Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Book: Genesis

Foundations of Faith: Covenant and Catholicity

About this sermon

The Apostles’ Creed confesses ‘the holy catholic church,’ and that confession reaches back to God’s call of Abram. God called a moon-worshiper out of Ur by sovereign grace and promised to make him a great nation. God does surprising things when he saves sinners, so believers should never give up on those far from him. God promised that all the families of the earth would be blessed in Abram, and that promise is fulfilled in Christ, who gathers one church from every nation.

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Sermon transcript

Amen. Dear friends, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word as we continue our Foundations of Faith sermon series today. My sermon text is taken from the book of Genesis, Genesis 12, verses 1-3. You’ll find that on page 10 in your Pew Bible. And I’m gonna actually start reading in chapter 11, verse 27, toward the end of chapter 11, and kind of fill out the context a little bit, and I’ll read through verse four. But again, our focus will be on Genesis chapter 12, verses one through three. So friends, let us hear God’s holy word. Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran fathered Lot. Haran died in the presence of his father, Terah, in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. And Abram and Nahor took wives.

The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milca, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milca and Isca. Now Sarai was barren. She had no child. Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.” Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God to bless the preaching of his word. Oh, heavenly Father, sovereign and eternal God, we thank you and praise you for your inerrant, God-breathed, infallible word. It is indeed a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. But Lord, we understand that we cannot spiritually understand your word unless your spirit illuminates us and gives us insight. And so we would beseech you, God, for you to grant the spirit of illumination this day.

Pour your spirit upon us. Open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from Your Word, that we might not only understand the natural sense, but that we might also embrace this as the very saving truth of God as it is revealed. We thank You for giving us Your Word, and we pray that Your Spirit would abide with us. Grant unto me, Your unworthy servant, the grace to declare Your Word with clarity and power and faithfulness. for your glory and for the benefit and salvation of your people. In Jesus’ name we pray and all of God’s people said, amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon today is Foundations of Faith, Covenant and Catholicity. And the key words to be listening for, I’d encourage the children to keep track of the number of times I say these words, if that will help you follow along in my sermon today.

The words which are provided for you in your sermon outline are Catholic, call, covenant, promise, and blessing. Dear friends, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. This statement is from the second affirmation of the third credo or I believe section of that classic Bible-based creed of the historic church known to us today as the Apostles’ Creed. It is this creed that has been guiding my Foundations of Faith sermon series, a series where we’ve been reviewing some of the basic foundational truths of our holy Christian faith as revealed in the Word of God. But as you might imagine, not every Christian or not every Christian church has felt comfortable reciting the language of this particular affirmation of the creed, in particular Some Protestant Christians might have scruples about using this kind of language, about saying, well, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.

Some Protestants might protest, pun intended, they might protest this language by saying something like, well, hey, listen, I’m not a Catholic, I’m a Protestant, and I certainly do not believe in the Roman Catholic Church. And I’m also aware of at least one conservative Protestant denomination that has changed the language of its liturgy in this affirmation to read, I believe in the holy Christian church instead of I believe in the holy Catholic church, obviously in an attempt to clarify the meaning. But dear ones, may I suggest to you this morning that there is no need for us to get rid of a perfectly good word just because it has been historically distorted and misappropriated by the Roman Church. The fact is that we are Catholic, though we are Protestant, we are also Catholic Christians. We are Catholic in the good original sense of that term.

You see friends, the word Catholic simply means universal. And it is a word that points to the truth that with the coming of Christ and with the coming of the new covenant, God’s covenant people in this new covenant era of redemptive history are no longer confined to one nation, namely the theocratic nation of Israel. Now, God’s covenant people, His church, includes redeemed sinners from every tribe, every tongue, every people group, every nation. It includes not just Jews who believe in Jesus, but Gentiles who believe in Jesus as well. And that’s what we mean when we say, I believe in the Holy Catholic or Universal Church. That means I affirm the spiritual unity of all true believers all over the world. This catholicity or international reach and fullness of Christ’s church was part of God’s plan all along, even going back to the beginnings of redemptive history.

In fact, it was anticipated and promised all the way back in the early stages of redemptive history in God’s covenant with Abram, as recorded in the book of Genesis. And so that brings us to our passage for today, which records for us God’s covenant with Abram. Now our passage for this Lord’s Day morning represents a pivotal turning point in redemptive history. In fact, friends, there is a sense in which we could say that the rest of the Bible simply unpacks the implications of God’s call and covenant with Abram as recorded in this passage. And it shows how these covenant promises given to Abram are ultimately fulfilled in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In our text for this morning, we have a record of God’s initial establishment of a covenant with the patriarch Abraham, who is called Abram at this particular point in the book of Genesis.

God changes his name to Abraham a little bit later on. Now even though the actual word covenant is not used specifically in this passage, friends it is clear from the details of this passage that God is here establishing a covenant relationship with Abram because the elements of a covenant are included here in this passage. And that raises the question, and we’ve been studying this, by the way, to give a little plug for our adult instruction class. We’ve been considering the covenant theology of the Bible in our morning instruction classes, and I’d encourage you to come out for that and learn about this. But it raises the question, what, in fact, is a covenant? What is a biblical covenant? Well, in Scripture, the concept of covenant is a deep and rich concept. Dr. O. Palmer Robertson, in his excellent book, The Christ of the Covenants, has rightly said that asking for a definition of covenant is something like asking for a definition of mother.

But nevertheless, friends, I think that we can give at least something of a definition of covenant. And I think Dr. J.G. Voss, in his little booklet on the covenant of grace, does a good job defining a biblical covenant when he writes this. He says, according to the teaching of the Bible, a covenant of God made with man is an arrangement for a certain purpose, made by God and imposed on man. involving certain promises on God’s part and certain obligations on man’s part. By such a covenant, a religious relationship between God and man is constituted or restored. And so let’s break that down. In other words, God’s covenants with humanity are, first of all, they are sovereignly imposed. In other words, we don’t get to bargain with God about the terms of the covenant. He imposes those terms upon us because he’s God and we’re not.

He’s the sovereign one. We are his subjects. Secondly, it establishes a religious relationship between God and man. Covenants in the Bible establish a relationship, a religious relationship between God and man. And thirdly, covenants involve promises on God’s part and obligations on man’s part, although some of God’s covenants with man are of an unconditional nature. God’s covenant with Abram is important, friends, because it represents a major step forward in the unfolding of God’s one overarching covenant of grace, that covenant of grace by which God secures our eternal salvation through the obedience and sacrifice of Christ. And so that brings us to our text for today. And let’s first of all, beloved, as we turn our attention to this portion of God’s word, let us consider the significance of God’s call to Abram. This is the first point on your sermon outline if you’re following along.

And I believe the word that is to be supplied is the word call. Consider the significance of God’s call to Abram. Let’s look at verse one. It says, now the Lord, let me just pause there. Notice the word Lord is in all capital letters. Why? Well, that’s a way for the translators to signal to the English reader that they are translating a particular name of God, namely the name Yahweh. Sometimes it’s transliterated as Jehovah, shows up in your Bible as Jehovah, but this is the covenant name of God. This is the name by which God enters, that indicates that God relates to us covenantally. The Lord, Yahweh, said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. What is the significance of God’s call here to Abram?

There’s much that we could, much that we could mine, many riches that we could mine from just this first verse of our passage for today. But I want you to consider here from this passage that God’s call to Abram was first of all gracious, it was sovereign, and it was surprising. God’s call to Abram was gracious, it was sovereign, and it was surprising. Let’s focus on the graciousness of this call to Abram. See, God’s covenant with Abram certainly called upon Abram to respond with faith and with the obedience which evidences true faith. After all, the Lord says, the Lord gives him a command. He says, go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. But nevertheless, it was not a covenant based upon Abram’s works or merits.

God did not come and issue this command to Abram on the basis of Abram’s worthiness or merits or goodness. It was based solely and exclusively upon the absolute free grace of God. God says, go from your country Now Abram had lived in Ur of the Chaldeans when he received this call. Now there’s a little question that some raise the question, well wait a minute, when did Abram receive this call? This call of Abram is recorded after we learn about Abram and his father Terah and his nephew Lot. traveling out of Ur of the Chaldeans and settling in Haran. However, the scriptures indicate that Abram actually had received this call back when he and the rest of his family were living in Ur of the Chaldeans. In fact, verse 1 could be translated, as I believe it is in the New International Version, as, now the Lord had said to Abram, kind of rewinding the tape, if you will, and saying back when Abram lived in Ur of the Chaldeans, the Lord had said this to him.

And this chronology is also indicated or implied by what God says to Abram in Genesis chapter 15, verse seven, where it says, and he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. He doesn’t say I am the Lord who brought you out of Haran, but I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans. And this is also confirmed by the martyr Stephen’s testimony as recorded in Acts 7, verses 2-4. I’m just going to read that very quickly if you want to follow along. Acts 7, verses 2-4. It says, And Stephen said, Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when? when he was in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran and said to him, go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.

So hopefully we’ve made clear the chronology here of this call. Abram was still living as a pagan in Ur of the Chaldeans when Yahweh the Lord reached out to him in covenant grace and mercy and called him into relationship with himself. Now, what do we know about Ur of the Chaldeans? Well, this was an area that was given over to pagan idolatry. I believe that Ur of the Chaldeans was known for its worship of a moon god. So before his call, Abram and his family were probably moon worshipers. By calling Abram to separate from his kindred and his father’s house and the country of his origin, God was calling Abram to turn from the idols of his past and to follow Yahweh in faith and discipleship. All of this, friends, underscores God’s free and sovereign grace in making covenant with Abram.

Another implication of this passage, by the way, is that Abram’s father, Terah, who went with Abram instead of staying with the rest of his family, was perhaps through that action indicating faith. We learn back in verses 31 and 32 of chapter 11, it says, Tara, that’s Abram’s father, took Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. What does this indicate? Well, this would seem to indicate, beloved, that by God’s grace, Terah, Abram’s father, Terah II, came to believe in the promise that God had made to his son Abram. And in faith, Terah chose to associate himself with blessed Abram, his son.

As John Calvin writes, whence it also appears that Terah was not so far deluded by superstitions as to be destitute of the fear of God. And so this call given by God, this gracious call given by God to Abram, a pagan, a moon worshiper, was gracious. It was not based on Abram’s worthiness or works or merits. And it was also sovereign. God, not Abram, initiates this covenant of his own sovereign will and good pleasure. Not because he was forced to or constrained by anything outside of himself to choose and call Abram into covenant with himself. And again, as I’ve already said, not because God was drawn to something worthy in Abram. But out of pure sovereign grace, God took the initiative. And out of all the people living then in Ur of the Chaldeans, God revealed his covenant mercies to this particular man, Abram, who became Abraham.

And this is why God’s call to Abram is also surprising. Again, as I’ve already mentioned, Abram lived among the idolatrous Terahites in the paganized land of Ur of Chaldeans. Abram was, before God’s call to him, Abram was a slave to his pagan idolatry. But God removes him out of that idolatry. Look with me, if you would, at chapter 15, verse 7 again. Turn to Genesis 15, verse 7, and notice the language here. The Lord says this to Abram. He says, I am the Lord, I’m Yahweh, who did what? Who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. The Lord says, Abram, I’ve brought you out. I’ve brought you out. You didn’t bring yourself out. I brought you out as an act of redeeming mercy and grace. This language should be familiar, because it’s the same language that God uses when he reveals the Ten Commandments to his people from Mount Sinai.

If you turn to Exodus 20, verse two, and look at the prelude of the giving of the Ten Commandments, what does the Lord say to his people Israel as they are gathered there at the foot of Mount Sinai? He says, I am Yahweh, I am the Lord your God, who did what? Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. See the similarity in language? The Lord had brought Abram out of Ur of the Chaldeans, just as he would later bring the Israelites out of their enslavement to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. And this was all by grace. And this was surprising. Again, Abram came from an environment steeped in idolatry. Abram himself and his family were idolaters, no doubt. How surprising that God would choose such an unworthy and such an unlikely man to be the great patriarch of the faith.

Abram was indeed surprised by grace. What does this teach us? many things, but one thing this underscores, beloved, is that our God is a God of surprises. He often delights in saving and redeeming some of the most unlikely individuals. You ever, brother, sister in Christ, you ever wonder to yourself, Why did God choose to give me the privilege to hear the gospel and open my heart to receive Christ as my Savior? Why me, Lord? And you’re surprised that God would choose and have mercy upon a wretch like you. I’m surprised that he would have mercy upon a wretch like me. since God is a God of surprises. This should actually encourage us, brothers and sisters. I know some of you are probably praying for and seeking to share the gospel with neighbors, friends, loved ones, and so forth, and you want them to come to Christ, and they seem hardened to the gospel, and you’re tempted to give up.

Oh, don’t give up. Our God is a God of surprises. He is a God who delights to save sinners. He saved you, didn’t he? He saved me. What a surprise, what a blessed, glorious, gracious, sovereign surprise indeed. Believer, don’t give up on that unsaved friend, neighbor, coworker, loved one. God is able to reach them. And don’t give up on yourself. If you’re listening this morning and you’ve wandered far from the Lord, you’ve backslidden from the Lord and you think, oh, there’s no hope for me. I’ve gone too far. Remember that our Lord is a God who delights to receive and welcome home the prodigal son. So get out of the muck, turn back to the Lord. He will receive you as you return to him in repentance and faith. Believer, let us remember, brothers and sisters, that God’s saving call to us was gracious, sovereign, and surprising, even as his call to Abram was gracious, sovereign, and surprising.

But another aspect of this call, this covenantal call that God gave to Abram, is that it was a call to discipleship under Yahweh’s lordship. The Lord says to him, go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house. In other words, leave everything you’ve known Turn your back on it all and go where? He says, go to the land that I will show you. At this point, Abram didn’t know where he was going. He simply had to trust God that God was gonna lead him. Even though some of Abram’s larger family went with him, namely Terah, Abram’s father, who died in Haran, and Lot, the son of Haran, Abram’s nephew. Nevertheless, Abram still left his kindred and his father’s house in the broader sense of those terms. He left behind everything that he had known.

And God says, go to the land that I will show you. Not only did Abram move away from someplace, he moved away from Ur of the Chaldeans in order to go to a land that God would show him. Abram is being called to forsake all and follow Yahweh in faith as his disciples. Just like the disciples of Jesus had been called to forsake all in order to follow Jesus in faith. Abram was to entrust himself completely to the guidance of God, trusting entirely in Him, trusting entirely in His word of promise. And through the gospel, dear friends, God calls you and me to forsake all to trust Christ and follow Him in faith. Dear listener, the Lord Jesus Christ calls upon you to follow Him in faith and discipleship. Do you trust Him enough to follow Him?

God’s call to Abraham was also a call to a great destiny. Again, as we see in verse one, God says, leave your father’s house and kindred and go to the land that I will show you. The implication here is this is a land that is greater than the land of Ur of the Chaldeans. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 10 tells us that Abram was waiting for a city with foundations whose builder and maker was God. Let’s turn to this New Testament commentary on God’s call to Abram. Let’s turn to Hebrews 11 and let me just briefly read verses eight through 10. Hebrews chapter 11 verses eight through 10. You know, some folks read the account of God’s call to Abram and they say, well, you know, God called Abram just to earthly blessings and to an earthly land of promise.

And Abram didn’t have any expectation of eternal life or heaven, but that’s not what the Bible teaches. We read this in verses 8 through 10 of chapter 11. It says, by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. Abraham’s ultimate hope was not in an earthly piece of real estate in the Middle East. the land of Israel. Certainly God did promise Abraham and his descendants the land of promise, the promised land, the land of Israel.

But we need to remember that that land is not the ultimate hope of God’s people. That land was but a shadow, but a picture, but a type of the ultimate promised land, the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells. And so God was calling Abram to a glorious future. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have not even begun to understand the amazing glories that God has in store for us as his redeemed people. Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard what God has planned for those who love him. By God’s grace, we have been called to a great destiny, a heavenly homeland, the ultimate land flowing with milk and honey. And therefore, beloved, that being the case, let us live our lives in the awareness that we are headed for that glory land and that we are citizens of heaven.

Though we are residents of earth, our ultimate citizenship is in heaven. May that awareness motivate us to live holy lives of gratitude for all that God has done for us. So we’ve considered the significance of God’s covenantal call to Abraham. What does that have to do with Catholicity? Well, that brings me to my next point in your sermon outline. Take to heart God’s covenant promises to Abram. Take to heart God’s covenant promises to Abram. And what is the first thing that he promises? Verse two, God says to Abram, and I will make of you a what? A great nation. God promises to make Abram a great nation. This promise obviously had an initial fulfillment in the covenant nation of Israel, which was the church under the old covenant, the church under age as Paul describes it in the book of Galatians.

But this covenant promise actually continues to be fulfilled today in the new covenant church. Since the New Testament scriptures tell us in 1 Peter 2 9, that the church is a quote, chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy what? a holy nation, a people for his own possession. Where is this holy nation today? It’s actually an international nation, if you will. It’s a nation in the sense that it includes people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, Jew and Gentile alike, who believe in the Lord Jesus. Now God says in Genesis 12, verse two, Abram, I will make of you a great nation, but then hold your finger there and turn to chapter 17, Genesis 17, verse four, because God expands that promise in Genesis 17, verse four, where God reveals the covenant sign of circumcision.

And God says this, behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of what? not just a nation, but a multitude of nations. God explicitly expands this promise in Genesis 17, verse four, where Abraham is promised that he will be the father of a multitude of nations. To put that in the terminology of our Apostles’ Creed, the church is going to be Catholic, it’s going to be international, it’s gonna be universal, not just confined to the nation of the Jews as it was under the Old Covenant. Now this, of course, in our passage for today, this international aspect of the covenant promise is implied in verse 3 where God says to Abram, In you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed, not just all the families descended from you, but all the families of the earth shall be blessed by you.

But nonetheless, there is an unfolding of this promise and an expansion of this promise. And all of this is ultimately fulfilled, beloved, in our Lord Jesus Christ and in the church’s international mission to the Gentiles. The apostle Paul affirms this very clearly, for example, And you’re welcome to turn there if you’d like to Galatians chapter three. Let me just briefly read Galatians three verses seven through nine as we compare scripture with scripture. Galatians three verses seven through nine. The apostle Paul writes, and Paul is writing to Gentile Christians here, he says, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. In other words, you’re not a son of Abraham just because you have his genetics in your body, just because you are physically descended from him. No, it is those of faith, those who share Abraham’s faith, who are the sons of Abraham.

And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed, along with Abraham, the man of faith. Could it be any clearer, beloved? Father Abraham had many sons. Many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them, and so are you. So let’s just praise the Lord, right? As that little ditty goes. And then also, if you stay in Galatians 3, look at verses 28 and 29. Paul, the climax of this chapter, if you will, he says, there is neither Jew nor Greek. He’s using the term Greek there as a general term for Gentile. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

And here’s the clincher, verse 29. If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. And so God promises to make Abram a great nation, indeed to be a blessing. to all nations, to cause a multitude of nations to come from Abraham, those who share in his faith. And then God also promises in verse 2 to bless Abraham. He says, and I will bless you and make your name great. Obviously, Abram was blessed. His descendants were blessed with the promised land, the land of Israel. But the ultimate blessing, what is the ultimate blessing, brothers and sisters? The ultimate blessing is our eternal salvation, which has been secured for us by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ our Savior. And it’s interesting here in Genesis 12 verse 2, God also promises to make Abram’s name great.

He says, I will bless you and make your name great. What’s the significance of that? Well, this appears to be contrasting Abram with the tower builders of Babel who sought to make a name for themselves. Go back to chapter 11, verse four. It says, then they said, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens and let us make a what? Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. Let’s make ourselves great. Let’s build this tower to heaven. Let’s work our way up to God. Let’s climb up to God. And what does God do? He defeats their purpose. He overthrows their purpose because we can’t work our way up to God. We can’t climb our way back up to God.

God has to come down to us in mercy and grace. They sought, the tower builders sought to make a name for themselves by their works. But Abram’s name would be great. It would be made great, not by his own works or his own efforts or his own strivings, but by the sovereign grace and promise of God alone. And that’s why God says, I will bless you and make your name great. In other words, I’m gonna make your name great. You’re not gonna make your own name great. And why will God make his name great? Look at the end of verse two, so that you will be a blessing. God promises that Abram will be a medium, a conduit of blessing to others because it is from Abram’s loins, it is through a descendant of Abram that would be the Messiah that all the nations would be blessed.

Again, all of this is ultimately fulfilled in Abram’s great descendant, the Messiah and Lord Jesus of Nazareth. God will bless those who bless Abram and curse those who curse him. As it says in verse three, I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. Now, I want you to notice, did you notice there the subtle shift from the plural when it comes to the blessing to the singular when it comes to the curse? God says, I will bless those, plural, who bless you Those who align themselves with your faith, those who are of the faith of Abraham, I will bless those who bless you, but him, singular, who curses you, I will dishonor. Him who dishonors you, I will curse, God says.

And so the point here, the implication is that the blessing of the covenant far outweighs the curse. This means that God will be the ally of Abram’s allies and the enemy of his enemies. Friends, to be an enemy of God’s people is to be an enemy of God. Whose side are you on? Are you on the Lord’s side today? But finally, we see that all the families of the earth will be blessed. God promises it. He says, in you, Abram, all. the families of the earth shall be blessed. God’s covenant with Abram was not just a nationalistic, localized covenant. It had international salvific import to it. John Calvin writes, therefore God, in my judgment, pronounces that all nations should be blessed in his servant Abram because Christ was included in his loins. In this manner, he not only intimates that Abram would be an example but a cause of blessing so that there should be an understood antithesis between Adam and Christ.

So again, in closing, friends, notice the extensiveness, notice the catholicity of this promise. God says, in you, Abram, all the families of the earth would be blessed. I believe in the holy Catholic Church. That’s what that implies. That God has taken a people for himself. He has redeemed a people from every tribe, every nation, every people group. Not just Jews who believe in Jesus, but Gentiles too who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not just Europeans, but Africans, and Asians, and Australians, and so forth. makes me think of the line in that great Advent hymn, Joy to the World. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse has found. Has he made his blessings flow in your life, dear friend? Only in Christ will you experience his saving blessings. So come to Christ today, come to Christ, repent and believe in him, and you will be saved. and you will be part of this universal body of Christ.

Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father.

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April 7, 2024
Foundations of Faith: Maker of Heaven and Earth

About this sermon

The focus of these verses is not primarily on the material universe but on it’s function in an ordered system
read Genesis 1:14-19

1. The meaning of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth (v. 1).
2. The unbounded chaos of earth’s original condition of being “without form and void” (v. 2).
3. Understand the Spirit of God as God’s creative power which brings order out of chaos (v. 2b).

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Sermon transcript

standing, dear friends, for the reading of God’s Word. We return today to the Foundations of Faith sermon series, which is being guided by the Apostles’ Creed. And this morning we consider Foundations of Faith God as the maker of heaven and earth. And my sermon text today is Genesis chapter one, verses one and two. So the very opening verses of your Bible, please turn to Genesis one and hear the word of God as I read verses one and two. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let us pray. Almighty God, Heavenly Father, We thank you that by your grace you have brought order out of the chaos of our sins through Jesus Christ.

And we thank you that you have given us your word. It is a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path, a guide to our way. We ask that by your spirit you would open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word. We pray that by your spirit you would illuminate us and feed our souls through the word today and grant unto me, your unworthy servant, the grace to declare and speak forth your word with clarity and power for your glory and the building up of your saints. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. You may be seated. As I mentioned, the title of my sermon this morning is Foundations of Faith, Maker of Heaven and Earth. And if you’re following along in your sermon outline, again, I would direct your attention to a number of words that the children can be listening for.

And even if you choose a number of these words to count the number of times that I say them in my sermon, if you find that to be helpful, I’d encourage you to do that. Well, dear ones, this morning we return to our Foundations of Faith sermon series. This is a Bible-based series which is being guided by that classic ecumenical creed of the historic Christian church, which is known to us today as the Apostles’ Creed. It is one of the briefest, most succinct of the creeds, but it is a pact full of important truth that we confess as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. While this is inevitably a more topical series, it is my intention to ground every truth, every credo that we consider throughout this series in a faithful exposition of relevant passages from the Word of God, the Bible.

Now, some of you may recall that in introducing this series a number of weeks ago, I preached a sermon on the biblical basis for using creeds and confessions. And so far in this series, we have considered Bible truths from the first credo, or I believe, or statement of belief found in the Apostles’ Creed, the opening statement which says, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. Now from that first credo, we have so far considered the foundational truth of the existence of the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the blessed Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who is revealed to us in the pages of God’s Word, the Bible. We also considered a brief overview of the central and important doctrine of the Holy Trinity and its vital significance to our holy Christian faith.

And we’ve also considered the wonderful truth of God as the loving Heavenly Father of His believing people in Christ. Well, today, as we return to this sermon series, we consider another foundational truth of this opening statement of the Creed, namely, the truth that God is the Maker of Heaven In other words, we consider today the foundational truth of God as the almighty creator of the universe and we consider some of the important implications of that truth for our lives as individual Christians and also for our life together as the church. And what better place to turn to in the word of God to consider this important doctrine of creation, this doctrine of God as creator, than the creation account in the book of Genesis. And so this morning, friends, we return to the opening verses of Genesis chapter one.

So let’s dive in to our text for today. And the first thing I would have us to consider from verse one, and this is the first point in your sermon outline, beloved, let us consider the meaning of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth. Let’s consider the meaning of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth. Verse one says, in the beginning, God, let me pause there. The Hebrew word that is translated there as God is the word Elohim. It’s a plural of majesty. This is the more generic name for God in the Bible. The name Yahweh, or sometimes it’s transliterated incorrectly, in my opinion, as Jehovah, is the covenant name for God. Yahweh has in view God as the covenant-making, covenant-keeping, redeemer God of Israel. But the term Elohim has in view God as the omnipotent, sovereign creator of heaven and earth.

And that is the name of God that is being used here. In the beginning Elohim, God created the heavens and the earth. What does that mean? Why this terminology of the heavens and the earth? Now, some of you may be thinking to yourselves, okay, Pastor Jeff, this is really basic, isn’t it? It means God created the heavens and the earth, right? and certainly he did. But it’s important to understand the terminology that the inspired author of this Genesis account, whom I believe to be Moses, I believe Moses the prophet either composed this account of creation or received it as divine revelation, perhaps from the patriarchs, but whatever the case may be, Moses here uses the heavens and the earth. What does that figure of speech represent? Well, this is a figure of speech known as a merism.

A merism is a figure of speech which pairs together opposite terms, in this case the terms heavens and earth, and these opposite terms are paired together to express totality. So in other words, when it says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, this merism, the heavens and the earth, means everything. God created everything. There is not anything that exists that God did not create. To use our contemporary lingo, the heavens and the earth is basically a Hebrew way of saying the universe and everything in it. Now friends, I believe our. Our Shorter Catechism, which we love, our Shorter Catechism offers a biblically grounded, biblically-based definition of the doctrine of creation and its answer to question number nine. I’m sure some of you know the answer by heart. The question is, what is the work of creation?

The Bible-based answer to that question is the work of creation is God’s making all things of nothing by the word of his power in the space of six days and all very good. Now there’s a lot to that catechism question and answer, but the central Bible truth that the Westminster divines express in that catechism answer is what the theologians refer to as creation ex nihilo. And those of you who know your Latin know that ex nihilo means what? out of nothing, creation out of nothing. In the beginning God created, meaning created out of nothing, the heavens and the earth. Now think about that for a moment. We are God’s image bearers. The Bible says that God created us in his image and because we were created in the image of the creator, we have creative capacity.

And so we sang that beautiful hymn earlier in the service, God All Nature Sings Thy Glory. And in one of the verses it says, music, art, the fruitful garden, all the labors of His hands. All of these things God has called us to. Why is it that we have the capacity to create music and beautiful works of art and literature and so forth. It’s because we have been created in the divine image, in the image of God who himself is the creator. But there’s a difference between God’s creative work in the beginning and our creative work. Let’s say that you’re a master painter and you’re gonna make one of your masterpieces, you’re gonna paint a new masterpiece. When you set about to create, to paint your masterpiece, do you simply conceive of it in your mind and then speak it into existence and say, let there be this masterpiece that I have conceptualized in my mind?

No. What you need to do is you need to find a canvas and you need to have paintbrushes and paints and so forth. In other words, you depend on the existence of preexistence stuff in order to make your masterpiece. Same thing if you’re a sculptor. You need that block of stone and a hammer and a chisel in order to sculpt your masterpiece. But God is different, especially when it comes to the original creation ex nihilo out of nothing. You see, God did not depend on pre-existent stuff in order to form the universe. The Bible assumes throughout, and our theologians have correctly taught throughout Christian history, that God created, in the very beginning, God simply spoke the word. His divine, creative, supernatural word and all things came into being out of nothing. This is what we might describe as the biblical Big Bang.

God spoke, I saw this on a bumper sticker once by the way. Usually it’s not a good idea to get your theology from bumper stickers, but this bumper sticker I think had a good point. It said the Big Bang, God spoke and bang it happened. In the beginning, God spoke the universe into being by his divine word, his Logos, and we know that Logos to be the eternal Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. So the scriptures, our passage for today, and the theological tradition rooted in the scriptures as expressed in our shorter catechism, affirms creation out of nothing, that God created everything out of nothing. But while the scriptures certainly teach and assume throughout that God brought the material universe as well as the spiritual universe of angels and archangels and so forth into existence, ex nihilo, out of nothing, by a supernatural divine fiat, As I hope to demonstrate in my sermon today, the biblical doctrine of creation involves much more than simply ascribing the material origins of the universe to the creative work of God, although the Bible certainly includes material origins in its doctrine of creation.

While the Bible clearly teaches and implies the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, creation out of nothing, and while Genesis 1 clearly assumes this truth, Nevertheless, if you read Genesis 1 carefully and sensitively, when you read it carefully, the main focus of the Genesis creation account is on God, our creator’s sovereign assignment of roles, functions, jurisdiction, and purpose to his material creation. The evangelical Old Testament scholar, Dr. John Walton, who is an expert in ancient Near Eastern thought, says that people in the ancient world believed that something existed not by virtue of its material properties, but by virtue of its having a function in an ordered system. What are you talking about, Pastor? Well, let’s flesh that out a little bit. The evidence from the ancient world suggests that the ancient peoples, including the ancient Israelites, whom the inspired author of Genesis addresses, shared this same view of existence as their Gentile neighbors.

See. the question of the origins of the material universe was not really a primary issue for the ancient people of God or for the peoples of the ancient Near East. That was not really front and center in their thoughts, as it is for us today. I mean, we live in a post-Enlightenment scientific age, and so our concerns have to do with material origins. Where did the universe come from? When did it come into being and so forth? But the ancient people of God were more concerned with matters of function, purpose, and order in the universe. The matter of the origins of the material universe was not really on their radar screen as it is on ours today. Instead, what the ancient people of God needed to know was that Elohim, their God, he was the one who assigned function and purpose and order to the world, and he formed the creation for mankind’s benefit and blessing.

And so the ancient view of existence was somewhat different from what ours might be. One illustration that I found helpful. Let’s say that you visit a junkyard one day and you come across an old car that is out of service, it’s rusting there in the junkyard. Now, does that old junked car still exist? Well, as a material object, yes, it still exists. But in a very real sense, that car no longer functionally exists. It no longer functions as a working vehicle that can navigate the roads as it once did. And you say, well, Pastor, where in the Genesis creation account do we have this emphasis on function and purpose within an ordered system? Well, we could spend a long time in Genesis chapter one. This is such a deep and rich portion of Holy Scripture, but let’s just skip down to verses 14 through 17, which has to do with the creation of the heavenly lights, the sun and the moon and the stars and their God-assigned function and purpose.

And as I read these verses, I want you to notice the author’s, Moses’ emphasis on the function and purpose of these heavenly bodies, the sun and the moon and the stars. The focus is on function, not so much on material origins as such, although again, the biblical doctrine of creation includes that. Verse 14, this is the fourth creation day, and God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens. Let there be, right? Does it stop there with the material origins of the lights in the heaven? No. God explains why he has created these heavenly bodies. Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be, and notice that these are their functions with respect to man’s life on earth. and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.

The signs and the seasons, obviously, the heavenly bodies make an impact upon the changing of the seasons and so forth. We judge our seasons and time them according to that, but also for days and for years, which anticipates the sacred days in the Jewish calendar, the Old Covenant calendar. for days and for years, and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to do what? To rule the day. There’s an emphasis on dominion, on rule, which again, focuses on purpose and function. To rule the day, and the lesser light, that would be the moon, which reflects the light of the sun, to rule the night. And the stars, the stars are almost mentioned as an afterthought.

And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. In other words, the focus is on what is their purpose? Why did God create these great lights? What was their function? What was their purpose? God has created a purposeful universe an orderly universe, and when things are running as God intended them to run, they run for the benefit of his image bearers, mankind, male and female. Now Genesis chapter one, verse one, in terms of the structure of this chapter, the verse one of Genesis chapter one introduces the process of creation, which begins in earnest in verse two, and which is described in the creation days. So that’s the basic structure of this chapter.

And as I mentioned, Genesis chapter one, verse one proclaims Elohim as the only true God. It shows that God has given our world and thus our lives meaning and purpose. And it shows that the ultimate eschatological goal of creation is God’s eternal Sabbath rest, a rest which we believers share in through Christ. What is the climax of the creation account? Again, the purpose of the creation account, although the creation account is relevant to modern scientific questions, its purpose is not to address the issues that might be front and center in our minds. Its purpose is to show that God created the universe with an eschatological purpose in mind, namely that we would share in his eternal Sabbath rest, as the opening verses of chapter two say. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. Does that mean that God was pooped, that he was worn out? Boy, that was really hard. What a week, what a work week, right? No, God wasn’t tired, he’s omnipotent. He rested in the sense that he sat back, if you will, and he took delight and pleasure in that which he had made. Verse three, so God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. He set it apart because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. And so with all of this in mind, God created the heavens and the earth. Yes, he is the source of their material origins. God created all things ex nihilo, out of nothing, but he also created with a purpose, a function, order and jurisdiction in mind.

But what about verse two? That leads us to our next verse. As we consider the unbounded chaos of earth’s original condition of being without form and void. Look at verse two. The author writes, the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Verse two shows, beloved, that the creation account is primarily concerned with God’s sovereign assigning of purpose, function, and jurisdiction to his creation, and with preparing his creation to be inhabited by mankind, and not primarily with questions regarding material origins. Verse one, as I mentioned, had introduced the beginning of the creation account, which starts up in earnest here in verse two. It’s important for us, brothers and sisters, when we read this passage, many questions arise in our minds.

It says in verse two, the earth was without form and void. What does that mean? The earth was without form and void. What does it mean that darkness was over the face of the deep? And what’s he talking about when he pictures the spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters? Here is where it’s important to understand how the ancient pagan neighbors of the Israelites would have been impacted by this kind of language. You see, my friends, darkness and the watery deep were seen in the ancient Near East as symbols of the threatening forces of chaos. You see in ancient Near Eastern pagan creation stories, darkness and the raging sea represented the forces of chaos, forces that threatened not only the order of the cosmos, but forces which threatened even the gods themselves, forces which represented an obstacle that the gods either had to conquer or to restrain.

But is that the picture we get of Elohim, the true and living God here? Is Elohim having to do battle with the forces of chaos, with the chaos waters and the darkness? Do those forces pose a threat to Elohim, the true and living God? No. In verse two, these primeval unbounded forces of chaos are not pictured as a threat to Elohim’s sovereignty or as unruly forces that he must fight and conquer in order to subdue. Instead, the darkness and deep are depicted as tranquil yet unformed powers, powers which are totally under God’s sovereign control and ready to be reutilized for God’s purposes according to his timing and his plan. And this is what the picture of the Spirit of God hovering or circulating over the water seems to depict. So what we have here, beloved, is likely a divinely inspired polemic or argument against the idolatry of the ancient patriarchs or the ancient Hebrews’ pagan neighbors.

The gods of the Gentiles were threatened by the forces of unbounded chaos. They were threatened by the darkness, the formlessness and void. But Elohim, the true and living God, the God of Israel, was and is sovereign over those forces of chaos, and those forces are under His control. available for his service whenever he chooses to use them. Now, again, what does it mean when it says the earth was without form or void? The Hebrew is tohu vabohu. This is a literary device known as a hendieties, if I’m pronouncing that right. This is the use of two words connected by and to express a single concept. Namely, in this case, formlessly void, or what have you. One example of this that you might be able to relate to, let’s say that it’s winter. I know winter’s coming.

Some of us would wish that it didn’t come so fast. But someday winter’s going to be here. We’re going to have those frigid cold months. And let’s say that you’ve got a fireplace in your house. And there’s a nice fire in the fireplace. But you’ve been outside, maybe shoveling your driveway or working out in the cold. And you come inside. You’re shivering. You’re freezing cold. But ah, you enter the door. And what do you see? You see that fire in your fireplace. And you sit down, you get nice and comfortable in front of the fireplace, and you say, ah, I am nice and warm now. What does that mean, nice and warm? That’s a way of saying you are nicely warm. That’s an example of a Hendieties. And that’s similar. This is what we have here in this passage with the tohu vabohu, without form and void.

The term Tohu without form seems to indicate the cosmos was empty of purpose, meaning, and function with respect to humanity. Dr. Walton writes that Tohu generally refers to a desert-like wasteland or to emptiness. So what does without form and void mean in the context of this passage? The answer, my friends, is it means that an ordered system of function and purpose for the benefit and flourishing of mankind had not yet been established. But God was ready to establish it, for the Spirit of God is pictured as hovering over the face of the waters, ready to bring order out of chaos, ready to form a habitation for His image bearers, Adam and Eve, humanity. Now what are some of the lessons that we can glean and take away from this verse, from this passage? Well, there’s many lessons we can learn, but let me suggest a few.

My friends, without God’s blessing and action to bring purpose and order, our world and our lives would have no clear-cut purpose and meaning. You look around at our culture today. What do so many folks struggle with? They struggle with their identity. Who am I? Why am I here? These are age-old questions, by the way. The great philosophers in previous ages, what are some of the deepest questions they wrestled with? They wrestled with questions like, what is the meaning and purpose of life? Why are we here? Why is there something rather than nothing and so forth? The Bible has an answer to those questions. The Bible reveals to us a God who not only created the material universe, though praise God, he certainly did that, but he created it with a sovereign, ordained purpose and plan in view.

And you and I, dear friends, we are part of that plan. What is our purpose, by the way? Why did God create us? Well, if you know you’re short of catechism, you know the Bible-based answer to that question, right? Our first catechism question, what is the chief end of man, which is an old-fashioned way of saying what is man’s purpose? What is the answer? What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. So you know your purpose. You, brother, sister, you were created to glorify God, to reflect His glory, and to enjoy Him forever. But that would not be possible without God’s sovereign blessing and action to bring about a world with purpose and order. Another lesson we glean is that without God’s sovereign ordering and blessing, unbounded chaos would reign and God’s covenant plan to dwell among His people in His created world would not go forward.

What is the ultimate goal of creation? Well, as I touched upon a few moments ago, and we could really spend a lot of time in this, but we don’t have time this morning, but the ultimate goal of creation is covenant blessing. God dwelling in covenant communion and fellowship and friendship with mankind, male and female, his image bearers. This is reflected In the book of Revelation, if you turn to the very, I know we’re in the very first book of the Bible, but turn to the very last book of the Bible, Revelation chapter 21, verse three. This is the goal towards which all of creation is going towards. It says in verse three of Revelation 21, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God.

Adam and Eve enjoyed that direct fellowship, God dwelling amongst them in the Garden of Eden before the fall. But when Adam and Eve fell into sin and dragged the human race down with them, They were kicked out of Eden. But ever since that time, God has been in the process of reestablishing his dwelling place among his redeemed covenant people. And that ultimately is fulfilled in Christ. Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh who came to do what? Who came to dwell in our midst. He is Emmanuel, God with us. That is God’s ultimate plan for your life. and for mine, that is the ultimate goal of creation. And what brings that about, what makes that possible? The redeeming work of Christ as well as the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit in applying Christ to us.

Now this brings me to my final point. Understand, beloved, the Spirit of God as God’s creative power which brings order out of chaos. Understand the Spirit of God as God’s creative power which brings order out of chaos. We’re told that the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and if it stopped there, it would seem like a hopeless picture. But then, another sentence, the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. The Spirit of God, the Spirit of Elohim. Now what does Moses, what does the inspired author here mean by the Spirit of God? As those who have the complete canon of scripture and those who know our theology, we automatically think, well, this is referring to the third person of the Holy Trinity.

And certainly this language hints at that, but here the spirit of God or Elohim is probably similar to the phrase the hand of God. Probably it would have been understood by the ancient Hebrews to mean the power of God, not the third person of the Trinity as such. After all, the doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine that had not yet been revealed to God’s people. But at the same time, beloved, This term certainly leaves room for what the Bible will reveal later on about the triune being of God and about the Spirit of God, the third person of the Holy Trinity. Let’s remember, friends, that God’s Word is a progressive, unfolding revelation. God gradually, over time, revealed more and more about himself. and about us and about his plan of salvation as the Scriptures unfold.

And the doctrine of the Trinity is not fully clearly revealed until after the incarnation of Christ our Savior. But the point here, friends, God’s power brought order out of chaos and made the earth a habitation for mankind to dwell in and to flourish in. This is the truth that the apostle Paul proclaimed to the Athenian philosophers in Acts chapter 17. Look with me, if you would, briefly at Acts 17, verses 24 to 28. As Paul is preaching to these pagan philosophers, and preaching to them the true and living God, the God of the Bible, he says this, beginning in verse 24. Paul says, the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God.

Here’s again purpose and function, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is not far from each of us, for in him we live and move and have our being, even as some of your own poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring. Of course, mankind has fallen into sin, but the good news is that God has sent his son Jesus to redeem us sinners from our sins. God’s grace and Holy Spirit brought order out of the chaos of our sin by making us new creations in Christ. He is brought in through Christ a new creation. Beloved, let us strive to further the order of God’s kingdom by living as faithful witnesses and servants of Christ. Dear ones, as we confess in the Apostles’ Creed, we believe that the one true God is the maker of heaven and earth.

Not only did he create the material and spiritual universe out of nothing by his omnipotent creative power, he also created in the functional sense of forming a very good universe with a divinely ordered system of meaning, purpose, and function. A system where God might dwell with mankind, his image bears. The fall has put a wrench into that original plan, although God sovereignly decreed the fall to occur in his wisdom. But in Christ, that purpose goes forward. Do you know Christ? Have you trusted Him as your Lord and Savior? Do you recognize the chaos that sin has brought into your life? Are you repentant for that sin? Turn to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith. Receive and rest upon Christ and Christ alone as your Lord and Savior. And He, by His Spirit, will bring order, meaning, and purpose into your life.

And He will align your purpose with God’s kingdom purposes. Amen. Let us pray. Our Lord and Father in heaven. We thank you for the redeeming work of Christ, who has brought about a new creation, who has made us new creations in him. We ask, oh Lord, that you would help us to live out the purpose for which we have been created and redeemed. We ask that you would help us to walk in all those good works that you have prepared for us to walk in, out of gratitude for your gift of salvation to us in Jesus. We ask all of these things, heavenly Father, through Christ our Lord and all of God’s people said, Amen. Let’s respond to what we’ve heard from the Word today by rising and we’ll sing, soul adorn yourself with gladness, hymn 200, as we prepare to celebrate the Holy Supper together.

Let’s rise and sing number 200. Okay. Soul, adorn yourself with gladness. Leave the gloomy haunts of sadness. Come into the daylight’s splendor. There with joy your praises render. Bless the one whose grace unbounded, this amazing banquet founded. He, though heavenly, high and holy, deigns to dwell with you most lowly. Hasten as a bride to meet him, eagerly and gladly greet him. There he stands already, knocking quickly, now your gate unlocking. Open wide the fast-closed portal, saying to the Lord immortal, come and leave your loved one never. Dwell within my heart forever. Now in faith I humbly ponder, over this surpassing wonder, that the bread of life is boundless, though the souls it feeds are countless. With the joystest wine of heaven, Christ’s own blood to us is given. O most glorious consolation, pledge and seal of my salvation.

Jesus, source of lasting pleasure, truest friend and dearest treasure. Peace beyond all understanding, joy into all life expanding. Humbly now I bow before you. Love incarnate, I adore you. Worthily let me receive you. And so favored, never leave you. Congregation, you may be seated. Christ welcomes us sinners to the Feast of Salvation that is signified and sealed in this Holy Supper as we prepare our hearts To receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, let me read from 1 Corinthians 11, beginning at verse 23, which is the Apostle Paul’s recounting of our Lord’s words of institution of this supper, which he instituted on the night in which he was betrayed. 1 Corinthians 11, 23, 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. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.

But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. May God add His blessing to this reading of His Holy Word. What is the Lord’s Supper? Well, the Lord’s Supper is called the Lord’s Supper for a reason. If this is not the church’s supper, this is certainly not a Presbyterian supper, though we are a Presbyterian church. This is a supper instituted by none other than the divine Son of God, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And it is described in scripture in a number of ways. It is, first of all, described as a memorial. It reminds us of our Savior’s bloody death upon the cross to redeem us from our sins. It is also a proclamation. It’s a sermon, if you will. It proclaims Jesus’ sacrifice, declaring the good news in symbol form.

It is also described in Scripture as a communion, a koinonia, a fellowship, a means by which we feast upon the benefits of Christ’s broken body and shed blood. Not in a physical sense, of course. The bread and the wine continue to remain bread and the fruit of the vine. But nevertheless, by faith and through the Holy Spirit, we partake of the benefits of our Savior’s broken body and shed blood. It is also presented in scripture as a foretaste of the feast of salvation that we will enjoy with Christ at the marriage supper of the Lamb, when Jesus returns in glory to take us to be with himself. The bread represents Christ’s broken body. and the cup represents Christ’s shed blood. Through this means of grace, Christ nourishes our souls as we partake with faith in him.

And in a very real sense, the Lord’s Supper, like baptism, is a personalizing of the gospel. The gospel call calls all who would repent and believe and promises to all who repent and believe salvation. But the sacraments take that general gospel call and personalize it. Notice Jesus says, this is my body which was given for whom? For you. This cup is the new covenant in my blood which was shed for you. So as we gather to partake of this Holy Supper, let us understand that Jesus himself is speaking to you and to me and saying, I offer myself to you. So by faith, receive the blessings and the grace that he offers. Now the Lord’s Supper is for the Lord’s people. If you are a baptized Christian who is repentant for your sins and is trusting Christ alone for your salvation, having publicly professed your faith in Christ as your very own Lord and Savior, and having united in membership in a biblical church, then you are invited to partake of the Holy Supper.

If you’ve not yet publicly professed your faith in Christ, or if you’re unsure if you should partake with us at this particular time, there’s no shame in that. I would simply encourage you to use this time to reflect upon what Christ’s death on the cross means for you personally. And I would also encourage you to use this time for prayerful self-examination before the Lord. But we all should examine our hearts before the Lord as that passage from First Corinthians states. So let’s spend a few moments, dear friends, silently searching our hearts before the Lord, examining ourselves as we prepare to partake of the supper together. Let us pray. Please join me in your hearts in prayer. All glory be to you, Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, for you, in your tender mercy, gave your only Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer death upon the cruel cross for our redemption, who made there on the cross a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, fully satisfying for all of the sins of all of God’s believing people, and did institute, and in his holy gospel, command us to continue a perpetual memory of that His precious death and sacrifice until His coming again.

And so, our Heavenly Father, we give you thanks and praise from our hearts for the gift of your only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and for His perfect sacrifice for our sins on the cross of Calvary. Likewise, we give you thanks for the gift of the Lord’s Supper, which reminds us of our Savior’s sacrifice for our sins, and which signifies and seals to us believers all of the saving benefits of His broken body and His shed blood. O Heavenly Father, we pray that these elements of bread and the fruit of the vine would be set apart during this celebration from a common to a holy use, that they might symbolize, signify, and seal to us believers all of the benefits of Christ’s broken body and his precious shed blood. We do not presume to come to this table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, for we have none in ourselves, but we come trusting in your manifold and great mercies in Christ.

We acknowledge, Lord, that we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs which are under your table, but you are the same Lord who is merciful to those who are repentant. We thank you that you are kind to the brokenhearted. Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat spiritually and symbolically the flesh of your dear son, Jesus Christ, and so to drink spiritually and symbolically his most precious blood that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us. And we would beseech you, O God, to grant us your grace so as not to trust in the outward elements themselves, but instead may we look beyond these symbols to the spiritual realities to which these symbols point. In this sacramental feast, may we feed upon Christ In our hearts, by faith and with thanksgiving, we pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

November 12, 2023
Foundations of Faith: ‘I Believe in God’

About this sermon

The Apostles’ Creed begins, ‘I believe in God,’ and everything depends on which God that means. The God of American civil religion is a spare tire for emergencies, while the God of Scripture is holy, sovereign, and triune. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ shows that God is eternal, self-existent, and needs nothing outside himself. God has revealed himself supremely in Jesus Christ, and knowing him through Christ is eternal life.

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Sermon transcript

of God’s Word. This morning officially begins a new sermon series which is going to be guided by the Apostles’ Creed but based in the Scriptures. This is a series entitled Foundations of Faith. And the title of my sermon this morning is Foundations of Faith, I Believe in God, Our sermon text today is Genesis 1, verses one through three. We’ll be focusing especially on verse one, but let us hear God’s holy word from this book of beginnings, Genesis 1, verses one through three. Here with reverence and awe, the word of our God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light.” The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever.

Let’s pray for God’s blessing upon the preaching of His Word. Heavenly Father, indeed, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the Holy Scriptures. They are indeed a lamp unto our feet, a light into our path. a guide to our way. We ask that by your Holy Spirit, the seed of your word would indeed find a lodging place in our souls and bear much spiritual fruit in our hearts and lives. We pray that you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear that which the Spirit is speaking to us and teaching us in this portion of your inerrant word. And we pray, Lord, that once again that you would set a guard over my lips, that I might speak only that which is faithful to your word, and edifying to your people, and glorifying to your holy name.

In Jesus’ name we pray, and all of God’s people said. Amen. You may be seated. If you’re following along in your sermon outline, you’ll notice that there are a number of key words you can be listening for in my sermon today if that helps you to follow along. The words God, believe, eternal, self-existent, necessary, and creation. Well dear brothers and sisters in Christ, there is nothing more foundational, nothing more fundamental, nothing more central to our holy Christian faith than the truth of God’s existence. And while it is true that militant atheism seems to be on the rise in recent decades in our increasingly secular and even post-Christian context here in the United States of America, at the same time, it is my understanding that even today, in 2023, a significant majority of Americans, whether they be religious or secular, continue to profess belief in the existence of God.

If you were to take an informal survey, walk down the streets here in Sewickley and ask people, well, do you believe in God? You might get a few folks saying, well, no, I don’t, you know, I’m an atheist or I don’t believe in God. But my suspicion is that many would say, well, yeah, I believe in God. The phrase, in God we trust, continues to remain on our currency. One nation, under God, continues to remain as an affirmation in our pledge of allegiance. At many patriotic events, the popular song, God Bless America, continues to be sung, and often sung with vigor and deep feeling. And of course, the typical ending of political speeches given by our political leaders of both parties continues to be the typical benedictory statement, may God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America, or something along those lines.

But friends, all of this should raise in our minds an important question. The question, what do most people mean when they say, I believe in God? Indeed, dear friends, what do you and I, what do we mean when we say, I believe in God? Which God or divine being do we believe in? We might like to say in God we trust, but in which God do we trust? For example, do we believe in and trust in a lowest common denominator deity, the so-called non-sectarian God of American civil religion and patriotism? The spare tire God that we can turn to in times of national crisis and national emergency, but who can be safely ignored most other times. A nationalistic God who sort of serves as a mascot for our political and nationalistic causes and aims. Is that the kind of God that we believe in?

Or do we, in fact, believe and trust in the holy, sovereign, triune God, the true and living God who is revealed to us in the pages of His Word, the Bible, the God who is confessed historically and internationally in the Orthodox creeds of the historic Christian church, such as the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed? Friends, as we kick off this sermon series on the foundations of our faith, which will be guided by the affirmations that are found in the Apostles’ Creed, we consider today the first affirmation of that creed, which is, and I’m sure you’re welcome to recite it along with me if you wish, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And in particular, we’re gonna focus today on the very first statement of this first affirmation, which is, I believe in God.

And friends, what better portion of God’s word to turn to as the basis for this foundational affirmation than the very opening verses of that biblical book, which is foundational for every other book that follows it in Holy Scripture, namely the book of Genesis. The book of Genesis is an incredibly important and foundational portion of scripture. The book of Genesis has rightly been called the book of beginnings. And it’s interesting to note that Genesis actually opens up in chapter 1, verse 1, with the Hebrew word bereshith, a word which itself means beginning or in the beginning. Friends, Genesis as a whole, of course, is focused on introducing us to the covenant history of Israel, the history of how Israel came to be. In other words, the particular focus of Genesis is on introducing the story of Israel.

But in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, the foundational chapters of Genesis, the story of Israel is set within its broader cosmic context. as the inspired author, who I believe to be Moses, the prophet, gives us the big picture background leading up to God’s covenant with the patriarch Abraham, which is recorded in Genesis chapter 12. And so friends, the creation account at the beginning of this opening section of Genesis introduces us to the story behind the story of Israel, namely the story of God’s creation of the universe. and his sovereign formation of the earth as a very good habitable dwelling place for his image bearers, mankind, male and female, Adam and Eve and their descendants. Thus our passage for this Lord’s Day morning introduces us to the glorious being of the true and living triune God, the God in whom we trust.

And this passage also introduces us to His mighty works of creation. Indeed, our passage for today implies and supports our foundational Christian belief in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. that foundational belief with which we and all Orthodox Christians throughout the world confess in that ancient ecumenical creed known as the Apostles’ Creed. So what do we learn from our passage for this Lord’s Day morning? Well, there’s many things that we can learn from this passage, but I want to focus on three important lessons that we learn about God from this passage of Holy Scripture. First of all, we learn here, beloved, that the true and living God is an eternal being. The true and living God is an eternal being. That’s the first main point in your sermon outline. To say that God is eternal is to say that he is beyond time.

He transcends time. Indeed, he transcends time, space, and matter. He is the transcendent, eternal one. Our shorter catechism in its Bible-based answer to question number four, the question, what is God, states that God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Friends, the Bible’s teaching that the true and living God is infinite and eternal is clearly implied by the opening words here in Genesis 1, verse 1. The words, in the beginning, God. You see, in the beginning God, this opening statement implies and necessitates that God existed before the beginning, before the existence of time, space, and matter, and that he himself transcends the limitations of time, space, and matter. God was there even from before the beginning, and thus, as Moses opens up this wonderful portion of scripture, and indeed all of scripture, in the beginning, God.

But this opening statement, in the beginning, implies an important question. One of the keys to being a well-informed and discerning Bible reader is to learn how to ask good questions of what you’re reading. And so I would encourage you when you’re studying the scriptures, when you’re reading the scriptures, to have perhaps a writing pad beside you. I mean, I know that’s old school. You can use your computer or your phone or whatever else you may choose to use to take notes. But however you do it, if you’re reading a passage of scripture, especially one that’s unfamiliar or difficult, then write down questions. What does this mean? To whom was this passage written? How would the original readers have understood this passage? And so forth. Well, one important question that ought to rise in our minds as we read these words in the beginning is the question, in the beginning of what?

In the beginning of what? And that’s actually the Bible exegetes and scholars actually have some different views on what is being spoken of here. You see, the question arises, is the divinely inspired author or editor here speaking of an absolute beginning of creation ex nihilo, as the theologians call it? In other words, is this talking about God creating all things out of nothing, simply by his sovereign word of power? Is that what verse one and this reference to the beginning, is that what that’s speaking of? Or is this particular text speaking about the beginning of a creation process where God sovereignly acts to bring order and purpose and to assign functions to material that he has already brought into being and which is laid out for us in these six creation days that follow this opening statement.

In other words, Does the statement in the beginning have in view an initial instantaneous act of absolute creation out of nothing? Is this referring to what we might call the biblical Big Bang, if you will, that act of divine creation whereby God brought space, time, and matter themselves into being? or is the beginning here meant as sort of a summary statement that has in view the entire creation process as revealed in the six creation days that follow here in Genesis chapter one. Well, friends, this is not an exegetical issue where conservatives and liberal theologians and scholars are at odds. Even Bible-believing evangelical and reform scholars differ on how to answer these kinds of interpretive questions. Now, let us say hypothetically that the beginning here, the word beginning represents a summary of the entire six-day creation process.

And the view that says the beginning represents this summary seems to be reflected in some of the more contemporary translations that are out there. For example, if you look at the Good News translation, the Good News Bible, it is translated in the beginning when God created the universe. Contemporary Roman Catholic translation, the New American Bible, translates it similarly. It says, in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth. Now in this view, Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 does not seem to be speaking about an absolute beginning, but about the beginning of a process which is described again in the rest of the chapter, in which case the reference here to the beginning is a summary of God’s works of creation during the six creation days. Now, some folks might get nervous with that view.

Some might object to this summary view by asking the question, well, if the summary view is correct, doesn’t that undermine the doctrine of God creating all things out of nothing? Doesn’t it deny or undermine creation ex nihilo? And friends, the answer to that question, if you take the summary view, in my view, no, it does not in any way take away from the truth of creation ex nihilo. For even if this verse does not directly teach the doctrine of creation out of nothing, it most certainly assumes and implies it. Furthermore, there are numerous other passages of Holy Scripture that clearly teach or clearly imply the doctrine of creation out of nothing, or in the Latin, creation ex nihilo. Let’s take a look at a few of those verses. Let’s turn, for example, to the passage from the book of Psalms that I read in opening up our worship service today.

Let’s look particularly at Psalm 33, verse six. In Psalm 33, verse six, we read these words. It says, by the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth, all their host. This clearly teaches or implies creation out of nothing, that God, by his sovereign creative word, brought the heavens into being, and by the breath of his mouth, that imagery of God, God’s speech, his divine creative speech, bringing the heavens into being. Or consider, for example, Hebrews 11 verse three, which is arguably one of the clearest statements of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo in all of scripture, in Hebrews 11 verse 3 we read these words, it says, by faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God so that, listen here, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

In other words, God didn’t need preexistent stuff in order to create the universe. For God, by his sovereign creative word, brought all that stuff into being. Or consider what is said in Revelation chapter four, verse 11. This is the final, as we compare scripture with scripture, this is the final passage of that comparison that we’re gonna look at at this point. Here, as we see a picture of heavenly worship, The following is said of God. Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created. Again, all of these biblical passages teach or at the very least strongly imply the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, that God created all things out of nothing. He simply spoke the word and all things instantaneously, time, space, and matter instantaneously came into being.

So even if, getting back to our passage for today, even if you take the summary view that the beginning is referring to everything that follows here in chapter one rather than the absolute creation view, the summary view does not undermine the truth of creation ex nihilo. But friends, I find myself leaning toward the view that the beginning in view here is the absolute beginning, when God instantaneously, by a supernatural divine fiat, spoke the universe into being by His sovereign, creative word. And the reason that I hold this view and would commend it to you is that when we compare Scripture with Scripture, it seems that the New Testament apostolic writers, such as, for example, the Apostle John, understood the beginning to be an absolute beginning. John himself lifts the language here from Genesis and speaks of the absolute beginning in John chapter one, verses one to three.

Let me just read that very familiar passage and remind us of what John’s prologue says in the opening verses of John chapter one. John writes, in the beginning, where have you heard those words before? from Genesis 1 verse 1. In the beginning was the word. It’s clear that in John’s writing, the beginning he refers to is not the beginning of the six day creation process, but the beginning, the absolute beginning. In the beginning was the word. That’s Jesus, that’s the eternal Christ, the divine Logos. In the beginning was the word. And the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. That is to say the Lord Jesus Christ is the divine agent and mediator of creation itself.

And so again, as we ask the question, the beginning of what? This is speaking of an absolute beginning. Now what are some lessons that we can learn from this? We can learn many lessons from this, but I would commend a couple of applications to you, brothers and sisters. First of all, when you really dig down and think about it carefully, ultimately there are only two possibilities. Either the universe itself is eternal and uncreated, or God alone is eternal and brought the universe into existence into existence at a point in time in the past. The idea, however, and of course, if you’re an atheist, you have to believe in the eternality of the universe. I remember when I was in college I took an astronomy class and the particular professor that I had in that class was talking about the Big Bang Theory, which it’s my understanding is the typical accepted view in the scientific community today, and he was talking about how according to the Big Bang theory, all that we see, the universe exploded into being from an infinitesimally small point at some point in the past, usually billions of years in the past, that the universe exploded into being.

And the question was asked, well, where did that explosion come from? And one theory that is out there is that there has been an eternal series, an infinite series of big bangs followed by big crunches. The idea being that, yes, the universe explodes into being, but then eventually, after billions and billions and billions of years, it wears out and then it falls back into itself and it crunches. So there’s been an infinite series of big bangs and big crunches. But that really raises, that just pushes the question back, the question of where did the first big bang come from, if this was the case? So you either have an eternal creation, an eternal universe, even if that eternal universe involves an infinite series of big bangs and big crunches, or you have an eternal God who at some point in the past sovereignly brings this universe into being.

But friends, the idea that the universe is eternal not only contradicts biblical and theological truth, of course, not only does it contradict logic, But it is also my understanding that it is contrary to contemporary science. For most scientists today, like I said, believe that the universe had a beginning at some point in time, that there was a Big Bang. Now we don’t base our faith on current scientific theories, which are often ever-changing, but friends, these are the ultimate two options. You either have an eternal universe or an eternal God. Of course, the Bible teaches us, God’s word teaches us that he is eternal. But that often raises the question. And children are wonderful in raising good questions. Out of the mouths of babes and infants, God has ordained praise and oftentimes our children ask very perceptive questions.

And have you ever heard your child, if you have children, ask the question, well, mom or dad, if God created everything, What comes next? Who created God? And of course, more cynical individuals, cynical adults like atheists and skeptics love to throw that question out there to believers to try to stump us and say, well, you say God created everything. Well, who created God? And the answer to that question, my friends, is that God, by definition, has always been. To suggest that the eternal, uncreated God needed to be created is to limit God in the way that we creatures are limited, as if God is, like us, a creature bound by time or space or matter. But no, my friends, God, by definition, is the uncreated creator. Any so-called God that needs a creator himself is not the God of Scripture.

The God of Scripture is the eternal one, the transcendent one, the great I am, the self-existent one. Oh, children, think about how great our God must be, so great that He has always been. Children, this is the amazing thing about the God that we worship, the true and living God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He has always been. And you might say, well, pastor, I don’t know how to understand that. How do I wrap my brain around that? A God who never had a beginning and will never have an end? A God who indeed is beyond time? How do I wrap my brain around that? And the answer is you can’t, because you and I are finite, limited creatures. God is infinite and eternal. And what that means, brothers and sisters, and children of God.

What that means for you and for me is that the God who has always been and always will be will always be there for us. He is ever present with us and he has loved us in Christ with an everlasting love. So the true and living God is an eternal being. We learn next that the true and living God is a self-existent being, which is to say God does not depend upon anyone or anything outside of himself to come into being or to remain inexistent. in existence. He is the self-existent one. We are told in this passage, in the beginning, God. Now the Hebrew word for the name God is the plural word Elohim. The singular would be El, the plural word is Elohim. This is the generic name for God. It’s the name of God which stresses God as the creator and the sovereign Lord over all.

Whereas the name Yahweh often translated in English versions as Lord in all capital letters. Whenever you see that in your Old Testament, you read the word capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. That’s the English translators telling you that they are translating the Hebrew name for God Yahweh. And Yahweh is the name of God that speaks of God in His special covenant relationship with Israel, His redeemed people. But the name Elohim is a more generic name for God. It has in view God as the great creator and Lord over all. And one of the major lessons of the creation account here in Genesis 1 as a whole is that Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, is Elohim, the creator of all. The God of Israel was not some kind of nationalistic tribal deity, some kind of mascot for ancient Israel.

The true and living God, the Yahweh, the God of Israel, the redeeming covenant God of Israel was the creator of the universe, is the creator of the heavens and the earth. It’s also interesting, as I mentioned, to note that the word Elohim is in the plural. And you might say, well, then why isn’t it translated, in the beginning, gods created the heavens and the earth? In fact, in other contexts in the scriptures, this word Elohim can sometimes refer to multiple gods, the false gods and idols of the nations. However, we know that it is to be understood singularly here in this passage, because in the context of this passage, The word clearly refers to the one true God, since the verb create here is in the singular, which indicates that this God, Elohim, is being presented as one divine being.

Well then why does Moses, under the Spirit’s inspiration, give him the name Elohim, this plural name? Well, most scholars believe that this is a plural of majesty. It’s not just in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It’s as if he’s saying in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God, the majestic one. And so it’s a plural of majesty. What are some of the lessons that we learn here? Well, first of all, beloved, as I’ve already mentioned, in the beginning God implies that God, Elohim, existed even before the beginning, which itself implies that the God we worship, the God we love, the God we confess and trust in is self-existent. He depends upon no one outside of himself. In the words of our beloved Westminster Confession of Faith in chapter two, section two, That section says this, God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself, and is alone in and unto himself all sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which he hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them.

Now, think about that. That is so different from the many sentimental ideas about God that are out there in our culture today, especially the idea, and maybe you’ve heard this expressed by some Christian preachers or teachers, the idea that, well, the reason God created us is because God was all alone by himself. He got lonely, he wanted fellowship, so he created us. Well, what does that imply? That implies that God needs someone or something outside of himself. But no, friends, God did not create us because he was lonely or because he somehow needed us. God has perfect fellowship within his own triune being. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are eternally in love with each other, in eternal communion and community with one another within the one divine being. God does not need us. God certainly loves us.

He cares about us in Christ. but he doesn’t need us. He needs only himself. He has no needs outside of himself because he is self-sufficient, self-sufficient. Again, he loves us, but he doesn’t need us, for he is the self-existent, self-sufficient one. He is the great I am. And that’s a very humbling truth. We live in a very narcissistic culture, very self-centered culture, with the idea that God exists for our benefit rather than we existing for His glory. It’s very humbling to realize, yes, God loves you, but He does not need you. That’s very humbling. Another truth that we learn in this passage has to do with the doctrine of the Trinity. Now while this passage does not directly or explicitly teach the doctrine of the Trinity in its fully developed form, New Testament form, in this passage there are hints of a trinity of divine persons within the one divine being.

And I’ve already mentioned one of those hints and that is the name Elohim, God. As I mentioned, this is a plural of majesty, but this plural of majesty is certainly compatible with the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine that there are three divine persons within the one Godhead, that the one true and living God exists eternally in three co-equal, co-eternal persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. So there’s the plural of majesty, which is used for God’s name. We also, in verse two, we read of the Spirit of God. It says in verse two, the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the what? The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Again, today we would, under the new covenant, we understand this to be and would identify this as the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity.

Another observation that supports the implicit Trinitarianism of our passage is that throughout this creation account, God uses his creative word, his let there be, in order to create and fashion and form. In John 1, verse 1, Christ is revealed as the eternal divine Word, the divine Logos through whom God the Father created all things. So this reference to creation by the divine creative Word points to Jesus, the eternal living Word. And therefore, friends, The Genesis account contains the doctrine of the Trinity in its Old Testament seed form. Again, it’s not fully revealed here. That would have been very confusing for the ancient Israelites. The thing that they were confronted in day in and day out was polytheism. Their Gentile nations worshipped multiple gods. It would have been very confusing to the ancient Israelites if God had revealed to them the truth of the Trinity in its New Testament fully developed form.

They needed to be reminded of monotheism, that there is only one true God. But nevertheless, the Trinity is here, at least in implicit Old Testament seed form. So friends, the true and living God, the God whom we worship, the God whom we confess, the God whom we serve, He is an eternal being. He is a self-existent being. But finally, the true and living God is a necessary being. The true and living God is a necessary being. One of the things that scholars have noted about the creation account in Genesis 1 is that in this account, Moses does not begin Genesis by trying to prove the existence of God. We might wish that he had, you know, some moderns might wish that, well, why doesn’t Moses give us evidence and proof for the existence of God?

Rather, Genesis assumes or presupposes God’s existence. While the creation account in Genesis 1 does involve argumentation, it implicitly argues against polytheistic idolatry and it implicitly refutes the pagan creation stories that had saturated the ancient Near East and had undergirded the religious beliefs and practices of ancient Israel’s pagan Gentile neighbors. In other words, there is an anti-pagan, anti-polytheistic polemic going on in a very sophisticated way here in Genesis chapter one. Nevertheless, the inspired author or editor of this biblical creation account does not seek to offer any fancy philosophical or logical proofs of God’s existence. But that’s not a deficiency, actually, when you really think about it. If you think about it, this actually makes sense. After all, as the great Christian apologist, defender of the faith, Dr. Cornelius Van Til reminded us, the existence of the triune God of Holy Scripture is the necessary precondition of all intelligibility, which is a fancy way of saying that God is the foundation of all rationality, all intelligible communication. all logic and therefore all proof.

The reason that the universe makes sense, the reason that it is orderly, the reason that science can study the creation and make sense of it is because its creator is the divine logos, the eternal living divine logos. Our ability as creatures, image bearers of God to use reason and logic is grounded in the reality of the divine eternal logos. And so friends, another way of putting this is to say that without God’s existence, nothing else would exist including the laws of logic or the human capacity for rationality. If there is no God, the question should be raised, then why is there anything at all? In fact, if you’re ever in a conversation with a skeptic or an atheist, and you’re talking about the existence of God, ask your dialogue partner, well, why do you think there is something rather than nothing?

How do you explain, how do you explain the universe in which we live? The true and living triune God himself is the absolutely necessary being for without him nothing else is, nothing else can be. The ultimate reason that we are beloved is because he, Elohim, the great I am, he is. He is and therefore you and I are. So we confess together as the basic foundation of our faith, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. Should we continue to believe in God? Absolutely, yes. We should believe in God. If we profess to be Christians, then we can confess without hesitation, without embarrassment, and with full conviction of mind and heart that we indeed believe in and trust in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. However, let us remember that the God in whom we believe, the God whom we seek to serve, the God whom we confess to a lost and dying world is none other than the true and living triune God revealed in the pages of His Word, the Bible.

And dear listener, the only way that you and I can truly know this true and living God, this God revealed in Holy Scripture, is by knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as your very own Savior and Lord. For it is in Jesus Christ that God has revealed Himself supremely. Do you know Christ? Is He your Savior? As we close our time in the word today, I would leave you with these words from our Lord’s high priestly prayer recorded in John chapter 17. In John 17 verse three, the Lord Jesus says to his father, he says, and this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Dear listener, God, out of love for sinners like me and you, sent his son, Jesus Christ, to become incarnate, to come to this earth, to take upon himself our humanity, to go to the cross, to die on the cross as a penalty for sin, to take the punishment for our sins.

And he was buried, and on the third day, he physically and bodily rose from the dead, proving that the Father has accepted his sacrifice. He ascended into heaven, he reigns at the Father’s right hand, and one day he will return to judge the living and the dead. And God’s word says that God commands all men everywhere, all people everywhere are commanded to repent, to have a change of mind and heart, to turn from sin to the true and living God, and to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. Dear listener, God in the gospel calls upon you to repent and believe the good news. Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. And believing upon him, your conviction and belief about the existence of God will be deepened and strengthened. Believe upon the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved.

Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you and we praise you, Lord God. that you indeed exist, that you are the great I am, that you are infinite, eternal, unchanging, that you created us and all things for your glory. We ask, O Lord, that you would deepen our sense of reverence and awe for the greatness of your divine being and that by your Holy Spirit you would cause us to walk in holy fear and reverence before you, trusting in you, rejoicing in you all the days of our life and serving you in the daily callings and vocations that you have called us to. We pray all of these things, Heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. As we close our time together, let’s rise and sing together hymn 213, Glory Be to God the Father, 213.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

September 17, 2023
The Biblical Basis for Infant Baptism

About this sermon

God promised Abraham, ‘I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you,’ and he commanded Abraham to give the covenant sign to the infants in his household. Paul calls circumcision a seal of the righteousness of faith, so God gave a sign of faith to children too young to believe. At Pentecost Peter declares that the promise is for believers and their children, and baptism replaces circumcision as the sign of the one covenant of grace. Baptism teaches those who receive it to trust in Christ alone and to live as those who bear the name of the triune God.

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Sermon transcript

Well, dear friends, let’s rise for the reading of God’s Word and the preaching of the Word. Again, we continue to take a little break from our consideration of the Gospel of Mark, and today we’re going to look at a couple of passages from Scripture and dealing with the subject of infant baptism and the biblical basis for infant baptism. And the first passage we’re going to consider is from the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 17, verse 7. In the context of this passage, God is revealing to the patriarch Abraham the covenant bind of circumcision. And in Genesis 17, verse 7, God says to Abram, Genesis 17, verse 7, I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you.” And then, for a New Testament reading, Acts chapter 2, verses 36-39.

This passage is towards the end of the Apostle Peter’s preaching of the gospel on the day of Pentecost that that amazing day when God, when the risen Lord Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit upon His Church, and we read these words. I’m going to read verses 36 through 39 of Acts chapter 2. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Now, when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, What shall we do? Peter said to them, Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself.

Dear ones, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Please be seated. Once again, please join me for a brief prayer for God’s blessing upon the preaching of His Word. Gracious Lord and Heavenly Father, we ask that You would make us open and attentive to that which the Spirit is speaking to us here in these portions of Your infallible God-breathed Word. We ask, Lord, that You would sow the seed of Your Word abundantly in our hearts and bear much spiritual fruit in our lives through that which we consider today. We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. Well, the title of my sermon today is, The Biblical Basis for Infant Baptism. And if you’re following along on your sermon outline, there’s a number of words to be listening for in my sermon today.

Covenant, faith, family, solidarity, unity, and continuity. Why does your church baptize babies? Dear friends, have you ever had a fellow believer, a fellow Christian, ask you that question? Maybe you yourself have wondered why our church believes in baptizing the infants of believing parents. It’s actually a very important question, and it’s important for us to know how to answer it. The reason for that is because it seems today that the vast majority of evangelical Bible-believing Christians in America today go to churches that practice what might be called believers-only baptism. Now, at the outset, we need to understand that the issue of Believer’s Only Baptism versus Hato Baptism or Instant Baptism, I believe that this is an in-house debate within the body of Christ. That is to say, I believe, friends, that there are many genuine, sincere, godly, Christ-loving, Bible-loving believers on both sides of this issue.

It’s an important issue, but it is not necessarily a salvation issue, or even a fellowship issue, at least if we’re talking about informal fellowship between fellow believers. But it is, nonetheless, an important issue that has practical implications for all kinds of vital questions and issues within the Church of Jesus Christ. And so, in my sermon for today, I want to have us consider some of the biblical reasons why our church, and why most historic Christian churches, have practiced paedo-baptism, or the baptism of the infants of one or both professing-believing parents. Now, I did explain some of this earlier at Hector’s baptism in accordance with the forms of our Directory for Public Worship, but I want to kind of expand on what we considered earlier. And first of all, friends, many of our fellow Christians, in seeing the title of the sermon for today, the Biblical Basis for Infant Baptism, would probably roll their eyes and say, what are you talking about?

There’s no command in Scripture to baptize babies, right? Hold on to your seat. I believe there is firm biblical evidence for and support for the practice of baptizing the children of professing believers. And the first point I would make is we, and again, we’re going to be jumping to various scriptures in the Bible, various passages, so keep your Bibles open. First of all, beloved, the practice of baptizing the children of believers is rooted in the unity and the continuity of God’s covenant of grace in all ages of redemptive history. The practice of baptizing the children of believers is rooted in the unity and the continuity of God’s covenant of grace in all ages of redemptive history. Now, in his Pentecost sermon, which is recorded for us in Acts chapter 2, The Apostle Peter assumes this basic unity and continuity, especially in verse 39, where he speaks of the promised being for his hearers and for their children.

Now, remember, who is Peter addressing in his Pentecost sermon? Well, he’s addressing an audience of mostly Jews, or there are some Jewish proselytes as well. converse to Judaism, perhaps, but he’s addressing a Jewish audience, and he uses this language, the promises for you and for your children. Well, what would that language, what would that trigger in the minds of his hearers? What would that remind them of? Well, friends, this language that Peter uses in Acts 2, verse 39, appears to be a clear allusion to the promise that God made to the patriarch Abraham in Genesis 17, verse 7. Again, let me read this verse. God says, I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generation. Do you see the similarity between that wording and the wording of Peter in Acts 2, verse 39?

The promise is for you and for your children. Contrary to what some of our Baptist friends might claim, the covenant that God made with Abraham was not merely an earthly covenant with merely temporal or national promises for Abraham’s physical descendants only. It was not merely an earthly, national, fleshly covenant that God made with Abraham and his physical descendants. No, my friends, this covenant is called in Genesis 17 verse 17, verse 7 rather, it is called an everlasting covenant. Furthermore, the covenant that God made with Abraham was a spiritual covenant with ultimately spiritual promises. What did God promise Abraham in Genesis 17 verse 7? He says, I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to do what? to be God to you and to your descendants after you.

Now, look at the spiritual promise. This is a spiritual covenant. Beloved, this is a promise by God to enter into a bond of friendship and communion with Abraham and Abraham’s descendants. God is promising Abraham and his descendants union and communion with himself. Now, we learn in the Scriptures that God’s everlasting covenant of grace is just such a spiritual covenant. And so, for example, again, keep your finger there in Genesis chapter 17, but turn with me to the very last book of the Bible, to Revelation 21, verse 3. And, as we consider Revelation 21, verse 3, this is speaking, in the context of this passage, this is speaking about the new heavens and the new earth, as well as the new Jerusalem. And notice the language here that is used by the Apostle John, writing under the inspiration of the Spirit, Revelation 21, verse 3.

It says the following. Let me just get there. This is what happens when your Bible has very thin pages. Revelation 21, verse 3, it says, And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle, the tabernacle is the dwelling place, the tabernacle of God is among men, and he will dwell among them, and, notice the language, they shall be his people, and God himself shall be among them. Revelation 21, verse 3, God promises that they shall be my people. Genesis 17, verse 7, I will be God to you and your descendants after you. You just see the similarity in language. You recognize the language there. That wonderful promise in Revelation 21, verse 3, to believers is couched in language that is essentially the same as God’s promise in the Abrahamic covenant. This is why we believe that ever since man fall into sin in Adam, all the way through to the consummation at the end of the ages, there has been one and only one overarching covenant of grace between God and His people.

Now, of course, there have been numerous different phases and administrations of that one covenant of grace. The Abrahamic faith, there’s been the Mosaic administration, the Davidic covenant, and so forth, culminating in the New Covenant in Christ. But all of these things are ultimately different administrations of the one covenant of grace by which God saves his elect people. Now, the reason that I’m stressing this is because I want us to see that God’s covenant with Abraham and his descendants was simply one of the earliest administrations of God’s everlasting covenant of grace. For instance, the Abrahamic covenant was an Old Testament administration of God’s everlasting covenant of grace. We need to understand that the Abrahamic covenant is essentially the same as the New Covenant in Christ. In fact, the New Testament scriptures themselves teach that the New Covenant is the unfolding, the expansion, the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant.

The late Reformed theologian and Westminster Seminary professor, Dr. John Murray, says the following in his excellent little book on Christian baptism, a book that is, surprise, surprise, entitled Christian Baptism. Dr. Murray says this. He says, perhaps no other datum is more relevant and conclusive to establish the unity and continuity of the Church in both economies than the fact that the New Testament is the expansion and unfolding of the Abrahamic covenant, that all nations are blessed in terms of the promise given to Abraham. In quotes from Genesis 12, verse 3, where God says, in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed, that Abraham is the father of the faithful, and that New Testament believers of all nations are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to promise. Amen, Dr. Murray. Now, to support what Dr.

Murray is saying, let’s take a look at some passages that make this very clear, that the new covenant in Christ is ultimately, in terms of its spiritual essence, the same and the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. Let’s again keep your finger in Genesis, but turn with me, if you would, to Galatians chapter 3, and let’s look at verses 13 and 14. Galatians chapter 3, verses 13 and 14. Now remember, Paul is writing to this Gentile congregation, these churches in Galatia, and he says this, Galatians 3, 13 and 14, he says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. Having become a curse for us, for it is written, curse is everyone who hangs on a tree. That speaks of our Lord’s substitutionary atonement. He took the curse that we deserve for our sin upon Himself.

He was our sin-bearer, our substitute, as the Scriptures teach. But notice verse 14. Christ did this. He redeemed us in order that in Christ Jesus The blessing of whom? The blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. This passage is in accordance with God’s covenant promises to Abraham found, for example, in Genesis 12, verse 3, where God says, in you, Abraham, I will bless all the families of the earth. And also, if you look at Genesis 17, verses 4 and 6, God says to Abraham, as for me, behold, my covenant is with you, and you will be the father of what? The Jewish nation? No. God says to Abraham, you will be the father of a multitude of nations. And then if you skip down to verse 6, God says, I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make not just the Jewish nation, I will make nations, plural of you, and kings will come forth from you.

This anticipates the New Covenant, where the Gospel breaks out of its Jewish mold and goes into the world through the Gentile mission. Consider also, since we’re in Galatians chapter 3, let’s read verses 15 through 18, because some would raise the question, what about the giving of the law from Mount Sinai? We read the Ten Commandments earlier in the service today. What are we to make of the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic administration? Paul explains in verses 15 through 18 of Galatians 3, he says, Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations, even though it is only a man’s covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one set to the side or has conditions to it. We’ll keep getting at, look at verse 16. Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed, he does not say and to seeds as referring to many, but rather to one and to your seed, that is Christ.

Christ is the ultimate seed of the woman that comes to crush the head of the serpent, and so forth. Verse 17, what I am saying is this. The law, speaking there of the Mosaic law, the Mosaic administration, which came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God so as to nullify the promise. For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on promise, but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise. In other words, the law that God gave to Israel on Mount Sinai did not annul the covenant of promise which God had made with Abraham many years earlier. And verse 18, beloved, proves that the Abrahamic covenant was a covenant of promise, not a legal covenant, a covenant of works, or a mere national covenant with merely earthly or temporal promises.

Now, with your heads swimming at this point, You might be wondering, okay, Pastor, this is interesting, but what does all this have to do with whether or not the children of believers should be baptized? Well, I’m glad you asked, because it actually has a lot to do with it. You see, dear one, track with me here. If the Abrahamic covenant and the New Covenant in Christ are the same in terms of their spiritual essence, then those who are to receive the sign and seal of the covenant are also the same. unless God explicitly indicates that the proper subjects or recipients of the Covenant sign have changed. Under the Abrahamic Covenant, the sign and seal of the Covenant, of course, was the bloody rite of circumcision, which pointed forward to our Lord’s bloody death. Now that Christ has come and has died for our sins, the Covenant sign of initiation is an unbloody rite, the rite of baptism.

Now let me ask you, Who were the ones that God commanded Abraham to circumcise? Well, again, going back to Genesis 17, look at verses 10 to 13. God says to Abram, this is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised, and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between me and you. And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, a servant who is born in the house or who is bought with money from any foreigner, who is not of your descendants. A servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised. Thus shall my covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.” This passage, beloved, indicates that all of the male members of Abraham’s household, including the infancy, were to receive the covenant sign.

Now, hold that thought and go to Romans, chapter 4, verse 11. Romans, chapter 4, verse 11. I know we’re flipping around in the Bible a lot today, but this is a case that needs to be made by comparing Scripture with Scripture. In Romans 4, verse 11, Paul explains the spiritual significance of Abraham’s circumcision. And let me begin reading at verse 10. Speaking of Abraham being justified, having righteousness credited to him by faith, Paul asks, How then was it credited? While he was circumcised or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. And note verse 11, And he, Abraham, received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be credited to them.” Friends, this passage clearly teaches us that circumcision was designed to be a sign and seal of the righteousness of faith.

Circumcision was a covenant sign indicating justification by faith. And yet, did you notice how God, in Genesis chapter 17, commanded Abraham to apply this sign and seal of the righteousness of faith, not just to himself, not just to those in his household who were old enough to believe for themselves, but even to the male infants within his household as well, even to the covenant seed, the children. Now, our Baptist brothers and sisters, what is one of the objections that they often raise? Well, they will often object to infant baptism by pointing out to us that, look, I mean, little Hector didn’t understand what was going on today, and he’s certainly too young to exercise conscious faith, so why bother baptizing him? But that same logic could have been used to object to infant circumcision. You see, circumcision in the Old Testament, according to Romans 4, verse 11, was also a sign and seal of justification by faith.

But this sign and seal of faith was to be given not just to professing believers, but also to the infancy of believers. Of course, would our Baptist friends criticize Abraham for applying the sign and seal of faith to his children? Of course not, for God had commanded Abraham to do this. The point of all of this is that God commanded Abraham, who is the prototype of all true believers, to apply the sign and seal of the covenant not just to those in his household who were old enough to appreciate it, but also to the infant males born within his household. And there’s no indication that this principle of applying the covenant sign and seal to the children of believers has changed with the coming of Christ and the implementation of the new covenant. On the contrary, it’s actually reaffirmed.

Our Baptist friends will say, show me a passage where it says, thou shalt baptize thy babies. Our Reformed covenantal response is, show us a New Testament passage where God commands us to stop applying the covenant sign and seal to our covenant children. And so, friends, in the absence of any New Testament command, to cease from applying the covenant sign and seal to the children of believers, we may legitimately infer that God continues to command His Church to apply the covenant sign to the children of believers. In fact, God indicates in such passages in Acts 2, verse 39, that the principle of including children in the covenant promise continues even in this new covenant era. But the unity and the continuity of the covenant of grace is not the only reason why the practice of baptizing the children of believers is difficult.

And this brings me to my next major point. The practice of baptizing the children of believers is also based upon the principle of the covenant solidarity of the family, the covenant solidarity of the family. Again, Peter states that the principle continues to operate under the New Covenant when he says in Acts 2.39, The promise is for you and for your children. I find it ironic. Our Baptist friends will often appeal to Acts 2, verse 38, where God, through Peter, says to the people, repent and be baptized for the remission of your sins, and so forth. And they say, ha ha, see? Repentance is to come before baptism. But then they ignore verse 39, where it says the promise is for you and for your children. The principle of the covenant solidarity of the family continues after Pentecost.

It continues in this new covenant era. And by the way, of course repentance comes before baptism in a missionary context. When our OVC missionaries preach the gospel to people who’ve never heard the gospel or never been part of the Church, of course they require a profession of faith before they will baptize new converts. So, again, the Book of Acts gives us a missionary context. You cannot apply that to a context where Christian parents are raising their children in the faith. But what does this principle mean, that the promise is for you and for your children? Well, again, we have to go back to the passage that appears to form the background of Peter’s statement in this verse, and that is Genesis 17, verse 7, where God says, I will be God to you and your descendants You see, friends, when God made a covenant with Abraham, he considered Abraham in relationship to his family.

Now, this is shocking to us because in the West, and especially in America, we are hyper-individualistic. We think that God only deals with us as isolated individuals. Certainly, salvation is a very personal thing. And certainly, please do not take anything that I’m saying today as if I’m saying that in order for you to be saved, you have to be connected to a covenant family. Sorry, those of you who are single and living on your own. Sorry about that. No. God, of course, saves his people by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And he often does so. He saves singles as well as those who are married and in families. But the point here, beloved, is that Abraham was the head of his family, and therefore when God brings the head of this family into covenant relationship with himself, he also, in a sense, brings Abraham’s entire family, considered as a living organism, into that covenant relationship.

This principle is also confirmed in the New Testament, even elsewhere in the book of Acts itself. For example, when Paul and Silas preached the gospel to the Philippian jailer in Acts chapter 16, what did they promise the jailer? You remember the story. Paul and Silas were in prison. They were singing praises to God, probably expecting to be executed the next day. And the Philippian jailer was no doubt listening to them sing their praises to God and perhaps declare the gospel. And God sends an earthquake, and the prison doors, the bars are opened. And what is the Philippian jailer, what’s he about to do? Well, he’s about to kill himself. Because the policy was, if you were a jailer and one of your prisoners got loose under your watch, that meant you would forfeit your life.

So he decided to take his life. And what do Paul and Silas say? Do yourself no harm. We’re all here. And the Philippian jailer runs in and kneels before them and he says, What must I do to be saved? Look at Acts chapter 16, verse 31, at their response to this cry of the Philippian jailer. He says, Brothers, what must I do to be saved? Acts 13, excuse me, Acts 16, verse 31. I’m having trouble turning the pages here. They said, Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. But did they stop there? No, they said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. You and what? Your household. See, friends, there is a sense in which the salvation of the Philippian jailer will also mean salvation for his entire household, considered as an organic whole.

And furthermore, and I know I reviewed this in leading up to Hector’s baptism, but we need to review this even further. In 1 Corinthians 7, verse 14, Paul says that in the case of a marriage where one spouse is a believer and the other spouse is an unbeliever, there’s a sense in which the unbelieving spouse is said to be sanctified by the believing spouse, and the children in that situation are to be regarded as covenantally holy. If you look at 1 Corinthians 7, verse 14, 1 Corinthians 7, 14, we read these words, As Paul is giving them some counsel regarding marriage issues in that congregation, he says this, 1 Corinthians 7, 14, For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband. For otherwise your children are, notice the language, are unclean, but now they are holy.

That’s interesting language, isn’t it? This is actually language adopted from the ceremonial law of the Old Testament. And it’s speaking of covenantal holiness. So you see, my friend, the salvation of an individual has a sanctifying effect on his or her entire household. And the reason that this is the case is because of the corporate covenantal solidarity of the family. God’s ordinary way of administering his covenant of grace within history is in the context of believing families. And it is because of this covenantal solidarity that the children of even one believing spouse are said to be holy, set apart, according to 1 Corinthians 7.14. Now, why are the children of believers holy? Well, again, because God’s promise is to believers and to their children, in accordance with what we read in Genesis 17, verse 7, and Acts chapter 2, verse 39.

And it is because of this promise, and because our covenant children are holy in the sense of being set apart to the Lord and to the influences of the gospel, that they too are to be baptized. If they are covenantally holy, they ought to receive the sign and seal of the covenant. And just very briefly, Baptist friends will often retort, or they’ll say, well, wait a minute, hold on, it says in 1 Corinthians not only are the children of even one believing parent holy, it says the unbelieving husband or wife is sanctified. So, if the children, as covenantally holy, are to receive the covenant sign, shouldn’t the unbelieving spouse also receive the covenant sign? But here’s the thing. The unbelieving spouse is unbelieving, is resistant to the covenant. If the unbelieving spouse consented to receive covenant baptism, that would indicate that that spouse is no longer an unbeliever.

And so, again, remember what I said earlier, Jesus said, let the children come to me, because the children, infant children, they don’t resist. But when it comes to an unbelieving spouse, the unbelieving spouse is resistant to the gospel, even though in a mixed marriage situation, in that context, the believing spouse still has a sanctifying influence. There is a gospel influence even upon the unbelieving spouse. And so another reason for the practice of infant baptism is what the Bible teaches about the covenant solidarity of the family. And finally, beloved, third and final point. Infant baptism is based upon God’s covenant promise to administer his covenant of grace in the lines of successive generations. Infant baptism is based upon God’s covenant promise to administer His covenant of grace in the lines of successive generations. Again, when we consider what is taught in Genesis 17, verse 7, and Acts, chapter 2, verse 39, when we consider that the spiritual substance of the Abrahamic and the New Covenant are essentially the same, and, therefore, the recipients of the covenant sign are to be the same, although, as an aside, under the New Covenant, little girls and women can receive the covenant sign of baptism, whereas under Old Testament times, only the males in the covenant could receive the covenant sign.

So, there is a greater inclusion within the New Covenant. But nevertheless, this principle that God administers His covenant of grace in the line of successive generations is clearly established in Scripture. God does not just deal with us as isolated individuals, and He’s not just concerned about our present generation. We serve a transgenerational God, a God who is eternal, from everlasting to everlasting, beyond time. And He is concerned that His covenant of grace be administered throughout the ages of redemptive history. And His ordinary way of doing so is through is through the line of successive generations. Now, a very important qualification needs to be made here. This does not at all mean that God promises that each and every individual child within a believing household will necessarily partake of the covenant of grace in an internal saving sense.

Jesus talks about, in John chapter 15, he talks about the vine and the branches. He is the vine, and he talks about some branches being, you know, pruned off because they’re not living branches. They’re dead wood, if you will. And so, again, there are some who are just connected to the covenant externally. Not every covenant child partakes of the covenant of grace in the internal saving sense. In fact, if you read the rest of Genesis chapter 17, you’ll notice that God told Abraham that he would establish his covenant with Isaac, the child of promise, not with Ishmael, even though Ishmael also received the covenant sign of circumcision, and that by the command of God. Ishmael and his mother Hagar, for a time, were members of what was then the Visible Church. Then the Visible Church was pretty much coextensive with Abraham’s household, his family, and so forth.

And yet, Ishmael apparently was not among God’s elect. Nevertheless, he received the covenant sign of circumcision. But the point I want to make here, beloved, we are not to treat our children as little pagans. Our covenant children are covenantally holy. Yes, we must warn them. Yes, we must hold them to repentance and faith. And we must model repentance and faith and new obedience to them. We must teach them sound doctrine. But we must not view them as little pagans. They are Christian children. We are to view them as those who are holy in Christ, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7.14. And we are to raise them in light of that. We are to believe the best about them until they prove otherwise. And so, my friends, let us raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Hoping the best, praying best, grabbing on to God’s covenant promises, praying that He in sovereign grace would cause those promises to indeed bear much fruit in their lives. In closing, let me just briefly remind all of us, four final quick points. Let me remind all of you who’ve been baptized what your baptism means to you. First of all, your baptism teaches you that you are a sinner who needs to be cleansed. you know, water. Why is it that Jesus commands us that we are commanded to baptize with water? Why not baptize with molasses, or dirt, or flour, or something like that? Well, obviously, especially in the climate there in the ancient Near East, in the first century Church, it’s a hot climate. Water was needed for cleansing, and we ourselves are very familiar with the cleansing effects of water.

I’m assuming that you and I, we take either a bath or a shower every day because we need cleansing. And so, God takes this very common element to drive home the spiritual truth that we are born corrupted by sin, which we inherit from Adam, and we need to be cleansed from that sin. Baptism depicts that. Your baptism also teaches you that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one who can cleanse you from your sins. You must be washed in His blood. Your baptism also teaches you that if you truly believe in Christ and His gospel promises, then you can be assured that the salvation and cleansing that baptism symbolizes belong to you personally. The general gospel call goes out to everyone. Whosoever will, right? The sacrament of baptism, like the Lord’s Supper, personalizes that.

I baptize you into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And as Jesus says in the Lord’s Supper, this is my body given for you. This is my blood shed for you. Faith receives that promise and clings to it, looking beyond the sign to the reality to which the sign points. And so our baptism teaches us that we must trust in Jesus and Jesus alone for our salvation. Otherwise, we will be drowned under the flood of God’s judgment. Do you believe in Christ and Christ alone? Having been baptized, have you received the grace that your baptism symbolizes? And finally, your baptism teaches you that you bear the holy name of the Triune God. You and I have been marked and set apart to belong to Him. Let us live our lives in light of that.

Amen. Let us pray. Lord and Father in heaven, We thank you and praise you, God, for the gift of baptism. We thank you that you give us the means of grace, the Word and the sacraments and prayer. We pray that by these means you would continue to build us up in our most holy faith. And as we’ve been blessed to witness Hector’s baptism this morning, may we reflect upon our own baptism and what it means. We ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. Dear friends, in closing, let us rise and we’ll sing our final hymn. are closing him, which is number 119. 119b, how shall the young erect their way?

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

March 20, 2022
By Faith Sarah Conceived Isaac

About this sermon

The Lord promised childless Abram a son and offspring as numerous as the stars, and Abram believed the Lord, who counted it to him as righteousness. God kept his covenant word, and in his time Sarah, past the age, conceived and bore Isaac. By faith Sarah considered him faithful who had promised, and the God who does what is impossible with man has saved his people in Christ.

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Sermon transcript

We turn now to the reading of God’s inspired word, and you’ll notice that we have a number of passages this morning from the book of Genesis in particular, and then we’ll turn over to the book of Hebrews once again in chapter 11. We begin our reading of God’s word in Genesis chapter 15, and there we’ll read verses one through six. Hear the word of God.

After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram. I am a shield to you. Your reward shall be very great. Abram said, O Lord God, what will you give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Since you have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir. Then, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, This man will not be your heir, but one who will come forth from your own body. He shall be your heir. And he took him outside and said, Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them. And he said to him, So shall your descendants be. Then he believed in the Lord, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. Thus far, the reading of God’s word in Genesis 15, 1 to 6. We turn over now to Genesis 17, where we’ll read verses 15 through 19. We continue the reading of God’s inspired word, Genesis 17, beginning with verse 15 through verse 19.

Then God said to Abraham, as for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations. Kings of peoples will come from her. Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, will a child be born to a man 100 years old? And will Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God, oh, that Ishmael might live before you. Thus far, the reading of God’s word in Genesis chapter 17. Let’s turn over now to Genesis 18, where we’ll read verses one through 15. Again, hear the word of God.

Now the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day. When he lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, three men were standing opposite him. And when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself down to the earth and said, my Lord, if now I have found favor in your sight, please do not pass your servant by.

Please let a little water be brought and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree. And I will bring a piece of bread that you may refresh yourselves. After that, you may go on, since you have visited your servant.’ And they said, so do as you have said.

So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, quickly prepare three measures of fine flour, knead it, and make bread cakes. Abraham also ran to the herd and took a tender and choice calf and gave it to the servant, and he hurried to prepare it. He took curds and milk and the calf which he had prepared and placed it before them, and he was standing by them under the tree as they ate.

Then they said to him, Where is Sarah your wife? And he said, There in the tent. He said, I will surely return to you at this time next year. And behold, Sarah, your wife will have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent door, which was behind him.

Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age. Sarah was past childbearing. Sarah laughed to herself, saying, after I have become old, shall I have Pleasure, my Lord, being old also. And the Lord said to Abraham, why did Sarah laugh, saying, shall I indeed bear a child when I am so old? Is anything too difficult for the Lord? At the appointed time, I will return to you at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son. Sarah denied it, however, saying, I did not laugh, for she was afraid. And he said, no, but you did laugh.

Then the men rose up from there and looked down towards Sodom and Abraham was walking with them to send them off. Thus far, the reading of God’s word from the book of Genesis. Finally, from Genesis, we turn one more time to chapter 21 and here reading verses one through eight. hear the word of the Lord. Then the Lord took note of Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised.

So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac. Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old as God had commanded him. Now Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

Sarah said, God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh with me. And she said, who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have born him a son in his old age. The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.

The word of the Lord. Turn with me now over into the New Testament book of Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews 11, we begin reading at verse one. We continue to read the inspired word of the true and living God. Verse one, now faith is the assurant of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, for by it the men of old gained approval.

By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. By faith, Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, to which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous. God testifying about his gifts and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death, and he was not found because God took him up, for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up, he was pleasing to God. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.

By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness, which is according to faith. By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going.

By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise. For he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith, even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead, at that, as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the sea shore.

All these died in faith without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed, if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

The word of the Lord. Amen. Let’s pray together, shall we? Almighty God, we do thank you for the scriptures of the Old and the New Testament, and we are thankful for that grace and gift of faith which was made manifest in days of old, which continues to be made manifest through the redemption which you are still accomplishing among your people to the ends of the earth. we pray today the reading of your word the preaching thereof and the hearing of these would cause us each to grow in grace and faith in love and in service and honor to our king the lord jesus christ our father we would also take time now to pray for Haley’s sister Paige and her husband who have just in this past week lost a young child and we pray God that you would comfort them in the midst of their affliction that by the grace of faith they would look to you and be content trusting you for things yet to come. May you provide all things needful. Our father fill our hearts with compassion and love and kindness and prepare us as a people to be ready to receive in full the word of God. We pray these things together now in Jesus name. Amen.

In Genesis 15, we read, the word of the Lord came to Abram, quote, in a vision, unquote. Indeed, all of Genesis 15, if you were to read the whole of that chapter, deals with what Abram experienced in that vision. It is true that Abram’s trance-like state changed into a very deep sleep that the Lord sent over him. We see that in Genesis 15 and verse 12. A sleep comes upon Abram, not unlike the sleep that came upon Adam in Genesis chapter two, verse 21, during the creation of Eve.

But this changed from to a deep sleep that we read, gives us no reason to assume that the vision came to an end at verse five, after God said, this man Eliezer of Damascus, born in Abram’s house, and whom Abram assumed was to be his heir, God said, this man will not be your heir, but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir. Further, in this same vision, the Lord took Abram outside and said, Now look toward the heavens. Count the stars, if you are able to count them. And he said to him, So shall your descendants be.

S.G. de Graaf, well-known commentator, says, it is likely that Abram’s trance-like state, with all that happened in it, did not last from one night, verse five, to another night, verse 12. In other words, it does not seem, what is contained here in chapter 15, does not seem to have taken any longer than one 12-hour period. In a vision, as in a dream, we can live through several days in a short period of time.

The point is that the Lord’s dealing with Abram in Genesis 15 happened in accordance with the covenant, the covenant which God had already established by virtue of the calling of Abram and the promise recorded and given to him in Genesis chapter 12. In Genesis 15, the Lord shows Abram who he is, that is, who the Lord is in the covenant.

What it boils down to is that the Lord is everything to Abram. The Lord says to Abram, I am a shield to you, your reward shall be very great. The Lord does not propose to reward Abram here in material terms, for he himself, that is, God himself, is Abram’s treasure, the reward he would receive through faith. In the vision, the Lord, in essence, said to him, don’t be afraid, Abram.

Don’t worry about being a stranger, an alien in this land. For I am a shield for you. I am your security in this land. I am your very great reward. I am your treasure and your very great possession. For I give you my love completely. Paraphrasing the word of the Lord. Abram must have been overjoyed and would have felt very privileged to receive this great revelation. What bliss. But for Abram, this awareness was not everything. He was not concerned exclusively with his own personal happiness.

He still wondered what to make of those promises that the Lord had given him in Genesis chapter 12. The Lord had told him that he would have many descendants, that he would become the father of a great nation, and that he would carry the banner of the knowledge of the Lord into the whole world. He had been promised that those descendants would serve the Lord and possess the land of Canaan. However, those descendants were far off in the future. There stood old man Abram, still completely alone without a single child. What was he now to say to the Lord? Would he complain that the promise could not possibly be fulfilled?

No, Abram believed in the Lord. What the Lord says is the truth. The Lord can be relied on. Therefore, Abram placed himself in the Lord’s hands in faith and rested in him. He believed the Lord and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness. Abram rested in the Lord’s promise and in the Lord himself. Then in Genesis 17, 1 and 2 we read, Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty.

Walk before me and be blameless. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly. When the Lord revealed himself to Abram in Genesis 17 as God the Almighty, he was pointing specifically to his own omnipotence, not as the creator, but as the one who turns the covenant promises into reality. What he was really telling Abram in verse 2 of chapter 17 is this, I will give my covenant. In other words, God would fulfill the covenant promise and make it real. This promise would be fulfilled through a miracle. Here, for the first time, Genesis 17, God revealed that Sarai, Abram’s wife, will be the mother of that promised seed promised to Abram. Even though Abram and Sarai had both grown very old. In a revelation of His omnipotent grace, the Almighty God, would make the promise come true in a miraculous way.

He said to Abram, No longer shall your name be called Abram. Your name shall be Abraham, for I will make you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you. Moreover, God said to Abraham, as for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.

Genesis 17 and verse 15. I will bless her, says the Lord. And indeed, I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations. Kings of peoples will come from her. And how did Abraham respond? Did Abraham believe God and rejoice? Look closely again at Genesis 17 verse 17. I’ll wait for you to find that text if you would. Genesis 17 verse 17. How did Abraham respond to this great promise?

For a lifetime, mind you, Abram had known his wife by name as Sarai. But the word of God, which reveals things hidden and makes them known, tells us what Abraham says in his heart, where only God can see what is in his heart. As this man, Abram, who had now been given a new name, Abraham, laughed, he asks, Will a child be born to a man 100 years old? And will, listen carefully, and will Sarah, this is what he’s saying in his heart, and will Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child? In his heart, where only God can see, this man of faith, Abraham, recognizes that his wife, Sarah, has been given a new name too, just as he had.

As he considered the Lord’s promise, which contrasted so sharply with the normal course of events, he had to laugh. Abraham and Sarah were so old that they were practically dead. It seemed impossible that they should have a child. Indeed, the way the Lord fulfilled his promise did run counter to all human expectations. A child would be born to two old people.

This birth would come forth out of death, and it would be, to be sure, an utter miracle. Just as in God’s redemption of the world, it is a miracle. The virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word becoming flesh, His bitter suffering, His shameful death on the cross, His glorious resurrection from the dead, and God in turn turning to the world in saving grace for the sake of Christ.

Believe it, it is one great miracle from beginning to end. That work of redemption runs counter to all human expectations. But the Lord uses that very miracle to show us that He is indeed God the Almighty, as He declares to Abram. Do we believe in that miracle God chose to perform in order to redeem the world? If so, God can and surely will perform the miracle of turning our own death into life.

As Abraham worshipped and laughed before the Lord, note the text, he was also thinking of his son Ishmael. Now, he must have realized all the more clearly the impatience that he and Sarah had manifested earlier. Because of that unbelieving impatience, unwillingness to wait on the Lord, Abram had previously taken his wife’s Egyptian handmaid, Hagar, as his wife, that he might bear a son, Ishmael, through her. And Abram said to God, Genesis 17 verse 18, Oh, that Ishmael might live before you. But God said, No, but Sarah, your wife will bear you a son and you shall call his name Isaac. And I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant and for his descendants after him. Genesis 17 verse 19. Thus the Lord repeated his promise that Sarah would still have a child and commanded Abraham to name the child Isaac. A name which means, by the way, laughter. What else could it be? That name would show how Abraham had laughed about the miracle that God was about to perform. Just as we too can laugh in delight as we think of God’s miracles.

In Genesis 18, it is recorded that the Lord appeared to Abraham, coming in the form of three angels, appearing to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day. When Abraham saw the three men approaching, he recognized the Lord immediately. Of course, the Lord had already appeared to him many times by that time. As S.G. de Graaf once again indicates, Abraham’s words in Genesis 18 and verse 4, My Lord, if I have now found favor in your sight, please do not pass your servant by.

That response of Abraham points to something more than merely Eastern hospitality. In this context, the Lord let Abraham know what he was going to do, since Abraham was to found a great nation, and to bring great blessing on all the nations of the earth. Abraham was the bearer of the promise, and in him the victory of God would be assured.

Therefore, God made him, that is, Abram, his fellow worker. One purpose of the Lord’s appearance there in this text in Genesis 18 in particular was to encourage Sarah’s belief so that in faith she could receive the ability and the strength to conceive and bear the child of promise.

The Lord accomplished this in Sarah by chastening her for her unbelief. While the three men were eating at Abraham’s invitation, they asked about Sarah, for they had come mainly on her account. However strange the promise may have seemed to him, Abraham really believed that he and his wife would have a son in their old age. Unfortunately, Sarah had not yet come that far, yet she too would have to believe if she was ever going to conceive and receive a child.

Therefore, the Lord purposed to bring her to faith. Evidently, the angel of the Lord was sitting in front of the tent with his back to its opening. In a voice so loud that even Sarah could not help but hear, the Lord said that she would bear a son in about a year. The Lord himself was speaking to her. Surely she would believe now.

Yet she laughed at this word of the Lord, feeling that it was simply impossible for her to become a mother. She was far too old, and so too was her husband. The Lord then asked Abraham why Sarah had laughed. Was there anything too wonderful for the Lord? At this point, the Lord repeated his promise with emphasis. Sarah now had to reveal herself, but she denied that she had laughed, for she was afraid of the Lord.

The Lord reprimanded her for her unbelief, saying, No, but you did laugh. To be sure, unbelief and doubt are sin. The word of the Lord is indeed the truth. We should not doubt his word. By means of the Lord’s rebuke, Sarah was brought to faith. And by that faith, she did receive the ability to conceive that she would receive her baby from the Lord for her as well as for us. The Lord’s promises would be fulfilled by faith alone. According to promise, Sarah gave birth to Isaac. No doubt when Isaac was born, Sarah must have left a great laughter.

Her question of doubt, after I have become old, shall I have pleasure, my Lord being old also? Genesis 18, 12. In Genesis 21, verse six, Sarah said, God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh with me. She adds, who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have born him a son in his old age. So it is that our writer of Hebrews testifies in chapter 11, verse 11.

By faith, even Sarah herself received ability to conceive even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the sea shore. To be sure, Sarah, like the others named in Hebrews 11, died in faith without receiving the heavenly and eternal promises. But having seen them, and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed, she along with the others, that they were exiles and strangers on the earth, and in so doing fulfilled the promises, waiting upon the fulfilled promises that would come to us all in these latter days, and that by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, in whom is life for them who believe in the blessed seed of Abraham, through whom salvation has come to the world. Out of death, life. Out of His life, Jesus’ death, life forevermore. Let us join today, even now, in the heavenly laughter. As we offer worship and praise to Almighty God, even forever and ever, ours will be a forever of laughter.

Amen. Let’s sing together, shall we? Well, let’s pray together, first of all. Father, we thank you for the word of truth, and we’re thankful for the miracle of our redemption, which has come to us in Christ Jesus. And we ask, Lord, that even now, as we reflect upon this great and wonderful thing accomplished in the days of Abraham and Sarah, bringing birth to Isaac, through whom a nation would come to be, and indeed, a faith that would be Abraham proving to be the father of the faithful throughout the nations, throughout the generations, May we, Lord, rejoice in the hope that is ours and the wonderful things that have been accomplished, things that are impossible for man are possible with the almighty God who has saved us in Christ Jesus. Help us to rejoice, to give thanks, and to sing with joy that which you have made known unto us in Christ Jesus, our Lord, in whose name we pray, amen. So now let us open our hymn books to number 626. Bless the man that fears Jehovah.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

September 24, 2017
The Glory of Man

About this sermon

Leviticus stands at the center of the books of Moses, and its laws of uncleanness point back to the fall in Genesis 3, the day atonement first became necessary. The serpent’s question led Adam and Eve into sin, and where the first Adam failed, the last Adam, Christ the Lamb of God, succeeds. God created and saved his people to glorify Christ and enjoy him forever.

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Sermon transcript

defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst. This is the law for him who has a discharge and for him who has an emission of semen becoming unclean thereby. Also for her who was unwell with her menstrual impurity, that is for anyone, male or female, who has a discharge and for the man who lies with a woman who is unclean.

Now Genesis chapter three. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened.

And you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

The Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field.

On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. And to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it.

Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.

Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man and at the east of the garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. This is the word of the Lord.

Woman is the glory of man. Paul writes this to the church in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse seven. There we read, woman is the glory of man. And thus we may say that the church is the glory of Christ. As the wife is the glory of her husband, so you are the glory of Christ. For you are the bride of Christ. Woman is the glory of man. She was created after man. She is the embodiment of his hope.

We see this in Leviticus chapter 15. A strange passage, we might think, to precede Leviticus chapter 16. Leviticus chapter 16 concerning the day of atonement. Leviticus, the book of Leviticus, it is the center of the first five books of the Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Leviticus is the center of the first five books of the Bible, and Leviticus chapter 16 is the center of that center. The day of atonement is the center of Leviticus. Why would the chapter immediately preceding the climax of the opening books of scripture concern such things as bodily fluids, the bodily fluids of men and women?

It certainly seems strange to us. But if we consider woman as the glory of man, It is not so strange. In Leviticus chapter 15, the woman’s body, it is related to the tabernacle. The tabernacle was the dwelling place of God with man. This is man’s hope to dwell with God forever. The tabernacle was the dwelling place of God with man in Leviticus. And the Levitical woman, she was the embodiment of this hope.

Just as the tabernacle could not be approached in uncleanness, so also the woman could not be approached in uncleanness. for a man to enter a woman during her menstruation, as is spoken of later in Leviticus, for a man to enter a woman during her menstruation would result in their being cut off from the people of God. Just as for a man to enter the tabernacle in uncleanness would result in his being cut off from the people of God. The woman’s body in Leviticus, it bears a close relationship to the tabernacle. The woman’s body in Leviticus, it was symbolic of the tabernacle, symbolic of the dwelling place of God with his people.

It is why the church is both the temple of the Lord and the bride of Christ. That same relationship that we see between the woman in Leviticus and the tabernacle in Leviticus, we see in the church, the church who is the temple of the Lord and the bride of Christ.

It is why we read in Revelation chapter 21 verse two, I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Woman is the glory of man, created as the embodiment of his hope. In Leviticus chapter 15, we have laws concerning man’s approaching a woman. And in Leviticus chapter 16, we have laws concerning man’s approaching God. Man’s approaching a woman in Leviticus, it is a reflection of the people’s approaching God. Man’s entering into a woman, it was a reflection of the people’s hope to enter into the most holy place of God’s presence. The womb of a woman was a symbol of the most holy place. Ultimately realized in the womb of Mary. The Lord pleased to dwell in that womb.

The consummation of a marriage between a man and a woman. It was a reflection of the consummation of the covenant between God and his people. It is why sex outside of marriage is forbidden by God. It is a distortion of the covenant between God and his people. There is no consummation without covenant. And thus there cannot be sex without responsibility. Sex outside of marriage is a distortion of the covenant between God and his people. It is why sex between two persons that are not male and female is a distortion of the hope revealed to us by God. It is why gay marriage is not marriage at all.

It is a distortion of that mystery revealed to us by God. That mystery for which we were created. That mystery for which we have been redeemed. The marriage of Christ to his bride, the church. The covenant between the Lord and his people. The consummation of a marriage between a man and a woman. It was and is a reflection of the consummation of the covenant between God and his people. The consummation of the marriage between Christ and the church. In Leviticus, the drama of sex. It reflects the drama of the tabernacle. It reflects the hope of entering into the presence of God, of dwelling with God unveiled.

And so also the blood which flows from a woman. That blood also reflects the tabernacle The blood shed in the tabernacle. A man could not enter a woman until after the flow of her blood. Just as the high priest could not enter into the most holy place until after the shedding of blood. the blood of the woman in Leviticus chapter 15.

It anticipates the blood of atonement in Leviticus chapter 16. In both, what follows the flow of a woman’s blood, what follows the shedding of sacrificial blood was consummation, entrance into glory, communion. Leviticus chapter 15. It prepares us for Leviticus chapter 16. The relation of a woman’s minstrel cycle to the day of atonement.

It is not introduced, however, for the first time in Leviticus. We see that relation in Leviticus, but it is not introduced there. We do not see it there for the first time. Rather the relation of a woman’s menstrual cycle to the day of atonement is introduced first in Genesis at the fall of man. On that day when atonement first became necessary. What takes place in Leviticus chapters 15 and 16 is necessitated by what took place in Genesis chapter three.

The tabernacle in Leviticus. It is a reflection of the garden in Genesis. The garden of Eden. It was a temple. In Ezekiel chapter 28, the garden of Eden is depicted as a holy place upon the mountain of God. Much like the temple upon Mount Zion. Ezekiel chapter 28 verse 13, you were in Eden, the garden of God. Verse 14, I placed you, you were on the holy mountain of God. The Garden of Eden was a temple, and Adam was its priest.

Adam was put there by God to work it and to keep it. The Hebrew words translated to work and to keep They occur together in only two contexts in scripture. The first being Adam in the garden, and the other being the Levites at the tabernacle. In Numbers chapter 3, God appoints the tribe of Levi to work and to keep the tabernacle, to minister and to guard the tabernacle. The work of the Levites at the tabernacle.

It was the work of Adam in the garden. Just as the Levites were appointed to guard the holiness of the tabernacle, so also Adam was appointed to guard the holiness of the garden. When we read Genesis in the light of Leviticus, When we read Genesis and the garden in the light of the tabernacle, it helps us to understand what Adam should have done when the serpent entered into the garden. It helps us to understand what Adam should have done when the serpent entered the garden and profaned it by blaspheming God and tempting the woman to transgress the Word of God. Just as the Levites were to strike down and cast out anything which by its uncleanness might profane the tabernacle, so also Adam should have struck down the serpent and cast it out from the garden after it had profaned the holiness of the garden. something that Adam did not do.

And so the woman deceived, ate of the tree, but it was not the sin of the woman that led to the fall of all mankind. It was not the sin of the woman that led to the fall of all mankind. It was the sin of Adam that brought death into the world. We know that this is true because Adam was the head of all mankind. Adam was the covenant head of all humanity. But we may say more than this.

It was not the sin of the woman that led to the fall of all mankind. After her sin, the fall had not yet happened. After her sin, the fall was not inevitable. We are reading Genesis through the lens of Leviticus. We may understand why. Not simply because the woman was not the head of all mankind, but again because of what Adam failed to do after her sin. Remember, the garden was a temple.

Adam was its priest. The woman has just sinned. In Leviticus, what does a priest do for sin? What does a priest do when a transgression has occurred? He offers sacrifice. He sheds blood. The woman who was the glory of Adam was unclean. A sacrifice was required. But where was the sacrifice? In the words of Isaac, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb? Where was the sacrifice? It was Adam himself. Adam should have offered himself for the sake of his bride. Adam should have sacrificed himself for the sake of the woman given to him, that she might be cleansed, that she might be sanctified.

But this Adam did not do. He failed to strike down the serpent. He failed to protect his glory. He failed to offer himself for his bride. After the fall, a woman’s menstruation, the flow of her blood that brings death. became a continual reminder of the failure of Adam. Of his refusal to offer his own blood for the woman. For the woman whom God gave to him to be his glory. It is why a man in Leviticus could not approach a woman, could not approach his wife during the flow of her blood.

He was no longer able to offer himself for her. In Adam, he had refused to offer himself for her. Thereafter, they both depended upon another. They both looked for another. The blood of another was required. The sacrifice of another was required. A second Adam, a last Adam, was required. The second and last Adam, who is Christ Jesus, of whom John spoke, behold, the Lamb of God. Where is the lamb? Behold the lamb. And in the gospels, when a woman with an unceasing flow of blood touched Jesus, the flow of her blood ceased.

Here was the one, the one who would sacrifice himself for his bride, who would offer himself for the woman God gave to him. who would offer his own blood that the flow of her blood might cease, that death might no longer flow from her, but that life might flow from her forever. In Revelation chapter 22 verse one, What flows from the center of God’s dwelling place? What flows from the center of the bride? Not a river of the blood of death, but the river of the water of life. Woman is the glory of man. The church is the glory of Christ. You are the glory of Christ.

As woman was formed from the side of man, so the church, so you have been formed from the side of Christ, from the blood that flowed from his side. He loved you and gave himself up for you. That he might sanctify you, that he might cleanse you, that he might present you to himself in splendor. You were created. You have been saved to be the glory of Christ. You were created You have been saved to glorify Christ. This is the reason you were created. This is the reason you have been saved. This is the reason you are here. to glorify Him and to enjoy Him forever.

Amen. Let us pray. Our Father, how thankful we are for the Christ who is revealed to us in all the scriptures How humbled we are that you have formed us from him to be his glory. We pray that you would be at work within us, that we might indeed glorify him in all things. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen. Let us respond to God’s word, singing together hymn 174. Hymn 174, please stand.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

March 12, 2017
Destined for Rest

About this sermon

Genesis 2 records that God finished his work and rested on the seventh day, blessing and sanctifying it. That rest is not idleness but the completion and enjoyment of his work, and it shows human beings their destiny. Hebrews 4 declares that a Sabbath rest remains for the people of God, entered by faith. Believers who have drifted from their moorings need Christ at the helm, the Scriptures as their chart, and holiness as their course. Their joy and comfort in life and in death is the great Sabbath rest with him.

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Sermon transcript

Well, with all this talk about going to heaven, I guess I better preach on that. And I am going to. It’s just been amazing and listening to the hymns about Jesus being the captain of your soul and about this journey that we’re on, which is the church militant going to that place triumphant in heaven. And I would ask you this evening to turn to Genesis chapter two, beginning in the first verse. And while you’re doing that, just some opening remarks about what we’re doing this evening.

In our mission work, we’re going through the book of Genesis. And the reason why we’re doing that is because that’s where the foundation of the gospel is. There’s a lot of talk today about Genesis being a myth. And I hope that you’ll agree with me that I believe everything that’s in the book of Genesis because Jesus did. And there’s a special part in this book of Genesis, which is about beginnings, by the way, that talks about where we’re going and why we’re going there and who we are.

I’ve entitled this message, Destined for Rest. Our destiny is rest. And also, there’s another scripture I’m going to be weighing heavily upon. It’s Hebrews chapter 4, verses 9 to 12. Now, also in this sermon, you will probably note that you’ll hear a lot of nautical terms, and that’s because I’m really a sailor who was asked by the Lord to preach.

I was a member of the U.S. Coast Guard from 1975 to 1979, and I was in the Navy for 10 years from 1982 to 1992. So, like our brother Clarence in the back, we had the same job. I was an operations specialist. I was a Petty Officer First Class in the U.S. Navy when I was retired for medical reasons.

So if you hear a lot of nautical terms, a lot of allusions to being a sailor, and you hear some things like Jesus is the captain of your soul, well, it’s on purpose. And amen to that. That’s right. Now, I like to tell a story about some things we used to do in the Navy as a first-class petty officer, as an operations specialist, that some of the younger guys, at the beginning of a deployment, would come to me and say, Petty Officer Albaugh, where are we going?

And I would say, well, what day is it? They would say, well, what do you mean by that? You know, it’s Wednesday or Tuesday. I’d say, no, what day is it? Are we on the first part of the trip? You know, before the middle of the trip or the middle day, which we call hump day, are we on the first part of the trip before hump day or the last part? After hump day. And deployments, mind you, are five to six months long.

And usually the guy would say, well, it’s before hump day. And I’d say, well, we’re going out. He’d say, what? I said, it’s before hump day, right? I’d say, yeah. He’d say, well, we’re going out. And he said, but where are we going? He said, what difference does it make? Look, everywhere you look, it’s just water. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. You can’t drink the seawater, but that was the point. Or he would say, well, it’s after, Humpty. I’d say, we’re going in. But we were on a journey. We were going somewhere. There was a course that we had to set. There was a timeline that we had. There were events along the way.

And my question for you this evening is what is your destiny? Do you know where you are going? Where is your life headed? What does the future hold for you? Or in other words, is there any direction in your life? Is there some direction that points you to some ultimate place where you end up? Did you pay attention to the confession this evening? What is your destiny?

Is it fame? Is it fortune? That’s what our culture likes to talk about. Is it personal peace or affluence? That’s what Francis Schaeffer used to talk about. Is it a lifestyle that will be pleasantly free from pain and sorrow? And we know that’s not gonna happen. What is your destiny? Or what is your destination in life?

And before I answer this question, we need to read from the book of Genesis, because in Genesis, right from the beginning, we are told who we are, why we are here, what our destiny is. Genesis is about origins and about foundational truths, about the solid foundation upon which our faith is built. And so let me read Genesis chapter two, the first four verses.

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed and all their hosts. And by the seventh day, God completed his work, which he had done. And he rested on the seventh day from all his work, which he had done. then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he rested from all his work which God had created in man. This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven. Now in the order of creation, God made the heavens and the earth in six days.

Let’s just start there for a minute. That’s what the book of Genesis said. Now how do we know that? How does anybody know anything? How do the evolutionists know how it was done by chance? Well, we have faith, don’t we? Everyone has a faith in something. We know that God created and made the heavens and the earth in six days by faith.

Now faith, the writer to the Hebrews says, is being sure of what we hope for. Let’s stop and think about that word hope. What is hope? Hope is a faith that looks out to the future, that sees an ultimate end to where you’re going. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

That is what the ancients, that is what God’s people in the Old Testament were commended for. By faith we understand the universe was formed at God’s command so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. There’s this ascending pattern of creation in the Bible. resulting in the crown of God’s creation, the pinnacle or the height of his creation, which is man. And then we hear these words, God saw all that he had made and it was very good.

And there was evening and there was morning on the sixth day. Now, let’s stop and think for a minute how the world thinks. And we can call that humanism if you want to. I think that’s a good word. This is the greatest thing. This is the ultimate result of evolution that the human being has evolved. Humanism. That the world is sort of set in motion and that out of the ooze and slime comes this intelligent creature. And this is the ultimate end to all life.

Now I’ve been reminded, because I’m a historian about the first settlements in the US. I lived in Vermont out east near Massachusetts. And there was this philosophy that grew up out there that God had created everything, sort of wound up the universe like a big clock. And this wound up universe was set in motion. And then man was set down on the earth within this huge moving creation to sort of fend for himself as God watched from a distance.

Now you think this is an old type of thinking about how the world is, but I remember going to a movie within the last 20 years where the song was, God is watching us from a distance as if he’s sort of detached. He’s sort of just looking in. It’s as though he theoretically exists but has no place in your life. He’s on vacation. As if we live in a fixed mechanical universe with a God who is merely watching us from a distance. And my question is, is that all there is?

And the answer is no, because that is not what the Bible says. Now, I want to take you a little bit deeper into some creation language, because for the Hebrew in his language, he would have understood the word which is used here translated to create to mean much more than that. In Hebrew, the word not only means to originate or to start or to create once and for all, but it also means to sustain and to hold and to then maintain. And Paul reiterates this in Colossians, talking to a church plant, by the way, I think it’s always interesting that Paul was talking to church plants like Redeemer, OPC, Pittsburgh. And he’s talking to people, some of them never heard about God, never had a Bible.

And this is what he said. He, meaning Jesus Christ, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, for by him all things were created, things in heaven, things on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by him.

And for him, he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. All things hold together. You want a scientific theory that sort of pulls it all together? Christ is holding it all together. Isn’t that simple? Well, the answer is no. We don’t know how he’s doing it, but he’s doing it.

In the first part of Hebrews it says, in the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets, and in our case it would be through Moses. In many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son, and listen to this extra information that comes, whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom he made the universe.

And God said, the word goes out. In the beginning, God, the Father, and the Spirit was hovering over the form and void in the water, getting ready to go. And God said, the sun is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. Right there, the writer links up the creator and the son and the word and the sustaining power with salvation and the purification of your sin if you believe in him by faith.

So in other words, here’s how it goes. He created on the first day and he sustains all that. And then what he adds to that, he holds together on the second day. And then he maintains that and adds to that on the third day, all the while still creating and sustaining and holding it all together.

In other words, we have a God that’s not merely watching us from a distance, but we have a Lord of the universe who’s ultimately involved in everything, every aspect of all his creation, up to and including the crown of his creation, which is man. And my question always is, what is this God that he’s mindful of me? I’m making that personal. Why does he care about me? Why does he care about you? Or is it a song that says, who is man? He is mindful of him. You know, when I was a little kid, we used to sing this song, he’s got the whole world in his hands. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s pretty simple. Our children can understand that.

That is the God of the Bible. Creation is not left on its own. It will not run down like a watch because our God does not run down. We believe in a God who will sustain us and uphold us and maintain us as long as he wants because he is eternal and he’s from eternity.

I’m going to go to another confession. It’s pretty personal. You know, the Heidelberg Catechism has questions and answers, but they’re personal. Not definitional. Westminster Confession and Shorter Catechism questions are definitional. What is sanctification? What is? But the Heidelberg Catechism says this on the first question, what is your only comfort in life and in death? And the answer is that I. You can make that personal.

I like that. That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who with his precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins and delivered me from all the power of the devil. And this is the part I like.

And so preserves me. that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head, yes, that all things must be subservient, or all things must work, or all things that he sustains and has created and holds together must work for my salvation. Wherefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life. He assures me I’m on the road to heaven. I’m on the road to that Sabbath rest.

You know, I often say, and this is so true, and I didn’t make this up, somebody else told it to me when I was an early Christian, why do we come to worship here? I said, why do we worship? And he said, we’re practicing what we will be doing in heaven forever. I get this question a lot. Pastor Tom, how come we have to go to church twice?

It’s not in the Bible. And I say, you’re right, it’s not. But the elders say that you should. And that you should be there. Because two gospel meals about how you work your way through this journey is good for you. That’s why we go. The elders say it’s good for you. It’s the manna from heaven. It’s the food, it’s the bread of life that we need on this journey.

Now, we come to this passage which we’ve read from Genesis, which sets before us the destiny, the ultimate end of what God created us for. You see, man is not the ultimate goal. There’s a seventh day. Though he is the crown of creation, he’s not the ultimate goal of what God’s plan is. And this is where humanism falls down, because in humanism, man’s the ultimate. The evolutionary crown, as if all life and its destiny were human beings left here on earth to fend for themselves. But that’s not what our Bible verses said from Genesis.

You see, there is a seventh day. The creation has been building up to a climax and it doesn’t end up with man. No, that is not the goal of all creation. The goal of all creation is not merely existent, but the goal of all creation after God had finished his work is this. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.

A day of Sabbath rest. You see, the ultimate goal, Where we’re going, our future destiny, is Sabbath holiness. What is the chief end or the purpose of man but to glorify God and to enjoy him forever? You see, man’s destiny is found in holiness and rest. Going from this life of worry, of turmoil, of anxiety, of lostness, to rest. freedom from tears, freedom from pain, freedom from suffering and sorrow to eternal rest.

You know, sometimes we think of holiness as adhering to a lot of rules. of trying to keep the Ten Commandments was sort of a white-knuckle approach. You know, I’m just holding on, and I’ve got to keep going, and I’m just white-knuckling holiness. With every fiber of our being, we try to keep from being bad. or keep from making the same ugly mistakes we make over and over and over again. But the Lord describes holiness in a completely different way. Holiness is Sabbath rest. Rest in the Lord.

And this is where we are going or should be going in the Christian life. Stop and think about how Jesus described to take commandments. We’re to love God and to love our neighbors. It’s as simple as that, but it’s so hard to do. You see, the Sabbath rest is all about love, the same kind of love the Father has for the Son and the Spirit, the same place that they are. You see, our origin and our destiny is holiness, but how do we get there? That’s the big question. How can we be destined or live life looking to that ultimate goal of holiness. Well, this wouldn’t be a good sermon if I didn’t give you some ways to do it. And this is where the sailor language comes in. I’m gonna tell you three ways you can do it, right from the scripture.

First of all, you can get anchored. Do you know why Anchorage, Alaska is called Anchorage, Alaska? Because that’s where Captain Cook anchored his ship. on the journey that he made in the Western Pacific, where he discovered Hawaii and Alaska, lots of other places too. But you have to get anchored.

Moses told the Israelites, this comes from God, they are to observe the Sabbath. This is in Exodus 31, by the way, listen to this. The Israelites, or God’s people, are to observe the Sabbath. celebrating it for the generations to come as an everlasting or a forever covenant. Way back in the Old Testament, way back in the beginning of God’s people, this command is given. It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever. For in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth. And on the seventh day, he abstained from work and rested.

You’re supposed to take this rest to remind you of where you’re going and what your destiny is. This is your frame of reference. Now, when I was a sailor, I was an operations specialist. And periodically, the navigator would ask me to take a fix. Now, Clarence knows what this is. That means find out where you are. It doesn’t mean go take some drugs. Take a fix means find out where you are. Pinpoint it on the chart.

And if the Sabbath is a part of an everlasting sacred relationship that God set up with his people to call us here to hear from him, to call us to be reminded that it is he that has sustained us, that it’s he that upholds us and maintains us, that it is Jesus Christ by whom and through him and for him we were created. We need to get anchored to that and then to get fixed back to the rock of our salvation.

Where are you with Jesus? The scripture says we have Jesus Christ. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. Where are you today? And then once you get anchored and you take a fix as to where you are, you have to set your course. Now I’m gonna ask you to turn to something that’s pretty familiar. Let’s turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. I think this is a good course setting passage for holiness and rest. Because on this journey, you can get set adrift. You can get off the course. There’s storms along the way. And don’t I remember that?

I also like this passage because everywhere where I see and hear the word love, I think about Jesus. and what he’s done for me. I’m going to begin in 1 Corinthians 13, verse 4. Love is patient. And boy, isn’t Jesus patient with you and me. Love is kind. It does not envy. It doesn’t boast. It is not proud. It is not rude. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no records of wrongs. All that describes me. I want to get back at those people that hurt me. That’s the way I am in my soul, naturally.

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love, meaning Jesus, never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease. Where there are tongues, they will be stilled. Where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and prophesy in part. But when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

We see now, but a poor reflection is in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. It’s like we’re in a fog. You know, when you’re in a fog bank on a big ship, you know what we do to tell people that we’re there? We sound the fog horn, and we ring this little bell. That was my job at first in the Coast Guard, to ring that little bell. Ding, ding, ding, ding, as if somebody’s really going to hear that.

And I can’t see five feet in front of my face. And the radar doesn’t work very good, like everybody thinks. And people are scared. You might hit something. You might be like that big Italian cruise ship and run aground. But they did it in broad daylight or at nighttime.

But you understand what I mean. Now I see, but a poor reflection is in a mirror. Then I shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I will fully know, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain faith, hope, which is faith looking forward to the future, and love. But the greatest of these is love, which is true holiness. You see, life is a journey. It’s like taking a boat out in the fog.

We see but a poor reflection, or maybe should be translated, we see our true destiny dimly. We are moving as Christians in this direction of holiness and rest, but we can’t quite get there. We want to white-knuckle our way through and say, why can’t God see where I want to go? Why won’t he do it the way I want to do it? We are this way. We have lost our moorings. We are drifting away from the rock. And you know why that is? It’s because he’s not at the helm or in charge of our lives. He’s not the captain of our souls.

You see, to set your course for the destination of holiness is what is called letting go and letting God guide you. Let God be at the helm of your life. And he’s given us a wonderful guidebook for that, and it’s called the Bible. Find your peace, your riches, your enjoyment in the Lord. And when you find yourself anxious, rude, envious, self-centered, thinking on wicked things, find rest in him because he never fails.

His love is new every morning, which brings me to the third way to move toward your destiny. I’m just going to tell you the truth. You have to make headway. Now, what is headway? That’s a nautical term. It means you have to give an effort, and then you see progress along the way. It’s called headway.

As you are reminded every Sunday, as you set your sights on your plans, on the future, you have to make an effort to put God in there. To make Jesus the pilot, the captain, the maintainer of your life, you and I have to consistently refocus, take a fix on where we are, and then make course corrections so that our journey through the fog of life becomes clearer and clearer.

Which brings me to Hebrews chapter four, verse nine. Don’t you just love the Bible? If you study it, you find these answers. And you find more meaning. And you understand why Genesis is so important. Why it’s the gospel and the foundation for all we believe. In verse nine of Hebrews four, it says, there remains then a Sabbath rest for God’s people. For everyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.

Wow, that’s where we’re going. I like verse 11. A lot of people think as Calvinists, we don’t really have to do much. God’s kind of doing it all. But the Bible is a little bit different. It says something like this, let us therefore make every effort. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following their example, meaning those who are God’s people of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart.

And that’s why you have it. And that’s why you need to use it every week. And that’s why you have to come back here and be reminded what your destiny is. And that’s why you have a guide. that can cut right through all of your lies, that can cut right through whatever the people in our culture are saying and it goes straight to the heart and gets you back on your course towards your destiny to heaven.

You can read his word. You can pray and talk to him and you can get with other people that love him too. You see, the journey towards our destiny is a busy one. It’s an active one. And there are all kinds of storms along the way. But we have a God who’s intimately involved, who is driving this creation toward the ultimate goal of rest. And you and I are on his boat. Wow. Who is he that he’s mindful of me? You need to say that to yourself. That’s how mighty a God we have. He is the sustainer, but he’s also the savior. He always protects you. There’s always trust, there’s always hopes, there’s always perseverance, Jesus never fails.

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see him face to face. We’re practicing now what we will be doing in heaven forever. Now I know in part because I have the Bible, and then I shall fully know, even as I am fully known by him, And now these three things remain as we journey, faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. That’s our blessing, that before the world began, he loved us and set us on this course.

And what is the purpose of our lives but to glorify God and enjoy him forever? That is the final destination of the Christian. What is your only joy and comfort in this life journey? Yet, even in death, what is your joy and comfort? And that is that you end up in heaven with him, where there is yet that great Sabbath rest. Amen. Our final hymn this evening Psalm 98a. Oh, sing a new psalm to the Lord. And I see my brother has picked all seven verses, so we’ll stand and sing them. Number 98.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

February 5, 2012
The Firstborn of Mary

About this sermon

Jacob’s blessing promised that the scepter would not depart from Judah until the one comes to whom it belongs. In Luke 2, Caesar’s census brings Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, the city of David, and Mary gives birth to her firstborn son and lays him in a manger. By then Israel had shrunk to Judah, under foreign rule, yet God was keeping his promise to David. “Firstborn” marks Jesus as the heir of all things, and Bethlehem, the “house of bread,” receives the bread from heaven.

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Sermon transcript

little bit later Let us start Genesis 49 starting at 8 and let us read on through 12 Judah Your brothers shall praise you Your right hand shall be on the neck of your enemies Your father’s sons shall bow to you Judah is a lion’s whelp From the prey, my son, you have gone up.

He couches, he lies down as a lion. And as a lion, who dares rouse him up? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet until Shiloh comes. And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. He ties his foal to the vine, and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine. He washes his garments in wine, and his robes in the blood of grapes. His eyes are dull from wine, and his teeth white from milk. That ends the reading of the Old Testament. Let us turn to Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter 2 reading the first seven verses.

Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David. in order to register, along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was with child. While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son. And she wrapped him in clothes, in cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Amen, and praise the Lord, let us pray. Our gracious God, we have joyed in listening to what you have spoken to us by the red word. Help us to take joy as well. In the expounding of this, your word, we ask that you would give us all reverence for your word. For when a king speaks, People listen, they give their attention. And when we read your word, you, the king, are speaking to us. May we give reverence to the word in that way. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Psalm 130, excuse me, Psalm 119, 130 reads, the unfolding of your words gives light. I want you to just meditate on that for a moment. The unfolding of your words gives light. It is a commentary on God’s word, that God’s word is as a garment that is small, but it unfolds so that we might see the whole thing. Think of a towel or think of any sort of garment that can be folded up, but it can be opened It’s a similar word that is being used.

This certainly is the case. God’s Word is something that unfolds for us before our eyes. The more we read it, the more we understand it, the more we sit under the ministry of God’s Word, the more we understand that God is unraveling this for us. And we are able to see all that He is doing and all that He has done. There is a progression to the Word of our God. And this progression is encapsulated in these glorious words, the unfolding of your words gives life. Right before our eyes, God’s Word is unfolding for us.

It is allowing us to see it in all of its grandeur. And it is unfolding for Joseph. It is unfolding for Mary. And we’ll see tonight, it is unfolding for the angels as well as the shepherds. This story is very familiar to us. But we must look at it with fresh eyes and we must understand the way that God, the Lord, the creator of all things is working behind the scenes in great ways. The time that we find our passage is the time during the reign of Caesar Augustus. And I know that means a lot to you. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it doesn’t. If it’s not, if it doesn’t mean a lot, that is okay.

We don’t tend to know our Caesars all that well. Who was Caesar Augustus? He is one who was a Caesar, that is, the ruler over all of the then-known world. But to help us understand a little bit of Caesar Augustus, it might be good for us to compare Caesar Augustus with another man.

Another man. His name is Herod. Turn with me to Luke chapter 1, verse 5. Someone who is very familiar to us. Herod is a regional ruler. In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. In the days of Herod, But it’s also in the days of Caesar Augustus. Now, what are we to think about this?

Caesar is the king of the world at that time. And Herod is the king of just a small area. Just Judea. He is a king within a kingdom. Imagine Herod is like a mayor or like a governor compared to Caesar Augustus being president. Think of it this way. Herod was an utterly wicked man. He was the nastiest of the nasty.

You may know the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew. What happens there? This same Herod that Luke 1, 5 talks about is talked about in Matthew’s Gospel. And there, he finds out that the wise men understand that there’s a king and the scribes know, oh yeah, the king is supposed to be born in Jerusalem, in Bethlehem of Judea, rather. So what does he do? He realizes this could be a rival of his.

And so he has all of the infants, who are male, under the age of two, he has them put to death. We’re talking about a brutal man. Very brutal. He was so brutal and so nasty, he was willing to kill his children. And he did, many times. There was a proverb at that time about Herod. They used to say, you know, you’re better off being Herod’s pig than his son. Just to give you an idea of the horrible nature of this man. We can talk about malevolent Herod. We also can talk about benevolent Augustus. Augustus Caesar was a good man in one sense. He was not a Christian. He was not a believer. We have no reason to think that he went anywhere but into eternal destruction. But humanly speaking, He was not as nasty as Herod.

He was a relatively good man. He was the grand-nephew of Julius Caesar. And his original name was Gaius Augustus. And he reigned for about 41 years. He was known for his organizational ability. And he was also known for his leniency. He was a lenient man, what I mean by lenient. When he would conquer other areas and other nations, he would allow them to have a little bit of their cultural and their religious ideas. He would allow them to preserve them. He wouldn’t rob them of those and take them away and Romanize them immediately. He was lenient in those way. He allowed people to have their identity.

And this Caesar Augustus, who was a great organizer, who did many things, is seeking to advance his kingdom. And so he calls for all people in the known world, that is the conquered world, outside of the conquered world, they’re just barbarians, they don’t need to worry about them anyways. within the known and conquered world, everyone has to go to their hometown, they have to register. They need to register so that they might be taxed, so that he might advance his kingdom. God is working behind the scenes of the actions of this one Augustus Caesar.

But there’s just one problem. That is, Mary is pregnant with a child. And she has heard the revelations. She has praised God already because she understands that she’s going to give birth to the Messiah. But she gave birth to a real baby. Which means she struggled with all the difficulties of pregnancy that any other woman would have. But nonetheless, they must have, they must be there. But do you understand the way that God is working behind the scenes here?

Because she’s not going to Bethlehem. There’s no reason for them to go to Bethlehem. Bethlehem is very far away. But the prophecy of Micah 5.2 says, But you, O Bethlehem, Ephrathah, Ephrathah is just the region in which Bethlehem is, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah. From you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is of old, from ancient days. The prophecy says that God is going to be born in Bethlehem.

But they’re so far away. But they must make the journey. They must make the trek because of this decree that goes out. So here you have a king, a Caesar, who’s just advancing his kingdom. That’s all he thinks he’s doing, but God is working behind the scenes. Here you have these parents who, they’re going to have a baby, but God is working behind the scenes, ordering things, structuring things, so that they will go and be in Bethlehem, maybe even oblivious to this prophecy. They’re simply seeking to be obedient parents. That’s all they’re seeking to be. But there are also other people who are working. and God is working behind the scenes.

You know a little bit about the history of Israel. It was a very large country, a large nation, not compared with some other nations, and that’s understandable, but it was very large, but after a couple of takeovers, that is to say, some major nations took a lot of the people from Israel and they took them to their own nations. So this once great nation is only Judah now. Just Judah and a couple of surrounding areas, but the majority of it is Judah.

They have suffered the loss of ten tribes. Ten tribes are mostly lost. They really are. But Judah is still there. So that which was Israel at one time, this large area, is now just so small. It’s just the tribe of Judah because all the tribes had their own areas, right? Israel is in Judah and Judah is Israel. All the rest are lost. And do you think that that was something that caused great pride to be in the people who were Jewish? Certainly it was not. They were losing their country.

I mean, what would you think if all, to use a common grace example, if all the rest of the states were taken away and all there was was Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is the United States. The United States is Pennsylvania. That’s the idea of what’s going on here.

The earthly Israel, the earthly Judah is slipping away. Do you think that this taxation is significant to them? You bet it is. This taxation that’s coming from the Caesar is to show them that they are no longer sovereign over themselves. that there is another nation that is greater than them. And they are trying to hold on to this, but it is being taken away.

Turn with me to Genesis 49 verse 10, that part that we read. Remember the context of Genesis 49 verse 10. Jacob is blessing the sons, his own sons, who are eventually to be the twelve tribes. And he says very interesting things to all twelve of them.

But the greatest interest is for Judah. Because he speaks of Judah being like an enemy. And he speaks of Judah being the leader. And Judah holds the scepter. That is to say, he holds the power. but there’s an until. Notice the until, after we read, the scepter, that is the kingship, shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet. This is something that invokes confidence.

Judah is going to hold supremacy until Shiloh comes. And to him shall be the obedience of the people until Shiloh comes. And what is Shiloh or who is Shiloh? Shiloh is the peacemaker. Jesus is the peacemaker because he is the Prince of Peace. You understand how explicit of a prophecy this is, of the Lord Jesus Christ, that Judah will be maintained, it will be strengthened, until Shiloh comes. The Jews are trying to hold on to their nation, because the last vestiges of Judah are still remaining, but Shiloh has come, which means they are going to be passing away as well.

This verse is so explicit that do you know that some Hebrew manuscripts make a couple of emendations, just a couple of changes. You might look in the bottom of your Bible and see that an alternate reading could be that Judah will rule until he comes to whom it belongs. What does that mean? It’s just a change that they’ve made to get rid of the explicit, Christocentric, messianic reference that is found in Genesis.

All these people. We have people trying to hold on to their nation. God’s working behind the scenes there. We have a man who is king, who is Caesar. He is just trying to advance his kingdom. And God is orchestrating things so that this little child will be found in Bethlehem of Judea. All things are converging and God is showing that all people are simply instruments in His hands. That the things that they are doing are not the things that they think that they are doing.

And while they were there in Bethlehem, Jesus was born. And Jesus is born a king. Jesus is born king of kings. He does not, later on, take on kingship. He is born and is king at his birth, as the hymn says. Jesus, Lord, at thy birth. Jesus Christ is God Almighty at his birth.

Jesus Christ is fully God, and Jesus Christ is fully man. Divinity dwells in humanity in the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is no mixing of these. There’s no confusion of these. The Westminster Confession, using a Chalcedonian, or Council of Chalcedon language, says it this way, so that the two whole perfect and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person without conversion. without composition or confusion. Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, and these two are united in a beautiful way, but the divine nature does not squeeze out the human nature, nor the human squeeze out the divine.

Jesus Christ is fully God and He is fully man. And this is a great mystery, even a greater mystery than the way that God is working behind the scenes. This is a great mystery of great proportions. Martin Luther says, the mystery of Christ, that he sunk himself into our flesh, is beyond all human understanding. Do you have a sense of the awe of the Lord Jesus Christ being born fully God and fully man of this day?

It is true that Christ was born in the first century, yet he belongs to all centuries. He was born a Jew, yet he belongs to all races. He was born in Bethlehem, yet He belongs to all countries. He was infinite, and He was an infant. He was eternal, and yet born of a woman. He was almighty, yet hanging on a woman’s breast. He was supporting the universe, Jesus was, and yet needing to be carried in a mother’s arms. He was king of angels, and yet the reputed son of Joseph. He was heir of all things, And yet he was a despised carpenter’s son.

Do you have a sense of the mystery and the awe of God becoming a man, indwelling man? Solomon said, how can God, how can you be in a temple? God is going to dwell in a temple. How can you do that? The heaven of heavens cannot contain you. You are so great. You’re gonna be in a temple? How much more? The heaven of heavens cannot contain our God. But there’s a mystery here. He is in a man, but it’s greater than that. He is in a baby. And we are told that she wrapped him in cloths. Elsewhere you can see that he was wrapped in swaddling clothes. Just to show how humble this one who was born is.

He’s not washed immediately and wrapped in the most amazing grand glorious robe There’s a Herod in the book of Acts, a man who wears an amazing, glittering robe. So amazing, people thought he was God because of this amazing robe that he wore. And God struck him down because he didn’t give glory to God. That happens in the book of Acts.

But here’s Jesus, meek and mild and sweet as any baby. A boy of poverty. And where is he placed? He is laid in a manger. Basically a trough for animals to eat out of. He was laid in a place that I don’t think any baby has ever been laid. I think I’m pretty safe on that. Jesus at his birth was laid where no one has been placed.

But does that sound familiar to us? Did Jesus come simply to live? Did he come simply to be born so that we might shop more? No, that’s not the reason. Jesus was born so that he might die. so that he might die to atone for sinners, so that all of humanity would not enter into a fiery eternity. He underwent the fiery eternity for his people on the cross so that his people would not have to endure that. That is his people, those who are confessing, believing in him, loving the Lord Jesus Christ because he has first loved us. But when he was crucified, he died in a literal body.

And he was laid once again in cloth, in a place that no one has ever inhabited. What is that place? 53 reads, thusly, and he took it down, that is, took the body and wrapped it in linen cloth. Does that sound familiar? And laid him in a tomb cut into the rock where no one had ever been laid.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, both in his birth and his death, is wrapped and he is set down. But that’s not the only thing that our Lord Jesus is wrapped in. Psalm 104 verse two tells us that our God wraps himself in light. Think about that for a moment. Our God, the Creator of all things, takes light for Himself. That’s to say that He is sovereign over light, and He is able to wrap Himself in it.

Jesus Christ and His humiliation is wrapped in human-made clothing. But in His resurrection, Jesus Christ is wrapped in that most pure of substances, that undefilable of earthly substance, which is light, and He is able to wrap Himself in it. Glorious. Just to show how glorious is our King Jesus. And we have just a taste of that. in the transfiguration. Understand that Jesus Christ is wrapped in light at his transfiguration when a couple of his disciples are there, a few I should say, and he’s up on the mountain and Moses and Elijah come and they appear and his clothing is so bright that nothing could make it, nothing could dye it that bright, that bright white.

Light is coming from him. This is Jesus Christ wrapped and laid down in his humanity and in his humiliation he is wrapped. But in his exaltation he is closed with light. never to be laid down again, but eternally to sit as king, interceding for his people and ruling over his people, the people that he loves with all of his heart and also that he loves with his body, dying for them, dying the most horrible, gruesome death on the cross and undergoing the father’s wrath on the cross. He is exalted, wrapping himself in light. He will not sit. He will not lie down any longer. And Jesus Christ, the glorious one, is the firstborn of Mary.

Did you notice that it said that? The firstborn. This word, firstborn. in the Greek is a significant word of great significance. Prototokos is the word. I just love the way it sounds. Prototokos. He is the firstborn of Mary. But this word does not simply mean firstborn. chronologically born. It does mean that. I want you to understand. It means the first one who is chronologically born. We take any family, the first one, the one who is born first is the prototakos. He is the one who is born first.

But it also has another meaning. It has a double meaning. It’s a double entendre, or a double entente, as some would say. It really also means the preeminent one, the glorious one. Now, I don’t think that the dual meaning of that word is lost on Dr. Luke the Evangelist when he writes this. I think he’s very well aware of what it means to say that he’s got a double meaning going on. That he is the first one born of Mary, but he is also the preeminent one because Luke understands the kingship of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You can simply turn to Colossians 1.15, but I’ll tell you what it says.

Anyways, speaking of Jesus Christ, it says, He is the firstborn of all creation. This is speaking about Jesus in His pre-incarnate self. He is firstborn over all creation. He is the preeminent one because all things were created by Jesus and all things were created for Jesus. That is why He is Proto-Tochos, firstborn over all creation. He is firstborn at His birth and in His incarnation. We have that in Luke.

In Colossians 1.18 it gives another sense to firstborn. And this is also a sense that has to do with being the first one to do something very special.

Colossians 1.18, Jesus Christ is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things, he himself might be preeminent. You understand?

This preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ, his kingship, It pertains not only to his pre-incarnate state, not only to his incarnate state, but also to his post-incarnate resurrection state that Jesus Christ is preeminent as firstborn from the dead, and that is resurrected Jesus Christ is. And this is very significant. And we must not miss the significance of these things. That Jesus is preeminent above all things.

Was Jesus Christ the first person to be raised from the dead? No. You know that’s not the case. There are times in the Old Testament where people are raised from the dead. Jesus raises people from the dead, does he not? He raises people from the dead.

They’re not the first, so he’s not the first, is he? No, he is the preeminent one who is raised in a great way, raised eternally. He is raised into a body that will never die. And we who are united to the Lord Jesus Christ by faith are also going to be raised into a body that will never die. Do you understand how great Jesus Christ is? The firstborn, the preeminent one, how amazingly great He is.

Think of Psalm chapter 89 verse 27. If we had had one more psalm or a hymn, I would have had us sing it. I just couldn’t fit it in. It says that David will be the firstborn. David will be the firstborn. You know about the story of David? Was David the firstborn of his family? We know that he was the brother of many brothers. Three of them were so cowardly that would just attack him. when Goliath is taunting the Hebrew men, right? And rather than go and attack the giant, they’ll just attack their brother, right? He is the youngest, but Psalm 89, 27 says that David will be the firstborn. that David that he’s talking about is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the David that the Old Testament is looking forward to.

And they go there to be registered. Where do they go to be registered? Bethlehem. What does Bethlehem mean? You understand, the irony of God’s word Where’s Bethlehem? The city of bread. Bethlehem is the city of bread. The one that we will partake of. The Lord Jesus Christ, who is bread from heaven, is born in the city of bread. The house of bread. That is where he is born. The ironies do not stop there. The amazing things that we can just unfold God’s word and look at, they do not stop there. They continue. Here we have Mary and Joseph going to be enrolled.

And there they have their firstborn. Brothers and sisters, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, do you trust in Jesus Christ and Him alone for your salvation? Are you united to the Lord Jesus Christ today? If you are united to the Lord Jesus Christ, then you are one with the firstborn and you are registered. you are enrolled in a city that is not of human making.

Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 12, 22, and 23. This glorious passage, Hebrews 12, 22 and 23. I really wish I could show you what it even says in Greek. You know, I think of these churches that have big screens behind the pastor. And I’m not an advocate of that. But sometimes I say, I just wish I could show what Luke says and what the non-Pauline writer of Hebrews says. If I could show you what he says and show the words and put them up. Look at this, the irony. This is speaking of you and your registry and your being one with the firstborn.

It says, you who are united to Christ, but you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven. Do you understand that oftentimes God gives these pictures of things going on on earth when there are these heavenly realities that are given to us. The earthly picture, just this one, this family who unsuspectingly has to go be registered because of this Caesar. They’re just going there unsuspectingly, but God is working in the secret He’s working behind the scenes, and these people are being registered so they can be taxed, and they have their firstborn. But you, the people of God, make a much lighter journey.

You don’t have to walk to Mount Zion, Jerusalem, pregnant with the firstborn. The firstborn has already come to you. He has been given to you by grace as a gift from God. And because of this firstborn, this preeminent one, the prototokos one, who is the one who is above all creation because he is preeminent above creation because he made everything, born of a woman, born under law, this one who is prototokos because he is raised, because he is resurrected, he is yours and you are enrolled in heaven, not so that you can be taxed, but so that God will show you grace for eternity, so that you might spend all of eternity and want to spend all of eternity on your face before the living God, praising and worshiping him because he has been so gracious to you.

Because heaven is a place of love. And if we are united to Christ, then we are there with the firstborn. Is it not amazing the way that God’s Word unfolds for us? It unfolds before our eyes. It unfolded before Mary and before Joseph. Jesus Christ is folded, folded up, placed in a manger. He is folded up, placed in a grave. But the light of God’s Word is unfolded before our eyes. And Jesus, our Savior, who loved us so much, is clothed in light. He wraps himself in it. Let us praise Him. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, help us, oh God, to have an understanding of the kingship of Jesus.

Help us to understand the ways that he is Lord, that he is Lord of all things in all times over every epoch of history. and concerning us and our salvation and our being saved from the fire which is to come on all ungodly unbelievers. Lord, we mourn the death of the unbeliever because we know what it means. But we praise you because precious in your sight is the death of your saints. We thank you, Lord, that you have given us an understanding that we do not need to simply read your word in a flat manner, but that it opens to us.

And just when we are amazed by it, it opens more and it opens more. We peel away layer after layer. The unfolding of your word does give light. In Jesus’ name, amen. Let us turn to 152. 152 in the blue hymnal. O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by. 152. Let us stand as we sing 152.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

December 25, 2011
Blasphemy and the Age to Come

About this sermon

Genesis 6 records the sons of God taking the daughters of men just before the flood, a time of heightened evil and demonic activity before judgment. The gospels likewise record an outburst of demonic activity when Christ comes, because the kingdom of God has arrived and Christ binds the strong man. When the scribes say Jesus casts out demons by Beelzebul and has an unclean spirit, he warns that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven in the age to come. The church is called to persevere in faith.

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Sermon transcript

If you would turn with me to the book of Mark, the book of Mark chapter 3. Mark chapter 3, verses 20 through 30. And if you keep your place there, if you would also turn with me to Genesis chapter 5, verse 28. Genesis chapter five, verse 28 through chapter six, verse eight. Hear the word of the Lord.

Lamech lived 182 years and became the father of a son. Now he called his name Noah saying, this one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed. Then Lamech lived 595 years after he became the father of Noah and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Lamech were 777 years and he died. Noah was 500 years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Now it came about when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the Lord said, my spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh. Nevertheless, his days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. The Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things, and to birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

And now Mark chapter three, verses 20 through 30. And he came home and the crowd gathered again to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. When his own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of him, for they were saying he has lost his senses. The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, he is possessed by Beelzebul, and he casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons. And he called them to himself and began speaking to them in parables.

How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished. But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.

Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin, because they were saying, he has an unclean spirit. The word of the Lord. At the end of God’s making all things of nothing, he saw everything that he had made and declared it to be very good.

But a question arises, from where then does evil come? Interestingly, when God speaks light into being, verse four of Genesis chapter one says that God saw that the light was good. God saw that the light was good. After this, he separates the light from the darkness. But God never declares the darkness good. And the text carefully ensures that the reader does not mistake this. But nevertheless, at the end, God does look at all that he has made and declares it to be very good. For this reason, many have said that God did not create the darkness, did not ordain evil, but that the darkness has forever been opposite to God. But the scriptures will not tolerate such a view. God will not tolerate such a view.

Isaiah chapter 45 verses five and seven say, I am the Lord and there is no other. Besides me, there is no God. I form a light and create darkness. I make well-being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. God created the darkness as well as the light. He is sovereign over all things. He is Lord over all, over the darkness and the light, and he is working all things according to the purpose of his will. The creation account presents us with a mystery. A very good creation in which darkness dwells.

But perhaps we can understand better God’s declaration of all things very good if we recognize that what follows this declaration is God’s entering into His rest. His resting on the seventh day. His resting on the Sabbath day. The New Testament will insist that our entering into God’s rest is our entering into the age to come, and that that rest is characterized by a triumph, by the triumph of the kingdom of God over evil, a kingdom in which righteousness alone dwells.

God’s declaration at the end of his creative activity and his subsequent entering into his rest is the promise that the darkness and evil which exist in the world will at its end be overcome. This is exactly what John’s vision of the new heaven and new earth describes to us in Revelation chapter 21 verse 25. There will be no night there. There will be no night there. And verse 26, nothing unclean will ever enter it.

And this vision was the hope of Adam in the garden. It was the hope of Adam in the garden prior to the fall Darkness was in the world. Prior to the fall, Satan was at work. And as you very well know, part of Adam’s obedience to God was for him to cast out of God’s sanctuary the serpent, whatever was unclean. Adam’s mission then, to bring mankind into a higher state of blessedness, into God’s eternal rest, included the triumph of the kingdom of God over the kingdom of Satan.

The one represented by Adam, the son of God, the other by the serpent. History is about the question. History is about the question, who will rule the world? From the beginning of creation, this has been the question. of the scriptures give clear testimony to its answer, as evident in God’s pronouncement upon entering his rest. All very good, as evident in John’s vision when we shall also enter his rest.

But Adam failed his mission, failed his purpose, and plunged mankind into an estate of sin and misery. not into an estate of glory. Subjected the creation to the rule of sin, to the rule of Satan and the kingdom of darkness. How then does the kingdom of God triumph over the kingdom of Satan? You know this very well also, God’s promise after the fall, I will put enmity between you, the serpent and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. The one to come will not fail as Adam failed.

And what God, Adam’s purpose was in the garden, what Adam’s purpose was in the garden is made explicit in the description of his offspring’s purpose, to overcome the serpent and his offspring, to destroy the kingdom of Satan, to bring the creation to its proper goal. All very good. This is the broadest biblical context for understanding the coming of Christ, to deliver the people of God from the kingdom of Satan. And so it is the context for our passage in Mark this morning.

But more must be said. for the battle between these two kingdoms of God and of Satan run throughout the scriptures. It is at work in Israel’s exodus out of Egypt, out of the kingdom of Pharaoh. It is at work in Israel’s conquest of the land of Canaan. It is at work in the conflict between David and Saul over the throne.

There is not one point in redemptive history There is not one point in redemptive history where this conflict is not waging in the background. Though for most of redemptive history, it is implicit, not explicit. For most of redemptive history, it is veiled to be understood, though not seen, which is what makes Mark unique.

For the kingdom of Satan becomes very visible and the activity recognized as demonic. The kingdom of Satan becomes very visible and the activity recognized as demonic. And it really is not until the Gospels that this activity is so explicitly manifested. And we must ask why?

Why is it that demonic activity is so explicitly revealed in the Gospels and nowhere else? Most in our day would attribute the supernatural activity in the Gospels to the unscientific, misguided worldview of its authors, attributing to demons what we know as diagnosable physical and mental disease. but it is they who are misguided. Read your Old Testament. Demonic possession appears very rarely throughout its pages, just as miracles appear very rarely in the Old Testament outside of the ministries of Moses and Elijah and Elisha. And the gospel writers self-consciously distinguish between physical and mental disease and explicit spiritual oppression.

Why then does what is implicit throughout the Old Testament, why does it become explicit at the beginning of the New? It would be helpful here to recognize those places in the Old Testament that are explicit. Those places in which demonic activity is explicit.

The first is as we have already seen in the garden after creation. Satan manifests himself as the serpent and enters into direct conflict with God’s son, Adam. He does not manifest himself this way again until his confrontation with Jesus, the Son of God, the second Adam in the wilderness. Moving on in Genesis, we come to a second place of heightened demonic activity.

The very enigmatic opening verses of chapter six, which we have read. This passage is rather difficult and is subject to various interpretations concerning the identity of the sons of God. And I know you are probably familiar with them, but I will briefly mention them to you. The two most popular identifications are either one, fallen angels, or two, the offspring of the woman, the descendants of Seth. a third more recent interpretation as that the sons of God are tyrannical kings of the earth who abuse their divine given status.

Thus, verse two, they seized as their wives any that they chose. Throughout the scripture, this is a signature of the kings of this earth, a king like the nations. We see this at work later in Genesis, when two different pagan kings seize the wife of Abraham for their harem. And furthermore, none of the angels, godly or demonic, marry as Jesus affirms in Mark chapter 12, verse 25.

The sons of God here in Genesis then, are clearly human. But the title, Sons of God, elsewhere in Scripture clearly refers to heavenly beings, as in the opening of Job, when the sons of God presented themselves before the Lord, and Satan was among them. And in the New Testament, both Jude and 2 Peter affirm the involvement of the angels in this episode in Genesis 6. The difficulty in identifying demonic involvement in Genesis chapter six is that the issue is the increasing corruption of man. So that you say that the sons of God were angels is to interrupt, is to interrupt the downward spiral of man into sin through supernatural involvement. But consider, Consider first that such supernatural involvement, as we have already said, is presupposed behind every event in redemptive history, as the kingdoms of God and Satan wage war. Furthermore, we are not saying here that the sons of God in Genesis chapter six are fallen angels, but are tyrant kings who have usurped their heavenly function for corruption. They are so enslaved to sin and to the powers of darkness that they are called by that name. So that we may join the first and third views and say that they are men who are possessed.

And this does not lessen their guilt any more than Satan’s entering into Judas and Luke chapter 22 lessens Judas’ guilt, but confirms it, confirms his desire to betray the Son of God, to hand him over. Satan did not possess him against his will, but in agreement with his will, just as the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was in perfect agreement with Pharaoh’s desire. Judas’ possession is the open manifestation of his identifying himself with the seed of the serpent. So also in Genesis chapter six, the tyrant kings possessed by the sons of God is the confirmation of their identity with the seed of Satan.

We saw this at the beginning of chapter three in Mark. Those who fall down before Jesus, confessing him as the Son of God, are called demons, because it is the demons who are at work through them. So also the tyrant kings are called sons of God, because of the wicked angelic beings who are at work through them. Now I do not say this as though it is the only valid interpretation of these very difficult verses. But I find this interpretation to satisfy all of the evidence.

And it also helps us to answer why there is an outburst of demonic possession and activity at the moment of Jesus’ arrival in history. Consider again what immediately precedes Genesis chapter six, the birth of Noah. and the hope that this seed of the woman would bring rest to the people of God. Noah is born at the end of the world that then was. Through him, God brings into being a new creation. What follows is exactly what we might expect, an increased manifestation of the kingdom of Satan against the purpose of God. A manifestation which ends in judgment for the world, the offspring of the serpent, and salvation for God’s people, the offspring of the woman.

And this is why the common interpretation of the sons of God as the offspring of the woman, co-mingling with the offspring of the serpent, is the least satisfactory of the views, since it is Noah as the offspring of the woman who is saved, who finds favor in the eyes of the Lord, and whom God delights. The line between the two kingdoms is not blurred, but differentiated, distinguished. What is Genesis 6 telling us? What is Genesis chapter 6 telling us?

It is at the end of creation, at the end of history, that the kingdom of Satan openly manifests itself against the Lord and against His anointed, against the offspring of the woman. against the one in whom God is pleased. You have the coming of the one who will give his people rest together with heightened demonic activity in the world followed by divine judgment and the end of that world and the beginning of another. This is exactly what we see. and Jesus’ ministry on earth. The coming of the favored one, together with heightened demonic activity and the announcement that the kingdom of God is at hand. The age to come is at hand. Genesis 6 then is a picture not only of the final judgment, not only of the final judgment, but also of the coming servant of the Lord in whom God is well pleased.

And the powers that oppose him, against whom he must battle, not against the powers of flesh and blood as Ephesians says, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness. against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And we see this again in the Old Testament, in King Saul, who opposes David, a man after God’s own heart. in whom God delights, Saul opposes the rightful son of God’s ascent to the throne to rule over the people of God. 1 Samuel 16, verse 14 tells us, the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord terrorized him. The kingdom of darkness is at work in Saul. And as we are on the verge of the enthronement and exaltation of the son of God as king, the powers of darkness are made more openly manifest as Satan in Saul rages against the Lord and against his anointed, strives to overthrow his purpose to give his son an eternal throne. What is said of David’s son Solomon in first Kings chapter five, but that he had rest on every side with neither adversary nor misfortune.

The kingdom of darkness at work to prevent God’s people from entering into his rest. The revelation of demonic activity is a sign that the end is near, a sign of the drawing near of the age to come. And this is why in the ministry of Jesus on earth, there is a revelation of demonic activity as never before in the history of the world.

For God has come in Christ to crush the head of the serpent under his foot. To put an end to the kingdom of Satan. And Mark has made perfectly clear that this is Jesus’ identity. Has made perfectly clear that this is Jesus’ purpose and function. anointed with the Spirit at his baptism, tempted by Satan in the wilderness, confessed by demons to be the Son of God, there is no question that in Jesus, the fullness of time has come. That in Jesus, the fullness of God’s salvation has come.

In Jesus, the servant of the Lord has come to bind the strong man, and to plunder his house.” Jesus has come to bind the strong man and to plunder his house. Our passage in Mark is alluding here to Isaiah chapter 49 verses 24 through 26. Isaiah chapter 49, verses 24 through 26.

Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued? For thus says the Lord, even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be rescued. For I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children. I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine. Then all flesh shall know that I am the Lord, your savior and your redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob.

God’s restoration of Israel. His bringing them out of captivity in a new exodus is described in Isaiah chapter 49 as the Lord contending against and plundering his people’s enemies that all flesh might know and acknowledge that the Lord is their Savior and Redeemer. Jesus’ ministry in Mark begins this way. announcing the rule of God and casting out demons.

What is he doing but conquering the true enemy of Israel, not the kingdom of Rome, but the kingdom of darkness. Jesus binds the strong man and plunders his house, thereby revealing himself to be the Lord come in the flesh, the savior and redeemer of Jacob. But what do the sons of Jacob say of him? What do the sons of Jacob say of him? He is possessed by Satan, and by the ruler of demons, he casts out demons. They attribute to the clearly manifested work of God, the work of Satan.

At this point, Jesus begins to speak to them how? He begins to speak to them in parables, verse 23. This is the first mention of parables in Mark, and they play an extremely important function. Jesus’ response to the scribes’ unbelief is to begin to speak to them in parables, which is a judgment upon them, as Mark will later explain in chapter four, that seeing they may not perceive, and hearing they may not understand, lest they repent and be forgiven.

Jesus speaks in parables as a judgment upon the scribe’s refusal to acknowledge the fullness of God in Christ. As a judgment upon their accusation against the spirit of God in Christ to be the spirit of Satan. But as Jesus makes clear, Satan’s kingdom cannot be divided against itself. and the binding of Satan’s power can only be explained as the fulfillment of God’s purpose in history, to crush the serpent under his offspring’s feet.

Jesus says next in verse 28, truly, which is a translation of the word Amen. We say Amen in testimony of our trust and the promises of God and what he has spoken. But Jesus never uses Amen to confirm something spoken, but to introduce what he will speak. His word is It’s authority. And with authority, Jesus makes known that all will be forgiven, the sons of men, their sins and blasphemies.

But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit does not have forgiveness into eternity, but is guilty of an eternal sin. This sin is identified in verse 30 as the scribe’s saying, he has an unclean spirit. The word for eternity here is the same word for age. Eternity in the New Testament is one and the same with the age to come. The sin that will not be forgiven in eternity is the sin that will not be forgiven in the age to come. It is the sin of that age.

In Christ, the age to come has arrived. In Christ, the fullness of redemption has come. To reject the work of God in Christ, to blaspheme his spirit as the spirit of Satan, is to reject the age to come. It is to blaspheme Christ, the life-giving spirit. That is what Paul calls him in 1 Corinthians 15. By his resurrection from the dead and entrance into the age to come, the second Adam is a life-giving spirit. To call the Spirit of God in Christ, to call the Spirit of God given by Christ, to call this a work of Satan is to reject the Lord of the age to come.

For this, for this, there will be no forgiveness. I do not mistake this to mean that anyone who has ever rejected the gospel has thereby committed the sin that cannot be forgiven. For the scribes here in Mark have hardened their hearts against Jesus to the point of calling the Spirit of God clearly set before them, the Spirit of Satan. Before you in this passage is a visible manifestation of those who have hardened themselves beyond the point of repentance, who have rejected the revelation of God in Christ, after whom there is no other, no other name among men by which we might be saved.

By blaspheming the Holy Spirit, the scribes unite themselves with the kingdom of darkness and will ultimately achieve their purpose to destroy the Christ when they crucify the Lord of glory. but it is through the cross. It is through the cross that Jesus binds the strong man. It is through the cross that he plunders the strong man’s house when he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in it. the binding of the strong man, the plundering of Satan, the crushing of his head, was through the death and resurrection of God’s Son, through which you have been set free. Even as Noah had to pass through the waters of judgment even as Noah had to pass through the waters of judgment, so also the Christ had to pass through the final judgment to enter the age to come, to enter God’s rest, to prepare for us the way.

He came at the end of time. He came at the end of time, marked by the greatest visible manifestation of Satan’s kingdom. But through the suffering of God’s wrath, he won the victory by resurrection from the dead. Through the bruising of his heel, he crushed the serpent’s head.

And as you follow him along this way, as you follow him along this way, bruised and afflicted, you too have the assurance that the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet, will soon bring you into his rest, in which no darkness dwells, which is all very good.

But woe to that one. Woe to that one. who has tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come and says of it, it is the power of Satan, it is deception, it is falsehood. If you reject this word, If you reject Christ, the life-giving Spirit, you reject His Holy Spirit that accompanies this Word, the Spirit of the age to come. The Spirit of the age to come, and in that age, there will be for you no forgiveness to all eternity.

Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, We do ask that you would be pleased to work in our hearts effectually to our salvation by your spirit with this word read and preached. We do pray, Heavenly Father, that you would be pleased to build us up, to strengthen us, to preserve us until that day. We do pray, Heavenly Father, that those who have rejected your son, have rejected the spirit that is in him, would not forever reject him, but would turn to him in repentance and faith. We do pray all these things in the name of Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

April 24, 2011
Timothy, the Loving Pastor

About this sermon

Paul urges Timothy to stay in Ephesus and charge certain men not to teach strange doctrines or devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such speculations, built on names in Scripture, have no redemptive benefit and promote controversy instead of God’s work by faith. God’s word is complete and needs no invented details. The goal of the pastor’s charge is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith, as he seeks to turn false teachers into true teachers of Christ.

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Sermon transcript

Let us turn now in God’s holy, inspired, inerrant word to Genesis chapter 1, and if you would also put your finger in 1 Timothy 1. Genesis chapter 1 and 1 Timothy 1. Just by way of review, our singing has, you may have noticed, a certain theme, that being the Word of God.

We sang from Psalm 40, where we saw that in the volume of the book it is written of me. The volume of the book, basically the Old Testament, it is written of Jesus Christ. How shall a young man cleanse his way? By the Word of God. And the same thing in our reading, our responsive reading, had to do with the Word, the Law, talking about our Old Testament. Let us have these things on our mind as we read and as we listen to the sermon. Here now, Genesis, just two verses. Genesis 1, 26 and 27.

Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth. and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them. And then over to chapter two, verses 22 and 23, the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which he had taken from the man. and brought her to the man. The man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. And then turning to our New Testament. First, Timothy chapter one, right after the introduction.

Hear now the word of God once again, as I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God, which is by faith. But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions. That ends the reading of God’s Word. Let us briefly pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this Word, as we thank you for every Word that comes out of your mouth. May it be a blessing to us today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

I had a mentor during my internship that took place in Chicago for a year and a half. And in that internship, at two o’clock every Monday, almost every Monday, almost without fail, Ian Wright, my mentor, some of you may have met him or heard him speak at my ordination service, he and I would sip tea, he was a Brit, and we would talk about all aspects of the ministry. prayed on our knees, we laughed, we cried, we had many, many things, many benefits. I was the beneficiary, the lone beneficiary of all of these talks. He should have been talking to a hundred men or two hundred men at one time. I would like for all of you to hear all the things that were told to me, the things I learned, the wisdom that I gained.

But Grace Church, you lack nothing. For you have something even better. You have the Word of God, and in this case, you have 1 Timothy. And 1 Timothy is similar and even far greater because 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, these are really inspired versions of things that I received in my internship.

For here we have Paul, an older man, a man further along in ministry, having talked through to Timothy. Here he gives him instructions on how to build up the church. As I thought about this, I wished that you all could have been flies on the wall. during my internship and benefited from all these things. But in a sense you are able to hear what one older man, the mentorship that he gives to a younger man.

Two weeks ago I began to preach through 1 Timothy. We just looked at the first two verses and we talked about the fact that Paul is giving little hints about what goes on in the rest of his letters. We talked about the fact that he’s showing what is going to happen, giving little clues about what it’s going to be all about.

And this letter is all about the building up of the end times temple, that pillar and that ground of the truth, which is the church, built upon the foundation of the prophets and the apostles. We have this church that is building up. And how does the church of Jesus Christ continue to be built up?

Well, the emphasis is going to be upon the Word of God. I hope you will see after this that a loving pastor, in this case Timothy, is to be focused upon the Word of God and feeding the sheep with it. That ought to be his one focus, is to be focusing upon the Word of God and feeding the sheep with it. It’s very simple. Preach the Word. Preach the Word.

But, it’s something that is so easily forgotten, and it was being forgotten in Paul’s day and Timothy’s day in the city of Ephesus. Just for our simplicity sake, if anyone is taking notes, I would break this sermon down and break this text down into three ways.

First, verses three and four is lack, question mark. Lack, question mark. Second, law, verses six and seven. And lastly, three. Love, verse five. So that’s lack, question mark, verses three and four. Law, verses six and seven. And then love, verses, just verse five. So now, looking at lack. Is there anything lacking in the Word of God? That’s why I ask, lack? Now, just at the outset, you might balk at such an idea, and you would be right to do so, to think, God’s Word is not lacking anything.

For God’s Word is sufficient. It is all we need. It lacks nothing. We would say that it is Necessary. It is necessary for the Church. We have to have it. We would not be the Church of Jesus Christ if we did not have the Word. It is authoritative. God has given all that He wanted, all that He desired to give to His Church at this time, in the Word of God itself. So there’s no need for anything else. That’s what we would say, obviously. That wasn’t the view of everybody.

For look what he says just in verse 3. There were people who were not focusing upon the Word. He says, “…remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines.” Now, what we ought to see is that when he says instruct, That is, we could say it’s good enough, but it’s actually a little bit stronger. It is charge or command those who are teaching strange doctrines, not to teach those. There were these people who believed that God’s word was not sufficient in and of itself, and that more needed to be added to it. They needed to fill in the gaps, we would say. So they were, he was to, Timothy was to instruct, to charge these people not to do so. And here is what he says in verse four. Look, he gives us a little bit more of the story of what’s going on.

Not to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies. Why not to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies? Because they’re mere speculations. And they further, rather than furthering the administration of God, they lead to speculations. What is Paul talking about here? We could maybe be justified in saying, Timothy, stay away from myths. and stay away from endless genealogies.

These are two separate things. Just don’t be encumbered by them because they’re a waste to you. They’re a waste to your time. But there’s a little bit something more. We ought to see the two coming together. The myths are really genealogies. There’s something specific to that time period that’s going on. I mean, it’s not two separate things. The myths that are genealogies are a waste of Timothy’s time. That’s what Paul is really telling him.

What we understand is that in the first century, there were men who would come along with their Bible, with the Old Testament, And what they would do is they would go scouring through God’s word, looking for something of interest. And sometimes they would find something that was interesting to them, or they would find something that they could tell a little bit of a story about. Why genealogies? You may be familiar with your Bible that if you read certain books, you read 1 Chronicles, or Genesis, or Ezra and Nehemiah, there are other parts of God’s Word that have genealogies.

What these people that Timothy is speaking against, that Paul is speaking to Timothy against, what they’re doing is they go through God’s Word just looking for a name. and they might find a name and then they make a whole story about that person. Have you ever heard of Israel? If not, that is all right. Israel was a man who is mentioned once in God’s word. First Chronicles 7, 3. He’s just one name, just mentioned once. The kind of thing that was going on with these ancient rabbis and even some people who were naming the name of Christ would go through and they’d find a name like Israel and they would say, Let me tell you all about Israel. Let me tell you about his life, his adventures, his faith in God, all of these wonderful things, all these things they would tell him. But where would you find proof of that? How would you verify that Israel did all these things? Well, you wouldn’t. There is no proof because God, in His amazing providence, hasn’t seen fit to tell us anything more than this one name of a man. in a genealogy.

But see, there were those who would see God’s word as lacking and would look at God’s word and say, well let me just fill in the details a little bit. Let me just tell you what happened here and what happened there. That’s just really the method that these people were using. And Paul’s admonition is to focus upon the word and to charge these people not to do such things, because these things are wrong, because that’s not God’s word. These stories that they’re telling are not something that builds up the church.

The same thing, let me just give you an example of the type of exegesis that they were doing. we read in our first reading from Genesis 1, something very interesting. Imagine what some Jewish people came to this text with assumptions and presuppositions looking at verse 1.26, what do we see here?

1.26, God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. And let birds, let them rule over the fish. And it goes on to say, basically, it seems to say that God created man and woman at the same time. That’s the way it seems to look in Genesis 1. But then if you turn the page, you look into the second verse we read, it seems to say that there’s a chronology there.

That first was the man-made, and second is the woman. Now, there were people in that time who would look to this and say, what we need to understand here is that Adam had a first wife who was created at the same time as him. And that first wife, they would say, was named Lilith. And she disobeyed, she wouldn’t obey Adam because she said, we’re equal.

And they have these long stories about what happens to Lilith. She ends up somewhat becoming a demon and strange stories. See, what would you think of someone who does their exegesis like that? Who looks and says, well, it seems like they’re created at the same time here. And then they’re created chronologically here. What are we to make of this? They fill in the details. Let me tell you about Adam’s first wife, then his second wife Eve.

That’s the mentality of these people who Paul is commanding not to teach false doctrines and not to be focusing upon all of these myths. That is the understanding that is going on, what Paul is saying to Timothy. is to charge these people who say such things. I’m just trying to illustrate the mind of the first century people, how they would try to explain what God’s word was. And he’s saying, charge those people. Teach them not to teach these false ideas, these false doctrines.

And then, Moving from lack, verses 3 and 4, with the understanding that God’s Word, in Paul’s understanding and in our understanding, God’s Word lacks nothing. We do not need to fill in the details with fanciful stories about someone who’s only mentioned one time. We move on to law. Law, verses six and seven. And here we would see that Paul is using the word law to talk about the whole Old Testament.

He says, for some men, straying from these things have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions. What Paul is saying is that there are these people, he’s further explaining what these people are doing. They don’t know what they’re talking about.

They don’t use proper exegesis. They don’t let God’s word speak for itself. And they don’t compare one portion of scripture with another portion of scripture to find that there is no concept of a second wife for Adam. They don’t compare scripture with scripture and find that this person is only mentioned one time. In fact, they’re glad that someone like Israel is only mentioned one time. so that they can fill in the details, so that they can tell you all kinds of fanciful stories. It is fruitless discussion that these people are bringing the people of God into. And what comes about from fruitless discussion? Worthless debates. They don’t understand what they are saying, but they have these confident assertions.

Now, just put yourself into the mind of the first century people. What would you think if one week someone comes to the pulpit and just tells all of these stories, not having anything to do with the Word of God, and saying, this is what happened. And then someone else comes along and tells a story, but their story contradicts just a little bit. And these two get into arguments and debates about what Israel did. And where would these two men who are debating their stories, where would they go?

They have nowhere to go because they’re not standing upon God’s Holy Spirit inspired word. So these confident assertions are nothing. All this talk, all this filling in the details, all of these things are myth. And why are they myth? Well, their myth, first of all, because they’re not true, but also, and I think more predominantly in Paul’s thinking, is their myth and they’re worthless because they have no redemptive benefit. Therefore, they are a waste. And what Paul is doing is he’s charging Timothy to charge these people and to say, do not teach these false doctrines. Do not come making up these stories.

God’s The Spirit Word is perfect, and it does not need you or anyone else to fill in the details, because you stand upon nothing. If you do not stand upon the Word of God, then you have both feet planted firmly in mid-air. Where ought the focus then be? For Paul, saying to Timothy, the focus ought to be upon the Law. And don’t hear me saying just the Ten Commandments.

The New Testament talks about the Law in many different ways, sometimes about the whole Old Testament, sometimes about the Ten Commandments, sometimes about the Ceremonial Law. Here, I think it’s very clear He’s talking about the Law as the full-orbed Old Testament in all of its beauty and glory. For what does the Old Testament teach? The Old Testament teaches Jesus Christ, as we sang Psalm 40. In the scroll of the book, it is written of me. This is Jesus speaking. It is written of me. How do we instruct the people of God? How does a young man cleanse his way? By the Word of God, with the help of the Spirit.

That’s what the focus ought to be, and that’s what Paul is saying. Your focus, Timothy, must be upon the Word of God and not upon myths and genealogies, all these things that can take away your focus. For look at the way that Paul talks about the Old Testament, always referring to it. 1 Corinthians 15, 3, he says, for what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, raised on the third day according to the scriptures. You hear that? May that ring in your mind, according to the scriptures, according to the word of God. Romans 1, 2. Talking about the salvation which God promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures. That is Paul’s focus. And it ought to be the focus of any biblical pastor. Not stories, not filling in details.

1 Timothy 4.13, no wonder Paul says to Timothy, until I come, give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation and teaching. That is to say, don’t give your time to myths and genealogies and all kinds of fanciful stories, though you may get a great following from that. And think about that.

Men who would come along and tell these wonderful stories. How great it is, these stories they tell. And we don’t want to say anything against fiction. Fiction is helpful. Fiction is useful. But it’s non-redemptive by its very nature. And so are these stories that they tell.

Paul says to Timothy in 3, In 2 Timothy 3 16, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training and righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. Notice the focus for Paul. and ought to be for Timothy is upon Scripture, and not anything else, not adding to it.

He says in 2 Timothy 4, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom. Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. So there you have it. There are the choices.

Myths, fanciful stories, endless genealogies, or the word of God, God breathed, which tells us of Jesus Christ. That is what the focus Paul sees ought to be. The Old Testament is the law, and it is about Jesus Christ. From Genesis to Malachi, it is about Jesus Christ.

We must understand that. That’s how Paul understood it. And any type of filling in the details is not useful. And then lastly, we look at love. Look at this, verse 5. But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and a sincere faith. Notice that I did go out of order here. First we look at lack, verses 3 and 4. Then law, verses 5 and 6. And lastly, love.

Is Paul just talking about love in general? Is he just saying something like he says in 1 Corinthians 13? You know, love is patient, love is kind, all those things. Well, that’s how he understands love, but why is it that this talk of love is sandwiched in between these discussions here? These discussions of these false teachers who are filling in the details, coming up with myths, and they’re so sure of themselves. Why is this discussion of love there? Well, the reason is very simple.

What Paul wants Timothy to understand is that a loving pastor preaches and teaches and feeds the sheep with the Word of God and with the Word of God alone. Anything that would be helpful ought to be further expounding or showing of the Word of God. No types of non-redemptive stories.

Understand that Paul’s heart has been changed and Timothy’s heart has been changed from darkness to light. We could say of Timothy what is said in Ezekiel 36, 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 gold. Here’s Paul saying to Timothy, the goal of our instruction, and when it says instruction, it’s the same word that he says instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines. What Paul is saying is that you, Timothy, as one who has a heart that has been changed by God, ought to have the goal to charge these people, to see them to go from being false teachers to true teachers of the Kingdom of God, to being true teachers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only after Timothy’s heart is understood to be changed, then can he, with a clear conscience and with a changed heart, not saying that Timothy has to be blameless or sinless fully, but he has a heart and a conscience that is clear before the Lord.

And He must charge those people. He must tell them, you must not teach these things. What you’re teaching, as the Word of God, that is really not the Word of God, is destructive to the souls of people. Love desires correct teaching. and love desires correct teaching to come from those who are at right now at this time false teachers. That is what he is saying.

A loving pastor, a loving man will not only feed the sheep, but he will also lovingly go to those who are teaching false things and confront them and saying, do you understand you have missed The grand story. You’re telling us these little stories about one man who was mentioned once, and you can’t even verify what you’re saying.

And you’ve missed the big picture. For the big picture of the Old Testament, the big picture is Jesus Christ. He is the grand narrative of the Old Testament. The Old Testament tells his story from beginning to end. And how much greater to have the New Testament, which continues to tell the story. Preach the Word of God, Timothy. You must preach the Word of God. Timothy loved the people of God. Teach them and understand that they will mock. Some people will mock. They will say to you, Timothy, you’re too focused on the Word. Can’t we have other things? Can’t we look at other things? Can’t we focus on other things that might be useful to us spiritually? No, not at all.

Understand that the more that you focus, as Paul and as Timothy has to do, the more you focus upon the Word of God, the more people will call you narrow-minded. They will say to you, you know, you are so narrow-minded with your Bible that you could look through a keyhole with both eyes. But with love and compassion, teach the Word. Preach the Word, and do not go from it. Do not focus upon anything else in your ministry. Do not presume to feed the people anything else but the Word of God. And then, and only then, as a loving pastor, can they say of Timothy, who faithfully taught the Word of God, can they say, as they did in Isaiah, and it’s picked up in Romans, How will they preach unless they are sent?

Just as it is written, how lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation and says to Zion, your God reigns. This is the need of the hour and it is the need of every hour. It’s men who will come and focus upon one thing, the Word of God, and preach it faithfully. As you see, preachers, many preachers, preach all kinds of strange things, telling all kinds of things, even in our day.

And it’s sad. May we focus upon the Word of God only. and the grand theme of history, especially sacred history, which is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. May we know nothing else. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You that we would not stand with those who would say or even presume to think that the Word of God is not sufficient in our lives. But Lord, we must confess that we do not make use of it enough. Help us to make constant use of Your Word.

And we ask that You would bless Pastor Dan and myself and all pastors everywhere who preach Your Word faithfully to preach the Word to preach faithfully and rightly and focus upon nothing else. To love those who would preach other things, but to charge them to teach that which is true, that which is right, and that which is according to your holy, inspired, and errant word. In Jesus’ name, amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

March 27, 2011