An Exciting Week!
The best part of today is our church’s observance of communion, but there’s a lot of great things happening this week. Here’s a few quick updates:
Shae comes to town! The last time we saw an update on Shae was on our Vision Night when Bro. Zack was out in Alabama visiting her. This week, we get to meet her in person.
Bro. James Kim and Bro. Seonggyu Yoon Visiting. Speaking of Alabama, Bro. James Kim moved from Shae’s current church to Irvine and launched the City Light Baptist Church last just two weeks ago! Heartland Baptist Bible College student Seonggyu Yoon is visiting him for Spring Break, and they decided to join us for services tonight.
Heartland Spring Break Trip. The other students from Heartland arrived in San Diego last night and will be with us tomorrow. Pray for them as they travel to Los Angeles and then fly to the Bay Area for the weekend.
Easter. Never is there an easier time to invite people to church than in this Easter season. We are not trying to WOW people into loving Jesus, so we will have a Sunday service that will feel very similar to most Sundays. Our special music will be beautiful, and the sermon will be geared toward preaching a clear Gospel message, so please invite your friends and family, and prepare now to have conversations with guests when they are with us.
COMMUNION
The best part of today is our observance of the Lord’s Supper. It was this week when Jesus first instituted the church ordinance of Communion with his disciples at the last supper, and churches then continued observing it and have ever since.
The Scriptures teach many things about Communion, and while we cannot cover everything in one sermon, we will look at a few thoughts tonight:
- Communion is a L__________ C___________ ordinance.
- The B_________ of Christ is not universal and invisible, but is local and assembled. There is one body of Christ, no longer physically represented on earth by Jesus’ body, but represented by the church. The local church is the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27), and not just part of the body. There will one day be an assembly of the body in heaven, but now, the church is that assembly of his body as we have here in our church tonight. As we quoted from Obrien’s commentary two Sundays ago: “Each congregation is a local manifestation of this heavenly entity, not a part of it. So although the apostle is writing about the one body which is in heaven, all that he says applies also to each local congregation, for it is here that the unity of the body is visible.”
- Each local church communes with Christ as “O___________ B______________.” 1 Cor. 10:16–17. The context of 1 Cor. 10 is that they were fellowshipping with demons by partaking in some of the culture’s food, and this was wholly incompatible with communing with Christ. Intercommunion among churches creates a oneness of doctrine with them, and we cannot enforce doctrinal unity anywhere but in this local congregation (“one bread” meaning, one loaf).
- E_________________ doctrinal unity of the body means that we purge leaven (representing that which is impure) through church discipline. According to 1 Cor. 5:11, this means removing him from communion. We have no jurisdiction for church discipline except within the communion that our local church offers (meaning, we can’t excommunicate someone from any other body but this local body, therefore, the only jurisdiction for offering our communion is to our body.)
- Communion is a S____________ service.
- Jesus showed that the Passover meal had always been a picture of himself. The disciples ate the meal, but Jesus made a special point about the observance of his first communion, praying after the meal and teaching his disciples that the elements represented his own body and blood. (c.f. Lu. 22:19–20, Mat. 26:27)
- Christians were told not to make it a commonplace meal. (1 Cor. 11:20–25) They were to come together (notice the repetition of that phrase throughout 1 Cor. 11) as one body to remember the Lord’s death. The Corinthian Christians were emphasizing their division rather than their unity, and Paul rebuked them for breaking the picture.
- Communion accomplishes many things in a church. In the past, we covered a list of seven things it accomplishes, but here are four:
- U________________
- C________________
- C________________
- R________________
-Pastor Ryan