Are You Going to the Banquet?

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In Revelation 19 we read about the marriage supper of the Lamb. Jesus the bridegroom will be the focus, and we,  the church, will be the bride. This will be a glorious celebration that includes all the followers of Jesus around the world. People from every nation, tribe, and language. This is the bride of Christ.

However, this banquet requires an invitation.  Are you going to the banquet?

In Revelation 19:6 we read about the sound of a great multitude of angels singing praise to God. A sound unlike any choir we have ever heard; it will make Arrowhead Stadium sound dull in comparison. It is a cry of victory, Babylon is destroyed, our lord God reigns. The heavenly hosts saw all that God has done and they burst into praise.

And then the attention turns to this unusual bride, made up of people from every nation on the earth. How has the bride made herself ready? If you look at the church today, would you say the church globally is ready? The church, this perfect bride will be made up of the followers of Jesus, but it wont look like anything we have seen before.

The direction that God has for the global church is unchartered territory, we have never been this way before. God is constantly refining, transforming, and preparing the church.

What does the bride wear? Verse 8 tells us that the Lamb’s bride is dressed “in the righteous deeds (acts) of the saints.”  We must remember that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9). The bride goes to heaven by God’s grace, and not by good works. But once in heaven, believers will be judged at Christ’s judgment seat for their faithfulness in life and in service. Christ will reward us according to our faithfulness, and the rewards we receive will make up the “wedding gown.”

Dr. Lehman Strauss writes, “Has it ever occurred to you … that at the marriage of the Bride to the Lamb, each of us will be wearing the wedding garment of our own making?” What a solemn thought!

Jesus tells a parable of the wedding feast in Matthew 22 and speaks about a man who is not dressed in the wedding garments (Matthew 22:11-14). Here is a man who thinks he is in, but he is not. A man who thinks he is part of the bride of Christ, but he is not wearing the garments of the bride. There are no deeds and no fruit in his life.

If we boil it down to the very basics, there are only two kinds of people. Those in the Kingdom and those outside of the Kingdom. And just because we sit in church every week, it does not mean we are part of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is possible to be members of the visible church and not actually part of the Body of Christ. A person is not saved by being a long-time member of any church. You personally must make a decision regarding the Gospel of Jesus Christ in order to become a member of the invisible church, or the true body of Christ.

Sometimes we see so little evidence of people being a part of the bride of Christ. Why there is such a lack of people who are clothing themselves in the righteous deeds of saints? Sadly, there are many people in the church who prefer the stench of grave clothes (Ephesians 2:1). Many people in churches today are barely on life support, you see no evidence of their new life outside of Sunday morning attendance.

Jesus indicated that even in the visible church there would be those who are not true believers, and thus not members of the invisible Church (Matthew 25:31-46).

In verse 9, the angel says, “…Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” There is a private invitation, are you invited? Have you made Jesus Christ your lord and savior? Are you part of the family? Do you have your invitation to the marriage supper of the lamb?

Before we become Christians, we are blind to the glory of God, we are deaf to the voice of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we have no love for God, we have no sense of a personal relationship with the creator God.

If you don’t have a sense of the presence of God, if you don’t know him as your heavenly father, if you don’t hear the voice of the Holy Spirit guiding your life, you may very well be dead in your spirit.

If you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you may be a registered member of the church, but you are not a member of the invisible church, and you are not going to spend eternity with Jesus Christ, the head of the church (Matthew 7:21).

Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” God saved us, and prepared works for us to do that become the linens that we will wear at the Marriage supper of the lamb.

We don’t work to be saved, but we joyfully serve because we are saved.  

Our motivation for serving the Lord is to bring glory to the name of Jesus, to serve him out of love and gratitude. That earns us the fine linens.

The church is going to the marriage supper of the lamb, will you be attending?

Sermon Sunday September 26, 2021 The Lord’s Supper

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Communion, The Lord’s Supper, one of the two ordinances that Jesus left for the church to do until he comes again. But we easily miss the gravity of the ordinance in the tradition and the routine.

In Luke 22:15, we read that Jesus earnestly desired to eat the Passover meal with his disciples before his suffering. As Jesus knew what lay ahead, he longed for this final time of fellowship and teaching with his disciples and friends.

We easily miss the importance of sharing a meal in our rushed culture of microwave dinners and busy schedules. But Jesus knew the importance of eating with people, and it was even used as an accusation by the religious leaders (Mark 2:16).  

But this meal was different, it was the most important meal he had ever shared with people. And it must not be overlooked that Jesus chose the Passover to be the last meal he ate before his crucifixion. Can you imagine, Jesus eating the sacrificed lamb with his disciples, knowing that this would be the last Passover that they would need to celebrate. Jesus was establishing the New Covenant. As Jesus eats the bread and drinks the cup, he knows that they will eternally be symbols of what he is about to suffer in the next few hours.

Luke 22:7-13 is all about preparation. Jesus sent Peter and John to go and prepare the meal. It is interesting to note that the two chosen for this important task were to be significant leaders of the church. Leaders who were willing to serve their brothers and sisters. When God gives you an assignment, never think that it is insignificant.

Jesus directed them to an upper room in a house that had been chosen before the foundations of the world. There was never an unplanned moment in the life of Jesus.

The disciples took time to prepare for the meal, and the question for us is how do we prepare to partake of the Lord’s supper? We celebrate communion once a month and we can easily slip into the routine and lose the significance of what we are doing.

In 1 Corinthians 11:29 Paul writes, “For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.”

Discerning the body is not simply referring to the symbol of the bread and its significance. If you read the verses leading up to verse 29, Paul is reprimanding the church in Corinth because there are people who had been feasting when they got together and ignoring the poor and the hungry in their midst. The Lord’s Supper had become a form of segregation between the haves and the have nots. They were creating division, hurting relationships, acting selfishly, and self-righteously.

When Paul refers to discerning the body, I believe it means to discern the health of our relationships. How are we relating to one another as the body of Christ? Are we ignoring division and broken relationships? Verse 28 tells us to examine ourselves, allowing the Holy Spirit to bring conviction leading us to repentance and reconciliation. We need to ask ourselves, whether my relationships in the church, reflect the character of our lord and savior whom we represent (Matthew 5:23-24).

As the Passover meal progressed, the disciples reclined familiarly and began enjoying the evening together. But then Jesus began saying things that caused the atmosphere in the room to shift. Verse 15 ends with, “before I suffer” and then in verse 16 he says, “For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” Jesus is saying that on God’s calendar, there would be no more need for the prophetic picture of the Passover, it is being fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus points to the next feast, one that we are still waiting for. The marriage supper of the lamb that we see in Revelation 19. What a feast that will be.

Jesus goes on to institute what we know as the Lord’s supper in the following verses. There are two elements in the memorial celebration, and both are significant.

First Jesus took the bread and broke it saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me” Luke 22:19. The Bread broken symbolizes the body of Jesus that was beaten and broken by the Roman soldiers.

Notice that Jesus invites them into participation. He gave it to them, they had to reach out and take it. We too are invited to participate. The invitation to salvation is there, we need to reach out in faith and as we do that we individually say, “I am taking the benefits of Christs body for myself”. Furthermore, bread is nourishment, we are strengthened as we participate in the body of Christ. Feeding on his spiritual body nourishes our souls. The single loaf of bread is a picture of the unity that we have as the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:17).

Then we come to the cup, we read in Luke 22:20, “And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

The cup is the symbol of the blood of Jesus. In our sterile 21st century mindset, blood is not that meaningful. In fact, many people are sickened by the sight of blood and don’t like to talk about blood. But God instructed Moses to sprinkle the blood of the lamb on the book of the law and the people as He instituted the covenant with the Children of Israel.  We read in Hebrews 9:22, “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” Blood is a symbol of life.

The poured-out blood of Jesus established the new covenant. The covenant that we live under in the church age. That is why Jesus said in verse 20, “…This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

As we participate in Communion, let us remember that we are celebrating our salvation and declaring the Gospel.