Turning your Bibles to 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 11. The church in Corinth was a growing church. It had been in existence by this time probably about 30 years and the church itself had seen a lot that had taken place in the city of Corinth and it had seen a lot that had taken place in the life of this local body of Christ. And there were issues that had arisen in the church in Corinth over time. And some of those things were a part of a drift that can happen in the minds and souls of people as they start to kind of mature in some ways, and then in other ways they can kind of regress. And so Paul is having to deal with some issues in the life of the church that are of greatest importance. Not only is he dealing with sin in the context of immorality and what we consider to be moral issues of behavior, but he's also asking them to deal with the context of looking properly at the worship of the church. And one of those issues that he is dealing with most readily here is going to be the Lord's Supper. Now, in dealing with that, he's going to address the context of the Lord's Supper in kind of a surrounding manner of what's happening in and among the church. And last week, we considered Paul's grave concern which involved divisions and factions in worship. And so we looked at some of that division and some of that faction and we saw that Paul confirmed the divisions and factions among the church. And we saw that beginning in verse 17 and onward. So I want to read there because we want to continue along these lines this morning. Beginning in verse 17, 1 Corinthians chapter 11. But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you because you come together not for the better, but for the worse. For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you, and in part I believe it, for there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you. Therefore, when you meet together, It is not to eat the Lord's supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first, and one is hungry and another is drunk. What, do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and blame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed 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. Paul had already confirmed the divisions and factions among the church, but this morning we want to recognize in verses 20 to 22 that Paul confronted the division and factions among the church. They came to eat selfishly and not rightly before God. Their concern was not the right worship in the Lord's Supper or was not right worship in the Lord's Supper, In verse 20, their concern was their own supper for themselves. So here we're noting that there is a distinction made between the agape feast or a love feast and the Lord's Supper. Paul is saying, when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper, for in your eating, each one takes his own supper first. There had been for some time the agape meal or the love meal, which was a mutual meal of sharing one with the other. And it was no matter status in the church, they would come together and they would eat. The agape meal was a fellowship meal with appropriate food for dinner. We have that the first Sunday of the month, we call it our agape lunch and we have food that's brought and we all eat together and different families bring food and so forth. And it's a meal for that purpose, to fellowship with one another in the love of Christ. But it's different and distinctive from the Lord's Supper. The agape meal was a feast at this time that a small portion of the food was used for the Lord's Supper. So they would take a very small portion of that food, specifically the bread and the cup or the bread and wine, and they would use that in the Lord's Supper. But what had happened was is they were no longer noticing or recognizing a distinction between this fellowship meal and the Lord's Supper. One was a meal for the gathered body to enjoy, but it was not worship. One was specifically prescribed in worship and for worship. One writer says, Paul now explains why it is impossible to eat the Lord's Supper in the Corinthian assemblies. The food for the agape meal from which some of the bread and the wine was reserved for the sacramental ordinance was brought by the members who came to the meeting. So they had started to lose the distinction between these two things, the agape meal or a fellowship meal and the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is an ordinance instituted by the Lord Jesus in remembrance of Him in His person and work. There's a difference between coming together in a fellowship meal, sitting together and fellowshipping and talking, even talking about the things of the Lord. You can have a great plate of food and people sitting around you and you're having discussions about Hebrews chapter 8 and it's just glorious and you're loving it. But that's not worship. in that most formal sense that God prescribed on his day. That can be a form of personal worship in the sense of enjoying that, but it's not the same thing as the gathered body worshiping God in his prescribed way. And one of those things that is prescribed in worship is the Lord's Supper. And it's different from a fellowship meal. And the Corinthian church had started to blur those lines. They were no longer thinking that way. Well, not only that, the Lord's Supper, including some of this food from this agape meal, they were no longer disconnecting that from that food of the meal itself. And so that means they came to eat sinfully and not repentantly before God. They were eating selfishly but they also came to eat sinfully and not repentantly before God. The text indicates that some ate smugly and in wantonness. bit of an air about them some of the folks that had a little more money maybe had a little more wealth they could bring more food and maybe some better food and so they were coming in and there was supposed to be a meal where you're sharing with one another in this fellowship sense and instead of coming together and sharing in a gracious way some had become smug and wanton One writer says the food was brought by the members who came to the meeting. Some were poor and could bring little or nothing. Out of verse 22, those that have not. Now instead of taking all the food that was brought and apportioning it to all who were present so that each should receive a proper share, instead of being kind and gracious to one another, they began to form cliques. Maybe those cliques were, as one writer notes, relatives or friends or people who sat together. Probably even sectioned one another off. Even maybe becoming to the point that the rich and the prosperous separated themselves from those who might be poor in the congregation. Letting those who could bring little or nothing sit by themselves. It got to the point that with this kind of smugness and wantonness people were just eating for their feel. But also some drank excessively and in drunkenness. We have to think about Paul's confronting this and the distinctions he's making here. Note here that Paul doesn't condemn food, he doesn't condemn wine, he condemns the abuse of both, the overuse and abuse of both. Food is good, we need it, and it does have some enjoyment to it, thankfully, right? There are things we put in our mouths that we don't enjoy putting in our mouths. I saw a little video of this little boy eating some peas and he wanted so badly to please his mother by eating these peas and he put this spoonful of peas in his mouth and he begins to chew them and she goes, do you like them? And he goes, yeah, yeah. All the while he's gagging, trying to say, I love it, Mom, I love it. Some stuff just doesn't taste very good. But we generally like to eat food that tastes good, and we get some enjoyment out of that, because the Lord has provided food for us, not only for our sustenance, but for a pleasure that we can enjoy it. And the agape meal could have that enjoyment along with its fellowship. But some had just come together to show off what they could bring and to eat to their fill. It's not that wine in and of itself is evil, but it was that there were some who were drinking beyond the enjoyment or the proper use of it. I want you to imagine this is a body of believers coming together, some of them eating so much food to their just absolute gluttonous feel, and they're drinking so much wine that they're sitting around in this drunken stupor. Paul doesn't take this lightly, he confronts it. He confronts it right then and there. He says, you know what, don't you have houses for these meals? And is this what you do at your home? Is this how you live your lives before the Lord in such gluttony and drunkenness? You know better than to do it there, then why would you come here? I want to make this clear not for the point of being ugly or to try to get a rise out of anyone. I just want us to note here though something that's important. This would have been an excellent place for Paul to outlaw any and all alcoholic beverages. The church was involved in just a grossness of sin with food and drink. And this would have been an excellent place for Paul to say, you know what? God has told me to tell you, none of you, no one ever in any Christian community should ever touch wine again. But he doesn't say that. And it's interesting here, he doesn't say that about the food or the wine. He could have outlawed one and not the other or both. Now we know he wouldn't outlaw food, right? But he doesn't outlaw the wine either. What he does is he stays with the scripture and he calls to their attention the sin of gluttony or the sins of gluttony and drunkenness. Well, not only was Paul confronting their sin, but he was confronting how they treated their neighbor. Under a larger heading this morning, Paul's grave concern involved their unfaithfulness toward one another in worship. Paul's grave concern involved their unfaithfulness toward one another in worship. He notes here that how they're coming together in a fellowship meal and then how they're coming together in worship is affecting how they work together and how they see one another in the body of Christ. He says, do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? Apparently there was some distinction between some in the church who had more and some who had less. And he says, now with this fellowship meal and you acting this way, I want you to understand you're not showing your love for God first and foremost because you wouldn't be treating your brothers this way if you were. This is exactly why Paul says, I cannot praise you in this matter. Because your love for God is not first and foremost. Because if that were first and foremost, you wouldn't be here in gluttony and drunkenness. You wouldn't be here blurring the lines between a fellowship meal and right worship. And you wouldn't be here thinking of yourself so highly that you're neglecting your brothers and sisters. When Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment, what did he say? You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. And here the church at Corinth is being dealt with because they're doing neither of those in thoughtfulness. They did not show their love for God first and foremost And they did not love their neighbor as much as themselves. Note how Paul is drawing this conclusion for them. He's making a distinction between personal food and prescribed food and he's saying you need to think about how you handle that. But you not only need to think about how you handle that in light of what God has taught you about right worship, but you need to think about how you handle that in light of your neighbor. The richer believers wanted to eat first instead of sharing. from the bounty of the Lord with their fellow brothers and sisters. One writer says, the wealthier members of the congregation clearly provided most of the food, and this could have been a marvelous expression of Christian love and unity, but it was degraded into the very opposite. The poor would have to finish their work before they would come, and slaves would find it particularly difficult to be on time, but the rich did not wait. They ate and drank in their cliques or divisions, each eating their own dinner. The food was gone before the poor got there. So those who had more had their fill and they were drunk by the time the others had even gotten to the meal. Paul's really gravely concerned about their unfaithfulness toward one another. Because think about it, how could you go into the worship of God and think rightly about the worship of God when there's this huge division and faction in the church and you're treating each other in a very unkind, unchristlike way? You don't think for one minute that didn't ring in the ears of some of the Corinthian believers? that they would show up and get there late. And by the time they got there, there was nothing to share. Others were drunk and some were taking their Thanksgiving dinner nap after filling themselves so full. And then somehow they would have to think about worshiping God. Well thirdly a main third point Paul's grave concern involved their understanding of what they had been taught about worship. Paul's grave concern involved their understanding of what they had been taught about worship. Now here Paul is going to deal with a specific issue in worship, a specific matter that is prescribed and that is the Lord's Supper. It is distinct and different from this agape meal. The agape meal is something that there's a lot of latitude in it. They could do it before worship or after worship. There's all matters they could you know, have whatever food they had in Corinth of the day. You know, here it's, you know, I don't know, collard greens and whatever else we want to bring. You know, just anything they could think of. I don't think they had mac and cheese, that's a shame. A culture without mac and cheese, that would be a struggle for me. But thankfully, God didn't put me in that time. So, I get to enjoy mac and cheese. But here, Paul is saying, you guys, you're blurring these lines. And it's so blurred that now you've forgotten what you've been taught about right worship and specifically the Lord's Supper. And so, as he has confronted their sinfulness, he now turns to very pointedly direct them to understand, once again, the Lord's Supper. But before you get into the details of the Lord's Supper in, you know, latter part of verse 23, 24, all the way down into verse 26, before you get into that, notice how he opens this up. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you." Now, I want you to think about the distinction here. Paul doesn't set out rules and laws for an agape meal. Other than those rules and laws which the Scripture has already spoken to, drunkenness is a sin. Gluttony is a sin. He didn't invent a new issue there with the agape meal. But he said this Lord's Supper is something very special and specific. And the way he introduces this teaching is he says, I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you. So Paul says, hey, let me take you back to something here. When we start talking about this Lord's Supper, we're not talking about something that's just any meal at any time, and it's not something specific or special. No, what I taught you, I received from the Lord about this supper specifically. It's different. Now, there's debate exists about the precise manner of the teaching by which Paul received this, okay? Because, you know, one of your first questions years ago when I came to this text, I thought, well, he received this from the Lord. Was this direct revelation? Had he been taught this? How did this come to him? Well, of course, then you start reading on it and there's all kind of debates. One writer says he did not specify the precise manner in which he received the teaching from the Lord. It may have come supernaturally from Christ himself during Paul's early years in Arabia. It also is possible that Paul received the teaching indirectly through other apostles. Galatians 1. Another writer says, This was not a device of his, nor an invention of any man's, nor did he receive the account from men, not even from the apostles. But he had by revelation from Christ, either when he appeared to him at his first conversion and made him a minister of the gospel, or when he was caught up into the third heaven. and heard things unspeakable and unutterable." Now both of these men that I've quoted here are good, conservative, solid biblical men and they have a different take on this phrase, I received from the Lord. Now, when you go back to the Greek text and kind of work through it, I can't say from the Greek text you get a specific idea that the verbiage of the Greek language and the order of the words gives you a connection to be able to say Paul is saying he received it directly by divine revelation from the Lord. One writer speaking to such says the conclusion is therefore drawn that Paul's use of the word apa instead of para in the apprehended phrase means that he did not originally receive the words of the institution immediately by direct revelation. This author seems to think that the text itself gives an indication that Paul received this news, this word, of the Lord's Supper through an indirect means, that he was taught that. And I think that's quite possible. Now, is it possible that he could have gotten some direct revelation from the Lord about the Lord's Supper? You know what? Yeah, that's very possible. Because we know how the Lord met him on the road to Damascus, right? I have no problem if that's what the Lord chose to do and that's the way he did it and that's the way Paul received the news about the Lord's Supper. I think though there's an important context. If Paul received it through immediate means, it puts him in the long line of the apostles. That the Lord's Supper itself was not something that Paul had only received direct revelation about, but that he was standing in this long line, the long line of those who had been there when the Lord's Supper was instituted itself. I think Paul is giving us an indication here that he is saying to this church you are now not just defying the truth that God gave to me, you're defying the truth that came through all of the apostles from the very Christ Himself. And this is not something that's Johnny-come-lately, This has been since the Lord Jesus was on the earth and he instituted the Lord's Supper and you're walking away from it in some short 30 to 35 years after his resurrection. It shows us in our own world, I think, how quickly we can walk away from God's truth. Here's a church that had received Paul's teaching very plainly. And they had recognized him as a man who was called out by Christ himself. He had been among the apostles. The Lord had used him greatly as one of his own apostles called out by Christ from the road to Damascus. And yet Paul is saying, I stand in the long line of that truth handed down from the Lord Jesus Himself. And in some 30 years, you've started to move away from it. It's a warning, I think, on an application level to us as believers, no matter how old you are, And no matter how long you've been a professing believer, if you don't examine yourself, and especially as Paul will tell us at the time of the Lord's Supper, if you're not examining yourself and dealing with your own sin before Christ, you may profess to have been a Christian for 30 or 50 years, but you can still walk away from truth. You can be deceived. Don't think you are above being deceived. Don't think you are above becoming slothful and sluggardly in the faith. Paul received this teaching from the Lord. If you would like to say it was by direct revelation, I am completely fine with that. But either way, he received it. And then he says to them, I delivered it to you. You know what he says? I'm holding you accountable for the truth. The truth from Christ. From the very day that that Lord's Supper was instituted and the apostles were there, the disciples were there, that Lord's Supper, that which Christ himself instituted, I received it and I delivered it to you. And now you're not holding it properly. In essence, he's saying the Corinthian church was in direct violation of the teaching they had received. Now I'm thankful. The Lord has been very gracious to this church. You all have been very receptive over the years of listening to the scripture and searching the scriptures and being willing to be led according to the scriptures. But the Corinthian church had come to a place where it was not walking in that light. Matter of fact, it was not only not walking in it, it was actually walking away from it. And that can be a danger for any of us. But Paul is trying to hold them accountable. I delivered it to you and you're in direct violation of the teaching that you've received. We need to note here that Paul did not shirk his responsibility to give them the right message. And he's also saying to them, you might be walking in the dark, but it wasn't because I left you in the dark. You've gone that direction on your own. So Paul sees his responsibility now as one to bring them back. It's the idea from the old Testament of hold the lamb back from staggering toward the slaughter. Paul says, in a sense, if the Lord's Supper is directly tied to right worship, then if you neglect the Lord's Supper or do not handle it properly, and I'm not just talking about the elements, we'll have some conversation about the elements, but if you're not handling it properly in your own soul, if you come to the Lord's Supper table, even here, even today, And it's just, I'm gonna take some bread and I'm gonna take a cup and thank you Jesus. And that's all it is to you? And that's a soul problem. You're not remembering rightly what Christ did. In his perfect life, his death on the cross, the sacrifice that he made. Paul is telling them the Corinthian church They were in direct violation of the directive of Christ himself. You'd received the right message and you're in violation of it and you're ultimately in violation of Christ himself. When Scott read the passage to you, I want you to have just a moment to think about what Scott was reading from Luke's gospel. as he gave you the picture of the preparatory meal and the Lord giving a context to that preparatory meal the Lord Jesus was actually saying in that moment I'm standing before you as the prophesied priest and I am now going to give you this meal and show you and teach you what this meal is about, he's saying it's about me. When an elder stands and officiates the Lord's Supper, They stand not only when they preach in the stead of Christ, but they stand at the Lord's Supper in the stead of Christ to say to the people, I want to point you to Christ, and I want you to remember that this meal is a reminder of who He is. The life He lived, the death He died, and the sacrifice that was made and that on the third day he was raised from the dead. He's saying to them very plainly, you have gotten so off track that you just come together to eat a meal not thinking of one another even in kindness in that meal. Some of you get your fill and you sit in drunkenness and then you think somehow this is pleasing to the Lord. He said, not only are you not pleasing to the Lord in the way that you eat this fellowship meal, but you have actually walked into direct revelation, excuse me, direct violation of the revelation given to you that there is a time to eat in honor of Christ, to drink in honor of Christ, and to remember him and who he is. You've gone so far now Not only not to treat each other kindly, but you're not even seeing Christ properly. This is why he calls them to examine themselves. The idea of examining themselves is not for just some idea to get into a closet and pour over every little angst of every little thing and every little moment. The idea of them examining themselves is to say, have you even really forgotten who Christ is and what he did? It's a reminder to us that when we come to the Lord's supper table, it is a specific prescribed part of worship that the Lord Jesus gave us And he gave it himself to his people to be passed down that he would be remembered rightly. Next week, we'll dive into the supper itself. But I want to leave you with some observations, and I want to open those up a little bit. Some of this we said in heading last week, but I want to have you think about it more specifically. Number one, biblical worship is not for your personal pleasure. Biblical worship is not for your personal pleasure. When God designs it and prescribes it a particular way, our personal pleasure doesn't matter. Now, I say that to you all knowing that a lot of you are here and you already have an understanding of that. I'm thankful for that. Or you wouldn't be here. But there's a lot of situations in the American church where worship has become a part of personal pleasure. Whatever makes you feel good. And quite frankly, there's a lot of the parts of our lives Whether it's economics or health care or politics or whatever it may be, that's kind of the motto of life is it's about personal pleasure. A lot of people vote politically based on personal pleasure. This is what I want to do and I want to do it my way and I'm going to vote this way because these people will give me what I want. Sometimes health care has become like that. There are certain portions of health care that are about giving people what they want instead of what they need. Certain portions of the scientific community that have gone away from looking at the doctrine of sin and they'll prescribe all kinds of medicines to people, while that person is never dealing with the real heart issue and the matter of their own soul and their own life. And when it comes to worship, The human is the same way. I want to worship a God who makes me feel good. Our goal as Christians ought to be to worship God the way He designed it, the way He prescribed it, and to be always asking the question, how do we worship God His way for His glory? Because our personal pleasure just doesn't matter. It might make me feel good to have all kind of emotions aroused and to have somebody just get my emotions all worked up and that might make me feel good, but that probably is not what I need. I need a change of heart. I need for the Spirit of God to actually deal with my heart, not just my emotions. I need my mind to be changed. That's what repentance is, is a very changing of the mind, a turning of one's mind. When God designs worship and prescribes it a particular way, our concerns will be cared for in Christ. God didn't design worship so that it wouldn't do anything for the soul of the believer. God didn't design worship that there would be no benefit for the believer. God designed worship and prescribed it a particular way because our concerns will actually be met in Christ. And it will be the concerns that we actually need to be met, not just the ones we think need to be met. Sometimes I think very little of my sin because I just don't think my sins that big of a deal. Sometimes I can even find human entities who will help me think my sin or certain sins are not that big of a deal. They're even human entities that help us cover up our sin. When in actuality, I'm in need of the Spirit of God by His Word through prescribed worship to deal with my very soul, that it would be cared for by the one and only Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. When God designs worship and prescribes it a particular way, our hope is in the one who made us and saved us. I think sometimes what Paul is getting at with the Corinthian church and what sometimes is going on in our culture is that we've forgotten what worship is about. It's about the one who made us dealing with us in the way that's most proper. It's about the one who made us and saved us leading us to glory in him alone and not ourselves or our human entities. A lot of people were very thankful about the way the election went. I am. I know I'm not supposed to say that publicly, but I am. I'm thankful. But you know what? The outcome of that election, if that somehow gave me more heart to worship God today than I would have had otherwise, then there's a problem. What God designed and prescribed in his worship is for the purpose of giving him glory in all things, and yet ultimately it also deals with our very souls, no matter what the outcomes of the world around us are at the time. Secondly, biblical worship is not for the factious of heart. I said a lot about this last week, I'm not gonna spend some time there, but the Corinthian church had some factious people who were defiant toward God's prescribed worship. If that's happening in churches, then churches need to move those people on. If God says, this is how I have prescribed to be worshiped, then we need to do it that way, and if other people don't want to do it that way, they need to be moved on. Now thankfully, never encountered that here. Never. When we wanted to institute the Lord's Supper weekly, nobody in the church that I ever remember was ever upset about that. What's sad to me though is that there are churches in our area that those churches have not had the Lord's Supper in a year, some of them in five or six years. I know that for a fact. God prescribed the Lord's Supper, and you mean the body of Christ gathered and hadn't had the Lord's Supper one time in a year or two or three? It's happening all over the Christian community. I served a church like that one time. And it was strange to me when questions were asked about it, people say, well, the church is so large, it would just be hard to be able to do that on a large scale. Well, you better figure it out. Because Christ instituted it. If it takes you half a day to do the Lord's Supper, then you better do it. Thirdly, biblical worship is not for your personal agendas. Biblical worship consults God's ordained word as to the actions of God's people in worship. When we come to the Lord's Supper, it's just good to be reminded We're not just doing the Lord's Supper every week because we kind of feel like it's something that needed to be done. We're saying, no, God prescribed it as a part of public worship, specifically called upon by God for the good of his people. I think that's what's sad to me when there's churches that haven't had the ordinance of the Lord's Supper in months and months and maybe even years. They're missing out on one of the greatest remembrances of Christ. I think most of us here, you all have been so thoughtful over the years. Most of us here have come to see the Lord's Supper as just a great grace and mercy to us. I see your faces, you take it seriously, you're thoughtful about it. Generally, I'm not aware of it, maybe you do, but you don't take it lightly. What a sadness it is, especially in the American church where the Lord's Supper has almost been lost in broad evangelicalism. Sometimes it's lost because it's not there. In other senses, it's lost in the liturgy of some church to where it's just a rote thing they do. Some of our evangelical churches have the Lord's Supper in some type of liturgy, and yet at the same time, because there's so little scripture preached in the church, and Christ has been so demeaned, and he's not even the Son of God anymore in deity, they don't even know what they're doing in the Lord's Supper. You need to see the seriousness of what Paul is saying in this early portion of verse 23. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you. Whatever he's about to say about this Lord's Supper, this was not to be taken lightly. God prescribed it. And it's not a place for our personal agendas. It's not a place for the personal agendas of the elders. Biblical worship considers our needs only in the context of God's all-knowing authority. Have you ever been somewhere and a child, you know, five, six, seven year old is really given parents difficulty and there seems to be this back and forth between the parents with the child and all of a sudden it's like the parents are trying to have this conversation with a six year old about obedience And it comes to a point where the parents just need to look at the child and say, don't you understand I know better? No, no, no. You don't understand. I do know better and you're going to do what I tell you to do. Because I'm your father. We live in a world today that wants to just placate to anybody and everybody. I'll give you a case and example. Why do college students need a day off after a president got elected? What world are they living in? That's the kind of emotional cripples some people have become. And people give in to that. I don't care what side of the aisle you're on on any of that stuff. If Biden got elected and you needed a day off from work, you got a problem. There's a problem. Especially for a Christian. Because Biden's not our God. Biblical worship considers our needs only in the context of God's all-knowing authority. He already knows what we need. He knows us. He made us. He created us. He knows what we need. He knows the reminders we need. He gave us the Lord's Supper through His Son specifically, not just because He thought in the moment that was the best example. You know, bread and wine sounds good. I guess we'll just do that. He knew the exact reminder that we needed to remember the broken body and the shed blood of Christ. Jesus didn't sit down with the disciples and go, you know what? I'd like to kind of transition this whole thing about the Passover feast and the feast of the unleavened bread. I'd like to kind of transition that. Any of you guys got any ideas how we ought to do that? Let's have a powwow. Is that what Jesus did? No, he instituted the Lord's Supper, the bread and the cup. There needed to be a remembrance and it was specific to deal with the senses and who we are. He gave us the ordinance of preaching for the same thing. The Bible doesn't prescribe in the worship of God that every Christian gets together and says, well, here's my thought of God. God says, no, in my worship, you read my word because I've already given what I need you to know. I've given it to you and I want it to be read to you so it's reminded to you in your soul and I want it to be preached to you. I don't want you to sing just any songs. I want you to sing Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Bluegrass might be great. Beethoven might be great. Journey might be great. But that's not what he's prescribed in his worship. Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Lastly, biblical worship instigates genuine care for other believers. I think he's saying to the Corinthian church, if you had taken biblical worship rightly in your own understanding and put God first in prescribing how worship was done, you'd also be loving your neighbor as yourself because you wouldn't be treating your neighbor this way. If I walk out of this room today and I treat somebody in this church like they're worse than a dog, And I don't repent of it when that sin is brought before me. I'm not understanding what I just did in the worship of God. Over the years, I've called people and asked their forgiveness. As a husband, I've asked forgiveness. As a father, I've asked forgiveness. Many of you have done the same. But why do you do that? You do that because the worship of God is primary, and it is the driving force in all that you do, and you want to worship God rightly, and therefore, you want to live rightly. When we take care of one another, it is actually an overflow of right worship. When you pray for one another, why are you praying? Because you've been taught to pray in worship. We need to understand what it means to encourage one another in the scripture. To encourage one another in right worship. And that means to encourage one another in obedience to Christ. In one sense Paul is dealing directly with the Lord's Supper and in another sense he is dealing with a whole wide issue in the church. There are multiple issues and ultimately he's saying if you don't get God right in his worship you won't love one another rightly either. Most people are trying to figure out today, how do we love one another? That's just a whole idea of the world coming out. Well, you would be more loving if you wouldn't vote for that person. That's not the issue. You would be more loving if you would agree with me on this or agree with me on that. No, no, no, no. Christians are commanded to get the scripture right first and foremost, and out of that is the overflow of everything else. That includes our worship and how we treat one another. I hope this morning we'll see it's not just about the Lord's Supper, but Paul uses the issue of the Lord's Supper to drive this church to think about, who am I worshiping? How am I worshiping them? And why would I worship them this way? And ultimately, it's for God's glory, but it's for the good of the kingdom. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you've been merciful to us and kind, that in your word, you direct us time and time again to know that you have given us exactly what we need and there's no reason to deviate from it. Lord, we thank you that some years ago you moved in our minds and hearts according to your word that we would not forget the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. Left to ourselves, we would have gone all kinds of different ways, but you were gracious to us. As we come to the time of the table this morning, Lord, will you bring us to a time of proper remembrance of your son, the Lord Jesus, by the power of your spirit, that we would not be left to ourselves, that we would not be those who mentally wander off Help our minds to be engaged as we come to this time of confession, remembrance and confession to our one and only high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray, amen.