Yeah.
Thank the Lord. Let us pray for this meeting.
Oh, Lord Jesus, God has highly exalted You. After You came to accomplish salvation for us sinners, God raised You from the dead and set You at the right hand of the Majesty on high. This is the Christ that we have today. We exalt You.
Oh, You once wore a crown of thorns and bled for sinners. Now You wear the crown of glory and honor. All power is given to You. Oh, we thank You for this Christ that we have.
Oh, even now, You are in our presence. You are here with all the power from heaven. We ask for Your Spirit now, Lord, as we pray for this meeting.
Oh, Lord, anoint the words. Oh, without Your words, it is by the letter only, or by my own mind; oh, it is all useless and vain. Oh, how we need You, Lord. Anoint the meeting, anoint my mouth, anoint the ears, Lord.
Oh, may the whole meeting be filled with You. That is the only good purpose we have: You. Praise You in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Let us read from the book of Acts, Chapter 2. I have the verses up on the screen. Amen.
Acts 2:42:
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Acts 2:46-47:
And day by day, continuing stedfastly 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.
And the Lord added to them day by day those that were saved.
Matthew 26:27:
And he took a cup, and gave thanks, and gave to them, saying, Drink ye all of it.
1 Corinthians 11:23-25:
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.
From these verses, the topic we would like to fellowship about today is the Lord’s Table, or breaking bread, also known as communion.
I would like to give it a theme: the integrated practice of breaking bread in the church life. By “integrated,” I mean that breaking bread is combined with other spiritual activities in the church life.
We have daily life: we get up in the morning, eat, and go to work. The church also has church life. As I was studying the topic of breaking bread in preparation for this message, I found that in the book of Acts, breaking bread is interwoven with other spiritual activities—not only woven, but interwoven.
For example, breaking bread was woven into fellowship, and fellowship was woven into breaking bread. Many components, together with breaking bread, form that unified whole which I call church life.
There are other messages on the CTM website that Brother Kong has spoken, and others have shared, specifically on the Lord’s Table. Since we are going through the book of Acts as a corporate body, I would like to share from that perspective: how the early Christians broke bread, or held the Lord’s Table.
The Lord’s Table is such an important topic, such an important thing to do. Briefly, it is the only meeting that we can see in the Bible which the Lord commanded His disciples to do, and which the apostles later continued to do.
It is important. It is so important that the early Christians received this teaching and broke bread very often.
This was even before church elders were established. We may think that elders are important, but that came later. From the very beginning, in the same chapter in which the church was born, we see that they were breaking bread. So, it is very important.
For believers here who have been in the Lord many years, I hope today’s fellowship will be refreshing. To those who may have come among us and are less familiar with why we break bread weekly, I hope and pray that the Word of God will enlighten us and leave a deep impression on us.
Let us begin with point number one: they gathered to break bread. This is from Acts 20:7. I think I may have forgotten to read that earlier. Let us read it.
Acts 20:7:
And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them.
We will stop at that clause: “When we were gathered together to break bread.” The next part is that Paul preached to them, but let us stop at this clause. They came together to break bread.
In the three passages, we see “breaking bread,” “the breaking of bread,” and “to break bread.” It is the same topic in different forms, and the nuance is a little different in each instance.
In Acts 20:7, they came together to break bread, just as we came this morning to break bread. It tells us that they came for the purpose of breaking bread. Very simply, it tells us the purpose. We come together knowing that we are coming for the purpose of breaking bread.
But saying that we come for the purpose of breaking bread still leaves the question: What does that mean? What is the purpose of breaking bread? We can look more deeply into its meaning.
We will review a little, but I still hope and pray that this will be fresh. We will look at the bread and the cup. Let us look at what the Lord said about remembering: “This do in remembrance of me.”
I think one brother shared here one time that we tend to forget. There was a brother a long time ago who believed in the Lord, but not long afterward he fell away. For many years he did not meet, did not fellowship, and did not read the Bible. He went into a kind of slumber in the world.
Then one day he became sick and was vomiting blood. He knew he was about to die. Then he remembered, “Oh, I once believed in Jesus. I want to go back to church and tell the brothers that I am dying.”
He went back to church and met with one brother. That brother, with the Lord’s Spirit moving in him, gave him some Scripture, and they prayed together. He went home expecting to die soon, but the Lord healed him.
He told his family, “Look, we need to come back to the church life.” So the whole family came back and resumed meeting. That is an instance where, yes, we tend to forget and may fall into slumber in the world, but the Lord set this up: “This do in remembrance of me.”
When I was younger, one time I tried to use a man-made method. I said, “Well, yes, I forget the Lord during the day, so I will set a timer for myself. When it beeps every hour, I will remember the Lord.” But that is a man-made method.
The Lord, in His wisdom, tells us, “This do.” This refers to breaking bread. He took bread, gave thanks, and took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them. “This do in remembrance of me.” The Lord has a purpose in that.
Let us look at the bread first. The Lord said, “This is my body, broken for you.” In Luke and in Acts, one passage says “broken for you,” and another says “given” or “offered for you.” It is the same thing. The Lord offered up His body and gave His body for us.
This time, I focused on what the offering of the Lord was for us. When something is for us, it means we receive some benefit—indeed, many benefits and blessings. Some blessing has been bestowed upon us.
What blessing? He died, or He offered Himself for us, so that we may live. I thought about it personally: so that I may live. We may live the Christian life.
We need Him not only for eternal life in the future, but today. The Christian walk—the Christian way, the way of the cross—is not easy. By our own flesh, there is no way we can walk in His way, follow Him, and overcome.
Yes, there is the great blessing of living forever and receiving eternal life. But today, while we are learning to walk in His way and to be transformed into overcoming saints, we need His life. He offered Himself for us so that I may live and we may live.
This could be seen in the early church life in Taiwan. In the 1950s, when the church was first revived there, it was very poor. They sat on wooden benches without even back support, under simple canopies, and met together to break bread.
During the rainy seasons, the rain splashed in and the ground was wet. In those poor and difficult conditions, they met together and broke bread. But the older saints from that generation later shared with me that every time they broke bread together, the Lord’s love filled the meeting, and they were strengthened to go on.
It is like that. Thank the Lord. We also have difficulties. Yes, we are much more comfortable now, but in our personal lives we surely have difficulties. When we break bread, we take His life. We eat Him, are strengthened, and can go on.
But He died so that we may die. That is another blessing. Dying in Him is a blessing. Brother Kong has shared on Romans 6. If it were not for Romans 6—dying and being buried with Him—we could not say, “For to me to live is Christ.”
Our old man, in the family and in the workplace, would still be there in all its roughness. But when we die with Christ, then Christ lives in us, through us, and out of us.
These are among the many blessings we receive from the Lord as we come to the Lord’s Table. Another meaning of “for us” is substitution. He took our place. He did it in our stead.
For us, He was crucified and crushed. We often give thanks to the Lord for this. We were the sinners; we were the rebels. Yet He took the bitter cup for us so that we may have His life.
When we think about our doom as sinners and rebels, it is sobering. The Lord said to Adam that in the day he ate of it, he would surely die. Death begins in the spirit and the soul, and then the body returns to dust. Apart from the Lord, that was our destiny.
If it were not for the Lord dying for us, we would have been in that kind of death. But through the Lord’s death, He saved us.
These are some of the blessings that the Lord may reveal to us each time we come to the meeting. Some preparation beforehand helps a great deal.
I saw a couple in Southern California. When we came to church early, they were sitting outside on a swing, already reading the Bible and praying. Then, when the meeting began, they came together with the saints.
Oh, then the Lord’s presence, His love, and His Spirit filled all of us. What a remembrance of the Lord that meeting would be.
Let us come to the next matter: the cup. The Lord said, “This is my blood of the covenant,” shed for the remission of sins. He shed His blood for us.
Again, I thought of the blessings that come with the Lord shedding His blood for us. There are many blessings.
Sin is like a law. Sin has its own law in our flesh. Even though we do not want to sin, we still sin.
I think I have shared about one great sinner who was involved in gambling and many other sins. But as soon as he was saved, those sins departed from him. The Lord entered into him and conquered much of the evil and wickedness that had been in him.
Still, we live in this flesh. We still have sins and temptations. Sin is like gravity; it tries to pull us to commit more sins. The blood of the Lord is for this very purpose.
Even after we are saved, we still commit sins. It may be what we think is a little white lie. But it is still sin. Or it may be thoughts. Even as Christians, we want our minds to be clean.
The cleansing work of the cross is needed. At times the enemy sends thoughts into our minds like rockets. That is sin. But the blood of the Lord Jesus cleanses us from all such sins.
The cup also signifies the covenant in blood. This is another great blessing.
In old times, when people entered into a covenant, they would draw blood. Some would smear blood; others would split an animal in half. There would be bloodshed, and then they would agree on certain promises.
They would walk between the two animals where there was blood, saying in effect, “Whoever breaks the promise will suffer the same fate as this animal.” I use that simply as an example of blood and how it seals a covenant.
Jesus shed His blood for us for the new covenant. We enjoy this new covenant as His people. As Hebrews says, He remembers our sins no more.
This is also substitutionary. Did we shed our blood for this covenant? No. It is entirely one-sided. He did it.
When God, when Jesus, sheds blood and makes a covenant with man, that covenant becomes binding—self-binding—toward Him. The force and enforcement of His covenant are tied directly and only to His power and His integrity.
The Bible tells us that God cannot lie. He never breaks a promise. The assurance that we have, even as we meditate on the covenant in blood He made with us, is tremendous. We have many hymns about standing on the promises of God.
We get discouraged easily in our Christian walk. We may say, “Oh, it is hopeless now. I cannot go on. My eternity is doomed in hell.” But no. The enemy may trick us into thinking that, but that is not the case.
God’s covenant is sure. It is firm. His promises are kept forever and are tied to the integrity of His blood. He will never break that promise.
The significance of the bread and the cup is already very rich. When we come to the table with purpose, the Lord reveals more each time. It may be from a Bible verse we read, a hymn we sang during the week, or the opening reading of the Word.
The Lord may open spiritual insights to us so that we come to worship Him.
The Lord also said, “Drink ye all of it,” or, “Drink ye all from the cup.” After the pandemic, and even in earlier times, churches have used individual cups rather than a shared cup. In the early 1900s, sharing cups in public was banned.
Perhaps the invention of the microscope has something to do with that. But the Lord had wisdom when He told them to drink from the same cup. We do it in spirit when we display one cup.
There is intimacy in drinking from the same cup. Brother Nee said that we would not drink from the same cup if we did not feel or sense the intimacy of the saints. So there is intimacy.
Sharing the same cup is fellowship. When we come to point number two, we will go into that a little more.
There is also the significance of showing our oneness. There is a hymn: “We’re gathered together to eat the Lord’s supper; by eating and drinking, our oneness we show.”
How do we show it? Of course, we display one loaf and one cup. The loaf is the Lord’s body. What is the Lord’s body today? The church. So the loaf also represents us: one body, one loaf.
We break it and eat it into us. We express our oneness. We will fellowship a little more about oneness when we come to the third point. It is one cup and one loaf. We show our oneness and our being together in one accord.
Let us come to Roman numeral two. This is from Acts 2:42. I looked at several words that translate “continued stedfastly,” and I chose “persevere,” which most closely translates the Greek word.
Another word is “persist.” Persist focuses more on an act that is consistent in the midst of opposition, but persevere focuses on the effort to continue despite opposition and challenges. So I like to use the word persevere.
Acts 2 gives us the context. It was the birth of the church. The Holy Spirit came down; they spoke in tongues; and people wondered what was happening. Then Peter spoke concerning the Lord’s death and resurrection, and three thousand were added that day.
That is where we pick up the account. “They” refers to those who were newly saved. In Acts 2:42, they persevered in four things.
Let us take the first one: teaching. The King James Version says “doctrine,” but the original word is “teaching.” It comes from the same root as “teach,” so that is where we get the words teacher and teaching.
The apostles, in the Spirit and led by the Spirit, knew what to do at that time when there were so many believers. Why does it say they persevered in the teaching of the apostles, rather than in the prophesying of the apostles?
They prophesied too, but there were so many new believers. They needed teaching. Ephesians speaks of gifts: apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. Spiritual things can be quite high for new believers, and they need teachers to break things down and teach them.
What is included in teaching? It is broad. It is the Word of God. We can say it is Christ Himself. It may include teaching on breaking bread, teaching on the kingdom of God, and everything that comes forth as the sincere milk of the Word for new believers.
That was very appropriate at that time because three thousand new believers had been added. They needed much teaching.
But teaching is not merely knowledge; it is a matter of life. When we see teaching as Christ, and when it is anointed by the Holy Spirit, it becomes a matter of life.
Yes, we learn it, and it enters our mind. But because it is anointed with the Holy Spirit, it is a matter of life. It is Christ’s life received and eaten into us, so that it can shape and change the inner man. Dry knowledge does not change or shape the inner man in any way. It must be life.
They persevered in the teaching because they hungered for the Lord. Many newly saved ones want to know the Lord, so they hunger for Him. Proper teaching was given to them, they ate it in, and it strengthened them to go on in the Christian way.
I will give an example of two young brothers in their twenties. One led the other to the Lord. The brother who had been saved longer said, “Let us read The Normal Christian Life together.”
They began reading and met weekly in a car. They did not have a fancy place to meet; they simply met in the car and used the dome light at night. They read The Normal Christian Life little by little, praying over it.
They did not go fast. It took them eight months to finish that little fourteen-chapter book. But they persevered in it because they hungered for the Lord.
Teaching must also be appropriate for new believers. For example, it would not be appropriate to have them read The Spiritual Man by Watchman Nee immediately after they believe. Even in spiritual teaching, there are things that are appropriate, and the apostles taught them appropriately.
The next matter is fellowship. I would like to give a brief working definition, because it is an abstract word. We often say, “Oh, yes, we have some fellowship,” meaning that we talk about the Lord. That is included.
But at the core of fellowship is sharing in a relationship. You could say it is relational sharing—sharing something in a relationship.
The saints are related. We are all the family of God. We are related by the life of Christ. A family is a group of people related by blood or adoption. So fellowship is relational sharing.
How do we go from teaching to fellowship? After eating Christ through the teaching of the apostles, they digested Him and had the life of Christ in them. Then they did not keep it to themselves; they shared. It is that simple: share Christ.
In Acts 2, we see that they shared not only Christ but also physical things, including food. They lived communally. They shared everything.
But human nature makes it difficult to maintain relational sharing. I admit that I have inherited things from Adam, such as pride. I may think, “Oh, he has more Christ than I do.” Then jealousy comes in. There is the ego.
Imagine a church of three thousand people. Even with one hundred people, it is easy to offend one another. We may step on each other’s toes, in this sense.
There was an assembly I attended where young brothers had been asked to share a brief opening at the Bible study. They did so and continued to do so. But the brothers later felt that they were still somewhat new converts to bear that responsibility.
The brothers told them, “Now we are going to have a rotation for sharing in the Bible-study opening.” One brother became offended. Sadly, he was offended, and while speaking with me on the phone, he said that was the reason he wanted to cut ties with the church.
Where there is offense, we need to persevere in maintaining sweet fellowship. Fellowship is not always easy because we still have fallen human nature.
What do we need? The Lord says, “Forgive.” How many times? Seventy times seven. Repent and forgive. That requires us to bear the cross and lose face.
There was a brother who, when he was younger, did not care about face. He diligently learned repentance in the church. Often, in his interactions, he would say, “Oh, sorry, brother. Sorry, brother.”
He knew he was a blunt, outspoken, and somewhat aggressive person, but he would quickly say, “Oh, sorry, brother.” It is like that in the church life. It takes effort to persevere in maintaining fellowship.
If we have an offense against someone in the church and come to break bread, we sense a kind of tension, do we not? There is tension and dissonance because the bread declares that we are one and in one accord.
But if I have ill will or a grudge against a brother or sister in the church, there is tension. It is best to resolve that in the blood of the Lord. Forgive.
Otherwise, if I am breaking bread while holding ill will or a grudge against someone in the church, it is not genuine. I would say that I am being a hypocrite.
Yet fellowship can be very sweet. There is a hymn that begins, “Oh, what sweet fellowship.” Fellowship can be filled with concord, spiritual harmony, and joy.
The next matter is the breaking of bread. This is a further expression of fellowship. We not only show our oneness; we show our fellowship together.
The phrase “the breaking of bread” is a little different from “breaking bread” or “to break bread.” “The breaking of bread” is a noun phrase. We could say “bread’s breaking”; it is a noun form.
I bring that up to show that persevering in “the breaking of bread” is not merely about the action. The action comes in the third point. Here, it is the concept. Spiritually speaking, it is a deep conviction—a firm grasp of the idea and reality of the breaking of bread.
New believers in Christianity today are often taught to preach the gospel. Yes, once you are saved, it is good and important to preach the gospel. They are taught that they need to be baptized, and that is good.
But several thousand years later, we do not see this concept taught as often anymore: the breaking of bread. What is the big deal about that?
If we have a deep conviction about breaking bread each week, it guides us. Some saints who were visiting the East Coast were looking for a place to break bread.
At one time, I was going to London, though I ended up not going. I contacted brothers in Honor Oak and asked, “Do you break bread?” The brother replied, “Oh, yes, we do.”
He even said that this was the subject he was planning to share about that Sunday. He told the other brothers, “A brother is coming to visit, and he asked whether we break bread every Sunday.” So this conviction guides us.
Look at what happened during the pandemic. We could not meet in person to break bread, but we did it on Zoom. In California, we continued because we wanted to continue. We persevered in breaking bread.
We love the Lord, so we keep His commandment to break bread. We love the saints. We do not really need any other reason. Out of love for the Lord, we want to hold firmly to this deep conviction concerning the breaking of bread.
“As often as ye do it,” the Lord permits us to do it as often as possible. We will see how the early Christians first did it daily and then weekly on the Lord’s Day.
Sadly, Christianity has often lost its grip on this. I did a brief search. In 2013, a survey by the National Association of Evangelicals reported that once a month was the norm for seventy percent of churches in America holding communion or the Lord’s Table.
The reason cited was that Scripture does not specifically address the frequency, so there is a wide variation. But I feel that the brothers ahead of us have shown us from Scripture, particularly from the book of Acts, something that we can imitate.
Of course, there are things we should not merely copy outwardly. But the Holy Spirit in us confirms that we may imitate the early Christians in breaking bread on the first day of the week.
It confirms and assures us that the Lord’s presence is with us. We are blessed to have that kind of breaking-bread meeting.
It is very easy to fall into ritual. That is why perseverance applies here as well. Outwardly, it is only a small piece of bread and a little juice or wine. But inwardly, what are we doing?
We are remembering the Lord’s death. There is so much involved in that. Through the opening, when the Spirit reveals Christ to us, we should be filled with light concerning our Lord’s suffering and His love. There are endless things to consider.
Then we respond by giving thanks and praise to Him at the table.
Sometimes the Lord speaks through a servant, such as in the opening. Paul said, “I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you.” The Lord spoke to Paul, and Paul delivered it to the saints.
The Lord may speak through a brother in the opening, or directly to us. He may speak early in the morning when we get up on the Lord’s Day and begin to pray individually or in our household.
Then, when we gather together, we have already seen something of the Lord. In the meeting, the Lord fills every one of us. Oh, then our voices of praise offered up to heaven would be satisfying.
The final matter is prayers. Very quickly, “prayers” here is plural. They had much prayer even before the church was born. Once the church was born, they continued and persevered in prayer for the church to continue.
The apostles lived a prayerful life, and we learn that as well.
Let us come to Roman numeral three: they were partaking of food. This verse seems very basic and casual. It begins in a very casual way.
“They were partaking of food” is an ongoing matter. It is not merely the same as eating food. You can eat individually, but “partaking of” indicates being together.
Together, no one was excluded. It is like what we are about to do at lunch: we are partaking of lunch together. That is how the early Christians ate.
Eating food is basic, but it is also life-dependent. In that sense, it is not such a simple matter. I would like to use that to make a connection with fellowship.
This is what Brother Watchman Nee said in The Normal Christian Life. He visited an old brother named George Cutting, who was ninety-three years old. The brother could not say much, but he kept telling him, “Brother, I could not be without Him, and He could not be without me.”
There is that kind of interdependence in the spiritual sense, on the spiritual ground where we stand.
They were having meals together with gladness. Let us take each element briefly. Gladness is intense joy.
Casually speaking, perhaps eighteen to twenty-nine percent of Americans are depressed. Is not an ultimate goal in life, in terms of our inward emotions, to achieve happiness? But outward things that we do to try to achieve happiness do not work.
The only true joy is in Christ. The Lord was with them. Even while eating meals, they were enjoying that utter joy.
Maintaining joy is not easy. It is not easy to maintain joy in the midst of suffering, pain, or persecution. Yet they had this gladness.
They also ate in singleness, or simplicity, of heart. I was going to gloss over this, but then I thought about how complicated people can be. I had a Jewish friend who said that Jewish people are intellectual and very complicated.
He was a Christian, and the Lord used him to go to synagogues to share Christ. The Jews there did not stone him, but they asked him deep intellectual questions: “What about this? What about that?”
It is like the book of Romans. Paul had already declared that we are all sinners and that Christ is the only way. But he had to address those who knew the law and work through many arguments with them.
Simplicity of heart comes through being in the Spirit and through the cross. Preaching the gospel to Chinese people can also be difficult, especially to scientists. They question everything.
But in simplicity of heart, they received the Lord.
Daily, they persevered with one accord in the temple. Oh, how sweet and beautiful this is: to be in the temple of God.
Brother Kong, in his book on Acts, mentioned that they may have been in the physical temple, but the more important matter is that they were in the spiritual temple. They were the spiritual temple. Today, we are the temple of God.
What is in the temple of God? God Himself—His presence. The Old Testament describes how, when the temple was built, God filled it with smoke. Today, the Lord’s glory fills us.
Individually, our spirit is a sanctuary, and He can fill us in our spirit. As a corporate body, when we come together, He fills us. This is the temple of God.
They continued daily in the temple and in one accord. One accord means being of the same mind: no quarrels, no strife, no jealousy, and no fighting.
One accord stems from oneness. Oneness is the deeper essence, and one accord is the manifestation of that oneness.
We are living stones, but to be built into a temple, what does it take? It takes the cross. It takes death and resurrection.
We were all old, rugged stones. How can a structural engineer build a foundation or a whole house with only rugged stones? What would it look like? We all need to be shaped by the cross and then fitly framed into a temple of God.
Then there is “breaking bread in each house.” This is the action. This is the practical side.
Did “daily” apply to breaking bread as well? Grammatically, in Greek—and I think in English too—the first phrase is similar to the second. If “daily” modifies persevering with one accord in the temple, does it also apply to breaking bread?
Did they really break bread daily? I believe so, because the two phrases are similar.
In each house does not merely refer to the physical house, but to the people in it: the household. The household is the temple. Breaking bread is also fellowship, and fellowship is an expression of oneness.
Therefore, persevering in one accord in the temple is not merely similar to breaking bread in each household. I would even say it is spiritually synonymous. So “daily” may apply to that part as well.
The brothers ahead of us have taught that the early Christians first broke bread daily and then weekly on the first day of each week.
It becomes even more precious when we consider the household. The household is God’s intended unit for mankind—not merely individuals, like roaches. I am sorry for that casual expression.
We are born with parents, and parents have children. God’s intended basic unit for man is the household. In Exodus, there was one lamb per household, according to the house of their fathers.
What is the significance of the household? Maintaining the household unit is a great blessing.
Today, the enemy attacks the household. He attacks marriages, breaks up marriages, and separates children from parents. It is a great attack that causes much unnecessary pain.
But the early Christians broke bread in each household. This comes with great blessing. The Lord is with them.
We have already spoken about the significance of the bread and the cup. If there is offense, forgive. The blood of the Lord cleanses us, and we eat His life so that we may have strength to live with our parents and our siblings, so to speak.
Finally, let us consider the last two matters: praising God and having favor with all the people. To praise God, we must first appraise Him.
I think a brother shared this here one time. What is praise? It is first to appraise. We must touch God, touch something of God, and see His value. We must see what great value He is.
Then, naturally, we do not even have to try. We respond in the Spirit by praising Him.
In light of what we have seen concerning the table, the bread, and the cup, we should automatically, from our spirit, offer praise and thanksgiving to God every time.
I would also like to connect this with the Passover. This is not something to which we can respond only mildly. We are coming to a feast. Passover is a feast.
In the days of Josiah or Hezekiah, when there was a great revival, consider the number of animals: forty-one thousand animals, including thirty thousand lambs and goats, with others bringing cattle. Altogether there were about forty-one thousand.
That would occupy a field of about six acres. There were animals, slaughtering, and blood flowing. What is that Old Testament picture? It is a picture of the exceeding riches of Christ.
It is endless. The Old Testament could only use animals. Today, we have the reality: Christ. He offered Himself once for all.
Every time we come together, we touch something of His love and of why He offered Himself for us. We cannot resist praising Him.
This feast to which we come should be filled with singing and praising. It is festive and filled with joy, just as they were joyful even when they ate meals together.
Then there is “having favor with all the people.” Favor is another abstract word. I find it helpful to think of actions. To be gracious is to give what is unearned and undeserved. Favor also means generosity and treating people kindly.
The people saw the Christians and treated them kindly. Favor means goodwill, and it can also mean being attractive. It is a very rich word.
Put that in the context of the end of Acts 2. They had favor with all the people. Also remember that fear came upon people. Let us combine these two matters and consider the condition at the end of Acts 2.
It was like 1 Kings when Solomon took the throne. He prayed to the Lord for wisdom, and the Lord blessed him. You can read in 1 Kings 2 through 10 how prosperous he was: how many chariots he had, how much gold, silver, and precious stone he had.
The nations around did not attack him. It even says that they had peace with all the nations surrounding them. The queen of Sheba came and gave gifts. That is favor—giving gifts to Solomon.
That is an Old Testament description of what happens when God is in His proper place among His people. At the end of Acts 2, God was in His proper place—or, we should say, the believers and apostles put God in the proper place.
That was the condition they enjoyed: having favor with all the people.
Finally, I will share another testimony from Taiwan. Right after the revival, the church there was in a place where buildings were very close together. Saints could walk to church and to meetings. Some who lived farther away could take taxis.
Taxis were used frequently to drive saints to and from church. One time, a taxi driver who regularly drove that route picked up a lady passenger who was very depressed.
She was not a Christian going to church. She was in the back seat, depressed and crying. The taxi driver was not a believer, but he told her, “Oh, you go to that place.”
He said, “That group of people, they are always happy. They are always singing. They are always joyful. You go to that place.” The taxi driver was telling this depressed lady to go to church.
She did, and she was saved. Thank the Lord.
We did not read the final clause in full—I mean, I did not display it—but the Lord added to them daily those who were being saved. Oh, thank the Lord.
With such a condition, I pray and hope that we may be encouraged. Shall we close with a little word of prayer?
Oh, Lord, oh, Lord Jesus, how precious is the table You have set for us. Each time we can come to Your feast. Oh, Lord, we are so thankful; we are filled with joy.
Oh, Lord Jesus, help us to see more of You each time. Oh, Lord, how fallen I have been, but how red, how effective, is Your blood in cleansing our sins.
Oh, how Your life sustains us—not only today in the midst of our trials and tribulations, but even in eternity, when we can live with You.
Oh, how uplifting: You have brought us to a place where we can even sit with You on Your throne. Oh, praise You, Lord Jesus.
Indeed, we do this until You come. In Jesus’ name, amen.