Well, I would invite you to grab your Bibles and your Baptist Catechisms if you have them. Turn with me to question 96 as we come to the question in the subsection of ordinances. And I would remind you of where we find ourselves today in the Baptist Catechism as I often remind you there is a structure to the Baptist Catechism. We looked at the law of God as summed up in the Ten Commandments and what God requires of us, which is followed by a section on sin and the fact that none of us keep sin and therefore we deserve the wrath and curse of sin. both in this life and the life that is to come. But that is followed up by the question of how can we escape this wrath and this curse? And the only way to escape it is faith in Christ and repentance unto life. But how do we come to faith in Christ and repentance unto life? And that's when we come to the section on the Word of God. And that is to say that the Word of God preached and read makes for us known the salvation that is provided for us in Christ. that is pinnacle as we see in places like Romans 10, that the Word of God is preached, that we may hear, that we may believe and call upon the name of the Lord Jesus and be saved. So that is the avenue by which we are saved. The preaching of the Word tells us we are sinners, and then it convinces us of our sin, and it is applied to us by the Spirit, which makes us believe and repent unto life. And but where do we go from there? So we have heard that we are sinners. We have heard the word preached for salvation. We believe in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for salvation. So where do we go from here? Well, the next answer would be we respond in faith through the ordinances. Baptism, by which we might be united to Christ in his life, death, and resurrection, and the Lord's Supper, which confirms our baptism, but also reminds us of the death of Christ for our salvation, and a foretaste of eating at the marriage supper of the Lamb in the life that is to come. Now, do Baptists believe in sacraments? The answer is yes. We believe in the Lord's Supper and baptism as the two sacraments of the church. But Baptists do not use the word sacrament within the confession and also with here we see the ordinances. of the church. Why is that? Well, it connects us to within our confession where God or Jesus ordains things, that is, commands of things that we must do as believers. So we call them ordinances because they're commanded by Christ for us to participate in, to be baptized, and also to partake in the Lord's Supper. Now, with that being said, I will probably be a little bit more polemical towards our Presbyterian brothers about baptism in these next few questions. That is not to say that we don't believe there are brothers and sisters in Christ, but we think they are wrong on these particular parts, of which we talked about this morning in the 2nd London, chapter one, paragraph eight, where what is our final authority when it comes to matters of doctrine and disagreement? The word is. And so why do we not baptize babies? It's not ordained by Christ in his holy scriptures that we would ordain people who do not believe and profess Christ. So there's, I do have that against them, but the point here is to correct error. But we're going to correct error by teaching what is true. So with that being said, let us look at our question this afternoon. Question 96. If you have the answer, you can read it along with me. If not, that's okay. I'm reading from my modernized version. But here's what it says. Question 96. How do baptism and the Lord's Supper become effectual means of salvation? Answer, baptism and the Lord's Supper become effectual means of salvation, not for any virtue in them or in him that does administer them, but only by the blessing of Christ and the working of the Spirit in those that by faith receive them. Amen, let us pray. O Lord, whom have we in heaven but you? To whom shall we go? where you alone have the words of eternal life. Therefore we come to your holy scriptures this afternoon seeking these words for our eternal life as we study the doctrines of our church as put forward in the Baptist Catechism. And so we pray that you will give us eyes to see and ears to hear and a mind to understand and a heart to believe and your spirit to obey. Guide us with your everlasting counsel, O Lord, amen. So there's two ordinances. baptism, and the Lord's Supper. Because there are two things that have been commanded by Christ to us in scripture. If we look at If we look at Acts 2, this is what we see. Peter is preaching to the people at Pentecost. And as he's preaching, making known to them their sins, and the only way of salvation is Christ, because Christ has fulfilled what God promised in the Old Testament. And so he's preaching this at Pentecost, which is a celebration of one of the Old Testament feasts. Here's how they respond to Peter's preaching. Verse 37. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. So notice, that's the word of God being applied, which we studied in the last few questions. Or as we saw in the last one, in question 94. Convincing and converting sinners. So that's what's happening here. He is convincing these Jews that Jesus is the fulfillment of God's promises. And so they say, what must we do? So when they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? We have believed, now what? And Peter said to them, repent, that is turn away from your sins. Turn away from your sins, quit walking in the ways of the world, quit walking away from God, turn to Christ. How does that happen? By the word preached, the spirit applying the word to your heart and causing you to repent. and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. So we see there that we are called to be baptized once we believe. And once we have been baptized, we gain admittance into the Lord's Supper, of which we can then partake, and that confesses us as part of the church, and it remembers the death of Christ, and always points forward to our feasting with Him in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. We'll look at that more, but when you consider the Lord's Supper, well, when you consider both of these, let me point something out real quick. They have Old Testament roots. Baptism in the Old Testament is found, the type, so if you think of type, anti-type, something that points forward and something that fulfills, so a type is a foreshadow, an anti-type is the fulfillment. In the Old Testament, you have what is called tevillah, and you do tevillah in mikveh, that is, immersing into a body of water so that it would be ritually clean. So you see this quite often. If you go to Leviticus and you would see that women would have their menstruation or even the dead body stuff that we saw today with the priest, they would have to immerse themselves in water and then they would become clean. It's a ritual washing. That's what we see. But the thing with the Old Testament type is every time that you became dirty, unritually clean, you had to take a ritual bath to make yourself clean and presentable before the Lord. In fact, if you go to Israel, there was a big pool called the Pool of Siloam. This is probably where most of the people were baptized, those 3,000 people on Pentecost were baptized. And from the Pool of Siloam, where you would ritually wash yourself, there is a staircase right up into the temple. So you would ritually wash yourself and then walk right up into the temple so you wouldn't become ritually unclean going into the Temple of the Lord. There's also found hundreds of mikvahs at the base of the Temple Mount, where people would ritually wash themselves and then go into the temple. So it's this reality of being richly pure, but we have one baptism for the remission of sins. Because unlike the Old Testament, which can only cleanse the body, Christ can cleanse both the body and soul. So we have one baptism. We don't have multiple mikvahs. So the anti-type then is baptism into Christ, which washes us clean of sin. Secondly, you have the Lord's Supper, which is found within the Old Testament sacrificial rituals. Quite often you would have, they're called peace meals, but you would offer the sacrifice, and then you would eat of the sacrifice. And it's this peace meal between you and God. You offer the sacrifice for the forgiveness of your sins, and then you eat the meat that you offered as a sign of peace between you and God. So now the anti-type is the Lord's Supper. Christ has been sacrificed on our behalf, and eating of it means that we have peace with God and peace with one another. So we come and we partake of the Lord's Supper. Now, here's an important thing to think about. Who is it that can partake of the Lord's Supper? Well, it should be those who are baptized. Actually, that's one of the questions. I think it's question 103. Who are the proper subjects of the ordinances? They who have been baptized upon the profession of their faith in Jesus Christ and repentance from dead works. Baptism really is this symbol of you're a part of us. You're united to Christ. You are one of his people in his church. And so is the Lord's Supper. I was just telling Caleb this, you guys know this quite often, but like when we take the Lord's Supper in Binah's here, what often happens when he can't partake of the Lord's Supper? He runs out screaming and crying. That is the proper response of someone who cannot partake of the Lord's Supper. Because it's saying, you are excluded from the kingdom of God. Now the beauty of the gospel is that it is exclusive and inclusive. Because it says, you can't partake of the Lord's table unless you are a part of us. But anyone can be a part of us if they repent and believe. So it's both exclusive. You've got to be in the group. But it's also completely inclusive. Anyone can be a part of the group. Because the church is made up of men, women, and children from every tribe, tongue, and nation. So we have this introduction into the ordinances. So I won't dive too far into that, because we'll look at it in the coming weeks. But we have this introduction into the ordinances. So there's two. The Catholic Church believes in seven. But Christ has not ordained seven sacraments or seven ordinances. He's ordained two. And so that's what we look at. And both of these are signs of salvation and means of grace. So we should partake in them. So how do baptism and the Lord's Supper become effectual means of salvation? Well, we have two negatives to begin with. First, not for any virtue in and of themselves. That is to say, They're not tokens, they're not magical rituals. For example, in the Methodist church, they have what is called open communion, meaning anyone can take of the Lord's table, even if you're a pagan, and you can partake of the Lord's table and you will receive some types of grace because they in and of themselves have a special property. And in fact, there was one time I was in the Methodist church where a pastor asked the father if he wanted his infant to take communion, and the father said, yes, confused, and the pastor dipped the bread into the grape juice, did the sign on the cross on the kid's head, and then ate it himself, as though that conveyed some type of grace to the kid. I just figured it conveyed a sticky forehead to the kid. And the kid was confused by it as well. But then also this looks to, it also looks to the Catholic Church, which believes that in transubstantiation, and the Lutheran Church, which believes in consubstantiation, that the bread and the wine become the body and blood of Christ, soul, body, blood, and divinity. So partaking in it is eating of the body and blood of Christ. or in the Lutheran church that it's infused into it. So there is some sort of mystical blessing by eating these things. The confession here is saying there's no virtue in them at all. Like if it's not connected to faith, you're just getting really wet. Or if you're in the Presbyterian church, you're just getting sprinkled with water. There's nothing actually happening to you without the profession of faith. And the same is true of the Lord's Supper. It's just bread. It's just grape juice. There is no special property apart from faith. That just means that you don't receive the ordinary means of grace of the spiritual presence of Christ because you don't have the spiritual presence of Christ through his spirit in you. It's not conveying anything to you. You're just eating bread and you're just drinking grape juice or wine, depending upon your church. It's not actually giving you grace. In fact, quite often, it's the opposite. Because what do we read in 1 Corinthians 11? Some of you are eating of the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner and you're becoming sick and some of you are dying. So it's not a talisman in which you can be baptized and you think baptism will save you. It's not a talisman in which you can partake of the Lord's table and think that you're going to receive some sort of good luck. That's not how it works. Rather, it's from faith in Christ that gives us these virtues. So notice the negative. Any virtue in and of themself. So when you think about this, let's use baptism as an example. It is the Presbyterian church who has a wrong view of baptism. Because we read in scripture that baptism saves you, but what does it mean by that? Well, some, as in the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the Orthodox Church, they believe in what is called baptismal regeneration, that the act of baptism is what regenerates you, and then that's what saves you. We believe in baptismal regeneration as well, but we have to define that correctly. We believe that your regeneration through the preaching of the Word and the convincing of you as a sinner and the work of the Spirit converting you unto Christ, repenting and being baptized is what leads to the waters. One believes you're baptized and then you're regenerated. We confess that we are regenerated, which leads to baptism. But notice, regeneration is always tied to baptism. Our Presbyterian brothers and sisters are the only ones who separate regeneration from baptism. They believe in a delayed regeneration later on. It doesn't actually regenerate you or save you, but they do some weird workings in there in their covenant theology. So they're the ones who separate that. But what we have seen historically, so they're the aberrant view. But what we have seen historically is that regeneration, salvation, is tied to baptism. But what we say is, your regeneration, your salvation, is what leads to your baptism, which leads to your inclusion into the visible church. So regeneration, inclusion into the invisible church, leads to your baptism, inclusion into the visible church. Now, I should have read this first before that, but look at 1 Peter 3, verse 21. Well, let's start in 18. For Christ also suffered once for sin, the righteousness for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. I should not have read this passage. Now I want to preach on the descent of Christ into hell, but... Anyways, that's another time. Because they formally did not obey when God's patience waited in the day of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through water. I wanted to read verse 18 because what we see there is Christ suffers for our salvation. His righteousness for our unrighteousness, so the great exchange, double imputation, our unrighteousness is imputed to Christ, His righteousness is imputed to us, that He might bring us to God. Notice the pronouns are important there. He brings us to God. What are you doing in that situation? Nothing. Christ is doing the salvific work and bringing you to God. being put to death in the flesh and made alive in the spirit. Now, skipping that part because that's a whole different sermon on its own. Verse 21. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now he's connecting it to how Christ is an ark to us that brings us through the waters of judgment into new life. Just as the ark carried Noah and his family through the waters of judgment into new life. In connection to this, now saves you. Now is Peter arguing there that the act of baptism saves you? Or what baptism is pointing to? Not as a removal of dirt from the body. So notice here. That's all that baptism is, is if you don't believe in Christ. It's just a weird bath, okay? In Kevin's case, it was just a weird dip in the dirty river if it wasn't by faith. So it's not removing dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience. through the resurrection of Jesus, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers, having been subjected to him." So it's an appeal to God for good conscience, because mikveh, tevillah, can't cleanse the conscience, but baptism in Christ can. And so it unites us to the death of Christ. It unites us to the burial of Christ where he carries our sins far away from us. And it unites us to his resurrection where we are raised to new life. But it's not the waters that have any power within them. Because all they would do is wash away the dirt. They cannot wash away the stain upon your soul. But who can? Christ and His blood. So there's no virtue in and of themselves. Or, the second one, in Him that does administer them. There is no power in me that can change this bread and this grape juice into the body, soul, blood, and divinity of Christ. I can't do it. I can't call Christ down from heaven and present him on an altar to then convert him or convert these things, transubsist these things into his body and blood. I can't do that. I don't have that power. The papist church teaches that when they perform the ordinance of holy rights, holy ordinances upon their priest, that there is an irremovable mark placed upon the soul of the priest that he now has this power in and of himself to call down from heaven Christ and present him in an unbloody sacrifice. I don't have that power. I'm not a high priest. I don't have these mystic powers where I can control God. I can't do it. It's not in and of myself. This also points to the Donatist controversy where there was persecution in the church and many ran away and left the faith, including many pastors. And so a lot of people had a hard time dealing with this reality. where some people thought, is my baptism invalid because the person that baptized me is now an apostate, no longer believes? And that's a true question with many pastors falling that many of us have to deal with. Were the last decade of my life not true? Is this all false? Am I not a believer? And the answer is no, because they were never in the person in and of themselves. They were in the word of Christ. God works through fallen vessels. He draws straight lines with crooked sticks. Brothers and sisters, I am a fallen man that God uses just as PVC pipe to flow his grace through. but it's God's grace that does it. It's not me. I don't have the power to do this. If you look at what we have in front of us that we will participate in a little bit, all of that is just pulled from Scripture. The prayers that I have, all of Scripture, it's just words. It's just words apart from the power of Christ. Look at what we say in the prayer. Oh Holy One, pour out your spirit upon us gathered here and upon these gifts of bread and wine and make them be for us spiritually the body and blood of Christ that we may be for the world the body of Christ redeemed by his blood broken and poured out. Make us one with you, one with each other and one admission to all the world. Do you understand what's happening there? It's talking about the symbolic of we are being united to Christ, united as Christ's body to go and serve the world. That's what we'll be reminded of here. Christ died to forgive us our sins, Christ died to make us one, and we are called to go and be the body of Christ's hands and feet to the world. But apart from Christ, it's just bread and grape juice. Apart from faith, I'm just a man. Don't have any special powers. I mean, it would be dope if I did, but I don't. That's not how God works. That's not how God is chosen to work. We have one high priest, and he reigns in the heavens. It wouldn't be that dope if I did, because then I would just get a bigger head than I already have, and then I would stretch out the necks of my shirts, and it just wouldn't be good. But then it also becomes, you become reliant once again upon a pastor, become reliant upon man, not reliant upon Jesus, who is the only mediator between God and man. Think about this, the Roman church says that you have to go to a priest to confess your sins, to have your sins absolved. The book of Hebrews says we can approach the throne of grace boldly because of the blood of Christ. I only need one high priest. Again, I'm not the chief shepherd of this church, I'm the under shepherd. I'm like a sheep dog more than anything. Just try to keep the sheep in line at the command of the shepherd to protect them and lay my life down for them to draw them back in, but ultimately it's Christ who feeds and it's Christ who leads. So it's not of the bread, it's not of the minister. But only by the blessing of Christ. It's only by the blessing of Christ. Look with me to Matthew 3.11. This is at the baptism of Jesus with John speaking. As they come out to question him, are you the Messiah? He's like, nope, I'm not the Messiah. You're looking for another. And here's what he says to prove that. I baptize you with water for repentance. He's pointing to Mikvah. He's pointing to the Old Testament. In fact, we know this because when Apollos preaches in the Book of Acts, he only knows the baptism of John. He doesn't understand the baptism of the new covenant. He doesn't understand the baptism of Jesus. And so Priscilla and Aquila have to pull him to the side and be like, hey, you're getting a lot of things right, but you need to get this one thing right. So they correct him. So his baptism is different than the baptism that Christ speaks of. 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 fire. So notice that baptism is connected with the receiving of the Holy Spirit, that is regeneration and being a part of the church. And with fire, we see that on Pentecost, when the spirit comes down in the form of tongues of fire, and they begin to speak the word of God. So his baptism is different. Baptism symbolizes this reality of being washed, of being indwelled by the spirit, and being renewed day by day. But it comes of Christ. Notice John is saying, I can only do it with water, based upon your repentance. Jesus does it by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the one who gives the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the one that cleanses us with fire. Also, we see in 1 Corinthians 3, which I find 1 Corinthians is very interesting because it's just Paul writing to a church, correcting all their erroneous doctrines. And one of the questions that is often brought up, that is often brought up about baptism and infant baptism, and if it's a part of the early church and whatnot, and how did the whole church get it wrong. And I'm just like, have you read 1 Corinthians? Literally, they have apostles writing letters to them, and they're getting things so wrong. Like in 1 Corinthians, there's a dude sleeping with his father's wife, whether that's his biological mom or his stepmom, doesn't matter. It's not right. And Paul says, not even the pagans deal with that. And you guys are like, man, look at us. We're so loving and accepting that we're letting this dude do this horrendous thing that not even pagans accept. And Paul's like, stop it. Kick the dude out of the church. What's wrong with you? And then he's like, some of you are getting drunk and gorging yourselves at the Lord's Supper. Stop that while people are starving. What's wrong with you? So if they can get things wrong in the first century when they have the apostles, I'm pretty sure we can get things wrong in the following centuries. Anyways, I digress. 1 Corinthians 3 verses 6 and 7. What then is Apollos? What then is Paul? Right? A great preacher, a great apostle. Servants through whom you believed as Yahweh assigned to each. That is to say, they preached the Word of God and through their preaching, men were saved as the Lord saw fit. Some are converted under the preaching of Paul, some are converted under the preaching of Paulus or Peter or anyone as the Lord sees fit. Here's what Paul says, I planted, that is, I sowed the seed. Paul has came along and watered the seed. So we can talk about conversion and then sanctification. But God is the one who gives growth. Notice he's using both of them, but it's the God who's doing it. So neither he who planted nor he who waters is anything. There's no power in us. There's no power. in these ordinances, the power is in the word of God and in God, but only God who gave the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one. Each will receive his wages according to his labor for we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field, God's building. So again, nothing in us, but it's in the blessing of Christ. God is the one who gives the growth. God is the one doing it. and the working of the Spirit. So notice Christ baptizes with the Holy Spirit. So it's the working of the Spirit within our hearts, applying the word, and then from the inside out, making us and conforming us into the image and likeness of Christ. The work of sanctification is the diminishment of the power of sin in our lives and the growth of our conforming to the image of Christ, or to grow in holiness and joy. And so the working of the Spirit within our lives and those that, notice here, by faith. So notice, it's by faith. You actually have to believe in Christ for baptism to mean something. You actually have to believe in Christ for the Lord's Supper to mean something. So it's by faith and we receive them. Notice, we don't take them. I don't know if you notice this, but there's a reason why I come to you and give you the Lord's Supper. You don't come and take, you come and receive. I do that symbolically so you see it. Christ comes to you and you hear the body of Christ given for you, the blood of Christ shed for you because we receive them by faith. You just flip a few chapters to 1 Corinthians 12, This is the many parts speaking of how the Lord's Supper, well, baptism, we're baptized into one body. In the Lord's Supper, we eat from one loaf. It's symbolic of our unity. It just says the body is one in many members and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one spirit, we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, And all were made to drink of one spirit. So notice how God has taken from two people and made them into one people, his people. How? Well, we're baptized into one body and we drink from one cup. It's symbolic of how Christ has made us into one body. Now, if you think about how bread is made real quick, Anna makes us bread every week. Shelby makes bread at home. Shelby recently got a bread maker for Christmas. And so if you don't know how those work, you just throw all the ingredients into the bread maker and the bread maker spins it all up and stirs it all up and then it cooks it into a nice loaf, right? And it's phenomenal. The bread tastes great and we love it. Now, if I were to say that I'm going to make you bread. And he said, that would be great. And so I threw some flour into a bowl with some yeast and some water and some egg and salt and sugar, and then I just brought it to you. And you would be like, this is not bread. But it is. It's just not all mixed together and baked. Brothers and sisters, this is the difference between unity and disunity within the church. When we are not one in Christ, when there is conflict, when there is disunity, no harmony to be found, it's not good to taste. It's not good to eat. It's not even good to look at. However, when it's all mixed together and it's all of one consistency and unity and bait, it smells good, it tastes good, it looks good, it's appealing. Brothers and sisters, we are called to unity. That's one thing that the Lord's Supper signifies to us is we are one loaf. There are many ingredients, there are many parts to one body, but it is one body. And so we need to strive for unity within our church. No matter whatever is going on, we need to strive for unity. For when one part is missing, or one part is affected, the whole loaf is affected. Or when one body part's hurt, the whole body hurts. Can I tell you how much my cancer messed up my body? Man, my ankles hurt, my knees hurt, my hip hurts, my back hurts, my neck hurts, my arm hurts. Brothers and sisters, when one part of our body is affected, the whole body is affected. This is true of disunity within the church. If one ingredient is missing from a loaf, it doesn't taste as good. Have you ever had bread without salt in it? Or bread without sugar in it? It's gross. It doesn't taste good. There's something wrong with it. So we see that within the Lord's Supper as well. In the one loaf, in the one cup. We are made one in Christ and we receive them. Now that was a side tangent, I'm sorry for that, but I thought it was important as we've been praying for unity this year. Let us strive together to be of one mind and one spirit, of one load. Though we are many different parts and many different flavors, may we come together and be one flavor, the flavor of Christ. But notice that we are baptized into one body and we drink of one cup. Because we profess one faith, we are made one in Christ. Now lastly, we can look at the Great Commission. Matthew 28, verse 19. All authority has been given unto me in heaven and earth. 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, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you to the end of this age. Now, I want to point something out here. I wasn't going to point this out, but I decided to. Back in Acts 2, we see being baptized into the name of Jesus. That's just a summation of what we see here. For being baptized into the name of Jesus is being baptized into the name of God. For Jesus possesses the name of God, for He is God. Philippians 2, he is given the name that is above every name. What is his name? Yahweh. What does the name Jesus mean? Yahweh saves. So these are not contradictory to one another, but rather we are baptized into the name, singular, of the triune God, who subsists as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But notice there real quick, though, that it says, go make disciples of all nations. many different peoples, peoples of every tribe, tongue, and nation, and we are all baptized into one name. We are made into one people. And so there is this reality of when we partake of the Lord's Supper today, we say we're not only partaking as members of New Testament Baptist Church, we're partaking as brothers and sisters in Christ with brothers and sisters around the whole world today. So as brothers and sisters partake in the Lord's Supper at Redeemer today in Macon, Georgia, or at Trinity in Macon, Georgia, or at Paul's Church in Augusta, Georgia, or in all the churches around here, we're partaking as brothers and sisters in Christ. This is why when a member comes to our church, we don't say, You need to be re-baptized to become a part of our church. No, we accept the baptism of them from another church as long as they're baptized as an adult or profession upon the profession of their faith. But here's what we see. The water, the bread, the cup, that's all they are apart from faith. I do not make them into anything special. It is Christ who conveys His grace through them. So we regularly partake in them because we have been baptized. Because we profess Christ, we regularly partake in them, and they are a means of grace to us. That means they actually grow us in happiness and in holiness. And so I just want to leave you with this story because I think because we partake of the Lord's Supper, we can get in the wrong mindset of, it's not special to me anymore. I just do it too much, right? And so some people get into the mindset of, it's just not special because I do it too often. It just has become ordinary to me. That's irony because it's called an ordinary means of grace. It's like someone who's like, man, I get donuts every so often, right? And man, do I love donuts? And they're just so special because I only get them every now and then. Versus someone who loves donuts and they just go and get them every day. And they're afraid that's what the Lord's Supper is going to be. But brothers and sisters, I would encourage you to think of it the other way around. It is so special, it is so necessary, it is so vital to your survival like water and food, that you should wanna partake of it as often as you can. And so when I was at my last church, I know many of you have heard this story, they went from having the Lord's Supper once a month to every week. And they went from having 15 minute sermons to an hour long sermon. 45 minutes, I was a shorter preacher than, 45 minute sermons. And there's a man who said that I preach too long and we do the Lord's Supper too much. And my response to him was this. Brother, what I hear is you want less of Jesus. And the only remedy to wanting less of Jesus is to give you more Jesus. So for the benefit of your soul, we're going to have the Lord's Supper before church, we're going to have the Lord's Supper after church, and I'm going to preach for an hour and a half. And he said, I get your point. I will never raise that objection again. Brothers and sisters, hearing the word preach is so important. We should want more of it, not less of it. That's not me arguing that I should have longer sermons. But we shouldn't complain about it. Right? We should long to hear the word of God and to be amongst the people of God. We should want more baptisms. We should want to partake of the Lord's Supper. We should want more of Jesus because, honestly, if you don't enjoy this, I don't think you're going to enjoy heaven. So we come and we partake. We come and we witness baptisms and remember our baptisms and partake of the Lord's Supper and hear his word read and sang and prayed and proclaimed and we enjoy it. We get to take our minds off the things of the world today and to look unto Christ and be saved and look forward to the coming days in which we will rest in his glorious presence forever. We're going to eat some bread and drink some grape juice. And that would mean nothing. But by faith, they are made means of grace. We get to experience Christ in his grace today, to remember his death, to proclaim his death until he comes again. And we get to have a foretaste of heaven until we feast at the marriage supper of the lamb. And we get to do that every week until we get to do it for all of eternity. Don't miss this special moment. It may be ordinary, but it's extraordinarily special every single Sunday. And I am privileged to get to administer it to you. Not because I'm special, but because you're special to the Lord. And you're special to me as your pastor. Let me pray. Father, may we not take lightly baptism and being united to Christ. May we not take lightly the Lord's Supper and partaking in the body and blood of Christ. May we not take lightly what it signifies, that we profess his death till he comes again. That we may partake of this cup until we drink from the cup of heaven. That we can drink from this cup of grace and not from the cup of wrath where Jesus has drank the last drop of the cup of wrath. So may we rejoice in this and celebrate in this. That we can approach your throne of grace and confess our sins and know that we are forgiven directly from the mediator, the God-man, Christ Jesus. May we enjoy your presence. We believe that you are present, that your grace is administered through this sacrament that we partake in, that we have been ordained to and commanded to partake in. May we experience that grace today, oh God, for we need it. We need it to make it through this world. So just as you brought Noah and his family to the waters of judgment, May we pass through the waters of baptism and into new life until we enter the promised land. Just as Israel passed through the waters of the Jordan and entered. We long for that day. But may you sustain us in the wilderness of our life. We pray all this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Love you guys.