Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the word of Jesus Christ as it comes to us from your word. And we long to hear it and we pray that you will use this word to stir up our hearts, to stir up the church, to stir us up and to prove the grace that you've given. Whether we are wheat or whether we are chaff, to purify the church, to purify our hearts, to cleanse the threshing floor of Jesus Christ. We pray that you will bless your church with great strength and courage in our days here in this world and in this life. Help us to press on always in the courage and strength that your Holy Spirit gives to us. Thank you for all of your rich promises. Open our ears and open our hearts to hear those promises again and all that we have securely and graciously in Jesus our Savior. In whose name we pray. Amen. Let's turn together first to Ezekiel chapter 39. And we're going to be reading verses 21 through 29, so at the end of the chapter here in Ezekiel 39. And then we'll turn to the text in Matthew 3, verses 11 and 12. And we're also considering Lord's Day 26 of the Heidelberg Catechism, the first Lord's Day concerning baptism and what exactly is signified and sealed unto us, the blood and the spirit of Jesus Christ, In Ezekiel 39 here, there is the promise of the restoration of Israel and God's grace and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit for their sanctification. Ezekiel 39, beginning at verse 21, And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgment that I have executed and my hand that I have laid on them. The house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God from that day forward. And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity because they dealt so treacherously with me that I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries and they all fell by the sword. I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions and hid my face from them. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel, and I will be jealous for my holy name. And they shall forget their shame and all the treachery they have practiced against me when they dwell securely in their land with none to make them afraid, when I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them from their enemies' lands, and through them have vindicated my holiness in the sight of many nations. Then they shall know that I am the Lord their God, because I sent them into exile among the nations, and then assembled them into their own land. I will leave none of them remaining among the nations anymore, and I will not hide my face anymore from them. When I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, declares the Lord God." Then to Matthew chapter 3, verses 11 and 12, Following the baptism of John, as he's baptizing people from the Jordan, speaks to the Pharisees and Sadducees, and this is just before the baptism of Jesus. Just looking at these two verses, Matthew 3, verses 11 and 12. And John is speaking here. I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I. whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." And so far the reading of God's holy word. If you would turn also in the back of the blue Psalter hymnal, And we're looking at Lord's Day 26. This is page 33 in the back of the blue Psalter hymnal. And we're going to read those three questions and answers responsibly. Question 69. How does baptism remind you and assure you that Christ's one sacrifice on the cross is for you personally? In this way, Christ instituted this outward washing and with it gave the promise that, as surely as water washes away the dirt from the body, so certainly His blood and His Spirit wash away my soul's impurity, in other words, all my sins. Question 70. What does it mean to be washed with Christ's blood and spirit? To be washed with Christ's blood means that God, by grace, has forgiven my sins because of Christ's blood poured out for me in His sacrifice on the cross. To be washed with Christ's Spirit means that the Holy Spirit has renewed me and set me apart to be a member of Christ so that more and more I become dead to sin and increasingly live a holy and blameless life. And question 71, where does Christ promise that we are washed with his blood and spirit as surely as we are washed with the water of baptism. In the institution of baptism, where He says, 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. He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned. This promise is repeated when scripture calls baptism the washing of regeneration and the washing away of sins. And so far our confession. Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, all of you at some point in life have seen a van or an SUV maybe in a parking lot or maybe driving in front of you while you're going down the road and it's dirty and it's got a big back window and the back window is almost completely covered in dirt or dust except for a little finger written scrawl that says, wash me. And one of the kids came out of the house or went in the garage and stuck their finger out and wrote those words, wash me, across. It's supposed to be a message to mom or dad, you need to get this thing cleaned. Dirt accumulates, and at this time of year especially so. Farmers are in the fields and there's dust everywhere and pollens and all kinds of things. And at a certain point, it starts to accumulate so that just driving down the road isn't going to blow the dust off anymore. Even at high speeds, it's not going to get clean unless it gets washed with water and probably some cleaning agent. But at the very basic, it needs water. Dirt accumulates and the only way to wash it off is water. And the Israelites were told about this as well. In fact, they were shown this in a very vivid way in the tabernacle. When you came into the tabernacle, into the inner room, there was a big bronze laver. It was huge. It almost filled the entire room there. Almost spanned across the width of the tabernacle. And it was filled with water, and it was for cleansing, for cleaning. Because we need to be washed. On all of us also is scrawled those words. Wash me. Wash me whiter than snow, says the psalmist. Because we need to be cleansed. And not because of our physical dirt only. Right, boys and girls? Some of you took a bath last night, or maybe this morning, because we need to be clean. Not only physically do we need to be clean, but inwardly. Our hearts, or our souls. We need to be spiritually cleansed. And the water of the laver, or that brass basin, wash basin in the tabernacle, that water wasn't going to clean someone's soul. Baptism doesn't clean our soul either. Baptism itself doesn't wash away our sins. But it's given to us as a sign and a seal of the cleansing blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the pouring out of His Holy Spirit, which do cleanse us. The blood and the Spirit of Jesus cleanse us spiritually, inwardly. And we must be certain that that is the case. Question and answer 69 provides us with that certainty. How does baptism remind you and assure you that Christ's one sacrifice on the cross is for you personally? How can you be certain about that? When our sin accumulates and we are sinners, we're conceived and born in sin, We do filthy and dirty and sinful things because we are filthy and dirty sinners. And unless we're washed in the blood and the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, we cannot be renewed, we cannot be the children of God, we cannot be believers, we cannot be servants of our high and glorious King. So we receive this sign and seal of something that is very real. The washing of the blood and the spirit of Jesus Christ. John the baptizer is busy baptizing people at the Jordan as well. And later, and you know this, in the verses that follow what we read, Jesus is going to be baptized too. And not because he needed to be baptized unto repentance, Jesus has no sin to be repented of. Jesus is baptized in order to identify with us. to come under the covenant so that those who are born under the law and condemned under the law, all of us, might be redeemed through His obedience to the law, even in baptism. But something that was very interesting about the symbol of John's baptism and then the baptism that Jesus undergoes is it's an immersion. They go under the water of the Jordan, all the way, head to toe, they're completely covered in the water of the Jordan. And then they come up, and Matthew will make that point explicitly, that Jesus came up out of the water. And you read that in some other places in the New Testament as well. What's the point of that? It's the dying of the old self. It's almost a symbol of resurrection in that way. Someone goes into the water, and in the case of all the people being baptized by John, that was part of the symbolism. You go under the water, you die to your sin, and you come up renewed, cleansed in the blood of the Messiah. That was the promise. So Romans 6 verse 4, when Paul says, we were buried with him, therefore, 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. And baptism for us, even though we don't do an immersion, but a sprinkling of the water, still points to the same thing. That blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us inwardly. We see the outward sprinkling of the water or the pouring out of the water. It washes away dirt. The blood of Jesus washes away our sins. Acts 22, 16. And now, why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name. Paul says those words as he's recalling his conversion to Jesus Christ. So, boys and girls, baptism has these purposes. Inwardly signifying and sealing to the hearts of all true believers the washing away and pardoning of your sins by the blood and spirit of Jesus Christ. You know that water washes away dirt. You know that the blood of Jesus washes away sin. And it really does say a lot about the entire Christian life. Because we're guilty of sin, we're stained, we're impure, we're worthy of eternal condemnation. If we would if you can think about it this way, sort of peel back the grace of God in our lives. It's a little bit like the tide going out in the ocean, and there's certain parts along the coast, you think of sandy beaches and shells and so forth, and all this beautiful scenery, but there's certain portions along both coasts. When the tide of the ocean goes out, you know what you see? It's mud. It's nasty. Stinky mud. Because that's what's under there. That's what's under the beautiful water. That's what's there at the edge of what is maybe a very picturesque kind of a beach setting. And it's mud. If we would sort of peel back the grace of God, if we would look at our bare hearts, that's what we see. Mud. Dirt. The filth of our sin. And it's ugly. And it stinks. And it's dishonorable before God. It's a wretched stench in his nostrils, he says in some places in the Old Testament. That's what our sin is. How can you and I clean that up? How can we wash that surface clean? If we tried, it would be like taking an oily rag from the garage and wiping off your kitchen table. Okay everybody, now we're ready to sit down for supper. I've washed the table with this dirty, oily rag. We'd never do that. We can't wash the filth of our own sin either. We cannot cleanse ourselves with hyssop. We can't purge our sins that way. There's no soap in the world that we could apply to our hearts that would get the stain of our sin off. And that's why we read those words in Ezekiel 39, I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions and hid my face from them. If we're going to be dealt with by God according to our own sins, then that's what we deserve. For God to turn His face away from us, for us to go into oppression, for God to give us over to our sinfulness. You want to play in the mud? That's what He's saying to Israel. You want to play in the dirt? Go ahead. I won't stop you. and you'll never get yourself clean. You will never get those stains out of your clothes and out of your heart. You can't. But we're not going to find certainty of our desperate need for washing in our experience, in our feelings. We're only going to find it in God's Word. So Matthew 3.11, as John is speaking to the people in the second part of the verse, He's saying, first of all, contrasting himself to Jesus. Jesus is mightier than I am. I'm not even worthy to carry His sandals. I'm not even worthy to be a servant to follow Him. He is so great and so awesome. But He will baptize you, says John, with the Holy Spirit and with fire. I can only baptize you with water, says John. I can only baptize you with water and call you to repent of your sins. That's all that I can do. But when Jesus comes and He baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire, He's actually going to make the heart change. He's actually going to do the real cleansing, the real purifying of your soul. And only Jesus can do that according to God's promise. 1 John 1 verse 7, The blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. Hasn't He done that for you personally, brothers and sisters? That's the point of this first question. That's the thrust of it. You've seen other people be baptized many, many, many times. You didn't see your own baptism. You weren't conscious of your own baptism. You weren't aware, at least for most of you, because you were children. You didn't know it. You've seen other people. Boys and girls ask yourself, did God really do that for me too? Yes, He did. The same baptism, according to the same word of promise. God is not just the Father in Christ, He is your Father in Christ. You have been set apart to be one of His child. personally. The promises were made to you personally. Your name was stated by the minister and then he said, and I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Not only for others, but also for you very personally. And this gives us assurance in question and answer 70 primarily of our forgiveness. You're made right with God through the blood of Jesus Christ and his righteousness. Baptism signifies that you've been washed by the blood and the spirit of Jesus Christ. And what does that mean? Well, to be washed with Christ's blood means that God, by His grace, has forgiven my sins because of Christ's blood poured out for me in His sacrifice on the cross. God forgives our sins, and all of our wickedness, and all of our guilt, and all of our shame, and all of the wretchedness that belongs to us by nature. That's what cleanses. Not soap. Not our works. Not our being nice to other people. We can't get rid of the mud there. But Jesus can. And He has. His blood has been poured out to cleanse. So let baptism for us be like the baptism of John unto repentance. You've been forgiven. That's the promise that's made to you. Forsake all of your sins. Turn away from your sinful ways and turn to Christ. Have heavy hearts about your sinfulness and joyful hearts about the forgiveness that God gives because of the blood of Jesus Christ. Take refuge in Jesus and His precious blood. Because if His blood had not been poured out for you on the cross and in His sacrifice and suffering, your life would be required of you at the judgment of God. However, Jesus Christ gave His own life for you. And baptism points to that reality. But also, Christ has poured out His Holy Spirit to set us apart. And what does that mean, boys and girls, to be set apart? Well, you've played with Legos, and you've built Lego sets. And now, they come, you open the box, and you pour out the bags of Lego. They've got numbers on them. So you're supposed to open bag number one first and start there with the instructions. But when you pour out one of the bags or they used to be all in the box and you pour out the box and there's just pieces everywhere. So you open the instructions because you want to build the set that's in front of you and now you've got to find the particular pieces and you've got to put them together in the order that are in the instructions. And so what do you do? Well, I need the 2x4 red brick piece. So you sort through all of those pieces and you find the 2x4 red brick piece and you set it apart from the rest. You take that one piece out. I need this one piece. And this piece goes right here. And then you go to the next step of the instruction. And you need a black piece now. And so you look and you sort through all. You find the black piece and that black piece now. And it needs to connect to the red one that you've set apart before. And you've set apart now two pieces. Because you're building something. Boys and girls, we have been set apart from the world in that way. God has chosen us out of all the world. And He has said to you, again by the promise of the Word, you are mine. I'm going to take you out of the world, and I'm going to bring you into my grace, and into my covenant, and into my church, and into my family. And this is where you belong. And you're not alone, because I'm going to set apart these other people too. And all of them are going to come. And all of them are going to be with you. And you're going to be joined together in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, each one fitting in its right place like that Lego set. And God is going to build a masterpiece out of all of you to glorify His name and to show the world the power of His grace and the riches of His love. He has set you apart, boys and girls. Or you can think about it this way as well. As you get older, you choose your friends, and we should choose good friends. We set those people apart. You're not friends with everybody in your class in high school, are you? I never was. You can be kind to everybody, but you're not friends with everyone. There are certain people that you have a connection with. You have something that's in common, or maybe you do something together, and so you sort of, out of the entire group of that class, set apart these particular people to be your friends. And they set you apart as well, to be your friends. God has, in his love, set you apart from the world to be his people. and to receive all of his benefits, and all of his blessings, and all of his promises, to have that particular relationship. He calls you a peculiar treasure, or a treasured possession. He sets his love on you, and his favor on you, just like in those friendships where you have benefits from those friends, and you receive their love, and loyalty, and devotion, and that's when we return to our God, because he has set us apart. Baptism testifies to this. You're set apart by God to be bound to Jesus Christ by true faith. You don't belong to yourself. Our world right now is trying to tell you that in so many different ways. Take some time for yourself. Make sure you're taking care of yourself. Make sure you're watching out for your needs. Take a me day. You don't belong to you. You're baptized. You belong to God. Take a day for the Lord today. What are you doing for God in everything that you're doing? How are you using your gifts to glorify Him? Don't look to find rest in yourself. Don't look to try to find satisfaction in yourself. Don't look for happiness in you. You're not going to find it. It's only in God. That's where there is joy. That's where there is peace with the Lord, your God, who loves you. You don't belong to your sin. You don't belong to the devil. You don't belong to the world. So many attempts as well today to make you identify with different groups and movements. To try to get you caught up in identity politics. And you know what the world doesn't understand? That we don't identify with politics because politics isn't our savior. Politics isn't our peace. Politics is not our redeemer. Political positions don't comfort us. We're only seeking to be wise. We're seeking to be engaged and use the gifts that God has given to us, but we don't find our hope in politics. And our world doesn't get that. Our nation doesn't get that. You know what part of the, or actually part of, this is maybe the fundamental problem in our nation right now. with all of the unrest. That politics is going to be the vehicle of our salvation. It's going to get us to glory somehow. And we say, no. My identity is in Jesus. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Or as Paul says later in Philippians 3, I count all these other things as loss, as rubbish. You know what he wants? To gain Christ by any way possible. He says, by any means possible. Ah yes, and God has given us the means that is possible and it's called faith. Believe in Jesus Christ and you will have all that you need. So let us more and more, as question and answer 70 concludes with, let us more and more become dead to sin and increasingly live a holy and blameless life. You are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which obligates you to live a holy life as true members of the covenant and walk as Christ walked. So when that car gets dirty, you think of washing it clean. Well, may the Word of God be for you today that finger mark in the dirt that says, wash me, and so that you know I must be washed. I must be cleansed by the blood and spirit of Jesus Christ. I must have the forgiveness of sins in Jesus. And remember your baptism, that you have been washed in the blood and spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. You have been cleansed and you are being cleansed by the Holy Spirit and by fire, a purifying fire. Even as the Lord would restore Israel in Ezekiel 39 by the pouring out of His Holy Spirit. cleanse you, to purify you, so that you live a holy life more and more. And for backsliders and covenant breakers, God's word to you today is to repent in light of your baptism. If you are living an ungodly, natural, careless, worldly life, what witness does your life give? What does your life, if you're living that way, what does your life testify to everyone around you? It testifies that you belong to your sin. Your life does not then testify that you belong to Jesus Christ. You're not living accordingly. If you don't believe in response to God's gracious sign and seal of baptism, if you don't repent, then it's not the purifying fire of the Holy Spirit upon you, but the fire of judgment, the unquenchable fire that John talks about, that Jesus will bring. The Word of God stirs you up. Are you wheat or are you chaff? And if you're a chaff, you'll be burned up in the unquenchable fire. Repent of your sins. Turn to Jesus Christ in faith. And then lastly this morning, the promise of his blood and spirit in question and answer 71. And here, as many times in the catechism and in our other confessions, I don't know if you note this, but quotes from scripture. Are our confessions biblical? Yes, absolutely. They're quoting the Bible and rightly in context and rightly bringing out the proper meaning and application of these texts of Scripture Here's the promise and it's in God's Word and we touched on this briefly last Lord's Day That baptism is not done out of mere custom or tradition and this is very important John says that he is unfit to carry Jesus sandals and I'm not even worthy to be a servant of Jesus and follow him and carry his dirty, dusty sandals. He's so much greater than I am. The ESV reads, mightier, yes, mightier, wiser, greater, better, in every way, what John is supposed to be, except Jesus will be perfectly, righteously, and in holiness. John's just a forerunner. He's just a prophet of God who baptizes, just like ministers are today. But think about this, that if baptism were some kind of a human institution, or if it was out of mere custom or tradition, then what is it going to depend upon? Well, it's going to depend maybe on your commitment to the Lord. How strong is that every day? Ask yourself that. Or maybe, does it depend on The sanctification of the minister? I pray not. Ministers are imperfect as well. Sinners. Sinners in need of grace. So is John, the baptizer. Is he perfect? Is that why his baptism is so wonderful unto repentance? Is that why? It can't be these things. If baptism were some human institution, or if it depended on human beings in any way, it would lose all of its efficacy, all of its power. It would provide no comfort and give no assurance. If it's based on man, then it can't be based on the eternal promises of God. But, since baptism is based solely and securely in the divine promises of God, who never changes, isn't baptism something we ought always to remember? If baptism is done on the unchanging promises of God, ought we not always to remember our baptism? When's the last time you considered and thought about your own baptism? Hopefully, at least, the last time you witnessed one. When you saw a child brought forward by his or her parents, and that child's name was mentioned, and then that child was baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, I hope You said in your heart, that was done for me too. And those promises that were just repeated for the sake of this child and this family, those promises were said when I was baptized too. Because that baptism is also for me personally. But not even every time that it's witnessed, not only that. But how about this boys and girls, every time your name is mentioned, Sometimes your name is mentioned in a wonderful way and you're called maybe by your parents or your friends. Sometimes your name is mentioned and it's not so nice because you're not behaving. Our names get called for all kinds of reasons. But when our name is called, or when we see our name, we ought to remember that it's not our first name. And it's not the most important name that is on us. but the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. That is primary. In school, boys and girls, you write your name on your assignment, on your paper, on your homework. Why do you do that? Well, it seems kind of obvious, right? Well, this is my schoolwork. This is my test, my assignment, my paper, my project. And so I want to be identified with this This schoolwork. I want my teacher to know that this is the work that I've done and I want to receive the grade that's appropriate to this work. So you write your name on it to get credit. God has written His name on every one of you. His name. Why? Because you're His. You belong to Him. And He is going to prove His work in you. and it's going to be credited to God. When we grow in grace, God gets the credit. When we grow in our walk with the Lord, He gets the credit. When we are devoted to serving Him with all of our gifts and loving the Lord, He gets the credit because His name is on us. When our name is mentioned, even when our name is said, we must understand that to be Christian. You're baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Well, may we all be stirred up by the Word of God today in this, and that Christ might prove His grace, that we are wheat to be gathered up in His barn, baptized and set apart by the promises of God, justified in Jesus Christ, sanctified in the Holy Spirit, with the promise that God will not hide His face from us anymore. He's going to pour out His Holy Spirit upon us. He means to gather us in, in the harvest, as fruits of the grace of Jesus Christ. We are meant to be wheat. We are meant to be wonderful and good for our Father and the Son, Jesus Christ. We are meant to be productive. We are meant to be set apart for this, for the glory of God. Amen. Let's turn in our...