The Essence of Worship
"The essence of worship is the inner experience of treasuring the true beauty and worth of God. And the outward forms of worship are the acts that show how much we treasure the beauty and worth of God. Therefore God created all of life as worship because he has told us, 'whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God' (1 Corinthians 10:31). Do everything you do in a way that expresses your treasuring of God." –John Piper
So the question for us this Lord's Day is: If the Lord's Supper is to be worship, how does it express our inner treasuring of Christ's beauty and worth? My response is this. We express the value of Christ in three ways: by "remembering," by "proclaiming," and by "being nourished."
Expressing Worship in Three Ways
1.Remembering
Notice the word "remembrance" twice. Once in relation to the bread in 1 Corinthians 11:24 and once in relation to the cup in verse 25. Christ gave us the Lord's Supper to help us keep him in memory, especially his blood and body given up in death. And this is worship if there is an authentic belief that says: "We must remember him because he is the most valuable Person in the history of the universe. We must remember his death because it is the most important death in the history of the universe." Repeating this tangible, material, reminder of Christ, time after time, in the life of the church will be worship if we believe in the preciousness of remembering Christ and tremble at the prospect of forgetting him.
2.Proclaiming
1 Corinthians 11:26: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes." If "remembering" means calling to mind what Christ did by his death, then "proclaiming" means calling out to each other what Christ did by his death. The preciousness of Christ presses itself on our memory, and then that inner remembering breaks out in proclaiming the worth of what we remember. Beloved, if you really value something - if it moves you and delights you - you will speak of it. You will declare it. And so the Lord's Supper is worship if in doing it there is an authentic belief that says: "this death, and all it achieved, is so valuable that it must not only be remembered; it must be proclaimed."
3.Being Nourished
The Lord's Supper expresses the value of Christ by nourishing our life in Christ. If we come to Christ over and over and say, "By this, my Lord, I feed on you. By this, my King, I nourish my life in you. By this I share in all the grace you bought for me with your own blood and body" - if we come to Christ over and over with this longing and this conviction in our mind: that here he nourishes us by faith, then the Lord's Supper will be a deep and wonderful act of worship. Nothing shows the worth and preciousness of Christ so much as when we come to him to feed our hungry souls.
-Tom Bombadil
Closing
John 6:27-40 "Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal."
Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?"
Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."
So they said to him, "Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"
Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."
They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."
-Tom Bombadil
TTT
Hi Tom, he also said He was the Lamb, a Door, Light etc. Would you agree that he was not a furry animal, a wooden gate, a beam of light??
You also did not state the sacrifical part of communion. do you believe in that as well? Thanks!
Uh... the rooster: "Christ gave us the Lord's Supper to help us keep him in memory, especially his blood and body given up in death [...]"
And no, He is not a furry, luminescent, and hinged, path!
I think you are arguing with the wrong person. I am on your side.
-Tom Bombadil