Well if you turn back in your
Bibles with me to Romans I want us to Just look very simply at
what baptism is this morning. Baptism is a confession. The
act of baptism is the confession. In some religious traditions,
you have to give your life history and tell people what a terrible
sinner you were and how you've reformed your lives. For some
denominations, such as the Church of Christ, it is actually a saving
ordinance. You actually get saved in the
process of baptism. For some, like the Catholics
and the Anglicans, baptising babies washes away original sin,
so it puts people in a savable state. But baptism is simply,
is simply a confession. The act of baptism is a confession. And one of the wonderful things
about the ordinances of our law, and there are just two, There
are just the two. Baptism precedes the Lord's Supper. In the early church the people
were, they heard the gospel, they believed the gospel, they
were baptised and then they joined with the church and then celebrated
the Lord's Supper. But I love these two ordinances
in so many ways. I love the pictures of the Lord
Jesus Christ in them. I love the pictures in those,
the simple pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ in union with his
people, bearing their sins in his own body on the tree, dying
under the wrath of God, the infinite, holy, just wrath of God. dying and being buried and then
being raised again. Raised because his work was done. His work was finished. Raised
to reign. And that's what we've seen as
we've gone through the book of Acts. He reigns. He reigns in this
world. He sits upon the throne of this
universe. He controls all things. He upholds all things. He is
sovereignly in charge of absolutely everything. The purpose of the
gospel is to magnify the Lord Jesus Christ. To magnify something
is to take something that looks very indistinct and make it big
and clear. I remember when I went down to
the village some years ago with a friend of mine and we looked
through a telescope and this man just shone this thing around
and pointed this thing up at Saturn and for the first time
in my life I looked up to the stars and the skies and there
was Saturn in all these rings and it was just amazing. The
preaching of the gospel is about the declaration and the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ and so all of the ordinances are
about him. And one of the wonderful things
that I often think about them is that 10 minutes after baptism,
no one would know that there had been a baptism. They are
just restored to normal life. A few minutes, a few seconds
after you've taken the Lord's table, the Lord's supper, taken
those elements which remind you of his broken body and that shed
blood on Calvary's tree, they become one with you. The point, of course, is that
the work of salvation in the Gospel is an internal spiritual
work. It's not something that men can
put their hands to and add to in any way at all. So I'd like
us to look at this confession of baptism, and I'd just like
to look at three things. It is to confess, is to confess
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. In baptism, the act of
baptism, you are saying that the Jesus Christ that is proclaimed
before you is the Son of God. You're confessing in baptism
that you are a sinner. And you are confessing in baptism
that the only way that you can be saved is by being united to
Christ. The only possible way of salvation
is if the Lord Jesus Christ does it all. All. And He does. He does, to the
glory of God. And so I'd like us to think about
those things in light of a verse that's in the scriptures there
before you in Romans 6-17. Paul thanks God. He's thanking
God for these Roman Christians. He's thanking God for Christians
that are saved all through the world. He said, God be thanked
that ye were the servants of sin. You were the servants of
sin. If you are without the Lord Jesus
Christ in this world, you are a servant of sin. Sin has dominion
over you. But, this is one of the great
buts of scripture, but you have obeyed from the heart that form
of doctrine which was delivered. It's the form of doctrine. It's
the pattern of teaching. It is this resemblance. It is
this declaration of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. We're not ashamed,
Christian preachers are not ashamed of preaching doctrinally. Doctrine
is just teaching. Teaching is declaring who the
Lord Jesus Christ is and what he has done. and what he is doing
right now. It's declaring who he is. It's
declaring what he did. It's declaring why he did it.
It's declaring what did he accomplish by all that he did. It's declaring
where he is now and what he is doing now. It is simply declaring
Him, as we've been going through the sermons in Acts, we have
found again and again, that there is just a glorious simplicity
about them. Paul is simply, and the Apostle
Peter, is simply declaring who the Lord Jesus Christ is according
to the Scriptures. You obey from the heart the form
of doctrine. Romans has bookends to it. The
bookends are the obedience of faith, simply to trust Him. So I'd like us to look at that
in light of these verses that are here before us. And I just
want to go through them fairly quickly, but I want us to consider
these things in light of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. Paul
has declared him throughout the earlier chapters of this book.
He declared him to be the son of God, the son of God declared
to that way by his resurrection from the dead, the son of God
who bore the sins of all of his people in his own body on the
tree and bore the wrath of God upon those sins. You can read
about it in those chapters, chapters 2 and 3 and chapter 4. That glorious, glorious work
of the Lord Jesus Christ is applied into the hearts of His people.
The Old Testament saints had it applied to their hearts. And
the New Testament saints have exactly the same thing that was
applied to their hearts. The faith that Abraham has is
the faith that all Christians have had throughout time. The
faith that David had is the faith in the same object. See, saving
faith Saving faith is not what you believe about yourself. Countless
multitudes in this world believe that God loves them. Countless
multitudes are told that the Lord Jesus Christ died for them
and they'll go and suffer enormous things for what they believe.
Saving faith is what you believe about Him. It's not what you
believe about yourself. We can believe all sorts of nonsense
about ourselves. We can believe and take the Scriptures
and apply it and say, that's me. But saving faith, real saving
faith, is believing who the Lord Jesus Christ is as declared in
the Scriptures, as declared in the Gospel, as declared by his
Father, as declared by himself, as declared by God the Holy Spirit. Saving faith, if you go back
to chapter four, if you have your scriptures there, I love
the description of faith. I love Abraham. As you remember, Abraham was
100 years old and he'd had Sarah as a wife for possibly 70 odd
years of that life, maybe longer. No child. Abraham, Abraham believed God. Abraham believed God, in verse
18 it says, who against hope believed in hope that he might
become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken,
so shall thy seed be. He had a promise from God. Abraham. He had the Word of God come to
him, and he believed it. And being not weak in faith,
he considered not his own body now dead when he was about a
hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb.
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but
was strong in faith, giving glory to God being fully persuaded
that what he had promised, what God had promised, he was also
able to perform. And therefore it was imputed
to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his
sake alone, that it was imputed to him, but for us also, to whom
it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus Christ,
Jesus our Lord from the dead. I love that verse. We quote it often. He was delivered. The Lord Jesus Christ was delivered,
verse 25. He was delivered for our offences. He was delivered because of our
offences. And He was raised again for our
justification. Because of our justification.
Quite simply, to be justified is to have no sin. to have no sin before God. That's what it is to be justified,
to have all of your sins taken away by the doing and the dying
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then chapter 5 begins, therefore
being justified, being justified by a work that had nothing to
do with us, nothing to do with us other than with our union
with the Lord Jesus Christ being justified. By faith we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Confessing in baptism is confessing
that Lord Jesus Christ was delivered for our offences and he was raised
for our justification. That's simply what the Ethiopian
eunuch in Acts chapter 9 was asked, wasn't he? There he was
reading Isaiah, you remember the story, he was reading Isaiah
53, and Philip came alongside the chariot, and he, who was
a wealthy, rich, and prominent man, had the good sense to ask,
to say, how can I know unless someone teaches me? And Philip
began at Isaiah 53, and he preached the Lord Jesus Christ to him. It's in Acts chapter 7, I'm sorry. Chapter 8, now I'll get it right. And the Uthiabi in Munich said,
In verse 36, here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptised?
And Philip said, if thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered, this is what
the Ethiopian eunuch answered, he didn't answer anything about
himself. He simply said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son
of God. See, confessing in baptism is
to declare that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He
is the Eternal Son. He is the Son that came. He existed before He came. He existed as God before He came. He is the Son of God, but it's
very good for us to be reminded again and again that He is God
the Son. He is one with His Father. He is that One who is glorious. He is the Lord, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Paul declares Him to be the Lord,
our Lord Jesus Christ. To be Lord is to be that Holy
One, that Sovereign One, that Creator, the Great I Am. In the beginning, God. Therefore
everything that exists, exists because of Him. The Lord is God. He is One. He is One and He is
Three. He is the Lord. is fully equal with his Father
in every aspect. To be Jesus, of course, is to
be fully human, the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in a
body. As he said to Philip, if you've
seen me, you have seen the Father. All that you're ever going to
see of God, you will see in the Lord Jesus Christ. For him to
be the Christ, is to be man and God in one. For him to be the
Christ is for him to be the covenant-making, covenant surety, in union with
his people, which why Paul says in that verse 1, he says, Lord
Jesus Christ. He was put to death for our offences. He was raised again for our justification. If you take your pen when you
go home and mark the personal pronouns just in this short passage
of scripture, you'll find that there are about 46 of them, and
maybe more, and I haven't counted them in any great detail. Always,
when you are referring to the Christ, you are referring to
that union of Godhead and manhood. It's a title. It's the title
of Him, that He was in union with His people. And because
of that eternal covenant union with His people, He took full
responsibility from the foundation of the world when the Father
gave them into His hands. He took full responsibility to
bring them back to the Father. to present them, as Colossians
1.21 says, to present them. He'll come back and he'll present
his bride, a glorious bride, holy, spotless, undefiled, unblameable. That's his work. To declare that
you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is to declare
His Lordship, to declare His humanity, to declare Him to be
the Christ, and it's to declare that He's alive and active. Alive and active. Last week we
looked at Acts 13.48. This is what it is for him to
be the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? And the Gentiles heard this
gospel. They were glad, they were glad
and glorified the word of the Lord and as many as were ordained
to eternal life believed. And people might argue about
that. One thing that's very, very evident from that text of
scripture is that believers believe it. Believers believe that there's
an ordination. to eternal life, and that ordination
is because of that glorious union with them. To confess that you
believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God is to confess that he
is successfully reigning and ruling, and having purged our
sins by himself as Hebrews 1, he sat down, he sits down in
the majesty on high. To believe that he is the Son
of God is to believe that he's returning. He came and finished
a work, on Calvary's tree and put away all the sins of all
his people, and they must and shall, every single one of them,
be in heaven with him." And he's coming back. He's coming back
to declare that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, is to declare
that this world, this world has a condemned sign all over it,
this world has reached its use by date. When the last of God's
people is born again, there is absolutely no reason for this
creation to exist for one millisecond longer. This creation exists,
this creation was created by this great creator so that the
Lord Jesus Christ could die on Calvary's tree and so that all
the fruit and all the benefits of that work of the Lord Jesus
Christ in eternity In time, in the lives of His people, we will
reach that glorious culmination when we will be with Him forever.
Lord Jesus Christ. You see what it says in verse
2, just look with me there. By whom we have access by faith
into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in the hope of the
glory of God. Not only so, but we glory in
tribulations, knowing that tribulations worketh patience, and patience
experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed. If you're going to walk in this
world to the honour of the Lord Jesus Christ, you are going to
have more problems after your confession than you had before
them. You'll have more problems as
a Christian than you ever have as a pagan. I promise you. But look what's happened in verse
five. It's just lovely, isn't it? And hope make us not ashamed. We rest like Abraham did in the
hope that what God has promised he's going to fulfil because
the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. So the love of
God is only shed abroad in the hearts of those people for whom
the Lord Jesus Christ represented and for whom the Lord Jesus Christ
died. It's shed abroad in our hearts.
It's not shed abroad in everyone's heart. By the Holy Ghost which
is given unto us. So to believe to confess is to
confess that this Lord Jesus Christ has done that for you. Baptism comes after the work
of the Lord in your hearts, that Holy Spirit given unto us, that
Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin and bring conviction of
a sinner's substitute in the Lord Jesus Christ. To confess
also is to believe that I am a sinner. In fact, it's much
better than that, isn't it? I love that publican who went
up to the temple. And he beat upon his heart, he
beat upon his breast because he knew that the problem that
he had was a deep, deep, deep problem. The problem he had wasn't
with his hands handling that filthy money and stealing from
people. The problem he had was a heart problem. And he goes
to that temple and he just has a simple declaration before God. He says, God be merciful to me,
the sinner. He wasn't worried about the sins
of the rest of the people in this world. He was worried about
one person's sins. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. What he was saying, in effect,
was God, be propitious to me. God, look at your sin-bearing
sacrifice of your son. And on the basis of what the
Lord Jesus Christ has done, Be merciful to me. Be merciful to
me. To be a sinner, to be a sinner
is an extraordinary thing. There are very, very few sinners
in this world. The only real sinners in this
world who know themselves to be sinners are the sinners who
have been made so by God. It is to confess, isn't it? Just
read what it is to be a sinner. Verse 6 of chapter 5, to be a
sinner is to be without strength. To be a sinner is someone who
has no ability in themselves to do anything, not to lift one
hand to appease anything that God requires of them. When we
were yet without strength in due time, at an appropriate and
perfect time, the time appointed by God, Christ died for the ungodly. What is it to be ungodly? To be ungodly is to be rebellious,
isn't it? What's the opposite of being
a rebel against God? The opposite is to be a worshipper
of God. That's what ungodly means. It
means those who do not worship. Ungodly people are those who
do not worship. Do not worship God as he's revealed
in the scriptures. That's what it is to be a sinner,
to be without strength, to be ungodly. Verse eight, but God
commendeth his love toward us. God exhibits, he introduces,
he puts on display his love toward us, that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. It's amazing how little words
have such a huge meaning in the scriptures, isn't it? That word
for is a word that I love to explain to people. It means one
that does a thing for another. That's what that word for means.
It means someone who stands over and bends over as if to shield
and to defend another. What a great picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ in his death, that he stood and covered his people
from the wrath of God and it fell on him. It means to be in
the place or in the stead of someone. So when the Lord Jesus
Christ died, he died for an us. The scriptures declare it all
the way through. Nowhere do the scriptures allow
us to believe, other than by willful ignorance, that the Lord
Jesus Christ somehow died for everyone and somehow failed in
his mission. We've just described what it
is. To confess in baptism is to confess that he's the Lord
Jesus Christ. To confess in baptism is to believe
that I am a sinner. It's to believe what God says
about you. Verse 10, when we were enemies,
enemies, enemies of God, To be a sinner is to be ungodly,
to be without strength, to be an enemy. And sin is much deeper,
much deeper than we possibly imagine. In verse 12, sin entered
the world by one man and death by sin, so that death passed
upon our all men for that all sinned. You sinned in your father
Adam in the garden. So you have a much bigger problem
with sin than the simple things that you do that you think you
can fix by changing your lives here in this world. Your sin
began in the garden when 100% of humanity sinned against God.
You were there. God says you were. Can I explain
it? Can I understand it? I can believe
it. I can believe it because of what
I see going on in this world. You go down to verse 19. For
as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners. You were made a sinner. You've sinned in the garden and
you were made sinner and you come forth from your mother's
womb speaking lies and you don't have to be taught anything about
selfishness and inconsideration of others. You don't have to
be taught me, me, me. You scream as a little baby as
if you were about to die, and you're lying to your parents,
because you're not about to die. All you need is your nappy changed.
All you need is a drink. But you scream as if you're about
to have your throat cut. Ungodly, ungodly, without strength,
enemies of God, sinners in Adam, made sinners by Adam. In baptism,
that's what you're confessing. That's what you're confessing.
You're confessing that you are the sinner, that you have no
claim on God in any way at all. And so then, to confess in baptism is to believe,
isn't it? Is to believe in faith that the
only way I can be saved is by being united to the Lord Jesus
Christ. The only possible way I can be
saved is that everything I need from God He must do. He must bear all of my sins in
his own body on the tree. He must bear them and bear them
away. He must bear all of the wrath
of God and take it away from me. He must. He must. work a righteousness which is
in accord with the perfect righteousness of God's holy law, the very righteousness
of God. To get into heaven you have to
be holy. This notion that there are good
Christians is an oxymoron, isn't it? There are no good Christians.
Christians are sinners. Christians are sinners saved
by the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 9, what are we saved
from? So we have to be saved from ourselves, we have to be
saved from this world, we have to be saved from Satan, we have
to be saved from God. Look with me in verse 9. While we were yet sinners, verse
8, Christ died for us. Much more then, now being justified
by his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him. To believe, to confess in baptism,
is to believe and to confess that the wrath of God, which
deservedly should have fallen on you, fell on the Lord Jesus
Christ. To be saved is to be made righteous. To be saved is to be reconciled
to God. If you look down there in verse
10, we were enemies. When we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more being reconciled,
we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also
joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received
the atonement. To confess baptism is to confess
that you have received the atonement. You've received from God that
covering of the Lord Jesus Christ. Which is why We sang that song
about this union between Jesus and the chosen race. subsists
a bond of sovereign grace. There is a union. Our salvation
is entirely dependent upon the union we have with the Lord Jesus
Christ. As I said, just personal pronouns
in this short passage of Scripture, number 46. And if you keep reading
through the Scriptures, you will find that when Paul is describing
the Lord Jesus Christ and describing salvation, personal pronouns
are used all the time. Salvation is for a particular
people. This union, in verse 1 of chapter
5, this union, we have, by faith, we have peace with God in this
union. This union gives us access, verse
2. This union gives us glory in
tribulations. This union, verse 5, makes us
not ashamed. This union causes the love of
God to be shed abroad in the hearts of His people. There is
no reason now in God for Him to do anything other than love
His people. There is no separation, is there? There is nothing that causes
separation, because the one thing that causes separation between
you and God is sin. Now the Lord Jesus has taken
it away. All that is left is for Him to love. He commended
His love toward us. in verse 8. He's justified us
and saved us from wrath in verse 9. We are reconciled to God,
verse 10. We joy and receive the atonement,
verse 11. Verse 19, I love verse 19, chapter
of Romans. For by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made. righteous. If you're going to
be righteous before God, you're going to be made righteous. Righteousness
is not something you do. Righteousness is something that
the Lord Jesus Christ has done and it's given. That's why we
come to these great verses down here in Romans chapter 6. All
of this comes to people in verse 21 of chapter 5, just for a minute,
that sin reigned unto death, even so grace might reign through
righteousness. If you receive saving grace,
it's going to come because of a righteous activity of God.
It was a righteous act of God, a righteous act of a holy God
to put his righteous and holy son to death. Why? because he and his people were
one. And that's what baptism signifies. He and his people are one. Grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The question, of course, is if
the Lord Jesus Christ has done all this, then we can go on continuing
sin. And Paul says in Romans 6.1,
absolutely no way in the world, God forbid. How shall we that
are dead to sin live any longer therein? We are baptised. Know ye not that as many of us
were baptised into Jesus Christ, were baptised into his death? You see, you're immersed into
his death. When you're immersed, you're
not seen. When Ben and Norm go under the
waters, the idea of immersion is that you don't see them. The
Lord Jesus Christ immersed his people in himself. We were one
with him. Just read it again. So that many
of us, as we're baptised into Jesus Christ, we're baptised
into His death. We were immersed with Him in
His death, that death that was under the law, under the wrath,
under the curse of God. He bore the sins. He bore them. He carried them in His own body
and He carried them away. Therefore, therefore we are buried,
verse 4, therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death. Buried with him by baptism into
death. You're confessing, you're confessing
your union in confessing baptism that like as Christ was raised
from the dead by the glory of the Father. It's a lovely way
to think about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't
it? It's the glory of the Father. The Lord Jesus Christ said to
his Father, glorify your name. Before he went to Calvary's tree,
he said, glorify your name. And he said, I have glorified
it and I will glorify it. He glorifies his name. He glorifies his character as
a holy, righteous and just God by the crucifixion of his son. It pleased the father to crush
him. It pleased the father to bruise
him. He will make his soul an offering
for sin. The offering of the Lord Jesus
Christ on Calvary's tree was an offering to his Father. He
wasn't being offered to the world, he was making an offering to
his Father. Like as Christ was raised from
the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should also
walk in newness of life. The other description of baptism
here is in verse 5. For if we had been planted together
in the likeness of his death, To be planted together is to
be united with him, to grow along with him, to be one with him. Planted together in the likeness. We have a joint origin is what
that word likeness means. We're planted together in the
likeness of his death. We shall also be in the likeness
of his resurrection. We're planted together, we're
buried, we're baptised into Him, into His likeness. And just in
conclusion, I'd like us to take note of the fact that this is
the form of doctrine that Paul preached again and again. He
preached simply about who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what
He had done. And those who were ordained to
eternal life were pricked in their hearts and they believed. They repented of their sins. They repented of the way they
thought they could put away with sins. The natural man thinks
that when sin comes along he must do something. To repent
of your sins is not a biblical phrase. To repent is to change
your mind. to change your mind about who
God is and how sins are put away. Sins are put away by the Lord
Jesus Christ. There are things known, just
in conclusion, there are things known, and things known are these
things that are going to be confessed. Verse 6, verse 3, it says, that
as many of us, there's that particular number, that group for whom he
died. You know that. To confess in
Believer's Baptism is to confess that you know that. Verse six
is to confess that your old man was crucified with him. I quote that verse from Galatians
2.20 again and again because I love it so much. and it's good
for us to read it. In Galatians 2.20 Paul says,
I through the law am dead to the law that I might live under
God. Verse 20, I am crucified with
Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. Old Man was crucified. It was
put to death completely and perfectly. All of the sins that it warranted,
all of the death under the justice of God that it deserves, all
of that wrath of God to be poured out on it, was poured out on
it on Calvary's tree. Now Old Man is crucified. He's gone. We know that. To confess in faith is to confess
that you're a sinner, that when Christ died, you died. In every aspect of the Lord Jesus
Christ's life, his people were united with him. We were circumcised
with him. We walked with him. We were baptised
with him. We were crucified with him. We
were buried with him. We're glorified with Him. According
to the Scriptures, we now are seated in heavenly places in
Him. Union, they are things that we
know. Verse 9, knowing, knowing that Christ being raised from
the dead dieth no more. He'll never die again. Death
has no more dominion over him. We know that. The Lord Jesus
Christ is alive. One of the tragedies of so much
religion is he's treated as if he's a dead thing, so much as
a tragedy of theology and discussions about things, as if he is some
object to be discussed. He's a lord to be worshipped.
He's alive. He's here now. He says he is. He's here now with his angels. He says he is. We know him. We know. that there's a particular
number for whom he died, and he died, and their old man was
crucified. We know that he's been raised
from the dead. Verse 16, know ye not that to
whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are
to whom you obey, whether to sin unto death or obedience unto
life. To know. To know that you're
serving someone. Rebellion or worship. And then in verse 11, it says
reckon. Reckon. That word reckon means
to take an inventory. Reckon. Take an industry inventory. Estimate. Come to a conclusion
is what it means. Reckon. Reckon you also yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. Reckon. Reckon, that's the way
it is. Why? Because that's how God reckons
it. That's how God sees all of the
people who are united to his son. So when we reckon that,
when we come to that conclusion, we're actually saying the same
thing as God. That's what confession really
means, doesn't it? Confession is to say the same
thing. To confess the Lord Jesus Christ
is to say the same thing as God says about Him, say the same
thing as He says about Himself, say the same thing as the Holy
Spirit says about Him in all the scriptures, to say the same
thing. Reckon. And we walk, as 6.4 says,
in newness of life. that resurrected life. It's life
from the dead is what baptism signifies, doesn't it? As you
come out of the water you're signifying that you have begun
a life again, a newness of life. It's a life of faith. It's a
life that begins in faith and it never gets beyond faith. It's
a life of reliance and dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
a life of gratitude and worship of Him. It's to live with Him. To live with Him. To live unto
Him. To be, as verse 11 says, alive
unto God. Verse 14, it's to be under grace. I love what verse 14 says, for
sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the
law, but under grace. And you become servants of righteousness,
verse 19. The wages of sin, Paul concludes
in 623, the wages of sin is death. God will pay the wages, always. The wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So when we go down to the river,
we're confessing those things. Confessing those things about
who the Lord Jesus Christ is. We're confessing those things
about who we are. We're confessing those things
about how God saves sinners by a substitute, by a saviour, by
his Son. Let's pray. Now, Heavenly Father,
we thank you. We thank you for your word. We
thank you for the remarkable promises that are contained in
it. We thank you, Heavenly Father, that your Holy Spirit takes those
promises and applies them to the hearts of your people, that
they become glad and rejoice in the fact that in their union
with the Lord Jesus Christ, all of their sin was put away in
his broken body and in his shed blood. we are washed in that
precious blood, our Father. And we are washed to live in
union with Him. We are set free from the captivity
of sin in this world and liberated into the glory of the sons of
God. We are liberated by our Lord
to believe. Heavenly Father, may we rejoice
in this confession of your dear and precious Son. And Heavenly
Father, may you cause us again and again just to simply, in
all the circumstances of life, to simply look to Him, to trust
Him, to believe in Him, to rely upon Him. Our Father, he shed
his life's blood for his bride to make her and to present her
glorious. We praise you, Heavenly Father,
for the wonderful work of the preaching of the Gospel, which
gathers your peoples together and joins them and unites them
with your people in fellowships around this world and throughout
time. And we praise you, Heavenly Father,
that we have a successful, promise-keeping, reigning, ruling, sovereign Lord
Jesus Christ. And we praise you for his presence.
Heavenly Father, as we take these elements that remind us of his
broken body and his shed blood, may you cause us, Heavenly Father,
to do this in remembrance of him. we can only remember one
that we know. This is eternal life, he said,
that we might know you, our father, and know him whom you have sent. May that be the portion of us
here this morning, our father, for we pray in Jesus' name and
for his glory. Amen.