"The Cup We Bless, The Bread We Break" 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 Sunday Morning Worship Service

As I mentioned, the next two Sundays, we'll be looking at what are often called ordinances.

Ordinances in the church, baptism and communion.

They're called ordinances because they are established by the Lord, taught by the Lord, modeled by the Lord, and then the church is commanded to do those, to reenact the gospel to the church.

Everything the church does is a celebration of the gospel and a demonstration of our unity.

We sit under the word of God together, we sing songs together, we give, we pray, we have fellowship with one another.

All of that is commanded by the Lord, modeled by the Lord, and given to us to do.

That's true with all of it.

But all those things I just listed, they are direct things you do.

You sing, you have the word of God impact your heart, you give, you fellowship.

Communion and baptism are a little bit different.

They aren't you directly doing these things, they are you reenacting something.

There's a sense in which preaching and singing and prayer and fellowship aren't acts, but communion and baptism are, and to call them an act is almost it's not the right connotation in English, but reenactment somehow is better.

They're a reenactment of gospel truths.

And they're a reenactment in a way that's hard for our kind of Western American minds to understand.

But the idea that throughout the world and different cultures, by doing these actions, we're giving ourselves an identity.

There's a sense in which Americans are distant from that kind of worldview, that doing something forms you.

But communion and baptism are part of that kind of worldview.

By doing something, you're forming your own identity as it relates to that thing.

But I was able to think of an American example that might help you understand that.

It's kind of hackneyed, but bear with me.

That of sports teams.

You know, when you're a kid, you might have a poster from your favorite football team on the wall or something.

Um, your dad might like a team, and so you like that team, and you get your the jerseys, you wear the jerseys together and you watch the games together.

You might have a Redskins bumper sticker on your car or something like that.

And you think, I mean, in a sense, it's kind of silly, right?

I mean, how the team plays on uh their next game is not contingent on whether or not you have a bumper sticker on your car.

You know, they don't play better if you're wearing the jersey when you're watching in your living room.

But we do those things.

And you recognize how doing those things, you start to identify with that team.

It starts to form your own identity by doing that kind of outward action.

That's what's happening with communion and baptism.

Although it's not identifying with a team, of course, it's identifying with the Savior.

That's why the Lord gave us these ordinances.

Everything we have from God is a gift we receive.

All those gifts are then displayed to the world and realized, and they are realized specifically through the ordinances.

They are given to the church and they form the identity of the church.

And that's why these ordinances aren't practiced at home.

You don't do baptisms at home or take communion at home.

They're ordinances given to the church that form the corporate identity of God's people.

Baptism demonstrates a person's addition to the church.

Communion demonstrates your ongoing participation in the church.

And they are both defined by scripture, modeled by scripture, described by scripture, and given to the church to happen.

A passage that we focus on this morning when it comes to communion is 1 Corinthians chapter 10, one of the clearest teachings on this in the New Testament.

1 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

We'll look at verses 16 and 17.

The cup of blessing that we bless, Paul says, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?

The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body.

For we all partake of the one food.

This is the word of God.

Now, as we think about this, we enter in with communion, we'll do baptism next Lord's Day, but communion this Lord's Day, it's worth asking, what exactly is happening at communion?

I just called it a reenactment of a gospel truth, but what exactly is happening here?

And probably the best way to engage with what is happening at communion is with a contrast between what we're doing at communion, between that and what the Catholic Church teaches at communion and the Lutheran Church teaches happens at communion.

And Catholic Churches is the Mass.

The bread and wine they teach are transformed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

And to help you understand what Catholicism means with transformed or transubstantiation is what the doctrine is called, you need a little bit of a lesson in philosophy, just a little lesson in philosophy, a little one.

There's a difference in philosophy between something's essence and its accidents.

And that's a that's a word we don't often use, but the essence of something is different than the accidents that go along with something.

So essence is what the thing is by its nature.

An accident is the way it appears and the way it tastes or feels or smells.

And the example that most philosophers use for this is that of a pet.

All right, so some of you have dogs in your house.

For some reason, I don't know, it's a thing people do.

Your dog has the essence of dog.

It is by its nature a dog.

It is essentially a dog.

Those are all words that are synonymous.

Essentially, it's essence, it's nature.

It's a dog.

Now the way it appears or smells, and dogs smell terrible.

The way it appears and smells, those are accidents.

Like it could change those things and still be a dog.

Your dog could lose its fur and still be a dog, or it could not smell and still be a dog, and or or whatever, it could bark differently than it does now, it'd still be a dog.

Those are all accidents.

The way something appears on the outside, those are its accidents.

They are not, uh they might flow out of its essence, but they're different than its essence.

What happens with communion, the Catholic Church says, is that the bread and wine is truly bread and wine.

It has the accidents of bread and wine.

In other words, it feels like bread and tastes like bread and feels like wine and tastes like wine and all that.

But the priest then consecrates it.

And at the moment of consecration, the bread and wine are transformed into the body and the blood of Jesus, but only in their essence, not in their accidents.

So they truly become the body and blood of Jesus in what they are, but their accidents don't change.

So they still taste like bread and wine, they still feel like it, they still look like it, but the substance has changed.

That's what's taught in the Catholic Church.

And that's always been rejected by Protestants.

The Lutheran Church doesn't teach transubstantiation, but the Lutheran Church also does something novel with communion, and specifically the bread.

In the Lutheran Church, there's the focus on the humanity of Christ, that God is omnipresent, therefore Jesus is omnipresent.

Jesus has two natures, divine and human.

And so in the Lutheran Church, they teach that the humanity of Jesus also becomes omnipresent by virtue of his incarnation.

And so when you're looking at the bread, which represents the body of Jesus, his humanity is truly there by virtue of his omnipresence.

It's very hard to explain.

Even Lutherans would grant it's very hard to explain.

And it's not really worth arguing with.

I want to borrow a statement from Justice Barrett that she said this week about something different, but I'm borrowing it and making it about Lutheran communion.

Justice Barrett would say this we will not dwell on the Lutheran argument about communion, which is at odds with more than 2,000 years of theology, not to mention that it is untethered to really any philosophical tradition at all.

Period.

Close quote, Jesse version.

Both the Catholic and the Lutheran version describe what they call the real presence of Christ in the Mass.

The Protestants have always rejected that.

In fact, Protestants often refer to the heresy of the Catholic Mass.

The main reason Protestants were martyred in the 15th and 1600s was over their refusal to participate in the Catholic Mass.

They were often told, I think the most obvious example of this is uh Lady Jane Grey, the nine-day Queen of England.

She was told she could spare her life if she would only take the Mass.

It was often called the heresy of the Mass because the idea that the bread becomes the body of Christ leads to what in Catholicism is the perpetual sacrifice of the Mass, they refer to it, where the body becomes, the bread becomes the body of Christ and it's broken, it's re-sacrificed at every ongoing portrayal of the Mass, which is borderline idolatry, but it is flagrant heresy because Jesus died once for all to present the gospel to the world.

His death on the cross was the complete, sufficient, and final payment for sin.

He's not sacrificed in an ongoing way.

He's present in heaven right now.

His body is in heaven at the right hand of the Father, not on earth, and certainly not on earth present in bread, being re-sacrificed continually.

So if we reject a real presence, what do we say is happening at communion?

Here I'm reminded of Calvin's words.

Calvin writes, whenever communion is discussed, when I have tried to say all, I feel that I have yet said little in proportion to its worth.

And although my mind can think beyond what my tongue can utter, even my mind is overwhelmed by the greatness of the thing.

That's certainly true in verse 16 and 17.

There's an ocean, an infinite ocean of truth packed in these two verses.

We have only a few minutes to look at it, which seems so superficial, but we'll do our best.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 is reminding, the context of 1 Corinthians 10 is reminding his readers not to worship idols.

That's what's happening in chapter 10.

The heading even is warning against idolatry.

But look specifically at verse 14.

Therefore, my beloved, free from idolatry.

What was happening is that the Corinthian believers were buying meat that had been sacrificed to idols and eating it at home.

And Paul tells them in chapter 8, that's okay, because the idol doesn't really pollute the meat.

The idol's not a real thing.

But then people were using that freedom to participate in the actual worship of the idols at the temple.

Going to the temples for the sacrifices and all of that.

And Paul's telling them, by you being there, it's like you're putting on the jersey.

You can't go to the temple where the meat is being sacrificed and the wine is being drunk in honor of the idols and all that, the false gods, without thinking it's going to corrupt your identity.

I mean, how many, how many times do you need to wear a caps jersey before you become a caps fan, so to speak?

That's what's happening in 1 Corinthians 10.

You keep going to the places where the idols are worshipped, you're going to be corrupted.

So don't do that.

Rather, and here's where verse 16 and 17 come in, rather participate in the Lord's table, and that will form your identity into the image of Christ, into the body of Christ.

That's the language of verse 17, the body of Christ.

And the body of Christ, again, is not the bread.

The body of Christ on earth is not in wheat or grains.

The body of Christ on earth is the church.

And the church's identity is formed through the ongoing participation in these ordinances.

Communion is the family meal God has given to his family, which is the church.

And it represents that God once for all has received us into his family.

And God welcomes us into his family not as servants and slaves, although we are those things, but he welcomes us into his family as sons and daughters, household members.

That's what communion proclaims.

I would say it like this: communion demonstrates that God is our provider.

That God is our provider.

The most basic function of a father, well, twofold, is to give life and provide for his family.

And that can both be presumed, uh subsumed under one heading, provider.

A father provides life and a father provides food.

And that is what is happening in the Bible.

That's why God is our father.

He's the fountain of life, the source of all of life is the Father.

And then God not only creates and gives us life, but he provides all that we need for that life.

You could ask your kids, what is the main thing a father provides for his family?

They would probably come up with food.

And so the image of communion is to celebrate and commemorate the Father's provision of food, which represents life.

Food, life for the church.

God is our provider.

Now, how does God provide for us?

That's the second proclamation of communion.

God always provides for us through his son.

Everything God gives us, he gives us through his son.

He gives us nature, natural revelation, but he speaks the universe into existence through his son.

His son is the word.

All things, John 1 says, come into being through him.

And apart from him, nothing was made that has been made.

He gives us family.

The image of marriage is Christ and His church.

And now you get even more specific.

What about things only Christians experience?

Every blessing that a Christian experiences, we experienced through the Son.

From the Father through the Son.

We experience redemption through the Son.

We experience atonement through the Son, forgiveness through the Son, grace through the Son, salvation through the Son.

Our life is Jesus Christ.

He is our nourishment, he is our spiritual sustenance.

We have all things we need pertaining to life and godliness through the Lord Jesus Christ.

In fact, even through the Bible, that's the language Peter says.

He's given us all things pertaining to life and godliness in his precious promises, the word of God.

Jesus Christ is the word.

So even at the level of the Bible, everything we have, spiritually speaking, comes to us through Jesus Christ.

That's proclaimed through communion.

The Father is the source, the Son is the provision.

He is, in that sense, the Word.

He is the bread of life.

If you need something to live on, it's food, of course.

So bread of life becomes the analogy for Jesus.

Our life is from Him, through Him, in Him.

Communion proclaims that ongoing reality.

Here, a contrast with communion and baptism is helpful.

You're baptized one time.

You're baptized once to show your entrance into the church.

You're converted through your faith.

You're baptized, you're buried in death, raised in newness of life.

You're buried like Jesus was buried, you're raised like Jesus was raised.

How many times was Jesus buried?

Once.

How many times was he raised?

Once.

And then he ascended into heaven.

That's why you are baptized one time.

And people get confused about this.

I have had people tell me things like they have some new doctrinal discovery.

You know, they're 25 years old and they just discovered the sovereignty of God and election and predestination.

And they say it's like I got saved all over again.

You know, they've read a John Piper book and get saved all over again.

And I've had people say, I think I should be baptized again, because I don't think before I understood election, I was even a Christian anymore.

No, just because you discover John Piper doesn't mean you need to be baptized a second time.

You're baptized once because Jesus was buried once.

You raise a newness of life.

You're added to the church.

That's baptism.

But how often are you dependent upon the Lord for all things?

All the time.

That's why communion is an ongoing celebration.

The church does it often is the language Paul uses to the Corinthians.

They often celebrate communion to show that Jesus is our provision.

We are hidden in Christ.

We're adopted into his family.

We're sons and daughters.

We're brothers with the Lord.

He is our brother.

We're hidden in him.

And that's what communion demonstrates.

Like a family sits around their table for their family meal.

The church gathers around to show our unity through Jesus Christ, that he is the only way to the Father.

You cannot get to the Father except through Christ.

That's what communion demonstrates.

By him and through him were all things made.

That's what communion demonstrates.

He is the bread of life, he is the very word of God Himself.

And now you can get, I'm saying all things, like the word is through Jesus, singing is about Jesus, our giving is to the body of Christ, the church, Jesus' body.

Everything Christians do is from the Father through the Son by the Spirit.

But I want to get more specific than everything here.

Communion specifically demonstrates a few things.

First, it demonstrates that Jesus provides atonement.

That's what Paul means in verse 16.

The cup of blessing that we bless.

He's using language from the Passover meal here.

The cup of blessing is what the Jews celebrated at Passover.

Passover, remember, in the Old Testament, the firstborn in every house was going to die.

They killed the Passover lamb.

You spread the blood of the lamb on the doorpost, and the angel of death passes over that house based upon the blood on the doorpost.

They then go into the wilderness with joy and celebration because they were passed over because of the blood.

They then reenact that every year.

They kill a Passover lamb every year.

And they lift up a cup, only the cup is no longer the blood of the lamb.

The cup is wine, wine of rejoicing and joy, that is symbolic of the blood from the Passover lamb.

You lift up the cup, the Father prays for it, blesses the cup, and then they take together around Passover, celebrating the atonement that was provided from the Passover Lamb.

Jesus in the New Testament takes that imagery, changes it into communion.

The cup, then, he says in Luke's gospel, becomes the cup of the new covenant in his blood.

No longer do we celebrate the Passover, we instead celebrate not the atonement of the Passover Lamb, but the atonement of Jesus Christ, that his death takes away our sin.

So the cup of blessing we bless, verse 16, it is now a participation in the blood of Christ.

You are a sinner that deserves death.

When you place your faith in the death of Christ, his blood is spread over you so that the angel of death passes you by.

When you die, you will not be judged for your sin if your faith was in the death of Christ.

Your sins are given to Christ, his life was given to you on the basis of his blood.

Now, when it says his blood, it doesn't mean there's something magical about his actual blood, that the, you know, the capillaries that burst in the protein and whatever that was in his blood, the enzymes there and the platelets, they had mystical properties that forgive you of sin.

A blood represents his life.

It represents his sinless life.

And when you talk about blood in the Bible, it means his life has ended, his life has been poured out.

So it's speaking of a sinless life that leads to his death.

And his death was for sinners.

Our sin became his, his blood was shed, meaning his life ended for our sin.

Scripture speaks like this over and over and over again.

Romans 3.25, God put forward Jesus by propitiation in his blood.

Romans 5.9, we have been justified by his blood.

Ephesians 1.7, we have redemption in his blood.

Ephesians 2.13, you who are far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Colossians 1.20, he makes peace, peace with us through his blood.

Jesus is our life, and he is our life by virtue of his blood.

Now, his blood does not provide atonement for the world, of course not.

Just like the Passover lamb did not provide atonement for every house in the city.

Your next door neighbor has the blood on his doorpost.

That doesn't mean you're gonna have the angel of death pass over you.

That atonement's not for you, it's for the house with the blood on it.

The concept of the New Testament: the atonement Jesus provides is not for the world, it is for those who are in the household of God.

Through faith.

You're predestined before time, you are adopted through your faith in Christ in time, the atonement is applied to you, and you have your sins forgiven.

You have peace with God by means of his blood.

Jesus sacrificed himself so that we may live on the basis of his sacrifice.

He is our life, he is our joy, and specifically, he is our atonement.

Now you can say that every part of the church is a demonstration of that.

Again, we worship, we preach, we pray, we sing, we give, we have fellowship, all that.

But specifically, atonement comes to the actual death of Jesus Christ.

That is what the cup.

That's why Paul begins in verse 16, the cup of blessing we bless, even though we take the wine second because Jesus modeled it that way.

Paul starts with the wine here in verse 16, because everything comes to us through atonement.

And again, as I said, Jesus died once for all.

That's diminished by saying that there's a reenactment of the mass, of the actual death, or a re-substantial death of Jesus every time communion is celebrated.

Of course not.

This is an image, a picture of the perfect once for all death of Jesus Christ.

Secondly, communion provides for us our union.

Jesus Christ is our union, but communion reenacts that.

That's the bread.

That we have union with Christ through his body.

The Father is the author of life, the source of life.

The Son is the fountain of life or the substance of life.

And so by taking the bread, you're taking the substance.

Do you understand that God does not want to be far off from us?

When we sinned, God could have let us go our own way.

There could have been an infinite distance between us and him forever.

That would have been no skin off God's back, so to speak.

But he wasn't content for that.

He comes to us.

God comes to his own.

As close as he can get.

It takes on a human nature.

Jesus is born truly God, truly man, with a true human nature.

He walked on earth.

People touched him.

John took a nap, laying on his lap.

The Last Supper, John was reclining against his chest on his breast.

That's why John says in 1 John, that which we have held, we've touched, we've handled him, we proclaim him to you.

Jesus was so close to John.

That's what John's trying to communicate to us.

God's not far off.

He came to us.

Now he ascended into heaven.

He's not still walking on earth now, of course.

He ascended into heaven, which he had to do to send his spirit.

That's what Jesus said.

I'm going to go away to send you a helper.

Now his spirit dwells every one of us.

How many people could take a nap on Jesus' physical body at one time?

John and Peter, with James and Andrew arguing in the background about when it's their turn to rest against Jesus.

But he goes, and now every one of us through faith has his spirit in us.

We have a true union.

That's what the bread represents.

That we're united.

And you can think of this at so many different levels.

A family meal.

The whole family sits around the table.

The teenager still upstairs wants five more minutes to come down.

And you're going to say, no, we're not going to wait for you, and you're going to come down now.

We're a family, we're going to eat together.

And everyone around the table eats the same food.

You all eat from the same dish.

Even the creation of that food.

I mean, how different, how many different heads of grain are put into the thing of bread?

Who knows?

It doesn't matter.

It all becomes the same.

The dough is made, it's all the same dough.

And all of the countless people who are part of the church are eating the same bread.

You all bring your own histories, your own past, you all have different weeks from each other last week.

You all have different Mondays tomorrow.

But the bread demonstrates our unity and it demonstrates the tactile closeness of God to us.

You're touching it.

And how much closer can God get to us than indwelling us with his spirit?

He's in us.

And bread demonstrates that.

You eat it, you put it inside of you.

That's our union with Jesus Christ.

We're all bound to his body.

He's not hidden from us.

He's as close to us as it can be.

And we participate in that.

Look at the word in verse 16.

The bread we break.

Is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

What a cool word, participation.

It's the Greek word koinanea, by the way.

So where do you know?

That's this Greek word here.

We often translate it fellowship.

You have koinania with each other, fellowship.

But you can't have koinonia with bread.

You're not going to take bread out to lunch with you, and if you do, you don't want to be the bread.

You don't have any fellowship with bread, obviously.

So hear that word, though, it's applied to bread.

That's why I love the ESV's translation, participation.

What a great way to translate it.

You are participating with the body of Christ by eating the bread.

It's your fellowship with each other.

It's you all around the table together.

We have union with Christ, who is in us.

God provides us all things through his son.

We're now united through his son.

And our souls are sustained by him.

I mean, how long will your kids live if you don't feed them?

You know, they'll forage for junk food for a while.

Of course you feed your kids.

Of course, God feeds us.

That's why communion is, we always take it.

Often we take it.

Demonstrating that we are dependent upon the Lord for our life.

We're united to Christ through faith.

We have fellowship with him through our practice.

And that practice forms, this is what I mean by it forms our identity.

You do this over and over again, and you realize God is close to you, he is near you, he is in you, and you're united with one another through Jesus Christ.

That's why communion is the perfect image for that.

Third.

God is our provider, Jesus Christ is our provision.

Third, the church is our people.

There's a union not only with Christ, but there's a union with the church.

It's a real participation in the body.

So let me be clear.

We reject the idea of the real presence of Christ in the bread.

But we don't want to in turn say that this is merely symbolic or only symbolic.

Communion is, of course, symbolic, but it is not only symbolic.

It is, of course, a symbol, but it is not merely a symbol.

Do you see the difference?

It always rugs me the wrong way when people say, oh, this is only a symbol.

No, it's not only a symbol.

It is a symbol, to be true, but it is more than that.

There is a real participation that happens.

Of course it's symbolic, but behind the symbol is the reality.

It's a symbol of the provision of God through bread, the provision of atonement through wine.

The bread represents life, the wine represents joy.

Bread provides the union with Christ.

The wine provides the atonement, the blood from Christ.

All that, they're really symbolic of those things.

But then there is a real and true participation through the union of the church.

The reality is, this is what verse 17 is talking about.

The reality is the body of Christ.

Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body.

For we all partake of the one bread.

This is the union of the church.

We have unity with each other because we participate in the same provider, the same provision, all bounds together.

Christ's death is the substance, the bread and wine are the sign, and the participation is the eating and drinking.

It sounds silly to say that eating bread and drinking wine is only symbolic.

You're like actually eating something.

You can taste it.

Some of the communion we have, you don't want to taste it.

But you do.

It's a real taste.

So it's not merely symbolic.

There's an actual participation that goes on.

That's why the Lord's Supper is taken in the church.

Like I mentioned, baptism and communion are given to the church.

They're not given for families to do.

They're not even given for, like, you know, Bible studies or whatnot to do.

They're given for the church.

We gather together.

We have our church identity, the body of Christ form.

There is we who are many, we are all different individuals.

But verse 17 says, we are of one body, as demonstrated by us taking the one bread.

The church is our unity.

Like I said, we all bring our own sins, our own struggles to the table, but we all eat the same food once we sit down.

We have a true union with Christ.

And by the way, this is why communion is only for baptized believers.

It is for some people, it is for people who are baptized.

Because baptism is your introduction to the family.

Communion is then the ongoing family meal.

One author I read this week had a very helpful analogy with this where he said that baptism is the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner, and then communion is the Thanksgiving dinner.

And what would you do with a college student who comes home bringing a friend with them to Thanksgiving dinner that did not they did not let you know about?

And that friend is the opposite gender.

And they show up for Thanksgiving dinner at your house.

Well, you would probably let them eat the first Thanksgiving.

If they try that stunt the second Thanksgiving, you're gonna have some questions.

Like if that guy shows up a year later, you're gonna be wondering, hey, how come I haven't met you yet?

Like after a year of this, I should have invited you.

What's going on?

That becomes a picture of baptism, your welcome to the family.

Communion, your family meal.

Baptism demonstrates your introduction to the church.

Communion demonstrates your participation in the church.

This is also why churches do church discipline at communion.

I know I rub people the wrong way sometimes.

I've had people say, listen, I'm examining myself for my own sins, and there was good singing and preaching.

They don't actually see that part, but I pretend that it's there.

And now our heart is ready for communion, and then you get up and you say, and so-and-so is being put out of the church, and it's like jarring.

And the reason people do that at communion, churches do that at communion, is because it's representing their exclusion from the body.

That's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5.

Separate yourself from the immoral, from the from the worldly people who are not repenting of their sins.

Separate yourself with such a person, do not even eat, Paul says.

He doesn't mean like don't grab a burger with them and share the gospel with them.

He means don't have them at the Lord's table.

He who unites himself to a prostitute unites the body of Christ to a prostitute.

So separate yourself from them.

And you think, how is that possible?

If they're sexually immoral, a little leaven will ruin the whole bread.

It's using the communion analogy.

A person who won't repent of their sins, who participates in the church as if nothing is wrong, is going to infect the whole church.

So it is very unloving to the people around you for you to have unrepentant sinners participating in the Lord's table.

It's not that the bread is somehow defiled, it's that the church is defiled by their unrepentant sin.

That's what the word excommunicated means, by the way.

Ex Greek out of.

Communion.

Excommunicated, taken out of communion.

What about for the rest of us?

This is why we examine ourselves at communion.

Communion is, of course, supposed to be joyful.

You know, when the Israelites celebrated Passover, it was not a dirge.

It was like, oh, you know, the wine represents joy.

It was like, we're so stoked.

We lived! Yay! Yay, God, we lived.

And communion has that same flavor to it that we live.

Jesus Christ gave himself for us.

How joyful is that?

And yet we examine ourselves.

We confess our sins.

The standard to take communion is not perfection, otherwise, these trays would sit here all year long, untouched.

The standard to take communion is not perfection, but it is love and faith.

Do you love your brothers and sisters in the Lord?

Do you have faith in Jesus Christ?

So you confess your sins.

What sins did you commit since last communion?

You're not going to remember all of them.

But you think about them and you confess them to the Lord and you're applying the atonement to yourself.

You're applying the forgiveness of God to yourself.

You're remembering that He, God our Father, is our provider.

You're remembering that His Son is the provision.

And the church is our people.

When you remember that, that makes you worthy to participate.

Not worthy based upon your own actions, but worthy based upon your reception of the gospel to cleanse you from your sins.

Lord, we're so thankful that you have given us these ordinances that form our identity in a true way.

We are the body of Christ.

We are the church.

I pray for anyone here this morning that has never given their lives to you.

They've never come to terms with their own sin.

This morning the cup will pass them by, but I pray the atonement the cup speaks of will not pass them by.

I pray they would be convicted of their sins this morning.

They would turn their hearts to you.

You are the best gift giver, God, and you've given us the best gift imaginable, your son.

So that's what we celebrate now as we take the Lord's table together.

We confess our sins to you, knowing that you are faithful and just to forgive us of our sins.

We are forgetful.

We don't remember all of our sins, but you know them all.

We're thankful that you forgive us of them through Jesus Christ.

We celebrate that now by turning our hearts to the Lord's table.

I give you thanks for this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church.

If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to TMS.edu.

Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.