The Holy Spirit does not seek to motivate His people into positive godliness by means of guilt. The only thing that guilt motivates us to is confession. Once confession is made, the central motive force for all that we do is to be love and gratitude.
This Table is here to nourish you, to equip you, to strengthen you for the tasks that God has assigned to you. That being the case, God does not want you to come to this Table out of some guilty obligation. You are obligated, that is true, but the obligation is more like your obligation to breath. You have an obligation to breathe, but it is not on your daily “to do” list. You have an obligation to take regular meals, but that obligation arises internally, and you do not pursue it in order to “be good.” You eat because you’re hungry.
In the same way, we gather here, a hungry people. We look forward to what God has prepared for us, and we also look forward to what God is preparing us to do. We prepares the meal, and by preparing the meal, he is preparing His people. A mother who cooks a good breakfast for her children before sending them off to school is not just preparing food. She is also preparing children.
God has established good works for you to do this coming week. He wants you to walk by faith in those good works, and He fits the work to you, and fits you to the work. One of His central instrument for equipping you for your assigned tasks this coming week is this service of worship, culminating in this meal. He strengthens you by His grace so that you might walk in His grace.
All of this is from grace, in grace, and unto grace. At no place in the process can we detach ourselves from His kindness and claim that we have done anything meritorious in ourselves. We have been saved by grace through faith, and we are God’s workmanship. As His workmanship, we should be grateful for His tools. This Table is one of those tools.