In Remembrance

In Corinthians 11, Paul addresses another division causing problems in the church at Corinth. Instead of coming together to observe the Lord’s Supper they were coming for a feast to fill their bellies.

Paul uses the meaning of the bread and cup to show the church the importance of the memorial meal.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:20

And good morning. Welcome back to the Preacher Man Podcast. Sermon and lessons in review. We will be looking this morning at last Sunday's sermon from the 8th. I did something a little different, and the congregation seemed to really respond to it well. And I hope you enjoy it as well. Last Sunday, our focus was on the second part, if you will, of 1 Corinthians chapter 11, where Paul um addresses an issue in the Corinthian church about the what they were doing when they were partaking of the Lord's Supper. In essence, in a nutshell, they weren't taking the Lord's Supper. They weren't um having a memorial feast. They were printing other things ahead of that, and it wasn't even the Lord's Supper at all. When we look at something like this, and I I I said it I said it in this in the lesson, so I'll I guess I can but I can say it again. Chapter 11 was challenging in the fact that the issue of head coverings at the first part of Chapter 11, not necessarily a I guess you could say a hot button topic in 2026 in the in the majority of churches. And for the most part, I can't speak for other congregations, but I feel and I believe that on a whole our church family observes the Lord's Supper well and in a way that it should be done. Whether we are drinking and taking communion out of the pre-mittle communion kits that we did uh during and after COVID for a while, uh we enjoyed that. Uh for many reasons was because we could take communion together simultaneously. Um the bread and the cup were already there. You could you you grabbed your little kit as you came in and sat down for worship, and when the time came to observe it, we were were able to do it all at once. But after a while we it was decided to go back and do the uh Lord's Supper the way it's normally been done for years now, and that is to um have men come up, serve uh the bread, uh, serve uh the fruit of the vine and trace, and that's been enjoyable as well. Now, the trick in this is to really understand the meaning behind the emblems. And what I mean by that is that the you know, and and I this is not something that all of you all already know, so I I hope I'm not I hope I'm not insulting your intelligence by reminding you of this, but the bread has a specific meaning, and the cup has a specific meaning. And when we do this, we are doing it uh uh with a purpose of one memorializing and focusing on Jesus' instructions before he died on the cross, uh the sacrifice that was made with his body, and we also celebrate a new covenant that was made at his death. And many times I'm guilty I and I've I've been guilty of this is not not not I did it on purpose, it was just I I misplaced some of those meanings. And so um as individuals in our churches today, it's important for us to be reminded not just on what was done for us on the cross and why we take the Lord's Supper, but the specific details of each of those things. So we did a combination worship service Sunday where we I come I combined the sermon and the Lord's Supper together. So we talked about the the issue, then we talked about the bread, and then we took the bread, and then we focused on the cup, and then we and then I we blessed the cup. We prayed over the cup, and then we took the cup. And I really enjoyed um presenting that lesson that way. And like I said, I think it got some positive I got some positive feedback on it as well. So without further ado, let's go ahead and jump into it with um in remembrance based on First Corinthians chapter eleven, seventeen through thirty-four, that was uh looked at and discussed last Sunday. Good to see you all here this morning. Appreciate the presence of you all. Open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, where we will conclude chapter 11 this Sunday. Lord willing, I want to encourage you, if you are one of those who wants to read ahead, be reading chapters 12 through 14. 12 through 14 is what we'll be covering, Lord willing, next Sunday. Our theme for the year is fixed in 2026. And we are using the lessons that we uh from the book of 1 Corinthians to study and see just what all was taking place in the church in Corinth so we can have a little preventative maintenance. We know there's a lot of good things that were that that we can read from Corinth, but they come from problems and issues that were taking place inside the church. Paul writes this letter and the second letter to help resolve some of those issues. About two years ago, these two young ladies, mother and daughter, took a trip during Christmas to New York. And I was invited to go along, and I reluctantly uh turned it down because I didn't want to go to New York. But after the trip and some of the places that they went, I immediately regretted it because one of the places that they went and toured on their trip to New York was the 9-11 Memorial. I don't know if many if any of you have been there and been a part of that, but there were many, many things that are in that memorial that even before you get into the area where all the things are displayed, you start to get a feel and understand just what you're about to go into and visit and see. Both Michelle and McKenna both were impacted by the things that were on display at this memorial. Um, of course, that was one of them, was the beam that uh when it was sheared off and broken apart, it uh kept the form and it took the shape of a cross, was one of the things that you got to see real close up and be a part of. Um this had an impact on both McKenna and Michelle because here you have this this instrument of rescue, this life-saving piece of equipment going into the fray. And normally, when you see one of these instruments, these trucks, these uh this this thing driving by, you know there's something good going to come out of this. And that was the result of what the towers will do to an apparatus like a fire truck. And they left it that way. They left it that way because it was to show and and and signify the willingness to use whatever means necessary. They will go the distance, and they will uh be almost the sacrifice of lives as well as equipment was impacted. One of the things that they talk about is just the sheer force of what kind of damage it did to the to the when it fell and collapsed, and what the and and and both you that's uh one of the beams uh from the towers that you can actually put your hand out there and touch and experience and just see uh just how much con how much just destruction there was. And McKenna wasn't even born when 9-11 took place. No, she was a baby. So she wasn't born yet. That's right. So she is experienced this firsthand where Michelle remembers what it was like to see the things happening on TV. One of the things that both impressed McKenna and Michelle both was they they they kept the recordings from Flight 93, the plane that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, following the people on the plane revolting and taking that plane back over and crashing that plane on purpose in Pennsylvania, knowing full well that it was probably headed toward the White House. And they had the recordings of the phone calls that mothers and fathers made to their loved ones to tell them this is where we are, this is what's taking place, and this is what we're doing. And then what what one of the one of the aspects of the of the memorial was the they they it was a replica of they did a of a of a wall of pictures of the missing people who were missing when the towers collapsed. Michelle said that the that there was a certain area in that in that 9-11 where the towers were where people would pass by all the time, and because poor uh poor communications, uh cell phones were, you couldn't make any phone calls, there was so much, there was so much conflict and so much uh uh uh problems with the communication system that they resorted to putting up the missing picture, missing persons on one specific wall in that area, so that the passers-by could look to see if maybe one of these people was recognized who were in the towers when the towers fell. Memorials are very important. Oh, yes. If you ever were to take a trip to Washington, D.C., there are a lot of memorials. And those memorials are there for a reason. Um as we as we look at this section in Corinthians, I want us to think about this one question. And this one question is this What does the Bible say, actually say about the bread and the cup? In verse 18, Paul identifies the core problem of this church, and that is they are struggling with divisions. And we've talked a little bit about this already, but this but this section brings it kind of full circle with the theme of the first four chapters. Paul notes that there's a rift. There's a rift that takes place in the church. And Paul makes it clear that their divisions were evidence of both a misunderstanding of true spiritual immaturity, and there is a lack of loving concern for one another. And so while these divisions are not a good thing overall, Paul points out that there is faction, that some of these factions are gonna happen because of the individual spiritual maturity of each person in the church. Some might be have have a stronger faith, or some might be, or where some might be new to the faith. And so some of these factions are expected. But Paul points out that the problem specifically in this section is that the Christians have turned the Lord's Supper into a way of filling up their own bellies. They're not eating the Lord's Supper together. The Church of Corinth are, they're not partaking of the Lord's Supper with the right heart and the right memorial. They literally have come to a feast where they eat extravagance amounts of food, drink, extravagant amount of drink, to the point that Paul questions, why in the world are you even here? Paul identifies this as a critical failure. He writes in verse 20, therefore when you come together, is it not to eat the Lord's supper? For when you eat, each one takes his own supper first, and one goes hungry while another gets drunk. What? Do you not have houses in which you can eat or drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What am I to say to you? Shall I praise you? This I do not praise you. The Corinthians had turned the Lord's supper into a selfish meal to satisfy their hunger rather than a shared memorial for Christ. They were focusing on feast rather than faith. And people were being left hungry, they were being neglected, and the ceremony turned hollow. What they were doing, it was so off target, it's worse as if they maybe they were not been practicing it at all. Instead of coming together to remember the Lord's sacrifice in harmony, in humility, in cooperation, they turned it into a party. Most likely, side note, most likely it was probably similar to how the pagans were worshiping as they participated in the past before they became Christians and joined the family of God. These kinds of feasts were taking place in the pagan world, but Paul says we're called to be different. This food is being distributed equally, unequally, and they and some were even getting drunk. Rather than being unified by the experience, they were most likely dividing the rich from the poor and being ravenous in the process. And so it's with this attitude that doesn't make sense to call it such, it doesn't make sense to call what they were doing the Lord's Supper. Now, as we've been going through chapter 11, I realized when I was preparing for this that chapter 11 is it I didn't know how I would wanted to approach this because the first section is about head coverings, which is not really relevant in 2026. And for the most part, I would say that as a body of believers here at Northcrest, we are normal, we we on a on a majority of time, we have the right kind of attitude when it comes to the Lord's Supper. I would say as a group, now I can't speak for your hearts right now or you individually, but I would say for the most part, we have a proper respect and love for the memorial feast that Christ laid out for us. But as I got deeper into it, I noticed that maybe there were some things that we might have forgotten. And so this is kind of a hopefully a gentle reminder. The bread. In verse 23, for I received from the Lord which I delivered to you that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, he 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. Amen. Broken. What does that mean? Now we know, we know that in John 19, 36, John says that Jesus is, Jesus didn't suffer any broken bones. And many times we, that when if that's mentioned in a communion talk or a communion prayer, there is some, maybe, maybe some confusion about how what that actually means. When we hear someone else use the word broken, today, we should be careful. We should be careful that you don't take the opportunity to climb on your high horse to correct them in order to show how biblically wise you are. You see, broken is being used as a metaphor for the intense physical punishment that Jesus endured through the scourging and through the crucifixion. It's very similar to how today we would say, after a hard day's work, man, I'm just broke down. Or my dogs hurt, referring to your feet. Or me and Charles might use the phrase, been rode hard and put up wet. It means we're exhausted from a day of being out and working and doing physical labor. So we should be able to recognize then the literal wholeness of his body while still honoring the figurative breaking that led to his sacrifice. And so when Jesus broke the bread, he gave thanks. Both Matthew and Mark also call it, but Matthew and Mark call it a blessing. These terms are interchangeable. When we pray before the Lord's Supper, we aren't asking God to do something to the bread. We are blessing it through our gratitude. Much like saying a blessing at the meal in our fellowship, Paul, it means we are offering thanks to God. Our focus at the table should be a prayer of pure thanksgiving. The focus of our thoughts are to be centered on Jesus offering himself as a sacrifice for us. His body was ravaged. His body was crucified. And Jesus gave his life so that we could have peace with God. Just like Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians in verse 521, where we see Jesus becoming the sin sacrifice for us so that we can become the righteousness of God. Peter says that Christians are called to imitate Christ by the suffering for doing good because Jesus was willing to do so. He says in 1 Peter 22, 222, he who committed no sin, nor had any deceit found in his mouth, while were being abusively insulted, he did not insult and in return, while suffering he did not threaten, but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously. And he himself brought our own sins in his body upon the cross so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness by his wounds. You were healed. So, for you were continually straying like sheep. But now you have returned to the shepherd and the guardian of your soul.

unknown 24:10

Thank you, Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

So we take the bread and we eat it. And we eat it in remembrance of Jesus. Now, in case you some of you want, well, what are we going to remember? Well, Jesus says, This is my body, which is for you. We are remembering the sacrifice Jesus made for us. Yes. Which his body was given for us. Let's pray. Most kind and gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you for the solution to the sin problem. We know that it came in the form of your son Jesus Christ. And what that day and night took for him, took from him. We know, Lord, that in many ways the descriptions of what happened that day do not compare to what take place when we remember just what happened. We know that a sacrifice had to be made. And it was through Jesus that we have peace with you. God, we don't want to be an enemy. We want to be children of the Most High God. And it's through this sacrifice we can have that luxury. These things we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. He was despised and abandoned by men, a man of great pain and familiar with sickness. And like one from whom the people hide their faces, he was despised and we had no regard for him. However, it was our sickness that he himself bore. In our palms that he carried. Yet we ourselves are assumed that he had been afflicted, struck down by God, humiliated. But he was pierced for our offenses. He was crushed for our wrongdoings. The punishment for our well-being was laid upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We are all like sheep that have gone astray. Each one of us has turned his own way. But the Lord has caused the wrongdoings of us all to fall on him. He was oppressed, afflicted, and he did not open his mouth like a lamb that was led to slaughter. And like a sheep that is silent before the shear, he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And as for his generation, who considered that he cut off from the land of the living for the wrongdoings of my people on whom the blow is due. Now, when it comes to the cup or the fruit of the vine, I know that I have made this error. And if there's anyone out there who might have accidentally done the same thing, I want to share with you what I've learned. I don't think many of you have. So after the bread, Jesus took the cup in the same way, offering another prayer of thanks. And this is a biblical pattern that I think we can follow when we pray. We are partaking of the fruit of the vine. So to bless the cup is not a request for God to, like I said before when we were talking about the bread, not to change the liquid in the cup, but as an act of gratitude within this memorial. So verse 25 states, this was done in remembrance of him. This leads to a once again, another important question. Exactly, what are we called to remember at this moment? Paul quotes Jesus, saying, This cup is the what? New covenant. In my blood. He is inviting us into a specific kind of remembrance. Now it is easy to say the cup represents the blood. And while that is true, we must understand what that actually means. We aren't just focusing on the physical blood resulting in a crucifixion. The bread did that. The bread is the symbol for his bodily suffering. The cup represents that new covenant, the legal and spiritual reality made possible by his death. What exactly does Jesus say his blood represents? According to his own words. The cup signifies the new covenant. In fact, the synoptic gospels record him, identifying his blood as the blood of the covenant. This means the new covenant is the primary focus of our remembrance. What does the new covenant signify, you might ask? Well, his blood is a chosen symbol for a new relationship with God. Hebrews chapter 9, starting in verse 15, says, for this reason, he is the mediator of the new covenant, so that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the violations that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For a covenant is valid only when people are dead, for it is never in force while one who made it lives. Therefore, even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. The fundamental point is that the covenant cannot be ratified without blood. A death must occur. Something has to die for this testament, this new testament to take effect. Just like in our legal world today, a one's last will and testament only becomes active after someone passes on. This new covenant, or we could say this new testament, required the death of Jesus to be enacted. And we see this pattern in the Old Testament as well. The law of Moses was started by the shedding of blood to show that a life had been given. And so when we are observing the Lord's Supper, we are giving thanks. We're giving thanks for this new agreement with God, which only can take place after Jesus' death to ratify it. Notice how the Hebrew writer explains it in this connection. Come on up, man. He says in verse 19, for when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of a calf and a goat with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled them both on the book itself and all the people. Verse 20 says, This saying, This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you. And in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with blood, and almost all things were cleansed with blood according to the law, and without shedding blood, without shedding blood. There is no forgiveness. This covenant that sealed Sinai, sealed at Sinai. Moses proclaimed that this blood of the covenant, this is the blood of the covenant, this ritual painted a vivid picture of a spiritual reality. According to verse 22, the cleansing and the forgiveness requires shedding of blood. In the Lord's Supper, we offer our gratitude for this new covenant. We recognize that our sins are forgiven only because this new testament was put into effect by the death of Jesus. And now we give thanks. We give thanks for this new covenant, remembering that our spiritual purification was bought by the death of Jesus, which only enacted this new, which officially, excuse me, enacted this new relationship with God. Let's bow. God, we know that you are the maker of all things good and the maker of all things new. And with this fruit of the vine, which represents your son's blood, but as a proclamation of a new covenant with your people, with those who you choose, who choose to follow you and surrender to you, we know that this is how and why and what it means to have the forgiveness of sins. And we thank you. We thank you for this new testament, this new covenant. And as we take this cup, let us do it in a manner of remembrance and memorial. Because we know just how important Jesus' sacrifice is for us today. In Jesus' name, amen. For one will hardly die for a righteous person, though perhaps for the good person, someone would even dare die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled shall we be saved by his life. He warns the Corinthians church against the partaking of the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner. But we have to understand some things. We have to look at what that means in the context of how it was written. You see, they had turned the Lord's Supper into a common, selfish meal fueled by division rather than unity. Therefore, taking communion in an unworthy manner isn't about being scared that you are forgetting the right words or that your children are distracting you. No, no, no. It's about the heart. Behind the gathering. So when you read verse 28 and it calls to examine yourselves, this isn't some kind of test to see if you if any of us are worthy of the sacrifice. I'll go ahead and tell you right now, that would be impossible. Instead, it is a call to be intentional. We are called to examine our focus, ensuring we aren't mindlessly participating, but instead honoring Christ and our fellow believers. I hope you can see how these two things, these two items, these two different things are what we are to remember when we partake of the Lord's Supper. With the bread, we are remembering the suffering, the sacrifice of Jesus. With the fruit of the vine, we are remembering this new covenant that was enacted by the blood of Jesus so that we can be forgiven of our sins. Paul also points out that what we have done in partaking of the Lord's Supper is we are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes. We're telling each other in this room about the death of Jesus and will continue to do so until Christ returns. So we eat and we drink in hope under a new covenant that we remember his death, but we know he lives and will come again. And so we that's why we do this every week. So that Jesus in unity and in harmony is proclaimed each week. The death of Jesus for the sins of the world, church, that's the hub of our lives. We live because Jesus died for us. We come together each Sunday to remember a Lord, a Savior, the Son of God who died so that we could have life. Almost a genius, it is genius. Something so simple. And so Lord's lever. And I agree with that. I also have a deep appreciation for the fellowship, the public reading of the pressure, the singing. But I do recognize the importance of why we do what we do every Sunday. I wanted to share with you uh the song before the lesson that is normally uh is sometimes our song leaders here at Northcrest will uh will put a song in front of the of the lesson to I guess you could say uh kind of help introduce what we're being what we're talking about. And uh the song that we sang before the lesson on Sunday was the song called called Come Share the Lord. And the lyrics are very beautiful. We gather here in Jesus' name. His love is burning in our hearts like living flame. For through the loving Son, the Father makes us one. Come take the bread, come drink the wine, come share the Lord. No one is a stranger here. Everyone belongs. Finding our forgiveness here, we in turn forgive all wrong. He joins us here, he breaks the bread. The Lord who pours the cup is risen from the dead. The one we love the most is now our gracious host. Come take the bread. Come drink the wine. Come share the Lord. We're now a family of which the Lord is head. Go unseen, he meets us here in the breaking of the bread. We will gather soon. Where angels sing. We'll see the glory of our Lord and coming King. Now we anticipate the feast for which we wait. Come take the bread. Come drink the wine. Come share the Lord. I hope you enjoyed this podcast this morning. And as always, want to make sure that you know that if you have any questions or comments about the shows, uh this episode or ones that we've had in the past, or perhaps you have something that you would like to have me answer on the show, please, please uh contact me by email. You can reach me at preacherman1178 at gmail.com. That's preacherman1178 at gmail.com. I would love to hear from you. As always, we won't hope that you are having a great week, and we look forward to having another episode uh next Sunday. We will be going through First Corinthians chapters 12, 13, and 14. Uh, that seems quite a lot, but the central idea of those three chapters revolve around the idea of how we measure spirituality in the Christian and in the church. And uh Paul has a very distinct message about the importance of what motivates spiritual gifts in that lesson. So look forward to having that up and loaded for you uh next time. In the meantime, this is the Preacher Man signing off. Hope you have a blessed day and always remember who you are and whose you are.