
right? Everybody would have looked at
Judas because they knew it was him.
But Judas had learned how to play the game to the point where
every one of them started thinking, man, I can't think.
It can't be any of the other 11 because it look at look at every
one of those. Maybe it's me.
Am I the one that's going to be trained to the point where they
were questioning that themselves on whether or not they were
actually going to be the one that betrayed him?
Because Judas had learned to play the game so well.
He blended in so well. He fits so well with the other
11 disciples. He fits so well as a disciple of
Jesus Christ that the other 11 started questioning themselves
because they never thought it could have possibly been Judas
as the one that was going to betray him.
And then it wasn't long after that, of course.
Then verse 23 he answered and said, He that dipeth his hand
with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.
The son of man goeth, as it is written of him, but woe unto
that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed.
It had been good for that man if he had not been born.
Then Judas, which betrayed him answered and said, Master, is it
I? He said unto him, Thou hast said
Now Judas, if you, if you go back a few verses in that
passage to verse number 141516, he had already set up the
payment. He had already arranged to
betray Jesus when he asked that question.
Lord, is it I? He knew already that he was the
one that was going to betray him.
I don't know what he was trying to do.
I don't know if he was testing to see if Jesus really knew who
it really was, but it just proves the fact that Jesus
Christ knew his heart and he could have fit in very well with
everybody else. He could have blended in very
well with everybody else. He could have fooled all the
rest of them, but he didn't fool Christ.
Is it me? You said it, It's you.
And I wonder how many times we do the exact same thing when it
comes to taking communion. We sit down at the table
together and everybody's sitting in here and I and we look around
and there's not one person that I would think, wow, that that
person must be ready to betray Christ.
They're pretending that they are, you know, one of his.
They're pretending that they know Christ as their Savior.
They're pretending that their heart is right with God.
But boy, that person right there, right there's, there's,
there's none of that nobody in here that I would that I would
single out and say that about right.
We've all learned in many cases how to play the same game that
Judas played, right? But in your heart you are
saying, Lord, is it I? And you already know what the
answer is. You already know it's you and he
already knows it's you. You're not fooling him.
You're not getting one passed on
him. Well, maybe I can just maybe I
can slide through this time and I can take communion and, and I
can take it unworthily and I'll be OK this time because, well,
everybody else thinks I'm all right.
Doesn't matter what everybody else thinks, all right?
It matters what God thinks. And he knows your heart.
He knows your thoughts. He knows what you've got going
on in the background that nobody else knows about.
And it's very, very important as part of remembering what we're
doing here, that you get your heart right with God at the same
time. And so the apostle Paul, well,
we continue Matthew chapter 26 and verse #26.
And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and
break it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, take, eat,
this is my body. And he took the cup and gave
thanks and 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. But I say unto you, I will not
drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when
I drink it new with you in my Father's Kingdom.
Let's go over to 1st Corinthians chapter 10, The apostle Paul in
first Corinthians and we'll look at this in just a little bit,
very plainly tells us that the Lord's Supper is a memorial.
This do in remembrance of me, he says, and it's a picture.
He said ye do show the Lord's death till he come.
It's a picture of the Lord's death until he comes.
And so the Lord's Supper is not just a ritual.
That's why that's why we don't have a table set up in the back
that you just take it every time you walk into the church
building, right? It's not, it's not, it's not a
ritual. It's not something that you do
just for the sake of doing it. It's a relationship reminder.
Jesus didn't institute the Lord's Supper as a religious
obligation. He instituted it as a sacred
moment for his people to remember the price of their
redemption. He did that for us and it was a
great price. And every time we gather around
the table, we're reminded that salvation was not cheap.
It was purchased by the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus
Christ. And that's a that's a great,
great, great price to pay. That's a reminder to us that
that Christianity is not built on, on good works.
It's not built on on church attendance.
It's not built on tradition. It's not built on any of those
things. It's built on the sacrifice of
Jesus Christ. And so because of that, there
are some requirements to those who participate and partake of
the Lord's Supper. And the first one obviously, is
that an individual must be born again.
First Corinthians chapter 10 and there's other verses.
I was looking looking back at some different verses yesterday
and a couple days ago. First Corinthians chapter 10
though, is a great, a great verse to tell us about this in
verse #16 the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the
communion of the blood of Christ, the bread which we
break? Is it not the communion of the
body of Christ? For we being many are one bread
and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread.
Obviously the Bible says that Jesus is the bread of life.
And when you've partaken of that bread of life, then you have
life that's going to last forever, right?
But that's what salvation is. Salvation is having that having
part taken of the bread of life. But then also, and let's let's
let's turn over to Acts chapter 2, Acts chapter 2.
And again, we have some great examples there of the first
church and what they did and, and things that we can use to
follow after their example. And there's a lot of different
things that they did. But the second requirement for
the Lord's Supper then is to be a baptized member of the church.
Acts chapter 2 and verse #41 when they that glad they
received his word were baptized, and the same day they were added
unto them about 3000 souls. And they continued steadfastly
in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of
bread and in prayers. They were saved, they were
baptized, they were added to the church, and they took part in
the communion. And, and, and that's what the
Bible says there in First Corinthians chapter 10.
It's the communion. We call it communion because
it's a communion of the body of Christ.
It's the communion of the blood of Christ.
But then the the third thing there and, and one that's, I
believe, just as important as the first two.
Obviously you have to be saved and baptized, but the the third
one is that you should be in fellowship, not should.
You must be in fellowship with the Lord and that that involves
striving every single day to live in obedience to his word
and and and in obedience to what he's what he's given us in in
the Bible. And of course that that involves
confessing our sins before him. First Corinthians chapter 5, if
you'll turn over there, First Corinthians chapter 5 and we
we've been talking about this in on Wednesday nights with our our
Bible, our discipleship course, our Bible study that we've been
going through about the importance of joining yourself
to a body, joining yourself to the church because it it gives
you that, that not the responsibility, but that, that
what's the word I'm thinking of the but the fellowship.
Why is the word the accountability?
That's what I'm trying to think of the accountability, the
accountability. It's a really big word.
That's why, but it gives you that accountability to somebody
else, right? It's you're not just an
individual floating out there just trying to do the best you
can and hoping that one of these days when you stand before God,
everything's going to be good. You make yourself accountable to
a church body. You, you keep yourself clean
because you need the church body.
You need the church and 1st Corinthians chapter 5 and verse
#11 says, but now I have written unto you not to keep company.
If any man that is called a brother, be a fornicator.
Now you're not calling him a brother unless he's what saved,
right? So this is talking about people
who are saved who, who, who should know better and who
should be walking in the Spirit close enough that you're not
doing these things. But this is what he said.
Don't keep company with these people.
If he's a Christian, if he's a brother in a fornicator or
covetous or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or an
extortioner with such and one know not to eat.
That's it. That's a strong statement, but
it's an important statement. Don't let somebody that is one
of those things take part in it right now, here's the problem.
It's very easy to see somebody on the outside who's a drunkard,
drunkard, right? Or somebody who is, who is a
fornicator. It's very easy to see those
things. But there's a lot of times when
we have those things in our heart that nobody knows anything
about. And it could be that pride, it
could be that bitterness, It could be something that you're
doing when nobody else is looking and nobody, you haven't
been caught yet because you will eventually be caught, but you
haven't been caught yet. And so nobody knows, oh, this
guy needs to be excluded from the Lord's table.
This guy needs to be disciplined out of the church for this
woman's got this issue and she needs to be, you know,
discipline needs to be involved in it.
There's a lot that that is is hidden beneath the surface,
right? But what he's saying here and
what is obvious is that you shouldn't show up to the Lord's
Supper with sin in your life. And he listed these sins, but
obviously there's so many of them.
There's no way that he could list all of them.
But in First Corinthians Chapter 11, if you turn over there a
couple pages, he's saying, he's saying this in, in First
Corinthians Chapter 11, 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.
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, not caring about the Lord's body.
For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many
sleep. For if we would judge ourselves,
we should not be judged. Now notice that Paul does not
say that only perfect people can come to the Lord's table.
If if perfection was what was required, then none of us would
be able to participate. None of us would be able to
partake. The issue is not sinless
perfection. It is honest confession.
It's not sinless perfection. It is honest confession.
It's being honest with the Lord about what you have in your life
and getting it right with Him. That's what the Lord's Table is
about when it comes to this, this part of the this part of
the Lord's Table. And so the warning is not
against those who struggle, it's against those who refuse to
examine themselves. None of us are perfect.
And if we had to be perfect to take part in the Lord's Supper,
there wouldn't be any bread and there wouldn't be any juice in
there because nobody would be able to do it.
But it's about honest examination of our own lives.
I have to be honest with myself. I have to be honest with God.
I have to call sin what it is, and I have to be willing to get
it out by the root. That's what this is about.
So the only way to be in fellowship with the Lord is to
be honest with ourselves about our own sin.
Is there any known sin that I'm holding on to?
Is there anything that I have not surrendered to the Lord?
Is there bitterness that I have not surrendered?
Is there pride that I have not surrendered?
Have I been walking closely with Christ?
Is there somebody that I need to forgive?
I mean, the list goes on and on and on with the things that
we've got to make sure that we have gotten out of our life if
we're going to take the Lord's Supper worthily.
And so there you are in First Corinthians Chapter 11.
I want to give you, as we always do, the fourfold look at the
Lord's Supper and the importance of why we do this.
And the first one, of course, is the backward look.
It causes us as believers to look back at the cross of
Christ. He is the source of our
salvation. Without His cross, without His
blood that was shed, without His body that was broken and and
beaten and whipped and tortured, there would be no salvation.
Blood had to be shed in order for us to be saved.
Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.
First Corinthians Chapter 11 and verse #24 says, and when he had
given thanks, he break it and said, take, eat.
This is my body which is broken for you.
This do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he
took the cup when he had Sup saying, This cup is the New
Testament in my blood. This do ye as often as you drink
it in remembrance of me. We were we when we when we look
back at Calvary, we're reminded of the fact that Jesus did not
just die. He died for us.
He died from my sins. He died for your sins.
He died for the sins of the whole world, but he died for me.
The bread reminds us that his body was was was.
He gave his body to those who were going to torture it.
He gave his the the cup reminds us that he that he that he shed
his blood. He didn't just, it didn't just
happen by accident. He he did it on purpose for us.
And the cross reminds us that that that grace is free, but
that it cost him everything. That's the backward look.
And then of course, we have the look of look around.
Verse #25 He says, This do ye that word ye is plural.
This do ye as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me.
For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do
show the Lord's death till he come.
We're, we're, we're reminded that we're part of a family.
And that's why we've been talking about the, you know,
the, the membership idea, joining yourself to the church.
You need the church. We are a body.
We're a family of believers. We're not just individuals,
which is why it doesn't work for you to just sit there at home
and, and break your own bread and, and take your own juice
and, and take communion by yourself.
It's, it's all part of the body of Christ doing this together.
Communion is, is, is a way to remind ourselves that we are not
walking this Christian life alone.
This is this, we're all in this together.
Before we, before we take the, the, the, the, the bread and,
and, and, and drink the, the, the cup, look around and just be
reminded that these are your brothers and sisters, right?
Sometimes in some cases your brothers twice, right?
But we are brothers and sisters. We're in this together.
We are part of the family of God.
So we rejoice with those who are rejoicing.
We bear the burdens of those who are hurting.
We have to guard the unity in the church.
Communion is is a very personal thing, but it's never private.
We do this together and so then we see the forward look for as
OFT as you eat this bread as often as you eat this bread and
drink this cup. Verse 26 you do show the Lord's
death till he come. It causes us to look forward to
the coming of Jesus Christ and to be mindful of the fact that
we need to be ready at all times.
Well, he could come back before we finish this up tonight, and I
hope He does. Wouldn't that be a great thing
if if we're doing this thing right, if we're doing this thing
right and you, your heart is perfectly right before God?
Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if he came back on?
Your heart was just right with him.
You just got everything confessed before him.
Everything was exactly the way that it should be.
And then He comes for us. Man, that'd be a that'd be a be
a tremendous time for him to come.
But every observance of the Lord's Supper is a rehearsal for
the table that is going to come. One of these days we're going to
be sitting together at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
One day our faith is going to become sight and we won't have
to worry about doing, doing the communion and all of those
things because we will be able to worship face to face with the
one who died for us. That's what this is all about.
Looking forward to the day that Jesus Christ is going to come
back for us. What a wonderful thing that is.
And of course, the last part of that is the inward look.
First Corinthians Chapter 11 and verse #28 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 for this cause.
Many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep for if we
would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
Well, that's I don't think we take that serious enough
anything about all the people who just do community every
single week, right? Just for the sake of doing it,
because this is what we do. Walk in, you grab it, eat it.
You're having a conversation with somebody else while you're
doing it and everything else and you don't take it seriously.
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh
damnation to himself. Not discerning the Lord's body.
That word, not discerning the Lord's body, that phrase means
not caring about it. Just whatever, It's just another
thing that we do. No, it's not just another thing
that we do. This is a, this is a very sacred
thing that we do. And so this self examination is
not meant to drive us away from Christ.
It's meant to drive us toward him, right?
A community should not produce that that fear in US.
It should produce humility. It should produce repentance.
It should produce that renewed fellowship.
That's what this is all about. I, I need to be back in
fellowship with God and this is the time, this is the
opportunity for me to do that. I want to be right with God, and
not just that, I want to. I need to.
I need to think about if, if if if this was labeled damnation.
Would you go eat it? Of course you wouldn't, right?
Because who's going to eat damnation or drink damnation,
right? But that's, that's what the
Bible is saying when you take it unworthily, when you are not in
fellowship with the Lord, when you are not in fellowship with
other believers, and you eat the bread and you drink the cup, you
are literally eating and drinking damnation to yourself.
That's how serious this is. This is not something to just do
because this is what we do. This is something that we take
very, very seriously. And it's the, it's the inward
look. And so the Lord's Supper reminds
us as believers of the, the, the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made
so that we can be redeemed back to God forever.
And that's a, it's a wonderful, wonderful word forever.
Once you're saved, you're always saved, right?
But we're going to have a time of invitation before we partake
in the, of the bread and the cup.
There's something very serious that we do before God and we're
commanded to do it, but we're commanded not to do it
unworthily. So really, you don't have an
option if you're a Christian. If you've been saved and you've
been baptized, then we're commanded to do it.
You can't just say I'm not going to do it now because I don't
really feel like getting right with God, or I don't really have
time to get right with God or whatever else.
Right? You don't really have an option.
He's commanded us to do it, but he's commanded us not to do it
unworthily. If you're saved but you're
carrying unconfessed sin, it's time to lay it down at the
cross. There's a broken fellowship with
God, maybe with some other believer.
It's the time to get it restored.
See, I believe God did this instituting communion to give us
a time where we force ourselves to look inside and make sure
that everything is right. Right.
And, and I've said this many, many times before, the the
chances that you don't know what's in there is very, very
small. You know, you know what the sins
are that are that are holding you back.
You know what you have between you and the Lord.
Let it go, let it go, get it right, and let this be the let
this be day one of living a life that's pleasing to Him.
So I want to give us an opportunity right now to take a
few minutes and to make sure that your heart is clean and
right before God. I asked you to do that this
afternoon a little bit, but I want to give you an opportunity
to do that tonight as well. So we'll have the piano, Miss
Becca come up to the piano and as she plays, you take a few
minutes. You can kneel there at your
seat. You can come up to the front at
the altar, but we'll take a few minutes and make sure that our
hearts are right before God. None.
The. The.