The Ordinances: Rituals of a Redeemed People
What is the Church? • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction
Introduction
The Church’s Redeemed Rituals
The Church’s Redeemed Rituals
Baptism
Baptism
The Table
The Table
The Church United in Inspired Tradition
The Church United in Inspired Tradition
The Purpose of Rituals in the Old Testament
The Purpose of Rituals in the Old Testament
Demonstrate faithfulness to the worship of God and obedience by worshipping him in his way. These rituals were one way of determining whether God was being worshipped correctly, and not according to human will or independant imagination.
A painful reminder of sin which needs full atonement.
For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.
The repitition of the ritual points, not to the ritual itself for power to forgive sins or please God, but to the reality behind the image of the ritual.
Examples: a wedding is a ritual the represents more than simply a celebration.
Remembering God’s Faithfulness in the past and his promises for the future.
Giving form to truths which were not yet visible or fully revealed, serving as a foretaste of greater realities.
To be a vehicle of faith in the promised coming of Christ.
Problem: God’s people began to look to the rituals themselves for meaning, or worse, made up their own rituals to worship God in a way that was not according to the truth God put behind these rituals. Pharisees and other self-righteous Jews in Jesus day were more concerned about keeping these rituals to the tee than loving their God and fellow image-bearers.
The Purpose of Rituals Today
The Purpose of Rituals Today
Why do we need these rituals after Jesus has already appeared?
Answer 1: We live in the already not yet, and being in this state it is important to have tangible reminders of the truth.
Answer 2: They are a means of peaching the gospel through symbols.
Answer 3: Observing them causes us to experiencee Christ in a fuller way throuugh obedience and interaction with all our senses.
Answer 4: We have an eagerness for the fulfillment of these symbols, and practicing them gives us a great comfort in God’s promises.
Answer 5: They provide an important context for individual believers, as well as the church, to examine themselves.
Answer 6: They encourage our unity in the church, whose reality is emphasised in these rituals.