We turn in God's word this morning to 1 Corinthians 10. We'll read the first 21 verses of the chapter. Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted, neither be idolaters, as were some of them. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed and fell in one day three and 20,000. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these things happened unto them foreign samples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men, and judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread. Behold Israel after the flesh, are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? What say I then? that the idol is anything? Or that which is offered and sacrificed to idols is anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God. And I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils. Thus far we read God's holy and inspired word. May he bless it to our hearts this morning. Our text is verses 16 and 17. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread and one body. For we are all partakers of that one bread. Beloved congregation and our Lord Jesus Christ, how many times have you witnessed and have I witnessed the celebration of the Lord's Supper? Those of us who have grown up in Reformed churches, You probably have seen many, many celebrations of this supper since the time that we were very little children. Some of our first memories of coming to church may even be the celebration of the Lord's Supper as we watched dad and mom take a piece of bread out of the tray that was passed around and eat and then take a cup of wine out of the tray and drink. For many of us, we have seen the Lord's Supper since we were very, very young. And how many times have you, beloved congregation, and have I partaken of the Lord's Supper? For those of us whose confession of faith was many years ago, we have partaken dozens and scores of times of the Lord's Supper. We've seen this sacrament. We're familiar with this sacrament. And yet when it comes right down to the meaning of this sacrament, there is still something mysterious, still something hard to grasp, still something glorious and beautiful about this supper. Though we have seen it often, it is no common supper. For when we come together to partake of the Lord's Supper, we are communing with Jesus Christ Himself. We are united to the Lord Himself and partaking of Jesus Christ Himself. That's what Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 16, when he says, the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? We drink His blood this morning. And the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? We eat His body this morning. and by that are united to Him, are really and truly united to Him. There's a wonder there. There's a mystery there of our union with Christ. But that mystery is even deeper. There's more to it. The main part of it is our union to Christ. The main blessing is that union to Christ. When we come together this morning to partake of the Lord's Supper, there's also this mysterious union that God gives us with each other, so that we as a congregation are one. We are united together. Though each of us sits in our own individual seat, though each of us is our own individual person, we are all united together in the Lord Jesus Christ through partaking of Him and in union with Him. So that Paul says in verse 17, For we being many are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread. And that makes this celebration of the Lord's Supper this morning then exciting, spiritually exciting. It's a sacrament we've seen many times. It's a sacrament we've partaken of many times. But God in His grace has called us together unto this great mystery to partake of Christ and be united to Him. and also to be united one to another. Let's consider this great gift of God to us this morning then under the theme, Communion with Christ. In the first place, we consider that reality. And there we try to get into the mystery of what union with Christ is, the reality of communion with Christ. In the second place, we consider the possibility of being united to him. And in the third place we consider the effect. And there we have our eye especially on the fact that we are united as one bread and we are united as one body for we have all partaken of the Lord Jesus Christ. Communion with Christ, the reality, the possibility, and the effect. In the first place, then, we have to state this reality of communion with Christ. And what that phrase means is that there is a real, true, spiritual union between the Lord Jesus Christ and His elect, regenerated, believing people. There is a real spiritual union between Christ and us. And that union is taught in verse 16 When Paul says, the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? That word communion of the blood of Christ points to that spiritual union that we have somehow with the blood of Christ, which is with Christ Himself. And then, the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? And that word communion again points to that real spiritual union between Christ and us. That spiritual union is difficult for us to understand. This is the mystery of the Lord's Supper, and this is the mystery of our union with Christ, because that union is not a physical union. It's not a union that we can point to and say, look, there's the thread that connects us to Christ. There is no such physical thread or pipeline that connects us to Christ. We cannot point to it on ourselves somewhere or point to it in Him somewhere. There's no physical thing we can take hold of to understand this union. This union is a spiritual and invisible union, but it is a real union nevertheless. There are a couple of concepts that can help us understand this union, though we cannot see it with our physical eyes. The first concept is that of union itself or connection. There is a spiritual connection. We are very really attached to the Lord Jesus Christ. Even though we can't see that, we can understand that concept of being united to Him, of having that real connection with Him. That's seen a little bit in the Lord's Supper, which is visible, as is the nature of a sacrament, a visible sign and seal. We can see that a little bit when we take the bread and we eat the bread. And even though that bread physically is not the body of Christ, which is the heir of Rome, Nevertheless, in eating the bread and in drinking the wine, we really, truly partake of Jesus Christ. There's a real union and connection in eating the bread and in drinking the wine. There's a connection between us and Christ so that although He is in heaven and we on earth, we are united to Him. And then the second concept that can help us understand this spiritual union is that of identity or unity. And the idea here is that not only is there a connection between Christ and us, but we have very really become one with Christ. We are identified with Him. We are one with Him so that what He is, we are. Not according to His divine nature, According to His divine nature, He remains different than we are. He alone is divine, and we are not divine. But we are united to Him in such a way that what He is according to His human nature, so we are by His grace. Those two concepts help us understand, and yet there's still mystery here in this idea of union with Christ. And so we turn now to the figures that God Himself has given us to help us understand this union. One of those figures is that of the body and the head. And that's in a couple of chapters from our text, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 12 and following. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. And then verse 27, now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular. The figure here that Paul teaches is that Jesus Christ is the head and we are his body. Many different members, many different callings, many different walks of life. but all of us united together as one body, connected to the head, the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we go together with Him, so that we're unified with Him, so that there's an identity between Him in heaven and us here on earth. We're united to Christ as members of the body are united to the head. And then the other figure that our Lord gives us to help us understand this is in John 15, the figure of the vine and the branches. John 15 verses 1 and following. I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without me ye can do nothing. Jesus here in John 15 uses that figure of the vine and branches to show the identity and the union and the connection between Christ and us. He's the vine and we are the branches. And that branch that's connected to the vine, truly connected, that abides in the vine as the husbandman has grafted that branch into the vine. That branch is one with the vine. There are other branches too that Jesus speaks about that don't bear fruit. He even says those branches are in me. But Jesus is not describing those branches that don't bear fruit as though they have this spiritual union with Him. They're false branches. They're dead branches. They have no union with Him. They abide not in Him. That is, by the work of the husbandman grafting them into that vine. Those are the reprobate. Those are the hypocrites who only walk with the church for a time. and then depart from the church, never bearing fruit by the operation of God, never having that real spiritual union and connection with the Lord Jesus Christ. Only those who abide in Him That is, only those grafted in by the husbandmen, by Jehovah God, bring forth fruit. But those who do abide in Him, those who aren't grafted by the husbandmen, they are one with that vine. Those branches have a unity and an identity and a union with the vine. And that's the reality now. that Paul is describing in 1 Corinthians 10 when he says, is not the cup of blessing which we bless the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? There is this real spiritual union between Jesus Christ and us. As Paul develops this idea of communion, he says something interesting and even frightening about this whole concept of union. And the interesting and even frightening thing he says is that the idolaters who bow down to idols and go to idolatrous feasts in order to worship those idols, that those idolaters have union with something too. And as Paul explains that, he says, I'm not saying that they have union with the idol. because the idol is nothing. That's what Paul says in verse 14 first of all, wherefore my dearly beloved flee from idolatry. That's the whole point of this warning and this whole point of union and communion here in verses 16 and 17. But then in verse 19 he says, what say I then that the idol is anything or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything? I'm not telling you to flee idolatry because I think an idol has power, Paul says. An idol is a piece of wood or stone. But I'm telling you to flee from idolatry in part because when the Gentiles sacrifice to idols, they're sacrificing to devils. And when they partake in their idolatrous feasts of the food sacrificed to idols, they're communing with devils. And you cannot commune with the Lord and with the devils. This is one of the horrific aspects of idolatry. That there is real spiritual power and real spiritual presences involved in idolatry. Not that the idol is anything. There is no power in the idol. It has eyes, but it sees not, and ears, but it hears not. There is no spiritual presence in the idol, but there is the spiritual presence of devils. There's something mysterious about that too. Exactly what is the role of the devil and devils in idol worship? Exactly what does that communion with devils entail? There's something hard for us to understand the depths of there. But Paul's warning here is flee idolatry because you may commune with devils and commune with God at the same time. The communion that we have is not the communion with devils. There's a real spiritual power and presence in our communion and in our coming to the table of the Lord. The real spiritual power and presence is that of Jesus Christ himself with whom we have communion and of whose blood and body we partake. There is some more we can say about this spiritual union with Christ, this reality that helps make it real and helps show the experience of it in our own hearts. The next thing we can say about this spiritual union with Christ is that that union is faith. That's the name of that union. That's the identity of that union. Our Heidelberg Catechism helps us in identifying that union with Christ as faith. When it says in Lord's Day 7, are all men, as they perished in Adam, saved by Christ? And the answer is no. Only such as are engrafted into Christ by a true faith. Engrafted into Christ by a true faith. There's that idea of union, engrafted into Christ. There's that idea of identity. There's even that very figure that Jesus used in John 15, I am the vine, ye are the branches. We're engrafted into Christ. And what is that graft into Christ? What is that bond and union with Christ? According to Lord's Day 7, true faith. True faith. When we went through Lord's Day 7, we saw that There's two ways we can describe faith. Faith is first of all that bond and that union. And then secondly, faith is the activity of knowing God and trusting God. That's different from a work, but it is true activity. The activity of knowing God and trusting God. That's what faith is. Faith is that bond. Faith is that union to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when we talk about communing of the blood of Christ and the communion of the body of Christ. We're speaking of that unity of faith and union of faith and bond of faith that unites us to the Lord. Another thing that we can say about this union that helps us understand it is that it is worked in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. This union is not something that we reach out to God and make. That's the presentation of many today. That's the presentation of most churches that will teach some form of the well-meant offer of the Gospel, that have some kind of altar call. Everything depends on what you do to reach out and make this connection with Christ. What you do to reach out and except the offer that God supposedly makes in His universal love for all men. Then everything depends upon the sinner. Everything depends upon your response and your reaction or mine. Then we have to make the union to Christ. We have to produce faith in our hearts to be united to Him. There's no possibility for the depraved fallen sinner himself to reach out to Christ and take hold of Him so as to forge that union between Christ and himself and receive from Christ through that union all of the blessings of salvation. It simply cannot be done. If it depends upon us, then we are lost and there is no salvation. But thanks be to God that this union does not depend on us, but on the Holy Spirit, God Himself, who connects us to Christ, who works that gift of faith in our hearts and plugs us in or grafts us in to the Lord Jesus Christ by His sovereign power and might. That's encouraging for us practically and experientially even. Sometimes we can have it in our minds that whether I have salvation, whether I'm connected to Christ or not, depends on how I feel about it. It depends on my emotional state. And there are times in my Christian life when I have deep emotions about the Lord and I feel very deeply about Him. There are other times in my Christian life where, for whatever reason, those emotions aren't as deep and aren't as powerful. And then I begin to fear, well, what happened? Where's Christ? Why am I not connected to Him the way I used to be, or the way I used to feel? And then we start to think, I've got to do something to make my emotions deeper again. I've got to do something to feel this more deeply. And that's a bondage for the child of God. Our emotions can be fickle. Our emotions can come and can go. It doesn't depend on our emotional state whether we're connected to Christ or not. The connection depends on the Holy Spirit who creates it in our hearts. The connection is nurtured by the gospel that declares to us the work of Jesus Christ, that gospel which creates faith, or by which the Holy Spirit creates faith in our hearts. That bond is nourished and nurtured by the Lord's Supper, which confirms our faith and strengthens us. And then the emotions come back, but nothing depends on those emotions being present or not. It all depends on the work of Jehovah God. giving us this gift of faith. The union that we have with Jesus Christ is faith and it's worked by the Holy Spirit. We experience this union as we come to partake of the Supper of the Lord. This union is most visibly represented in the sacrament. That union is taught in the gospel, it's forged by the gospel, the preaching of the gospel, but it's most visibly represented in the sacraments, including the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Here we can take something in our hands, the bread. which is a symbol of the broken body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and partake. Here we can hold in our hands the cup of wine, which is a symbol of the blood of Christ, and we can partake. And by faith, as we eat that bread, and by faith as we drink that wine, not cleaving to the external elements, but lifting our hearts up on high to where Christ is seated in heaven. We experience and know and are taught and assured and sealed in this union that we have with our Lord Jesus Christ. The sacrament then is a great gift to us as a congregation that we look forward to coming to partake of this morning. Union with Christ. But how? How can that be possible? As we read through 1 Corinthians 10, it seems almost strange that Paul would talk about union with Christ in this passage. Because in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul is highlighting The sins, some of the sins, of Old Testament Israel, which sins we are prone to commit today as well, and do fall into because of our depraved nature. The passage begins by reminding the Corinthians that all our fathers, that is the Old Testament nation, were under the cloud and all passed through the sea. They were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual meat. They all drank the same spiritual drink. But with many of them God was not well pleased. Many of them God destroyed. Many of them were not truly Israel. They were of Israel. They walked along with Israel. They went through the Red Sea with Israel. But they were only of Israel. They were not truly Israel. And so he begins to warn us, verse 6, Do not lust after evil things as they did. Verse 7, neither be ye idolaters as some of them were. Verse 8, neither let us commit fornication as some of them committed. Verse 9, neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted. Verse 10, neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured. He goes through this whole list of the sins that the Old Testament fathers committed and sins which we are prone to today as is evident by his warning, Paul's warning against those sins in this passage. And as we have examined ourselves in this past week, and as we always examine ourselves before God's requirements of us in his law, we find there's something wrong with us too. Don't be idolaters. Well, I'm not tempted to have a meal with devils. I'm not tempted to bow down to some wood and stone perhaps, but how many things take pride of place in my heart over Jehovah God and in yours. I'm prone to idolatry, even to idolatry, or adultery, or murmuring and complaining, or lusting after evil things that are forbidden us by the word of the Lord. There's all these sins that we are prone to. There's something wrong with me and my depraved nature. Many times I have sinned against the Lord and even my best works are polluted with iniquity. And so how is a sinner such as I am supposed to have communion with the Lord Jesus Christ? How can I be connected to Him so that I am one with Him? It seems like that's not possible from an earthly human point of view. The possibility is that the Lord Jesus Christ has covered all our sins by His broken body and shed blood. And now we pay special attention to the precise wording of Paul in the text. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? He doesn't say, the cup of blessing which we drink. He could have said that, the cup of blessing which we drink. That would be enough to establish this idea of communion with Christ and union with Christ. We drink it and by that have union with Him. He also doesn't speak of the bread which we eat. It's not the word he uses. That word eat would be enough to establish the idea of communion. We eat that bread of the Lord's Supper and by that have communion and union with Christ. But that's not what he says. He refers to the cup of blessing which we bless. And his meaning there is when the Lord Jesus Christ instituted the supper He said that this supper represents His blood, this cup represents His blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. The blood which is shed. And when He instituted the bread, the supper in the bread, He called it the bread which we break, which is broken for you. that we might be forgiven our sins. It's not just bread and wine, it's broken bread and poured out wine. And when Paul says, we bless it and we break it, he's not saying anything in this supper depends on our actions, as the Roman Catholic Church would teach, that everything depends on the priest's actions, as the priest says the right words, as the priest offers Jesus Christ again on the altar, Paul isn't saying anything like that. What he's saying is we use this sacrament according to the Lord's institution. We take bread and wine, broken bread, and pour it out wine and eat it and drink it. We're simply using the sacrament according to the Lord's institution of it. But the emphasis here is on broken bread. and the wine poured out, or the blood shed. Jesus, therefore, is teaching us that we have communion with Him through His broken body and through His shed blood. And there's no other way to have communion with Jesus Christ than through His broken body and through His shed blood. The only possibility is that our sins are covered in the sight of the Lord, and they are covered in the sight of the Lord. through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ upon His cross, by His death, and by His suffering, the curse for all our sins and sinfulness that we deserved. And that's taught to us and sealed to us too in the Lord's Supper as we partake of the bread and the wine. That's not merely communion with Christ, but that's communion with Christ through His death and through His work of atonement. When Paul says, therefore, in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 16, we have communion with the blood of Christ and communion with the body of Christ, he means that all of the benefits that the blood and body of Christ earned for us, we partake of, we have, our sins are forgiven. As many of us has come in faith, worked by the Holy Spirit, to the supper of our Lord and eat and drink by faith, taking hold of Christ by faith, believing that all of our sins are forgiven for His sake. We have this great benefit of union with Christ through the broken body and shed blood of our Lord. And then there is that glorious effect of this union with Christ that we also have union and communion with each other, with our fellow members of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, with the fellow members of Byron Center Protestant Reformed Church assembled here and partaking here of the Lord's Supper together. Paul emphasizes that in verse 17, for we being many are one bread and one body. For we are all partakers of that one bread. What Paul is teaching here then is that we together are one. Not only are we one with Christ, but we as members of the church together are one with each other. And the reason we are one with each other is because we are all partakers of Jesus Christ. He is our unity. And as we are united to Him, we are united also one to another. The Apostle recognizes here that we're not all the same. The Apostle recognizes here that there's great diversity among us. He uses the word many. We being many. are nevertheless one bread and one body. For we are all partakers of the Lord Jesus Christ." Sometimes it's that idea of the many that can cause difficulties for us in our union with each other and in our communion with each other. Perhaps there are sins that we commit against each other or suspicions that we have about one another. Lord willing, we'll be able to address some of that tonight in the applicatory when we look at one particular difficulty in our earthly relationships, which is the sin of respecting persons. Sometimes there's difficulties in our earthly relationships. And so being many, it can be difficult to see that we're one. And then there's the additional difficulty of being many so that it's difficult to get to know everyone. It's hard to understand everyone's life. And yet we being many are one bread and one body. Why? Because we're nice enough to each other. Why? Because we have the right attitude always to each other. The foundation of our unity is not in us, but the foundation of our unity is in the Lord Jesus Christ. We partake of Him and partaking of Him together, we are united together as the body of the Lord Jesus Christ and as one bread. And that helps us immensely then. As we come to the supper of the Lord, that helps us immensely in our unity as a church, because we can look across at one another and see there's another for whom Jesus Christ shed his blood. There's someone who has communion with the blood of Christ and communion with the body of Christ. There's someone who's united to the head, just as I'm united to the head, and therefore we are one together in the Lord Jesus Christ. as we partake of His body and His blood spiritually by faith. And so we come to another celebration of the Supper of our Lord. How many is this for you? And how many of this is this for me throughout our lives? And yet there remains this mystery, this glorious mystery, this spiritual union to the Lord Jesus Christ of whom we partake in this sacrament. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father which art in heaven, we thank Thee for Thy word to us this morning concerning union with Christ. We thank Thee that Thou hast united us to Him. Apply this word to our hearts that we may enjoy that union. And as we partake of the Lord's Supper now, may we by grace and by faith spiritually partake of the blood and the body of our Lord, even as we are united one to another, in our head, in whose name we pray. Amen. We turn now to the forum for the administration of the Lord's