Last Sunday, I shared with you that the elders here at Grace have been studying and discussing our practice of the Lord's Supper, and there are some adjustments we plan to make in the near future with regard to how we observe the Lord's Supper as we seek to be a church that is reformed and yet always reforming according to God's word. Specifically, we intend to begin observing communion every Sunday, alternating between morning and evening worship services. And we intend to use leavened bread and wine, in addition to grape juice, as the elements that are served. These changes will begin, Lord willing, on the first Sunday of September.
Now last week during the sermon we went to scripture and to our confessional standards to discover what the Bible says about the nature of sacraments in general and of the Lord's Supper in particular. And we discovered several important principles that ought to inform our understanding and practice of communion. We learned last week that Jesus is truly present in the Lord's Supper, though not physically present. When we observe communion, Jesus Christ, according to his own promise, is present with his church. Christ said, This is my body.
This is my blood. Our Lord is truly present in the Lord's Supper. We also learn that grace is truly conferred in the Lord's Supper, though not in the absence of faith. God has tied the sign and seal of communion to its corresponding spiritual reality in such a way that when we faithfully participate in the sign, We participate in the spiritual reality to which the sign is pointing. Paul said, the cup of blessing and the bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body and blood of Christ?
So there is true grace to be found and enjoyed in the faithful observance of the Lord's Supper. And then finally, we discover that since these things are true, that Christ is present and grace is given in the sacrament, it follows then that believers are truly fed. spiritually fed in the Lord's Supper. Jesus himself said in John 6, whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
Well, the questions I'd like for us to take up next then have to do with the implications of these principles. If these things are true, how should they inform our practice of communion at Grace Presbyterian Church? And I'll focus specifically on two areas of practice. First of all, the frequency with which we observe the Lord's Supper, and secondly, the elements we use in our observance of the sacrament. Or we could frame these two areas in terms of attitude, the eagerness with which we observe the Lord's Supper, and the care with which we approach our observance of the sacrament.
Now, I had originally thought that I could cover these topics in a single sermon. I think I even mentioned that last week, but as I was preparing last week, it became evident that I really need to take two sermons to adequately cover what needs to be said.
So, today I'll preach about the frequency of communion.
Next Sunday, I'll conclude, Lord willing, the mini-series on the Lord's Supper by preaching about the elements of communion. Communion. Let me begin by reading Luke 22 verses 14 through 16 and then Revelation 19, 9. These are two passages of Scripture that speak of the great privilege that it is to get to dine with the Lord. Luke 22, verse 2.
Verses 14 through 16 says this. And when the hour came, Jesus reclined at table. and the apostles with him, and he said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And then Revelation 19, 9.
And the angel said to me, Write this. Blessed are those who who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, These are the true words. of God. Let's pray.
Lord, you are the God who Invite sinners into your presence by making them acceptable. through the atoning work of your Son. Thank you that you are preparing a great feast for us where we can enjoy your sweet company for all eternity. Thank you that as we await that wonderful day, You give us Glimpses. tastes of The fellowship we have and will have with you.
You give us weekly worship, you give us signs and seals of our belonging to you. You remind us and assure us that we are yours. and that nothing can snatch us out of your hand.
So Lord, help us. to wait on you in faith. Not growing weary in well-doing, not losing sight of the joy that lies ahead. And not missing out on the joys that we have today. Holy Spirit, help us to keep our eyes ever fixed on Christ.
And until that day when we will see you face to face, Lord, strengthen us with every grace that you intend for us. including the very accessible Touchable. and visible grace of communion. Lord Jesus, you are the bread that feeds our souls. Your blood is the cup that delivers us from sin and misery.
And we thank you. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. The point I'd like to make today is simple. It's that the Lord's Supper, being what it is, is something we should desire frequently, and thus something we should observe.
frequently. The Lord's Supper, being what it is, is something that we should desire frequently. and thus something we should observe frequently. If you missed last week's sermon, I would encourage you to go back and listen to it online because the point I'm trying to make today is grounded in that sermon, grounded in the very nature of communion, which we discussed last week. One theologian has pointed out the nature of communion determines the frequency of communion.
How one views what is taking place in the sacrament determines how one. how often one should participate in the sacrament. Last week, we considered the nature of communion. Today, we consider the frequency of communion. What ought to characterize our desire and enthusiasm for the sacrament of communion?
If the Lord's Supper is all that we learned last week that it is. If communion involves an actual receiving of grace through the true but spiritual presence of Jesus Christ. then the Lord's Supper is something we should desire frequently. If communion involves true spiritual nourishment and true communication with the Lord, then it ought to be something we desire and desire often. Questions of Convenience or concerns about over-familiarity should not even enter into our thought process if the Lord's Supper is everything Scripture says it is.
And yet, we often make these very objections to communion, don't we? Perhaps you've thought this way.
Well, I don't think we should observe the Lord's Supper too frequently because then it will stop being special. It'll just become a religious routine that we do without any meaning or purpose. We'll eventually just be going through the motions if we do it too frequently. But here's the thing, friends. Would we think this way about anything that we truly enjoy doing?
I really try to limit how often I kiss my wife because I don't want it to stop being special. Of course we don't think that way. We don't raise objections like this to anything that is of great value, nor do we raise objections like this to anything that we genuinely enjoy doing. The fact that we object to frequent communion on the grounds that it might stop being special. Indicates that we either don't understand what God is doing in the sacrament or that we don't want what God is doing in the sacrament.
If Jesus said I'll come to Grace Presbyterian Church every Sunday at 10:30 a.m. and meet with anyone who wants to come. How many of us would object? None of us would.
Now, I understand that Jesus being in Harrisburg in the flesh is different than Jesus being spiritually present in the sacrament.
However, church, the Lord's Supper is the closest thing we have to being in the physical presence of Jesus this side of glory. And so it ought to be something we long for. Or at least It ought to be something we are actively training ourselves to. long for.
Sometimes the best way to train ourselves to long for something we don't long for as we should, or to increase our appetite or acquire a taste for something that is in our best interest to pursue, is to make a habit of doing the good thing, the right thing, the beneficial thing. One of the ways to increase our desire and appreciation for communion with our Lord is by communing with our Lord. And so, not only should we desire frequent communion with him, we should also observe frequent communion with Christ. The Lord's Supper is something we should observe frequently. If we are slow to appreciate the value of frequent communion, Perhaps a good question to ask is: how did the early church approach the frequency?
of communion observance. That's an important question. If there is a precedent set for us in the early church, Particularly a precedent that the apostles condoned. And that God was careful to include in the inspired text of Scripture, we should let that precedent, that tradition, shape our approach to the frequency of our observance of the Lord's Supper.
So what did the early church do? We don't have an explicit command that defines how often communion should be observed. But we do have some clues as to what was normal in the New Testament era church. First we have Acts 2.42. This contains a list of practices that the early church was devoted to.
Acts 2:42 says, They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
So, four areas of devotion are mentioned here. The first is the apostles' teaching. That refers to the reading and preaching of the inspired writings of the apostles. In other words, the church in Acts was devoted to the scriptures. Secondly, Luke mentions the fellowship.
Different scholars have different ideas as to what the fellowship might be referring to. We'll leave that for another sermon. Thirdly, we find the breaking of bread. And I'll come back to this one. And the final area to which the New Testament church Focused her devotion was prayer.
So word, fellowship, breaking of bread. and prayer. What then does this breaking of bread refer to? The breaking of bread in the context of the New Testament refers most naturally to the observance of the sacraments of communion. Scripture is very plain when it describes Jesus' institution of the sacrament of communion.
We read this every time we observe communion. It says that Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and broke the bread in front of his disciples before saying, This is my body. Do this in remembrance of me. It would have been odd. And unnecessary if by the breaking of bread Luke had intended to describe the early church's devotion to mere eating.
Of course they were devoted to eating, since life sort of depends on that. But that would have hardly been worthy of comment. In fact, it would have been something that was true for all people, right? Believer and unbeliever alike. It seems then that Luke had something far more profound.
far more significant in mind.
Well, we can dig a little deeper and see how this phrase breaking of bread is used elsewhere in the New Testament. Acts 20, verse 7, for example, uses the same designation. Acts 20, verse 7, on the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread. This indicates that the church during the New Testament era gathered on Sundays, the first day of the week, and they gathered for the purpose of breaking bread.
Now this is something the early church did at least weekly. And it's interesting, is it not, that the distinguishing mark of their Lord's Day gathering here in Acts 20 was not the preaching of the word. No doubt the Word of God was preached every week. Nor was it prayer. And again, no doubt, they prayed every Lord's Day also.
We know from Acts 2 that the New Testament church was devoted to all of these elements. But the element Luke chooses in Acts 20 to define the weekly Lord's Day worship is the breaking of bread.
Something essential to weekly corporate worship was occurring that went by the name of breaking of bread. I think it's obvious that this is referring to the observance of a sacrament of communion. In fact, it is very telling that within just a few Years of the completion of the New Testament canon, the church referred explicitly to the Lord's Supper as the breaking of bread. This is how the early church talked about communion. There's an ancient document that originates from the end of the first century and the beginning of the second, sometime between 50 and 150 AD.
This document describes in the form of a sort of catechism the way the early church understood the apostles' teaching with regard to various worship practices, including the practice of communion. Which this document refers to as the breaking of bread. And interestingly, it instructs the church to observe weekly communion on the first day of the week. It says, On the Lord's own day, gather together and break bread. Observe the Lord's Supper and give thanks.
having first confessed your sins. A few decades later, the early church father Justin Martyr, who died around 165 AD. describes the practice of communion in the early church like this. He wrote, on the day called Sunday, all gather together to one place. Then bread and wine are brought, and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks has been given.
So hardly one generation removed from Christ and the apostles. The early church, in its earliest catechism, refers to the Lord's Supper as the breaking of bread, just like Acts 2 and Acts 20. And the early church fathers begin writing and teaching about the importance of weekly observance of the sacrament. And so from Acts 2, the practice of communion is put on par with the reading and preaching of Scripture and prayer. From Acts 20, it seems that the New Testament church observed communion on a weekly basis, every Lord's Day.
And it is listed as the primary reason for the church's weekly gatherings. And from the earliest writings and catechisms of the church after the close of the canon of scripture, we have corroboration that weekly communion on Sundays was the normal expected practice of the church.
Now We can acknowledge that the New Testament gives no explicit command regarding the frequency of communion. And so for that reason, we don't need to absolutize the practice of weekly communion or think that churches who don't observe the sacrament weekly are unfaithful. But at the same time, we should recognize that the precedence set by the apostolic and post-apostolic church was weekly observance of the Lord's Supper. The burden of proof then to veer from that precedent lies on those who want to observe the sacrament less frequently than the New Testament church and the early church did. Beloved, when we combine this weekly precedent set by the early church.
Together with the very nature of the Lord's Supper itself. Weekly communion suddenly becomes a great privilege. rather than a burden or an inconvenience. From time to time, our family has Discussed what we would want to be on our tombstones when we die. Always a morbidly fun conversation to have.
But it gets at the idea of how you want to be remembered. of what comes to mind when people reflect back on your life after you're gone. If there's a particular Bible verse that sums up your life, a particular stanza of a hymn that captures a truth you hold dear. An idea that encapsulates That that thing that mattered most to you.
Well, how did Christ want to be remembered? He told us how he wants to be remembered. He said, This is my body, this is my blood, do this. in remembrance of me. Jesus wants to be remembered as the Savior of sinners, and we remember him best by receiving bread and wine as signs and seals of Christ's work of redemption.
When we take these elements as reminders and assurances of Christ's redemptive work. Scripture also says that we are proclaiming his death until he comes. Taking communion is a proclamation of the effectiveness of the Lord's death. It's a sermon that's preached by the whole church. And every time we observe the sacrament, we preach this sermon to ourselves and to the watching world that God saves sinners through the death of His Son.
Why then would we not make this a central feature of our corporate worship every time we gather together to honor our great God? It's what the New Testament did. It's what the early church did. It's God's ordained means of enjoying special access to the true presence of our Lord. It's the means by which our souls are nourished and assured of their interest in the redemption of Jesus Christ.
And so, Grace Presbyterian Church, I hope you are eager. To begin observing this wonderful, mysterious, and nourishing means of grace every week. But before we close this time of reflection on the frequency of the Lord's Supper, I want to answer some.
Some of the common objections that are often raised when weekly communion is discussed. And I'll just say if you have more Questions, objections, concerns, please feel free to talk to me, talk to Pastor Ken, talk to one of our elders. We would love to discuss this with you as we. as we make this journey together as a church body. One of the objections that is often raised, particularly in our fiercely Protestant circles.
is that weekly communion is a very Roman Catholic thing to do. And surely if Rome does it, it must not be good. What's ironic is that while we Protestants often associate frequent communion observance with the Roman Catholic Church, it was actually the Roman Catholic Church that introduced the innovation of infrequent communion. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 AD, The Roman Catholic Church required that Christians only observe communion once a year. This was a break from the practice established in the New Testament and the early church of weekly communion.
And it was actually the Protestant reformers, men like John Calvin and Martin Boetzer, who called for a return to weekly communion. See, our disagreement with Rome is a disagreement over the nature of the sacrament, not over the frequency of it. Rome claims far more efficacy for the sacrament than Scripture warrants, and so we ought to reject and distance ourselves from Rome's false teaching on the nature of communion. But that disagreement has no bearing on the frequency of communion. Weekly observance of the Lord's Supper is not a Roman Catholic thing.
It's a Bible thing. It's an early church thing. It's a very Protestant and Reformed thing. Another common objection is that frequency diminishes the meaningfulness of the sacrament. Frequency diminishes meaningfulness.
And I alluded to this earlier. I bring it up again because this is probably the most common. objection I hear when talking about communion frequency with other believers. The error here, I believe, is that of confusing a heart problem with a sacrament problem. And again, a good way to test the legitimacy of an objection against some sacramental practice is to test the objection against some other means of grace.
In other words, can I legitimately say of my reading and meditating on scripture or of praying that frequency will diminish meaningfulness? I should pray less. in order to make prayer more special. I should read the Bible less to make it more meaningful.
Well, no, that's absurd.
So it is with the Lord's Supper. The fear of doing it too often says more about my enthusiasm than it does say about the sacrament's effectiveness. If the Lord's Supper is what God says it is, then frequency is not a deterrent. Other objections that are sometimes raised might include things like: weekly communion is inconvenience. or it will make our services longer.
Yes, it is inconvenient. And yes, it will make our services longer. About 12 minutes longer on average if we don't shorten anything else. But again, test those objections against any other means of grace and see if it holds up. If we were convinced that God's command, that God commands something of us.
And that obedience to that command will result in spiritual nourishment, our disinterest in it. Is not due to a deficiency with the command. It's due to a deficiency in our affections or our faith or our understanding. We're the problem, aren't we? Not the Bible.
Not the Lord. Not God's commands. If our practice or desire for something is less than or different from what Scripture says it ought to be. We should change our practice and enthusiasm. Not change scripture.
We should never redefine the means of grace to fit our habits. Rather, we should reshape our habits to fit God's means of grace. Church, the Lord's Supper. being what it is. is something we should desire frequently.
and thus something we should observe. frequently. May we learn to love it. for what it is and enjoy the full benefits God intends for us through it. Let's pray.
Lord, thank you again for stooping to our need. For visible signs and seals. of invisible Spiritual realities. Even when we fail to see our need for these graces. May we grow in the sincerity and Faithfulness of our worship, that we might learn to love you with all of our heart and soul and mind.
and strength. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay.
