THE LORDS SUPPER
As we continue our series on the topic of worship we will be examining the Lord’s Supper this morning. The Lords Supper is a topic that is misunderstood in the religious world today. The reason why I believe its misunderstood is due to a lack of study and mediation of God’s Word. The Bible makes it clear what the Lord’s Supper is, when and how it is to be taken and its purpose.
What is the Lord’s Super?
Christ himself instituted the Lord Supper on Thursday night at the Passover meal. This is recorded in Mat.,Mark and Luke. You might remember Jesus had sent Peter John to prepare the Passover meal for him and the disciples. Let’s pick up on this story in Luke’s account starting at,
Luke 22:14 When the
hour had come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him. 15 Then He said to them,
"With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you
before I suffer; 16 "for
I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the
Jesus had many times told his disciples that he would have
to die and suffer sometime in the future. Well, now he knew the time was
getting close because he realized that this would be his last time to eat this
Passover meal with his disciples. This the apostles first glimpse into what the
Lord Supper is. Notice Jesus tells them that the bread represent his body that would be
slain and the fruit of the vine would represent his blood that would shed to
usher in the new covenant that bring about forgiveness of sins. This gave the
unleavened bread and the fruit of the vine a whole new meaning. Until now the
bread and fruit of the vine were viewed as a memorial of how the Jews were
delivered out of
This is very significant to us because when Jesus died on the cross he delivered us from the law and from the power of sin. Paul tells us in Col. 2:14 that Jesus nailed the requirements to the law to the cross. Through this great sacrifice he made for us he established a new covenant which made it possible for us to receive the forgiveness of our sins. Heb. 9 goes into great detail of how Christ is the author of better covenant and how he died for our transgressions. This is why Jesus has become our Passover. Paul states this in,
1 Corinthians 5:7
Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly
are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
We can only imagine
the emotions that had to be floating around in that room after what Jesus had
said. We need to remember these men had been through a lot together and they
truly loved Jesus and it had to hit hard in their heart that this would be
their last meal with Jesus. You know this had to be hard on Jesus as well, but
he knew what he had to do. Not only did Jesus have tell his disciples this
heart wrenching news notice what else he had to tell them.
Matthew 26:21 Now as
they were eating, He said, "Assuredly, I say to you, one of you will
betray Me." 22 And they
were exceedingly sorrowful, and each of them began to say to Him, "Lord,
is it I?" 23 He answered
and said, "He who dipped his hand with Me in the dish will betray
Me. 24 "The Son of Man
indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son
of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been
born." 25 Then Judas,
who was betraying Him, answered and said, "Rabbi, is it I?" He said to
him, "You have said it."
Judas, Judas, Judas how
his heart must have been pounding in his throat to know that Jesus had found
him out. Judas would be responsible for betraying Jesus and which would
ultimately lead to his death. Now that we have examined what the Lord Supper is
now lets take a look at
How it
should be taken.
The best way to discover
this is to look at how it shouldn’t be taken and we have a great example of
this found in,
1 Corinthians
You have to understand that the Corinth church had a lot of
problems and these verses are talking about how they were abusing what was
suppose to be the Lord’s Supper.
1 Corinthians 11:23 For I
received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus
on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks,
He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken
for you; do this in remembrance of Me."
25 In the same manner He also took the cup
after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do,
as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." 26 For as often as you eat this
bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes. 27 Therefore whoever eats this
bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be
guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the
bread and drink of the cup. 29
For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to
himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
Now Paul has turned is
attention on how the Lord Supper should be taken. First of all we are to take in remembrance of
Jesus Christ. Just Passover was a reminder to the Jew of how death passed them
over and brought about their freedom slavery. The Lords Supper is to remind us
of how Jesus has made eternally salvation possible for us by becoming the
perfect sacrifice and dying on the cross so that we could be freed the bondage
of sin.
Second of all we need to
realize that when we do partake of the Lords Supper that it is away of
proclaiming his death until he comes again.
Third from verse 28 we
learn that the partaking of the Lords Supper is a time of reflection. We need
to examine how we are living our life in accordance to Gods will. When we stop
and think about the significance of the Lords Supper and what it all about it
becomes a reminder for us each week for us to live pure and holy lives before
God. It important that we know what are doing as partake of Lords Supper so
that we don’t partake of it in unworthy manner as the Corinthians had been
doing. Paul makes it clear that we be judged guilty of Jesus blood and his body
by God if we partake of it in unworthy manner. In Heb. 6:6 it describes those
who fall away like the Corinthians had was like crucifying Christ all over
again. So, we need to be careful of how we partake of the Lords Supper.
Another we see over and
over again is that the Lord Supper is to consist of unleavened bread and the
fruit of the vine. That is all we should use because God has not given us the
freedom to substitute these with something else like wonder bread and cool –
aid.Now before we move away from this passage I want to deal with the topic
eating in the building. You see there are those who say that it wrong to have a
fellowship meal in the church building and therefore making it wrong to have a
kitchen attached to a church building. Their argument comes from this verse.
1 Corinthians
Now
let me give several reason why this
argument just doesn’t make any sense. Paul was condemning these people because
they were not observing the Lords Supper instead they were having this feast
and getting drunk and they weren’t even doing
this in unity. From this alone we can see that Paul is not condemning a
common meal at the place the Christians meet he was only condemning them for making
a mockery of the Lords Supper. Again this go back to the misunderstanding that
worship has a beginning and end and also is a failure to recognize that the people are the church and not the building.
Now
we need to keep in mind that in the first century many times the people would
meet in a persons home. Would this mean that once they used that home as a
meeting place that they could never prepare a meal their again? Absolutely not.
It was pretty common back then after they meet together they would eat
together.
Acts
Its
kind of funny but those that teach this
and hold to it will many times have a water fountain in their building and they don’t see a
problem with that. Some of the offices and the preacher will drink a cup of
water or eat a snack there without blinking an eye. I have never got to ask
what they think about nursing mother. If
her child gets hungry and feeds her baby at the building if they want to hold
to their teaching they would have to say that she was sinning because she fed
her baby. When you really think about this teaching you and to put into
perspective you begin see how silly it is.
While
we are on this topic I also want to show the misunderstanding of those who
teach that you must drink from one cup.
Matthew 26:27 Then He
took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink
from it, all of you.
You see they would say the Jesus just used one cup so we should use just one cup. However they fail to understand is that Jesus is using a figure of speech known a Metonymy (met tawn eme). A metonymy is defined as a figure of speech in which the name of one thing is used in place of that of another associated with or suggested by it. For example, someone might ask did she like her lemonade? Then they might respond yes she drank the whole cup. You see the cup represent the lemonade and not the cup itself. We Use the form of speech all the time. We might say the pot is boiling but we understand that the liquid is what actual boiling and not the pot. Let me give you 2 Biblical examples.
Genesis
Moses wasn’t talking about the dirt or the water he was talking about the people that are on the earth. The same thing is true with our next verse.
John
Again he is talking about the people and not the
earth. So you see when Jesus was talking about the cup he wasn’t giving any
special meaning to the cup itself he was talking about fruit of vine. We can
further prove this by the fact that just as the bread was to be eaten the fruit
of the vine was to be drunk (Mt. 26:27) and it was to be divided ( Lk.
When should we partake of the Lord’s Supper?
Look at what Luke says in,
Acts 2:42 And
they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the
breaking of bread, and in prayers.
In context Luke has just
finished talking about the birth of the church and the 3000 that became
Christians that day and he states that they continued steadfastly or continually
devoted themselves to various things
when breaking bred being one
them. Now breaking bread here is referring to the Lords Supper. So we can see that they were
partaking of it often. But, we get more detail of exactly when they partaking
of it in,
Acts 20:7 Now on the first day of the week, when
the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day,
spoke to them and continued his message until
Now we looked at this
some last week when I was showing the significance of the first day of the
week. So might remember that Paul stayed at
1 Corinthians 16:2 On the first day of the week
let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that
there be no collections when I come.
Now I want you to know that every denomination
that I know of will teach that you must give of your means every first day of
the week. In fact the NAS and ESV both render this first day of every week.
But, did you know that the exact same Greek words are used in Acts 20:7
describing when the Lord Supper is to be taken. So, if you are going to teach
that giving must be done ever first day of the week then you must teach the
same thing about the Lords Supper. Again I want to remind you significance of
the first day of the week.
1. Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of
week.
2. The church began on the first day of the week.
3. We are commanded to give on the first day of
week
4. By example we are to partake of the Lords on
the first day of the week.
I think this makes it easy to see when Lords
Supper is be taken. Now before we leave this section of scripture it important that I point out that not ever time
you see the term break bread does it mean the Lords supper because sometimes it
can refer to a common meal. You have to look at the context to determine which
is being spoken of and some get confused because Paul uses this term in both ways.
Acts 20:7 Now on the first day of the
week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart
the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until
In verse number 7 notice how it says the disciples
came together to break bread. This means that all of them would obviously
referring to the Lords Supper. However watch after Paul goes down and brings
Eutychus back up alive it sas in verse 11 it changes from the disciples to just
Paul breaking bread and it adds the word eaten. No doubt after preaching as
long as he had he was not hungry so Paul ate a common meal and was not
partaking the Lords Supper again as some have misunderstood. The whole
understanding is this is the fact that only Paul broke bread and no else. Now
finally lets take a look at who should partake of the Lords Supper.
Who Should Partake of the Lord’s Supper?
This should be no-brainer only Christians should partake of the Lords Supper. Now one thing I like to do is look at what they did under the OT in regards to the Passover. Notice what Moses says in,
Exodus
Colossians 2:11 In Him you were also circumcised
with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins
of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised
with Him through faith in the working
of God, who raised Him from the dead.
Besides this let me give you several reason why only Christians should partake of the Lord’s Supper.
1 Corinthians
What Paul says here goes hand and hand with what Jesus
says in,
Matthew 26:29 "But
I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that
day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom."
When we are partake of
the Lords Supper we are in fellowship with Jesus and since it is in the kingdom
or we might say in the church that we do this, this tells us that only
Christian should partake of the Lords Supper.
Another reason that we
looked at earlier is the fact that we are to examine ourselves and how we have
been living our lives for God. How can a non-Christian do this when they have
never became a Christian and the fact that we must know what we are doing
leaves out the young children because they don’t full comprehend what Lords
Supper is all about. Also you cannot find one example where a child or
non-Christian was allowed to partake of the Lord’s Supper in the Bible. So only
Christians should partake of the Lords Supper.
Conclusion.
The
Lord’s Supper was instituted by our savior and we should honor our Lord by
partaking of the Lord’s Supper each and ever first day of the week. The Bible
is very clear that we are to partake of it on the first day of the week only.
The Passover was observed in the Old Testament by the Jews in remembrance of
their deliverance from