It’s good to see you here. We’ve got uh quite a few moving parts in this uh service. So, it’s um uh in fact, it’s probably a once- ina-lifetime service at an evangelical free church for all of you because uh this morning we have the confluence of two sacraments, both ordinances that Jesus gave the church, the Lord’s supper and baptism. And planning both sacraments in one day in an evangelical church, it’s like a solar eclipse. It’s like a comet that comes around once in your lifetime. You’ll probably never see it again. So, put on your sunglasses and enjoy uh enjoy what’s going to go on this morning. I’m going to begin by speaking for a few minutes about the sacraments in general and then the Lord’s supper in particular and then we’ll celebrate the Lord’s supper together. And following that, I’m going to speak briefly about baptism. Then four people who are being baptized are going to come up and give a brief story of their journey to Christ, their journey in faith. So, uh it’s a privilege for us to be able to hear them and celebrate with them. After that, a few of us are going to go down early, but we’ll all migrate downstairs to the baptismal tank in the gym. If you’re visiting, please join us for that portion as well because it’s all part of one corporate worship service of Jesus and uh we don’t want to miss the baptism piece together. Now, in speaking of baptism and the Lord’s supper, I don’t want to make more of them or less of them than they actually mean or what we ought to. The sacraments observe these tangible elements of bread and juice and water. They’re nothing more than symbols, but they’re certainly nothing less than symbols either. They’re not more than symbols in that the bread and the cup, they’re not magic. Uh it’s still regular bread and juice. And the water in the baptismal tank, it isn’t carbonated. It isn’t electrified, which is probably a good thing for those of us who are stepping into it. That’s if Murray has set it up properly. Murray, thank you for your work. But while the elements, they’re they’re not more than symbols. They’re certainly not less. We never we should never refer to the symbols as just mere symbols or just symbols as if we’re demeaning or diminishing them because symbols really have a crucial part to play in all of our lives. For example, at a wedding ceremony, the rings are dramatic symbols of an exclusive and permanent union between two people. So that’s a much anticipated part of the wedding ritual. And more so in the US than in Canada, the flag is a potent symbol of national pride and unity. And there’s often deep offense taken if a flag is disrespected. And when we throw sand or flowers on a coffin, we’re all connecting communally with a symbol that has deeply shared meaning. So without symbols, our lives would be fairly flat and one-dimensional. Would just be sticks on our brain. Would just be cognitive people. Symbols integrate our faith and our worship with elements that we can touch and taste and smell and be submerged in. And because the sacraments are symbols, there can be a wide variety of methods and traditions. Last Saturday, I was pleased to host one of our sister evangelical free churches, Grace Chinese Church, as they used our sanctuary here to celebrate two baptisms. So, in preparation for that, I lugged up an old piece of furniture, uh, the baptismal font that’s stored in our basement. I looked on the plaque. It was presented to Knox Church by the Young Women’s Club in 1934. I guess they were the ones having babies, and they thought we should have a nice baptismal font for baptizing all those babies. And so, with this font of many blessings, my friend, Pastor John C., He scooped up a handful of water and he gently poured it on the heads of the baptismal candidates. They got a little wet, but our candidates this morning are going to get a lot wet. With symbols, these various methods can be used, but it’s all the same time the same meaning is believed and received. A baptism is not any more effective if a greater volume of water is used. in tradition I grew up in for communion would kneel together at the front altar of the church and would receive a wafer that tasted like glue and a common cup of wine would be passed around and it would startle the throat of a young teenager who just gone through confirmation classes. Now here we use individual servings of grape juice, gluten-free bread. The potency of the symbol though doesn’t depend on the method or the specific uh physical elements. Maybe the last thing to say in a brief overview of the sacraments is they ought to be thought of as a delivery system of God’s grace to our lives. St. Augustine famously offers this definition. He says, “A sacrament is a visible sign of invisible grace.” Not really an overly mystical idea that the sacraments are means of grace by which we experience God’s grace in in a heightened manner. God delivers grace into our lives in a lot of different ways. Through our initial faith in Christ, through prayer, through Bible reading, through preaching, through worship. There are many, many ways that the Holy Spirit conveys newly refreshed spiritual blessings on our lives. And through the sacraments, through our initial baptisms, and then the regular partaking of the Holy Spirit, I or of the of the communion elements, I believe that the Holy Spirit visits us corporately as a congregation. We connect in real time with our risen savior Jesus Christ through the symbols that he has left us with. We believe and we know and we feel his presence together. Through the sacraments, we recognize we’re united as one in Christ with one another. So the sacraments, they have no power in themselves apart from God’s word. The word always precedes and explains and gives understanding. And then the sacraments follow the word to strengthen us, to assure us of our salvation, of our standing before Christ and among God’s people. Turn our attention now to think more specifically of the meal before us. It’s called the Lord’s Supper because this is the Lord’s table and Jesus is our host. It’s often called breaking of bread which signifies that it’s a fellowship meal that we enjoy together. It’s called a eukarist, which has a meaning of thanksgiving, blessing, something we’re grateful for. It’s often just called communion because we participate in the body and blood of Christ together as a church. We have fellowship together with one another. Communion orients us both horizontally and vertically. And vertically, it connects us to Christ because Jesus said in John 6 that his flesh is true food and his blood is true drink. And whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, I and him, and I will raise him up on the last day. Even more, he says, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don’t have life within you. Again, we’re talking symbols here. This isn’t cannibalism, but last week, you know, we saw in John 10 that Jesus described himself as the door, and we don’t imagine that as Jesus swinging on a on a set of hinges. We know there’s some symbolism involved. And when Jesus says, “This is my body. Take and eat.” We don’t believe that we’re crunching on senus and muscles and skin when we eat the bread. Yet through the symbol, somehow mysteriously, we’re still fully participating in what Jesus has done for us. 1 Corinthians 10:16 says, “The cup of blessing,” and it is a cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? the bread that we break is it not a participation in the body of Christ. So he expects a positive affirmation to both those statements. This meal is a participation in that the benefits of Jesus’ broken body and blood have been earned for us and are taken in by us by our symbolic act of eating and drinking. 1 Corinthians 11 says we’re together proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes. So, we’re declaring, we’re absorbing, we’re taking the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection into ourselves in communion. Amazing thing to be able to do this in our communion meal. We’re saying really together, I trust you. I need you, Jesus, to forgive my sins and give life and health to my soul. Only by your broken body and by your shed blood can I be saved. And if you have acknowledged that Jesus died on the cross for your sins, and if you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation, then the only qualification you need to participate in this meal this morning is to admit that you’re unqualified, that you’re being invited to this table solely on the basis of Christ’s credentials, not your own. So if you receive these elements this morning, the bread and cup as representing Jesus’ body broken for you and his blood shed for you, that’s your personal invitation to come and join the church in celebrating this communion this morning. The Lord’s supper then orients us vertically to Jesus. Just as importantly, it orients us horizontally to one another. Communion is a team activity. It’s a family gathering. It’s not to be done uh individually. It’s no solo proposition. Back to uh 1 Corinthians 10, it says, remember this cup of blessing that we bless, it’s a participation in the blood of Christ. The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Then it says, because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. And interesting what follows in 1 Corinthians 11 is an explanation of why some in the church in in Corinth were getting sick and some were dying. It was a divine judgment because they were being so selfish in their practice of the Lord’s supper. They weren’t regarding one another in the body of Christ. Some got to the meal early and they scarfed up all the food and others arrived later. They had nothing to eat. And some grabbed all the wine bottles thirstily and uh they weren’t uh they weren’t having the blood of Christ imparted in little sips. They were they were getting plastered. And Paul tells them, “You guys need to slow down. You need to discern and regard the rest of the team, the rest of the church here, the body of believers, if they’re ever going to get the Lord’s supper figured out.” So, putting all of this together, when we participate in the Lord’s Supper, we come into the presence of Jesus. We remember that he died for us. We participate in the benefits of his death. We receive spiritual nourishment and blessing and we’re united with the other believers in this room who are practicing it with us this morning. So, we’re connecting with Christ in real time here. Let me give a few introductory words about baptism as well because uh to some degree we’re doing things backwards this morning because if we read the New Testament rightly, it’s those who are baptized then who would naturally receive the Lord’s supper. Now, if you’re about to be baptized today or you’re out there and you haven’t been baptized, you haven’t gotten around to it yet and you just consumed the Lord’s Supper, it’s okay. You haven’t broken any rules. You’re not going to be disciplined. You won’t be struck by lightning. But while you’re digesting the bread and the cup, digest a few of these thoughts as well. You know, just as Jesus, he instituted the Lord’s supper for us. He said, “Take, eat. This is my body. This cup is the blood of my covenant poured out for the forgiveness of sins.” So also, the sacrament of baptism, it wasn’t invented by the church. It wasn’t a church council that came up with it centuries ago. No. Jesus gifted us with this sacrament when in his final earthly words to his followers he said go make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit and teaching them to obey all I have commanded you so Jesus instituted both sacraments to bless and to strengthen the lives of those who would follow him now in the early church if you read the book of acts the remarkable thing we see is how spontaneous ous baptism was for the new believers. I think on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, Peter preached the first Christian gospel message ever. Great many Jewish people in Jerusalem responded in faith. And we read that those who accepted the message were baptized. About 3,000 were added to their number that day. I don’t know where they found all the water in Jerusalem required to baptize 3,000 people at one go, but it must have been an amazing scene. And then we just follow through the book of Acts. Philip the evangelist few chapters later he meets an Ethiopian man on the way home and he’s reading Isaiah and he can’t understand it. And Philip explains the passage in Isaiah to this man and the light switch goes on in his soul. And he they’re passing by in this chariot and he says look here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized? Philip took and he baptized him on the spot. Same thing happened uh in chapter 10 with the gentile Cornelius and his family. They hear the gospel message as Peter speaks it. They receive the message. The Holy Spirit obviously falls on the household and Peter says, “Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water?” Lydia in Philippi in Acts 16, it says, “The Lord opened her heart and she was baptized.” And a few verses later, uh, the Philippian jailer received Christ and boom, he and his family were baptized that same night. None of those people had any idea really what they were getting into. They didn’t know anything about the Christian life. On the day of Pentecost, no one, not even the apostles, had ever lived a Christian life. They were they were feeling their way as they just got started. It had never been lived before by anyone. So their baptism then it wasn’t predicated on any particularly deep understanding. It wasn’t because they’d achieved a track record of consistency or obedience. They didn’t know anything about all the ups and downs that the Christian life would bring their way. All they knew was that they had Jesus and into the water they went. That’s the pattern we choose to emulate as well. The New Testament knows nothing of an unbaptized Christian running around feral out in the wild, out in the world. And that tiny temporal gap between salvation and baptism was so small that we read verses like this in Mark 16, whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. Or Acts 2, repent and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. You’ll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now juxtaposed with those verses are John 3:16, “Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Romans 10, if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you’ll be saved. Or Acts 16, believe in the Lord Jesus and you’ll be saved. Now, theologically, it’s the shorter version. It’s simply believing that gets you to heaven. If you think of the thief on the cross, his life is ebbing away. He had no opportunity to get baptized or do any kind of good work of any kind. But Jesus promised him salvation that day. So we’re justified. We’re saved by faith, not by any works, including the sacrament of baptism. Theologically, belief is all that’s required to be saved. But in practice, baptism occurred so simultaneously with faith. In the early church, there really wasn’t any thought or any occasion to ever separate one from the other. It’s us in the later church. We’ve learned how to procrastinate today. It’s not unusual for a person to uh become a Christian, be a Christian, maybe for some years, and still not be baptized. Eventually, they’d probably get around to it, but we’re we’re really playing catchup with the pattern that we see in the New Testament. Our procrastination’s not really to our advantage because baptism is certainly not necessary for salvation, but it is necessary to take a natural first step of obedience in obeying Christ. I mean, Jesus gave this sacrament to us not for his benefit, but for our benefit. We’re not doing him a favor by being baptized. It does it’s meant to do something for us. And baptism in the Bible is portrayed as the first act of natural obedience that a Christian would do. So it’s the right or the ritual of initiation as that brings us into the church as a Christian. And the second sacrament, the Lord’s supper, that’s the sacrament of ongoing nourishment. And Jesus infuses both with his grace. So if you’ve joyfully received Christ as your savior, there’s really nothing left to deliberate concerning baptism. I was once doing baptism at that spot. I baptized many people. And on a winter’s day, there were a number of candidates going to get baptized. That was the river just below the church. And following the testimonies of the candidates, one of my friends kind of came up stalking me from the congregation, knowing that this was his day also to be baptized and to join them. Now, he hadn’t planned it. I knew his story. I knew how he’d come to faith. I knew it was genuine. So, on that morning in the frigid clear water river, snow falling in his church pants and his good sweater, he just went in and we managed somehow to keep him alive at the fire afterwards. If we know your story or if you’d like to share it with myself or one of our elders, if you’re trusting in Christ alone for your salvation, we we take all comers today and uh maybe we can even find you an extra towel. I can’t guarantee that, but it’s possible. So, baptism is best understood as immediate or as close as we can to arrange it. And it’s Knox Church, it’s also immersive. Uh the candidates are going all the way under the water this morning and there’s some good biblical justification for that. Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River. Afterward, it says that Jesus came up out of the water. In John 3, we read that John the Baptist was baptizing then at Anaan near Salem. And the reason he was there was because water was plentiful there. When Philip baptized the Ethiopian man, it says they went down into the water and then came back up out again. Philip didn’t just grab a water bottle on the side of the chariot to do the job. There was some complete hydration that was involved in that thing. And again, a sacrament is a symbol. I don’t think its effectiveness is measured by the leader. But the mode we use at Knox does suggest the meaning of baptism. And that’s the last thing I want to say about it. What does the symbol of baptism signify? Romans chapter 10 6 uh Romans chapter 6:4 in a nutshell we read, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, we may live a new life.” Colossians 2 says much the same thing. Speaks of us as having been buried with him in baptism, raised with him through your faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead. See that movement? It’s buried in baptism, raised to new life in Jesus Christ. It’s an outward symbol of an inward change that has already taken place through faith. You’ve repented of your sin. Sin that results in death. You’ve been raised with Christ on the basis of his victorious sacrifice on your behalf. So, baptism is very much a picture of going down into the grave and being buried. Coming up out of the water is a picture of being raised with Christ to walk in newness of life. Now, the waters remind us also of God’s judgment that came upon unbelievers at the time of the flood in Genesis 7 or the drowning of the Egyptians in the Exodus. Similarly, when Jonah was thrown down into the deep, he was thrown down into the place of death because of God’s judgment on his disobedience, even though he was miraculously rescued and became a sign of the resurrection. So therefore, those who go down today into the waters of baptism really are going down representative into the death and judgment. Death that they deserve for their sins. When they come up out of the waters of baptism shows they’ve been safely delivered from God’s judgment only because of the merits of Jesus Christ through whom they’ve been united in his death and resurrection. That’s why you read an interesting passage in 1 Peter 3 that the delivery of Noah in the ark from the waters of judgment in the flood is symbolized by Christian baptism where we’re saved by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So for those being baptized, I promise not to hold you too long under the waters of death and judgment. We’ll bring you up because this day signifies your great joyous resurrection and your new life in Christ.