Mealtime in the Church Family

People make snap judgments as soon as they meet you, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. The article was all about facial expression, posture, speech, handshaking, smiling, etc.

Some people in Corinth were really messing up the meetings at the church. First impressions by strangers would have been awful. They were gorging themselves while others had not yet arrived. Some were getting drunk at the church meeting. It was a mess. Sometimes I am not satisfied with how our meetings go. But I can’t remember ever having a meeting that was anything like the ones happening at the church in Corinth.

I am sure you are the same as me. When you get done reading these first verses you ask yourself, “What is wrong with these people?” Their behavior at church uncovers basic sin problems.

They lack love for one another. This is clear from their lack of patience toward each other along with basic kindness. Paul will address the theme of love in a beautiful chapter we call the love chapter in just a few paragraphs of this letter. While this teaching on love is good for us all, it was prompted by the condition in the church at Corinth that we have read about.

Let's Have a Great Meeting

This ought to be the goal for every family meeting.

• Great meetings happen because of leadership.
• Prayer and preparation
• Purpose and communication
• Love and grace
• They must do more good than harm.

Sunday Morning

1. Rick and I prepare as best we are able. We have a worship team that meets for the sole purpose of planning worship.
2. We have a software that coordinates and communicates what we are doing.
3. We have 52 Sunday mornings, and we want each one to be a great meeting.

Your Small Group needs to have a great meeting

• Positive
• Enthusiastic
• Spirit-filled
• Inspiring
• Informational/Educational/Instructive

We teach to transform.

• Your committee, your deacon body—everyone is giving time and effort to attend.

Let's Declare Our Unity through the Meeting

Divisions in the church seem inconceivable. And they ought to be. Christ is not divided. His church should not be divided.

• Paul has already appealed to them to eliminate divisions. In fact, he started his letter addressing this in 1 Cor. 1:10-17.
• And it comes up repeatedly in both letters.
• The reports that Paul has heard are at least partly true.

These “Divisions” have become heresies.

1. They are not just bad behavior. Their behavior now distorts the gospel.
2. They have become guilty of proclaiming bad news instead of good news. They have linked their sin to the table of the Lord.
3. Divisions in the church have this inevitable result—they end up misrepresenting Christ.

The divisions “show which of you have God’s approval” (v 19).

1. I think this may be tongue-in-cheek.
2. The divisions actually show that no one is receiving God’s approval. “Is Christ divided?” (1 Cor. 1:13).

We proclaim the Gospel when we work toward unity. This is what Christ prayed for on that last night with his disciples. And it is what he continues to long for in this church and in every true church where Christ is exalted.

Let's Clarify Our Values through the Meeting

Christ alone is our focus.

• We are all present to serve, not be served.
• We are interested in the experiences and spiritual condition of others.
• We are not at church to feed our appetites.
  • The rank consumerism that characterizes our culture in general should not characterize the culture of the church of Jesus Christ.
  • If we are concerned primarily about “what we get out of it” as opposed to “what we give into it,” then we have turned the gospel on its head.
  • We are not primarily religious consumers. When we see ourselves this way we actually deny ownership of our church. We are stepping away from Christ and his people. We are now walking down an aisle in a retail shop looking for what will satisfy our appetites.
• Christ does satisfy us. “I Am Satisfied with Jesus, he has done so much for me…But the question comes to me, as I think of Calvary, Is my Master satisfied with me?”
• We are so needy, so needy. This is our position every day. We are in need of grace, mercy, and love every day. Our neediness sometimes drives us to Christ. And sometimes it drives us to over-indulge, to gorge ourselves, to see life as taking instead of giving.

We wait on each other. Exercise patience and basic kindness.

We practice no favoritism in regard to culture, race, or economic standing.

• Jesus is our example here.
• We must treat everyone with the same care, favor, and love regardless of who they are. If we do not do this, then we are not representing our Savior. We are contradicting him.

Let's Do Our Jobs Well

The Apostle Paul lays out what “I received from the Lord.”

• This formula is straight from Christ. Paul is emphasizing this for the Corinthians.
• This is not his own composition. This is from Christ.

There was a specific order in the upper room.

• Jesus paused the meal. He made a point of taking the bread. He gave thanks for it. He broke it and gave it to them. He linked that simple bread to his own body that in a few hours would be bruised and broken.
• Jesus took the cup in a little while, again pausing the normal course of the meal. He spoke again in a parallel fashion about the cup, linking it to his blood of the new covenant soon to be spilt at Calvary.

Therefore, the Lord’s Supper must be served with a solemn purpose to remember what Christ has done for us, to remember the gift of love.

• All that we do for Christ should be done this way—decently and in order, as the apostle wrote about worship in 1 Corinthians 14:40.

The apostle followed this with spiritual gifts. He wanted the Corinthians to link all of their behavior in the church to the family table. This is the order in the family.

Every person in the family has a job to do. Each one benefits from the gifts of all the others. Aren’t we glad that someone in the family has the gift of serving? Who would clean the house if no one had that gift? What about the gift of administration? Aren’t you glad that someone can keep track of the money? And so it goes in the family. We all have our chores. Some of these may be glamorous by our reckoning, and others may be mundane. But if we all do our work, the family works.