Three Perspectives of the Lord's Table

Well, I prayed and thought about what to do on this Lord's Table service, and rather than return to Revelation, which would have lent itself for our time around the table, I thought it best tonight to bring a very conspicuous focus to what the table of the Lord is.

So that's what I want to do tonight. As believers, we gather around the Lord's Table, and we do that in obedience to the commandment of Scripture. There are two ordinances that Christ has given to His church, and only two, the Lord's Table and believer's baptism. Now, when we say ordinance, an ordinance is different than a tradition, different than a ritual, in that it is a ceremony commanded by Jesus Christ to be permanently practiced by the church. So, two ordinances, believer's baptism and the Lord's Table. We practice believer's baptism by immersion as a testimony of God's saving grace, and the formal uniting with the local body of believers.

That's how people come into the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord's Table is observed by believers in fellowship as a celebration of the sacrifice of Christ on behalf of sinners. So both of these ordinances are for believers.

Both are vitally important. Baptism, obviously, is to be observed once, although we've baptized people who've been baptized before for various and sundry reasons, but typically baptism is observed only once. But the Lord's Table is an ongoing perpetual observance. And in our text, 1 Corinthians 11, verse 25, Paul's remembering the words of Christ, 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, as often as.

And that phrase implies frequent, repetitive observance. So, two ordinances, both instituted by Christ, both commanded to be observed by Jesus Christ, and therefore both vitally important. So as we think about this tonight, I'd like for us to think about three directions. We're going to think about the past, we're going to think about the present, and we're going to think about the future and get ourselves oriented in those three realms around the Lord's Table.

Let me give you those three points. Number one, the Lord's Table is a helpful reminder of the past. Number two, it is an active participation in the present, and it is an anticipating hope concerning the future, past, present, and future. And as we go to the text here in 1 Corinthians 11, it's obvious that we are directed to something that has occurred in the past. The Lord's Table calls us to reflective remembrance of the past.

Let me read again verse 23 and 24 and 25. Paul says, 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. And 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. It is a remembrance of the Lord.

As we think about the Lord's Table, we are looking back and we are remembering our Lord, and something very particular that he did for us. We're not remembering him as an example. We're not remembering him in his teaching. We are remembering him in his what?

In his death. We are remembering him in his death. So it's in relationship to the bread and the cup that we are to remember him, which combined signify his death.

In the ordinance, you can't remember him without remembering his death. The bread and the cup are symbols. The bread is what? It's a symbol of his body. He said, This is my body. This bread represents my body. His physical body that he came to this earth with to live out the life that God instructed him to live out in obedience to the law and his sacrificial death on behalf of sinners. So when a believer comes to the Lord's Table, he remembers Christ, and he remembers his finished work on the cross. And it is in there that the body of Jesus Christ secures our eternal redemption. Now I want you to notice a preposition in verse 24 that's critical. He says in relationship to the bread, Take, eat this is my body which is broken for. For you.

It's for you. And whenever we see that word for used in reference to Christ's death, it's expressing two things. It's expressing number one, atonement. His death on our behalf, or it's expressing substitution. His death in our place.

Those two ideas, atonement and substitution. He died for you, for us, for his own. It's an amazing thing when we think about what our Savior was willing to do for us.

We ought never get over it. And it's times like this where we just pause and think and meditate and dwell upon those realities that deepens our affection for him. Deepens our wonder of God's love for sinners. And this wonderful redemption that we have that's been secured for us. And it could have been secured for us no other way.

That's what's critical about it. So we're to look back. We're to reflect on the past.

And we're looking a long way back. We're looking back two millennium plus to the cross of Calvary. Now some people, when they think about their salvation, they don't look far enough back.

A lot of folks have been taught and been instructed to look back at a time when they made a decision, when they prayed a prayer, when they believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. And although that's all critical and important, the Lord's table doesn't direct us to that. The Lord's table directs us back to Calvary, back to the cross of our Savior. And we must never overlook this important reality that the ground of our profession is what? Jesus and his blood.

He giveth me possession of everlasting good. Well, the Lord's table, it is a reflective look in the past, but it's more than that. More than a look backwards. It's an active participation in the present. An active participation in the present. Notice with me verse 26. It says, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim.

Let's stop there. You proclaim. We're talking about an active participation in the present.

Participation number one in proclamation. Usually when we come to church, we're expecting one person to do the proclaiming and the rest of us to do the hearing and responding. But in the Lord's table, we are all proclaimers. We are proclaiming the Lord's death.

And perhaps that may be a new thought to some of you, but it is something that we enter into corporately. We are corporately making a proclamation. We are, in a sense, reenacting the gospel.

These elements, they are reminders of Christ and his shed blood. So the Lord's table is a remembrance. It's for our sake, but it's also a proclamation for the world's sake.

It's good for us to come together and enter into this joint corporate proclamation. And that's why it's only for believers, by the way, because only believers are able to participate in that and proclaim that message. So the Lord's table is a dramatization of the gospel.

It's a vivid representing of the gospel that God has come to us in Christ and has redeemed us by Christ's sacrificial death. So the Lord's table is an active participation in the present. You become an active participant.

You're not a passive observer. We assume a passive posture when we come to a preaching service. But the Lord's table is an active participation. Again, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you, plural, proclaim the Lord's death till he comes.

So it is a proclamation. So if the Lord's table is a dramatization of the gospel, what purpose does it serve to be an active participant in the drama? Well, there's a couple of things that I thought about. One, it's an aid to us, for us, in remembering the gospel. The more senses you can engage, the more likelihood there is retention. If you're only hearing and nothing more than that, you're reducing your ability to retain what you've heard.

But if you can involve, that's why many of you take notes, because you're engaging another part of your faculty. So think about the Lord's table. Your hearing is engaged because you're hearing me preach. Your eyes are engaged because you see the elements as they pass before you.

The ability to taste is involved as you take the bread and you partake of the juice, as you touch the elements, as you smell to what degree you can smell. It engages the senses, and that aids in our remembrance. It aids in the proclaiming of the gospel. William Lumpkin, a man who's written about the Lord's table, instructions on how to conduct the Lord's table service, he said this, quote, The sacraments speak a language independent of the language of the pastor, end of quote.

I like that. The sacraments speak a language independent of the language of the pastor. So it aids us in proclaiming. It brings clarity to our proclaiming. It brings a reorientation of our proclaiming, because in the proclaiming of the Bible, there are so many things to proclaim, but the central thing is Christ. And the Lord's table brings us back to the centrality of Christ and the gospel. So as we consider the Lord's table being an active participation in the present, it's more than participation and proclamation. It's also participation in communion. 1 Corinthians 10, verse 16 and 17. Paul's writing, he says, The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? So it's active participation in communion. And I believe that is one of the central reasons why I'm opposed to serving the elements privately to people. Oftentimes people will make, not oftentimes, but on occasion people will make that request. Well, can you come to the hospital and serve the Lord's table to me?

Can you come to my home? And my answer is no. That is a church ordinance that is to be observed in worship with the body of Christ. You see what Paul is saying here? The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? So there's communion in two directions. There's communion with the Lord. It's reminding us how absolutely critical it is for us to be in communion with the Lord in order to participate in the Lord's table.

If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have what? Fellowship, one with the other. And the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. This communion with the Lord is critical. It helps us to rethink and dwell upon this and see the importance of it. But it's also communion with the body of Christ.

The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? So it's good for us to look around and see our brothers and sisters and be reminded that we are not only united to Christ, but we are united with one another. We are the body of Christ. And we ought to value that.

We ought to esteem that highly. And the Lord's table service helps us in that way. It's a reminder of our communion with Christ in the present and it's a reminder of our ongoing communion with those in the body of Christ and the necessity to make things right if things are not. We are not in communion.

If there is sin in our life that we're unwilling to repent of, that disrupts our communion with the Lord, that has got to be addressed. And the Lord's table is used of the Spirit of God to bring focus to that and also if our communion is disrupted with others in the body of Christ, that too is to be acknowledged and remedied. So this communion with Christ and this communion with one another is a drawing near. It is a reaffirming our allegiance. It is declaring our solidarity. It is speaking of our joint oneness, our identification with Christ and His church. So as we actively participate in this present service, we're doing that by participating in proclamation and by, number two, participating in communion, remembering His present ongoing ministry is a third aspect here. Remembering Christ's present ongoing ministry. You say, well, wait a minute. I thought His death was once for all, never to be repeated sacrifice.

I thought He's seated at the right hand of God the Father. I thought His work was done. Well, His redemptive work is done. It is finished.

When He said that, that's true. But there is an ongoing priestly work of Christ that we need to be mindful of as we come to the Lord's table. The writer of Hebrews says this, that by His once for all offering of Himself, He has by one offering perfected forever them that are presently being sanctified.

We've been set apart. We've been sanctified in a complete sense. But there is an ongoing work of sanctification that's going on. And the Lord Jesus Christ is mediating that work and that process. Christ is continually applying the benefits of His cross work to our life in a present sense. We're growing in grace and knowledge.

We're growing in our understanding. And Christ presently is at work to help us on the way to glory. So the Lord's table.

It does number one, calls us to reflective remembrance of the past. Number two, the Lord's table calls us to active participation in the present. And number three, the Lord's table calls us to anticipate a future hope. 1 Corinthians 11 verse 26, Paul says, For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes.

We should never partake of the Lord's table. We should never gather around the Lord's table without an eye toward His absolute certain return. There is a reminder here of His coming again. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes. Till He comes. Which are you anticipating His coming? Are you looking for His coming?

Or is that just something that's just peripheral, not really? The Lord's table draws our attention back to the certainty and the vitalness of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. How long do we observe the Lord's table? We do it until He comes. The clear implication here is that He is coming again. So there should be in you and in me and in the church at large the anticipation of the Lord's return and His coming kingdom. We're to occupy till He comes. We're to be busy, working, being faithful until He comes. We are to proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. In one moment we're going to be gathering around the Lord's table. And the question is, who is this for?

Who is it for? Well, it's for those who have been made partakers of Christ and have followed the Lord in baptism, publicly identifying themselves as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are times where parents, sometimes a dad will come and say, are my children allowed to participate in the Lord's table? And the answer to that question is, have they been baptized? If you could think of it this way, we shouldn't think of the two ordinances separate.

We should think of them together. One is an initiatory and the other is for ongoing participation. The first is get you inside the house, if we can think of it that way. Baptism gets you inside the house, inside the church, and the Lord's table gets you a seat at the table. It's a place of communion. It's a place of fellowship, the table.

So it's a time of instruction. Here's the thing that troubles me. What troubles me is adults who want to be viewed as believers in Jesus Christ but are not willing to be obedient to these two ordinances. Some want to participate in the Lord's table but don't want to be baptized. And my question is, why would you want to be obedient to one of the ordinances and disobedient to the other?

That makes no sense to me. And if your participation in the one is that important, then why not be obedient to the other so that you have legitimate claim to participation in them? So again, who is the Lord's table for? It's for those who delight in active participation. It's for those who are engaged in proclamation. It's for those who are in communion with the Lord and in communion with the body of Christ. It's for those who are cognizant of the fact that there is an ongoing priestly work of our high priest going on on our behalf. He's praying for us. He's interceding for us. He's representing us before the Father.

He's pushing back our adversary who loves to bring accusation against us. Who is it for? It's for those who love his appearing. It's for those who are looking with anticipation and expectation for his return. Henceforth, there is laid up for me, Paul said, a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, not to me only, but unto all them that love is appearing.

So I trust those thoughts. I wanted to be deliberate. I wanted to be intentional. I wanted to be focused so that our minds are drawn to the table and the Lord, that we might honor him in this service. Shall we pray? Father, thank you for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. What an absolute delight it is to remember him, to think upon him with fondness as we think about his love for us, when we think about his vicarious death, when we think about his willingness to come and not only offer the sacrifice, but be the sacrifice sufficient to grant us cleansing from sin and right standing with you. We rejoice in this ordinance. We rejoice in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we rejoice in the opportunity to participate in the Lord's table. Lord, use this time to draw us nearer to you and to deepen our affection for you. Fan the flames of our affection. Deepen our love for him who loved us and gave himself for us. Amen.