Eating Worthily

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This week, Charla and I went with a group of kids here on a field. And part of that, of course, was feeding them lunch. And we fillet in Oklahoma City.

And we’re sitting there eating, who notice vaguely aware there are other people in the building. But everybody’s doing school kids, the workers. I love to see when the manager’s not busy and they’re wiping down tables.

Or the store manager is out there wiping tables. And he’s been back and off and refilling drinks. She said, I love to see her doing things like instead of their feet up or bossing others around.

She said, because that tells the manager who they are and the way they run. There are scenarios like that all the time where the way we handle one thing in one area can kind of predict how we’re going to. First job was at Homeland when I was in high school.

At Homeland, or at least at our store, you had to wear dark slacks and a tie. And I tell you what, other high school kids that would come in or they’d come in their jeans or something dirty, and you just knew that they weren’t going to, because the managers were looking at stuff like that. If they were going to come in sloppy, be out of uniform, how were they going to handle it?

And we knew our lives, where the way one seemingly small detail, many more. Also, Paul, the subject of the Lord’s Supper. As we continue our series of studies through the Bithynes, we’re in chapter 11, our last week on chapter 11.

We’ve spent a couple of supper. To finish this discussion to the Lord’s clue, you might even say a thermometer that gauge where we are in some other areas. That the way the Lord’s Supper, some problems. And for us, the way we approach the Lord’s Supper says some things about where we are spiritually, our wider walk with the Lord Jesus.

And so we’re 11 this morning, and we’re going to start at verse 23. Once you find that, as we read word, if you don’t have a Bible with you this morning or can’t find 1 Corinthians, we’re going to read together what the Holy Spirit said. Starting in verse 23, he said to the Lord, that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night read, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, do this in remembrance of me.

Also, after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, do this in remembrance of me. And drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Therefore, whoever eats the bread, eats the bread, or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilt of the Lord.

But a man must examine how doing he is to eat of the bread, and drink he who eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason, many a number sleep. Rightly, we are judged.

We are just so that we will not be condemned along with the world. When you come together to eat, wait for one another. At home, so that you will not come together from a remaining man, we will arrange when I come.

So last week we talked about the church at Corinth, that Paul needing to address the issues surrounding the Lord’s Supper, because he really let me teach you about the Lord’s Supper. He was saying there are problems, there are spiritual problems in the church, and what’s going on at the Lord’s Supper is just an example. But just to refresh your memory, or if you weren’t here, last week I shared with you how records, the early churches would come together, especially for what the feasts.

That makes me a little uncomfortable. Maybe it makes me think of the 60s. I like the term fellowship meals.

They would come together as the church. Ideally, they would eat. It would be a time of fellowship.

And they would cap it off with a time of worship. But some of their pagan background, to where they’re coming together and they’re just feasting, they’re having these wild parties like temples. And some of the people are bringing in, showing them and their group of friends, they’re including these others from the church, from participating, no, no, you’re over there.

And so you had the problems of cliquishness in the church and division and dad. Some within the church shows who didn’t have anything. On top of it, you have teachings that were creeping into the church.

And Paul just, this is madness. If you’re that hungry, to stuff yourself while your brother sitting down the pew is starving to death. It’s a sense of how it’s to eat in.

When you come together as the church, whether it’s for the fellowship supper that’s supposed to be at the end of it, this is not the way you’re supposed to behave. Where we’ve started off in verse 23, he specifically turns, And he’s been healed and the Lord’s Supper. And at verse 23, we’re talking about the Lord’s Supper and the way that’s supposed to be taken.

Now, different groups of believers call it communion. It’s a term. Some will call it the Eucharist. Supper is what we’re talking about.

Where we share the bread and share the cup. Not necessarily hear all from one. That’s not something we do.

I’m enough of germaphobe. But we are sharing the spring of this cup in recognition of the body and blood of Jesus Christ that was shed, that was broken. That’s what we’re.

. . And Paul starts off at the very beginning here by pointing out that the Lord’s suffering designed to sacrifice.

This was not just an empty ritual. You thought that, oh, look, these elements from the. . .

Coincidentally, and we can. . .

From the very beginning, the way he. . .

The way he at last Passover with his disciples the night before his. . .

It was designed. This pained us every time we do. I agree that Jesus, the importance of the Lord’s Supper, he says, I also, what I’m even secondhand from the other apostles.

Jesus told me this personally. Now that might come about and came to faith in Christ after the resurrection. And Paul wasn’t there with the twelve.

But we know at Paul’s conversion, we know from the book of Galatians chapter 1, Paul talks about how after he came to the deserts of Arabia, with Jesus appearing to him, and then to make crazy, He eventually did go and meet with some of the other apostles, wanting to confirm to hear from him. But Paul says, I taught you about the Lord’s Supper and its meaning and its importance, myself. Jesus instituted the Supper himself.

About the body, he broke it and said, this is my body, I’ll be honest with you, this bothered me because some translate which is for you, some translations say for you. And I’m like, that’s kind of an important word. It depends on which Greek manuscripts you look at.

But it doesn’t change the meaning because even here without it saying, my body which is broken. As earlier in verse 24, he broke it and offered to them. Either way, there was this violent pickover where the bread is ripped, it’s torn, and it was a demonstration to them.

Something that they could see with their eyes of what happened to Jesus’ body. The Old Testament tells us that not a single bone bears that out, that not a single bone was broken, but the body went through incredible violence. Went through that for us.

It’s an upper reminder. Off of the pre-made things, years I’ve started taking, at least in the inclination of what we’re doing, taking a piece of bread and breaking it in front of you. Sure, of Jesus’ body being a reminder that when we take the bread, Jesus sacks on the cross.

It says, in the same way he took the cup, also this cup is the new covenant in my blood. As often as you drink it in remembrance, said that when that blood was spilled with us and the wine that was poured was a reminder, was a video of the blood that was spilled. A couple years ago, I asked in a stump of time, they submitted the question to me, if all you have is orange juice, you can take juice for the Lord.

A chapter in, and the condition of your heart and what you’re doing, that’s between you and the Lord. In order to really ensure that God is trying to get across to us, fully appreciate what it is we’re drinking, needs to look like blood. Good reasons, but as a reminder, that’s why I’ve spent a couple years taking a little juice and pouring it out, emptying it out into the cup.

So as the drug to us of the blood that was shed, this was not a neat experience. Certainly what went on on the cross was not a neat, tidy, beautiful candles. There’s nothing wrong with having the white thing else.

But it’s the whole was the brutal of Jesus Christ. And we remember this of more fascination, but we remember what accomplished on the cross was for our salvation. And because that crucifixion was not the end, that direction three days later, in which we have eternal life. And it’s supposed to memory of the sacrifice that was offered.

Verse 26, And drink this. Claim the Lord’s death until He comes. It’s to the church.

And it’s supposed to be something that, I’m not saying we take it out in the street, spectacle of it. But it’s something the world should see and think, this is a little weird. And certainly that was the case for early Christians.

Early Christians were accused of cannibal. This is my body which is shed for you. and they accuse cannibalism. But it’s something that should be an attention to the world.

And when it’s done right, it can accomplish. We’ve had some great conversations with our kids over the years. They start out very young, seeing the bread, cup, past, back, why can’t I have any?

It represents the blood. Why do you want to eat something or drink something that reminds you of blood? Because we’ll remember that he made for us.

It opens doors and opens opportunities. It is a picture. Often as you do this, you show until.

. . And for this reason, verse 27 teaches to the Lord’s Supper, reflects our view of Jesus.

The way of the Lord’s Supper is kind of like that manager. Young men showing up to work. Did they have their ties?

Showing what we believe and how we’re performing. He says in verse 27, Therefore, whoever eat the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. He’s talking about the Lord’s Supper.

And this verse, I think, is key to us. It’s one of his core point here is that we need to be of the way to participate in the Lord’s and worthy manner. And it’s important that we understand what this is saying.

Let me take some of you a minute. My wife, she’s in nursery. Do we have anybody else that was an English teacher or is an English teacher?

What’s the difference between an adjective and a noun? Okay, okay. An adverb tells us how it modifies a verb.

An adjective modifies a noun. Adverb modifies. Why are we getting a grammar lesson?

I heard people quote this verse, anybody drinks or eats, unworthy an adjective, which would be describing us. If you are in trouble, what’s the problem with that? None of us are worthy of the sacrifice.

If I was worthy of it, I wouldn’t have needed it. And say how well we prepare ourselves. Gentiously, we’ve tried to live for Christ. You and I come in here and say, well, I’m worthy, at least on our own.

Now there is the sense in which Jesus, but if what I deserve, they’re worthy. But this in English, and it’s an way we do it. It’s not describing the eater, it’s describing the eater, the way we come in and do it.

So he’s saying, we have to come and do this in a way that is worthy of him, in a way that honors him is what it says. When we take the supper unworthily, the deep spiritual, when we ignore what we’re doing and we treat it as something other than an act, if we treat it as an act, and we may not necessarily be in danger of either of those, how about this, if we blunder that we’re in check off, that’s a real danger. It is in worship and an act of solemn remembrance of the sacrifice.

That doesn’t end the moment, but it needs to be treated with anything else that’s ten worthily. And if we do this, Paul says, the mercy of the body and the blood of the Lord. We are committed against the body and the blood of the Lord.

We are discerning the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And I really, because that’s so unthinkable. If somebody, you know, showed just Jesus Christ, I think we’d all say, no, there’s no way I’d do that. exactly if we don’t treat the Lord’s Supper as and so there’s a here that’s key to the Jesus.

It’s like such a little thing. They’d come from this pagan cult partying and that was part of their worship. And so the idea that we’re going to come together to the Lord’s Supper, they just and so to them it was a little the way they viewed Jesus Christ. If we come to the Lord’s Supper to worship in general, if we come to that time and we are not awed to Jesus Christ, If we’re not all and all grace that for us are in our hearts.

Eight reminds us. Says, but a man must examine himself to eat of the bread. These are commands.

We don’t English. But just understand, he’s saying this is not just a suggestion. To examine the women too.

But the main command is to drink. Eating and drinking is a command. As we’re supposed to show his death until he comes.

But first. Now this examination of ourselves, it means to take stock of our relationship with motivation. It means that we should be asking ourselves, coming to his table with the right attitudes and the right. .

. Are we treating it really. .

. The story before, we found a system that worked for us where every time there was a fifth Sunday together, because it was a time we could remember habitably on that week when. .

. I’m sorry for. .

. All of our minds are just scattered. And I remember one year walking in on Sunday morning, that Sunday between Christmas and New years and saying, oh no, we were supposed to do the Lord’s Supper this morning.

And going and rounding up a couple of deacons and saying, did y’all remember we were supposed to do the Lord’s Remember? We’ve got the bread. I think we’ve got some juice in there.

Okay, well, let’s see if we can fill some things. We’re trying to do this just like it was something on our calendar we had to get through. And just before we started filling the things, I said, wait a minute, this is not, we’re just doing this to get it done.

And we need to pray and prepare ourselves and talk with the want to come together and this be a worshipful experience. But we need to ask ourselves, are the right reasons, with the right motives, with the right attitude? And frequently this examine yourself here taught as, you know, look and see if there’s any sin that’s not dealt with.

Look and see if there’s any conflict with anybody else in the body and take care of those things. When we read it in context, that’s really not what he’s talking about. He’s talking about our motives for taking the supper.

But I’ll tell you, the Lord’s Supper is a pretty good reminder to take stock of our entire spiritual walk. There’s no bad time. There’s no bad time to deal with the Lord about unconfessed sin.

There’s no bad time to try to resolve conflict within the body. And the Lord’s Supper is a good time to remind us of that. And if you want to include that in your examination of yourself, all the better that the Lord’s Supper reminds us to examine ourselves.

Because he says in verses 29 through 32, there are serious consequences for failing to take the Lord’s Supper seriously. This is not an it doesn’t matter situation. there are a lot of things that don’t really matter.

There are a lot of things even that we can focus on in church that don’t really matter in the eternal scheme of things. Are we singing four songs today or five? What order are we doing the children’s message in?

We can find lots of things to talk about that don’t matter. The Lord’s Supper is not one of those things. We’ll have to answer for treating the sacrifice of Christ with disrespect or indifference.

Because he says in verse 29, He who eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. God says there is a judgment here. There is a point where you’re going to have to answer for this.

Not because God is concerned so much with the outward elements, but because of the way that how we deal with the Lord’s Supper reflects what’s in our heart. The righteousness with which we treat the sacrifice of Christ. He says in verse 30 that some people were chastened or even punished as a result of their actions. He said, many among you are weak or sick.

And I’ve heard people try to explain this away and spiritualize it and say, well, they’re spiritually sick. No, there were people literally physically sick. And some people even died.

God tried to get their attention. And I still need to do some study on it. Somebody asked me some questions about the end of 1 John where it talks about the sin unto death.

I’m still working on trying to get some answers together on that. But there is a point where we as believers can sin so much that God just says, you know what, I’m going to take you home. And there were people in the church that had paid a very steep price from not listening when God tried to get their attention.

And he talks here about judging ourselves so that we’re not judged. This doesn’t mean that we can avoid, you know, if we’ll just take stock of our lives, we can avoid judgment for all the things that we’ve done. What he’s saying here is that if we will examine ourselves going into the Lord’s Supper, we can prevent ourselves from doing something that’s going to incur the judgment of God.

We can stop the sin before it happens. And so he warns us to do that. And even this judgment, even if God does judge us, even if God does bring some kind of chastening or punishment to us as a result of disrespecting the sacrifice of Christ, verse 32 teaches that it’s more of a discipline-type punishment to bring us back, to get our attention, so that we’re not condemned with the word.

There are serious consequences for failing to take it seriously. Then we come to Paul’s conclusions on the matter. He kind of wraps up this discussion and goes back to the general discussion about all of it.

He says, so then, my brethren, when any of you come together to eat, wait for one another. He says, when you come together for these fellowship meals, he repeats it, just treat each other the way you’re supposed to. If you’re hungry, eat at home.

And again, he’s not saying don’t have the fellowship meals. He’s saying, if you’re so hungry that you have to have this big catered feast that you’re talking about, and you have to eat before anybody else has had a chance to, you know, you’re behaving like a wild animal, if you’re that hungry, you’ve got a house to do that in, so that you will not come together for judgment. And he says, the remaining matters I’ll arrange when I come.

That’s Paul saying, there’s other stuff that I need to deal with you about, but I’m going to have to do that in person. Which is not a phrase that I would want to hear if Paul was writing to me, but nevertheless, it’s where they were. For us, what we need to understand about this, why are we talking about this on a day when we’re not even taking the Lord’s Supper?

Number one, we are preparing to take the Lord’s Supper when we come together on Easter Sunday to remember the resurrection of Christ. We’re also remembering the sacrifice that led to the resurrection. We’re learning about this because it’s in 1 Corinthians and that’s where we are.

But we’re also learning about it for the very simple reason that we need to be reminded that there are things that seem small, things that can seem routine if we’re not careful, but even those things can reflect how we view the sacrifice of Christ. There are things in our lives that we may not give much thought to, like we’re in danger of doing with the Lord’s Supper, and how we handle those reflect our view of the sacrifice of Christ. Do we really believe and understand that God the Son became a man and stepped away from the praise and glory that He deserved in heaven, the splendor of that he deserved, he stepped out of that and came down to be among us.

And all the frustrations and irritations that we can bring, and walked among us for 30 plus years, lived a perfect sinless life as God in human flesh, was tempted in every way that we can be tempted, and resisted that temptation, he was without sin, and went to the cross, went through the ultimate agony and the ultimate humiliation, not because of anything he’d done to deserve it, because he was sinless. Responsibility for my sins and yours and to pay for them. And he was nailed to that cross and he shed his blood and that body was broken and that blood was spilled so that you and I could be forgiven, so that our slate could be wiped clean, so that we could have a relationship with the Father and eternal life.

He did that for us. Every time we partake of the Lord’s Supper, that’s what we’re remembering. But I’d go a step further.

It doesn’t say this in the passage, but I think it’s in line with what Scripture teaches. I would submit to you that every time we come together for worship, that should be at the forefront of our minds. And as we strive to honor Him each and every day, that should be at the forefront of our minds, that sacrifice that He made for us.

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