There are two ordinances that God gave the church, baptism and communion. There are lots of things that God commanded the church to do. We sing, we study the word together, there's a sermon, we pray, we give, we have fellowship with one another, those are all things God commanded the church to do. And yet, those are all things we do directly. When there's preaching, you're listening to it and applying it to your heart directly.

When they're singing, you're singing songs to the Lord. When you're giving, it's your actual money that goes from your real checking account, not your metaphorical checking account, no, your actual money that we then use for the ministry of the church. When you're fellowshipping, you're encouraging another person directly. Baptism and communion are slightly different than those two things. They are sometimes referred to as acts that the church does.

And acts, a c t s, acts is, trying to say that word. That's a I could almost diminish it, but they're a reenactment of something. That is a way that sounds almost better. That baptism and communion reenact what the Lord has done for us in a very visible and tangible way, and so that's why they are called ordinances. They're set up by the Lord, they were taught by the Lord, modeled by the Lord, who participated in both of them, and then given to the church, patterned in the New Testament, for the church to do both of them, baptism and communion.

Those actions then give the church our corporate identity. They form us. Now that is not a thing that Americans or kind of Western, worldview kind of people are familiar with, the idea that your your practices form your identity. It can seem foreign to us. And but I I came across an example, I thought of an example this week that that is helpful for us, that in the American culture that makes the same point, it's hackneyed, so forgive me, but, sports teams.

You know, little kids might put posters of their favorite sports teams on their wall at their house. They might get a t shirt, their dad watches the games and they watch the games with their dad. You might, watch the game wearing a jersey of your favorite your favorite team. You might have the the Redskins bumper sticker on your car, and those things over time start to form your identity. You perceive yourself and your family as a fan of whatever team you guys are fans of.

So it's that practice that forms your identity, and there's a sense in which it's kind of silly. Right? The bumper sticker in your car does not determine how the football team plays on their next game. They're disconnected I know. I'm sorry.

But they are disconnected. You know, you're wearing your jersey at home, the plate you can see them, they cannot see you. And yet, we do those things because we recognize they have, the effect of forming our identity in a very personal and real way. That's what's happening with communion and baptism, and communion even more than baptism. It has this effect of forming our identity around the shape of the gospel, and it forms our corporate identity as a church.

These ordinances are not given to families, they're not given to individuals, they're given to the church. This is why, you know, you don't take communion in your family, or you're not baptized in your home bible study kind of thing. There are ordinances to the congregation, to the corporate church. Baptism speaks of your addition to the body, your welcoming to the church, your presentation to the church as someone who's been converted. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are reenacted.

The person is buried like Christ is buried, and resurrected like Christ has risen. And that's why baptism is practiced only once. Each individual is only baptized once, because Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected only once. He went to the grave and resurrected. And, so you're you're baptized one time.

I know sometimes people will think, you know, I just had this spiritual experience. I grew in sanctification. I often hear this in the category of, I I'm just starting to understand election and predestination, and I feel like I've gotten saved all over again. And I have even had people say, now that I'm understanding God's sovereignty over salvation, should I be rebaptized? Like, I read a John Piper book, and feel like I got saved.

I should be baptized again, because I now know who John Piper is. And the answer is no. No. You're baptized once. Yes, you have experiences of spiritual growth throughout your life, but that's not what baptism is for.

Baptism is your entrance into the church. Jesus died once, you're baptized once, and then you grow in godliness. And that's where communion comes in. Communion is practiced regularly. Often is the word that's used in the New Testament because it speaks of the ongoing provision of God for His church.

Jesus died once, but He provides for His church always. And so that's why we take communion often. Scripture gives priority to these two events, baptism and communion, because they define the shape of the church. We celebrate them by reenacting the death and resurrection of Christ, and reenacting the provision of God through Jesus Christ of all of our spiritual needs through communion. And so let's dive in this morning by asking the basic question, what happens at communion?

What is going on when we celebrate communion? The best way I think of to approach this topic is by point of contrast, to explain really briefly the Catholic understanding of what happens at communion, the Lutheran understanding, and then contrast those two with what Protestants, what we say happens at communion. In the Catholic world, communion is the mass, where they say that the bread and the wine are transformed. It's the doctrine of transubstantiation. The bread and wine become, in a literal sense, the body and the blood of Jesus Christ.

Now to understand that, you need a short lesson in philosophy. A short lesson. And somebody told me after a second hour that my short lesson was still too long. I'm trying, okay? In philosophy, you have a distinction between something's essence, or what it is essentially, and its accidents, or what it presents itself like to the world.

And the most common way to explain that is with with animals. Okay? So some of you have dogs in your house. I don't know why, but some of you have dogs in your house. Your dog, if you're picturing your dog or your neighbor's dog or whatever, it is by essence or by its own nature a dog.

It is essentially a dog. That's what it is. But the way it presents itself, its hair or the way it smells and dogs smell, its curly hair, its bark, how it sounds, how its tongue feels, those are all accidents. They are all, you know, secondary. They don't make who it is, they display who it is, but they don't make who it is.

It is by its own essence and, nature a dog, but it would still be a dog if it didn't have fur, it would still be a dog if its bark sounded different or if it smelled different, it would still be a dog. Now what's happening in Catholicism with with transubstantiation, the mass, they say that the bread and the wine is essentially bread and wine, and as the accidents of bread and wine, meaning it tastes like bread, it tastes like wine, it smells like bread, it smells like wine, But when the priest consecrates it, it is transformed into the body and the blood of Jesus, but only essentially. So it the essence of it becomes the body of Jesus. The essence of the wine becomes the blood of Jesus. But the accidents don't change.

So it still tastes like bread and tastes like wine, it looks like bread and looks like wine, but the substance of it, the essence of it, is what has been transformed. That's transubstantiation. And there's problems with that view, obviously. There's problem the Catholics have long referred to that as the heresy of the mass. Because if the bread becomes the actual body of our lord, in essence, and in reality, becomes the body of our Lord.

What's happening Catholics refer to this as the perpetual sacrifice of the mass. Every time the mass is celebrated, the bread is broken, Christ is re sacrificed. It's an ongoing sacrifice, an ongoing propitiation for sins. That's contrary to what the Bible teaches. Right?

The Bible says that Jesus was crucified once for all for the forgiveness of sins. That Jesus is not ongoing a perpetual crucifixion, a perpetual sacrifice in heaven, that's not true. His sacrifice was complete and sufficient. And we take the bread and says, this is the body of Christ. It is a it is a it's it's idolatry.

It's taking something made by the baker and saying that it is the one who made the baker. It makes no sense. And so many Protestants in the 1516, even the early seventeen hundreds were martyred over their refusal to take the Catholic mass. I mean, the most famous example is Lady Jane Grey, the nine day Queen of England. She was told she could live if only she would take the mass.

And when she refused and had her head removed, that's the heresy of the mass, that it be the bread becomes the actual body of Jesus, and he is sacrificed anew. That is not true. Lutheranism is a little bit different. I know we have many former Lutherans in our congregation. Lutheranism is a more complicated view, if you can believe it, of what's happening in communion.

In Lutheranism, the the bread in particular is the real presence of the body of Christ. They don't teach transubstantiation, but they teach that Jesus, by virtue of His humanity and His deity being joined, His omnipresence is truly there in the bread. And so this is how the reasoning goes. God is omnipresent, so God is everywhere. Jesus is truly God, so He is truly omnipresent.

He's also truly man, so His humanity, His body, is linked to His omnipresence. And so the bread, which is his body, he's truly present there by virtue of his humanity and deity being linked. They would say it's mysterious, they'd call the doctrine consubstantiation, the bread isn't changed into him, but he is in, with, and around the bread like water is in, with, and around the sponge, so to speak, that by virtue of the omnipresence of the humanity of Christ joined to his deity, he's there in the bread. It's hard to interact with that view because it is very different than anything else that is taught. I kind of want, in fact I will, I thought better of it, but now I'm doing it, quoting something that Justice Barrett said last week.

She didn't say it about Lutheranism and their view of communion, but I'm adopting it and applying it to Lutheranism and communion. Justice Barrett writes, and I'm adopting this a little bit, we will not dwell on the Lutheran argument, which is at odds with more than two thousand years of theology, not to mention that it is untethered to any philosophical tradition at all. Close quote, Jesse translation of Justice Barrett. Except to mention this, in Catholicism and Lutheranism, they both teach what is called a real presence of Christ in the bread. That is something that evangelicals have always rejected.

We don't teach that the bread is really the actual essential body of our Lord. If we reject that, what do we teach? And before I wanna get into the word, I do wanna read what what Calvin writes in his institutes before he teaches on communion, because I'm reminded of that. I can't say it better than this. Calvin writes, quote, whenever this matter is discussed, when I have tried to say all, I feel that I have as yet said little in proportion to its worth.

And although my mind can think beyond what my tongue can utter, yet even my mind is conquered and overwhelmed by the greatness of the thing. What a good line. Calvin says, my mind can go faster than my tongue, but my mind cannot keep up with the doctrine of communion. It's too deep, and there's an ocean of truth here in verses sixteen and seventeen of First Corinthians 10, so turn your attention there. Like I said, there's an ocean of truth here, and I have, you know, twenty more minutes to dive in here, it'll be such a bad attempt, but here we go.

Verse 16, Paul says, the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of one bread. This is the word of God, and I hope that he seals it in your hearts. Paul, in this context here, is reminding his readers that the practice of taking communion conforms you to the identity of the gospel.

The overall argument in First Corinthians 10 is that idol worship is bad. In fact, if you're using ESV or the Pew Bibles, you'll even see the heading there of First Corinthians 10, warning against idolatry. The whole chapter is about idol worship bad. Now in chapter eight he said you can eat food offered to idols because idols aren't a real thing. So if you bought food and you find out later that it had been sacrificed to an idol, you can still eat it, you don't need to throw it away, because the idol doesn't really exist, there's no God behind the idol, the food's not actually corrupted.

But some people were taking that liberty to going to the temples to participate in the sacrifices and the offerings to the idols, so they could get the better food and the better wine. And they were saying, this doesn't affect me because the idol's not real, there's no real God behind it. And Paul's saying in first Corinthians 10, if you're going to those kind of practices, it's going to shape your identity. If you take food that has been offered at an idol worshiping ceremony to idols, and you're there participating in that, and you keep doing that, over time you're going to be corrupted. So he says in verse 14, flee from idolatry.

But he does not reject the idea that this kind of practice shapes identity altogether. No, he embraces it with a Christian slant. He says, in Christianity, we take communion all the time, and that shapes our own identity, not to an idol, but to the shape of the gospel. You're not participating in the Lord's Supper as a detached observer, but you're participating in the Lord's Supper in a way that is shaping your identity. You can never eat food offered to idols in a neutral way, as a neutral participant in that ceremony, just as you can't participate in communion with any kind of neutrality.

It will shape your identity. It shapes our identity in a few ways. First, it shows us that God is our provider. God is our provider. The basic teaching of communion, what it is modeling and forming in our thinking and in our congregation is that God, our father, provides us all that we need.

Little experiment I did this week, I asked asked a bunch of kids, what does what does a father do? And once you get through, like, the funny the funny answers, watch the sports kind of answers, you get through those. You're like, no, seriously, what what does a father do? And you you get, you know, my non scientific experiment this week produced about a 100% return on these two answers. Fathers give life and they provide.

And that's exactly why God is called Father, because He does those two things. He gives life, so He is our Father, and He provides all that we need. In fact, you can make those two things one, that God provides, He provides life and He provides everything else. And you can drill down a little bit further, which I did in my conversation with kids this week. Alright, God, your father provides for you.

What does your earthly father provide? Like, what does he actually provide for you? When you say father provides, what does your earthly father provide? And almost every person I asked had the same first answer, food. He provides money, he provides food.

And that's a good answer. That is exactly what fathers provide. They bring life and they provide their family's needs. This is what communion is reminding us, that God our Father provides all that we need, and the most basic thing a Father can provide is food, which leads to the second thing communion teaches, is that Jesus Christ is our provision. Jesus Christ is our provision.

This is a Trinitarian doctrine. All that the Father provides, He provides through His Son. All that the Father does, He does through His Son. And this is true generically, generally, and universally. Common grace, we started the service today reading Psalm 19.

Common grace, the heavens declare the glory of God, that's common grace. The sunset is beautiful, milkshakes are delicious, that is all common grace. Praise God for those. They come from God the Father, but they all come through the Son. The Father speaks the universe into existence, and He speaks through His Son, His Son is the word.

It is in Christ, all things were created, and nothing has been made except that which is made through Him. Our father is the creator, but he creates through the son. Our father provides all things to us, and he provides through the son. That's true generically and generally and universally. It is also true specifically for Christians.

Think not common grace, what kind of things does God provide Christians? Well, he provides us redemption through his son, he provides us atonement through his son, he provides us forgiveness through his son, he provides us grace through his son. He provides us the word, which the Jesus Christ is the word. He provides us salvation through Jesus who is our salvation. He provides our life.

Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He provides nourishment. He provides all things pertaining to life and godliness, and he does that through his son. Everything God gives us pertaining to salvation, he gives us through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the provision.

And so when we celebrate communion, that's what we're saying, that our Father feeds us, and what does He feed us? He feeds us His Son. He feeds us His Son. And back to the contrast with baptism, baptism is the initiatory right into the church, but communion is ongoing, we're always celebrating because God always feeds us. A dad can't say at home, Hey, I fed you last week.

You don't feed your kids once and move on, you feed them all the time. If you have high schoolers, even all all the time. That's what communion celebrates. Our father cares for us, provides for us, he adopts us. This is a family meal.

We are adopted into the household of God. We are not adopted as servants or slaves, although we are servants and slaves, we are adopted as daughters and sons. And then we're hidden in Christ. We're seated at the family table of God, hidden in Christ. God looks down the table and he sees his son, his son, his son, his son, and who's really there is all of us adopted into the family.

That's what communion celebrates. It reenacts it. Christ has always been the way to the Father because He's the Word of God, and by Him and through Him were all things created. There is no way to the Father except through Jesus Christ, and so communion speaks of the exclusivity of that. The father provides us everything, and he does it through providing us food, the bread of life, Jesus Christ.

I can get even more specific than that. He provides for us atonement. This is verse 16. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The blood of Christ is accomplishing atonement.

Atonement is the propitiation of wrath that you are a sinner, you deserve God's judgment, Jesus gives his life to take the bullet of God's wrath that was aiming for you. Jesus' secret service style dives in front of it, takes God's wrath on himself. That is for appreciation. All of God's wrath that was aimed at you goes on to Jesus, he dies in your place. That's atonement.

He pays the penalty for your sin. Now this is modeled on the Old Testament Passover. In the Old Testament, the firstborn in every house was going to die. Unless the dad took the Passover lamb, killed it, took the blood of the lamb and spread it on the doorpost, then the angel of death passes over that house. And by the way, atonement was not for the world in the Old Testament, but it was only for that specific house.

Your neighbor has blood on his doorpost, that's not atonement for you. It's only atonement for those who are in the house. Jesus' death in the New Testament functions the same way. He is the New Testament atonement. He's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

You're doomed to death, but everybody who's in the household of Jesus Christ has his blood spread on the doorpost and your punishment is propitiated by Jesus in your place, not for the world, but for those in the household of God. You place your faith in Christ, and you're adopted into his family, and you're covered by atonement. In the Old Testament, they did the Passover, and they go out into the blood, and the angel passes over, and they flee into the wilderness, and they celebrated the passover. Celebrate is the word that's used. It wasn't a funeral dirge.

They were stoked. We were gonna die, and now we didn't. Yay, passover lamb. And that's New Testament reality. We deserve hell, and now we're not going there.

Yay Jesus. It's a celebration, and it's because of his blood. The cup that we bless, that language, the cup that we bless in verse 16, that's what happens at the Passover. The cup is picked up. The the wine in the cup represents the blood.

The wine is not the blood of the lamb. The blood of the lamb was spilled back. You know, in Egypt, the blood in the cup, I mean, the wine in the cup represents that blood, it brings joy to the family, it's a celebration. The wine is listed up, and the person leading the meal prays for it, blesses it. That's the language in verse 16.

Only when we do that, we're not redoing the Passover. We're speaking of Calvary, what happened to Jesus. His blood was shed. When we say his blood was shed, it doesn't mean there's magical properties in his blood, like the capillaries or the the proteins or the enzymes in his blood have salvific elements to them. The blood represents life, specifically the end of life.

Jesus had led a sinless life, and then he was killed on the cross bearing the penalty for our sin. His life becomes our life by virtue of His death. His death becomes the death that we deserved by virtue of Him dying in His own innocence. So when the scripture says we're saved by His blood, that's what it means. His sinless life, His perfect death is applied to us.

Romans three twenty five, the New Testament says this everywhere. Romans three twenty five, God put forward Jesus as a propitiation by his blood. Romans five nine, therefore we've been reconciled and justified by his blood. Ephesians one seven, we have redemption through his blood. Ephesians two thirteen, you who were far off have been brought near by his blood.

Colossians one twenty, we have peace with God by the blood of the cross. Time and time again, the New Testament says we are saved by his blood. Jesus is our life and he is our joy. Just as bread brings life and wine brings joy, Passover demonstrated that in the Old Testament. Communion celebrates that in the New Testament.

We delight in him. Now, all the church does celebrates that, doesn't it? We sing songs about the gospel, we hear sermons about the gospel, we pray in light of the gospel, we encourage one another in light of the gospel, but communion demonstrates it over and over and over again, that God gives us the cup. He gave us the blood of Jesus Christ, that gives everything else to us. Look at the rest of verse 16.

It's not just atonement, but it's also union. You see this in the rest of verse 16. The bread that we break, is it not participation in the body of Christ? It doesn't say the bread is the body, by the way, any more than the wine is the blood. It's participation in the body.

The bread is the provision. The Father is the author of life, the Son is the substance of life. The Father is the fountain, the Son is the water. The Father is the author, the Son is the word. The Father is the source of life, the Son is the bread of life.

Do you understand that Jesus came to us because God wanted us to be near Him? This is the most precious promise about communion. I mean, I hope this moves your heart. God could have let you go your own way like a ship that was unmoored. He could have just let you drift, but he's not content to watch you sail over the horizon.

He wants to come to you. That's demonstrated by Jesus coming to Earth. God became men, took on a human nature, lived among us, walked among us, you could hold him as a baby in your arms. Do you not get that's a testimony that God wants to be near you, even though you're a sinner. John took a nap on the lap of Jesus.

John and Peter both reclined on Jesus. Like, John says, I put my head on his his breast, on his chest. You don't get closer than that and yet Jesus left the world, sends up to heaven and He had to to send His Spirit. He says that I'm going away, but I'm gonna go away and it's actually better for you because I can send His Spirit to you who will indwell every single one of you. I mean, how many of His disciples could take a nap on Him at one time?

Two, probably. Peter and John, and James and Andrew are in the background arguing about whose turn is next. But he goes away, every one of us has his spirit, and we're united. That's what communion is representing, that we have this union with Jesus Christ. He's the bread of life.

Bread comes from how many different grains? I mean how many different pieces of grain are in a piece of bread? It's not it doesn't it's a ridiculous question. There's no way of knowing. A million or one?

It doesn't matter. Once it's made in the dough, it's all the same. And you participate by taking his body, we though many are all one. We have a union, we're united with Christ. And Christ is not hidden from us, he is close to us because God wants us to experience that union.

He wants us to have a relationship with him. The bread, you touch it in your hands. We don't just put a picture of bread on the screen and say, imagine Jesus as the bread of life. You touch it. And then, what do you do?

Eat it. It doesn't get closer to you than that. You put it inside of you and swallow it. That's a picture of the Lord wanting us to be near Him. In fact, this is kinda cool.

The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? You know what that Greek word for participation is? It's a word most of you know, but it's just not translated the way you're used to seeing it here. The Greek word for participation here, koinonia, fellowship. That's the word you use for hanging out, going to lunch with a friend, koinonia, talking about Jesus with a friend, koinonia.

You can't have you cannot have fellowship with a piece of bread. Yeah, you can't take bread to lunch with you, and if you do, you don't wanna be the bread. But through communion, you're having fellowship with Jesus Christ. You have a union with Him. It demonstrates the ongoing spiritual care of the Lord for His church.

Thirdly, verse 17, the church is our people. Communion displays God as our provider, Jesus as our provision, but the church as our people, that's verse 17. Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Thousand people, 2,000 people all take this piece of bread. Made from the same substance, you all eat it, all 2,000 of you have had different weeks, you had different Fridays, you're gonna all have different Mondays.

You come in here with your own life, your own baggage, so to speak, your own sins, your own struggles, your own triumphs, your own joys, you're all different. But you take the bread, you're all the same. Jesus unites you all by eating, like a family meal, you all sit down around the table to eat together, that's what families do, and the teenager is still up in his room and needs five more minutes. No, get down, we're not waiting, get down here now. And we're not gonna eat without you because we're a family, but you need to get here because we're not waiting, because dad is hungry, I'm describing my own family to you, yours might be different.

You sit around the table, you all eat the same food. It's all from the same pot, so to speak. You have a union demonstrated by your food at the mealtime. That's what communion is demonstrating. The bread that we eat is from the same grains, the same production, some grain field in China, probably this communion, who knows?

We all eat it, it's the same thing that we all eat regardless of who you are. So communion is symbolic in some sense. The bread symbolizes the provision of God, of our union, the wine symbolizes the provision of God through atonement. But it is not merely symbolic, and it is not only symbolic. You will never hear me say, This is only symbolic.

That's like petting the cat the wrong way on me, I can't stand that phrase. It's not only symbolic, it's not merely symbolic. It is so much more than symbolic. It is symbolic, true, but then you eat the symbol, like there's something real happening to you. We deny the real presence of Christ in the elements, of course, but we do not deny the real participation in this, the real effects of it.

Behind the symbol is the reality, behind the the bread and the wine is the truth of it, and you eat it. Demonstrating your union with the body of Christ, the act of us all eating and drinking together makes this real. It's as true and as tactile as the bread in your fingers. Jesus declares that communion could be celebrated so that we can offer our souls to be fed by Him. The bread that we break is participation with Christ, verse 17, it shows our unity in the body.

We who are many are one body, and body here is not talking about the bread, which is what, you know, getting Catholicism and Lutheranism think that's the bread that's talking about. It's not talking about the bread. The body of Christ on earth is not the bread. The body of Christ now is in heaven. The body of Christ on earth is his church.

That is the body of Christ on Earth. And though we are many, we are one body, one church, because we all partake of the one bread. The church is our unity. That's why the Lord's Supper always goes with preaching, because we all sit under the word and then we celebrate it, the taking of the bread, it displays our unity. And this is why, by the way, I've said this a few times throughout the years, but I wanna be very clear about it this morning.

This is why communion is for baptized believers, because baptism introduces you to the church. Baptism presents you as a member of the church. Communion is then the ongoing participation in the family meal. One author gives a very helpful analogy to me that I appreciate. Baptism is your invitation to family dinner.

Communion is your participation at it. If your kid goes off to college and he shows up at Thanksgiving break bringing a friend unannounced, and that friend is of the opposite gender, well, you might give them Thanksgiving dinner one time. If they pull that stunt with the same person next year and hasn't been invited, you're going to have a bigger problem, aren't you? The meal is for those who have been invited, not for those who crash. Baptism is your presentation of being part of the church.

Communion is in the ongoing fellowship of that, and this is why churches practice church discipline at communion. I've had people tell me it unsettles them, like there's been good singing and good preaching and they don't actually say the good preaching part. I assume they mean that, they're just too polite to say it. And now, they're examining their own hearts and they're about to take communion, then I get up and I say, oh, and treat so and so like an unbeliever, they're put out of the church and it's jarring to them. But we do it that way because that's what the scripture commands and models.

First Corinthians five have nothing to do with the sexually immoral. I'm not talking about the sexually immoral people in the world, of course you can't separate from them. I'm talking about those so called believers. With such a person, do not even eat, Paul says. He's not talking about don't grab a burger with them as you evangelize them.

He's talking about don't have communion with them, because a little leaven will undo the whole loaf. You know, if you have somebody in unrepentant sin and you think, oh, it's too loving to call them out or anything like that, let's just have them take communion. It's not that they defile the bread, that's not the way this this analogy works. They defile the rest of the body by living in unrepentant sin and just place around the congregation, they will that's the point in first Corinthians 10. They eventually their sin will rub off and become a pattern for those around them to follow.

And so you excommunicate them. Ex is the Greek word for out of. Communicate is communion. You remove them from communion. It's to protect the church.

For the rest of us, we examine ourselves to see if we are fit for communion, and the standard for fit for communion is not perfection or these elements that remain untouched all year round. The standard for fit for communion is, do you love your neighbor, do you love your brothers and sisters in the church? And have you confessed your sins to the Lord? Do you have faith in the Lord? Do you think of the sins you've committed since the last time you take communion?

You confess them. You receive the forgiveness. The Lord is faithful and just to forgive those who confess their sins. You receive that forgiveness. It's applied to your own heart.

We confess our sins. We've received His forgiveness. That makes us worthy to participate. Faith and love are the prerequisites, not perfection. When you understand communion in the light of these two verses, you see how every time we take it, we demonstrate that God our Father is our provider, that Jesus Christ his son is our provision, it's who was provided, and the church is our people bound together around the Lord's table.

Lord, we're grateful for your word and the gospel shaped identity it gives us. Our life is built around the church. It's built around the body of Christ. It's built around the gift of Christ, crucified two thousand years ago. It's built around the blood of Christ shed for us.

We have forgiveness of sins that comes through Him, by Him, for Him, through Him, to Him are all things, and in Him they all together. That's true of our church, so we orbit around Jesus Christ. Pray for anyone here this morning who has never given their life to Christ. I pray this morning they would be convicted of their sins. And though the communion couple will pass them by, I pray that your atonement does not.

I pray that they would confess their sins to you this morning and receive the atonement and the forgiveness of sins that comes through faith, and that you would save them. We thank you for this in Jesus name. Amen. And now for a parting word from pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard today or if you wanna learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church.

If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to tms.edu. Now if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, DC area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service. But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.