Hi, you're listening to Hemi Proclaim. We're wrapping up our series called Where in the Church is the Gospel. Today we look at three elements called means of grace, and that is preaching, baptism, and the Lord's Supper. Are they present in the church and are they gospel centered? John Fonville explains that when they are, spiritually, it's much like they are living water stations for believers running the race of life.
Let's listen now to this message called Are the Means of Grace Central in the Church? We've been exploring the question: where in the church is the gospel?
So, really quickly, here are the criterion that we have examined.
So far, to help assist us in knowing what to look for when evaluating churches. In regard to their Christ-centeredness, And the place of the gospel in their ministries. To help us understand and choose or find a church where we need to be week in and week out to worship.
So, really quickly, here are the criterion that we've looked at. First, Does the church Set forth the gospel as the promise of the grace of God. Sure promise, no law. Does the church do that? Second, does the church's message center on what Christ's work, and in particular, his death, has accomplished for us?
Third. Is the doctrine of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, central in the church? For Earth. Is there a self consciously gospel centered logic? Is there a gospel trajectory to the church's corporate worship?
Tim Keller uses this phrase. Gospel reenactment. And so there's a rhythm and flow of gospel-centered worship that must occur in the church's weekly corporate worship. And this is what he says about that. Studying John Calvin's liturgies that he wrote for his Reformed churches during the Reformation.
Tim Keller makes this observation. He says Calvin saw the entire service not as performance for God By the celebrants. But as a rhythm of receiving God's word of grace. And then responding in grateful praise. That is how the gospel operates.
We do not perform duties. Anxiously and wearily hoping that someday we will deserve to enter into his kingdom and family. Rather, Kettler says We hear Faith comes from hearing. We hear the word of his acceptance. In our acceptance, and transformed by that understanding from hearing.
We respond with a life of thankful joy. Receive, respond is the gospel rhythm flow of a church where the gospel and corporate worship is present.
So, this brings us to the fifth and final criteria that we want to look at. Here's the question. Are the sacraments The means of grace. Actually, preaching is included in this. Set forth As the chief means of spiritual growth.
Ask yourself that question about the church. Are the means of grace? Preaching Baptism and the Lord's Supper set forth In the church. As the chief means Of spiritual growth, sanctification. Daily Christian life.
If you're a brand new follower of Christ. How do you get started on your journey? How do you begin to grow spiritually? If you're a mature Christian. And you're looking for ways to grow closer to Christ.
And renew your relationship with him. How do you do this? If you are asked to make a list of aids or means to spiritual growth, What would your list look like? What would you write down? What would be on your list, and what would head your list?
What would be at the top of your list? What would be chief? On your list.
Well, this week I did a little digging in some Christian spiritual growth bookstore sections and. I got your list.
So, here, if you're asked to develop a spiritual growth plan for a baby Christian or a mature Christian. Here's the list. Here are the popular suggestions. I just took some of the most popular ones, and here we go. Have a daily prayer time.
Take a prayer walk. Memorize scripture. Go on a spiritual retreat. Go on a 45-day hike in Italy where you can get away with God. Set aside time for silence and solitude.
Fast. Do evangelism. Journal Cultivate the discipline of private and public worship, meaning the things that you do in private and public worship. Serve in the church. Give your money.
Give your money. Just kidding. Cultivate fellowship. Imitate spiritual heroes. Read your Bible daily and meditate.
Here's one. Learn to be content. Enjoy God and creation. Connect with God through worship music. Paint a picture as an offering to God.
Share your testimony. And if all of that fails, go get a spiritual coach. Tragically, none of those. Aids to spiritual growth on the list. Include preaching of the gospel.
Baptism Or the Lord's Supper. They're not on the top of the list. They're not even implicitly in any. Of the lists.
Now, while some of the disciplines listed are good. Daily Bible reading. Scripture memory. And prayer. They're not the means of grace.
Spiritual disciplines like daily Bible reading and prayer. Are means of gratitude. In sanctification, spiritual growth. It is absolutely essential. to distinguish between the means of grace and the means of gratitude.
What are the means of gratitude? The means of gratitude, if you're taking notes. are to be understood as the appropriate Response to God's grace. They are the appropriate response. To God's grace.
Let me give you an example from the Heidelberg Catechism. Question and Answer 116 in the Heidelberg Catechism. refers to prayer As the chief part of the thankfulness which God requires of us. Prayer Is the chief way believers express their gratitude to God for the mercies they have received. Through the gospel.
There is a place to employ spiritual, personal, spiritual disciplines like prayer, particularly prayer, since prayer is the chief means of gratitude. There is a place for evangelism. There is a place for service in the church. There is a place to serve our family, our fellow believers, and our neighbors in the world. You do that every day when you go to work.
You serve your neighbor through your work.
So, far from eliminating our activity, our means of gratitude, God's means of grace, give rise to our response of gratitude. Do you understand what I'm saying here? But here is the problem. When it comes to our spiritual growth plans. When the means of gratitude are set forth as the exclusive aids to our spiritual growth.
This is like a marathon runner who is always training to run. But he or she never eats, never rests, and never refuels during the race.
So I want to talk to you about marathons for a second. Marathon trainers say that the greatest enemy of any aspiring marathon runner is this: it is an injury. Mark can help you if you need help. The best protection for marathon runners, you know what it is? From injury?
It's rest. Rest. And so trainers teach marathon runners that the final part of any smart marathon training plan. Plan to grow? is rest.
In addition, marathon trainers teach this. Proper hydration and refueling are essential for keeping the marathon runner running in the race. Nearly all marathons include water. Aid stations along the race. And trainers say that the best advice for race day, particularly if you're not carrying those pouches where you have the water with you.
Trainers say that the best advice for you is to stop at every one of those water aid tables for a few seconds and just gulp down the water and, if it's available, drink and gulp down those spore drinks that replace your sodium and your electrolytes. Those who run marathons have heard about this phenomenon that happens to marathon runners about around the 20-mile mark. And it's called hitting the wall, or some of the marathon runners in their culture call it bonking. You bonked. What hitting the wall is, is this.
Your body, doctors say, can only store so much glycogen. Glycogen is the primary source of energy that you use to run a marathon race. And a runner's glycogen levels get depleted over the course of a marathon. And what happens when that depletion occurs? A runner's muscles begin to feel tired and heavy, and they begin to experience painful cramping, and every step they take is awful.
And so it's vital for marathon runners during the race to refuel his or her body by consuming small amounts of carbohydrates and electrolytes and to gulp down water at every water station. The Christian life is like that marathon race. It is a race that God has set before us. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1. The author exhorts believers: listen, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
Now, if a believer is to run the Christian life with endurance and run the race, you have to be disciplined. There has to be training. For example, spiritually speaking. There has to be prayer, there has to be Bible reading, there has to be Bible memorization, there has to be corporate worship, there has to be service to others. There has to be that training.
Also of paramount importance, like a marathon runner, a believer has to eat and to rest and to refuel in order to keep running the race of faith. In theological categories, what we're saying is this: the running, the training, the discipline are the means of gratitude. Daily Bible reading, prayer, service to others, whereas the eating, the resting, and the refueling are the means of grace. That's where the life comes from.
So putting the means of gratitude on your spiritual growth plan before the means of grace is like to put obedience before the gospel. Duty before grace. Response before reception, doing before hearing, working before receiving, running before resting. You hear the word of acceptance, and then when you're transformed by that understanding, you respond with a life of doing. Putting the means of gratitude before the means of grace, or setting the means of gratitude exclusively on your spiritual growth strategy, is like hitting the wall in a marathon.
It is like a runner who runs the race without rest, without proper nutrition, without making frequent stops at the water aid stations for the necessary refueling.
So what are the means of grace? The means of grace are this. I don't ever do this in church, but I'm going to do it today. There are three keys to spiritual growth. See, I did it.
Don't let anybody ever say, John Faufille never gave me principles or keys because I just did it. You know what they are? Preaching of the gospel, baptism, and the Lord's Supper, the means of grace. There you go. I did it.
Yeah. If you want to grow spiritually, that is where your spiritual water aid station is, where you refuel so you can keep enduring in the race. Listen to question 88 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. It ties closely our salvation and our sanctification, our spiritual growth to this. To the outward An ordinary means by which Christ communicates to us the benefits.
of salvation. The means of grace, what are they? They are God's methods that he has instituted in the church of delivering Christ and all of his saving power to me to live. Grace is a person. Yeah.
And they work. Called Jesus and the gospel, his life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and intercession for you. That is grace. And that grace comes to me through the Holy Spirit by the means that God has instituted word and sacrament. The means of grace are the way God comes down to meet us, rather than us trying to run and climb ladders to get to Him in exhaustion.
The ministry of the word, particularly the proclamation of the gospel and these sacraments, are the ordinary means by which believers receive God's blessings and favor in their life. The means of grace are to us spiritually what rest, nutrition, and water aid stations are to marathon runners physically. Preaching, baptism, and the Lord's Supper, spiritually speaking, are God's water aid stations where we come and gulp down rivers of living water. Weak. after week.
After week, it is where we refuel along the way as we run our race of faith. The means of grace are God's spiritual rest that our souls need in the midst of a world that makes us weary during the week. But if a church neglects these means, And fells to feed the church God's spiritual water aid stations regularly, week after week. Believers are going to be like marathon runners who have hit the wall. Let me describe to you what it's like to hit the wall.
Listen to this New York City Marathon runner who was running the New York City Marathon, and he hit the wall. He says, quote, somewhere in the Bronx, I started to feel like I couldn't keep up the pace. It was awful. I couldn't make my legs run any faster. And when I tried, it was very painful, end quote.
Spiritually speaking. This is the experience of believers who are fed a continual diet of spiritual disciplines as a main aid for their spiritual growth. Consequently, believers hit the wall spiritually, and like this marathon runner, they feel like they simply cannot keep up the pace. Their race of faith feels awful, and it is painful. They feel like their spiritual legs can't run any faster, and when they do, it's just pain.
It's like just as glycogen is a marathon runner's primary source of energy during a marathon. The gospel is the primary source of energy during the believer's race of faith. And just as a marathon runner's body can only store so much glycogen.
So, believers, because of the nature of our sanctification, we can only store up so much gospel at a time. And the nature of sanctification requires that we as believers hear and receive the gospel over and over and over throughout our whole lifetime. And so if we are to endure in our race, we have to learn to make regular, frequent stops at God's gospel aid stations called preaching of the gospel, baptism, and the Lord's Supper. Just as a runner's glycogen level gets depleted over the course of a marathon, your gospel glycogen level from Sunday to Sunday during the week gets depleted. I know it does, because mine does.
Just to be Brutally honest, there are times I don't want to come to church and preach. Because my gospel glycogen levels are done. And as a result, our spiritual muscles begin to tire and feel heavy. And eventually, the race of our faith is painful. It becomes sometimes awful.
Because we're trying to live the Christian life in a depleted state, because all we know to do is, I've got to train, I've got to train, I got to train, I got to do, I got to do. That's all I hear. There's no rest, no nutrition, and there is no spiritual electrolytes to refuel me to keep running. My spiritual muscles are in a constant state of cramping. Every step is painful.
I've hit the wall spiritually, and I find myself saying, I don't want to sing. I don't want to pray. I don't want to read my Bible. I don't want to go to church. I don't want to confess my sin.
I don't want to do anything. I am done. What does a believer need at that moment? You know what they don't need? They don't need to train.
They don't need any more exhortations and moral tips. They don't need any more keys to a secret this or that. They don't need to do something. They need to sit down on their water aid station and receive from God life giving water. And gulp and gulp and gulp.
You've got to stop on the way of your race when you're spiritually depleted at God's water aid station called His Table of Grace. We don't have an altar in this church. We have a table. That's why it has legs and it's clear, and I can stand behind it, and you can see me because I'm at a table. I am not in an altar.
And this is a table of grace, fellowship, and joy and peace. Blessing, service to you. You need to come to this table and gulp down life-giving water of grace. What is the Lord's table? How can you think about the Lord's Supper?
This is the best I could do. It's not meant to be trite, but to put it in your mind: what is it? It is grace for the race. The Lord's Supper is like a gospel sport drink that replaces your depleted spiritual sodium and electrolytes. It is a refueling station, not for you to recover lost merit because you're justified, but it is a refueling station to recover your lost steam.
God knows you need your gospel glycogen stores replenished. He knows that you need this to run the race of faith with endurance. He knows that you and I are weak. He knows that our hearts are easily cooled. He knows that our battle with our flesh is often unsuccessful.
He knows our propensity to fail and to stumble and to disobey. He knows our tendency toward unbelief and lack of assurance. He knows these things. This is why Michael Horton, writing on the spiritual benefits of the Lord's Supper, says, to those wearied by a tough week at the home or office. Yeah.
Or to those whose consciences never let them forget a sin they commit during the week. The sacrament of Holy Communion is there to communicate Christ and His forgiveness. There is no conscience. That cannot be instructed and overcome by this powerful sacrament. In the process of sanctification, God is so kind and gracious and patient with us.
He wants us to be constantly fueled and refueled and rested and refreshed in the race of faith. And it is through the means of grace He has given to us. Preaching of the gospel, announcing a silly, sinful man standing up in front of people, announcing a message that is the power of God unto salvation. And then take a look at the Taking that announcement and confirming it to your heart is what baptism and the Lord's Supper does. It is grace.
For the race. You have to have this. And it is through these spiritual aids, these gospel water aid stations, that the Holy Spirit gives us rest. Gives us nutrition, gives us the necessary refueling so that we can obey. Read our Bibles.
Pray. Serve, give, go, love, fulfill the law. Here's how Paul puts it in Second Corinthians chapter 1, verse 20. For all the promises of God. All the covenants he's ever made.
and Scripture find their yes in him. That is why. Through him we utter, we respond with our amen to God. For his gu'ori. You know, prayer is your amen to God for his glory because of all the promises in Christ are yes to you.
What is it that makes your amen prayer possible? The gospel, because without the gospel, true prayer is impossible. Our prayers are heard, 1 Peter 2, verse 5. They are heard by and acceptable to the Father because. And only because they're mediated through Jesus who prayed first for me.
And through Jesus, who is now interceding. At all times. For me, by the Holy Spirit, when I don't know how to pray, Romans 8 is praying. For me. Without Christ, our prayers are not heard.
We're like the hypocrite and the pagan, Matthew 6:5 through 8. The gospel not only makes prayer possible, it makes it desirable. You're not coming to a judge who wants to hurt you and condemn you. You're coming to a loving Father who is full of mercy and grace to help you in your time of need. Hebrews 4.
A heart saturated in the gospel would be driven to prayer, not by compulsion, not sheer duty. But by a spirit-wrought desire and delight, because you see that you're no longer a slave, but a beloved son and daughter of God, who He says, Here's my whole estate, just enjoy it. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 3, verse 12, he tells us what creates boldness before God. You know what it is? In him, in whom, in Christ, we have boldness and confident access to him.
This is the king of the creation. You can walk right in. Through Christ. But without the gospel, you'll never desire to draw near to God in prayer. Until you're assured of your access to him.
Where does this assurance? Where does this boldness come from? Where does this delight and desire come from? It comes from receiving the means of grace. Stopping at God's refueling station and receiving again His service to you.
We are effectually called into union with Christ by the gospel. Listen, 1 Peter 1, verses 23 through 25. You have been born again. You have come to life spiritually. You've been resurrected from the dead.
Not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living. An abiding word of God, but it's a specific word that God has given here. Listen. For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory, like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.
What word is Peter talking about? This and this word is the good news, the gospel that was preached to you. Means of grace, preaching. Effectual source, the gospel. That is what raises dead people to life.
Preaching the gospel through the ministry of the word, the Holy Spirit gives us the gift of faith in Christ. Listen, faith comes from hearing, not seeing. Hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. The word of Christ means the gospel as it's proclaimed. The Holy Spirit brings life.
And having received this gift of faith, the Holy Spirit then confirms and assures this same faith and strengthens, nourishes, refuels it through baptism in the Lord's Supper. Because they're visible gospels. They do exactly what the preached word does. But apart from the preached word, they do nothing. The sacraments don't do anything.
The Holy Spirit does everything, but He uses His God-ordained means to, when it's attached to the gospel, do what He's promised. And so assurance, spiritual growth, boldness, desire of God is born out of God's actions to us in Christ. It is not born out of our actions to God. It is not. But too often, churches not only fail to offer the means of grace as the key aids for spiritual growth, but they often remodel the means of grace into means of gratitude.
That is, they turn the gospel into another law. Free gift into duty. Here's an example. Here's how a church on their website defines baptism. Quote.
Baptism is the outward expression of an inward decision. End quote. And that definition Rather than viewing baptism as a means of grace, baptism is exclusively defined as a means of gratitude. Baptism is not being defined as God's gift to you. Baptism is being defined as your response and duty, your commitment to Him.
It is all your action, not God's action. Baptism is your personal decision and commitment to obey and follow, to train hard. I'm gonna be loyal. Rather than first seeing baptism is God's sign and seal of his promise, his pledge, his devotion, his eternal commitment to always act toward you and favor and deliver you from judgment and raise you to life. God intends baptism to be his gift to us, but we have remodeled it and turned it into our duty that is commanded of us.
It is simply seen as the believer's testifying of his or her commitment to follow Christ. I'm going to be faithful. And the Lord's Supper is often set forth on top of it. As another opportunity for you to come down to the front or receive in the pew, your opportunity to renew your love, your commitment, your pledge, your faithfulness to follow Jesus because you're remembering something that happened 2,000 years ago, but has no present power in your life right now. And then preaching is set forth, which is to be the primary means of grace.
It is reduced to moral exhortation and a set of propositions, keys, tips, principles, how to's, all of which are intended to help you live better. But in contrast, the Bible sets forth preaching as the primary means of grace through which God has ordained to bring about what the foolish man who is weak and sinful is announcing. Preaching is God's sacramental word. It is ex nihilo words of creation. In Genesis chapter 1, verse 3, God speaks ex and which just simply means this: He speaks out of nothing.
And when he says, let there be light, like him in existence. In 2 Corinthians 4, verse 6, Paul quotes Genesis 1, verse 3 to picture conversion as a new creation, which is born from God's creative speech through the announcement of guess what? The gospel. For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Preaching is not just exhortation, calling to action.
It is that, but it's more than that. Preaching is a primary means of grace. Preaching creates. The foolishness of preaching. Creates.
Through the preaching, the Holy Spirit brings into being what is announced by the pastor, law death, gospel life, to borrow a title from Ralph Erskine from a famous sermon he preached in the 18th century. The preaching of the gospel is not just about conveying information about Christ, it is conveying Christ. Through preaching, the Holy Spirit is taking that announced word that you hear and creating what you're hearing in your heart.
Nowhere is this fundamental truth of preaching. As an act of ex nihilo creation, more vividly portrayed than in Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones. I love Chris Tomlinson song that sings about this. When Lecrae is it, he raps it. It's one of my favorite songs.
Much more biblical than a lot of the old hymns that I grew up singing in revivalistic traditions.
So, I want you to listen to how God uses preaching to actually bring about what is being preached. If you have your Bibles, you can turn to Ezekiel 37. Listen to what God commands him to do, listen to what he does, and then watch what God does through what he does. Ezekiel 37, beginning verse 1. The hand of the Lord was upon me.
And he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord, and set me in the middle of the valley. It was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, Son of man, can these bones live? I said, Oh, sovereign Lord, you alone know.
That's a good response. Yeah. Not quite sure, but you know.
So look at verse 4. Then he said to me, prophesy. Preach. The means of grace. Do you know how stupid and foolish it looks for a person to preach at bones?
That's not exciting. That's not where the action is. Give me something exciting at church. Don't give me all that preaching stuff. We've had that, we've tried that, it doesn't work.
Prophesy to these bones and say to them, Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
Something dead here. You're dead here. This is what the sovereign Lord says to these dry, dead bones. I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you, and make flesh come upon you, and cover you with skin.
I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
So I prophesied, preached, as I was commanded. And as I was faithfully fulfilling the means of grace ordained and commanded by me from God Himself, There was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together. Here's Lecrae: bone to bone, flesh to flesh. Wrap it, yes. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them, and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
Then he said to me Keep Preaching. Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to it, This is what the sovereign Lord says. Boy, when he says it, it happens. Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain that they may live.
So I prophesied, I preached as he commanded me, and breath entered them. They came to life and stood up on their feet, a vast army. Preaching creates what is announced. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 8, that the gospel is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Do you want to have a church filled with the Holy Spirit?
Oh, I do. Oh, we believe in the Holy Spirit. Oh, we believe in the Holy Spirit. But when preaching is viewed primarily as a moral exhortation, where believers are given endless how-tos sold to them as being practical and relevant for their daily life, the whole emphasis falls on getting believers in the church to train like marathon runners and just do something. Wow.
Preaching how to live better. Baptism, commit. Lord's Supper, recommit, recommit, get your act together, recommit, rededicate. Come to the altar. Get your life together.
Be radical for Jesus. See ya. Preaching, baptism, and the Lord's Supper. Our not even thought is the means of grace. by which the Holy Spirit comes.
and brings about and confirms and assures my relationship with the living God. And so preaching, baptism, and the Lord's Supper are just simply viewed as. Nothing more than training for marathons. As opposed to water aid stations. for depleted runners who are spiritually exhausted and have hit the wall and said, I can't keep up the pace.
I'm done. We at Paramount Church have a passion to make the gospel. paramount in all things. For the sinner's joy and the Savior's glory. It is my gospel water aid station where I get rest, where I get nourishment, where I get gospel sodium sport drink electrolyte refueling so I can live.
That's what we want from you. Uh Thanks for listening to the Hymn We Proclaim podcast with John Fawnville. Hymn We Proclaim is a ministry of John Fawnville of Fairmount Church in Jacksonville, Florida. You can check out his church at paramountchurch.com. We look forward to next time.
