Dear Family at Christ Community,

This Sunday we will have the privilege of partaking of the Lord’s Supper. This means of grace visibly represents and seals upon our hearts the reality of our union and fellowship with Jesus. It is by union with Jesus that we are saved from the wrath to come—sinners though we were—because He has stood in our place and bore the penalty our sin deserved. It is also by union with Jesus that we are made more and more like Him, able and desiring to obey His commandments and experiencing fellowship with God in purity and peace.

As we will hear from God’s word this Sunday, it is not by mere religious sacrifices or offerings that we are saved but by the mercy and grace of God. Equally so, God desires from us not merely sacrifices or offerings, or another list of empty ceremonies, but mercy and love and the knowledge of Him that expresses itself in obedience by faith. In the Table, we have a picture of the reality of these two truths. The broken bread points to the fact that our sin does not have the final say because Jesus’s body was broken on our behalf. The poured-out cup points to the fact that our ability to obey and love God from new hearts and lives is nourished and strengthened by the covenant promises He has made to us, His people. Just as Hosea calls Israel to return to and know the Lord, so the Table invites us to press on to know the Lord and be transformed by our relationship with Him by grace through faith.

As we prepare to partake of the Table this Sunday, let us remember that the Gospel promises us not just forgiveness for sins, but the ability to love, know, and obey God from the heart. If we have been slow to return to the Lord in the time of His discipline, let us confess it and recall that in the Table we have the sign and seal of God’s mercy and love towards us. Let us come to the Table in the confident expectation that God will use these means to increase our faith in Him and our love for the things that please Him.

In Christ,
Robby