Means of Grace: Sacraments

Results that they can't see. If you're a parent, you know this is what you do all the time. You are pouring yourself into raising children and yet you're not the one who can make these kids grow. You can't mature them. A lot of times it's hard to see the fruits of your labors. If you're a farmer, your work is cultivating an atmosphere in which crops grow, but you can't make crops grow. And the same is true with Christians.

As we think about what makes a Christian grow, we know what makes crops grow. That's good soil and sunlight and rain. We know what makes kids grow. That's food and sleep and education and discipline and all those things. But what makes a Christian grow? Well, that's where we have been looking over this month of January as we've been talking about something called the ordinary means of grace.

Now, that may not be a phrase that you're familiar with, but those just mean those ordinary practices that Jesus has given to his people, the church, that by regular repeated attention to them, just like with crops, we're cultivating something in ourselves. This is really our passion as a church—that you would be formed fully in Christ, that you would be brought to all the measure of maturity in Jesus, that more and more your life would reflect the life of Jesus to the world, that you would experience more and more the fullness of that. But again, how does that happen? The ordinary means of grace.

The Sacraments

So this series we looked at corporate worship, our gathering for worship. We've looked at fellowship or spiritual friendship. We've looked at personal prayer. And today we're going to look at these things called the sacraments—the two sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper.

Now, that's not a word you're going to find in your Bible. Sacrament actually was developed in about the third century to describe what these things are. It comes from the word holy in the Latin, sacer, and mysterion in Greek, mystery. These are holy mysteries that God has given to his church that help form in us Christ, that help us become more and more like Jesus.

Now, if you're wondering about the passage we read, you may look at this and think, it's funny—I don't remember reading the word baptism or the Lord's Supper in this passage from Second Peter 1. And if you're paying that close attention to what I'm doing this morning, gold star. Yes. But these don't appear in this passage. Rather, the reason I'm looking at this passage is they don't describe the sacraments but they tell us how and why we use them.

So here's my application upfront this morning. Again, as we've been doing this series, my application is: every chance you get, every chance you get, every chance the sacraments are offered, every chance you get to see a baptism, you show up for that. You sit on the front row if you can. We used to have this practice more a while ago of kids coming forward during baptism so they could watch. Every chance to take the Lord's Supper. Every time, don't miss it. You're like, "Man, I'm going to get this. If I'm serving in one service, I'm glad our church has two services so I can make it still to stay for the Lord's Supper." Every chance you get.

Now, why is that? Because like the other means, the sacraments are given to address a deep problem that I have and that you have. This is what we've been saying. Each of these ordinary means of grace address a heart problem for us. So go back to when we talked about worship. We said the reason we need to come to worship every week is because it's like coming to the hospital and we know we're sick and we come in to experience healing. Or we come together with one another in fellowship, in spiritual friendship, because you and I are people who are prone towards self-trust. We tend to think, "I got it by myself," which is so dangerous, and we need other people speaking in. Those are heart problems we have. And the sacraments again today address a deep heart problem that you and I have.

See, Peter, what's fascinating here, is Peter is writing a letter to mature Christians. He actually gives them a compliment that we find almost nowhere else in all of the New Testament. Look at verse 12. He says that of these people that he's writing to, that they are mature, they already know these things. They've been established in the truth. That is a big compliment in the New Testament—you are mature people. And yet he says something really bizarre.

And yet, I am always as your pastor going to have to remind you. — 2 Peter 1:12

Now, that's a clue to us about a heart problem that I have and you have. We need reminding all the time. Here's the danger: your heart, my heart has a short-term memory problem. We have spiritual amnesia. See, this is what you can hear in verse 12 about how they need to be reminded. You can hear this in verse 9 about being blind or shortsighted, having forgotten. This is me and you.

Years ago, there was a great movie that came out by Pixar, Finding Nemo, and one of the most beloved characters in Finding Nemo is voiced by Ellen DeGeneres. It's Dory, the triggerfish who can't remember anything very long. And this is both very funny and very dangerous for Dory. So on the one hand, when she first meets Marlin, Nemo's dad, who's suddenly lost his son, she gives very confusing directions and keeps forgetting why she talked to him. He finally asks, "What is wrong with you?" And she answers this way: "See, I suffer from short term memory loss. It's true. I forget things instantly. It runs in my family. At least, I think it does." Right? She can't remember, and it's funny, but it's also dangerous because right after that, Marlin and Dory find themselves in a gathering of sharks who've sworn off eating meat. And she is unaware of the danger she's in. She has forgotten how dangerous sharks are.

See, this is us. We have a short term memory problem. We have spiritual amnesia.

Here's what I mean by this: You and I have a tendency to forget all the good things. All the true things. All the beautiful things. All the ways that God has met us, the lessons we've learned from the Lord. If you're a journal writer, I really want to challenge you to do this: Go back over the last couple years of journals, and I guarantee you'll find entries where you're filled with gratitude at God's provision, or you're filled with insight about something in your life. You come to a realization of what God has provided for you. You're filled with joy, and you don't remember feeling that way.

Because what do we remember? The human heart remembers all the bad things, the ugly, the insults, the comments of other people, the untrue things. My heart, your heart is like one of those non-stick Teflon skillets with regard to the truth, with what is beautiful and true and good and loving. It just slides off, like the fried eggs are supposed to. They don't stick. And yet we're more like an unseasoned iron skillet when it comes to the bad and the ugly and the untrue.

This is a problem that I have over and over, and you have over and over. You may be like, "That can't be. There are things I wish I could forget in my life. There are experiences and things that I have been through that I wish I could forget." See, you're making my point. Our hearts have this memory problem, spiritual amnesia, like Dory.

I have to say parents especially know this. Parents know this, or ask your parents if you're not a parent. It's astonishing how much children don't take in or don't remember—affirmation, words of encouragement, good things—but they do remember when the parent lost it and said things they shouldn't have said, because they'll repeat that to their brothers later on. That's what happens. Parents see this all the time. Our kids, just like us, have a short term memory problem.

So what does the pastor say? What's Pastor Peter saying to his congregation? "I'm always gonna have to remind you these things. You're always gonna need this."

So how are we gonna remember what we're prone to forget? How are you gonna do that? Listen to the things in this passage. God has promised—and we read this in verses three and four—that by his divine power, God has given you everything you need for life and godliness. That's amazing. God has already given you everything you need.

Listen to verses eleven and twelve:

Through these, he's given us his very great and precious promises so that through them you may participate in the divine nature. You get to participate in the divine nature? God has given you those promises. You know, escaping the corruption of the world with its evil desires?

Man, those are good. How though? How in the world do I connect to that? Enter the means of grace. Enter the sacraments. This is how we're going to make every effort—verse 10—to make our calling and election sure. This is how—verse 11—we're going to never stumble and receive the rich reward, because God has given us a memory unit, a memory care unit in the hospital of the Lord, and it's the sacraments.

That's really personal to me to say that word "memory care unit." Some of you know my dad. Over the last two years he has developed Alzheimer's, and in the past month he has moved into a memory care unit. So it's very personal to me to say that.

A memory care unit is set up really to accommodate the needs of someone who's struggling, who's weak, who can't remember. Everything is set up to make that environment safe and life giving as much as it can be. So when I say this is the memory care unit of the hospital of God...

I mean that is a really powerful image to me of how much God loves you to provide this for you. So here's how they work, the sacraments. And I'm gonna give you two words and I need you to remember these words today: Sign and seal.

Let's talk about both these. First, sign. The word supper and baptism—we're gonna talk about these over and over—both of them function like a sign. Now, y'all have been down lots of highways and you've seen lots of billboards. If you have ever driven up and down I-95 in North Carolina and South Carolina, there's one set of billboards that you have seen ad nauseam. What is it? South of the Border, right? South of the Border—get gas at Pedro's. It's all this big buildup, and so hundreds of billboards up and down I-95 advertise everything: get fireworks at South of the Border, get your T-shirts, come play miniature golf, come get a hot dog, use the bathroom, get some gas. All the signs tell you how many miles to Pedro's. And then if you pass it, oops, you just missed it—turn around and go back, right?

My family one time had done this over and over. We thought, we got to do it. We got to stop. We got to see what is the big deal with South of the Border. It's not that great. I mean, I hate to tell you that it's not that great. It was not that great. But what's the power of that? The repeated sign. The repeated sign. Our hearts function the same way. A repeated sign makes a difference.

So let's see if we can read this sign this morning because this has a story to tell. Like a billboard on the highway, it is telling you a message—and it's a simple message. You need cleansing; God provides cleansing. Right? You need cleansing not on the outside but on the inside. I remember when I was in high school, I had to read this play by Tennessee Williams called A Streetcar Named Desire. And there's this woman in this play who keeps taking baths. In fact, that's the main thing over and over in the play—she keeps coming into or going out of the bathroom. She is just about to or just taking a bath. Well, what we find out about Blanche Dubois is that even though she's a genteel southern lady, she's got quite a past. She's got a lot of sins that she wants to deal with, and the unconscious way she does so is by taking all these baths. She knows something the Bible says to us: that you need a bath on the inside. You need cleansing on the inside. And that's what the sign of baptism shows us—that we need a washing, and God provides that washing.

The Cleansing God Provides

So I know lots of you all have watched a lot of TV, so I'm banking on that for this illustration. You've seen the laundry detergent commercials, right? So the laundry detergent commercials always go like this: Little boy, little girl playing outside, they get the shirt all muddy or they spill grape juice on the shirt. Mom takes the shirt—the white shirt that's now stained—and sticks it in the washing machine and they wash it, and because of the magic detergent, they pull it out and bing! It's like white as blind as new. You know, like blinding white light. And you're like, yeah, right. That's not how my laundry detergent and washing machine works. It don't work that good.

And so that's what we think about ourselves. We can be cynical with regard to the cleansing that God actually provides us. That didn't work. I've tried lots of ways to reform my life. That doesn't work. And if you think that, you've forgotten because you know how the laundry detergent commercial really works, don't you? I mean, we're smarter than this. We know what happens. They put the dirty shirt into the washing machine and they pull out not the same shirt, but a new shirt, right? They pull out another one, and you're like, oh, wow, that's how the detergent works, right? That's what they're trying to sell you. It works that well that it's brand new.

And see, if you understand this sign, you'll understand that God doesn't just clean—He makes new. Just like the laundry detergent. You know, this is what we read elsewhere in the Bible about baptism:

Buried with Christ in death, raised to life. — Romans 6

You are not just a washed, cleaned-up old you. You are a new you. You are a new creation in Jesus. You are cleansed that well. That's the sign of baptism: buried with Christ, raised with Christ.

See, the sign—don't get focused on the recipient of the sign. We did the baptism this morning. We're not looking at the recipient. It's great to baptize Peter this morning. I love it when we baptize children and adults, but it's not about them and it's not about the water. The water is not magic. It's about what the sign tells the story. It's about the story behind the sign, which is Jesus cleanses. Jesus cleanses sinners.

He gives the washing that we need through his death and resurrection and ascension. This is what he provides for us.

So, what about this one? What story does this tell? What message can you read in the sign of the Lord's Supper? It's this way: God feeds his people. God feeds his people, and I need him every day. That's what it tells us. God feeds his people and you need him every day.

We use this sign every Sunday. That's because Jesus said:

As often as you meet together, do this in remembrance of me.

That's why we do it every week. And it's also because I need it. I'm in a spiritual memory care unit, and I need to remember what I'm prone to forget.

Now, I know lots of people in this congregation like to eat out. Am I right? Yeah. And we like good food when we eat out. I know this because this is one of the most popular things you all always talk about in private conversation. "I went here, I had a great meal." This is what I'm posting on social media. We love to talk about food. We love to talk about what we're eating. So let's take a test together. Remember the last great meal that you had at a restaurant. The last time you went to a great restaurant and thought, "That was the best thing I've ever eaten." Did you come home afterward and say, "That was so good, I'm never going to eat again"? Anybody do that? No. Because you know what? It doesn't matter if you ate McDonald's or a five-star restaurant—you got to eat tomorrow. We always have to eat the next day. We are always hungry the next day.

Can you read the sign of the supper? You need Jesus every day. You are always going to need to feast in your heart by faith on the Lord Jesus Christ. Every day you are going to need fresh mercy and fresh grace. You're never going to get to a point where you're like, "Man, that was the best thing, and I don't need it anymore." No, we always need it.

The Seals

So those are the signs—the sign of baptism and the sign of the Lord's Supper. Now let's talk about the seals because this is a word that we use in a lot of different ways. I'm not talking about seals like this, or seals in the zoo. I'm not talking about gray seals that eat fish. I'm not talking about seals on jelly jars that pop when you open them so you know it's fresh. I'm talking about the kind of seal that you get on a document. This is hard because some of the kids here don't know what I'm talking about. You may have to show them when you get home, parents. Like a piece of paper that has a gold emblem on it with raised letters. These appear on all kinds of official documents—on things like our marriage certificate, birth certificate, certifying a transaction with the bank. We have all these kinds of seals that testify or attest. They say "bona fide." And the seals that God uses do the same thing. They attest, they say, "This is real. This is right. Bona fide." Not just that it's bona fide, but you are bona fide. That's what the seals are. They guarantee the promises of God to Christians. This is the work, over and over again, of the Holy Spirit. We read this in lots of places in the New Testament. The Spirit's one of his primary tasks is sealing to Christians the promises of God—these very great and precious promises.

So how do we read this one? Baptism as a covenant seal. How does this seal to us what God has done? Now, I want you to think about what you do with a seal because you don't just look at it. You rub your finger on it like this. You can feel the little bumps where all the letters are. So baptism is like that with us. You should be able to rub your fingers on it and say, "This is telling me something. This is testifying to something. This is what it means: You are part of God's family. You are part of God's family. You're united to God."

Now, what's the difference between a kid who's coming over to spend the night and a kid who lives in the house? Well, if a reporter showed up with a camera and didn't know anything about the family, they might not be able to tell at first which kid lives here and which kid is invited for a sleepover. Both of them get the same amount of food for dinner, right? Both of them we make sure brush their teeth. Both of them get to go to bed and have a comfy place to sleep. The next morning, both of them have breakfast. So far so good. One of them goes home, though, and one of them doesn't. That's the difference. One's part of the family, one is a guest with the family.

See, baptism is a sign which attests to you. You can rub your fingers on it to remind you: I'm part of God's family. I am part of this.

The monk Martin Luther—this may sound really weird to you.

He used to, when he was really discouraged and really depressed, remember his baptism and take courage. That's what he would say: "I remember my baptism." What was he doing? In his heart, in his mind, he's rubbing the seal on the birth certificate. He's saying, "I'm in. This is true. God's promises aren't made up. This is really real." He told him no matter how much he failed or doubted or disobeyed or wasn't a good follower of Jesus that day, he was still part of the family.

See, this is so important for us—that every time we see a baptism, we remember: you can't send away or doubt away your place in the family of God. Amen, people? Are you all with me this morning? You can't send away or doubt away your place in the family of God.

The Lord's Supper as Covenant Seal

The Lord's Supper—how is this a covenant seal? Again, like a seal for a wedding, it has power to attest to something, to certify something is true. As a seal, the Lord's Supper binds us to Jesus Christ. It's like a wedding.

Every week when we take the Lord's Supper, one of my favorite things about what we do in our church is we don't pass trays down the road back and forth. You get up out of your seat and you come forward like you would if you were getting married. You come up. That's so appropriate because you are laying hold of the means of grace. You're coming up and you're remembering the promises that Jesus has made to you all over again.

So every week when you take the Lord's Supper, it is like touching a wedding ring where you remember: Jesus has made incredible promises to me. Again, it's still true. They haven't gone away. He wasn't pretending. He didn't have his fingers crossed behind his back. He makes these promises and he renews his vows all the time when we come and take the Lord's Supper. It's a seal saying, "To death do us part and through death."

So, why do you need this? Why do I need this? Why do we need this sign and seal? Because we're like Dory. We're like people with spiritual amnesia and we forget all the time.

How and Why We Use Sacraments

Let me ask two questions: How and why? Because this is what this passage really helps us with. How and why?

How do we use these sacraments? Well, let me tell you how not to first, because sometimes that's easiest. We don't do them mechanically or mechanistically. We don't believe that it's all about the elements themselves. This is a kind of Roman Catholic understanding—like, as long as you've got a priest and you've got the elements, it sort of doesn't matter if anybody else in the room has faith. You can just have these and they're going to work somehow. Well, this isn't a vending machine. God is not a vending machine. We don't put in money and pull stuff out. It's not a machine like this. They are not apart from faith.

But this is why—let me say this: if you're not a Christian, we don't invite you to take the sacraments. We invite you to come to Jesus. These are signs that show us Jesus. They are seals that guarantee the promises of Jesus, but we want you to know Jesus.

Second, I don't know how else to say this, but they're not all about emotional authenticity. We're getting this one from the Bible church. So if some of you grew up in churches where you needed to believe that you needed to feel really, really bad and sorry before you could take communion, you're focused on the wrong thing. It's not about you and your authenticity or your emotions. Or if you think, "Man, I'm not sure I really meant it when I got baptized, I better do that again"—you misunderstand. This isn't about you and your emotions. This is about God. What God does in the lives of sinners.

Man, I'm so glad that it's not about me, because I am like watching me and my heart and how I believe and doubt. It's like watching a yo-yo go up and down. But God is always the same.

If that's the wrong way, how do you receive and use the sacraments in the right way? Let me give this illustration: it's like a present. Anybody like getting presents from somebody? A present is about two things. A present is both about the relationship, but it's also about the box.

So a present—if somebody gives you a present, it says something about their relationship with you. They're saying, "I love you and I want you to have this." And the present reinforces the relationship, that they love you. But it's also about what's in the box, the thing that's inside there that we get to unwrap.

So every time we watch a baptism, we should remember the relationship. It should reinforce with us the relationship. You should watch Peter this morning getting baptized and go, "That's me. I'm like a little baby. I am weak and helpless, and look how God is reinforcing his relationship with me." I get to—this is what the ancients used to say, the spiritual fathers.

I get to improve my baptism today by remembering the relationship, but I also get to open the box. I get to open the box and remember, I'm part of his family. I don't get sent home after the sleepover. I'm here forever.

Here's my application then. Every chance you get, watch a baptism. It never gets old for me. This morning, I whispered to David Spickered after we got done. I'm like, this is my favorite part of my job. We take the word supper. Again, this is like a present God's giving you. It reinforces the relationship. You get to have this reinforcement of like, this is how the Lord relates to me. He feeds me over and over what I know I most need. But you also get to touch the wedding ring and remember, wow, God is continuing these promises to me.

This is one of the things I find in our church. Sometimes it's the people who most need to take communion who are sitting in their seats. I'm preaching at y'all this morning. The days when you're filled with doubts. The days when you're like, I'm not sure I'm a Christian anymore. The days when you're like, I think I've sinned too much. Those are the days that you especially need the Lord's supper. Those are not the days when you stay in your seat. It's for weak sinners that God provides these things, not like bodybuilders in the kingdom of God. So don't you dare stay in your seat during the Lord's Supper if you're a baptized Christian. Come forward, read the sign, touch the seal, rub your finger on it, remember every chance you get.

Why Sacraments Work: A Matter of Hungering and Thirsting

In conclusion, let me say this. Here's why the sacraments work like the memory care unit in the hospital—because discipleship as a Christian is not a matter just of knowing and believing but hungering and thirsting. To be a follower of Jesus is not an information dump. In the Presbyterian church, we get confused about that. We think it's about how many facts do you know about God? How much theology do you know? No. That's a model of discipleship that's actually misapplied. It goes back to the old Sunday school movement in the United States. There are some good parts about that, but the emphasis on the school part tells you what they thought discipleship was—it's about knowing more things. But the reality is, we are not just little safe deposit boxes for information about God. That is not who we are. That view, in fact, is not biblical at all. It comes from the Western European Enlightenment era where a guy named René Descartes said:

I think, therefore I am.

In other words, we're rational beings. All we need is more information. But Alcoholics Anonymous has poked holes in all that. They said, you know what? Here's the thing with your thinking. Your best thinking has gotten you where you are in life so far. How's that going for you? AA says no, we're not just thinking beings, we're craving beings, we are desiring beings, we're loving beings. We're more led often by our desires than our thoughts.

So if we are what we love rather than "I think therefore I am," look how the various means of grace meet us in those places. We worship, we come together, and we open our mouths and we sing the promises and praises of God. We open up our Bibles and reread with our eyes. We hear the word preached to us. We baptize bodies. We taste and eat the promises of God in the Lord's supper. Do you see how physical we are? And how all these different means of grace are meant to answer who you are and the way you're made. They're made to reorder your desires, to reorder your loves because you're not just a thinking being, you're a desiring being.

So this—this washing—says who you are. You're a person who needs cleansing on the inside and God has provided that cleansing. And then you touch the seal and it says, you are part of the family of God. Therefore, do it every time you can. And this—this sign—says to us, you know what? You're hungry and God provides everything that you need in Jesus and you need Him every day. And it's also the seal that reminds us as we come forward and partake that God's promises to us are over and over true, over and over true.

So my call is again, every chance you get. My longing is more and more our church is not filled with nominal Christians, but people who are being formed and shaped like Christ. More and more remembering who we are and whose we are in this world.

You know, there's a sequel to Finding Nemo and it's called Finding Dory. You might have seen Finding Dory. Finding Dory is the story of the trigger fish, Dory, and she's looking for her family. She's on a journey to find her family even though she has a short term memory problem.

And I encourage you, if you haven't seen this, I won't spoil it for you, but you need to watch it because it's about a reunion. It's a reunion story. It's a story about a mom and dad who are looking for a lost daughter who's looking for them. My wife says something really profound about babies. That every baby who's born comes into the world looking for someone who's looking for them. That's how we're made, looking for someone who's looking for them.

Yet what makes this so hard for us is that we're like Dory. We're looking for someone, but we have a short term memory problem. What we find though in what the Lord provides for us is these sacraments help us remember, there is someone who's looking for you, who's always been looking for you, and who's found you by His grace. And no matter how bad the short term memory problem is this week, He is faithful. He is faithful. He is faithful.

Brothers and sisters, what great gifts God has given His children. What great love He has poured out on the children of God.

Prayer

Let's go to the word together in prayer. Father, we are so prone to forgetfulness and to losing our way and to being all over the map. Lord, we were so prone to confusion and to being lost and to doubting. Lord, we pray this day that you would meet us by your power. Lord, help us to remember who we are and whose we are. Help us to be more and more hungry, Lord, for the sacrament. Help us to be more and more eager to watch a baptism. Lord, we thank you that you meet us. Lord, in our weakness, we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.