All who are baptized in the name of the Triune God, who are not under lawful church discipline are most welcome to partake of this meal with us. In fact, if you are baptized and not under church discipline, we encourage you, urge you to partake of this meal with us. But if you are not yet baptized, but you believe in the Lord Jesus, we would encourage you and urge you to get baptized as soon as possible and then come and join us at this Table.
And this goes for children as well: baptized children are welcome to the table with us, provided that their parents are discipling them in Christ as they come. We simply ask parents to let an elder know when they are beginning to bring their young baptized child to the table so we can encourage you in that task. If you or one of your children needs to be baptized, just let an elder or the church office know, and we will be glad to schedule that for you.
There are at least two things here worth underlining: first, it really is important to be baptized first before coming to the Table, since baptism is the sign of entry into the covenant. Baptism is the door into the house, and you have to come into the house to eat at the table. Symbolically, this also points to being cleansed and washed first. The promise of baptism is the forgiveness of all our sins in the blood of Jesus. You don’t come to the table and then wash up. You wash up first, and then you come. But this washing is received by faith.
The other thing is that if you are baptized, you do not have the authority to not come to the table. This isn’t your table. This is the table of the Lord. Only Jesus has the authority to bar someone from this table, and He has given some of that authority to the ministers and elders of the church. Occasionally, if there is some high-handed sin, we may suspend someone from the table temporarily in order to warn them to put things right, but if someone persists in unrepentant sin, we must declare them unbelievers and bar them from the table. We call that excommunication. They are still welcome to come to church, but they are not welcome to this table until they repent.
This means that if you have a bad week or a bad morning, and you know you’re not in fellowship with your spouse or one of your kids or your parent or a roommate, or you fell into some bad sin, you have two options. You can either tell an elder and ask them what you should do, or you can confess it right now and commit before the Lord to repenting and making it right at the soonest opportunity. But you don’t have the option of just not taking the Lord’s Supper. You don’t have that authority, and parents, you don’t have that authority over your children. In this way, this Table functions as a gracious road block for sin. Isn’t God good?
So Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ.
Photo by Joshua Sukoff on Unsplash
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