Well, what a privilege we have once again to come to the Inerit. Authoritative, sufficient word of God. God speaks to us in His Word, and we are to listen and to understand and to believe and obey. What he says. We're in the midst of a topical study of the sacrament of communion.
And so today's sermon, the last of three, is gonna make reference to many passages of Scripture. But let's begin by reading a prophetic foreshadowing of a glorious feast. that awaits every redeemed child of God. It was foretold by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 25, and it's also alluded to at the end of the Bible in chapter 19 of Revelation. Let's begin this morning by reading Isaiah 25.
Verses 6 through 9. Hear now God's word. On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food. A feast of well aged wine, of rich food full of marrow. of aged wine well refined.
And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil. that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth. for the Lord.
has spoken. It will be said on that day, Behold, this is our God. We have waited for him. that he might save us. This is the Lord.
We have waited for him. Let us Be glad. and rejoice. in his salvation. Let's pray.
Father in heaven, the thought of you wiping away every tear from our faces and taking away our reproach. What a wonderful thought, and how we long for that day. And to think that on that day we will get to say, This is our God, we have waited for Him. that he might save us. Lord, what sweet, sweet hope.
is ours. We long for that day, and sometimes the wait seems long and. Mm-hmm. Never ending, but you are faithful. And so we look to you.
Thank you that you assure us of your faithfulness in so many ways. Lord, you've given us a task to do, a blessing to enjoy until your return. in that you have commanded us to proclaim the great salvation of our great God. And we proclaim it every time. We observe this simple and yet profound.
Sacrament of Communion. Lord, may the diligence and care and joy with which we observe. your supper. Be equal to the great effect that your salvation has had and will have. on the souls of all the redeemed.
May we hunger and thirst for righteousness. And would you satisfy our hunger and quench our thirst? Feed your church, Lord, that we might be full. I pray in the precious. Matchless name of Jesus.
Amen.
Well, we come to the third and final sermon of our brief consideration of the sacrament of communion. We've looked thus far at the meaning of the Lord's Supper as it is presented to us in Scripture. We considered last week the frequency with which communion has historically been observed, both in the New Testament era and in the early church. Today, then, we come to the matter of the elements to be used when we observe the Lord's Supper. And I think the best place to start in our consideration of the elements is with a biblical principle that actually has a much broader relevance and application than just the sacrament of communion.
I'm speaking of the regulative principle of worship. the regulative principle of worship. Asserts that Scripture tells man how God is to be worshipped rightly. It regulates how we are to worship the Lord. This principle assumes that mankind is incapable of discerning for himself what proper and acceptable worship entails.
And this, of course, is due to the fact that man is sinful and his heart is deceitfully wicked. If our hearts are deceived and our minds are biased towards sin, then we cannot possibly be reliable sources for determining how God ought to be worshipped. My emotions, my thoughts, my motivations, my actions, my rationale and reasoning, none of these things will accurately reveal the kind of worship that is acceptable to a perfectly holy and self-sufficient God. In fact, history is riddled with man's attempts at determining on his own what worship of his creator should look like. And church, the fruits of those attempts have been nothing short of horrific.
In the name of worshiping the Creator, mankind has instituted rites and rituals of all sorts, including self-harm, cultic prostitution, and even human sacrifice. We're not good judges of what proper worship is. But something as important and central to our existence as worship of our Creator. ought never to be left up to the whims of fallen man, The Westminster Divines wisely articulated the necessity of scripture-regulated worship in this way. Westminster Confession says the acceptable way of worshiping the true God.
is instituted by himself. and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture. And this principle recurs over and over again in the Word of God. Deuteronomy 12, 32 says, Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.
Matthew 15, 9 says, In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. Colossians 2:23 says of human inventions in worship, these have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. And all of these warnings are necessary because, bottom line, while God is worthy of our worship, He does not need our worship. We need Him. We exist for Him, and He is pleased, and we are fulfilled only when we give Him the kind of worship that is due to Him.
In the words of the Apostle Paul in Acts 17:24 and 25. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man. nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives to all mankind life. and breath.
and everything. If we have any hope of worshiping our God in the manner in which He is worthy to be worshipped, And in a manner that is pleasing to him, he must tell us how to worship him. The Bible contains everything. We need to be thoroughly equipped for every good work. including the highest of all works.
the worship of Almighty God. He has told us. how he is to be worshipped.
Now, with regard to our practice of the Lord's Supper, this regulative principle of worship means that we must go to God's Word to discover how to rightly observe the sacrament. Jesus's institution of the supper. And not our imagining or preferences, not our cultural traditions, not our hunches or gut feelings. Jesus' institution of the supper in God's word must dictate how we are to commune with the Lord. And so our investigation into what the elements of the Lord's Supper ought to be begins with the very words of Jesus.
In the New Testament, we find several different accounts of Christ's institution of the sacrament of communion. And there is perfect consistency between them all when it comes to the elements that Jesus instructed us to use. First, there is bread. In Matthew 26, Scripture says, now as they were eating, Jesus took bread and said, take, eat, this is my body. In Mark 14, Scripture says Jesus took.
Bread. In Luke 22, Scripture says, and he, Jesus, took... Bread. In 1 Corinthians, Scripture says, Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took... bread.
In each of these instances, the word used for bread is the common word for bread. Scripture could have said Jesus took unleavened bread. Scripture could have said Jesus took leavened bread, but Scripture says neither of these things. It simply says that Jesus took bread.
Now, we know from the broader context of Scripture that the events in the upper room where Christ instituted the Lord's Supper took place during the season of Passover. Whether or not Passover was actually on the day of the institution of the Lord's Supper or not is much debated. But let's grant, for the sake of argument, that Jesus and his disciples were eating the Passover in the upper room when Christ instituted the Lord's Supper. This would mean, of course, that the bread Jesus took and blessed and broke and gave to his disciples would have been unleavened bread. Does it follow, then, that Christians, when observing the sacrament of communion, must only use unleavened bread?
Some would say yes.
Some would even go so far as to say there is an essential symbolism in the use of unleavened bread when it comes to the observance of the Lord's Supper. Leaven, they say, represents sin. The Bible says as much, doesn't it? Paul says to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 5, 6, do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened.
For Christ, our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. A close reading of 1 Corinthians 5, however, reveals that Paul is not talking about communion. He's talking about church discipline. Nevertheless, leaven in this context is symbolically a bad thing.
In Matthew 16:6, Jesus warns, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. At the end of this story here in Matthew 16, Jesus has to explain to his disciples that this statement is not about bread. or the dangers of leaven, it's about false teachers. Jesus says, how is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak to you about bread? Then the disciples understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Once again, leaven is symbolically a bad thing. But also, once again, this passage is not talking about the sacrament of communion. Galatians 5:9 says, a little leaven. Referring here to legalism, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.
So clearly, leaven in the Bible represents bad things: sin, false teaching, legalism. And we want to have nothing to do with these bad things. And Jesus used unleavened bread in the first communion.
So the conclusion goes, we must use unleavened bread when we observe communion because it's what Jesus did, and because leaven represents bad things.
Now all of this is very intriguing.
However, none of it is found in Jesus' actual institution of the sacrament of communion. To be sure, leaven sometimes symbolizes sin or false teaching or bad company, but sometimes it symbolizes phenomenal growth of God's kingdom. A good thing. For example, Matthew 13, 33. The kingdom of heaven is like leaven.
That a woman took and hid in three measures of flour till it was all leavened. That's a good thing. The fruit and blessing of God's kingly rule and reign will spread to the ends of the earth like yeast multiplying in dough. Other times Leviticus 23, 17, for example, the use of leaven is commanded by God. As a symbol of giving our very best, the first fruits to the Lord.
The point is, one must take into consideration the context in which leaven is discussed in order to determine if leaven represents something bad or something good. And we should never absolutize something that Scripture does not make absolute. That's bad hermeneutics, and it often leads to wrong conclusions. If Jesus does not attach leaven symbolically to the proper observance of the Lord's Supper, then we should not presume to make that symbolism an essential part of the sacrament.
Now regarding the fact that Passover observance required unleavened bread. We need to understand that Passover and communion are not the same thing. For one, the reason unleavened bread was essential to the Passover, Scripture tells us in Deuteronomy 16, 3, was to remind Israel of the haste with which they had to leave Egypt. They didn't even have time for their bread to rise. The symbolism of unleavened bread, then, was embedded in a particular redemptive act of God for Israel in the Old Testament.
But the Lord's Supper was not instituted as a remembrance of Israel's deliverance from Egypt. It was instituted as a remembrance of Christ. a different redemptive act. a superior redemptive act. And so, while there are some similarities, there are also significant differences between the Old Testament Passover.
and New Testament communion. And once again, the way we can tell what those differences and similarities are is by taking Jesus' words at face value. If we take Christ at his word, His command is simply to take bread, bless it, break it, and eat it in remembrance of him. And unless Scripture ascribes more meaning or symbolism or instruction than what Christ has said for us to do, we are simply not at liberty to add stipulations of our own making. Remember, our fallen minds and hearts are not reliable sources for determining what constitutes proper worship of God.
It is neither necessary nor safe. to add to the plain instruction of God's Word. And so our conclusion, as far as it concerns the proper observance of the sacrament of communion, is that the element which Scripture requires for us to use as representative of the body of Christ is simply bread. It can be leavened, it can be unleavened. The presence or absence of yeast is inconsequential.
To make a rule where Christ has not made a rule is legalistic. In our culture. Bread with yeast. That is to say, leavened bread is more common. and more readily available.
and in my opinion tastes better. And so each week, as we delight, In the enjoyment and nutrition of good bread, we are delighting in and remembering Jesus Christ, whose body was broken for us in order that the redeemed might delight in the salvation that's theirs in Christ.
Well, this brings us to the second element of communion. namely the cup which represents the blood of Jesus. What was in the cup? when Jesus instituted the sacrament of communion. In each of the accounts of Christ's institution of the sacrament of communion, the word wine never appears.
Instead, the words cup or fruit of the vine are used. And so we must rely on inference a bit more in determining what this element was. compared to the more straightforward description Christ used of the bread. We've already pointed out that the context in which Christ instituted the supper was the Passover celebration. That being the case, the cup he used was undoubtedly a cup of wine, since that's what was drunk during Passover.
Furthermore, he refers to this cup in all three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as the fruit of the vine. This phrase, fruit of the vine, was an established synonym for wine. In other words, the Jews of Jesus' day would have understood fruit of the vine as referring to wine. Wine, by definition, is substantively different from grape juice. Wine is fermented juice of grapes.
Had Jesus wanted to specify unfermented juice of grapes, there was a Greek word available to him that refers specifically to unfermented grape juice, but Christ did not use that word. Instead, he used the word that everyone in his day would have understood as referring to wine. And if we're not convinced still that it was wine and not grape juice in the cup when Christ instituted the sacrament of communion. Consider Paul's rebuke of the Corinthian church when they observed the Lord's Supper. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul condemns Corinth for, among other things, getting drunk during the Lord's Supper.
If the church were using unfermented grape juice, Drunkenness would not have been a problem. And notice, by the way, that Paul's solution was not stop using wine, it was stop getting drunk. In other words, self-control. not abstinence, was the apostolic solution. But back to the point, the whole discussion of 1 Corinthians necessarily assumes the use of wine in communion.
So there's no doubt that when Jesus instituted the sacrament of communion, he took bread and declared it to be his body, and he took wine and declared it to be his blood. These are the elements that Jesus instituted. These are the elements that the church used without dispute for 1800 years. Even the Protestants during the Reformation were when they were debating the doctrine of the sacrament with the Roman Catholic Church never disagreed with Rome on the fact that the elements instituted by Christ were bread and wine. It was not until the temperance movement in America That the wine, as the proper and biblical element of communion, was called into question.
What most, if not all, of us have known all of our lives as the element to be used in communion for the blood of Christ is the result not of Biblical teaching or implication or of Christ's institution, But the result of ecclesiastical accommodation of a widespread sin problem in our culture. The sin of drunkenness.
Now Drunkenness is nothing new. It was a problem during the New Testament era also. In fact, it has been a sin tendency since at least the days of Noah. Drunkenness is almost as old as man's sin nature. And yet, nowhere does scripture forbid the consumption of alcohol in an absolute way.
Jesus drank wine. Jesus commanded the drinking of wine. Over and over again in Scripture, wine is a sign of covenant blessings and celebration and joy. And the absence of wine in Scripture is often an indication of covenant breaking and covenant curses. Even the marriage supper of the Lamb at the end of time, as we read just a few moments ago, is characterized by an abundance of well-aged wine that's well-refined.
Friends, wine is not the problem. Drunkenness is the problem. Lack of self-control is the problem. the heart of man. is the problem.
Wine is not the sin. Drunkenness is the sin. And the Bible clearly condemns it. But the Bible also tells us how to deal. with that sin.
The solution to our sin problem is never abstinence from God's good blessing. or holding a higher standard than God imposes. That is legalism. The solution to our sin problem is always, always. repentance and faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
And so in our observance of the very sacrament that points us to the sufficiency of Christ, we dare not approach it with even an ounce of self-sufficiency or self-effort or self-righteousness. If Christ says, eat this, drink this, and remember me, it is not for us to say, no, Lord, that's sinful. It is for us to repent of our sin and receive in faith what the Lord has given. As we bring this Excursion into the doctrine of the sacrament of communion to a close. I want to explain.
Again, the changes we'll be making here at Grace Presbyterian Church and answer a handful of questions that some of you have raised over the past couple of weeks. And I want to encourage you: if you have questions that have not been answered, please feel free to come and talk to me. Talk to Pastor Ken. Talk to one of our elders. We want us to work through this as a congregation.
The changes we're going to be instituting in a few weeks are three. First of all, we'll begin observing the Lord's Supper every Lord's Day, every Sunday. I spoke last week of the rationale for weekly frequency. The short answer is that it is an incomparable privilege to take Jesus up on his promise to be uniquely present when his church remembers him in the Lord's Supper. And so we want to take full advantage of that privilege.
The session has chosen to alternate our observance of communion between morning and evening services each week.
So on the first Sunday of September, this is when these changes will begin, we'll observe communion in the morning. On the second Sunday, we'll observe communion in the evening. A couple of reasons for this. I think, first of all, it communicates that morning and evening worship are of equal importance, of equal value. It will also perhaps make it more convenient for those with legitimate schedule conflicts, works of necessity and such, to have opportunity to observe the sacrament regularly.
Secondly, we will use leavened bread. This is admittedly a preference. We could use unleavened bread, but the change will hopefully remind us of the liberty we have in Christ. We are not bound by types and symbols that were intended to foreshadow the Messiah. Church Christ has come.
And in him, we have the full substance of redemption. He has dealt with the leaven of sin and removed its guilt and stain. Thirdly, we will add wine to the communion trays. I say add wine because we will continue to offer grape juice for those who have legitimate scruples. about the use of wine.
And perhaps I should give a brief word of explanation about that. While the session unanimously believes that wine is the biblical element that Christ instituted. We also recognize that not everyone shares that conviction. I'm hopeful that you've heard some convincing arguments this morning for the use of wine in communion. And I'm hopeful that if your scruples persist, you will weigh them against Scripture.
And not be weighed by your own cultural context over and above the instruction of God's Word. At the same time, we as a church that seeks to be governed in every way by Scripture do not believe that one's views of the elements of communion is a salvific doctrine. It's not. In other words, it isn't heresy to disagree on the particulars of fermented versus unfermented fruit of the vine in communion. It's not to say it's an unimportant issue, but it's not a saving issue.
It would be a travesty, wouldn't it, for division to be unnecessarily created with regard to the very sacramental sign that is supposed to demonstrate unity in the body of Christ? Therefore, for those with weak consciences. lingering scruples. We will continue to offer Grape juice. I would though like to address what might constitute illegitimate and legitimate scruples.
Some illegitimate scruples would include things like the belief that consumption of alcohol is always sinful. to hold that belief. One must either deny that Jesus ever consumed alcohol, which is not biblically defensible. or charge Jesus with sin, which is heretical. Another illegitimate scruple would be that grape juice just tastes better than wine.
This is to elevate one's personal preference above Scripture, which goes back to the regulative principle of worship. We ought to be relentless in our pursuit of ordering our worship and devotion according to God's instruction to us. If our tastes differ from God's instruction, we should be prepared to change our tastes. A third illegitimate scruple, and one that I've heard raised time and time again over the years, is that the public consumption of alcohol will ruin my witness, my testimony to unbelievers or to maybe an alcoholic who struggles with the sin of drunkenness. I could concede that The merely social public consumption of alcohol may negatively affect a Christian's testimony in certain situations.
But to impose a higher standard on God's instruction than God Himself commands is simply not our place to do. The best way to guard our Christian testimony and witness is to remain faithful to the word of God, whether that faithfulness is culturally in season or out of season. The world needs to see our obedience to God, not our accommodation of the culture, in either direction, license or legalism. Obedience to God. will never diminish our testimony.
Some legitimate scruples then. Would include Genuine struggles of conscience before the Lord. Let's say your sincere desire is to comply with anything God says in His Word, but you've been taught poorly with regard to, say, the proper way to view your tendencies toward excess with alcohol or food or anything else. You've been taught that external control rather than internal heart repentance is the key to victory over sin. And now you're having to learn to deal with certain sin tendencies differently, but you're not there yet.
Paul said in Romans 14 that even in matters where there is liberty to act against one's conscience is harmful.
Now, that doesn't mean that you should remain in a state of binding your conscience where God has not bound your conscience, but neither should you train yourself to ignore your conscience. You should train yourself rather to submit your conscience to the Word of God. That process may take some time for some. If it pertains to the consumption of alcohol, Perhaps for someone who fights addiction or Who has previously made some rash vow never to touch alcohol, you might have. a legitimate scruple for the time being.
Again, we don't need to stay there. We need to grow up in our faith. But as shepherds of Grace Presbyterian Church, the session wants to accommodate that process of growth and maturing while at the same time encouraging you to continue learning how to repent biblically and how to fight and overcome sin with the means God has given you, including the precious sacrament of communion.
Some have asked, what about underage children who are communing members in our congregation? And I would simply say this. The idea of a legal drinking age is a standard that our government imposes on its citizens. And there is some prudence to that standard. We should comply with it so long as it does not contradict God's commands.
However, even that legal standard in the United States does not apply to alcohol served in the observance of religious rituals and ceremonies. Our government has not prohibited the use of wine in communion, even for underage children. This change that we're making in our observance of communion is perfectly legal. For community members of any age. I intend to encourage my communing children to take the wine when communion is served.
Because it's not illegal, yes. but more importantly, because I believe God commands it. Church Jesus Christ is the head of his church. And he has given us the gracious gift of a simple meal in which we remember him and proclaim his death until he comes. This meal is God's gift to his people.
And with this meal comes grace. I don't want to miss out on any of the grace God intends me to enjoy. I don't want my family to miss out on any of the grace God intends us to enjoy. The best way to ensure that we don't miss out. on that grace is by partaking of that grace frequently.
and faithfully.
So come then, Presbyterian, Grace Presbyterian Church. Let's taste and see together that the Lord is good. Let's pray. Father, you are far better at giving grace than we are at receiving it. Help us learn to drink deeply of all your goodness.
Not the least of which is the redemption we have in Christ. In whose name I pray. Amen.
Okay.
