All right, good morning, everybody. Great to see you all. I hope you all had a good week. Just a little note, I will not, I'm preaching at a church in Ellijay next Sunday, so I'll not be here, but Sean Eaton, our music guy, will be going through our lesson on worship next week, so you'll have an actual pro talk about something. But before we get started, so last week we finished off our talk about covenant theology, I know we were just ramrodded that through. Today we're going to talk about the sacraments and how we approach the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. And as we do that, I'm going to read for us Romans chapter 4, verses 1 through 11, one of our, kind of one of the key, or 1 through 12, one of the key passages that we'll build on when we think about baptism and the Lord's Supper. Talking explicitly about circumcision here, Paul writes in Romans 4, "'What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God and was counted to him as righteousness.'" Quoting Genesis 15. Not to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. But just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Is this blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he'd been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe, whether being circumcised, without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well. and to make him the father of the circumcised, who are not merely circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised." You just notice a couple of interesting things. The main point is, hey, basically circumcision, the act of circumcision, does not determine your standing before God. But it's always about the faith that you have. And the way Paul, this interesting way Paul is reading the story of Abraham, of hey, He was justified before he was circumcised so that he'd be the father of those who are circumcised and circumcised. Jew and Gentile both can claim Abraham as father. But it's that verse there that we're going to hone in on a little bit later. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. We're going to hone in on that little verse a little bit later. But it's an important verse when we think about the sacraments that the Lord has given us. So let's pray, and then we'll get started. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your promises to us and the way you seal them and signify them to us in baptism in the Lord's Supper. I thank you for these dear saints here this morning, and the joy it is to walk alongside them, to teach them, to be a pastor to them, to serve them, as you have called me to. And I pray for all the classes going on this morning, They would be a means of grace, Lord, to instruct, edify, build up your people. Lord, we pray for your worship service today that it would be a time of glory for you and to your son who sits on the throne, Lord, that we might bring back all the things you've given us to lay our crowns at your feet and to worship and adore you and to hear your word preached to us. We ask this in Christ's name, amen. Okay, so when we think about the sacraments, You'll notice the very first thing there, the sacraments are, very simply put, the places that God has promised to meet us at. God, in His Word, God has promised to meet us in His sacraments. And one of my professors would sort of say it this way, you know, we think about all the ways that the Lord meets us, right? We can sort of think about it this way. Let's just say, you know, I've got to go pick up Joe from the airport in Atlanta, right? And Joe says, I'm going to be at terminal, you know, South Terminal, Delta, whatever, you know. And it's possible that I could say, you know what, Joe told me South Terminal, Delta side, but I'm just, I've got this feeling that a storm is going to shift into this North Terminal and he's going to come out the American. Is that outside the realm of impossibility? No. It's very unlikely, but it's possible. But the thing that makes most sense is to meet Joe at the gate that he said I would meet him at, right? And it's similar with the sacraments of, you know, God speaks to us, I mean, Psalm 8, the heavens declare the glory of God. The Lord uses many different things, but the sacraments are the first places that God promised to meet us, right? In the Lord's Supper and in baptism, it's where He has, in His Word, showed us and told us He is revealing, He's giving us physical signs of what He's done for us. We think about the things that are central to grace and what we would call ordinary means of grace churches. We always say words, sacrament, and prayer. Those three things are our chief focal points because those three things are what God promises to use to work in us. Acts of mercy are very important, but they're not what God promises to meet us. Even thinking about church picnics, fellowship, that's a very important point, but it's not where God promises to meet us, right? The Word, whether preached or taught, sacraments and prayer are the three places that God, three things that God promises to use to mold and shape us. Now fellowship is sort of an outrage on that. But when we think about the sacraments, so first just a definitional stuff, what is a sacrament? It comes from the Latin sacramentum, Anyone know what the Latin, that word means? So it just means mystery. So sacrament is the Latin, sacramentum is the Latin word for mystery. And part of it comes from its medieval Roman Catholic usage, but we're going to talk about why we don't, we're not down with that. And the short definition of what a sacrament is, is as I say there, it's a physical outward sign and seal of a spiritual inward reality, right? So it's something external signifying and sealing something internal, all right? Now when I say the word seal, don't think I'm meaning it seals it as in it makes it 100% secure. So like don't think of like sealing an envelope when you mark it down or, you know, when you close it in, although there's a part of that. But the word seal, it really has more to do with, you know, a signet ring. Right? So, you know, the old way when the king would send a letter, he would drip the wax and seal it down to let the person receiving it know, hey, this is actually from the king. Right? And the same way, so a sacrament is a sign that it shows something about the promise of God being made. So just thinking about baptism for a second. Baptism is an outward sign of the washing of the regeneration by the Holy Spirit. And we see that by the water being poured out upon the person receiving baptism, but it's a seal insofar as it is something given by God telling us, hey, this promise that I made you is true, right? In other words, we can think of the seal being that it is sealing to us the promise that all who believe will be saved. So we don't go around wondering, like, hey, God said if we believe we'd be saved, but, like, is he going to change the rules on me? Like, is that really what he meant? And the baptism, the Lord's Supper, is his seal upon the promise. Here's a medium definition from Westminster Shorter Catechism. A sacrament is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ wherein by sensible signs Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed, and applied to believers." So notice, first off, in that definition as we expand it, it's something given to us by Christ himself. So these sacraments are not just sociological things that we came up with, like, you know what really binds people together? Bread and wine. So that's what we're going to use, right, as one of our... And you know what just makes sense to be a sacrament? Watching people with water. No, these are things given to us by Jesus himself. And in the long definition, right, from Westminster's larger catechism, a sacrament is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ in his church to signify, seal, and exhibit unto those that are within the covenant of grace the benefits of his mediation, to strengthen and increase their faith in all of the graces, to oblige them to obedience, to testify and cherish their love and community with one another, and is distinguished there from those that are without. So you can see it builds on and gets a little bit into what these sacraments do in the life of the church. You'll notice first it's that signifying, sealing, and exhibiting. So there's something being, every time we baptize, as we'll baptize a child this morning, as we celebrate the Lord's Supper last week, every time we do those, there's something being shown forth about God's promises. The child is receiving it, but everyone in the audience is supposed to be pondering their own baptism as they witness this baptism of the child, or of just whoever. It's to help us, even as it says, the benefits of mediation. It helps us see the benefits of Christ's mediation. But then notice, too, it actually is a means by which the Holy Spirit strengthens and increases our faith. Every time we partake of the Lord's Supper, If we're beating on Christ by faith, if we're taking these elements by faith, the Holy Spirit is actually using them to increase our faith, to strengthen our faith. But then notice, too, oblige them to obedience. There is a certain obedience due to baptized members of the church. And even as you take the Lord's Supper, you are saying, yes, I recognize my place in the covenant of grace. And you are therefore obliging yourself to further obedience to testify and cherish their love and communion with one another. So even as we take the Lord's Supper, we are recognizing it's not just a solo act, but we're doing it with the entire body of Christ. And then baptism, right? The beautiful symbol of baptism of someone being brought into our fellowship, right? It's this entrance marker to our fellowship, and then to distinguish them from those that are without. And this is really, you know, We say Jesus gave these sacraments to do these things for us, but they're not all that different from any other sociological or group activity, right? Every group, whether it's the church or the Rotary Club or whoever, does things that let people know, hey, we're different from you, right? If you're a member of the masters, you've got that fancy green jacket, right? that you have to pay $100,000 for, or whatever, unless you win the tournament. Whatever, right? Everything has something that signifies, hey. And maybe the difference with baptism, baptism doesn't make a physical change on me. There's nothing that says, I'm better than you because I have this. All it does, it just says, we are different. I am a member of God's visible church. You are not, though it is freely welcome. You are freely welcome to come and join us. So those are the definitions. And what we see, though, as we talked about the last couple of weeks in covenant theology, that both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, God has given his people sacraments as they've gone across time. And this is one of the mercies that we see of God, as the Belgium Confession says about sacraments, that God gives us sacraments because he knows we are weak and feeble of heart. So God knows we're going to forget. God knows we're going to grow dull. God knows we're going to doubt. And he gives us these things. He's always given his people these things to help them along the way. And so you see there in the Old Testament sacraments, we have two main ones, right? Circumcision and Passover. And circumcision instituted in Genesis 17. I can think of it as a sign of cleansing, purification. There is this very visceral, bloody picture of the removal of the flesh for our covenant with God. And just think about the constant language of both Old Testament and New Testament, though, of this take off the old man, take off the flesh so that you might be united to God. There's this very visceral image in circumcision there. And there's also a very close tie we see between the covenant self and circumcision. So there's this very strong language about circumcision given in Genesis 17, 13, where he says, So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. So there is part of it of, hey, what you do to your males, it cannot be undone. And it's a symbol of God's own everlasting covenant. But also, the moment they did that, that person, that child, that circumcised child, was bound to God's covenant, even in a physical way, in this very physical way. But it was never about simple Physicality, right? It was never just about, even in the Old Testament, circumcision was not just about circumcision, right? But it was always about this spiritual reality. Look there at Deuteronomy 12 and 16. Moses tells Israel, now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord which I am commanding for you today for your good. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn. So even the circumcision itself was a sign of this spiritual reality that God was really working for towards the circumcision of the heart. The actual removal of the flesh from the inner man of Israel. And you'll see that same thing in Deuteronomy 30, Jeremiah 4, this command and this promise that God was going to circumcise their hearts, that God was going to make them clean. And there's a strict warning for those who do not practice this sacrament. Genesis 17, 14, any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant. So this is very important. being God's covenant means following this sacrament, enacting this sacrament. And yet, we even see God still had grace even for this promise. Because what's the first thing, you guys remember, what's the first thing Israel does, I can't remember if it's before or after they cross the Jordan with Joshua. Because remember, they have all the wandering years, 40 years of wandering, they get to the Jordan with Joshua finally. Let me just see if it's before or after, I can't remember. So they cross the Jordan, and the first thing they do is what? Wanna take a guess based on what we're talking about? They circumcised their males because they hadn't done it for 40 years, right? So all the people who had come out of the exodus hadn't circumcised their children. And yet, so while there's a strict warning, we see God even having grace on those, his people who don't follow it. Though there is, even later on, we'll see that that's one reason he finally kicked him out of the land, because of his constant stubbornness to not circumcise their children. Well, that's the first one, circumcision. The second sacrament we see in the Old Testament is Passover, instituted in Exodus 12. And notice, here's the institution, right, in Exodus 12. This shall be for you a memorial day. and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations, as a statue forever, you shall keep it as a feast. So the saving act of God that is then carried on across generation to generation. And yet there is a, even though it's a historical reality, it's also pointing towards a spiritual reality. Exodus 12, 26-27, when your children say to you, what do you mean by this sacrifice, this lamb, you shall say, it is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, for he passed over the house of Israel and Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, but spared our houses. So it's looking back to this historical reality, but even throughout the Old Testament, there's this recognition of what happened at the Exodus was actually a larger picture of God's salvation of us from sin. the spiritual reality being taken place. Now we can see this in 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul calls Jesus our Passover lamb. This final spiritual reality. So the spiritual reality comes later, even though the historical reality was taking place in Egypt in 1400 BC. And again, with the Passover, we see a strict warning. Numbers 9-13, if anyone should fail who is clean, and is not on a journey, fails to keep the Passover, that person shall be cut off from his people because he did not bring the Lord's offering at its appointed time. That man shall bear his sin. So it says, hey, if you're ceremonially clean, if you haven't touched a dead body or done anything to get you out of sorts, and you're not on a journey, and you don't keep the Passover, I'm gonna cut you off. This is strict warning. But again, we see God's grace in this, right? When Josiah does his reforms in 2 Kings, one thing they notice is, hey, we haven't been doing these Passovers for a whole long time, right? A long, long time we have forgotten to do these. And still God's grace to them and not cutting them off. So those are the two Old Testament sacraments. And now we're going to talk briefly about the New Testament sacraments, right? And how we see that they are replaced. And the first one is their We see it instituted in Matthew 28, 19. There you'll see that passage from Acts 2, 38-39. Now, what's interesting about Acts 2, 38-39, which you see there Peter telling these men who are now converted, or who are hearing the preaching of the Word, he says, 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. directly quotes the Abrahamic promise, right? For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. And this corresponds, this is a very important correspondence with what we talked about the last two weeks with covenant theology because here, Peter is going all the way back to the first covenant made with Abraham and saying that you're still in that covenant. This is that promise given for you from God to you. Here's how Westminster Shorter Catechism defines baptism. It says, baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament wherein the washing with water in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit does signify and seal our engrafting into Christ and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace and our engagement to be the Lord's. And so it signifies the washing with water. It signifies our union with Christ. Paul talks about we were buried with him in baptism. So when we are baptized, we are united to Christ by the Spirit. And then our engagement to be the Lord's. So it's this introductory sacrament where we now are under the service and command of the Lord. And we see, Paul notes very clearly, Baptism replaces circumcision as the intro marker for God's people. Colossians 2, 11-12, in Christ also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism. So here we receive the circumcision of Christ, which is being buried with him in baptism. So he's making this connection of The circumcision that Christ gives is actually now signified in the baptism that we are united to him with, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. Do you see that correspondence being made where Paul says, hey, you were circumcised, but it's a circumcision made without hands because it's now a circumcision through baptism. It's baptism that begins it for you. And just like in the Old Testament, we have this strong language attached to baptism. Acts 22, be baptized, wash away your sins. There's this correspondence of this close connection to the physical and the spiritual reality. Romans 6, when we were baptized, we were baptized into Jesus' death. We were united in his resurrection. Galatians 3, for as many as you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Hebrews 10, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Or lastly, 1 Peter 3.21, baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you. not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So time and again in the New Testament, there's this very strong language attached to baptism, really trying to highlight its importance. We're not saying that baptism regenerates you. We're not saying that when we pour the water over the baby's head, suddenly he's got a new heart and the Holy Spirit dwells within him. But we are saying it's an important part of the people of God. One of my professors in our preaching lab, we always had to preach a baptismal homily. And so many of us would say something like, baptism doesn't save you. And trying to be good Presbyterians, and our professor would always say, be a little bit more precise rather than directly contradicting Scripture. Because again, notice 1 Peter 3.21, baptism now saves you. Now we need to define what salvation means there. But we want to understand, hey, there is a very strong connection that God makes between baptism and His promises. And, you know, one, I don't think anyone would be forward to this. I don't think, maybe Joe, well, no, you, yeah. So not everyone, I don't think anyone would necessarily have an issue with this, but we still baptize our children, right? We believe that Just as circumcision was given to the children of God's people, so the new covenant sacrament should be given to God's people as well. And, you know, we could talk forever about this, but just the important thing to note, going back to Romans 4, right, where Paul says, hey, Abraham was justified by faith before he was circumcised, and then he was given the sign of circumcision as a sign of his justification by faith, right? So God gave Abraham this sign. So Abraham here was justified by faith. We'll have a little thought bubble for faith. He's justified in this moment, and then later on, I'm not going to draw a circumcision. He was given the promise. We'll just draw an X. That's right. But it wasn't you get circumcision and then you're justified. It was he was justified by faith, and then he received. And notice how Paul says it. It's a sign of his justification by faith. And here's what's important. Basically, Paul is saying, hey, for lack to be a little crass, Paul is sounding like a Baptist, right? Abraham was saved and then he got the sacrament. Fair enough. But then what was Abraham commanded to do with that sacrament? Give it to his children. Give it to his sons. So here's kind of the important point I'm trying to make. This was a sign of Abraham's justification by faith. And yet he was commanded to give the sign of his justification by faith to his children. Right? He was commanded. And that's how it's sometimes frightening. If you talk with a Baptist, they'll say, well, this was just all about physical stuff. Since we believe in a spiritual reality, we have to make sure that spiritual reality is in place before we give them the sign. And Paul actually seems to say, hey, circumcision was always about a spiritual reality, but guess what? You still gave it to their children. They still gave it to their children as well, as a promise to them. And so that's kind of the big, to me, that is the ceiling point for why we still give baptism to our children. That it's a sign of justification by faith, much like circumcision was to Abraham. And guess what? Just like Abraham, we give that sign to our children. We give that sign, we pass that on to them. Before we go into Lord's Supper, any questions about Old Testament circumcision or baptism or anything at all? More of a curiosity. Yeah. John the Baptist was baptized before Christ. Yes. What's the origin of baptism? Yeah, so there's a lot of debate on that. I think baptism has its roots in things like, so in Exodus 24 you see Moses sprinkling the people with the blood. of the sacrifice to institute the Mosaic Covenant. You see there's the golden sea in the tabernacle. Remember, there's a temple. They build the, I guess it's bronze sea. It's filled with water that the priest would walk through. Either they'd walk through or kind of sprinkle themselves to make them ceremonially unclean. So baptism as a sign of washing has really, has gone back a long, long, long time, both in the people of God and also in just surrounding communities, right? And then by the time you get to John the Baptist, I'm not well enough versed to, you know, talk fully about it, but as I understand it, what John the Baptist was preaching, I mean, he was preaching the kingdom of God, but the baptism he was referencing was really, I mean, there was already a cultural religious practice of understanding, like, hey, when we wash, we get clean. Like, there's this, a natural connection between those things. But it was still part of the, I would say, still part of the Old Covenant order of things. Like, they need to be washed, but they also need to do sacrifices, kind of stuff. There's that verse in, I think it's Acts, like where he says, so usually the Holy Spirit, we didn't know there wasn't one. Yes. And then what were you baptized into? And they said it was a John baptism. Yes, yeah. And then he said that's pointing to His baptism was pointing to Jesus. Yes, exactly, yeah. Yeah, so baptism as just a practice, a religious practice, has been going on in different ways for a long time. Personally, and there are people who disagree with me, there are people who say our baptism is the baptism of John the Baptist, which I think directly contradicts the Acts passage like that. I believe ours was instituted at the Great Commission. Go baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So, you know, that's why we always, whenever we baptize somebody, we say in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Like, we recognize, hey, washing with water is not a unique thing to Christianity. A lot of cultures, a lot of religions have seen the correspondence to washing with water to being clean. But what's unique to Christianity is baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Does that answer your question? Yeah. Wouldn't John the Baptist, that practice be more like a believer's baptism? Well, yes and no. I would say his baptism was more about, it's hard to even... His repentance, wasn't it? Yeah, so it's a, you know, thinking about the benefits. It is confusing. I think what, you know, Jesus even says, I need to be baptized to fulfill all righteousness. So there's this understanding of, hey, in order for us to be clean, we have to be washed with water. But even John the Baptist, I think, would have said something like, but we still need these sacrifices. Like, it's not just be washed, hey, you're off scot-free. Like, go do whatever. There's still this we still need the sacrifices. And that's why when Jesus comes, sacrifices end. It's a totally new thing because this baptism is all we need. Not just the physical, we need the spiritual reality, the spirit washing us with the blood of Jesus. But we no longer need these sacrifices. We no longer need the old covenant festivals and feasts and all those things. So I would say John the Baptist, John the Baptist's baptism is a shadow. It has a lot of the same things as signifying, but it's a shadow of the baptism that Jesus gives us. Does that help? Okay, so again, just a couple things we're not saying. We're not saying baptism regenerates the child or the person, you know, the moment the water hits their head. We're not saying then they are just fully, you know, they are totally secure in the in the work of Jesus. Are you saying it more like, that's the part I have trouble with, like, with the children, like, whereas Abraham had faith and he was baptized, but then they told him to circumcise him. Yeah, yeah. Circumcised his children, more so that, like, the person would be like, say I was, I have faith, so I should baptize my children because of, I don't know if you'd say because of my faith, but like, Well, it is because of your faith, and the faith that you were acting out in that promise is the promise that God made to me is also for my children. So if you had a child that, say, became a Christian, and your parents weren't Christians, you wouldn't baptize the child? Well, I mean, depending on the age of the child, I would baptize them. I would say, you know, Between like 8 and 12, I could probably get sued, and I don't know what is happening there. But if a 15-year-old came to us and said, hey, my parents aren't Christians, but I'm a believer, I mean, I would baptize them. I would tell them. And I also believe if a family—we did this with the Wrangles not too long ago. I mean, the Wrangles have a son who's 7 and a daughter who's—well, they have 5 kids, but oldest is 7, youngest is almost a year. When we baptized Tony, we baptized all five kids. The thing that drives me to baptize a newborn infant also says, hey, I think we should baptize a nine-year-old kid who's joining with his parents to a church for the first time. So it's not a sign, it's not a mark of regeneration. That's kind of how the Lutherans view it. That's how Roman Catholics view it. There's some Anglicans who view it that way. Like, hey, when you're baptized, fully regenerate like that and that's really one reason at least that was the early defense for infant baptism of like we just got to regenerate them as soon as possible, right? But it's also why a lot of people waited until baptism to the very end. They'd be on their death's door and be like, all right, now is the time to be baptized because now I know I'm not going to mess it up on the other side. So it's not a regeneration of the child, but it's not just a physical sign. Talk about sacrament being a mystery. This is this kind of mystery realm that we lay in when we baptize people. It's not regenerating the person, but it's also not just a physical sign. there's something more at work going on. At least part of this can be shown by, hey, if a child is born in the church, was baptized as an infant, catechized, brought up, and then at 18 totally walks away from the faith, there is more judgment for that person coming than someone who is never a part of the church. They're both under God's wrath. But I guess the point I'm trying to make, there's more judgment awaiting someone who has received a sign of baptism and walks away than someone who's never been baptized. But the promises are greater, right? There's a, 80% of statistics are made up, that kind of thing. But somewhere between 85 and 95% of believers in the world today come from Christian families. Right? And, you know, not all of them baptized are kids, but there's something very precious and powerful about being a part of a believing family that baptism, at least in part, is trying to signify. Okay. Lord's Supper. Real quick. Instituted in the upper room. See there, Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22. Here's how the Westminster Confession of Faith defines Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is a sacrament. Wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to Christ's appointment, his death is showed forth, and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporeal or carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits to their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace. So, hey, the Lord said at first, it shows forth Christ's death, his body given for us, his blood poured out for us. But, and even when we eat, notice what it says, we're not eating it in a corporeal or carnal manner, right? We're not eating this physical body of Christ, but we are feeding on Christ by the Spirit, even as we eat this bread and drink the cup. And there's a close correspondence too, just like you saw circumcision and baptism, there's a close correspondence between Passover and the Lord's Supper, right? Just before He institutes The Lord's Supper, Jesus says there in Luke 22, 15, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. Now I personally think what he's doing there is this Passover is referencing that meal, but that is the final Passover, right? That ends that practice, and then he institutes this new thing, right? The Lord's Supper, it is fulfilling the Passover. It's fulfilling to the, you might say it's Same book, two different chapters. And Christ closes the page on the Passover, and he institutes this new sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And then Paul, like I said earlier, in 1 Corinthians 5-7, Paul calls Christ our Passover lamb. And now that we feed on him in the Lord's Supper, there is this correspondence being made. Just like that, you know, there's the spiritual, there's a physical sign of water, the spiritual reality of washing and union with Christ. In the same way, right, there's the physical sign of bread and the cup. But the spiritual sign itself, the spiritual reality is Christ. That is the substance of the Lord's Supper. First Corinthians 10, all Israel ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. And then John 6. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. So as I said, the way that we approach the Lord's Supper is even as we're eating this physical bread and drinking from the spiritual cup, by the Spirit, for all of our faith, we're actually feeding on Christ. And the fancy term for that is the duplex mundicatio. You can impress your friends with that. It just means the two-fold chewing. So you're chewing physically this bread, but spiritually you're chewing on Christ. You're physically drinking the cup, Spiritually, you're drinking the blood of Christ, right? You're partaking, you're finding your life in Christ. Now again, so here's the kind of three ways of interpreting what we just talked about, the spirituality of Christ. The first would be this physical presence. So hey, when we come to the Lord's table and the priest says his words, It looks like bread, it tastes like wine, but it's physically actually Christ's body and blood, right? So they use what's called Aristotelian principles. So there's things called substance, which is what something actually is, and accidents, which is, you know, for example, I am Christian, that's my substance. I am a human being, but I have a unique human nature of being Christian brewer. An accident would be my brown hair, right? lose my hair, I could go bald and I would still be Christian, right? Or, you know, an accident would be happening on my teeth. I could lose all my teeth, but I would still be Christian, right? So just to help you understand that. And so they would say, hey, the substance of the bread actually becomes Jesus's flesh and blood. But it's just the accidents remain the same. So it tastes like bread. It looks like bread now. Thankfully, it tastes like wine. It looks like wine, but it's actually physically. And Lutherans have something a little similar, which they call consubstantiality. So it's in, with, and under, which, again, it's a confusing one. But Christ is still physically present there. So where the bread is, Christ is physically present there. And then there's, that's one end. There's another far end of the spectrum, which is just a memorialist, and this is mostly Baptists. So many are starting to change. A guy who's kind of credited with starting with Older Zwingli. And they say, no, no, no, there's nothing spiritual happening. The only thing that spiritually could be said to be happening is that we are remembering Jesus' sacrifice. That's all, it's just a memorial. It's just this, we do it, right, they take in remembrance of me as the only way to describe it. We're just doing it as this memento. And as we do it, we get special feelings, we ponder our sin, but that's all that's really happening. And the historic Reformed way with Calvin, Peter Barth, Martin Vermiglie, and many, many others, Call it a true or a spiritual presence, which is how we perceive Him. And so, hey, when we come to celebrate the Lord's table, it's not that the bread becomes Jesus' body. It doesn't become His blood. But Christ is present then in a special way compared to when we are not celebrating the Lord's table. Right? Does that make sense? You've got to see that Christ is spiritually present in a way that He has promised to be found only at the Lord's table. Only there would He be present like that. So, what do I mean by that? First, I mean that Christ is present by the Spirit, and we are present with Christ. So, Christ is brought down to us by the power of the Spirit, but then we are also brought up into, you know, every time we partake of the Lord's Table, we are not just enacting, but engaging here and now in the final marriage supper of the Lamb. We are, by the Spirit, being brought forth in time and place and participating in the marriage supper of the Lamb, just here and now. Those who eat and drink in faith are spiritually nourished. Those who have received the word of promise have it confirmed by the Eucharist. So, as Michael reported in the supper, we are not testifying to the strength of our faith or maturity, but we are receiving the gift that strengthens the weak. The Lord's Supper is not, look how confident I am that I am saved so that I can partake of this. But it's, look how weak and needy I am that I constantly have to feed on Christ to be saved. I need his body and blood. It means that the Lord's Supper is one of the ways that we are made more and more into the image of Jesus. And last I'm going to say, because we're out of time, even though we baptize our infants, it's important that we do not, we are very keen on, it is not until someone comes to faith they are allowed access to the table. There's this important distinction to be made, and we do this by, part of 1 Corinthians 11, eating or drinking in an unworthy manner. Now that means a lot of different things. So I would say that it means, you know, Andy and Joe are at loggerheads with each other, and Andy's like, I hate Joe, and Joe says, I hate Andy. Well, I would say, hey, you guys shouldn't take the Lord's Supper until you figure this out, because it's also a sign of our unity with one another. But it also, I think, is talking about our own spiritual state. Are we actually part of the body of Christ or not? And so the way we divide it is we say baptism is the sign of union, which is a passive work on our part, where God unites us to Christ by His Spirit. And there's even that symbol, right? A baby doesn't have to be baptized. A baby doesn't baptize himself. He is just totally passive in the act of baptism. While the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, is the sign of communion, right? Which implies an activity on our part, right? communion with Christ, Christ comes to us and we come to Jesus, that is signified there in the Lord's Supper. And to eat without a confession of faith, as I say, would be to presume that we just automatically have communion with Christ, which we don't. We do not just get to come willy-nilly in the presence of the King whenever we want, but he must invite us and we must respond in faith to that. And so again, we might think of, last thing, I know I said last thing, but baptism is the beginning of corporate worship, right? So it's the beginning of your presence before the king, whether as an infant or as a new believer. The Lord's Supper is the end or the goal of corporate worship, right? We come to hear his word, to sing his praises, to be assured of confession of sin, but the goal of it is, even as we see in Revelation, 19 to 22, the goal of everything is dining with the king. The goal is to find our place at the king's table. As always, I've got some books there at the end, some further reading. If you want to go back and read, I've done a couple of similarities and differences between circumcision versus baptism and Passover versus the Lord's Supper, which might be helpful for you, seeing the differences between the two. But again, just If there's anything I can, just a couple books to recommend. Jason Vopilis' Covenantal Baptism is a super easy, short read. I think it's like 110 pages, and the pages are about that big, with like 18-point font and double-spaced, so it's not a lot. And then the John Calvin's short treatise on the Lord's Supper and his Confession of Faith Concerning the Eucharist. You know, it sounds intimidating to read John Calvin. 40-20 Reformation theologian, but he is remarkably easy in papstoral to read, I think, and he is not going to be the snore or the snooze fest that you might think he would be. So, out of time, as always, if you have any questions, feel free to email me or shoot me a text, or Paul would love to talk more. But let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this time, Even as I have to blitz through some of these things, I do pray that you would use it to help these people come to a fuller understanding of what we believe to be the biblical understanding of baptism, of why we baptize our children, of what we believe is happening when we come to the Lord's table. Lord, we know that, as we said, that you meet us here at these places. And so we even pray now that as we go into your worship and witness the baptism of the new child, that you would meet us there. that you would remind us of our own baptism, that even as we, whether we were baptized as believers or baptized as children, that as we see this little girl receiving the sign of baptism, that we would be reminded of our own bodies bearing the mark of that water, Lord, and what that means for us as we walk on this road, as we seek to engage the service of Christ. Father, I pray that you bless these people here this morning. Lord, would you go before us and make your face to shine upon us, in Jesus' name, amen.