All right, we're coming to our last lecture. We just heard from Jason Rice on the doctrine of the church, and now we're going to hear from Pastor Reese once again. And his lecture will be on the means of grace, and so how Christ's bride is perfected, and how all the spots and blemishes are removed, and how his body is nourished and fed. So welcome once again, Pastor Reese. I was, if you turn around and look behind you, people are dropping like flies. As the hour gets later, there's less and less people in the room. I'm trying to figure out what did I do to Shane to get the, I'll call the Sandman hour. I had the idea that maybe we should not do the lecture now and we can get out to the place where you guys are gonna sleep tonight and everybody can get tucked into bed and then I could start the lecture and you could just like lay there and doze off while I'm talking like a bedtime story or something. Maybe if I see you getting loopy or if I start getting loopy, I'll do an Elvis impersonation halfway through the lecture to see if I can wake everybody back up. Or should I do it right now? You want to do it? Most of you guys have seen this. I actually took this from one of my professors. So should I do the, I mean, it's kind of not a good thing because it doesn't set a serious tone for the. Halfway through? Should I do it now or halfway through? Just do it now? Okay, this is my Elvis impersonation. Okay, let's get serious again. Do you have the sheet in front of you? Why the means of grace and then the two terms, word and sacraments. Um, I'd like to begin the lecture, uh, having you turn first to Nehemiah chapter eight. So go ahead and turn to Nehemiah chapter eight and B. So once you get there, I'd like to pause just briefly for prayer. And then I want to read a quick passage there and then we'll read one more in first Corinthians and then we'll Try to move through this somewhat quickly because I am sensitive. It's been a long day, lots of lectures and do want to be kind to you guys at this late hour. So let's pause for prayer and then we'll look at a couple passages and then consider a couple points here in this lecture. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for time to be set aside so we can be in your word and seek to learn from you. And so we pray that you might add your blessing to this hour and to the other lectures that have been given. Lord, help us to continue to chew on these matters and understand, come to a greater understanding of what you have for us as your people. And so please give us strength for this final lecture this evening or this afternoon and pray that it would glorify you and be profitable to these folk here. And I ask this in Christ's name. Amen. Nehemiah chapter eight verses four through eight. I'm not going to read all of the names. If you have it in front of you, you'll be able to see them there, but notice, um, uh, well go back to verse three. This is talking about, uh, Ezra. And he is the priest at the time. If you want to think about a priest, more than just the one that sacrifices animals, and then as we heard from Jason, also praying. Priests were basically the ministers at that time. They were the ones that also preached the word. Priests preached. And so you'll see that here with Ezra the priest. He is, look at the last sentence of verse three. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. And Ezra, the scribe, stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood, and he's got this array of men on his right and an array of men on his left. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people. And as he opened it, all the people stood. And Ezra blessed the Lord The great God and all the people answered, Amen, Amen, lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Also, Jeshua and this other group of men, the Levites, notice, helped the people to understand the law while the people remained in their places. They read from the book, from the law of God, clearly, And then they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading. What does this sound like? What's going on here? All the way back in the Old Testament, what's going on as these people are gathered and the ministers there? Yeah. They're preaching. You've got the text, the law of God. Do you notice they've got a wooden platform. You ever wondered why pastors kind of go up onto a platform? They stand behind a pulpit. I mean, this is about as good a biblical support as you're going to get. I mean, here's Ezra. They, they built something for the very purpose of preaching the word. And what went on in the preaching of the word? What was the, what was the aim in mind of these ministers as they were, they would read it and then what would they do after they read it? they would explain it. They would try to, first of all, they read it clearly, and then they would try to give the sense of the text so that the people could understand what God was saying. There's an account of preaching. I mean, if you ever want to see it and why we do this in our churches, here's a very clear basis. We're going to ask a few more questions about what's behind all of this. Why would God ask his people to engage in this kind of activity. So we'll look at that in just a second, but let's turn forward to first Corinthians chapter 11 as well as we are beginning here. First Corinthians chapter 11 and we're going to just begin in verse 23. My expectation is this is a very common passage for you. This is not to embarrass anyone. Is everybody sitting here, are you all communicant members in your churches? You all are coming to the Lord's table. So you will have heard these words of institution likely every time, or something very near this, every time you come to the Lord's table in your own congregations. 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verses 23 through 26. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." And notice Paul adds these words in verse 26, for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. So I just want these as foundational passages there. And let's go ahead and move now to the outline and into the lecture. In the previous lecture, we considered this guiding principle of worship, at least the previous lecture that I had done on the regulative principle. And so we considered this guiding principle. And at the very end, we simply listed off some of the elements of worship, some of the things that we know God has commanded us to do in worship. Well, in this lecture, we're going to look at just two of those. These various things that God has given us to do while we're engaged in worship, and Jason, I heard, I came in late for his Lord's Day lecture, Sabbath lecture, but he called the Sabbath or the Lord's Day what? He said this is a, something God's given us for our sanctification, but what is, he grouped it in with other things, and he said it was a, A gift? That's a really great, I'm looking for a tiny bit longer answer, but you're going to see that your answer is exactly right. It is a gift. A means of grace. What does that mean? What is, let's break down. I've got these in front of you here. First of all, what is grace? Horry, you just said it. A gift. Grace can be defined as, we can define it in kind of a few different ways with little nuances. One is just simply, it's a gift. Another, what's another definition of grace? What would be another way that you would, if someone asked you, what does grace mean? unmerited favor. Another way to talk about that, or another, using the word favor there, we could also call it divine favor. God giving his favor towards someone. Well, that one's kind of common for Christians. When we use the terminology means, what do we mean? What's a means of something? A way, yeah. A way, or maybe the fuller answer using that exact word is the way that something is accomplished. The means by which you do something is the way by which something is accomplished. And so, let's put those things together. What then is a means of grace? Think about it. Yeah, Andrew. the way that we receive God's unmerited favor, or the way that we receive the gifts of God, the way that we receive His grace. That's what a means of grace is, and so as we begin to look at this together, we're gonna be talking about two ways that we receive God's grace. have a lecture on prayer, that would be another means of grace, or on praise, or on benedictions, or we did on the Lord's Day. We're going to look at the Word and the sacraments. The reason why this is important is because we live in a day and age where people have all kinds of ideas about what will draw them near to the Lord, how they can increase in grace, how they can grow in Christ. You happen to now all be in a part of the country, Colorado, where you hear all the time, nature is my church. You know what I do to get near to God? This is people around here, and these are just people who actually claim to be Christians. You know how I like to get near Christ? I go for a trail run. Or I get on my bike and I ride. This is how I get close to Jesus. I mean, this is common out here. There's a lot of people who don't go to church on Lord's Day because they think they can actually grow closer to the Lord by doing something, some kind of physical activity out in nature. And so we have that all around us. But interestingly, in the Bible, we're never told to go for a run to get close to Jesus. We're never told that getting on your bike and going for a long ride is going to actually be blessed by God to make you more like Christ. What's incredibly important is to go, we don't have to go back there. I've got it actually in front of you here. We were in John 17 earlier in one of Pastor Tabaka's lectures. But here Jesus says, this is how This is how God is going to accomplish us growing in grace and getting closer to Jesus, becoming more like him. He's praying, and here is the salient line there in John 17, 17, sanctify them by thy word. Thy word is truth. In other words, Jesus is praying for us that we would be more and more set apart in grace. more conformed to his image. And he is saying that this happens by the word of truth. That's how you grow. Now, just because it doesn't feel that way, I mean, I know people who have, who say, you know, I really feel like I grow when I sit around and I play my guitar and I, and I sing songs. That's how I feel like I'm growing closer to the Lord. or any other kind of thing that people might want to put in there. The problem with that is God has never added his blessing to those things. We need to get back to, well, what has he actually said he's going to bless? What has Jesus actually prayed to the Father that he would use in our lives? Well, that's the word. That's why the church is so much about the word of God. It's because this is exactly how Jesus has directed us. And so if you want to grow in grace, if you want to become a more mature Christian, if you desire to sin less in your life, if you want to become more serious about your faith, then you have to attend yourself to the Word of God, because it is what Jesus prayed the Father would sanctify you by. And therefore, that's the only thing that has His blessing. Well, let's, though, ask this question, then, as a first question of here, why the Word? I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this because I think you guys probably get this fairly well and I don't want to just go over it, but there's something here that I'm trying to get to. The Christian faith is not merely believing all the right things. I think that that's been coming out in a lot of these lectures. I remember in Pastor Tabaka's Christology lecture, it's not just getting all the doctrines right about Jesus, it's actually having a vital living relationship with Christ. Now, what is essential for a relationship to function? Let me just ask you on anything. For us to have any kind of a relationship, any of you and myself, me and my daughter, people in my congregation, for us to have any kind of relationship, what is absolutely indispensable or else we cannot have a relationship? Listening, which implies something even more primary. Knowledge is there. Good. Rebecca? Communicating. We have to talk. You cannot have a relationship with anybody unless there's actually dialogue going on. Unless there's communication between them. Communication, in communication, I actually tell you things about myself. And as I listen, you tell me things about yourself. That's how our relationship can actually grow. That's actually how we can have a relationship in the first place. There has to be some form of communication. And that's why, if you wanna fill in this blank here, if God doesn't talk to us and communicate with us, what can't we have with him? Or what, and maybe back to Andrew's point, we can't what? We can't know God. We are so dependent on the word of God, his revelation of himself, or else we can't even know him. let alone have a relationship with him. We used to have in one of our, in some of the years past on these TFB trips, we did a, one of the lectures was done on covenant theology. Everybody here I'm sure has heard of the covenant or covenant theology or covenant this or covenant that. What's another way of, what's the most simple way to talk about a covenant? Anybody want to take a stab at that? an agreement, and that's absolutely right. I'm gonna say it's even more basic. It's a fancy word for a kind of a relationship. I mean, biblical covenants are actually official relationships. When we talk about covenants, we're talking about God's various relationships with man and the kinds of agreements that sort of rule and govern that relationship. You can't know him if he doesn't talk to you. And when we are in a relationship with God, when we are in covenant with him, we need his word to be talking to us about who he is. And there's something about worship, and let's get to that point here, because let's bring it back to this is a means of grace. We're talking about what goes on in worship. One way to think about a worship service is that it's a relational dialogue going on. We could call it a covenant dialogue, or you could call it a relational dialogue. So if you're filling that in there, that's the second one under why the word. Well, why the word is because he is our God, we are his people, and what goes on in a worship service is God's people meeting with their God. And so when we come together, God talks to us, and we actually talk back to Him. What are the ways, and what's the primary way, but there's other than that, what are the ways that God talks to us in a worship service? Preaching of the word. That's God talking to us. What else? There's variations of that. The singing of the Psalms, yes. We actually teach each other, we actually are singing, especially when we're singing the Psalms, we're actually singing the Word of God and we're hearing that. We're hearing God's voice as we're singing Psalms together. What other ways does God talk to us? Yes, sir? Reading, the reading of the Word, that's Him talking to us. What are ways that we talk back to Him? How do we respond to His Word when He's talking to us? Then we have things that we do back towards Him. prayer. That's us lifting up in response to Him. What's another one? It's the other side of the singing of praise. That's us also talking to God as well. We're responding and we're saying glorious things back to Him, acknowledging His goodness. That's this covenant dialogue going on. So why the word? We can't have a relationship with God unless we have His word. Now I want to move to a much more specific matter of the word, and that's the issue of why preaching? Why preaching? I'm going to give you a quick throwaway, but it's got some substance to it. First of all, because he commands it. Remember, it goes back to our first lecture, at least the first one I did, the regulative principle. We are to do whatever he commands us. God commands us to do it. Even if it is something of an antiquated type of communication, I mean, we live in a day and age now where we use multimedia and it seems like to present some kind of message, it would be better to put it on a really produced video or something like that, some kind of film. or elaborate musical presentation or some kind of pageantry or drama. What does God say to do? By the way, they had various mechanisms back in Paul's day. They might not have had YouTube, but they could do pageantry, they could do drama, they could do all kinds of things. God commanded that preaching be done, that someone come and explain and proclaim the word. You see that in that passage in Nehemiah where Ezra was doing that. He was trying to give the sense. So the first reason is simply because God commands it. But if we consider some of the things that we've talked about above, I think we can begin to see why preaching is unique and even more desirable, and this is gonna be a controversial word, Preaching is unique, and it is even more desirable than the reading of the Word. If I were to ask you what is more important, and I hate asking this question because I don't want you to ever think that you should do either or. I think you should do both. So don't run home and say, this guy at TFB, Pastor Reese, said this. What's more important, the preaching of the word or your private reading of it? Any thoughts? The scriptures tell you and imply that the preaching of the word is primary. our confessional standards, the Word of God is made effectual. The reading of the Word, but especially the preaching of it, is made effectual to salvation. I'd like you to imagine, just for a moment, let's say you're in a long-distance relationship with somebody and you've desired to hear from them. You want to know what's going on in their life, and you're really interested. How do they feel? You want to know more about them, but they're not there. They could send you a letter, and they could write a lot about themselves there, and that would be wonderful. Often when couples are apart, or people who have a great affinity for each other are apart, they long to get a letter from somebody and read it. That's a wonderful thing. Can you imagine if that person actually sent along with the letter one of their own companions and came to you face to face with that letter and was able to not only have you read this, but then you could ask them or that person could explain more of the context. Oh, when he or she says this, this is what's going on. This is the background. All of a sudden, that letter comes alive. Now you have a whole lot more that brings those words to life. You've got a flesh and blood messenger from them helping you understand everything that they're saying in the writing. That's what preaching of the word is by way of messengers. He sends, this is the Lord, the Lord would send to you a letter by the hand of real living, breathing persons. so that his words will really sink in and be communicated effectively. There's a story that some of you maybe have heard this lecture over the years, some of you haven't, but when we read the word, we have a tendency, I have this tendency. And if I'm reading, sometimes I will pay attention to the things I really like. Like let's say I'm in a little bit of an argument with somebody and I'm reading the word and I think that the word really pins them down. Oh man, I wish that they could hear this because this is really addressing them. We tend to read the word subjectively, don't we? We tend to listen to the parts that we like and I can read right past the parts that I kind of don't like. But you know what preaching does, and this is your fill in here, the second one, preaching objectifies the word. It brings it from outside of you. It has someone coming from outside of you and telling you now, no, no, you need to pay attention to this detail that you're overlooking. And it goes both ways. Not only is it at times you need to hear You're the man or you're the one who needs to grapple with this sin. And so the Lord brings conviction by not allowing you to read it subjectively, but by bringing it much more objectively and from outside of you. But here's the other side. Sometimes you don't believe the promises are for you. Sometimes you struggle with your own faith and you need someone to come and say, no, this good news is for even you. You might think you're unworthy of this. You might think you're too bad. You might think you're the only one who's struggling with these kinds of things in your mind, in your heart, or in your private life. But no, the gospel's even for people like you. There's a story from church history. You guys have all heard of Martin Luther, but you might not have heard of his friend. I'm sure some of you have. He had a friend named Melanchthon, Martin Luther in the friendship, he was the bombastic guy who always put his foot in his mouth and was just a wild man. Melanchthon was a very sensitive man, very quiet, very peaceful, kind of the polar opposite of Luther. Luther came along one day and Melanchthon was just despondent. He was completely doubting his faith. He could not believe that God could have mercy for a sinner like him. And Luther said, but haven't you read the word? I mean, haven't you read Romans 8.1? There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Melanchthon in tears says to Luther, yes, I've read it. Yes, I've read it. And Luther said, well, then now you need to hear it. And Luther began to just preach at him. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Over and over again, Melanchthon writes in his diary that that is what the Lord used to finally make his word sink into my soul. It was hearing someone outside of me tell me that this was true for me. That was how I was able to grasp hold of the gospel, the goodness of God. That's how preaching works. There's a very important principle, and that's that issue there that I just mentioned, the objectifying of the Word of God. This is one reason why God sends us messengers, sends us preachers, because if it's just us and our Bibles, we often will miss so much. We often will disbelieve the things we need to believe. We often will try to get out from under the convicting parts that we really need to hear in our lives. Our confession On the subject of ministerial preaching, though, says, and I'd like you to see this here, I have it in, you'll see that WCF 21.5. Preaching is not the only thing that's addressed, but also the matter of congregational hearing. The sound preaching of the word or the sound preaching and conscionable hearing of the word in obedience unto God with understanding, faith, and reverence. That is to say that as we talk about the preaching of the word, you also need to recognize that you are not passive in the process and in the preaching. God requires of you and calls you that when the word is being preached in your church, that you're listening, that this is God talking to me. This is him. He sent somebody. to open his word and I need to listen for the truth. I need to listen for the message that he wants to say to me here. And so you have a part in the worship as well. It's not that you just kind of sit there and absorb a lecture. That's not congregational preaching, just absorbing a lecture of truths. But rather listening intently, engaging, seeking out, is this for me? Is this for me? I've used this illustration talking about how does gospel preaching work? All of you, if you're community members in a reformed church, then you understand or at least, maybe not fully understand, you at least believe in the sovereignty of God, that God has an elect people out there. Well, how does the preaching of the gospel to a mixed crowd work? best illustration I've ever heard is it would be like, and this is what I'm trying to get you to appreciate in this, is to think about how you are to hear preaching. Let's say that each one of you drove in here this afternoon in your own car, and we're sitting here tonight or this evening, and it gets dark, and so So you came in actually, sorry, I'm making this up on the fly. I'm totally lame at doing that, as you can see. Anyway, we come to an evening service. It's dark outside. You all each drive your car in here. Someone walks in the room before the service starts, so the guy gets up here to make his announcement, and he says, there's a car in the parking lot with the lights on. Now, if you all drove in here this evening, and let's say you don't have one of those more modern cars that just turns off the lights when you get out, that kind of thing. This used to be a big deal back in my day, because you always had to manually turn your lights off. But if you all drove in here, you're going to want to listen. OK, is it my car? Is this person talking about my car? And then the person who's making the announcement says, I'll use Patrick's truck, you know. It's a blue truck with a red top or just the opposite? Okay. It's a red Toyota. It's a red Toyota truck with a blue camper shell on the back. Now, what do you instantly do when you hear it's not your car? You basically, okay, I'll go back to talking to my, my buddy here before. Patrick, though, knows that he's talking to me. Everybody heard it. I mean, everybody in the room heard that message, but that was, I had something to say to him. I didn't know who he was when I was making the call, the general call, but he heard it, and he heard it intensely, viscerally, that's mine. I gotta get up and go turn off the lights in my car. Preaching of the Word works that way. The Lord brings a minister in. You come into the church to sit and hear the preaching of the Word. And at any given time, and this is where the analogy breaks down, God has messages for each one of you. He wants to nail you and He wants to comfort you. He wants to convert you. He wants to sanctify you. and his word goes out and you hear it and it's, that's me. I mean, have you ever sat under the preaching of the word and you felt like the guy knew you somehow? I mean, he is talking to me. I mean, you get nervous at times. This is, you know, does he know? Does he know about me? Or Oh man, I needed to hear this. I mean, this is the Lord bringing his message. That's what preaching is. This is why we have preaching. But you see, your part in it is to come ready to hear, to anticipate. I'm waiting to hear God speak. Here he's brought a messenger to help me understand him better, to tell me something wonderful about him, to help me understand his word. I mean, it's not just that he sent a letter and we're going to have a public reading of a letter. No, no. There's someone who's actually going to read that letter to us. Someone who is going to be able to explain what's going on and help. That's preaching. Look at these just two passages here that I want you to be thinking about as you come and you sit under the preaching of the word in your churches on Lord's Day. This is the one, this is the Lord speaking, this is the one to whom I will look. He who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. The one that comes and says, I'm coming to hear God. I'm not coming to hear a lecture, hang out with my friends, whatever. Yes, there's a social aspect and we do learn, there's teaching and stuff like that, but I'm coming to hear the Lord. Another passage here, Hebrews 4, 2, for good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened. Or other translations have this, and I think maybe more helpfully, they didn't hear it in faith. They didn't unite the message they heard with faith. So for you to come When you sit under the preaching of the word, you have to come and you have to believe. You have to say, speak Lord. Your servant hears. I'm here to hear from you. Before we move to the sacraments, does anyone have any questions on the preaching of the word as a means of grace and why God has chosen the foolishness of preaching? Why he would bring some dude in to use this antiquated form of communication? Any thoughts or questions on preaching? I'm sure there's a lot, but anything that's pressing that you want to ask now? It's a great question, Rebecca. No, I think if we set ourselves up to, I've got to be wowed, and everything like this, we're going to be really disappointed. What I think, though, is what we need to do more often than we do is we need to meditate on what we've heard. Reformed people tend to be good readers, listeners. But what we don't tend to be is meditators. We don't meditate. We don't think on those things. And so I think it's a really helpful thing to go back over like, wow, that was a little difficult to listen to today or something like that, you know, and I'm still struggling with that. Go back over that passage. Lord, well, I remember he did say this and that was helpful. You know, I think that, so I would say, no, it's not going to every single week. And that's going to fluctuate with the human instrument that's preaching. It's going to fluctuate with your own. You know, I stayed up too late last night. You know, I got distracted. Someone's phone went off. I was preaching last night and all of the flash flood warnings went off and everybody's phones just, you know, the whole church. I'm like, I'm like coming down trying to make my point, you know, like, oh, this is going to be good. You know, I wasn't thinking that ever. I never think that. Sorry. Anyway, I was just coming to the conclusion though. And all of a sudden, you know, everybody's phone went off. So, you know, there's, There's just life that gets in the way and fatigue and things like that. And I think there are special times, though, but I think there should be an anticipation. Lord, I really want to hear from you. Help me to discern the message you have for the church today. It's not a mistake. It's not an accident that I'm going to gather with these people and that you have that man standing in the pulpit with that passage open. So teach me. It might be a feast one day. It might be just something you needed, something small. It might be that You don't know during the preaching, but in a discussion afterwards or sitting around the table at lunch afterwards and someone opens it up a little more and says, you know, actually that got me to think of this. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, that's what I needed to hear to be helped by that. So the other, I'm kind of verbose in the answer, but the other thing you can do is be praying for your pastors. pray that they will be used as instruments of the Lord to bring his word, to be able to open it up accurately for you, that the spirit would get behind his own message that he wants to say to the church. And that's, it's a hard thing. I mean, we, we, we, we're a mess usually the week before, the night before, you know, the morning, I mean, I'm scared to death to get into the pulpit and yeah, it is so, helpful and almost absolutely necessary for me to know that people are praying, that this is not just all on me and my abilities and gifts, but that this is something God has chosen to use in his church and so it's a supernatural event going on. Whether it's going to wow me every week or what, you know, no. And I think you bring up a great point. I mean, there's times I read the word and I'm like, whoa, you know, I'm blown away. 1 Corinthians 13 or I read a psalm and it's just like an oasis in the desert. And then I'm reading the genealogies and numbers, you know, and it's like, okay, you know, it's just not going to always feel the same. And, uh, but there's, there's things there though in each one. Um, I, I did a thing, uh, recently in Bible reading through numbers, I decided I'm going to look for something. I just don't want it to be just the droning on of names. I started circling every woman that was named in the genealogies. It was fascinating. I could not believe how often and how critical women were in these genealogies of Israel. I mean critical things change. I was like wow, that is a fascinating study because at that time it seemed to be the world was dominated, just completely patriarchal, man dominated. If there's all these women, it's like, I wonder what she was like, you know, I wonder. So there's, you know, there's things we can do, but, but no, it's not going to be fireworks every time, but pray and meditate and chew on those words. Any other thoughts on that, that question? Either Rebecca's question or, or others on preaching. Let's, let's ask the question, why this, the sacraments and The short answer to why we need the sacraments is that we need them because, and this might be a strange thing for us to grasp when I first say it, we need them because we are weak in faith and we are slow to believe. I don't think in a crowd like this I have to ask. In fact, I asked it earlier. There's two sacraments, you can fill that in, and they are baptism and the Lord's Supper. We're not gonna go into that right now. The sacrament is a visible sign or it is a guarantee of the promise of God. You've heard this, I know in your lives, if you've been in the church, it's like a wedding ring. This wedding ring is a visible token of my wife's love and commitment to me. And so it speaks a lot to me when I pull it off right now and pay attention to it or look at it on my finger. It says a lot to me. It's from my wife to me. And it's, you know, this in itself isn't her love, but this is, this speaks of her love. This communicates to me, uh, that, that there's someone who loves me and who was willing to commit her life to me. And therefore baptism and the Lord's supper are given as, as tangible, visible pledges of God's love and faithfulness to us. And so as we consider them, we need to have a couple things in mind. And the first is, and we're quickly closing in on the end here, but I think, I hope that a couple words about the sacraments can be helpful to you. The first thing about the sacraments, and this is also not always as important in a crowd like this, and hopefully you guys have been growing up this way to some degree as you've been trained in your own families and in your churches. But first of all, the sacraments are not about you. That is maybe one of the most fundamental differences between, say, people who are what we call Baptists or people who would baptize their babies. It's almost, that is the crux issue, is that people who would only baptize a believer upon their own profession of faith, and you heard me say they would only baptize a believer, we baptize believers upon their professions of faith as well. We also baptize the children of believers. The fundamental difference between those two views is who's talking in the sacraments. Our Baptist friends say getting baptized is your profession of faith. What I'm trying to communicate is the sacraments are not your word. They're not about you. It's God saying something to you. I didn't give this ring to myself. My wife gave it. This is actually her statement to me. So the sacraments are not about you. Think about what did Jesus say. Jesus says, do this in remembrance of who? Me. Paul reminds us that when we eat this bread and we drink this cup, what do we do when we're engaged in the Lord's Supper? What are we proclaiming? Our own faith? What are we proclaiming when we're engaged in the Lord's Supper? When we eat this bread and we drink this cup, what are we doing? Remember what he says there in verse 36? We're proclaiming his death until he comes again. In other words, and this brings us right into the next point, the sacraments are a proclamation of the gospel. So the second point is they're not saying anything new. This is something that people tend to get really mixed up as if the sacraments are some extra kind of a revelation from God. The sacraments say nothing other than what the gospel says. It's simply a different way of proclaiming the exact content of the gospel. Jesus Christ is dead for you. That there's salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the message of the sacraments. Augustine, Saint Augustine He called the sacraments this, and that's a fill in there, second to the last, visible word. Visible word. What do you think he has in mind when he says that? Why would he call the sacraments visible word? What's he meaning by that? Any thought? Chase. Yeah. In other words, it's, I mean, the culmination of revelation in one sense is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says, we preach Him. We preach Christ and Him crucified. I don't want to know anything among you but Christ and Him crucified. The sacraments are not saying anything else. It's just a visible proclamation of that, what normally is an audible proclamation. The best illustration, some of you who know me will have heard this one before. I'll set it up by saying this. I think that we underappreciate the sacraments because the gospel is no longer such a wonderful message to us that we can hardly believe it's true. Now, if I came to you right now, I wish I had a way to illustrate this. And maybe this doesn't resonate with you because you could just simply care less about cars or something like that. But if I came in like right now said hey you guys, I don't know if Shane told you that being part of TFB Every single one of you. Hey, I'm not into cars So I don't even know what to say right now But I could say every single one of you is gonna get a a new Porsche sports car the chain tell you that I Mean you guys didn't know when you signed up that you were gonna get a free car What do you guys believe me I mean, is that a message that sounds too good to be true? And what if I said, you guys don't believe me, do you? Now, and I pull out like some official looking thing, and I start walking down this aisle here, and I put a key on every one of your thing, and it's a real key. And I drop that key in front of each one of you. Now you hold that thing and you're thinking, what? Now you want to go run out the back door and say, are they really sitting in the parking lot? I mean, this is a key? You're giving us cars? You see, when the gospel is preached, we have lost a sensitivity to how good of a message it is. that God would forgive everything, and that he would count you as righteous as his own son, that he does not love Jesus any more than he loves you. Every believer, when you hear that, should be thinking in your heart, no way, that is too good to be true. And what the sacraments are is God coming and basically putting a key in each one of your hands and saying, yes, it is that true. As real as this bread is, as real as this wine is, my wife is amazing. And I've often wondered, I cannot believe that she actually loves me. I mean, I can't believe I deserve someone like her. But I look at my ring and I think, but it's true. I mean, she gave me a token by which I can, when I doubt, I can go back to, but she gave me this ring. She's given me a token by which I can believe. I mean, yes, she's told me, she said it. I mean, I told you guys that you get a free car. But the message is almost too good to be true. It's like you needed something tangible to grab onto. And that's what God provides us in the sacraments. Something tangible. Something that we can actually lay hold of. What if I said, I'm giving all of you guys a free trip around the world. You're like, what? But I hand you the ticket. And it lays on your nightstand, and every night you're thinking, I'm gonna have a trip around the world? But you can roll over and you can grab that ticket and go, it's true. I mean, I've got official ticket here to go. That's what the sacraments are. It's his word. It's his word in a very visible form. It doesn't make his word any more true. It doesn't communicate to you anything different than his word already communicated to you. You're not getting any more truth in the sacraments that he already gave you in the gospel. But what he's giving it to you, he's giving it to you in a different way, hoping that that will build up your faith. It will be a different way that you can grab onto it. Final comment as we're closing. How do we receive grace by way of the sacraments then? Let me ask you to think through this. If it's no different than what is preached in the gospel, if the message of the sacraments is exactly the same as the preaching of the gospel, then how do we receive Christ as he's offered to us by way of the sacraments? Not a trick question. Just think about it. How do you receive Christ when the gospel is preached and he's presented and offered to you in the gospel? What do you do? What did you do? When Jesus was preached and you heard the good news, what did you do? You embraced him by faith. You said, I want him, that's my savior. I want you, Lord Jesus, as my righteousness. I'm taking this offer. If the sacraments are the exact same message, Christ and him crucified for sinners, how do you receive him when the sacraments are administered? It's the same way. It's not the bread or the wine somehow is magically giving you Christ Your response is faith. You're hearing the gospel again in a visible form. That's why Augustine called it visible word. And your response is exactly the same as when you hear the gospel as when you see the gospel, or you hold it, or you feel it. You embrace Jesus Christ by faith. You say, Lord, I am clinging to you again. Here's a symbol of your broken body and your shed blood. In other words, I'm hearing again what you've done for me. You took my punishment. You're offering me your righteousness. I'm taking it, oh Lord, thank you. I'm laying hold of Christ afresh. That's what we do when the sacraments are administered. I think we'll end it at this point. I think we have five minutes. I watched the clock. It started. Does anyone have any questions? I know Patrick would come up here in a moment and maybe ask that same thing, so I'll save him a brief trip. Any questions? Chase? Yes. I'm really glad you asked that question. What should our posture be when we come to the Lord's table? And Chase followed that up with the fact that often were very introspective when we come. But if it's a proclamation of the gospel, shouldn't there be some joy in that? I've been very concerned about this in my own congregation, and I'll give you a couple really quick answers. One is I've tried to remind my congregation of what Professor John Murray said, and he seizes on those words of Christ, when you do this, or as often as you do it, do it in remembrance of me. When you come to the Lord's table, it is not a time to necessarily look at yourself and your own performance. He's calling you outside of yourself at that point, and he's saying, remember me. This is, too often we go this way. We just become, and I mean, if we're not coming to a table, which some of our reformed congregations do, they actually have tables set up and you come. What we do is we sit there by ourselves in the chair, silent in the church, and we're kind of like this. But this is the Lord's table. This is the table where Those who he has taken their punishment and given them his righteousness are coming to dine and commune with him. It should not be overly introspective. It should be a time where I am remembering him. The second thing Murray says on that is he's also saying, remember me this way. Don't just remember me like a baby in a manger. I'm asking you to remember me as dead for you. So his life poured out for us. I do think it's a concern sometimes, and I've asked my congregation, do not close your eyes. Do not look down and go into yourself. We're at the table of the Lord together. At least, I'm not asking for people to get up and start slapping each other on the back and talking, walking around, but at least look up and look at your fellow believers. Look who's sitting with you. What joy. Look at who we get to commune and fellowship with. Look at who we have, a common savior. This is your brothers and your sisters. I think parents, it's a great time. I haven't had this benefit as a minister, because I'm always up doing it. But if you have kids that are not yet communicant members of the table, it's a great time to talk to them. Here's what's going on. I mean, I don't eat with my family like this, you know, everybody not looking at each other. I think it's an opportune time to be joyful in an appropriate way. I'm not talking about jumping up and yippy skippy running around. We don't do that at my table as a meal normally, but it's, hey, this is, I think we've gotten weird in it. It is a solemn occasion. Yet that other side, what Murray says is, he's asking you to remember him dead. These are the symbols of a man's body and blood. He took wrath upon himself. So there needs to be somehow we mingle trembling with our mirth, to use biblical terminology. It was like the women at the tomb, they ran and they I think the terminology there is they shuddered, they were in terror because of great joy. It's like, what? But I think that's kind of the attitude we come to the table with is there's a solemn rejoicing. I would recommend, open your eyes, look around, look at your brothers and sisters in Christ. What a joyous time to remember that we have a Savior who's sufficient. for our sin and to enjoy that together. I think we're over time, so I'll go ahead and end it at this point. Let me just close our time in prayer, pray for you guys as you head up into the woods and spend some time chewing on this stuff, fleshing it out, and also just having fun. Jumping in the lake. Is there a lake up there, Shane? Two, three, that's three legs. That's pretty good. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the gift of your son. We thank you for the gospel. We thank you also for how you know us better than we know ourselves. You know the very things we need. You know the frailty of our frame, the doubts in our hearts, the longings we have, the ways that we need to be talked to to receive your word. You've provided all of these things for us, you've given us your word, you've given us ministers to preach it, to come and put flesh and blood and talk about it and explain it. And you've given us these tokens of your promise that the gospel is true, that when we doubt we can lay hold of these things, we can hold in our hands tokens that are physical, as real as those things are. That's how real you're. the truth of your promises in Christ are to us. And so I pray that you'll bless these young people as they continue to grow in their faith and as they think on these matters and as Shane and Patrick seek to open these up in discussion and further teaching on them. I pray you'll bless all of this this coming week. Please keep them safe. Please let them enjoy the glory and beauty of your creation. And may they be able to enjoy the gift and the giver, that they might move their praise and their joy past just the delight in the goodness of your creation, but also to stand in awe of you who would give it to them. So all these things we ask in Christ's name, amen.