Partake of Life

Partake of Life
1 Corinthians 11:17-34
November 24, 2024

Continuing now in our study, we have to remember that this is a letter of correction. There were many immaturities in that church because, when they came to the Lord, they came out of the city of Corinth; a city that was the center of immorality in the Roman Empire.

You could only imagine what a huge challenge it was to bring maturity to a church that came out of that environment. The point could be applied to us as well. When a person comes to faith in Christ, they come out of the world and it’s very common to bring part of the world with them; worldly perspectives, worldly attitudes, and worldly habits. A person doesn’t become mature in their faith all in one day, it comes from steadfastly receiving God’s word day by day; it comes from renewing the thoughts of your mind.

But that’s a bigger challenge for some than for others. Imagine a person coming to faith because they were raised in a Christian home and then came to the place where they realized they needed to make a personal decision to receive forgiveness of sin and have a personal relationship with Jesus.

Now what they have learned becomes personal, comes to life, and they can  apply everything they have learned and keep walking towards maturity.

Imagine another person who comes to faith out of a Jewish home. Their eyes are opened and they begin to see that Jesus is the Messiah and the fulfillment of everything they read in the Old Testament. It’s a wonderful transition as their perspective changes in the beautiful discovery of seeing Christ in all the Jewish feasts and in the Law of Moses.

But then imagine a person coming to faith out of the city of Corinth, the “Amsterdam of the ancient world.” Immorality was part of the everyday culture. In those days, it was common to have wild, riotous banquets in honor of one of the pagan gods.

The people coming to faith out of that city would be a huge challenge for Paul. Imagine how much of their perspective would need to change.

One of the issues Paul corrects is their perspective on the Lord’s Supper. The Lord wanted the church to regularly partake of the bread and the cup of the Lord in remembrance of His death and resurrection and all that He has done for us through the body and blood of God’s Son.

The first Lord’s Supper was the Passover meal Jesus had with His disciples on the night He was betrayed. It was an actual supper, it was really a dinner they shared together. When the early church took communion, it was combined with a meal, later called an ‘agape’ or love feast. It would be like a modern potluck where everyone brought something. And that’s where the problems began.

Unfortunately, in the church at Corinth, their communion ‘love-feasts’ deteriorated into merely an occasion for eating and drinking and ostentatious displays by the wealthier members of the community, much like the parties they were used to. And if you can believe it, some would bring expensive wines and get drunk; at a church potluck! While taking communion!

Their gatherings were not uplifting. It was becoming something negative. There was division, class distinctions, pride.

Paul brings correction. Their perspective needs to change. They need maturity in their faith.

I. Remember what God has Done

• Paul said that the point of taking the Lord’s Supper together was to remember the Lord’s death until He comes. In other words, don’t take for granted what God has done, remember by taking the bread and cup that represents His body and blood.
• It is the Lord’s supper. You are a guest.

Illus – When you are invited to someone’s house, you always keep in mind who the host is. After all, it is his house, it is his party. He sets the tone. He gives the directions. It is after all not about the food, but about the fellowship that you have with the friends.

• Unfortunately, for many, this has become religious.
• Jesus regularly confronted the Jewish leaders because their religion had no meaning; they did religious things simply for the appearance of the thing; their heart wasn’t in it.

Matthew 23:5, 14, 16, “They do all their deeds for show… for pretense they make long prayers… they are blind guides.”

Isaiah 29:13, Then the Lord said, “This people draw near with their words and honor Me with lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote…”

• The Corinthian church had even a deeper problem, their hearts weren’t right either. They had no reverence or respect at all and some were even getting drunk.

A. Honor the body

• Verse 21 – in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk.
• Verse 22 – Do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing?
• The wealthy would bring better food. Maybe they brought steak or prime rib and the poor would bring mashed potatoes or a few dinner rolls, so the wealthy insisted on going through first leaving the cheaper things for the poor.
• Can you imagine what Jesus would have to say about this?

James 2:1-8  The rich and the poor according to the heart of Jesus

• Verse 29 – One view of discerning the body rightly, is that the church is the body of Christ on earth. God does not take kindly to the fact if you dishonor His body on earth. Discern the body.
• If you love God, then you will have love for your neighbor.

B. Eat the Bread of Life

• The Passover meal was a picture of Jesus Christ. Jesus was celebrating the Passover with His disciples, Him revealing to them the mystery hidden through the ages. He was the lamb.
• One of the symbols of Christ hidden in their tradition was in the bread.
• They used matzos, unleavened wafers of bread, pierced and striped during baking. This is very significant.

Isaiah 53:4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.

• Holes – He was pierced
• Burned – Fire and judgement for sin
• Stripes – By His stripes we are healed
• Crushed (broken) – Bread that was broken. Bread of life
• Also, there was a lamb that must be eaten in its entirety, anything not eaten was to be burned with fire by morning. Which gives great significance to the words of John the Baptist.

John 1:29, He saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

• We have to partake of all that Jesus embodies. One cannot just pick and choose what you want to partake off.
• An interesting part of Passover was that they were to select an unblemished lamb on the 10^th day of the month and bring it into their homes.
• In other words, the lamb was to become precious to the family. When you bring an animal into your home, certainly the family will grow close to it.
• When they brought the lamb into their home and became close to it, the sacrifice of that lamb meant even more to them. What a beautiful picture.
• In the same way we are to become close to the Lamb of God so that His sacrifice means even more to us.

C. Drink of the cup in His blood

• There were four cups in Jewish Passover tradition representing the four phrases in Exodus 6:6–7: “I will bring you out”; “I will deliver you”; “I will redeem you”; “I will take you to be my people.”
• The third cup of the Passover was called the cup of redemption and symbolized the blood of the Passover lamb. At the first Passover, the blood of the lamb was applied to the doorposts and lintel of the home and then entering through the blood, they were saved.
• It was His blood that would bring the redemption. The symbol of the blood on the doorposts pointed to Him keeping the angel of death away from us when it is applied to the doorposts of our hearts and our lives.
• Interesting, Jesus drank of the cup twice in Luke 22, before supper, and after supper. He was saying with the first partaking, ‘I will deliver you, I will bring you out.’
• After partaking of the bread, the sacrifice, Jesus took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, do this in remembrance of Me.” In essence, he was fulfilling what the fourth cup represented. I will redeem you, take you to be my people.
• It’s not enough that the blood of Christ was poured out that day on Calvary, that blood must be applied to your life, it is God’s provision for the forgiveness of sin.

Illus – What if someone didn’t agree? Could they post a list of good works on the doorpost instead? Could someone leave a list of contributions to charity? Could someone leave money or jewelry on the doorpost of their house?

Acts 4:12, There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.

1 John 1:7, If we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

• That’s beautiful, no matter what sin you have in your life, God has made a way, through the blood of Christ, for your sins to be completely forgiven.
• But you have to apply the blood of that Lamb to your life. That’s why the cup of the Lord is such an important symbol, because it says that we need more than just acknowledging that there is a God, we must receive His offer – by faith, not by feelings.

Illus – Feelings will let you down. Do you always feel saved? When you’re driving on the highway and someone cuts you off, do you feel saved? When you sin and feel guilty, do you feel saved?

• Salvation is not rooted in feelings, it is rooted in faith.

Romans 10:9, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 

Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.”

Illus – You have to open the door of your heart. He wants to come in and have a personal relationship with you. You can’t watch someone else’s relationship to God and have them experience God for you. That’s like watching Jesus knock on the door across the street and then you watch through the window as they have dinner together.

 II. The Lamb of God is Worthy of Honor

• Paul wants to change their perspective so they will bring honor when they eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord. It’s a matter of the heart.
• When you consider what this represents, the bread and the cup of the Lord certainly deserve our respect and our honor.

Illus – The flag of the United States is a symbol and because of the love we have for our country, we give respect to that symbol. We stand and place our hand over our heart. The Star-Spangled Banner is moving because of what it represents.

A. Eat and drink in a worthy manner

• Paul said, “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.”
• Many people have misunderstood and misapplied those words. If words are misunderstood and misapplied it leads to tragic error.
• For example, when Jesus said, “This is my body,” it wasn’t literally His body, because when he said it , He was still in His body. So clearly this was a symbol of His body being broken.
• However, the Catholic Church believes that it is literally His body and blood. Lutherans believe that the body and blood of Christ are truly and substantially in, with, and under the bread and the wine so that it is at the same time His body and also bread; His blood and also wine.
• What does it mean to eat or drink in an unworthy manner? It means to eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord and not recognize the value of the sacrifice of His body and the pouring out of His blood.
• If you just go through the motions, then your heart is far from God. He’s worth more than that.
• If you come to God’s provision for forgiveness, but refuse to partake of that forgiveness, we are dishonoring the blood that paid the price for that forgiveness.
• Such a person drinks judgment on himself. Paul even says that that is why many are sick or dead. God is not to be mocked. The price Christ paid was a precious price.
• That is why we do not look to our own works to be worthy. It dishonors Christ’s sacrifice. You are saying, “Jesus, your sacrifice wasn’t enough.”
• However, the opposite is also true. If we apply the sacrifice by faith, salvation is ours, (bruised for our iniquities) healing can be ours.(By His stripes we are healed.)
• We are not proclaiming that every sickness must be healed. We all must die of something. We are not going to live in this body forever, and we all yearn for our eternal home. But we can pray for healing when it is aligned with God’s will.
• God is still God, sometimes He has a purpose, but that should not stop us from praying for healing.

B. Let a man examine himself

• This has also been misunderstood. Some take this to mean that a person must make himself worthy enough to take communion. But that misses the whole point; a sinner is the very one who needs the Lord’s Supper.
• What it means is that we should examine our heart to be certain that we are giving honor to God for what He has done for us through the body and blood of Christ.
• Paul went on to say that the Lord disciplines or brings correction to those whose hearts are far from Him.
• We have an opportunity to judge ourselves, in other words, when God reveals behavior we can repent, and correct it.
• If people nonchalantly by rote just take communion but do not honor God with their hearts and lives, God might bring correction because He loves us.

Illus – A good example is the Italian mafia boss…

Illus – If a youth had contempt or disrespect, not showing appreciation for all his parents had done for him, saying, “Whatever…” Wouldn’t correction come next?

• This is about the heart. It’s always been about the heart. A heart that sees the sacrifice. A heart that sees the evidence and chooses to believe.
• A heart that was in bondage, has applied the sacrifice of Christ to his life, and are now in awe and overwhelmed with thankfulness for the grace God undeservedly lavished on Him.