Ordering our Thoughts at the Lord's Table

The Believer's Desire to Please God at the Lord's Table and Accompanying Anxiety

0:04 This sermon was preached on Sunday evening, April 3rd, 1983, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. One of the certain marks with which God identifies all of his true children is that he implants within their hearts a genuine and earnest longing to please him. Now, if ever the desire to please the Lord is not only present, but consciously active in the heart of a believer, it is when, in obedience to his Lord, he comes to the table of the Lord as an act of obedience to the command of the Lord, this do in remembrance of me. And if you've been a Christian even but a short time, then you know what it is not only to desire to please, to please the Lord in general, but to please him most especially when you come to his table. To know what it is, when approaching the table, to have some degree of certainty that the Lord who invited you to his table,

1:17 and who is spiritually present at his table, smiles upon you as he beholds your conduct about that table. And yet it is precisely at this point that many a Christian, including the one standing before you, undergoes some of the most intense spiritual agony and mental anxiety. Both in our preparation for, in our actual participation in the Lord's Supper, we struggle with this question, what thoughts should I think approaching the table and sitting at the table that will most please, the Lord, who is the central figure at his table? We say to ourselves, I know that I'm to remember him, that he is to be central in my thoughts because his word says so. This do in remembrance of me. Furthermore, we say to ourselves, I know that I am to remember him, not in a general way, but specifically with reference to the pouring out of his life's blood, and on my behalf, I am to remember him, particularly as crucified and slain for me.

2:40 I am, in the language of 1 Corinthians 10, 16, to have communion in the body and in the blood of Christ. But now, precisely how do I do that? How am I to order my thoughts in remembering him, in remembering him particularly, as crucified and slain for me? Should I seek to relive those vivid scenes recorded in the Gospel records?

3:11 Should I seek, as it were, in my mind's eye, to trace the steps of my Lord into Gethsemane? Behold the motley crowd coming with the soldiers to arrest him, dragging him off from one place to another in the early hours of the morning, is that what it means to remember him? To relive in my mind those vivid scenes of the agony and the shame and the suffering that he endured in those final hours? Or, since he is the living Lord, should I seek to remember him and conceive of him in terms of the picture given in the book of the Revelation, in which John said, I saw a lamb as it had been slain in the midst of the throne, and should I try to conjure in my mind an image of what it would be for a lamb to be in the midst of the throne? I say, then, that for every Christian who wants to please his Lord, sooner or later, there is this experience of the agony and the anxiety of how to order one's thoughts at the Lord's table. And I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm not some peculiar oddball in terms of experience, in that agony and that anxiety. And what I propose to do in the few minutes tonight that yet remain

Purpose of the Sermon: Providing a Framework for Thought at the Lord's Table

4:37 in preparation for our coming to the Lord is address myself to the subject of the proper ordering of our thoughts in coming to the Lord's table. And I want to suggest three broad categories of sanctified thought that are certainly appropriate in coming to the Lord's table. Now, this is a very important topic. Now, this is a very important topic.

5:00 Now, this is a very important topic. Now, this is not an exhaustive list of all of the categories of thought that could be called appropriate categories of thought. But I want to help some of you who are struggling with this great and perplexing question. And I hope your testimony will be, when the final amen is pronounced tonight, that at the Lord's table tonight, you knew more joy and liberty and freedom and less anxiety than you ever knew.

5:30 than you ever knew before, because you had a framework within which you could order your thoughts. You see, when the Word is being preached, your thoughts are being directed for you. The preacher has thought through the passage or the subject, and as he opens up a given portion or many portions, and you are giving yourself to the Lord in the preaching of the Word, the track of your thoughts is already laid for you. But when we come to the Lord's table, and the elements are being passed, no one is before us guiding our thoughts.

6:06 We are free, voluntarily, to direct our thoughts. And so that's what makes this matter a matter of much more personal difficulty for us. Well, let me suggest that if you would order your thoughts aright, and thereby, by the Spirit of God, receive profit at the Lord's table, this first category of thought ought frequently to be present. Namely, thoughts leading to renewed appreciation of the love which impelled our Lord to die for us.

Category 1: Renewed Appreciation of Christ's Impelling Love

6:42 We ought to think thoughts in coming to the table that lend to the renewal of our appreciation of the love which impelled our Lord to die for us. Now, the simple conjunction between the death of Christ and the love of Christ is given to us in such passages as Galatians chapter 2 and verse 20 and Ephesians chapter 5. Perhaps you'll want to turn there for a moment with me. In Galatians chapter 2, the Apostle says in verse 20, I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I have lived, I now live in the flesh, I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God. Now notice the conjunction between Christ's love and His giving Himself in death for us. The Son of God who loved me and who gave Himself up for me.

7:55 And here we see the conjunction between the love of Christ and the death of Christ is the most intimate conjunction. There would have been no giving up of Himself for us had He not previously set His love upon us. He was impelled to Gethsemane and to Golgotha by the power and the constraint of His love for us. You find a similar sentiment expressed in Ephesians chapter 5.

8:30 Ephesians chapter 5, in the midst of that exhortation to husbands, verse 25, Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for it. Had there been no love set upon the church, there would have been no giving up of Himself for the church. And though all of His work as mediator was most free and voluntary, for He said, No man takes my life from me, I lay it down of myself.

9:11 And though all of that work was done in obedience to His Father, this commandment have I received of my Father, in all of that work done as an act of holy obedience to His Father, there was the constraint of His own love upon His own heart. He loved, He loved me, Paul says, and in consequence of that love, He gave Himself up for me. And the giving up of Himself brings within its orbit all those vivid scenes of Gethsemane, the trial, Golgotha, the shrouded heavens, the cry of dereliction, the abandonment of His Father, all of that is bound up in the words, gave Himself up for me. But I repeat, there would have been no giving up if He had not first of all loved us. And loved us not in some general sense, but as the Apostle says in the Galatians passage, the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up specifically and particularly for me. Now the surest way to increase your love to Christ is to meditate upon the magnitude of Christ's love, to you.

10:34 For the Scripture says we love Him because He first loved us. And it is in the constant, thoughtful contemplation of the love which impelled Him to lay down His life that we will find kindled in our own hearts new degrees of love to our blessed Savior. We know that love to Christ is the great motive, not the exclusive motive, but the great motive that must ever and continually and increasingly lead us on in the path of obedience. If He loved me, you will keep my commandments and how essential it is then that this great motive be continually fueled, not by the contemplation of the meager measure of our love, but by the contemplation of the magnitude of His love. And so may I suggest struggling saint who has often wrestled with the question how shall I order my thoughts of remembrance at the table that this is one grand and glorious category within which you ought to order your thoughts. Namely, you ought to think with renewed appreciation upon the love which impelled Him to die for you. And then the second category of thought is this.

Category 2: Renewed Appropriation of Benefits Procured by Christ's Death

12:04 Thoughts leading to renewed appropriation of the benefits procured by His death for us. You see, not only thoughts that are calculated to bring us to a new appreciation of His love for us, but thoughts calculated to bring us to a renewed appropriation of the benefits procured by His death. Christ's death secured for His people an amazing spectrum of spiritual blessings. What are some of them?

12:42 The full and the complete pardon of all of our sins. Ephesians 1-7 In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins according to the riches of His grace. The forgiveness of our sins. That which to the world is as nothing but to the people.

13:06 The forgiveness of our sins. The forgiveness of our sins. The forgiveness of our sins. The forgiveness of our sins.

13:06 The person who has come to some awareness of the holiness of God. The inflexible justice of God. The magnitude of His own pollution and vileness and the multitude of His sins. That which has become to Him His most precious possession.

13:25 The forgiveness of sins from the hand of the God against whom He has sinned. And it's here at the table that we ought to think thoughts leading to the renewed appropriation of that great blessing procured by the death of Christ. It is here that we ought to find our minds running in the track of the hymn writer who wrote my sin. Oh, the bliss of this glorious thought.

13:53 My sin, not in part, but the whole is nailed to His cross. And I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.

14:06 Oh, my God. Oh, my soul. Then there is the great blessing of the acceptance of our persons as righteous before Him. 2 Corinthians 5.21 He hath made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us. Why? That we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Think of it.

14:27 The acceptance of our persons as righteous before the bar of God. And that is a blessing procured in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Furthermore, the continuous cleansing from our sins. 1 John 1.9 The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, goes on cleansing us from all sin. We need not come to the table with a conscience smarting and to change the figure with a spirit bent over and bowed over with present guilt. The blood of Jesus Christ, goes on cleansing if we confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

15:17 Then a fourth great blessing procured in His death is uninhibited access to God. Having then a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. Hebrews 4.14 and 5.

15:36 Following, let us come boldly to the throne of grace. Having then a great high priest over the house of God, Hebrews 10, let us draw near with boldness. He gave Himself for us, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. This great category of biblical truth ought freshly to be appropriated as we come to the Lord's table.

16:07 You see, God is most glorified when His people most believingly appropriate all that was purchased for them in the death of Christ. It is not humility to face purchased blessings in unbelief. It is not presumption boldly to lay hold afresh of every blessing purchased in the blood of Christ. There is, no more direct way to give glory to God than to magnify the extensiveness, the expanse of His grace by the confident appropriation of all that has been purchased in the death of His own dear Son. And furthermore, there is nothing that makes a Christian more radiant than the conscious, present possession of those purchased blessings. And surely if thoughts are appropriate at the Lord's table, remembering Him, remembering Him particularly as crucified and slain for us, then surely thoughts leading to this renewed appropriation of the benefits procured by His death are thoughts that are appropriate.

Category 3: Renewed Consecration to Christ and His Purposes

17:33 But then there is a third category to which I will address myself briefly and it is this. Thoughts leading, to renewed consecration of ourselves to the One who died for us and to the ends for which He died. Thoughts leading to renewed consecration of ourselves to the One who died for us to the ends for which He died. I originally had those things in two categories, but the more I reflected upon them, I said, no, they must be consolidated into one because there is no consecration to the person of Christ that can be indifferent to the ends for which Christ died. To give yourself to Christ is to give yourself to the purposes for which He died. And the Scriptures are very clear on this point. Christ died to make us His own.

18:35 Now why in the world He put that kind of worth upon you and me, I'll never know. But we are His possession. Often we say, what do I have to show for all of my pain and all of my labor? Christ can ask that question and He is proud to say, I have my people for all of my agony, for all of my pain, for all of my bloody sweat in Gethsemane, for all of the shame of my nakedness upon which crude men stared when I hung upon a cross, for all of my pain, for all of the baptism of the agony of Golgotha.

19:18 What I have to show for my pains is my people. Titus 2.14 says that He gave Himself for us that He might not only redeem us from all iniquity, but purify to Himself a people for His own possession. Think of it.

19:40 That's the worth He puts upon you. The great prize of His suffering is His people. It is His people. And surely at His table, surely at His table, we ought to think thoughts leading to a renewed consecration of ourselves to Him who put such a price upon us that He was willing to pass through all of the agonies of Gethsemane and Golgotha to have us as His own and to count us His possession.

20:17 That's why Paul can say, what, don't you know that you're bought with a price and you're not your own? And that's the problem with you who are unconverted. I look now, even tonight, in the faces of some of you young people, you don't even have the decency to look me in the eye when I preach. And something in me is angry when I see such hostility to God.

20:37 And that's why you won't look at me. Because I represent Him by preaching His Word. And there is in me what I trust is an element of righteous anger. Who in the world are you?

20:48 You little pipsqueak to treat Almighty God like that. Do you know what He could do to you? But then there's another part of me that says,

20:59 Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

21:06 You see, your great complaint with God and His Word and His servants is, you don't want to be the property of the God who made you and the Christ who has claims over you. But you are His property. You will glorify Him by living a life to His praise and His glory. You will not be constrained by love or you'll glorify His justice in hell forever as a monument to the folly of those who rebel against Him.

21:36 But glorify God you will.

21:40 You can't escape it. You say, no! For myself! And Almighty God says, no!

21:49 You will glorify me by becoming my willing bond slave and living to my praise or sinking into hell while the host of the redeemed and we'll read it in Revelation 19 next Lord's Day, God willing, and all intelligent beings will worship God in your damnation.

22:15 And you in hell will be the occasion of bringing glory to God. But glorify Him you will.

22:25 You can't escape it.

22:30 You have no choice in being conceived and born. You have no choice. Concerning the end for which God made you and glorify Him you will.

22:45 And you see there's the fundamental difference between the unconverted and the Christian. The Christians come to the place where He says if God in Jesus Christ could so love a rebel such as I and would give Himself to die for the likes of me here Lord I give myself to You. It is all it is all that I can do. What more appropriate place than at the Lord's table to think thoughts that lead to that renewed consciousness of self-consecration to Him. Lord Jesus I'm Yours. You bought me all that I am. All of my faculties and capacities and energies. All that I ever am and ever hope to be.

23:36 All I ever have or ever shall have Lord. I'm Yours. You died to have me. And I'm glad to be Yours.

23:46 But not only should we think thoughts that lead to this renewed consecration of ourselves to the One who died but for the ends for which He died. And again the Bible is equally clear. A passage such as Romans 14 says to this end He both died and rose again that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. Again Ephesians 5 who gave Himself for us that He might sanctify us and present us to Himself a peculiar people.

24:21 2 Corinthians 5 15 and that He died for all that they who live should no longer henceforth live unto themselves but unto Him who died for them and rose again. Titus 2 who gave Himself for us that He might purify us. 1 Peter 1 we are redeemed not with corruptible things such as silver and gold and for what purpose that very statement is made to buttress the call to holiness and to godly fear. And we could bring many passages to bear I'm only being suggested tonight in this that when we come to the Lord's table it is here that we should think thoughts leading not only to this renewed consecration of ourselves to the One who died for us but to the ends for which He died for us. It is here that our determination to be holy should be intensified. Our determination to live in the fear of God should be increased. Our determination that we shall reflect His likeness and live not unto ourselves but unto Him. It is here

The Gospel Re-enacted: Beholding, Appropriating, Consecrating

25:32 that that consecration ought to be renewed and deepened. And so I leave those three simple categories with you. Beholding His love and then beholding that love appropriating the gifts that that love procured and in loving gratitude for the love shown and the gifts conferred fresh consecration of ourselves to Him. You see in a very sense it's as though the initial impact of the gospel upon us is reenacted again and again particularly at the table.

26:10 Isn't that how God made you a Christian? He showed you your need your desperate need of something outside of yourself. Of someone outside of yourself. And in seeing your sin you beheld the Lamb of God.

26:29 Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And as you beheld the love of God to poor lost sinners in the sending of His Son to die on behalf of sinners then what happened? As God was pleased to work in you beneath the level of your consciousness the first thing you were conscious of is that you found yourself reaching out not only beholding but taking as many as received Him. To them gave He the right to become the children of God. And from beholding there was the appropriation of faith and with that appropriation there was also the self consecration. And you may not have thought it through in that logical process. I'm not saying that at all. But I'm saying that that's the reality of a true and genuine gospel response.

27:29 Beholding the provision of God. What God has done in Christ forms the great central throb of the gospel. The gospel is not primarily a demand but it is an announcement that God... And with that announcement then comes the gracious invitation and promise and gracious command to repent and to believe. And inherent in that command and invitation to repent and believe is the giving of ourselves to Him. And so at the Lord's table we relive as it were and reenact again that impact of the gospel upon our souls for the first time. And again we feed upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

Pastoral Exhortation and Prayer for the Lord's Table

28:25 If you're not a Christian my friend, there's only one way for you to become a Christian. And that's to have dealings with Christ crucified in the context of honesty about who you are and what you are and what your standing is before God by nature. Well you see, child of God, you never move from that. You can't play games with the Lord at His table. You come, as a redeemed sinner, but as a redeemed sinner who still sins. You come as one who has been consecrated unto the Lord willingly and joyfully in response to His love to you. But you also come as one who needs deeper levels of consecration to Him. And so I invite you as you come to the Lord's table tonight to remember the Lord as He's commanded us.

29:17 And when you ask, how shall I remember Him? I give you in this very practical pastoral exhortation, seek to think thoughts in these categories. There may be other categories in which there would be more appropriate access of your soul to God in more appropriate communion with His Son this night. I'm not binding your conscience.

29:41 I'm simply trying to give you some helpful, biblical categories within which you can, by God's grace, so order your thoughts. You will not come away from the Lord's table feeling that frustration and anxiety. Well, did I order my thoughts aright? Did I remember Him in the way of His appointment?

30:02 But that thinking thoughts that lead to a fresh appreciation of His love, thoughts that lead to renewed appropriation of His gifts, and thoughts that lead to renewed consecration of yourselves to Him and the ends for which He died, you will leave the table tonight, not patting yourself on the back, but with a sense of rest in Christ and joy in Christ, undisturbed by anxious thoughts that perhaps you did not remember Him aright. Let us pray.

30:52 Our Father, how we thank You for the appointment of this table of remembrance in which we hold communion with our Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and slain, now risen from the dead, seated at Your own right hand, but having carried with Him into the glory all the virtue of that which He accomplished upon earth. We thank You for the privilege of coming, and we pray that as we seek to order our thoughts aright, that You will help us. O Lord, be pleased to take some of these thoughts from Your Word and make them helpful to Your people, that together we may find ourselves increasingly ravished with new sights of the glory of Jesus as we come to His own table. We ask these mercies in His own worthy name.

31:52 Amen.