His name is Karl, a machinist for a GM affiliate in the Oshawa area. He is a skilled craftsman, meticulous in everything he does. Karl's work demands the best of his hand working abilities. He and fellow craftsmen develop and produce special tools that are used in the automobile assembly process. From one end of their shop to the other, Karl and the gang use special equipment on the custom ordered piece. It is roughed out, then finished, polished and tested to very exacting tolerances.
Amazing, really - that from a bunch of computer sketches and a hunk of steel the boys in the shop can turn out a product that is accurate within thousands of an inch, one that will withstand much heat and various stresses in the making of cars. Karl and his team are master craftsmen.

The catechism questions and answers that we just read together speak of another amazing Craftsman who does work in a very unique workshop. It describes for us a set of tools that are turned loose in that workshop...... not on a hunk of steel, but on a heart. The product they produce is not some inanimate tool, but a warm, living faith within a human being.

We're talking about the tools of Christianity, shaping the hearts of believers under the guiding, powerful hands of the Master Craftsman - the Holy Spirit. These tools are used within the workshop of faith. Which is the Church.

And by that I don't mean the bricks and mortar at 1475 Merivale Rd.
By Church I mean the community of people who are committed to Jesus; passionate in devoting their lives -- every part -- to Him.
Church -- the living workshop that moves and meets and works in many different settings, including parks, offices, kitchens, and classrooms.

This is the setting where the Holy Craftsman does His shaping, cutting and moulding work (1 Cor 3.16; Eph 2.22).
This is the setting within which the Holy Spirit has brought David and Trisha, together as a believing couple, to that point where they can both, with great joy and no shame, publicly declare their full devotion to Jesus Christ;
where they can bring their baby, Matthew David, before the Lord and say, "Lord, here is your child. We submit him and our lives to you. May he grow to be your lifelong servant."

The workshop called the Church. The Master Craftsman called the Holy Spirit. And a toolbox that He places in the hands of ordinary human beings like Trisha and David and you and me. That's the stuff of Q/A 65-68.

I want to spend a few moments this morning taking a quick overview of the holy tools that the Catechism describes. More about each in coming weeks:

• the holy preaching of the gospel
• holy baptism
• holy communion

As we enter the workshop, then, the first tool we pick up is the most basic one. Every faith-filled life that leaves the shop has had its start here in this corner. It is here that a receptive heart is first worked on by.... the Preached Word of God.

Faith is produced, says the Catechism, "in our hearts by the preaching of the holy gospel." Reflecting the Bible in Romans 10:17:
"So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ."

Of all the tools in the workshop, this one is THE most important. That's one of the reasons why my main job as senior pastor here is to prepare the sermons for the Sunday church services. I spend about half my work time on that. And the elders keep checking up on me to make sure that I don't slack off on that.
It's critical -- the preaching of Jesus Christ, of new life in Him.
I take it very seriously - not as merely delivering some propaganda, or my own personal opinions on some whimsical topic, but the holy Word and Will of God to His people. I covet your prayers for this ongoing process.

However - I'm not the only one......
...... not by a long shot am I the only one!!!.......
who proclaims, who preaches the gospel in Calvin Church.

Most preaching, and probably the most effective preaching, is not done by myself as a professional bible scholar and communicator.

Some of the least effective preaching is done by people standing in front of a crowd, talking loudly, waving their fists and pointing.
 

Some of the most effective preaching is done when someone reads a simple scripture lesson from their heart at Extendicare.
It happens when a person hugs someone in trouble and shares a quiet, encouraging Word from the Bible in a sensitive way.
Preaching occurs when a parent takes a small child on the knee and reads a bible story.
It occurs over the lunch table when someone responds to a colleague who asks, "What really is it that your church stands for?"
Preaching happens when teenagers sit in a discussion group and wrestle with a biblical response to current life situations.
Preaching is done everywhere by men and women, boys and girls who share the words and meaning of God's Word with their lives, and from the deepest integrity of their hearts.

Preaching - taking the Bible as God's timeless, ever-reliable truth for life and prayerfully acting on that; sharing it; living it.
The primary, incredibly sharp, powerful, faith-shaping tool.

On, now, to two other very significant tools in the workshop of faith, ones that are taken out of the toolbox and used with great regularity.
They are what we know as sacraments.
- Baptism.
- Communion.
The Catechism calls them "signs and seals."
That wording comes from Romans 4.11 where Abraham is described as receiving the sign and seal of circumcision - an Old Testament Sacrament.

When believers in Jesus, people who have responded to the carving, shaping work of the Preached Word in their lives -
- when believers receive the sacrament, says the catechism, God does to them what He did to Abraham:
He gives a visible, tangible sign and a touchable assurance (that's what a seal is) - letting the believers know and be sure that His promises are true, true for them.
Especially that great promise "to forgive our sins and give us eternal life by grace alone because of Christ's one sacrifice finished on the cross."

What gospel preaching shapes, the sacraments finish and polish.
Both are means by which the Holy Spirit works, building and maturing a faith in Christ's one sacrifice on the cross.

They are unique tools of the Spirit, working together as sort of an "audio-visual" presentation, if you will, of the Good News of the Bible.
Through the preaching of the gospel, the audio part, the Holy Spirit produces faith and teaches us. Through the sacraments, the visual part, the Holy Spirit confirms our faith and assures us that our salvation is firmly grounded in Christ's cross.

Sacraments -
The word sacrament actually is never found in the Bible. It just happens to be a handy label that we put on special acts. It literally means "a holy action". We paste that label on two very special acts that Christ clearly commanded all believers to make use of when they gather together as a church:

• Baptism (Matthew 29:19-20)
• Communion (1 Cor 22.23-26).

See - God knows how people learn and develop. We learn by listening and reading and hearing. But we also learn by seeing, feeling, smelling and doing.

Walk into any classroom with a good teacher and you will see what I mean. She doesn't just stand still at the front of the room and lecture. There is craft material and exercises to do, projects to make, things to see and feel.

God, as the Master Teacher, knows all this - after all, He's the One who designed human beings in the first place! And so He made sure that peoples' faith in Him would have teaching aids of different sorts to help them understand, to help them get the message.

He has done this throughout history.
The Old Testament is full of different symbols and pictures to express faith: killing and burning of animals, pouring of oil, lighting of incense, brightly coloured robes for the religious officials when they were leading worship, a splendid building in which to worship, special procedures for doing religious ceremonies, festivals of different sorts.

Now, in the Old Testament, among all those different sight and sound experiences there were two special ones that stand out:

• The eating of a meal to remember how God saved Israel from slavery - the Passover Meal.
• The cutting of the foreskin and shedding of blood from every 8 day old male, signifying that they were part of the special forgiven community of God's people of faith - the ceremony of circumcision.

• The eating of a meal to remember how God saved His people from the slavery of sin - the meal of Holy Communion.
• The pouring of water, which represented the shed blood of Christ, signifying that this person receiving it is part of the special forgiven community of God's people of faith - the ceremony of Baptism.

Are these sacrament tools the only ways that faith is born and strengthened?
Yes and no.
Yes, in that there has never been a person converted without hearing the Word of God told to them. Unless people hear a clear and simple explanation of who Jesus is, and what He came to do, they will never come to faith.
That's why no believer can cop out and say, "Well, I simply witness by my deeds." No - at some point all of us have to be obediently responsive to 1 Peter 3.15: "Always be prepared to give an account of the hope that is within you."
No - in that God very often does use many other ways to get through to people. It does not all happen in a formal church setting - which what we generally think of when we speak of preaching, Lord's Supper and baptism.

Think again of the workshop. Say a furniture making shop.
Different pieces of furniture require different tools. Different woods require different approaches. In God's workshop, where faith is shaped in different people, different tools are used.
Preaching, Lord's Supper, and Baptism are the three mainstay tools.
But they are not the only tools!

As one person said, "He who made every tree different from the next should not be expected to limit Himself in the way He forms faith in people to a few predictable methods." [A.Kuyvenhoven Comfort And Joy p.75]

One more important thing to note -
Notice that the questions and answers of the Catechism focus time and again on the completed work of Jesus Christ. They tell us that the sacraments point us to that. In other words - they are no good by themselves. They have no inherent, no magical sort of power.

Just because people get baptized or take communion, doesn't make them Christians.
I am not a Christian because of the water poured on me, or the elements placed in my mouth. I am a Christian because I have surrendered my life to Jesus Christ - I have asked Him to forgive my sin and take charge of my life.

The tools of the sacraments do not produce faith. They can't create what isn't there. They need to be thought of as finishing tools. They polish and complete the basic product.
When a person has faith, and then partakes of these sacraments, something special happens.
God the Holy Spirit, who is the teacher and worker of ever-deeper faith (1 Cor 2.10-14) takes the person with faith and uses the experience of the sacraments to bring that person closer to God.
The sacraments - in the coming weeks we'll take time to look more closely at each of them: baptism, communion. We'll study their Old Testament roots and New Testament institution by Jesus, their place in our lives, and the work that each does.

The sacraments -- precious, powerful in the lives of Christians.
Christians on the way.
Growing Christians.
Imperfect Christians.

Shaping. Moulding. Working.
Growing the miracle of divine faith in our hearts, a faith that links us to our Lord Jesus, and that draws us to the day of finally being united forever with Him.
The Sacraments - God's gift to you and me.