What we believe about God and the church (4): GROWING AS A BELIEVER
INTRODUCTION
Think, for a moment, of a new baby when it is born. The child is washed and wrapped up in a cloth and handed back to its mother. And then what happens? Well, the child instinctively begins to feed. She takes milk from her mother and those first few sucks of her mother's milk are the beginning of a habit that will last a lifetime. What I mean is that for the rest of that child's life, she will need to feed. In the beginning, her mother will help her. The mothers gives her milk first of all and then pureed vegetables perhaps and then onto solid food. And the child will develop and she'll learn to use a knife and fork and spoon and will sit at the table with everyone else. Soon she'll be cutting her meat herself. And one day, she'll learn to boil an egg and heat some baked beans and so on. She'll learn to cook and prepare food for herself. And this will go on throughout her life.
Right throughout our lives we must eat. We must feed ourselves. We must have enough vitamins and nutrients and protein and all those things which are good for us and are necessary for a healthy diet and which enable us to grow and develop and remain healthy and well and energetic. We all know that the person who does not eat becomes weak and thin and sick because we all know how important a good and healthy diet is.
Now, when someone becomes a Christian they are like a new-born baby. They have started a new life. Once they used to live without the Lord Jesus in their lives. They neither knew him nor loved him. But then they are converted. God draws them to the Saviour and a new life is begun. It is a life with Jesus Christ. He becomes the centre of our lives. The focus. The one we love and trust and worship. He is the one through whom we are reconciled to God and he is the one who gives us eternal life and we love him for it. And so there's a new beginning. A new start. A new life. And then what?
Well, just as the new baby needs food in order to develop and grow, so the new believer needs food in order to develop and to grow as a Christian. The new believer needs a kind of spiritual food in order to develop as a Christian. She needs spiritual nourishment in order to grow in her faith and in her love for the Saviour. She needs spiritual food in order to reach maturity. That's what we need.
Well, in the Presbyterian Church we have always believed that God has provided us with spiritual food. He had given us what we need in order to grow as Christians so that we become mature believers, strong in the faith and in our Lord for the Saviour. God has provided us with what we need so that we will not become spiritually sick. He has provided us with what we need so that we will not remain as spiritual infants, but will grow up and develop as believers. And we call this spiritual nourishment that God gives us 'the means of grace'. That is, God has provided us with ways to receive his grace. He has appointed ways for us to receive all the benefits of Christ's death and resurrection. God has planned and prepared everything for his people. He planned the salvation of his people from before the creation of the world. He planned to send the Saviour to suffer and die in our place. He planned to call us to the Saviour. He planned to enable us to believe in him. And once we come to Christ for forgiveness and eternal life, God has planned and worked out how we may grow up in our faith. He has appointed certain means of grace.
Why do we need God's grace? Well, the passage we read earlier tells us why we need God's grace. First of all, Paul tells Titus that it is by God's grace that we are saved. Paul wrote:
Titus 2:11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.
Why do we need God's grace? Because God's grace brings salvation. By it we're saved from eternal punishment and we receive eternal life. That's salvation.
And then Paul went on to tell us the further benefits of God's grace. He wrote:
Titus 2:11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. 12 It teaches us to say 'No' to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age....
When God first calls us, we are enslaved by ungodliness and we are sinful. We are ruled over by worldly passions and desires. We are overwhelmed by temptation and we do not have the power to resist it. But God's grace is like a loving parent who comes to us and instructs us on how to say no to all that is wrong. And like a loving parent, it teaches us to become self-controlled and upright. It enables us to live the kind of life we ought to be living. That's why we need God's grace. God's grace comes to us and brings salvation. And it comes to us and teaches us how to live a better life.
And in order to receive this grace and to benefit from it, God has appointed certain means of grace, the means by which this grace is communicated to his people. He has decided that there are certain things which we must do if we are to grow up in the faith. Well what are they?
GOD'S APPOINTED WAY
Well, they are the things we do in church on Sundays. There is the Word of God, read and preached. There are the sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper. And there is prayer. These are the three means of grace which God has given to his people for our spiritual nourishment and by diligent use of these means we receive God's grace, the grace which brings salvation and the grace which teaches us how to live as the children of God.
Have you ever wondered why we do the things we do here in church? Do you think it is only a tradition we're following? Someone decades ago thought it would be a good idea to preach and pray and celebrate the sacraments and so a tradition was begun? And we are do the same things today out of tradition. Or do you think that church is like this because it's something ministers like to do? They like to preach. They like the sound of their own voice. So they decided to preach. Do we do these things because it's a good way to communicate a message? This is what many people think. They think that in the past the best way and the only way to communicate was by preaching, giving a public address. But now some people argue there are better ways of communicating a message. They say we can communicate better through music or through drama or through multimedia presentations. And so, if better ways can be found, we should replace preaching. Well, is that why we preach? Because once people thought it was the best way to communicate?
No, we do these things on a Sunday because this is God's appointed way for communicating his grace to us. We do these things because this is the way God planned it. We do these things because God has planned it that the way for men and women and boys and girls to receive the grace that brings salvation and the grace that teaches us how to live our lives is through his Word, read and preached, through the Sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper, and through prayer. And just as a man will become ill if he does not eat regularly, so Christians will become spiritually weak and ill and they will not grow if they do not make diligent and careful use of the means of grace. That's why we spend our time doing these things. Because this is God's appointed way for us to grow up in our faith.
BIBLICAL SUPPORT
Well now, is there any biblical support for saying these things? Well, we don't have time to look at all that the Bible says for believing these things, but let me turn your attention to just a few verses.
Consider first of all the Lord's Great Commission to his disciples in Matthew 28. What are his followers to do once he leaves them and returns to heaven? He tells them:
Matthew 28:19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
Here the Lord Jesus instructs his disciples to go and make other disciples. And how are they to do that? Well, they are to teach the people. There is the necessity of the Word and preaching. There is to be teaching. There is to be preaching. God's Word is essential to the task. And they are to baptise. There is the sacrament. A sacrament, we believe, is something instituted by the Lord Jesus. It is a practice that he has commanded. And he commands his disciples to go and baptise.
What about the Lord's Supper. Did the Lord command us to celebrate it? Well, at the last supper, before he was arrested and crucified for the salvation of his people, the Lord took the bread and broke it and he took the wine and drank it, and do you remember what he said? 'This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.' There it is. A direct commandment. Do this.
And of the cup he said:
Matthew 26:27 Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Drink it. Eat it. Do this in remembrance of me.
And then there is prayer and the Lord Jesus taught his disciples to pray by his own example, for we often read how he went off on his own to pray. But he also taught them to pray themselves and he gave them the Lord's Prayer for our guidance. 'This is how you should pray' he tells us.
So, we have the Lord Jesus commanding his disciples to teach and to baptise and to remember his death through the Lord's Supper and to pray. And so in Acts 2 we have the practice of the early church. What did they do when they met together? We read:
Acts 2:42 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
There is the teaching again. There is also fellowship together. They cared and supported one another. And they also broke bread, a reference to the Lord's Supper. And there was prayer. And what does it say about these things? It says they devoted themselves to this work. They were committed to it. They were constant in it. They persevered with it.
WHY?
Well, why do we do these things? What value is there in devoting ourselves to these three means of grace? Well, we have already seen that we do these things because God has commanded it. He has commanded us to preach and to teach, and to baptise and to remember his death in the Lord's Supper and he has instructed us to pray. But why these things and not something else?
Well, because each of these things leads us to the Saviour and through the Saviour we are brought to God. So, when we read the Bible, when we hear it preached, we hear God's promises of forgiveness through Jesus Christ. We hear that if we will only turn in faith to Jesus we will receive forgiveness and a full pardon for all that we have ever done wrong. We hear that we will receive the gift of eternal life and everlasting happiness. When we hear the Bible being read and preached, we hear what God has done to raise us up from the pit of hell and to raise us up to the glory of heaven. The Word of God is preached, the message of salvation is proclaimed, the gospel of Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection for sinners is made known, and when this message is proclaimed, God works in the hearts and minds of his people and enables them to respond to the message and they come to Christ and through Christ they come to God the Father. This is why the use the Bible and this is why we preach and this is why we ought all to be diligent and careful how we listen to God's word preached Sunday by Sunday, because through the reading and preaching of God's word, God convinces and converts sinners, he draws them to the Saviour, and he continues to use his word to build us up in our faith.
At first our faith is created. We hear the promise of life and at the same time God creates faith in our hearts so that we believe what is promised. He gives us faith. He creates it so that we can respond to the Bible's promises. And then he has to strengthen that faith and enlarge it and deepen it and make it firm. And how does he do that? By means of the word, read and preached. So if our faith begins to weaken, what happens? We hear the word and we're reminded of God's promises and his faithfulness and his kindness and his love and our faith is strengthened. The Devil attacks and makes us doubt that we can be saved. But then we hear the Bible read and preached and we are reminded that Christ's death is sufficient and our faith is renewed. We worry that sin is too strong and we will never overcome some bad habit. And then we hear the word of God and we are reminded that the Lord Jesus died to purify us and make us spotless and our faith is revived and we trust in him and in his death as the power by which the power of sin is destroyed. The word of God, read and preached, turns our thoughts again to the Saviour and our faith is strengthened and we continue to cling to Christ and through Christ we come to God.
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And what about the sacraments? They too bring us to God through Jesus Christ. In baptism we are reminded of God's wonderful promise to wash away our sins. God can wash our guilt away because Jesus Christ paid the penalty we deserve for our sins. The wages of sin is death and Jesus Christ died in our place and paid our wages. And so now God promises to wash away our sin and every time a child is baptised here in church, we are reminded that God has promised his people that he will cleanse us inwardly by his Spirit and make us fit for heaven.
Have we done anything to deserve this? Have we done something to win God's favour? Have we done something to win God's pardon and forgiveness. No, and this wonderful truth is displayed for us clearly every time a child is baptised, for before the child has done anything whether good or bad, before the child has even become aware of the Lord and what he has done, before the child believes, the Lord makes a promise to her and promises the child that he will wash away all of her sins and all of her wrongdoing whenever she puts her faith in the Saviour. The promise is made to a little child, to a baby, and as our children grow up, we teach them to believe that they are members of the church and that God is their Father and we teach them to pray and to trust in the Lord, and as they grow up we teach them of the Saviour who died that they might have their sins washed away for ever.
And then in the Lord's Supper, we are reminded of the death of the Saviour. His body was broken and his blood was shed on the cross 2000 years ago and the bread we eat and the wine we drink speak to us and remind us of his sacrifice and the suffering he endured. And by being reminded of these things, our faith is strengthened, and our hearts fill up with thanksgiving and praise for what he has done, and through faith in Jesus Christ we are brought near to God.
And so this is why we celebrate the sacraments. Because the sacraments lead us to the Saviour and through faith in the Saviour we are brought near to God.
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And then when we pray, we pray in the name of Jesus Christ and we pray to God the Father. We come to the entrance to heaven and we knock on the door and say, 'Open up.' And a voice says, Who is it? And we say, 'It's Colin Gamble.' But it has no effect. But when we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus, then the door is flung wide open and we may come into the presence of God and make our prayers and our requests known to him. When we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus, we are brought near to God and may talk to him and express to him our love and admiration and gratitude and our joy and our devotion and our hopes. Through prayer we are brought near to God through Jesus Christ and so this is why we pray.
EFFECTIVE
But there's one last thing to say today. Are the means of grace always effective? When we read the Bible for ourselves or when we hear it preached, does it always strengthen our faith and bring us closer to God?
And when we celebrate the sacraments, does it always strengthen our faith and bring us near to God?
And when we pray, are we always brought nearer to God?
Well, the WCF teaches us that it is the Spirit of God who makes the reading and preaching of the word effective. And it is the Spirit who makes the sacraments effective. And the Spirit of God is the one who enables us to pray. And so whenever we come to church, when we open our Bibles at home, or whenever we begin to pray, we must cry out to God, first of all, and ask him to send his Spirit to us, to make the means of grace effective. Perhaps for years and years you've been coming here and the preaching bores you; and the sacraments puzzle you; and pray seems unreal to you. And you're tempted to think that there's nothing in this. That preaching is a bore and the sacraments are a lot of nonsense and prayer is talking to yourself. You have never experienced anything else. Is that you? Then you need to pray and pray and pray again for God to send his Spirit to make these things effective in your life. And if you have felt the effective yourself, if you have been gripped by his word, and strengthened by the sacraments and felt liberty to pray, then you must plead with the Lord to send his Spirit on this whole congregation that all might enjoy what you have enjoyed and feel the effect of these means of grace.
A new born baby must eat if she is to grow. And God, out of his great kindness, has provided us with the spiritual food we need to sustain us and to enable us to grow. And so let us make use of the feast he has given us and let us grow up in the faith so that we become mature and enabled by God's grace to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live as his people in this present age while we wait for the return of our Saviour.