Coming Together for the Better or Worse, 1 Corinthians 11
- John Beeson
- Oct 6, 2025
- 22 min read
Transcript:
So I want to. I want to start a sermon today with just a little check in to see what your measure of godliness is these days. Greg. All right. And so I have some questions for you to start the sermon.
Okay. First, is coffee God's gift to humankind? Yeah. So I'm going to go with no. Well, so a.
You're starting off on a bad fit. The taste of something, then it ought not be drank. No, no. Nor is it good for you. That's the wrong answer.
I'm sorry. That's. Hopefully, you'll improve. Okay. Greg, what is the best ice cream flavor?
So you gotta have one. I'm going vanilla. You can do it with applesauce. You can do it with orange juice. You can do a peach cobbler.
You can do a cherry pie. You can do it with hot fudge. Like, if you have one staple, it's gotta be. I had it last night with peach cobbler. Yeah.
And it was really good. As soon as you say the best flavor needs other flavors to make it the best flavor, you're in trouble. So just. I'm going to give you a gift. New life.
I'm getting no commissions for this. Tillamook brownie batter, blow your mind. Good. All right, ready? Brownie batter.
Brownie batter. That's super popular in a lot of the elementary schools, just like Greg. Yeah. Is baseball America's pastime? I'm going to say yes to this.
It is past time. Like in the 40s, it was. It was a really popular thing back in the day. Craig, you're really struggling. This.
There's this thing called football that has kind of taken over now. Final. Final question. Maybe you can redeem yourself with this last one. Y.
Does pineapple. Should it be on pizza every time? Yes. Yes to pineapple. I also agree with that statement with.
There we go. Yeah. Pepperoni, Canadian bacon united in pineapple. Praise God for that. The reason we start on such a silly note is that we're going to be talking about divisions today.
And we get it. We're starting talking about silly divisions. There's very real divisions in our life. Political divisions, theological divisions, worldview divisions. Divisions over parenting, divisions over marriage.
All of these divisions. And we. Where we're going today is to step into Christ's purpose. That his purpose is not merely to save us individually, but actually to unite us, to knock down the wall of divisiveness and make a people for his glory. With God the Father, with Jesus our firstborn brother, a family of God.
So to go back 2000 years and look at the division that we're going to see in first Corinthians. It's a division that we almost can't taste today. So the division at that time, at its core level was Jew and Gentile. And the hatred and the bitterness between Jew and Gentile exceeds, exceeds any division that we have today. The closest I could get to it is, is probably to say, let's picture Hamas members and Israeli citizens and put those two groups of people at odds against each other.
We're coming up on the two year anniversary of October 7th in just two days. And that begins to touch, but not entirely touch, the division between Jew and Gentile if we went back 2,000 years ago. So before we get to First Corinthians, I want to go to Ephesians and just read a few words. This is in Ephesians chapter 2, beginning in verse 14. For he himself is our peace.
That's speaking of Jesus, that Jesus is our peace, who has made us both 1. The US in that passage is Jew and Gentile. He has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two. So making peace, he's saying, it used to be that there were two peoples. You had Jews and Gentiles.
But in Jesus Christ, those differ, melt away. And Jesus has made one person, in fact, the language here of one new man and not two. Throughout the New Testament you'll hear language. We are to put off the old man and put on the new man. And as Westerners we read that so individualistically that that's simply me putting off my old way of life and me putting on a new way of life to honor Christ.
And certainly it applies to that. But fundamentally, putting off the old man is putting off the way of divisiveness. And putting on the new man is putting on a new way of peace, of unity. I just want to read a couple of words in Colossians. This is not on your screen, but in a list of putting off the old man and putting on the new.
Listen to the words he says, put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another. Seeing that you have put off the old self, you'll notice everything in that list has to do with divisiveness. Now listen to the language of what we put on.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven each other, you. You must also forgive. We're going to find, as we turn into First Corinthians, that Paul is going to yell, yell into the life of the church. You have to forgive as Jesus forgave.
You have to live in a unity that goes way beyond the peace that you're thinking of in this world, a unity that is, of one family, of one bloodline, of Jesus Christ, with God as your Father. We've been walking through this sermon series, good news for the real world in First Corinthians. And we come to a text today where Paul's going to navigate the issue of communion of the Lord's table with the people at Corinth. And there's. There's this challenge, there's this issue at play because there's divisiveness within the church.
And to some extent, there's a reality. Like, we get that divisiveness, right? Like in our own flesh, in our own desires. It would sure be nice to come to a church where everyone thinks the same as you, everyone looks the same, everyone's in the same socioeconomic clash. You just.
You just get rid of all of the differences and make things easy for us. Our world kind of makes it easy for us. We can find our own little echo chambers in the world. And Paul's going to say, no, no, no, no. Part of the reality of the church, you heard it even there in Ephesians, is recognizing that there will remain differences.
And then actually, as you navigate those differences, you step into actually becoming and shining the light of the purposes of Christ. So let's flip into First Corinthians 17, and let's pick up our text there. Verse 17 begins this way in chapter 11, chapter 11, verse 17. But in the following instructions, I do not commend you. So hold on.
What's going on? If you were here last week, you heard Paul give a commendation to the church at Corinth, saying, hey, you've heard my teaching on. On the fact that we are all equal at the foot of the cross, male and female. But then he comes and says, but you've overdone it. You've misunderstood, that there are still differences there that God purposes for his glory.
So don't overdo it now. It's just a flat. I do not commend you. So you're like, oh, wow, I thought the last section was a little rough. No, no, no.
We're about to get into pretty harsh language here because when you come together, it is not for the better, but for the worse. Now let's just pause there and reflect at the significance of that statement. The gathering together of the people, of God, of the saints, is a glorious thing. It's a witness to the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. It's a witness to his work within us.
I mean, the fact that 2,000 years later, here we are gathered together, together after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Attest to his glory, attest to the ongoing work of God. It is a glorious thing. It's for our better, for our spiritual enrichment, for the betterment of our communities, of our neighborhoods, for the betterment of our households. It's for the better.
But Paul says in your Case Corinthians, it is not for the better, it's for the worse. We should pause and say, oh my, what is happening? And we're going to see that there's significant division within the church that's spoiling, it's poisoning their witness. Verse 18. For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.
Now it's kind of hard and 2000 years later to read this and kind of hear the tone of it. You know, we can miss the tone of a text message or whatever. This is dripping with sarcasm. Paul is in full, like pastor, like critique, sarcastic mode. Did you catch the way that he says, oh, I believe in?
Well, there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you must be recognized. Like, oh, you're so important that you must get a special spotlight, you must get a special treatment. But then he's actually saying the exact opposite. Listen, you are showing your true colors as you step into the church with a divisive heart, with a proud and an arrogant heart. You are undermining the credibility that you are a genuine Christian.
If you come into church, Paul says, with a heart that's self seeking, that's splitting, splintering the people of God, you and your witness are undermined.
To be a true Christian is to be a Christian living in selflessness and humility, building up the unity of the people of God.
The passage says it would have been better if they didn't gather for worship on a Sunday morning, but because of the way they were doing, would have been better if they hadn't gathered. And he's going to Take it deeper. So worship was revolving around communion. We're celebrating communion at the close of the service today. And he says, but what you're doing isn't communion because of the way that you're doing it.
Verse 20. When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat.
They have bread, they have wine, but it's not the Lord's Supper that they eat. They're gathering together as a church on a Sunday morning. They're taking communion. But Paul says something is so wrong with it that it's not communion.
Are they using orange juice instead of wine? Are they using a Triscuit instead of bread? Like, what's happening here? What makes it invalid? We say these things sometimes with the sacrament.
What happens in baptism if the pastor is not a Christian when he does it? What happens if you're not dumped? What happens? What makes it not baptism? What makes it not communion?
And he's going to say, for in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. Okay, so there's a few things that we notice right away. First off, when they're taking communion, it's not a wafer. In fact, today will be the first time we've ever taken communion at New Life with pretzel bread.
But we're trying to make it a little more mealish, a little more Corinthian. So they're gathering for a meal, they're gathering for a festive meal. And if you went back to Corinth with Roman culture, the way that meals would have been shared in a home, and this is a house church meeting in a home, you had a large formal dining room in most homes that kind of went up in formality with the income of the house. But a large formal dining room where 10 or 12 people could gather around a large table. And so the family and maybe some key leaders would gather around, and guests would gather around a table.
And then out in the courtyard, that's where servants or people of a lower social strata would meet. And so you would have gatherings in homes, and you would. You would gather the important people around a dining room table, and the unimportant people would be out in the courtyard gathered around something small. The closest I can imagine to that is for those who have been perpetually seated at the kiddie table at Thanksgiving. Others.
Others have a nice hardwood table, hardwood chairs. It's sturdy. They're sitting upright. But then there's this flimsy card table that you feel like if you bump a leg, it's Going to fall over. And a flimsy plastic chair, and you're sitting on that, it's a little lower.
So you don't. It's less important. Well, evidently that's how the Corinthian Church was taking communion. And the wealthy and the important people were at the front of the line. They were getting so much food in the potluck gathering that was communion that they're getting full.
Their cup of wine is so overflowing that they're getting drunk. And there's people out in the courtyard that are just getting leftover morsels and they're hungry.
Paul says it's your attitudes that have made it not communion. You're not even considering each other. You're not looking out for each other.
The passage goes on into verse 21. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What, do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?
What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.
If you're gathering to eat, if you're gathering just to have it be you and God somehow, then go home. You can eat alone at home. You can eat with God at home. The whole point of the gathering of the body is to consider one another. It's to sacrifice for one another.
It's to look out for others needs before your own. He looks at the Corinthian church as they come. He says this, this is not communion.
Because intrinsic in communion is loving one another, considering one another. The church. The church is a mosaic. It's a tapestry. And there are differences that come into the church, and they are a family of God.
Paul says to the Corinthian Church, you're not being a godly family, you're not considering others. So what you're doing is not even communion. Paul's going to take them back to the first time, the first Lord's Supper, when Jesus sat with his 12 disciples, having washed their feet the night before he was crucified, brings them around the table, and we can forget just what an odd and eclectic bunch they were. They were. They were diverse.
You had Matthew, the tax collector, Sadducee, who was in bed with the Roman government, the high economic class beside Peter the Pharisee, the fisherman, a very different type of life.
You had a former follower of John the Baptist, Andrew. You had a former zealot, someone whose entire purpose and his own theology was leading him into a political revolution against the Roman government. Simon the Zealot. One who would betray Jesus Christ. Judas and Jesus brought this group together, and on that night, he spoke to them words about himself.
It would not be through intellectual machinations that they could achieve unity. It would be through his body they would achieve unity. He says this in 1st Corinthians 11, starting in verse 23:4. I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it.
And he said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you drink the bread and drink.
Sorry, eat the bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Jesus pulls them back to himself. I am the one. I am the one who is the source of your unity. When we eat the bread and drink the cup, we don't just do so as a symbolic gesture of what Jesus had done over there so that we could put ourself in his mindset.
We are unified in. In Christ. United in Christ through the Spirit of God. A spiritually transforming act, not just for us personally, but for us corporately. We're made his body, Jesus tells us, keep coming back to this moment and remember me, remember my heart, remember my sacrifice, and be united in my work.
In my work. What a powerful statement, a statement that had been lost not many years later in a church in Corinth who had their own. You know, they're in the middle of the Roman Empire, with all sorts of different backgrounds as well. And they had tried to cobble together this community. And yet they're still leaning on the realities of their Roman identity, of their socioeconomic class, of their ethnic divisions.
And Paul says, no, you've forgotten what Jesus has done in your life. He's transformed you into one people. Don't forget Jesus. As you take communion, you can think of unity as a soft teaching. In the midst of all the issues that are in Corinth, Paul has been tackling some pretty tough issues.
Issues of conscience, issues of gender differences and uniqueness, issues of marriage and singleness. And in the midst of all of that, Paul draws us back here to make sure that in the midst of issues, there is unity in the church. This is not a small teaching or a soft teaching. In fact, Paul continues and Says, whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. In other words, if your heart is off track as you come before communion, you sin against Jesus face to face.
It is an offense to his body broken and his bloodshed. It's no small thing. Verse 28. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
Now let's pause. He's saying, if you have an attitude problem coming into communion, you're sinning against the body and the blood of Jesus. In fact, he says, if you have an issue coming before communion, you drink judgment upon yourself. This is no small thing. This is no insignificant thing.
In fact, later in the passage, we see people died over this. People are getting sick over this in Corinth. So he says, examine yourself. Examine yourself.
Now, as Westerners, we typically take that to be this personal thing just between us and God where we examine our heart. Are we asking for forgiveness? Are we coming before the Lord with repentance inside, clinging to his forgiveness? And that's a good thing. But that's not even fundamentally where he's going.
In this passage with examine yourself, verse 29, again, for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. You say, what does that mean without discerning the body? Is that without reflecting on the body of Christ had hung on a cross that was broken for me, certainly in part, but fundamentally, he's saying, if you don't examine the body, the people of God that are around you, if you come before communion, just in a sense, you and God, without thinking of the people around you to love and forgive and encourage, then you have missed what communion is. This is a family meal. This is a meal of the body.
And we have to consider one another in order to take communion right along with coming with a heart of repentance to God. Heavy stuff. It's heavy stuff and it's so. It's so timely. Reflect on this past month for us as a nation, and just the significant attack of the enemy so many different ways, but maybe in most emotional way for many of us, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the enemy's attempt to bring fear, to speak, to bring division between the people of God, to bring cracks in our culture.
God, of course, is sovereign in these things. He's not left his throne. He is the one who purposes the beginning and the end. He is the one whose sovereignty has not been challenged, not been threatened by a single instance. He holds all these things in his hand, and he purposes them for good.
And yet human beings thrash in the middle of this. One of the places that I know has been challenging for Greg and I, but also brought us hope, is even in this body, is those who've had different responses to this past month of events, some who've even responded and struggled with kind of how we've led through this, been so grateful for. Those who've reached out, raised their hands and said, hey, can we talk about this? I'm struggling with this. We just confess that the much easier thing to do is just leave.
You have a leader who doesn't lead through something like you'd want them to, and in your disappointment or frustration, you just find another church. You just find somewhere else. You can turn that into grumbling, into gossip, into divisiveness. And yet we've been so grateful for those who've been willing to bring those concerns to sit down with us, for us to consider these things together, to figure out what ownership we need to have in this, to protect the unity of the people of God. God is at work even in these conversations.
God is protecting the unity of his people. And this is the work of God. This is the witness of Jesus Christ. Right after Jesus took communion with his disciples, he then began to teach them over. In the Gospel of John, we have this teaching of Jesus.
This is right after, actually, Judas has just left the room. And this is what Jesus says in John 13, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another. Now, it's kind of where the record scratches. If you're hearing this, if you're a Jew at that time, you're like, yeah, that's kind of an old commandment, Jesus. Like, I can find that all over the Old Testament.
That's not new teaching, Jesus. But here's the hook. The hook isn't just that the new teaching is that you love one another. It's this, that you love one another just as I loved you. You also are to love one another.
You have now seen the depth of what love looks like. Jesus said, as I washed the feet of those who would deny me and betray me, as I will in the next day, hang on a cross in shame and humiliation and pain and suffering because of my love for you, love one another with that love. And then he says this. By this. By this love for one another, all people will know that you are my disciples.
If you have love for one another. What a glorious statement.
This is the witness. This is the evangelistic strategy Jesus has for the world. Our words absolutely proclaiming the love and the gospel of Jesus Christ. But if our lives are. Are the Corinthian community, reality, a divisive people, we have undone the witness of Jesus Christ.
It is the witness of our unity, of our love for one another that propels his witness. So how do we land this? Let's land this with three practical applications before we go to the Lord's table. And those are all found right there in 1st Corinthians 11. The first is examine your heart.
Examine your heart. Verse 28. Let a person examine himself then. And so eat the bread and drink of the cup. Let us be those who come not to the Lord's table, come not to worship, come not to the people of God flippantly, but with hearts examined.
Where is my fault, O Lord? Where am I? Where have I done wrong in my life with you? Where is my life? Out of step with the life of Jesus Christ?
Let us repent to the Lord as we examine our heart. And let us also examine our heart in terms of our relationship with each other and repent to one another.
What are the places in your heart, the places that you recognize that you have. You've been. You've been divisive in words and deeds and thoughts? Jesus Christ calls us to examine our heart and repent. Takeaway number one, examine yourself.
Examine yourself. Takeaway number two, consider the body, consider others. That we have in us a heart that is looking to, with sensitivity towards others that are different than us, that young and old and black and white and rich and poor are united. There's certainly differences, but are united and have an understanding for each other, a respect for each other, a consideration of each other. So a person I've come to appreciate, my wife would say, maybe addicted to, is Nate Bergetse.
So he's a popular comedian today, if you haven't heard of him. So I've watched, like everything that he has done that is out there. He has this one, I don't know, you say skit, but one talk where he talks because he moved back to New York City and he said when he moved back to New York City, he expected it to be this melting pot. So that's what you always hear of New York City, melting pot of America, melting pot of the world, New York City, where all of these differences blend together in a melting pot. And he said, I. I don't know if it's just my Experience.
I don't know if it's just his experience. He says it wasn't a melting pot. The Polish are here, the Irish are here, the blacks are here, Jews are over here. Everybody is. It's just a bunch of pots, not a melting pot.
And there's a very real sense in which Paul is saying the church ought never to be a bunch of pots.
Sometimes in today's world, we separate churches by pots. Like, this is that kind of church. This is that kind of church. This is that kind of church. And we think we want to look for all kinds of people who look just like us.
The end of that route is to sit alone in a box.
Paul says the church is a beautiful tapestry of differences. And we gather together and we consider those differences. And the reality is dying to each other, acknowledging that. Brownie batter ice cream.
I get it. Preach. Yeah, preach.
We can joke easy about brownie batter ice cream, but there's Republican, Democrat differences, there's gender differences, there's marriage differences. There's deep differences in which people of different perspectives both are worshiping Jesus. And Paul says, have a church where those two people can sit side by side and love each other, because that's what worship is. That's what the church is. That's what communion is.
Principle number one, examine yourself. Principle number two, consider the body. Principle number three, shine Jesus to the world. Shine Jesus to the world. How do we do that out of this passage in John?
We do it by being able to be with differences, and it shines glory. I'll go back to. I mentioned Hamas and Israel and maybe, maybe prayerfully, a peace agreement is about to be signed. I don't know where that goes. I've been praying for it.
But I will say one thing. Over the last two years that has brought me great joy and rays of glory. In the midst of it is when I have heard Palestinian Christians and Jewish Christians praising God together on the same page, equally wanting peace, understanding differences. Only Jesus does that. Only Jesus does that.
Only Jesus draws Jew and Gentile together. Only Jesus knocks down those walls. Paul looks at the Corinthian church. In a sense, he looks to us as a Church in 2025America. He says, make sure.
Make sure to uphold unity in the church. Examine yourself. Consider the body. Shine Jesus to the world. And so now we get to practice this, the Lord's Table together.
The Lord's Table is a place of declaring not just our faith in Jesus Christ, not just our trust in Jesus Christ, but our unity in Jesus Christ. And so if you are A Christian, we invite you to partake of the Lord's table Before, before you come. You might want to be even in that place of examining your heart, considering the body. Are there, is there a conversation that you need to have and maybe that's even right now, I don't know, maybe that's just a text to say, hey, I need to have this conversation with you. But let us not do so flippantly.
Let's do so reverently. Let's do so looking to Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith, the one who has brought us together in unity. So if you are here with us, we're going to do this a little bit differently this morning. We're going to have us come forward and get the elements and then come back. And then I'd love for you to kind of circle up if you're able, maybe with those kind of in front and back of you.
If you could mix up groups, all the better. Maybe groups of little three or four. I'd love to see nobody left out in this. And then we're going to share in this moment together. So the night before Jesus was crucified, he brought his disciples together and having washed his feet as a servant, he began to serve them.
He broke the bread and he blessed it and he distributed it to them. Let's come forward and get those elements. Gluten free, by the way, is back here. You can come forward if you're at home. I invite you to consider prayerfully joining together with us.
You can get your own elements. I think this is a good time even just to speak to you now. There's a lot of things that could be happening today. Travel could be even just sickness and struggling. But we invite you to participate in the body of Christ bodily joining together in his worship together.
Let's join together.
Just an encouragement as you get elements and return to where you're seated. Just hold them and we will actually share in communion all together at the same time and taking it.
Can I just say, in the history of the church, never once has anyone held up a piece of bread to me. Yes.
No one's ever held up one of the little dissolvable wafers and thought, oh, I get a piece of matzah today.
Good to see groups beginning to form love for you to maybe introduce yourself even now to someone that you don't know. Groups of three and four pull together.
So I think almost everyone has elements now. The night before Jesus died, joining with his disciples, he celebrated a meal they would have known well, seder meal, Passover meal. And as they celebrated that meal, Jesus imbued new meaning to every element as he came to the bread. Can I just say, I'm rejoicing in the little buzz of yes. This is communion.
Communion is a communion with each other and with God in this. He took the bread and he broke the bread.
He said, this is my body broken for you. Whenever you eat of it, do so in memory of me. Now pause just a second. I want you to speak over each other in those groups. And we have words here that I want you to just say, look, look at.
Look at each other, eye to eye. And before you eat, speak this over each other. This is his body broken for us. This is his body broken for us. This is his body broken for us.
This is his body broken for us. Body broken for us. His body broken for us.
This is his body broken for us.
What a good thing it is. Our Savior has broken his body for us. That's likewise, on that night, he took the cup. So this is the cup of the new covenant poured out in my blood for the forgiveness of sins.
We sometimes talk of family as people who share the same blood.
Christians are people who share the same blood. We are born again into a new family that far outlasts the 20, 40, 60, 80, 120 years. Whatever we have in this world, it pales compared to a billion times a billion years of eternity in the family of God.
So may the blood of Christ wash us. May the blood of Christ cleanse us with the forgiveness of Christ.
And may the blood of Christ unite us together. So in groups or with people just around you, to your side, in front and back, would you say the blood of Christ shed for us, together for us? Blood of Christ shed for us. This is his blood shed for us. This is his blood shed for us.
This is his blood shed for us. I'm gonna dip.
It's the first chance we've ever really had to dip. I just think.
I think that's the way the disciples did it.
Good luck praying now.
Lord, thank you for laughter. Thank you for the goodness of being family.
Thank you even for the differences when it's hard, for in them. You refine us, you sanctify us.
So I ask that you would, even as we've taken it, caused the bread in us, the juice in us, to be your body broken spiritually, your blood shed spiritually, that we might be in this day, in this world, your body spiritually, to shine the unity of the gospel into each of our neighborhoods in the precious name of Jesus, we pray. And everyone said together, amen. Amen.
