Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
Here you'll find practical, relevant, biblical information.
The Bible will be broken down verse by verse so that you get the full context of the scripture
to better grow in your relationship with Jesus.
Hey everybody, welcome to the sanctuary and for those of you who are joining us for the
first time, let me just say welcome.
It is great to have you all with us and today we're going to talk about something that we
all see and we all tend to participate in at church and we're going to give it a little
bit more depth.
All right, and this is one of those things that to a point it's kind of taken for granted.
It's something that's become very legalistic in a sense for a lot of places of worship.
And what I'm talking about is communion or as some refer to it, the Lord's Supper or
the Last Supper.
It's that time when we come together during the service and we had that little wafer and
that little drink that we share in remembrance of Jesus.
And believe it or not, there are those who don't know much about it beyond the couple
of verses that may or may not be read when it's shared.
They simply just know, hey, this is something that we're going to get and we're just going
to hold it and we're going to wait until we're told to eat it or drink it.
This is one of those places in which the church often fails.
It's really because it falls into that category of things that we just assume everyone knows.
So again, it becomes a bit of a legalistic work that many of us do.
So we're going to take a look at that right now.
Now before I get started here, I will say there's probably going to be a couple of things
that I missed and it's really just because I'm trying to compress all this for time sakes.
But really what I'm going to do is I'm going to go into the bread and the butter of it,
the meat and potatoes you should say.
We're going to get that cake.
I'm not going to throw the icing on it.
I'm going to break it down to what it is supposed to be underneath all that stuff.
The most important parts, the parts that we should be thinking about when we participate
in this.
Now with that said, there are many places in the Bible where we can see Jesus instituting
this.
By that I mean giving us the example and telling us to do it.
Matthew 26, Mark 14, and Luke 22.
These are three places.
These are typically the most commonly used places that a lot of churches go to when they
are looking at scripture that they're going to use for their time in communion.
Just a little FYI for those of you who are taking notes, this is something that you might
even just kind of write in a margin.
Just the same, the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, those three books as a trio are
also referred to as the synoptic gospels, meaning that they can be viewed and compared
easily when placed side by side.
These three share witness of the first communion.
A little bit of a rabbit trail there, I know.
Then there's 1 Corinthians chapter 11, which is the place where we will be looking at today.
You see Corinth, it was a major city and as such it saw plenty of corruption and treachery.
It sounds a lot like today, doesn't it?
As such, 1 Corinthians was written to teach Christians how to live properly while trying
to navigate their way around the corrupt society that they were a part of.
It's really no different today.
This includes taking corrective action to get evil out of the church, to get corruption
out of the church, and to keep it out of the church.
I'll remind you, the devil knows God personally.
He knows the word very well and therefore he blends in very easily when trying to influence
and corrupt the church himself, which is all the more reason why we should read the Bible,
study the word, know the word so that when something isn't right, we recognize it and
we can correct it.
Let's get into it now, shall we?
For those with their Bibles, those with their apps, those just taking notes, again, we're
turning to 1 Corinthians chapter 11 and we're going to be looking at verses 17 through 22
to start.
So, 1 Corinthians 11 verses 17 through 22.
The Bible says, in the following directives, I have no praise for you, for your meetings
do more harm than good.
In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions
among you, and to some extent, I believe it.
No doubt, there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God's approval.
So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper you eat, for when you are
eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers.
As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk.
Don't you have homes to eat and drink in?
Or do you despise the Church of God by humiliating those who have nothing?
What shall I say to you?
Shall I praise you?
Certainly, this is not the matter.
Paul's not pulling any punches here, is he?
He goes straight into it.
There should not be praise when the Church is being torn apart.
He recognizes that there are differences to be had.
That in itself is fine.
It's going to happen.
Nobody is going to agree with everyone and everything 100% of the time.
We all see things differently.
The problem, however, is when these differences are allowed to create division in the Church,
because division leads to sin and can destroy churches.
This is one of those things where I talk about all these places with the cliques and everything,
whether it's the Church staff and certain people they hang out with or even just different
groups within the Church and everything.
This is why we talked about it before, that we need to get over it.
We need to bring down those barriers and just be the Church.
Literally a lot of churches, they go into their death cycle and this is a big contributor.
That's why.
Now, it's really easy.
We can all say, oh, it was the devil.
But the reality is that the fault lands directly on the Church.
Now, here's the thing about these divisions.
Without everything said and done, those who look to the chaos, they look forward to it,
they start it up, they cause the dissension, for all their huff and puff, they don't even
realize they're putting themselves in a bad light.
People will eventually see them for who they are.
This in itself actually puts the spotlight on the true believers, those people who are
showing how to live out the gospel in word and action alike.
It's a big thing, isn't it?
Next, Paul talks about the Lord's Supper.
Now, this is something, starting with Jesus, was celebrated regularly by the early Church
and continues on to this day.
And it would include basically coming together in fellowship, to have that fellowship and
to have a small meal.
And then afterwards, everybody would share and participate in communion.
So literally, it started with a small meal.
That wasn't supposed to be anything huge, just a small meal and then communion.
So a little bit different than how we celebrate it today in churches around the world.
However, in Corinth, things, needless to say, had gone astray.
They'd gone so far off the beaten path that wasn't even funny.
Instead of coming together in fellowship, it basically became a party time.
Hang out with my homies, the cliques would break off.
You had a time of gluttony and drunkenness.
Think of the potluck.
We've all been to a potluck where you have all those people at the front of the line
and they load their plates down.
They get more than their fair share, right?
And they don't leave anything for the people at the back of the line.
So by the time the people at the back get up there, there's scraps, there's crumbs,
maybe.
There's really nothing there for them.
Most of us, if not all of us, have been there, right?
And that's what was happening here.
They'd all come together.
You have those people who would eat in excess, even to that point where maybe they couldn't
even finish everything that they had.
So things were getting tossed out while other people were left to go hungry.
And if that wasn't enough, it got worse.
You had those who would overindulge in the wine to the point of absolute drunkenness,
right?
The fellowship was gone.
The time of coming together as a church was gone.
It was nowhere to be seen.
That unity and love that should have been there, it was nowhere to be found.
Let alone the consideration that the meal itself was supposed to be the small meal,
something kind of tied people over till they get home and it was to lead into communion.
Instead, everything was just getting thrown together and just everybody having their own
little parties, basically.
Kind of like people going and hanging out at the bar these days, or a lot of these other
places.
That's how it was treated.
It was like, yeah, cool, we've done that.
Let's go eat.
Let's get drunk.
Party time.
Paul, he condemned these actions.
And he was right.
He absolutely should have condemned them.
Correction was needed.
One needed to be reminded of the real purpose of it all.
Now we're getting to that.
So let's pick back up in our reading.
First Corinthians 11, we're now going to look at verses 23 through 26.
First Corinthians 11, verses 23 through 26.
The Bible says, for I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you.
The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread and when he had given thanks, he
broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way, after supper, he took the cup, saying this cup is the new covenant in
my blood.
Do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of me.
For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until
he comes.
That should sit really heavily.
Now, for those who have had scripture shared during communion, this part should sound
familiar.
All right.
Paul is sharing his experience of the first communion, the last supper.
What he's also sharing is what Jesus had to say at that final meal when they were all
together before he went to the cross.
While different denominations have different views about the emblems themselves, we shouldn't
place them on the altar as an idol.
Just like anything else, it's real easy to turn things into an idol.
Instead, we should listen to what Jesus said and remember what these items represent.
First is the bread emblem, which is broken.
This is important.
The fact that they point out that the bread was broken out of all the words and all the
ways to describe it, really, it's like, oh, he took the bread.
Really, is there any description that's really needed there in just a general context?
No.
Instead, Paul took the time, and it's been used in the scripture to say the bread was
broken.
Why is this so important?
Why is the emphasis here?
Well, it's because when we think about the cross, we need to remember that was the final
moment of what Jesus had gone through.
We need to think of everything as a whole from when he was taken into custody.
He was physically broken before going to the cross.
His clothes were torn.
He was literally whipped and beaten and had a crown of thorns pushed down onto his head.
His flesh, his skin, it was torn.
He was bloodied.
He was tortured.
And then after all of that, was still forced to carry his cross to Golgotha, knowing what
was about to come.
Physical and mental torture in the extreme.
In the extreme.
Not to even mention the torture of being on that cross and what a horrible death that
was.
This right here, this is what we should be keeping in mind when we take the bread emblem.
That's what it's referring to.
Next is the wine emblem.
I know some places they use juice, some places use wine.
We're not getting into that right now.
Like I said, there's some things I'm not going to go over for today.
So the wine is representative of Jesus' blood being poured out for us.
His love being so great that he took on death for our sins and poured his blood out for
us literally.
This is of no significance either.
This is very significant.
This is huge.
You see, back in those days, a blood sacrifice was nothing to be taken for granted.
A blood sacrifice was huge.
Exodus tells us of the sacrifice of lambs.
Why?
Because they were these meek, innocent animals that would be taken and slaughtered and offered
up to God.
And then again, still in the book of Exodus, sheep were slaughtered by the Israelites and
their blood was used to mark the doors of their homes so that their firstborn children
would be spared from death.
Death was coming to take the firstborn children of everyone because of Pharaoh's refusal to
obey and everything.
So this is one of the curses that was poured out.
So by marking their door, they were showing that they were God's people and so their children
were spared.
And then if we go to Isaiah chapter 53 verse 7.
So Isaiah 53 verse 7, the Bible says, he was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open
his mouth.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before it sheers his silence.
So he did not open his mouth.
It's talking about the perfect lamb sacrifice.
Jesus, Jesus.
Or again, here, a matter of fact, if you go to 1 Peter, 1 Peter chapter 1.
Let me find it here, flipping through myself.
So 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 19, the Bible says, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb
without blemish or defect, the perfect lamb sacrifice, that's who Jesus was for us.
Here's how an animal or a blood sacrifice worked.
All right.
Some of you have heard me talk about this before.
Some of you have not.
So I'm just going to throw it out there for everyone.
Basically an animal would be taken typically, you know, like a sheep, right?
And it would be cut or torn apart and the blood left to just pour out.
It's like a contract, right?
It was a promise.
And the person who was making this promise would walk around the animal and then through
the two parts.
And by doing this, what they were saying was basically, if I break my promise, if I go
back on my word, if I don't do what I say I'm going to do, may I be torn apart like
this animal.
Now think about that in the context of Jesus.
He was savagely beaten, tortured, and then put through a horrific death on the cross
in which he became the sacrificial lamb for us.
And this is what he's referring to when he said, the new covenant in my blood.
That's what we're remembering during communion.
What he went through, what he did for us, his promises for us, an innocent taking on
the punishment that he didn't deserve for those he loves so much.
That's how much you mean to him.
That's how much he loves you.
So when we share communion, we should be thinking about his life.
We should think of his sacrifice.
We should think of his resurrection.
We should be thinking of his promises and his return to come.
You see communion itself, it's more than just an act.
Communion is the participation in a memorial meal.
And this memorial meal is being taken, is being had in a holy place at a holy time.
And to take anything away from that, to think of it as anything less than that robs it of
its meaning and of its significance.
This should never be just some ritualistic thing that we just do.
This is why a lot of pastors before going into it, as they should be, say, hey, let's
take a moment to pray and reflect.
Because this is a time that we should be taking to prepare ourselves, which is why Paul gives
these instructions next.
So turning back to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verses 27 through 34, the Bible says, so then
whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty
of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.
Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.
For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ, eat and drink judgment
on themselves.
This is why many among you are weak and sick and a number of you have fallen asleep.
But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such
judgment.
Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that
we will not be finally condemned with the world.
So then my brothers and sisters, when you gather to eat, you should all eat together.
Anyone who is hungry should eat something at home so that when you meet together, it
may not result in judgment.
So again, before taking communion, it's a good time to reflect, a good time to pray
because we need to recognize that Christ died for our sins.
We need to give this occasion the proper respect that it deserves.
We need to search ourselves for any sins that we still need to confess, any resentment that
we still have lingering inside that needs to be let go or dealt with.
We need to recognize that in taking part in communion, we are doing so based on our faith
and our belief in Christ, our love for our neighbors and the consideration for everyone
who is present.
We need to do things in a lovingly and orderly way that allows everyone present to participate
as the unified body of Christ, as the church.
This meal is meant to remove barriers and to recognize our own sin and shortcomings.
Matter of fact, recognize our own sin and shortcomings.
That in and of itself should push us to actually participate because in doing so, we open ourselves
up and we confess ourselves to God.
When we do things properly, that's what we're doing.
If you don't honor the body and the blood of Jesus, then you're eating and drinking
and sin.
You're eating and drinking the Lord's judgment upon yourself.
That is what Paul was talking about when he said this.
He said that, matter of fact, he went on and he said, this is why so many are sick.
This is how many have fallen asleep.
By falling asleep, he is saying this is why so many have died.
That people in the Corinthian church were being disciplined by God because of their
mistreatment of this meal.
That we need to recognize what happened to them, why people were sick, why some people
that we know are sick today because they're not treating it properly.
Even died because of this.
That was a discipline that was put there because it was to serve the warning.
Hey, you need to take this seriously.
You need to do things right.
The meal itself, it's not about filling up.
It's having a little something together, a little meal together, coming together and
fellowship with other believers, remembering and honoring everything that Jesus has done
for us, is doing for us and will do for us.
There is so much there.
It's a way of bringing us together as the body of Christ.
It's a church.
That's what it should be.
I know I went through a lot here.
That's why I said I'm not going to go through every little thing.
This in a nutshell though, when you have communion, when you participate in communion, you know
where the Last Supper or however it's referred to, where you go, even the Lord's Supper,
this is what it is.
This is the meat and potatoes.
This is the important aspect of it.
Like I said, it should never ever be a legalistic ritual.
Take a moment, take a few moments, reflect inwards, reflect on yourself, reflect on how
you've done this and how you need to start doing this, what you need to change, what
sins you have that have gone unconfessed and talk to God about those, confess them to Him.
That's why Jesus came so that we have this open door where we can communicate directly
with the Father.
Remember Jesus loves you and that's why he did this.
You are loved.
You are blessed.
Now go and be the Church.
Thank you all for joining us here today at Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
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We look forward to hearing from you all.
God bless.