You may have noticed that we kind of have a routine here at church. We are not a liturgical church, which means that we don’t have certain prayers or Scriptures that we repeat every week, but we still have a routine. We do about the same number of songs every week, and we have our announcements and offering at about the same time, and the sermon is about the same length (provided that Pastor Tim doesn’t get long-winded!).
Now there’s nothing wrong with routine as long as we understand and remember why we do the things we do. But routines have a way of becoming ruts, and when we get stuck in a rut and mindlessly go through the motions, then we have a problem. It’s like the story about the man who won a beautiful ham as a prize at his job. He proudly brought it home to his wife, and she started to prepare it for dinner. As she did, she took a knife and cut off the end of ham. The husband nearly flipped out when he saw this. He said, “That’s my prize ham! Why did you cut the end off of it?” The wife replied, “That’s the way my mother always cooked ham.” So she calls her mom and asks, “Why did you cut off the end of a ham before you cooked it?” And her mom said, “That’s the way my mother always cooked ham.” So they contact grandma and ask her about it, and grandma says, “I don’t know why you two do it, but I never had a pan that was big enough for a whole ham!”
So as we deal with things in church that might become routine, we want to make sure that we understand what we are doing. One routine or tradition that we have in church is celebrating the Lord’s Supper, or Communion. We don’t celebrate the Lord’s Supper every Sunday, but I try to schedule it about every six weeks. This ceremony is one of those routines that could become a rut, so its very important that we understanding the meaning behind this important memorial of Christ’s death.
So, for the next several times that we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we’re going to talk about what it means and answer some questions that may come up as we think about this ceremony. The question we’re going to deal with today is, “Why do we have a time for self-examination before the Lord’s Supper?” Where do we find this in Scripture and why do we do it?
Why don’t you turn with me to 1 Corinthians 11? When you think of passages that would talk about the Lord’s Supper, you might naturally think of the Gospels, since they record the life of Christ, but actually, what we do today in the Lord’s Supper comes mostly from 1 Corinthians 11. In that chapter, Paul wrote to the church in Corinth about some problems that they had in their celebration of the Lord’s Supper and he told them how to properly observe this ceremony.
So our teaching for the Lord’s Supper comes out of the context of problems in that church. As we look at this passage, we’ll see what the problem was and how Paul told them to correct it.
I. The Problem—Divisiveness and Selfishness in the Congregation (11:17–22)
First, let’s look at vv. 17–19 [READ vv. 17–19]. Here, Paul puts his finger on the basic problem—divisiveness. The church in Corinth was a fractured congregation. They lacked unity in their relationships, and this seems to have been the result of rampant selfishness in the congregation. As you read through this book, you discover that the people were being selfish in many different ways. They were being selfish in the expression of their sexuality. Some people were engaged in sexual immorality, and apparently some husbands and wives were also being selfish in this area of their marriage. The people were selfishly taking each other to court in lawsuits; they were selfishly using their freedom in Christ without concern for those who had a weak conscience; they were selfishly using their spiritual gifts to build up their own pride. All of this led to a very divided congregation.
Now in v. 18, Paul seems to acknowledge that the reality of their situation may not be quite as bad as the report he has heard about them. But nevertheless, he says that he believes it, because with these attitudes present in the church, he acknowledges that factions and divisions were inevitable. But as only God can do, we see at the end of v. 19 that even these divisions could have a positive result, because they would reveal who was living with a godly attitude and who was not.
Now—sadly—in the next few verses we learn that their selfishness was on full display in their celebrations of the Lord’s Supper [READ vv. 20–22]. Here’s the background to what Paul was describing in these verses. It was common at that time for churches to celebrate the Lord’s Supper in the context of a meal that was known as “the love feast.” This meal was like the carry-in dinners that we enjoy here, and the Lord’s Supper would be celebrated as part of it.
As with our carry-in dinners, the people would all bring something to contribute to the meal, but as we can see in these verses, the people in Corinth weren’t sharing their food with each other! Can you imagine that? They would all bring what they could bring, but then they would just eat it themselves! And the result, Paul says, is that some people were going hungry, and some people were getting drunk!
What a ridiculous scene this must have been, and it was all a result of the pervasive selfishness that existed in their congregation. As a result, Paul basically said in v. 20, “You can’t really call this mockery the Lord’s Supper!” They were disregarding the Lord’s desire for them and the attitude of the One whom the remembrance was all about.
So in vv. 23–26, Paul goes on to remind them what the Lord’s Supper was all about, and the attitude that was displayed by the Lord was the right example for the people to follow.
II. The Right Example—The Lord Jesus and His Sacrificial Death (11:23–26)
Let’s read vv. 23–26 [READ vv. 23–26]. Obviously, there is much in these verses that we could talk about, and we will over the next several times that we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, but today, notice several things that remind us how unselfish the Lord Jesus was.
First, Paul notes in v. 23 that Jesus did and said these things “on the night when he was betrayed.” Remember, Jesus’ death came about through an act of betrayal from a close companion. Undoubtedly, this added some emotional grief to everything else that Jesus suffered, but did you realize that Judas was actually present when Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper? He was still in the room; he took part in all of this! Luke 22:21 records that after Jesus said and did these things with the bread and the cup, he said, “Behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table.” Judas was still there! The Lord allowed Judas to participate in this moment that would memorialize the death that he was about to cause! And remember, shortly before that, on the same night, the Lord Jesus washed Judas’s feet, as he did for the rest of his disciples.
Clearly, Jesus continued to show love to Judas even though he knew what Judas was about to do. He continued to extend compassion and consideration to Judas until the moment that Judas left to do his wicked deed. What an example of selfless love, and this was an example that the Corinthians had disregarded in the way that they observed the Lord’s Supper.
Second, notice the reminder in Jesus’ words that His death was for us. After He had broken the bread, He said, “This is my body which is for you.” Jesus’ death was both for our benefit and in our place. It was the culmination of the most unselfish act in history—when God came into our world as a man, and served us and taught us, and then died in our place to pay the penalty for our sins. His great love for us led Him to do this, and we should follow His example to show love to our fellow believers. A preacher from the early church named John Chrysostom reminds us, “that the Master gave up everything, including himself, for us, whereas we are reluctant even to share a little food with our fellow believers.”
Clearly the Corinthians were not honoring Jesus in their celebration of the Lord’s Supper. This problem needed a solution, which we find in the rest of this passage.
III. The Solution—Examining our Hearts for Selfish Attitudes and Acts (11:27–34)
Because of the way in which they had been treating each other, Paul instructs the Corinthians to have a time for self-examination before they partook of the Lord’s Supper. This step would help them avoid some of the serious consequences that they were facing because of their sin. Let’s read through the end of the chapter [READ vv. 27–34].
As you can see, God considered their mockery of the Lord’s Supper to be a very serious matter. He had brought illness upon some of them because of it, and some of them had died as a result! According to Paul in v. 31, the way to avoid such discipline from the Lord is to judge ourselves—to confess our sins and repent of them and thus deal with them ourselves, so that the Lord does not have to deal with us in discipline.
So we can see there in v. 31 and back in v. 28, Paul instructs us to examine ourselves before we partake of the Lord’s Supper. But what exactly should we be looking for when we examine ourselves? The key is found in v. 29, where Paul says that we must “discern the body;” or we might say “acknowledge the body” or “recognize the body” (your translation may read “the Lord’s body”). The Greek word speaks of rendering a legal decision, which would give someone the justice they deserve.
So what Paul seems to be talking about here is not the physical body of the Lord Jesus, but the spiritual body of Christ—or in other words, the church; the members of the congregation. Paul had already mentioned the spiritual body of Christ in this book, and he was about to launch into a long discussion of it in chapter 12.
Thus, during this time of self-examination before the Lord’s Supper, our primary focus should be to assess our relationships with our fellow Christians, our fellow members of the body of Christ. Certainly it would be appropriate to confess our secret sins to the Lord during that time—those sins that no one else knows about—but first and foremost we should consider the way we have acted toward other members of the church and determine if we have anything that we need to make right with them. This idea is similar to what Jesus said in Matthew 5:23–24—“If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”
We cannot pretend to offer God pure worship if we have sinned against His children—our brothers and sisters. This lesson today is just another reminder that my Christian life is not just about me and God—it is about me, God, and others. The Christian life is a communal life; accepting Christ makes me part of a community to which I must be rightly related if I am going to honor God.
So in our time of self-examination before the Lord’s Supper, this is primarily what we are assessing—our relationships with our fellow believers. It could be that we will remember something we have done for which we need to ask forgiveness, and if that’s the case, then it would be best for us to refrain from taking the Lord’s Supper until we have had a chance to make that right. Thus, with this lesson, the Lord’s Supper becomes a reminder not only of our bonds with Christ, but of our bonds with each other as well.
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