The What, the Who and the How of the Lord's Supper

I love that phrase, "Christ, our hope in life and death." Look, church, Christ will not be our hope in death unless Christ is our hope in life. Let that sink in, Christ, our hope in life and death. I love that. It's very, very powerful. I appreciate that worship. Well, if you would take your Bible and turn back to Matthew chapter 26, that's where we were in our scripture reading. And I did say that we will go to 1 Corinthians chapter 11 a little later on. I'll let you know so you will not be guessing. I say this often. I encourage you to take notes. And sometimes if you turn here, there, and everywhere in scripture, it can distract you.

More than anything, if you take notes or you do not take notes, I'd rather you get the message. We're all different. We all learn different. But I do want us to be good students of all that we study together. Now, this morning we are coming together in worship to observe the Lord's Supper. That's obvious. It's been announced. And when you walk in and you see the elements in the sanctuary, you know it's Lord's Supper time. But in observing the Lord's Supper, we must always remember that we are really doing quite a few things. First and foremost, we are remembering that our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross.

And more specifically and personally. Personally. We are remembering that our Lord Jesus died for us. And this remembering is an obedience to what Jesus commanded us to do. In Luke's gospel account of the Supper, Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me." We know that phrase. "Do this in remembrance of me." And when I say that we are doing many things, what I mean is this. We start by remembering that our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross. And by remembering properly as we should and with the Spirit's help, we can then move on to other significant spiritual matters.

Remembering can and should move us to honor our Lord and to worship our Lord in many different ways. And that can impact how we live. And it should. Now, I think we all know that on the night that Jesus instituted the Supper, there were quite a few things that were going on. First of all, Jesus and His disciples were celebrating the Passover as commanded in the Old Testament Scriptures. Simply they were obeying the Bible, the Old Testament Scriptures. And in celebrating the Passover, they were commemorating their forefather's deliverance from slavery in Egypt.

But Jesus was also teaching His disciples what the Passover pictured are foreshadowed. Of course, at the time, the disciples did not understand any of this. But Jesus was explaining to them that He would give His body and His blood to die just like thousands of Passover lambs had died before. And this was because He was the true Passover Lamb of God. And whereas the Passover commemorated Israel's deliverance from their physical slavery in Egypt, the Lord's Supper speaks of the spiritual deliverance of God's people from their slavery and sin.

And if you have been delivered from your slavery to sin, if you've been delivered from your slavery to sin right now is when the Holy Spirit of God is moving in you with great gratitude and love for our Lord, He is moving in you to love and to worship our God who delivered us. Have you been delivered from slavery to sin? And this deliverance was provided by Christ's death on the cross. As the writer of Hebrews says, "It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins," Hebrews 10.4, "and He has appeared once and for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." Who is Himself?

That's Jesus, Hebrews 9.26. So in the Last Supper, Jesus, with His disciples, they were commemorating the Passover according to the Scripture. But He was also instituting what we see and call the Lord's Supper. And the Lord's Supper was and is a celebration of His single sacrifice for sin. Now this morning we're going to study the Lord's Supper by asking three questions. And it's been quite a while since we have asked these questions. These questions may be simple, they may seem simple, but I do believe these questions will go deeper and cover more ground than you know. Now our questions are simple. What, who, and how?

What is the Lord's Supper? Who is to take the Lord's Supper? And how should we take the Lord's Supper? That just leads us to the title of the message, "The What, the Who, and the How of the Lord's Supper." So our first question, what? What is the Lord's Supper? Now we need to understand that the Lord's Supper is one of two ordinances instituted by Jesus and given to the Church. Those two ordinances are believers baptism and the Lord's Supper. Now some call the Lord's Supper communion, and there's nothing wrong with that. Some even call it a sacrament.

But we must recognize that some believe in what is called sacramentalism, which is really heretical. Simply sacramentalism teaches that a right relationship with Christ can be attained by participating in the sacraments. Those who adhere to sacramentalism believe that participation in the sacraments somehow are effectuous for salvation and necessary for salvation. And at the heart of sacramentalism is works, a salvation of works. And this is one of the errors that our Roman Catholic friends have embraced. So this leads us to one vitally important thing we must remember. The Lord's Supper does not possess any saving qualities.

No one can attain salvation by participating in the Supper. We cannot even gain some kind of a favor with God by participating in the Supper. And there is an important difference between the ordinance of baptism and the ordinance of the Supper. And this will help some of you. Baptism is practiced one time in a believer's life. Baptism takes place at the beginning of a Christian's life after one professes conversion to Christ. In Acts 2 we see Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost.

And when that great crowd repented of their sins and they were converted to Christ, Peter called them to be baptized as a sign of what had happened to them spiritually. So conversion to Christ is a one time event, and baptism after conversion is a one time event. But participating in the Supper is to be repeated all throughout the life of the believer in the life of the church. And we come to this belief in practice for two reasons. First, from Jesus' own commandment. Jesus commanded his followers to remember his death by taking the Supper on a regular basis. We see this in the Gospels. And in 1 Corinthians 11.

And then second we see this by example. In Acts 2.42 we see that the first church was devoted to the breaking of the bread. And this is a reference to celebrating the Supper, scholars tell us. And interestingly, this term, the Lord's Supper, is found one time in the New Testament and that is in 1 Corinthians 11.20. And then Paul uses a similar term in 1 Corinthians 10.21, and that term is the Lord's Table. And this institution that the Apostle Paul calls the Lord's Supper is spelled out in four different passages in the New Testament. Obviously we see the Lord's Supper spelled out in the Gospels.

This would be the Synoptic Gospels in Matthew 26, in Mark 14, and Luke 22. And some are surprised to find the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11. But we don't see it in the Gospel of John. That's just because that's the way God inspired the Scriptures. So the Supper is clearly explained in what's called the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and in 1 Corinthians. Now in asking this question, what is the Supper, it would be good for us to see the background of the Lord's Supper. The background. This is where I want us to go back to Matthew 26. The background is found in verse 17 to 19.

Let's look at those verses, or listen to them if you don't have your copy of God's Word. This is the background of the Supper. Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus saying, "Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?" And He said, "Go into the city and find a certain man and say to him, 'The teacher says, 'My time is in hand.

I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.' And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover." Now here in Matthew, we see that before Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper, He celebrated His last Passover meal with His disciples. I have already explained what the Passover celebration was. But this is vitally important for us to see, and that is that the Passover celebration, and more specifically the Passover Lamb, was and is a picture of Christ and His substitutionary death on the cross.

MacArthur helps us see how the two are different, but yet the two are related, the Passover and the Lord's Supper. He says, and I'm quoting, "The Passover looked back to the temporary rescue from physical bondage. The Lord's Supper commemorates the eternal and spiritual deliverance provided through the New Covenant." He goes on to say, "The Lamb slaughtered during the Passover merely foreshadowed the sacrifice of the spotless Lamb of God, who died on a cross to redeem sinners once and for all." Now all of this information is helpful. We see where the term the Lord's Supper comes from.

We see the background of the Supper, which is the Old Testament Passover celebration. We see the very important differences in the two. The Passover celebration looked back to a temporary deliverance from physical bondage, while the Lord's Supper commemorates the spiritual and eternal deliverance through Christ's sacrifice on the cross. And the Passover was a shadow of what was to come. Christ was and is the true and the final Passover that was sacrificed once and for all for sin.

Hebrews 9.26 says, "And He has appeared once and for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." And Hebrews 10.12 says, "But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God." But what is the Lord's Supper? The Lord's Supper is an ordinance given by Christ to the church whereby believers remember the atoning sacrifice for sin made by Christ on the cross. The bread of the ordinance is symbolic of the body of Christ. The wine of the fruit of the vine is symbolic of the blood of Christ.

Simply the Supper is a continual memorial for Christ's followers so as to reflect on the significance of Christ's death on the cross. Now here this morning I want to use this last statement that I just used to reflect on a few things. The Supper is a continual memorial for Christ's followers so as to reflect on the significance of Christ's death on the cross. And for us, this is a time to remember Christ's death on the cross. This is a time for us to reflect on the fact that Christ as the perfect Son of God died in the place of man, the just for the unjust. He died in our place.

He was that once and for all true and perfect sacrifice for sin and that was our sin that He bore on the cross. But earlier I said the Supper was a time of remembering but more. And how can the Supper be more? Think about that. It is more in that we do not only remember that He died on our place, we remember that He saved us. We think of when He saved us. We think of how He saved us. We think about what our life was like before He saved us and how God has changed our lives since He saved us and how God is continuously changing our lives. Yes, we remember His death but not simply the history of His death. It is so much more than that.

It's personal. It's experiential. We remember His death and how He saved us. And for me, I just can't help but contemplate who I was before I came to faith in Christ, how He radically changed my life and how He's continued to change my life. I can't help but think back to how lost I was, how engrossed in sin I was, how rebellious I was, how I had no hope but God in His great love, God in His great mercy and compassion. He intervened in my life. He brought Christians into my life. He brought a church who loved lost sinners into my life. And God, by His wonderful grace, saved me and changed me.

And I came to the place where I knew Christ, so it's not just remembering the factual information from me. Beyond remembering what He has done, I am remembering what He has done for me. We have a men's prayer meeting on Tuesday mornings at 6 o'clock. We would love to have you here, men. And every now and then, as some of the men are praying for lost people, one of the men will mention the spot. When someone comes to be baptized in the life of our church, they stand before the church and give their personal testimony of conversion. When someone comes to join the church, they profess conversion and how God led them to our church.

People might say that's extreme. No, it's really not extreme. It's just more scriptural. And I've heard men reflect about and talk about the spot pointing down front here, where many of you have stood right here and you've read your testimony, sometimes in tears, and you've talked about how God's worked in your life. See, it's more than just remembering what Christ did on the cross. Behind that and more is remembering that the cross has been made real in our lives. And He saved us. So we see what the supper is. And our second question, who? Who is to take the Lord's supper?

Now, to answer this question, we must look at two places in Scripture, our Matthew 26 passage and then our 1 Corinthians 11 passage. Both Matthew 26 and 1 Corinthians will enable us to see who should participate in the supper. And this is very important and serious. And this cuts against the grain of what we see in many churches today, sadly. But first, Matthew 26 shows us that Jesus gave this ordinance to His disciples. Let me repeat that. Matthew 26 shows us that Jesus gave this ordinance to His disciples. Look at verse 20 to verse 30. "And when it was evening, He reclined at the table with the twelve." This is after the Passover.

"And as they were eating, He said, 'Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me.' And they were very sorrowful and began to say to Him one after the other, 'Is it I, Lord?' And He answered, 'He who has dipped his hand in the dish with Me will betray Me.' And the Son of Man goes, 'It is written, but woe to the man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.' It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.

Judas, who would betray Him, answered, 'Is it I, Rabbi or teacher?' He said to Him, 'You have said so.' Now as they were eating, Jesus took the bread and after blessing it, He broke it and He gave it to His disciples and said, 'Take eat. This is my body.' And He took a cup and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them saying, 'Drink of it, all of you. For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

And I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom.' And verse 30 says, 'When they had sung of Him, they dismissed and went to the Mount of Olives.' Now here we see that after the Passover celebration, Jesus led His disciples into that very first Lord's Supper. He first took the bread and He gave it to His disciples as a symbol of His body that would be broken. And then He gave them the cup, which was a symbol of His blood that would be spilled out. And of course this was a sign of what was to come. The physical death of Jesus on the cross was just hours away.

But His disciples did not understand these things, obviously. I mentioned this earlier that the New Testament gives us four detailed accounts of the Supper, Matthew, Mark and Luke, and 1 Corinthians. And in Luke's account we see two specifics that will help us. Luke shows us that Jesus commanded His disciples to continue the Supper. Luke 22, 19 says, 'And He took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and He gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body which is given to you. Do this in remembrance of me.' So from Luke's account we see that this is not a one-time event. It was to be continuously done.

Luke also shows us who was a part of this group. You might say it was the disciples. That is the case. But notice who was a part of the disciples, traitor Judas. Luke 22, 22-21 reads, 'And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, 'This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood, but behold the hand of Him who betrays me is with me on the table.' Luke gives us this detail on purpose. This was a part of God's predetermined plan. We must see that Judas was not some kind of a mistake or intruder. So Luke shows us that even traitor Judas took part in the Supper.

So in Matthew, Mark and Luke we see that Jesus gave this ordinance to His disciples. And to me, these disciples are representatives of the first believers. We should see that they are representatives of all believers of all times, and this includes us. But then second, in 1 Corinthians 11, this helps us see that this ordinance was given to the church, not just to the disciples. Turn to Luke, excuse me, turn to 1 Corinthians 11. Let's look at verses 23-26. This is Paul writing to the Corinthian church. Remember that.

And he says, 'For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks He broke it. And He said, 'This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also He took the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.' Here we see that Paul gives the Corinthian church what he had received from the Lord. Again, listen to verse 23.

He says, 'For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.' But notice what Paul was giving them. He was giving the Corinthian church exactly what is seen and taught in the Gospels. He was giving them the ordinance of the Lord's Supper as given by Jesus. And this is more important than you know. Most Bible scholars believe that this letter to the Corinthians was written before any of the Gospels. So most likely this account is the first written record of the Lord's Supper, the account in Corinthians. So in 1 Corinthians we see that the Apostle gives the New Testament church this ordinance which was given to him by Jesus.

Again, this was not a one-time ordinance just for His disciples, but this was for the New Testament church as well and even us. Now all of this information is important. We see who is to take the Lord's Supper. These are individuals who have been converted to Christ, the disciples in later the church at Corinth. But a question or two. Wasn't Judas lost? Wasn't he unregenerate? Of course. Were all of those in the Corinthian church saved? No. As a matter of fact, near the end of the book Paul questioned whether some of them were saved. Well what do we do with that reality?

The Lord's Supper is for the church folks, but within the church on earth there are those who are not redeemed. The church on earth is not perfect and it never will be. There will always be tares among the wheat or goats among the sheep. The church will always have those within her walls that are not truly born-again Christians. This is just the reality of the church in our day because of sin and the reality of false converts in the church. And the point I want to make here is this. We must ask a question. Are we a part of the church? I'm not talking about a certain church membership. Are we the ones who were converted to Christ?

Has God saved you from your sin? Have you trusted in Christ for your salvation? Therefore you are a part of His bride, a part of His church. Some of us went to the True Church Conference which is a missions conference. And it's really a big family reunion of churches, pastors and missionaries who are part of our association anchored in truth. Well we enjoyed the fellowship of many brothers and sisters from so many churches around the world. But my question for you is this. Are you a part of the church, the church of the redeemed? Or are you a Judas? A tear among the wheat. And if that's you, I urge you to come to Christ this morning.

Please come to Christ this morning. You can come to Christ right here in your pew. You can trust Christ. You can repent of your sin. And you can commit your life to Christ because God has brought you to that place and that ability. So we see who should take the supper. And then our third question, how? How should we take the Lord's Supper? Now we need to see that we relate to the previous questions different. What is the Lord's Supper? Who is to take the supper? We all relate to these things different because we come from different backgrounds. For some of you answering the question, what is the Lord's Supper?

It was really needed because many of you have come from a background where these things really were not taught to you. For others answering the question, who is to take the supper? That really helped you because you have believed that the supper is really simply for anyone who wants to take it. But this last question really needs to get our attention. Truthfully, this is where so many, so many error. And this question comes out of 1 Corinthians 11, 27 to 34. Let's look at those verses. 1 Corinthians 11, 27 to 34.

Paul says, "Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some of you have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.

If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home so that when you come together, it will not be for judgment or the other things I will give directions when I come." Now, we need to be slow here so as to understand what is happening. Some of you saw this. Some of you know this. But the Corinthian church's problem was, in fact, a problem in how they were taking the supper. Obviously, verse 27 tells us they were taking the supper in an unworthy manner, which means that they were taking the supper with sin in their lives, and worse, they were taking the supper with a great, and grievous corporate sin.

Actually, they were taking the supper with a great sin in their fellowship that affected the poor in the fellowship. Verse 29 tells us they were bringing judgment upon themselves because they were taking the supper while allowing the sin of the very wealthy to take advantage of the poor. And there are two lessons right here, folks. Allowing personal sin is grievous. But allowing corporate sin or sin within the fellowship is an even more grievous sin. Do you hear that? Having personal sin in our lives is grievous.

But when we allow corporate sin to linger, that is an even more grievous sin, especially when it is a corporate sin pertaining to the supper. So this means that they were actually sinning against Christ. And they were bringing judgment on themselves. Let me repeat that. The Corinthians here were actually sinning against Christ and bringing judgment on themselves. And verse 30 tells us that some of them were weak and some were dying from this sin. Their offenses towards God were so grievous that God had put to death the worst offenders. And then verse 33 to 34 are really just a summary of Paul's correction for them.

So this is the Corinthian situation in a nutshell. They were celebrating the supper, but they were actually eating and drinking judgment on themselves because of their abuse of the supper. They were allowing sin in the church which should have never been allowed. Now can you imagine if we had some who died because they took the supper in an unworthy manner? Could you imagine if that happened in our fellowship? Some of you would probably come and say, "Pastor, let's don't have the supper for a while." But out of these verses in their example, we'll see how we should take the supper.

Notice that Paul gives them two points of instruction, and this should be embraced in our church and lives as well. First, Paul says they should have examined themselves in verse 28. Paul says they should have examined themselves in verse 28. "Let a person examine himself then, and so eat the bread and drink the cup." Here we have a key word. The word "examine" is found in the King James and the English Standard Version. This simply means to prove. It means to test. In their culture, this word was used of a metal worker who tested a metal to see if it was genuine or not. And Paul was calling these people to examine themselves on many levels.

He was calling them to examine their attitude towards the supper. Let me ask you a question. Do you think they were thinking wrongly about the supper? Yes, they were. Obviously, they had the wrong attitude. He was calling them to examine their approach to the supper. Their attitude towards the supper determined their approach, and their approach determined their actions. And then he was calling them to examine their actions in protecting the supper. Were they taking the supper with sin in their hearts and lives? Yes, on a corporate level. They were being selfish. They were being sinful.

They were sinning against others in the church in the supper. Therefore, they were sinning against the Lord. So Paul was saying that they should have examined themselves before they ever came to the church house. And this was not some kind of a quick casual examination either. And for us, we should do the same thing. We should examine our attitude towards the supper. We should examine how we approach the supper. And then we should examine our actions in the supper. And this all goes together, folks. And this applies to us as individuals, but this applies to us as a church body.

And this especially applies to us as leaders because we are responsible, especially the pastor. I am responsible for explaining these things to you. And this is why I preach on the Lord's Supper often. You could say, "Pastor, don't you preach on it enough?" No. Maybe if the leaders of the Corinthian church had preached on it more, maybe they would not have had this problem. But then second, Paul says they should have judged themselves in verse 31. Paul says they should have judged themselves. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. Again, we have another key word.

This word "judge" is found in the King James and the English Standard Version. This word can mean examined or discerned. Paul was saying that if they had examined themselves and come to the correct judgment before, then they would have not been under God's judgment. He was showing them that they had the responsibility to judge themselves correctly, which would have led them to repentance, and in their case, a whole lot of repentance. So Paul was saying that they should have judged themselves before God judged them. And they should have done these things before they ever came to the church house and before they ever took the supper.

And for us, we should judge ourselves with the help of the Scripture, with the help of teaching like this and the Holy Spirit. We should examine ourselves and come to the correct judgment about ourselves whether we are worthy to partake in the supper. A question on a very personal level, and I'm not asking for a show of hands. As a believer, a true believer, have you ever had a place in a time in your life where you did not feel like you needed to take the supper? I have. I remember years ago, I had the tragic circumstance of broken fellowship with a believer, a brother. It was not my fault.

He had wronged me in a great way, and it was very, very difficult, and there was a period of time where I was wrestling with that. And it was difficult because he really didn't come and make repentance and restitution. And I was grappling with the fact, was it my fault? Did I do something wrong? This was a broken fellowship between brothers. And I'll never forget the supper was presented to me, and I just let it go by me. Why? Because I was grappling with that set of circumstances and I didn't feel like I was quite worthy of the supper. You might say I was extreme. No.

Maybe I was cautious in evaluating and making judgment as I should before I came to the table. So it is necessary to see the Corinthian situation. This helps us to see the outcome of not approaching the supper correctly. They were guilty of approaching and taking the supper in an unworthy manner, and because of their sin, they brought judgment on themselves according to verse 29. So many in the church were weak. Some were sick and some had even died. And it seems that maybe many were truly under the judgment of God here. But we do see the grace of God here as well. Through Paul, God was calling them to examine themselves.

In verse 28, God was calling them to correct the judgment, to make a correct judgment on themselves. He was calling them to repentance. He was calling them back to Himself. And we should do the same thing individually and corporately. Yes, on two levels. Now, I'll speak to the corporate first. If we had known corporate sin, we should deal with that sin before we partake in the supper. I'm thankful that there are leaders in the life of our church that are mature enough that would come to me and say, "Pastor, we've got this corporate issue going on. We might need to postpone the supper until we get that straight." You see?

This should apply to us in a corporate way first and foremost, especially if we had some kind of sin that pertained to the supper. And I'm thankful we don't have that. But individually, we should listen to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And if we have sin in our lives that we should address, listen to the Spirit. Maybe seek counsel from a brother or a sister here. You know, we believe in loving, patient, kind church discipline. According to Matthew 18, we see that if we see a brother or a sister who is struggling with a sin... No, I'm not talking about a one-time sin. No, a nagging sin, a continual sin.

We are obligated to come alongside them and to help our brother or our sister. And we need that. This might surprise you, but I've had brothers, I've had men in this room come to me and say, "Pastor, I saw this in your life. I don't think it needs to be there." I had one man come to me once and said, "You know, you kind of snapped at your wife there one day. You were frustrated and, you know..." Be careful, Pastor. I received it. I received it. But a question. What do we do when something's not black and white? Maybe when a relationship is broken, maybe when you're not right with an individual, what do we do there?

We covered that this past Wednesday night in our study through Philippians. In chapter 4, verses 1 to 3, we saw that we should work to agree in the Lord. We should work and work hard to be in harmony with one another and to work out any of our disagreements in the Lord. And if you miss that message, you need to get it. So we see how we should take the supper. Now, I want to close by giving three points of instruction. And this is for you and your family. This is for you and your family and what you do after, after today.

And this is especially for you men, fathers, and how you lead your family, and for you mothers, how you help lead your children. First, talk about the supper with your family. Do this with your spouse. Do this with your children. Men, fathers, you must lead the way here and make sure, wives, that you do this with your children. And make sure that you communicate to your children that the supper is a continual memorial for Christ's followers so as to reflect on the significance of Christ's death on the cross. And in talking about what the supper is, share how God saved you. Share how it is personal for you. And look, I want to say this.

If you can't share with your children how you came to faith in Christ, you may not have come to faith in Christ. You may have some struggles there. Second, talk about who is to participate in the supper. Look, folks, this is for the redeemed. It's for the saved. And if your children are not converted, kindly show them that they are not to participate. One of the most grievous things you can do is allow your children to just participate in the supper just like it's some treat. That's a sin. They should observe all while praying that God would lead them to repentance. You see?

Our children should observe, and we should be leading them towards repentance in Christ. You should urge them to come to faith in Christ and to be saved. And look, the supper is a wonderful time for you to speak of the cross and to speak of how God saved you and to speak about how they need Christ. And remember, there are four types of people involved in the supper. The truly redeemed, the traitor. There are always some who are traitor Judas among us. Then third, the Corinthian Christians who need to clean up sin in their life. And then fourth, the Corinthians who love their sin and love the world need to be saved because some of them did.

And then third, talk about how we should participate in the supper. We should examine our own lives in our own families. Husbands, we should do this. It starts with you. Husbands and wives, it is up to you. You should examine your lives in your family and together and to make proper judgments in relation to your sin that may be in your life. And with the Word of God and the help of the Holy Spirit of God, husbands and wives, you can examine your lives and you can examine your homes accordingly. And with God's help, you can make the proper judgment before God, before God brings judgment on you.

And if you need help with a brother or a sister, we have plenty of mature believers who can help you here. So Grace, like Brooke Avon, I'm calling you to take the what, the who, and the how of the Lord's Supper serious as we participate. Two more quick things before I step down. I say this every time we take the supper. First, we do not practice closed communion. This means that you do not have to be a member of our church to participate. But then second, this is the spiritual honor system. This means that we trust God to lead you. I'm not the Holy Spirit, and I'm not going to try to be the Holy Spirit. None of us are.

This is the honor system. We trust the Lord to lead you accordingly. So let's pray. And then we'll transition into taking the supper.