The sermon, based on 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, addresses the proper approach to the Lord's Supper. The speaker highlights Paul's rebuke of the Corinthians for their divisions and improper conduct during communion. The sermon explores the balance between gravity and gladness in participation, urging a heartfelt appreciation of what Christ accomplished. The speaker introduces four central questions: What is communion? Who is it for? How should it be observed? When should it be observed? This sermon focuses on the first question, emphasizing that communion is a time for thanksgiving, remembrance of Christ, a sign of the new covenant, and a proclamation of Christ's death. The speaker draws parallels between the Old Testament Passover and the New Testament practice of communion, illustrating the spiritual significance and continuity of God's covenant. The sermon concludes by encouraging believers to approach the table with both solemnity and joy, recognizing their inclusion in God's covenant people.

The pew Bible, you'll be able to find that on page 1149. Page 1149. 1 Corinthians chapter 11 beginning in verse 17. And I'll ask the congregation to now stand as we hear from the Lord. We're going to read this entire section.

We're going to key in on the middle section this morning and then cover the breadth of it next Lord's Day, Lord willing. First Corinthians chapter 11 beginning in verse 17. But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you Because you come together not for the better, but for the worse. For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you, and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you.

Therefore, when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first, and one is hungry and another is drunk." What? Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you?

In this I will not praise you. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which 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 he took the cup also 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. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.

For this reason, many among you are sick or weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord, so that we will not be condemned along with the world. So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home so that you will not come together for judgment.

The remaining matters I will arrange when I come may God bless the reading of his perfect word amen let's pray together father in heaven what we do not know this morning I ask that you would teach us Lord what we are not I pray that You would make us as Your children. And Father, what we should obey, give us the grace to obey. For Your name's sake we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen. Let's have a seat together. Except for me.

Well, in writing for the blog at Desiring God, Joe Rigney says this in his article titled, What spoils the Lord's Supper? How not to come to the table? If you've not read anything by Joe Rigney, then repent and then go to that library and grab a book by Joe Rigney. But here's what he writes in his article, in his blog. For many years I viewed communion as mainly a time of deep introspection, somberness, heaviness, and self-examination.

Somewhere along the way I picked up that this was the right and proper way to approach the Lord's table. I subtly adopted a number of unwritten rules for receiving the Lord's Supper. Here were some of them. Bow your head. Close your eyes.

Look at the floor. Hunt your shoulders so that you feel the heaviness of this time better. Search your heart for unconfessed sin. Avoid eye contact with others. Try not to be distracted by the six-year-old behind you who wants to know why he can't have a snack like everyone else.

Or feel guilty because it's your six-year- old doing the distracting. Check your heart for sin again just to be sure. Think deeply about your own wickedness. Try to think about the cross, but don't forget your own wickedness. And lastly, seriously, Don't acknowledge, notice, or make eye contact with your neighbor.

You don't want to interrupt what God might be doing next to you. He goes on to write, now this somber, grave, introspective attitude had reasons beneath it. Paul says, clearly that it's possible to eat the bread and drink the cup in an unworthy manner. To partake in this way is to be guilty of the body and the blood of Jesus and to drink judgment on oneself. This type of sin is so serious that God brought illness and even death upon some of the Corinthians for their failure to eat and drink in a worthy way.

So it is absolutely good and right for there to be a kind of gravity and weight to our approach and participation in communion. But Joe Ringley says, but at the same time is that all there is? Is there just gravity and weightiness and nothing else? Or has God set the table in such a way that there is both a fork and a spoon, both a plate and a glass, both gravity and gladness, both seriousness and joy. The answer, friends, to those questions is a hearty yes.

What Joe Rigney describes is much of your experience, no doubt. It's much of our regular practice together. Eyes closed, somber introspection alone. Just gravity. And if it's just gravity, that ought not to be so.

What do we have in our worship guide? Confession of sins. Do you know that we as elders intentionally don't stop there? You know, if we just stopped at the confession of sins part and you never got to the assurance of forgiveness, the assurance of pardon, we would leave you in your sins. That ought not to be so, for Jesus declares it not to be so.

It is finished. There is a time for confession, and yet you do not end there. You end with the assurance of pardon that Christ secured for you at the cross. Do you think you should end the Lord's Day service with just somber, morose, I'm a sinner in partaking of the table? At the end of the Lord's Day service is a culmination of everything that we've just participated in together.

There is room at the table for gravity, But you must also bring to the table gladness. And so this morning, and next Sunday as well, Lord willing, you and I are to hear from God, and we are to ask Him to answer four questions as we seek to more rightly approach this the Lord's table. With seriousness, with gravity, and with joy and gladness. Four questions to shape our approach to the Lord's table so that we, in total, heart-filling, affection-flowing obedience, participate and perhaps we can even use the word feast according to the will of the head of the table Jesus Christ so we ought not to approach the table in the way that we feel we should We should come to the Lord's table according to how the Lord invites us to come. Amen?

So let us not be a people. We don't approach worship this way, and the way that we sing songs, and the way that we pray. We don't ask the question, well, how do I want to worship? We say, how has God told me to worship? Don't stop after the sermon.

Ask the question, God, what have you told me? Jesus, how have you invited me to this your table? We're going to hear from God in the next two Sundays about how we should approach the Lord's Supper, communion together. So here are the four questions. I'll show you them.

First is what is communion? Question number two, who is communion for? Should you do communion at a wedding? Should you do communion at your house? We're going to answer those questions.

How should communion be observed? And lastly, when should communion be observed? How often? How often should communion be observed? And that's going to take us two weeks to unpack.

And this morning, we're only going to unpack the first 75% of the first question. But don't worry, the rest of the questions flow from the answers to question number one. And so this morning, we're going to be looking at question number one, what is communion? Well, we're going to spend the majority of our time looking at verses 24 through 26. So if you want to get your eyes where they should be, verses 24 through 26, Paul gives us no shortage of things to consider when we ask the question, What is communion?

And here is how God answers that question for you this morning. He gives you five answers, and there actually might be more, but for our purposes this morning, let us consider just these five. Four of them in our passage this morning, and then a bonus one from 1 Corinthians chapter 10. So let me just briefly show you. In chapter 11 verse 24, you're going to see there, Communion is a Thanksgiving.

You don't need to write all these down. I'll put them up in just a moment. Communion is a Thanksgiving. I just want you to see them. Second in verses 24 and 25, communion is a remembrance of Christ.

In verse 25, you see communion is a sign of the new covenant. In verse 26 it's a proclamation of Christ's death. And then the bonus one in chapter 10 we'll see in a bit. Communion is a partaking of one another as we partake together of Christ. And we'll look at that one, Lord willing, next Lord's Day.

So again, there's more to mine from our passage this morning, but we are asking four particular questions and in the first question what is communion God himself gives you five answers to that how glorious we ask one question you get five answers wow wow so number one what is communion it is a time for Thanksgiving We see that directly in verse 23 and into verse 24. Look at verse 23. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread and when He had given thanks, when He had given thanks, He broke it. Look there at the beginning of verse 24. That Greek word at the beginning of verse 24 is eucharistio.

It's all one Greek word when He had given thanks. Do you know in the original language? That's just one word. When He had given thanks, Eucharistio. What does that sound like?

Eucharist. So when you hear our Roman Catholic friends, friends, or other denomination use the word Eucharist to refer to the supper, Now you know why. They actually don't have a monopoly on that word. You could use that word you know. That's the Greek word in the text.

When Jesus had given thanks, Eucharistio, to give thanks, to be grateful. The Lord's Supper is a time of thanksgiving and the question that you should be asking is obvious Thanksgiving for what? What's there to be thankful for what was Jesus doing when he gave thanks in instituting the Lord's Supper? Well the Gospels tell us that Jesus and his disciples had gathered to eat the Passover meal That's a ceremonial meal that commemorated the wonders of what God had done in leading His people out of Egypt. All of the miracles, all of the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea.

That was what they were participating in on this evening where the Lord Jesus instituted communion. So how does Jesus begin? He prays over the meal. He was praying over the Passover meal. He was thanking God the Father for the provision that God the Father had provided.

Don't we do that before every meal Christians? Yes, we thank God for His provision. But what particular provision was Jesus thanking God the Father for? This wasn't just about providing physical food to satisfy hunger. That is true.

That was a part of it. But even more so, this thankfulness from Jesus was about God the Father providing spiritual food to satisfy the wrath of God do your sin the provision of a substitutionary sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins I just want you to think about this. Think about what Jesus was doing when he was eating the Passover meal. As the Passover meal was celebrated, Jesus gave thanks for what God had done for the Israelites in the book of Exodus. This is on his mind.

Celebrating the Passover. Thank you Father for what you've done for the Israelites in the book of Exodus. He gave thanks. And then Jesus immediately after giving thanks instituted communion for us to participate in. So I need you to connect the dots.

Real simple dots to connect. One and two. Just as the Israelites in Egypt ate the Passover lamb and had its blood smeared over the entryway of their homes as salvation from the righteous judgment of God, Jesus was the greater Passover lamb, the typological and prophetic fulfillment of the Passover. And Jesus gave thanks for such a fulfillment. God had provided the ultimate Passover lamb for the sins of His people.

So as Israel left their bondage to Egypt behind, what did they do when they crossed the Red Sea? Exodus 15, they leave their bondage and they sang in thanksgiving. That's what the text says in Exodus 15. They left their bondage and sang in thanksgiving. Christian, if Christ has saved you from your greater bondage in the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt if he saved you from your bondage to your sin You are to sing and Thanksgiving You ought to give thanks So put that together with the Lord's table.

The Lord's table is a time to give thanks for what God has provided in sending His Son so that whosoever believes upon Him would not perish in the eternal lake of fire, but of everlasting life and everlasting rightness with God forever. So we give thanks, beloved, when we come to the Lord's table. We give thanks. Children, I want you to think for a moment. Children, you with me?

You check out, you check back in. Children, I want you to think for a moment when you gather around the dinner table and you're really hungry. You been there? I was there last night. You're really hungry?

What happens when you're really hungry and you're gathered on the table but the table's not on the the food's not on the table yet but it's coming out of the oven. The smell's just waft right over you. What do you do? What happens? Your mouth starts to water, start to drool a little bit, salivating.

You're getting giddy and exciting. Please Give me the food! Is that what you do? That's what I do. I'm 36.

You can't wait to dig in. You know what I'm talking about. And so what do you do as the food's coming towards you? Well, your parents have, I hope, taught you, you give thanks. You get pumped.

You say to your father and your mother if you're like my children who know the order of things, Let's pray, let's give thanks, and then let's dig in. That's what they say in girl voices. And so you hold your hands with your parents' hands around the table in anticipation. You pause and give thanks for what you are about to do. You get to eat.

That's exciting. And when it's good food, Nobody, at least nobody with any sense, comes to the table all mumbly grumbly. I got to eat that. I got to eat delicious homemade pizza. I got to eat mouth-watering homemade breadsticks piping hot right out of the oven with spaghetti and meatballs that taste so good your tongue will slap your brains out.

And all the while you got fresh baked chocolate cookies cooling on the counter their aroma surrounding you nobody that has a brain cell says how lousy my life must be Nobody with any sense is saying that. You're not saying that, are you children? You best not be. Now what are you saying? Well, I can tell you what my girls are typically saying.

Let's give thanks and dig in. There's joy. There's delight. There's excitement. There's anticipation.

What a feast! What a feast! Thank you, Father! Thank you, Mother! I can't wait to do this!

And all of that for food that will in just less than 24 hours make its way into the toilet. It will. All that for food that will simply get turned into energy and then leave you. How much more then for the food that is Jesus Christ, the Passover lamb, who loved you and gave himself for you and will never leave you. And he says to you, come eat and drink of me by faith." That's what communion is all about.

That's how you should approach this meal once you're baptized into membership of this church. You should come to this meal with great anticipation, great excitement, great thanksgiving in your heart for what Jesus has accomplished in His death on the cross. By the end of the sermon, you should be saying, I'm smelling it! Give it to me! That's what you should be saying.

That's what you should be saying. I need it. You should be drooling for the table in thanksgiving. If you do that with food at your house, how much more for the provision that God has given you in Christ? He is the fulfillment of the Passover.

He's the perfect provision from God. And that's the second answer to the question, what is communion? It's a time of thanksgiving as you remember what Christ accomplished in his substitutionary sacrifice. A remembrance of Christ. Communion is a remembrance of Christ.

If you look there in verse 24, you'll see that once more. And when he had given thanks, that's the first answer, it's the time of thanksgiving. When Jesus had given thanks, he broke the bread and said, this is my body which is for you. Do this in what? Remembrance of me.

And he goes on in verse 25, in the same way he took the cup. Also after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood Do this as often as you drink it in? Remembrance of me. What is communion? It is a time of remembrance Do this is the imperative in these verses It's a command from Jesus do this Participate in communion this way.

It's a command directly from Jesus. How? What way, Jesus? In remembrance of me. In thankful remembrance of me.

So the question again, should be pretty obvious. What are you to remember? What are you to be thankful about? What are you to remember? Jesus held up the bread and He broke it.

He said, remember my body, right? Pierced through for you, broken for you. And then He held up the cup. Remember my blood shed for you. Remember the cost and price of your redemption.

Remember your redemption. Jesus shed His blood and gave up His body on the tree at Calvary so that what we read earlier in the service in our worship guide from Isaiah 53, He shed His blood so that the promises of Isaiah 53 would be secured for you. Christian. Don't be reading through Isaiah 53 and just think, well, it would be nice if that was true. Jesus died and said it is finished so that Isaiah 53 would be true for you.

Things like this. He was pierced in His body for your transgressions. He was crushed for your sin. The punishment that brought you peace was placed upon Him by God the Father. And by the wounds of the Son, through His shed blood, you are healed and made new.

Through His death on the cross, your sin has been given to Jesus. And in exchange for your sin, Jesus granted to you, imputed to you His very own righteousness. You want to talk about a crazy exchange a great exchange? Your sin placed on the Savior the wrath of God poured out on your sin upon the Savior at the cross the Savior then takes His righteous obedience that He possesses and transfers it to your account, declaring you righteous and just in His sight, all by grace through faith? Is that worth remembering?

That's worth remembering. But is that it? Is that the only thing that you should remember? And we can stop there and that'd be good. But that's not the only thing.

It is something you must remember. You must remember the great exchange, what Jesus accomplished in his broken body and shed blood for you. But Paul would also have you remember something else. Paul would have you remember what he wrote a chapter earlier in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. We didn't read that, but we're going to do that now.

Because if you were reading through this book, you would have read chapter 10 already. So we need to look at chapter 10. We're asking the question, what should we remember? Look at chapter 10, Verse 1. Indeed, we are to remember the great exchange, but we should also remember something else.

Right? You are to remember your redemption. But what was this redemption that Jesus accomplished for you? What was it a... What foreshadowed it earlier in the Old Testament?

What is Jesus celebrating as he instituting the Lord's Supper? Passover. He wants you to think about the Old Testament. He wants you to be thinking about Israel being led out of Egypt. And with that in mind, look in 1 Corinthians 10 verse 1.

I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea. Do you know what that's talking about? Israel in its Exodus. Pillar cloud, pillar fire. All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

And all ate the same spiritual food. And all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them. And the rock was Christ. Whoa. I hope you say whoa a lot of times at the end of the sermon.

If you don't, bummer. That's talking about the exodus from Egypt. So I want you to connect some more dots. Just as the Israelites were saved from the judgment of God in the Passover, God then delivered them out of their bondage, out of their slavery in Egypt, to freedom headed towards the promised land. Yes?

Out of slavery into freedom being led by God. He rescued them, He liberated them from captivity. They were then brought through the Red Sea. What does Paul tell you in 1 Corinthians chapter 10? Verse 2.

That's a picture of baptism. Being marked out as the people of God, being a part of the covenant, people of God. Baptism does that, you know. It marks you out. The people of The covenant, God's people, of God's covenant, passed through the waters.

They were marked out to be His own people. And then, after Their baptism, they were then given spiritual drink and spiritual food. Manna. What's that called? Bread from heaven.

And then water from the rock. What does Jesus call himself in many of the gospels? I am the bread of life. And then what does Chapter 10 verse 4 tell us about the rock. The rock was Christ.

So what's Paul saying? He's saying that there's continuity between what happened in Exodus And what happens today when you, when we, when all of us partake in this table? Some kind of continuity going on. The Israelites had been marked out by God through baptism. He had not forsaken his covenant people.

He had heard their cry. He's a covenant-keeping God. He brought them through the waters. He baptized. He rescued them from their bondage, from their slavery to Egypt.

He baptized them in the water. And then He gave them bread from heaven to eat and drink from the rock called Christ. And now Christ has come in the flesh. He who is the bread of life has come from heaven. And He has offered to all who believe living water.

Come, drink deeply of me. I will give you water that will satisfy, and you might never have to drink again. When You come to this table, you do not come individually. You come to that which is an ancient sign of the covenant of God. When you partake of the bread and the cup, you partake in the promises of God made all the way back in Genesis chapter 3.

The promised seed would crush the serpent's head. You remember that. You partake in the promises God made all the way back in Genesis 12 that He made to Abraham. You are a partaker with all the people of God by partaking in Christ. The Israelites baptized once through the Red Sea, identified as the people of God's promise, the people of God's eternal, everlasting covenant, the people saved from bondage.

And then the Israelites were given bread from heaven daily and water from the rock throughout their sojourn. What was that for? Constant reminders of the covenant that God had made with them. They were indeed God's rescued people from Egypt. Christian, you too are baptized once.

The church on earth affirms the truth that is already established in heaven, in baptism, when you go under, you're crucified with Christ, there's no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in you, and you come up. You are identified as a partaker of God's covenant. A covenant that stretches all the way back to the beginning of time. Once at baptism, and then subsequently and continually through communion, you, just like the Israelites, are reminded of the same promises of God of The truth that you belong to the covenant people of God all of you by grace through faith. As you partake in eating and drinking of Christ in the bread and the cup, you are participating in the covenant of promise.

So when you come to the table, you need to hear this, you don't come to this meal as a meal that is just simply individualistic. If you come to this table and think it's all about me and God, you don't get it. So stop, please. You don't come to a meal that is divorced from history. You don't come to a meal that is divorced from history.

You don't come to a meal that is independent of others. No, no, no. When you come to eat of this bread and this cup, you come to be reminded and to declare anew your adoption into the rich olive root. You come to declare your adoption into the covenant people of God. You come to rejoice that you, who are a stranger, you are a wild olive shoot, a gentile, that you should be grafted into the olive tree that is called Christ when you deserve quite the opposite That's what you're remembering And at the table as you're participating in the body and blood of Christ you come to declare that you are actually a true Israelite.

You've been rescued in an even greater way than Israel was rescued out of Egypt. You've been rescued from the bondage of your sin. You've been led out of slavery to your sin by a greater Moses. Who's the greater Moses? Jesus.

And you're a member of His covenant people. So you join with Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, trusting in their Savior Jesus. They were looking forward. What do you do? You're looking back to what Christ accomplished.

You join with those men, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and a multitude more, trusting in the Savior. And you know, Jesus, in Him, all the promises of God are yes and amen. You are a part of His covenant people from of old. That's what communion is. So what are you remembering?

You're remembering the covenant of redemption. You're remembering that the root that you belong to, that you as a Gentile have been grafted into, is true. You are a child of God and you are a child of God with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You're a covenant member of the true Israel of God. So I want you to think about that.

What a family you've been adopted into. I mean just think about what a covenant you've been made a partaker in. This three-quarters of the Bible called the Old testament applies to you. You should read it. What a history, what a family line you are now an adopted heir of.

When I was a young boy, we would have consistent family reunions. I have some embarrassing stories about those. And every time that we had family reunions, I loved being around the tables. Our family was so big, in multiple tables of course. I loved being around the tables and I would look around as a young man and I would truthfully I would say often, wow, this is my family.

What a family! And my father and mother are here this morning and on all week long. All I could think about was getting enough work done, enough sermon prep done this week that I could take Saturday off so that I could enjoy time with them around the table. And I did it by God's grace. And I loved it.

I can't get enough of that. Because as a Christian, I look at my faithful father, I look at my faithful mother, I look at my faithful grandmother, I think of her faithful parents and grandparents, and I think of the line of men and women who came before me generation after generation after generation, and I am so grateful to be a part of that long line, of that covenantal line that actually in some wild, wild way stretches all the way back to Abraham. I get giddy. I do when I'm around my family at the table. You want to see me at my most jokiness?

Come eat dinner. I just can't get enough of that time. Everybody wants to get up, and I'm thinking we just got started. Christian, when you come not to your own table, but to the Lord's table, That should be your heart turned up to 11. As you remember and consider that you are a partaker of the covenantal promises of God secured to you by the blood of Jesus.

If you enjoy family time around the table, This should just make you go nuts. Wonderfully nuts. And that's exactly what Jesus says in verse 25. And this will be the last answer that we'll look at this morning. What is communion?

Communion is a sign of the new covenant. It is a time of Thanksgiving. You are to remember that you are a covenant partaker with Christ, you remember the great exchange. And you are to remember that communion means that you're part of the new covenant. In between Jesus eating and drinking, what does he mention?

Look at verse 25. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. You are to remember the covenant that God has made with you, Christian, the promise. The irrevocable promise that God has made to His people. But you're not just to remember that particularly to you individually, you are to remember the covenant that God has made with His people, the church.

His people of faith throughout history from Adam to Abel to Noah, from Abraham to Moses to David. You ought to remember covenant after covenant, promise after promise that God made to His people. And how were each of those covenants inaugurated? How does God inaugurate all of those major covenants throughout the Old Testament? Let me just briefly tell you.

The Adamic covenant, the covenant that He made with Adam, cut in blood. God pronounced the curse in Genesis chapter 3 as a result of Adam's sin. And yet immediately that sin was dealt with. That sin was covered by the shedding of blood as God killed the first animal and shed its blood, making for Adam and Eve a covering for their nakedness and their shame and their guilt. Blood was shed as that covenant and the covenantal promises of a redeemer to come was inaugurated.

The Abrahamic covenant inaugurated in blood, ratified through blood, through the blood of animals, their bodies literally cut in two, laid out to form a path that God Himself walked down, promising Abraham land, seed, and blessing. Bloodshed, promises given and secured. And by the way, in that passage in Genesis, when God walked down that aisle that had been formed by the shed blood and the carcasses of all these animals sacrificed, it was God saying, this covenant will not be broken. I will ensure that it will be maintained. I will ensure that it will be fulfilled.

Be it unto me as these carcasses, God says, if this covenant is broken. God promised Abraham, and He promises to you, Christian, remember that He Himself is the author of the covenant and He is the author of your faith. Abrahamic covenant secured in blood. Exodus 23. In the Mosaic covenant, God reminded the people of his promises towards them.

He reminded them that he had not forsaken his covenant with Abraham on Abraham's offspring. He reminded them that he's a covenant-keeping God. And so, after his people having been reminded of his covenant, after Moses, it says in the text in Exodus 23, reading from the book of the covenant, Moses took the blood of bulls, sacrificed as a peace offering to the Lord, and he sprinkled the blood over the people. Sprinkled the blood over the people. The covenant inaugurated again over the people.

Well, that's significant. Throughout the Old Testament, covenants were ratified, and the promise of blessings within all those covenants were secured by the shedding of blood. The promises and the people were sealed in blood. The people of God sprinkled by blood. Sin has to be dealt with.

Do you agree? If God is to be God, if He is to be holy, and He is, He must deal with sin. And so in order for that to happen, for blessing to be secured, for sin to be forgiven, blood has to be shed, and it all pointed to Jesus, the final sacrifice, the final blood offering, so that in Him, you, Christian, are sprinkled by His blood. First Peter 1 says that. You're sprinkled.

What were the old covenant people? They were sprinkled. There's a continuity here. Jesus gave His life as a propitiation for your sins, Christian. A satisfaction for your sins.

His sacrifice for sin was the final sacrifice for sin for all time. What the blood of bulls and rams could not do, the blood of Jesus has accomplished. Jesus is your federal head, your covenantal head, your groomed church. He's the guarantee, He's the guarantier of the covenant of grace that you stand in. The covenant that you've been grafted into, Christian.

You think about the Old Covenant. In the Old Testament, it had to be continually ratified and secured through the reshedding of blood of animals. After day after day, the people had to continually be sprinkled by the blood of animals. Sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice. But the new covenant is new, because it takes the promises of God's blessing in the old covenants and has fully secured them for you, no longer are they temporal blessings and benefits.

No longer must they continually be sort of secured by the blood of goats and lambs and bulls. No. Jesus Christ in His blood has secured eternal redemption and the remission of sin in the sight of God forever. You got that? That's what makes the new covenant so wonderfully new.

The new covenant is new because in Christ Jesus, 1 Peter 1-2 tells you, in Christ Jesus, for the Christian, You have been finally and forever sprinkled with the blood of Jesus, the Son of God. He sealed your soul. He sealed your pardon with His blood. You've been sprinkled forever. And if you're a Christian, when you come to the table, you should be saying, hallelujah.

Sealed my pardon with His blood. Hallelujah! What a Savior! That's right, I couldn't get that high. Glad you did.

You've not been redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your feudal ways of life inherited from your forefathers, but with the precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless the blood of Christ." And so with the cup, when you receive the Lord's table, at the Lord's table, what you take up and drink, it is a pledge of your salvation from God to you. It's the reminder of what Christ has accomplished and making you a participator in the new covenant ratified and made permanent by His unblemished blood. Maybe that's not landing on you rightly. So let me quote Charles Hodge. He's a good one.

The Hebrews entered into covenant with God when the blood of the heifer was sprinkled on them. And they thereby bound themselves to be obedient to the law of Moses. By the same covenant, God graciously bound Himself to confer on them all of its promised blessings provided they obeyed the law. Similarly, in the Lord's Supper, those who receive the cup profess to embrace the covenant of grace and bind themselves to obey the gospel. And God binds Himself to confer on you, Christian, all the benefits of redemption.

In receiving this cup, you receive the pledge of your salvation in the New Covenant. You can't come to the table Like you used to come to the table, if you get that. So Christian, when you partake of this meal, it's not a meal where you're to crucify Christ afresh. It's not a meal where you simply remember what Jesus did in dying on the cross. You should remember that.

We shouldn't just simply say, well, I just have to remember that Jesus died on the cross. I'm going to put Him back on the cross. He needs to be sacrificed again for me. Wait a minute. His death forever sealed in time that you are His, right?

And He is yours. Forever! We have a cross behind me. He's off the cross. He is risen.

He is risen what? In deep. Triumphant over all of his enemies. Your enemies. You come to the table with gravity, yes, but also with gladness.

You come being amazed. I am a part of the covenant people of God. Amen. Let me read to you from Ephesians chapter 2. I'm going to paraphrase it just slightly.

You who were separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise. Every single one of you in this room, including me, that was us. You got that? You were an alien, separate from Christ. You were excluded from the commonwealth of Israel.

You were strangers to the covenant of promise. You had no hope. You were without God in the world. But you had been brought near by the blood of Jesus Christ, who is Himself our peace, who He has made both groups, Jew and Gentile, into one, establishing peace. How?

Through the blood of His cross. So then, Christian, you're no longer strangers and aliens, but you're fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. That's what you celebrate at the table. Wow!

Wow. This is a covenantal table. This is a family table. This is a table for redeemed people who belong to a covenant-keeping God. So we began this morning with Joe Rigney's unwritten rules for receiving the Lord's Supper.

We're going to come back to that next Lord's Day, Lord willing. But the question still remains, How should we approach the Lord's table? With gravity alone or gladness as well? Well, what have you seen so far? Communion is a time for thankfulness, anticipation, and awe at being adopted and made a part of the covenant people of God.

Those things should very much flavor our approach to this meal. Jesus Christ in His body, pierced and His blood shed for you, died so that the wrath of God that you deserve was placed upon Him and dealt with. That's part of it. So that's all of it. So when you come to this table and you think about Christ is accomplished, do you come flippantly?

Do not come flippantly. If you've been redeemed, you know that such a thing as the atonement for your sin is not a flippant thing. It breaks you down inside. It's so glorious. So you don't come flippantly, but Christian, you also come as one that you are reminded you're not condemned anymore.

You come to the table in light of what Jesus has fully accomplished. There is nothing left for Him to accomplish when it comes to atoning for your sins. So don't forget the fork. Don't. Don't come flippantly.

But also don't forget the spoon. Don't come without the gladness. Don't come without gravity. But don't come without thanksgiving and awe as well. And don't let your sin keep you from this table.

If you've repented, and you are believing on Christ, and you've been baptized this table is for you you know Satan's gonna accuse you he does every day that's what he is the accuser Satan will work to condemn you day after day. You know why? Because you used to belong to his kingdom. His kingdom was a devouring kingdom. It seeks to destroy.

What does it do to... Every time we see the demons possess people, what are they trying to do to them? Destroy them, devour them. His kingdom was a devouring kingdom. You were lost, you were without hope, you were consigned to a life of destruction, being devoured by the great dragon in his dark kingdom.

But God, through the finished work of his Son, ransomed you and made you a part of His covenantal kingdom, His covenant people, and He made you His own, and He sprinkled you with His blood of His Son, and far from devouring you, He feeds you. He feeds you. What a change! You're going to come to the table looking at yourself the whole time? Don't you dare do that.

And He bids you this morning to come, to welcome, to be welcomed to Jesus Christ. For Jesus Christ has crushed that great Condemner's head. He has taken upon Himself your sin and condemnation, Christian. And He bids you welcome to His table with gravity and gladness to eat and drink deeply from Him. And we're going to do that in just a moment.

If you're like me right now, I'm going to say, get to the meal. I've got one sentence left, and we're going to do it. We're going to sing. Then we're going to do it. Supper is ready for redeemed.

Let me say it again. Supper is ready for ruined sinners who've been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Supper is ready. It's come out of the oven. Let us together come with gravity and gladness, rejoicing in all the promises of God that are yes and amen in Jesus Christ.

Amen. Amen. Let's pray and then we'll sing and then we'll eat. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. We thank You.

Thank you for the sweet gift of being able to partake in this covenantal meal that one day we will partake in with you afresh in your kingdom with Abraham, with the patriarchs, and with one another. Oh, oh, make us full of joy, Serious joy. In Jesus' name, Amen. Let's sing the communion hymn together. Musicians, if you'd come.

Let's open up our hymnals.