Don't Forget! Fellowship Meal and Lord's Supper Tomorrow! The fellowship meal is immediately after morning worship, and the Lord's Supper is in the evening worship service.

Labels: Announcements, Lord's Supper

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  2-Aug-09 Lord's Supper [click here to listen; right-click to save a copy]
Perhaps you are "visiting" Harvest over the internet and are rightly concerned to know that we administer Christ's sacraments faithfully, or maybe a parent who has taken to heart the plea to bring your children to Christ and see them built up in Him to be able to come properly to the table, or maybe one of the many families that was providentially hindered from being with us and would like at least to benefit from this month's table lesson.  To minister to these and other concerns, the audio from this month's Lord's Supper is here available.

Labels: Lord's Supper

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  Table Fellowship with Christ In our family's breakfast worship this morning, we were in Judges 13.  In that chapter Manoah, Sampson's daddy, asks the angel of Yahweh (almost certainly Christ) to eat  with him.  He answers that He won't eat with him, but He will accept a sacrifice.  Manoah brings the sacrifice, and the angel of Yahweh burns it up and ascends upon the flames. 

Not so this coming Lord's Day evening.  when we come to the table for the supper, we are proclaiming the Lord's death and eating and drinking as participation in Christ, in remembrance of Christ.  No longer does He bar us from supping with Him because sacrifice is required.  He has offered the once for all  sacrifice and now invites, yea even commands, Christians to come sup upon Him and with Him.

Let's therefore not be in our hearts Romanists, who believe that more sacrifice is yet necessary.  We may not be as crude in thinking that physical sacrifice is taking place.  But do we not often treat our self-examination and repentance as something we offer to gain communion with God?  Do your examining and repenting beforehand--that's not what the table itself is for.  There, let us rather tremble at the delightful nearness of our God, who is a consuming fire; but, let us not tremble in fear of being consumed.  Let us indeed tremble with joy that Christ endured the fire, was not consumed, rose again, and now meets us at the table!

What joy, dear Christian, there is for us in the New Testament!  This Lord's Day evening, let us come with joy that Christ has offered the sacrifice to which nothing can be added, and invited us to a full fellowship from which nothing may be taken away!

Labels: Lord's Supper

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  WLC Q. 175. What is the duty of Christians, after they have received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper?

• Did you prepare for and attend to the supper as you ought to have?
• Did it spur you on in your spiritual life and comfort you?
• Praise God for it
• Ask that you might take it again
• Watch and pray lest you fall into temptation; take heed lest you fall
• If you promised God anything in your heart, do it!
• Take this blessing as a reminder of the importance of receiving the supper as quickly as often
•  Does it feel like there was no benefit from it?
• Think about if/how you prepared for it, and what you might do differently
• Think about how you might better attend to receiving the supper in the service
• If you did give yourself both to preparation and taking, and you still don't perceive the benefit, then wait upon the Lord for it in faith

Labels: Lord's Supper

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  Prepare for the Supper We will take the Lord's Supper together tomorrow evening. Please prepare yourself and your families accordingly. Months in which it is in the evening service provide special opportunity to do that during the afternoon.

The articles that I wrote in March for helping us prepare for the supper have been lost in the website changeover. If you have copies, I'd appreciate them for when I get to rewriting them. For now, I hope that you will find very helpful the following questions and answers form the Larger Catechism:

Q. 168. What is the Lord's supper?
A. The Lord's supper is a sacrament of the New Testament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine according to the appointment of Jesus Christ, his death is showed forth; and they that worthily communicate feed upon his body and blood, to their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace; have their union and communion with him confirmed; testify and renew their thankfulness, and engagement to God, and their mutual love and fellowship each with other, as members of the same mystical body.

Q. 169. How hath Christ appointed bread and wine to be given and received in the sacrament of the Lord's supper?
A. Christ hath appointed the ministers of his word, in the administration of this sacrament of the Lord's supper, to set apart the bread and wine from common use, by the word of institution, thanksgiving, and prayer; to take and break the bread, and to give both the bread and the wine to the communicants: who are, by the same appointment, to take and eat the bread, and to drink the wine, in thankful remembrance that the body of Christ was broken and given, and his blood shed, for them.

Q. 170. How do they that worthily communicate in the Lord's supper feed upon the body and blood of Christ therein?
A. As the body and blood of Christ are not corporally or carnally present in, with, or under the bread and wine in the Lord's supper, and yet are spiritually present to the faith of the receiver, no less truly and really than the elements themselves are to their outward senses; so they that worthily communicate in the sacrament of the Lord's supper, do therein feed upon the body and blood of Christ, not after a corporal and carnal, but in a spiritual manner; yet truly and really, while by faith they receive and apply unto themselves Christ crucified, and all the benefits of his death.

Q. 171. How are they that receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper to prepare themselves before they come unto it?
A. They that receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper are, before they come, to prepare themselves thereunto, by examining themselves of their being in Christ, of their sins and wants; of the truth and measure of their knowledge, faith, repentance; love to God and the brethren, charity to all men, forgiving those that have done them wrong; of their desires after Christ, and of their new obedience; and by renewing the exercise of these graces, by serious meditation, and fervent prayer.

Q. 172. May one who doubteth of his being in Christ, or of his due preparation, come to the Lord's supper?
A. One who doubteth of his being in Christ, or of his due preparation to the sacrament of the Lord's supper, may have true interest in Christ, though he be not yet assured thereof; and in God's account hath it, if he be duly affected with the apprehension of the want of it, and unfeignedly desires to be found in Christ, and to depart from iniquity: in which case (because promises are made, and this sacrament is appointed, for the relief even of weak and doubting Christians) he is to bewail his unbelief, and labor to have his doubts resolved; and, so doing, he may and ought to come to the Lord's supper, that he may be further strengthened.

Q. 173. May any who profess the faith, and desire to come to the Lord's supper, be kept from it?
A. Such as are found to be ignorant or scandalous, notwithstanding their profession of the faith, and desire to come to the Lord's supper, may and ought to be kept from that sacrament, by the power which Christ hath left in his church, until they receive instruction, and manifest their reformation.

Q. 174. What is required of them that receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper in the time of the administration of it?
A. It is required of them that receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper, that, during the time of the administration of it, with all holy reverence and attention they wait upon God in that ordinance, diligently observe the sacramental elements and actions, heedfully discern the Lord's body, and affectionately meditate on his death and sufferings, and thereby stir up themselves to a vigorous exercise of their graces; in judging themselves, and sorrowing for sin; in earnest hungering and thirsting after Christ, feeding on him by faith, receiving of his fullness, trusting in his merits, rejoicing in his love, giving thanks for his grace; in renewing of their covenant with God, and love to all the saints.

Labels: Announcements, Lord's Supper

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  Lord's Supper in the EVENING on the 7th Just a reminder, since we only last month began the morning/evening alternating scheme, that on December 7th we will be feasting at the Lord's table together in the evening service.

As you ought always be doing, take time this week to consider: Christ's death, resurrection, ascension, soon-coming, and body

and examine yourself--whether you are: enjoying a clear conscience because of His atoning death, and enjoying new life in the power of His resurrection, as a both confident and loyal subject under His current reign, eagerly desiring His return, and functioning as a healthy body-part, loving and serving the other members

Finally, let's spend the week reflecting upon the wonderful benefits of Christ--let's work up an appetite for the feast!

Labels: Lord's Supper

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  Lord's Supper in the MORNING Next Week This week as always you should be thinking upon Christ death, resurrection, and soon coming; discerning His body in heaven and His body the church on earth; and, examining yourself in light of those things. Such thoughtfulness is not to be left off until the last week of every month because we are taking the supper the first week of the next.

Also, by way of reminder, the session voted a few weeks ago to alternate the supper between the morning service and the evening service out of consideration for those who are providentially hindered from attending the evening service. On Nov 2 we will take it together in the morning.

Labels: Announcements, Lord's Supper

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  Sermon Follow-Up: Always and Never Too Confident at the Same Time In the Lord's Day morning sermon this past week, Rom 5:9-11, Assurance in God's Action and Attitude [audio - manuscript], we basically heard that we can never be too confident in Christ. God's action for us in Christ, and His attitude toward us through Christ, mean that those who rest in the Lamb upon the throne ought to be absolutely and unshakably confident, even before God, even with a view to the day of wrath!

In the Lord's Day evening sermon this past week, Gen 9:18-29, Watch Against Sin! [audio - manuscript], we basically heard that any confidence in ourselves is too much. Considering how prone we are to remaining sin, even after conversion, and how deadly and wicked sin is, we must abandon any confidence in ourselves, and praying God's grace in Christ, watch against sin!

Tomorrow, in the Lord's Supper, we will be thinking about how in the supper, the Lord shows forth Christ's death. and this reinforces to us both of these ideas. As we are presented with the stark evidence of the death of the Lord of glory, we are reminded just how bad our sin is, and that we must never be confident in ourselves. But as we are presented with the stark evidence of the body and blood of God given and shed for us, we are also reminded of the immensity and power of what God has done for us, and that in Christ we can never be too confident.

Always too confident. Never too confident. We would never have come up with such a scheme... and we would have spent an eternity in Hell without such a scheme.

God gave us the Scriptures to tell us.
God gave us His Spirit to enable us to believe.
God gave us the sacraments to strengthen our faith.
God gave us the Savior of whom these all teach us and in whom we rest secure as His children forever!

And we get to spend tomorrow just reveling in these things. Hallelujah!

Labels: Lord's Supper, Sermon Follow-Up

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  Sermon Follow-Up: Whom You Know So far, as we get ready for the supper next week, we've been developing and applying things we learned from the morning sermon. But the evening sermon, Gen 9:18-29, Watch Against Sin! [audio - manuscript], is extremely helpful for self-examination as well, because this kind of exam is very different than the ones our students have begun taking now that the school year is going full steam. As we think about self-examination in this article, I'll be developing that thought along the lines of that sermon.

I once had a geometry teacher who printed all of our exams on bright golden paper and referred to them as "golden opportunities to show me what you know." He didn't take kindly to the wasting of class time by questions that were intended to demonstrate (rather than increase) the knowledge of the inquirer. And he didn't take kindly to complaining about exams. They were, after all, our golden opportunities to show him what we knew.

As you examine yourself this week, it's not so much a "what" you know as a "whom" exam. There are basically two questions, and you should get a "hundred" if you are going to pass and take the supper:

1. Do you know yourself

• to be such a sinner that you are in constant danger of sinning, no matter how much you've grown already in Christ?
• to be such a sinner that you must watch that even God's good blessings to you would not become occasions for sin?
• to be such a sinner that the gravest of earthly consequences would not surprise you?
• to be such a sinner that the depth of the offense of your sin cannot be exaggerated?

If you answered "yes" to these questions, you have question 1 correct. This is extremely important, because it is easy to fall into thinking that the supper is something you have to be "good enough" to take. Look back at those questions, and consider that Christ is holding a banquet for weak, wary, worried, wicked sinners! The fare at this table is unnecessary to the immovable, secure, untouchable, and pure--such people only exist in the immediate presence of the ascended Lamb.

As the old Scottish minister from the highlands said, when holding the elements out to a dear sister in Christ whose grounds for not taking were that she just didn't feel worthy enough, "Take it, woman! It's for sinners! It's for you!"

But so far this is a 50%, still a failing grade. It is not enough to know yourself; you must know Christ.

2. Do you know Christ

• to be the opposite of all those things we have just reviewed about ourselves--the hoped-for One, who Noah couldn't be?
  
• to be Yahweh Himself, the living God who blesses Himself in the line of Shem--the One so important that there had to be an ark to preserve His line in the flood and a Shem to preserve His line among Noah's sons?
• to be, as the God-man, One who crushes Satan's head and redeems even such sinners as are described in question 1?
• to be, as the Covenant-keeper, One who doesn't just have a body at the right hand of Majesty but one who has a body on earth--a covenant people--and have you therefore bound yourself to that body?

We heard, Lord's Day evening, how sad it was that the end of the story wasn't 9:20. We also heard that there is greater joy now than there could have been if it was, because 9:29 isn't the end either. In Jesus is sure and full hope for Noah-ish and Ham-ish sinners from every tribe, tongue, and nation. But this exam question doesn't begin, "Do you know that Christ is..." but "Do you know Christ?" Do you know Him? Is the Christ you know all of these wonderful things?! Then pass yourself for question number 2.

I hope we have a lot of hundreds out there. Because this Lord's Day evening is a "red" opportunity to eat and drink and smell and touch and taste the good news that God has provided such a Christ for such sinners!

Labels: Lord's Supper, Sermon Follow-Up

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  Sermon Follow-Up: Enemy Examination As we examine ourselves for the fruit of genuine repentance this week, a difficult but necessary part of this should be what this article is calling "enemy examination."

Thinking, feeling, and acting rightly toward our enemies is not where we like to begin looking for the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. We like to ask, "Am I loving with my friends? Am I joyful in light of my friends? Am I peaceful toward my friends? Am I patient with my friends? etc." Replace friends with enemies in that sentence, and we're talking about a whole different level of fruit.

Let us at this point remember that though the Spirit is ultimately responsible for bearing this fruit in believers--and praise God that every believer has Him!--what it looks like in the actions of the believer is not some passive, restrained waiting for it to happen Spiritually (i.e. "naturally" according to our new nature).

Galatians 5:22-6:10 (ESV) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load. One who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches.

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

Those who like to emphasize passivity in Gal 5:22-23 would do well to include vv24-25 in their reading, along with Paul's expansion of those verses in 6:7-9. Though only the Spirit can do that internal work, the believer should be:

vicious with his sin, 5:24--putting sin to death, or reckoning yourself dead to sin is one thing; the image here goes way beyond that: crucifixion. This was a very real, very gruesome and vicious image from the lives of people in the Roman world. You know who you are outside of Christ? That's what Paul is calling "the flesh" here, and the image he is giving you is one of taking that person and thrashing that person into a pulp before suffocating her until she's out of blood, out of air, and just breathless, lifeless mangle of bloody tissue.

6:8, expanding upon 5:24, isn't talking about starving your body for the sake of saving your soul; it's talking about starving your sin nature for the sake of seeing real Spiritual growth. The Spirit bears the fruit, yes, but He does this through means. Galatians describes Christians as people who crucify and starve to death our sin natures. If you've never worked on loving your enemies, you need to gear up for this kind of viciousness with your sin.

persistent with the Spirit, 5:25--the logic here is simple. You start with the Spirit, and you keep on, and you keep on, and you keep on. The word walk has connotations of methodical, steady, persistent action, like clockwork.

We don't live in a society where we measure distance in "days' walk," and we are unfamiliar with a long, steady, persistent walk of 12 hours and what that looks like. That's the background here, and that's why someone's "walk" in the NT is a way of describing their steady habit that has become the manner of their life.

Paul expands upon walking with the Spirit in 6:9; talking about sowing to the Spirit as "doing good," he says "let us not grow weary" and "let us not give up."

Now, it's no accident that the glue that holds these passages together is 5:26-6:6 in which loving your enemy in the church (restoring gently the transgressor, bearing one anothers' burdens, and sharing with one another) figures prominently. Loving our enemies is where genuine repentance is either most evident or most clearly absent. And this is exactly where Jesus goes when talking about worshiping with a right heart (cf. Mat 5:23-24, Mar 11:25).

We've been hearing from Romans 5 how the most surprising, hidden, shockingly revealed by the Spirit thing about God is that He loved His enemies, you and I and all for whom He gave His Son to die were enemies at the time! We heard particular application of that this week from Rom 5:9-11, Assurance in God's Action and Attitude [audio - manuscript]: in the wonder of considering to what extent God loved us whom He rightly at the time considered enemies, we were asked, "Do we love this way even those whom we rightly consider enemies?"

Do you have an enemy in the church? If you haven't by next Lord's Day evening made your heart right before God and attempted to make the matter right between you in whatever way you can, don't take the supper! "Examine yourself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup," (1Cor 11:28), and as you do so, don't neglect to give yourself an "enemy examination."

Labels: Lord's Supper, Sermon Follow-Up

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  Sermon Follow-Up: Looking Back, Up, and Forward at the Lord's Supper Go has graciously granted us to start this week's preparation for the Lord's Supper with yesterday morning's sermon from Rom 5:9-11, Assurance in God's Action and Attitude [audio - manuscript]. We will be doing exactly what that text describes at the supper this coming Lord's Day evening.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 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 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.

In the supper we look back. We proclaim the Lord's death. We remember the way God remembers in the Old Testament--not a recapturing of what we have forgotten but a renewed action upon what we've never stopped being committed to. And that remembrance is a proclamation, an announcement, a bold testifying by the church that this is an historical and legal reality: the Lord of glory died, and God Himself bled the lifeblood that secures all of His covenant blessings for us. The supper is about God's past action at the cross.

In the supper we look up. We have a direct invitation from Jesus, through the apostles, to dine and drink at His table, from His bounty. Jesus was so intent upon directly giving that invitation that rather than leave Paul to learn it from others, Jesus gave it directly to Paul from the right hand of God. Jesus' greatest bounty is Himself, and so He invites us to feed upon His flesh and blood by faith--neither He leaving heaven nor we leaving earth, but through faith the Spirit nourishing our souls upon His body and blood (cf. Jn 6:43-58). And this invitation, this fellowship that we share with Him and each other (communion!), this upward-looking nourishing that the Spirit effects all drive home to us our current reconciled state, the removal of our enmity: God counts us as friends. The supper is about God's present attitude of friendship toward us.

In the supper we look forward. We proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. Isn't it wonderful that even with those last three words, this is a meal of joy and thanksgiving (eucharist)! The day of the Lord is synonymous in Scripture with the day of wrath, and yet those who sup at this table look forward to that day with exulting (joy-full-to-bursting)! How? Because as we look backward to God's action at the cross; and look upward to God's attitutde toward us, our reconciliation in Christ; we look forward with assurance to the Lord's coming, and therefore our expectation contains no dread, only joy and peace and exulting.

Now is the time for looking inward. Incidentally, even when we do this, what we are looking for is not sincerity at some past time (i.e. NOT "did I really mean it when I made my 'decision' or 'commitment'?). We are looking for the genuine fruit of repentance.

1 Corinthians 11:27-28 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

Examining ahead of time is the key to not profaning the body and blood of the Lord. What are we looking for? Well, taken literally, it reads "guilty of the body and blood of Lord"--the "of" there represents the idea "with respect to." Does it mean nothing that this is the body of God who gave Himself for us upon which we are feeding? Is it of small account that this is the blood of God who bled His life away for us that we are imbibing?

Genuine repentance--hatred of sin and violent opposition to it--is the fruit of those who take the cost at the cross seriously. And genuine repentance always accompanies faith. If you are ok with your sins instead of hating them and half-hearted in fighting them as opposed to violent, then this is the time for you to be deciding that you aren't going to take the supper in October.

If you are going to take, please arrive having already examined yourself, so that instead of looking inward during the supper, you can be assured and exult as you look backward, look up, and look forward.

Labels: Announcements, Lord's Supper, Sermon Follow-Up

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