March 5, 2025

“Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude.” 

― Isak Dinesen, Babette's Feast

The final liturgical movement in our worship service is RENEWAL, which includes the Lord’s Supper, a hymn of praise, and the Benediction. We will focus on the Lord’s Supper this week. The best way to think about what happens in this final chapter of our liturgy is a wedding feast. Not only is it the closest point of comparison with what goes on during a church worship service, but also because the Lord’s Supper celebrates what Christ has done on the cross and foreshadows a greater meal to come, the wedding feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:6-10) where the people of God who have been called by grace through faith in Jesus Christ gather in celebration of his final victory over sin and death.

Liturgical Movements
Reverence
Reconciliation
Revelation
Response
Renewal

As a congregation in the PCA, Coram Deo administers “partially closed” communion, which means that the table is open to every baptized believer who has made a public profession of faith and does not lead a life of publicly-known unrepentant sin. We do this in submission to Biblical teaching found in Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper, Paul’s instructions, our Standards, and Book of Church Order (ch. 58). If you have children who have expressed faith in Jesus, and shown interest in the Lord’s Supper, please click the email link in my conclusion so the elders can set up a time to meet with them and admit them to the Supper. 

At Coram Deo we gather around the Lord’s Supper as those who have been reconciled to God by grace through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Our “table service” is a celebration of what God has done for us in Christ. We have been called to the table that Jesus eagerly desired to share with his disciples. Our faith that rests on Jesus is fed and strengthened as we eat and drink, and our fellowship with Jesus and each other is reaffirmed as we join in the meal together. None of us come to the table worthy, but because of who God is, we all go away from it full. We toast to Christ our King at the end because we recognize that Jesus truly has paid it all on our behalf, so we raise our glasses in joyous acknowledgment of what God has done for us in Christ.

I acknowledge the impossibility of explaining the Lord’s Supper in one short devotional email - so if you have questions or would like to read further, please feel free to contact me, I’d love to meet with you.

Invocation: Psalm 33:1-5
Confession of Sin: Romans 3:19-20
Assurance of Grace Romans 3:21-26
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 42:1-4
Sermon Text: Ruth 2:1-23
Confession of Faith: Heidelberg Catechism 128-129