God’s Sign of Hospitality

This table is God’s sign of hospitality to us and all men. The Word calls us to this table. The gospel calls us to fellowship with God and one another. It calls us to reconciliation in Christ, through His broken body and shed blood for our sins. 

But this table is the Lord’stable, the Lord’sSupper. This is not your table or my table. This table does not belong to CCD or Christ Church or the CREC or to reformed Presbyterians. It belongs to Jesus. This means that everyone Jesus welcomes into fellowship with Him is welcome here. We do not have the right to fence our table more strictly than Jesus because it is not our table. 

So who may come to this table? All who have been baptized and profess faith in Jesus alone for the forgiveness of sins and are not under church discipline. If you are a baptized believer and you have been walking in unconfessed sin you must come, but you must come and lay your sin down. If you come in hypocrisy, the Lord of this table will deal with you. You cannot come intending to continue in your sin, intending to cover up your sin and leave here under the blessing of God. And if you really aren’t sure, I would urge you to talk to me or one of the elders about your situation. 

But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus welcomes sinners to His table. You do not need to wait until you are all cleaned up to come to His table. You do not need to go figure everything out before you can come. Jesus is the only way to be cleaned up; Jesus is the only way to untangle the knots of sin that we create. And Jesus is here. 

Do you want to be clean? Then come and welcome to Jesus Christ. Do you want the sin in your life untangled and put right? Then come and welcome to Jesus Christ. Do want to learn how to love the strangers around you wisdom, as you have been loved in Christ? Then come and welcome to Jesus Christ.