Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself (Jonah Chitty)

Well, good morning. I'm Jonah Chitty.

I am the discipleship and family pastor here at LMC.

We're glad you're here. Happy Thanksgiving.

As an American living abroad, it seems weird to do Thanksgiving

right now. I was with some some friends

last night and we were having a Thanksgiving meal and we were

watching the appropriate thing. There was a football game on,

but as soon as it ended, there was the the wrong thing came on

the TV. It was hockey.

So I was confused. I was like, is this

Thanksgiving? But no, it was a great time.

I'm just a little bit confused. So in Thanksgiving, I'll get to

do it all over again. Excuse me?

In Thanksgiving in November, I'll get to do it again and you

guys can join me. We can all have two

Thanksgiving. It's it is the best holiday.

So that being said, family gatherings are on our mind,

right? Thinking about gathering with

your family for meals for Thanksgiving?

Every Sunday when I was growing up and even after I got married,

we would have a family meal at my parents house.

Valerie and I, after we got married, we lived in in Alabama

just above the state line where my parents are from, and we

would drive down for lunch pretty regularly.

Nearly every Sunday we would show up for lunch and so we

would go to the early service at our church and then we would

make our way South for 45 minutes or so and we would be

expecting a real good meal. One of the things my mom cooks

that is my absolute favorite thing to eat is fried cornbread.

It's not the cornbread you guys making like cakes and like looks

like a birthday cake and then you slice it up.

No, this is like, I don't know if you know what hush puppies

are, probably not, but it's like, it's like cornmeal that's

like pattied out really thin and then you fry it and it is the

best thing ever. I love it, But often I would

show up and I would show up late.

Have you ever been somewhere late, like to a family gathering

and what you're looking for and what you expected was missing?

That happens to me, or it did happen to me nearly every time

we would go home, my nephews would get to the cornbread first

and I would say, where's the cornbread?

And they would say, oh, Logan ate like six or seven pieces.

I'm like, come on, man. I was here for the cornbread.

What I got when I got there, I was expecting something.

I was expecting a meal. What I got instead was something

completely different. I got a meal, but it was missing

the most important part, and that was the cornbread.

So I was thinking about that specifically because we have

family gatherings coming up, but also as I was reading our texts

in First Corinthians, we're going to be in First Corinthians

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

Chapter 11 this morning. So go ahead and turn there and

you'll see why. I hope you'll see why my my

story about the cornbread being missing would make sense.

So we're going to be reading 1st Corinthians 11.

We're going to start in 17, go all the way to 34.

But first I want to pray Father in heaven this morning, Lord,

I'm reminded of how good you are, reminded of the blood

applied. That song is so fitting there to

our heart was the blood applied. And so Lord, we give your name

glory. We pray that you would incline

our hearts to you. Lord, Lord, help us to to see

you, to to be here, to worship together, not for any prideful

gain or false motive, but for your glory alone.

So, Lord, we ask, we, we beg that you would incline our

hearts to you to fear your name. Lord, I pray also that you

would, that you would open our eyes as believers.

Lord, we ask that You would open Your word to us in such a way

that it becomes real to us that we can apply it correctly to our

lives. So are we open?

We ask that You open our eyes to behold the wonderful things in

your word. And not only us, Lord, that are

believers, but those of us here in this room who, who may, may

not have put our faith in You yet.

Lord, I pray for those who are here that haven't put their

faith in you. I pray that you would open their

eyes, that You would open the eyes of their hearts so that

they would see you, that they would be able to behold the

wonderful things in Your word, the truth of the blood applied.

Lord, I pray that this morning that we would we would have a

renewed vision of that Lord, for your name's sake, not for us,

but for your name's sake. Lord, please unite our hearts to

fear your name. Help us to be unified in our

worship as we study the issue of taking the Lord's Supper in the

in an improper way. Lord, Lord, we pray that you

would help us to see how we can avoid worshipping you in an

improper way. Lord, you, you want to be

worshipped in a particular way. And so, Lord, we pray that we

would, that we would be a church, a gathered people that

comes wanting to do worship, wanting to be the church the way

you want us to be. And Lord, I pray that you would

help us to be satisfied with you.

Help us to be satisfied with your sacrificial substitutionary

atonement and your steadfast love.

Help us to imitate that love when we come together.

And as we look at this passage today, Lord, help us to listen

and live your word. I pray these things in Jesus

name, Amen. So let's take a look at Chapter

11, verse 17. We're going to read all the way

down to 34. Now in giving you this

instruction, I do not praise you, since you come together not

for the better but for the worse.

For to begin with, I hear that when you come together as a

Church there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it.

Indeed, it is necessary that there be factions among you, so

that those who are proved may be recognized among you.

When you come together. Then it is not to eat the Lord's

Supper, for at the meal each one eats his own supper.

So one person is hungry while another gets drunk.

Don't you have homes in which to eat and drink?

Or do you despise the Church of God and humiliate those who have

nothing? What should I say to you?

Should I praise you? I do not praise you in this

matter, for I received from the Lord that I also passed on to

you. On the night when he was

betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread and we 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 He also took the

cup, and after supper he said, This cup is the new covenant in

my blood. Do this as often as you drink it

in remembrance of Me. For as often as you eat this

bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until

He comes. So whoever eats the bread or

drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty

of sin against the body and the blood of the Lord.

Let a person examine himself in this way.

Let him eat the bread and drink from the cup.

For whoever eats and drinks without recognizing the body,

and eats, eats and drinks judgement on himself.

This is why many are sick, and I'll among you, and many have

fallen asleep. If we were properly judging

ourselves, we would not be judged.

But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that

we may not be condemned with the world.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, when you come together

and eat, welcome one another. If anyone is hungry, he should

eat at home so that when you gather together you will not

come under judgement. I will give you instructions

about the other matters whenever I come.

What a way to end. I'll give you some instructions

later, thanks. It would be nice if he gave us

more, but he didn't. I think we have enough to go

through this morning. My sermon title today is Check

Yourself before you wreck Yourself.

We're playing on the idea that this, this idea of self

examination is the key to coming through our times of worship and

in particular, Paul's addressing the Lord's Supper, coming to the

Lord's Supper, the ordinance of the Lord's Supper with the right

posture of heart. I have three things that I want

us to learn together from this passage when it comes to

checking our hearts. All of these three things point

to this, this key idea here that our attitude and actions toward

each other should mirror the actions and attitude of Christ

toward the church. So when you come together, the

three things that we need to remember are we need to

recognize, we need to remember, and we need to reconcile.

So recognize in verse 17 we see a change of tone.

So last week when Pastor Joe preached his message, we saw in

verse 2, verse 2 Corinthians, First Corinthians 11/2 said

this. It says now I praise you because

you Remember Me in everything and hold fast to the traditions

just as I delivered them to you. So just 15 verses earlier in the

letter, he says, I praise you because you Remember Me in

everything. Now he's changed his tone.

This is like a I'm not beating around the Bush anymore.

He says, now I'm giving this instruction to you.

I do not praise you since you come together for not for the

better, but for the worse. In last week's passage, it seems

like Paul was at least somewhat satisfied with how they were

handling part of an aspect of worship.

And the Corinthians remembered Paul's instructions and they

were holding fast to it. They say, he says you were

holding fast. To this one thing, I commend

you. But here he's not.

They're not doing it. It's almost as if all the things

that Paul had been rebuking them for previously in the letter,

things like favoritism, things like following certain leaders

over others, things like sexual immorality or a confused idea of

headship in the church and in the home, among other things,

all these things, what they're doing is that they're causing

the church pain. They're causing suffering.

When they come together, When they come together, what they do

causes grief. It causes people to feel

alienated, ostracized, when what they should be doing is building

each other up. So Paul starts by, he starts by

recognizing that there are divisions, right?

He says there's factions among you.

He said these factions should not have existed in God's

church. It seems evident that these

these divisions were along the socio economic lines.

So not theological differences, like not like differences on the

Trinity or ideas about how how we're saved.

You know, these differences were like we're I'm dividing the the

congregation up and rich and poor.

They're socio and economic. We can see that by the verse

when he says one goes hungry and another go it gets drunk.

It seems to imply that there were there were people who had

much wealth and could afford to have a lavish meal and there

were people in the congregation that had nothing and couldn't

afford anything. And there are differing views on

how the supper was taken. So like some people think that,

that, that it was like in a big house, like a, like a large

house, somebody, a member of the church had a bigger house and

they invited people over the whole church over to take the

supper. And some, And so sometimes the

rich people would get the, the better seats, right?

They would be, they would get the, the seat that, that gave

the most prominence or whatever. And then the rich people had to

sit outside and take their supper outside.

No matter how you view it, it's very, it's very like evident in

the text that the, the, the supper was a meal.

Not like we take it. I think we take them, I think we

take the supper and sort of reaction to this, like we take

the supper with a little tiny wafer, right, And a little bit

of juice so that we can't be accused of like making people go

hungry or anything like that. So we're we're doing ours in a

response to that in some ways. But here in the text, it seems

evident that in the early church they took it as a full meal.

OK. So it's likely though, that that

what they were doing was like they were, they were eating a

meal like they were instructed to eat, but they had forgotten

and lost the spirit of what the Lord's Supper really means.

They had sort of divorced the meaning from the act.

And we're guilty of that sometimes too.

We, we sometimes put more priority on what we do.

And I think that goes back to Pastor Joe's sermon, what we do

instead of, instead of the meaning and the, the, the

implication behind it, What, what does it mean?

Why do we do what we do? So they had forgotten that, he

writes in verse 20. He says they had forgotten it so

much. It says when you come together,

then it's not to eat the Lord's Supper.

If he were talking to us today, he might, he might say something

like, you know, I don't know what you're doing, but that

ain't it. That is not the supper.

But but what we can see in this text, there is some positives to

to pull from this. I mean, it's a very negative

portion of the text, but I think there's some positives here

because Paul picks up on there. There's a reason for the

factions that is may not be clear, but he says there's three

things I think that that we can see from these factions, from

the divisions. They show us three things.

So I told you my sermon had three points.

It really has 10. So if you're, if you got lunch

plans, I'm sorry, no, I'm kidding.

Little sub points here. The divisions are helpful in

recognizing who is genuine and who is not.

It's helpful for us, like here, it's helpful for the Corinthians

to see who was a true believer. So divisions help us recognize

that how John 310, our first John 310 says this.

It says this is how God's children and the devil's

children become obvious. Whoever does not do what is

right is not of God, especially the one who does not love his

brother or sister. So these divisions in the

church, they display their displays of favoritism, and

they're nothing less than the church following the direction

of culture, right? If you look at our culture

today, you can see that we we also divide by rich and poor.

We also give prominence to rich people and put poor people down

here. That's the culture talking.

And so that they had invited the church that, excuse me, they

invited the culture into the church.

In God's Kingdom, though, we know there are no divisions.

There are no divisions along these lines.

There are only two types of people.

Remember from the very beginning of the chapter, those who are

being saved and those who are perishing.

Those are the two types of people, not rich, poor, not

smart, dumb, no, those who are being saved, those who the Lord

is is working in and and and sanctifying in the truth so they

can become more and more like Christ.

And then those who are perishing, those who do not

believe, those are the only divisions in Christchurch.

So they help us recognize who are genuine believers.

Divisions also are helpful in recognizing opportunities to

serve. So he had no nice words for

these rich people. They're filling their own

bellies, full Turkey dinner, whatever it is they're filling

themselves up with, while there's others in the church

that come to celebrate the Lord's Supper.

We'll talk about more what the Lord's Supper means in just a

second. But they're coming to do

something sacred. They're coming to remember

Christ's sacrifice. But there are rich people who

are acting like like, like they own the world and they're not

sacrificing anything. And in one, excuse me, in 11/22

he says, what? Don't you have homes to eat and

drink? Or do you despise the Church of

God and humiliate those who have nothing?

What should I say to you? Should I praise you?

I do not praise you in this matter.

So instead of acting in the, in the way that they had been

treated, those who had much, they, they should recognize the

opportunity. So they, they shouldn't be

acting the way these people did. They should be thinking, OK,

recognizing an opportunity. So we need to recognize that

there's an opportunity to serve others.

The third thing that divisions help us do is they're helpful in

recognizing selfishness in our own hearts.

So if we're at the meal, each one eats his own supper.

So no person. So one person is hungry while

the other gets drunk. 11/21 These people were eating their

own food. They were eating and drinking so

much that they had become gluttonous.

They become drunkards. Paul's pointing this out and it

should cause those who have a sensitive heart, those who are

genuine believers, as he's writing this letter, as this

letter is being read to them in the church.

What it should be doing is it should be like helping them spot

a blind spot in their life right this way.

Oh, wait a minute. Something's wrong here.

They need to stop and recognizing that what they're

doing is a truly selfish act. So as we think about this

portion of the passage, I just ask you to to, to think with me

for a moment and consider the truths that that differences and

divisions in our own congregation.

There are differences in divisions in our congregation.

There are those who have much, There are those who have near

nothing. There are those in between.

We need to recognize that these divisions can be helpful to us,

so long as we look at them from the proper perspective.

We need to recognize that we are all prone to selfishness.

Rich or poor, we are prone to selfishness, and we need to ask

the Lord to help us kill that sin.

We need to look for ways to be a blessing to others in our

church. And we need to recognize that

there are those among us who are not genuine in our midst and we

need to live our lives as an example to them of what true

sacrifice is. We don't need to recognize that

there are that there are non genuine people, that there are

non believers in our midst and ostracize them.

No, we need to show them love by how we love and serve each

other. We need to live in such a way

that that demonstrates to them what Jesus sacrifice really

means and what the Lord's Supper should really look like.

The Lord's Supper is a reflection of the gospel of what

Jesus did to reconcile himself to us.

And so my second point today, main point would be that we need

to remember. We need to remember.

We need to remember that what what Paul taught the Corinthians

about the Supper teaches us three things about the Lord's

Supper. He writes in First Corinthians

12 Excuse me, 1123 to 26. I'm just going to read these 3

verses again. For I received from the Lord

what I also passed on to you. Paul saying I received from the

Lord could mean one of two things.

It could mean he received it from the Lord himself as he was.

He tells us that Jesus discipled himself.

Remember he had that that instance, that miraculous

conversion, or it could mean the word literally means that I

received it from someone who received it from someone else.

So sort of like passing down traditions, like we receive

things today, we receive it here.

OK, so he says this, he says I received from the Lord what I

also passed on to you on the night when he was betrayed, the

Lord Jesus took bread and we had given thanks.

He broke it and said this is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. And in the same way he also took

the cup after supper and said, This cup is the new covenant in

my blood. Do this as often as you drink it

in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this

bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until

he comes. So he reminds them that that

Jesus delivered them and what they received from the Lord.

This account most closely resembles that of Luke's.

OK, so Luke says, and he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and

gave it to them and said almost almost verbatim what we just

read in First Corinthians. This is my body which is given

for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

So this similarity in the text makes a lot of sense because we

know from the book of Acts, Luke wrote the book of Acts and we

know that that's all about the the Acts of the apostles.

And primarily, most of that book is about Paul and his missionary

journeys. And so we know for a fact that

Luke and Paul spent a lot of time together.

So whether or not Paul received it directly from Lord Jesus or

he received it as teaching from Luke and the other apostles, it

doesn't really matter. It doesn't change the truths.

He delivered it clearly, and we see that here as he reminds them

of that. The three things that I want us

to see that the supper reminds us to do is it tells us to, it's

a reminder that we need to look back.

The first thing that we need to do when it comes to the supper

is we need to look back. So as we're taking communion and

we think about what it means, we need to be looking back.

We need to remember what Christ has done for us.

We need to remember his cross work, right?

The work that he did on the cross for us, we need to

remember that Jesus death and resurrection are central to our

faith. They're not the things that we

just put off to the side and say, OK, being a Christian's

like this, you got to be good to your neighbor.

You got to do this, you got to do nice things for everybody

else. You're going to you're going to

give to the church and do all these things.

Oh, and by the way, you got to believe that Jesus is the Son of

God and he died for his cross for your sins.

No, we believe that it this is central, this is the center

thing for our faith. Jesus death, his resurrection

are the central elements of the Christian faith.

If you don't get that right, you don't get Christianity.

It's central. What he did on the cross in in

ushering in the new covenant is he fulfilled the Passover.

There's no need now for blood sacrifice.

Andrew Nacelli says this. He says Jesus fulfilled the

Passover by accomplishing the ultimate exodus, delivering

people from the bondage of sin. So when we take the supper, we

must remember what Jesus meant when he said this is my body,

which is for you. When we take the bread, we need

to reflect on what Jesus did on the cross.

He bore the wrath for your sin. He bore the wrath for my sin,

for all those who believe He took on our sin.

He died as a substitute for me and you.

So when the Father looks down at me or looks down at you, if

you're a believer, he sees his Son and the atoning work of the

cross, and he sees that you're forgiven.

So when we take the bread, we need to remember that Jesus died

a sacrificial death for our sins.

Our sins separate us from God and Jesus cross work is an act

of ultimate love and reconciliation.

So if we truly reflect on that selfless act and consider all

that Jesus has done for us, then if that doesn't have an effect

on you, if you're sitting there and you're taking the supper and

you're thinking, what is this? It's just bread.

Whatever I'm eating it, it doesn't have an effect on you,

then you really need to consider are you one of his?

Are you genuine? Are you a believer?

If you really truly like reflect on what you're doing, you're

remembering that that that Jesus body was broken for you.

If you if you can do that and not be moved, then I would I

would you need to pray and ask the Lord to help you.

So it brings, I mean, to my second point.

So we need to remember. We need to look back to

remember, but we also need to look out.

Nacelli again is helpful. He writes this.

He says when we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we proclaim the

Lord's death. Verse 26.

Heralding the gospel in this way not only builds up Christians,

but it's also an an act of evangelism.

It evangelizes non Christians who are in our midst, including

our unregenerate children. So if I had to change this

quote, I would say something like, especially our children

who are not believers. I don't know about you, but like

after taking the supper, sometimes my my kids will ask,

why did it pass in front of me? Why could why can't we take it?

Why can't we do it? And that gives me an opportunity

to what to to tell them what it means It we it gives me an

opportunity to share the gospel, the good news that Jesus died

for their sin. It helps me to point to what sin

is to help them understand the explanation, to realize that the

sacrifice was bigger than anything that they could do.

It helps me helps me point to the to the need of a sacrifice.

It, it tells them and tells me as we remind each other, but

that that it was all paid for like your sin has been paid for.

There's no atonement necessary. You don't have to do anything to

make atonement for your sins. There's nothing you can do to,

to make it right with God. The only thing that you can do

is put your faith and trust in Jesus through repentance and

faith. That's what we do when we're

saved. And so it gives us an

opportunity to evangelize. We're proclaiming the Lord's

death until he comes. So it helps us to look out.

It also helps us to look forward, so we take the Lord's

death. Remember, we're proclaiming the

Lord's death until he comes. We proclaim his death.

Not in a somber and sad way. Yes, there is reverence in the

Supper. There is a time for us to

reflect, but we're not reflecting on some sad event.

Why? Because of the resurrection, his

death saved us from our sins, but thank, thank God he didn't

stay there, right He the power of the resurrection is how we

can live and hope that there's a good future.

We're proclaiming that through Jesus death, there is victory

over sin and death. Which brings me to my main final

point today. Reconcile verses 26 to 34.

I mentioned at the beginning of our time that my main point was

this. It was that our attitudes and

actions toward each other should mirror the actions and attitudes

of Christ toward the church. Jesus attitude and actions are

so contrary to our natural tendencies.

I don't know about you, but for me, because of indwelling sin,

the pressures of the world, the flesh and the devil, I often

fall into those same traps that we read about here in First

Corinthians. Paul says that they that those

who eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy

manner are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

And what does he mean by that? It seems that this is the

opposite of verse 26, saying that the supper, taking it in an

unworthy manner is to take the supper without truly remembering

what God did through Jesus. It's like to eat the bread and

not think about it. So to take this, it's like, it's

like taking the supper in a hypocritical way.

This church in Corinth was taking the supper in a way that

marginalized part of their community.

It says no, we're, we're over here, you're over there, you do

your thing, I'm going to do my thing.

We're going to eat and get drunk while you guys have nothing.

They were dividing themselves socially between rich and poor.

They were making a proclamation all like their action by their

act and eating the supper. They were proclaiming that they

were all unified in Christ. But what they were really doing

was dividing up based on what I have and what you don't have.

And so Paul calls him out, right.

He says this is not the supper. You're not doing the supper.

Andy Nacelli adds something again helpful here.

He says this. He says this does not imply that

Christians can make themselves worthy.

So taking it in an unworthy manner does not imply that that

Christians can make themselves worthy of the Lord's Supper by

confessing your sins. So there's nothing like, there's

this like idea, OK, I'll just get my mind right and I'll, I'll

pray and ask the Lord, forgive me.

It's the Lord's Supper today. It's four times a year.

Today's the day I got to get my mind right.

I got to get my heart right. Going to examine myself and make

myself worthy to take the supper.

No, no one's worthy. No one is worthy, and that's why

the Lord's Supper celebrates the gospel.

But Christians must participate in a worthy manner by

maintaining unity in the body. So by by truly thinking about

what we're doing, what we're proclaiming to the world, and

not separating based on certain like just tangible things, but

really understanding that in Christ we are together.

So the next thing Paul says is that they should examine

themselves in 28 to 30. He says let a person examine

himself in this way. Let him eat the bread and drink

of the cup forever eats the drink and drinks without

recognizing the body eats and drinks judgement on himself.

This is why many are sick and I'll among you and many have

fallen asleep or your version may say died.

What Paul is saying here is that when you don't take sin

seriously in your life, when you don't see sin as God sees sin,

and you come together and you participate in the Lord's

Supper, or let's, let's make it even more close to home.

When we participate in worship at all, when we come together

and we worship at all, if we don't take it seriously, we're

pronouncing judgement on ourselves instead.

What they must do and what we must do is we have to check our

pride at the door. We have to examine ourselves in

light of Christ's sacrifice, and that examination is helpful in

understanding that the body in this section most likely refers

to, yes, Christ's body. When we, we, and also the church

has a body. If we eat the supper and neglect

the body of Christ, which is the church, we're also neglecting

each other because of our union with Christ.

To act in a way that disparages the church is to act in a way

that disparages Christ. The result can be catastrophic,

right? Detrimental.

We see that here, that some people got sick, Paul saying

this is this is the reason some of you are sick and this is the

reason some of you are died. I can think of at least one

instance as like an experiential thing for my life where I had

some issues going on that I couldn't figure out why.

I was getting cluster headaches, migraines, I was suffering from

severe anxiety, crippling depression, which I had no

reason for. I had no reason for it.

The the headaches the doctor, I went to the doctor and the

doctor says there's no reason for you to have that.

There's nothing wrong. Everything's fine.

All things check out. Well, one of my friends had the

wisdom to say, hey, Jonah, how is your Christian walk?

How is your walk with the Lord right now?

And I had to be honest that I had not been as Pastor Joe so so

well put it last a couple weeks back.

I have not been feeding my soul for the Lord.

I had been coming to church. I had been doing everything I

was supposed to do. You look at me, you wouldn't

think anything's wrong. I was teaching Sunday school,

saying all the right things, doing all the right things in

public. But when it came to my personal

relationship with the Lord, I was neglecting it.

My friend helped me see that. He helped me see that that what

I needed to do was confess and to repent, to check my pride at

the door. And as soon as I stopped,

realized that and I acted in true repentance, the headache

stopped. I felt better.

That worked for me. I'm not saying that every

ailment that we have is a result of a sinful attitude or sinful

acts or a hypocritical life, but we do see here in First

Corinthians in Chapter 11 that it certainly can be, and I can

attest to experiencing that in my life.

So Paul's solution for the problem we have, we've seen the

problem, the whole problem around this issue, and it's

really his solution for a lot of the other issues that that we

saw throughout the letter. And we will see his solution is

that our attitudes and our actions toward each other should

mirror the actions and attitudes of Christ toward the church.

That is to say, we should all be about the ministry of

reconciliation, find ways to foster unity in the body and 1st

John, we see that one of the the marks of a true believer is

this. I know it's small on the screen.

I apologize for that. Says this is how we have come to

know love. He laid down his life for us.

We should also lay down our lives for brothers and sisters.

If anyone has this world's goods and sees a fellow believer in

need but withholds compassion from him, how does God's love

reside in Him? Little children, let us not love

in Word or speech, but in action and in truth.

This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and will

reassure our hearts before Him. I think Paul has something like

what John says here in mind when he says in verse 33 and 34.

He says, therefore, my brothers and sisters, when you come

together, eat to eat, welcome one another.

If anyone is hungry, he should eat at home.

So if you're starving to death and you feel like you're at risk

of gorging yourself, eat at home so that when you gather, you

don't come under judgement. So I have a few final thoughts

today as we close. We need to live our lives

sacrificially for one another, especially when we gather as the

church. There shouldn't be any

favoritism among us. There shouldn't be any division

among us. So when you come together,

recognize that we're all prone to like division for all sorts

of reasons. We need to see the fact that

some of us have more. There are haves and there are

have nots in our midst as a way to serve one another.

Some of you may be more financially secure than others.

Some have may have more spiritual wisdom than others.

We can all serve each other by sharing what God has blessed us

with. We also need to remember that

the Lord's Supper. As we take the Lord's Supper, we

need that it that it points us to look back to remember just

how much Jesus sacrificed for us to be made right with him.

We need to look around, recognizing that that taking the

Supper is an act of evangelism. It's demonstrating to the lost

in our midst the importance of Jesus death.

And as we look forward to the day when we'll be able to

celebrate and share a meal in the presence of Jesus, when the

work is done and he has fulfilled his promise to make

all things new, we look forward to that day.

And until that day, we'll proclaim Jesus death.

So finally, when we come together, we must be about

reconciliation. When there's division among us,

we need to be quick about examining our hearts, looking

for ways that we've either caused division or been an

accomplice in it. We need to take our sins

seriously and truly ask ourselves if our attitudes and

our actions toward each other truly mirror the actions and

attitudes of Christ Jesus. His attitude was one of selfless

living, one of total sacrifice in humility.

He took on flesh and He came and He lived among men, being

subject to all the same temptations and all the

different things about it, like being tempted to sin but never

doing it. He lives a perfect, sinless

life, and He died on the cross, bearing the wrath of the Father

so that our sins could be forgiven.

When we come together for the Lord's Supper or even just for a

normal service like this, we need to remember this good news

that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.

He sought out those who are on the margins, right?

Those who are on the fringe of society, and he offered them

hope and freedom from the bondage of sin.

And that's good news for them. And it's the same good news for

me and for you. Maybe you're here this morning

and you've been coming to church your entire life.

Maybe you're here this morning and the Lord has been good to

open your eyes to see that trying to earn your way, trying

to pay for things that are already paid for isn't working.

Or maybe you've thought that that somehow you needed to.

Like before you had to get your mind right, you had to get your

body clean. You had to do all this cleaning

your life up before you can come to salvation, that you just

somehow need to pay for it. Brothers and sisters, friends,

it's paid for. That's what the Lord's Supper

represents. When we take the supper, we're

reminding ourselves that that the sacrifice has been made.

There's no, there's no reason for you to like get to the end

of your life and say, I hope I did enough to be saved.

It's already paid for. And if we can get that through

our thick skulls and we can really just truly open our lives

to the fact and reality of that, we will live so much more joyful

lives. If you sense that call in your

life, if the Lord has opened your eyes to that today, talk to

one of us. Grab a pastor, grab a Deacon,

grab a trusted friend, talk to your mom or dad at your

gathering, whatever. But don't like.

Wait around, put your faith in Christ, repent and believe the

gospel. He saved.

He came to seek and to save the lost.

That's what He came for. And as we take the supper, we

proclaim that good news and we will do it together until He

comes. Would you guys pray with me?

Father, thank you so much for for this text.

Thank you for what it has done in my own heart this week.

Lord, I pray for for those who who haven't put their faith in

you. Lord, I pray that they would not

waste another moment, that they would recognize that You paid it

all to recognize that the blood shed at the cross is applied.

Father, help us to live your word and to love you more.

I pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.