Genesis 17, I'll be reading verses 1-14. Now when Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless. I will establish my covenant between me and you and I will multiply you exceedingly. Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with you, and you will be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I will make you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. God said further to Abraham, Now as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you, throughout their generations. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised, and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between me and you. And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout their generations. A servant who is born in the house or who is bought with money from any foreigner who is not of your descendants. A servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised. Thus shall my covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant. Next please turn to Mark chapter 10. This is found on page 1007 in our Pew Bibles. Mark 10 looking at verses 13 through 16. And they were bringing children to him, so that he might touch them. But the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, Permit the children to come to me. Do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.' And he took them in his arms and began blessing them, laying his hands on them." Let's pray and ask the Lord's blessing upon his word. Father, we come now this morning to the text of your holy word. And we ask that Your Spirit might be present and working among us, that the words that I speak might touch the hearts of men, not by my eloquence or my power, but through Your Spirit and through His power. For we pray it in Jesus' name, amen. Just over a month ago, I was privileged to attend the Greenville Seminary Theological Conference celebrating the life and the influence of John Calvin. One lecture I found particularly stimulating, and that was a presentation by the Reverend Ian Hamilton on Calvin and the sacraments. I think that this topic must have been the most daunting assignment given to any of the speakers at the conference since Calvin is so routinely criticized for his position on the sacraments. It's hard to find anyone with anything good to say on this subject, but Reverend Hamilton was certainly up to the challenge. With the advantage of his wonderful Scottish accent, he argued convincingly that Calvin's views on the sacraments were not an aberration from reformed Christianity, but are actually quite consistent with the great reformers' central commitments. Well, hearing this lecture encouraged me to go back and take a look at Calvin again, and to see what he says about baptism. As I did so, I found what I typically find with Calvin, that his greatest strength is in his deep understanding of the text of Scripture. And so this morning, as we consider the sacrament of baptism, I confess myself indebted to Brother Calvin for helping me to think about the Bible in a more deep and profound and thoroughgoing way. I want to look this morning at this sacred ordinance by considering first covenant realities, then we want to look at covenant promises, and finally at God's loving kindness for covenant children. Now the first of the realities that I want to bring to your attention about our covenantal position is that water baptism does not cause or bring about salvation in the recipient, whether they be an infant or an adult. The waters of baptism have no saving power to them. This morning when I baptized Mphatso, you did not witness her regeneration. That simply is not the case. And neither was it the case with the Old Covenant sign of circumcision. The removal of the foreskin was not some magic rite in days of old to bring people into redemption. It simply is not the case that the sacraments are saving ordinances. Now John Calvin is crystal clear on this point. He says in his Institutes, Book 4, Chapter 15, Paragraph 2, For Paul did not mean to signify that our cleansing and salvation are accomplished by water, or that water contains in itself the power to cleanse, regenerate, or renew. nor that here is the cause of salvation, but only that in the sacrament are received the knowledge and certainty of such gifts. So whenever we baptize anyone, whenever we apply water to an infant or a full-grown adult, there is just simply no saving power in the water. And so we strongly disagree with the contention of the Roman Catholic Church and even of some branches of Lutheran churches who suggest that the sacrament of water baptism brings about or causes regeneration. We believe water baptism is never a saving ordinance. You might say, Pastor, why do you belabor that point so much? Well, it's kind of like getting an inoculation against a disease that is floating around the community. You may not have the disease, but if you're inoculated against it, it's likely you won't catch the disease. There are some, not just Roman Catholics and Lutherans, but some Reformed people who are saying that water baptism is a saving ordinance that causes salvation. and they cite Calvin to prove it. They are wrong and you are inoculated. In a more positive vein, we also assert that our God has sovereignly and graciously chosen to initiate a covenant relationship between himself and believers and their children. Now this is the heart of our reformed position and this is what sets us apart really from the Roman Catholic views and from Baptist and independent views. We maintain a third alternative that the sacraments are the signs and seals of the covenant of grace. And so when we look at the sacraments, when we consider baptism, we must go to the covenant. Because that's what it's all about. It's a covenantal ordinance. So when Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and announced the covenant to him. He said, I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly. In that statement, God is initiating and establishing a binding covenant relationship between Himself and Abram. Well, as Abram heard this, he fell face down before God, and the Lord continued to teach him about this covenant. Through the covenant, God would make Abraham the father of a multitude of nations. Abraham would be exceedingly fruitful with kings and nations issuing forth from him. Now remember, this 99-year-old man had no child, not a single child. His wife was as good as dead. They were old people. well past the age of bearing children. Then in verse 7 of our passage, the Lord makes a most interesting and significant statement when he says, I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your descendants after you. Now this is certainly striking, that God of His own free grace binds Himself to a covenant relationship not only with Abraham, but with Abraham's children, with Abraham's descendants. And so the Lord pledges that he would be God to Abraham and he would be God to Abraham's descendants after him. Now we see more of the scope of this covenant in verse 8 of our chapter when God says, I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession and I will be their God." Now just pause and consider this glorious reality. That God, the Almighty, the Lord of the Covenant is initiating this binding, loving relationship with Abraham and Abraham's descendants. Now as Calvin rightly points out, This Abrahamic Covenant has never been abolished nor abrogated, but it remains at the core of what we call the Covenant of Grace. The Abrahamic Covenant is foundational and fundamental for the new covenant administration in which we live. We saw this a while back in our study of Galatians in prayer meeting. How Paul makes this elaborate argument to say that the coming of the law 430 years later did not abolish the promises, but the promises continue. And so the Abrahamic covenant is still at the core of God's covenant dealings with men. its essential elements remain active even in our day. Now we recognize that the outward administration has changed in certain respects, but the binding relationship between God and his faithful believers and their children continues uninterrupted. Therefore the children of Christian parents are in covenant with God because God has designated them as members of his covenant community. And there's really nothing anyone can do about that. If people don't like it, that doesn't change God's mind. He says the children of believers are mine. They are in covenant with me. I will be a God to them." Meaning those children, those descendants. The sovereign God alone has the right to designate the proper members of His covenant, and He does. He says it's believers and their children. and that locks children of believers into a covenant relationship with God. Now just let that fact sink in. That's not a proposal that we need to vote on. It's not something that needs our approval in order to go into effect. It's God's decree. He's saying, I am the one naming the members, and I'm going to name you and you, Abraham and your children after you. I guess you could take a example from the Internet. We have our sermon audio web page, and there's only one person that can go in and change the content on that page. And it's me, because I and I alone know the password. Now, anyone else on the planet can go and try, but they will get to a certain point in the procedure where it asks for a password, and if they don't know the password, they can't get in and change things. So there's a sense in which I am sovereign over our web page. Ooh, ooh, powerful, powerful. God says I and I alone will exercise my prerogative to draw people into covenant with me and if I name them as members of my covenant I am free to do so and nobody can change that. Nobody can go in and reverse his decree. And so the fact of the matter is that when children are born to believing parents, those children are rightfully designated by virtue of their birth to believing parents as members of the covenant of grace. Now one other reality from this passage is that God requires that the sign of the covenant be applied to all of the rightful members of His covenant community. That's why the Lord commanded Abraham that every male among them must be circumcised, whether it was an adult male, a servant bought with money from a foreigner, or an eight-day-old infant born within the covenant household. All the members of the covenant who could bear the sign must bear the sign. If the sign of circumcision was willfully withheld from any of the members who had a right to it, then that person would be cut off from God's people. He had broken the covenant. Now, this may seem to us to be an unnecessary stipulation, but God builds it in, and He says to Abraham, I am so concerned that the sign be applied, that if the sign is withheld, that person is out. He is cut off. He has broken my covenant. Now, covenant breaking not only leads to being cut off and put out, But read your Bible and you'll find that covenant breaking always leads to wrath and curse. And eventually, if it is unrepentant covenant breaking, it leads to destruction. You say, whoa, this is very serious. Does God really want the covenant sign to be applied to the members of the covenant? Oh yes, He does. He is definitely serious about this. When Moses failed to apply circumcision to his own sons, God sent an angel to kill him. It's very possible the children of Israel could have gone on without Moses. God would have raised up another mediator. We would not have had the books of Moses in the Bible because Moses would have been dead That's how serious God was that He would even snuff out Moses over something like this. And so, as we look at the New Covenant, we believe that the New Covenant sign of baptism is properly applied not only to adult converts, but we believe it is properly applied to the infant children of professing believers. We believe that God wants it to be so and that the logic of Genesis 17 applies as much to the covenant sign of baptism as it ever applied to the old covenant sign of circumcision. Now as important and weighty as these realities are, I think the covenant promises are even more vital still. Again, I found Calvin to be most helpful. In the Institutes, Book 4, Chapter 16, Paragraph 2, Calvin says this, Let him who would fully learn the value of baptism, its object, and indeed its entire nature, not fix his thought upon the element and the physical appearance, but rather raise it to God's promises which are there offered to us, and to the inner mysteries which are represented in it." And what is Calvin saying? He's saying, do you want to understand baptism? Do you really want to understand baptism? Don't get hung up on the external element and the outward ceremony of the sacrament. But rather, raise your eyes up to God's promises as they are offered to us. Gaze on the promises. Look into the spiritual mysteries that are represented in this holy ordinance. There, in the promises and in the mysteries, there you find the essence. There you find the power. There is the compelling, convincing, aspects of this ordinance. So what are the promises of the covenant? What are those spiritual mysteries that are symbolized for us? The first promise is really pictured for us in the ritual of washing with water. What happens when you go to the sink, you turn on the faucet, and you rub your hands under the water? the dirt comes off. Your hands are cleansed. And this is really the most simple and basic truth that is promised for us in this ordinance. We will be cleansed. In this simple ceremony, we see the cleansing of our hearts from sin a cleansing obtained through the blood of Jesus. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. That is what baptism teaches us. In other words, God is showing us in a very tangible, visible way that He will cleanse His people through the washing of regeneration and through the renewal of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit himself will cleanse your heart inwardly by applying the blood of Christ to your soul, to your inward life. And as that blood is applied, it washes away the dirt, the filth of sin. Please think about this and what a wonderful promise this is. You know the feeling. You've sinned. Your conscience is screaming against you. You feel dirty because you know you violated God's Word. You know you've gone against what's true and right, and you feel that inward filth, that corruption, those indelible stains on your heart. and baptism whispers to us, the blood of Christ washes us clean of all sin. The Spirit will come and cleanse your inner being by the power of God's grace and through the blood of Christ. What can take away that grimy, dirty feeling that is left by sin, God promises us, I will wash it away through the blood of my Son. Another promise is bound up in baptism and that is the promise of our union and communion with Christ. This leads Paul to say in Romans chapter 6 that we are buried with him through baptism into death and we likewise are united with him in the likeness of his resurrection so that we too might walk in newness of life. There is a deep and mysterious connection that is brought about by the work of the Holy Spirit between Christ and His people. They are united. They are made one. We are grafted into Christ. He is the vine. We are the branches. He is the head. We are His body. He is the bridegroom. We are His bride. There is union and communion between Christ and His people and that is signified and symbolized to us in baptism. Baptism takes us apart from the world and it sets us into a new category. We are now part of God's covenant people, His holy nation. We are no longer out there in the wicked pagan world, sons of darkness, living to our own lusts and unto our own destruction. But we have been set apart unto God, and we belong to Him, and we are united to Christ through the Holy Spirit. And so as we see baptism, we are reminded that we are sealed in this union with the Savior. Now again, don't get hung up asking the questions, how does the ordinance of water baptism bring about union with Christ? I think that's going off on a rabbit trail that will lead you in bad and weird and eventually heretical places. No, raise your eyes up and look at the promise that God says, I will seal that union between Christ and my people. And through that union, my people will receive all the blessings and benefits of Christ and his great work of redemption. All of the blessings of the new covenant will be theirs through Christ. And they are in line to receive it. And baptism teaches us of that union. There's other promises as well. Thinking back to Genesis 17, we saw there that the land of Canaan would be given to Abraham and to his descendants. Now this is a unique part of the covenant arrangement. It's what some have called the land grant promise. And in looking at this particular promise of the land of Canaan being given to Abraham and his descendants, we are short-sighted if we think only of a small strip of disputed real estate on the Mediterranean Sea. Because when God promised Abraham that the land of Canaan was his, he was really making Abraham the heir of the whole world, Romans 4 says. It wasn't just that he was saying, Palestine is yours. He was saying, the whole of the world is yours, Abraham. And it's not just the whole world. But in this promise, there is the idea of a better country, a land where righteousness dwells. In this promise, God is holding forth heaven to Abraham. He's holding forth the new heavens and the new earth to Abraham. And he is saying, I'm going to give you everything. Because you are united with Christ, you become a fellow heir together with Christ. And all things are yours, Abraham, and they go to your descendants after you. And so there is this great promise of heaven and glory and eternity and all things. But I've saved the best promise till last. Because the best promise of all, the single promise that defines the sheer graciousness and the entire glory of the covenant, is the simple statement that he would be God to Abraham and to his children after him. Now here is the whole blessedness of this relationship. This is what the covenant is all about. You want to summarize covenant theology in a single sentence? Here it is. I will be your God and you will be my people. I will be their God and they will be my people. And in so doing, God is including not just Abraham, but Abraham's seed, Abraham's descendants. Believers and their children are given this precious, sweet pledge that God would be their God forever and ever. You see, all that God is and everything that God does is given to Abraham and his descendants. And if you have faith today, it is given to you and your children as well. And so all of the goodness of God is put on deposit in your name as God says, I will be a God to you and to your seed. If this does not light the fires of gratitude and thankfulness in your heart, I don't know what will. God comes to you in all of his sovereign authority. You, just a little tiny creature, a bug, a worm. He could crush you. He could snuff you. He could destroy you. But he says, I'll be your God. And you will be my people. and I will take delight in you, and you will take delight in me." When we baptized Mpatso just a few minutes ago, God was essentially saying to Teddy and Jennifer, Teddy and Jennifer, I will be your God, and I'll be Chememwe's God, and I'll be Mpatso's God, and I will be God to your family. What could be better? What could be more glorious and blessed than for the great God of heaven to come to us and say, I'll be your God and I'll be the God of your children too. It should melt us in tears of thankfulness. It should leave us speechless for months that God would do this to us. If you want to know what baptism is about, raise your eyes to this promise, I will be the God of your children after you. Now for me, that gives me great hope and great confidence, because as I get older, I feel the effects of age leading me towards the day when my body will be in the grave. and my children will be beyond my ability to help. I just won't be able to help them from the casket. And as they grow and as they live their lives after I'm long dead in the grave, as they live to old age, God will still be God to them as He was God to me, as He was God to my father, and my great-grandfather and my grandfather and all my ancestors who have trusted and hoped in Him. And so God is saying, I'm committing myself to you. Now, it would be understandable, I think, if we were to come and say to God, Lord, we're committing ourselves to you. We're going to be your people for the duration. Because there's a certain sense that we utterly need Him. But there's a sense in which He doesn't need us at all. And what He does in pledging Himself to us is not in any way coerced or required or needed or necessary. It's unimaginable that He would come to us and say, I'll be your God and the God of your children after you. How gracious and good and kind and loving he is. This week on our vacation down in southern Illinois, where it was 70 and sunny, I was standing on some rocks, taking in a spot which was once designated the most beautiful spot in Illinois, and I believe it's the case. And I was wondering, how do I catch this? some way grab the beauty of what I'm seeing. Well, I had my camera, and I'm a photographer, so I took some pictures. And even with good equipment and nice composition, I only just got a little bit of the beauty and the wonder of that spot. What picture does Scripture give us to summarize the beauty and the glory of God's covenant with his people and their children. The best picture I can think of is the picture that we see in Mark chapter 10. Some good and godly parents bringing their children that Jesus might touch them and bless them. Of course, marring the picture are the ornery disciples with a mean look on their face saying, Go away! He doesn't have time for you! Take your kids and go! And in the background we see Jesus watching His disciples and there's a fire in His eyes. He's looking angry. And He is angry. And He tells His disciples Do not forbid them. Let them come unto me." And as the disciples get out of the way, Jesus takes those babies and those little children in his arms of love and he places his hands on them and he blesses them. In that embrace, we see the love of God for covenant children. We see that Genesis 17 was not some cruel joke. God does love His people and their children. In fact, dear friends, He loves your children better than you do, more than you do. He looks upon your children with more compassion, more grace, more favor, more mercy. And He takes them in His arms and He holds them and He blesses them. You see, that's what this is all about. In the sacrament of baptism, God embraces little Mphatso and holds her and blesses her. Of course that puts a tremendous responsibility on her and her parents. But don't overlook God's blessing and His grace. And if Christ loves the children of faithful believers that much, shouldn't we have the same attitude? Shouldn't that be our heart? Shouldn't we cherish and treasure the covenant children of this church? Shouldn't we pray for them? Shouldn't we do everything in our power to encourage them to know the Lord and to seek the Lord? Shouldn't we be constantly doting over them in loving kindness and compassion? Shouldn't we treat them as some of the most valuable members of our congregation instead of dealing with them as little misfits who would be better gone. Too many churches treat children as chaff and dregs. And they think that church is all for the adults, not Jesus Church. And pray God, not this church either. Let us have the heart of our Savior to take those little ones in our arms, to love them, to bless them, Let's pray. Oh, our God, thank you for being our God. Thank you for being a God to us, worthless rebels that we are. Thank you for pledging your fidelity to our children and grandchildren, even to a thousand generations of those who love you and keep your commandments. Oh Lord, bless them. For we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.