Sunday School Lesson

1. 1 Corinthians 11:17-34
Remembering the Sacrifice
April 8, 2018
First Baptist Church
Jackson, Mississippi
USA
What’s the number one thing?
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The Glory of God!
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1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV
31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
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2. April Memory Verse
1 John 4:7-8 NASB
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves
is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God,
for God is love.
Thank you all for your effective prayers, visits, food, flowers, calls, cards, texts
and gifts of love!
1 Corinthians 11:17-29
Remembering the Sacrifice
Bryan T. Huie
1/17/1964 - 1/26/2014
Dennard, Arkansas
Bruce Peters
World Reach

3. Charles Cameron
Skip Heitzig
http://www.epicenterconference.com/images/made/images/uploads/speakers/Skip_Heitzig_headshot_600_400_s_c1.jpg
1 Corinthians 11:17 NASB
17 But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together
not for the better but for the worse.
(You can leave a church meeting, not helped but harmed!)
Come together, synerchomai, is mentioned 5 times in this passage, it is when
they would come together as a church to celebrate the Love Feast (Agape
Feast).
Communion = come union

4. The celebration of the Lord's Supper (sacred meal) was linked with, and was
perhaps an extension of, the Agape Feast, a common meal, which Christians
were in the habit of sharing together.
Instead of abolishing the common meal that was eaten before the taking of the
symbols (the Lord’s Supper), Paul gives instructions about how this combined
occasion is to be properly observed.
The fellowship meal (Agape Feast) was continued until the Third Council of
Carthage (A.D. 391) decreed that the Eucharist should be taken while fasting.

5. He is my Lord, but He is also our Lord.
Our Father who is in Heaven, …
The Lord’s Supper is to be a fellowshipping of believers that share a bond that
transcends everything else.
In Corinth, the Lord’s Supper had become a demonstration of their disunity.
The element of unity is paramount in the Christian faith and it was not happening
in this early church.
1 Corinthians 11:18 NASB
18 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that
divisions (schisms/schismata) exist among you; and in part I believe it.
1 Corinthians 12:24b-25 NASB
24b But God has so composed the body (of Christ), giving more abundant honor
to that member which lacked, 25 so that there may be no division
(schisms/schismata) in the body, but that the members may have the same
care for one another.
John 19:23-24 NASB
23 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His outer garments and
made four parts, a part to every soldier and also the tunic; now the tunic was
seamless, woven in one piece. 24 So they said to one another, “Let us not tear
(schismata) it, but cast lots for it, to decide whose it shall be”; this was to fulfill the
Scripture: “They divided My outer garments among them, and for My clothing
they cast lots.”
Tear (schismata) – to take a garment and rip it to shreds.
That is what had happened to their fellowship.

6. 1 Corinthians 11:19-22 NASB
19 For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved
may become evident among you. 20 Therefore when you meet together, it is not
to eat the Lord’s Supper, 21 for in your eating each one takes his own supper first;
and one is hungry and another is drunk. 22 What! Do you not have houses in which to
eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have
nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you.
The groups would have met in the homes of the rich (since they alone could
accommodate them).
These occasions were full meals with plenty of food and drink - at least for some
members.
The rich brought plenty of food for themselves (including meat), whereas the
poorer members had to make do with their own scanty fare.
The main point stands out quite clearly.
There was over-indulgence on the part of the rich and feelings of envy on the
part of the poor who were made to feel inferior (1 Cor. 12:15).
For Paul this was inconsistent with the intended character of the meal.
Both hunger and drunkenness are out of place in a church meal.
Rowdy festivity and social divisions alike ruined the occasion.
Paul criticized the Corinthians for their carnality and instead of Christian
fellowship, some brethren were only seeking to satisfy their fleshly desires by
eating before the entire group had arrived.

7. This caused the late-arriving poor who had been able to bring only little or
nothing with them to go hungry.
Others were drinking to excess and getting intoxicated, transforming a spiritual
event into carnal revelry.
Paul tells everyone to wait for all the brethren to arrive before beginning the
Lord's Supper.
Those who, because of hunger, could not wait were told to eat at their own
houses before coming together to partake of the Lord's Supper.
Paul laid down that the rich should eat privately in their own houses if they
wished to have a larger meal or more expensive fare, and thus avoid importing
social divisions into the meeting of the church.
Paul was not counseling that the occasion should cease to be a meal at this
point.
Communion later became the token consumption of a morsel of bread and a
sip of wine.
1 Corinthians 11:23-34 NASB
The Lord’s Supper
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord
Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had
given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in
remembrance of Me.”
(At the Lord's Supper, Jesus is present in the hearts and minds of the community
of the church.)
25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the
new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of
Me.”

8. 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s
death until He comes.
27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy
manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. 28 But a man must
examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not
judge the body rightly. 30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick,
and a number sleep. 31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be
judged.
(Paul proclaims here that the cause of much of the sickness and even death
afflicting the Corinthian congregation was because of their carnal behavior at
these spiritual events.)
32 But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be
condemned along with the world.
33 So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
34 If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that you will not come together for
judgment.
1 Corinthians 11:23-34 NASB
1 Corinthians 11:28-29 NASB
28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and
drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to
himself if he does not judge the body rightly.
But let a man examine [dokimazeto from dokimazo] himself, to test, prove,
scrutinize (to see whether a thing is genuine or not), discern.
Examine yourselves before taking communion, people must examine their
conscience in order not to partake unworthily [anaxios]; they must discern the
true nature of this sacred meal, which is entirely different from an ordinary
repast.

9. Here Paul admonishes the Corinthians to personally be cognizant of the
character and meaning of the Lord's Supper.
This was designed to ensure that they are partaking of it in the right attitude with
the proper understanding of what it represented.
When the Apostle Paul gave the Corinthian believers guidelines on the proper
way to celebrate the Lord’s Table, he included a key element, a soul exam – a
self-examination.
While the Holy Spirit is the best Soul’s Detective, here are some basic areas for a
self-examination starting point:
1. Personal Worship (called the “Sanctuary” of a believer’s life)
2. Personal lifestyle
3. Interpersonal relationships
4. Attitude
In a parallel passage, Paul cautions believers, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of
God” (Ephesians 4:30).
The larger context of Ephesians 4 exposes how heart’s attitudes and human
relationships can grieve the Spirit, and so quench His influence.
Ephesians 4:31-32 NASB
31 let all bitterness and wrath, and anger and clamor (commotion) and slander
be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tender-
hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
Christ must be Lord of our attitudes and words as well as our deeds.
Our influence is measured not just by not doing wrong but by doing right.
Choices must be made for a lifetime and moment-by-moment.

10. 2 Timothy 1:6-7 ESV
6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you
through the laying on of my hands, 7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of
power and love and self-control.
How can a believer fan the Flame of God rather than quench the Holy Spirit?
One answer is in the Lord’s Supper – the observance of Communion.
In the Christian life it is necessary to encourage ourselves and each other to
“keep on keeping on”.
It is easy to be discouraged in well doing, but we dare not.
We encourage each other by remembering the words to a chorus we sang as
teens at Youth for Christ meetings: “It only takes a spark to get a fire going!”

11. Don’t put out the fire!
Go light one!
1 Thessalonians 5:19 NASB
19 Do not quench the Spirit;
Ephesians 4:27-32 NASB
27 and do not give the devil an opportunity. 28 He who steals must steal no longer;
but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he
will have something to share with one who has need. 29 Let no unwholesome
word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification
according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who
hear. 30 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by Whom you were sealed for the
day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and
slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another,
tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
It is only by forgetting yourself that you draw near to God.
The focus is upon Christ and only through Him do we draw near to God.
Hebrews 4:16 NASB
16 Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we
may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

12. This is how we must learn to think about the sacraments so that the focus is not
so upon ourselves – “I have been baptized”, “I never miss a Communion.”
The focus is upon Christ.
If, in your thinking about the sacraments, self has intruded where Christ should
be, on the basis of God’s Word: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Ephesians
4:30), “Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19).
Let the Holy Spirit lead you beyond the sacraments to the Savior.
More Than Anything
metrolyrics.com
More Than Anything
I know if You wanted to You could wave Your hand
Spare me this heartache and change Your plan
And I know when He said that You could take my pain away
But even if You don't I pray
Help me want the Healer more than the healing
Help me want the Savior more than the saving
Help me want the Giver more than the giving
Oh help me want You Jesus more than anything

13. You know more than anyone that my flesh is weak
And You know I'd give anything for a remedy
And I'll ask a thousand more times to set me free today
Oh but even if You don't I pray
Help me want the Healer more than the healing
Help me want the Savior more than the saving
Help me want the Giver more than the giving
Oh help me want You Jesus more than anything
When I'm desperate and my hearts overcome
All that I need You've already done
When I'm desperate and my hearts overcome
All that I need You've already done
Oh Jesus help me want You more than anything
Help me want the Healer more than the healing
Help me want the Savior more than the saving
Help me want the Giver more than the giving
Help me want You Jesus more than anything
Help me want You Jesus more than anything
Songwriters: BECCA MIZELL, SAMUEL MIZELL
© BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC
For non-commercial use only.
Data from: LyricFind
1 Corinthians was written to a church that was being adversely affected by the
immoral culture around it.
Skip Heitzig relates some teachings that seem very contemporary to us today.
1 Corinthians 11:23-29 NASB
The Lord’s Supper
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord
Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread;
Paul showed the Corinthian saints the real meaning of the Lord’s Supper by
taking them back to the Upper Room.

14. Spurgeon said “never mind the bread and the cup unless you can use them as
people use eye glasses.
Folks don’t look at glasses, they look through glasses.
Use the bread and the cup as glasses to say, ‘Yes, I can see the Lamb of God
Who taketh away the sins of the world’”.

15. Paul has them look through the bread and the cup in five different ways.
1) We look backwards, together at a past event. See verse 24.
24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body,
which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
Just as the lamb was a memorial of the sacrifice that brought the Israelites
out of Egypt (Passover), these elements (the wine and the bread) are
symbolic of the death of Jesus.
They help us to remember the act.
When Jesus wanted them to remember something, He gave them a meal.
He did not say, “Build Me a mausoleum.”
The location of the tomb of Jesus is in dispute.
We really don’t know for certain which is the correct one.
He did not say, “Build Me a large marble statue where I gave the Sermon
on the Mount.”
No, He said, “Have a meal. Do this in remembrance of Me.”
When we break the bread and drink the wine we are deliberately focusing
our attention off of one thing and onto another.

16. We are to pause our lives long enough to refocus upon the cross, the one
act – the supreme act – of the love of God giving His Son for your sins and
for my sins and that is the act of remembrance.
When we look back, when we remember the sacrifice, we disconnect
from ourselves for a few moments and we connect with Him.
You live in a society that is sending you constant messages to connect
you with yourself, your needs, your pleasures, your wants, with what you
feel, with what you “deserve” – so by the end of the day you are
programmed: “Me, Me, Me, Me, My, My, My, My! What about Me? What
about my needs?”
Communion does the opposite.
It disconnects you from that and connects you to the sacrifice that Jesus
made over 2,000 years ago.
And you remember – Oh Lord! Thank You so much!
Our society is called narcissistic, named after the Greek god, Narcissus,
who fell in love with his own reflection.
Poem:
“There once was a nymph named Narcissus,
Who thought of himself very delicious,
He stared like a fool at his face in a pool,
And his folly today is still with us.”
Narcissism is a fixation with one’s self.
Today, one of the personality disorders is even called narcissistic
personality disorder.
Narcissism is looking and gazing on myself while the Love Feast focus is on
Christ – we focus on others, not ourselves.
The saints in Corinth were not doing that and they were forgetting the
essential element.

17. 2) We not only look back, we look at the present. See verse 25.
25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is
the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in
remembrance of Me.”
The world drinks to forget, we drink to remember!
We are living in the present age, the New Covenant, the once and for all
time, finished work of Christ for our salvation.
Not our righteousness, it is a brand-new covenant!
Christianity is to be a present reality, not just a past tense experience.
Some folks live in the past saying, “I remember when I gave my life to
Christ back in 19__ during the Jesus Movement.” or something similar and
they reminisce to some event in the past.
What about last week?
What about today?
Can your past experience be translated into a present reality?
Are you living under the New Covenant?

18. The past should be a guidepost not a hitching post.
Look at the past but it should also be brought into the present.
We are living under the New Covenant when we celebrate the sacrifice at
Communion – we are reminding ourselves that we are not our own, we
have been bought with a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in
your spirit which are His (1 Corinthians 6:20).
3) We not only look back into the past, and at the present but we also look
forward. See verse 26.
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the
Lord’s death until He comes.
4) We look within. See verses 27 and 28.
27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an
unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the
bread and drink of the cup.

19. 5) We look around. See verses 33 and 34.
33 So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one
another. 34 If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that you will not
come together for judgment.
Verse 21 spoke of getting ahead in line and not sharing.
Verse 34 speaks of eating at home because the Agape Feast is not a
common meal but a sacred one.
How can we remember the Lord’s death if we are forgetting those He died
for?

20. Sunday
http://tse2.mm.bing.net/th?id=JN.YeZK4m9R0ZovA7PRca4vag&pid=15.1
1 Corinthians 12:4-12, 21-26
Serving God’s People
April 15, 2018
First Baptist Church
Jackson, Mississippi
USA
The Plan of Hope & Salvation
John 3:16 NASB
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
John 14:6 NASB
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to
the Father but through me.”

21. Romans 3:23 NASB
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 6:23a NASB
23a For the wages of sin is death,
• Death in this life (the first death) is 100%.
• Even Jesus, the one who doesn’t deserve death, died in this life to pay the
penalty for our sins.
• The death referred to in Romans 6:23a is the second death explained in
Revelation 21:8.
Revelation 21:8 NASB
8 “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and
immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the
lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Romans 6:23b NASB
23b but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 5:8 NASB
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for
us.
Revelation 21:7 NASB
7 “He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be
My son.”
• Romans 10:9-10 explains to us how to be overcomers.
Romans 10:9-10 NASB
9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that
God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person
believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in
salvation.
Romans 10:13 NASB
13 for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Have questions or would like to know more?
Please, contact First Baptist Church Jackson at 601-949-1900 or
http://firstbaptistjackson.org/contact/