Genesis chapter 15 will begin in verse 3 and read through verse 21. Hear now the word of the Lord. Abram continued, Look, you have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house will be my heir. Now the word of the Lord came to him. This one will not be your heir. Instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir. He took him outside and said, Look at the sky and count the stars if you are able to count them. Then he said to them, Your offspring will be that numerous. Abram believed the Lord and he credited it to him as righteousness. He also said to him, I am Yahweh who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. But he said, Lord God, how can I know that I will possess it? He said to him, bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. So he brought all these to him, split them down the middle, and laid the pieces opposite each other. But he did not cut up the birds. Birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. As the sun was setting, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and suddenly a great terror and darkness descended on him. Then the Lord said to Abram, know this for certain, your offspring will be foreigners in a land that does not belong to them. They were enslaved and oppressed 400 years. However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions. But you will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a ripe old age. In the fourth generation, they will return here for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, I give this land to your offspring from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River, the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites. May God bless the reading of his word. You may be seated. Please remain standing for our next scripture reading, taken again from Genesis chapter 17. We'll read verses 4 through 14. That's on page 15 of your few hardcover Bibles and page 10 softcover Bibles. Genesis 17, verse 4 through 14. Hear now the word of the Lord. Behold, my covenant is with you. and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your offspring after you and I will give to you and your offspring after you the land of your sojourn journeys all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I will be their God. And God said to Abraham, Abraham, as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you. Every male shall among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money, from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh, an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant. Now may Jesus, who is the living word, speak to us this morning from this passage, which is his written word. I'm going to pray for God to speak to us. I'm going to give a brief introduction and then I'm going to have the kids come up in that order. Prayer, a little Little tiny introduction, and then the children's introduction or children's sermon. So let us pray. Father, would you, as you've promised, meet with us this Lord's Day? We have approached you in the gospel, believing the gospel that our sins are covered, that we are made right in Christ before you so that we come boldly before you. Might you serve us with your word that we would With humble hearts, bow before your word and learn from it. May we be students sitting at your feet. May you guard my lips that I would speak only the truth according to your word. And if there's anything in error in what I say, may you protect us from it and bring it to light, Lord. Father, we are your people called by your name. We are in need of your powerful presence. Speak Lord, I pray in Jesus name. Amen. Well, as you can see, we are discussing the topic of baptism. I started that last week. And as I introduced last week, I decided to interject this. I'm still going to get the numbers, but not until March. between this study and my family going away for a few weeks. We won't be starting that up until March. What do I hope to gain in a nutshell? Clarity, humility, and charity. Clarity that we will understand our baptism, which, by the way, I think I hope to make a bit of a case today why understanding our baptism is relevant for us as Christians. If you've not been baptized, you think, oh good, I can figure out what baptism is so I can go do it, but that's not where its relevance ends. Understanding our baptism and believing it continues to function in our lives. As we understand what it is that we've engaged in here, it is continuing relevant. So I hope to gain some clarity on that point, so that, and throughout the study, that we would understand better what it is that God has given to us in this sign. humility, that we would be humble with one another, particularly those that we disagree with on this point, and that we would be both humble and charitable toward one another. We would be understanding and say, let's work hard to understand where you're coming from and where I'm coming from and where we disagree so that not the end, we can club each other in the head with it, but rather that we could be humble and charitable toward one another and say, you know, I love you brother, and we can have good iron sharpening iron discussions about these things in a way that would benefit all. So that's why we're doing this little study. I know there are a number of folks that are looking through this issue and I think it would be helpful to you, but I quite frankly think it will be helpful for all of us. We need to take our discipleship of Jesus Christ seriously. It's a core conviction of mine that we should obey every command Jesus gave us deliberately. That implies with understanding. And this is not just a one-time event. It's not just the ceremony itself. It is the ongoing implication of that ceremony that we need to be obedient to. We need to understand it and have it be valuable to us. That it can continue to serve us in the way God intends it to. R.C. Sproul put it, Christians who take their faith seriously also take baptism seriously, and they want to get it right. They care enough about baptism to debate areas of uncertainty. That should be us as well. Also, he states it a little more strongly in the next point, baptism is necessary for Christians. Necessary for Christians. It's worded carefully. Necessary for Christians. As he writes, baptism is not necessary for salvation. And earlier in his little book that I'm quoting here, he cites, like we all do, and I cited it last week too, the thief on the cross wasn't baptized. And yet, we're pretty confident he's in eternity, right? Because our Savior Jesus said so. So, his word's good. You can be trusted. So it's not necessary for salvation. However, if you were to ask me, is baptism necessary for the Christian, I would say, says R.C. Sproul, absolutely. It is not necessary for salvation, but it is necessary for obedience. Because Christ, with no ambiguity, commanded that all those who belong to Him, who are part of the New Covenant family, and who receive the benefits of His salvation, are to be baptized in the Trinitarian formula. By that means the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen to that. So, children, come on up and we'll give the little introduction. As you're coming up, the reason I want that little pep talk there is because, in this issue, we can make an error of saying, it's simple, don't overcomplicate it, so I don't want to bother with it, on the one hand. Or, it's so complicated, I can't understand it, so why even bother with it? And neither of those things are true. It's not simple. It's complex. But it's not so complex that the average Joe can't understand it. And yet, to the greatest scholar, there's still going to be things that are going to continue to learn about it. So it is with learning about God, isn't it? Isn't that true about our discipleship in general and learning about God? So no different here. All right, kids. Quick review. Do you remember what the word baptism means? Hannah? That's right. That word means to dip or immerse in water or liquid. It could also mean wash, actually. It's used in Mark's gospel for washing. Yeah. Oh, good question. It means to be underwater. If I immerse my body, it means I went all the way underwater. Right? But you could also, it's a word you'd use if you were going to dye something. If you were going to put some cloth and put it in some dye to make it a different color, you'd dip it in the liquid and make it that color. Or like when we colored eggs one time, remember we colored, I wouldn't know a long time ago, but colored eggs. What we do, we dip them into the dye, we put them in yellow ones, yellow and blue ones, right? That's baptized. That's just the literal meaning of that word, right? That's the means to either dip or immerse it, or to even wash something with water, okay? How about this phrase? Means of grace. This is a review for everybody, too. Means of grace. It's related to the word mediated. means of grace. It means it's the way God gives his gifts. God gives us gifts and he has ways that he does that to us. For instance, the main way he gives us his gifts is for us to hear about him and then the Holy Spirit helps us believe what we're hearing. And that's the means of God's grace. God gives us undeserved blessings by hearing the good news of Jesus Christ as we believe it. All right, on goes the quiz. Ready? Credo-baptism, I'll give you a hint, it means the same thing as believer's baptism in this study. Credo-baptism, believer's baptism. When I use this in this study, I'm meaning those who think that believers only should be baptized, as opposed to little babies. How about if I said the word pedo-baptism? What am I talking about? Infant baptism. Yeah, you got that one right. Awesome. Alright. Infant baptism. Pedo-baptism is infant baptism. Who can remember what the fancy word ordinance means? I'll give you a hint. It's like the word order. If I gave you an order. Yes, you get the prize. It's a command. Exactly right. And their ordinances of the church given to us by Jesus are two. One of them is baptism. Anybody guess what the other one is? The Lord's Supper. Yeah, you got it right. Good job. Good job. I know I told her I said it tonight. All right. How about Well, I don't expect you to know this one, but he'll give you a try anyways. How about sacrament? Sacrifices? Nope. It's another word. Instead of saying command, calling these things commands, baptism, and the Lord's Supper, sometimes they're called sacraments. And according to Westminster Confession, in brief, because it goes on further than this, it's holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace. Holy signs and seals. I'm going to talk more about that in the sermon, so I'm going to leave that for that. But, what is a covenant? A promise? Yes, you're on the right track. It's a relationship bound together by promises. Right? Bound together with vows. I promise this, I promise that. Like a marriage. Like a marriage. We get up there and we say, for better or for worse, richer or poorer, I'm yours, forsaking all others, and that sort of thing. They're promises. It's a relationship bound together with vows. How about the covenant, that relationship bound together of grace? What is that? That's an important one to know, so that's why we're reviewing these. God's promise to bless His chosen seed. His chosen seed, and I use that word seed on purpose, the descendants, His chosen descendants, or seed, fulfilled in the new covenant. Fulfilled in the new covenant. The covenant we have with Jesus. Now, some of those you're not going to understand, but I wanted everybody to get that review, and so I figured you guys would help me do that. Let's focus in on one thing, okay? What is a vow or an oath? That's the one I want us to land on. I want you to get one thing from this. What's a vow or an oath? You're right. It is that. But it's a vow or oath taken in like a nice ceremony. Like doctors, they take an oath. It's called the Hippocratic Oath. To do no harm, right? It's more complicated than that, but they say, if I'm going to be a doctor, I'm going to be a doctor, so I'm going to do no harm. Yeah? That's a fair question that we'll have a trail on some other time. That is an excellent thought. But I don't want to get too distracted by it this morning. How about the President of the United States? He has to take an oath of office. It goes like this. I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." And typically, he's got his hand on a Bible and at the end he says, so help me God. It's a little ceremony where he says a special promise to do his job this way. Right? Or, if you had to go and give testimony in a court, You put your hand on a Bible and they ask you, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? So help you God. And so the whole time you're up there, you're under oath. And what is the oath? You're promising to tell the truth. So help you God. Well, whether you do or not, there is a God. So, some people may go up there and not believe in God and may still lie, but who will they have to answer to? God. Right? So, that's the way an oath works. When you make a vow or an oath, you are promising something, but you're promising something in a little ceremony. Okay? That helps us get at the idea that we're looking at this morning. We're going to try to figure out what exactly baptism is. What is it? And this will help us get a handle to that. Can you think of any other place where you make vows? Any good place for a vow? Anything come to mind? Do priests have to make vows? That's a good question. They may. I'm not sure. How about monks? Yeah, I think most monks make vows, yes. Saints? Weddings, yeah, good, yeah. Wedding vows, that's right. Very good. Alright guys, you can go back to your seats. And most helpful, Laura, go with mom. Alright, what we're trying to introduce is the whole idea of, again, what is baptism? What is it? Last week, we were working at answering this question. We said it is an ordinance or a command, because it certainly is that. It was commanded, so it certainly is an ordinance or a command. It is a literal dipping in or with. I'm not trying to get at sprinkling. I'm not really trying to go at mode so much. I'm just saying it involves literal water, okay? It involves water. It's got to involve water. In other words, it's not just a spiritual reality. but it's a physical thing done with water to point to the spiritual reality. There is a baptism of the Holy Spirit, but that's not exactly what the ceremony is about. The ceremony does indeed point at the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but that's not what the ceremony is. So it's got literal water in it, used in the ceremony. Thirdly, it's a sacrament, and by sacrament, and again, this is a big topic, and we spent a good chunk of it talking about it last time, and so I keep trying to find ways to describe it in a short, helpful summary. I'm going to say that it's this. It is a covenant ceremony that signifies all the promises of the new covenant. What do I mean by sacraments? Oftentimes, sacraments are called means of grace, but I don't think that's even exactly, as I read the different teachings on this, and as I read the scriptures and search these scriptures, it's not exactly the means of grace, per se. This may be a short, nice summary, but it's not exactly it. It's a pointer. grace of God, it points at the grace of God, it points at the promises of God, and so combined with understanding it, and faith, and the Holy Spirit, then it is indeed a means of grace. But it doesn't function magically, so that if, you know, when we had that baptism a few weeks ago, you couldn't just take a gallon of water and just take it out somebody and then sprinkle it on them and then, ha, I got you. I got you with a little cleansing from your sin because I had some of the water from baptism and I just got you with it, or put my squirt gun. You know, gotcha, you're all clean now. It doesn't work that way because it has to be accompanied with the ceremony itself and the instruction about it. And you have to understand it because faith is involved here. And faith that's granted to you and given to you by God. So this sacrament or this covenant ceremony that signifies all the promises of the new covenant is what we're trying to say baptism is. That's what it is. It is often used as a... and I practice this word, but if you know how to pronounce it, don't make fun of me later. Synecdoche. It's a synecdoche. In other words, you refer to part of it to represent the whole. So when I say, I got a nice new set of wheels out there in the parking lot. Want to come see it? You know that I'm talking about my car. You got new tires? I'm referring to part of it to mean the whole. And so I think that sort of thing is going on in Mark 16, 16 that we looked at last time, which is that unless you believe and are baptized, you won't be saved. You can't be saved without being baptized. Wait a minute, you just told me baptism wasn't necessary for salvation. Because I think baptism there is referencing the life of the covenantal bond that you have with God. It's not just referring to the ceremony. It's referring to the life. Or, to put the analogy that I used last time, you could say marriage isn't just about the event of the wedding. Marriage is also the life of being married. And so too with baptism. Baptism is not just about the event, the ceremony, but it ushers into a life bound together with Christ. And so I think it's used in that sense there. So, that's review, that's trying to get our heads back around the subject, and we're going to dig in this whole idea of a covenant ceremony and how it works and how it's put together, what's the rationale for it, and how is it supposed to work, and what purpose does it serve us now? Because at the end of the day, I want us to be able to go home appreciating our baptism more. I want us to understand our baptism better than we do. And to do that, I think this is where our Pato Baptist brothers have done a much better job at going back to old covenant signs to understand signs. to understand how signs function is a very good service. So there's times when you might think, I thought you were a Baptist, Pastor Steve, you tell me you're a Baptist. And throughout this study, I'm going to make appeals from a Baptist point of view and say, I think I think we Baptist get this right. OK, and I'm not going to apologize for that. But at the end of the day, if you don't agree, you know, I'm not going to get in a fight over with you. But I do want to contend for certain things as a Baptist. But I also want to say, look, what can we learn from one another? And as we try to understand how a sign functions, how does this covenant ceremony function, in the New Testament, we're not given a lot of detailed instruction about how a sign functions. We're given two new signs, baptism and the Lord's Supper. But that's coming to a people that already understands how signs function. And sometimes we don't take the time needed to go back and look at that tradition and see how do signs function? How do they work? What are they for? And that's that's what we'll do this morning. So to do that, I'm going to start with God making a covenant, a particular covenant with Abram. All right. Now, Chapter 15. is a wonderful passage to get a sense of what the whole rationale for it is, because it's nice and plain out in the text. God is actually swearing an oath to Abram. In the context, you'll see clearly why he's doing that. Now remember, in verse 6, Abram is said to believe the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. What did he believe? He said, look at the stars, Abram. your children, your descendants, your seed will be as many as the stars. If you can number the stars, you'll number your seed, right? That's the promise. And in verse six, he believes him. And it was reckoned to him as righteous. That's where in Romans 11, where he had that red Romans 4, and I want to call it Romans 1 earlier, and now I want to call it Romans 11. Romans 4, that's where Paul is referencing this passage. He believes God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. And circumcision doesn't come until chapter 17. That's where Paul picks up that argument here. We'll come back to that in a minute, though. But for our purposes, just look at this passage. He's already believed God, and yet, in verse 7, the Lord says to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and to give you this land to possess. But Abram says, O Lord, how am I to know that I shall possess it? So he believed he was going to have children, but now he's like, you know, it just doesn't seem, I don't know, it seems surreal. I don't think I can grasp this. I don't think I can get this. He's lost when here. So what does the Lord do? He said to him, bring me a heifer three years old, and a female goat three years old, and a ram three years old, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. And Abraham, or Abram at this point, not giving a new name until chapter 17, Abram knows what to do with them, because this is a common practice in that ancient culture that everybody knew about, that is foreign to us. But everybody knew about it. So when God said to get those animals, he knew what to do. What did he do with them? He cuts them in two and separates them. A big bloody mess. What's that all about? Well, let me tell you. In that culture, when you had maybe a great king and a servant king or two parties, When you're typically more powerful, providing some certain protection, typically less powerful is going to provide some sort of service or obedience or you're going to be true to the covenant arrangement. They're going to seal the covenant. They actually literally called it cutting a covenant because they do things like this. They cut these animals in half, and then either they both walk through the animals saying, may it be done to me like these animals if I break my covenant with you. See, this is a more permanent bond than just a little casual contract, right? This is a, this is, may I be killed? May you, you have right to put me to death if I break covenant with you. That's how they work. So Abram was told to get, he says, how shall I know? And then the Lord says, go get some animals. And Abraham goes, oh, well, the Lord's going to swear an oath with me. Right, that's what he's going to do. Why is he swearing an oath in his formal ceremony? Why? Because Abram was struggling believing. It was to encourage him to believe God. It's a kindness, you see. God is going through this little ceremony to visibly show him that he is going to be faithful, and it's quite stunning, because either both kings go through together, or the weaker goes through, right? The one that's subservient, the one that doesn't have power. But in this instance, and I don't have it reprinted here, but we looked at it for our reading earlier, you have a theophany, and you have a smoking fire pot. and a flaming torch. It is striking that in the book of Genesis and in the Pentateuch broadly, that it's this picture of something that is smoking like a cloud and glowing in the inside or an open flame. What does that remind you of? And by the way, who gave the revelation of Genesis to the people of God? Who did the Lord do it through? Moses. Any bells going off? How did God appear to Israel as he led them out of Egypt? As a flaming pillar of fire and a cloud. Cloud by day and fire by night. So you see, this imagery, as communicated to Abram and then through Moses to Israel, is saying God is walking through the animals. saying, literally, I will be like these animals. Now, I mean, just consider, I mean, you could spend the rest of the time just musing on the significance of this ceremony, because how is God who can't die going to die? It's implied there. God's going to have to be mortal to die. There's lots of interesting implications, but for our purposes this morning, I really just want to land on the fact that why is God even doing all of this? As interesting as the ceremony itself is and the significance of it, it's worth tracing out. For our purposes, just trying to understand why do the oath, why do the vow, why do this covenant ceremony? It's to encourage Abram's faith. So when Abram is, you know, maybe, by the way, it's like 10 years later that he gets in chapter 17, now he's 99 years old, he still doesn't have one child. But this ceremony was done so that Abraham would think of that these next 10 years. He's thinking, still no children, still no children. And yet God himself made a covenant with me. He made a covenant with me. He passed through those animals. He did that. And God who cannot lie, swore an oath to me. That's how it works. You see, that's how that covenant ceremony works. In a similar sense, circumcision It's supposed to be a sign like that to remind the people of God that God himself has promised. God himself has promised. You see this happening here in Genesis 17. Behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. And we're picking it up from verse seven. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring to you. Now, so he's talking about making good on his promises for offspring, but also it's relational. This covenant here in circumcision is focusing on I'm going to be God to you and to your offspring or to your seed. I'm going to be God to them and they're going to be my people. We're going to belong together. We're going to be together. This is a covenant bond. There's a relationship. And furthermore, he reiterates the promise about giving the land. Verse 8, And I will give to you and to your offspring, your seed, after you, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. Comes back to the relational. And God said to Abraham, As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring, after you, throughout their generations. So now he's changed gears here. God is promising again, I'm going to make good on this. I'm going to be your and furthermore, I'm going to be your God. They're going to be my people. There's going to be this relationship and you need to keep covenant with me. What do you mean, God? Well, he goes on to say. Verse 10. This is my covenant, which you shall keep. You know, God said all the things he's going to do. He's made formal promises here, vows. I'm going to be your God. I'm going to be you're going to be my people. I'm going to make sure that happens now. You're going to keep covenant. What are you going to do? This is what they're going to do. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eighty years old among you shall be circumcised, every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money, from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. And he reiterates that again. And then any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenants. You see, what is their end of the promise? What are they promising to do? Circumcision. And they're promising to circumcise. You remember a little later on, Moses was being called and his sons weren't circumcised and the Lord was going to put him to death. They're going to be cut off, literally, because they hadn't cut themselves in circumcision. They are literally marked, their bodies were marked, the male's bodies were marked, marking them, sealing them, saying, this is a reminder to you of this promise that God has made. And the part that we've done has gotten circumcised. So it's like a covenant of promise. But what is their end? They've got to do the sign. The sign is critical. The sign isn't the reality. The sign of circumcision isn't the promises. It points at the promises. And yet it's critical. Their side of keeping it was to obey that, to do that. And Abraham, as it picks up in Romans chapter 4, yes, got it right. Paul's mentioning how he had a righteousness by faith back in chapter 15, 10 years before circumcision was even given as a sign. But this sign was added to be a sign pointing at the promises of God, the same promises of God, to point those promises and to seal them. A seal is a mark, like a seal on a letter. This is my mark. This bears my authority. This letter is from me. The bearer of this letter has my authority because it's got my seal on it. That sort of thing. It's marking you. And this is actually physically marking you, marking your flesh, at least for the males. It's interesting to consider the nature of the sign in many ways, but for our purposes this Lord's Day, let's consider how that functions as a sign and seal of something. Every Israelite then on could say, why are we, as a people, why do we have our mail circumcised? Why? Because it points at the God who promised them some things. promised them the land, promised them to be numerous, promised them to be a multitude, and promised them to be actually, through Abraham, to be a blessing to all nations. So, when you look at the sign, you're reminded of the one who gave the sign and the promises he made. It's a pointer at the promises. It's not the promises. It's a sign of the promises. But if that's really critical, that they obey, But it's not enough to just merely obey. I probably should have traced it out a little bit further, but you see later on in certain tests, certain of the prophets that you need to be circumcised apart. In other words, you need to actually be trusting God, not just going through the motions. to be merely circumcised, even as Paul talked about it in Romans chapter 4. He says Abraham was a father to the uncircumcised, who have the righteousness that is by faith without circumcision, and a father to the circumcised, that are not merely circumcised, but have the faith of Abraham. So it's possible to have merely the sign, and then, therefore, You don't have the full reality. I like this little summary statement by John Calvin in Institutes. He talks about the necessity of having the word and the sacraments. He's talking about his Lord's Supper and the in baptism, how these are an active word, but how the Holy Spirit is actually critical in here. And those three together, the Word, our faith, and the Holy Spirit giving us that faith, all have to work together in these things for them to work, for them to accomplish salvation. Listen to how he describes it, I think this is very helpful. He says, first, the Lord teaches and instructs us by his word. Secondly, he confirms it by the sacraments. Do you see that language of confirmation? That's what we're trying to talk about today, that God had promised Abraham with words, and then he confirmed it with oaths and signs, right? And so he confirms it with the sacraments. Finally, he illumines our minds by the light of his Holy Spirit and opens our hearts for the word and sacraments to enter in, which would otherwise only strike our ears and appear before our eyes, but not at all affect us within. Without God teaching us, we remain unbenefited by these promises. unbenefited by these signs, it doesn't matter how much sign or seal you have, it doesn't matter how many words are bouncing off your ears, if the Holy Spirit doesn't accomplish these things, then it does us no good. To get the rationale for that, we really glean that from Romans 4, so let's return there for a minute and look at it more closely. Chapter 4 of Romans, verse 7, it says, Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. What a nice little summary, that's an Old Testament quote, I think it's Psalms, that summarizes the gospel benefits, right? The gospel promises, the promises of God. God has promised that he won't hold our sins against us, right? And so, that's the context. Is this blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. That's faith. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith. He was already declared righteous. Then he was given circumcision as a sign and a seal, a mark of that righteousness that he already had by faith. As I've highlighted before, skipping to verse 12, here's where it really helps us for this discussion. And to make him, that's Abraham, the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. So, there we see the very reality of which Calvin is alluding to. If we're not taught by God, I keep using that phrase, taught by God. I get it from John 6, 44 through 45. It says, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day as it is written, the prophets and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me. So as we see the benefits come to us, we need to be taught to God. We want to be benefited by the promises. We can't just have the promises spoken to us. We can't just have them marked on our bodies like in circumcision. We cannot just have, for the Christian context, we need to just be dunked in the pool or sprinkled or whatever mode you choose, right? The ceremony itself doesn't accomplish the reality. No, you can't just be merely marked with the sign. You have to be of the faith of Abraham. That's the context. And to be of the faith of Abraham implies God's work, a la John 6, 44-45. If we are brought to faith, it is God, indeed, who instructs our hearts to that faith. So, you see how hearing, it's not just a physical action that bounces off our eardrums. Hearing and receiving with faith also implies, necessarily, the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. those go together. How does that work for circumcision? You're Abraham. You didn't receive circumcision until you're 99 years old. But it's given to you as a gift to shore up your faith. After Abraham, every male that's trusting in those promises is circumcised when they're eight days old. But it's a mark on them. And, you know, questions probably come up at some point. Why? Why this? Or you're seeing your brother or your neighbor's son. What's that all about? And by the way, a lot of covenant ceremonies function that way. We go to a wedding. This is why when anybody asks me, for my opinion, when I'm doing a wedding, I say really stick with some of the traditional wording of the vows. Because these wedding vows are not just for you. Right? It reminds us. Right? So too here. They're seeing another ceremony going on. Oh, somebody's getting baptized. That's not just for that person by themselves. It's for all of us. And as we look at that sign and understand what it means, we're encouraged by it. Our faith is shored up. God himself has made promises and they're being shouted with the ceremony. The ceremony is saying God has sworn. God has formally sworn to his people to accomplish these ends. We'll talk more and more about what those ends are, and particularly what baptism highlights as we move on through the series. But I want you to understand that's how signs function. That's how little covenants, ceremonies, and what they're for. That's why we have them. And as I got interested in this study, as I said last week, you know, baptism just seemed so, I don't know, kind of... unimportant to me. I knew in principle it was important as a child, but it just seemed like, what's the big deal? It's just a testimony. And part of that was because when we evangelize people, we don't want people to get confused with baptism. We don't want people to think that just because I'm merely baptized, that I'm saved. Particularly in Baptist circles that I've been in most of my life, We're really anxious to say we are saved by faith, not by baptism. And that is true. We are saved by faith and not by baptism. This is an old argument that goes back to our break with Rome in the time of the Reformation. Rome was teaching at that time that baptism was the instrument God used Like if you were making a statue, you'd use a chisel as your instrument to make it in the shape you wanted. There are a number of other causes for that to that sculpture, but the tool used by the sculpture is the instrument. The tool God uses to give you justification or be a right status with God is baptism. And they thought just by going through the waters. And that's why the waters were there was such a thing as holy water, right? Because the water would would accomplish that. It could not accomplish those ends. I think the reformers rightly connected that instrument not with the ceremony itself, but with faith. What is the instrument that God uses to give us justification before him? He uses our faith, including when we understand baptism. When we do the ceremony, God uses our faith to make it effective for us. And so we have that in common with all our brothers and sisters in Christ, particularly in evangelical circles, that understand that it is faith that God uses, not baptism. But in reacting against the one, we sometimes overreact it, so that we don't even utilize the sign with vigorousness and rejoicing. We don't want to misuse it, so we don't use it. And what do I mean by that? When we evangelize, we typically say, you know what, let's pray a prayer here. Instead of saying, hey, why don't you come to my church, you come and get baptized. Or we walk down the aisle, or we sign a card. And by the way, why do we intuitively do stuff like that? Because we know the power of a ceremony. Intuitively, we know it. It's somehow more profound to walk down the aisle and to sign a card. It is. It's more meaningful. It's more momentous. It's more solemn. You've done something. You've acted. And instead of using baptism to that end, we've replaced it with things that we've made up. I think that's a mistake on our part. We surely don't want to misuse baptism and make people mistakenly think that just because you've gotten baptized that you're a Christian. But if you want to follow Christ, come and get baptized. I hope to gain a little clarity here. I love what R.C. Sproul said in his excellent little book. He says, when a person is baptized and comes to faith, if he later worries about the loss of his salvation, he can recall his baptism, not because the baptism guarantees his salvation, but because it reminds him of the unfailing promise of God to preserve all those who are engrafted into Christ. He says again, both these signs, baptism and circumcision, have to do with the benefits of salvation that God brings to pass in the lives of those who believe. Both circumcision and baptism signify God's promises, and in both cases, it is God who institutes the sign. That's well said. At the end of the day, I'm not a paedo-baptist in my thinking, but I think I'm beginning to get more and more why other people are. That's good. We want to have that understanding. Because as a Baptist, I typically heard growing up when I was a potato Baptist, I heard what they think is that since the promises are for my children, I'm going to baptize my children. They think those people are automatically Christians. And that's not what they think. I'm not saying nobody anywhere does think mistakenly that way. Some people do. But let's be charitable to brothers and sisters. There's certainly not what R.C. Sproul thinks in his book. I'm quoting here. He doesn't think that. He doesn't think it's an automatic thing. And in fact, he says, look at this quote, God does not promise any of the benefits of salvation to unbelievers. The promise is only to those who believe and the promise is absolutely sure for them. Therefore, baptism is infinitely valuable. Do you see what I'm saying? We may disagree whether you should practice it that way or not, but let's not throw unnecessary rocks at each other as if by the practice they are saying that you can be saved any way but through faith. This is not what they're saying. And let's at least be charitable and say, look, Since circumcision was practiced, and explicitly so, was explicitly given to infants, God surely could have given a new covenant sign in the same way. It's not a big leap, so let's be charitable. Even if at the end of the day you disagree. Because when we start saying things like, you can't do a sign that way, well then you're starting to throw rocks at circumcision. And I don't want to start picking on God the way he decided to give his signs. That's bad news. Right? So he did do it that way. Now, my personal conviction is that there is a distinction on this point between the way circumcision was practiced and the way baptism ought to be practiced. But at the end of the day, if somebody else thinks, you know what, on this point, there should be a similarity. There should be a continuity. I don't think we should be angry at each other at the end of the day. I think we should put our case before each other, like brothers, and say, what do you think? And if you think differently for me, and you're going to engage that with a sincereness and an earnestness to obey God, then we, my dear friend, we are brothers and sisters in Christ. To summarize the key idea for this Lord's Day, Baptism is a covenant ceremony that signifies all the promises of the New Covenant and seals those promises for all of us who have been given to trust Jesus. The signs function effectually for all who believe. As we look at what baptism means and we believe, baptism serves us in this way. It shores up our faith. It encourages us. If we look at it with unbelief, then it's just words bouncing off our ears. Pixels hitting our eyes with to no effect. But with faith, with faith is the means of God's grace to us. Let's pray. Father, I do pray that we would think clearly and humbly and charitably about these things. I pray that you would grow our understanding of these things so that we would see you, that we would draw near to you using the means you yourself have ordered. I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.