DISCERNMENT IN THE SUPPER – 1 Corinthians 11:27-34

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on June 30, 2019 under 2019 |

Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; June 30, 2019 from 1 Corinthians 11:27-34

Theme: Because of what the Lord’s Supper is, we ought to prepare our hearts so we partake of it in a worthy way.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

We come this morning to a passage that speaks of something that is powerful, and wonderful, and very, very holy. It is a great blessing from God that, if handled in the way that our Lord commands, will continually bring about great good within our church fellowship. But it’s also one of those kinds of things that has the potential of harming those who misuse it.

There are many things in life like that. They are helpful and useful; and that, when used as intended, do us great good. But they are, at the same time, of such a powerful nature that, if approached wrongly, can do us harm. Electricity is a wonderful blessing. It’s great to be able to flip a switch and have the lights go on, or to power the things in our home that make life easier. But personally, I tremble every time I try to wire anything; because I know that I could very easily cause a fire, or can be seriously injured. Or think of the ocean. We all enjoy going to the beach and taking in the beauty of it all. And in the providence of God, the ocean helps make life on earth possible. But you don’t ever want to play around with the ocean in a reckless way. You could get swept in and lose your life.

But I almost hesitate to draw upon such comparisons; because any earthly analogy to our topic this morning will fall short in some way. And so; perhaps the best way to introduce this theme is by simply reading what the Bible says about it.

The apostle Paul had been writing to the believers in the ancient city of Corinth about the ways that they were mishandling the Lord’s Supper—the communion meal. It is something that the Lord Jesus gave to us; and it is intended for our good and blessedness. Paul quoted what the Lord Jesus said in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 when he wrote;

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on 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; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner, He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).

In teaching us what our Lord said about this supper, Paul was helping us to understand what that supper truly is. It’s an ordinance—a thing commanded by our Lord—that helps us to remember what it is that He has done for us on the cross. The piece of bread represents His body broken on the cross for us. He bore the guilt of our sin in that body, and suffered the just judgment of God on our behalf. And the cup of juice from the grape represents His blood shed for us as a token of the new covenant. By that blood, He atoned for our sins and makes us to stand—by faith—100% righteous in God’s sight. The Lord has commanded us as His followers to regularly participate in this meal; and through it, to remember what He has done for us. We are to commemorate His sacrifice for us in it; and by it, to renew our personal faith in Him.

And what a blessed thing that is to do, dear brothers and sisters. Our regular participation in this supper is one of the most important things we can do as a church family. Our Lord gave it to us and commanded us to observe it regularly, because it brings about so much good for us. It helps us to remember our Lord’s love for us, and to always keep Him in the first place of our hearts. It builds such gratitude in us, because of what it reminds us that He has done for us, that we will want to give our all for Him. It helps us, as a church family, to continually—repeatedly—regularly—declare the message of the gospel and to invite others to believe on Jesus. It reinforces to us the call to turn from our sins and trust in God’s grace through His Son. It helps to unite us as believers in a common bond of faith; and to love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. This church family will be built up into a healthy, loving and faithful one—in part—by how we approach the regular observance of the Lord’s Supper. It’s a command from our Lord that has the potential of bringing about so much good in us and through us.

But as followers of Jesus, we know that we live and move in the realm of powerful spiritual realities that are mightier than the ocean—more powerful than electricity. The bread and the cup are not just things in and of themselves. They are sacred symbols that have been invested with great spiritual significance by the Son of God; and to eat and drink them is to by faith—in a mysterious and wonderful way—take to ourselves the body and blood of our Savior. If we handle this sacred ordinance wrongly, we have the potential of bringing harm to ourselves.

The ancient Corinthian believers were handling these things wrongly. And as a result, they were harming themselves severely. Paul had to write to them in our passage this morning—in verses 27-34—and tell them;

Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this reason, many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment. And the rest I will set in order when I come (vv. 27-33).

Think of it! Some of the folks in that ancient church family in Corinth were making themselves weak and sick; and some even ‘slept’ (which was Paul’s euphemistic way of saying that they had died). And it was because they were approaching the Lord’s Supper in an ‘unworthy’ manner. Do you notice the very last thing Paul wrote? He said that, when he eventually came to them, he would set other things in order. But this was something that couldn’t wait. That means that this thing—the handling of the Lord’s Supper—is a matter of a very high spiritual and practical priority.

Now; this passage might almost tempt us to shy away from the Lord’s Supper. We might think, “Well; if it is such a dangerous thing to misuse, perhaps it’s better not to partake of it at all.” But that would be to miss the point altogether. It’s not our Lord’s desire that we avoid this precious ordinance; because He very clearly commanded us to observe it. Rather, it’s His will that we learn to approach it in a worthy manner.

Paul’s words to the Corinthian believers, then, teach us that, because of what the Lord’s Supper is, we ought to prepare our hearts so we partake of it in a worthy way; and thus enjoy all the blessings that our Lord intended for us to have through it.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; look first at verse 27. After carefully describing what the Lord Jesus taught about His memorial meal, Paul wrote, “Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” That’s a strong warning. And it teaches us that …

1. IT’S FAR TOO SERIOUS A THING TO PARTAKE OF IN AN UNWORTHY MANNER.

That’s what Paul’s main concern is in this passage—the whole matter of eating and drinking the Lord’s Supper “in an unworthy manner”. And it’s very important that we understand the difference between coming to the table as an “unworthy” sinner, and coming to the table in an “unworthy” manner.

You know; dear brothers and sisters; none of us can come to the table as worthy of partaking of the Lord’s Supper. If we had to make ourselves ‘worthy’ of being joined by faith to the body and blood of our Savior, we’d never be able to take up the bread and the cup at all. And that may be a mistake that many people may make. They think that before they can come to the Lord’s table, they must first become perfect—or at least a little closer to perfect. But I hope none of us here will ever think that. We are all sinners who are unworthy of God’s grace. We could never make ourselves worthy enough to come. In fact, it’s precisely because we are unworthy that our Savior laid down His life in love for us. But unworthy though we are, God nevertheless invites us to come—by faith—and partake of the symbols of our Lord’s body and blood. It’s by God’s gift of grace—by our faith in the very sacrifice His Son made for us on the cross—that God the Father washes us clean and makes us worthy to draw near. And so, don’t ever worry about whether or not you are worthy. Just place your faith in Jesus; and you are completely welcome to come.

But let’s also make sure that we come “worthily”—that is, in a worthy manner. Paul said that whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner “will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” To be “guilty” of the body and blood means to be ‘liable’ for them. It means that we become accountable to God for treating them in a dishonorable and unworthy manner. It means that we will have carelessly come to the table in a way that does not treat the bread and the cup in a manner that is consistent with the spiritual realities that they symbolize. To do that would be to sin against His body and His blood.

What would it look like to come in an unworthy manner? I would say that to come in an unworthy manner would mean to come without sincere faith in Jesus’ sacrifice for us. If someone where to come on a Sunday morning, and hear for the first time that Jesus died on the cross for their sins, were convicted in their heart, and were to—right then and there—place a sincere faith in Jesus, then they would immediately be saved and would be free to come to the table. In that case, they would be coming with a sincere and genuinely saving faith; and to do so would be to come in a worthy manner. But if someone were to come simply to participate in a religious ritual—if someone were to dare to take the bread and the cup and say in their hearts, “I’ll eat and I’ll drink. I’ll go along with the ceremony. But I don’t really believe in any of this stuff”—then they are eating and drinking in an unworthy manner. They are eating in unbelief. The body of Jesus was given, and His bloodshed, to save those who trust in Him; and His holy table should never be approached with a heart hardened in unbelief against what He has done for us. It is something for those who believe—not for those who will not believe.

Another way that we might come in an unworthy manner would be to come while holding on to sin in our hearts. Now this, of course, isn’t meant to say that we must first be perfect; because that’s something that we will never be so long as we are on this earth. But we all know good and well when—before God—we are holding on to some sinful practice or habit that we need to let go of. We can always hide things from one another. We can always be covering things up on the outside while we’re refusing to repent on the inside. But the God who searches our hearts knows the truth. Jesus died on the cross to take the just punishment for our sins from a holy God on our behalf. And to come to the table of the Lord and pretend to place our faith in that sacrifice—while still, at the same time, holding on to secret sin in our lives—is to come in an unworthy manner. It would certainly be appropriate, while sitting in church, to remember our sin and confess it to God and turn from it before we partake. If we confess our sin, the Bible tells us that our Father is just and faithful to forgive us of our sin and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. But we must never deliberately come to the table of the Lord while dragging unrepented sin along with us. To do so is to come in an unworthy manner.

Another way that we can come in an unworthy manner is by treating the Lord’s Supper in a common way. We should never treat it as a mere ritual or ceremony—something that we simply go through the motions of without any thought or prayer. Or we should never turn our noses up at the bread or the cup. We should never treat the bread and the cup as if they were mere symbols and nothing more. They are the things by which Jesus said we are to enter by faith into fellowship with His body and blood. Through them, we proclaim His death until He comes again. We must never treat them in an unworthy way.

Another way we can come in an unworthy manner is by holding on to resentment and bitterness and unforgiveness toward one another as believers. Jesus once taught us that if someone was to bring their offering to the altar in the temple—and there remember that their brother had something against them—they were to leave the offering at the altar, go their way, and make things right with their brother first. And only then should they come back to make their offering on the altar. To come while holding on to bitterness toward one another in the household of God is to come to the table in an unworthy manner. It’s to ignore the fact that the Lord’s Supper is a meal of ‘communion’—one that He has commanded us to have in loving fellowship with one another as His redeemed people.

May it never be, dear brothers and sisters, that we approach the Lord’s table in an unworthy manner—and thus make ourselves guilty of the body and blood of our Lord. The Lord’s table is too serious a thing to ever approach ‘unworthily’.

* * * * * * * * *

And for that reason, Paul went on in verse 28 to say, “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” This reminds us that …

2. THE SERIOUSNESS OF IT REQUIRES THAT WE PREPARE OUR HEARTS BEFOREHAND.

It’s crucial that we examine ourselves before we come to the table—that we make sure we are not coming with an unbelieving attitude, or with hidden sin in our hearts, or with an attitude of indifference, or with bitterness and unforgiveness toward others, or with any other such sin. “For”, as Paul says in verse 29, “he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.”

What does it mean to ‘eat and drink judgment’ to one’s self? It is explained to us by the fact that those who come in an unworthy manner are ‘not discerning the Lord’s body’. It was the sinless, holy body of our precious Lord Jesus that hung on the cross in our place—receiving for us the judgment of God for our sins. In the Old Testament, if someone mishandled the sacrifice for sin that was to be placed on the altar, they stood under the judicial wrath of God. And that’s simply an ‘old covenant’ picture of the ‘new covenant’ significance of the substitutionary role our Savior took for us. God is holy; and He must judge sin. Jesus took that judgment for us on the cross in His own body. If we eat of the symbol of His body and blood in an unworthy manner, we are eating and drinking to ourselves the judgment that He bore for us, “not discerning the Lord’s body.” That’s why we absolutely must examine ourselves before we come. The Corinthian believers were not doing this. By the unworthy way in which they were partaking of the table, they were eating and drinking judgment to themselves. And so, in verse 30, Paul wrote, “For this reason, many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.” They were suffering actual, physical infirmities and illnesses; and many of them had even died. In fact, the words that Paul uses suggests that many have grown sick—and that quite a number had died! The careless way they were treating the Lord’s supper was resulting in a lot of sickbeds and funerals.

Now; we should be careful with this. We shouldn’t ever go around recklessly making accusations in an insensitive way. But at the same time, we should remember that there have been other times in the Bible when an irreverent treatment of the things of God resulted in death. Think, for example, of the sons of Aaron in Leviticus 10. They put incense in their priestly censers and dared to offer a strange fire before the Lord that He did not command. And a fire went out from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died on the spot. Or think of the people of Israel in 1 Samuel 6. They dared to irreverently open the ark of the Lord and look inside; and as a result, the Lord “struck the people with a great slaughter”. Or think of the man Uzzah. In 2 Samuel 6, he irreverently to put his hand upon the ark to steady it as the oxen hauled it on a cart. And for that act of irreverence, the Lord struck him; and he fell over dead beside the ark. Or, in the New Testament, think of Ananias and his wife Sapphira. In Acts 5—when others were making a gift in the church—they pretended to give more than they really did. And for lying to the Holy Spirit, they both dropped dead—one after the other. These were all people who believed on God. And yet, they handled the things of God in a careless way—and suffered as a result.

Let’s be careful, then, to examine ourselves before we come to the sacred table of the Lord. Let’s make absolutely sure that we are not daring to ‘eat and drink judgment to ourselves’ because we were not being careful to ‘discern the Lord’s body’ when we came.

* * * * * * * * * *

Paul went on, in verse 31, to say, “For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.” Those who were becoming weak or sick, or those who had died, could have prevented their situation. All they would have had to do was examine themselves before they came to the Lord’s Supper, invite the Holy Spirit to search their hearts and reveal any sin, allow Him to show them how they needed to change their ways, confess the wrong they were doing, and repent. Then they could have come in a truly worthy manner, and not have suffered the discipline of God.

This reminds us, then, that …

3. SUCH CAREFUL HEART-PREPARATION HELPS US AVOID TEMPORAL JUDGMENT.

Now; it’s important to understand that this is not talking about the believer suffering eternal judgment. Even experiencing death, in this case, was not a matter of eternal judgment. If it had been a matter of eternal judgment, Paul would never have said that they ‘slept’; because that’s only a term that he only uses in the Bible for believers who have died. They go to sleep with the expectation of being raised again at the Lord’s return.

But what Paul is telling us in this passage is that there are some believers who suffer sickness or death in their careless treatment of the Lord’s Supper as a matter of the Father’s loving discipline. In verse 32, he wrote, “But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.” We can think here of what it says in Proverbs 3:11-12;

My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,
Nor detest His correction;
For whom the Lord loves He corrects,
Just as a father the son in whom he delights (Proverbs 3:11-12).

Our heavenly Father does not want us to suffer the judgment that is coming upon the unbelieving world. And so, like a good Father, He chastens us now so that we will not have to suffer the judgment He will pour out on this world later. In fact, it seems that our Father loves His children so much that if needs be—if they are not careful to honor His Son as they should, or are consistently treating the things of the Lord in an unworthy manner, or are failing to honor sacred and holy things before the watching eyes of this world—He will call them home to Himself early. It’s a mercy from Him. He does not want them to suffer the condemnation that will fall upon this world.

How important it is, then, that we judge ourselves now—with careful self-examination as we come to the Lord’s sacred table—so that we will not have to be judged later.

* * * * * * * * * * *

And if we will do this careful heart-work on the inside, it will show itself on the outside. Let’s note one more thing Paul has to say about all this; that …

4. SUCH HEART-PREPARATION WILL SHOW ITSELF BY PARTAKING OF THE SUPPER IN A WORTHY WAY (vv. 33-34).

Paul had written earlier in 1 Corinthians 11 about how the Corinthian believers were showing up to the church gatherings early—getting there before others—so that they could eat the food they wanted and exclude others from having anything. As a result, some were going hungry and others were getting drunk. And so; in verses 33-34—after having given them strong warning about the danger of approaching the Lord’s table in an unworthy manner, and urging them to examine themselves beforehand and to repent of their sin—he told them, “Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment. And the rest I will set in order when I come.”

This is why—in our church family—I always try to give everyone ahead-of-time notice that we are going to observe the Lord’s Supper together. We need—all of us—to examine our hearts first and make sure we are coming to the Lord’s Table in a truly worthy manner. If we will examine ourselves first, it will show itself in the worthy and honorable way that we come together.

So; when we come to the Lord’s Supper together, let’s remember what a sacred thing it is. Let’s be very sure to examine our hearts carefully before we come to the table. Let’s treat the Lord’s Supper in a way that ‘discerns’ the things that the Lord Himself said about it.

Let’s partake together in a truly worthy way.

EA