Communion Message
A Spiritual Stop Sign
June 20, 2004
Pastor Donald Sheley

For this is what the Lord himself said, and I pass it on to you just as I received it. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant between God and you, sealed by the shedding of my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it." For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord's death until he comes again.

So if anyone eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily, that person is guilty of sinning against the body and the blood of the Lord. That is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking from the cup. For if you eat the bread or drink the cup unworthily, not honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God's judgment upon yourself. That is why many of you are weak and sick and some have even died.

But if we examine ourselves, we will not be examined by God and judged in this way. But when we are judged and disciplined by the Lord, we will not be condemned with the world. So, dear brothers and sisters, when you gather for the Lord's Supper, wait for each other. If you are really hungry, eat at home so you won't bring judgment upon yourselves when you meet together.

There is much that precedes this portion of Scripture. Paul deals with a troubled church, and one of the things was that it was in Corinth a very pagan city and they worship idols. And they would take their sacrifices to the pagan temple, sacrifice them, and a portion of the sacrifice was left with the priest and a portion of the sacrifice was given back to the one who brought the sacrifice. And that portion was taken home, a meal was cooked, and then people would be invited to share that meal. So Paul lays down some restrictions about this matter of eating food offered to idols. Then he puts in a line and says you cannot eat at the table of the Lord and eat at the table of idols. Putting that in our own vernacular, you cannot eat from the table of the Lord and go out and eat from the table of the world.

In other words, this is a very sacred thing that we do. We identify with Christ. We acknowledge our need of His love and His forgiveness, and it does great harm and disgrace to this table if we leave this table and we go out and live like the worldly; we live according to the sins of the world and the lifestyles of the world. We do great disgrace to this moment.

Paul said you can't do both. You're either a Christian or you're not. And this table identifies us as Christians. We're here at the table today because this table represents our wonderful Christ who died at Calvary's cross, took the shame and the penalty for our sins, and died there on our behalf so that we could live forever with Him.

And I look at this communion time as a spiritual stop sign. In all of the activities of this week and in all of the activities of this service, we come to this moment where we're face-to-face with our spiritual condition before God. When those communion elements were passed before us we had to make some quick decisions. We had to think. We again pondered the seriousness and the solemnity and the sacredness of this moment because Jesus said in these Scriptures when we partake with Him we identify with Him.

I pray today that as you kneel with me may it be that we recommit our lives to lives of holiness and righteousness and godliness as Christians living in our world the faith that we hold so dearly, our love for Christ. Let's kneel together, shall we?

Lord Jesus, we hold these elements in our hands and we recognize the sacred implications, so sacred that You said that if we misused this moment we're actually bringing judgment upon ourselves. So we enter this experience today with a sense of sacred awe. These elements represent Your precious gift of love and life at Calvary. It's true, Lord Jesus, we live in a world and too frequently we become a part of our world in that we live according to its value systems we sometimes walk in pathways of disobedience to righteousness. We fail You and we sin.

But here we are on our knees before You. We're asking You, Lord Jesus, to forgive us and to cleanse us. We're sorry. We really do want to do what's right; deep within us we really want to live our Christian faith so clearly before our world, but we fail so frequently. So Lord Jesus these elements tell us that You died so that we could be forgiven. You died so that we could be cleansed from all of our sin, and for that is what we ask now, in Jesus' name.

Let's take the bread together...and then the cup. Thank you Lord Jesus for being our Savior. Thank you for the gift of forgiveness. It's in Your name we pray. Amen. Let's stand and greet one other, shall we?