When you come to this supper, you get given a piece of wafer the size of a thumbnail. 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? Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I’m David Pick, and Colin let’s ask that question. Where is the meal? Well, we’re talking about the Lord’s Supper. And when we come to the Lord’s table, we feed on Jesus Christ. Christ is our food. He really is. He nourishes our souls. He does this by His Holy Spirit. The important question is, how do we feed on Christ? And the answer to that question is by faith. And that’s what our whole series is about. We’re looking at aspects of faith, the anatomy of faith. What’s involved in a life of faith? And one of the great privileges that is given to a Christian believer is to draw near with our brothers and sisters in Christ to the Saviour and to have fellowship with Him in which our souls are nourished. And I think this is one of the most neglected gifts that God gives to us. I used to think in past years, you know, we come to the Lord’s Supper simply to remember that Jesus died. Well, we certainly do that and Christ speaks about that. Would we ever have forgotten that He died? No, there’s more to it than that. We have to come and to be nourished by Him. Seeing that has wonderfully helped me in worship. Some of the sweetest times of fellowship in my experience with the Lord have been with His people around His table. And I think we need to think as Christian believers more deeply about how our souls are nourished, according to what Christ has said to us by this wonderful means of grace that He has offered to us and invites us to share this fellowship with Him. I want to invite you to join us in John Chapter 6 as we explore this further and continue our message Feasting on the Bread of Christ. Here’s Colin. 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. Now, how exactly does the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ feed us? So we’re thinking about this. Jesus took the bread and He said, this is my body, my body. Now it was in His body that our Lord Jesus Christ lived His life of perfect righteousness, fulfilling everything that God requires of us. This bread, then, speaks of His completed obedience, the perfect righteousness of His life in the body. When we are united to Christ in the bond of faith, His perfect righteousness is imputed to us. That simply means that God counts the perfect righteousness of the life of Jesus as if we had lived that life. The perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ is counted as ours by God. That is the most marvelous Good News—it’s at the center of the Gospel. God accepts you not because you have finished your work but because Jesus Christ has finished His work and when I hear that and when I embrace that, my soul is strengthened. God, God accepts me today not because of what I have accomplished for him but because of what Jesus Christ has accomplished for me through His completed obedience on my behalf. And all this Christ says to us in the giving and in the receiving of the bread, and then Jesus gave them the cup. I’m reading from Matthew 26 and 27, drink of it all of you this is my blood off the covenant which is poured out for many. For what? The forgiveness of sins, the forgiveness of sins. Have you ever felt the strangeness of your position as a Christian believer. Here you are accepted by God completely through the completed righteousness of Jesus Christ that is imputed to you counted as yours because of the bond of faith you have with Him, but this leaves you in this very strange position that Luther described as simil justus et pecator, at the same time righteous and a sinner. You are completely righteous in Jesus Christ, accepted on the basis of His completed obedience for you, and yet knowing that which God speaks to you in the bread, you come to the table at the same time also knowing that you are a sinner. So I come to the table today knowing the reality of these two things. I am clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Christ speaks this to me in the bread that speaks of His body, His completed obedience. And yet, even as I come and I know myself so gratefully to be clothed in the righteousness of God, and I know myself so gratefully to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ, yet I am also aware of the fact that since last I came, I have sinned in thought and word and deed. I have grieved the Holy Spirit. There are things of which I am ashamed. And when I come to the table, Satan accuses me. My own conscience condemns me. And then I am given the cup. And Christ says, my blood was poured out for the forgiveness of your sins. That’s what he says to you, in the cup. And when I hear this I am strengthened. God loves me despite all the mess ups. Christ died for me knowing me at my worst, my Christian worst, as well as my pre-Christian worst. And through the blood of Jesus Christ there is forgiveness for me today. Therefore there is hope for me today. There is life for me today. There is life for me today and it is mine through the shedding of his blood. Today in all my inadequacies God embraces me in Jesus Christ. Now folks, all these things are found in Jesus Christ. They all come through his cross but they are laid out for us in the most wonderful way at the Lord’s table. Make good use of the Lord’s table as you pray. Lord, increase my faith. Now how do you do that? Here’s what Christ is doing and that’s the big thing. If you don’t understand that and never make progress, that’s the big thing. That’s why we’ve taken by far the most of our time on it but here’s now the other thing that’s important, how do we make the greatest use of the Lord’s table? I want just for the last minutes that we have here to turn back now to John chapter 6. Please do that with me. John chapter 6. Just want us to see here how we may make the best use of the Lord’s table. And I need to make one just this one very important statement about John 6. Let me make the point in the form of a question. Was John 6, the words that Jesus speaks in John 6 is this before or after the Lord instituted the Last Supper? Is this before or after? Think about it. John 6, and when does the Lord’s supper get instituted? The night before he died, that’s the end of the Gospel. So is this before or after? Are you with me? It’s before. It’s quite clearly before. Now, this is very important. When Jesus spoke these words to the disciples in John chapter 6, they did not even know what the Lord’s supper was. Therefore we must draw this conclusion that John 6 is not primarily about the Lord’s supper. It’s very important to grasp that, and here is why. If this were about the Lord’s supper, then when Jesus says in verse 53 for example, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you, that would mean that eternal life comes to us through the Lord’s supper, wouldn’t it, if this was about the Lord’s supper? John makes it very clear that eternal life comes to us not by participating in the Lord’s supper but how? By faith in the Son of God. That is what John six is all about. That’s why He gets into all that He says in the verses that we’ve read. In verse 47 by making this crystal clear statement, I tell you the truth, Jesus says, he who believes has everlasting life. That’s how everlasting life comes to you, because you know that at the end of John’s Gospel, when he’s summarizing the whole of the book, he says these things are written, that you may believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in His name. So, John six is not primarily about the Lord’s supper. It is about those who believe, verse 47, it’s about how those who believe feed on the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s not limited to the Lord’s Supper. To put it another way, and if you want to think further about this you might like just to note this quote down. It’s very, very helpful from a man by the name of Colin Brown. He says this… John 6 is not about the Lord’s Supper, but the Lord’s Supper is about what is described in John and chapter 6. In other words, the Lord’s Supper is a great place to do what is described in John 6. It’s not the only place, but there is no better place to do what was described in John 6. It is very important. So, what are we to do? We are going to look at 3 things in John chapter 6, in just a moment, so I hope you’ll stay with us. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and today’s message is Feasting on the Bread of Christ. And if you have missed any of the message, or if you want to go back and listen again, you can do that by coming online to our website openthebible.org.uk. Or, find us as a podcast on your favourite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK and subscribe to receive regular updates. Back to the message now, here’s Colin. What is it that we are to do in John 6? Three things very simply. Number 1. Here’s what you can do at the table. Believe in Christ. John says this so clearly, our Lord says it so clearly. John records it. John 6.35. Jesus says, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never grow hungry. And he who believes in me will never be thirsty. Verse 47. I tell you the truth. He who believes has everlasting life. Everything that comes to us from Jesus Christ comes to us from Jesus Christ is received by us through faith. In other words, coming to the table won’t do you any good unless you exercise faith. This is not a place to be passive. This is not a place to go to sleep for 10 minutes. This is not a place to tune out. This is not like taking medicine that kind of does something to you by its own power. This is a place for you to draw near to Christ with active, engaged faith. And, some of us may not have really derived benefit from the Lord’s Supper, because we’ve just used it as a quiet, passive few minutes. No, this is a time to draw near to Christ who invites you, who speaks to you, and wants to commune with you for you to draw near to Him with faith. For you to believe the promise. He says to you, now look, my completed obedience is for you. You are to embrace that. You are to believe this. My forgiveness I give to You. Through my shed blood you’re to embrace this, believe this. You’re to commune with Christ at His table as He lays these things before you. Not only are you to believe these things, believe on Christ, but our Lord Jesus is making it very clear here that we are to feed on Christ. Now, on the screen there, you’ll see the reference to the whole passage verses 49 to 58. They’ve put the summary there because laying out every single verse is more space than we’ve got on the screen. What I want you to see is that Jesus speaks about eating, or food, or feeding, in every verse for ten consecutive verses. I want you to to see how extraordinary this is so that nobody could ever possibly doubt or question what Jesus is talking about here. Now, will you help me please? Will you have your Bible open in front of you? Where we see eat, or eat, or food, or feed, will you just say that with me? I just want you to feel the weight of what Jesus is saying here and the wonder of it. When we look in the see that with me, I just want you to feel the weight of what Jesus is saying here, and the wonder of it. Verse 49, help me. Verse 51, Verse 52, Verse 53, Verse 54, and I will raise him up at the last day. Verse 55, Verse 56, and he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Verse 57, the one who feeds on me will live because of me. Verse 58, your fathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever. Now what is this about? Nobody could miss it. Eating, FEEDING ON CHRIST. He said now, wait a minute, trying to get this straight to your mind. How do you feed on Christ? By believing! That’s the point of verse 47. So you say, well, wait a minute. If the way I feed on Christ is by believing, why doesn’t Jesus just say, believe, believe, believe, believe, believe, all the way through these ten verses? Why bring in all this eat, eat, eat, eat, eat? And here’s the answer. Christ is telling us what faith does. Faith feeds on Jesus Christ. Now, folks, that gets not only to the center of the Lord’s table it gets to the very heart of everything that we’re learning in this entire series. Some of us have this idea that faith is simply believing certain things, signing off on certain truths. That’s all that we see. And what the Lord Jesus is reminding us of here is that faith feeds on Christ. It is more than knowing that Jesus died and rose 2,000 years ago. Faith brings you into a living communion with this Jesus who died and rose 2,000 years ago. In which we feed on him. We are strengthened by him. We share fellowship with him. We commune with him, and especially he invites us to this around his table. Because Christ is not simply someone we believe in. Christ is our life. Christ is our strength. Christ is our joy. Christ is our peace. Christ is our comfort. Christ is our hope. And all these things we derive from him and faith is the living union a life giving bond of a believer with Jesus Christ. So I want to encourage you to move beyond coming to the table and simply saying, oh yes Jesus died and rose. Want you to see that the bond of faith brings you into a living union with the Jesus who died and rose and is present by the Holy Spirit. And he is your life and he feeds you and you draw strength from him. That takes me to the very last thing in this moment. That we come believing in Christ. We come to feed on Christ and does his people we come to live through Christ and again this is so strong in the words of Jesus here. The promise of the gospel wonderfully is not just that one day you will get eternal life though of course that is true. It is that when Christ is in you. You have eternal life you see that in verse 47 right there don’t you. I tell you the truth. Jesus says He who believes has eternal life. Not just when you die you’ll get it. You have it. The life of Christ is in you by the Holy Spirit. John says it in his letter again a little later in the New Testament. This is the testimony. God has given us eternal life and the life is in his Son and he who has the son has life friends. If one of us or all of us should die this week. You will live because Christ is In you and the life that Christ gives can never die. So listen to the promise of Jesus in his own words and let this be life to you today. Verse 49. Here is the bread from heaven that a man may eat and not die. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. Death for you will be an instantaneous translation into everlasting life and the presence of Christ, who is with you now until you are with him there. Verse 54. Whoever eats my bread and drinks my cup has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day. I will raise him up on the last day. You’ll be with Christ. We’ll have a service for you here. Bury your body or whatever. Christ says, I’ll raise up your body in the last day. Verse 57. The one who feeds on me will live because of me and he who feeds on this bread will live forever. Which means that as we have gathered around the table and as Christ speaks to us and feeds us, we get up from the table and it’s as if Christ is saying to us, go live. All you who are getting much older, go live. Go live. All you who have cancer, go live. All you who are burdened down with anxiety, go live. The Life of Christ is in you and he who feeds on me will liveforever. Live from the knowledge of this. This Christ who gave himself for you, who died to redeem you, he lives to keep you, and this Christ is for you, he is with you. what a great reminder today, not only of what Christ does for us at the table, but also what we can do. You’ve been listening to Open The Bible, with Pastor Colin Smith, and today’s message, Feasting on the Bread of Christ. It’s part of our series, The Anatomy of Faith, and if you’ve missed any of the series or you want to go back and listen again, do that by coming online to our website, openthebible.org.UK. You can also find us as a podcast. Go to your favorite podcast site and search for Open The Bible UK. Subscribe to receive regular updates. There’s also a link to the podcasts on our website. Also on our website, you’ll find Open The Bible Daily. That’s a series of short two to three minute reflections based on Pastor Colin Smith’s teaching and read in the UK by Sue MacLeish. Open The Bible is supported entirely by the generous gifts of our listeners. And if that’s something you’ve been considering to do, then we have an offer for you this month. If you’re able to begin supporting Open The Bible with a new donation of five pounds per month or more, we’d love to thank you by sending you a new devotional bypass to Colin Smith called Green Pastures Still Waters. Like today’s message, it’s based on Psalm 23. Colin, this devotional comes from a sermon series that you preached a while back. And as you prepared for the series, what was the main thing you took away from it? Oh, that single word encouragement. I mean, I can’t think of any better place to go when a person feels down or jaded or just generally exhausted. If you need encouragement, Psalm 23 is the place to go. And God has been using the Psalm to encourage His people for 3000 years. And I reckon that’s probably the reason why this is one of the best known and best loved chapters in all of the Bible. I mean, to know that in Christ, you have a shepherd and that in the shepherd, you have everything that you need, that is the greatest joy and that will renew your strength. So I’m absolutely delighted that we’re able to make this available as a devotional. You can read it over 31 days and it will renew your strength, it will refresh your soul. Psalm 23, one of the best-known, best rubbed chapters of the Bible. We’d love to send you a copy of Green Pastures, Still Waters if you were able to begin supporting the work of Open the Bible this month in the amount of 5 pounds per month or more. Full details on our website. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick and I hope you’ll join us again next time. Some people think that faith is positive thinking or believing in yourself. But Christian faith is the opposite. Find out where Christian faith begins next time on Open the Bible.