Mystery & Mercy | Part 4

Well good morning church family. Over the past three weeks we've been studying

the doctrine of the Eucharist and we've been asking a few important questions.

First of all, what does the Bible teach about communion? Second of all, how has

the church approached that subject over the past 2,000 years? And then third, what

is our conviction here at Oak Hill about how the Lord's Table should be practiced?

Now if you were with us last Sunday you know that we spent about 30 minutes

talking about what I called the river of Reformation that started to flow in the

early 16th century. And we looked at the four major streams that came out of that

river both in Europe and then eventually coming over to America. And those four

streams were the Lutherans, the Anabaptists, the Classic Reformed which

of course included both the Swiss and the Dutch Reformed and the Scottish

Presbyterians, and then finally the Anglicans or what we call the Church of

England. Now a few of you reached out to me last week because you noticed there

was something missing from our history lesson and you were right there was one

big missing piece and some big names that were left out so good job for

noticing. So today we're gonna fill out the picture by looking at the one thing

I didn't touch on last Sunday and that is the evangelical movement. And of

course that's sort of ironic because many of us would say that's our tribe

within the Christian world. So here's the question, what is evangelicalism and

where did it come from? Well it's an interesting study because it has quite a

substantial history and yet it's really difficult to nail down an exact

definition of what an evangelical is. Now the main reason for that is that

evangelicalism has been referred to as trans-denominational, meaning it goes

beyond typical denominational lines. So technically you could pull together in

one room a Baptist, a Presbyterian, a Lutheran, and a person who calls

themselves non-denominational and they could all say we're evangelicals and

that can be confusing. Now the word itself comes from the biblical word for

gospel in the original Greek language it's pronounced eungelion. So in a

purely definitional way an evangelical is a person or a church that's primarily

concerned with the gospel. So that's a good thing right? By the way the concept

does stretch all the way back to the Reformation not in a formal way but in

this sense. Some of the earliest reformers were said to go about

gospeling people. That's the phrase they use, gospeling them as they shared the

good news about salvation by faith alone. So back in that day the word was used as

a verb but it was the English Puritans who truly began to embody the word

evangelical itself. They were the ones who actually brought it across the

Atlantic to our shores and then as the Puritan movement faded away the term was

picked up by other groups like Congregationalists and Baptists and

Presbyterians, all these different denominations that were established in

the late colonial period. Then we come to what's known as the First Great

Awakening which took place in the 1730s and 1740s and most historians pinpoint

this moment as the truest root of the evangelical movement. Some of the

greatest preachers in history were active in this time, Jonathan Edwards and

George Whitefield in particular. And in those days many Christians had fallen

into an overly formal sort of mechanical faith and it was this old-fashioned

town-to-town revival work done by men like Edwards and Whitefield which woke

early Americans out of their slumber. Thus we have the term awakening. It

woke them up. Now interestingly the First Great Awakening was marked by

Calvinist theology which had been passed down by the Puritans but the American

Church would soon shift towards a different perspective towards an

Arminian view of salvation which interpreted the spread of the gospel in

America as a man-centered event combined with a free will response. Now some of

that was driven by John Wesley, very famous name, and his highly structural

view of the Christian life which became known as Methodism. Today we have the

Methodist Church. Wesley focused on developing a step-by-step method of

achieving holiness and that's where we get the Methodist Church today. Then came

the Second Great Awakening about 50 years after the first and just prior to

the Civil War. Charles Finney was the primary man who was responsible as the

spark of the Second Awakening. He was a strong proponent of Arminianism and he's

often credited with being the inventor of what we call the altar call. And like

Wesley he believed strongly in the idea that a Christian could grow to become

spiritually sinless and perfect in his lifetime. Then there were men like

Barton Stone and Thomas and Alexander Campbell who took the gospel west into

the expanding frontier and they put an emphasis on simplifying the faith

launching a movement that today is known as the Church of Christ. So even though

preachers in both of those two awakenings had differences in theology

and came from different denominational backgrounds, their efforts collectively

are said to be evangelical. So looking back the word evangelical becomes

synonymous with a few basic principles. Number one, the idea of Holy Spirit led

revivals. Number two, the authority of the Bible. Number three, an emphasis on being

born again. And number four, the urgent need for evangelism and missions. And as

a result of that fourth emphasis the 19th century became known as the great

century of global missions led by evangelicals. So missionaries were sent

forth from both Europe and America to faraway places like India and Burma and

China. So missions were huge in that time plus during this period you had Christian

publishing that became a force for the gospel through mass production of

books and also gospel tracts. Now in the midst of all this gospel activity a

series of challenges also rose up in the middle of the 19th century. Charles

Darwin published his Origin of Species in 1859 and so this this push towards

evolution then drove what came to be known as a period of higher criticism of

the Bible. That was a very aggressive secularism that stood in judgment over

the scriptures calling into question everything from biblical miracles to

the life of Jesus himself. And sadly that higher criticism movement produced all

kinds of variant streams of liberal theology. Now there was pushback against

this and that came from a variety of evangelical sources including Dwight

L. Moody and his Bible Institute in Chicago and some brilliant scholars out

of all places Princeton University. You can't imagine that Princeton University

was once a gospel oriented school but it was. Charles Hodge and B.B. Warfield

brilliant scholars who defended and fought for the integrity of the Bible.

With the turn of the 20th century we have the Pentecostal movement which was

born right here in Los Angeles on Azusa Street in the year 1906 and then in the

1920s we saw a sharp split take place in the evangelical church that we are still

feeling today. Some Christians felt it was time to let go of biblical

inerrancy and embrace this new science of evolution and they moved away from

evangelicalism and historians call this the break between the modernists and the

fundamentalists. And the modernists matriculated into the mainline

denominations embracing various forms of liberal theology while the

fundamentalists stood firm in their evangelical ideas. Now the problem with the

fundamentalists was increasingly the world began to see them as angry and

hostile all the time and people started asking questions is that really what

Jesus has called us to be? Are we supposed to be separatists that go around

wagging our fingers and judging everyone and everything around us? And so after

World War II the pendulum swung hard back towards evangelicals who embodied a

much more positive upbeat image back to the idea of revivals and Crusades and of

course Billy Graham played a huge role in that movement. Plus you had magazines

being published now like Christianity Today and a huge outreach to

teenagers called Youth for Christ and so in that period evangelicalism once again

became popular. But then the culture took a very shocking and sharp turn away from

Christianity with the coming of the Vietnam War and the sexual revolution of

the 1960s. And what's interesting about church history here is when you take a

step back you begin to see that there's this constant action and reaction

tendency. We swing the pendulum culture goes this way the church goes that way

and it goes back and forth. So that chaos of the 1960s and into the 70s brought a

counter reaction among evangelicals in the form of a movement called the moral

majority led by Jerry Falwell Sr. and that was followed by a renewed emphasis

on restoring not just morality in public life but also restoring the concept of

biblical families. So we saw the formation of for example James Dobson's

focus on the family and the creation of what's called the Family Research

Council. Then came the 1980s everybody's favorite decade at least if you're my

age. A decade which saw a number of massive shifts in the evangelical world.

First of all there was the so-called charismatic movement that caught fire

and the charismatic movement was just Pentecostalism light and so it brought a

much more subtle and acceptable form of Pentecostalism into evangelical circles

and it began to penetrate that movement. With it came a renewed emphasis on

contemporary praise and worship music and most popular was the Great

Hillsong movement that came out and suddenly everybody in the church was

singing Hillsong songs. Then in the 80s and 90s produced what came to be known

as the seeker sensitive church movement through huge entertainment

based mega churches like Willow Creek outside of Chicago and Saddleback Church

in Orange County and the emphasis in the seeker sensitive movement was on the

church trying to meet people's felt needs. So the church felt like we need to

go out find out why people aren't coming to church and then then arrange our

church to meet those people's felt needs and the thinking was if you can draw

people into the church by meeting their needs using things like entertainment

and prosperity as the draw they'll keep coming back and eventually come to know

Jesus. Now that's a lot of history and most people don't know a lot about it

but today if you were to walk outside and ask the average person on the street

what is an evangelical he or she is likely to think first of all in terms

of politics. They will point to which political party we support and which

candidates we support and friends that is a very very sad development. Now last

Sunday I talked about how here at Oak Hill we are theological mutts. We don't

really belong in any one stream of the Reformation we're sort of a hybrid

church which is driven very simply by what the Bible teaches and our

conviction of how those principles should be lived out in the body and

because of the current state of evangelicalism in America we're not all

that enthusiastic about referring to ourselves in that way anymore. I mean

let's be honest most of the evangelical church today is a mile wide and only

about an inch deep and it has suffered greatly from decades of neglect in the

areas of doctrine of sound teaching and discipleship. Historically we've laid

aside this robust theology this rich history that we have and we've picked up

the tools of the world instead thinking they would be the thing to draw people

to Jesus. So we've dipped into entertainment and celebrity

culture and comfort and casualness and worldly standards of success and what

we've reaped from all that is a reputation that is not good. A reputation

for hypocrisy and a lack of seriousness. Some of that is deserved some of it is

driven by a hostile media but either way it's a great shame because there is so

much of what is good and biblical in evangelical history it just seems to be

like ancient history now. So as I said last Sunday what we want to be here at

Oak Hill is an independent Bible church that grabs hold of what is biblically

sound in our spiritual heritage and reject what has proven to be shallow and

unhelpful and by the way we've been doing that for about the past 10 years or so.

It hasn't been easy but we've been firming up what we believe in order to

become more biblical more attuned to church history and healthier as a body

and one of the ways we've done that is through our emphasis on membership and

our view of how the communion table should be guarded and that is where we're

going to spend the rest of our time this morning. So grab your Bibles and let's

turn to 1st Corinthians chapter 11. 1st Corinthians chapter 11. I'm not going to

read the whole passage together today because I'm short on time but I'll be

referencing some key passages in this chapter right between verses 17 and 34

so just keep your phone open. Alright, recall last week I laid out what takes

place when we come to the Lord's table. Specifically we talked about the

spiritual presence of Christ found in the signs that have been given to us the

bread and the cup and we talked about our posture towards the Lord when we

come to his table not as ashamed people bringing him an offering but as a

thankful people who receive gifts from his loving hand. So that was last week.

Today is about who should come to the supper and how they should come. That's

what Paul is talking about here in 1st Corinthians 11. Now keep in mind that

1st Corinthians was written as a corrective letter. Paul's doing two

things as he writes to the church in Corinth. First he was answering a series

of questions that have been posed to him about practical matters and then second

he was addressing some serious problems that had come up in the life of the

church. So a lot of this section of scripture is about rebuking and

correcting. Now one of the problems that he's addressing and it's a big one was

how communion was being administered and observed there in Corinth. Here's the

good news they were living out the sacrament as Christ had instructed but

the bad news was they'd strayed so far from its true meaning and purpose. In

fact this problem was so serious that according to Paul it had resulted in

drastic disciplinary measures on God's part. Because of their failure

some members of the church had grown weak and sick and others had actually

died. Think about that for a second. In a thinking world that kind of news

would bring a response like this. Wow how did the Corinthians fail here? Whatever

it was that should be our number one priority to make sure we don't fail in

the same way. And since it would result in actual death you had to think at the

time this must be the most serious of all matters right? It's got to be

something about murder or rape or kidnapping or or at least adultery right?

But the answer is no none of those things. Paul says that God has disciplined

his people physically even taken their lives for this reason. Because they had

come to the Lord's table and participated in an unworthy manner. And

therefore he says they are guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. This sin

whatever it is is so heinous that this failure it lumps people into the same

category as those who put Jesus on the cross. Think about that. So we better

figure out what this means. Whatever it is to come to the table in an unworthy

manner it requires serious consideration for both churches and for church

leadership right? I don't think we've done a lot of work on this. We haven't

really taken this seriously as we should. But we better get this right or get it

corrected if we're in error. So key question why was the Corinthians conduct

so offensive to God? The answer to that question lies in the true meaning of the

supper and in the Lord's great love for his body the church. So when you read a

passage of Scripture like this the best best thing to do when you're looking for

a reason is to look at what it actually says and then keep the main thing the

main thing and the main thing here has to do with the unity of the body the

unity of the body. So hear me carefully as I say this because it's a huge

misconception that many many Christians have today. The reason God disciplined

the believers in Corinth was not because they were spiritually unworthy to come

to his table. The reason behind God's severity was the distinct lack of unity

and love in that church. Let me say it again the distinct lack of unity and love in

that church was exemplified by their actions at the communion table. Look at

verse 17. Paul says, but in giving this instruction I do not praise you because

you come together not for the better but for the worse. For in the first place

when you come together as a church I hear that divisions exist among you and

in part I believe it. So underline that word divisions. Divisions in the church

cliques of people unresolved conflict between believers. Factionalism on

display in the midst of what should be one of the most sacred moments in the

life of the church. And Paul's language here is very strong he says like if

you're gonna act like this if what you're doing reflects what's truly in

your heart it would be better if you didn't gather at all. You're hurting

members of your own spiritual family your brothers and sisters in the Lord

and you're doing damage to the reputation of Christ and the testimony of

his church. It would be better if he didn't come together. Now drop down to

verse 20 he says therefore when you meet together it is not to eat the Lord's

Supper for in your eating each one takes his own supper first one is hungry and

another is drunk. That is shocking stuff isn't it? Your gluttony is showing Paul

rights your lack of self-control your inability to moderate your appetites and

all those things are immature and foolish absolutely but listen here's the

core of it you just don't care about each other. That's the core you care only

for yourselves. I'm hungry so I'll eat my fill. This wine is delicious so pour me

another cup. Your fellow church members don't figure into your decisions and

therefore he says you may think you're eating the Lord's Supper but you're not.

There's nothing supernatural nothing spiritual happening at all because you've

nullified its meaning and its power and then if you look a little deeper there's

something even more wicked happening beneath that raw self-centeredness. Look

at verse 22 he says what do you not have houses in which to eat and drink or you

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

nothing. So now we see it's also an economic issue a class issue there in

Corinth. It seems that there is this upper crust of people the wealthier

elites in the church and they're arriving at the meal early and indulging

themselves without considering their poor members. These are the ones who

didn't have the freedom to arrive early at the meal probably people that are

working long hours blue-collar type workers working long hours or even some

who are stuck in indentured slavery. So imagine for a second already feeling

like a second-class citizen in the church because of your your economic

level and then you arrive excited for the the supper as soon as you possibly

can expecting to worship and fellowship only to find out that the others have

started without you. And now there's nothing but scraps left there is blatant

inequality going on in the church at Corinth and so this is appalling to Paul

and that's why he says do you despise the church strong language. So there's a

reason why early on in the life of the church James even warned about this very

very same thing he talked about favoritism in the worship service and

there's a reason why we have the story of Paul rebuking Peter. Remember Paul

wrote that prior to the coming of certain men Peter used to eat with the

Gentiles but when these Jews came he began to withdraw fearing a backlash

from them. So Paul says I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned he

was deviating from the truth of the gospel. So Paul viewed Peter's sin as a

blatant attack and affront to the gospel and he wasn't going to put up with it. So

that's the type of stuff that's happening here in Corinth. Now don't miss

this too this part of Paul's rebuke because it's often overlooked look at

verse 18 he says when you come together as a church that noun Ecclesia is

written in the singular a church that means he's describing the community

table as everybody together the whole body at one time together and that's the

pattern throughout scripture one body one gathering and that's reinforced if

you look down at verse 33 it's reinforced in this summary exhortation at

the bottom of the passage verse 33 so then my brethren when you come together

to eat wait for each other very simple right the question is how can a local

church was which is designed by God to be one interconnected body how can they

launch into a celebration of the Lord's Supper when only part of the church has

arrived and frankly in my mind that raises the question about large churches

today with multiple services they say they're one body and they they say we're

coming together as one and yet they don't even know each other because they

don't come together in one place okay let's talk about the self-examination

piece then in verses 27 and 28 because this is where Christians tend to get a

little bit confused they they they think they know what Paul's talking about but

they're often mistaken verse 27 says therefore whoever eats the bread or

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

body and the blood of the Lord here it is but a man must examine himself and in

so doing he's to eat the bread and drink the cup now the average Christian when

they read unworthy manner and must examine himself we immediately think of

our private personal sins we think about all the ways that God must be very angry

with us because we've fallen so short in our walk with him so our thinking usually

goes something like this okay we rub our hands we get all upset and we go before

I come to the table I better be all prayed up I better remember and confess

everything and be as pure as I possibly can before I partake otherwise I'm gonna

be judged by God oh and if I don't feel pure enough in that moment well then I

have to withdraw from the table and just let the elements pass by that's the way

we often think but there is a glaring theological problem with that way of

thinking notice that idea that I just mentioned it's not found anywhere in

first Corinthians 11 it's not there that is a self-imposed concept that has been

taught and retaught for far too long in fact it was taught to me and I believe

that for many many years and frankly for many Christians that has made the Lord

Supper a very joyless affair where we come and we beat ourselves up and we

wallow in shame rather than come to actually commune with the Lord and to be

nourished by him now as I shared last week I'm not saying that confession of

sin doesn't matter when we come to the table it certainly does what I'm saying

is is that repentance and confession is supposed to be an everyday thing a

moment-by-moment thing not just something we do when we come to the

Supper and by the way we dare not tread where the Catholic Church lives holding

to the idea of penance where the sinner before he can come to the table has to

go out and do a list of things to somehow work off their sin so that we're

deemed worthy to commune with God that is unbiblical no repentance is a

changing of the mind it's a coming into agreement with God about our sin and we

can do that in an instant when we look to him even as the elements are being

distributed we can cry out to God acknowledge our weakness and come to his

throne with confidence precisely because Christ gave up his body and blood for us

that's the truth our sin should drive us towards Christ not make us withdraw

because his table is for sinners like you and me and when we come to the table

we don't bring a sacrificial offering to God other than ourselves we are actually

the offering living sacrifices like the disciples in that upper room we allow

Christ to be the host of the meal and we receive gifts of grace from his hand

grace that reminds us of his love for us grace that reaffirms all of his promises

towards us grace that will nourish our souls and strengthen our faith and in

that sense we really do feed upon him spiritually as we partake in his body

and blood so let me summarize this is really important this warning in verses

27 and 28 is not about how deeply and thoroughly I can examine my heart in

relation to my personal sin and confession based on the context of this

chapter it is a warning to examine ourselves in relation to how we are

operating in the local body that is so important to know look at the verse next

verse verse 29 for he who eats and drinks eats and drinks judgment to

himself that's what we're afraid of right but look what it says if he does

not judge the body rightly well what body are we talking about here well

there's two bodies involved with the Lord's Supper right first of all the

sign of the bread points us to the reality of Christ's literal body which

is in heaven seated at the right hand of the Father and second his body here on

earth which is what the church so judge the body rightly Paul says that means

this understand what the meal points to Christ's body and then make sure you

understand the high value that Jesus places on his body on earth the church

so here's some good self-examination questions to ask when you come to the

table do I understand that the church is Christ's body and bride and therefore

deserving of the highest level of honor and respect does my life in the church

reflect an act of love for my brothers and sisters am I involved in a form of

division or part of a clique in my church am I holding on to a grudge

against another person in my church family am I living a life in the body

that is self-centered or other centered this is what Paul is trying to get at in

first Corinthians 11 these are the things that need to be repented of and

potentially repaired in a tangible way before partaking of the family meal so

this is why we let you know when communion is coming if you have two or

three weeks and you know it's coming you have time now to take whatever steps are

necessary to repair any divisions in the body now I realize that very few

Christians today would act like the Corinthians did in our text in the first

place we don't usually combine communion with a real agape feast where a full

dinner is served so you're not going to see Christians today gorging themselves

or getting drunk at communion but listen here's how we can fall into the very same

error we can wrongly come to believe that the Lord's Supper is just an

individual thing between me and God that's it so communion is when I come to

the table and I get right with God it's when I purify myself through confession

and then I go I try to picture Jesus taking the nails and bleeding on the

cross and then I feel bad and I thank him for his sacrifice oh and it's great

that there's others here with me but really the focus is on my worship and

on my relationship with the Lord that is not the picture Jesus drew for us in the

upper room and it's not the picture Paul is painting here in first

Corinthians 11 now again I'm not trying to say that the Lord's table has no

connection to the individual of course it does because we're all individually

responsible for our spiritual life with Jesus but a narrow individualist

mindset doesn't reflect the full picture of how we're to live out a life of

worship give you an example of this here's how you and I should think of our

time together when we walk into a church service like this morning here's what we

should be thinking the people around me today are my truest family and together

we make up God's people at Oak Hill our hearts are being knit together more and

more as we sing with one voice as we pray with one heart as we sit together

under the word being preached so that together we grow stronger as a spiritual

force in this community and beyond that's how we should be thinking now if

that was your mindset when you came in today I praise the Lord for that but to

be honest most Christians are closer to this mindset I wonder what I'm gonna get

out of the worship today I wonder what God's gonna show me in the sermon how am

I gonna be built up and encouraged that's the wrong mindset or it could be

worse I'm not comfortable in this seat I don't really like this song the sermon

isn't connecting with me or I'm annoyed by these people over there yikes right

see I think it's possible that some of the the first century Corinthians they

were attacked they were taken back by Paul's rebuke here because they were

blind to it my guess is some of them were thinking Paul what do you mean

despise the church we love this church this church is perfect for us I love the

way we worship I love our feasts I eat my fill I get I get to drink this all

fan why would we despise this church it's actually quite easy to become

blinded by our own self-centeredness and yes it's possible to love being a part

of Oak Hill to love coming to worship to love being part of church events and

still in the eyes of God despise his church because you put the priority on

yourself and you've neglected the body as a whole we should never lose sight of

the truth that together we are both the body of Christ and the bride of Christ

and if you're not actively cherishing the bride how can you say that you truly

love the groom okay so let's bring this back to the Lord's Supper know this in

the previous chapter in first Corinthians 10 Paul speaks of a loaf

that's broken at the Lord's table and he says this since there is one bread we

who are many are one body for we all partake of the one bread one one one

right so the entire church is to gather in unity is one body acting as one loaf

of bread without the leaven of division or strife in their midst here's part of

what that means that means that this meal is not for unbelievers it's not for

unbelievers now we love when unbelievers are here with us on Sunday morning in

worship we love when unbelievers come to our small groups during the week we

treasure those opportunities to show them Christ's love in those situations

but communion is altogether different it is set apart as a time of intimate

fellowship reserved only for those who are members of Christ as we say here at

Oak Hill it's a family meal so here's a logical question that follows everything

that I've shared thus far from this chapter how how can a church make sure

that we're coming to the Lord's table as one book as only believers with no

division no strife and that we don't defile the table and put the souls of

our people at risk how do we do that let me run that through again how do we come

together making sure that only believers are there that there's no division or

strife among us and that we don't defile the table and put the souls of our

people at risk how do we do that well I want you to imagine for a second being

the pastor of a church okay think about a typical communion Sunday morning

typical church imagine you're the pastor at the front and you're explaining

communion and the elements are about ready to go out now imagine you're the

pastor and you know your sheep really well okay you know what's happening in

the body and you give them this warning about making sure they judge the body

rightly right and you look out of your congregation and the elements go out and

they start getting past and what do you see well there's two people I know in

the back that are are hating on each other right now right there they have

unresolved conflict then there's this group up here and they're sort of

clickish I know they have a long-standing problem with this group

over here and I know that there's a guy here and a guy over there they're not

believers yet we're glad they're here but they're not believers and then

there's some new folks I see they're visitors I have no idea who they are or

what their spiritual condition is okay so I'm dealing with all that and there

go the elements and everybody's partaking of communion what do you do

as a shepherd you walk up and snatch the elements out of their hands and tell

them they got to go outside and then continue without them that would be rude

well maybe you just give that warning and you hope for the best right hope

that they'll heed the warning but the reality is in my experience is they

don't if they're spiritually unhealthy or they're spiritually mature they're

not going to let those elements pass by and a big part of that is because if they

let it pass by and people see it it's grounds for juicy gossip like hey how

did why did those two people allow it to pass what's their sin and so most folks

will participate in the elements even if they know they shouldn't simply

because of peer pressure now you might say well that's on them but that's not

the heart of a shepherd the true shepherd is always looking to defend and

protect the sheep under his care I cannot stand by and pretend that that's

not happening that people are eating and drinking judgment upon themselves and

I'm allowing it by not overseeing the table as a shepherd in the church so to

kill we want to provide oversight to communion in such a way that the

following things take place number one again only true believers are present

number two the entire body comes to the table as one without division or strife

and number three that the sheep are all protected from eating and drinking

judgment upon themselves now imagine this is a solution what if a church were

of the right size where the shepherds had the ability to know their sheep well

and to know what was actually happening in their lives what if the shepherds

were so deeply involved in body life that they were aware whenever conflict

came up that they could help to facilitate reconciliation before the

next communion service and what if the sheep made a formal commitment to submit

to their shepherds and to put the needs of others before their own and what if

these shepherds had a process by which they could carefully discern whether the

sheep are true believers or not question would those things be helpful in

preserving the Lord's table in a way that pleases God and builds up the body

here at Oak Hill we think it we think it does that's what we call guarding the

communion table guarding the table and this is something the church has always

done so we're not making this up at a whole cloth the early church the

historical record tells us that the table was carefully guarded in the first

400 years of the church we know that guarding the table was then reinstituted

by the reformers in their day and we know that it was standard practice among

the Puritans when they came over here to America in fact up until recent history

in the 20th century when things began to get squishy and casual the church was

always concerned with guarding the spiritual integrity of the Lord's

Supper and it's always been the responsibility of the shepherds to do it

so here at Oak Hill we take that historical charge seriously not because

the elder team wants to lord our power over others that's often we're accused

of that that we just want to lord our power no we do this out of biblical

conviction and out of love love first of all for Christ right to keep his

table pure but then love for the flock to protect them and to guide them in the

way they should go that is our calling as shepherds now here's the key the

means by which we do this is through membership everyone who comes to the

communion table at Oak Hill has walked through a membership process with our

elders they have committed themselves to every other member of the body through

a sign covenant so every person at the Lord's table is committed to living

life together every person is committed to unity every person is committed to

accountability every person is committed to living out the one another's of

scripture and committed to practicing forgiveness and reconciliation that's

what it means to be a member at Oak Hill and so we don't observe the Lord's table

on a Sunday morning because unbelievers might be present or visitors might be

with us we come to the table at a separate member communion service where

the shepherds can ensure the integrity of the supper is being maintained again

for the glory of Christ first and secondly for the protection of the flock

now I've heard people say many times I'm not sure I like this whole idea of

membership in the church Jeff feels very exclusive but guys membership is such a

strong biblical concept Romans 12 five says we who are many are one body in

Christ and individually members of one another

melos in the Greek member fusions 425 we're members of one another 1st

Corinthians 12 12 for even as the body is one and it has many members and all

the members of the body though they are many are one body later in verse 27 now

you are Christ body and individually members of it the verse prior to that if

one member suffers all the members suffer with it if one member is honored

all the members rejoice with it listen 17 times in 1st Corinthians 12 alone Paul

uses the word member so when people say I don't like this idea of membership in

the church my response is always you're gonna have to take that up with Paul so

listen so much more could be said about this topic the case for membership in

the local church is a worthy one but it is worth a whole sermon series in and of

itself but if you have any questions on that subject please don't hesitate to

reach out to me or to another elder we'd be happy to sit down with you over a

cup of coffee or a good meal and talk about what that means amen let's pray

together you