Mouth: Feasting on the Bread of Christ, Part 1

John 6:48-58
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Today we delve into an enlightening discussion on the essence of the Christian life—that it is God’s work in which we become involved, rather than our work in which He becomes involved. We explore the temptation of focusing on our own deeds to the extent that we might lose sight of the divine workings of God.

Pastor Colin Smith brings to light the importance of not getting caught up in our efforts to the point where we overshadow God’s initiatives. The heart of being a Christian, he suggests, means responding to God, who is always reaching out to us. This thought-provoking message also touches upon the joy and privilege of the Lord’s Supper and how we, as believers, can approach it with a renewed sense of fellowship with Christ, for it is He who invites us to partake.

We learn that the Lord’s Supper is not just an act of remembrance, but an encounter where Christ himself offers nourishment and reaffirms His covenant with us. Join us as we uncover the significance of communion and how it plays a role in strengthening our faith through the powerful words and symbolism provided by Jesus himself.

The Christian life is God’s work in which we become involved – not our work in which he becomes involved – but the other way around. Here’s the problem, we can become so interested in what we are doing that we lose sight of what God is doing. Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I’m David Pick. Colin, I think that may be a temptation for many of us. We get an idea of what we think God may want us to do and then we pursue that and then we ask God to bless what we’re doing rather than the other way around. Yeah, I think that’s right. That’s because we instinctively start with ourselves. What does it mean to be a Christian? I’m always reaching out to God and trying to get him to respond to me. What if it’s completely the other way around? God is the one who is always at work. Jesus said, my father is always working. So God is always reaching out. God is always initiating. The question is how am I going to respond to him? This cuts through every aspect of the Christian life. My salvation is me responding to God. It’s not me coming up with an approach to him and trying to get him to respond to me. No, he’s the one that saves me and that’s wonderful. Today we’re going to think a little about the Lord’s Supper. This is perhaps one of the most neglected privileges that is given to a Christian. We tend to think of it, oh yes we’re doing this to remember Jesus. Well Jesus says he speaks about him wanting to share fellowship with us. He talks to his disciples, I want to have this Passover with you. Christ wanting to have fellowship with you? I’m interested in responding to that, but he’s the one who moves first. And we’ll see that today in John chapter 6 verses 48 to 58 as we begin the message Feasting on the bread of Christ. Here’s Colin. Now we’re continuing our series today on faith in which we’re learning that faith is the bond of a living union between a believer and Jesus Christ in which we come to love him and to trust him and to serve him. And as we’re learning more about what faith is, I think we’re feeling our need to grow in it and so we are actively engaging in this prayer, two prayers really. We’re saying Lord, increase my faith and Lord, increase our faith, and this series is about how that can happen. We began in Romans chapter 10 and verse 17 where God says to us that faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God. So we saw that faith in this anatomy, as it were, has ears to hear the Word of Christ. So we see that in Romans 10 and verse 17, Christ creates and he sustains faith through the word and therefor Jesus says to us, consider carefully how you hear, because the way in which you hear the Word of God, the way in which you mix it with faith will determine the degree to which you grow in faith and the degree to which your faith prospers. Then we went to 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 13 where last week we saw that God says those who serve well gain great assurance in their faith. So there’s a connection between serving and faith. Faith has hands we saw, thinking of this anatomy, that serve with the love of Jesus Christ. So faith unites us to Christ, Christ is one who came into the world to serve. If his life is in us, that will be evidenced. Our union with him will be evidenced through serving. So serving is a means by which faith is not only confirmed, but it is a means by which faith grows. Jesus says, My food is to do the will of the father who sent me. So we’re looking at the means by which faith grows, the ways in which God will answer our prayer to have more faith. We’ll come through the word and a right hearing of it, it will come through our engagement in serving, and today we’re looking at a third way in which Christ strengthens faith. We’re looking at the Lord’s Supper. We’re looking at communion. I want us to see how Christ strengthens faith through the Lord’s Supper. I want to help us appreciate, and perhaps for some of us this will be new, for us to appreciate and to use the Lord’s Supper which is a gift of Christ to his people as a means of strengthening our faith. This is very important to understand this, that Christ increases faith through means. There are means that Christ has given to us as Christian believers by which our faith is increased. If we are asking God to increase our faith, we ought to apply ourselves to the means by which this happens. What are the means? We are saying the means are the word of God, the means are the service of Christ, the means are the Lord’s table. It may be that some of us have been coming to the Lord’s table for years but we have never really thought about what happens here. We have never really contemplated from the Bible what it is that we should expect to receive here. We have not seen this as a means by which Christ strengthened faith and therefore we have not experienced this strengthening of faith because we simply have not connected the prayer that the Lord would increase our faith and the means by which He does that. One of these very wonderful means we are seeing today is through this gift of the Lord’s Supper. I want then to stress today, first of all, what Christ does at the Supper. Just by way of introduction, before we turn to the specific words of Scripture, let me explain why we’re placing our emphasis here. The Christian life is God’s work in which we become involved. God’s work in which we become involved, not our work in which he becomes involved, but the other way around. Here’s the problem. We can become so interested in what we are doing that we lose sight of what God is doing. In other words, in focusing on the lesser thing, we can easily lose sight of the greater thing. That can happen, for example, with regards to conversion. The Bible makes it clear that salvation comes from the Lord. That’s Jonah, Chapter 2 in verse 10. It is by grace that you have been saved through faith. Even that is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, Ephesians 2. the age, salvation is God’s work, right? Jesus saves. That’s a good place for an amen, isn’t it? We believe that, don’t we? Jesus saves. Now of course we become involved in God’s work. When you were saved, when I was saved, you repented, didn’t you? You believed, you committed your life to Jesus Christ. You gave yourself to Him and became His follower. If you are a Christian, these things are all wonderfully true of you. But if all your attention is taken up on what you did, you know, I repented, I believed, I committed my life to Christ, what happens is that very quickly in focusing on the lesser thing you are losing sight of the bigger thing which is that Jesus saved you, that God saves. Now in the same way, this often happens in relation to baptism and the Lord’s supper. See, what is baptism? Baptism is the sign and seal of God’s great work in bringing a sinner to new life, and in forgiving a believer from sin, cleansing a believer from sin. And God speaks the great promises of the gospel to us in the most intimate way in baptism. You are immersed in water, and in this gracious gift God speaks the promises of the gospel to you in the most personal and intimate way. But when you lose sight of what God is doing in baptism, what happens is it gets shriveled down, and people start saying, well, what is baptism? Oh, well, it’s a way of me giving a testimony, or it’s just me taking a step of obedience, or it’s me telling other people how my life has changed. And suddenly, losing sight of God’s work because we’re so interested in our own work, what happens is that baptism, which was a gracious gift of God, shrinks down, and suddenly it feels like one more human work. We’ve lost sight of the big thing, because we’re so consumed with the lesser thing. Now, I want to suggest to you that the same thing happens very often among Christian believers with regards to the Lord’s supper. When we gather at the Lord’s Table there are certain things for us to do that the bible speaks about. We remember the Lord’s death until He comes. This do in remembrance of me. More than that, the apostle Paul says, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Paul says that in one Corinthians and chapter eleven. But what we’re doing is always the lesser of the bigger thing. The big question is what is Christ doing in the Supper? That’s where we want to focus our attention lest we become so interested in what we’re doing that we lose sight of the bigger thing which is what Jesus Christ is doing. Have you thought about this? What does Christ do in the Supper or is all your interest taken up with what you are doing? Well, I want us to get today a taste for communion with Christ. I want us to discover a new joy and a new anticipation, a new meaning in coming to the table so that as we see what Christ does at the table faith will be nourished and strengthened and greatly increased. Lord increase our faith. A helpful look there at communion today from Pastor Colin Smith on Open the Bible and our Feasting on the Bread of Christ. It’s part of a larger series, The Anatomy of Faith, where we’re looking at what faith is and what faith does. If you’ve missed any of the series do come online to our website, openthebible.org.uk and there you can hear any of the messages that have already gone out on air. Open the Bible is supported by our listeners and this month if that’s something you been considering doing we have a great offer for you. It’s a book by Pastor Colin Smith called, Green Pastures Still Waters. It’s a devotional covering 31 days in Psalm 23, and it’s our gift to you if you’re able to set up a new donation to the work of Open the Bible in the amount of £5 per month or more. Back to the message now. We’re in John, chapter 6. Here’s Colin. Well I want us to get today a taste for communion with Christ. I want us to discover a new joy and a new anticipation and new meaning in coming to the table so that, as we see what Christ does at the table, faith will be nourished and strengthened and greatly increased. Lord increase our faith. Now let’s turn to the scriptures with that introduction and I’d like to begin in Luke’s chapter 22. We’ll come to John 6 later but we begin with the institution of the Lord’s Supper, Luke 22 and verse 15. Now I want to make three observations that are really grade school level. This is about as simple as you can get but sometimes the most obvious things are the things that we miss. What does Jesus Christ do at the table? Three things. Number one, Christ invites you. Luke chapter 22 and verse 15, Jesus said to the disciples, I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. Now please see the significance of this that the initiative is with Jesus. It is not that the disciples have organized a supper and they say, Hey Jesus, we’ve got a supper going and we’d like you to join us. No, it is that Jesus has a supper and that He invites the disciples to join Him. He says, I am having a supper and I invite you to come. I want to have you present at my meal, at my table. It is Christ who invites the disciples, not the disciples who invite Him. So this is not some event that we’re putting on in which we’re saying, Jesus, please come among us. This is an event that Christ has given to us in which He invites us to draw near to Him. So this is not our supper. This is why I say this is grade school stuff. The first point that I’m making is the Lord’s supper is the Lord’s supper. That’s the first thing to grasp about it. In other words, because this is His meal to which He invites us, this is not a time when we come offering something to Him. If it was our meal, if we invited Him it would be that way around, but it’s not. It’s His meal He invites us. So, it is not a time when we come offering something to Him. It is a time when we come because He offers something to us. That is absolutely fundamental to understanding table. And who does He invite? He invites repentant sinners. Bishop Reillys so often says it very well, sinners living in open sin and determined not to give it up ought on no account to come to the Lord’s table because to do so is a positive insult to Christ. It is to pour contempt on His gospel. That is, if you are intent on continuing in known sin you should not come to the table because you’re insulting Christ by doing it. He speaks to you about forgiveness and your intent is to continue on the same sin – that’s an insult to Christ. Then Reillys says self-righteous people who think that they are saved by their own works, have no business coming to the Lord’s table either for what do we declare at the Lord’s table? We publicly profess that we have no righteousness or worthiness of our own and that all our hope is in Christ. So Reillys saying very clearly and helpfully, there are two groups of people who should not come. If you are in known sin and your intent on continuing it, then don’t come. That’s just insulting Christ to pretend that you want forgiveness when you’re intent on carrying on. And if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t feel that you need a Saviour you shouldn’t come to this table either because at this table we proclaim that we are those who know we are sinners and who need a Saviour and are seeking to turn from our sin and for His grace to save us from it. So it’s not for those who are without sin, it’s not for those who are intent on continuing in sin, it is for repentant sinners. Therefore, I say to you do not let your failures or your successes prevent you from coming. Christ invites you. He invites you to come to turn from sin, to leave it behind, to embrace Him as He reaches out to you, to embrace you. Come. Have a supper. I want to have fellowship with you. I want you to leave your sin. I want you to come to Me. I want you to find mercy. Christ invites you to come. Here’s the second thing. Christ speaks to you at the table. Invites you to the table. He speaks. Again, this is the most biggest thing. I want you to notice how Christ speaks at the table. Verse 19 of Luke 22, he took the bread, he gave thanks and he gave it to them saying. So, here’s Christ speaking. And Jesus says this is my body given for you. And in the same way after the supper, verse 20, He took the cup saying, here’s Jesus speaking this cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you. Now whenever you come to the Lord’s table the pastor will always repeat the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every time you come to communion. This is my body. It is given for you. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. It is poured out for you. Why does the pastor always say these words at the communion table? Because they are the words of Christ. They are the words that Christ speaks to you! That’s what I want us to grasp. These are not simply words that Jesus spoke to other people a long time ago. These are the words that the Lord Jesus Christ, the living Christ – He is risen from the dead, He is present with us by the Holy Spirit, and he speaks to us at the table. He invites us to come. He wants fellowship with us. Some of us have got so locked into this idea that we are simply remembering that this becomes an exercise in connecting with a point of history and we lose sight of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and He invites us to fellowship with Him. That’s the very centre of the Christian life. That is the essence of what faith is about. It is a living union with Jesus Christ, and it is especially expressed here as He invites us to come. So the Lord Jesus Christ is saying to you as you gather around the table, this is my body that is given for you. This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. As you take the bread. As you, later this morning, will take the cup in your hand, I invite you to do that. As a repentant sinner. The Lord Jesus Christ in that very act is saying to you, look there is forgiveness for you. There is strength for you. There is life for you. And the reason there is forgiveness and strength and life for you today is that my body is given for you. And my blood has been shed for you. Listen, the Lord’s supper is not us placing the cross before God in order to somehow persuade him to be merciful to us. It is Christ placing the cross before us in order to persuade us that God is merciful to us in Jesus Christ. That’s why there’s food here. That’s why there’s life here. He’s speaking the gospel into your life in the most powerful and in the most compelling way. So, let’s understand what Christ is doing. The Lord’s Supper. Christ is present with us by the Holy Spirit as we gather around the table. We come to a fellowship with him. He invites you. And he speaks to you. Here is the third thing that the Lord does at the table. He feeds you. I would like to turn back to Matthew’s account of the Lord’s Supper Matthew 26 and verse 26. In Matthew records how Jesus said these words. Isn’t this wonderful words. Now to 26, 26, he took the bread and he gave thanks and he broke it and gave it to his disciples. Now we have seen from Luke’s Gospel that he said this is my body. Now I want you to notice the words that Matthew also records. Jesus said take and eat. This is my body. Now grade school level again, we are learning about the Lord’s Supper. Our first point was it is the Lord’s Supper. Here is another grade school level. This is almost insulting to grade school kids isn’t it? The Lord’s Supper is a Supper right? It is a Supper. Now people come to a Supper in order to be fed. When you come to this Supper you get given a piece of wafer the size of a thumb nail and a drink in a cup that is about the size of a thimble. So any thinking person would ask the question, where’s the meal? And the answer is, Christ is the meal. That’s the whole point of what he says here. I am your food. That’s what he’s saying when he says this is my body, this my blood, the body and blood of Jesus Christ is the food that will nourish your soul to eternal life. Christ is telling us that he is how our life is sustained. I live on him. You’ve been listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and our message, Feeding on The Bread of Christ. All about Holy Communion. And it’s part of our series, The Anatomy of Faith, which is all about what faith is and what faith does. And if you’ve missed any of the series or if you want to go back and listen again, you can do that by coming online to our website, openthebible.org.uk and there you can listen to any of our previously broadcast messages. You can also find us as a podcast if that’s a better way for you to follow There’s a fresh one every day, and many Christians find it a great way to start the day. Again, you’ll find that on our website. Openthebible.org.uk It’s called Open the Bible Daily. Open the Bible depends on the generous support of our listeners and if supporting Open the Bible financially is something you’ve been thinking about, we have an offer for you this month. If you’re able to set up a new donation to Open the Bible in the amount of five pounds per month or more, we’d love to thank you by sending you a new devotional by Pastor Colin Smith. It’s called Green Pastures, Still Waters, and like today’s message, it’s based on Psalm 23. Colin, why did you write this devotional? This goes back to the pandemic, and in these dark days, I guess, along with every other pastor, I was asking the question, what will help and encourage God’s people to get through these difficult days? And I turned to Psalm 23 and just found such joy and help in mining the wonderful treasures that are in this marvellous chapter of the Bible. And my colleague Tim Augustine has now arranged that material in the form of a 31-day devotional, and I’m just delighted that we’re able to offer this, looking at the Lord Jesus Christ through Psalm 23, will bring strength and encouragement and peace and joy. And to do that for 31 days to meditate on one of the best know and best loved chapters in all of the Bible and to get our eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ. So if you need some encouragement, Green Pastures Still Waters is going to be a great help to you. Well, we’d love to send you a copy of Pastor Colin Smith’s devotional Green Pastures Still Waters, all about Psalm 23, to say thank you if you’re able to set up a new regular donation to the work of Open the Bible in the amount of five pounds per month or more. Full details on our website, that’s openthebible.org.uk For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick. And I hope you’ll join us again next time. We come to the Lord’s Supper to be fed, but when we come we are offered a tiny piece of bread or wafer and a sip of wine or juice. Find out how that feeds us, next time on Open the Bible.

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Colin Smith

Trustee / Founder and Teaching Pastor

Colin Smith is the Senior Pastor of The Orchard Evangelical Free Church in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. He has authored a number of books, including Heaven, How I Got Here and Heaven, So Near – So Far. Colin is the Founder and Teaching Pastor for Open the Bible. Follow him on X formerly Twitter.

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