The Table that Unites Us to Christ | 1Corinthians 10:15-22

We are working our way through the letter of First Corinthians. So, if you have a Bible somewhere nearby, go ahead and grab it. 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Here at PBC, we work our way through books of the Bible a little bit at a time, and we find ourselves in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. We’ll be considering verses 15 down to 22. So, as we often do, I’ll read the full passage that we’re considering. Pray for the Lord’s help on our time together,

and then we’ll work our way through this passage a little bit at a time. Should be around 45 minutes or so. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 15. This is the word of the Lord. I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the body 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 the one bread. Consider the people of Israel.

Are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? Let’s pray. Father, we humble ourselves before you

in recognition that without your Holy Spirit, there is no hope for us understanding your word. We also recognize that as Peter said to your son, you have the words of eternal life. And so we ask, oh Lord, humbly that you would speak and let your servants hear. Let it find good soil in our hearts to take root downward and to bear fruit upward for the glory of your son. In his name we pray. Amen. Here’s the big idea this morning. By faith, the Lord’s table unites you to Christ and all his blessings.

So receive them with joy and give yourself fully to him. >> Imagine yourself at a wedding this summer. And when it comes to that point in the wedding where the couple makes their vows to each other, imagine you hearing the groom say this to his wife. I take you to be my lawfully wedded wife to have and to hold on Monday and Wednesday and Friday. As long as they don’t fall on holiday or as long as I haven’t made plans with other girls. You’re important. Well, top two or three. Oh, what would you think if you heard

that at a wedding this summer? You probably nudge your spouse, see if they can sneak off and get your gift off the gift table. But worse, what would the bride think if she heard that from her future husband? How loved do you think she would feel? How committed do you think she would be to a man who puts her in his top two or three? It sounds silly. And I’m talking about us PBC. How often do we approach our relationship with the Lord like that? Well, he’s most important. Well, top two or three anyway.

He’s like a room in the house that we like to visit on occasion. We compartmentalize our lives being Christian in some ways and then giving veto power to other allegiances, other priorities. And yet the Lord demands, the Lord deserves exclusivity from our lives. He doesn’t ask to be most important. He demands to be all important and anything less than everything is unworthy of him and I’ll just say it is idolatrous. Remember as we have seen already in this series an idol is anything that is more

fundamental to our happiness to our wholeness than God. Well, you could say it’s anything that we give veto power over our obedience and our devotion and our contentment. Jesus said it plainly. Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” And the question I would ask you to consider this morning is where does that leave us? In a bad way. idolattors, those whose affections are

corrupted, those whose devotion is divided. I think if you’re being honest with yourself, you’ll realize that your devotion to Christ, your loyalty to him is anything but singular and exclusive. And truth be told, friends, we are far worse off than we ever thought. And truth be told, friends, we are far more loved than we could possibly imagine. In the gospel, Jesus gives us more than mercy and eternal life. He gives us himself, his whole self, all his merits, all his blessings, all his perfect

righteousness, the power of his indestructible life. And this is the remedy to the divided heart to see and to savor who God is and what God has done for us in Christ. The apostle Paul who wrote this letter to a church in the first century city of Corinth did so to secure undivided devotion from the believers in Corinth. There were some in the church who seemed to want to keep one foot in their old life and one foot in their new. They wanted Jesus and they wanted the social benefits that come from participating in pagan

worship. They wanted Jesus to be a room in the house that they would visit every so often. And these believers were in grave danger. Either they didn’t know it or they didn’t care. So Paul writes to tell them, you can’t drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. So yes, welcome back to the auditorium. Sit in your nice happy seat and let’s talk about demons. Three points to draw from the text this morning. You might see them in this tiny little screens to my side. There is one

table that unites us. There are many tables that divide us and there is a choice that must be made. Those points will serve as our outline this morning. There’s one table that unites us. Our first point, this is verses 15 to1 17. Again, I speak as the sensible people. Paul says, judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? the blood, the bread that we break. Is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there’s

one bread. We who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Now, if you’ve been with us, you know what the context is. But if if you’re just dropping in, let me set the context for us. Since chapter 8 in this letter, Paul has been building an argument. He’s going to land it in this passage. The admonition that we ended with last Lord’s day was to flee idolatry. That’s been the main idea is to flee idolatry. And these are sort of his closing remarks. Earlier in the chapter, Paul reminds the

church at Corenth of the of their spiritual ancestors of of grandma and grandpa Israel and of the ways that they gave into idolatry. How they made things other than Yahweh more fundamental to their happiness and wholeness. He reminded them of grandma and grandpa Israel, how they worshiped idols and committed sexual sin and complained about the Lord’s provision and grumbled against the Lord and his servant Moses. I sort of touched on this last week, but I wonder when you read these passages in

the Old Testament, do you find yourself connected to those people and their story? I endeavored to show last Lord’s day that their story is our history. They are our spiritual ancestors. And while we might not say we’re better than them, I wonder if you have a hard time imagining yourself approving of some of their decisions, like the decision to take all of the gold jewelry and melt it down into a big old blob and then hammer that blob into a golden calf and then lift up that golden calf and

then give it credit for delivering you out of Egypt. Can you imagine yourself approving of such a thing? I wonder if you do the same thing when you read the Corinthian letters. You just can’t see yourself attending a pagan temple. You cannot see yourself approving of a decision to participate in the worship of demons. And so, let’s take a moment before we get too deep into this passage. Let’s take a moment and think through what was so attractive about doing this. But why would anyone do this?

I guess I would summarize it like this. Being different is difficult. Old Testament Israel wanted to be like the other nations. The other nations had many gods. Well, they just had one. Other nations had visible gods, but Yahweh was invisible. and forbade making him visible. And so when something didn’t work in their favor, they might have been wondering, well, they look around, they see other nations doing seemingly fel seemingly well, and they think, well, maybe there are other gods. Perhaps we

should hedge our bets. Well, there’s the same thing in Corinth. We’ve already learned this in the series, but pagan temples were sort of like social centers of the city. Business was often conducted in the restaurants that were attached to the temples because that’s that’s where they got their meat. Historical records show that there were celebrations and birthday parties, anniversaries taking places taking place in the restaurants in those places. So you’d go, you’d attend a brief

ceremony and then maybe share some food with your friends. It’s just it was just how things were done. It felt ordinary. Now, the Corinthian believers probably knew that these ceremonies were not right. But they also knew that idols are nothing. There is only one God. And besides, to stop suddenly attending these social events would have been bad for business. It would have jeopardized their social reputation. It would have made them different and being different is difficult. Some of the believers in the church,

those who knew that idols were nothing and eating food sacrificed to idols was nothing, they were not bothered at all by these ceremonies. They had no issue attending the events and eating the food. They just wanted to maintain their social standing. But the consciences of other believers in the church were bound. This is pagan worship. It’s not nothing. Those with freedom to attend those ceremonies refused to give up their freedom for the sake of the weak conscience believers in the church.

You can imagine them saying, “Well, you know, I’ve done the research. I’ve read the text. Grow up. Why should my freedom, my livelihood be limited by those who haven’t done the research, who haven’t done the work? And so Paul writes to these strong believers who have freedom, telling them, “You boys don’t know as much as you think you know, and you’re bring being prideful.” And here he tells them, “Y’all are playing with fire. You have no idea the danger that you’re

in. By participating in pagan rituals, you’re endangering yourself and others. you’re endangering the reputation of Christ through your life. Interestingly, Paul begins his argument to the Corinthians by appealing to their judgment and reason. He says, “I speak as to sensible people.” You’re smart people. You’re wise people. Judge for yourselves what I say. He’s telling these strong believers to think this through. Open your eyes. There are bigger things at work here. Verse 16, he writes, “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?” It’s kind of a weird turn. He’s referring to the Lord’s supper. Saying, “Y’all need not participate in the worship of demons because of the Lord’s supper.” It’s a difficult thing to see how he goes there in his mind. Paul compares what the Christians do in celebrating the Lord’s supper to what pagans do in

the temple. So it might not be clear right now, but I trust it will become clear in a moment. The strong believers in Corinth need to know that participating in pagan worship is not spiritually neutral. That word in verse 16 translated as participation. It’s a really important word. It means fellowship, sharing, common participation. It’s the same word Paul used at the opening of this letter when he said, “God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus

Christ, our Lord.” It’s why the Lord’s Supper is sometimes called communion. We celebrate the common union that we have with Christ. Many Baptist churches today, perhaps most Baptist churches today, hold to what’s called the memorialist view of the Lord’s Supper. And by the way, when I say most Baptists, I also mean most non-denominational churches because most, let’s just be honest, most non-denominational churches are just Baptist churches. They’re like in some kind of witness protection program or

something. They’re just afraid to come out. Most Baptists, non-denominational churches hold to a memorialist view, which if you want to impress your friends, it’s also the Zwingian view of the Lord’s supper, which sees the Lord’s supper as simply a time to remember what the Lord has done, the Lord’s death. And the benefit is just that. It’s in the remembering. And that’s not wrong. It’s just it’s not enough. Historically, Baptists have viewed the Lord’s Supper

as more than a remembering, but have viewed it as a means of grace, a present participation in the present blessings that are ours in Christ through his body and his blood. Here’s how some of our Baptist forebears put it in a confession long time ago in the 17th century. Here’s what they wrote. The grace of faith whereby the elect are enabled to believe is the work of the spirit of Christ in their hearts and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the word and by the administration of baptism in

the Lord’s supper, prayer and other means appointed by God. It is increased and strengthened. You see what our forebears were teaching us is that our faith is increased and strengthened in the Lord’s supper. As one author put it, it is not a means of special grace. It is a special means of grace. Our faith is increased and strengthened because in the Lord’s supper, we participate. That’s Paul’s word. In the person and the work of Jesus Christ, the benefits of his life and his

death are communicated to us in the bread and wine through faith. The Lord is giving himself to us, his life to give us life, a participation in and with Christ himself, a means of grace vertically from God to us. And notice Paul also endeavors for the church to see that it’s not only a vertical grace. It’s also a horizontal grace. Look at verse 17. We’ll talk about this a little bit more when we get to chapter 11 next month or willing. There is one bread and by that one bread we are one

body. The body represents the body of Christ. The bread represents the body of Christ. There is one Christ, one bread. Therefore, we are one body. We are one church. In our common sharing of Christ, we also share in one another. Oh, you’ve heard us say before, this is a family meal. It is a fellowship, a common state, common condition. The Lord’s Supper is both vertical and horizontal. Which is why, by the way, we shouldn’t hopefully don’t receive the Lord’s Supper alone. A cracker in some port on your back

porch. The Lord’s supper does not make the initial physical evidence that someone has come to Christ is that has been received into the body of Christ is baptism. The believer receives the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection by faith which is symbolized made visible by going under the water and coming up out of the water. And the ongoing sign that a believer is in Christ is the Lord’s supper. We constantly need food to replenish us physically and we constantly need fellowship with

Christ to replenish us us spiritually. And one of the ways that happens especially is by receiving the Lord’s supper with the Lord’s body on the Lord’s day. If baptism is like maybe the front door into the house, the Lord’s supper is sort of like the sharing of the family meal. It expresses your belonging to the family. It deepens your shared life with the family. The Lord’s supper is this ongoing sign that you belong to the family of God. a continual participation in all of the benefits of being

his son, his daughter. Which is why Paul is so torqued off. Which is why the Corinthian participation in pagan worship is not nothing. It is incompatible with being a follower of Jesus Christ. Let’s keep reading. Verse 18. Consider the people of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then? The food offered to idols is anything or that an idol is anything? No. I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to

become participants with demons. In verse 18, Paul reminds the believers in Corinth of what the Old Testament sacrifice, the Old Testament sacrificial system, what it conveyed to them. Under the old old testament sacrificial system, animal sacrifices were um for lots of reasons. A covering for sin. They they might be a for purification. They might be for thanksgiving. The way it works is that you bring the animal there. The animal will be slaughtered. Part of the animal would then be offered on the altar as up to

God. Part of the animal would then be consumed by the priest. Some of the animal then be consumed by the worshipper and the worshippers’s family. A life taken and then by that sacrifice the life of the worshipper preserved physically, spiritually and all of it pointed forward to the Lord Jesus what he would do on the cross. For on the cross Jesus laid down his life. He was sacrificed on the altar of the cross. His blood was shed. His body was broken. It was his life that preserved the life of his people.

And so if if you’re here and you’re not a Christian, I just want you to know there is only one way for your life to be preserved eternally. And that is by turning to the sacrifice God offered in the place of sinners. God the Son came from heaven and took on flesh. Lived without sin, went to the cross, died on the cross, and they put him in a grave. And on the third day, he rose again. He sent his Holy Spirit and his people out to say to you today, “Friend, turn from your sins. Trust in Jesus Christ

today and receive eternal life.” There is only one way to be right with God, and that is to believe and accept the grace of God and the mercy of God that is available to you in Jesus Christ. If you’ve never done that before, do that today. Before you leave this place, find someone who looks like a regular and talk to them. We would love to tell you more. When Grandma and Grandpa Israel made an offering under that Old Testament sacrificial system, Paul says they became participants in the altar.

That is that participation appropriates the reality that that sacrifice represents. The benefits of that sacrifice are conveyed to them by faith. They trust that what this was doing was really doing and it became true because they were participating in it. So when God’s new covenant people receive the Lord’s supper, they also participate in the benefits of the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross and appropriate the realities of the cross, his death, our life. So Paul is saying to these strong

believers in Corenth, “What do you think is happening at these pagan altars? If the table of the Lord unites us, what do you suppose is happening at those other tables?” Now, in verse 19, he’s being honest. An idol is nothing. Food offered to idols is nothing. He said it earlier. Food will not commend us to God. We’re no better off if we eat or we don’t eat. But don’t think for a minute Paul’s saying that participation in pagan practices is thereby neutral. Verse 20 makes it clear what pagan

sacrifice they offer to demons. And I don’t want you to be participants with demons. What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. Eating meat in pagan temples is not about protein. It’s about participation in the worship of demons. So here at PBC, we believe that there are things, entities called demons. We believe that because that’s what the Bible teaches. Demons are supernatural beings, evil spirits under the authority and leadership of the adversary, the devil, Satan. They oppose God. They oppose his people

and they’re very real. And Paul is telling the Corinthians that by participation in these pagan worship practices, they are fellowshipping with demons. Well, okay. They might say, “Oh, but I don’t believe. I’m not exercising faith. An idol is nothing. I’m not actually worshiping. I’m just participating in the ceremony.” Well, it’d be like participation in an initiation ceremony into a secret society. You’re identifying yourself with that society. Your participation signals your

allegiance to that society. You became a partner implicated in the activities of that society. So Paul is telling the church, it’s not just social networking. Participation in the practice of worship of demons is a very serious and dangerous thing. You are exposing yourself to demonic influence. It’s not neutral. Well, that was then. This is now. There’s no pagan temples in Piccolo, Ohio. Right. Our new Olive Garden isn’t sourcing their chicken from Hunan’s House of Demons. So, we’re off the hook, right?

Well, as we’ve already seen in this letter and I think in Ezekiel chapter 14, idols are more than just physical things. We can take idols into our heart. Our idols become the things that we offer our allegiance to. And so ask yourself, what do I rely on for my sake, for my sense of identity, for my sense of security, for my social standing, whatever we sacrifice for and organize our lives around that can become for us a functional god, an idol. There are many tables, many pagan temples. And so what table tempts you, PPC?

What tables are vying for your allegiance? Perhaps it’s materialism that your worth is measured by your net worth. And money has veto power over your obedience to Christ. When someone invites you to participate in the community life of the church, maybe invites you to a Wednesday night prayer meeting, join a Bible study, why do you say no? What has veto power over your schedule? What are the tables offering you peace and rest, comfort, security, approval? There are many tables. There’s a table called perfect

motherhood that offers affirmation and approval through good kids, charming home. It just comes with crippling comparison. competitive parenting, all sorts of anxiety, and it keeps you from resting in Christ. It keeps you from receiving approval and affirmation from him through the cross. Keeps you from investing yourself in other moms because, well, we’re in competition. and the fear that they might see that I’m not as perfect as I present. There’s a table called laziness. Well, it’s not called laziness. It’s

labeled self-care, authenticity, and it promises rest for the mind and for the body. But the cost is a disordered home, an inhospitable home. It keeps us from finding our rest in the only place where we can truly find it, which is Christ. Keeps us from being able to show hospitality to our brothers and sisters, to our unbelieving neighbors. There’s a really big table that is bidding all of us to come to eat. Maybe we could call it Midwestern rugged individualism. It promises to be a competent man and a powerful man

and to be somebody means you need to be self-sufficient. Self-sufficiency is the way to security and to power and to approval. You can’t show weakness. You can’t show a need for others. All that it costs you is community. All that it costs you is to forsake the eternal reward getting and God-glorifying work of investing yourself in the spiritual well-being of others and receiving correction and receiving encouragement from others. It won’t do it because of course well their faith is personal. My faith is per

that’s their problem. That’s a mess of their own making. What does it have to do with me? And that table does not give you meaning or security or power. It takes it from you and it leaves you vain and fruitless and wasteful and a poor steward. Well, I could go on. There are thousands of tables that v for our allegiance and they stretch us thin and they ask us to sacrifice time in God’s word and you know that you’re giving into them if you can’t remember the last time you sat down with somebody in the in the

Lord and had a one-on-one Bible study with him. We might not imagine ourselves visiting pagan temples in Corenth, but we also can’t imagine ourselves sharing the gospel with a co-orker or a neighbor for the fear of what it might do to our reputation. And all I’m trying to say, friends, is that’s the same thing. Our affections have been corrupted. Our devotions are divided. And so the question we ought to be asking is, what do we do? We must turn to Christ. We must take hold of him. We must accept what he has

done for us. We must accept uh we must believe that he is enough. He is sufficient. You must rejoice in all that he is for us and the glorious riches that are available in him. Let’s keep reading. This is where we’ll end our time together. Verse 21. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord in the table and the cup of demons. You cannot partake in the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than him? You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and

the cup of demons. You can’t. They’re mutually exclusive. It’s like trying to travel north and south at the same time. It just cannot be done. Our God is a jealous God. And grandma and grandpa Israel provoked Yahweh to jealousy by offering themselves to non-gods, idols of the surrounding nations and brought the Lord’s judgment upon them. Now, something you need to understand. There’s a world of difference between human jealousy and the jealousy of Almighty God. Human jealousy is often selfish,

insecure, possessive, petty. says, “I need you. I cannot if I if I perceive a threat to having you, I will destroy that threat, even if it means hurting you.” But God’s jealousy is not based on insecurity. God’s jealousy is based on his infinite value and worth. To live as if something other than God is more fundamental to your happiness and wholeness is to say to God that he is not enough. He hasn’t done enough. It’s the groom saying to the bride, “I’ll take you on Monday and Wednesday

and Friday. You’re my top two or three.” It’s saying she’s not enough. And for this reason, God will label Israel’s idolatry as adultery. For so it is. God loves his people too much to sit oddly by while they participate in what will destroy them. There is only one God. There is only one savior. And to treat something else other than God as savior is to flirt with death. And God will not allow his people to flirt with death. For the Corinthians to continue in worship of demons was to open themselves up to

something that will destroy them. When God demands our all, he’s not doing it because he’s some cosmic control freak. He’s refusing to allow you and I to settle for a love that will not satisfy us. to settle with a love that will lead to our destruction and pain. And so Paul says, “Don’t provoke the Lord to jealousy.” And then he asks that fatal question, “Are we stronger than him?” And it’s a warning, but it’s also a comfort. It’s a warning that if we persist in this divided

loyalty, if we continue to drink the cup of demons, we will provoke the Lord’s jealousy. We will have to face God’s judgment. And his point here is that you’re not nearly strong enough to face God’s judgment. But it’s also a comfort because you aren’t stronger than God and you don’t need to be. And you don’t need to withstand God’s judgment because someone already did it in your place. Jesus stood in your place and suffered the judgment of God for your sin. Everything Paul warns in this passage,

spiritual adultery, unfaithfulness, partnership with demons, we’re all guilty of these things, which means all of us have provoked the Lord to jealousy. We have loved created things more than the creator. We have given our hearts and our time and our devotion and our worship to worthless idols. But here’s the best news of all. Jesus Christ never did. He was faithful in our place. Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath and handed you the cup of God’s blessing. In the Lord’s supper, we declare, “He

drank the cup of wrath, and now I drink the cup of blessing.” You see, that’s why we turn to him. That’s why he deserves our all because he’s a loving savior who paid the ultimate price to save us from our sin, from slavery, from demons, from death. And this is why those strong believers in Corinth can flex their freedom for the sake of the weak because their social standing isn’t based on participation in a social gathering, but their social standing has been secured for them in Christ.

In the gospel, Jesus died to pay your penalty and your idolatry. idolatry. His resurrection has secured your future now and forever. And so this morning, he offers you himself. And not a part of himself, all of himself. His family name. a seat at his table. His unchanging favor, his glorious story, his unbelievable riches, his unbreakable joy. And so, PBC, turn to him this morning. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for Jesus, for his righteousness, for the mercy that was secured by his offering.

We pray, oh Lord, that in the future we would never take for granted what a gift it is to receive the Lord’s supper and to participate in and with your glorious son. Amen.