In our last lesson we carefully considered the purpose and meaning of the memorial Jesus gave to us. In Matthew 26 we saw that Jesus is living during his final hours. During the Passover time Jesus gave a memorial so that we would remember him and what he accomplished for us. But before we move forward in the account, I think it is important to spend another lesson on the importance and purpose of the Lord’s Supper. It is easy for us to inadvertently fly through the Lord’s Supper and not really have a strong focus on what we are doing and why we are doing. So I want to take one more lesson here to talk about our need to remember Jesus together. Please take your copies of God’s word and turn to 1 Corinthians 11 and we are going to spend our time there.
If you have grown up in the pews you have certainly heard many talks come from 1 Corinthians 11. In this text, the apostle Paul is not only giving them directions on how to partake of the Lord’s Supper but also telling them how they are partaking incorrectly. Now I want us to think about this truth before we move forward. There is a way to eat the Lord’s Supper that is wrong. There is a way to partake so that we become guilty (11:27) and bring judgment on ourselves (11:29). So I want us to start by realizing that worship is not something that can be haphazard or flippant. The focus of worship has to be on what God wants, not what we want to do. But this is the heart of the problem that Paul has to deal with in the Corinthian church. So there are two messes that Paul has to correct with these Christians that we are going to look at in this lesson.
Wrong Purpose (1 Corinthians 11:20-22)
We need to observe that one of the problems Paul addresses is that they have the wrong purpose for their gathering and partaking in the Lord’s Supper. In 1 Corinthians 11:20 Paul says that they are coming together but it is not really for the Lord’s Supper, even though it seems that they think that they are commemorating the Lord’s Supper. So what are they doing? Paul says in verse 21 that they have turned the Lord’s Supper into a common meal. They are eating full meals when they arrive. Paul makes a point that is very powerful in verse 22. Paul tells them that they have homes to eat their meals in. The purpose of our worship gathering is not to be to eat a meal. Even more, the purpose of the Lord’s Supper is not to be able to fill our stomachs. Jump down to the end of this paragraph where Paul gives some final directions and notice what he instructs. In verse 34, Paul declares that the hungry should eat at home. Don’t save up your hunger so that you will come to worship and get your stomachs filled. Paul says to eat at home.
Now we can read this and really wonder what is the big deal. What does it matter if we gather for a meal at worship? The problem is not that the church building is so sacred building that should not have food on the premises or that no one should eat on its property. The problem is that we are taking a time in which we are gathering for the sacred, for a focus on our great Savior who gave his life for us who deserves our worship, and changing the focus to the physical. We spend so much of our week dedicated to the common and physical. Here we are, for just a moment, trying move past the physical and lift our spirits to focus on the heavenly realm. Don’t wreck this moment and do not ruin this time by taking the spiritual and moving it back to the physical. This appears to be the first problem that Paul is upset with these Christians. You have homes if we are going to be about food and the physical. Can this just be a time and place where we lift ourselves just a little higher toward God?
Allow me to make this point even clearer. Sometimes the issue is merely portrayed as a problem of if the church treasury pays for the food or if individuals pay for the food when coming together. Yes, I will say that there is no authority for the church treasury to be paying for us to be dinners. We can take care of our meals with our own money. But even if we all bring our own food, this does not solve the problem. In fact, this is exactly that the Corinthian Christians were doing. They were bringing their own food and eating. But Paul says you have lost the point by doing this. You have taken a time for spiritual focus and moved it back to a physical focus. Friends, this is why we do not provide you with coffee and donuts nor do we ask members to bring these things for the church to consume. This is why we do not have potlucks in the building during our gathering times. We already are far too distracted with the physical. We do not need to take more time away from the spiritual to focus on the physical even more. This is not a movie theater or a restaurant where we are sipping away or munching away on our food and drink. Our goal is not to invite people to have food but to have spiritual food from God’s word. We are gathering to worship the Lord and we need to have a bit of reverence of the spiritual when we gather.
I have been to far too many gatherings of Christians where the focus turns to the physical and loses the spiritual. Announcements are made about getting together because we will have a great barbecue rather than gathering because we are going to hear the word of the Lord. People mill around getting more coffee and donuts rather than wanting to focus on singing from the heart to their Savior. Friends, we need to even watch out for this in our homes when we gather with a spiritual purpose. When I was training to preach, we had neighborhood Bible studies. So a few members would bring some food so that we could have a snack after the class was over. No problem and it was very thoughtful. But here is what happened. Then people starting getting up in the middle of the class to turn on the oven or to pull food from the freezer. People then would have to check the oven to make sure food was not burning. Rather than people focusing their time on the word and food just being something we do because we are hungry, the food started to override the class and became a distraction. So we had to stop because we do not want the spiritual to be overtaken by the physical. We have homes to eat in. We have plenty of time and places to fill our bellies. But there are so few times when we can be in spiritual fellowship. Let’s not throw away those times.
Wrong Gathering (1 Corinthians 11:17-34)
But there is a second problem that Paul observes these Christians practicing regarding the Lord’s Supper. The problem is that these Christians saw the Lord’s Supper as an individual act. Not only had these Christians turned the Lord’s Supper into a common meal, but they were not “partaking” together. We see this in verse 21 that Paul points out that they were going ahead of one another. We also see Paul emphasize this at the end of this paragraph. Notice in verse 33 he tells them to wait for one another. In fact, when you read this paragraph you will see that this is a critical emphasize the apostle is making. Five times Paul says, “When you come together” (11:17, 18, 20, 33, 34). This is an activity that we do together. One of the important purposes of our gathering is to have the opportunity to remember Jesus’ body and Jesus’ blood of the covenant.
So what does this mean? This does not mean that the Lord’s Supper is a sacrament that is administered by the church. There is no place in the scriptures where we see anything resembling such a teaching. So please do not hear me say that the church must provide the Lord’s Supper to you. But the point is that this is not an act of individuality but an act of togetherness. We are gathering as the Lord’s body together to remember Jesus. The nature of this being something we do together is seen in the prior chapter.
I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:15-17 ESV)
Notice that Paul does not say that it is the bread you break. But it is the bread we break and “we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” Paul says that there is something symbolic about this act of togetherness. The Lord’s Supper is not something we do for ourselves in our own homes. It is not something that is done as an individual. It is something that we come together to do to solidify our union as one body. Acts 20:7 makes the same point that the first day of the week was when the disciples came together to break bread. The Corinthian church had missed the “we” in the Lord’s Supper.
The Message
So what are some important take away that we need to have as we think about the Lord’s Supper and about our worship? First, worship is not consumer-driven. I mentioned this point a week or two ago and I want to bring back to your minds again. It is so easy to try to construct our worship around what we want rather than what God wants. The Corinthian Christians turned something that was supposed to be focused on Jesus and made it focus on themselves. There is a real danger when it comes to our worship to be tempted to do this. We can think about the songs, not in what they are saying to God, but how we feel singing them. We can think about the Lord’s Supper, not in remembering Jesus’ body and his blood of the covenant, but in trying to make it something we like or something we can speedily get through. We can think about our time in this building, not in trying to lift our spirits closer toward God, but filling some physical needs. We can evaluate sermons and teachings, not on whether the words are accurate to the scriptures and helps us draw closer to God, but if they are quick, entertaining, and exciting. We have a great human temptation to evaluate worship based on us, not God. We must not do this. Please hear the apostle Paul that these Christians were eating and drinking judgment on themselves because they had turned the spiritual into the physical.
Second, discipleship is not a solo project. Our theme this year is We, Not Me. I want to help us focus on seeing how connected we are. It is so easy to think about me. We think about things affect me. We think about how worship affects me. But God did not call us to walk alone or worship him alone. We are called to be the body of Christ. We must not think about how worship affects me, but affects us. Do not come here, get what you need, and then get out of here. This was one of the major problems that Paul was addressing. Go back to 1 Corinthians 11:17-18. When they came together, they had divisions. What were they doing? Look at verse 20-21. They are going ahead of one another. They are getting what they need and do not have a concern for anyone else.
I believe we would make vastly different decisions regarding our worship if we thought about how things will affect us, not just me. I believe so many divisions would have been avoided if each person would think about we, not me. Divisions and strife happen because I think about me, rather than thinking about we. I plan to do some future lessons about how discipleship is not a solo project. But I just want us to see the point here. Christians do not walk alone. This leads to the final point.
You are part of something bigger. You are part of something bigger than yourself and your physical family and that is a good thing. Do you know why we will choose not to come to our gatherings? One primary reason is because we are not thinking about how our absence affects others. We are only thinking about me. We are evaluating only based on me. We are not evaluating based on we. To be a Christian means you are part of something bigger than you. You cannot be a Christian without seeing that you an important part of something bigger. In fact, what was the other reason Paul condemned these Corinthian Christians? They were condemned because they did not see that they were “we” not “me.” In verse 18 he says that though they were coming together as a church, they were divided which was wrong. In verse 22 we see that they were not thinking about each other when it came to their food. They were only thinking about themselves. When you come to Christ, you are coming into a family where we stop thinking about me and think only about we. They were condemned for not thinking about the “we.” Let that not be us as we function as a church and come together for worship.