Galatians 3:26-29
“Remember You are Baptized!”
By: Rev. Ken Sauer, Pastor
Grace United Methodist Church,
Soddy Daisy, TN
graceumcsd.org
A minister friend of mine, in Virginia, once told me that as a kid before he would go off on some overnight, or to a party and then later when he left for college his mother would call after him, “Johnny, remember. You are baptized!”
This is what made John special.
This is what gave John self-worth!
He was baptized.
And this had a great impact on John’s life and on the life decisions he would make.
John heeded his mother’s plea to remember that he had been baptized…
…that God had claimed John as God’s very own…
…and this made all the difference in the world to John!
And although John was baptized as an infant, he can tell you without blinking an eye the date, and place of his baptism.
I think that’s pretty cool.
For me, I used to think it was a bit silly when someone would say, “Remember your baptism and be thankful.”
I would think to myself, “Remember my baptism? I don’t remember my baptism. I was only a couple month’s old!”
It wasn’t until I was at my first Annual Conference as a United Methodist Minister…
…when I was finally doing what I had been called to do all my life…
…that the call to “remember your baptism and be thankful” made sense to me for the very first time!
And oh, how thankful I was and ever shall be!!!
Do you remember your baptism?
If you were baptized as a baby, you probably don’t.
But I bet that if you were baptized as a baby you have some pretty early memories which have something to do with your baptism.
You probably remember entering the church that your parents took you to every Sunday and maybe some other days during the week.
Maybe you remember glimpses of some faces of the people who smiled at you and caused you to feel loved and important.
You might remember some Sunday school teachers who taught you about the Bible.
There may even be some snippets from some sermons you remember.
We celebrate infant baptism because we believe that baptism is something God does for us, not something we can do for ourselves.
It involves the grace that goes before us…John Wesley called it prevenient grace.
We believe that God is working in our lives from the time we are born to bring us to the point in our lives where we will accept God’s free gift of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ for ourselves.
We must come to a time of decision.
But God decides to love and accept us right from the beginning!!!
For many of us, our baptism was our first initiation into God’s Church…
…the beginning of the most amazing journey!
And it is the foundation upon which our lives are built.
For in Christ we are never homeless…
…we are always surrounded by God’s grace and love.
A couple years ago, a colleague of mine said, “children without a Christian upbringing must feel like orphans.”
What would it feel like to be a child who is never surrounded by a compassionate community who believe in God’s unconditional and unmerited love?
This past week I was sitting on the porch as Mary Ellen played in the backyard.
We have a metal yard ornament which is the Cross and Flame logo of the United Methodist Church.
I watched as Mary Ellen came upon this thing in our yard for the very first time.
And as she did, her face lit up and she called out to me: “Daddy, look, The Methodist Church!”
And then she walked up to that Cross and Flame and she put her little arms around it and she kissed it!
Mary Ellen is only 2 ½ years old…but she understands love.
When she kissed that Cross, she was kissing you folks!!!
She was kissing the people who are the living examples of Christ in her life.
She was kissing you folks, through whom she knows a love that is unconditional and overwhelming!
Some children think that Jesus Christ is just a swear word!
No wonder we live in such a graceless and cruel society!
No wonder Jesus Christ has given us the Great Commission which is to go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything Christ has taught us!!!
We cannot know the love of God until we experience it for ourselves.
God is the One Who initiates that love, and the Church is the Body of Christ called to live out that love on earth.
We do not believe that infant baptism saves us.
Neither do we believe that adult baptism saves us.
But we do believe that Baptism is something God does for us.
And God doesn’t get it wrong.
That’s why The United Methodist Church does not re-baptize persons.
Baptism means belonging.
It means that we belong to God and to one another.
And all of us need to know that we are loved, valued and cared for before we can accomplish any good, and God gives us this love, value and care through God’s grace at baptism and through our living out our Christian journeys as members of God’s family—the Church!!!
Through the sacrament of baptism, we are given a glimpse of God’s acceptance of us!
In baptism, it is God Who claims us, not the other way around!
And there is no greater security in all the earth!!!
Remember, you are baptized!
That’s basically what Paul is telling the Galatians in our Epistle Lesson for this morning.
The Christians at Galatia were up in arms.
Things were really heating up.
Some folks who were called Judaizers had infiltrated their ranks and were causing the Galatians to question their own salvation.
You see, Judaizers were Jewish Christian converts who insisted that the Gentile Christians at Galatia weren’t really Christians until they converted to Judaism first, became circumcised and followed the Jewish law.
And many of the Galatians were falling for this.
So in verses 6 through 9 of Chapter 1 Paul writes to the Church, “I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ.
You are following a different way that pretends to be Good News but is not the Good News at all.
You are being fooled by those who
deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ.
Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of Good News than the one we preached to you.
I say again what we have said before: If anyone preaches any other Good News than the one you welcomed, let that person be cursed.”
Those are some pretty heavy words!
Obviously, there is quite a penalty for those who create a stumbling block between people and God’s free-flowing grace and love!
Paul goes on to proclaim in Galatians Chapter 2, “My old self has been crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless.
For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.”
My friends, never allow anyone to tell you that you have to do something to earn God’s love for you!
There is nothing you can do to make God love you any more or any less than God always has and always will!
That is why we baptize infants!
God’s love is unmerited; it is unearned.
I love the way Paul puts it in Romans Chapter 4: “Abraham was, humanly speaking, the founder of our Jewish nation.
What did he discover about being made right with God?
If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have had something to boast about.
But that was not God’s way.
For the Scriptures tell us, ‘Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.’
When people work, their wages are not a gift, but something they have earned.
But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners.”
We cannot earn God’s love!
Does this mean that God loves everyone equally no matter what?
Does this mean God loves the Muslim in the Arab world as much as God loves you?
Does this mean God loves the murderer, the outcaste, the marginalized, persons of all nationalities and races as much as God loves you?
You better believe it!
Because in believing it, your life will be so transformed that you will indeed become an entirely new person!!!
Can we even begin to get a sense of how radical the Christian faith is?
Can we even begin to get a glimpse of what God’s love for us means?
In our Scripture passage for this morning, Paul insists to the bewildered Galatians, “you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes.
There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female.
For you are all one in Christ Jesus.
And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham.
You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.”
To be Abraham’s descendants is always and only a spiritual matter!
Black, Asian, American Indian, White Caucasian…this means nothing!!!
Poor, fat, ugly, beautiful…this means nothing!!!
Black is a descendant of Abraham because of faith in God’s love…
…white is a descendant of Abraham because of faith in God’s love…
…poor is a descendant of Abraham because of faith in God’s love.
Water baptism is only a physical sign.
It does not save!
Rather, the kind of baptism that does save is an inward baptism…it is a baptism of the heart…when one acknowledges and accepts for oneself how deep, and long and wide God’s love is for them…even them!!!
We call baptism an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
“There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
We are all one, my brothers and sisters!
What a reason to celebrate!
What a reason to be thankful!
And this was written nearly 2,000 years ago…
…long before the abolitionist movement…
…long before the civil rights movement…
…long, long, long before woman’s lib!
Is that not radical or what?
It’s a miracle any Christians survived…let alone thrived!
What more proof do we need?
God loves you, God loves me!!!
What more proof do we need?
Notice that putting on Christ is likened to “putting on new clothes.”
This new pair of clothes that we are wearing are Christ’s clothes and Christ is not concerned with the outside appearance—but with the transformation of the inside!!!
We are one in Christ through baptism…
…we are wearing Christ’s clothes…
…we are Christ’s…
…we are not our own—but Christ’s…
…We are BAPTIZED!!!
We need not ever feel like orphans…
…like unwanted or unclaimed children.
Because we are all wanted and loved and cherished so very, very much!!!
“I am baptized!”
Martin Luther, the great 16th Century figure of the Reformation used to take great comfort from these words.
When it seemed to him that the whole Church had left the precepts of the Gospel, when he was under scrutiny from Church officials as to the truth of his beliefs, when his life was being threatened and when he suffered self-doubt he would boldly proclaim: “I am baptized!”
And those words don’t just belong to the Martin Luther’s of this world.
They belong to each and every person who knows they are loved beyond measure by a God Who has claimed them as His own!
To each of us who have had water poured over us in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit…
…let’s allow those words to sink in this morning: “I am Baptized!”
God’s grace is being offered to all people, and it is our job to love all people into God’s Kingdom!
I was loved into God’s Kingdom…
…how about you?
I don’t remember my actual baptism, but my entire life is built upon it, none the less!
Eighteen years after my baptism there came a day when I finally accepted God’s free gift of salvation for myself…
…and my life has never been the same!
I am thankful for my baptism!
How about you?
In a few moments we are going to re-affirm our baptisms.
This means that we are going to remember our baptisms and be thankful.
After the words of institution, if you so choose, I encourage everyone who has been baptized to come up front to the baptismal font, touch the water…reach down and take a shell…and thank God for God’s grace!
You may want to spend some time at the chancel rails after doing this.
If you have not yet experienced Christian baptism—but you feel God calling you toward this, I encourage you to come up front, and let me know that you would like to be baptized and join the church this morning.
