Let's open our Bibles this morning to the Word of God in Luke chapter 22. Luke chapter 22, where Christ instituted the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in place of the feast of the Passover. And we'll read verses 1 through 20. Luke 22, verses 1 through 20. Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover. And the chief priests and scribes sought how they might kill him, for they feared the people. Then entered Satan into Judas, surnamed Iscariot, being one of the number of the 12. And he went his way and communed with the chief priests and captains how he might betray him unto them. And they were glad. and covenanted to give him money. And he promised and sought opportunity to betray him unto them in the absence of the multitude. Then came the day of unleavened bread when the Passover must be killed. And he sent Peter and John saying, go and prepare us the Passover that we may eat. And they said unto him, where wilt thou that we prepare? And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house where he entereth in. And he shall say unto the good man of the house, The master saith unto thee, Where is the guest chamber where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples? And he shall show you a large upper room furnished. There make ready. And they went and found as he had said unto them, and they made ready the Passover. When the hour was come, he sat down and the 12 apostles with him. And he said unto them, with desire, I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup and gave thanks and said, take this and divide it among yourselves. For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall come. And he took bread and gave thanks and break it and gave unto them saying, this is my body, which is given for you. This do in remembrance of me. Likewise, also the cup after supper saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you. We read God's word thus far, and it's on the basis of that passage of scripture, as well as all of God's word, that we are instructed in Lord's Day 28 concerning the sacrament of the Holy Supper of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord's Day 28, question 75 asks, how art thou admonished and assured in the Lord's Supper that thou art a partaker of that one sacrifice of Christ accomplished on the cross and of all his benefits? Thus, that Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat of this broken bread and to drink of this cup in remembrance of him, adding these promises, First, that his body was offered and broken on the cross for me, and his blood shed for me, as certainly as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup communicated to me. And further, that he feeds and nourishes my soul to everlasting life with his crucified body and shed blood, as assuredly as I receive from the hands of the minister and taste with my mouth the bread and cup of the Lord as certain signs of the body and blood of Christ. What is it then to eat the crucified body and drink the shed blood of Christ? It is not only to embrace with a believing heart all the sufferings and death of Christ, and thereby to obtain the pardon of sin and life eternal. but also besides that, to become more and more united to his sacred body by the Holy Ghost, who dwells both in Christ and in us, so that we, though Christ is in heaven and we on earth, are notwithstanding flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, and that we live and are governed forever by one spirit, as members of the same body are by one soul. Where has Christ promised that he will as certainly feed and nourish believers with his body and blood as they eat of this broken bread and drink of this cup? In the institution of the supper, which is thus expressed, the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. After the same manner, also, he took the cup when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do ye as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till he come. This promise is repeated by the Holy Apostle Paul, where he says, 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 because we are all partakers of that one bread. The two sacraments, beloved, that our Lord Jesus Christ has instituted in the church in the New Testament, namely baptism and the Lord's Supper, are not chief means of grace. We know that the preaching is the chief means of grace, the means that the Holy Spirit uses to work faith, as well as to strengthen and nourish our faith. However, the sacraments are still an important means of grace, a means of grace that is intended to be a means of faith, specifically a means for the strengthening of our faith. The purpose of the sacraments, both baptism and the Lord's Supper, is that they serve through the work of the Spirit to strengthen the assurance of faith, the assurance of our salvation. Therefore, if being sure that you are saved, being sure that you are forgiven, being sure that you belong to Christ, being sure that you are an heir of life eternal, if being sure of those things is important to you as a child of God, then you will value the sacraments, both baptism and the Lord's Supper. As we all know, Satan likes to attack and undermine our assurance. He wants us to doubt that we are saved. He wants us to question God's goodness, God's love, and God's faithfulness to us at the times in life when we are afflicted. He wants us to question and to doubt and to wonder about God's grace and mercy toward us at the times in our lives when we are greatly troubled by sin. And that's why we need the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And that's also why we need to partake of this sacrament. As the catechism points out, that's the command of our Lord Jesus Christ himself. Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat of this broken bread and to drink of this cup in remembrance of him. And when we partake in faith, faith worked in us by the Holy Spirit, when we partake as we ought to partake spiritually and in faith, then the Lord's Supper is a means to be assured of the love and the grace and the mercy of God toward us in Christ his Son. Consider then with me the blessing of, or the blessed sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And three things that we'll note concerning that sacrament. It pictures Christ's suffering. It is a means to strengthen our faith. And it is also that which unites us more to Christ's body. As we read in Luke chapter 22, the Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Lord's Supper to replace the Passover. The Passover was celebrated by the Jews, the people of God, ever since they were delivered from the land of Egypt and the angel of death passed over their houses and did not kill the firstborn in their homes because they had killed the Passover lamb and they had spread the blood of that lamb over the doors of their homes. Jesus now gathers together with his disciples to celebrate and to eat that Passover meal. But this would be the last time. The Passover pointed ahead to Christ. The Passover involved the shedding of the blood of a lamb that pointed ahead to Christ, but soon Christ himself would personally fulfill everything that the Passover pointed ahead to. Therefore, there would not be any more a need for a feast that involved the shedding of blood, the blood of that lamb. And therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ took bread and wine. And he broke it and poured it before their eyes. He did it very visibly in order for the disciples to see that broken bread and to see that poured out wine. And then he commanded them from now on, do this instead of celebrating the Passover. And do this in remembrance of me. A feast now that instead of looking ahead to Christ, as the Passover did, is that which looks back to Christ and to a work that he has accomplished and finished. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not only for the disciples. It was given to them as those who must lead the New Testament church. And it was given to them with the intent that as those who would be the apostles in the New Testament church, they would teach the church to practice the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And so the New Testament church does that, and the New Testament church must do that. And the New Testament church must do that until the Lord Jesus Christ returns at the end of time. As the Apostle Paul spells that out in first Corinthians 11, when he says, we must take and we must eat of the bread and we must drink of the wine and we must do that to show the Lord's death till he come. To the end of time. the sacrament of the Lord's Supper must be administered, and must be administered in such a way that it shows the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. This demonstrates that the Lord's Supper is intended, first of all, as something to see. something for our eyes to behold. When the Lord's Supper is administered, we can all see it. The children here can see it too. You can see the bread and you can see the wine. You can see the bread being broken and the wine being poured. You can see the bread being distributed and the wine being distributed and those who are confessing members of the church partaking of the bread and wine. There are many things to observe. There are many things to see when the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is administered. And those are things that are intended for us to observe and intended for us to see with purpose. With this purpose that we consider and meditate upon what they represent, what they picture to us. A striking and a powerful picture that they give to us of what happened to and what was done to the Lord Jesus Christ. As the catechism itself points out, the Lord's Supper pictures for us, quote, all the suffering and death of Christ. That's the picture. That's what the picture calls us in our minds and in our souls to contemplate, all the sufferings and death of Christ. The Lord's Supper, therefore, is a sacrament that takes us back again and again, every time the sacrament is administered, to Christ's life of suffering, especially to the suffering that came upon him after he instituted the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Perfect timing. Christ instituted it right before what it pictured would happen to him, his suffering. It pictures for us his sufferings at the hands of men. It pictures for us the suffering that Luke 22 verse two speaks of, the chief priests and scribes sought how they might kill him. And verses three through five where Judas schemes and plots with them to betray Jesus Christ to the chief priests and rulers of the people. Say again, it pictures for us his suffering at the hands of men. His being betrayed by Judas. His being captured and bound in the Garden of Gethsemane. His being led away as a criminal. His being unjustly condemned by all who could possibly condemn him. the high priests, the Sanhedrin, the Jewish people, Pilate, and even Herod. His being despised and rejected of all men, being forsaken by his own disciples so that he must suffer alone, being betrayed not only by one, but also being denied by another. And then the cruel treatment that was brought upon him, the crown of thorns, his being blindfolded and slapped in the face and spit upon and mocked. The Lord Jesus Christ, as far as men were concerned, being cast out by mankind and killed by them who were his own people, nailed to the cross. to die the accursed death. The Lord's Supper pictures for us that suffering of Christ to begin with. But especially the Lord's Supper takes us back again and again to the suffering that our Savior endured at the hands of God. It wasn't simply men who broke his body and who shed his blood, but God did that to him. That's why the death of the cross was so terrible for the son of God and why it cut to the very depth of his being. His father cursed him. that explains the painful prayer in the garden prior to his capture. Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. There he sweated, sweat as great drops of blood. And then later, The cry that came at the end of the three hours of darkness on the cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He suffered in the depths of his being because of the hell and the hellish agonies that his own father put him through. Again, that's the picture. that is given to us in the Lord's Supper, something for everyone to see, and something even for our children and young people to observe. And the purpose is that it bring our minds and souls back every time, again and again, to Him who suffered for us. and who suffered as no one else ever has or ever will. The Lord's Supper, therefore, is very humbling. It ought to be, because he suffered all of that on account of our sins. He himself was sinless. He himself did not deserve any of the wrath of God and did not deserve the cross and the accursed death. We should have been the ones who were cursed of God. We should have been the ones who face the eternal hellish agonies of soul and body at the hands of God. suffering that because of our hatred of God, our love of self, our ungodliness, our pride, our lies, our killing of others, and every other sin of which we are guilty. And therefore, when the Lord's Supper is administered, the believer ought to be, every one of us, ought to be affected by that. Not simply sit through the sacrament of the Lord's Supper and watch what's being done and hear what is being said and at the end remaining unmoved by it, but humbled because our sins are what led to Jesus' body being broken and Christ's blood being shed, our sins. And that ought to be true of all who partake of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, but not only that. Also for any who don't partake, including the children and young people who observe the broken body and the shed blood of Christ as pictured in the bread and the wine of the supper of the Lord. Humbly. But in the second place, beloved, the Lord's Supper is more than simply a picture. It is more than something for us to look at and thus to be reminded through it of Christ's suffering and death. That is to say, the Lord's Supper is more than what Aldrich Swingly said it was, namely that it was simply a memorial feast. He said that in response to the Roman Catholic view, which said Christ himself is the bread and the wine, the bread and the wine are Christ himself, but he over-responded to that, over-reacted to that, and said it's simply, it's only, it's merely a memorial feast. No, it's more than that. It was intended by our Lord Jesus Christ to be a means of grace for his people. And the fact that it was intended to be more than just a memorial feast is indicated by the fact that Christ commanded certain things about the Lord's Supper. And his command about the bread and the wine of the Lord's Supper was not simply look, observe, see, and that's it. But his command was also partake of the bread and the wine, eat and drink of the bread and the wine, because it's in connection with partaking, that the sacrament is a means of grace to strengthen our faith and to nourish our souls. The Hutterbeck Catechism in this Lord's Day puts it this way. that when we eat and drink, we embrace with a believing heart all the sufferings and death of Christ, and thereby obtain the pardon of sin and life eternal. We partake with a believing heart Partaking with a believing heart means that you believe that what is pictured really did happen to Christ. He really was upon this earth. He really did suffer all his life long. He really was the man who was hated and despised and rejected of all men. He really was mocked and ridiculed and in the end nailed to the accursed tree. And he really was accursed of God. He endured at the hands of God the eternal fires of hell. You embrace with a believing heart what the sacrament pictures. And embracing with a believing heart what the sacrament pictures is more than believing that It pictures those things that we just said, but it also means embracing with a believing heart that those things happened to him because of our sins, and thus for our benefit. It's striking, if you look especially at the first question and answer of this Lord's Day, at how many times the words for me are included there. For me, in love for me, he subjected himself to the wrath of God. He took my place under the wrath of God in order to spare me from the eternal judgments of God upon me for said. For me, he did all this, the believer says. And so we embrace it with a believing heart. We embrace the suffering and death of Christ as being for ourselves personally. And in that way, the assurance of faith is strengthened through the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. There's no power in the bread and the wine to strengthen our faith. There's no power in the bread and the wine to assure us of our pardon and of life eternal, but the Spirit uses them as a means, as a means of grace for the strengthening of our faith when we, by faith that is worked in us through the power of the Spirit, embrace what they picture and embrace what they picture for ourselves personally. Then as the catechism says, the spirit uses them to assure us that we have pardon for our sins. We can confess Christ died for my sins. I have been forgiven that. And we are assured of eternal life so that we can say, He suffered my hell so that I might live eternally in heaven. Sacrament is used by the Spirit to strengthen our faith as he works in us so that we partake with a believing heart. That, beloved, is why it is very important for the child of God to partake of the sacrament. I remind you again of what the catechism says. Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat of this broken bread and to drink of this cup in remembrance of him. Christ commands that. because he will use that for our spiritual benefit. That's why it's troubling that, as we know, in some churches, there are many who confess to be believers who may not partake or do not partake. We can understand that if someone partakes unworthily, that's obviously a great dishonor to the Lord Jesus Christ and his work. But it is equally dishonoring to Christ and equally dishonoring to the work of Christ, perhaps even more dishonoring, when believers who know they are children of God and Confess they belong to Christ do not partake when they should That's dishonoring to Christ because the Lord's Supper is intended for all believers For all believers who confess that they are sinners and who confess that they need Christ When believers don't partake, that's detrimental then to their faith. That faith cannot be strengthened through the sacrament if one does not partake. One cannot be strengthened, which is exactly what one needs when he or she has doubts, when he or she is unsure, then That faith needs to be strengthened, but that faith cannot be strengthened if we do not obey the command of Christ to partake of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, which is exactly the means that he will use to strengthen us when we have doubts. The Lord's Supper is given to the church and is intended by our Savior to be a blessing for every believer. We partake in order to be assured of pardon and of life eternal. A blessed sacrament indeed. The Lord's Supper is also in the third place a blessed sacrament because there is another benefit to our partaking of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And that is this, besides that, to become more and more united to his sacred body by the Holy Ghost, who dwells both in Christ and in us, so that we, though Christ is in heaven and we on earth, are notwithstanding flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, and that we live and are governed forever by one spirit as members of the same body are by one soul. It's an intriguing statement that by means of partaking of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, we are more and more united to the sacred body of Christ. What does that mean? Well, his sacred body, that is, of course, the same as saying his holy body, is a reference, first of all, to Christ himself. The Lord's day, therefore, is speaking here when it speaks of our being more and more United to his sacred body is speaking of our mystical union with Christ. And that mystical union with Christ is the bond of faith. We are joined to him by faith, we are one with him by faith. We are connected to Christ by faith and we are his body. He is our head. We are united by faith. And so much so is it that we are one with him by faith that the catechism says we are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. That's how much we are one. But you understand that's not a physical Oneness, that's not a physical connection that we have with Christ, but rather it is that spiritual union that we have with him. Spiritually, we are one with him. Spiritually, we are members of Christ's body. Spiritually, we are joined to Christ. And Christ has joined himself to us. And the Lord's Day is pointing out that when we partake of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, that bond that we have to our Lord Jesus Christ is strengthened. We are more and more united to his sacred body. Now you understand, It's not the actual connection to Christ that is strengthened. That connection is always strong. That connection to Christ is permanent. That connection to Christ is unbreakable. That connection to Christ by faith is indestructible. That's not strengthened, but what is strengthened. by means of our partaking of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, as that is applied to us by the Holy Spirit, is our consciousness of that union to Christ, our consciousness of being one with Him and united to Him, our awareness of being joined to Christ, and even our confidence, therefore, of belonging to Him. That's strength. when we partake by faith the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. That's certainly something that needs to be strengthened. Sometimes we doubt not only that the blessings of salvation are ours, that we are forgiven, that we have eternal life, we sometimes doubt not only that, but we sometimes even go a step further in our doubts and in the weakness of our faith, and we wonder whether we are even joined to Christ, whether we even belong to Him. We're sometimes tempted to think Not only that God might not love me right now because of what I'm experiencing in my life, but whether he loves me at all, at all. Whether he loved me eternally and chose me eternally in his love in Christ. Sometimes our doubts go that far. The Lord's Supper is intended to dispel those doubts, a means that the Spirit will use to make us more and more confident of the fact that we are joined to Jesus Christ. When the Lord's Supper is administered, we receive bread and wine. The bread and the wine represent Christ's body and blood. And the Spirit uses that, the fact that we are receiving something that represents Christ's body and that represents Christ's blood, that we are receiving something that represents Christ himself. The Spirit uses that to assure us we are receiving Christ. We have received Christ. And we have because Christ has given himself to us. We are assured by means of that, that Christ has given himself to us such that we have received him, we have received all the benefits of salvation that he's earned for us, and those are all ours because we belong to him, and they are ours for us to experience because we are united to him by faith. And as we receive those elements that represent Christ, we are assured we have received Christ. We belong to him. And we receive from him all the blessings of his grace. A means for us to be assured that we are united to our Savior. But in the second place, beloved, the sacred body of Christ also refers to other believers. Other believers are sacred, that is, they are holy. They are saints. The Lord's Day itself points that out and points us to that understanding of what the sacred body of Christ is when the Lord's Day mentions we live and are governed forever by one spirit. The same Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit of Christ, dwells in every child of God. and every believer. That same spirit is at work in every child of God, in every one of us, to make us holy, to sanctify us so that we can be said to belong to the sacred body of Christ. And that same spirit unites us then to each other. to each other. And so to be more and more united to Christ's sacred body also means being more and more united by means of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to each other in the household of faith. When we partake of the Lord's Supper together, we enjoy fellowship. The Lord's Supper is a meal. We eat together as a family. And the Spirit uses that to strengthen our bond to one another, to each other within the body of Christ. And you may ask, how does that happen? Why does that happen when we partake of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper? Well, that's because When we come together to partake of the Lord's Supper, then the Lord's Supper, you could say, is an equalizer. We're all the same. We're all the same when it comes to partaking of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Earthly differences disappear. Earthly differences are put aside when we partake of the sacrament. earthly differences of status or wealth or success or anything else in earthly life. No one is above anyone else when we are before the sacrament of the supper of the Lord. And that's because we're all the same on account of the fact that we're all sinners. All sinners who are, every one of us, equally in need of Christ and of what is pictured for us in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, his broken body and his shed blood. The Lord's Supper equalizes the people of God. No one person is more deserving of Christ than another. No one person in the church is saved by or because of anything he or she has done, but everyone together around the table of the Lord is the same because every one of us is before the reality that we are saved by grace and by grace alone. The supper serves to equalize. And as we partake together, therefore, the spirit uses the sacrament to strengthen our unity. We are more and more united to the sacred body of Christ. We are more and more united to each other because we understand. And the spirit works in us that understanding. that none of us is any better than anyone else. It's interesting that even the form for the administration of the Lord's Supper points that out. And points that out from the viewpoint that there's an application of this truth to our lives and to our calling in relation to each other. where the Lord's Supper says we are all together one body, through brotherly love, and therefore we should not only show this in word, but also in very deed towards one another. The effect of partaking together in the Lord's Supper of the Lord's Supper as the Spirit applies that to us and uses it as a means of grace in the church is that we should go away from the Lord's Supper affected in how we view and treat and deal with each other in the body of Christ. Because none of us is better. None of us is holier. None of us is more deserving. And so the mark of God's children who partake of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper together and who know the grace of God is that they love their fellow saints. They deny themselves in order to comfort each other and to seek each other's welfare. They are, in the words of Ephesians, for kind and tenderhearted and forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us. And thus more and more united, more and more one as the body of Christ. God's great love for us It is clearly set forth through the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. He could have left us to perish eternally, but he gave his only son and he broke his body, not ours, and he shed his blood, not ours. And thankfulness for that, we love God, and we love one another. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, Christ said. if ye have love one toward another. May the Lord continue to direct us and continue to lead us in a life of love for God and love for one another in thankfulness for Christ who broke his body and shed his blood for us. Amen. Our God and Father in heaven, we are thankful to Thee for Thy Son, our Savior, for His willingness to come to this earth, to lay down His life, to shed His blood, to have His body broken for us to suffer and to die in our place. May we in thankfulness love Thee and love one another Thou lead us by thy Spirit, then to be strengthened in faith by means of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper when it is administered, and strengthened, too, in our resolve to walk in thankful love before thee. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.