Turn with me to the book of Acts, chapter 2, verse 42, and then verses 46 and 47.
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they took their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people.
Then in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22, from verse 14.
And when the hour was come, He sat down, and the apostles with Him.
And He said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer:
for I say unto you, I shall not eat it, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
And He received a cup, and when He had given thanks, He said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves:
for I say unto you, I shall not drink from henceforth of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.
And He took bread, and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and gave to them, saying, This is My body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of Me.
And the cup in like manner after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in My blood, even that which is poured out for you.
Then turn to the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 11. We have already read part of this earlier, but we will read from verse 23.
For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread;
and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, This is My body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of Me.
In like manner also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in My blood: this do, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me.
For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till He come.
Wherefore whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the cup.
For he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself, if he discern not the body.
For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep.
But if we discerned ourselves, we should not be judged.
But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
Shall we have a further word of prayer? Let us together stand by faith under that anointing which is ours for speaking and hearing this evening.
Lord, we want to thank You, as we have worshipped You this evening around Your table in the breaking of bread. We thank You, Lord, for every fresh glimpse of Yourself, for every new revelation of Your love, grace, mercy, and faithfulness toward us. We just want to thank You, Lord.
And now, Lord, as we come to Your Word, we need special help this evening, and we place ourselves unconditionally under Your headship. We thank You, Father, for the anointing which is on the Head, our Lord Jesus, and which the Holy Spirit makes a living reality to every member of the body.
We want to stand by faith in that anointing, grace, and power for the ministry of Your Word: for my speaking, for the translating, and for our hearing. O Lord, let Your purpose in this evening be fulfilled, we pray. We shall give You all the praise and the glory, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Now, I have been speaking in these evening times, in the times allotted to me, from Acts 2:42:
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.
These, I have said, are the four essential characteristics of church life. You cannot do with one less. You need every one of these four in balance to have healthy church life, or, if you like another word, corporate life. If we are really going to know something of the Spirit of the Lord building His spiritual house amongst us, then these four essential characteristics have to be present.
We have already spoken about the apostles’ teaching, the Word of God, and I am not going to go over that again. We have spoken about fellowship as another essential characteristic, and I am not going to go over that. Last night we spoke about the last one, the prayers. We talked much about prayer.
Now tonight I want to talk about the breaking of bread. I am a little nervous to speak about the breaking of bread. I am afraid that I am going to tread on the corns of some folks here—spiritual corns, I mean—and upset folks. But I feel that I have to be faithful to the Lord in this whole thing.
Please, I really have no desire to upset anybody here, and the worst you can do is not ask me back. So I shall seek, as far as possible, to discharge my responsibility.
I want to speak about three things to do with the breaking of bread:
In these three matters, we come to understand the meaning of the breaking of bread, and why those early believers continued steadfastly in the breaking of bread—why it was so important to them.
I do not want to be long-winded, so I shall start straight away with the testimony of the Lord’s table. In 1 Corinthians 11:26, it says:
For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till He come.
Ye proclaim the Lord’s death. Ye declare the Lord’s death. Actually, the word is “evangelise,” “gospelise.” You actually evangelise the Lord’s death. You make a kind of proclamation in the unseen world—to principalities and powers—as well as to the earth, to visible forces, that the death of Jesus is the most powerful thing in our lives.
When we break bread, we are saying that God has done something in our lives that can never be taken away: the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross. We are proclaiming the gospel, the heart of the gospel. We are gospelling the Lord’s death.
Dear Brother Sparks always referred to the breaking of bread, as well as baptism, as a testimony. He felt that this was a more beautiful, significant, and meaningful word in English than the word ordinance.
Of course, the Lord’s table is a ceremony. It is obvious, is it not? However we do it, there is a bit of ceremony in it. But is it merely ceremony? Of course, it is ritual. Do not despise it. It is something we do regularly—many of us at least once a week, others perhaps not so regularly, and some even more regularly.
It is therefore ritual; it is a rite. We do not have cake one week, milk the next, water the next, grape juice the next, and fermented wine the next. We have a certain ritual that we keep. But is it merely ritual?
The Lord’s table is an ordinance because our Lord told us to do it in remembrance of Him. He commanded us to do it. But is that all it is—an ordinance? That is why this word testimony is so beautiful. It is more than ceremony, more than ritual, and more than something commanded. It is more than an ordinance: it is a testimony.
When we break bread, when we take that bread and drink the cup, we are testifying to something together—something alive. You cannot testify to something that is not your experience. It has to be something alive. If you are a witness to something, you have to see it with your own eyes and handle it with your own hands. You cannot be a witness otherwise.
A testimony comes out of a living experience, something in which you are a participant. You are involved in it, and together we give this testimony.
How often should we do it? It is interesting that in the book of Acts we discover that they broke bread from home to home daily. Every single day in the church in Jerusalem, they were having the Lord’s table all over the city.
They broke the great crowd of three thousand one hundred and twenty down into small homes all over the city, and they broke bread in all those homes. It was amazing. It was a daily thing in the early church.
But later on, in Acts 20:7, we read about the church at Troas:
And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them.
By Jewish reckoning, this first day of the week was probably Saturday evening, so we have been absolutely right tonight. The early believers used to meet on Saturday evening after the Sabbath was over, so that Gentile slaves could join in. Their meetings often went late into the night.
Do not bother your head about that. It does not mean that you have to have it on a Saturday evening to be correct. The church in Jerusalem did it every day, and we do not even know what time of day they did it. The church at Troas did it on the first day of the week, though we are not quite sure exactly when.
The one thing we can say is that there is no commandment as to whether we should do it weekly, daily, quarterly, half-yearly, or yearly. We have to have the breaking of bread as the Lord leads us, and in the way that it is most meaningful to that particular company of God’s children, as led by the Spirit of God.
Now, having said that, I want to say something else. This is where we might get into some hot water. This breaking of bread came out of a custom that we have had amongst my people for some four thousand years.
It began with Abraham—actually, with Melchizedek. We call it Kiddush, which simply means sanctification. This is a little ceremony whereby we have wine, a cup of wine, bread, and salt.
When Melchizedek met Abraham, you remember, he brought bread and wine. To this day, every president, ruler, prime minister, or great national leader who comes to Jerusalem is met by the president on the boundaries of the city with a cup of wine, bread, and salt.
Every Sabbath meal begins with this Kiddush. The whole family gathers together. First, the cup of wine goes around the table. Then salt is put on the bread, thanksgiving is given over it, and we all break bread together.
We do this at the beginning of festivals, Sabbaths, and even when you have a special guest. If you have a special friend come home and you want to make a special occasion, you have Kiddush. You give thanks over it. It is something special.
There has been a tremendous argument amongst Christian scholars as to where the breaking of bread came from. Some say it came from the Kiddush, and that this breaking of bread in all the homes was the natural Jewish way to begin a meal, only now made into the remembering of the Lord at the beginning of the meal. Others say, “No, no, no, it came from the Passover.”
In actual fact, this argument amongst Christian scholars is because they do not understand Jewish custom. The Passover is a glorified Kiddush. Instead of having one cup of wine and bread, in the Passover you have four cups of wine, which everyone has to drink to the full, and three occasions on which bread is broken.
That is when the apostle says:
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ?
The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?
Personally, I believe that the breaking of bread came from the Passover, but it was still the Kiddush. This means a number of things to me.
In Luke 22, some liberal scholars say, “You see, it was all a muddle. Luke was so muddled. He begins with the cup, then goes to the bread, then goes back to the cup. What are we supposed to do? Have the cup first and then the bread? Or the bread first and then the cup? Or have the cup, say something about it, go to the bread, and then have the actual cup?”
But the misunderstanding comes because Luke is speaking from the Passover. The Lord Jesus had already taken the second cup, probably, and given thanks over it. He had introduced the subject of this being His last time with them, and that He would no longer eat of it until it was fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
Then He says concerning the bread, “This is My body,” and then He takes the third cup and says, “This is the new covenant in My blood.”
This is important to me, because it reveals that the bread our Lord took was unleavened bread, and the cup He took was one cup. The wine in it was fermented wine.
I know this causes a lot of fuss amongst American Christians in particular. There are whole great movements based upon this thing. They take the phrase “fruit of the vine” and say, “Do you not understand? The fruit of the vine is not wine; it is grape juice.”
But they do not understand that, to this very day, in our age-old custom and liturgy, we say, Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, borei p’ri ha-gafen—“the fruit of the vine.” That is the Semitic phrase for wine, fermented wine.
Furthermore, at Passover it is always the best fermented wine. By rabbinical law, you are permitted to add fifty percent water because you have to drink four large cups of wine. This is why we do not have alcoholism amongst the Jews. Most of us grew up not liking alcohol because, when we were children, we had to drink these glasses of wine, even though they were made smaller and water was added. That put us off for life.
However, I am only trying to give a background for something. A lot of nonsense has been spoken about the question of what kind of liquid was in the cup. Some people say, “Does it matter?” No, they say, it does not really matter.
I myself have a strong Quaker feeling about things. I think the main thing is to have the experience. But then I think: does it matter if we sprinkle people with water at baptism? Does it matter if we take a jug of water and pour it over them, or a bucket of water? Or is it more important that we immerse them in water?
If it does not matter, what are we going to do? Are we going to adopt anything? Do you understand what I am trying to say? If we have the Lord’s table, is it not important for us to seek to go right back to exactly what the Lord instituted? Every single thing has meaning.
He took unleavened bread because it spoke of His sinlessness. It was the time of unleavened bread. Every Jew had to get every bit of leaven out of the house. This is perfectly true; we spend whole days getting it out of the house before keeping the Passover.
But what some brethren do not know is that the law concerning leaven does not apply to liquids. The wine was a picture of the soul of the Lord Jesus poured out unto death.
If we wish to be correct, then we have unleavened bread, which instantly reminds us that He was without sin:
Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
I have been at the Lord’s table once in Germany where we had water and cake. I have been somewhere else—I will not mention where—where we had milk and biscuits. I want to tell you that these times were very precious. The Lord was very much there.
Personally, I find it difficult to take cake and water and remember the Lord, because I feel in my own heart that He left me something. I want to be able to look at that unleavened bread and remind myself that Jesus was without sin. There was no sin in Him. He was born without sin. He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. When He went to the cross for me, He bore my sin in His body on the tree.
When I take that cup of wine, I want to think of the soul of our Lord Jesus—so beautiful, so creative, so artistic—poured out unto death.
Having touched on the controversial, I will leave it. What is the testimony of the Lord’s table? I have noted seven things. I will only touch on them.
We testify in the breaking of bread that the atoning death of the Lord Jesus is the only way you and I can be saved. It is the foundation of all God’s new creation, of all God’s new man, of everything that God is going to do.
Every time we come together to break bread, we testify that I can only be saved, and you can only be saved, through the atoning death of the Lord Jesus. There is no other way—no other way—for you and me to be reconciled to God.
I think then of His perfect being, His sinless body, and His soul poured out unto death. That is the first part of the testimony.
Every time we break bread, we testify that in order to spiritually live, we must eat and drink of the Lord Jesus. In John 6, Jesus said:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have not life in yourselves.
For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.
He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in him.
As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth Me, he also shall live because of Me.
This is not just that once we receive Jesus and then have no more need to do with Him. He saved me, and that is that. No, I discover that I have to feed on the Lord Jesus. I have to drink of the Lord Jesus. I have to drink and drink and drink again, and I have to eat and eat and eat.
In some quarters, this truth has almost been taken to cultic extremes, as if the Lord Jesus were a commodity and not a person. But the fact remains: the only way we can abide in the Lord Jesus is by receiving the Lord Jesus. The only way I can abide in the fullness of the Holy Spirit is to drink into the Spirit of the Lord Jesus. The only way I can grow is by eating and drinking.
Every time I come to this table, I testify to the fact: do I want to grow in the Lord? Do I want to become a full-grown man or woman in the Lord? Do I want the church to grow up to a full-grown man in the Lord? Do I want the saints to come to maturity? Do I want the bride to be formed?
Then I have to know the Lord Jesus. Every day I have to receive more of Him. I have to drink more deeply into Him. Every time I come to this table, it reminds me: this is the testimony of the Lord’s table.
The third thing about this table is that we are one body. We find this in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17:
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ?
The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?
Seeing that we, who are many, are one bread, one body.
It seems clear to me that, in the time of Paul, they actually had a loaf and broke it. This is the same with us in Kiddush. We would not dream of cutting a loaf into little cubes. We break the loaf so that everyone can see the loaf being broken. Then pieces are given, or in our Sephardic tradition the loaf is put down, everyone puts a hand on it, and after we have given thanks, we all break it together.
This is the testimony: we are not all individuals; we are one body. We are one body because we share a cup and because we break one loaf. We all eat of the loaf; we all drink of the same wine.
This is my last controversial point for this evening. I believe the individual cup is the perfect illustration of non-church-type Christianity. Everyone is an individual. Everyone has his own little bit of the Lord, and cannot really join with another. They have their own little cup because they might catch something from someone else.
Of course, once you have unfermented wine, you have to have individual cups. The whole thing came in a century ago with the temperance movement. It is perfectly natural, and now everybody is fighting to the death over it.
It is strange to me. In a family, we share a cup. I know there are problems with it. When you have three thousand people, how do you have one cup? You must have a few cups. But the point is that you share the cup.
In one sense, it is not the important thing, because if we have the reality, all right. But every time I see all those individual cups, I feel ill inside. When I was saved, I was saved amongst the Baptists, so I am used to these individual cups. I feel, “There is Brother Stephen taking his individual cup, and now I am going to take mine. He has his Christ, and I have mine, and never the twain shall meet.”
To me, that is sad. I would rather take a cup and give him AIDS, or him give me AIDS, because in a family that is exactly what you do. You are not frightened all the time about what you are going to catch from Brother So-and-so or Sister So-and-so.
The apostle puts it very simply: “You are one loaf, one cup.” My dear friends, I know some may feel disturbed by my bringing up these things, but we belong to those folks who have sought to recover truth. Shall we throw it away?
How important is detail? If we are going to say it is not important, then let us be as clear on baptism as we are on the Lord’s table. Let us sprinkle. There is no problem with it. It does not matter so long as the person has water on them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
But you are all saying, “Oh no! Never, never!” I can hear everybody rising up. You know why? I am not being unkind, but it is because it is water and not wine. If we were baptising them in wine, everybody would say, “Sprinkle them.”
Every one of us would say, “No, the whole symbolism of baptism is that you are buried with Christ. You go right under the water. We do not want any curl left out—right under! We want to make sure every one of them is properly buried with the Lord. Then they are raised to walk in newness of life.”
We are very careful about the symbolism of baptism because we believe it is important and precious. So it has to be, I think, with the Lord’s table too. But that is my personal conviction.
Nevertheless, whether you have individual cups—and get over it—or little pieces of unleavened bread, remember this: we are one body. We are the household of faith, and we testify at this breaking of bread that we belong to one another in the Lord. There is only one Christ. There is only one body. That is the testimony.
Fourthly, every time we take this bread and wine, we testify that in order to know resurrection life and power, we also have to know the death of the cross.
When I take that bread, I remind myself: this bread was once wheat. It has been crushed, ground, and fired into a loaf that I am eating. This wine was once grapes. It has been broken, crushed, and left in a state of crushing until it ferments.
Then I remember the words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:
Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body.
For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
We cannot know the power of His resurrection or the fullness of His resurrection life if we are not prepared to know the death of the cross. If we are not prepared to go with Him into the cross, then we cannot experience the power of His resurrection.
It is so simple. Every time I come to this table, I remind myself: we are testifying to this. Remember, the deeper you die, the more abundant resurrection you will know. The more you are broken, the more you will know the power of God upon you. The more you know what it is to be crucified with Christ, the more you will know about walking in newness of life.
Then, fifthly, it is only till He come.
For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till He come.
I think that is a marvellous thing about the breaking of bread. I am so sad—not here, praise the Lord—but in some communions it is like a memorial service. Everyone sings terribly slowly, as if we are remembering someone who died and has never come back to life.
Hymns are played at least twice as slowly as normal, and it is a memorial service. But, my dear friends, what a marvellous thing it is when we break bread together to remember that He triumphed. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. This Jesus is at the right hand of the Father and is coming back—coming back much sooner than we realise.
What joy can fill our hearts as we break bread together, to think Jesus has never eaten this bread or touched this cup until that day when He sits down with us in the manifested kingdom of God.
What a day that will be! Can you imagine it? What a marvellous banquet it will be when they are all there. Paul will be there, John will be there, Matthew will be there. All the saints of the ages will be there—people we know who have gone on before us in our own lifetime. They will be there. What a marvellous thing it is to think, “Till He come.”
Sixthly, when we break bread and drink this cup, we testify that the Lord has made with us a new and eternal covenant. Think of that. He has actually committed Himself to you forever.
This cup is the new covenant in My blood.
God not only says, “I love you.” We might be afraid and say, “He said He loved me yesterday. Will He say it next week? Maybe He will find something displeasing about me.” As if God had not found out everything about us before He ever saved us! Yet we always think, “Maybe He is disappointed with me today.”
But the Lord has made a covenant with us—a legally binding covenant out of His love and grace. It means that He will never let you go. Never.
The blood and body of the Lord Jesus are the signs of His pledge. He will save you to the uttermost. Whatever lies ahead, whatever death, whatever circumstances, whatever situations, He will always remain faithful because He has covenanted Himself to you.
There is a beautiful word in the Old Testament which cannot really be translated into English, indeed into most other languages. It is the Hebrew word hesed. It is translated sometimes “mercy” in the King James Version; in revised versions and the American Standard Version of 1901, “lovingkindness”; and in modern versions, “steadfast love.”
This word hesed means love that is covenanted. It is grace, mercy, favour, and love wrapped up with faithfulness in a marriage covenant. It is as if the Lord is saying to us, “This is what I covenant with you: this special kind of steadfast love.”
There is one last thing to which we testify. Listen carefully to this. I do not want anyone to get into a deep depression over it, but listen carefully. The last testimony we give in the breaking of bread is that we need always, every time we break bread, to prove ourselves before God.
We find this in 1 Corinthians 11:28:
But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the cup.
My dear friends, do not think that just because the bread and the wine are symbols, just because they are tokens, you and I can treat them in a familiar way, in an unworthy manner. It is very clear from the Word of God that if you and I have no fear of the Lord in our eyes in the way we take the bread and wine, we eat and drink judgment to ourselves.
What does that mean, since we are justified and there is no condemnation? It means this: if you and I have an argument with another brother or sister, and we do not get that argument resolved—at least from our side; it takes two to make a division, by the way—then if I eat that loaf and drink that cup, I do not bring life to myself. I bring death to myself.
If I am swindling in business, if I am a fraud or dishonest in business dealings, and I take that bread and wine, I am not ministering the life of Christ to myself. I am ministering death.
If I am involved in some kind of immoral perversion—some man interfering with another husband’s wife within the fellowship, or some wife trying to allure another sister’s husband—and I take that bread and wine, I do not minister life to myself. I minister death.
If anyone thinks I am just trying to be difficult, look at what the Word says:
For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep.
I have the privilege of seeing many people fall asleep in my meetings, but that is not what it means. It does not mean that you become sleepy at the Lord’s table. It means you die.
Someone says, “That is impossible. God is a God of mercy. God is a God of grace. Are you trying to tell us that at the Lord’s table we can actually bring about our own death?” Yes, exactly. That is exactly what I mean. I have known cases of it personally. I have been involved in cases where people have died under the hand of God because they would not confess something or face up to something, and went on taking the Lord’s table.
Let me say something else. Perhaps it may be an explanation for many little fellowships that become weak, sickly, divided, and seem to break up. Do you not think sometimes it could be because we do not understand this thing about the Lord’s table? There are things going on under the surface, and everyone carries on as if the Lord’s table does not really matter.
We must prove ourselves. Every time I come to this table, I say, “Lord, I have no right to be here. My only claim is the name of the Lord Jesus and the work of the Lord Jesus.”
I say, “Lord, You know I am unworthy in myself, that there is no good thing in me, in my flesh. You are the One who saved me, and I come to this table because, as far as I know, there is nothing that I am doing that is wrong.”
Do you begin to understand how wonderful it is to have the Lord’s table? It keeps us all with short accounts. Every time we have the Lord’s table, every one of us proves himself before coming to it.
That is why I say, do not be late to the Lord’s table. Get there a little earlier, if you can. Wait quietly. Make sure that your heart is right before God. Do not just come in with that slovenly, sloppish, all-over-the-place spirit that says it does not really matter.
You are dealing with something that lies at the very heart of God: the death of our Lord Jesus. Woe betide us if, having been saved by the grace of God, we abuse that grace. We are all unworthy, but we do not have to come to the Lord’s table in an unworthy manner.
This marvellous table, this breaking of bread, is a supreme reminder and expression of love.
This do in remembrance of Me.
I remember many years ago, when I was first saved, some godly old brother, a servant of God, said, “Do you know what this means? It means, ‘Do this in an affectionate calling of Me to mind.’” Through all the years, that has remained with me.
Every time we come to the Lord’s table, we do it in an affectionate calling of Him to mind. Not things, not truth, but Him.
Then this table becomes a supreme reminder of divine love. Every time I sit at the Lord’s table, I think, “I am in the presence of a divine love story. I am in the presence of the love of God.”
Who would have loved me as He has loved me? Who would have persevered with me as He has persevered with me? Who would have been as faithful to me as He has been faithful to me? Every time I come to this table, I am confronted with a divine love story.
He loved me, and gave Himself for me.
What a wonderful thing the breaking of bread is, if it becomes a reminder of such love. In all the hurly-burly of life, in all my pressing and pressurised circumstances, in the busyness of life and the travelling I have to do, I can sit for a moment at His table and remember: He loves me and gave Himself for me.
We sit in the presence of divine love at this table. That is what the Lord Jesus really meant. He said, “Bring Me to mind. I know your propensity for forgetting Me. I know that, with the best will in the world, you will be so filled with your problems, jobs, work, business, figures, children, chores, and everything else. I understand it all. But every time you come to this table, sit down and remember Me.”
Do you begin to understand why it is so offensive when people rush in late? You know very well they are not thinking about the Lord. To them it is just a bit of ritual, a ceremony, and nothing else. We sit there in a kind of stupor, waiting for the time to finish so that we can say hello to a few friends. Here are the elements.
If we really thought of this as a reminder of divine love, would we not be very careful? Would we not come? It is like a renewal of the love bond. It is like a trysting place. It is a time when we come together and say, “Lord, You love me. Do I love You?”
That is why this table is so precious. That is why the Lord Jesus said to that wonderful church at Ephesus—a church that knocks most of our fellowships into a cocked hat:
I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.
First love is not a question of time; it is a question of quality. First love is not merely the kind of love you had when you were first in love. It is a quality of love.
When people are in love, they will walk miles to see the loved one, and it does not bother them. Years later, they would not even drive for two minutes. Nobody goes to the loved one and says, “Oh, I am so weary and worn out coming to see you.”
No, love is the most amazing thing. It renews your limbs, your mind, and your spirit. As soon as you see the one you love, you forget your weariness, your problems, and everything else, just to see the person you love. That is first love.
You can have all patience, toil, knowledge, discernment of error, and discernment of false apostleship. But if you do not have first love, the Lord removes the lampstand.
We say, “Lord, that is very harsh of You. Look at our work, our toil, our patience, and how we judge those who are in error.” But the Lord says, “It does not mean anything to Me without that quality of love.” It is useless.
Embedded in my own people’s history is the word that Jesus so marvellously passed on in the new covenant:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength.
So much for saying that the old covenant is law, as if there is no love in it. Right at the very beginning, God said to His chosen people, “You must love Me with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
When a good Pharisee came to Jesus and said, “Master, Rabbi, which is the greatest commandment?” Jesus said:
Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God, the Lord is one:
and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength.
And the second is like unto it:
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Upon these two hang the whole law and the prophets. Love. No wonder the Apostle John says, “God is love.” No wonder Paul, in the midst of a letter to a church that was a total mess of confusion, speaks of a more excellent way: love.
You can give your body to be burned. You can have all faith to remove mountains. You can have knowledge of all mysteries. But if you have not love, you are nothing.
Every time I come to this table, I am reminded of this one fundamental, utterly simple fact: He loved me, and He looks for me to love Him.
My dear friends, I could go on and on about this, but I must watch the time. The Lord’s table is not the place for prayer. It is not the place for requests. It is not the place for preaching. It is not the place for teaching. The Lord’s table is the place for love.
It is the one single gathering of God’s children in the routine life of the church where we shut out prayer, requests, petition, teaching, and preaching, and we all express our love for Him.
What a wonderful place the Lord’s table can become when it is like that. It is like heaven on earth when you move into an atmosphere of love where everybody understands it.
Some people say, “Oh, but you must be able to pray. It is selfish to come into the presence of the Lord and not pray for the lost.” But there should be somewhere in the life of the church where we spend a whole hour or more praying for the lost, for the needs of the fellow saints, and for everything else.
Can there not be one gathering in the whole life of the church where we shut out everything that we ask the Lord for and only give to the Lord? One single gathering where, instead of being egocentric spiritually, we can be totally Christ-centred.
Think only of Him. Think only of Who He is and what He is. Sometimes when we come into the Lord’s presence—and it is not wrong, but it is on a poorer level—all we can rise to is thanking the Lord for what He has done for us.
We can only say, “Thank You, Lord, You saved me. Thank You, Lord, that You have been faithful to me. Thank You.” Oh, to get even beyond that and to say, “Lord, I love You because of what You are—not because of what You have done, but because of what You are.”
There are levels of service that you and I have never touched here at the Lord’s table. So I come to the last point I want to make this evening: the deepest service you and I can render to the Lord is worship.
One of the reasons why I undisguisedly thank God for what we call the charismatic renewal, with all its failings and faults, is that it has restored worship.
When I was first saved, I knew what they called worship. We had a hymn, a prayer, a hymn, a reading, a hymn, a collection, the children’s talk, the notices, a hymn, and then the sermon. This was called worship.
At the Lord’s table, it was, as I have already said, an in memoriam service. You really felt that someone had gone. He was far, far away. This was when I was first saved.
I wonder whether we have even really touched worship. Worship is more than praise. You can praise the Lord and still not worship.
The Lord Jesus said of His Father that He seeks those who will worship Him in spirit and truth.
You and I were made. We were constituted by God to worship. Every human being worships something. They worship money. They worship themselves—that is the most common. They worship somebody else. They worship an ideology. Every human being is so constituted that they have to worship.
Actually, you and I were made and constituted to worship God. We will never know real fulfilment until we worship, because we were made to worship God. Only when we worship God with our whole being are we fulfilled.
Some of you have probably touched worship like that at some point in your spiritual experience, and you know exactly what I am talking about. Once you worship the Lord like that, you are never the same again.
I always say to people, if you have ever touched the house of God in expression, you are spoiled for anything else. For the rest of your life, you always look for that house of God. You touch something of the body, something of real fellowship, and you are never the same again.
So it is with worship. Once you have touched the kind of worship where we are no longer conscious of one another, no longer conscious of the place, and only conscious of the Lord—where we feel as if we are standing in the actual presence of God—you are never the same again.
It is the most marvellous privilege, the greatest gift the Lord could give us, when the Lord’s table becomes a place of worship. Everyone comes to it with his heart toward God, and everyone is ready to contribute as the Lord leads in one great symphony of praise, thanksgiving, and worship.
Dear child of God, is it not interesting? We all want to find some kind of fulfilment, but God has so designed the human being that you and I cannot find fulfilment until we worship the Lord.
In the end, this is a service, a ministry to the Lord. In the life of the church, we may have many other ministries at different times. We may be reaching out to the unsaved, working for children, working for young people, and doing all kinds of things.
But there is one place in the life of the church that has to be safeguarded. It is for the Lord. It is the breaking of bread.
Do you begin to understand why it says they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers?
You have the Word of God, and you continue steadfastly in that. You have fellowship: sharing the Lord Jesus together, building one another up, caring for one another, provoking one another to love and good works. We must continue steadfastly in that.
You have prayer, the prayer ministry of the church, when we pray into being the will of God and the mind of God in our own area. In its deepest form, the Spirit of the Lord can conceive a burden within us which brings travail of spirit until, in the end, the purpose of God is fulfilled.
But we must also continue steadfastly in the breaking of bread—not as a ritual, not as an ordinance, but as a testimony. It reminds us every time we come how much the Lord has loved, and how much He looks in our hearts for love for Him.
It finds me out. I do not know if it finds you out. Would it not be a marvellous thing, before we next meet together for the breaking of bread, if a whole lot of things got sorted out in our lives?
When we came together in our little fellowships to break bread, might it become a trysting place—a place of worship, adoration, and love. Would that not do something for us all? Would we not be lifted into another dimension together? I believe so.
May the Lord work in these marvellous ways in all our hearts. Forgive me if I have trodden on some people’s toes. I know you folks are resilient enough to resist me, so I have no fear in that direction at all.
But if it is the Lord, hear Him. Be like the Bereans. Search the Scriptures, whether these things be so.
Let us pray.
O Father, every one of us has found out, when we talk about this kind of love and this kind of worship, that we have to say in our hearts, “Lord, we do not love You as we ought, and we certainly do not love one another as we ought.”
Lord, be gracious to us. We need to be renewed in first love, in that quality of love that means we are not talking all the time about the afflictions, problems, weariness, toil, and everything else, but are so in love with You that these things almost melt away in renewed first love.
Dear Father, only Your Spirit can renew the love within us. Do it, Lord, in every one of our hearts, we pray. In these days, when it is said that the love of the many will grow cold, may it not be true of any of us. May our love grow yet more and more until the coming of our Lord Jesus.
Hear us as we commit ourselves to You. Lord, You said that You seek worshippers in spirit and in truth. Make us such worshippers, Lord. Give us a taste of worship such as we have never had before. Spoil us for anything less.
Let this breaking of bread come to mean something more precious to every one of us than it has ever meant before. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.