Please turn to Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16. As we read through this chapter, we won't read the whole thing, we'll read selections. So begin reading in verse 1. Give heed to the reading of God's Word. Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places. For they all knew that his father was a Greek, and they went on their way through the cities. They delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily. So setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace, and the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia, a Roman colony. We remained in this city some days. And on the Sabbath day, we went outside the gate to the riverside where we supposed there was a place of prayer. And we sat down and spoke to the women who had come there together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, but was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized in her household as well, she urged us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. And she prevailed upon us. Skipping down to verse 25. About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were open and everyone's bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prisoner doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that his prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, do not harm yourself, for we are all here. And the jailer called for lights, and rushed in, and trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds. And he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into the house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God. Let us pray. Fathers, we come to your Word this morning. We ask that as we hear you, that you would implant your Word into our hearts by faith, that the Spirit might unite us to Christ, that we might be affected, that we might have the benefit of Christ in our hearts. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. As we're about to witness the application of God's covenant sign and seal, as is the custom, I'm taking a break from our series in John. to look at an aspect of baptism, to have a sermon that directs us to think through the sign and seal as that gospel presentation is proclaimed in the sign and seal. I almost titled the sermon this morning, A Circumcision and Two Baptisms. But the problem is it's not just two baptisms, it's two household baptisms. And there's more to it than that. For as we shall see this, That's what we got. But I originally desired only to look at Lydia's household and the Philippian jailer's household, but I was really struck and I was taught years ago that if something stands out as just not right, that's where you need to drill down. And what I mean by not right is that your mind doesn't flow naturally in that direction. Because in chapter 15, we just had the Jerusalem Council, where, through much controversy, the apostles had come to the realization that one does not have to become a Jew before one can become a Christian. And so they said, no, you don't need to be circumcised. But then one of the first things Paul does, he circumcises somebody. So something's happening there, so we wanna draw our attention to that. And then we're going to look at these household baptisms. We live in 21st century American culture, and not just American culture in general, Northwest American culture, which is even more individualistic and more independent than other parts of America. I know many of you from other parts of the West. For those of us out East, this is much more independent. So we think in this individualistic mindset, and yet, The Bible doesn't put before us this reality of the faith. It puts before us that the family is one of the primary, if not the primary means of the promulgation of the Gospel. We even read from Genesis 17 where God chose Abraham and his descendants. Now, as the Old Testament is clear and the New Testament is clear, biology does not equal conversion. Yes, there is a great benefit, as Paul says in Romans 9, that there are great blessings to the family, but it's not automatic. It's not a ritual that just automatically confers it. And so, as we look at our passage this morning, we want to sit back and think, how do we differ from the Bible and make sure that we align ourselves to what God has revealed for how we should order ourselves. Even today, the household is one of the primary means whereby God has ordained that the faith be passed down. Unlike individualistic modern societies, I remember growing up, even families in churches would say, oh, I want my kid to be able to decide. I don't want to force it on them. No, what you're forcing on them with that mentality is secular humanism that they're catching from the culture. Don't let anybody tell you that there is no established religion in the United States. The established religion is secular humanism. And so unlike that, the Bible encouraged you, especially parents, to train up your children the way they should go. While it is not limited to the faith, that is your primary and enduring responsibility. It matters not if you teach your child how to become a billionaire if you do not teach them how to love the Lord. You are to teach them the fear and admonition of the Lord. And as we think about baptism in particular this morning, and we see it as a means of grace, but we'll also see if a means of grace is left untended, it's just a bare surgical procedure that has no lasting results. And so let's look at Timothy's circumcision here. Like I said already, this is an odd place for Paul to be circumcising somebody. He's just gone back to Jerusalem saying, hey, you're gonna need to tell these people, stop forcing people to be circumcised, and then he circumcises somebody. So when somebody acts in this way, you have to think, why? What's going on here? Because they just decided you don't have to become a Jew first and then become a Christian. Because that's what the Judaizers were saying. They were saying they must first take the sign of the Abrahamic covenant, circumcision, and then be baptized. So they're adding extra steps. It was Jesus plus Abraham. And Jesus plus anything means you lose everything. It's Jesus only that brings salvation. As Paul is sent out to bring tidings of this council, he circumcises Timothy. And so as we think about this, but there is something here to be gleaned, namely that a sacramental rite devoid of covenant nurture is just a procedure with no lasting effect. If all that happens this morning is two little girls get wet, That's all that would mean. And so they need the means of grace continually. They are brought into the visible church, but they need their parents in the church praying for them, instructing them in the faith, because this is how God works to bring, in effect, salvation. So let's look at Timothy. He's from a line of believing women. We know this not just from our passage here where it talks about a believing mother, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. We know this, but in 2 Timothy, Paul gives us more details. I'm reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, And now I am sure dwells in you as well. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of hands. For God gave us a spirit." One of the definitions that they use for who should be circumcised is, is your mother a Jew? And so they would circumcise their children. That actually is a development a little later than the New Testament era. Prior to that, it was your father. But what happened is you had a lot of issues going on with Roman depredations, and so they were having problems, and so that's why they switched to looking at matrilineal as opposed to patrilineal. But in this case, Timothy, his father was a Gentile, was a Greek, and so his father said, no, don't circumcise him, and so Timothy was not circumcised. But he had come to the faith, he'd been baptized, he'd been brought into the church. Timothy's father was a Greek who presumably prevented his son from being circumcised. Thus, he was not raised a Jew. Yes, his mother and grandmother had been, but he was not raised as one. He might have been numbered among the God-fearers like Cornelius. Remember Cornelius? He was a Roman, and so he loved the God of the universe, but he stopped short of circumcision. So they called those people God-fearers. Because without circumcision, you were not brought into the covenant community. And so this is the state of things. So Lois and Eunice could have instructed him in the Old Testament. Without the application of the external sign and seal of the covenant, he was not a recipient of the promises. He was not part of the covenant community. So this raises questions. Again, why would Paul do it? And what effect was there with Paul giving him with Paul circumcising him? The first question, Luke answers for us. He circumcised Timothy for the sake of those to whom he ministered. To the Jews, I became a Jew. To the Greek, I became a Greek, as Paul says elsewhere. And so we see it's for missional purposes that he does it. It's not making Timothy become a Jew. He does it as a surgical procedure, and that's it. This is the same Luke who later would rebuke, I'm sorry, Paul who would later rebuke the Judaizers. But if I, brother, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you and would emasculate themselves, for you were called to freedom, brothers." So Paul, when he talks to these Galatians who wish to force these Gentiles into circumcision, says, don't just circumcise, cut it all off, emasculate. He's showing the danger of the grace of God in the Gospel to forcing somebody to try to go back in the redemptive historical clock to the time of Abraham. Christ has come. The fullness has come. Don't go back to the shadows when the reality has come in Jesus Christ. Circumcision, while from the time of Abraham until the ascension of Christ, was necessary for inclusion of children in the covenant community, At the Ascension, what does Christ say? Go therefore to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and lo, I'm with you always to the end of the age. Well, I skipped. Teaching them to obey, and I shouldn't have skipped that part. Teaching them to keep all that I have commanded you. Because baptism without that teaching of everything I've commanded you is just a surgical procedure. It's just a little dampening to cool off on a hot summer day. So how can the same Paul do this? Because in the case of the Judaizers, they were teaching you to become a child of Abraham first, and Paul is saying, no, just so they can be happy and they won't be upset, go ahead and do it, but that's the extent of what happens with Timothy. He gets the circumcision, he's miserable for several days, and then they go about their ministry without becoming and following Jewish procedure. Never forget, circumcision is the sacrament of the Abrahamic covenant, not the Mosaic covenant. Oftentimes, when people read about the Judaizers wanting people to be circumcised, they're saying, oh, they want them to have to follow all of the Mosaic law. And it's, no, no, no. It's not going to the Mosaic law. It's going back to Abraham. And how is Abraham justified? Abraham believed in God and was credited to him as righteousness. And a law that came later cannot nullify the faith. And so they're not saying that Judaizers, you have to become a Mosaic Jew. They're saying you have to become an Abrahamic follower first and then come into Christ. Whereas Christ is the fulfillment of the promises given to Abraham. And to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 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. In His blessing, then, only for the uncircumcised 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 had 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 without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well. If Paul had circumcised Timothy as a means of incorporation into the faith, he would have been a hypocrite. because he'd just been arguing the opposite. But instead he performed a surgical procedure for the sake of weaker brothers, for the purpose of building up the church. Not for Timothy's sake, but for the others. Notice that was an act without catechesis, without instruction in the old ways. He was building them up in Christ. With that covenant nurture, Timothy was advanced in the gospel by preaching of the gospel of Christ. He was not brought further into the disputations of the rabbis. Every one of you is being catechized on a daily basis, either by Christ or the billboards along the side of the road, the commercials on TV. Even the laugh tracks on those comedies you watch are catechizing you, because they laugh at the created order, and they lionize rebellion against the Creator. That is catechesis in the ways of the world, instructing you how you should think. For example, when a child willfully rebels against parents, the sound effects will lionize them and demonize the parents. This teaches you how to think. If all you did was get your child wet in a photo opportunity, it is a mere procedure. The covenantal means of grace are not magical or superstitions. They are the entrance into a household of faith, just like parents instruct their children to walk and talk. So parents, you must teach your children the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Your failure on this would provoke them or expose them to the wrath of God. For while baptism or any other sacraments are beautiful pictures of God in Christ, devoid of faith in the preaching of the word and the union of that people with the people of God, they are but external procedures." And so Timothy gets this empty procedure. That's all it is for Timothy. But now let's look down at the baptisms. Let's look at the first one here, the baptism round one. Baptism round one, as Paul comes to Philippi. So first, he comes to Lydia. It was a Roman calling. So Philippi is a little different, and Rome would do this. Even Corinth, which we know, the Romans would often come, and particularly rebellious cities, they would level and destroy. And they would let them sit vacant for about, you know, devoid of population for about a hundred years or so. And then when a bunch of legionaries were starting to get to the end of their career and they're wanting land and not to return to the slums of Rome, they'd say, hey, there's that devoid city. We'll pay for you to build up that city. So they would go. And instead of Philippi being a Greek city, it's a Rome, a little outpost of Rome, kind of like the 13 colonies were outposts of England. So they bring Roman law, not local Greek custom. which means there is also certain liberty granted to women that you would not have had in a Greek city. And that's why it's significant that we're talking about Lydia right now, is why we're looking at this. Freeborn women with three children and freed women, so those who were born slaves but had four children, were granted several privileges other women did not get. They could make business transactions, which is important why we see Lydia is working in purple. You know, we get purple and there's no difference whether you get a purple shirt or a red shirt or a green shirt or a white shirt. But purple came from finding a very rare muscle and crushing it. And so it was very expensive up until recent times. Only royalty could afford purple. And so to say that she was a worker in performance, Lydia was a woman of means, financially speaking. And Roman law granted her that liberty. I bring up this distinction of freeborn and freed because when it comes to the household in a minute, we need to, once again, get rid of our American views of how the family works, this nice nuclear family. It's going to have slaves in it. It's going to have multiple generations. It's a different setup of the family. But more on that in a moment. But we notice Philippi did not have a synagogue, which means, again, it's a Roman colony, and on the Sabbath day, we went outside the gates up to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. To this day, to be able to have a synagogue, you have to have ten men. You can have a thousand women, you can't have a synagogue if you don't have ten men. That's just the manner in which they, how you constitute a synagogue. This gathering outside the city of Place of Prayer could have had a whole bunch, but we don't know. So Paul and Timothy seek out this place of prayer because, as we know from Elsar, Paul's custom when he would come to a new city was to start at the synagogue and then, when he was rejected, the synagogue to go to the Gentiles. And so he seeks out those who worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And again, notice the stress on the means of grace and not magical osmosis for covenant nurture. Lydia was a worshipper of God. The Greek word for worshipper is related to the term that we normally translate godliness. That is good or right worship of God. Lydia was worshiping God according to the light of revelation that had been given her through the ministry and teaching of Judaism, but now the gospel of Jesus Christ, the declaration that Christ had died for her sins, was brought to her and the Holy Spirit takes that general call of the gospel and unites her to Christ by faith. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. The death of Christ procured the forgiveness of sins for the elect. His resurrection has procured their justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. Yet is the work of the Holy Spirit taking the proclamation of the gospel and taking your dead ears and your sinful heart and making them new and giving you that faith so that you can lay hold of Jesus Christ by faith. There is no salvation in any other means but by Christ and the Spirit coming to you in this way. In the province of God, that Sabbath morning, as Paul preached the word, was the day of salvation for Lydia. That's when God took her dead heart and took the proclamation that Christ had died for her, and by faith she laid hold of Jesus Christ, the faith that the Spirit had given her. So Paul and Timothy then baptize Lydia, showing that she's been engrafted into Christ and her union with the visual church. But notice that next phrase. And after she was baptized, and her household as well. Notice it doesn't say, and her household believed and they were baptized. The covenant head, so there's speculation if she was a widow or what, but she is the head of the household, as far as this goes, so her household is baptized along with her. This is a Roman household. Now, in Northwest Pennsylvania, where I passed it before, Northeast Ohio, you have a huge and significant Amish population. So here, you see somebody's got five acres, and they'll have one house, and they'll have a whole bunch of nice yards, or you'll have trees or whatnot. But in Amish country, you won't have one house. You'll have multiple houses. Because yes, you'll have the main house, but then you'll have the house for the grandparents. You'll have the house for this brother and his family. You'll have all the generations together as one household. And that's the way Roman, households were structured as you would have multiple buildings. You'd have that for the slaves, you'd have that for the servants, you'd have that for the main family and the children. And so you have a much more connected understanding of family than we do. Yes, you know, we go visit grandma, we go visit grandpa, we go visit the aunts and uncles, but no, they all lived in one common household. If you ever heard the term paterfamilius, it's not dad. He's the guy who actually runs and rules the whole group. And in certain times in Roman culture, he had absolute power of life and death, meaning if Junior got uppity, he could kill him, nothing, no consequences. As a matter of fact, it was considered, well, that was his duty. And so they had a much stronger, I'm not saying that's biblical, that's an ungodly standard to be able to kill your children like this, but I'm just saying this is their structure of families. So it says household, we can't think of the nuclear family of mom, dad, two kids, and a dog. It's the huge extended family dwelling together. This would have been the norm, not the exception. For Lydia to have this household and the business according to Roman law, she would have had to have multiple children. three or four, depending on what her birth status was. The burden of proof on those who suggest that there were no children in the household is on them to prove it. Because this is a pre-1960, pre-birth control pill. There were a lot more children. The norm was closer to 10 than two. And that's if you just have one family, but you have this whole grouping of families together, slaves as well. So we see here they're brought in to the household of faith by this baptism. So Timothy and Paul are now brought into the house to spend time to instruct and nurture her and her baptized household in the holy faith. Parents, your children will catch the world by osmosis. They will grow in godliness through instruction by you instructing them in the discipline and instruction of Christ and his ways. We've had it on the bulletin for years. and we'll keep it there forever, as long as I'm here anyways. Number five, the elders would like to encourage the children and youth to memorize questions and answers from the shorter catechism. This isn't just a, ooh, it'd be nice. In this, you have an accurate summary of what this teaches. Because from Genesis to Revelation is the revelation of who your God is and who you are to be. What man is to believe concerning God and what duties God requires of man. That is all here. The Shorter Catechism is just a nice summary and framing of that for you as it were setting up cubby holes in which you are to understand what is going on there. So we see again the households here and this going on. Now let's look at the Second Baptism. So I didn't read it, but afterwards Paul and Timothy and Paul and Silas are preaching, and they cast out this demon from this, basically, you know, dial-a-medium. She would make all this money, kind of like the 1-900 numbers of old, for these people, and now their business is messed up, and so they get them arrested, and Paul and Timothy are in prison. They're beaten for the sake of the gospel. And so they're in jail. And they're in the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stock. So they've been beaten, which, you know, we often get this, oh, 40 lashes minus one, that's Jewish law. Roman law was eh, however many you want, and usually it was until the person passes out. There is much that could be and should be said of the full exposition of this chapter, yet given our time, let us look at Paul and Silas in prison. Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so the foundation of the prison was shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. If there was a mass prison escape from a federal prison, the warden would be given a promotion upstairs to count paperclips for the rest of his days. That's what would probably happen to him. It's like, oh, you messed up. Go count paperclips. But when the angel rescued Peter from prison, Herod had executed all the sentries. So when the Philippian jailer comes and sees the bars open, he's like, they're gonna kill me anyway, so let's just cut to the chase, because I can make it quicker and less painful than they'll make it when they do it. But Paul rescues the jailer with his well-timed word, both from the sin of suicide, not the unpardonable sin, and the Holy Spirit uses it as the opening for the door of the gospel mystery of salvation. Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. Peter said in Acts 2, the promise is for you and those who are far off, for you and for your children. The gospel is not individualistic as we often have thought of it. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house, and he took them to the same hour and night, washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, he and all his family." Notice, it's not a baptism without instruction. Baptism and instruction. Now, in the ancient church, there would generally be, if you wanted to become baptized, you would be brought in on Easter and you would spend a year of intense instruction and going through various steps along the way for a year and the next Easter they would baptize. The sunrise service on Sunday, Easter Sunday, historically in the ancient church, was a baptism Sunday. That's when they would baptize the new converts. Because up until that time, when it would come time for the Lord's Supper, they would send away those who had not been baptized. It's like, you could stay for the service until the Lord's Supper, and then, okay, go, go, go. So it was on Easter, service was the first time they would be able to stay for that. But I'm not saying that is the proper procedure. I'm just telling you that's how they did it. But on hearing the gospel preached, his whole family was baptized. The King James is actually closer than the ESV when it says, and was baptized, he and all his. Notice the command to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. In previous sermons I've taught you, the proper plural for y'all is all y'all. And to be clear, the command and resultant blessing of belief here is the singular you. It's not all y'all. So they're saying, Philippian jailer, you, you be saved, and all yours be baptized. You be saved, you be baptized, and all yours be baptized. But it's not all y'all. It's not all y'all believe. So his belief brings them all into the covenant community. Notice we're not saying they're bringing them into salvation. Now bring them into the visible church, into the covenant community, awaiting that day when they shall profess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and so be saved. Again, that's not a work, that is the work of the Spirit in you, not a work that you do. And so that's why this morning we're gonna baptize two precious covenant children. This is not an admission to the table of the Lord. This is an admission to the visible church and to become non-communicant members of the church. This is striking because the household has presumably been in unbelief. Most of it probably still is unbelief. But now after their baptism, they are all rejoicing in the jailer's salvation. To be sure, we live in a country whose Christian sensibilities are shaped by Baptistic individualism and anti-Roman polemic. That sounds awfully Roman Catholic, doesn't it? This sounds too much like baptismal regeneration. No. Yes, there are promises, there are blessings given in this, but this is not a conferring of salvation. If it is the case that one who is related to a believer is brought nigh unto God merely by the belief of one parent, then there seems little need for the urgency to show forth and to proclaim the gospel. Yet, as I've noted in the other two cases, God is a God who uses means. This man's salvation has brought the whole family into the household of faith. That means that for them to abide in Christ, they must exhibit the same faith that Abraham exhibited. They believed in the Lord and it was credited to them as righteousness. This belief comes through hearing. Parents, you are commanded of God to expose your children to the preaching of the Word, Lord's Day by Lord's Day. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ. But that is not enough. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk in the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." Now, I forgot what night it was. Annie came in, she's, Daddy, what's this? She's reading her Bible, and it's, Jesus is talking about the scribes and Pharisees, phylacteries. And she's like, what's a phylactery? It's a weird word. And you still see in pictures, in Jewish tradition, they'd make these little black boxes, so it'd be, and inside would be tiny scrolls of different parts of the law. And then they would tie one between their eyes. They would tie on the back of their hands. So they took this in a literalistic sense of making these boxes. And see, that's what we need to do. And that's not what God's saying. He's not saying make boxes. He's saying store up the Word of God in your heart, that it may dwell richly in your heart, so that when you're walking and talking with your children, it comes out naturally. so that you can answer the who, what, why, when, where questions that your children are going to have, because they have them. Thankfully, that was the hard question that night was, what's a phylactery? There are other times they ask really hard questions that you really wish you didn't have to answer. And unless you have the Word of God stored up in your heart that you might speak for it, you won't have it. So parents, store it deeply in your heart. He commands you to hide it in your heart. The word of Christ must grow richly in you by faith. Parents, you are the primary means for your children's evangelization. As you go about your daily walk, and your children are asking you all, and you're distracted by all those questions, that is when true discipleship is happening. Yes, it's wonderful as the pastor and as the elders, as we get to witness your children reciting the catechism, but you're doing the real work. and instructing them so that they can understand when people ask them, what's this Trinity business? What's it mean? Are there more gods than one? There's but one only, the living and true God. How many persons are there in the Godhead? There are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. And see, if you have it stored up in your heart, you're ready to answer it. Otherwise, it's like, um, um, um. I still remember, because most of you know, Becca and I were not Presbyterians when we married. We weren't even Presbyterians the first 12 years of our marriage. And I remember when we started teaching our kids the catechism, and Becca's like, wow. That's what that's talking about. And I'm sitting there saying, you know, I've read all this systematic theology, and now it's actually fitting in order in my own brain. It's like I had all these bits and bobs sitting out there, and now it's brought together in a way where I can understand, oh, that's why, and that's why. And so that once you, as you store it in your heart, you can share this with your children, and then the Spirit takes it and uses it to impress Christ on their hearts by faith. So you are the primary means that God has given for your children to improve upon their baptisms as you improve upon yours. Let us pray. Father, we give thanks and praise and honor unto you. We ask that as we consider baptism, as we consider covenant nurture, that you would form Christ in our own hearts, that you would give us that desire to store your word richly in our hearts, that we might answer not just the mundane questions, But how can your children be saved? How can these children whom you have brought into the covenant, O God, be exposed unto the word and that the Spirit might unite them to faith? We pray that for all of our children, that they would lay hold of Jesus Christ freely offered in the gospel by faith as the Spirit unites them. And we pray that we, O God, would redouble our efforts to see your name glorified and placed upon our children. We pray this in his name. Amen.