Baptism Sermon - September 2016
There’s a story of a minister who like most ministers, conducted a lot of baptisms using the phrase, as we do, “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost”. One weekend his family went to a friend’s home in the country.
Their four children went outside to play with the others. After a short while, they heard only silence and wondered what the children were up to. They were found behind a barn quietly playing "church."
Their 4-year-old daughter Susan was conducting the baptismal service. She held a cat over a barrel of water.
Trying to be as solemn as her father, she repeated the phrase she had heard many times: "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and in the hole he goes!"
Misunderstandings about baptism aside, today is a big day. It is a day when 3 people will personally vow to follow Jesus – to live their whole lives as Christ-followers, people who follow the Way of Jesus – the
teachings of Jesus, the life of Jesus, all for the glory of Jesus.
It’s a day where we celebrate God’s work in the lives of people He has redeemed for Himself. It’s a day where the fact of who our baptismal candidates are and to Whom they belong is made very public.
We will be witnesses to their public confession of faith, to their profound commitment a life-long belonging to Jesus, following Jesus.
And the Bible gives us at least two dominant ideas about baptism. Forgiveness and Belonging
Forgiveness
In Acts chapter 2, the Apostle Peter is telling a story where he is recounting some recent history, the story of Jesus’ life and death on the cross.
He said this: 22 “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
Peter then spoke of King David’s prophecy about Jesus being the Messiah.
This caused the people listening to understand both their sinfulness and their need for God.
So they asked Peter: What shall we do? 38 Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
When God moves in a life He reveals His love. He reveals His goodness. He reveals His holiness. And at the same time when God moves in a life He reveals to a person his or her need for God.
God reveals what’s in a person’s heart, the darkness that’s there. The sinfulness that’s there. The absence from that life of fullness of joy simply because God is not yet in control of that life.
But also the person’s belovedness to God is revealed, just how much affection God has for the person. How willing God is to do anything to prove His love.
And in the midst of all this revealing, God gives an invitation.
It is an invitation based on the cross.
The one who is the object of God’s great love, whose ears and mind and heart have been opened by God to the gospel, starts to understand that the journey to the cross that Jesus made was for them.
For her. For him. Christ’s body broken, His blood spilled. All for the love of me and you. All to make us right.
French writer Henri Barbusse (1874-1935) tells of a conversation overheard in a trench full of wounded men during the First World War.
One of the men, who knew he only had minutes to live says to one of the other man, “Listen, Dominic, you’ve led a very dodgy life. Everywhere you are wanted by the police.
But there are no convictions against me.
My name is clear, so, here, take my wallet, take my papers, my identity, take my good name, my life and quickly, hand me your papers that I may carry all your crimes away with me in death.”
The Good News is that through Jesus, God makes a similar offer. He offers to make us right with Himself.
When we are baptized, we identify ourselves with Jesus. We publicly declare that we belong to Jesus, that we look to Jesus and desire with all our hearts to be like Jesus and follow God’s will for our lives. When we are
Converted to Christ, our lives are changed.
We see things differently than before. We see other people differently than before. Baptism is a sign of that change. It’s an outward and visible sign that reveals an inward and deeply personal reality.
Through the sacrifice of Jesus, God enables and empowers us to do the things that Jesus wants us to do here and now. We are able to identify with Jesus as we follow Him in baptism.
And we are able to love as he loved. Such identification is life changing. That kind of identification shapes what we believe and claims us.
The invitation is to receive the gift of God’s love expressed in Jesus Christ. To change the direction of one’s life.
To receive the forgiveness and cleansing of God. To turn away from sin – that is anything and everything that offends God – and to turn to God by His grace.
To repent, to believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. And to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. That’s the invitation open to all.
And 3 people will today choose to publicly confess what they have personally already believed – that they have given over their lives to Jesus Christ. Because of this, they are already forgiven, already cleansed.
So the first thing about baptism is forgiveness. The second is Belonging
1 Cor 12:13 says: For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
1 Peter 2: 9 says: But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Belonging is the second strong theme of Scripture about baptism.
Each person who will be baptized here today is baptized in the name of The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and, very importantly, INTO the body of Christ.
In a sense this baptism formalizes and solemnizes the belonging of each one as part of the body of Jesus on earth – the church, the church universal.
By the work of the Holy Spirit each one is baptized. Each one having come to faith in Jesus is baptized.
In all of our diversity, male and female, black and white, all of our different ethnicities and backgrounds, we become one in Christ through faith in Him.
All other things that might separate us for any reason become empty and powerless. We join together as one people.
Peter says “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God”. This highlights how as Christians we are brought into a profound sense of belonging.
As believers in Jesus, as followers of Christ, we instantly discover that we are part of something way bigger than ourselves.
I was like most people I think. I came to Jesus because I heard the gospel and it resonated at a very deep place in my life.
I understood as much as I could at the time, and I said yes to Jesus.
As far as I knew that’s all I was doing: entering into a one-on-one relationship with Jesus.
Very quickly I discovered that what I had actually entered into was an enormous family of believers that was spread all over the planet, all of Whom belong to Jesus.
I went from feeling largely alone in this world, to feeling surprisingly connected to so many.
Quickly I learned how beautiful the family of God is, and then I began to praise God for His wonderful gift to me of the church.
So…forgiveness and belonging. Cleansing and belonging. That’s what baptism signifies. Baptism points back to the work of God, and forward to the life of faith that each candidate will soon vow to live.
Azmina, Foad and Natasha and _____________.
To each candidate…I commend you for your decision today to follow Jesus Christ in the waters of baptism.
I admire your courage to do something that few nowadays do.
As you are baptized today, I pray God’s fullest and richest blessing on your lives. Together as a congregation we will pray for you now and in coming days and months and years.
Today as a congregation we once again embrace you as ones who belong to Jesus as we do, and ones who belong to the body of Jesus, the church. Amen.
