Sermon Direct Link
1/7/24
Rev. Clint Smith
The Church in Corinth was filled with disunity, dishonor, and disorder.
Those within the Corinthian Church who exercised their sinful behavior displeased God.
The Corinthians had so distorted worship, Paul told them they were not even celebrating the Lord’s Supper when they came together.
The divisions within the Church were obvious. Some within the Church were grossly self-centered in worship and some did attempt to make worship God-centered. Some were getting drunk at Church. The poor were left with no food to eat.
Paul delivered the instructions how to observe the Lord’s Supper to the Church at Corinth in the same order as God revealed them to him.
Paul taught that the Lord’s Supper was ordained by God as an ordinance to remember the death and resurrection of Christ.
During the night, just prior to His betrayal, Jesus took a piece of bread and gave thanks and said, “This is (represents) My body, which is offered as a sacrifice for you. Do this in affectionate remembrance of Me.”
In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant ratified and established in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in affectionate remembrance of Me.”
Every time Christians eat the bread and drink the cup, we are proclaiming the fact of the Lord’s death until He comes again.
Paul warned the Church, “whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in a way that is unworthy of Him will be guilty of profaning and sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.
A person must prayerfully examine himself and his relationship to Christ, and only when he has done so should he eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without solemn reverence and heartfelt gratitude for the sacrifice of Christ, eats and drinks a judgment on himself if he does not recognize the body of Christ.