Our Old Testament scripture reading is from Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 through 9, and then verses 20 through 25. We're having a brief two-part series called Children of Promise as an introduction to the catechism year, as we often do from time to time. the consistory thought it wise to spend a couple of Sundays being reminded of the great themes of the covenant and the inclusion of our children in the covenant and what that means for the life of the church. And then after these two Sundays, if you're one who looks in the sermon schedule in the bulletin, you know this already, we're going to begin a series in First Kings. Chapter 17 through 19, this is going to be the story of Elijah and Elisha. So we think of the famous story of Elijah confronting the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, that whole drama, the ministry of Elijah in Israel. Some of you may know the author, M. B. Vandeveer, and his God, or his book, My God is Yahweh, a very beloved book in much of the Dutch Reformed tradition. That's gonna be one of the books guiding that series, and we're looking forward to that. But before we get to that in a couple weeks, we're going to be meditating on a few passages together as they remind us of our duties and obligations as God's covenant people. This morning, from Deuteronomy chapter six, verses four through nine, and then verses 20 through 25. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and 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 by 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. And then verses 20 through 25. When your son asks you in time to come, what is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you. Then you shall say to your son, we were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders great and grievous against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household before our eyes. And he brought us out from there that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always, that he might preserve us alive as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God as he has commanded us. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Our New Testament reading is Ephesians 6, verses 1 through 4. Very easy to remember, two of the key passages that are helpful reminders of the implications of the Doctrine of the Covenant, Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6. Ephesians 6, verses 1 through 4. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Our father in heaven, These words that you have set before us are at the very same time glorious, beautiful and comforting and also very challenging. We pray that because of your spirit, we might experience these words all together as being covenant words. That that covenant comfort of promise and blessing and a rich sense of identity would come to us hand in hand with a sense of the urgency of the covenant. the obligations, the call to respond in faith and obedience, and that we might hear all of that in the context of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh Father, we want to be challenged, and we need to be comforted. And for all of that to happen, it is our desire then that by your word, we might see Jesus. cause us to hear his voice, that we might respond to him in faith. We pray that you would do this for us through this, the preaching of your holy word, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, for these next two Sundays, We get to meditate together on one of the great treasures of the Christian faith, one of the great treasures by way of emphasis of the Reformed tradition in particular, and that is the doctrine of the covenant. This is one of those words that I will confess that many years ago I worried that maybe one day that word would get old. Many will warn about the danger of a buzzword. Now in Reformed churches we often speak of covenant this and covenant that and just about anything can be a covenant something and it is thereby baptized into being rich and meaningful. And there's a worry that maybe all of that's unwarranted, it's gonna get old, we're all gonna get sick of it. Now as I say that, simply to say it is to condemn it. What an awful thing to worry. Is it not the case that as the years go by in the Christian life, this word simply becomes all the more beautiful, all the more rich? Well, because we are at the beginning in our custom of a season of catechism instruction, we have thought it wise to have a period of time to pause to ask the question of how this doctrine of the covenant shapes our life together as the church. That idea that God binds himself to us in covenant. In its most simplest form, that's what the word means. That God enters into a relationship with us in which he binds us to himself. And that in that relationship he gives us promises, that he gives us obligations to respond in faith, and that that relationship is a rich sense of identity and belonging that we get to have. Now we're asking that question of what that means, what the implications are, specifically in the context of the fact that there are covenant children in our midst. We have parents who have made promises at the baptism of their children to bring those children up in a particular way. We're going to be asking about what that means. We're going to be saying something much more broader than that, though. What does it mean for us as a congregation, as a fellowship of God's people, to order our life together in a way that honors the covenant, that embraces it, that loves it, that celebrates it? There's all sorts of ways we could talk about why this is an urgent question. There's much confusion in the church today about the status of our children. There's many discussions in the broader church around us. There have been approaches for something like literally hundreds of years that are very anti-covenantal. And we live in a day when people are realizing it's not working. And there's an openness today to the idea of the covenant. That's exciting. There's an urgency to this. There's an urgency because we know these are things we are tempted to presume upon, to forget about, to take for granted. And there's an urgency because in our midst right now, there are oodles of children. I looked it up, oodles is a word. It means a lot. There are oodles, gazillions of children in our midst. It's sort of the feeling right now. And so there's a sense of this is an issue that presses upon us. And I want to be very clear that this is not just for parents. This is something we are committed to as a congregation in our life together. And I say that, well I framed it in terms of it's something that matters for all of us because we all ought to be concerned about the children in our midst, that's true. But what I want you to sense this morning as we walk through in very basic ways covenant promises and covenant obligations, what I want you to sense this morning is that the way we are talking about our children in very rich ways affects our sense of what the gospel is for us. I want to say that again. I hope you feel this morning, you experience this morning, that the way we talk about our children in very rich ways affects our sense of what the gospel is for all of us. And I say that because as I have prepared for this over the last few months, anticipating this short series together, that has actually come to be my primary burden. And it may very well end up being our emphasis next Sunday. That this doctrine of the covenant needs to be much more than just, therefore, teach your children the catechism. And you see the third point this morning is going to be covenant beauty. that there's a beauty to this, a glory to this, an appeal to this way of talking about the gospel that ought to shape the way each of us experience our relationship with the Lord, our sense of who God is for us. So I'm going to be referring I'm gonna be using language that may make it for a few moments talk about, we're just talking about parents and children. We're not. Remember this, we're talking about the covenant of grace, God's relationship with his people, and the goal is to arrive at. How does that shape the gospel for all of us? Well, with that expectation, I would encourage you to try to maintain for these first few minutes now, we're going to look in particular at the command of the Lord to Israel in Deuteronomy chapter six. The Lord commands Israel to teach the ways of the covenant diligently to their children, and to do this because the children of the covenant are children of promise. Teach them diligently to your children because they're children of promise. We're going to see first, covenant promises, second, covenant obligations, and third, covenant beauty. First, covenant promises. The central command in our passage from Deuteronomy 6, which is the reason we are in this passage, is just that, a command to do something. The Lord says in verse 6, these words that I command you today shall be on your heart, you shall teach them diligently to your children. So the reason we've been drawn to this passage of this season of the year is because of that commandment. But where we must always start in the covenant, and where God always starts in the covenant, is not with the commandments, but with the promises. Every time God tells his people something to do, he has always, first of all, promised them. He has always, first of all, told them who he is, what he has done, and therefore who they are. And that is very much the case here in Deuteronomy 6. That promise is found, first of all, in the fact that God is even speaking to these people in the first place. Why is he speaking to the people of Israel? Well, because long ago, he called out of all the nations of the world, he called Abraham to be his special people, and he said, I will be a God to you and to your offspring after you. That is the promise that has driven all of this. And to really feel the grace of that, you need to remember, what was the story before that? Well, up until Genesis 12, the story was a story of sin. You had the fall in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve's rebellion against the Lord. You have Cain and Abel. You have the story of the flood, the Tower of Babel. Sin upon sin upon sin. And then God calls people to himself and says, I will be your God, you will be my people. It's promise. This is one of the primary richnesses of the covenant, that it always puts the promise first. That is the big picture background of what God says here in Deuteronomy 6. But there's also promise embedded in this very passage. Verse four, where we started our reading. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. that way of speaking to Israel. God addresses them first as Israel, the name God gave to Jacob to represent them as his covenant people. He's identifying them as those he has already brought to himself. If you have your Bibles open, as I love to point out to you, you will see that the word Lord there is capitalized, meaning this is the covenant name of God. Yahweh, Jehovah, translated variously in our ESV, it's simply those all capital letters. It doesn't mean God simply in a general sense, It's the Lord, as he has revealed himself to his people in particular, promise. He says, with those words, you are mine, I am yours. I am your God, you are my people. That statement, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. This is a declaration of freedom, that God is one, that you are not enslaved to the idols of this world, to all the other gods that clamor for your intention and seek to enslave you. This was powerful to Israel because they had been brought out of Egypt. That too was full of gospel and promise. All of this is embedded in promise. And the central promise is that declaration of who we are. that we are, by way of identity, God's covenant people. Now this is what Ephesians chapter six applies to the instructions to children. Instructions to children. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. The beautiful words here are the words in the Lord. The Apostle Paul addresses children not as being outside of Christ, hopefully one day getting there, hopefully one day accomplishing it or achieving it, but he addresses them as being in the Lord, as belonging to the Lord. That is rooted in that great covenant pattern going back to Deuteronomy 6. God does not say to children, you grow up and be mature enough and learn how to be really good at sitting still and quietly in church, then you will be my covenant people. He says to you from the very beginning, from the moment children are born, that you are mine. You think of the beautiful words back in Deuteronomy 6, this is why we read from that second part of the chapter. When your son asks you in time to come, what is the meaning of this testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you, then you shall say to your son, I've shown you this before. The beauty of this passage is the plural pronouns. What does he say? We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. You have to remember, this is after the wandering in the wilderness. The generation that came out of Egypt, they have all died. And especially these children being instructed, they were not the ones who were in Egypt and were brought out. What is happening here? Why is it we? because of the covenant and the promise that they are to say to the children, this is our story. This is what God did for us, that we are God's people and that you are part of that. Likewise, the address in Ephesians chapter six, obey your parents in the Lord. That is promise, identity, assurance, comfort. The children, as you are gathered here, Even those of you who are too young to even realize I'm talking to you right now. Children, as you are gathered here, you are gathered here as those who belong to Jesus. That he has claimed you as his covenant people and he gives you that promise that you belong to him. Covenant promises. Now, The challenge for us as a congregation is to then let that reality of promise shape our life together as a church. That is to let this reality that God claims our children as belonging to Him when He said, I will be a God to you and to your offspring after you, we need to let that reality shape our life together. That parents, though we are in the section here on the promises of the covenant for our children and for the congregation, I hope you hear and sense already the obligations, that the first obligation of parents is to impress upon their children the promises, not to say, first of all, do this and do that, but to say, this is who you are. This is what God has given you by his covenant grace. You can sum it up with the imagery that I have found is memorable for our children, that our children are not vipers in diapers. Now I use this phrase because this is a phrase used in sermons to this day. You can Google it and find it. Used in sermons by very well-known preachers to this day to tell parents your children are vipers in diapers. They belong to the evil one until they get converted one day. The doctrine of the covenant says that is a lie. They do not belong to the evil one. They belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. He claims them as his. And we are to cultivate and nurture in them a confidence in those promises, a faith in what God has spoken. It is our duty to impress upon our children a sense of promise, a sense of identity. Many of you know, I think, from broader discussions in our culture, broader discussions in sociology and cultural discussions and so on, that one of the main issues in childhood and growing into young adulthood is identity. Who am I? What makes me who I am? And we live in a culture that is seeking to give our children a sense of identity defined by all sorts of rebellious forces, all sorts of sources of identity that are contrary to the word of God. The church gets to give to her children and young people a beautiful sense of identity. Jesus has claimed you as his, you belong to him, and we get to proclaim that with a sense of providing safety, security, a sense of place, a sense of belonging, a sense of home, a sense of who I am. Think of the language of Deuteronomy 6, God brought us out of Egypt, that our children get to grow up saying, that is my story, these are my people, this is what God has done for me. Well, that promise again, in the structure of the covenant, is then to be received by faith. And this brings us then to covenant obligations. These promises that God proclaims for our children and for us are never meant to be simply, okay, now that God has said this, you can go be and do whatever you want, nothing else matters. And that needs to be said, because there have been times in the history of the church, in the history of Reformed churches, where that has been the temptation, to draw the conclusion from the covenant that therefore, faith and obedience don't really matter. We call this presumption, to presume upon the promises of the covenant rather than to believe them. And so God gives us then the duty, the obligation to respond in faith to what God has spoken. Deuteronomy chapter 6. These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise. There is teaching and instruction in the way of the covenant that needs to be happening. And what is that central instruction? Verse four, all of that gospel identity that God is our God. And then verse five, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. We are called to respond to what God has said first by believing him, believe what he has said. And then second, live the life of love that shows that faith. Those are the obligations, the duties of the covenant. Ephesians chapter six. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. What is the first obligation of the covenant? It is to believe, to receive by faith the promise that you are in the Lord. Receive what God has proclaimed. All that God promises must be received by faith. And then second, it is to live in a way that shows that faith. Now, for children here, it's summed up as honor your father and mother, but the dynamic, of course, eventually, as Deuteronomy 6 says, is to teach all of these things to our children. Our children have the obligation to respond in faith and obedience. Notice, in both of these commands, Though they are talking about, or they are aimed at, covenant children receiving the promises of Christ by faith, that's what they're aimed at, who are these commands actually directed toward, these obligations? The goal of it, what it's directed, what it's ultimately aimed at is the response of our children in faith to what God has spoken, but the commandments are given to parents. and more broadly behind them to the congregation as a whole, that parents have the duty and obligation to teach these things diligently to their children. Teach these things, teach the promises, to teach these things, how we are to respond. It is the task of parents, the particular obligation, to nurture children in that faith. Now notice how this is happening. The dominant model in American Christianity today is that we are trying to get our kids saved one day, get them converted one day. And so we teach them, you don't belong, you're not a Christian, until one day you have the conversion experience where it proves you really are saved, and then one day you will be a believer. I just heard a sermon in which a pastor referred to a story in which he heard a parent whose child said to him, I love Jesus, and the parent said, no you don't, you're not old enough. We have a temptation constantly to doubt the faith of our children, to question the faith of our children, to assume it's not genuine until proven otherwise. And what happens is if you live doubting and questioning the faith of your children, one day your children will believe you. If we treat them and speak of them and view them long enough as not really being in, as not really belonging to Jesus, as not really fully being part of the covenant people of God, they will believe us. We teach them the doubt and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And this is what the church today is seeing. Seeing the loss of generations because we have taught them to doubt what God says. We are to call our children to believe what God has said. to accept by faith, not to doubt and question it, but to take God at His word. We all know that in our individual Christian walk that we have enough struggle with doubt on our own. We don't need other people doubting our faith for us. Well, for our children it's the same way. Our children will have enough struggle with doubt on their own. They don't need us doubting and questioning their faith for them. They need us to be nurturing that faith, encouraging it, cultivating it, accepting it on God's terms, to say God's promises do not come with strings attached. He simply says, believe, accept, rest in what I have spoken. It is our duty as parents and as a congregation, to call our children to believe what God has spoken. Now, though this applies to the life of the church in general, we do need to notice that this is given as a particular duty to parents. And so I want to impress this upon the parents in our midst. Your children must grow up with a sense that they are learning the ways of the covenant, who they are, the promises of God, how we are to respond to the covenant, from you. Not from the Christian school, first of all. Not from the catechism class, first of all. They must sense that they are learning it, first of all, from you. There is a means of grace, a way that is ordained by God, that the covenant nurture of parents would be a means he would use to awaken faith in the hearts of children. And we are constantly tempted, fathers, dads, we are constantly tempted to farm this out to someone else, to want to see someone else do it. I encourage you to take responsibility for the leadership of nurturing and discipling the children in our midst. And you see, the covenant gives urgency to this. Because the covenant means we can't wait around and find out later on if our children are going to be believers or not. The covenant says, I have already claimed these children as part of the covenant, and now there are promises and there are warnings for those who rebel. It is deeply important that the warnings of the covenant in scripture, as Deuteronomy after chapter six will later on have at the end of the book of Deuteronomy, in Romans chapter 10, in Hebrews four and 10, in the book of Revelation, the letters to the seven churches, the warnings of the covenant are very rarely The warnings of scripture in general are very rarely aimed at unbelievers out there. They are always aimed at the church, at the covenant people, to say, for those who rebel against the covenant, who do not respond in faith and grateful obedience, there are covenant warnings. And ultimately, there are covenant curses. And this places upon us a sense of urgency about this, that we can't simply wait around, that God has said, you are mine, you belong to me, and I call you to respond in faith to that. And so I want to say to you, parents, what is more important than this? Well, that's an easy phrase. No, seriously, stop and think. What is more important than this? The eternal souls of the children in our midst. And so we structure the life of our church in a particular way, every church has to do it some way, to seek to nurture the faith of our children. Our evening service, our commitment to instructing children in the home, our classes and so on, all of these things is how we have in our wisdom sought to do this. What could possibly be more important than making sure that our children are gathered in worship on the Lord's Day, in fellowship with God and his people, as the means by which God nurtures this faith in our hearts? The world is clamoring. The evil one is clamoring for the souls of the next generation. And this is real. There are eternal ramifications to this. And there are broken hearts because of how this can go. And we need the sense of what is truly at stake, that it would drive our passions and our urgency, that one of the things we would be devoted to as a fellowship in the life of our church and in our homes would be this, instructing and living with our children in the covenant. I cannot impress enough that reality of urgency But even as we need to feel that, and we do, part of me wonders if the best thing to do right now is just to stop right there. It's not the best thing. As much as we need to feel that urgency, those warnings, those obligations, now we have to go back and remember where we started. Because this is the beauty of the covenant. We're transitioning to covenant beauty here. It's not just that there are obligations If that's all it is, where are we? Life-destroying legalism. It's not just their obligations, it's that these are covenant obligations. That God has already said, this is who you are, these are my promises. That our Lord Jesus Christ, who proclaims to our covenant children that you are those who are in the Lord through the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 6. That our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for all of our failures and shortcomings and weaknesses as parents, as children, as a congregation. that all of that is covered by the blood of Jesus. And so when we arrive at that moment where we say these obligations, they're overwhelming, how can I do this? We must realize we can't. And that's why, this sounds too simple, it's not. That's why it's covenantal. God does not say, if you do all of this well enough, pull it off, measure up, achieve, accomplish, then you'll be my covenant people. No, that's not what he says. He says, you are by my grace. Now love it, believe it, rest in it. And that faith, that loving it, will then transform our living. That faith will come out our fingertips in all that we do, all that we touch. Is that not the vision of Deuteronomy 6? As you walk along the road, as you sit, as you lie down, that in all of our living, That faith in, that love for the covenant will transform what we do. Brothers and sisters, the beauty of the covenant is the way it holds both of those together. A sense of urgency, of all of life being transformed. If you think of Deuteronomy 6, how comprehensive this is. When you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand. They shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. What all the imagery means is it's all of life. It comprehends everything. And at the same time, as challenging as that is, it's from the God who says, before you have done a thing, that you are His, and He loves you, that you belong to Him, and that all of this life is a response to God's grace. Now that moment when you sense the beauty of it, Are you sensing what I tried to emphasize in the beginning? That we're not just talking about, you know, catechism matters. We're saying something much bigger, much richer, much more beautiful about the way of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is something glorious and beautiful here about the fact that Our life is formed by words spoken so long ago in Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6, that we get to be part of this, this great task of discipling generations to come. There's something beautiful about the expectations of God's word, that in the ordinary way of things, though the world is broken and twisted, though there's so often rebellion in the covenant, that in the ordinary way of things, God desires for this to bear fruit. We think of Psalm 78. Beautiful words. God has established a testimony in Jacob and pointed a law in Israel which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God. That we get to be part of this great ancient pattern of generations rising up in the fruitfulness of the covenant. in the midst of the congregation, rising up and setting their hope in the Lord. We get to be part of this as being part of the mission to the nations. But this is not about biology, first of all. In many ways, it's not about biology at all. It's about the nations being brought in, being disciples. We think of Jesus saying that His fathers and mothers and brothers are all of those who put their faith in Him. That part of that fruitfulness of the covenant is not simply about biology, it's not about family, it's about the church of Jesus Christ. And then the beauty of this and how it describes for us how each of us relates to the Lord. You've heard me use the phrase before, every baptism is an infant baptism. And what I mean by that is, whether you were baptized as a baby or whether you were baptized as an adult believer, all of us are to relate to God in the covenant in terms of what infant baptism says. Infant baptism most emphasizes these biblical truths of the covenant always being about God's promises first and then our faith responding. What that means is all of us ought to think of and experience our relationship with the Lord in those terms. There is a beauty to this, a nurturing, comforting warmth. that the covenant grace of God is meant to surround us with, to permeate us. And my desire this morning, pastorally, is that we would grow right now in the sense of the richness of that. I want to be very honest with you right now, as I prepared for this moment and how the covenant comes home for all of us for this moment, I feel very inadequate. I always feel that way, sometimes more than others. But there is a beauty to the covenant that surpasses the ability of any one person to talk about it, to translate it, to communicate it. And I want to plead with you to seek, right now, to see something that in many ways we cannot see right now. To see something bigger than us. Do not let my failures as a pastor get in the way of the grace God means to communicate right now. Do not let our failures and shortcomings and weaknesses as a congregation and our fellowship and how we disciple our children get in the way of what God's grace is meant to communicate right now. It is bigger than any of us. Think of that vision from Deuteronomy 6. I'm going to work backwards. We ended with obligations, right? Think of that vision from Deuteronomy 6. All of life, it's comprehensive. You shall teach them diligently as you walk, when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise. Written on the door frames of your house. And there's a beauty to that as we think of children. They get to learn that Jesus Christ is Lord over all, that in all we do, we get to serve the Lord, live as before his face. But you see, that's a truth for all of us, that God says in Deuteronomy 6, you shall teach them these things in all of your living, because it's what the covenant claims. And so we get to go forth, every one of us, with that sense in all of life, living before God's face, serving him, serving his kingdom. Now that covenant bigness for our children, that's for all of us. And all that we do, every calling, every vocation, all that God gives us to do, that call to faith. But keep working backwards, what do we emphasize before that? The promises of the covenant. Brothers and sisters, covenant grace needs to affect how all of us hear God's promises. That His promises are not contingent upon, they don't depend upon you being good enough, your faith being enough. That His promises came first. That He called you to be His first. That they come before any of your feelings, any of your emotions. That His promises come before you feel any assurance. Want to hear that? His promises come before you feel any assurance. That He addresses you as belonging to Him first. We find so many ways in the Christian life to question that. To say, but if only you knew how my faith is weak in this area. If only you knew how I don't feel like His promises are addressing me. The Lord knows that. And that is one of the main purposes of the covenant of grace, is to say, not dependent on your feelings, not dependent on your experiences, His promises are for you. And then where do we start in the very beginning, as we address our children? It's with a sense of identity. I mentioned how children in particular, one of the great needs of growing up, one of the great needs of childhood and adolescence is a secure sense of belonging, of who I am, of who my people are, of what my story is. We thought I was talking about children. Is this not what all of us need? Is this not what we need in the Christian life, is a sense of identity? Who am I? We live in a very unrooted society. It used to be you can get your sense of identity, I don't know where you grew up from, even from what job you had, because it was a job, you know, your parents had and their parents before them. All these sources of identity. We live in a day when our sources of identity are disrupted, are uprooted. And the one that remains the same is the covenant grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who says, prior to us saying or doing anything, that we belong to Him. I want to challenge you this morning, as you think about your fears and struggles and doubts and anxieties and temptations in the Christian life, how all of them could in some way be connected with this question of identity. of who am I, of God's favor upon me, not based on my accomplishment, but I'm based on who he says I am in Christ. When your doubts frighten you, when your doubts frighten you, I'm phrasing that intentionally, One of the things that's happening, Satan wants you to question who you are. But Jesus says by His covenant that you belong to Him. And He says that not, and if you can get to a point where you don't doubt it too much, then it'll be true. He says it precisely to address the doubts. When the weakness of your faith frightens you, Part of the main point to the covenant grace of God is to say it's not about your faith. Your faith is always responding to His promises. And so, you think, how beautiful is that? To train a child, to raise a child with a sense of confident identity. Jesus is mine. I belong to Jesus. I am His. I believe in Him. How great would that be? We all get to have that. You are here as God's baptized covenant people, and that means the promise is prior to faith. Or when your sins and failures and shortcomings and the ways other people hurt you, when the church fails us, all of these things that we can be tempted to put our trust in, that can be scary, it can be frightening. When we feel forces in the world claiming our loyalty, it can be frightening. We say, who am I? You are here as God's baptized covenant people. And here, as it were, he grabs us by our baptisms and says, remember, you are mine. You belong to me. That our Lord Jesus Christ smiles upon us through his covenant grace. And that whole mode of addressing our children is in the mode by which God addresses us. Right here at this point of identity, it's perhaps where we find it most difficult simply to rest in it. Don't we? So many ways we can question it. And it is for that purpose that the Lord has spread for us this morning, the Lord's table. That you say, is this talking to me? Is this addressing me? Here at the Lord's table, the Lord says, yes, you. Come, partake of the body and blood of Christ, that Jesus might say to you as a matter of identity, as he addresses children in Ephesians 6, so he addresses us, that you are in the Lord. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Let us pray. Lord, we believe, help our unbelief. We pray, oh Father, that you would use our fellowship, use our response in song to your word, use your sacrament to nourish in us this faith and confidence in your covenant grace. For we pray in Jesus' name, amen.