I invite you to turn tonight to the book of Ezekiel, chapter 36, for our reading, and then we'll turn to John 3. I'll read it, verses 16, and all the way down, I believe I said to verse, I don't have my bulletin, but I believe it's, well, I'll stop when I feel like stopping. I'm not really sure, but we'll go to John 3 after Ezekiel 36. I'd like to also, before we read the scripture, if you have your forms and prayers book in front of you, if you please turn to page 228, I'd like to consider these three-question answers tonight. We're continuing to work through what we believe. We've come to the section on the sacraments and we're in Lord's Day 26. So it's three question answers there. I will ask the question on page 228 and have you please respond with the answer. This is question 69. How does holy baptism remind and assure you that Christ's one sacrifice on the cross benefits you personally? In this way, Christ instituted this outward washing and with it promise that, as surely as water washes away the dirt from the body, so certainly His blood and His Spirit wash away my soul's impurity, that is, all my sins. What does it mean to be washed with Christ's blood and Spirit? To be washed with Christ's blood means that God, by grace, has forgiven our sins because of Christ's blood poured out for us in his sacrifice on the cross, to be washed with Christ's Spirit means that the Holy Spirit has renewed and sanctified us to be members of Christ so that more and more we die to sin and live holy and blameless lives. Where does Christ promise that we are washed with his blood and Spirit as surely as we are washed with the water of baptism? In the institution of baptism, where he says, Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. This promise is repeated when Scripture calls baptism the washing of regeneration and the washing away of sins. And now in Ezekiel chapter 36, beginning at verse 16, The word of the Lord came to me, Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity. So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood that they had shed in the land, for the idols with which they had defiled it. I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries in accordance with their ways and their deeds I judged them. But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name. And that people said of them, These are the people of the Lord, and yet they had to go out of his land. but I had concern for my holy name which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they came. Therefore say to the house of Israel thus says the Lord God it is not for your sake O house of Israel that I am about to act but for the sake of my holy name which you've profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name which has been profaned among the nations in which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness. And from all your idols I will cleanse you, and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God, and I will deliver you from all your uncleanness. There we'll end the reading from Ezekiel, and from John chapter 3, the well-known passage of Nicodemus, verse 3. Jesus answered him, chapter 3, verse 3, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. We'll stop the reading there tonight. Tonight we are considering the meaning of baptism. Sometimes people ask me, they say, do the Reformed churches ever do topical preaching? And that's really what historically going through what we believe in the catechisms or catechism preaching. And that's what the Reformed topical preaching is. You take a subject and you take something that needs to be understood in the light of the church. And we have a church for the people. And tonight we come to the section on baptism, which is important for us to look at and to consider together tonight. I thought to myself, This is the challenging part of the catechism and what we believe and what we confess together because you just kind of want to get through it and get to the sanctification section. There's some really good stuff in the sanctification section. That's the challenge of this. And I had to check my own attitude coming to this particular section because this exposes the very problem that I really rehearsed last time and work through that we're never quite satisfied with and we're never really that confident in the things that God has chosen to be a blessing to us. The things that God chooses to build his church with. Think of Matthew 28 that we read. Jesus said, go, preach and teach and baptize. And has that really been that important to the church? Has that really been as important as it should be? Or have we been caught up in everything else because we're not that confident in these things? Remember, the word and the sacrament are intended to focus our faith on Jesus. Remember that was said last time. That was so helpful in question 67. Are both the word and the sacraments then intended to focus our faith on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross as the only ground of our salvation? That's the intention. They're intended to focus us. We need to be focused in this life. It's one of our most difficult things is to be focused. Someone said to me recently, they said, we've tried so hard to make our young people love the church. Maybe what we simply do, what we should do is recover. We should recover for them the meaning of the sacraments. I thought that was an interesting statement, the word and the sacraments. People say, oh, it's so stuffy. That's how people think of the sacraments today, so stuffy. Well, I want to change that attitude. I want us to appreciate them the way that we should and why they are so important in the life of the church, and that's why going through this section is helpful to us tonight because they are blessings from the Lord. We call them means of grace for a reason. There's something that the Lord does for us to help us. It's a very sad thing that Christians have sort of dismissed anything that has to do with the sacrament today in Christianity, or they've tried to change the nature of them to make them not feel so churchy. That's been the day in which we live. We're embarrassed of them. But the irony is that never like before have we seen Christians on this quest to get religion and to make Christianity meaningful to their lives with everything else under the sun. People are on a quest to find religion and find meaning if they see anything left in Christianity through something of some designating this as a quest for illegitimate religious experience. But what has the Lord given us? That's the question we're talking about tonight. And most of the things that people are seeking for to find meaning to their faith, we don't listen to the Lord carefully enough in what he's put in place. And that's what I want to help you with tonight. That's the goal of this particular sermon, particularly with the sacrament of baptism. What is your understanding of the sacraments? What are you understanding? What do you think of them? And particularly tonight, baptism. What does it mean? Why is it so important? My goal is to help you to see that these two signs that God put in place are meant to be a blessing to you and to help you in your faith and to give you strength and encouragement and value, to value what we do in the church. That's one of the great things I felt as a pastor today. We simply have to do again is try to help people value why we do what we do. And granted, I think at times we've just assumed that people understand all of this, even the liturgy, why we do these things. We don't give enough explanation to people. I think all of that has been assumed that people understand. And I believe that's wrong. The goal tonight then is to consider the meaning of baptism so that we would appreciate it and to see how it's intended to help you in the faith. Your baptism. your baptism personally. And that's the purpose here. So notice here, in that first question and answer to 26, the personal help of baptism, the purposeful meaning we'll look at of baptism, and then the powerful promise in baptism. So the personal help of baptism is where I want to begin. I recognize that in any discussion about baptism, there is the danger of putting our trust in the signs themselves. That has been a problem throughout history. This is one of the things I think that people are always worried about, especially with our practice of baptizing infants, that Reformed churches have fallen into the trap of trusting in the act of baptism itself. And there have been movements throughout the history that that has happened. Even some people say it's a carryover from Rome. That baptism itself, they would say, we know, removes original sin and we would reject such a thing. I want to think, though, about why we should look at baptism with great blessing. It's a blessing for us. There is the danger, which I fear is more of the danger today in American evangelicalism, of not appreciating baptism at all, even right to us as a Reformed church? What does it even mean for us? Why is it so important for us? Simply, do we do what we do with no meaning? I think that's more our problem today. I think that's more of our challenge today, of trying to get back to the meaning and appreciating it for why God gave it and what it's meant to be a blessing for and why. The biblical writers in the ancient world, when they spoke about baptism, they understood it meant something very special for the believer. Today, of course, when one is baptized, it's done within these walls, and for some, it may not have the significance that it should, other than it's a sentimental thing. I've always said what we should pray for as a church is to see a lot of, in our culture, adult baptisms. We should be praying for that, and I challenge the church to pray for that, And I have to say, every time I've challenged the church to pray for that, I've actually seen it happen when you guys are praying. And I don't know who's praying, but I've seen this happen. We should be praying for that. Adult baptisms. We see the covenant baptism. That's next time. We're coming to that in the next Lord's Day. But this is a wonderful thing to think about tonight. The biblical writers understood it wasn't just a sentimental thing. It wasn't just a nice thing that we do. It wasn't just a cultural custom that we do. This was the problem that happened in Corinth, of course, with baptism, that the Apostle Paul said, I thank God that I baptize none of you except Crispus and Gaius. You know why he said that? Because everyone was running around saying, do you know I got baptized by the Apostle Paul? And that baptism's really special. Who did you get baptized by? Pastor Gordon. Not as special. I had to stop doing that. Because see what happens with baptism. It's the human tendency. Or we have a sort of what we call sacerdotal view of baptism. That through the power of the priest in the Roman church or the power of the pastor or the holiness of the pastor, I'm getting something in baptism. That's not true. We don't believe that. That's nonsense. What do we believe about baptism? And for the early Christians, when you look at how they understood baptism and how they taught about baptism, you understand that this was a risky endeavor. They were taking a stand in the ancient world to make known to everyone that they were willing to be identified with Jesus. And that could cost you your life. A bold declaration that the believer's life was actually in jeopardy when they were baptized. Because baptism was a sign of washing, we'll look at, and a sign of allegiance and a sign of identification with Jesus. And if you know anything about the ancient world, you know that to make such an allegiance to anyone but Caesar could cost you your life. But with the ancient Christian receiving it, they were declaring, think about this, not only was God acting, but there was a declaration, Christ before Caesar. That's remarkable. That's remarkable. Could cost you your life to be baptized. I mean, imagine for a moment that Christianity was completely outlawed in this country, and you had to do it in secret. And what do you think would be one of the things they might run around asking, if it's happened to you, to know that you're a Christian? The one thing they might ask is, have you been baptized? That's the badge of your identity. Were you baptized? It's a sign of initiation into God's family. That's what baptism is. It's a sign of entrance into God's family. It's a sign of entrance and a sign of identification with Jesus. But it's interesting tonight that as we look at our Heidelberg, how carefully they wanted to help us to understand the immense blessing for the Christian life. I think Heidelberg here, 26, captures it beautifully in question 69, which is a real big help to us. How does holy baptism, notice the language here, remind you and assure you that Christ's one sacrifice on the cross benefits you personally? Isn't that a great question? How does it remind you of something and how does it assure you of something that what Jesus did for you is something for you personally? I love that. I think that is really a special question and answer. It reminds you and assures you of what? Your identity. Your brand new identity. You're marked. A sign has been put on you. I think that's what people need most today. Isn't that the world we're living in? Everyone wants identity? Isn't that the struggle today? How many identities are being pitched at us today? All with signs. Just look around. We're in the middle of pride month. A great sign is waved in front of us. Identify with that. Have meaning to your life with that. Join that. It'll give you happiness. It'll give you freedom. It'll give you liberation. That's the meaning of the sign. You're being pitched signs everywhere. You're being pitched identities everywhere. This is our great concern for you, our young people. I've emphasized that today. Everyone wants to claim you. Everyone wants to give you an identity, and there's a million of them to pick from. Just what's the hot one today? Tomorrow it'll be a different one. You've got whatever movement you want to join with, and they all have a sign. They all have a sign. People want identity. They want a badge. They want to be able to wear something with pride. Hmm, interesting, huh? Interesting. That's the battle we're in. Somebody else has an identity for you. Somebody else has a sign for you. Somebody else has a sign that's so meaningful it'll change your life. And it's real. And there's actual real power behind it because it's the Spirit's work. that's where we are tonight. I've been mentioned a few times. I haven't done anything with it yet, but I've been working on this catechism for human sexuality, and I wrote this one question and answer, and I thought it might help tonight. Since I'm no longer my own, but have been bought with the precious blood of Christ, what new identity has Christ achieved for us? By faith, I am joined to Christ as a new creature and so I share in his identity. In my new identity, I am fulfilled in God's love as an adopted child. I am to think of myself as purchased, accepted, valued, and protected. Identity. This is what we're talking about when we talk about baptism. I am to find a great delight to be remade in the image of Christ in true delight, righteousness, and holiness. That's where I find delight. Now, why are all, my next question, why are all forms of sexual immorality compatible with my union in Jesus Christ? Since I've become one with Christ in body and spirit, Any form of sexual immorality invites that which is profane into my holy union with Christ. Therefore, I'm called to be one with Christ by fleeing all forms of sexual immorality. I don't know if this is correct, but when Luther was in distressing times, and I know he had some different views of baptism, but they say he would write on the board, I am baptized. I hope it was for this reason. I think it was for this reason. The man faced all kinds of stress. He knew that it was meant to be, in this life, a personal help to him. Your baptism is meant to be a personal help to you. It's the badge of your identity. It's an assurance to you that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, that you are not your own, that you were bought with a price. And I think this is why the Apostle Paul was constantly emphasizing, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. You're in him. You're washed in him. You're cleansed in him. Now, you see then, as we move to the second point, why this has such a purposeful meaning for us. It's intended to remind us and assure us of what Jesus has done for us, that we are his child, that we have this new identity. But think of how Paul would speak of baptism for the Christian. Do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in the newness of life. This is the beauty of baptism, that the way the Scriptures speak to the Christian, The way that the scriptures address the Christian is to have you think about the beautiful truth that in baptism, in the sign and the seal, something has been said to you that when received by faith, you live your whole life knowing that you're washed. Do you see how significant that is for Christian life? How needful that is for the Christian life. that the outward sign was meant to teach you always in all of your struggles against sin and all the difficulties of life and all the hardship and all the competing identities that you have. You've been owned. You've been claimed. You've been washed. You've been forgiven. That's the only way progress is made in the Christian life. Convinced of that. You have to know that. You have to believe that. The sacrament becomes for the believer, when received by faith, a sign and a seal that they are washed and cleansed and his children. Christ loved us. Think about this so much. You know, when he gave the command to go out and baptize, I want you to go out and tell people, when they turn to me, think of everything Ruth has taught us. When they come to my field and they look to me and they trust in me, I want them to know that they have my identity, that I love them, that I've forgiven them. I want you to put that sign on them as a constant reminder and help to them and an assurance to them and a seal to them that I died for them and that all that inward impurity that they're struggling with, I've washed away. I think that's why Ezekiel's helpful. You know, when Ezekiel described Israel, what have we, there's a reason we study Israel. Paul said, when we study Israel, it stops the mouth of the whole world in our own righteousness. When the house of Israel, notice in Ezekiel 36, when he described Israel, it was nothing but defilement, wasn't it, in Israel? There was a lot of defilement. But then he made this promise for Israel that in the day of the new covenant, he would take those stony hearts, and he would take those stony, unclean hearts, and he said he would do this, and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. And he said, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness. You realize that's what baptism signifies. Some people debate, what was Jesus saying precisely to Nicodemus when he was saying, you must be born again. Nicodemus had a dead heart and Nicodemus couldn't respond to the gospel. he had that stony heart and what Jesus was saying was looking at Ezekiel 36 and he was saying to Nicodemus exactly what the new covenant promise is I have come to bring through the spirit I will wash you and my blood will cleanse you and your heart will be changed and you will respond to me, and you will have an identity in me. I think this is why the Apostle Paul, when he was speaking about the new life in Christ, said that one of the great benefits being baptized into Christ is that everything that happened to him has happened to you. The great challenge now is for you to live believing that you have been washed and cleansed and are his children. Likewise, reckon yourselves indeed dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's the beauty of this. And this is what I've done for you, says the Lord. That's trusting the Lord in this. You know, all of the struggle of the Christian life. I don't think in the preaching and teaching my own and I've received in the past, I think we've been so afraid because of the abuses of baptism to not help people with the benefit of thinking about the identity with baptism. How the scriptures help us to think about the identity with baptism. What does it mean to be washed with Christ's blood and spirit? What is the sign in the seal? What is it signifying? To be washed, listen to this, to be washed with Christ's blood means that God, by grace, has forgiven all my sins because of Christ's blood poured out for us in the sacrifice on the cross. To be washed with Christ's spirit means that the Holy Spirit has renewed and sanctified us to be members of Christ so that more and more we die to sin and live holy and blameless lives. You're baptized. God chose to put his sign on you. God chose to set you apart. That's what's true of you. You see how all of the Christian life is meant to live by faith? And we'll look at next time with infants, why that is important for those in the covenant to receive that sign. We haven't got there yet. I'm talking about the basic meaning of it tonight. Think of the young man struggling with all, and young women struggling with all the identity problems and difficulties with sin in this life right now. You know how the Bible speaks to such a young man and a young woman? It doesn't look, the Bible doesn't come and say to the covenant child who is struggling with these things or the one who's believed and been baptized that they fall back under judgment. They motivate them in their identity this way. In him, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. And you who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him. Here it is. Having forgiven us all trespasses. They're forgiven. They're forgiven. That's what baptism's telling you. When you're struggling with sin, remember what the sign tells you. They're forgiven. When you're going through all the difficulties of life, remember what the sign tells you. God's favor has been put on you. When you're in pain and suffering and facing impending death, remember what the sign has told you. By faith, you've been washed. That's not in question. See how that's a help to us and an identity for us. Come back to that identity thing because it's so important. What do people, when they're looking for an identity in this world, and they want that identity, what are they finding is the answer? They're trying to fix something. They're trying to fix a broken world. They're trying to fix a broken heart. They're trying to fix the emptiness of this all, the loneliness of this all. They're trying to find meaning in all of the difficulties, maybe, of their upbringing and raising and parents, whatever it might be. They're crying out for help. That's what they're asking for. And you get to come back and say, God put his sign on me, that he loves me, that he'll never leave me nor forsaken me, that he's washed me, that he gave his son to forgive all of my soul's impurity, and I have the perfect identity in him. That search is over. The search is over. See how much this is needed today? That's what it signifies. And there's one little last brief point here tonight. That question 71 wants you to know there's a purposeful promise in baptism. a purposeful promise. Notice it. Where does Christ promise that we're washed with his blood and spirit as surely as we're washed with the water of baptism? In the institution from Matthew. But notice what it says here. It quotes Mark 16, but it also quotes Titus 3 and Acts 22, talking about this beautiful truth that is said throughout the scriptures, even in Romans 10. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned. What the promise is, is what we looked at last time. There is the forgiveness of your sins and everlasting life. That is the promise that you've been washed of your sins, but that eternal life is not in question for the believer. He wants you to trust that. He wants you to believe that. Salvation is already yours. It's not you're going to get to that day and say, oh, you know, did I do enough? You didn't. Not you're going to get to that day and say, you know, did I do enough to please God. You didn't. What baptism has declared to you is that the washing and the forgiveness that you need was purely and wholly accomplished by Jesus for you. So trust him. Live in the joy of this identity. I think that's what I want to say tonight. Live in the joy of this identity. You don't have to fight him on it. He's given you everything in his son. So enjoy who you are. Pursue who you are. And when you're down and when you're discouraged, remember what these questions and answers say to you. They were instituted to tell you that every time you have to go and take a shower because you're so dirty, that's exactly what Christ's blood has done for you in your soul's impurity. He's washed you. He's cleansed you. He's loved you. He's forgiven you. So do not be unbelieving, but believing. This is the best news of what is being declared to us in baptism. A sign and a seal of that washing that we need that is wholly provided in the new covenant as was announced through the person and the work of Jesus dying for us and rising for us so that all of our sins would be washed away forever. That's what baptism helps us with in the Christian life, And I pray this week that you'll go out and think about how the Lord has set you apart with a new identity and given you his sign to know that you belong to him and are purchased by his precious blood. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thank you tonight for your wonderful word to us. And thank you for helping us to understand this great truth about identity and your mark that you have put on us. We don't put our trust in baptism. We are reminded and assured of your work in baptism. And in that promise, we rest that we are forgiven of our sins and have been saved and are promised everlasting life. Thank you for being good to us. Thank you for giving us an identity that matters. In Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen.