Oh, Mr. Snowman. Can't see me. Can't see me. So, All right, now I'm going to start going down. Good, that's fine. Sam. Sam. I'm just kind of feeling it tonight. Maybe we do a different week. Yeah. Some other time maybe. No big deal. I'm gonna be well. I'm gonna be well. Yeah. so so I love you. ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh so so so so ♪ Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light ♪ ♪ What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming ♪ so so ♪ Spacewalk, spacewalk, spacewalk, spacewalk ♪ the the the so so so a a a so so You. the the the the StSq3 3.30 (-0.99)" so so Good evening. Welcome to Community Presbyterian Church. If you are tuning in online, we're glad you found us, and a warm welcome to you as well. And if you are visiting tonight, we offer our greeting in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, especially to those I'm imagining in this section of the sanctuary who are visiting to celebrate along with us the baptism of Luca James Novak in just a few minutes. I'm wondering where he is actually. Okay, he's being fed right now. I was like, you guys forgot the most important part of the family. Okay, but we'll give him some time. We're glad that you're all with us tonight to worship our great God and Savior. He's the one who calls us into worship. From Psalm 122, let's stand to hear that. I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. Let's pray. Our Father, we are indeed overjoyed to be in your house, to be called by you. The great and almighty Lord of all would beckon us into your presence because you delight to hear our praises. It's an amazing thing. It's an awesome thing. We ask that you would be our vision, that you would guide us. that you would lead our steps in your house this evening, that the prayers we offer, the praises that are sung, the words that are spoken, the sacraments that are administered, and all of the aspects of our worship would be done in a way that glorifies you, that is, that is honoring to you. We need your help for that, Lord, because we're selfish, we're sinful, we're weak, and we need your spirit. So fill us with that great helper. Would we turn our attention to you and to you alone? Would we give all praise and glory to the exalted Christ, our mediator, who makes our worship possible? And so we pray these things in his name. Amen. People of God, receive your Lord's greeting. Grace to you and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, his son. Let us sing the words of the Gloria Patri. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Amen. Our opening psalm of praise, 122A, I was filled with joy and gladness. 122A, a setting of that psalm which we heard in our call to worship. I was filled with joy and gladness when they said with one accord, Let us make our pilgrim journey to the house of God the Lord. O Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, We are standing in your gates. We are standing in your gates. As a city bound together is Jerusalem designed. There by law the tribes ascending thank the Lord in praise combined. Therefore, royal justice stand. Therefore, royal justice stand. Pray for peace, the peace of Zion. Cross for those who love you well. Peace be in your walls forever. Safety in your towers dwell. Peace and safety, peace and safety in Jerusalem above. For the sake of my companions May God's peace abide within you For the temple's sake I pray For the Lord's house For the Lord's house I will ever seek your good. We want to confess our common faith together with the words of the Apostles' Creed. Dear Christians, what do you believe? I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. You may be seated. I'll ask that the Novaks join me. You guys want to stand right there. Very good. Nice vest. We come to witness, to celebrate, along with the Novak family, this momentous occasion in the life of your whole family, especially in the life of Luca, as he receives the waters of baptism. Our Lord Jesus instituted the sacrament of baptism when he said to his disciples, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Sam and Megan, you are living in obedience to this command. You are bringing this young boy who you will disciple. This is a disciple. And Jesus says we baptize our disciples. And you're bringing him here. And yet we still perhaps wonder that even though our young children do not understand what's taking place at this moment, we wonder why they get to partake in this sacrament, why it's for them. Well, God commands that all who belong to His covenant receive the covenant sign. God made the promise of the covenant to believers and their offspring. We hear this back in the Old Testament when God said to Abraham, back in Genesis 17, And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your seed after you and their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto you and to your seed after you. And that covenant is the same in essence both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Indeed, the grace of God for the consolation of believers is even more fully manifested in the New Testament. So rather than rescinding the promise The covenant promise to believers and to their offspring in the New Testament, God reaffirms it. He doesn't rescind it, He reaffirms it. And He declares that the promise is for you and for your children after you in Acts chapter 2 verse 39. And so something to think about is that the sacrament of baptism, like circumcision before it, these are symbols that tell us that the promises that God makes for us are so sure, they're so solid, they're so faithful, that even our dying doesn't negate his promise to us. It continues on even after we're gone to the generation after us and the generation after them. We see the faithfulness of God in this sign. Moreover, there's something powerful we learn through the baptism of infants that we might otherwise miss when we baptize adults. First, it teaches us that we are never too young to be stained by sin. Indeed, the Bible tells us there's no age of innocence. We are conceived in sin. David tells us. And Luke was conceived in sin. He belongs to a fallen human race. And he is already in need of spiritual cleansing. A second thing we learn, though, is that we're never too young for Jesus to welcome us into his arms and to save us and to cleanse us. He wanted the children to come to him. Now, baptism is not a sign that this child believes in Jesus. It is a sign, though, that he belongs to Jesus by means of the covenant. And that's a wonderful comfort. What a wonderful thing to know that we are received by our Savior even before we're grown up. That's true for all of us. Spiritually speaking, Jesus doesn't wait for us to mature. He comes to us when we are ignorant, when we're lost in our sins. He comes to us when we're foolish and wayward and helpless, even as helpless as this little baby. And the Bible describes our ignorance, our being lost in sin with the image of darkness. But this is what it means to have Jesus. He says, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. That's Jesus' promise to us. And because of that, Paul instructs us, "...for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true." What a fitting thing for us to pray for little Luca as his name means bearer of the light. That he would embrace this gospel reality, this gospel promise that Jesus is the one, the only one who takes us out of darkness and brings us into his marvelous light. Now to the congregation, as the baptism is now soon to be administered, you who have already been baptized would do well to reflect back on your own baptisms, the gracious covenant promise that you have received. Be grateful and in gratitude, live a life worthy of your being baptized. And furthermore, for the members of this particular church, Community Presbyterian Church, As Luca James is baptized into Christ and becomes a member of this visible church, the whole congregation here is obligated to love him, to receive him as a member of the body of Christ, for we were all baptized by one spirit into one body, therefore we are members one of another. Christ claims this little child as his own, and he calls you to receive him in love and commitment. Therefore, we all ought to commit ourselves before God to assist Luca and his parents in his Christian nurture by godly example, by prayer, and by encouragement in our most precious faith. Confident that this is your desire, if you're a member of this church, please indicate so by raising your right hand, and we say together, we do. We do. Now, for Sam and Megan, four vows for you. And if you can just say, we do after these. Number one, do you acknowledge that although our children are conceived and born in sin, and therefore are subject to condemnation, that they are holy in Christ by virtue of the covenant of grace, and as children of the covenant, they should be baptized? We do. Second, Do you promise to teach diligently to Luca the principles of our holy Christian faith revealed in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and summarized in the confession of faith and catechisms of this church? We do. Third, do you promise to pray regularly with and for Luca and to set an example of piety and godliness before him? We do. Finally, do you promise to endeavor by all the means that God has appointed to bring Luca up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, to encourage him to appropriate for himself the blessings and fulfill the obligations of the covenant? Then, Luca James. In obedience to the command of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, I now baptize you into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this child that you have known before time began. We pray that He would live in the light, that His steps would be guided by the illumination that only comes from Your Word, that He would grow to love you and to love your people. We pray for Sam and Megan, that You would give them the strength and the perseverance, the selflessness necessary to raise this child well. Would they show Him Jesus? Would they show Him the Savior who has opened His arms unto Him even this evening in the sacrament of baptism? Lord, we thank You for Your promises to us which never fail. Your promises cannot be improved upon and yet we are weak in faith and You give us baptism to teach us that your promises are sure and true. So give us faith, oh God, never to doubt your precious word to us. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. A final word to Sam and Megan. Beloved, we give thanks to God for this child that he has given you. and for your desire for Him to know the Lord, and to follow after Him, and to shine the light of Jesus into a dark world. And along with this great blessing of the gift of this child have come responsibilities that you've just acknowledged in your vows, to which you have committed yourselves to. And so now I just charge you to continue steadfastly in the commitments that you have made before God and these witnesses, humbly relying upon God's means of grace. especially his word, prayers of the saints, prayers of your family, and the sacraments of this church, and the fellowship of the believers who are here ready to assist you. And let's commit this entire time to God in prayer, but we do that in song. So if you turn to page six in the bulletin, we'll sing together, here we witness covenant surety. And we'll stand to sing. I do want to forget I have a thing for you. Here we see our need of cleansing From our every stain and sin Yet we too see Thou dispensing Grace to wash us pure within Here we claim we are united To Thy covenant keeping, Son And by faith we are delighted to receive what He has won. Here we share with that same Savior in His death and rising to. We are dead, but by Thy favor have been raised to life anew. Here we pray our sons and daughters will be ever saved in Christ, for they've passed through judgment waters and have entered love and life. Here we ask this sacred blessing. Close at heart we'll always be. Hence may we lead lives professing. We belong, O Lord, to Thee. Please, you may be seated. At this time, please bow with me in our congregational our congregational prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, and thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so now, here in your presence, and in the presence of your people, and as it were before all the people of this world, We have been given this time to be witness to the wonder of your work and your ways among us as we see your kingdom established. We thank you for the privilege of being witness to this baptism, this baptism where you show us in a most tangible way that you are our God and we are your people. Here again, you show your covenantal care for your people. in your church. Here you meet with us and prove your goodness and your grace to us. You show us again that you will not leave us nor forsake us, but that you have marvelous things in store for your people. Though we are creatures of the dust, though we are clearly stained through with sin, You will not leave us you will not forsake us you extend mercy and grace to your people and to their children That we take great pleasure because you take even greater pleasure in the salvation of us and our children than we do So we ask that luca would be a faithful witness to your grace and power we pray for His growth in your grace, and we ask that you would bless him with your love and your care as Sam and Megan raised him in your fear and in your admonition. This evening, we also look outside our congregation. We pray again for the ministries around us. We pray for our OPC church ministries in Quebec and Haiti. In Thailand, we pray for the new radio program and its Ministry of Outreach through Harvest, OPC. We ask that you administer to the Jerramin family and bless their efforts to plant a church in Battle Creek. We pray for your blessing on the ministries of Jay and Andrea Bennett in Kentucky. We pray for the safety and blessing of pastors and congregations in the guerrilla-controlled areas of Columbia, and for your encouragement of the churches as near to us even as Canada. We ask for the diffusing of tensions between Russia and Ukraine and for the support and growth of Christians in that region. And it weighs heavy on our hearts, Lord, so we pray again that there would be a stop to the killing of babies by the horrors of abortion, that the rule of the Roe v. Wade would be overturned. We also pray for our own church's outreach and the presentation of the gospel message to our neighbors. We pray for the Spirit's work in our own congregation, bringing awareness of sin with necessary correction, but also peace and comfort and even great joy to your weary and troubled people. We pray for your blessing in the proper selection and election of elders and deacons within this congregation. We ask for good and faithful leadership. We pray for strength and wisdom and kindness and humility and love and your spirit's enablement to lead in difficult times. Indeed, we have people and families in difficult times right now, Lord, in this congregation. And so we pray, too, for them. For Barb Nadeau, who is still being cared for in the hospital after undergoing lung surgery. It's been a bit more challenging than she anticipated, and we know that she struggles some, mentally and physically. But we thank you for her improvement. We ask that you would continue to be with her, give her strong recovery. And we pray that the biopsies would be cancer free. We pray for the amazing manifestation of your healing and blessing in her life and your providence to that family. We pray too for the fathers of Melissa Bacus, for Jan Collison, for Carrie Ann, for those men who struggle with difficult physical problems. Give them and their loved ones peace and comfort. Strengthen them in the faith, love, and confidence of your goodness and shepherding care. We also pray for those among us who struggle with problems that have brought great oppression to their mind, and to their heart, and with a spiritual oppression that drives their souls to distress and to despair, even with desperate thoughts that cry out with tears of anguish. And so often there is sin that brings entanglements. and a strangling weight to their souls, so we cry out to you for your help. We pray that you would be their shelter, their rock, their sure confidence. Meet with them in their time of need. Show them the freedom and joy of your forgiveness. Lord, even in the midst of those struggles, draw near to them and bless them with the love and comfort of your spirit. Oh, that they would know the great joy and peace of your sustaining presence, that they would rejoice in your peace that passes understanding as they bathe in the fullness of your ever-present aid. And we even ask that we would see them bless your name in the midst of your people and hear them say that it was good that they were afflicted. So meet with us now, we pray. Speak to our souls as we meet together to hear your words. Bless the words of our dear pastor as he brings us your message. Already we have seen your hand of assurance come to us through baptism. And now we eagerly look to you for both instruction and encouragement in the offer of your grace and peace to your people. Lord, in your faithful name, in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we pray these things. Amen. At this time, will the deacons please come forward to receive our tithes and offerings. Please stand now and sing our hymn of preparation. It'll be number 190 in the Trinity Hymnal. Thus saith the Lord, the mercy of the Lord, number 190. Thus saith the mercy of the Lord, I'll be a God to thee. I will bless thy newest race, and they shall be a seed to me. Abraham believed the promised grace, and gave his child to God. But water seals the blessing now, and hope is sealed with blood. Jesus, the ancient faith confirms, to our forefathers given. He takes young children to his arms, and calls them heirs of heaven. Our God, how faithful are His ways! His love endures the same, Nor from the promise of His grace Blots out His children's name. Thus to the parents and their seed Shall thy salvation come, and numerous households meet at last in one eternal home. Let's pray. Father, would you send out your light that your light and your truth would lead us, that we would open up your word, that we would read it and mark it and learn and inwardly digest for our soul's betterment, Your gospel truth, we do not have eyes to see unless you give them, nor ears to hear unless you grant them. So by your spirit, awaken our senses, awaken our sleeping souls. Give us hearts to receive your word as it comes to us from on high. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. I would invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Romans chapter six. We're taking a slight break, just one week here from our series in Jude, to think a little bit more deeply about the baptism in general, especially the baptism that we've just witnessed. And that is because the Lord willing, Luca, Got in first, but there should be at least a half dozen more baptisms this year in the life of our congregation. We pray for even more, for adult baptisms, conversions that will be received through baptism. But at least, I think, six, so that would be a big year for us in terms of receiving little ones. And I thought it would be a good thing for us to take a moment, and tonight seemed a fitting time to do that too. talk about baptism and what it means. And I'm looking just now at my sermon title, and I think I probably oversold it, what your baptism is all about. Baptism is a mystery, so I'm not going to have all the answers for us tonight, but the idea here is to equip us with some scriptural understanding of what's going on in baptism or what we're meant to be thinking about when we consider baptism. That would perhaps be a better way to put it. We know that the sacraments according to our Reformed confessions teach that the sacraments are both a sign and a seal of God's covenant of grace. And tonight we're particularly focusing on that signifying aspect. What is it about? What's it pointing us to? That's what we want to consider from the first four verses of Romans chapter 6. Hear now God's holy and errant and life-giving word for us here tonight. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means, how can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. The grass withers, the flower fades. This is the word of the Lord and it stands and endures forever. Just a few days ago, NPR ran a story with this headline. An Arizona priest used one wrong word in baptisms for decades. They are all invalid. The article begins like this. A Catholic priest in Arizona has resigned after he was found to have performed baptisms incorrectly throughout his career, rendering the right invalid for thousands of people. The Catholic Diocese of Phoenix announced on its website that it determined after careful investigation that the Reverend Andres Arango had used the wrong wording in baptisms performed up until June 17, 2021. He had been off by a single word. During baptisms in both English and Spanish services, Arango used the phrase, we baptize you, into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. He should have said I baptize, the diocese explained. The priest apologized profusely for his error and resigned as of February 1st. Now, we in our circles take baptism very seriously, of course we do, but If something like this were to have taken place, now the article does not explain if this is a theological error on the priest's part or if it was just a scripting error that he didn't realize he was saying the wrong thing. But if something like this were to take place in our circles, would we expect a minister to resign over it? Is it something we would expect the church to make a big deal about? Is it something we would expect the mainstream media to pick up? And the answer has to be, no, of course not. But in the Roman Catholic system, it makes sense. And the article goes on to explain why this is such a big deal. Here we go. As far as the diocese is aware, all of the other sacraments that Orango conferred are valid, but because baptism is the quote, and they're quoting now from a theological document from the Catholic Church, because baptism is the quote, sacrament that grants access to all the others, a botched baptism invalidates any subsequent sacraments, including confirmation, marriage, holy orders, What this means for you is, if your baptism was invalid and you've received other sacraments, you need to repeat some or all of those sacraments after you are validly baptized as well, the diocese said. Bishop of the Phoenix Diocese, Thomas J. Olmsted, is seeking help now, he's reaching out to the public, in identifying those in need of the sacraments. If you know anyone who was baptized under this priest, They're encouraging anybody who believes that their own baptism was affected to call the parish immediately for more information. And the diocese also has set up an online form for people to fill out if they or their child was baptized by Friar Arango. Do you see the problem here? The Roman Catholic view is that baptism actually is an act, a divine act, that saves. It's not the sign that a person's sins have been washed. It is the washing of a person's sins. And so if that didn't happen, then it really doesn't matter what you believed your whole life. You better pick up the phone, call the hotline, get your baptism validated as soon as you can so that you can get into heaven. Well, is that what baptism is all about? Is it really about getting us into heaven? Is it really about getting us saved? No. That's the answer. that scripture, a careful study of scripture, would give us. Baptism is best understood as a sign, a sign that similarly to the Lord's Supper in some respects is actually meant to get us to look away from the actual event that's taking place and to look to where it's pointing, to what it's pointing to. In other words, if we get so consumed with the water or with the bread and the wine that we're keeping our eyes down here, even spiritually speaking, we're missing the point. There are signs that point to something. And we miss the meaning of the sacrament if we're only looking to the sign and not going to where the sign is headed. As I'm returning home from Grand Rapids on 131, I recognize that to get home, driving into the sign that says D Avenue doesn't do me any good. Right? I need to take the exit that it's pointing me towards. That's the idea in a sacrament. It's pointing us to something. It's kind of turning us away from the action itself to get us to think about something else, someone else even. So what does it point to? Let's consider just a few things tonight. The first thing, the ultimate thing, is that it points to Jesus, friends. It points to Christ. What is your baptism about? And I think I can say this without qualification. Your baptism is all about Jesus, really. At bottom, baptism is about the person and the work of Christ Jesus. And notice the language that Paul uses in our text tonight. He says, you were baptized into Christ, into him. When we're baptized, there's a sense in which we are lost inside the person and the work of Jesus. He covers us up. He takes us in. Paul is even more explicit in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 27. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. We're wearing his uniform, one pastor says. who He is, and what He has done covers us over. Just as the water literally pours over us, we're to think of the perfections of Jesus pouring over us, covering us. Now, we will never understand baptism properly if we don't understand that it is first and foremost about God and about what he has done and what he promises to do through Jesus Christ in the gospel. We need to start there. We need to get that it's about him. But that is often missed in the conception of baptism according to the average evangelical. Oftentimes we think that baptism is about our commitment to God, our service to Him, our promise that I'm going to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back. Or perhaps our promise to dedicate our children to God. And we're going to really commit ourselves to being the best parents possible. Well, is that there in baptism? Well, yes, that's there, but it's not front and center. Friends, front and center is a Savior who saved you when you were still dead in sins, when you were still His enemy, when you had no desire and indeed no ability to serve Him or be of any use to Him or to follow Him and never turn back. Before all of that, He comes to you. That's the gospel and that's what's pictured for us in baptism. It's not so much a sign that I have Jesus, but that Jesus has me. Not so much that Jesus is mine as it is that I am his. This is especially portrayed in our biblical conviction of baptizing infants. It's clearly not about the child. Luca had no idea what took place, except that it was probably a little discomforting. He didn't cry too bad, though. It was pretty good. But he doesn't understand the theological, the ecclesiastical significance of what's going on. He's not the main actor. The child isn't even making a choice here. But God is making the choice. God is. God's made the covenant. This is what's so beautiful in the practice of infant baptism. We're learning something that's true of all of us, but we really see it when we bring a little baby who has no idea what's going on. And the truth is this, God always says his yes to us before we're even old enough to say no to him. That's how covenant works. That's what it means to belong to this covenant that has generational implications. God is saying yes to his people before we could ever say no back to him. It is all about him. We are baptized into Christ, Paul says. He's the one taking over here. Maybe for an illustration, we could think of the Blitz in London back in the days of World War II, you know, that ferocious months-long aerial onslaught of the German Air Force against the innocent citizens of London, bombarding them night after night. What did many Brits have built in their backyards or their gardens, I guess they would call them? or perhaps down in the basement. They would build bomb shelters. And so you can imagine one night the sirens start blaring and the planes start buzzing overhead. The bombs start falling. You can hear the shrieking whistle and the eventual fiery blast. Maybe you feel the earth shake. A Londoner runs into their shelter. Wouldn't it at that moment be a totally foolish thing for this Brit to say, you know, this shelter really needs me? You know, it would be lonely without me. It would have no purpose without me. That would be ridiculous. Because the very fact that this person is climbing into the shelter is proof that he needs it, not the other way around. And in the same way, Paul says we are baptized into Christ so that we could realize that baptism is the sign that we need Jesus. We need him to cover us over with his righteousness. And as Paul is going to show, If we have him, we have everything. If I have Jesus, I have everything. And so we should actually so see the focus in baptism being on Christ that we recognize, in a sense, he's actually the one performing the baptism. He does this through sending ambassadors, representatives, ministers. But ministers, we baptize in the name. That is in the power, in the authority. I've been commissioned to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So that means that baptism even points away from the minister who is performing it. And that's why our confession teaches that the grace which is exhibited in or by the sacraments rightly used, is not conferred by any power in them, neither does the efficacy of a sacrament depend upon the piety or the intention of him who doth administer it." There are thousands of Roman Catholics in Arizona who would really benefit from clinging to that truth. It's about Jesus. It's about our union with Jesus. We are in Him. To be into Christ is to be united to Him. To be baptized into someone means to be united to them in every way imaginable. In 1 Corinthians 10, verse 2, Paul says that Israel was baptized into Moses. And John Fesco explains that this means that Israel was associated with everything for which Moses stood, chiefly the deliverance that came through him. Because they were baptized into Moses as he makes his way through the Red Sea, they go along with him. They're associated with him. So in what ways does baptism show our association with Christ? We've already established that baptism is about Jesus, but now we want to dig even deeper. Now we want to know, in what ways is it about Jesus? In what ways are we associated with him? And so, first, if baptism is about Jesus, second, it's about dying with Jesus. That's what launches Paul on this subject. Let's look at these verses again. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. God forbid. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Paul is telling us something that's extremely practical. This is not heady theological speak. This is real life. Christianity right here. This is what you need, you know, Monday through Friday, kind of going into the office and, you know, dealing with issues at home. This is where it comes to bear because what Paul has just taught us is that baptism is a reminder of the greatest reason you have to stop sinning. And we all need that, right? We all need reminders for why we should not lose our temper or not be selfish, self-centered. We need that every day. What's your motivation for not sinning? What's the reason you have to not sin? There are a number of reasons that we don't sin, that we shouldn't sin. Sin can hurt. That's a good reason right there. It can come back not just to hurt us, it can hurt others. It ultimately doesn't satisfy. It's selfish. The list could go on of reasons why we shouldn't sin, and yet Portrayed in baptism is the greatest motivator for why we shouldn't sin. The main reason why we don't sin is, according to Paul, because in Christ Jesus you are already dead to sin. You don't have a relationship with it any longer. If I could put it this way, Paul's saying that your greatest motivator for not sinning is that it is a complete waste of your time because you're dead to it. What does this mean to be dead to sin? One theologian says it's an absolute breaking with the past that comes gradual in its realization, but it is absolute and conclusive in principle. Dead is dead, right? That's what he's saying. Dead is dead. When something or someone is dead, that's the end. There's no bringing it back. And that's where we are, dear Christian, that's where we are viewed from sin's perspective. Sin and Satan look at a believer and they see a corpse, useless to them, ultimately. John Murray says, what the Apostle has in view is the once for all definitive breach with sin, which constitutes the identity of the believer. A believer cannot therefore live in sin, because if a man lives in sin, he's not a believer. We're dead to it. That was a different way of living. That's gone. It's dead and gone. Paul will say it's buried here in a moment. We're dead to sin in the same way that Jesus is. Look with me back at this chapter. There are three times that Paul uses the phrase dead to sin, and twice regarding us, but once regarding Christ. It's in verse 10. He says, for the death he died, he died to sin once. for all. What does it mean that Jesus has died to sin? Notice he doesn't say he died for sin or for sinners, but we know that's true. But that's not what he's saying. He said he died to sin. There's something about him and sin that now is defined by death. The idea is this. Jesus is now unresponsive to it. He has no relationship with it. There was a time when Jesus had a relationship with sin. He was made sin after all. He came to feel the effects of sin. He came to die for sinners. But now that his death has been accomplished, he has nothing to do with it any longer. And the same is true of us. that the old man, as Paul used that language, the old man has died to sin. No relationship with sin any longer. There can't be. The Christian can't go back to sin because that way is dead and gone. There's no life found there. Now life is found in righteousness. Maybe we could think of it like this. If there was a biography written for every single Christian, it would always come in two volumes. Maybe you can picture sitting at home in your study. Do people often picture sitting home in their studies? That's just pastors. Picture on your bookshelf your two volumes of your biography. And if you were to pull down, dear Christian, the first volume and you turn to the very last page, this is what you would read, and having placed their faith in Jesus Christ, the old John or the old Jane was officially pronounced dead to sin, here ends book one. Our death to sin is the end of our old nature, and it's the start of something wonderfully new, so new that it takes a new book, a new volume, because in reality it's a new life. It needs a new biography. That's every Christian, two volumes. We have an old man that's dead and a new man that's alive in Christ. But maybe your question is, how do I know that I've died to sin, that I'm dead to it? Because, pastor, I still sin. Clearly, dying to sin doesn't mean we don't sin anymore. And so there's this question. It's a great question. It's an understandable question. How can I know that in my heart of hearts, in my core, in my nature, that I am as dead to sin as Jesus is? How can I really know that what's animating me is a new man? And here's the answer. Look to your baptism. Look to your baptism. This is what it shows. This is the promise that it seals upon us. As I mentioned in verse four, Paul uses the language of burial. The waters are burying you just like the dirt buries a corpse. And there's no getting out of that coffin once the earth goes over it. You know, a corpse is still, we could say, in one sense, still in the land of the living, as long as it's above ground. That's part of the reason we bury dead people. They don't belong up here. This is the realm of the living. But put under the ground, they're gone forever, so to speak. Likewise, through our union to Jesus Christ, the one who died, and was buried and experienced the pains of hell for us, our old man is buried too. And so you sin, and then you doubt, and then you remember your baptism. That this is what God has promised is true of you. There's a new man at work in your heart. A new nature. The old man is in the death throes. Sin and Satan will do their best. They'll do their worst, but it really won't do anything. Baptism, though, isn't just about our dying. because our union to Jesus isn't just about dying, it's also about living, that's the final thing. Baptism, it's about Jesus, it's about dying, dying with Jesus, it's about living with and for Jesus. Paul makes sure we don't miss that. So in the same breath he says, we were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Something similar is stated in verse 11. So you also must consider... Let me start at verse 10 again, where it compares our life to the life of the one to whom we're united. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. We talked earlier, if you were here this morning, we talked about how The entirety of the Christian life is really death. We're dying to ourselves, we're denying ourselves, we're taking up a cross, we are dying to sin, mortifying the deeds of the body. All of life is death. We could now kind of put a twist on that and say that for the Christian there is no death that doesn't also come with a life. When our bodies die, our souls are brought to the living presence of our Savior immediately. And when we die to sin, we are made alive to righteousness. There's this total shift in our relationship to sin and to holiness. The old man has died, that book has been written, something new is starting. And baptism reminds us that since we have been severed from an eternal relationship with sin, we are now made for something newer, something better. We might walk in newness of life. You should think about that when you Think about baptism. It's about something being made new. Around this time of year, we could probably all use a car wash for our vehicles. Sometimes, though, they get so bad with the grime and the slush and the salt that after they go through the car wash, it almost seems like you have a new car. That's how bad it was. Baptism is teaching us something similar. As we see and sense the water, we should be thinking of something being made so clean, so pure, that it can only be described as entirely new. And that which is being cleansed and purified and made new is nothing other than our very own hearts. And with new hearts come new affections, new desires, new actions. We start living for God. It's the necessary corollary of dying to sin. Some people say that when Paul says we're dead to sin, he simply means that we don't have to bear the guilt of sin anymore. That is, when Jesus died, he took the guilt for us, and so if we died in him, the guilt is gone as well. And of course, that is true. But that's not the whole truth, because if all Paul meant by being dead to sin is that we're not guilty of it anymore, then why should we live differently? Might as well keep sinning if there's no guilt hanging over us. But wait, isn't this how the whole passage began? What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? It's the opposite of the point. of what it means to be dead to sin and alive to righteousness. You see, friends, the person who prizes their baptism, the symbol, and yes, the seal of their union to the righteous, holy, and perfect Savior, that person will set out to live a life worthy of Him. But perhaps tonight you're wondering, what if I don't live that life? I've been baptized, but I feel I still live in sin. What if I'm returning to that old way? What do we do with that? James Montgomery Boyce helpfully answers those concerns with three points that I want to share with you. Three answers to this question, this concern. What if I don't live that life? What if I'm still in sin? What if I return to that old way? The first thing he wants to assure you, Christian, is that it won't work. An adult can never be a child again. Benjamin Button's just a movie. That's not reality. An adult can never be a child again. But an adult can act childish. A saint can never, ever be defined as a sinner again, as belonging to the realm of sin and Satan. A saint sins. but you can never actually go back to belonging to sin. Boyce says, if you're a true Christian, you cannot return to sin in the same way that you were in it previously. You can sin, we do sin, but it's not the same. If nothing else, you cannot enjoy sin as you did before, and you will not even be able to do it convincingly. It won't work to go back if you're a believer. The second thing he tells us is that God will stop you from trying to return to the old man. God will not stop you from sinning, but he will stop you from continuing in it. He will either make your life so miserable, so guilt-stricken that you will curse the day that you sinned, or he'll make you so enraptured and in love with the ways of righteousness that the idea of sin is totally unattractive to you. God will stop you, friends. There's nobody that comes to Jesus that's ever cast out. But then there is the sobering point, the third and final thing that Beuys tells us. If you do return to the life you lived before coming to Christ, and if you are able to continue in it, you are not saved. And in fact, it's even worse than that. If you are able to go back once you have come to Christ, it means not only that you're not saved, but that you've even been inoculated against Christianity. And the Bible talks in very serious terms about things like this. But for the believer, the child of God, the one who puts their faith, weak as it is, weak as it is, in the hands of a strong savior, there is no falling away. Baptism points us to Jesus, to our union with Jesus, and once united to Jesus. Well, that's a union that no man can ever put us under. If we want to thrive in a life of righteousness, let us keep in mind what our baptism is really about. It's a means of grace. God gives it to us for the sake of growing in our love and our devotion to Him. Through the spirit's power, working through the word and faith, God uses baptism as a means of keeping his elect. And so to that end, we must see baptism not merely as a one-time ritual. Although it happens once, we should consider it has ongoing significance for our lives. That's why we should recover the language of the reformers who often spoke of looking back to their baptism. That was a way of strengthening their faith, dispelling doubts. Martin Luther, the knowledge of his baptism for him was the remedy against all of the arrows that Satan would shoot at him. something we don't consider too often today. But like Luther, we should look back to our baptism to dispel any and all spiritual fears. We have Luther's accounts of being wracked by, you know, that he often talked to the devil and he would feel him being accused. He could hear him like he was in the room accusing him. And oftentimes Luther would reply to Satan and say, be silent. For I am baptized. Do we treasure our baptism in that way? Do we recognize that we're united to him, that he owns us, that nothing can change that? I do believe rather than saying that you were baptized, rather than saying I was baptized, we should say I am baptized. It happened once, but it continually seals us to Christ. So, dear Christian, grow in and grow into Christ by thinking upon your baptism. As you witness others receive the waters of salvation, remind yourself of the promise that God made to you in yours, that you have received his divine seal, the proof of his ownership and authentication. You have now put on Christ. And nothing can change that, not even your sin. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the wonderful promises that you give to us and that you portray for us in the sacraments. And tonight we're grateful to know that in baptism we are assured that we're united to you and that we belong to Jesus Christ and we're united to him in his death to sin. That we no longer are defined by sin. We don't belong to sin anymore because we belong to the living Lord. And now we ask that you would cause us inspired by remembering our own baptisms and being inspired by the baptism we witnessed even this evening. We would now live for Christ, that we would walk in newness of life for the sake of his holy name. Amen. Number 193, baptized into your name most holy. Let's stand and conclude our service with this hymn of response. Baptized into your name most holy. O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I claim a place, though weak and lowly, Among your seed, your chosen host. Buried with Christ and dead to sin, Your Spirit e'er shall live within. My loving Father, me you've taken For heir to be your child and heir My faithful Savior, me you've given your righteous holy life to share. O Holy Spirit, you will be a comfort, guide, and help to me. And I have vowed to fear and love you, and to obey Lord you alone. Because the Holy Spirit moved me, I dare to pledge myself your own, renouncing sin to keep the faith, and war with evil unto death. My faithful God, your word fills ever Your covenant surely will abide Oh, cast me not away forever Should I transgress it on my side Though I have off my soul defiled In love for him, restore your child Yes, all I am and love most dearly, I offer now, O Lord, to You. Oh, let me make my vow sincerely, And what I say help me to do. Let not within me, not I own, Serve any will but Yours alone. Never let my purpose falter, O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But keep me faithful to your altar, Till you shall call me from my post. So unto you I live and die, And praise you evermore on high. Receive now your Lord's benediction. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his peace. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. so so I've got a lot to say, but I won't. so so ♪ Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light ♪ ♪ What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming ♪ ♪ Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight ♪ ♪ O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming ♪ ♪ He's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man, he's a good man so so Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. This is a man who had a heart attack. We'll break it down. Oh. Thank you. Okay. Okay. oh So, I don't have any records of that challenge, but I do know that it's a real job. I've been doing this for a very long time. I've been doing this for so long that it's just become that much. And I have to take that challenge, and here's how I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it the old way. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. It's beautiful. It's a lot of fun. All right. Hey, good to see you. Thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what I'm doing. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I heard a gal, she said, if I don't answer the question, you have to tell me. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. Okay. Okay. I'm going to see if she can make it out. Okay. I don't know what to do. Yes. All right. All right. It's awesome. It's awesome. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my goodness! Don't cry! Oh, that was fun. Oh, that was good. Oh, I know! He does! Don't bother. This is pretty bad. This is pretty bad. I don't know. I don't know. It's a lot of fun. She did what she said. I'm Yeah. Yeah. What are we going to do? No, she's got a second position. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to put it out. She said, of course, in the college I was at, I had a constant supervision of Sarah when she went to grad school. I don't know if that's true. I thought that would be true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it was true. Yeah, I thought it Four thousand. So he's gone. How do you get it on your knees? Hello, is this yours? Congratulations, good morning. You're very nice to me. No, I want to say congratulations for, you know, the, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh Okay, good job, Ed. How are you guys? Good to see you. All right. I was just crazy. She didn't even get around. I was just a little bit, uh... Yeah, I'm not that good of a sleeper. That's all I'm going to say. I'll leave it to you, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. I got it. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. Yeah.