Children of Promise

SERMON: 2009-07-12--ac0923--children-of-promise SOURCE DURATION: 00:36:20.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The material from segment [0] through [31] constitutes the main theological exposition and sermon content. The subsequent segments ([353] onwards) are clearly devotional songs/worship music, marking a distinct break from the core sermon. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:31:46.360-00:36:19.400 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- One of the practices we value as a denomination, as many of you know, is the practice of infant baptism. And the logic behind infant baptism is not that water saves the child or automatically makes it a believer, but rather we view baptism as a sign and a symbol of the covenant that God enters into with parents and their children. And under the terms of that covenant, God promises to work His grace into the lives of our children as we, as parents, do what we can in terms of bringing them up in the fear and the nurture of the Lord. And one of the verses that is often cited in connection with infant baptism is Acts chapter 2 verse 39. "The promise," says Peter, "is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call." As we take a few minutes this morning to look at that verse in some detail, there are three things that I want us to note. Number one, the emphasis in this verse lies in the promise. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off. Now that, of course, immediately raises the question, what is the promise? In the context of Acts chapter 2, particularly in the context of the preceding verse, it's not hard to determine that the promise refers to the promised gift of the Holy Spirit. Peter puts it this way in verse 38, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." The promise is the promised Holy Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit, as I trust you know, is that agent of the Godhead who makes real in our lives what it is that Christ has accomplished by His death, resurrection, and ascension. It is the Holy Spirit who convicts us of our sin. It's the Holy Spirit who points us to Jesus. It's the Holy Spirit who works faith within our hearts. It's the Holy Spirit who enables us to yield to the authority of Jesus and then transforms our lives from glory to glory so that we learn to become obedient children of God the Father. It's the Holy Spirit who one day is going to bring about a whole new creation in which everything and everybody fully worships and serves the true and the living God. So the gift of the Holy Spirit that is referred to here is really the gift of salvation. Because all through scripture, if you will read it carefully, you will discover that God is coming to His people with the word of promise that He will save His people. That is to say, He will forgive our sins. He will release us from Satan's power. He will restore us to Himself. He will change our hearts. He will change our circumstances. He will change all of creation, and all of creation one day is going to be restored in obedient relationship with Almighty God. The promise to you and to your children and to all of our far off is the promise of God's Holy Spirit given to God's people. Now notice that it's a gift. That is to say, the gift of the Holy Spirit is freely given. It's not earned. You don't get it because you're better than somebody. You don't get it because you're smarter. You don't get the Holy Spirit because you have worked harder. No, no. The Holy Spirit is given as a gift but based on two prerequisites that we have dealt with earlier. That is to say, repentance and faith. Repent and be baptized, says Peter, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Remember to repent means to make a U-turn. It's to have a change of mind. It's to say, I'm no longer going to live for myself and for the pleasures of the world. I recognize that to be wrong, it's under the judgment of God, and I turn to him in repentance. To be baptized is to be joined with Christ and to recognize that he died for us, that he arose from the dead so that our sins could be forgiven and that his grace could be imparted to us. So the gift of the Holy Spirit that God promises here is a gift that is given to those who repent and to those who by faith in Jesus Christ are identified with him. Why do I make a point of that? Well, one of the objections that is sometimes raised to infant baptism is that it breeds into people a false sense of security, a false sense of security that says, "Well, when I was little, my parents brought me to church, the preacher put some water on my head. I've been done, you know, fire-proofed, and now I belong to God and no matter what I do or how I live, I know that God is my God and when I die, I will go to be with him in heaven." And there are many who live under the delusion. That because they have entered thusly into covenant with God, that therefore, they can do what they want and God will somehow or another claim them as his own. And you and I, we've all been to many funerals where people are expected to have gone to heaven perhaps because they have attended church, perhaps because they've been good people, perhaps because they had received at some point the mark of baptism. I want to tell you categorically, that's not what scripture teaches. A true relationship with God will always manifest itself in true repentance and true faith. And as we'll see in a few moments, when God extends the promise to us and to our children, it doesn't mean that automatically salvation takes place. What happens is that God promises to work grace into people's lives and that that grace must produce repentance and faith without it, faith is dead. Listen to how John the Baptist puts it to the scribes and the Pharisees when they come to him for baptism early in the ministry of Jesus. He says produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. I tell you that out of these stones, God can raise up children for Abraham. The axe is already at the root of the trees. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. The apostle Paul echoes a similar thought when he says later on in the book of Romans, it is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel, nor because they are his descendants are the old Abraham's children. On the contrary, it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. In other words, he says, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring. And without spending a lot of time on that, what he is really saying is that God has children, but God does not have grandchildren. Part of the challenge for Christian community is to seek to impart faith to subsequent generations. And our job is to lead our children. Our job is to expose them to the means of grace, to tell them the great and the mighty stories of God's redemption, to model that in our lives. God's job is to work grace into their hearts and then to lead them to personally embrace Jesus and to surrender themselves to him as Lord and Savior. That is why infant baptism on this end is followed, of course, by public profession of faith on this end. God extends his covenant promises, and he says, yes, I'll be your God. I will work grace into your heart, but that grace needs to bear fruit. So first of all, there is the promise. Then we have the recipients of the promise. For notice how Peter goes on, the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off. Notice with me there are three distinct groups of people that he is talking about to whom the promise applies. There is you. And you in that context is the audience that Peter is speaking to, Jewish believers and Jewish converts from all over the Roman Empire who are gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost. Then he says, your children, that is to say your offspring. And then he goes on to talk about for all who are far off. And those who are far off in scripture, that's a euphemism, that's another way of talking about Gentiles. Now let me talk just briefly about each of these categories because there are some crucial distinctions here. Let me talk first of all about Jew and Gentile. It is hard for us today to imagine the gap that existed in the days of Jesus between those who were Jews, observant Jews, and those who were Gentiles. Jews, of course, were the people of God with whom God had entered into covenant at Mount Sinai. And the distinguishing characteristic of the Jewish folks, according to Paul in Romans chapter 4, is that they are the recipients of God's revelation. He says, what advantage is there in being a Jew? Or what value is there in circumcision? This is in the context of the fact that Jews don't have advantages over Gentiles in the sense that all need to come to faith. We'll talk about that in a moment. He says, much in every way. First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God. So Jewish folks are people who knew God. They had God's self-revelation. They had the law. They had the prophets. They knew who God was. They knew how God wanted them to live. And though they often kept, perhaps, only the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law, at least they knew the difference between right and wrong. Gentiles were not like that. They were without God, without hope, and without biblical revelation. And Paul does a marvelous job in Ephesians chapter 4 in summarizing their condition when he says, "Concerning the Gentiles, they are darkened in their understanding, separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more." Perhaps the best way to sort of get into the gap between Jew and Gentile is to think of it in these terms. Think of a morally religious, upright churchgoer, one who tries to live by Scripture, not just the external letter of the law, but internally, one who knows the difference between right and wrong, one who is quick to repent, one who desires to love God and serve God and live life in a way that honors God, and then compare that with somebody over on the other extreme who is not interested in God, has no conscience, lives according to the dictates of his own mind, is led and controlled by his own passion, and throws himself deeper and deeper into sin and leaves behind him a life of chaos and confusion. Then you get a little bit of the biblical tension between Jew and Gentile, Jews who are close to God, in the words of Paul, and Gentiles who are far removed. Now here's what I want us to understand about Jew and Gentile. Number one, God wants both groups to come to salvation. God's love extends over all that he has made. He doesn't like good Jews better than bad Gentiles. He doesn't like a good churchgoer better than somebody who lives in the gutter. No, he wants to save both. The only reason he entered into covenant with the Jews in the Old Testament was because in God's wisdom, God wanted to create a nation who could uphold his testimony to whom he could reveal himself, through whom the Christ could be born with a view to saving the rest of the world. That's what the advantage of the Jews was. God came to them with revelation. But the purpose of that revelation was not only to save the Jews, but also the Gentiles. God's promise to Abraham was what? Through you, all nations will be blessed. God has always been missional, and he has always wanted to make disciples of all nations. God wants to save both Jew and Gentile. And number two, both groups can only be saved by coming to the cross. That is to say, whether you're a good Jew, or I might add, a good churchgoer who lives a nice, good, morally upright life, or you're down in the gutter and you have broken every law in the book and then a few more, and your conscience is defiled, you both need to come to Jesus and experience his redemption. Listen carefully now. How Paul puts this in Ephesians chapter 2, he says his purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two. That is to say, he wanted to take the Jewish folks and he wanted to take the Gentiles, very distinct people, and he wanted to make out of them one new community, which is the New Testament church, thus making peace. And in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. Now listen, he came and he preached peace to you who were far away, that is the Gentiles, and peace to those who were near, which are the Jewish folk, for through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. The genius of the New Testament gospel is that whether you're a morally upright person who knows the will of God and who tries to live in an upright fashion, or whether you're a reject in society and a derelict in every way, you both need to kneel at the cross, acknowledge that you're a sinner, and that you can only be saved by God's grace through the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Very important for us to understand that, because as for the Jews, so for those of us who have been raised in good homes and who know what it is that God requires of us, there is the tendency, there is the danger for good people to look down their noses at bad people and say, "Well, you need Jesus more than I do, because you're a sinner, and I may be a sinner, but I'm not as big a sinner as you are." Do you know what I'm saying? That is the epitome of arrogance. Because if truth be known, the righteousness that God requires from each one of us is so much higher than what any one of us can deliver, that whether you're the best person in the world or the worst person in the world, nobody can bridge the gap between God and a fallen human race, and we all need Jesus. Listen to how the Apostle Paul puts it in Philippians chapter 3. He's talking about his own credentials, and he says if anyone thinks he has reason to put confidence in the flesh, that is to say, if anybody thinks he's got reason to boast by his own natural credentials, he says, "I've got more. I can outshine you all." He says, "I was circumcised on the eighth day," that is to say, "I received the mark of the covenant. I belong to God's people. I was circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. My pedigree," he says, "I'm not a mongrel. I'm as purebred as they come. In regard to the law of Pharisee," remember, we think of the Pharisees as bad folks because we hear them through the ears and the eyes of Jesus, but the Pharisees were people who were more determined than anybody to try to do it right before God, and I would still say to this day that the average church confronted with a Pharisee would give him front and center because they look like they're such good people. He says, "In regard to the law, I was a Pharisee as for zeal. Center of the church, I wasn't just a pew-sitter, I threw myself into all of this. As for legalistic righteousness, faultless." Who of us here can even begin to approach that kind of righteousness? Who of us here never speeds? Who of us here never raises his voice in inappropriate anger? Who of us here never indulges in a moment of selfish passion or self-righteous proclamation? Well, Paul says in regard to keeping the law, he says, "I was faultless," and then he goes on to say this, "But whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ." Now here's the question, if Paul, who was as good as good can be under the law, threw all of that righteousness aside to belong to Jesus, then do you think maybe you and I, whether we're good, bad, or indifferent, might also need Jesus? You see, Jews and Gentiles, good people and bad people, knowledgeable people and ignorant people, all need to kneel at the cross and experience the forgiveness of sins and the righteousness that only Jesus can provide. The analogy that we sometimes use around here is the analogy of being out on a boat in the middle of the ocean, and the boat is about to sink, and the shore is a long, long ways away. It doesn't really matter if you're a passenger who doesn't know how to swim at all, if you know how to swim 30 feet, or if you know how to swim 30 miles. If the shore is hundreds of miles away, you're all equally going to drown unless somebody comes along in a lifeboat and pulls you out of the water. You and Gentile all need to come to Jesus, as do our children. I talked about that a few moments ago. The danger of being raised in a Christian home is that we learn all about God, but we confuse knowing about God with knowing God. Some of you have heard my story, I was in college studying for the ministry when a friend of mine came along and challenged me about my faith commitment to the Lord Jesus, and I discovered that I wasn't sure whether I had ever come to the cross, and I remember kneeling at my bed saying, "Lord, I think I've done this, but in case I haven't, this is too important to ignore, I give you my life." And we need to teach our children that a relationship with God happens when they, in turn, come to faith and give their lives to Him. Don't ever underestimate the power of a child's commitment to faith. And yes, they may struggle, and during their teenage years, many of them may wander away, but you know, when Christ has entered into a kid's heart by faith, not only can He fortify them against the temptations of the world in their teenage years, but many times as they get through that phase, depending on the friends they surround themselves with and so on, the Lord will stir up that gift of salvation in their hearts, and they will return as adults to the faith that they embraced, even as children. It doesn't mean that every child ever comes back, nor should we live with a false sense of security that says, "Well, I gave my life to Jesus when I was five years of age, and now it doesn't matter how I live." No, no, remember, faith must demonstrate itself in transformed lives of obedience, and we need to help and encourage each other to try to pass that faith on in a meaningful way to the next generation. So there's an emphasis here in this passage on the promise. There's an emphasis in this passage on the three recipients of that promise. And then in this passage, there is an emphasis on the fact that God must do the calling for us. Verse 39, "The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call." Now, here's a very sobering biblical truth. You can't just make up your mind and decide that you're going to follow God. Did you know that? Jesus put it this way, he says, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." Becoming a Christian, coming to faith, is always a supernatural act of God because by nature we're children of wrath. We are prone, our catechism says, to hate God and to hate our neighbor. There is nothing in us that wants to seek out God, submit to his authority, and do his will. Why would any son or daughter of Adam want somebody as big and as mighty as God to boss you around when you think you can do it on your own? God has to work his grace into our hearts and into the hearts of our children. And he has to draw them. He has to call us all. Well, you say, "What does that look like?" Well, I think there are three components to being called by God. The first is that he creates a hunger in our hearts. One thing that I have observed over the years is that when people come to faith, it's almost always, because at some level of their being, there has been something that says, "I want to find God, I want to find truth." Often it has been deeply hidden. Often people themselves have not even been aware of that. And you can find it both in saint and sinner. You can find it in Jew and you can find it in Gentile. You can find people that have gone to church all their life, they've got a hunger for God, and you can find people who live the most rough, ungodly, pagan life, and yet underneath all of that, at the core of their heart, there is something that says, "I wonder if God is real. I wonder if I can find him." There's always that hunger to go home. Now the Methodists would call that "prevenient grace," God working faith in somebody's heart. A Calvinist would probably call it "election," God knowing who belongs to him. Or whatever term one wants to use, salvation begins by God planting in our hearts a seed of faith that longs for home. It is then accompanied by what's known as an external call. An external call is when you and I are confronted by the gospel message. It may happen in the context of reading the Bible. It may happen in the context of a friend sitting down with us explaining to us the gospel. That's how it happened to me. I had gone to church all my life until I got to college and one of my friends sat me down and explained to me the reality of the cross in a way that I had never understood it. It can happen in the context of coming to church. It can happen in the context of going to a Billy Graham crusade or watching a TV evangelist. But somewhere along the line there is an explanation of the good news of the gospel that has at least these components. You're a sinner. You deserve to die. Jesus died on the cross for your sins, was raised for your justification. You can't swim to shore. It's too far away. Only by getting into the lifeboat that God has provided through faith in Jesus can you ever come to safety. That is the external call of the gospel. It needs to happen one way or the other. And that of course is followed then by God's internal call. Jesus said many are called, a few are chosen, very sobering words by the way. Not all the seed that gets scattered finds soil. That will receive it and that will bear fruit. But where there is a heart that has been prepared, where the elect are found, if you will, or where the provenient grace of God has been operating, when that gospel call comes and you hear the word, it's not just words out there. It's no longer just an intellectual realization. No, no. It speaks right to the core of my being. I am a sinner. Oh, up until now I might have thought I was as good as good can be. But no, I'm a sinner. I'm in danger of hell fire. I'm in danger of judgment. I'm on the wrong road. I cannot save myself. I need Jesus and so Lord Jesus, I bow before you. I give you my life and by faith I receive your forgiveness and your restoration. That's when we're reconciled to God. That's when we become part of God's forever family and we become part of this new community that God is building. The promise is for you, for your children, to all who are far off, for all whom the Lord [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:31:46.360; remove through 00:36:20.000] our God [CUT] will call. I am yours, surrendered wholly to you. You sent me in your family calling me your own. Now I, I belong to you all I need. Your spirit, your word, your truth, hear my cry. My deep desire to know you more in your day. I will lift my hands to the King. This evermore praise I bring, let it go. I want to love you with all I have. Here I stand, forever in your mighty hand, living with your promise, written on my heart. I am yours, surrendered wholly to you. You sent me in your family calling me your own. Now I, I belong to you all I need. Your spirit, your word, your truth, hear my cry. My deep desire to know you more in your day. I will lift my hands to the King, this evermore praise I bring, let it go. I want to love you with all I have, I belong to you, I belong, I belong to you. I belong, I belong to you, I belong, I belong to you. Now I, I belong to you all I need. Your spirit, your word, your truth, hear my cry. My deep desire to know you more in your day. I will lift my hands to the King, this evermore praise I bring, let it go. I want to love you with all I have, I belong to you. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:36:20.000; resume after this marked segment]