The Church: God's Covenant Community

The long patient working of God's grace through the covenant. The covenant being His promise that He made right in the beginning with Adam and Eve and with a special group of people throughout certain times of God's redemptive plan, God's redemptive mission to rescue mankind. In the Old Testament, we saw that God's covenant was with a certain nation called Israel. And as God works through this certain people, this certain nation, His special people, He reveals Himself through all of these different promises, these covenants with Adam and Eve, with Noah, with Abraham, Moses, David. He shows who He is.

He moves towards a certain salvation time and we reach that point in the New Covenant with Jesus here. And things are fulfilled. Promises made here, illusions made here, prophecies made here are fulfilled in Jesus Christ in this period here.

The question we're looking at today, however, in sort of the epilogue of this whole story, the question we deal with today is, in the New Testament, in this era we live in now, after Jesus, who is God making the covenant with now? Who has God promised this covenant to be with now? Well, we're gonna look at the book of Acts which records the early days of the Christian church. It is a history of the first Christians.

And we're gonna turn to the book of Acts chapter 2, and we'll start from verse 22. And just in context, we see that the disciples of Jesus, the 12, or at this point after Judas the 11, they realised that something huge has happened. They understand that Jesus was the fulfilment of all these promises and now they come and Peter as the representative of them comes to preach to a huge crowd at that time and he explains to them what has happened. Let's start at verse 22 of Acts chapter 2. Men of Israel, hear these words, Peter preaches to this huge crowd.

Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst as you yourselves know. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and the foreknowledge of God. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised Him up, however, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for Him to be held by it.

For David says concerning Him, I saw the Lord always before me for He is at my right hand that I may not be shaken. Therefore, my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades or let your holy one see corruption. You made known to me the paths of life.

You will make me full of gladness with Your presence. Peter continues after quoting this Psalm. He says, brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day. Being a prophet therefore and knowing that God has sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his own descendants on his throne, he, this is David, foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus, God raised up and of that we are all witnesses.

Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens but himself says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. And this is then what Peter finishes with. He says, let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made Him who is Jesus both Lord and Christ. This Jesus whom you crucified.

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, the crowd, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent and be baptised 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. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself. We'll finish there. So far the reading.

And like I said, this is the great epitome of Peter's preaching ministry. There were 3,000 people that came to faith as a result of this sermon. 3,000 people were baptised after this sermon. It is a huge moment in the history of the church. It is really where the church begins.

After the initial few disciples there received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, this is where the church is launched with 3,000 people. But I wonder if you picked up on some of the covenant language that Peter uses in this sermon. Did you pick up some of the recurring themes? Did you see how Peter refers to David, one of the covenant kings, one of the covenant receivers? He talks about a king who would sit on the throne of David, a descendant of David.

And Peter says, this is fulfilled in Jesus. Similarly, a little bit later in verse 22, Peter talks about, oh, sorry. Earlier in verse 22, Peter talks about the mighty works and the wonders and the signs that God has performed through this Jesus. If you look at those words and the construct of those words, you are reminded as a faithful Jew of what happened in Exodus. How God, with a mighty hand, through signs and wonders, led Israel out of Egypt, rescued them.

And Peter says, these same wonders have been done in Jesus. He is the better Moses. He is the fulfilment of the Exodus. And now, here in just a few words, Peter's pointing back to the covenant story and explaining that Jesus has fulfilled all of God's promises made across this timeline here in these various covenant promises. But friends, this morning, we need to ask the question, what is Peter's call to action?

After knowing all of that, after understanding that Jesus is the fulfilment of all of this, what is Peter's call to action? What does Peter finish his sermon on? Well, the people ask that. Right? They say, what must we do with this information?

And Peter says, repent and be baptised. Repent and be baptised. And even before this really, it presupposes something else that must happen and that has happened as a result of this preaching. It's alluded to in this passage verse 37. The people are cut to the heart.

The bible says they are cut to the heart when they hear the gospel. Their sin, their guilt are laid bare and they know that they need Jesus Christ. Only Jesus can fix it. And they asked Peter and the apostles, what have we what should we do? These men's hearts are awakened and they believe these words, believe that Jesus is the Saviour that had been killed by them, but for them as well.

And Peter says, repent and believe. That is what you must do. Repent, believe, be baptised. That is the physical response to the faith that was made alive in their hearts and minds. Now, this leads us to the final epilogue, like I said, of the covenant story.

Understanding the whole story of the Bible. We've spent chronologically each week working through the scriptures moving from Adam and Eve through to Jesus. But I wanna finish on this Sunday about the church, God's covenant community. And we're gonna ask this morning in with the crowd, in light of the covenant promises, what shall we do? Now the first question we ask is, how do we enter this covenant community?

This is what these people asked as well. How do we become a part of this story? How do we join this story? Well, over the past weeks, we've been careful to point out that there is really only one covenant. There is only one promise that carries through all of these different phases and that is the golden thread woven throughout the Bible that talks about God's grace.

Whether it's in the Old Testament or the New Testament, everything works more or less the same as it always has. This is really important for us to remember. There is no difference between the Old Testament promises and the new. That is really, really important for us to remember. We have to push back against theologies and they are in the church generally that says the Old Testament is irrelevant and in some sort of way, the God of the Old Testament is different to the God of the New Testament because the God in the Old Testament seems to be, I don't know, far more harsh or whatever.

Friends, it is the same God. It is the same redemptive plan. Now, thinking back over the past few weeks, when we asked the question, how do we enter the covenant community? Thinking back on the past few weeks, we saw that there was a man particularly who received the sign of the covenant and the entrance into this covenant and his name was Abraham. Abraham.

Remember that in Genesis 15:6, we saw that Abraham entered the covenant through faith. He entered the covenant through faith. Genesis 15:6 says, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. The most important verse in the Old Testament, you could say. But then Abraham is instructed to, in addition to entering, in addition to this promise, also show physically the covenant sign on his body.

And what was that? Circumcision. Circumcision is a sign that God was Abraham's God and that Abraham believed in God, lived for God, worshipped God. When we come to the New Testament, and it's alluded to here in Acts 2, but more fully explained elsewhere in Paul's writings, the sign of the circumcision as the symbol of the covenant is replaced with what? Baptism.

Baptism. Baptism now becomes a sign of the covenant. Now this morning I wanna ask you this question because we're a mixed bunch, if you haven't realised yet. When you think of baptism, do you think of it in covenantal terms? When you see someone baptised, is that the first theological hook you grab a hold of?

We're such a diverse bunch of people, which means we have a variety of views on baptism. This morning, in passing, I'd like to explain why our church holds to a covenantal understanding of baptism. That is our primary focus which leads us to allow infants to be baptised. And I'll explain to you why we do this. It's for this reason.

If we think back to the covenant sign given to Abraham, it was circumcision. Romans 4:11 says it this way. He, this is Abraham, received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The sign of the circumcision is a seal of the righteousness, the forgiveness, the justification that he had received by faith even before he was circumcised. Abraham receives therefore circumcision as a seal, a down payment of the righteousness that he had by faith.

Now circumcision therefore points to the faith. Circumcision points to the faith that saves. And yet, in Genesis 17, after God makes, you know, forgives Abraham in that sense in Genesis 15, Abraham is told to circumcise his sons when they are eight days old. The covenant sign of circumcision is therefore not given to Abraham in response to his faith, but as a sign pointing to faith. I will be your God, God says to Abraham, and you will be my people, and this covenant will be symbolised by circumcision.

And therefore, see all throughout the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the Davidic eras that the children of believers, of the Israelites, are entitled to the covenant sign of the circumcision. They are treated as insiders, these children. Not outsiders. They are part of God's covenant community. These children are therefore entitled to take part in the worship of God.

They may take part in the sacrifices that that lamb, that sacrifice that was made was made on behalf of them. Alternatively, non-covenant members, people who were uncircumcised, foreigners, the Gentiles, they are barred from these privileges. They are the outsiders. But Israelite children are in. This didn't mean that every child born, however, to an Israelite was saved. Many were not internally in the covenant, but they were granted the right, they were granted the privilege as children who belong to the family of God.

Why? Because this promise was made to parents who believed and therefore to their children as well. What does this mean? It means that circumcision and baptism are in essence based on the same thing. It's not Old Testament scrap that New Testament is where we live.

They are connected. They are connected. They are both signs of faith. But what people misunderstand is that they were never necessarily made in response to faith. Infant boys of eight days old do not have faith in order to respond to circumcision.

They might cry, but that's a different response. Circumcision is a sign pointing to a promise. Circumcision points to the promise and they are called to put their faith eventually in that promise personally. And so at one point this circumcision is meant to lead them to personal conviction. This sign is meant to evoke faith in their hearts.

Faith that God will forgive their sin, that God loves them and will justify them eternally. Now coming back to our passage in Acts 2. This is what Peter says in verses 38 and 39, repent and be baptised. He summarised the covenant story and he says, every one of you, repent and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is important for the promise, the promise, the covenant is for you and for your children.

Children. The promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself. The promise is for you and for your children, Peter says to these Jews. Nothing has changed, Peter says. This same promise is available to the Jewish people meeting in Jerusalem at this time, but not just to them, but to their children.

And to those who are far off, I think is an allusion to the Gentiles who are still to come in. In essence, it is the same covenant, but fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Adapted or updated or whatever you want to call it in Jesus. So question we ask then, are our children in Open House Church inside or outside the covenant promises of grace? Are they to be counted as insiders or outsiders of this church?

Do we treat them as non-believers, visitors? In the Old Testament, children of believing parents are considered to be in. They worship alongside all of Israel. Could it really be that with this final glorious addition of the covenant, the New Covenant in Jesus, could it possibly be that children are now ejected all of a sudden? This is why we baptise babies as well as adults, and I have stressed that too, as well as adults who come to faith.

Adults who have grown up never knowing God. Adults who have never had believing parents who were never part of the covenant community. We baptise adults once they repent and they believe just as what happened here with these Jews who as adults were baptised when they believed. But the promise is for them and for their children. Children of a mummy and a daddy who loves Jesus and will promise to raise their son and their daughter in the love of the Lord.

Does this mean that our children are then saved based on our parents' faith? No. Absolutely not. That faith has to be their own. But baptism does not point to an inward reality.

Baptism points to the faith, to the promise that they must place their faith into, rather. These children must believe, and they are given access to God's promise. We have to move on to our next point, but perhaps if I haven't convinced you this morning and you are still so welcome in our church, you are members of our church regardless. Regardless. If I haven't convinced you of our position on infant baptism, I wanna leave you with a few questions that might be tricky to answer and think about them.

If children were no longer insiders in the covenant community when the New Covenant came, why is this huge theological shift never explicitly mentioned? You would think that they would have wrestled with this and debated just like they did about the food that they had to eat. Remember, and the sacrificial system and the priests and all that sort of stuff. Why is children that are now all of a sudden on the outer, why is that not debated in the New Testament? The second question, the book of Acts and 1 Corinthians talks about entire households being baptised.

For example, the Philippian jailer after taking Paul and Silas to his home and binding their wounds and so on after they've been miraculously released by God. The bible says the Philippian jailer's entire household are baptised when he comes to faith. That includes his children. And thirdly, historically, some of the greatest theologians in church history have held to covenantal baptism of children from believing parents. Parents.

Luther, Luther, Calvin, Calvin, John Owen, Thomas Cranmer, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, BB Warfield, and more recently John Stott and J. I. Packer. Even the great John Wesley. The great English evangelist believed in covenantal infant baptism.

Three things to think about. Moving on to the second thing, and this is the second part of the sermon, is the Lord's Supper. This is the second sign of the two signs of the covenant and we have already alluded to this a few weeks ago. Remember at the New Covenant time that the night before going to the cross, Jesus takes up a glass of wine and he says in Luke 22:20, this cup that is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood. Jesus institutes this Lord's Supper, this remembrance of Him and what He's about to do.

This is the New Covenant in my blood. And so the second sign of the covenant is what is called a sacrament, just like baptism, is the Lord's Supper. Now this sits alongside baptism. They work together. These are both two signs and seals of God's covenant of grace.

Baptism and Lord's Supper. They're not things we just do randomly because we like eating a little bit of bread and having a little bit of port. These things are important and significant for our spiritual life. And they are based on, believe it or not, covenant theology. They are based on these promises being fulfilled.

The apostle Paul says that eating and drinking the Lord's Supper is a participation in the blood and the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:16, that's what he says. A participation in the body and the blood of Christ. While the bread and the wine are not magically transformed when Jesus says, you know, this is my body, this is my blood, and there are people within the Catholic church that believe magically it's transformed into the actual flesh and the actual blood of Jesus. We don't believe that these elements have magically transformed by nature, but when they are received in faith, when they are mixed and blended in with a believing heart, they become powerful and effective strengtheners of our unity, our oneness with Christ.

They unite us with Jesus. So the Lord's Supper is a holy moment when our hearts can be guaranteed that the promises represented in these elements is for me. It is mine. The Heidelberg Catechism, again, one of the ancient summaries of Reformed theology sums up the Lord's Supper in this beautiful way. In question and answer 79, this is what happens in the Lord's Supper.

Christ wants to assure us by this visible sign and pledge, wine and the bread, that we through the Holy Spirit's work share in His body His true body and blood as surely as our mouths receive these holy signs in His remembrance. And that all of His suffering and His obedience are definitely ours as if we personally had suffered and paid for our sins. Isn't that a wonderful summary of it? For those who have come to understand that their sins are great, but have placed their trust and their hope in the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection on their behalf. They are washed clean.

And the Lord's Supper becomes an incredibly joyful and powerful reminder of their place at Jesus' victory banquet when He comes again. And so when we share in the supper, we do so as a family. We do so as people so closely connected. We are true brothers and sisters proclaiming the saving death of our Lord and meanwhile, we receive spiritual food, spiritual nourishment for the journey of this life, waiting for Jesus to come again. And so this is how the Lord's Supper fits into the covenant, the New Covenant.

Remember in the Old Testament, the Passover meal? This was the same time when Jesus broke the bread. This was at the Passover meal. It updates and renews this event. The Passover pointed back to the rescue of Israel from Egypt.

Remember when God brought them out by great signs and wonders. Now Jesus breaking bread and wine of the Passover, says, you have been rescued even more than the Israelites have. This is a greater salvation that you have received. This is the New Covenant. This is the fulfilled promise that all these things have been pointing towards.

And once again, this covenantal understanding of this sacrament has massive implications. These implications are also different from some other churches who practise things differently. At Open House, you may have noticed, we have what is called a closed table. That's technically the word or a guarded table. We take seriously the idea that the Lord's Supper is for God's people.

It is for God's family and in particular those who have consciously put their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. So we don't throw open the Lord's Supper to everyone who might walk in off the street, which is what other churches may do. In fairness, they argue that God's grace is available to all and of course we say amen to that. But we see that there is something special, something significant happening when believers participate in the Lord's Supper. At the same time, I wanna say it's not closed, it's guarded because our elders are not gonna jump in front of someone as, you know, they're gonna take a bit of bread or wine or something like that either.

It is up to the individual to truly discern for themselves. But this is the logic behind it. If you live outside of God's covenant, right, if you live outside of God's covenant, then you shouldn't participate in the covenant meal. That is what is one of the key forms of what is called church discipline, which is also what the church has been given. And we're not gonna talk about that in length.

But one of the key ways that the church can discipline someone in the church who is living as if they live outside of the covenant, outside of God's relationship with them, the key things we can have or have been given is to say that you are not allowed to participate in the Lord's Supper. That's really the only thing we do have is to say, sorry, you are under discipline until you repent and change your belief and your faith and your actions, you may not participate. This is why our church also encourages young children not to participate in the Lord's Supper, even if they are baptised and included in the covenant community because when it comes to the Lord's Supper, it is a practice of genuine faith. It is a practice of genuine faith. Through the Lord's Supper, you profess that you have genuinely come to personally appropriate and receive all the promises of God summed up in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So if baptism is the initiation into the covenant community, then the Lord's Supper is a sign of showing that the covenant has been personally received, personally believed, personally entered into. And it means that the Lord's Supper should only be taken when and if you have personal belief in Jesus Christ. And so then this is all tied to the profession of faith. Right? So what we also do is to make sure that everyone understands the gospel.

Everyone enters into celebration in the community of God, understanding what it means to be a Christian. And so at the end of an intentional process where the elders or the pastor lead people through profession of faith class, the whole church can know for certain that these individuals understand and believe the gospel. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, then Jesus Christ saves you. From that profession of faith, from that declaration, I believe how this all hangs together, then we serve people at the Lord's Supper. Can you see how it all fits together?

We can trust and we can know that these people who are participating can honestly say yes. I've heard and I personally believe these things and yes, as a church we can say we've explained clearly, we've explained clearly that they have and should put their trust in Jesus Christ. Now, in addition to this, and I'm about to wrap up, I wanna say that if you haven't done your profession of faith, if you haven't been baptised, if you haven't baptised your children and you are believers, please, now is a great time to think about these things, to consider it, to come and talk to me about it, to send me an email or a text message or a phone call, and for us to start the process. And profession of faith is not for high school kids when they're about to graduate. I'm ashamed that in our Reformed churches that's how it's been.

That is not how it should be. It should be for kids who can understand concepts like grace and forgiveness and sin. So children of 10 should be able to do profession of faith. But it also means that people who are 70 who haven't done that yet, who don't understand that yet, should also be able to go through these classes so that they may understand truly what they believe.

As we wrap up this series on the covenant, let me stress what is the most important thing for us to know. That is that we have a God who is deliberate. A God who is very, very careful. A God who doesn't let things just happen. Who doesn't react to a world that's spinning out of control and try to curb it as much as possible.

There is a definite plan for His work. He is a God who never changes even when our situation seemingly does. He is never frustrated. His plans are never foiled. And then friends, His people are so protected.

His people are so guarded. His people are so cherished. My prayer is that as we come to understand, we see our lives as part of this great story based on the promise, the age old promise, I will be your God and you will be my people. And as we understand this, may we find strength to remain His people, to live for, to serve Him joyfully. Our God is magnificent.

He is altogether powerful and most special to us is He is incredibly loving. Pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this series that we could work through. We thank you for your word and Lord, what a challenge it is to try and grapple with it all and put it all in place. But Father, there is so much incredible power from that.

Thank you for your word. Thank you that it is not a random collection of sayings and random teachings, but Father it is a cohesive plan of action showing how you are rescuing the world. You are rescuing a people for yourself. Father, I pray for every single one of us here. Father, whether we are very close to you or very far, I pray, Lord, that you will be working in our hearts even if we were not to understand everything that was said today or in the past few weeks.

God, if you are real, show yourself. Reveal yourself. Don't let us go, Lord. Draw us irresistibly to yourself. And Father, as we live as your church, as we participate in all of these things.

As we are initiated into this community. As we are strengthened through the daily and the weekly practice of being a Christian Lord. I pray that we may be a church that glorifies you, that points always towards you, never towards ourselves. May we be a church that brings you incredible honour as we marvel at your great, patient, consistent, deliberate love of us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.