1 Corinthians 11:26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
• Don’t grieve in the wrong way, as those who have no hope.
• ‘Sleep’ here does not mean napping. Paul is talking about those who have died ‘in Christ.’
- ‘Dead in Christ’ refers specifically to those who believe and died after Christ lived on earth, not the Old Testament saints.
• Our ‘hope’ is that the dead in Christ will be raised.
Although the Lord’s Supper is a very solemn, serious time, there should also be in our hearts this real sense of joy and peace.
• It doesn’t matter how bad it gets here today. In the end, it’s going to be ok. We will go to be with the Lord.
1. Why is it important to ‘proclaim the Lord’s death’ (celebrate the Lord’s Supper) until He comes?
• So we don’t forget.
• It is a time to remember that Christ has already dies for our sins, and we can freely confess our sins to God.
• It reminds us of the main message of the Bible, the gospel of Christ.
• It honors God and thanks Him.
• It’s an outward sign to non-believers.
• It increases fellowship within the family/body of Christ.
- We don’t go to non-Christians and find out what they want in a church and then do it, in order to get them to come.
- We know that if we proclaim God’s truth, God will use it to reach non-believers.
2. Why the solemn warning? *
• *1 Corinthians 11:27–32 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 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.
• Taking the Lord’s Supper in the wrong way is dangerous.
- Paul says that people got sick or died.
• What we do is important.