Should I be Afraid to Take Communion? – Rural Reset 18/21 [20]

Host: TJ Freeman

Summary: In this episode of Back to Rurality, TJ Freeman, a rural pastor, delves into the concerns and misunderstandings surrounding the Lord's Supper. He explores who should partake in it, the meaning behind the practice, and how it should be a joyous, communal act for believers. 

Key Points:

• Who is Communion For? Communion is for believers. We are taking the Lord's Supper together, placing our hope in work of Christ, instead of our own works. It is also for believers gathered together in local churches, not 'lone-ranger' Christians. 
• What is Communion For? Communion is like an ongoing Baptism. It is a symbolic reminder of our need for Christ. Just as God made us have a need for food, we have a need to go to him again and again. 

Listener Takeaways:

• Run to communion table with Joy. Praise the God who saved you.
• If you feel burdened by your sin, so much so that you feel as if you cannot take the Lord's Supper, talk with your pastor. Remember that communion is a reminder of all of our need for God's grace. 
• When you take the Lord's Supper, look to three things. Look back to the sacrifice that Christ made. Look around you to the people taking the supper with you. Lastly, look forward, in hope, to the supper feast of the lamb!  
  
  
  

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• Website: backtorurality.com
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Transcript

Are you afraid to take communion? That might seem like a weird question. Why would anyone be afraid to take communion? Are you suggesting someone might actually choke on that little piece of bread? Others are going, yeah, yeah, I actually am afraid to take communion. I know that there are eternal matters at stake and I know I'm a sinner. I'm just not sure how all that works together. So yeah, I'm a little afraid to take communion. So who's right? How should we feel when we approach the Lord's supper?

Who should be taking it and why? That's what we're going to talk about on this episode of Back to Rurality. Well, hello, and welcome to this episode of Back to Rurality. My name's TJ Freeman, and I'm a rural pastor. Like you, I live in the middle of nowhere, which is something I've really come to appreciate for a couple of reasons.

One, there are a whole lot of benefits to living in a place like this. But, more importantly, God has called people like us to live in places like this for a demonstration of His glory. And His glory is what we're going to talk about on this episode of Back to Rurality as we discuss a really important matter, the Lord's Supper.

Now, in some churches, if you grew up taking the Lord's Supper, they didn't really make that big, big of a deal about it. You just had that point in the service where the guy walks by with the plate, he passes it, you take a cracker, you take some juice, the pastor says some stuff, everyone takes communion and you move on.

In other churches, they may not have done communion at all, or if they did, it may have been like once a year. 

 Maybe in your church things were a little tougher. Communion was a big deal, but it was also just absolutely terrifying because you were told that if you take communion wrongly, you're drinking judgment upon yourself, which it is true. It was applied like this. You need to sit there, and you need to think of all the sins that you've done in recent memory.

At least since the last time you took communion. And you need to quickly confess them all. Because if your heart's not right, you're taking communion in the wrong way. And you don't want to drink judgment upon yourself. So you've been afraid of communion. Before we can address which view is the correct view, we really need to understand what communion is.

I want you to think about the word communion. What are some other words that start off the same way? Common, community, commune. It has something to do with other people and things that you share with those other people.

It's also referred to as the Lord's Supper. So it seems to be a meal. Which sounds weird to say. Because those little bite sized crackers, and that little tiny sip of juice, don't seem to equate to what we might think of as a meal. They really don't even qualify as a snack. So, I know I'm supposed to do this in community.

With people I share something in common with and I know I'm supposed to understand it as a meal How does this work together? Let's first talk about who this community is Communion is taken by a community of believers who are placing their hope in the work of christ For them instead of their own works for salvation.

It's a group of people who recognize I have sinned against god Who made me who loves me who's called me to live according to his word You I've just gone my own way. I've done my own thing instead. And I realized that because of that, I deserve God's wrath. I deserve judgment and punishment because of what I've done.

But I also understand that God has sent his son to receive the punishment that I deserve. In fact, Jesus died in my place, which was necessary because the wages or penalty of sin is death. It's a death that Jesus died for me. After living a perfect. life on my behalf. And when he died, the wrath of God was poured out on Jesus for all of my sin.

So the wrath of God then is satisfied through the atonement, the death of Christ, during which he shed his blood, which becomes the basis for my hope. I have actually been cleansed by the blood of Christ. My sins have been washed away through the work that Jesus has done for me. Jesus gave his body over to be sacrificed in this way.

And my hope is just in what Christ has done. That's just what it means to be a Christian and Christians make up this thing called the church. God has structured the church in time and in place in local congregations. And that community of believers is meant to gather together around their hope rooted in what Jesus has done for them.

 So that's what the church is. It's this community of believers. If you want to think more carefully about what the church is and why it's important, I went into greater detail in episode 12 of this podcast, so you could go back and listen to that, but I do want to just say communion is meant for a community of believers, who you will typically engage with in the organized structure, that is the local church. Therefore communion is not for unbelievers. And it's really not meant for people who are. Living their Christian life in isolation, because that's not what the Lord has for his people. We're not meant to be lone ranger Christians. And you really should be a member in a local church who's baptized. Some churches will require you to be a member at their church to take communion, that's called closed communion, which is their way of ensuring that people who come to the Lord's table to receive communion, to the best of their understanding, really are believers who are committed to the life of the local church. Other churches may just say, you need to be a member or be involved in whatever your church understands membership to be, so like actively involved, counted as one of them.

In a church somewhere to go take communion, that'd be close communion. So it's like a like minded church, you understand yourself to be a part of that, the life of that church, and they understand you to be a part of the life of that church. And then there's just open communion, where anybody who understands themselves to be a Christian can come forward to receive communion.

The church that's offering communion should give some instructions about who it's really for,

and they may employ any of those three scenarios. They may say this is just for our members or if you're a member of a church somewhere in good standing this is for you or just if you're a Christian come to the table. The point though in understanding this aspect of communion is knowing it is for believers, it is for Christians only because of what it is.

And here's what it is. It's consuming bread and the fruit of the vine, which in most cases is going to be Welch's grape juice. It's consuming these things to make a statement and that statement is i'm putting all of my hope and confidence In the finished work of christ in what jesus has given me not in any works of my own I'm, not trusting that I was awesome this week that my sins were less than the week before That I feel it. Any of those kind of things. i'm trusting in what the bible says a christian is And I understand myself to be that And these people around me acknowledge that.

And we're going to declare our hope together once again in what Christ has done for us. So if you don't believe that and you take communion, man, that is drinking judgment on yourself. It's a terrible idea. So if you're not a Christian, don't tell a lie. In public just because there's social pressure or you weren't sure what this was all about, Or you think that somehow this is going to help you spiritually by taking communion, It's not for you as an unbeliever, But if you're a christian it is for you. 

 If you're a believer, who's not under the disciplinary correction of a church who's removed you from the table through excommunication. Then the Lord's Supper really is for you. You should understand that it is a means of grace that the Lord has provided to encourage your soul

and although nothing mystical happens in that moment, it's not like, you know, like Jesus somehow inhabits a those elements of communion. It's not as though taking them fills you with something that you were otherwise lacking. God does use that act of taking communion to give you a visible representation of the gospel that you consume as a demonstration of your hope and you're surrounded by a bunch of other Christians who do the same thing and that should fill you with hope and excitement about the work that God is doing in your church and in your community.

Communion is a joy saturated, delightful time with the body of Christ that should not make you feel Overwhelmed by guilt. If it does it's just a mechanism to get you to turn repent to trust the Lord and again Re identify with your true hope the work of Christ. It just should be an occasion for great joy in the life of a believer. And so let me just kind of walk you through what we do at my church. What we do isn't as important as why we do, but what we do does have a reason.

It's an informed decision. We're not just going through some motion. So let me tell you first something we don't do. We don't dim the lights. We don't ask everyone to close their eyes and sit there in personal meditation. We don't have music playing in the background to set a mood. We don't do any of those things.

We actually think those things could be harmful to what communion really is. So what do we do? Well, we actually Ask people to come forward to receive communion. And in the front of our church Our elders are there holding the bread, holding the juice, and when you come forward they're handing you this. They're distributing These elements to you which you receive. As you stand in line waiting to receive communion, We're singing. The whole congregation's doing it and it feels weird the first couple times you do it like i'm singing I'm in a line for communion and i'm singing And it just feels like awkward But as you realize what's happening, you become very encouraged.

In fact, our church has come to really love the fact that we sing while we go forward. And here's what we're doing. We're saying this is something we're doing in community. And we're doing it with delight in our hearts. It's kind of reminiscent of if you read the Psalms, some of them say a Psalm of Ascent.

And these are the songs that they're singing on their way to the temple. And as we go to receive communion together, we're doing something like that. We're singing with joy as we go and receive this means of grace. That is the elements of the Lord's Supper. Then we go sit back down. We're holding on to them.

And then pastorally, I'll usually read something about communion from the scriptures and I'll remind the congregation of what we're doing, why we're doing it. I make sure at some point that the table is fenced, meaning I explain what I explained here, that this is not for unbelievers. Fencing the table is essentially making sure that those who do not have a right to come to the table understand that they're not invited. This is not for somebody who's been excommunicated from the church. This is for believers. Then we will hold these elements out.

Here's the body of Christ, which he gave for you. Let's take and eat this in remembrance of him. We eat the bread. Then the juice, this is the new covenant in his blood. This is the, the imagery of what has allowed us to enter into this relationship between God and man that's a good relationship, not one of wrath, even though that's what we deserve.

This is, A representation of the fact that we've been made clean and brought into this family of believers through the work of Jesus Christ And we take that together with great joy And by doing so we proclaim christ's death until he comes the bible says in other words We continue to tell the world and each other all have fallen short of the glory of god. Yet,

we have been offered life through the work of christ You Who died to save us. It's a wonderful opportunity for hope and encouragement and enthusiasm. On the last episode, I talked about baptism, which is your entrance into the church. And now we're looking at communion as the second ordinance or sacrament of the church and saying, This is like your ongoing baptism.

This is how you continue to identify with Christ and his people through communion. Instead of feeling like, man, if I'm really zealous, I need to do something like go get re baptized. You know, if I was struggling and suffering and distant before, but now I feel a renewed sense, man, this is the thing you're supposed to do.

Run to the table and take the supper with joy and just praise the Lord who saw fit to save you , even though you didn't deserve it and who has given you this renewed interest in Him. And if you're struggling in sin, And you're feeling like, I think I just need to sit this one out because I was too sinful last week.

I just want to point to you what this really is. This is you saying, my hope isn't in me or my good works. My hope is in Christ who has died to save me and set me free. He's done this on my behalf. Go to the table. And be renewed, be strengthened, be encouraged. Once again,

this is a means of grace to strengthen and encourage you. Not something that you should run from because you feel like you didn't do well enough to deserve it. You haven't done well enough to deserve it. God has brought you to the table anyway. That's what the gospel is all about. Is all about if you have questions about ongoing sin something in your life You can't seem to shake a stubbornness something like that you need to sit down and talk with a pastor about how to work through that. In the meantime, You may want to pick up a copy of Bobby Jameson's book in that Church Basics series I mentioned last episode.

This one's called Understanding the Lord's Supper. Very encouraging, very helpful, very clear, very accessible. I've run out of things to say very about, but it's a really useful book. Listen, we've only scratched the surface on the Lord's Supper, which is all I really want to do in this Rural Reset series.

Remember, we're going through 21 episodes. that are just kind of the basics or some fundamental things about what it means to be a Christian. I'm trusting the Lord to use this series to encourage and strengthen you, but also to drive you to dig a little deeper. So if you want to dig a little deeper, that book I just mentioned is a really excellent resource.

Sitting down and talking with a pastor would be a really great next step. And if you want to reach out to me at all, you can head over to facebook.com slash back to Rurality. You can go to the brainerdinstitute.com. You could sign up for our email list there. We would be really encouraged by that, or you can email connect at brainerdinstitute.com. And I'd be happy to follow up with you there. If you have questions and I'd be really encouraged by the conversation. Thanks for listening to this episode and we'll see you next week. For now let's get back to life back to rurality.