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In our New Testament lesson, we read about the Lord's Supper, the offering to us of the body of Christ. And these words, this is my body that Jesus spoke, have been the cause of contention in the Christian Church over years. In what sense was Jesus' body present in the Lord's Supper? In the Roman Catholic Church, they came to believe that, well, the bread and wine were not changed. They looked the same. They felt the same. They take the same substance to them. There is an inner, in an inner reality, the bread and wine became Jesus' body and blood, literally. And because they understood the bread and the wine to be actual body and blood of Christ, they worshiped them. In the Reformation, this was rejected as idolatry and Zwingli reacted by denying there is anything in it but a memorial or a symbolic meaning. It was just something to remind us of what Christ had done. There is no benefit communicated to us directly. It just brings his sacrifice to your memory. Luther tried to find the middle ground between these two positions, and he knew that a bare memorial would not cause illness or death through misuse, as Paul says, has happened here. So he maintained that there was a true feeding on Christ for believers because Christ was spiritually present. He said he was in and around and under the bread and wine where Christ's body, Christ's blood. The problem with that, of course, that takes away from the humanity of Christ's body. It's no longer a human body present in one place in heaven, but hither and yon scattered all over the world as people enter into the Lord's Supper. Calvary, the loon of the great reformer, saw the true answer in the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who joins you to Jesus Christ. You know that. I hope you know that. He doesn't do it by bringing Christ down to you, but by catching you and linking you to Christ where he is in heaven. So you receive Christ. And he does this, Calvin pointed out, in the Lord's Supper. When we receive this bread and this wine, the Holy Spirit brings us to feed on Christ. He links us to Christ where he dwells in heaven. And so we feed on him. Not we don't see his body scattered hither and yon all over the world. We realize he's in heaven, but the Spirit is everywhere and the Spirit joins us to him. You've had arguments. And it's an issue that we need to take seriously. God gives us strong warnings against approaching the Lord's table lightly. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this reason, many are weak and sick among you and many sleep. We read this in 1 Corinthians 11, 29 to 30. Weakness, sickness, even death can come through failure to discern the Lord's body. It's not by any natural connection, but it's a warning from God. You know, there aren't germs or something there to make us sick, but God speaks through this and acts through this and he warns you. His wrath is poured out in a small way now on those who are disobedient. He did this frequently on Israel in the days of old. We read of them turning away and God punishing them and turning back and God blessing them. He does this to call us to repentance. That penalty is a testimony that God takes this seriously. And if God takes it seriously, you should too. So what is the Lord's body in the Lord's Supper? How do we discern it? Three things. We see the bread and wine and their whole symbolic meaning and all that goes with that. We see what is portrayed there, the crucified Christ, his body, which hung on the cross for us and lay in the grave for us. And finally, we see the church, which scripture tells us is the body of Christ. These three things. We look first at the bread and wine, the symbols we have here will be you taking part in this later, the symbols of Christ's death. And this is the most obvious plain significance of this. The bread broken and distributed can only represent a dead body. A living body can't be so divided. So the imagery of blood is also one of death. This is blood removed from the body, the life removed from the body and the spiritual symbolism we see in the Bible in the Old Testament that Jews were forbidden to consume the blood of the animals they ate. Why? Because the blood is the life. Deuteronomy 12 23. The in doing that they were in effect, worshiping that animal trying to take life from that animal instead of from God. They couldn't eat the blood for that reason. They had to turn to God for life. And so in the Lord's Supper, we receive life from God. The blood, the life of Jesus Christ through this symbol. He's given us. The bread and wine clearly point you to Christ's death on the cross for sin. His blood shed for us, his body broken for us. They're symbols of our access to God. The bread and the wine, the symbols of Christ's death are not taken away from us. They're not withdrawn. They're not held back and God doesn't say well, you're wicked sickened sinners. You can't have this. Because if we were barred from the Lord's Supper, it would say we have no access to God. This is what happens when someone is excommunicated for unrepentant sin. We're saying if you do not repent, you have no access to God. You have to repent and turn to Christ. But in Christ, we do have access to God. In our sin, we can say it's marred, but Christ deals with that. We have access through his death. And therefore tokens of his death are given to us here. They're to declare that you can come to God through the death of Jesus Christ. When you receive this bread, drink this cup, it's God is saying you can you're welcome to me when you come in Christ. But let me stress that it is a limited access. It's access through Christ. So those who reject Christ are warned away. Only through Jesus can you come to God at least safely and happily. When you come unbelieving, you're putting yourself before God as a sinner to receive his judgment. So the symbols of our access to God, they're symbols of Christian nourishment. Bread and wine are basic foods and not so much so in our not so strongly so in our culture. We but in poor countries where the water is bad, you drink wine because it's less likely to communicate disease for you. Only have bread to eat. Perhaps certainly that was the case in Jesus time in Palestine. They wrote the Roman Empire really. God chose basic nourishment as the tokens of Christ's sacrifice for us. What does he do that for? Well, he's teaching you to feed on Jesus Christ. He's teaching you that that's where you get your nourishment. It's not that you feed physically on Christ and this bit of bread or sip of wine that we receive are not meaningful nor the not meaningful nourishment for our physical needs, but they declare that if you are to live and grow spiritually, you must feed on Jesus Christ. He is our strength. He is our support. He gives you he's the one whom you in whom you find strength to resist temptation strength to obey God. He's the means by which you grow in love for God as you draw near to Christ and experience his love. You learn to love God more and more. He isn't the that apart from the father of the Holy Spirit, but it's through Christ particularly that you come to God. There's no life. There's no strength apart from him. We're told by the Apostles and early in Acts with they've done in the work of a miracle by through the name of Christ. That they says there's no other name given among men by which we must be saved. Only through him you must feed on Christ. There are also symbols of Christian unity will speak more of this in a few minutes, but the Lord's Supper is not a private meal. You don't sort of pack up some bread and wine in your backpack and head off to your favorite favorite quiet scenic spot for a private communion with God. We have people around who want to say this is the best way to worship God, but God doesn't say that he tells us to gather together and not forsake this gathering together. The Lord's Supper is a communion. It's commonly called it's a fellowship meal where we have union with one another. We're drawn together in Christ. It's always to be enjoyed in company. It's the market a union you have with other believers as you come all of you to Christ and in Christ. It demands and portrays Christian unity. It's a means of grace in the terms that our catechism use. God works through this meal to strengthen the faithful. He pours out his grace to us in this through it. We receive his blessing and through it the faithless are penalized. The key lies in God's hands. It's a means which God uses in his own time to extend grace to his chosen people. There's no power in the bread and wine itself. It's not something that's somehow charged up and you can have it in you any which way. It's the Holy Spirit God the Holy Spirit who works through this token. To strengthen the child of God. Sometimes he may work years afterwards and somebody receives it. You should not perhaps. Sometimes, you know, the Holy Spirit is not limited by time as Jesus said before Abraham was I am before the world was created until the world ends. God is there the whole time and sees it all is there for it all. Well, there's no time for God. It's just us that have time. He made it. So. The Holy Spirit may choose to take this sacrament of work in you at any time. Usually though normally it says you take part in faith that you are strengthened by God. The Holy Spirit joins you to Christ. He makes a reality of what we do in physical form here. He causes you to feed spiritually on Christ to be strengthened built up spiritual protein spiritual all the things we need for our nourishment. He causes you to be cleansed by the blood of Christ as we receive that. He causes you to be strengthened by intimate union with Jesus Christ your Lord and all of this is caught up in this symbolic presentation to us of Christ's body. Turning from that general picture we have of the bread and wine is the body of Christ to the crucified Lord. The bread and wine do not become Christ. Nothing in the Bible tells us that they are transformed nor is there any indication that Jesus body, you know, he walked in this world in a human physical body. He wasn't in Egypt at the same time. He was in Palestine. He wasn't over here somewhere talking to the Indians at the same time. He was in Palestine. There's no indication that his body is so changed that it can be in a thousand places at once. They saw him ascend bodily to heaven. They didn't see him sort of expanding to a great cloud or anything. He went up as a human body. Rather these elements point you to Jesus Christ first Corinthians to and him crucified for us. You're directed to trust in your heavenly Lord and in the Lord's Supper you're invited invited to receive the one who died for you. His death is presented to you. It's a what you might call a tangible Gospel. We know that we speak the Gospel to people and we need to do that but you're here invited to receive his blood which is the life is life to feed on his body for strength and blood and sustenance. And brothers and sisters friends whatever you believe about this table. There is a reality to your participation in the Lord's Supper. It's kind of like a home where they've got an automatic sprinkler system on the front lawn and it comes on from time to time to sprinkle it and the kids put on their bathing suits have great time trying to time and run through the water, right? It's good, pleasant, enjoyable. And a bride walks through in her wedding gone refusing to believe that it may turn on and that's not so good. You know, and when you partake of the Lord's Supper you either take it do it for good or for bad. In receiving this bread and this wine you there's a formal acceptance of Jesus death for good or for bad. You either accept his death was for the cleansing of your sin and come to him in love and faith or you accept it the way the crowd before Pontius Pilate did and they said crucify him crucify him when you take it unbelieving you reject him and approve his execution whether you think that deliberate directly or not. So nobody should take part in the Lord's Supper if you're not Christian already. When you look at this as the body of Christ crucified for you, you are called to repent as we have been already today in this service. The Lord's Supper portrays the deed by which you are cleansed of your sin the payment of Christ's life for you so that you might not have to pay. It also portrays the seriousness of your sin. It was so bad that nothing less than the death of Jesus Christ could save you. Do you really believe that the father would have his son hang on the cross and go through all the torment he went through including experiencing the whole weight of God's wrath if there's any easier way to cleanse us? He did this because there is no lighter payment. There is no lighter easier way. We need Jesus Christ to die for us and that declares your need to turn away for your sin as you turn to Christ and walk with him. Unless your sins are a grief to you, you insult Christ by coming to his table. You declare it doesn't matter to you that it should cost him so much to pay for your sin. It's a warning. It's also a testimony that there is forgiveness. We aren't left sort of dangling needing it but nothing there. You can come to God in your repentance because the payment for sin is presented here. It's there before you. It declares that God opened the door for sinners to come to him through his son provided you come as a Christian provided you come trusting in Jesus Christ to save you to cleanse you to strengthen you to build you to be your Lord and God providing your turning from your sin to live for God and you have here a call to you to do that to acknowledge your sin and put your trust in Christ to save you. The crucified Lord is presented to you here. The third element of the body of Christ here is the church. We are joined in one body the body of Christ. I've touched on it briefly above. The Lord's Supper is a community meal and the community is worldwide today all through the world. We have people from many countries whose background is in many countries gathered here today and other days perhaps more countries. Wherever Christians join in the Lord's table. It is one fellowship. The same person as the host Jesus Christ is our host. No other the same salvation is portrayed the death of Christ for our sins. The same Lord is worshipped. All of God's people together form his body. Romans 12 verse 5 is what theologians call his mystical body. It means that in Christ you are joined to every other Christian just as much as your foot is to your hand Paul makes that analogy in First Corinthians 12 and you need them. All these other believers just as much as your foot needs your hand. There's no room in the church for class distinctions. We don't have good better best. Lords and Dukes or whatever you name it. In the words of Children's Chorus. I learned a lot of years ago. I don't know if it's still around now, but red and yellow black and white. They are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world. It's not always practical for us to worship together. It's not very practical if there's no common language. So he's perhaps splitting groups to deal with it to provide for people with different languages, but we are one body. And there are no aside from such practical manners. We have to say that all the divisions in our church are wrong. We need to come together as we work together and we need to be working at least to get as much together as we're able in our sinful fallen state. Only where there is so much error that it compromises your service to Christ. Can you properly withdraw from others who profess to be Christian? We need to understand that rejection of other Christians is rejection of Christ. Thomas Boston. Few of you are the ones who've been around around heard me quote him fairly frequently, but Thomas Boston wrote that if a person has communion with Christ and you cannot join that person at the Lord's table, that means you do not have communion with Christ. You can't be a faithful Christian refused to join in the Lord's Supper with other faithful Christians. You're denying the body of Christ. If he's feasting with Christ, either you feast with him or you do not feast with Christ. That's the reason we have open communion. We welcome everybody to come like ask you to examine yourself and if you are in Christ to come and join us. We exclude only those who know they are not Christian who exclude themselves or who have clearly demonstrated their claim to be a Christian is not credible. You cannot serve Christ if you reject his people. It's a sacrament of love for God's people. And the Corinthians fell badly short at this point and the passage which we had read this morning points that out. He's Paul's really blunt about it in 1 Corinthians 11. They were having potluck meals when they gathered for their celebration of the Lord's Supper and the rich came early and they brought lots of food and then they feasted so richly. They were drunk. Verse 21 of that chapter. They overdid it. The poor most of them would have to work late perhaps and they maybe didn't have very much to bring and some would be slaves and have nothing to bring. And when the poor arrived later, there wasn't enough left for them. So some were drunk. They were so overloaded and some went hungry. And when they went on to join in the Lord's Supper later, Paul denied that it was the Lord's Supper. They joined him. It ceased to be the Lord's Supper when they did not recognize that one body of Christ. They couldn't be in the presence of the Lord because there was no love for his people. And we were told again and again in the scripture, if we don't love the people we see, we're not going to love whom we don't see. And so Paul warned them and us about failure to discern the Lord's body. They were acting as if the bread and wine were actually his body and blood so they could receive the blessing. However, they came because it was caught up in those elements. They didn't recognize. They didn't see the need to come to Christ to find forgiveness for his death. They didn't recognize the church as his body and for their corrupt practice. God rewarded them, some of them at least with sickness and death. Participation in the Lord's Supper, the Lord's Table demands recognition that the church is the body of Jesus Christ. So when you come, you need to set aside your grudge as before you come. Because when you're holding a grudge, you set a barrier between yourself and God. You need to repent and seek God's forgiveness. Walk in love for his people, his body. This is my body, Jesus said. The Lord's Supper directs you to the physical body of Christ to his sacrifice on the cross. He was going to his death and he said here is the memorial, the token, the celebration of it. The Lord's Supper proclaims to us the hatefulness, the evil of sin that it costs so much to clear. It proclaims that sinners may come to God because his table focuses on the payment that he made for that purpose. Indeed, only forgiven sinners are welcome at the Lord's Table. So come, come in faith in Christ, come in true repentance of your sin. Come claiming his body as your means of acceptance with God. The bread and the wine are the symbolic body and blood of Christ. They point you to his death to the symbol that you are fed, nourished, strengthened by Christ. They remind you that you have access to God through Christ. They teach you the unity of his church, his body, but the power isn't in the symbol. The power is in the Holy Spirit of grace who chooses to operate through this for us. The Lord's Supper proclaims the unity of the church, one body of Christ our Lord. Brothers and sisters to love one another in Christ, no class distinctions, not divided by race or language or wealth or rank, but caring for one another in love, living for one another as we have opportunity. If you do not recognize Christ's body, you're warned not to come to this table because you are cut off from God. You're invited to repent. You're invited to come to Jesus Christ in faith and then receive his blessing through this means which he has appointed. Let's pray.