the sacraments on Living Water

We thank you, God our Father, that by your grace, mercy and love, expressed today in Word and Sacrament, You give us Your Son, the true bread from heaven and the fountain of living water. Strengthen u...

We thank You, God our Father, for Your grace, mercy and love, expressed today through Your Word and Sacrament; and we ask You to help us to pray and to know what to pray. You give us all good gifts: Y...

Sacraments are like hoses. They are the channels of the living water of God's grace. Our faith is like opening the faucet. We can open it a lot, a little, or not at all.

Preaching Commentary Context The feeding of the 5,000 in Matthew occurs within a section where questions of Jesus’ identity are heightened. Two incorrect answers of who Jesus truly is are given in...

Baptism with water is the sign and seal of baptism with the Spirit, as much as it is of the forgiveness of sins. Water-baptism is the initiatory Christian rite, because Spirit-baptism is the initiator...

To speak of life as “sacramental” means that everything visible in some way points to the invisible—in Christian understanding, the constant, upholding reality of eternal grace. The sacramental life s...

Context The feeding of the 5,000 in Matthew occurs within a section where questions of Jesus’ identity are heightened. Two incorrect answers of who Jesus truly is are given in 13:55 (“isn’t this the...

Like the sacramental use of water and bread and wine, friendship takes what's common in human experience and turns it into something holy.

Pastor: Lord Jesus Christ, in this world of unrest and strife You founded Your holy Christian Church through faith as a kingdom of peace and joy. You have established this worldwide communion of sai...

April 2020 is an interesting time to write a book review on the sacraments (or anything, for that matter). As Tim Chester, author of the book, Truth We Can Touch , points out, You can read you...

Think of a contract. Think perhaps of an employment contract or a memorandum of sale or an IOU. What you hold in your hand is a sheet of paper with a series of commitments written on it. This is what ...

Almighty God–Father, Son and Holy Spirit: You tell us to pray with thanksgiving...and we do; giving thanks for Your daily provision and care, for the birth of a child, for new jobs and new friends, fo...

Go online and find a picture of a cute-looking kitten. Apparently, half the Internet is made up of cat photos, so this shouldn’t be too hard. Print it out and then pin it on a dart board. You can prob...

The word “sacrament” comes from the Latin word sacramentum. It was used in two ways at the time. First, it described the oath taken by soldiers in the Roman army. It was a sacred pledge of allegiance....

Preaching Commentary Ecumenical Note I celebrate the many flavors of Christianity which gather within The Pastor’s Workshop. As such, I recognize and respect the different names we use to refer to...

Ancient Lens What's the historical context? A Hard Saying The difficulty of this saying was used by opponents of the early Christians to justify persecution, yet the early church still rallie...

Ancient Lens What's the historical context? A Hard Saying The difficulty of this saying was used by opponents of the early Christians to justify persecution, yet the early church still rallie...

Lord Jesus Christ, who when you were about to institute your holy Sacrament at the Last Supper washed the feet of the apostles, teach us by your example the grace of humility: Cleanse us, we beseech y...

To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, dest...

Where did we go wrong, that we preachers have so undervalued the Lord’s Supper and baptism? A glance around evangelical churches shows that the sacraments are the church’s Cinderellas—tolerated, patro...

This guide has been updated and expanded. Our Maundy Thursday guide for 2026 on John 13 incorporates this material along with additional commentary, illustrations, and discussion questions. Check ...

Pious souls can derive great confidence and delight from this sacrament, as being a testimony that they form one body with Christ, so that everything which is his they may call their own. Hence it fol...

John's Account of the Last Supper This passage is most often preached on on Maundy Thursday (or Holy Thursday). By our modern measure, “Thursday” would also include Gethsemane and other events of...

Ecumenical Note I celebrate the many flavors of Christianity which gather within The Pastor’s Workshop. As such, I recognize and respect the different names we use to refer to the meal we share as J...

In the introduction to Tim Chester’s Book Truth We Can Touch , Sinclair Ferguson shares a conversation he had with a doctoral student from the Far East: I knew him as “Timothy.” But one day, when...

Thou hast taken me into covenant with thee, for I am a baptized Christian, set apart for thee and sealed to be thine; thou hast laid me, and I have also laid myself, under all possible obligations to ...

Christianity . . . sees the necessity for man to have spiritual values and it shows him how to get at those through physical sacraments.

Life’s pleasures—success at work, a good meal, a beautiful song, satisfying sex, a splendid aroma—are sacraments, yes sacraments, of the new Heavens and earth.

Let it be regarded as a settled principle that the sacraments have the same office as the Word of God: to offer and set forth Christ to us, and in him the treasures of heavenly grace.

We do not get a different or a better Christ in the sacraments than we do in the Word…But we may get the same Christ better, with a firmer grasp of his grace through seeing, touching, feeling, and tas...