Sermon25-41 John6 Guide

John 6:47-58 theme verse John 6:55

The praise and honor and glory be to our heavenly Father who seeks true worshipers who worship Him with the Spirit and truth.

In this thirty sixth Sunday of 2025, on Pentecost Sunday, I pray that His grace of the application of all the benefits which Jesus earned for our salvation and also the glorious ministry of the proclamation of His kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit may be full in our life. Last week, we looked at what the baptism is, yet this week, among two Reformed sacraments, secondly we would like to look at what the Holy Supper is together.

1)    To review the overall structure of the Gospel of John again, I mean,

a)     In the introduction of 1:1-18, Jesus Christ is proclaimed as the Word of God and the only begotten Son of God.

b)    And then in the main body, after Jesus is again proclaimed as the Messiah, the Lamb of God, the Son of God, the Rabbi, and the King of Israel, by John the Baptist and his disciples in 1:19-51, John wrote Seven signs of His divinity and seven teachings on Him in Chapters 2-12. And then in Chapters 13-17, after Farewell discourse is recorded, the story of His suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection were written in 18-20:29 with ending 20:30-31 to write the purpose of his gospel.

c)     And in Chapter 21 John concluded his Gospel.  Conclusion.

In this Gospel of John, following the third sign in 5:1-18, the healing of the lame man, the fourth sign in 6:1-15, the feeding of the five thousand, and the fifth sign in 6:16-21, His walking on the water, this fourth discourse was recorded in 6:22-66 in which our Lord said to eat His flesh and drink His blood since the flesh of Christ is true food and the blood of Christ is true drink. And when we eat and drink them, Jesus said we can have eternal life, intimate fellowship with Him and provision of all needs for life and growth.

2)    In today’s text, Jesus clearly explains the meaning of the bread and wine used in the Eucharist. I mean, He says that the bread we share in the Eucharist symbolizes the body of Christ and is the true food for our souls, while the wine or grape juice we share represents the blood of Christ and is the true drink for our souls. The food and drink we share in the Eucharist symbolize our deepening union with Christ, enabling us to grow in faith.

3)    So, when we eat the flesh of Christ and drink the blood of Christ,

a) we may have eternal life, I mean, we may be saved

b) and we may abide in Christ, as Christ in us, I mean, we may enjoy intimate fellowship with Him,

c) and finally, the eating and drinking this food of Christ gives us strength to live, I mean, we may be provided all the strength and grace to live our life in Him

And this bread and wine we eat and drink in this Holy Communion instituted by the Lord remind us of the Passover which they celebrated after the Israelites were delivered from Egypt. I mean, just as the Israelites were liberated from Egypt by applying the blood of the lamb to their doorposts and eating the flesh of the lamb at that night, the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ also commemorate our liberation from sin through Him.

4)    Regarding this Holy Supper, Belgic confession confesses that “We believe and confess that our Savior Jesus Christ has ordained and instituted the sacrament of the Holy Supper to nourish and sustain those who are already regenerated and ingrafted into his family, which is his church. Now those who are born again have two lives in them. The one is physical and temporal they have it from the moment of their first birth, and it is common to all. The other is spiritual and heavenly, and is given them in their second birth it comes through the Word of the gospel in the communion of the body of Christ; and this life is common to God's elect only. Thus, to support the physical and earthly life God has prescribed for us an appropriate earthly and material bread, which is as common to all people as life itself. But to maintain the spiritual and heavenly life that belongs to believers, God has sent a living bread that came down from heaven: namely Jesus Christ, who nourishes and maintains the spiritual life of believers when eaten that is, when appropriated and received spiritually by faith. To represent to us this spiritual and heavenly bread Christ has instituted an earthly and visible bread as the sacrament of his body and wine as the sacrament of his blood. He did this to testify to us that just as truly as we take and hold the sacrament in our hands and eat and drink it with our mouths, by which our life is then sustained, so truly we receive into our souls, for our spiritual life, the true body and true blood of Christ, our only Savior. We receive these by faith, which is the hand and mouth of our souls. Now it is certain that Jesus Christ did not prescribe his sacraments for us in vain, since he works in us all he represents by these holy signs, although the manner in which he does it goes beyond our understanding and is incomprehensible to us, just as the operation of God's Spirit is hidden and incomprehensible. Yet we do not go wrong when we say that what is eaten is Christ's own natural body and what is drunk is his own blood but the manner in which we eat it is not by the mouth, but by the Spirit through faith. In that way Jesus Christ remains always seated at the right hand of God the Father in heaven but he never refrains on that account to communicate himself to us through faith. This banquet is a spiritual table at which Christ communicates himself to us with all his benefits. At that table he makes us enjoy himself as much as the merits of his suffering and death, as he nourishes, strengthens, and comforts our poor, desolate souls by the eating of his flesh, and relieves and renews them by the drinking of his blood. Moreover, though the sacraments and what they signify are joined together, not all receive both of them. The wicked certainly take the sacrament, to their condemnation, but do not receive the truth of the sacrament, just as Judas and Simon the Sorcerer both indeed received the sacrament, but not Christ, who was signified by it. He is communicated only to believers. Finally, with humility and reverence we receive the holy sacrament in the gathering of God's people, as we engage together, with thanksgiving, in a holy remembrance of the death of Christ our Savior, and as we thus confess our faith and Christian religion. Therefore, none should come to this table without examining themselves carefully, lest by eating this bread and drinking this cup they "eat and drink judgment against themselves. ”In short, by the use of this holy sacrament we are moved to a fervent love of God and our neighbors. Therefore, we reject as desecrations of the sacraments all the muddled ideas and condemnable inventions that people have added and mixed in with them. And we say that we should be content with the procedure that Christ and the apostles have taught us and speak of these things as they have spoken of them.”

5)    This Holy Supper is called as Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper or Communion, each name has its own characteristics of the Holy Supper, I mean, The Eucharist which comes from the Greek ‘εὐχαριστέω (eukaristeo) means thanksgiving. So through the eucharist, we give thanksgiving to God the Father for everything accomplished by God in creation, redemption and sanctification, and also for everything that God will bring by the Kingdom. So Eucharist is the benediction. And the Lord’s Supper focuses on the aspect that Lord gives us meal. So through Lord’s Supper, Jesus Christ nourishes the life of the Church. And also through it, we memorize all that Jesus Christ has done for our salvation. And then Communion emphasizes meal of reconciliation and communion and fellowship with Triune God and the saint, in heaven and on earth. This communion demonstrates and effects the oneness in Christ together with our fellow Christians in heaven and on earth. So, we can use these three terms in turn at least once a year, so that the church can know and enjoy significant aspects of the Holy Supper.

6)    And also, regarding the bread and wine of the Holy Supper, there are four different views. I mean, the first is the doctrine of transubstantiation by Roman Catholic Church which believes that when the priest prays, the bread and wine of the Eucharist substantially transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ. So, they cannot carelessly throw away the bread and wine left over after the Eucharis and collect them separately. And the second is the doctrine of consubstantiation which is the Lutheran view that the entire person of Jesus Christ, that is, His body and blood, are present together in the substance of the bread and wine, that is, they are present in, with, and under the bread and wine. And the third is the memorial theory, which is view of Zwinglian and the Baptist that the sacrament of the Holy Supper is ‘the sign’ and ‘the symbol’ of Christ’s body and blood through which we commemorate the death of the Lord. And lastly, there is the doctrine of the spiritual presence which is the view of Calvin that the Holy Communion involves the spiritual presence of Christ, so that Christ in heaven and His people who uplifted their heart to heaven and saints in heaven, have communion and union with Christ. Our Christian Reformed Churches accept Calvin’s view and believe in the doctrine of the spiritual presence. And we receive the food spiritually by faith and be nourished through the heavenly participation of the table and “we are there with Christ” with Triune God and saints.

7)    So, in Luke 22:14-20, after the Last Supper with His beloved disciples on the night before His crucifixion, He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, after supper, He took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.’” He commanded to do this Holy Communion. Therefore, obeying to His command, we participate in the sacrament of the Holy Supper, longing for the grace, to be united with Christ more and to grow and be mature more.

Key Questions as Small Group Activity

Q1 Through today’s text, by eating and drinking the bread and wine which represent His body and blood, we can be more united with Christ, enjoy intimate fellowship with Christ, and grow and become more mature by His grace. So, meditating on the grace we’ve received in the Holy Supper, reminding the meaning of the bread and wine, I hope we could share our thought and grace and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Q2 And, also it is taught that we have to repent before the sacrament of the Holy Supper. So after thinking the reason why, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Love you. Thank you. God bless you.

Prayer Note

Dear ( God’s attribute which you found Today ) God!

Thanks for ( something you received through the sermon or  even during the week )

Praise, gratitude and glory be to You, Lord!

Today, I realized my sin (pains) that ( the sin God reminded through the sermon ),

please forgive (or heal) me and help me not to repeat ( the sins you recognized   ).

I learned that ( something you learned through the sermon                                    )

Please help me to live in that (  learned way of life                                                )

I pray in ( Jesus’ attribute you find ) Jesus’ name. Amen.