In 1 Corinthians 11:27 we are warned not to eat the bread and drink the cup in an unworthy manner. If you are in division and you still eat the bread and drink the cup, that means you are eating and drinking unworthily. According to 1 Corinthians 11, there was a kind of looseness and lightness among the saints in Corinth. Everyone behaved according to his own likes or dislikes. The divisions and parties among them spoiled the Lord's table (vv. 17-22). This shows that if we take the Lord's table with a divisive spirit, we are partaking of it in an unworthy manner. We should not partake of the Lord's table in a light, loose, or careless way.
First Corinthians 11:17-18 shows that if we take the Lord's table with divisions, our coming together is not for the better but for the worse. For the better means for a profit. For the worse means for a loss. It is not a profit but a loss if we take the Lord's table in division.
If we take the Lord's table in an unworthy manner, the Lord will come in to chasten us (1 Cor. 11:30-34). The Lord's judgment upon those in Corinth who participated unworthily in the Lord's table was to cause them to become weak physically. Since they would not repent of their offense, they were further disciplined and became sick. Because they would still not repent, the Lord judged them by death. This is the Lord's chastening, the Lord's judgment upon the believers in this age who would willfully continue to partake of His table in an unworthy manner. Sometimes when a believer is sick, he may need to call for the elders of the church and ask them to pray over him (James 5:14). That means he needs to get himself reconciled with the Body.
We all need to be trained to partake of the Lord's table in a proper way. In the past we had the Lord's table in an untrained way. But now we are going to have the Lord's table in a civilized way, in a cultured way, in a trained way. In the past we ate wildly, without "table manners." Now we are training the saints to have table manners. The table manners at the Lord's table are not formal things. To have proper table manners at His table means that we exercise our spirit and release our praise to Him in the right way. This is a great thing. The Lord's table is the best meeting, but it is the most difficult meeting for us to have. No other meeting exposes where we are as much as the Lord's table meeting does.
We need to remember the focus of our fellowship in this message. The focus is that the real remembrance of the Lord is to receive and enjoy Him as our life supply by eating and drinking Him and by sharing Him one with another in the fellowship of His Body.