How do you approach the Lord’s Table? What is your attitude when you partake of it?

For many years, I viewed Communion as mainly a time of deep introspection, somberness, heaviness, and self-examination. Somewhere along the way, I picked up that this was the right and proper way to approach. I subtly adopted a number of unwritten rules for receiving the Lord’s Supper:

Bow your head.
Close your eyes (or look at the floor).
Hunch your shoulders so that you feel the heaviness of this time better.
Search your heart for unconfessed sin.
Avoid eye contact with others.
Try not to be distracted by the 6-year-old behind you who wants to know why he can’t have a snack like everyone else (or feel guilty because it’s your 6-year-old doing the distracting).
Check your heart for sin again, just to be sure.
Think deeply about your own wickedness.
Try to think about the cross (but don’t forget your own wickedness).
Seriously, don’t acknowledge, notice, or make eye contact with your neighbor; you don’t want to interrupt what God might be doing next to you.

Now, this somber, grave, introspective attitude had reasons beneath it. Paul says clearly that it’s possible to eat the bread and drink the cup “in an unworthy manner” (1 Corinthians 11:27). To partake in this way is to be guilty of the body and blood of Jesus and to drink judgment on oneself (verse 29). This type of sin is so serious that God brought illness and even death upon some of the Corinthians for their failure to eat and drink in a worthy way (verse 30).

Given these realities, it’s good and right for there to be a kind of gravity and weight to the meal. At the same time, it’s important to recognize just how flagrant the sins of the Corinthians were.

What Was So Unworthy?

The Corinthian church was wracked by factions and divisions. Those divisions clearly manifested themselves when they came to the Lord’s Table. Or more specifically, they forgot whose table it was. Far from being the Lord’s Supper, it became John’s supper and Jane’s supper and Mark’s supper and Carol’s supper. Everyone treated it like it was “his own meal” (1 Corinthians 11:21).

The Johnsons brought a spread that would make Solomon jealous, but they refused to share any with the Smiths, who had nothing. In fact, humiliating the Smiths was the reason they brought so much (verse 22). Some of the deacons were three sheets to the wind in the back of the room. Brother Billy had passed out in the third row (verse 21). The meal was marked by the flaunting of wealth, haughtiness, greed, drunkenness, and overall selfishness.

In a word, the Corinthians were despising the members of the church of God (verse 22). And in despising them, they were despising the Lord who bought them. That was the unworthy manner that brought God’s discipline and judgment down on their heads.

When Gravity Goes Wrong

My unwritten rules distorted the gravity that should mark the meal. I always felt rushed because I was rapidly running through my mind looking for leftover, unconfessed sins.

My goal as the elements were distributed was to make myself feel the weight of my sin and the horror of the cross so that I could receive the elements in a worthy manner (a grave, somber, heavy, introspective one). The result is that the Lord’s Supper became largely about me retreating into my cocoon to “feast” on Jesus with a heavy heart. My whole demeanor communicated this through hunched shoulders and eyes staring at the ground, only looking up to take the plate and pass it on.

What was noticeably lacking from my experience of Communion was a strong sense of awe, wonder, joy, Godwardness, and gratitude. In my zeal for gravity, I had forgotten gladness. What specifically did I miss?

Missing Ingredients

First, I missed that Jesus established the meal with thanksgiving. “The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it” (1 Corinthians 11:23–24). This is why some Christian traditions refer to the Lord’s Table as the Eucharist (from the Greek word for thanksgiving). The first note struck when the meal was given was gratitude to God.

“The first note struck when the meal was given was gratitude to God.”

Second, I missed that the meal was a meal for sinners. “This is my body, which is for you.” Every “you” in that sentence is a sinner, a broken rebel, a child of wrath saved by sovereign grace. Matthew records that Jesus specifically drew attention to the Supper’s connection to our sin. “He took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’” (Matthew 26:27–28).

In the Lord’s Supper, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. And the Lord’s death is explicitly a death for sinners. “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3). Therefore, sinners belong at the Table. In ourselves, we may be unworthy, but we have been made worthy by the blood of Jesus. We can approach the Table boldly because the patriarch at the head of the table sits on a throne of grace, making it a table of grace.

Meal Preparation

How then should we come to the Table? What should our demeanor and attitude be? Picture the prodigal son after he’s returned home. When the father killed the fattened calf for the celebration of the prodigal’s homecoming, he would not have been pleased or honored if his lost son had sulked in the corner all night, muttering about his unworthiness and trying hard to remember what it was like in the pigsty. Such an attitude in itself would not honor the graciousness of the father.

What would honor the father is if that sense of unworthiness that he felt on the way home from his sinful exploits gave way to a profound sense of amazement that he was actually sitting at his father’s table, fully restored to communion with him. What would honor the father is if, when the music started, the prodigal danced like he never danced before. That is a real gold ring on his finger. Those are shoes on his feet. That is the robe of inheritance on his back. And he can still feel his dad’s kiss on his cheek.

Amazement rises and converges with gratitude and joy and gladness, the kind that makes you want to pinch yourself to make sure that you’re not dreaming. What if we approached the Lord’s Table in that way?

“Self-examination has its place, but it is best done before we get to the Table.”

Of course, like the prodigal, this does assume that we’ve recognized our sin and turned from it. Self-examination has its place, but it is best done before we get to the Table. This is why, at my church, we set aside a time early in every service for the confession of sins and the assurance of pardon. By the time we get to the Table, we want our people ready to gladly eat in the comfort of God’s grace. (If your church’s liturgy doesn’t include a time of confession, you can still take a moment before the service, or during one of the early songs, and confess your sins in preparation for Communion.)

Full Cups and Full Hearts

Finally, as we come to the Lord’s Table, we remember that we are coming to eat together. This is a family meal. As Paul says, we all eat of one bread; therefore, we who are many are one body (1 Corinthians 10:17). This is not about Joe and Jesus in their special clubhouse with crackers and juice. It is not accidental that we eat this meal when the church is assembled. This is a meal of koinonia — of communion and fellowship.

When we are born again, we are born again into a family, the family of God. Baptism pictures this, as Adam’s children are buried and then emerge as sons of God through Jesus Christ, who is the firstborn among many brethren. Baptism depicts entrance; this meal is the regular family dinner. We partake of the one loaf together. We partake of the cup of blessing together. We feast on Christ together.

Practically speaking, this means that it is good and right that we notice and acknowledge each other during the meal. There are other prodigals at this table, each with a story of sovereign grace. Killing one fattened calf for one wayward son is one thing, but slaughtering the herd because a thousand prodigals came out of the pigsty is mind-boggling.

Therefore, it is good and right to look around and notice them, even smile at them. You don’t have to speak; let your eyes tell the story. “Can you believe that we’re here? That he actually invited us?” Take a moment, look around at all the people — young and old, rich and poor, male and female, from many tribes and nations — and say to yourself, “These are my people. This is my family.”

Next time you come to the Lord’s Table, come with gravity and gladness. Marvel that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have enfolded you into the triune life. Rejoice that God has made you worthy to enter his presence. Thank your heavenly Father for his kind provision of daily bread and living bread. Strike up one of the ancient songs and sing and smile and weep and laugh together.

Feast together, in a worthy manner, with a full heart, for the glory of God.

Audio Transcript

We fight off personal despondency through a habit of daily Bible reading. That’s what we’ve been seeing here in these early weeks of 2023, as we focus our attention on Psalm 77. Thanks for joining here on this Wednesday. We’re going to do so with one last clip from John Piper’s sermon on Psalm 77. We close our little study of the psalm with a practical plea and summons from Pastor John for making and holding to a daily Bible reading routine in this new year. Here he is, speaking to his church in the early days of the year 2000.

“I will remember. I will meditate. I will muse.” We must become an intentional, purposeful, active, aggressive warrior people who fight for delight. It doesn’t come automatically. We fight for delight.

When Will You Read?

I close with this very practical plea, summons, call: this afternoon, before you go to bed tonight, if you haven’t already got it, will you take enough time — five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, whatever — to plan when in your days you are going to read the Bible every day in the year 2000?

“If you say, ‘I’ll read it tomorrow whenever I get a chance,’ there will be no chance.”

When? If you don’t have a time picked out, it won’t happen. If you say, “I’ll read it tomorrow whenever I get a chance,” there will be no chance. Satan will see to that. Your flesh will see to that. If you don’t plan to read the Bible at a particular time, you will become a hit-and-miss, hazard Christian — and weak.

Where Will You Read?

The second question to ask this afternoon is, Where will I read the Bible? Closet, kitchen, bedroom, living room, den, car, conference room at work, park — you choose. If you don’t have a place picked out, you’ll stand in the halls, and you’ll say, “There’s no quiet place. There’s no place to go. Music in there, TV in there, cooking in there — there’s no place to go. Well, let’s check the email.” You never know what you might get sent.

Susanna Wesley had sixteen children. Housewives, she knows where you’re coming from. So, five little kids — noise, noise, noise. Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? Two of them are sick. Susanna Wesley was such a disciplinarian that she taught these sixteen kids, “When you walk into the kitchen and my apron is over my head, you don’t say a word.” That’s her closet. She just created one.

And she was strong enough, really strong — I’ll maybe read some of her excerpts from her words on Wednesday night — that they obeyed. “When mommy’s apron is over mommy’s head, we know what’s happened: Bible is open, and she’s praying. And you don’t go into the holy place.” It can be done if you want it, if you believe in it.

How Will You Read?

And the third question: when, where, and how. How are you going to do it? If you don’t have your own way, you’ve got to have a way. I’ll tell you, I’ve been working at this now for 48 years or so, and I know a lot about defeat in Bible reading. And one of the defeats that’s most painful is to have the place, have the time, sit down and open the book, and you don’t know where to go.

I ought to know where to go. I’m a pastor. And you just open, and you say, “Well, Malachi doesn’t look right. And the psalm doesn’t look right.” Satan will actually persuade me that that’s a good enough reason to reach for a book on theology. Isn’t that crazy? And if it happens to me, probably it happens to you. And therefore, we’ve just got to have some guidelines. You don’t have to keep them — you’ve just got to have them there so that you can fall back on them if there’s no better thing to do that day.

“Delight doesn’t come automatically. We fight for delight.”

Okay — how, where, and when. Will you, if you don’t already have a plan, take whatever amount of time — five, ten, fifteen minutes today — to plan to do it? I’m not asking you to do it. Isn’t that easy? I’m asking for intentionality here. I’m asking for a plan. And you might in your heart even make it a vow to the Lord.

Would you stand with me for closing prayer?

Father, I ask you that you would fulfill every good resolve and work of faith by your power. Bless these people, who have seen the way to live the Christian life as a life on the word — meditating, musing, remembering. And Lord, make it part of our arsenal of how we triumph day in and day out against the evil one. O Lord, make us good warriors, I pray. Help us know how to fight for delight.

And all the people said, “Amen.” You’re dismissed.

In 1987, a sequence of thought from one of the shortest books of the Bible grabbed hold of me and never let me go. Bethlehem Baptist Church was in its fourth year of missions renewal when a veteran missionary serving in Mexico said to me in passing, “There is a big difference between a church that has missionaries and a church that sends missionaries.” As a young missions pastor, I drank this comment in, wanting to know more. A short time later, I read in my New American Standard Bible,

You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. For they went out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support such men, that we may be fellow workers with the truth. (3 John 6–8 NASB)

On my fortieth anniversary as a pastor at Bethlehem, on August 1, 2020, Pastor John Piper prayed the commissioning prayer as my wife, Julie, and I joined the ranks of the “goers.” After helping to send some of the dearest people I know to some of the most remote places on earth, I am now one of the church’s “sent ones,” training current and future pastors in Cameroon to be both goers and senders in the greatest cause of the universe. I have been a happy sender, and now am a happy goer, backed up by a church who has sent me in a manner worthy of God.

The main point of the passage in 3 John relates to this ministry of sending. You can see it in verse 6: “You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God.” I see three important aspects of sending in this passage: (1) the value of sending, (2) the mandate of sending, and (3) the manner of sending.

Value of Sending

Sending missionaries must be valuable, because look at how happy it makes the apostle John. Some missionaries from John’s church, it seems, had visited Gaius’s church and told him of their work (3 John 7). The missionaries then returned to John’s church and testified in front of the whole congregation of Gaius’s love for them (vv. 3, 5). When John hears this testimony, a big smile fills his old-crinkled apostolic face, and he writes to Gaius. Listen to the joy and warmth of the first four verses of this neglected letter:

The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth. Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers. For I was very glad when brethren came and bore witness to your truth, that is, how you are walking in truth. I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth. (3 John 1–4 NASB)

According to verse 2, perhaps Gaius was not doing well health-wise, and perhaps his business was struggling — and so John feels the need to pray for these matters. But Gaius’s love for the missionaries assures John that his soul was prospering. The prospering soul is the soul that is walking in the truth (v. 3) or working together with the truth (v. 8). In other words, he’s not living a fantasy; he’s not living “the American Dream.” He is living in a way that fits with ultimate reality, where God is at the center.

The value of sending can also be seen in the phrase “you will do well to send them” (v. 6). The word for well carries with it the sense of beauty. It is beautiful to wash the feet of those who go out for the sake of the Name. If the feet of those who carry the gospel are considered lovely by God (Isaiah 52:7), it should be no surprise that God views the people who wash those lovely feet as doing something beautiful.

“It is beautiful to wash the feet of those who go out for the sake of the Name.”

Finally, notice in verse 8 that in God’s eyes there is no hierarchy of value, with the missionary on top and those who send playing second fiddle. In verse 8, we read that both the goers and the senders are “fellow workers with the truth.” Both are equally valuable before God, the lives of both equally significant in God’s opinion — which is the only opinion that matters. The most important thing is to let our lives be consumed with seeking the kingdom first. Whether we seek his kingdom in Cameroon or Myanmar, or where we currently live, is a secondary issue. But if God does lead you to stay where you are, your soul will prosper as it ought only if you are involved in sending others to the mission field.

Mandate of Sending

God commands us to be senders, to be actively engaged in helping missionaries get to the field and stay on the field. It is not optional. We can see this in verse 8: “Therefore we ought to support such men.” Since they go out for the sake of the Name, and since they don’t sell the gospel for money, therefore we ought to support them.

Sending missionaries is one of the oughts and shoulds of the Bible. Our all-knowing and all-loving Christ knows that our souls will prosper as they should only as we look beyond our own immediate interests and lift up our eyes to God’s global purpose.

“The most exhilarating experience in life is to be a fellow worker with God in making his name known.”

One of the most exhilarating experiences in life is to be a fellow worker with God in making his name known, both in our own neighborhoods and among the unreached people groups of the world. God commands only what is good for us, so it’s no wonder he commands us to be senders.

Manner of Sending

Now, what does it mean to send a missionary? How is it done? I want to get practical here, but first I want us to look at the logic and the content of verses 6–8.

You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. For they went out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support such men, that we may be fellow workers with the truth.

John exalts the importance of how we send as high as can be imagined. We are to send “in a manner worthy of God.” And why should we send missionaries in a manner worthy of God? Notice the logic: “For they went out for the sake of the Name. . . . Therefore we ought to support such men.” Verse 7 is the best definition of missionary that I am aware of in the Bible. A missionary is not someone who goes out for merely humanitarian concerns, as important as those are. A biblical missionary is driven by a zeal to exalt the name of God, to declare his glory among the nations, to make known the beauty of the character and work of Jesus Christ. These are the only missionaries God commands us to support.

And since they go out for the sake of the Name, we must support them in a manner worthy of God. When it comes to sending, no verse in the Bible has gripped me more than this one. To send a missionary in a manner worthy of God means a lot more than having missionary names on the church’s website, or adding a line item in the budget, or signing a check here or there. So, what does it mean to send a missionary?

This particular word for send occurs nine times in the New Testament, always in the context of helping Christian workers get to where they need to go to do the work of the kingdom. In Titus 3:13, Paul uses the same word, writing, “Diligently help Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way so that nothing is lacking for them” (NASB). To send is to offer very practical help. It includes finances, but it goes way beyond finances. Notice in 3 John 5: “You are acting faithfully in whatever you accomplish for the brethren.” That word whatever shows the breadth of what is included in sending.

It takes only a little thought to imagine the upheaval that a call to missions would bring to your life. Imagine that God called you to change all your career plans, to prepare to go to the mission field, and then to serve him there for years to come — all of which would be compounded if you were married and had children. Now imagine what might be a blessing to you in your preparation stage and in your time on the field and when you returned for a season of home assignment. None of us can do everything our imaginations could put on such a list, but no one is being asked to do it all. So let’s each search our own hearts as to what our particular role may be in helping to send our missionaries in a manner worthy of God.

Fellow Workers with the Truth

The ministry of sending is both joyful and dangerous. While serving as a sender, God may surprise you and lead you to become a goer, a “sent one.” And goers may return home for a variety of reasons and become some of the best senders. While senders devote themselves creatively to do “whatever” on behalf of the goers, they will be especially motivated to being a goer to their immigrant neighbor, or international students at a nearby university, or a green-card worker in the next cubicle over.

But remember, senders and goers are fellow workers with the truth — equally valuable in God’s choreography of accomplishing the great purpose of winning worshipers from every tribe and tongue and nation. Both are called to be passionately God-centered, whether they go out for the sake of the Name, or remain in their home culture helping to send others in a manner worthy of God. A prospering Christ-filled soul is vital to the task of both.