You'll open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. I'm going to read verses 23 to 27 of 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Three main points for these sections, or for this section of Scripture, these verses, but we will not get to all three of those points this morning. Some time ago when the elders considered these passages and I brought some things to them in consideration, it It hit us that we had not taught on the Lord's Supper and the importance of the Lord's Supper in years. And that really kind of bothered us a little bit. And so my goal this morning and for the next couple of messages is to take you into the text from the sense of what is happening in Corinth. But you have to recognize this is one passage on the Lord's Supper. This is not the whole of scriptural teaching on the Lord's Supper. And so what we've decided to do, because we haven't taught on the Lord's Supper in so long, is that after the first of the year, we have planned out a eight to nine week Bible study on the Lord's Supper to look at it in a greater scriptural context. The Lord's Supper in the context of the Old Testament, the Lord's Supper in the context of the New Testament, the Lord's Supper in the context of the local church. And we've already kind of outlined eight to nine studies that we will do. So when I go through this, this will be a little bit of a precursor to that, but you've got to know that, as in the text here, Paul is not unfolding absolutely everything on the Lord's Supper. As a matter of fact, the context of this passage is really about rebuke. And one thing I didn't want to do pastorally is to come to our church and say everything we can say about the Lord's Supper is from the context of Paul's rebuke. Because the Lord's Supper is not just about Paul rebuking the church. That's one facet of what was happening in Corinth. The Lord's Supper as a whole has a great glorious doctrine to it and it has a beauty to it in the context of the person and work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And so our hope will be in that study to develop more of that and for you to see a more holistic view of the Lord's Supper than just from the context of Paul's rebuke here. mainly because we're not aware that this local church is necessarily needing the exact rebuke that Paul is giving. Now there might be some individuals, you all may need to hear some of these things, but we don't sense as a church that the very crux of Paul's rebuke is one that we would just hammer down on to this local body. But it is something that we need to be reminded of and we need to have it in the background of our understanding of the Lord's Supper. So let's read verses 23 through 27 and then we'll begin this morning. Paul wrote, for I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus and 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. In the same way, he took the cup also after supper saying, this is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup and proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord." As previously stated, Paul does not fully develop a wholesale doctrinal background and doctrinal explanation of the Lord's Supper in these passages. He addresses issues and rebukes sinful behavior surrounding the Lord's Supper in the Corinthian church. Paul then turns directly, yet succinctly, to instruct the Corinthian believers as to the observance of the Lord's Supper, along with a needed change in perspective and a needed change in the attitude of their hearts. They have taken the Lord's Supper too lightly and they have done so before the one true living God. They had become so indifferent and off base that they were no longer practicing the Lord's Supper the way they had been instructed. So Paul had to directly reiterate the proper way of observing the Lord's Supper. Now these passages come out of that rebuke, which we had just preached on in previous weeks. And now Paul begins to say, here's what you need to do. Now in saying what you need to do, he does give some background. And that's interesting here because he notes something. First of all, we noted last week, he says, for I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you. In the manner in which he had received it from the Lord, he had already given them the right instruction on the Lord's Supper, and he had delivered it to them. And the first and foremost part of that instruction was in some background of the Lord's Supper. And it's very succinctly stated that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was betrayed, took bread. overarching main point this morning, Paul reminded the Corinthians of the historical background to the Lord's Supper. Paul reminded the Corinthians of the historical background to the Lord's Supper. This morning will be just a brief context to this historical background. After the first of the year, we'll dive more into the Old Testament sense of that and open that up in three to four weeks of study. But this morning, you need to have in your mind what Paul is doing here with the church at Corinth. He could state this so succinctly to them because these things had already been stated properly and with more information previously to them when he was among them. And so here it is as he wants them to know that this supper had been told to them and what he had told them that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed. Firstly, under our main heading, Jesus inaugurated this memorial supper on a historic night of remembrance. Jesus inaugurated this memorial supper on a historic night of remembrance. Now, thinking back about what Robin read to you from the context of Matthew, last week Scott read to you another gospel iteration of the Lord's Supper, and we have to note it was the night of the Passover meal. This was the night that the Lord Jesus inaugurated this memorial supper. It was a very historic night. It was the night of the Passover meal. The Passover was a direct reminder of God's grace during the Egyptian captivity. Now, to the people of Israel, they should have remembered how immensely gracious God had been in the Egyptian captivity. Think about it for a moment. God's fostered people were languishing in Egyptian captivity. If we were to go back and take some time in the Old Testament, which we'll do after the first of the year, think about it. After the time of Joseph, Egypt forgot Joseph, his people, and their God. The whole idea of the opening of Exodus gives us a context to see who Joseph was, all he had done, all God had used him to do for the Egyptian people, All of that had been forgotten, and Joseph was well in the past of the minds of the Egyptians. And so over a period of time, as Joseph was forgotten, Joseph's God was forgotten, the Egyptians put the people of Israel into such slavery that they literally were encaptured to the whole of the land. And they meant nothing else to the Egyptians, but just pure labor, nothing else. They cared not that they were humans. They cared not that they were people who had minds and hearts and needs. They had simply become laborers, hard laborers. If we could take one point away from the book of Exodus to remind us, there's many points in the book of Exodus, but one point away would be that God did not forget his people, their plight, and his promises to their forefathers. In the context of this Egyptian captivity, the people languishing in this Egyptian captivity, day in and day out, There were some that wondered, had God forgotten us? It's kind of a lesson to us if we think about it for a moment. Sometimes things are so difficult, so hard, day in and day out, we can come to a place in our lives to wonder, has God forgotten us? The point of the Exodus is to remind them that God had not forgotten them. God had not forgotten his people, he hadn't forgotten their plight, he hadn't forgotten their needs, and he had not forgotten his promises to them or their forefathers. When you read Psalm 22, do you not recognize that in the Psalmist way, this is a precursor to the Christ in the context of understanding that God had a promise to save a people before the beginning of time? And everything he did in the exodus of the people of Israel was a precursor, a type, a foreshadowing of what God would do to rescue people from their bondage and captivity to their sin. The plight of their sin, their sinfulness as people in the context of who they are. God would not leave them to themselves. And yet, as God had not forgotten them, he chose a man and a way to lead the people out of captivity in Egypt that seemed strange and odd. He used Moses, a man who didn't speak well and who was very, very afraid, and he used plagues These plagues that he used, to the human sense, would cause great turmoil. And many would say, why would a caring God use these plagues? Even to the point that when the plagues took some of their worst turns, it made Egypt and the Pharaohs so angry. that they hardened themselves not only toward God, but toward the people. And they made the lives of the people even harder and more harsh. And yet it was that final plague that was one of the greatest condemnations of all. His final plague was the condemnation of Egyptian firstborn children and animals. See, this is the same as it is in the world today. People look at the work of God and they say there is no God because there's evil in the world. I would say to you, this is the gravest of thoughts. For if your proof of there being no God is that there is evil in the world, then you will have no hope. God took what was one of the greatest condemnations to have the firstborn of the Egyptian people condemned, killed for the context of the covenant and said, through this I will show you redemption. Because all the while in this final plague, God had a plan. His foremost plan was the redemption of the firstborn of Israel. Think of both the negative and the positive. For in the context of it, God had made a plan, and he had made a way. And he had said, if the people will follow my directives, and they will take the blood of the lamb, and they will paint it on these doorposts, then I will not kill their firstborn. I will pass over. And those children will be redeemed. See, in that very night that the Lord Jesus inaugurated this supper, in that very night, He was doing it on a historic night, a night of remembrance of God's grace and mercy to the people who were in captivity in Egypt. Something that they were to take with them. Not only was the Passover a direct reminder of God's grace during the Egyptian captivity, but the Passover was a direct reminder of God's deliverance from the Egyptian captivity. In Exodus 12, 14, it says, Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord. Throughout your generations, you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance. So here we find the Lord Jesus, born, taking on human flesh, human Jewish flesh, in a Jewish context and background and world. And He lived among the Jews and the whole of their thinking. because he was the promised Messiah coming from the Jews, because the Israelites were God's people in the context of this ethnic background and theocracy. This supper was to be a permanent ordinance among them to remember A memorial, the scripture says, to you and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord. To the Jewish rabbis, if they had been there at this meal, then they would have been completely offended. They would have seen what Jesus was doing as blasphemy. that on the very historic night in the context of the Passover meal, the Lord Jesus would take bread of that meal and the cup of that meal and attribute it as a memorial to himself. Jesus is identifying himself as the Son of God. He is attributing to himself the very sacrificial work of being the Lamb of God when he does it on that historic night. The Passover meal was a permanent ordinance for ethnic Israel in the Old Covenant, but Jesus was using the meal in its proper context because he would be sacrificed as the new covenant Passover lamb. I want to ask you a question. If you had been there in Egypt that day and you had heard the word come that plainly said, here's how you need to handle this meal, you need to sacrifice this lamb, Because what God is going to do, He is going to bring such an awful plague on Egypt that they will finally let you all go. But to do that, He is going to kill their firstborn. And to keep that from happening to you, you need to follow His Word and purpose rightly. So you follow everything that was told to you. You take the blood of the Lamb and you paint it on the doorposts. And the scripture says the next morning when they woke up, there was groaning over the whole of Egypt. What do you think you would have felt like seeing that your firstborn had been spared? Wouldn't you have given thanks to God? Wouldn't you have gloried in Him? And furthermore, wouldn't you have seen his gracious purpose? That not only your firstborn was spared, but then through that work and that plague brought on Egypt, the whole of your people was taken out of captivity. And here it is, the Lord Jesus using that night of remembrance to usher in what would be the greatest remembrance of all, that the Son of God would soon take on the sin of His people, and He would be the Passover Lamb. Well, not only was it a historical night of remembrance, but it was the night of the betrayal. by Judas called Iscariot. It was the night of the betrayal by Judas called Iscariot. Luke 22 3 talks about this in context. Jesus had said that there would be one who would betray him and then soon after that it was Judas who got up from the table and it was still a couple of days in the context before the Lord Jesus would be taken It was not just something where Judas just got up in the moment and then went out and hand over some money. No, he had been planning this. He was a part of the plan with the chief priests. He was a part of the plan. He himself took part in the planning. And here it was in the night of that betrayal that Jesus was now fulfilling all of scripture and leaning and leading the people to understand it properly. We see rightly that the people of God in Egypt lived in all types of betrayal and so we should not be shocked that the Son of Man came and he lived through betrayal as well. So we have to see that Jesus must fulfill the Passover. In every aspect of that, not just in taking the meal in itself and making it something new, which we'll talk about later, but in the context of it, to say that in that moment when Jesus took that bread and that cup and he gave it in that particular historic night, he was fulfilling the Passover and saying, this is what is going to happen. All of that was only a foreshadowing. That was amazing in and of itself, right? I mean, think back about what happened with the people of Israel and how they were rescued from that captivity. Think about the plagues that were put on Egypt. That's amazing enough to think about how God was dealing with that. How God redeemed the firstborn of the houses of Israel from that condemnation. How God took the people out of that captivity. How God rescued them from the army coming after them. Just a side note. I believe every word of Exodus and what happened there. I believe is actual true history. I don't believe that's just some story that God used to show his love. I believe it's actual real history. Moses was able to part the Red Sea. The people walked across and then God swallowed up the Egyptian army. See, the condemnation of the firstborn wasn't enough. The Egyptians showed the hardness of their heart and they turned against God even more to go after his people. And God said, I will bring you under this greatest condemnation. What's the worst thing you can do to a country and a nation, but to absolutely destroy its defense? And God said, I have this power. And he used it. So when you see Jesus take this Passover meal, it must be that He is fulfilling the Passover. Because what He will do on the cross is even greater than what happened in freeing the Israelites from the captivity of the Egyptians. That's one ethnic nation being freed from another ethnic nation. What Jesus will do is He will free the souls of men and women from every tribe, tongue, and nation according to His election. He will do that and He will gain all of His people for eternity. And He will not lose one of them. So Jesus is giving a new context to that historic meal of remembrance and saying this meal now is going to be something greater than you could even imagine. When Judas is the one on that night of betrayal being used it's giving us the sense and the understanding that Jesus had to be sacrificially offered up. How was it that Jesus was going to be offered up? Many different occasions he had already escaped the throngs of people that had come after him. All the different religious leaders that wanted to get him and take him, they were finding it hard to get a hold of him. And most of the time they were finding it hard to get a hold of him. Why? Because they were afraid of the people that wanted to follow him. Because there were so many people who wanted to follow him day in and day out. They were like, if we go after him and we take him, then the people will hate us. Well, if Jesus is going to be offered up, it means that an inside job was necessary. It means that an inside job was necessary. And God used Judas. God used Judas not only in the context of that night of betrayal, but God used Judas in the context of the betrayal itself. See, all of this was happening at night. The night of the Passover, in the night Judas was betraying him, and all of that was symbolic in the context of its very nature of what it meant and what it would do. Jesus had to be offered up. So Judas is the symbol of all of mankind who would gladly, gladly get a hold of the Christ and kill him so that no one would have to bow to him. Judas is a reminder of how awful our sin natures are and how willing we are to go against God. Just like the Pharaoh, right? The Pharaoh hardened his heart and yet the scripture says God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Judas hardened his heart and yet God hardened Judas' heart. God was working in the context of the whole of the picture, and yet man was doing what man wanted to do in the whole of his sin nature. God being not the author of sin, yet God being one who is sovereignly in control of all sin in its context. Here we see the night of the Passover and the night the betrayal. Well under this large main heading, the second point, Jesus inaugurated this memorial supper with his betrayal as a picture. Jesus inaugurated this memorial supper with his betrayal as a picture. We can think about it this way. Firstly, the ethnic Jews rejected him. John 111, he came to his own and those who were his own did not receive him. The promised Messiah had been promised down through the ages to come through the Israelite people. They knew of Messiah in the context of the preaching of the Messiah, the telling of the Messiah, the prophecies of the Messiah. And yet when he came, he came to his own and those who were his own did not receive him. The ethnic Jews rejected him. Number two, the eager Judas Iscariot betrayed him. We've already given a picture of that, but it's a reminder of the context of the whole. Jesus had to be betrayed. He had to be betrayed. Literally he was betrayed as Judas worked out the plan and carried it out at night and then figuratively he was betrayed in the context of our sin is committed in the darkness of our human heart. Have we as sinners not betrayed the Christ? Would we not give him up to death that we would not have to stand before him? so that we could think we are the masters of our own generation and universe? Judas walked in the darkness of his own heart, first all the way to the Garden of Gethsemane, and then later to a field of blood. Well, not only did the ethnic Jews reject him and the eager Judas betrayed him, the earthly disciples denied him. There is a context in which we understand the denial of Peter. Three times, Peter was told, you will deny me, and sure enough, it happened. Peter's denial, thankfully, is much different than the betrayal of Judas. Peter's denial came in the hope of him doing the right thing that he would never deny and yet he did. Just like believers do we hope to fight our sin and yet we fall and fail. The difference between Judas's betrayal and Peter's denial is that one walked in repentance and one did not. Not only was this supper inaugurated with this betrayal as a picture of the rejection by Israel, the betrayal of Judas, the denial of even Peter, but the early Corinthian church neglected him. See, this is the context of what Paul is dealing with. The early Corinthian church neglected him. the way they had taken the supper, the way they had come about of thinking about the supper. Their eating was not about remembering the Christ, they ate to fill their pleasure. We've counted this in previous weeks. But we should never come to this table for our own personal pleasure. It's about recounting the Christ, the glory of the one living Lord and Savior Jesus, the Messiah. Remembering him for what he did to deal with our debt of sin, for what he did to deal with our natures of sin. They had taken out of the agape meal what was to be a time of fellowship, moved into what would have been a time of the Lord's Supper, and they had taken it all for granted and perverted it, and it was all about their own personal pleasure. And when you think about that in the Corinthian church, that was really the degradation of the whole of the church. Everything had become about their pleasure. The sexual issues in the church were about their pleasure. If they could let this brother go and do whatever he wanted to do, then who was going to hold them accountable for whatever they wanted to do? We better not hold this brother accountable because then somebody might hold me accountable. Even the context of the head coverings and its historic sense. It was more a question about dealing with the sense of how one would want to live their own life according to their own way, not sticking with that which had been given to them. The Corinthian church, their eating was not about remembering his people. Christ's people, they ate to keep some outside the camp. You say, well, why is that that big of a deal? What was the whole of the context of the Passover meal is that God would not lose any of them. All those who would believe in the sacrifice, in the promise of that sacrifice given through the Passover meal, all those who would believe, none of them would be left outside the camp. The idea in the whole of the Old Testament Israel from the Mosaic ceremonial laws was the context of some having to be put outside the camp. And here we have in the New Covenant context, A body of believers gathering to celebrate a meal and one of their purposes had become to put some of the people outside of the camp. Some who couldn't come and eat at the time that they were eating. Some who couldn't come and eat and bring as much food as someone else. And yet they didn't realize what they thought was insignificant. What they thought was no big deal to simply put these others out and go ahead and eat their fill and have their joy and their celebration. What they didn't realize was when they neglected these fellow believers, they were rejecting those for whom Christ had died. Thirdly, under this main heading this morning, Jesus inaugurated this memorial supper as a new act, as a new act. One writer says, the disciples who were present at the institution could plainly see that Jesus was beginning a new act, one that was similar to the Passover, but one that was of far greater import. That's an important phrase. One that was similar to the Passover, but one that was of far greater import. So under this heading, Jesus inaugurated the memorial supper as a new act. Firstly, the Passover meal would no longer be necessary. The Passover meal would no longer be necessary in its Old Covenant context. The unleavened bread and blood of a lamb were but types. What they had used the unleavened bread for and the blood of the lamb, they had used it in the context of something future, as a part of a promise in the Passover meal. But the unleavened bread and the blood of a lamb in the Passover meal could not accomplish actual forgiveness of sins. You have to understand that those symbols of that unleavened bread and that cup, that understanding of it in the sense of the Passover meal, it was a remembrance of something in and of itself. It was a remembrance of what God had done to redeem the firstborn children of the Israelites from that condemnation upon the nation of Egypt. So all it was in its sense was to be a part of a meal that they would look forward to the promised Messiah to come. So in that meal they could never accomplish actual forgiveness of sins. But Jesus in enacting this new supper was saying that a time was coming when there would be actual real forgiveness of sins. So we have to understand the Passover meal could only hold forth a picture. The Passover meal could only hold forth a picture. You all know this, but a picture is never the real thing, right? We can enjoy pictures. Sometimes if our younger people, you may not remember that we actually used to hold pictures in our hands. They weren't digitized. And now we have pictures in our, I guess they're in our phones. Is that? I don't know. We get those pictures through our phones from the digital world. But it's not the real thing. You can look at those pictures fondly. Sometimes we'll see pictures of the kids when they were younger and smaller. And you remember those things fondly. And it brings a smile. You're like, oh yeah, I remember when the kids were that little. There's other things you can think of and you can remember these pictures. But they're never the real thing. A picture can hold a promise in our hearts, but it cannot apply a true work to our hearts. All the Passover meal could do was hold forth a picture of the promise to come. Thirdly, the Passover meal was usurped by a meal of ongoing remembrance. The Passover meal was usurped by a meal of ongoing remembrance. The promised lamb came. When Jesus in the night took that bread and that cup and he attributed it to himself, That's all good and wonderful, but the fact is, after that, He was betrayed. He was handed over. He was whipped and beaten. He was crucified. He literally died after shedding His blood on the cross. And once the Lord Jesus did that, then this New Covenant Supper Remembering his broken body and his shed blood was to be a meal of ongoing remembrance. The thing that we must take to heart is that we know that this promised lamb came actually living among us and dying a sinner's death. The fact that he was raised from the dead and he ascended to be with the Father means that in this supper he is perpetually to be remembered until the day of his second coming. There is never to be a time in the life of a believer and the life of the Church of Christ that our Christ is to be forgotten. And one of the greatest ways we remember him is when we come together on the Lord's Day that we partake of that meal that supper in remembrance of him. Let us not be like the Corinthians who had neglected the Christ to the detriment of their own souls and to the detriment of other brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us be those, as long as we live, to the day of our very death or to the day of his second coming, that we continue to remember the one and only Christ, the Lord Jesus. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you for the sending of your very Son, that you would send him to live among sinners like us, and you sent him to live perfectly as the Son of God, and yet he took on flesh that he may die a sinner's death. We give praise to the Son that he never once sinned in thought or in action. All glory be unto you, Lord Jesus, that you would glorify your Father who is in heaven. We give praise to the Holy Spirit. who is willing and able to bring these truths to our minds and to our souls, that we would not forget the greatest debt ever owed and the most gracious ransom ever paid. Lord Jesus, we glory and honor, glory and honor you alone through your person and your work. May we come to the table and remember you rightly. In Christ's name, amen.