the Lord's Supper in just a moment will become worship if in our hearts we are saying he is worth remembering [Music] how do we worship Christ while partaking in the Lord's Supper that's the question John Piper answers from First Corinthians 11 17-34 in this episode of light and Truth this sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on December 7th 1997. it's fitting that in a series on worship we deal with the place and the meaning of the Lord's Supper in worship which is what I want to do for a few minutes this morning before we come to the table the eating of the Lord's Supper in the New Testament is never called worship and the Gathering of the church to eat the Lord's Supper is never called Worship in the New Testament in fact no services in the New Testament are ever called worship and the reason I stressed this week after week is to break us of the habit in our language and in our minds of equating worship with what we're doing right now this is worship and we should probably use a term like corporate worship or um gathered worship or congregational worship because for many of us we make a dreadful mistake in our thinking as well as our language when the only time we ever use the word worship is to refer to this event and some of us an even worse mistake to part of this event well the New Testament never refers to this event as worship and there's a reason for that that we've been developing over these last three or four weeks namely that in the New Testament the radical point about worship is that it is driven into the heart as a matter of spirit and Truth and it flows out of the heart in all of life not mainly in services thus we have defined the essence of worship as the inner experience of treasuring the beauty and truth of Christ the essence of worship is the inner experience of treasuring valuing cherishing the Beauty and the truth and the worth of Christ and secondly we've said that the outward forms of worship are the ways that this inner experience of treasuring expresses itself so things you do that show how valuable Christ is to you is worship or the way you do ordinary things that is shaped by the valuing of Christ becomes worship all of life in the New Testament not Sunday morning events is worship thus in First Corinthians 10 31 we read whether you eat or drink or whatever you do do all to the glory of God even if you take a nap which I thoroughly intend to do or eat supper or have sex or anything else Christians are people who have learned that to be a Christian is to treasure Christ and then to let that shall nevertheless the Lord's Supper is to be done in a corporate setting and is to express worship look at Verse 18 for this corporate setting Verse 18 of First Corinthians 11 for in the first place when you come together as a church let those words sink in and drop down to verse 20. therefore when you meet together he's going to criticize them here it's not to eat the Lord's Supper in other words you're coming together to stuff your face with your own meals and drink until you're drunk and then you call this little thing that you do the Lord's Supper but the point here is the Lord's Supper is a gathered event I am very picky about where I think we should do the Lord's Supper I don't think the Lord's Supper should be scattered about in every little one-on-one Gathering I don't do Lord's suppers at weddings for a husband and a wife don't take offense if you did that at your wedding just don't ask me to do it I think the Lord's Supper is an event of the gathered Church it is communion we who eat of one bread do we not participate in the one body chapter 10 verse 16.
and so on when you come together as a church verse 18. the spirit and demeanor of your coming together is to be a focus on the Lord not a brawl of feasting now Mark this Paul says in verse 22 what don't you have houses in which to eat and drink sometimes people have asked me you'll call that a supper little teeny fragment of cracker and a cup you can barely taste supper now there is a point for this leanness and it's in verse 22. don't you have houses where you can eat and drink and satisfy your physical needs for food and your physical need for drink that is not the Lord's supper he's saying take care of that at breakfast on Sunday morning and come here hungry for me and when you hold that little nothing for your body and that little nothing for your tongue realize it is not the flesh that profits anything but it is spirit and life or it is nothing there's a reason behind this leanness folks there's a supper here for your soul if you feed on Christ now there are in the states three ways that we are pointed to worship that is to express the treasuring of Christ in the Lord's Supper I'll just give you the three key words remembering we treasure him by remembering proclaiming we treasure him by proclaiming and nourishing we treasure him by nourishing our souls with him let me just point you to each of those three as we move to the table the first is remembering let's read 23 to 24 these are the institution words for I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and said this is my body which is for you do this here's the key in remembrance of me in verse 25 in the same way he took the cup also after supper saying this cup is the New Covenant in my blood do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me so the first meaning or the first way of expressing by the Lord's Supper the treasuring that we have of Christ in our heart is to remember Christ so the Lord's Supper in just a moment will become worship if in our hearts we are saying he is worth remembering his death is infinitely worth remembering more than any other death more than any other person this person should be remembered and this person's death should be called to mind if you're saying something like that it's worship secondly proclaiming verse 26.
for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord's you Proclaim proclaim the Lord's death until he comes so if you take those two remembering and proclaiming you can think of them like this remembering is calling Christ and his work up into our mind and proclaiming is taking it from our mind and putting it either in symbol or word and announcing it to each other and that's the way worship usually flows isn't it that you perceive the value or the Worth or the beauty of Christ and you remember it and you feel it and you cherish it and you treasure it and if you treasure something that is of wide relevance to other people you can't authentically treasure it and not Proclaim it and therefore publicly Jesus said as a gathered church when the church comes together with something you can hold in your hand and put in your mouth make it visible make it hearable make it tastable make it seeable proclaim the worth of the Lord Jesus so that's the second way we worship by the Lord's table first we remember because there's no one worth remembering like him and second we Proclaim because there's no one worth proclaiming like him and finally nourishing our souls on Christ we worship Christ at this table and as you hold that little fragment in your hand and as you hold the cup in your hand we worship to the degree that in the eating and in the drinking we are nourishing ourselves on Christ now where does that come from in the text well first of all this isn't the only text on the Lord's Supper but it's here implicit and then I'll take you to one other we are eating bread and we are drinking the cup eating and drinking has a meaning it's different than hammer and nails or preaching a sermon eating means nourishing life drinking means nourishing life eating and drinking is a nourishing there's a meaning here for why we're doing this and not something else why he said bread and cup eat drink means nourish but the question is how does it work and hear the Church of Jesus Christ has divided I'll outline the three views and locate ourselves in one of them for the Roman Catholics they speak of the elements being transubstantiated you all know that word transubstantiation meaning that when the priest stands over the elements and consecrates them by his presence and word they actually and literally and miraculously become transformed transubstantiated into another substance namely the literal physical body and blood of Jesus which to eat and to drink is to receive Saving Grace that's the Catholic viewpoint the Lutheran Viewpoint is called consubstantiation not trans but con substantiation meaning that the bread and the wine remain Bread and Wine they are not transubstantiated into another reality they remain Bread and Wine but along with them Khan substantiated along with them is the literal physical Body of Christ the reformed view which we hold says that the wine and the bread or juice are emblems or Representatives or symbols of the real literal Body of Christ which is in one place alone namely at the father's right hand in heaven having died historically Rose literally from the grave ascended bodily into heaven where he intercedes for us and it is not now on the earth and will come again someday in the clouds in glory yet we feed spiritually on the real spiritual presence of Jesus Christ the here very briefly I wanted to turn to John 6 with me and I'll show you where the division of house comes and the texts that you will hear used to defend the two sides and why I believe we should press on in the direction we have set for ourselves in our own communion in John chapter 6 Martin Luther and Ulrich dwindling who represented the reformed View at the Marburg colloqui in 1529 where they could not get agreement on this and have not to this day Martin Luther looked at verse 53 and following in this chapter and read so Jesus said to them truly truly I say to you unless you eat the Flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you have no life in yourselves and he relentlessly in the debate quoted First Corinthians 11 24 to zwingly this is my body he wrote it with chalk on the big conference table around which they were gathered in the debate and he said it's a tampering with the word of God if you say this is my body means this represents my body then he goes back to 653 we must eat the Flesh of the son of man or we have no life in US now zwingli was not daunted by these words and Martin Luther could be daunting he said in response Martin look at verse 63 to understand how to understand how to understand the words you're quoting it is the spirit who gives life the flesh prophets nothing and with equal vehemence he lifted his voice the flesh profits nothing the words that I have spoken to you in verse 53 Martin our spirit and life and he was exasperated by Luther's Relentless repetition of this is my body this is my body and he said zwingley said I remain firm at this text the flesh profits nothing I shall oblige you to return to it you will have to sing a different tune with me now I believe zwingley had the better of it here it is the spirit who gives life the flesh profits nothing the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life in other words when I say to you that you must eat the Flesh of the son of man I mean what I have said to you throughout the whole gospel I'm the bread of life I'm the Fountain of Living Water I am life to you feed on me spiritually receive me spiritually know me with your heart and mind and soul and when you come to the table and you eat know that I will be there to feed you let me give you one other pointer in this direction back in chapter 11 verse 25. when it says in verse 25 he took the cup also after supper saying this cup is the New Covenant in my blood I know of no one who argues that the cup is the Covenant the Covenant is the commitment of the Living God to save to the uttermost those who believe in Jesus the cup contains the blood which bought the Covenant and it is shorthand for that to say the cup is the Covenant in the blood that's the way language works pull out a picture of your child and you say this is telephone and everybody knows what you mean and therefore we are in that camp which believes that the body of our Lord Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the father and that by his Spirit he draws near now as we move to this table and he offers the benefits and the Beauties and the worth of his body and his blood for us to feed upon Him spiritually and this will now be an act of worship if we remember him because he's infinitely worthy of being remembered and if we Proclaim him because he is infinitely worthy of being proclaimed and if we nourish our souls on Christ as we eat this is light and Truth god-centered preaching to help you see Christ clearly and treasure him truly I'm your host Dan Krueger thank you for listening on our next episode John Piper will preach a sermon titled worshiping god with our money in our series what is true worship I hope you'll join us for more resources visit desiringgod.
