reading of the word. And so if you would please turn back in your Bibles to Exodus chapter 12. We're actually going to look at two texts. I'll give you a moment to get there. Exodus chapter 12. And then from there, we're going to turn to first Corinthians 11. And as you turn there, I'm going to insert here just a brief point of thanks. I'm grateful for the time to be here with your church, your family, since this is my final opportunity to say that. I do want to say that as I was driving from your pastor's house back here to the church, it reminded me, I don't think I told you this when I was here, the first time that when I was in high school, I went on a surf trip from Jacksonville to Cape Hatteras with some friends and we drove late into the night and as we were driving somewhere not terribly far from here on our way to Cape Hatteras, my friend fell asleep at the wheel. and the car went off into a ditch and it rolled end over end, side over side for over 300 feet. I have steel down the right side of my leg because I was reconstructed first at a hospital in Washington and then they had to take me someplace else. But some farmer heard this wreck in the middle of the night and came out and called the ambulance, much to the advantage of myself and those in the car. Who knows, it might have been one of you many, many, many years ago. Anyway, for little things we can be grateful, but for the word of God, let's stand and express our gratitude. I'm gonna read from Exodus chapter 12, verses one through 13. This evening, we consider the Lord's Supper together. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, this month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons, according to what each can eat. You shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male, a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the 14th day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lentil of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted its head with its legs and its inner parts. and you shall let none of it remain until the morning. Anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover, for I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments. I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. And now from there, please turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. 1 Corinthians 11, beginning at verse 23. For I received from the Lord, but I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took 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 also he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup 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, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Thus far the word of God, let us pray. Dear Holy Spirit, we believe it is you who first inspired these words. We believe it is you who have preserved these words in their integrity down to this very day. But we also believe it is your intention and promise to bless the reading, and especially the preaching of the Word of God, that Father, Son, and you, the Holy Spirit, should be glorified and enjoyed in the church, both now and forevermore. And so we ask that you would have your way with our hearts, even now, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Please be seated. This final sermon, we're going to give our attention to the subject of the Lord's Supper as a means of grace that God has appointed for the good of his people. And I'd like us to begin thinking about the Lord's Supper by thinking about the importance of eating. not on the importance of it, the joy of it, for which of us would last very long if we did not eat, and how many of us get kind of grumpy when we don't eat. Not only do we need to eat, but we really enjoy it. This morning, I have to admit that after the service, we got ready to eat the potluck, and you know, in other places, they call it fellowship meal or other things. I'm so happy to be back where it's called potluck, And to stand at one end of that long table and look down across this lineup of all these wonderful things, we don't simply eat out of survival. We eat with a measure of joy and even celebration. But eating is not simply something that we do as an aspect of our life. In many ways, the Bible is actually framed around the idea of eating. When you think about it, one of the first things that you see happen in the Bible is eating take place in the Garden of Eden. And one of the last things that you see taking place at the end of the Bible is at a meal, when the church is gathered together for all eternity, and that punctuation point that signals the end of history and the beginning of eternity is a meal, the marriage supper of the Lamb. Well, tonight we look at the Lord's Supper as a meal, if you will, in between, a meal in between that, fallen meal in the garden and that heavenly meal that awaits us. And we're gonna think about this through the lens of three questions. Why do we need the Lord's Supper? What do we remember in the Lord's Supper? And then finally, what do we proclaim in the Lord's Supper? So why do we need the Lord's Supper? I'm often intrigued by Christian's attitude to this. Why do we do this? Why do we have this meal? I think you do it once a month here. Why do we do this? Well, in many ways, the Christian life might be summarized in the language of giving and receiving. We give because we receive. God gives to his people in the gospel. And in many ways, the Christian life becomes an outworking of having first, received from God, there are ways in which we give to one another, and sometimes that giving is really good, and sometimes it gets really problematic, like you see in the church at Corinth. But what God has first given to us is his Son, and then secondly, all things freely with his Son, he has given to us as well. All that we have comes from God. When you pause and think about it, what do you have that God did not give you? Everything you have. God has given your time, your talent, your treasure, the people around you. All of these things we have from God, not simply heavenly or spiritual things, but earthly things as well. But this question or concern about giving and receiving is what sets the stage, or if you will, sets the table for the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11. Paul doesn't give you a sort of abstract theology of the Lord's Supper. Rather, he responds to a pastoral problem in the life of the church through the lens of the supper. The church had received in Christ, and freely the church had received in Christ, but it was failing to give in a Christ-like manner And that's what Paul has to address. In many ways, what Paul describes is really quite a horrific, if not almost comedic sight. The Corinthians, like we did today, had come together for a meal that was a wedding, if you will, of a potluck meal and the Lord's Supper all in the same. They'd come together for a meal that had potluck-like features, people bringing food, and the problem is there were those who brought and they had much to bring, and there were those who came who had little to bring. There was an abundance of food and apparently an overabundance of wine, but there was a problem. Not everyone had. The group might be divided into the haves and the have-nots. those that came over abounding in their surplus, and those that came over abounding in their poverty, all in the same church, all at the same meal. And those who had an abundance were going ahead of others, eating on their own schedule, eating as much as they wanted, eating and drinking to the point of being described not simply as full, but even drunk. One of the things I was really heartened by, if not almost uncomfortable by, is how insistent you were today that your guests get to go first. The only problem with that is if you're a pastor, you've been trained that you always go at the end of the line. So I felt like I was cutting the whole time. But when I began to eat, I felt better. But in Corinth, they were going ahead, each with their own meal. Those who had an abundance were eating ahead of others, while those that had very little watched in dismay as other Christians abounded gluttonously and drunkenly in front of them. To say it differently, not only were they eating out of turn, the rich were literally publicly humiliating the poor. They did this by not sharing with one another. A spirit of selfishness, of self-interest prevailed over the Lord's Supper. They were focused upon themselves and not upon Christ. And it's kind of hard to imagine such a potluck meal where people from the church who were impoverished would come and be shunned. And those that had an abundance would be gluttonous. And if such a thing as wine were allowed, people would drink so much at church, they were describable as drunk. It's hard to imagine. Some were gluttonous and others were starving. Some were humiliated while others are inebriated. A drunk church at the Lord's supper. This is pretty terrible, isn't it? And what does Paul do? He says, I cannot commend you for this, but rather he chides them for this. Twice he tells them, I do not commend you for this. He does not approve. But here, this becomes a question. What is his remedy? To a church gone rogue, to a church that is now abounding in self-interest, exalting their own appetite over even their brothers and sisters in Christ. To say it differently, how do you fix a selfish church? Well, the answer is by pointing them to the one who selflessly gave himself for the church. And this takes us to our second point then. What do we remember in the Lord's Supper? Paul says that he has delivered to them what he himself has first received. You see the dynamic? Paul has received. Paul gives. What he has received from the Lord, he gives to the church. It's unclear, actually, when he would have received this instruction from the Lord. The when he received this from the Lord is not nearly as important as what did Paul receive from the Lord, because Paul received and Paul now gives. Paul on the road to Damascus in Acts 8, met the resurrected Lord Jesus. And in one of the most remarkable interactions and conversations, Jesus says to Saul, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? He doesn't say, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting my church? But Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It's remarkable. Many New Testament scholars say that is the New Testament bedrock of the doctrine of union with Christ, that when the resurrected Lord ascends, he descends again in the power of the spirit to confront the enemies of the church with the power of the resurrection. And so bound to the church is Jesus, that Jesus literally says, Saul, what you are doing to them, you are doing to me. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? as he himself is bound to his church. On that road, Saul, now Paul, meets the Lamb of God who gave himself for his church. He met the Son of God who alone had the power to forgive sinners, and Saul himself was forgiven. Freely he received on the road to Damascus, not simply confrontation from Jesus, but forgiveness from him as well. the awful burden of Saul's sins would be removed. And think about how joyful he would become once the weight of those sins was truly removed. But not only does he receive this, he receives also a stewardship from Jesus, a phrase that he will often use throughout his letters, a ministry of word and deed, a calling to boldly proclaim the life with his lips, but to live out and dramatically display the life in his actions. And it's also a ministry of word and sacrament. A ministry of word and sacrament. In this ministry of word and sacrament, Paul refers particularly to the Lord's Supper, and he unpacks what this supper is for the church, this splendid means of grace. Notice how he uses here the language of what the Lord Jesus has given for him or given to him. This is a title that refers to the victory of Jesus over death. It is a resurrection title, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the one, who is exalted up into heaven. This is what Paul hears when he is still Saul on the road to Damascus. He then refers to it again, Acts 20, 24, but I did not account my life of any value, nor as precious to myself. If only I may finish my course and the ministry, listen carefully, that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. Paul will refer to Jesus as the Lord Jesus more than 50 times in the New Testament, the one who first confronts him, he cannot stop speaking about. It was the Lord Jesus. who was betrayed by his friends, as well by his enemies. And it was the Lord Jesus who did not respond to his betrayers in kind, but rather with kindness. This becomes very important. The Lord Jesus, who was betrayed by friends and enemies alike, did not respond in kind, but with kindness. He took bread. Paul says, and it was the Passover meal, an evening meal, in which the people of God would celebrate the Exodus, that great act of redemption where God came down like a man of war from heaven, and he defeated the outer bands of Pharaoh's armies one at a time. Every one of the 10 plagues was the Lord of Israel assaulting the gods of the Egyptians, every plague. was the Lord of Israel toppling one of Egypt's gods, Pharaoh himself being nicknamed a son of God. And finally, like an encroaching, attacking army defeating the outer defenses, penetrating inside the city, entering into the palace, finally up into the king's chambers, there he strikes down the son of Pharaoh, the son of God. Passover was a remarkable event. a declaration of war, heaven versus the powers of hell. And there's no question who won, it is Jehovah. And on that night when Israel would celebrate the victory of Yahweh over the gods of the Egyptians, Jesus sat down like a lamb at a table, not simply because he was hungry. There was far more to it than that. It was the Passover meal, an evening meal. He explained to his disciples the significance that the Passover was simply a type. He was the reality. His body had to be broken. His blood had to be shed. Outside of him, there was no hope for their lives. But because of him, just as was said in the Exodus, when God sees the blood of the lamb, I will pass over you. his body would be broken, his blood would be shed, and his people would eat in remembrance of me. Remembering is so important in the Bible. It's very beautiful, rich covenant language. When Noah was in the ark and rain fell upon the earth and those waters of judgment rose and rose and rose, when did the water go down? When God remembered his promise to Noah. God remembered, excuse me, even later, his promises. I'm gonna cough again. Sorry. He remembered his promises to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. He remembered them in particular when Israel kept sinning over and over and over. If you ever wondered why it is that God did not just come down and do away with his people in Israel, it's because he remembered the oath that he took. He remembered the promises that he made. Psalm 121 11, God remembers his covenant forever. That was the theme verse of our church in St. Augustine. Here's the point. God himself is a remembering God who remembers the promises that he makes to his people and then he calls his people to remember those promises. He calls us to remember things. And so Jesus takes the cup and after supper he says, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. Isn't that remarkable? To the natural eye, what is it? A piece of bread, a little cup of wine or grape juice, whatever you use. But to Jesus, he said, this is my body. This is my blood. Do this in remembrance of me, just as the old covenant was ratified with blood, just as the angel of death came through in Egypt and struck down all of God's enemies except those that had the blood smeared over their doorposts. This cup is the new covenant in my blood, the covenant in the Old Testament, sealed with blood, so also the covenant in the new. What is it, beloved? that saves you in the presence of God. It's the blood of Christ. What is it that guarantees that when God comes again to visit this world in judgment, that he will pass over you? It's that for your sakes, he did not pass over Jesus. He was our Passover lamb. The Lord's Supper takes us back to what Christ did. Not only do we remember it, we even celebrate it. And I think sometimes, if I can be just a little nudging here, I think sometimes we tend to treat the Lord's Supper too much like a funeral and too little like a wedding. Yes, we do recognize and remember the death of Jesus, but is he still dead? Are we here to grieve? Are we here to mourn? Shall we all come dressed in black? The Lord's Supper, beloved, is not a funeral. If you really wanted an analogy for it, it's much more like a wedding. There should be a sense of celebration, a sense of joy. The one who died for us is not dead, he is risen. He came, and he will come again. And even now, we continue to celebrate his life. It was not before the resurrection but after that Paul received from the Lord Jesus this ministry and this stewardship. So the Lord's Supper, it actually makes our heads turn, like literally. On the one hand, it makes us look back at what Jesus did. He died on the cross. But then it turns our head the other way. We look forward because he's not dead and he's promised that he will come again. But in many ways, it makes us look up to the fact that he is already present with us. And this is where I wonder, I was tasked with particularly talking about a reformed view of the Lord's Supper. And I wanna just drill down into that for a moment, because I think at times, even reformed Christians have a too broadly evangelical view, or if I can say it with a big word and then explain it, a Zwinglian view. So this is what I mean. The Roman Catholic Church taught that whenever the mass, it's what it was called, takes place, Jesus continues to suffer and the elements become his actual body, his actual blood, and in some way he suffers. They called it transubstantiation. If you wonder why on a Roman Catholic cross, which they call a crucifix, he's still on it, it's because they believe he continues to suffer. He has not done suffering, and not only must he continue to suffer, you have to add something to this as well. That's why they have seven steps in order to be justified, and you never know if you've actually done enough. That's really bad. Jesus does not continue to suffer. When he said upon the cross it is finished, he didn't really mean to be continued. And we don't contribute anything to the precious work of our Savior other than depending upon it by faith. But if that's the Roman Catholic view on the other, on this side, there's another view that I'm gonna suggest is something of an almost overreaction. Such a concern to not talk about Jesus as still somehow suffering. Such a concern to not talk about his presence the way Roman Catholics did. These elements become his actual body and blood. Here's my question, I'll put it in that form. Do you believe that he's actually present during the Lord's Supper? Or, as Zwingli taught, is the Lord's Supper really nothing more than like a, and this was his illustration, a wedding ring? Simply something you see so that you can remember what happened way back there. Is that it? Is that all the supper is? Simply something we see so that we can remember The problem with Zingler's view, which I really think is the dominant evangelical view, is that there's no actual presence of Christ referred to. Yes, he died, and he rose again, and he is in heaven, but is he actually present? It is very Reformed, very Calvinistic, this was Calvin's own view, this is in our confessions, that while the elements do not turn into the body and blood of Christ, he is still present. by the ministry of his spirit. He is the host of the table. You are not feeding on him in any physical way, but you are, in a certain sense, feeding on him spiritually. You are partaking, as Paul puts it in the previous chapter, in the body and blood of Christ, and he is present to the nourishment of the souls of his people. We ought to have a remarkably high view of the Lord's Supper. We ought to be excited about celebrating it, not simply remembering what happened, but properly, as we say it, celebrating the Lord's Supper. This is a means of grace that Jesus appointed. To what end? That the gospel might be proclaimed not only to our hearers, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, but hearing is accompanied by seeing, tasting, touching, and smelling in the Lord's Supper. In the Lord's Supper, all the senses engage in one factor or another. That which is preached to the ears becomes visible, touchable, tasteable, smellable to the remaining senses that is very reformed. Calvin loved to talk about the real presence of Christ in the supper. And it brings me to my final point. What do we proclaim? I wanna get to the verse 26. It's just such a fantastic little gem. Verse 26, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. According to Paul, the church has, I'm gonna say big words here, a collective voice and an eschatological task. A collective voice and an eschatological task. Here's what I mean. The collective voice is this. When we gather together under the ministry of word and sacrament, there is a sense in which the church proclaims the death of Jesus. publicly, visibly, corporately, as altogether, like a choir, well-tuned, proclaiming that Jesus came, that Jesus died, and because he's coming again, Jesus has been resurrected. It's one of the evangelistic postures that the church takes in this world. Who is it proclaiming to? Well, on the one hand, as we gather together for the Lord's Supper, we are proclaiming to one another, right? Just like when we sing, who are you singing to? Well, you're singing to the Lord, but you have a ministry to one another. That's why when you're gone, when you're not here, we miss you. We miss your voice. And that voice is multiplied as we partake of the supper together and collectively proclaim the Lord's death. But it's not simply that we proclaim the Lord's death, it's that we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. The Lord's supper is like the church saying corporately to the world, my savior has come and he's coming again. My savior has come and he's coming Again, that's what we mean by eschatological. Until Jesus returns, one of the things he wants his church to do is to proclaim corporately to the world that he has already come, the person and work of Christ, and that he is going to return. The book of Revelation ends with the church and the spirit together saying to the world, come, come, and meet the one who told me all that I ever did. Come, those who are hungry, and take of this bread of life without price. Come, all who are thirsty, and take of the water of eternal life without price." He's quoting from Isaiah. He's alluding to John 4, the church and the Spirit saying to the world, come and meet Jesus. And there's a sense in which we say that evangelistically, perhaps on the street corner, but we say it even more fully and unambiguously when we partake of the Lord's Supper, because not only is the gospel proclaimed with words, it is seen. It is seen. This is such a really big deal. The Lord's Supper is a drama meant to be heard. meant to be seen, in a certain sense, meant to be felt, word and sacrament bound together. Calvin would sometimes say that the supper was the final point of application of the sermon. what the sermon says to the ears, the supper says to the rest of the senses. And I wonder if I have you persuaded that it's evangelistically helpful. I want you to look at it another way. What's one of the things that your pastor always does when you have the Lord's Supper, he says that those who come to the table need to have made a profession of faith. That's evangelism. You know what they called the Lord's Supper? The reformed altar call. Why? Because you hear the word of God preached, then you see it visually, dramatically displayed, and then there's this invitation. We're not telling people to go away, we're telling people to come to faith. It's the reformed altar call. It makes the gospel visible. It's a divinely appointed drama. Have you ever thought about this? How many pictures are there of God in the Bible? We have this little second commandment thing. Right? How many pictures did God give Moses of himself? How many pictures did Jesus leave behind for his disciples as souvenirs to put up in museums so we all know exactly what he looked like? Because he obviously had blonde hair and blue eyes. Or not. But I'm after something here. If God didn't give Moses pictures for Moses to hang in the tabernacle of the temple, And Jesus didn't take selfies with the disciples so that they'd never forget what he looked like. What picture does the Lord give his church of himself? What does he want us to see? What does he want us to touch? What does he want us to taste? What does he want us to smell? The Lord's Supper is, if you will, beloved, the reformed version of a beautiful portrait of who your Savior is and what He has done. It's what God wants you to see. And it's very evangelistic. I'm gonna tell you just two little anecdotal story. The man who bought my home in St. Augustine when we moved to California, who moved into that house with his wife and four kids is a man that I baptized. His wife and he, I did their premarital counseling. When these little babies came one at a time, I got to baptize them all. But how he came into the church is a really great story. I met him as a college kid. He was a non-Christian and very antagonistic to the faith. And he broke his leg playing dodgeball. You can laugh about that. It's a really lame way to break your leg. Big guy, about 6'6", two of me. And he came over with friends to our house and sat in my living room, eating my wife's lunch, starting making jokes about Christianity. And I said, okay, Adam, you obviously have some things to say. Why don't we get together and talk? You've got a broken leg and you aren't going away. We both know you like Heather's brownies because everyone does and you've eaten six. So how about we go all the way through the gospel of John? We'll just read one chapter at a time, have coffee and brownies, we'll talk about it. And he was like, all right, fine, let's do it. We went through the whole book. We got all the way to the end of the book of John. I thought for sure this guy was going to make a profession of faith. And I asked him, so what do you think? Are you ready to make a profession of faith? And he said, no, I'm not. But I'm gonna start coming to your church and see what you guys do over there. So he started coming. And after a couple of months, he came up to me after a service, tears falling down the cheeks of this big hulk of a kid, six foot six, big guy. He said, I'm ready. I'd like to meet with the elders and make a profession of faith. And I said, so what happened? What changed? And he said, every time you take the Lord's Supper, I feel unsafe. I know I'm not where I'm supposed to be. And there's something in my chest that tells me it's time, time for me to surrender. You know how cool it is? I'm 6'3". You know how cool it is as a pastor to have to reach up when you're baptizing? and water just comes running down your arm and your sleeve, it's a great experience. And when we moved, that man bought our home, is now raising his kids there. The Lord's Supper is evangelistic. My son, Carl, with special needs, when he was a younger teenager, kept getting frustrated with me, kind of fighting coming to church, particularly on Lord's Supper Sundays. And finally, one of the elders, who was far more discerning than I was, said, there's something going on with Carl and the supper. And so we did like a pastoral visit, and it came out that the Lord's Supper, because Carl was at a place and stage where he wanted to profess his faith, but because of his intellectual challenges, couldn't quite do it, that he felt like it just wasn't working. Something was off. He was restless. And so that elder, volunteered to do an accommodated version of our Communicants class one-on-one with Carl, brought him to the finish line, and Carl made a profession of his faith and is now a Communicant member in the church. Do you really think the supper even going past our little kids isn't having some sort of effect? Which do you think they get more out of, a long sermon or a short supper? It's an interesting question. The Lord's Supper reminds us that Jesus not only has come in the past and is present now, but he's also coming again. It comforts the church. It assures the church. It reminds us that our God is not only good, but our God is coming. It strengthens us spiritually. Do you see the Lord's Supper as a means of grace? Do you come expecting that God is actually going to meet us here, commune with us here, build us up to this outward and ordinary means of grace? You know what you need more and more of? The outward and ordinary means of grace. We don't need the inward. We don't need the extraordinary. We need the outward and we need the ordinary. It strengthens us. spiritually exactly as Jesus said that it would. It's not only important to our relationships vertically, watch my hands here, vertically between us and God, the Lord's Supper is also fantastically important horizontally. What do I mean by that? Not only is it the reformed altar call, I'm gonna argue it's the best marriage counselor in the church. It's the best marriage counselor in the church. because it says regularly and clearly that if we are secretly and impenitently living in sin, a scandalous double life, we ought not to eat and partake in hypocrisy. That's in our relationship with God. But it also says if we are unreconciled with one another, and have not done what is required of us, in the language of Ephesians 4, speaking the truth in love, not letting the sun go down on our anger, not being kind to one another, tenderhearted with one another, forgiving one another. As God and Christ has forgiven us, if we have allowed seeds of division to become roots of bitterness, the Lord's Supper says, you have work to do. You have work to do, and it says it to everyone at once. It's the fastest pastoral elder visit you can possibly get, because it wraps its arms around the whole church and says, where are we spiritually in our walk with God? And where are we relationally, not only in our families, but perhaps even with other members of the body of Christ? The Lord's Supper encourages us to keep our accounts small with one another, and our hearts big with the grace of God for one another. I'm gonna argue briefly for and against weekly communion. I know you don't do it. The last church I pastored didn't do it either. Calvin believed wholeheartedly in weekly communion and he never got to practice it in all of his time in Geneva. It's very interesting to me. But one of the soft arguments one might consider is the language of verse 18, as often as you come together, If the Lord's Supper, as Calvin put it, is the last point of application of the sermon, one could almost hope that you could have that last point of application at the end of every sermon. And if we believe that it is a means of grace, can you get too much of the means of grace? I've been married 28 years. I love my wife. Is there any such thing as kissing her too many times? I hope she would say no. I'm not trying to make it creepy, but you get the point. Now, I recognize that when people think about the Lord's Supper that appreciate the Lord's Supper, there have been two views in history. Some have esteemed the Lord's Supper so highly that they want to do it every week. And some have esteemed the Lord's Supper so highly that they do it once a year. and have a whole communion season of preaching that leads up to it, in particular, pastoral visits that are done in preparation particularly for the Lord's Supper. I'm really not trying to persuade you one way or another on the question of frequency. I am trying to persuade you on the matter of importance. Do you think the Lord's Supper is important or is it simply something the church does because the church does it? Be careful of dry, empty ritualism. And esteem highly what Jesus himself esteems highly. What matters is not so much how often we celebrate it, but that we truly celebrate when we partake of it. I need to wind this down, and I'll do so by making just a few comments in conclusion. Why is the Lord's Supper so important? Because the Christian life really is about giving and Receiving. The Lord's Supper reminds us that Jesus has first given himself to us. And the Lord's Supper compels us to want to give ourselves more fully and freely to God and more generously and Christ-likely, you know what I'm trying to say, to one another. It reminds us of what we have freely received and it compels us to what we are generously to give. is given to help us celebrate, but it is also given to motivate. It's mind blowing to me that the Corinthians could have the problem of selfishness the way that they did. But if you've been a Christian for a long time, I want you to think about this. If you've been a Christian for a long time, perhaps you could agree with me that Christians sometimes do some ridiculously stupid things. sinful, selfish, shallow, I could have never seen that coming sort of things. You've been there, you've seen that, you've been baffled, blown away, right? Well, maybe one of the ways we got there, or people have gotten there, is that they allowed the beautiful means of grace that God has given to his church to just become dry, empty rituals with little value. The Corinthians, came to the supper, and they brought their booze, and they brought their barbecue, and they just jumped right in very selfishly. How does Paul go about correcting a selfish church? By pointing their faith to the one who esteemed others more important than himself, and freely he gave. So when you celebrate the Lord's Supper next, think about why it is that you do it. It's not just a dry, empty ritual. This is an outward and ordinary means of grace that Jesus appointed, beloved, for your good, and we need more of him, don't we? Secondly, what do we remember in the Lord's Supper? We remember that God made a promise, and he will never forget it, that when he sees the blood of his son, He will pass over you. Finally, what do we proclaim in the Lord's Supper? We proclaim the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ to one another and to the world until he comes to take us home. Let's pray. Oh Lord, we confess that we spend a lot of time thinking about food. and probably too little time thinking about the most important type of food, heavenly manna, the body and blood of Jesus Christ. We ask, O Lord, that you would increase our sense of what the Lord's Supper truly is. Help us not to descend. In silly myths and superstition, we know that the bread and wine do not turn into your actual body and blood, but help us also not to reduce the Lord's Supper to simply some sort of a memorial, simply a remembering as though you yourself are not present as the host to nourish our souls. Help us to do in the Lord's Supper exactly what we call it, communion. Communion with you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and communion with one another as members of the body of Christ. Might you be pleased, O Lord, to build us up, and might you continue to receive glory and honor in the church as we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. We're gonna respond together by taking our Psalter hymnal and singing number 265, In Christ Alone. Please stand together as we do.