Are You One of God's Plants? (1987)

Introduction: The Encounter with the Pharisees and the Central Question

0:00 This sermon was preached on Sunday evening, May 31st, 1987, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:11 Now may I encourage you to turn with me in your Bibles to the 15th chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew,

0:22 the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 15, and follow as I read the first 14 verses. Verse 1.

0:39 Come to Jesus from Jerusalem, Pharisees and scribes, saying, Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread. And he answered and said unto them, Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? For God said, Honor your father and your mother.

1:10 And, He that speaks evil of father or mother, let him die the death. But you say, Whosoever shall say to his father or mother, That wherewith you might have been profited by me is given to God, he shall not honor his father. And you have made void the word of God because of your tradition. You hypocrites!

1:39 Well did Isaiah preach, Prophesy of you, saying, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men. And he called to him the multitude and said unto them, Hear and understand. It is not that which enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but that which proceeds, out of the mouth, this defiles the man.

2:16 Then came the disciples and said unto him, Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? But he answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up. Let them alone. They are blind guides.

2:41 And if the blind guide the blind, both shall fall into a pit. Now before we come to focus our attention particularly upon verse 13 in this passage, may I ask everyone within the sound of my voice to do a very simple thing, very simple, that children can understand what I request as well as every adult. And that is this, that as we take a moment to pray, will you dare to ask me, will you dare to ask God that if no one else tonight hears his voice speaking from his word, that you would hear him speak to your heart. Would you dare to pray that? Lord, if no one else hears your word, give me ears to hear. You remember what Jesus said in this very passage, Hear and understand.

3:41 Will you dare to pray, O God, if no one else will listen and understand, help me to listen, help me to understand your word. Will you pray that? We're going to bow in prayer, have a moment of silent prayer, and give you an opportunity to pray that prayer silently to God, and then I will lead us as we pray together. Let us pray.

4:16 Our Father, we have heard the words of our Lord Jesus coming to us over the centuries, from that time when they were first spoken, saying to us as well as to the multitude there in Palestine, hear and understand. And we come to you, O living and true God, and pray that you will indeed give us ears to hear, minds and hearts to understand, and then wills and affections to choose to walk in the way of your truth. Send your spirit upon us, send your spirit upon every mind and heart, send him upon your servant who seeks to open and apply your word, and bless our meditation together. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Now in this section of the word of God that I have read in your hearing, we have the record of just one of the many open encounters between Jesus and the scribes and the Pharisees of that day.

The Context: Jesus Exposes Pharisaical Hypocrisy

5:34 Now as many of you are well aware, the Pharisees and the scribes mentioned in chapter 15 and verse 1 were the official leaders of the popular religious system which dominated Jewish life in the days of our Lord. However, while supposedly basing their beliefs and practices upon the Old Testament scriptures, they had effectively negated the practical impact of the word of God so much so that Jesus says of them in verse 3 that they were transgressing the commandment of God by the very traditions that they said grew out of the word of God. Furthermore, he says in verse 6 that they were making void the word of God. They were not only transgressing the word of God in order to keep their man-made religious traditions, they were actually at many points negating or canceling or neutralizing the impact of the word of God upon their own lives and upon their followers all in the name of tradition. Now because our Lord came, actually fulfilling the Old Testament scriptures,

7:00 preaching their true meaning, and insisting upon thought and life conformed to their true intention, it soon became evident that he was marching to the beat of a different drum than that of the scribes and of the Pharisees. So wherever our Lord went, these scribes and Pharisees dogged his steps, opposed him, tried to catch him in his words, because it was evident that if he was right as the interpreter of the scriptures, as the enforcer of the scriptures, as the very fulfillment of the scriptures, then they were dead wrong. And they were not about to admit that they were dead wrong, and so they constantly opposed him, withstood him, sought to catch him in his words, in order to discredit them. Now it was in just such a setting that we find our Lord, having entered into this encounter with the scribes and Pharisees, calls the multitudes, verse 10, around him, and then he publicly exposes one of the fundamental fallacies of the religion of the scribes and Pharisees. It was a religion of externalism. They were always meticulous about external washings

8:28 and rituals of cleansing, but they had no understanding that the seat of sin was in the human heart, not in touching that was declared by them to be unclean. And so after the Lord publicly exposed them to the multitude, the disciples come to Jesus either privately or take him aside, and we read in verse 12, they said, Do you know the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? Well, the Lord well knew that they would be offended, but it didn't concern him to offend Pharisees. And then he makes a most profound and in many ways gripping statement in verse 13.

9:12 But he answered and said, How does he respond to this information brought to him by the disciples? Couched in the form of a question, Do you know that the Pharisees were offended at your saying? Our Lord's response is to make this blunt affirmation, Every plant which my heavenly Father planted not shall be rooted up. Now it is that statement of our Lord to which I would direct your attention for the remainder of our time together in the ministry of the word tonight.

The Imagery Employed: God as the Gardener

9:50 Every plant which my heavenly Father planted not shall be rooted up. And the first thing I would ask you to notice is the imagery employed. The imagery employed. In this passage, Jesus is using an extended metaphor, a figure of speech in which there are two dominant factors.

10:18 Look at them in the text. First of all, God the Father, who is likened to a domestic gardener, or we might say a horny culturalist, someone who is taken up in the planting and nurturing of exotic domestic plants. See how our Lord puts it? But he answered and said, Every plant or planting which my heavenly Father did not plant shall be rooted up.

10:52 So here our Lord likens the heavenly Father to a domestic gardener who either has a greenhouse or a specially protected and specially watered and kept garden in which he plants special plants with his own hands. Now that's the imagery. The imagery employed is the imagery of God the Father being this specialized gardener, this professional horticulturalist who is involved in the planting of these domestic plants either in his garden or we might say in contemporary parlance in his greenhouse. But then the second part of the imagery is this. Every true child of God is likened to one of God's special plants which he himself has planted in his own garden. Do you see that? Every plant which my heavenly Father did not plant shall be rooted up.

11:58 The clear teaching being that every plant which he himself plants shall not be rooted up, but it shall remain in God's garden. And so here everyone who truly understands the message of the word of God who comes to experience its power in his heart, who enters into a vital saving relationship to God through Jesus Christ is likened to a planting of God in the garden of his redeemed ones. Now perhaps the best commentary on that imagery is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 where Paul writing to the Christian church at Corinth likens to the fact that every believer in that church to God's special planting plants of God that were planted as God used the instrumentality of gospel preachers. But notice how the emphasis falls upon the activity of God. Now in this context Paul is writing to correct this spirit that was rife in the church where the believers were lining up behind the preachers and were dividing up into this carnal party spirit and trying to show how stupid that was.

13:27 He says verse 5 What then is Apollos and what is Paul? Ministers through whom you believed and each as the Lord gave to him. I planted Apollos watered but God gave the increase. Then neither is he who plants anything neither he that waters but God who gives the increase.

13:55 Now he who plants and he who waters are one but each shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. We are God's fellow workers. God is at work in planting true Christians in his church. There at Corinth God was the mighty worker. Paul and Apollos were simply workers together with God. He said we are God's fellow workers. You are God's tilled land. You are God's special garden.

14:25 And every one of you believers is God's planting in that garden and then he changes the imagery and he says you are God's building. So the church is likened to God's garden his tilled land and his building. So that's the imagery behind our text. God the Father is the great gardener. Every true Christian is a planting of his own sovereign gracious working even though he uses the instrumentality of men who bring the gospel, who pray, who counsel, who labor, who plead, who entreat. It is God and God alone who makes a true Christian under the imagery of a plant of God in the garden of God. So that's the imagery employed. But now notice secondly the assumption expressed by our Lord. Now in

The Assumption Expressed: Unplanted Plants in God's Visible Garden

15:30 these words every planting which my heavenly Father did not plant shall be rooted up. Our Lord is assuming that there will be some plants found in the garden of God's visible people that are not the result of God's work but they got there by somebody else's work. You see that in the text? Every plant which my heavenly Father planted not shall be rooted up. There are some plants that seem to have life and they are found among the plants that God has planted but God did not plant them. You see that assumption is in the imagery used by our Lord. And in the context it's obviously a reference to these Pharisees. They have the status of religious people. They go through the

16:22 very rituals, many of them ordained of God in the Old Testament. They went through the sacrifices and the washings and the feast and all of the other celebrations. They prayed and they fasted and they gave alms to the poor. You see they had the appearance of lovely religious plants.

16:44 But they were not God's planting. They were not God's work graciously and powerfully transforming them into plants of His own mighty work. They were someone else's work. They were not planted by the heavenly Father. And the assumption of our Lord is that there are such plants and they appear among God's visible people. And they go through the forms and the rituals and the language of religion. Much of it deriving its flavor and its tenor and its color and fragrance from the Bible. And yet their hearts are far from God.

17:30 They have no true knowledge of God. They are simply religious plants in whom God has done no saving work. Now that assumption ought to shake us a bit. We are here tonight in one of God's visible gardens. In a sense every church that claims that adherence to the word of God is one of God's gardens. One of God's greenhouses. Where God's plants are found. But the assumption of our text is being found in this place or any other place set apart for Christian worship and the preaching of the word does not mean that you are God's planting. The assumption is that there are plants among God's plants that are not His planting. So we've looked at the imagery used, the assumption expressed. Now thirdly notice the prophecy made by our Lord. The prophecy made. What is it?

The Prophecy Made: Every Unplanted Plant Shall Be Rooted Up

18:33 This is a prophecy made by our Lord. Look at it. Every planting which my heavenly Father planted not shall be rooted up. And that verb rooted up means literally to pull it up by the roots.

18:56 Now you know kids the difference between pulling weeds up by the roots and merely hacking them off at the level of the ground. Our brother Rick Anger when he was still in the grass cutting business and hadn't moved up into the kind of work he's in now or moved into I shouldn't say up to demean the other kind of lawn care that he did. I wasn't speaking in a terms of snootiness but moved into a different field of work. He and his men used to cut our grass and last year they went into a section where weeds had encroached upon our lawn and they cut it back and they worked in one of the hottest periods of the summer and they got all those weeds cut down and over the winter we saw our whole backyard but an amazing thing happened this spring. While the grass was up this high the weeds were up to here. Many of them we had not pulled out by the roots we had only cut them down. If you want to kill the plant you must pull it up by the roots. Its life is

20:02 fed by the root system. Shake out the dirt and let the sun wither its roots and that particular weed will never grow again. Now that's the picture here. A prophecy made by our Lord. A solemn prophecy that every plant which my heavenly father planted not shall be rooted up. What does that mean? Well it means simply this that God knows every single plant that he has planted in his garden and every other plant that he has not planted he will one day personally and effectively root out of his garden and discard it. Tear it up by the roots and discard it.

20:52 What's the best commentary on what that means? Well just turn back for any of you a page in your Bibles to Matthew 13 and here we have God's commentary on what that means. The Lord gives the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13 24 to 30 and those tares, the darnel was a weed that looked as it began to grow so much like real wheat that you could hardly tell them apart and if you tried to pull out the darnel you would end up pulling up real wheat and so the husbandman the farmer says let them grow both until the harvest then it will be evident and then they get aside with our Lord and say please explain this parable to us verse 36 explain to us the parable of the tares now listen to our Lord's explanation and he answered and said he that sows the good seed is the son of man and the field is the world and the good seed these are the sons of the kingdom and the tares are the sons of the evil one and the enemy that sowed them is the devil and the harvest is the end of the world and the reapers are angels as therefore the tares are gathered up and burned with fire so shall it be in the end of the world here is the meek lowly gentle Jesus speaking the son of man shall send

22:20 forth his angels they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that cause stumbling in them that do iniquity and shall cast them into the furnace of fire there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father he that has ears to hear let him hear our Lord under a little different imagery is underscoring the same truth in this passage he's making a solemn prophecy that at the end of the age at the second coming of our Lord Jesus the father through the instrumentality of his son will administer a separation in which everything that is not a tree a plant of God's own planting will be utterly rooted out and cast into the lake of fire every plant without exception which my heavenly father planted not shall be rooted up now in the light of this clear teaching as we've sought to just open up the imagery employed the assumption expressed the prophecy made there is one simple direct question I want to ask of every man woman boy or girl within the sound of my voice tonight based upon what we've

The Personal Question: Are You One of God's Plants?

23:49 seen in these words of Jesus every plant which my heavenly father planted not shall be rooted up here's the question very simple very direct and I ask it of every one of you this is the question are you one of God's plants now forget your brother your sister your mother your dad your son your uncle forget everyone else I'm asking you this question are you one of God's plants very simple question isn't it in the light of this passage are you one of God's plants if you're not you better become one the day is coming when God himself will root you out and cast you into outer darkness that's pretty straight forward isn't it you see that I haven't read that it's just there nice and simple you say I like the teaching of Jesus it's so simple you like this teaching this is Jesus teaching you see his knowledge of the father is perfect not distorted and his knowledge of the father takes into account that an hour is coming when his father will take every plant that he has not planted and root it out

25:16 therefore you better ask that question very personally of yourself and with judgment day honesty am I one of God's plants what is there about me that has no explanation that defies any other explanation but that almighty God the great heavenly horticulturalist has graciously and powerfully worked in me to make me a true living plant in his garden of his people that's a pretty straight forward question but you better ask it and you better ask it intensely of yourself and you better make sure that you don't give yourself a quick positive answer without sufficient grounds for that answer oh you say I must be one of his plants I go to church so did the pharisees well I give tithes so did the pharisees well I pray so did the pharisees they even fasted twice a week two days a week they didn't eat from morning till evening well you say I am zealous in the cause of religion so were the pharisees Jesus said they compass land and sea to make a proselyte and yet he says of them these religious people who in common ordinary 20th century parlance

26:44 carried their bibles under their arms and they were there every time the doors of the church were open sat on the front row entered into the prayers always put something in the plate and yet Jesus says every plant that my heavenly father planted not shall be rooted up my friend listen listen don't give yourself a quick easy shallow answer to this question am I God's planting am I God's planting oh I pray that question will burn its way into your mind follow you to your home track you down to your bed cause you to toss and turn if necessary am I God's planting you say Pastor Martin you've made your point alright alright my friend the years have taught me that people don't like to scrutinize themselves with judgment day honesty on such questions as these and it's out of love and concern to your soul that I'm pressing that question and I hope I pressed it to the point where now you're saying well how can I know if I'm God's planting ah good if you're asking that question then the remaining 10 minutes of what I have to say will be meaningful to you all of God's plants have five elementary characteristics to them all of them without exception however they may differ in their flowering however they may differ in their size

Five Indispensable Marks of God's Plants

28:12 however they may differ in the shape of their leaves and they do they have these five characteristics in common you ready for them number one all of God's plantings are people who have been given a humbling discovery of their own total lack of righteousness before God all of God's plants are people who have been given a humbling discovery of their absolute destitution of any righteousness to commend them to God to use the language of Matthew 9 they've come to understand that Christ did not come to call the righteous but sinners you remember when Jesus gave the Beatitudes those eight blessings what was the first one blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven and that what Jesus said what does it mean to be poor in spirit it means to be brought to the place where I see that I have nothing I am nothing and I can do nothing of myself to commend myself to God I have no righteousness of my own to commend me to the God of heaven now my friend let me ask you have you come to that discovery that because of

29:42 who and what you are as a fallen sinner of Adam's race who and what you are by nature in terms of this very passage what you are in your own native condition of heart you are defiled and your heart is a veritable cesspool of iniquity waiting to break forth to change the imagery like an artesian well of pollution have you ever come to discover what you are as a sinner if not you are not God's planting because all of God's plantings have this first fundamental characteristic they have been given a humbling discovery that they have known righteousness of their own to commend them to God but secondly this is the second mark of all of his plants they have been given a sight of the perfection of God's righteousness in Jesus Christ they have been given a sight I don't mean with their physical eyes but with the eyes of the soul through the scriptures read and preached and taught they have come to discover that in the person and work of Jesus particularly in Jesus perfect life of obedience and in his death upon the cross God has provided a righteousness a right standing

31:10 with him that is his own gift to men after showing us we have no righteousness of our own through the gospel he displays to us his own perfect righteousness offered to sinners in the person and work of Jesus Christ this is why Paul could say in Romans 1 16 and 17 I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes for therein in the gospel is revealed a righteousness of God the heart of the gospel is the revelation of a perfect righteousness which God has wrought for sinners and God offers to sinners in his son the Lord Jesus Christ that's the gospel and you see these Pharisees had not a notion about they had no need to look up to God that he would give them a gift of righteousness just read the record of that Pharisee who went into the temple to pray in Luke 18 and he stands before God and says oh God I got lots of righteousness to get my way into your presence I do this I fast I tithe I'm not a murderer I'm not this I'm not that he's preening his own feathers in the presence of God he doesn't have a clue of what a rotten sinner

32:38 he was standing afar off was another man he wouldn't even lift up his eyes to heaven but he beat upon his breast crying God be merciful to me the sinner Jesus said this man went down to his house justified that is he went down to his house in the possession of a perfect righteousness as the gift of God but it was only given to him when he saw he had none of his own every plant which my heavenly father planted not shall be rooted up if you have not been brought to see that you are utterly destitute of any righteousness of your own that the righteousness which answers to God's demands is to be found only in Jesus Christ as he's revealed in the gospel in his perfect life in his death upon the cross for sinners in his mighty resurrection in his ascension to the right hand of God the Father in his sending of the Holy Spirit if you have not been brought to see that in Christ there is righteousness and in him alone you're not God's planting but then thirdly God's plants all have this third characteristic they have been brought to turn from their sin the sins of self-righteousness as well as self-will the sins of rebellion against the gospel and against the law

34:05 they've been brought to repent that means to turn their back upon doing their own thing thinking their own thoughts running their own lives and they've been brought to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ verse 21 Paul said testifying to Jews and Greeks repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ and all of God's plantings are plantings that know what it is to turn away from sin from self-centeredness and self-will and self-trust and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that is to hurl the whole weight of our sin-laden soul upon Jesus Christ as he is freely offered in the gospel but then the fourth mark of all of God's plantings is this that they are people who have been inclined to a life of obedience to God out of gratitude for his mercy in Jesus Christ let me repeat that they are a people who have been inclined to a life of obedience to God out of gratitude for his mercy to them in Jesus Christ Jesus said if you love me you'll keep my commandments and what brings us to love him the scripture

35:34 says we love him because he first loved us you see it is the believing reception of God's love in Christ which alone subdues and inclines the rebel sinner's heart to love God and to keep his commandments and that's why Jesus said my sheep hear my voice and they follow me not everyone who says to me Lord Lord shall enter the kingdom but he that does the will of my Father who is in heaven how do we know these Pharisees were not God's plants instead of obeying the word of God they were cancelling it they were transgressing it with what not by shacking up with whores not by blaspheming on the street corner how did they break God's law not by cheating on their income tax they did it by a whole bunch of religious traditions that kept them away from God's word where his will is revealed and acted like a kind of a spiritual drug to keep them out of touch with reality they thought they were the very epitome of obedience to God and all the while they're breaking the law of God at point after point by their stinking rotten religious traditions my friend listen obedience to God may not be what you think it is how long has it been since you took up this Bible and started to

37:02 read it with this end in view oh God show me if indeed my heart is inclined to keep your commandments out of love to you for your mercy in Jesus Christ all of God's plants you see have this mark they are inclined to a life of obedience to God out of gratitude for his mercy to them in Jesus Christ and then the fifth mark of all God's plants is this they are increasingly becoming like Christ in their character by the power of the spirit of Christ they are increasingly becoming like Christ in their character by the power of the spirit of Christ for the scripture tells us he that says he abides in him ought himself so to walk even as he walked first John 2 6 and then 2 Corinthians 3 18 but we all with open face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are transformed into that image from one stage of glory to another even by the Lord the spirit you see the mark of every one of God's plants is that they become more and more like Jesus Christ in their moral character that is more and more they love the things he loves they hate the things he hates they choose the things that he would choose and they refuse the things that he would refuse

38:30 more and more they are like him in that one thing mattered to him doing the will of his father even when it meant saying not my will but thine be done even though it meant shame and opposition and pain and the abandonment of the cross now you see those are the five indispensable marks of all God's plants have you got them they've come to see they have no righteousness of their own that's conviction of sin they've come to see that there is a perfect righteousness offered by God in the gospel conviction of sin spiritual perception of the gospel they've come to turn away from their sin and self righteousness and self will and to rest only in Jesus Christ that's repentance and faith and what always follows from true repentance and faith are a life of obedience motivated by gratitude and a life of increasing conformity to Jesus Christ now dear people listen to me those things are not true just of the plants that are going to win first prize at the flower show if those things are not true of you you are not God's plant not even the least of them in his garden have you got that can I make it

Call to Self-Examination and Repentance

39:57 any simpler can I state it any more plainly than I've done dear people hear me hear me don't take this as just another sermon by another preacher oh yes a little more animated talks a little more with his hands my friend listen put all of that away and hear me the plant which my father planted not Jesus said is going to be rooted up do you want to prove in your experience that that prophecy is true do you want to feel the hand of almighty God upon you in the day of judgment rooting you up and casting you into hell before you believe this verse or will you say no God is gracious and merciful and brought me into this building tonight and laid upon the heart of that preacher to open up this passage and as I've asked the question am I God's plant I don't have those five things that he talked about oh yes I walked an aisle I raised a hand prayed a prayer I go to church I live a reasonably respectable life but I don't know what it is to see myself as utterly destitute of any righteousness before God then my friend you're living in a never never land of self deception because that's your true condition the bible says we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God and all our righteousnesses are

41:26 as filthy rags in his sight pray that God will show you your true condition that's the first indication that he's taking someone in hand and going to make them a plant in his own garden he gives them the painful self discovery of true conviction of sin and if you've never considered that in the gospel God offers not a happy feeling God offers not peace and prosperity but he offers what you desperately need now and in the day of judgment a righteousness that will make it right for God to admit you into heaven consistent with his justice every sin must be paid for you must be credited with a perfect record if you're to enter the presence of a holy God in the holy city thirdly my friend if you've never turned from your sin and thrown yourself upon Christ never turned in repentance and in faith then you're a stranger to the most elementary factors of what it is to be a true Christian and if you say oh yes I've repented and believed if there is not the inclination to a life of obedience out of gratitude obedience not to gain brownie points but obedience because Christ gained all the points I'll ever need

42:53 because he did I love him because I love him I want to obey him and then increasing conformity to his moral likeness by the power of the Holy Spirit those are the marks of all of God's plants have I described you is that a description of you if so friend be humbled afresh tonight and say oh God if I'm that kind of a plant I didn't make myself that way and my mom and dad couldn't pass on to me genetically that which would make me that way Lord in grace you've worked upon me and you've made me your planting in your garden but if you cannot say that's a description of me my friend go to God through Jesus Christ even tonight even in this hour and say oh God I don't know who else that word was intended for but when the preacher challenged me at the beginning to pray silently oh God if no one else hears and understands help me to hear and understand Lord I didn't know what I was asking for but oh God thank you you've burst my bubble Lord you've yanked me out of never never land and you've shown me that I'm lost I'm undone I'm destitute of any righteousness I can only find it in Jesus Christ oh God I would have Christ I would have him on his terms

44:22 I would have him that my sins might be forgiven that I might be credited with a perfect righteousness I would have him that he would give me a heart to obey him and give me of your spirit that I may be made more and more like him oh friend I plead with you go to God the heavenly Father who alone can make you a planting in his garden go to him through Jesus Christ and beg of him to give you what only he can give you and you have his promise ye shall seek me and find me when you shall search for me with all your heart seek ye the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near that the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord for he will have mercy and to our God for he will abundantly pardon and you who by grace are God's planting may God give you a new appreciation of the grace that made you such a plant that you can look forward even to the day of judgment with confidence as in a few moments the brethren will remove this pulpit and we make our way into the baptismal tank what are we witnessing well dear people in a sense what we're witnessing is the confession of these two young men

45:50 that almighty God took a couple of weeds that were out there in Adam's garden bearing all kinds of horrible seeds of a life of rebellion against God and God changed the weeds into plants and he's put them in his garden by his grace that's their confession and their baptism doesn't make them plants it's a declaration of what God in grace has done through the gospel of his own dear son and if you do not possess what they bear witness to the only way you can is to get it where they got it at the foot of the cross in humility in penitence in faith and look to Christ and Christ alone may God help you to do so even as we sing a final hymn and the brethren make their way to the back and I join them there may your heart run out to Christ himself let us pray our father we thank you for the words of our Lord Jesus that we have been privileged to examine and consider tonight and we pray that the Holy Spirit who moved Matthew to write them centuries ago will even now make them to come home with power

47:17 to all of our hearts that we may hear the words of Jesus ringing in the chambers of our hearts and echoing over again and again every plant that my heavenly father planted not shall be rooted up oh God make that word effectual to the salvation of some and to your name be praise and honor and glory now and forever Amen