Unified at the Table

What is the point of celebrating communion?

What does it all mean? Why do we do this? Hello, and welcome once again to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm Bill Wright, and today Don brings us a message called Unified at the Table, looking specifically at the question, why do we observe communion? And Don, we know that God does care how we celebrate communion, and even to a certain degree, where we celebrate it.

But isn't it really the why behind it that matters most to him? Well, my friend, it's certainly important to understand the role that communion plays in the life of a local church. We take communion, first of all, to remember the body and blood of our Lord when he sacrificed himself to God for the price of our redemption. At communion, we examine our lives for unconfessed sin that we might repent and purify our lives before our Holy Lord. Scripture also says that when we take communion, we proclaim his death until he comes. These are great realities that we celebrate with sober joy, not in ritual, not in an unfeeling spirit, but with a sense of gratitude to our Lord who loved us and gave himself up for us. Very good, Don.

Thank you. And right now, friend, let's join our teacher as he continues teaching God's people God's word. There he is with a message called Unified at the Table. In his provocative style, Martin Lloyd-Jones, he said, and I quote, at a communion service, we have a table in front of us with bread and wine upon it.

What does it all that mean? Why do we do this? Is it some strange ritual that we are just perpetuating because we do not have the good sense to stop doing it?

Is it some pagan rite? He answered his own question by saying this, What is this bread, this wine? They bring us immediately to history. They bring us back to this blessed person, Jesus Christ, who, while having that last supper with his disciples, took bread and broke it and then poured out wine into a vessel.

This is history. He did it the night when he was betrayed, end quote, brothers and sisters in Christ. Communion reminds us that we have a faith that is grounded in historical fact.

We do not follow a moral code or embrace a theoretical, abstract philosophy about life. We follow a living person, the Lord Jesus Christ, who literally walked on this earth. He was a real man in time and space who left literal footprints when he walked in the dusty roads of Palestine.

God took on human flesh. He lived as a matter of historical reality. He died as a matter of historical reality.

He was resurrected as a matter of historical reality after he was buried. Our faith is based on time and space historical events. We don't follow myths. We don't follow the fables of old women. We follow that which has been exactly lived out in time and space in history.

This is real. And the bread and the cup, which we will soon partake of, is a reminder, it is a symbol of the fact that Christ was really here. And Scripture interprets the spiritual significance of those historical facts for us. Turn to the book of Romans chapter 5 verse 6. The Bible says that for while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

There's the spiritual significance. It was an act of substitution for those who could not save themselves. Verse 7, for one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And so, beloved, in the bread and in the cup we have not just a reminder of the historical fact of Christ's death and resurrection, we do have that represented for us here today, but we also have a symbol, a token to remind us that in our sin God loved us. God showed mercy and kindness to us. God had our well-being in mind when he sent Christ. Christ had our spiritual salvation in mind, in love, in goodness, because he loves his sheep, because he loves his people, he willingly laid down his life for us.

That his blood might become that which washes away the stain of our sin. And so what we remember here at the table is something wonderful. We remember a death that we could never have deserved that was done in love on our behalf. We are brought sweetly back to the wonder of the goodness of our Savior toward us.

We need to be reminded of that, don't we? We tend to forget when life starts to veer into directions that we don't want. We're tempted to think, why is God doing this? And we think wrongly about God. We start to think distorted thoughts about this is unfair.

I wish it wasn't this way. This brings us back to what is central and most important. God has taken account of what is most important for us. He has accomplished salvation for us in the Lord Jesus Christ and he did it out of love. He did it because he cares for you.

He did it because he loves you and had determined before time began that he would have you by name with him for all of eternity. That's what we remember. This is glorious.

This is wonderful. This draws us in affection. This draws us in priority to Christ when we're thinking about it rightly. God demonstrated his love toward us when Christ died for us. Now in verse 9, he goes on and says, much more than having now been justified by his blood, having been declared righteous, having our account not only wiped clean, but the positive righteousness of Christ imputed to us so that we have a perfect legal standing with God. We're not simply declared not guilty before him. We are declared righteous. All the demands of God's law were fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf. And when we put our faith in him, we receive the full merit of his righteous life accounted to us. Declared righteous, not merely not guilty, righteous in the sight of God. And having now been declared righteous, verse 9, by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. So, beloved, I remind you of that which you already know, that in this death and resurrection, the penalty for your sin has been paid.

The guilt on your account has been erased, and in its place has been put righteousness which God accepts. We come to God, we approach God, we hope in eternity, not on anything that we have done, but entirely on what someone else has done for us, what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. We rest not in anything good that we have done, we rest in his perfect righteousness alone.

It is totally external to us. That which secures our eternity is outside us, and we rest in what someone else did for us. That's what we remember at the table. Salvation is not a reward for our good works, it is an undeserved gift that we receive by faith. Those of you who are not Christians, I invite you to take this opportunity to be reconciled to God, that these symbols would become a reality in your own heart as you confess your sin and believe in Christ as the only begotten Son of God who died to save you from sin.

We can't say that enough. We never tire of inviting sinners to Christ, because the offer is always open, it is always extended, it is fitting for us to repeat it again and again and again. God will forgive all of your sins if you repent and come to Christ. He will cleanse you, he will receive you, he will own you as his child forever.

My unsaved friend, why would you turn away? Why would you harden your heart to such a gracious, loving offer extended to you sincerely by God himself? Now, I also want to emphasize another aspect, what this means for us as a body. We've kind of looked at it individually and we've been reminded and refreshed that this was for us out of an act of love by a holy God on our behalf, but I also want us to think about it corporately. I want us to just think for a moment about the central role of church unity as we come to the table, as we contemplate the Lord who died for us, as we remember him, that unity is important to Christ as well. In fact, unity was so important to our Lord that he prayed for a unified church on the eve of his crucifixion. He was only hours away from an agonizing human death and yet what he was beseeching from his father was unity for his people. Turn over to John chapter 17.

What I want you to see is that's precious and something to be cherished and protected. Jesus certainly wanted to protect it. Look at what he said as he's praying to his father in John chapter 17 verse 20. And by the way, when you read this, I think this is an incredible passage because Christ here is praying for you and me.

He's praying for you and me. He said, I do not ask on behalf of these alone, meaning the disciples that were with him, but for those also who will believe in me through their word. Do you realize if you're a Christian that that's talking about you? You have believed in Christ through the word of the apostles. That's how we have the gospel. That's how the truth was brought to us.

It's based on the authority of God's word which he revealed through the apostles. We've believed through their word and therefore when Christ says, I'm praying for those who believe in me through their word, he's not simply talking about those who were physically with him in the upper room. He's praying for those throughout the history of the church that would believe and therefore we ourselves are within the sphere of the intent of this prayer. That's very special. Our Lord was praying for us on the night of his crucifixion and when he died the next day he was dying for us by name. This is all very intimate.

It's very personal. Our Lord left heaven in order to do this for us. Our Lord laid his own life down for us and so motivated by the bowels of compassion, by the depth of sacrificial love in his heart when he came to pour out his lifeblood on our behalf, it's fitting that we should say what's on his mind, what's his priority at that great redemptive moment as he prayed for us. Well in verse 21 we see recorded for us under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit exactly what he said. He said, Father I pray that they may all be one even as you Father are in me and I in you that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me. The glory which you have given me I have given to them that they may be one just as we are one.

I in them and you in me that they may be perfected in unity so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you have loved me. Christ is praying for not an organizational unity as this passage is so often misrepresented to say. This is not a passage that says anyone and everywhere who names in any way the name of Christ should all come together as one great denomination.

That is not what he's talking about. He's not talking about an organizational great final Christian denomination when he prays this way with a pope or someone else at the head who has authority and rules over it. That couldn't be it because a man, a pope or whoever is not the head of the church. Christ is. He didn't die in order to delegate the headship over the church to someone else. He alone is the head of the church.

And so he's not talking about an outward external organizational unity. He's praying for a spiritual unity that the hearts and minds of his people would unite around common truth and commitment. And scripture teaches us that maintaining that kind of unity is a priority for the church.

We see it in the way that Christ prayed that unity was what he was praying that his father would bless those who would believe with. Now turn over to the book of Ephesians to the passage that I read earlier. Ephesians chapter 4 in verses 1 through 3.

We'll come to this passage. We've been through enough of Ephesians so far to appreciate something of the therefore with which Paul opens this. In light of the great grace that God has shown us and by his power and his grace has saved us and brought us into his church, into his body, what do we do then? We've been seeing declarations of fact about what God has done. In Paul's prayer, God saved us by surpassing power and by surpassing grace.

They're declarative statements. Now we see as we move into chapter 4 that the imperatives come in. In light of what I have said to you in the first three chapters, here's what it means for you now within the body of Christ. And what does it mean?

What does he start with? Chapter 4 verse 1. Therefore, in light of everything that I've said in these prior three chapters, therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Now that we've gathered together as a church, as Truth Community Church, we realize that spiritual and relational unity is a priority, is something to protect. And let me just clarify, lest I be misunderstood here, I'm talking about this not because I see something lacking in us, it's because I see precisely what the Lord has called us to be, being lived out in your lives, in your relationships, and in your interactions with one another.

It's because I see this life happening and operating, and I rejoice over how wonderful it is and how much you manifest this already. It's because it exists, not because something's lacking, that I bring this passage to your attention today. I suppose in one sense I want to highlight it so that you wouldn't take it for granted, so that we wouldn't take it for granted.

To consciously realize, to consciously acknowledge, this is special. This is something really, really good that belongs to us, that the Lord has given to us, and therefore we say, I want to do my part to cultivate this, to help it grow even more, I want to do my part to protect it. And so the public commitment that we manifested last is enhanced and now developed through love and humility and patience toward one another. And so we cultivate love for one another, we cultivate care for one another, we're quick to abandon conflict in relationships for the sake of protecting this greater unity. Our relationships with one another occur in a bigger context, and we see our relationships with one another in the context of this greater wonderful unity that Christ said was his desire for the church.

Father, bless them in this direction. Paul says, in light of all of the power and the grace of God in your salvation, now I implore you, walk in unity. And so we start to see and understand that our individual relationships with one another are occurring in a greater context where we see not just the person that's across the aisle from us, but we see in this a context of unity that is to be preserved. And so we go out of our way to love one another, to humble ourselves before one another, to forgive one another, to be gentle and kind with one another, because that is what cultivates and preserves this unity that we are presently enjoying. And beloved, I want you to understand, with no mental reservations in my mind, I want you to understand that from my perspective as the pastor of Truth Community Church, this is exactly what's happening. I am so grateful to God to see this happening in your lives and individually.

And so we're here to celebrate and to cultivate, not to correct. But even as we enjoy that and appreciate it and say, this is really sweet, this is really special, we realize that the way that we individually, going forward, handle life in the church, reflects on the greater eternal realities that first brought us together. Look at verse 4 of Ephesians 4 and see the oneness that's there. Verse 4, there is one body and one spirit, just as you also were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

I believe seven times the word one is used there. Paul says we're one, we're one body, we're one spirit, we have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God. And so those of us that belong to this God through the redemptive work of Christ should reflect that oneness in the way that we relate to one another. We are united as one. Stated differently, the things that make us distinct from each other, our social status, our ethnicity, our pasts, our diverse giftedness, are all secondary to the greater eternal realities that make us one.

And what makes us one is summarized here at the table. We all came to Christ through His saving grace. We were all sinners. We were one in sin, you could say. And now in Christ we are one, having been redeemed, washed, forgiven, cleansed, forgiven on our way to one place, heaven together. And so when it's all said and done, we're all just sinners saved by grace through this redemptive act that we remember here. We all enter through the same gate, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It's His transcendent work that unites us.

It's His transcendent work that we remember at the table. So as we gather here, as we share in these elements in a few moments, we remember that our salvation comes to us. It came to us. It belongs to us. It will continue with us forever because a loving, gracious Savior, motivated by His own internal character, not being attracted by anything good in us, that Christ poured out His perfect life in a blood sacrifice to appease the wrath of God against our sin so that we might be reconciled to God and that we might manifest that reconciliation in the way that we manifest life in the local church. What a privilege that we have together.

And so we do not casually approach this table. We gratefully remember the Christ who delivered us from our plight in sin. That's Don Green, boldly declaring the reason why God wants us to come together at His communion table. Well, you're listening to The Truth Pulpit, and we trust you've been blessed today, and we hope that you can join us again next time as Don continues teaching God's people God's Word. Meanwhile, if you'd like to learn more about this teaching ministry, go to thetruthpulpit.com. Once again, that's thetruthpulpit.com. We will forge ahead in our series called The Priority of Unity on our next broadcast. On behalf of Don Green, this is Bill Wright, thanking you for taking time out of your busy day to be with us here on The Truth Pulpit, where Don teaches God's people God's Word.