Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas
Pastor Chuck Trusty — Wednesday evening service, August 12, 2026 The Lord’s Supper · Table meditation · 1 Corinthians 11:26-31
► Watch this lesson on video (26:15)
The One Point
Unworthily does not describe the PERSON at the Lord’s table . . . it describes the MANNER in which the Lord’s supper is observed.
Tonight is our business meeting and the Lord’s supper, but it is also preaching — so I will do the preaching first, dismiss that, and then we will take up the business meeting and close with the supper . . . and there are a few things about the supper I want to cover, and we have talked about all of them before, a little dab here and a little dab there . . . but it helps us to remember.
Two Ordinances, Not One and Not Three
God placed TWO ordinances in His New Testament church. Not one. Not three. Two. One is baptism, and the seminary term for it is a pictorial ordinance — the other is the Lord’s supper, which is a MEMORIAL ordinance.
We have talked before about what an ordinance (a rule, a regulation, an order) actually is, and Dardanelle has an ordinance that residents cannot let the grass grow past a certain height . . . I would not do well inside city limits.
Now a man who lives outside the city limits is not under that ordinance, and I want us to notice WHY. It is not because he is a bad person, and not because he is sloppy, and not because he does not care what his yard looks like — it is because he is under a different JURISDICTION. I answer to my wife Summer about our yard . . . if I lived inside the limits I would answer to the mayor about my yard, or to the officer who came out to get on to me about it.
Now the reason I have gone into city limits and county living - is this: the Lord’s supper is a CHURCH ordinance. There are saved children of God who are in the church, and there are saved children of God who are not in the church — and the supper is not a rule that applies to everybody who is saved, because that is open communion . . . the supper applies to the MEMBERS of the church where the supper is being observed.
For a saved person who is not a member of this particular church — somebody saved but not baptized here, not a member here — to take the supper with us would be about the equivalent of telling Shirley, who lives over in London, that she is under Dardanelle’s ordinance about mowing her grass . . . you have to keep our local rule even though you do not live here. We can all see that this would not be proper at all . . . if somebody is saved but is not a member of this church, and they are here when we observe the supper, they are simply not under the jurisdiction of this church — just as she is not under the jurisdiction of Dardanelle in regard to grass.
The Fourth of July
A memorial paints a PICTURE — and the Fourth of July actually shows us BOTH ordinances at once . . . both of them, on the same day.
We keep the Fourth of July every year to remind us of something . . . the struggle our forefathers had for freedom . . . and the whole purpose of the celebration, the firecrackers and all the rest of it, is so that we will NOT FORGET. The fireworks are not mandatory, and nobody comes after you if you never set off a firecracker — but when the fireworks do go up, we get a picture — bombs bursting in air — the fireworks give us a picture of battles that have already been fought.
That is what baptism does . . . baptism does not win the battle for our soul — baptism pictures the battle Jesus has ALREADY fought, His death, His burial, His resurrection . . . it pictures what has saved us, after we are saved.
The Lord’s supper reminds us of what has saved us, as often as we observe it, with no set time — and that is His own wording. “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew (proclaim, preach) the Lord’s death till he come” (1 Corinthians 11:26). And every time this church eats the unleavened bread, we PREACH the Lord’s death without saying a word.
Whose Table Is It?
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25).
That verse is used by some to teach that all the saved are in the church — now, if you look at the lessons on the website about how to interpret the Scriptures, one of the plain rules of interpretation is the who, what, when, where, why . . . and CONTEXT.
Now it is true that He loved the church and gave Himself for it, but how are we going to DEFINE the church? Are we going to define it as everybody who believes in Jesus . . . or are we going to define it the way Jesus defined it during His personal ministry? If we ‘misdefine’ the church, then of course the church has to be everybody who is saved, because it says here He gave Himself for it — but we are reading something into that verse that is not there.
The Lord’s supper is the CHURCH remembering what Jesus gave for HER — that is the whole of it.
Yes, the church is made up of individuals . . . but the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s supper were not given to individuals, they were given to the Lord’s New Testament church. So it is only about ‘this far’ from the truth (not far from the Truth) to say the supper is for individuals to remember what Jesus did for them — the purpose of the ordinance is not for individuals - but for the CHURCH to remember what He did for HER. And if we deviate just a little . . . it will not be long before we are in trouble.
The Word That Frightened Me
“Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 11:27).
Now before I understood what that verse was saying, it very nearly scared me to death . . . every time I found out the supper was coming, I would hunt for a reason to be busy, or try to sit way in the back so nobody would notice that Chuck did not take it this time and start wondering what he had been up to. And that is not what it means at all.
Paul’s word for unworthily — and I am going to take a stab at the pronunciation — is anaxios, and by the way, it is an ADVERB. Now I am not going to get deep into an English lesson or a Greek one, but you remember what an adverb does . . . an adverb tells us HOW. It has nothing at all to do with describing the person doing the deed — it describes how the DEED IS DONE.
So let me say it plainly . . . and then say it again. Unworthily does not describe the person at the Lord’s table. Unworthily does not describe the person observing the Lord’s supper. Unworthily describes HOW the Lord’s supper is observed . . . it is the MANNER of the observance.
And one of the reasons we can say that is this — no matter who we are or what we do, not a single one of us at that table is WORTHY . . . that is the whole reason there is a Lord’s table at all. The blood of Jesus — nothing else — is what makes us worthy to be here and to observe this ordinance.
So the question is never, am I a worthy person . . . I can answer that one right now. The question is, does the MANNER of our observance HONOR this ordinance?
What Corinth Did
We always mention the church at Corinth and the divisions among them, and without going deep into their love feasts, here is the closest modern equivalent I can come up with for us . . .
Suppose we had a fellowship, and over on this row of tables was all the food — everything that smelled good, everything we had been looking forward to — and in the rooms over here is where we would eat and enjoy each other’s company and tell stories . . . nothing wrong with any of that. And then on this other row of tables there is a pan of unleavened bread and a few little cups of grape juice.
The ERROR would be this — I fill my plate with roast and green beans, and on my way back to my seat I reach over and grab a piece of the unleavened bread and a little dab of the juice, and I nibble the bread on the way back to my chair to take the edge off my appetite . . . oh, and yes — thank You for dying for me, thanks for what You did . . . the Lord’s supper as a BYPRODUCT, while my main focus is that I cannot wait to get into the meatloaf, and somebody brought peach cobbler.
That is not exactly what they were doing at Corinth, but it is close . . . and the error is the SAME error, and if we could fast-forward and err the way they erred, that is exactly what it would look like. And you see there is no mention of an INDIVIDUAL being unworthy . . . because as individuals, every one of us is unworthy.
Which Direction the Examination Runs
“But let a man examine (test, take inventory of) himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup” (1 Corinthians 11:28).
Watch where the examination ENDS . . . and so let him eat.
If the idea were, preacher, I am supposed to look down in my heart — and I look, and I say, yes, I am good, I have not sinned too much this week — that is not it at all . . . we are not looking to find out how GOOD we are . . . we are looking into our hearts to confess our sins and to admit to God that we are NOT good, and it is because of that humble attitude, not because of any goodness, that we then partake of the supper . . . not because we are worthy, not because we are good, but because we are willing to admit to God that we are not good.
So the examination Paul is talking about is not a doorway OUT of observing the supper — the examination is a doorway INTO it — We take inventory of the heart . . . we confess what we find there . . . we repent . . . then we are forgiven . . . and after we are forgiven, we observe the supper.
The Lord’s supper is not a table for perfect people . . . it is a table for a REPENTING church, which is full of repenting people.
Discerning the Lord’s Body
“For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation (judgment, chastisement) to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body” (1 Corinthians 11:29).
Now what do you suppose the Lord’s attitude toward Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church would be if the next time we have a fellowship, we set the food to satisfy our appetite on one table and the elements of the supper on the other, and we just mixed and mingled the two — here, take this and drink this little cup, thank You for everything — and then went back over here to concentrate on the peach cobbler? That is eating and drinking unworthily — as a CHURCH.
Now to DISCERN is to set apart, to treat as something different — and if the Lord’s supper becomes just another thing the church does, no reverence to speak of, no feeling for what Jesus actually suffered . . . then we eat JUDGMENT instead of eating REMEMBRANCE.
“For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep” (1 Corinthians 11:30). Now that is chastisement, without a doubt . . . but it is not chastisement aimed at an individual who said a naughty word the day before the supper — it is chastisement directed at a CHURCH observing the supper irreverently.
“For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged” (1 Corinthians 11:31). And it is worth noticing that all of this is PLURAL — Paul says ye, and we . . . he is not pointing at a particular individual . . . he is talking about the assembled BODY. And to judge ourselves is to VOLUNTEER to separate ourselves from what displeases God, before God has to do the separating for us.
How Close Truth Is to Error
Before the invitation, once more —
The Lord’s supper is for an INDIVIDUAL to remember what Jesus has done for us. That sounds good . . . that is not what the Bible says . . . the Lord’s supper is for the CHURCH to remember what Jesus has done for HER.
And see how close those two are — for the church to remember, or for the individual to remember. You would be hard pressed to find somebody willing to argue with you about it . . . well, preacher, maybe so, the individual ought to remember too. Yes, maybe so . . . but that is not what the Lord’s supper is FOR.
It is THAT close to the truth . . . and being off by that much does not STAY that much. It grows.
Scripture Used
1 Corinthians 11:26 · 11:27 · 11:28 · 11:29 · 11:30 · 11:31 · Ephesians 5:25 (all KJV)
This lesson walks the same ground as the study on the Bookshelf, The TWO Church Ordinances — baptism a pictorial ordinance, the Lord’s supper a memorial one, and both of them given to the church.
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