The Table Of The Lord

Mark: Good morning. Are you guys glad to be in church on Sunday morning? Yeah? Good. Well, why don't you look at your neighbor and just tell them they look beautiful on a Sunday morning. Come on, tell somebody. Encourage them. What do you guys think about this weather these last couple days? Man, it's perfect. Perfect. Well, hey, my name is Pastor Steve. We get the honor and privilege to get to be a part of our student ministry here at Hope. If you don't know who I am, Pastor Josh and Christie send their greetings. They're ⁓ enjoying, ⁓ they're back now, but they're enjoying a much needed time away together. And they'll be back next week. But we're going to jump in the Word today. How many loves the Bible, the Word of God? Are you thankful for it? Grab your Bible, grab your notebook. I'll give you three guesses on what we're talking about today. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 23. We're gonna talk about the Lord's table today. It's gonna be good. Presence of God is here. Thankful for our worship teams and just an atmosphere where the Lord is present, amen? 1 Corinthians 11, 23. If you don't have a Bible, that's okay. We got a magic floating Bible in the sky for you. 1 Corinthians 11, 23. The apostle Paul says this, I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread. And when he'd given thanks, he broke it. And he said, what's those next four words? This is my body. If you've got your hard copy of your Bible, you might want to underline, circle those four words. This is my body. which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Verse 25, in the same way also he took the cup after supper saying, this is the new covenant in my blood. You can underline that too. This 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 this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Anybody thankful for? The sacrifice of Jesus, verse 27, whoever therefore, so Paul opens up these teaching, this teaching about communion and he opens up with the wonder, the beauty, the blessing of it. And now he closes with a warning. We need both. Verse 27, therefore, whoever eats this bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, We'll be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That's a pretty strong warning. Let's pray today. We need the preacher to show up. Beautiful Jesus, I pray that you would come into this room in an increasing way and reveal who you are. We want to see who you are. We want to see you rightly. And we want to respond to you rightly. So we ask you for more than information today, we pray, lead us into the person, the man with fire in his eyes and holes in his hands. We want to see you. Jesus today. Amen. I'm going to give you guys a little hypothetical this morning. We've all probably been here before and somebody is like trying to tell you about an experience that they had and they're going for it, man. They got the hand motions. Any hand talkers in here? They got energy. They got the details and you're listening. You are locking in. You're nodding your head at the right moments. You're like, yeah. Yeah, yeah, wow, crazy. Anybody ever been there? You understand the words, you feel their excitement, but there's still a gap. Because no matter how well somebody explains it to you, no matter how passionate they are, it doesn't fully hit you the way it hit them. Because explanation alone can only take us so far. Right? When someone explains an experience to us, we can understand it, but we're still very much standing on the outside of it. We can repeat the story. We can quote what they said, but we're still not in it like they are. Now, let's take it to another level. Let's say they pull out their iPhone and they show you the video. Right? How many does that? Every story, they're like, I got a video in here somewhere. I know it's in here somewhere. But they show you the video and instantly it changes, right? Because now you're not just hearing about it, you're seeing it. You see the moment, you hear the sounds, you can catch some of the emotion on the faces and suddenly you're like, okay, that was crazy, right? Because the gap starts to close. But even at that, You're still not fully in it, right? ⁓ Because you're watching it through a screen, it's better, but it's not the full experience because there's still another level. How many knows there's a difference between someone explaining it, someone showing it, and you actually stepping into it? Explanation says, me tell you about it. Observation says, let me show you what it looks like. But friends, what we're after is participation. Come with me and step into it for yourself. How many know that at the deepest level Christianity is participatory? The New Testament, it does not just invite us to admire Christ, it invites us to be united with the man. Not just to think about his death, not just to admire his death, but to actually die with him. Not just to admire grace at a distance, but to come near and participate in what he has given. Christianity is participatory. Observation though, we tend to drift, myself included, towards observation because observation is safe, Observation is safe, but participation demands that we come close enough to touch. And that, that is why the sacraments are so important. The sacraments are one of God's ways of saying, I am not going to let you keep this at a distance. So everybody's got a little communion cup in their hands. I just, more than teaching a message today, I wanna lead you in communion. So just, as we're listening today, would you just put that in your hands? Just kind of be conscious that. that is there, feel it, it's tangible, you can touch it, feel it in your hands, it's material to manifest. So just kinda, just have that in your hands. The sacraments. They are moments where God chooses to take something simple and something physical. And in his wisdom, he actually uses these simple things to bring us into something deeply spiritual, something that we can actually experience. God never intended to be an idea that we agree with. He intended to be a life that we enter into. Because we're not just interacting with ideas, church, we're encountering a living God. From the very beginning, God has always worked this way, right? He formed Adam from dust. He breathed into lungs. He walked in a garden. God does not avoid the physical, friends. He fills it up. Jump to the New Testament. God does not move away from that. He actually intensifies it. John 1. where the word actually becomes flesh and blood and moves into the neighborhood. God didn't just send information. He came embodied, which means Christianity at its core is not about ideas floating in the air. It's about God entering into our reality so that we could enter into his. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth just as it is in heaven. It's one of my favorite quotes, Elizabeth Browning, she says it like this, this is beautiful. Earth is crammed with heaven and every common bush a fire with God. But only he who turns aside to see takes off his shoes. The rest just sit around and pluck berries. And experiential Christianity matters deeply. Because without experience, all of this just slowly drifts into abstract ideas. Truth becomes something we agree with intellectually instead of something that reshapes us actually. The cross becomes a symbol that we admire. We put it around our necks, we put the sticker on our car instead. of it becoming the place where we actually die and are made new. And God in His kindness and wisdom refuses to let us stay there. So He gives us moments where the truth is not just heard, it's encountered. Experiential Christianity, it's not about chasing feelings. It's about engaging reality and stepping into what Christ has already done until it becomes real in us. Ephesians 3.18, Paul says it again, just like this, look at this. Let me summarize that you may have strength to comprehend. He goes on, what is the breadth and length and height and depth? And then he says this phrase, he says, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of Christ, to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. So let me get this straight, You want us to know something that can't be known? Thank you very much for that. But when Paul uses that word know, to know the love of Christ, Paul is reaching for something that cannot be contained in information alone. Knowledge. that goes beyond knowing. The word he uses for no is the Greek word gnosko and it doesn't mean to understand something intellectually. It means to be known by experience. It means to know by encounter, by participation. This is experiential Christianity. It's not anti-intellectual, but it is beyond intellectual. It's not less than truth, but it is more than explanation alone. This is one of the reasons why the sacraments matter so much. Because they refuse to let our faith stay theoretical. Right, they pull us, they pull us into encounter. Imagine that, that in your hand. God designed to pull you into an encounter with Him. How does He do this? God doesn't just preach the gospel to us in words, he puts it in our hands. We can taste it. He places it before us and he invites us to taste and see that the Lord is good. This is God's idea. Friends, you guys realize that? That's God's idea. These are not religious props. These are not little rituals that we came up with to make moments feel more spiritual. These are holy acts ordained by God. This right here is holy ground. It's holy ground where God takes the gospel out of abstraction and brings it near to us in a form that we can enter, not just think about. This has to be rediscovered. It has to be. Not as magic, but as holy participation. Where the gospel is not just stated with words, but it's actually stepped into. So we're gonna look at communion today and somewhere along the line, could somebody throw a clock up for me, because I wanna leave enough time for communion at the end. Somewhere along the way, ⁓ myself included, we have subtly learned how to approach communion as like just a reminder, right? Which isn't necessarily wrong, it's not bad. But the early church approached. the table of Lord much differently. They actually approached this table more like it was an altar. For the first 1500 years, communion was not treated like a church add-on. It was the center of the gathering. Christians approached the table. It was sacred, holy ground, like the place where heaven and earth actually met. They saw communion, the table of the Lord. So we'll say the table of the Lord, communion. ⁓ The Eucharist, we're all talking about the same thing, right? The Lord's Supper, it's all the same thing. They saw this as a place where the gathered church actually met with the crucified and risen Christ. So can I give you just a little church history? Because I understand we all have different backgrounds and lenses and all this stuff. Of course, we all agree that scripture is the highest authority, amen? Well how many know scripture is not self-interpreting in a vacuum? Every time somebody says this is what the Bible means, there's already interpretation happening. Okay, so the question is not will I trust an interpretation? The question is whose interpretation am I trusting? Is it my own? That's dangerous. A modern preacher? That might be a little dangerous too, I don't know. Maybe it's. For the younger generation, TikTok clips, influencers, maybe it's my cultural lens, my personal experience. The question is not if you have a lens. The question is, is your lens a trustworthy one? That is why the early church becomes incredibly important for us. The early church, it helps us ask the question, is what I believe about something, ⁓ would it have been recognizable to them? So you go back, earliest generations of the church, first century, second century, third century, you do not find casual language about this table. Right? Listen to Ignatius of Antioch. He was actually discipled by John the Beloved. He called communion the medicine of immortality. That is not like metaphor-light language. That is somebody who believes that the table of the Lord is a place where divine life is encountered. When Christians gathered, the movement of the entire gathering was built around one moment, the table of the Lord. The communion table from the early gatherings, Acts 2 42, all throughout the ancient church, communion was the center. Literally, the communion table was front and center in the gatherings. So scripture was read, yes, teaching happened, songs were sung, but everything they did was leading somewhere. towards receiving Christ at the table. In other words, you weren't just attending something, you were being drawn somewhere. The entire room orienting around one direction. Imagine walking into a room like that, right? Before anything starts, the whole room gathered around the table as the center. In other words, everybody would know where this thing is going, right? That you would feel the weight of it, you would feel the direction pulling you towards it. It would be like going to a wedding and seeing the altar. You don't need somebody to explain to you what's about to happen, right? The room already told you where we're going. The whole gathering orbiting around one reality. So when scripture was read, you heard it through in light of the table. And when the message is preached, it's pulling you towards the table. And when prayers are lifted, it's preparing the room for the table. Everything revolved around the table because everything was leading to encounter, not just explanation. For over a thousand years, the church walked into spaces every week that silently preached not just come hear about Jesus, it was come and receive him. But about 500 years ago, something shifted. During the Protestant Reformation, this church leader, his name was Holdrich Zwingli. He didn't have bad motives, but he removed the Lord's table from the center of the gathering and he replaced it with his pulpit. Which seems subtle. But Zwingli didn't just move furniture, he moved the center of formation. Before, the gathering was pulling you towards the table, towards the body and the blood of Jesus, towards participation in a glorious mystery. But in much of the Protestant world, after Zwingli did this, the gathering was pulling people primarily towards the pulpit now. Towards explanation, towards understanding, towards The sermon being the high point. And slowly, nobody did this on purpose, but slowly the church got really good at learning how to listen and lost how to receive. Became fluent in explanation, but unfamiliar with encounter, divine mystery. Now obviously, You know, we need the preached word and everybody said amen. Y'all heard me say it. I believe that. I'm doing it right now. We need scripture opened. We need truth declared. My point is simply this. The word was never meant to replace the table. The word was meant to lead us here. So I don't know how this is gonna work. I thought it might be good this morning to just. just sort of move off to the side and. and let the body and the blood of Jesus be the center again. for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you. The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And in the same way, also, he took the cup after supper saying, this is the new covenant in my blood. Notice that Jesus does not say this represents my body. Or this is like my body. Or this reminds you of my body. He says, this is my body. This is my blood. That language, I don't know if you're like me, but it's jarring. It's supposed to be. That language is meant to slow us down and force us to wrestle with the question, what is actually happening at the communion table? Because in church settings, I don't know if you're like me, where's all the church kids at that grew up drinking the leftover grape juice after service is over? Yeah, come on, be proud of it. But it's easy, it's subtle, but it makes sense, because this is really easy for this to become super familiar, right? And it's like a little weird piece of bread and a doll-sized drink of juice and a quiet moment and a prayer and we move on to the sermon or whatever, right? But communion is so much bigger, friends, than a sentimental moment where we think about Jesus intellectually for a minute. Communion? is a holy interruption. Jesus was not handing his disciples a concept. He was giving them himself. This is my body. This is my blood. The gospel is not just announced in communion. It's not just explained in communion. The gospel actually becomes tangible at this table. Becomes tangible. Communion is more than symbolic mental exercise. It is, in the deepest sense, a real encounter with the living God. This is my body and this is my blood. Another church. Church leader, this is mid-100s Justin Martyr, he said, do not receive these as common bread and common drink, but as Jesus Christ, our Savior. Now, I understand there's a bunch of different views on this, right? And what that actually means and to what extent does the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus, I get it. So let me just say a couple things on that, I think they're helpful. Number one, communion is not confusing. But it is mysterious. For 1500 years, the church was in agreement that the mysterious presence of God is at the communion table. At the deepest sense, Christ's real presence is in the communion bread and cup. They didn't obsess over how. We're the ones that got into all that nuance. They didn't obsess over how. They weren't trying to dissect the table. They were just trying to go, how do I approach that rightly? They realized that this, that can't be something we analyze from a distance. It has to be something that we enter into with the deepest fear of the Lord in reverence, with awe and wonder. We have to be careful, church, that we don't try to explain away the very thing that God intended to draw us in. Because the moment we shrink this down into something we fully understand is the moment we probably made it smaller than it really is. If we can explain everything and define everything there is about God, then we end up with a God that looks more like us instead of a God that looks like God. This is my body. This is my blood. Wow, man, you believe that. 1 Corinthians 10, Paul goes deeper. Look at this. So beautiful. 1016, the cup of blessing that we bless. Is it not participation in the body of Christ? the bread that we break. Is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there's one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of this one bread. Beautiful. And if Paul wanted to emphasize memory only, he had language for that. Paul uses a word to describe communion that's intentional. says participation, koinonia. So when Paul says that communion is koinonia, participation in the body and the blood of Christ, he is not just saying this reminds us of Jesus. He is saying this meal, this holy ground, this sacred. The is meant to bring us into shared participation with Jesus. This is critical for the church to recover because if communion is just a reminder only, then the table is mostly informational and it's something we think about and it's something we recall. But if communion is participation, then everything changes. Now the table is not just where we visit a memory, it's where we encounter a reality. I don't know about you, but we don't need more explanations about Jesus. We need places. where we can actually meet him. And the table is one of the premier places God has given us for that. cup of blessing that we bless isn't not a participation in the blood of Christ. The bread we break isn't not participation in the body of Christ. Communion is not remembering something distant. It's participating in something present. Drawn into life and grace and holy sacrifice and the victory of Christ. as we eat bread and drink wine. When we take these elements, we are pulled into participation with the suffering and the victory, the benefits of the body and the blood of Jesus. Forgiveness, mercy, cleansing, union with Christ at the table, deliverance at the table. healing for your body at the table, a new identity, clean conscience, a softened heart, victory over death, rest for your soul, victory over fear, and all of it, not earned, not achieved, not slowly accumulated over time, but freely given, opened wide and made available through the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus. And at that table. We receive all of it again. It's already ours, but we receive it again. Participating in what's already been accomplished in a real, tangible, manifest way. This is. It's It matters that we know this church. Because if that's just a symbol, we can rush through that. If it's just a ritual, we can check that box. If it's just tradition, then we can stay detached. But if this is his body and this is his blood, then that moment carries eternal weight. We're not just handling common bread. We're responding to a person who gave himself to us. At this table Christ is present. Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner. Now you can see why the warning is so strong. Whoever eats this bread and drinks this cup in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then. And so eat the bread and drink the cup for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. So Paul shows us the wonder, and then he ends with the warning. We need both. Paul uses some pretty heavy language there. That feels almost shocking to our modern ears. He even goes on to say, some of you are sick, some of you are weak, and some of you have died. That's like Ark of the Covenant type language. What is this? Paul is discipling mostly Gentile believers into a Jewish-shaped understanding of God. So to the Jewish mindset, that language that Paul used would not feel random. They would think Ark of the Covenant. They would think Holy of Holies type language, which was not, the Ark, the Holy of Holies was not to be approached in a casual manner. So the Jewish mind, would have immediately thought, they wouldn't have thought, that man, that's extreme. That's overboard, that's too much. They would think, ⁓ yeah, that's what happens when the holy is treated casually. God's presence is real and how we approach it matters. Right, in the old covenant, the presence was localized, it was behind a veil and only approached by certain people at certain times. But in the new covenant, the veil is torn and access is open through the sacrifice of Jesus. The access increased, the invitation widened, but the reality of what we're approaching is still just as weighty. His holiness didn't change at all. Many of the early church fathers called communion, new covenant, holy ground. Paul isn't trying to scare us away from the table, he's trying to wake us up to what kind of moment this actually is. The table, this table, it is connected to the most costly act of love in human history. We must approach this like it's holy ground. Charity, can come and I'm just gonna read another couple verses and then we'll take communion together. John 622. The Jews then disputed among themselves saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? So Jesus said to them, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I'll raise them up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. This is wonderful. Jesus is teaching us that the cross was never meant to just be a foundation that holds us up. The body and the blood of Jesus' church was always meant to be food that keeps us alive. Foundations matter. They're essential. Friends, foundations don't nourish you, food does. anything else we try to live on. Even good things, like daily habits, moral correctness, right beliefs, ministry effectiveness, serving, leading, all good things, they're not bad, they just make horrible centers. and they may hold you together for a while. They may even carry you through a season or two. But make no mistake, church, there is only one true food and one true drink, and it is the body and the blood of Jesus. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. So I'd just like to invite you to stand. Grab your elements. I, before we do anything here, I... ⁓ Posture matters in this. How we approach this matters. So I'd like to invite you to find a posture that you feel fits this moment. ⁓ yeah, if you don't have the elements, you can raise your hand and the ushers will get, just go ahead, don't be shy, you raise your hand. The altars are open, find a place, whether it's sitting, kneeling. Have you ever approached the table on bended knees? I think it's good, it's right. There's no formula here, but I just wanna invite you to find a posture. Charity leads us to just a quick little chorus. Come on, close your eyes all across the room. Holy ground. Come on, we approach it softly, tenderly. Some of you might wanna take your shoes off, because this is holy ground. in here. Enter in. Enter in. Behold His hands and feet. Behold His side. The weight of all I've sent upon your shoulders The only right response is to say thank Thank you It was for our sake you died Through your blood our sin atoned So as you freely gave your life I will fully give my will not analyze at a distance We will enter into the mystery. You are holy Jesus, sacrifice you made leaves us in wonder. The weight of all our sin upon your shoulders. The only right response is to save them. Thank you. Thank you. ⁓ Jesus, the sacrifice you made leaves us in one. The weight of all our sin upon your shoulders The only right response is to say this Thank you. I invite you to pull out the bread. Friends, we don't take communion. We receive it. Feel that bread in your hands. Break it in half. Feel it. Break. Right now all across this room as we approach the body of Jesus, would you lift your voice and in your own words, thank him for what this sacrifice means for your story. Remember what this body broken means to your storyline, to your history. Well, lift your voice as we thank him. wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him and by His stripes. In this moment, your body is whole, it's healed. Thank you, King Jesus. We remember what this sacrifice means to our story. Thank you, Jesus. ⁓ The of all our sin upon your shoulders. The only right response is to say this. Jesus, sacrifice you made leaves us in a one. We hold the bread up together. All together, hold the bread. We thank you. that we can enter in through the veil that is your flesh, the torn veil. Thank you for access. We thank you that by your stripes we are healed and in this moment we receive your life, your body and your sacrifice. By faith we know our bodies are made whole through your broken body. Do this in remembrance of you. Proclaim your death until you come. Let's eat together, friends. Yes. Come on, let His body and His blood pull you into encounter with the reality. The victory, the suffering, the sacrifice. is the flow. Every voice, every heart, every accusing voice silenced, every voice of condemnation silenced. The blood of Jesus like a river washing your heart and your mind. making you completely whole, completely white, completely pure. Jesus Thank you, Lord. Receive his blood, receive his body. Be filled with his life. Together as we lift this cup. Every accusing voice that has been knocking at your door is silenced through this blood. Every voice of condemnation silenced by this precious blood. Let's drink together through the receive his life. Jesus name. just invite everybody to stand. together. Hands lifted. Hearts towards heavy, eyes locked with Jesus. We sing, precious. is the flow that That's how I know ⁓ United under the banner of the body and the blood of Jesus we declare. Please, please, Dino! Jesus Yeah, offer him the fruit of your lips. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. United sound, one mind, one blood, one body, one spirit. Jesus Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. is nothing but the blood of Jesus. you Thank you, Lord. Thank you. Teach us your ways, Lord. We wanna fully engage in everything that you've made available. Teach us. I pray over your church today as we go from the house of the Lord. The presence, the tangible sense. presence of God go with us into our homes. Let our hearts be warmed again as we come close to this fire. God, do whatever it is you wanna do in your church. it looks like we say yes say yes we want you Jesus' Jesus' name, amen, amen. Guys, what a day. Bless you. Have a great afternoon and we will see you on Wednesday.

1 Corinthians 11:23