Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
“Where There’s Smoke…”
by: Kenneth Emerson Sauer,
Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church,
Newport News, VA
www.parkview-umc.org.
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 that 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 made you 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 there is a grace that goes before us.
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 accept God’s free gift of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ for ourselves and become children of God.
When a baby is baptized his or her parents make a vow to God before the church.
They promise to nurture their child in Christ’s Holy Church, that by their teaching and example their child may be guided to accept God’s grace for themselves, to profess their faith openly, and to lead a Christian life.
And the church makes a promise to God and to the parents of this child.
“With God’s help we will proclaim the good news and live according to the example of Christ.
We will surround this child with a community of love and forgiveness, that this child may grow in his or her service to others.
We will pray for this child.
That this child will be a true disciple who walks in the way that leads to life.”
For many of us, this is our first initiation into God’s Church…
…the beginning of an 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.
This past week, 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?
Why, some children, only think that Jesus Christ is a swear word!
No wonder we live in such a graceless and cruel society.
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.
Now, if you were baptized as a Youth or adult, that means that you made the decision to dedicate your life to Jesus Christ, and your baptism was an outward sign of the decision you made and the conversion you experienced…that you have been born of God.
We do not believe that infant baptism saves us, but we do believe it is a sign of God’s grace going before us until we can make the decision to accept Christ for ourselves.
Neither do we believe that adult baptism saves us.
And we don’t believe in baptizing persons more than once.
With that behind us, let’s look at our Gospel Lesson for this morning.
A thousand years before John the Baptist came on the scene David became the king over Judah and Israel, and God promised that his descendants would reign forever.
But after David’s son Solomon died, Israel rejected a Judahite as their king and chose their own king.
Then Israel was conquered by Nineveh in 722 B.C.; and Judah fell to Babylon in 587.
The Jews, however, remembered God’s promise to David and looked for a descendant of David to rise as an anointed king or messiah, reunite the scattered peoples, and establish God’s reign of peace and prosperity.
In the meantime, though, the Jewish people must have felt like orphans.
The crowds who came to hear John preach and to be baptized wondered if John was the messiah.
John said he wasn’t, but another was coming Who will “baptize…with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
Now what in the world does that mean?
Let’s look again at verse 17 of our Gospel Lesson.
This is a pretty heavy passage, and it has a number of meanings.
One of the meanings is that it is a picture of the present reality of the saved and unsaved living side by side in a fallen world…
Those who repent and allow Jesus Christ to be Lord of their lives are born again…become the children of God…or are no longer orphaned—receiving the Holy Spirit of God.
Those who never repent and accept Christ as Lord of their lives will experience the judgment of fire.
Let’s turn in our Bibles to Matthew chapter 13:24-30.
Those people who believe in Christ—enter the kingdom of God right here and right now.
We become new people…
…people of God, redeemed by the blood of Christ.
And our job is to live lives that are in step with the Holy Spirit of God…allowing the Holy Spirit to direct our actions, our thoughts, and to create us more and more each day into the image of Christ.
Once we are born again, or born of God through the baptism of the Holy Spirit we are no longer ‘of this world.’
As Jesus tells His disciples in John chapter 15: “As it is, you do not belong to the world…”
Now the saved and the unsaved live and work side by side in this world together.
And it is the job of the saved to shine as God’s light in this world of darkness…
…to proclaim the salvation that only comes through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ…
…to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them everything’ Christ has commanded.
Are we doing our job?
Over the recent holidays I was having a conversation with a family member.
I was telling them how far away I still am from being the person God has created me to be.
“But you have dedicated your life to Christ,” they protested. “You have given your entire life. You are a preacher.”
“Yes,” I said, “but I have so much farther to go. There’s so much more I should be doing. There’s so much more of me I need to commit to Christ.”
“I know I’m not nearly the Christian that God wants me to be. I haven’t even come close to arriving.”
But, my friends, that is one of the things that makes the Christian journey so exciting.
There is always more that we can do.
There is always something that needs to be refined…something in us that needs to be burned away…something that still stinks of the world and our sinful nature.
This is called the process of sanctification. It is the process of being made perfect. It is something we will never achieve here on this earth…but it is what we are to strive for…
…and the more we strive…
…the more Christ enters in…
…the more we change…
…and the better life gets.
This is another thing that John means when he says that Jesus Christ will “baptize…with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
As the Prophet Malachi prophesies in Malachi chapter 3: “Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify…and refine them like gold and silver.”
What a great privilege. What a loving God!
Are we being refined?
Are we allowing God to refine us like silver and gold?
Well, where there is smoke, there is fire!
What is the smoke in your life…in my life that indicates to us that the fire of the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives?
Do we desire more and more to be made in the image of Christ?
Are the things of this world becoming less and less important to us?
Do we hunger and thirst for righteousness?
Are we reading our Bibles daily…being fed by spiritual food that does not perish?
Are we putting our faith into action?…
…listening to the Holy Spirit as He prompts us to tell others about the salvation which comes through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ…
…inviting others to join us at church…
…becoming more and more involved with our brothers and sisters in the faith…
…attending Sunday school…
…worship services…
…Bible study…
…giving more and more of our time and money to God’s work here on earth…
…and loving our neighbors as ourselves?
Those of us who have been baptized “with the Holy Spirit and fire” need not ever feel like orphans…
…like unwanted or unclaimed children.
Because we are wanted and loved and cherished so very, very much.
And so is the entire human race!
We are all wanted and loved and cherished by God—the Author of Life---and the Author and Finisher of our faith.
“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 baptized person.
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 let those words 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 His kingdom.
I was loved into His kingdom…
…how about you?
As an infant, my parents presented me before the church to be baptized.
And during this service they made a promise to God that they kept…
I don’t remember my actual baptism, but I do remember that my parents and the community of faith did proclaim the Good News and live according to the example of Christ.
Eighteen years after my baptism their came a day when I 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 reaffirm 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, and thank God for His 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 this morning.
