Congregation of the Lord we're going to learn this morning together. What sacraments are That's the subject for this morning. That will be our teaching. What are Sacraments if you spend any time in the Church of Jesus Christ, you know, you'll hear the word Sacraments and we want to know what are they? And as we learn what they are, then we'll learn what they're for, and by knowing what they are and what they're for, then we'll know how to use them. So that's what we're gonna learn this morning, and that's the goal that we're aiming at. Understanding what sacraments are, and then using sacraments as God wants us to use sacraments. As you are probably aware, you might be aware, that there is confusion on this. If you go to a Roman Catholic church, you go to a Lutheran church, you go to a Baptist church, you're gonna find people teach different things about sacraments. As we're going through, and we'll be going through for the next number of weeks, we're gonna learn from God's word, we're gonna look at God's word, what we teach in this church, what the Reformed churches teach about sacraments. Now if you hear this morning going, Pastor Young, why are you gonna subject us to weeks of instruction on sacraments? Well, this would be my answer to you. In 1 Corinthians chapter 11, where Paul begins his instruction to the church in Corinth on sacraments, and he says in verse 17, Now in giving these instructions, I do not praise you since you come together not for the better, but for the worse. When the church comes together to worship God, and part of that worship is to make a right use of his sacraments, if you don't make a right use of them, you can come together not for better, but for worse. You can go away in a worse state. You can eat and drink unworthy to your judgment. God can plague you with afflictions to chasten you so you'll repent. But my answer to you is, why all this instruction on sacraments? It's that when we gather together, we can do it for the better. That we'll come together and it will be for our good. and not for our worsening. That's why we're going to take the time to learn about sacraments. Last time, just to remind you, last week we started this and last week kind of transitioned us what we've been looking at for a long time in the Catechism at the Apostles' Creed which is a summary for us of the Gospel and its promises. We've been looking at that word for like 16 weeks And then we're transitioning now to sacraments. And we looked at that through the lens of, well, where does faith come from? Because the only way that you can be saved is by believing in the Savior, Jesus Christ. The only way you can enjoy salvation and the benefits that Christ brings is if you receive Him as He stands before you and declares to you through His Word exalted in heaven that I am your Savior who suffered and died for you. In me is righteousness. In me is adoption. In me is sanctification. In me is glory and by receiving me. Well, the only way then to receive Christ is by faith. trusting in Him and making Him your own. Well, where does that trust in faith come from? It comes from the Spirit working it in our hearts by that Word as it's preached to us. Whether we read it in a Bible, whether a pastor preaches it to us, whether our neighbor tells us about it, whether we go to a Bible study, either way, it's God's inscripturated Word as Christ has declared to us in it. And the Spirit using that to work faith But then the Spirit also uses the sacraments to strengthen that faith, to confirm it. If you read this week's From the Pastor's Study, I used an example in there that I find helpful. We tell our spouses, I love you, right? But that's our word of faith. That's our word. I love you. But we also add to that tokens of our love. We bring them breakfast in bed. We give them time alone so they can be with the Lord, and we take the kids. We take them out to dinner. We take them to a place that they like. We do something for them to show that love, but it's the same word. They're not getting a different word from you, whether you show it to them or say it to them. They just might get that word better when you say it to them, right? Well, if you know who Robert Bruce is, Robert Bruce was a Scottish nobleman. I don't know what rank he was to the throne. but God converted him during the time of the Reformation. He was a contemporary of John Knox, and he was instrumental in reforming the church in Scotland. And Robert the Bruce preached like 20 weeks on the sacraments. So, you know, I'm not gonna subject you to 20 weeks, but he preached a long time in Edinburgh because the church was being reformed and they didn't know better. But Robert Bruce said in those sermons, you do not get a better Christ in the sacraments. You just might get Him better. God declares to you Christ in His Word. You're not getting a different Christ in the sacraments than the one declared to in His Word. You just might get Him a little bit better. And that's the point of sacraments. They are helps to our faith. If we can remember that, that sacraments are helps to our faith, we'll be on a long ways to using these rightly as God wants us to use them. So let's look at our teaching this morning. What are sacraments? Sacraments are visible, holy signs and seals. Can we commit those five words to memory? Because it would help you if you could commit those five words to memory. Sacraments are visible, holy signs and seals. And we'll see in a moment that that language of signs and seals comes right from the scriptures, and so we'll talk about that. But you might just be wondering, where did the word sacrament come from? Can I read the Bible? When I read my English Bible, I don't find the word sacrament in my English Bible. No, you won't find it in your English Bible. If you were a Latin reader and you grew up centuries ago and you read the Bible in Latin, you would find the word sacrament in it. Sacraments is just a church word that's stuck. You don't have to refer to these as sacraments. The church has just been referring to them in the West, which we're all part of the Western church. The Greek Orthodox calls them holy mysteries. And we use that in our prayer. Because the word sacramentum was the word that Jerome, who translated the Latin version called the Vulgate, the common tongue, translated the Hebrew and the Greek. He used the word sacrament to translate the Greek word mysterion, where we get our English word mystery. A secret, something unknown to us until God makes it known. And that great secret, sacramentum, is used to translate eight times the 22 uses of the word musterion in the New Testament. Sacramentum is used and it's always referring to Christ. because Christ is the great secret, promised, inscripturated, you can find him in the prophets, but made known in these last days to us when God fulfilled the gospel through his son, Jesus Christ. So sacrament is just a church term, but what it is is a visible, holy sign and seal of God's great mystery and his grace to us in Jesus Christ. These are visible. God intends us to see something in the sacraments. We hear something when the words preached to us. God in the sacraments with the water of baptism, the bread and wine and it's breaking, he wants us to see something. God intends to us to hear his word also by seeing it. The sacraments are to be something visible to us. The sacraments are holy because they belong to God, they are instituted by God, and they're part of our worship and service of God as He's instituted them for us. They belong to Him, and they have a holy purpose in signing and sealing to us His gospel promise, as we'll see. They're signs because they're not pointing you to themselves. That's not how a sign works. They're pointing you to some other reality, some other truth that they want you to focus on. and they're seals because a seal is like an official crest, right? A king signs a document, they pour wax on it, he takes his signet ring, he presses it in there, he is authenticating and guaranteeing for you everything in this document is true. If it happened to be a land deed, it's guarantee you that parcel of land belongs to you that this document says, that seal. God intends, but these sacraments, they are guaranteeing to you the reality that they're pointing to that you are in possession of it. It's yours by God's grace. I just want to say a quick word to about these holy signs in seals. A sacrament does not speak for itself. If you had never read your Bible. And we'll just pretend you're also maybe deaf. And you watch someone being baptized, you would have no idea what it means. If you were to sit in church and see them doing this, you have no idea what it means. Because the sacrament does not speak for itself, it must have God's word behind it. We call that the word of institution joined to it. Let me give you an example. Many people in Abraham's day, his neighbors, were circumcised. But that circumcision that they had did not mean what God meant by it as a sign of his covenant and showing Abraham more clearly the grace that God has done in changing his heart. That's what it means for God's people, now fulfilled at baptism. Another example, think about the Jews eating Passover. The Jews still eat Passover today. That same matzah, that unleavened bread that we read Jesus picked up and said to my body, they eat it. They don't eat it as Jesus's body, but they eat it. That same third cup of wine after the meal that is a cup of blessing, blessing God for his redemption, they drink it. They don't drink it as Jesus's blood. Sacraments do not speak for themselves. You must have God's word attached to it, telling you what it is, his word of command. authorizing you to use it, and his word of promise, promising to you the blessing to be received by a right use of it. That also means for us, whereas the word of God is preached universally to all men and indiscriminately, sacraments are for the church. You don't give sacraments to unbelieving people. who have not repented of their sins and have not believed. You don't give them to their children as we give to our children. The word of God goes to all, but the sacraments are for the church, the company of the faithful. That's a bit of a difference between the word and the sacraments. They're a church ordinance. That's why we don't practice private baptisms and private celebrations of the Lord's Supper, because they're being ministered in the church and for the church. And then lastly, what I want to say as we go on and look at how they do their work for us, this comes from our own confession of faith, our own Westminster Confession, and Chapter 27 deals with sacraments. And in Article 5, we read this. And here's the reason I'm reading it to you. We get our language of sign and seal from circumcision. And you might be going, well, that's Old Testament, so we can just, what does that have to do with sacraments? Well, here's what. The sacraments of the Old Testament, circumcision and Passover, in regard of the spiritual things, thereby signified and exhibited, shown and applied to believers, were for substance the same with those of the New Testament. This is why I had us read 1 Corinthians 10. 1 Corinthians 10, Paul's warning a church who is making use of sacraments. They've been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They partake of the Lord's Supper, and yet they're living completely undisciplined Christian lives, and they are risking the anger and judgment of God, and all Paul can think is the wilderness generation, who are also baptized. who also had their own Lord's Supper and ate and drank the same spiritual food, who had Christ with them, as he says there, that rock following them was Christ, and yet they all perished there because they were undisciplined and unbelieving. So teachers, right, just because you have been baptized, just because you take the Lord's Supper, that does not save you. We'll talk more about that. You have to have faith, repentance, and believe for them to have any significance and meaning to you. So the reason I bring that up, and even in Colossians 2, you may be familiar with Colossians 2, because we're getting our language of signs and seals from God's word, but we're getting it from circumcision, so we're trying to establish, well, does circumcision have any relationship to the new covenant? And yes, because what circumcision pointed to, that spiritual reality, Christ and him crucified, is exactly what baptism points to. In Colossians 2, verses 11 and 12, we read, in him, that's Jesus, you, everybody who's in Jesus, you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. You have all been circumcised, not physically in your body, but in Jesus Christ. By putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. What's the circumcision of Christ? Is that His circumcision at eight day old? No, it's His death on the cross where He was cut off. Where our old man in union with Him died and was cut off. That's the circumcision of Christ. Paul's saying that's what circumcision pointed to when God gave it millennia before to Abraham. That's the reality you've all experienced in Christ. You've been circumcised. And then in the very next verse he says, buried with him in baptism, in which also you were raised with him. So you see, circumcision pointed to God's grace and Christ being crucified for us. Baptism points us back to God's grace and Christ being crucified for us. They're pointing to the same truth. and the same reality and that work of grace in our hearts of dying the old man and rising to new life. We also read there in first Corinthians 5 7 right where Paul says we have Christ is our Passover. Christ has fulfilled for us what the Passover was, as it was a sacrament to the Jewish people, looking forward to Christ. Paul says, our Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed for us. So I just want us to grasp the Old Testament sacraments, as far as they related to the spiritual things that you and I enjoy now in Christ, we're talking about the same things, and therefore it's appropriate for us to use the same language that God uses about them in referring to them as signs and seals. Are we tracking on that? Excellent. I'm going to go on then. In the next part we read, they were instituted by God. Now this is extremely important. Sacraments are not human inventions. God began them for us. God instituted, that means he started them up and he wants us to continue to use them. And God instituted them so that by our use of them, when we use baptism, when we use the Lord's Supper, God might make us understand more clearly the promise of the gospel and seal that promise to us. Now, before we establish that truth from scripture, I want to say this. The key one of the key things here is in the sacraments God is doing something. God is showing you more clearly his grace. God is showing you more clearly his gospel promise. And in the sacraments God is guaranteeing that grace to you. God is guaranteeing that promise. I want you to understand the sacraments, God is active in them. God is doing something by our use of the sacraments. And again, you can start to then sense and feel why we can't use these lightly in an unworthy manner because they are just as much God's word to us, his sacraments. God is showing you more clearly his grace. And God is guaranteeing that grace to you. That's what God is doing in the sacraments. They are not signs of our faith. In a secondary way, our faith is shown in the sacraments because, of course, as believers, we've been baptized ourselves and we baptize our children. And, of course, it's as believers in Christ that we're eating the Lord's Supper, but they're not primarily about our faith. They are about God's grace. And God is active in them, showing us something and sealing something to us. I think that's wonderful, right? We all want God present in our lives, here he is. Ministering to us in his word and sacraments. All right, well, we read last week in Genesis chapter 17, You know that in Genesis chapter 17 was where God instituted circumcision with Abraham. His covenant, he says, and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you and their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you. Circumcision's a permanent act, there's no going back. And the permanency of that act is replicating the permanency of God's covenant. It is an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you. So that's the covenant, right, that promise. And just so you know, as you read your Bibles, you'll find very often in Scripture, covenant and promise are synonymous. And you're going, well, why is that? Because the covenants that God makes with us are just promises. God's telling you, I'm going to do something for you. They're not the kind of ways where you and I can enter into covenants. You do a little bit, I do a little bit, and it's a mutual agreement. It's God declaring his grace to us. It's God promising something to us. So promise and covenant mean the same thing. That's why God can say, here's my covenant, and you're going, what is it? I'm gonna be your God, you're gonna be my people, you and your descendants forever. And then we read in verse 10, this is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and every descendant after you. Every male child among you shall be circumcised and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins. It shall be a sign of the covenant, the promise between me and you. So that language of sign, there we see in Genesis 17, right? God instituting the sacrament of circumcision and God instituting the sacrament of circumcision as a sign. pointing to His covenant promise, but also now let's go to Deuteronomy 30, pointing to that inward grace that He does in us, pointing to that gospel promise. Did you notice the context in Deuteronomy 30? Where were God's people? Were they in the land or out of the land? Out. Why were they out? I thought God put them in the land. Judgment right they had sinned against somebody had scattered them. So Deuteronomy 30 is looking towards the time of the gospel We've already read how we're circumcised in Christ when God will gather not just Bloodline Jews back, but all his people because that's why we said at the beginning God shall has it will establish he has saved Jacob that means the church and He will be exalted in Israel. That means believers in Jesus Christ, but Deuteronomy 30 is a gospel promise where God's gonna bring him back and look what he says in verse six. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants. And then he tells us, well, what does that mean for God to circumcise your heart? Now they've been circumcised physically, but God's promising, showing us what circumcision really points to, circumcising our hearts. And he tells us, what does that mean? that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, that you may live." If you love the Lord your God with your heart and soul, you've been circumcised. God's done something to you. He has changed your heart. Now, he's not talking about the heart organ, that mass of flesh that pumps blood. That's just the same physical thing. He's talking about you. The heart in scripture is your inmost self, you. God has changed you. He's done something unchangeable to you. He's cut off that old man, that enmity where you hated this God, did not like this God, did not trust this God, would not submit to this God and his rule. And he has changed your heart in his love and giving his son for you and has changed you to now love him. So we see then that circumcision points, as God said it would, to that gospel promise of what he would do for us in Jesus Christ. Paul talks about that in Romans 2, where he's getting on Jews who think they're fine with their fleshly circumcision and don't think they need to repent, don't think they need a crucified Savior, don't think they need to be saved in that way. He says, for he's not a Jew who's one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter. whose praise is not from men, but from God. You know, it's easy to fleshly circumcise yourself and then boast because a man can circumcise himself. God alone can circumcise your heart. You have only God to praise for your salvation because there's nothing you can do to circumcise you. but God in his grace does that for you, and that's what circumcision always pointed to, something of a matter of the inward heart, something done in the spirit, and something done according to his gospel promise to us. We'll look at it again in a moment. Finally, that's the language of a sign, but what about the language of seal? If you turn to Romans 4.11, where Paul is defending his doctrine of justification by faith by the example of Abraham and the example of David, he says in verse 11, and he, Abraham, received the sign of circumcision, we've already seen that, but then he goes on to say, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, Though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also. Now, I know you know your Bibles, and I know you know that before God instituted circumcision for Abraham, God gave Abraham promises, right? And you know that Abraham was a man who was a pagan living in Ur of the Chaldees and did not know this God. And God graciously came to him and said, Abraham, you, You're going to be the heir of this world and your descendants. This world is going to be full of your children one day. And he's not talking about physical children. He's talking about you and me, believers. Sons of Abraham by faith. And in you, your seed, Jesus Christ, all the nations are going to be blessed. And God, we know Abraham believed that. You know, by that simple trust in God and his promises, God counted Abraham to be righteous in his sight. He was forgiven and God accepted him. Not because of covenant obedience. Because you know in Genesis 17, God comes to Abraham and he says, I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless. And he did that. But Abraham was justified ever before God said, walk before me and be blameless. He was justified when God said, Abraham, get out of this country, because I'm going to make you a great man. and I'm gonna give you a numerous seed and I'm gonna do all these wonderful things to you. Come back tonight as we look at Abraham's faith and we see how precious it is to have God's promises and to live by those promises. That's what we're talking about tonight. Circumcision then for Abraham did not confer anything on Abraham that he didn't already have by faith. Circumcision functioned for Abraham to remind him of that covenant promise. It's everlasting. To show him more clearly what God has done unchangedly for him. You can't put the flesh back on. It's gone. It's done. That's what God's done to us in Christ. You can't put that old man back on. You've been saved definitively in Jesus Christ. And God was assuring him in that Abraham. I've accepted you, counted you as righteous by faith, and circumcision is me sealing that, guaranteeing the righteousness you already have by faith. And the point then I want to stress is, sacraments do not give you anything you do not already have by faith in Jesus Christ. They do not confer grace upon you. They do not give you benefits already. When God established circumcision, Abraham was a justified man, and he was an heir of this world, eternal life, by God's free promise, which he believed. And God had changed his heart in giving him, already before circumcision to show him of the change of heart, God had done with him. And to guarantee and assure Abraham of the righteousness that he has with God, by faith. Sacraments do not confer grace upon you. They do not give you something that you did not already have when you became a believer in Jesus Christ. That's not how they function. They are signs and they are seals. Let me give you a couple of illustrations about this. How many of you have been to the doctor? You've probably all been to the doctor. Or you've been to the oral surgeon, and they want to do something inside of you, right? And you don't know what they're going to do, but it's going to help you, right? You know that it's going to be saving to you, if you will. How many have been to the doctor, the oral surgeon, where they hold up a diagram, then, and they're showing you, well, here's what we're going to do inside of you, right? Or a 3D model. Here's what's going to take place. We're going to move this out and cauterize this and bring this over here, right? That's how sacraments work. Just as a doctor's diagram helps you to understand more clearly what they're about to do inside of you, sacraments are to help us understand more clearly what God has done in us by his grace and forgiving us and making us alive. How many of you have ever rented a house and put a down payment either on a house or not a, yeah, renting, not buying, but renting it? How many of you have ever rented an apartment or rented a house You make a down payment. Why do we make a down payment? Well, that landlord wants a guarantee that your promise is going to come true and you're going to pay that last man's rent besides jumping out of here, right? So we give down payments on rent as a seal, as a guarantee, assuring our landlords that our promise is true. They're going to get that money as we promised it. That's how sacraments work. How many of you have ever rented a hotel, right? And what do they want? They want a hold on your card, right? They want to make sure they're going to get paid. And that hold on your card works as a pledge, as a guarantee. They're going to get what you promise. I'll stay and I'll pay. And they say, yay. Not just with a word, but with a sacrament, with your hold, guaranteeing them they're going to get paid. So that's how sacraments work. They are God guaranteeing, assuring you, confirming to you, His salvation of you in Jesus Christ. What about a wedding band? How many of you wear wedding bands? Wedding bands, right? You make a vow, a promise, a covenant, and the wedding band is a sign of that, reminding you, I've made a promise to this person. This person made a promise to me. Elizabeth put this on my finger. Why? Because she said, till death do us part, you're stuck with me, right? For better or for worse, I'll love you and care for you. It's also a seal, right? This is a function to guarantee me. I have a pledge made that I can wear this. I can look and say, this says, I love you. This guarantees, right, I love you. That is how the sacraments work, where God's saying, I love you, and guaranteeing, I love you. That's how we're to receive God's sacraments, to hear him say to us, like he says in his word, I love you. And to put that ring on our finger, Guaranteeing, yeah, I really love you, my beloved people. Well, what's that gospel promise? What's that love that God has promised to us and give us? We see there. Here's another thing. Parents, work with your kids on this. This statement on the gospel promise is gold. Please, you could memorize this part of the catechism too. It is excellent. Here is God's gospel promise that he grants us, that means freely gives, bestows upon us, forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Eternal life is also used for salvation. It's also used for God's kingdom, makes us heirs of his kingdom, heirs of life. God gives us forgiveness of sins and eternal life by grace. It's his favor, his goodwill towards us, not anything we've done. And because of Christ, one sacrifice, accomplished on the cross. So where does this love come from? Why are our sins forgiven? Why are we heirs of eternal life? Because God has been gracious to us and because Jesus died for us. Because God has been gracious to us and because Jesus has died for us. Where do we hear God saying that in his word? Well, we read it there in Matthew 26. And the words of institution, we hear it every week, right? Where God says to us, where Jesus says, Then he took the cup, he gave thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. When we take the Lord's Supper, That's God's gospel promise being shown and sealed to us that by his grace, for the sake of Christ's sacrifice, he gives us forgiveness of sins and eternal life. That's as that promise relates to the Lord's Supper. In Acts chapter 2, we see it related to baptism when Peter preached the first New Testament sermon. And Acts 2.38, after he repeats to them, this Jesus whom you crucified, God's made Lord in Christ. And they said, uh-oh, we messed up. What should we do? And Peter says, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now notice, in the name of Jesus Christ means by his authority as the incarnate Lord. who died for our sins and rose again. Baptism is not conferring that upon you. Repentance is not conferring that upon you. You do not get forgiven because you forgive. That's not the cause of it. Jesus, by his sacrifice, has obtained for us forgiveness of sins, the gift of the Spirit. The way you come to receive that is through that two-sided coin of repentance and faith. And baptism is that sign and seal that God has forgiven you and made you new. And the promise of the Holy Spirit is the same thing as the promise of eternal life. because the Holy Spirit is the Lord and giver of life, because God's kingdom is in righteousness, joy, and peace, and the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is the earnest and down payment of our eternal inheritance. It's by the Spirit that we know God and live. So there you see Peter promising to them for Christ's sake, by God's grace, forgiveness, and the gift of eternal life, signed and sealed in baptism. I was gonna read to you John 4. I don't think I need to read 1 John 4, but I've already made the point to you, right? I'm gonna read you 1 John 4, because I think it's important. 1 John 4. 1 John 4, 9 and 10, and this is the love of God that was manifested towards us. Notice that God has sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. There's again, through his son, by what he's done, God has brought us to live through Jesus Christ. Now, notice, God is not bringing us to life because we've been good. And verse 10, and this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us. and sent his son to be the propitiation, the wrath-turning-aside sacrifice for our sin. The reason I wanted to read this, because I've already stressed it to you, just as much as the sacraments show us and seal God's promise, it's the same thing as showing and sealing to us God's love. Because God's love has materialized to us in Jesus Christ crucified for us, and the forgiveness of sins and eternal life that comes from him, that he's obtained for us, that we receive by faith. So that when we come to the table, we are truly having God declare to us his love, and we're truly having God seal to us his love. Pastor Young, so what? Why did you just spend 35 minutes yakking to me? Here's why. We need to know what these mean, because we need to use them rightly. You have to use the sacraments as a sign and as a seal. How do you use a sign? You let it point you to something. You let it show you something. If you come partaking of the sacrament, especially in the Lord's Supper, because God does command our children to be baptized, If you come partaking of the sacraments without beholding Christ in them and his benefits, without seeing the gospel and its promise, that is to misuse them. And that seems to be some of the trouble that the Corinthian church got into when they were not discerning the body in the Lord's Supper. They did not realize that by it we're proclaiming the Lord's death, because that's not just bread and wine. By God's holy use and ordinance, those represent to us the body and blood of Christ, so that we have a participation in and through them. And see, they forgot that part. They weren't using them as signs, discerning into Jesus's body and his blood, and they were misusing the sacrament, and God was judging them. And also, just to make that point, Because in Reformed churches, historically Reformed churches, have said you need to have a credible profession of faith to partake of the Lord's Supper. Children can be baptized, but you need to discern the Lord's body. You need to understand that this is a sign pointing me to something. You need to be able to see and know what God is showing you to use the sacraments. Because again, as I've stressed to you, the sacraments do not confer grace. They do not work ex operato. Just by performing the sacrament doesn't mean anything happens. It requires faith. How do you use a seal? So you use a sign, the sacraments show you something, you need to be seeing what they're showing to you, believing it, receiving it. How do you use a seal? Well, you let a seal settle the matter, right? Let a seal guarantee to take away all doubt from you. I've heard it in the promise. God's promise and he's true. God's guaranteed me. I use the seal to let it guarantee, to assure me, to take away my doubts about God and his love for me and his grace. You know, you probably noticed in the prayer that we say after the Lord's Supper, That prayer dedication, have you noticed these words? We say, we thank you for assuring us in these holy mysteries, sacraments, that we are living members of the body of your son and heirs of your eternal kingdom. Now you know, right? Because sacraments are seals. And it's proper to thank God that he's assured us we're living members of his body because he's forgiven us and made us alive at this son. And he's promised us eternal life, which means he's made us heirs of his kingdom. And God assures us in these holy mysteries of that truth. If you partake of the sacraments without letting them settle the matter for you, what is yours in Jesus Christ and receiving them as a guarantee and a pledge, that is to misuse the sacraments. You know, that also means that, how many of you like to know that God loves you? How many of you like to hear that your spouse loves you? How many of you romantics, right, and you just get those butterflies in your hearts when you know, He loves me? There should be extreme joy. I know we're Presbyterian, we're very solemn and somber. There should be extreme joy in Thanksgiving. And I'll just personally, just take it for what it's worth. I won't do too many of these personal things, Ever since I've been in the Presbyterian Church, I've always been a little bit, it's too somber. And it's too individual. We're all just looking at the cup together, kind of afraid to peek around. Are they happy? Is he smiling? I'm like, we should be thankful and rejoicing. We should be saying, I'm so glad God died for you. Christ died for you, son of God. I'm so glad he saved you. So glad you belong to him. Because God is declaring his love to us, his people, guaranteeing that love to us, and that's wonderful. That should cause us to be very joyful and celebrate. So I'll talk to the elders about the appropriate level of celebration, and then we'll see where we go from there. I've already made that point, so I won't hit on it. They're seals. They do not confer to us. Again, that's another problem we read in Corinth. You know that they were baptizing dead people. Paul gets on him that because he's kind of chiding him. You've got people in the church who are doubting the resurrection, so why are you baptizing into Jesus' death anyways? It doesn't do anything because he's not alive himself. Of course he is. He's just arguing what they think. But why do you think they were baptizing dead people? Because they thought it worked like magic. Because it has been taught in the history of this church that there is power in that bread. There ain't power in that bread. There's magic in that cup. There ain't magic in that cup. There's nothing in that cup but wine. There's nothing in that loaf of bread. They're signs. They point to the body and blood of Christ. We know that because, how many of you have heard of Simon the sorcerer in Acts 8? Simon the Sorcerer was evangelized by Philip. Simon the Sorcerer was baptized by Philip. Simon the Sorcerer was told by the Apostle Peter, you're in the gall and bitterness of sin. Apparently his baptism didn't confer anything on him. He was unregenerate. He wasn't circumcised in the heart. Baptism does not confer grace. We'll talk about that later in sacramental union in coming weeks when we get to baptism. We'll talk more about that. I just want to stress to us, because it's taught in the church. People think these are magical things that have some power imbued in them. They don't. God sovereignly, by his Holy Spirit, working by and with them in that word of institution, is showing you Christ by them, his love, and sealing it to you. That's what they're doing. And I'll just quote here Kevin DeYoung. I think he says it very well. The sacraments are means of grace only insofar as we receive by faith the gospel truths promised in the elements. God is making a promise to you and guaranteeing that promise to you. And without faith, you receive nothing but just the bread and wine. But positively, you also can incur the judgment of God because you're eating and drinking unworthily, without faith, without a wholehearted trust in Christ. You're not letting it settle anything for you. You just think you can get something out of it. And that's not how they work. I was gonna spend a little more time, and I've gone a little bit. At the same time, I'm gonna take the time. Our larger catechism asks this question. May one who doubts of his being in Christ or of his due preparation come to Lord's Supper? And we've heard what God's doing in him. He's showing you his gospel promise, how he saved you in Christ, what he's given to you in Christ, and he's guaranteeing that it's yours. What if I doubt? What if I don't have that infallible assurance of faith that God says he gives to us through his means of grace? What if I wonder and have those doubts and wrestle? What if I've been waiting a long time? What if I have to go through these many difficulties to say, am I really in Christ and am I really saved? If you're someone who doubts, You've been baptized, you've made a public profession of faith, but you just sometimes doubt about your salvation. And you don't have assurance that I'm in Christ and belong to God. Can you eat the supper? And the answer is, well, Yes, depending on how you eat the supper. It says this, one who doubts of his being in Christ or of his due preparation to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, he may have true interest or a share in Christ. So he might doubt, but he may truly be in Christ, though he's not yet assured that he's in Christ, but in God's account of it, he has it. He be duly affected with the apprehension of the want of it and unfaintedly desires to be found in Christ and depart from iniquity. If you are someone here doubting that you're in Christ, you can partake of it if you are troubled in your soul that you don't know, that you are in spiritual anguish because you are uncertain of your state before God and whether you are a saved person or not. whether you are in a state of grace or not. And what it's warning against is someone who can say, well, I'm not sure, and then casually unaware of it. What do you mean you're not sure? What do you mean you don't know where you're gonna go? You're just gonna chance it? Wait to the end and find out, maybe God will let me get into heaven, maybe not? And if it's your heart's desire to be found, all you want is to be in Christ and to be done with iniquity. and not just saying, well, I'm not sure, but I'll dabble a little bit more in sin. You can be doubting and not sure, but are you affected by that doubt and troubled in your soul that you're not certain where you stand with God? And it's all your heart's desire to be in Christ, found in him, and depart from iniquity. In such a case as that, because promises are made, and this sacrament is appointed for the relief even of weak and doubting Christians, he is to bewail his unbelief. You can think of the man who says, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. He is to labor to have his doubts resolved. You're not to stay in that cage. You can labor through prayer. You can labor through spiritual counsel. You can labor through partaking of this sacrament. and so doing he may and ought to come to the Lord's Supper that he may be further strengthened because it's appointed for that end. Sacraments are visible, holy signs and seals through which God is making you, congregation, understand more clearly his gospel promise that he has forgiven you He has given you eternal life by His grace for Christ's sake, and He is guaranteeing that to you. We do not get a better Christ in the sacraments, but we might get Him better. And may the Holy Spirit use these sacraments that we might all get Christ better and have our hearts strengthened and established by God's grace that we might serve him in the joy and peace of assured believing.