Sermon on the Lords Supper

Over the last several weeks we have been thinking about the means of grace given to us by God whereby we are helped to grow in our faith and remain steadfast in our walk with God. We have looked at Prayer, the Bible, and at Worship. Today we look at the Lord's Supper and next week finally in this series the Lord's Day.

It is the Lord's Supper that we celebrate this day or Holy Communion as we call it. As we celebrate this feast let us remember first and foremost then that Jesus is central to it. It is the Lord's Supper. Its purpose is to turn our hearts and our minds to Jesus and in particular to his death upon the Cross for us.

This feast is all about Jesus

Paul's complaint with the Corinthian church was that they had left Jesus out of their celebration of the Lord's Supper. "When you come together it is not the Lord's Supper you eat.." 1 Corinthians 11:20

They were gathering together to celebrate the feast but they had forgotten who it was the feast was to celebrate and why they were celebrating it. Instead their communion had degenerated into a supper where even common manners were disregarded, where some brought lots of food and drink and ate and drank it all themselves and others had little or nothing to eat or to drink. A deplorable state of affairs, instead of remembering Jesus, centring on Jesus, they were simply satisfying their own needs, centring only upon themselves.

Therefore Paul says and rightly so "...it is not the Lord's Supper you eat."

As we come to this table today let us remember it is the Lord's Table to which we come. This feast is all about Jesus. He it is we come in faith to receive.

Is that why you are here? - To receive Jesus. For, it is of Jesus that this table speaks. "This is my body." "This is my Blood." "Take eat." "Take drink." This Jesus told the twelve as they gathered with him to celebrate the feast, to remember the killing of the Passover Lamb. 1 Corinthians 5:7,8

"Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast- as you really are. For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth."

As we come do we truly come to receive Jesus or simply to celebrate a feast?

This is all about Jesus. He calls us here this day to remember, not our needs and wants but, v24 "...do this in remembrance of me" We are here to receive Jesus. We are here to remember Jesus.

Notice, he is inviting us to partake of himself. "Do this" he says "Take eat. Take drink." "This is my body" "This is my blood".

Why are so few here this day then? Why do so many turn down his invitation? Why do so many disobey his command?

One Free Church minister also said this, in a very interesting sermon on the Lord's Supper that I read on the Free Church website this last week.

"I am often amazed at people's attitudes to this. They view the preaching of the Word as something they must attend, and the Lord's Day as something they must observe, because both are ordinances. But they have a completely different view of the Lord's Supper. They regard it as discretionary, as if it weren't an ordinance. Much is made of the sin of what is called 'unworthy communicating', but little is made of the sin of not communicating at all. That really is a glaring act of defiance on the part of a Christian."

"Do this in remembrance of me..." Jesus says!

Paul's complaint against the Corinthian Church was that in the manner that they were celebrating the feast they had left Jesus out of it. "It is not the Lord's Supper you eat" That was why he said that they ate and drank unworthily, because they were not partaking of Jesus in sincerity and truth.
Indeed they were not partaking of him at all they were simply satisfying themselves with food.

Jesus died in order that we all might partake of him by faith. It was on the night on which he was betrayed that he said "Take eat" "Take drink". It was the one who did not partake of the bread and of the wine that betrayed him.
He died to take away our sin. The Passover lamb sacrificed for us. Read the story of the Exodus. It was those who partook in faith of the Passover lamb who were saved because of the significance of the sprinkled blood of a lamb without blemish which foreshadowed Christ's sacrificial death for us upon the Cross, of which we must partake by faith or we shall die in our trespasses and sin and go not to heaven but to hell.

"Do this in remembrance of me..." Jesus says. Why? Verse 26 and here is the crux of the matter or should we say the crucifixion of the matter.

"For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."

The Lord's Supper is all about Jesus and the meaning of his death for our lives. As that great hymn 'There is a green hill far away' puts it,

"He died that we might be forgiven,
He died to make us good,
That we might go at last to heaven,
Saved by his precious blood."

Or, as Jesus himself tells us

"This is my body which is for you..." verse 24

"This cup is the new covenant in my blood..." verse 25

The Lord's Supper is a sign and a seal of that New Covenant that Jesus has made with God for all who have faith in him. That Covenant whereby in consequence of his death upon the Cross, where he offered up himself to God once and for all, as a ransom for many, to pay the price for our sin, to redeem us and to reconcile us to God he now also offers himself to us as our Saviour that by faith we may partake of him and thereby receive in, through and by him his full salvation for our lives and all his benefits as by repentance and faith we believe and put our trust in him alone who by his death has made atonement for us to God to save us and bring us back to God.

This table signifies and stands as a seal of these truths. By partaking of the bread and of the wine we affirm thus our faith in Jesus and we proclaim Christ's death as the only sure Way of Salvation given to man and acceptable to God.

To receive Christ, this table declares we must remember Him. We must grasp the significance and the meaning of his death upon the Cross for our lives. We must verse 29 "…recognise the body of the Lord" that is, we must understand that Jesus died not just to take away sin generally but your sin and my sin specifically. That it was for you and it was for me that Jesus died. Such that we receive, we have faith, we believe and we are saved and we can come to this table assured of our faith and partake worthily of the bread and the wine which symbolise and signify all that Christ is to us and for us and which seals all that we would be for him.

"Precious Saviour, Thou hast sav'd me;
Thine and only Thine I am;
Oh the cleasing blood has reached me;
Glory, glory to the Lamb!
Long my yearning heart was striving;
To obtain this precious rest;
But when all my struggles ended,
Simply trusting I was blest.
Consecrated to thy service;
I will live and die for thee;
I will witness to thy glory,
Of salvation, full and free.
Glory to the Lord who bought me!
Glory for his saving power;
Glory to the Lord who keeps me!
Glory, glory, evermore."

Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper on the night of the Passover, shortly before his death. It was designed as a remembrance of his sacrifice upon the Cross; his life for ours. Through partaking in the Lord's Supper we affirm Christ and enjoy his presence in a deep and worthy spiritual way.

In the words of the Larger Catechism:
"The Lord's Supper is a sacrament of the New Testament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine according to the appointment of Jesus Christ, his death is showed forth; and they that worthily communicate feed upon his body and blood, to their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace..."

We recognise, we remember, we receive, for, it is Christ of whom we are here to partake and him alone whom we celebrate as we come.

To quote again our Free Church minister, but in the present tense
"Coming to communion should not be an ordeal or a crisis. It is the most natural thing in the world. People come to be fed. They come to get the benefits of Christ. They come because they hunger and thirst after righteousness..."

Then come you must, and come you should "in remembrance of him" who laid down his life for you.

Examine yourself first, yes. But come, pray do. For, Christ, whose sacrificed his life on the Cross out of love for you, bids you come that he may reaffirm in you that which he has done for you and that you may in thanksgiving be all the more inclined to offer up your life to him in response as with your live by how you live and what you say you witness and testify to truth of his death upon the Cross, proclaiming that death in and through and by the way you live your life till he returns.

What a privilege, what a joy. Let us then celebrate the feast. For we too have received of the Lord that which has been passed on to us that,

"The Lord Jesus, on the night 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." In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bead and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."

Amen, let us pray.