You cannot turn over to Hebrews 11. We'll be continuing our sermon series in that book. Hebrews chapter 11, we've been at for a while. There's a whole array of very helpful examples that are given to us in Hebrews 11. The first 10 chapters of Hebrews laid out the glories of our Savior and His saving work that He has done for us. And then Hebrews 11 comes and shows us about how faith works. It gives us examples, makes it practical so we can see what it is when people actually lay hold of Christ and the work that God has done through him. Lately, we've been looking at the section about the faith of Moses in particular. He's been the one that we've been looking at as a model for faith that's given to us. We saw that his faith actually began in and with his parents. Moses would have perished if his parents hadn't hidden him in faith, looking to God to spare him and deliver him when the order of Pharaoh was that all the boys should be drowned. Then when he grew up, he continued in faith. Uniquely, because of the situation that he was in, he had an opportunity that almost no one else had. He could have been a prince in Egypt in that very house of Pharaoh as the son of Pharaoh's daughter that he had been adopted in a marvelous providence of God. Or he could identify with God's people who are in servile bondage in Egypt with increasing oppression. but yet who had the promise of an eternal inheritance, not an immediate blessing, but one of going and being delivered out of Egypt and then being in battles and stuff for a time to gain a land. Moses had those options before him. And by faith, he chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, which would only be for a moment. So we see that Moses grew up and he embraced the faith that he had been taught. After that, when he was called to command Pharaoh, in God's name to let God's people go. And God said through Moses, let my people go to Pharaoh. Then we saw that he met with all kinds of opposition from Pharaoh himself and also from even his own people as they got more and more discouraged when Pharaoh continued to to turn up the heat on them. And we saw last week that Moses endured. because he had faith. All the while, he kept on going because he believed what God had promised, even though no one around him was really supporting him. Maybe Aaron and a few others, but he was he was virtually standing alone at that time with opposition from the world and from God's people. And he endured because he believed. And that was a tremendous model for us. Well, today we come to Hebrews 11, verse 28, whereby faith he leads the whole nation of Israel to keep the Passover and the sprinkling of blood associated with it. And here we learn about ordinances. You know, in Hebrews chapter 3, we're told that Moses was faithful as a servant in God's house, a minister in God's house. He declared to God's people what God told him. as an apostle, one who received from God to give to God's people, to his church. Even the words that we have still in Scripture from Moses were faithfully conveyed by him. He then was part of the very ordinances of God, giving us the word that we would use that. But this talks about particularly the ordinance of the Passover at that time. We're told in Hebrews three that Moses did what he did faithfully. It lays out that Christ did greater than Moses, but both were faithful to do what they had been given. What was different with Christ? Moses gave us the law and showed us what was required for not only for people in general and before the fall, but for people who had fallen like we have. He showed what was required for us to be reconciled to God. But he couldn't do that. Jesus is the one who did that. He's the one who actually reconciled us to God. So he's superior, vastly superior to Moses. Moses showed us what needed to be done as God had shown him. Jesus did what needed to be done in order that we might come to God and be accepted of him. Now for our scripture reading, I'll begin with Hebrews 11, verse 23, and then conclude with the verse that we're looking at today, which is verse 28. So this is God's holy and infallible word, Hebrews 11, 23. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid of the king's command. By faith, Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who was invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. thanks be to God for his precious and holy word. The Passover is an ordinance that God gave to his people when he brought them out of Egypt. Today, as we consider verse 28, we're going to look at how God uses ordinances in his church among his congregation of the congregation of his people. So we'll begin with a word about ordinances. All through the ages, God has given His people ordinances. An ordinance is simply something that God ordered His people to do. or those who were to be His people. He calls them to come and do these things as well. In the Old Testament, before Jesus came, two of the ordinances that we know of were circumcision and the Passover. circumcision was given to the males because it was through Adam, a male, our first father, that we all fell, the whole human race. The fall made us guilty and corrupt so that we who were created to bring forth image bearers of God that would beautifully live as God's image bearers and bring glory to Him and fill the world with those image bearers. We were able to do that, to bring forth people that were the image of God, could only bring forth children that were guilty and rebellious and defiled by sin. circumcision was given with the promise that by God's special grace, He would enable His people to bring forth people that did love God. He would circumcise their hearts to love the Lord their God. That's what it showed. And that they could bring forth children in them that would be redeemed to love and serve God. And that by them, He would bring forth a son, a particular son, who would overcome all things, who would crush Satan, and who would bring redemption not only to those people, but also to all the nations. So this was an ordinance that he gave them. The Passover was given when God brought His people out of Egypt, what we read about in Exodus 12, to establish them as a nation that lived under His law as His people, that received guidance from Him and lived unto Him as His people in the land of Canaan that He had promised to them. We read about it in Exodus 12, and I'll have a lot more to say about it later in this sermon. But in short, the Passover was an ordinance God appointed after He announced that He was going to bring the sentence of death upon all the firstborn males in every family dwelling in Egypt. The firstborn, you need to understand, represented the family as a priest to offer sacrifices for sin and to lead them to God after the fall. And in some of the idolatrous nations, they began even to worship their Firstborns, their ancestors, after they had died and were gone, they began to offer sacrifices and worship them. All kinds of different perversions of what God had instituted. This is from the time of the fall until the time when God appointed others to be priests in place of the firstborn sons. But this was the way that it operated, and the nations in their idolatry perverted these things, but they still had this sense of the firstborn son representing the family, and in some cases being deified. So by killing the firstborn, God, as we read, brought judgment on the gods of Egypt. And he showed that he rejected them in their connection with him. It was an idolatrous thing, right, is the way they worshiped. But they had this sense of the firstborn and that they were not acceptable to him. At the Passover, God told his people to offer a lamb as a sacrifice in the place of their firstborn males and to sprinkle the blood with hyssop on their lintel at the top of their door and the doorposts from that sacrifice of their houses. If they did this, he told them that he would pass over their houses when he sent his death angel to kill the firstborn males in Egypt, that their males would not perish. In the New Testament, after Jesus came, We have other ordinances. So those are the ones in the Old Testament that we're looking at in particular, circumcision and baptism, I mean, circumcision and the Passover. And in the New Testament, after Jesus came, we have the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper that correspond to these. There are, of course, many other ordinances, such as prayer. There may be ordinances that are even more significant. Prayer, the reading of God's Word, benedictions, blessings that are put on God's people, confessions of faith, many other things. But the ones we're focusing on in particular are today, baptism in the Lord's Supper. With baptism, ministers are commanded to sprinkle clean water on those who profess Christ together with the children of those who profess Christ. This is to be done to show that Jesus washes away their sin so that they can enter into God's kingdom and live for God in his kingdom. That by his spirit and by his sacrifice, he washes away sins. They are forgiven. cleansed from their guilt by Jesus' death and resurrection, and they are cleansed from their corruption that they might love God and serve Him by the Holy Spirit. We're told that Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit. That's correspondent to the sign of sprinkling with water is the sprinkling, the pouring out of the Spirit upon God's people. So with the Lord's Supper, ministers are commanded to take bread and wine. to set it apart by the word of institution that Christ has given us to say, this is the body of Christ. This is the blood that was shed for the remission of sins. And then to give that bread and wine to the people to partake and to the congregation of those who profess Christ, that they might eat and drink it in remembrance of him who offered his body and blood to take away their sin. This is done to refresh them in what God has done for them anew and to nourish their faith and life as they look to feed spiritually upon Jesus at that table. We say, Lord, let your ordinances help, right? Use these things in your people's lives to bring blessing and strength to them. God gave his people these ordinances to associate them with him in his saving work. So here we are. And here's the saving work. And the ordinances create a connection. We have the word that we believe that tells us we have prayer, that we cry out to God and he brings blessing of his work upon us. And we have the sacraments that set forth the work that God does in salvation in symbols that we might receive those in our body. And then we might we might receive the blessing as we look to Him. So we're outwardly associated with Him as His people when we receive them. We are marked out from the rest of the world as those that belong to Him. And we retain this identification unless we are removed by church discipline from our rebellion or our unbelief against God from continuing in the profession of His people. We continue on as those that are marked out in the world. but the association is not merely outward. We pray that it will be effectual in the lives of God's people. We are savingly associated with Him so that we're actually washed, and so that we're actually nourished, and the things that are signified when we receive these sacraments by faith, looking to the Lord to do what is represented in them. Romans 10.10 tells us that we need both confession with our mouth and faith in our heart if we're to be saved. So you can have the outward profession. You're identified as God's people outwardly in the world. Baptism, Lord's Supper. But you need to have the inward resting in God, believing, looking to Him through Christ to bring that saving work to us. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. The proper way to confess Christ is through the ordinances that He has appointed. In other words, you need to get baptized. You need to come to the Lord's table. This is how we declare. Like it says, every time we come to the table, we declare that of Christ crucified in our trust in Him. With baptism, we make our initial confession and with the Lord's Supper, our ongoing profession. But if there is no faith associated with that confession, we are not truly and savingly and eternally brought to God. We're just temporarily associated with him in the world. The falsity of our profession will be exposed either by a denial that we make in this life or on the day of judgment when we stand before God and all the secret things are revealed, the hypocrisy that we perhaps kept in secret our whole lives. So ministers are appointed. to administer the ordinances of God faithfully. The ordinances that we have just spoken about. Okay, now Moses did this. Hebrews 3, 5 says, And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant. Moses' task was to reveal to the church what God requires. To show the people what God requires morally was part of his work in the law. the moral law, and to show them what he requires for forgiveness and salvation through the shadows that he was given. All the things that the priest and the temple and the offerings and sacrifices, all the things that shadowed, in a shadowed way, pointed to Christ. There were shadows of the things to come. He did this with perfect faithfulness. That's what we're told in Hebrews 3. We can trust everything that Moses said. Moses showed us what was required, as I mentioned before, and Jesus did what was required. Ministers who do not administer God's ordinances faithfully greatly displease the Lord and fall under His wrath and curse with a tremendous price to pay. They will be judged more severely than those who are not ministers that had that responsibility. One of the most egregious things that they do is to give the ordinances to people who are not entitled to have those ordinances. God has specified who is to have them and who is not. In this way, they deceive people and give them false hope. If you give the ordinances to people that God has not appointed them to be given to, then you're telling lies about who God's people are and which ones are to be marked out as His people. For example, they give the Lord's Supper to those who do not have a credible profession of faith. to those who deny essential truths of the gospel. They deny it and still they say, come, come and eat at the Lord's table. Or they live in sin without repentance. You know, what does the scripture say about that? 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 10. Paul says, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. I heard a man preaching recently that was a big, big congregation, big, big church. And he was saying that, oh, we're to receive all of these people, not just to receive them in terms of having them over and giving hospitality to them. But we should welcome them into the church and give them in God's ordinances, give them baptism, give them Lord's Supper and say, you are God's people. And this says, no, they will not inherit the kingdom of God. They're not to be regarded. So he's doing exactly what I'm talking about, you see. And this is common today. Another harmful thing that they do is administer ordinances without explaining them properly. In Hosea 4, 6, the Lord speaks to the priest at that time saying, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because you have rejected knowledge. I will reject you from being priest for me because you have forgotten the law of your God. I will forget your children. Moses was not like that. He administered the Passover faithfully. Let's turn now to look at Moses' example as a believing, faithful minister and what we can learn from it. Moses shows us by his example three things that faithful ministers do when they administer God's ordinances. First, that faithful ministers believe and proclaim God's message of condemnation and judgment when they administer God's ordinances. Now this would be true, a necessary aspect of the Passover, of circumcision, of baptism, and of the Lord's Supper. You see, let me read Hebrews 11, 28 again. By faith he, Moses, kept the Passover, observed the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. Without that note of judgment, the Passover was not properly administered. That note needed to be there, that you deserve to die. You see that Moses kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood to prevent the firstborn males among God's people from being destroyed. He believed God when God said that he was going to destroy all the firstborn males in Egypt. You could say, how could he not? God had done everything that he said he was going to do every time. The death of all the firstborn males was the tenth plague. There had already been nine that God told Moses he was going to send upon Egypt. God had already sent the nine plagues upon Egypt that were designed to make Pharaoh yield to his command to let his people go and serve him. He told Moses that this tenth plague would be the one that would make Pharaoh yield. As I mentioned before, the firstborn son was the one who represented the family as a priest. After our first parents fell, they and all their posterity, all people, were made unacceptable to God apart from an acceptable sacrifice for sin. And God showed that right from the beginning. Until the time of Moses, God appointed the firstborn sons to represent their family as a priest. When their father died, then the firstborn son would be the one that would take the place, or when the father got too old to do so, So a strike upon the firstborn son was a strike upon the priest of the family who connected them with God by sacrifice. If the priest was rejected, the family was rejected. That's the picture. You know, when a priest would go in and later on in the tabernacle, if they were to be struck down, it meant that their sacrifice for the people was not accepted. And so God is showing his judgment, his displeasure with all of the people by striking the firstborn sons in Egypt. So Moses believed that, that God was showing his wrath and displeasure that he would come and do this. Moses also believed God when he told him that this plague would fall on Israel just the same as on Egypt, unless they kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood. That's what God said. By this, the Lord was making it clear to the people of Israel that even though they were the people He called to be His own, they were sinners just the same as the Egyptians. They needed forgiveness of sin. They needed an acceptable sacrifice for sin, just like the Egyptians did. They were no better. They were no different. We are no better as Christians. We recognize that we need the sacrifice of Christ. We should be, of all people, the most humble of people. This is what God showed them. They were just as unacceptable as the Egyptians were. Their children would die just the same unless there was a provision of the acceptable sacrifice that God appointed. Now this was an offensive message for Israel. We are God's chosen people that have been called out. We have our fathers, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And we have the promises of God. But Moses did not hesitate to proclaim this message. He did not hesitate because he knew that the message was true, even though they might not like it. He did not want this plague to fall on Israel. He had seen the other nine plagues come just the way God had said. Some of them were on all of the people and some of them were only on the Egyptians. excluded Israel, but this one would fall universally on all the people that were there in the land of Egypt, including Israel, unless they kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood. The sprinkling of blood is, of course, sprinkling the blood with the hyssop on the doorposts as was appointed to them. That was something that was only done in the Egyptian Passover. It wasn't done in the Passover celebrations that followed as a ceremony. So Moses warned them about what would happen to them and He led them, you see, to keep the Passover. As their leader, He kept the Passover, brought the people into the keeping of it. He did not become offended with God for declaring that Israel was unacceptable to Him apart from blood sacrifice. If He had, He wouldn't have done it. He wouldn't have done it right, at least. He did not hesitate because of the way the people might receive it either, that they might be offended by it, that they might turn against Him and turn against God. This was the only remedy, and Moses led them to observe it, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should destroy, should touch them, as it says. Note the language that's used there, by the way, lest that the destroyer should touch them. Only thing that it just shows the ease with which the death angel was able to just kill all the firstborn, all the firstborn in Egypt, just like a touch. That was it. It wasn't something that was complicated. It was all done at midnight. All the firstborn males across the entire nation of Egypt were killed at midnight. Nothing could stop it except the Passover sacrifice and the sprinkling of blood on the doorpost. Moses faithfully made that known to the people and he led them to keep the Passover so that the firstborn would not perish. The lesson for you is to never accept ministers who are unwilling to proclaim the wrath and judgment of God against every person apart from God's appointed remedy. That is the message. Such false ministers will baptize and administer the Lord's Supper without proclaiming that apart from God's mercy, that we will all perish. All who are not cleansed by Christ, whose cleansing is represented by baptism in the Lord's Supper, will perish. They may talk about acceptance with God, but they will not talk about being cut off without baptism in the Lord's Supper and what is represented in them, without confessing Christ as the only remedy for sin. If we do not confess Christ, we will be cut off. There are ministers who are like that because that's what the people want. They will talk about the love of Jesus and about His power to heal our broken lives and our hurts and about His ability to comfort us and even to help us in all kinds of ways with our vices. They'll talk about that even. But they will talk about man's goodness and about God's acceptance of us as if it was based upon our goodness and that we're just maybe victims or something. Completely ignoring what God has said with these ordinances. That if you're not washed, you're going to die and go to hell under my wrath. That if you're not nourished up and kept in my grace, you're going to perish. You're going to go to hell. But they will not talk about the wrath of God that falls on every person who does not accept his way of salvation. They will not proclaim the truth because it is offensive. They themselves reject it. They reject any notions of the wrath of God against sinners because they don't want to think about God's wrath against them. That's why they will not proclaim it. That's why people don't want them to proclaim it as well. Why those with itching ears come to hear. They will tell you that they don't want to offend people. And it's true, they don't. They will piously say, I want people to love God. And if I talk about their sin, it will discourage them and they won't love God. Well, they won't love God if they know who he is, is basically what they're saying. I heard Robert Shuler, a famous preacher of a huge church, when I first became a Christian, when I was a new believer, to actually say that. He said, I won't ever talk about sin and God's wrath and those things because it will discourage people. And I don't want to discourage. I want to encourage people to come to God. That's what he said. I want them to love God. Now, of course, he's right. The truth does offend people. It turns away all who do not want to come to God as God on His terms. Just as many were turned away when Jesus came. Why do they hate Jesus? Because He told the truth. Because when He came around, what does it say? That the light shined. And men loved darkness rather than light. Why? Because their deeds are evil. It exposed their sin. So they hated Him. They wanted to get rid of Him. They didn't want to deal with a true God. They wanted someone that would come and say, hey, you're great people. I'm going to lead you against the Romans to victory. We're going to do this. Let's go. You're such wonderful people. Let's go and do this. That's not what He did. Millions of people who are outwardly baptized and who are outwardly observed, who outwardly absorb, observe the Lord's Supper and profess to be Christians are content and even desire to have ministers who speak about who will not speak about God's wrath and judgment. Do not ever be one of those people who are content with that. The day's coming when I'll be too old to still continue on here and you'll be getting other ministers. You don't want to get someone that is not going to preach faithfully what God says in his word, because that is idolatry. The second thing Moses shows us is that ministers, and this is closely related, must set forth and proclaim God's way of redemption when they administer his ordinances. So you have the wrath of God that is set forth, that's the first thing, but then there's also the faithful minister must set forth the way that God has appointed. Because you can set forth, you can say, yeah, you're under God's wrath and here's the way and it's a different way. And that that won't do either. Moses told them that to be spared, they must take a lamb offered as a sacrifice in place of their firstborn son. Each household was to do this. Now, I want you to keep in mind something here because we often get the Passover, the picture of what's going on here is they're getting the lambs and all these things. We get a wrong picture of that. You know, this is not just mom and dad and a couple of children, you know, and they go and get a little lamb, they come back to their house. No, this is, it mentions several times, this is the elders choosing out a lamb for their households. And of course their families were still together and intact, they weren't spread out all over the place like we are. And they were also multiplying like crazy. So if you had a grandfather, a great-grandfather, he might have 70 people. 80 people that were his family, his household. And so these men went out and they got lambs according to how many people were in their household. And it said that occasionally there might be a small house and a small household. And so then you get your other neighbor. These these lambs would feed like like a one year old lamb would easily feed in the ceremony 60 people or so. And so if you only had a few people, you'd get another small house to eat one lamb. Other ones would need more than one. They might have 120. So they would need two lambs for their household. They would choose according to every man's eating, how many people, how many mouths there were that were eating is kind of literally what it says. So we need to understand that these were like congregations, like our congregation, but they were all one family with the elder of that family or the elders. And there might be the great-grandfather and the grandfather who was his firstborn son that was kind of administering things because the great-grandfather was quite old, whatever it was. But the remedy that Moses proclaimed here was that the lamb must be killed in the place of the firstborn son, its blood must be shed to make atonement for forgiveness. Keep in mind as well, we sometimes think of the little firstborn child, the little baby, the little boy that's in the house, it's a firstborn, that kind of thing. There would be the grandfather that I'm talking about, the great-grandfather that was the representative of the family. He would die, he was a firstborn son too. You don't stop being a firstborn son when you're an old man. You're still a first, I'm a firstborn son in my family. So I would be gone, I would be taken. Different people would be taken. And especially because these are the ones that would be ministering to them and bringing them to God. Again, it was God's judgment showing that they were cut off this way. OK, so this is the situation that we have the remedy, then what is the remedy? That's what we're talking about was a lamb must be killed in place of the firstborn sons. It must be that this blood must be shed to make atonement for sin. This gives us a very powerful picture of God's redemption, now that it has all been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians 5-7, Jesus is referred to as our Passover, who was sacrificed for us. John the Baptist referred to him as the Lamb of God. who takes away the sin of the world. You see all the connections here. Our Passover who was sacrificed for us, Paul says, John says, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And in Revelation, he is seen in a vision by John as a lamb, as if it had been slain. And that lamb is the one who is able to set forth the whole redemptive plan of God, the working of God and bringing the kingdom of God. This is what was shown so clearly in the first 10 chapters of Hebrews that Jesus is the sacrifice that takes away our sin. He is the one who does that by himself. He purged our sins right at the beginning in Hebrews 1 3. It tells us that it explains that he did this by offering himself as a sacrifice when he died on the cross. We are all sinners. Not one of us is acceptable to God apart from reliance on His sacrifice. There is no other sacrifice to take away our sins. He is the only one who can save us. There's no dreaming about some other religion, some other approach. No, the Son of God Himself crucified is the only way. There are false ministers who will talk about sin to some extent. Some of them don't, as I said, but some of them do. But then they will say that we can save ourselves or they'll say that the church can save us. They will not point us to Christ who alone can save us because Christ alone is not only man, but also God. His sacrifice is effective to take away the sin of the world because he is the very son of God. That is the person who became flesh and who gave himself for us. Faithful ministers today then will not administer baptism or the Lord's Supper without proclaiming that Christ, who is the one who does what is represented in baptism in the Lord's Supper. It is he that is God's only provision for sinners. At baptism, they speak of the cleansing that he alone can give to us. both that he washes away our guilt by the shedding of his blood and that he washes away our rebellion by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And they will not administer. Faithful ministers will not administer the Lord's Supper without declaring that Christ is the only one whose sacrifice on the cross continues to cleanse us and nourish us up for new obedience and fresh communion with God that we might go on. in a world that is hostile and with our still remaining rebellion that we have. The third thing that faithful ministers will do is teach the people the implications of belonging to Christ whenever they administer God's ordinances. Circumcision and Passover, as well as baptism in the Lord's Supper, mark us out from the rest of the world as those who belong to God. Moses faithfully declared this implication. Israel, as redeemed by the Lord, belonged now not to Pharaoh, but to the Lord. God had redeemed them, and now they were to live under His laws and with faith in His cleansing. The Feast of Unleavened Bread showed that they were bringing nothing out of Egypt. They were leaving that behind. They now had a fresh start to serve God as their Master, not Pharaoh. And God was the Lord of all. They were to keep on circumcising their sons and those strangers who came and wanted to join with them were to be circumcised before they could partake of the ceremony of the Passover. They were to continue to eat the Passover to remind them that God had redeemed them from his wrath, that they might live for him from now on. They were up with a death sentence, rejection from God for the firstborn, just like the Egyptians were, except, the Passover says, God provided a lamb to take away your sin. He provided shedding of blood to take away your sin. It is the same for us, only now the shadow has been replaced by the substance. Even Christ, he has come. And so we have new ordinances, baptism in the Lord's Supper, which more gloriously set the focus on Christ and his redemptive work that is now complete as those who are his. We are then to obey all of his commands. He is our Lord. We are to faithfully keep His ordinances of worship, especially each Lord's Day, to rely upon Him for our provision and our sustenance that we may live for Him, as we show when we eat the Lord's Supper. We are to pour out our lives for Him, looking always to please Him, whether in our recreations. Do you look to please God in your recreations? Or is that when you pull away from God? You should look to please God in them, in our labor, when you're at work. in our family, in our ministry to other people, in our service around the house and in the world. All is to be by him, by his grace and for him. Do you live for God? Is that what you do? Recognize I'm baptized. I belong to him. I feed upon him to nourish, fuel my life for him. This is what we are Christians do. We're to live for him because we're baptized in his name is those that are cleansed by him. And we are nourished to eternal life by his sacrifice as represented by the supper. Christian, you are not your own. You belong to Jesus Christ. I heard an account about King Arthur that beautifully illustrates this recently. He conquered some Viking chieftains and he took them captive. He brought them to some water and declared to them that he was going to offer them to the living God who made heaven and earth, who is his God. They had offered his uncle and others to their gods when they had conquered them by stretching them out on the ground, face down, cutting through their back ribs with an ax and pulling out their lungs while their lungs were still gasping for air. An offering to their gods. I conquered you, you belong to my God. When King Arthur brought them down to the water, they thought something like that was coming to them. And in a way it was. But Arthur's executioner was a minister of the gospel, who baptized them, proclaiming that now they were dead to what they had been, and that they belonged to the true God and His kingdom, who rather than taking an offering of humans in this way, does not accept such offerings because they are defiled, but who gave his own son as a sacrifice in their place, that they might be pardoned and that they might live for him with no more rape, no more pillaging, no more of all the life that they had lived. And Arthur is their godfather or the one, their king really, who had taken responsibility for them, gave them gifts and sent them back to their homeland where all but one of them built churches and served the Lord faithfully for the rest of their life. Why did they do that? They understood that as baptized, they now belong to God and to Jesus, their Savior. They had faith in what was done. The one that did not believe, he did not serve the Lord. Some years later, he returned to wreak havoc in England. Arthur heard about this, taking his role as the one who brought him to Christ outwardly, you see, the man did not have faith, personally sought the man out and executed him for betraying his trust. Now, whatever we may think of the method of converting people, this powerfully illustrates that the true God has offered His Son for our sins to redeem us. In other words, He took my place. Instead of me, it was Him. And that when He takes us as His own, that He cleanses us, and He gives us new life through Jesus crucified our Savior, and that from henceforth, we belong to Him, to live to Him. Otherwise, we're unfaithful to the trust that has been given to us. The truth is that some of us will not, because we do not have faith. We're devoid of faith. So it was with those that Moses faithfully administered the Passover to. We saw in Hebrews 3 and 4. Remember back in those chapters? That with many of them, God was not well pleased. So that their carcasses fell in the wilderness. Their bodies fell in the wilderness. Many of them fell in the wilderness because of their unbelief. But those that believed, believed to the saving of their souls. They lived upon God. They lived in the redemption of God who provided sacrifice for their sins. And they lived by His grace in their walk. That, my brothers and sisters, is what you must do. Baptism in the Lord's Supper mark you out as those who are His. to live by his grace and for his glory. Do you believe? Are you living by Christ as a sinner saved by him and sustained by him? Or are you apart from him? Please stand. Gracious Heavenly Father, we come before You and we say, O Lord, let Your ordinances help. We sang that before this sermon. We've heard the word preached. That's one of Your ordinances. Let Your ordinances help. We talked about baptism. Most of the people in this room have been baptized. Some of them have not embraced their baptism by faith. They're still walking in rebellion against you. We pray that that ordinance would claim them and that they would come. It has claimed them, but that they would recognize and that they would bow to you as the one who died for them and rose again, that they might live and not die and that they henceforth would live as your people. with you as their Lord who have purchased them. We have been bought with a price. And so we are to glorify you in our bodies and everything that we do with our bodies in this world is to be for your glory. We belong to you, O Lord, because you have purchased us. And if we do not have faith, then we will be executed on the day of judgment. We will be cast out from your presence. And you will say, depart from me, for I never knew you, you who work iniquity, you who had the privilege and rejected me. Lord Jesus, we praise you and we thank you for what you have done, that you, unlike the false gods who require children to be sacrificed and all kinds of others, you tell us that such sacrifices are not good enough. They're not sufficient. The sacrifice that you appointed was your son. Oh, Father, you gave Jesus your son. You gave your son to come here and to be the only offering for sin that you would accept. It is an insult to you to offer our children. It's not too much. It's too little. It's way too little or to offer some other person as a sacrifice to you. It's not adequate. Oh, Father, we thank you that Christ is the one that he is beautiful in your sight, that he is lovely, that when he came here, that you looked at him and you said, this is my beloved son in him. I am well pleased. He was a lamb without blemish. He's the one that offered himself, that took our sins upon his shoulders, that took responsibility and that bore our transgressions all the way to the cross. By his stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, but you have laid on him the iniquity of us all that we might be saved. You looked upon him in his sufferings and you were satisfied in your judicial wrath and judgment. We are set free because of Him. We belong to You, O Lord. We pray that You would help us, Lord, that we would not play games with these things, for it is a very serious thing to play games with the living God. It will not bode well for us if we do. Oh Father, help all of us, Lord. We still see so much of our sin and so much of our unfaithfulness, and we thank you that you provide ongoing cleansing for us in this world, and that you also provide ongoing sustenance and nourishment through our Lord Jesus that was crucified for us. The Lord's Supper testifies that to us. We need that sustenance, oh Lord of Christ, continually given to us because we are such weaklings. Father, we don't know what it is to rise up and serve you with courage and endurance. We pray that you would help us, oh Lord, we desperately need your grace. And we are here asking you, Lord, to transform us as your people, that we might honor you and bring glory to your great name who has loved us and given your son for us. Oh Father, help us to be an encouragement to one another and to live as the people of God. We ask these things in Jesus name, Amen. Grace to you and peace from God, the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil age according to the will of God, our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.