Eat and Drink for God Accepts You!

In this morning’s sermon we saw how the future judgment according to works serves as reason for us conduct our lives in the fear of the LORD. This judgment of the Last Day is of course anticipated on the cross, but also each and every Lord’s Day as we are summoned to appear before God for evaluation. In this sense every Lord’s Day is an arrival of the Day of the Lord and prepares us for that great day. We recognize this at the beginning of the service when we confess our sins and receive God’s cleansing grace. Thus we confess that we begin in grace being justified apart from works. Yet the Christian life and CRW doesn’t end there. For having been consecrated by the Word of God, read, sung, and preached, we then respond by offering the fruit of hands, our works, ourselves, to God in the tithes and offerings. And the Lord graciously receives our faithful work in union with the perfect sacrifice of His Son. These are the sacrifices that Paul describes as “a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God.” In this we confess our faith in a future aspect of our justification that includes our works as the demonstration of the faith with which we began. Now what does all this have to do with the Table? Well, Solomon has told us that this matter of God accepting our works affects our eating and drinking. In Eccl. 9:7 he writes, “Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works.” We come to this Table with joy and merriment of heart celebrating God’s acceptance of us in Jesus Christ. And Solomon continues, “Let your clothing always be white, and let your head lack no oil.” It is in this way that you come to the Table: clothed in the righteousness of Christ, anointed by the Spirit, with joy and merriment, for God has accepted your works!