When the service culminates here at the Table, as we believe it does, we are not displacing the Word, or the proclamation of it. We still have a very high view of the need for preaching. But we don’t believe that declaring and hearing the Word is to be treated as an end in itself.
James tells us that the one who hears the Word but does not do it is self-deceived. This means that when you listen to a sermon, personal applications should never be far from your mind. You shouldn’t be wondering if personal applications are running through the minds of others who get on your nerves, but rather you should be considering yourself in the first place.
And when you are hearing the Word, and are convicted by it, and you consider what changes have to be made, you can sometimes feel beat up, overwhelmed, feeling like “that’s all good, but I am not up to it.” At that moment, the Lord comes to you and offers you strength for the journey. It is at that time that He offers to nourish you with food from His table. You are not just offered strength, you are offered strength from the Table of the Lord.
This means that He is saying to you that by His grace, you are up it. He is saying to you that His grace is sufficient for you.
The bread and wine here are not our gift to God; they are His gift to us. If there is something you must put right, then offer that restitution to God before giving Him any other gifts. But this is His gift to you—take it for strength to go and do what you know you must do.
God does not just tell us what to do. We do not suffer under raw obligation; we do not suffer under the law. We are Christians, and so we live by the grace of God, revealed in the face of Christ. He wants us to be equipped to do His will, and he offers you strength here. But don’t think that it is any kind of magic strength. The just shall live by faith, and this means that the just shall eat and drink by faith.