Sermon For A Baptism

August 1, 2021 Sermon - A Baptism

I speak to you joyfully in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Baptism is a sign, a symbol, and an important marker of the life of a follower of Jesus. It is a sign of a person’s inclusion in the Body of Christ, the church, which is the hands and feet of the risen Saviour.

Baptism is a rich symbol of following Jesus down to the depths, the grave, and rising from the grave to new life in Jesus, rising to resurrection life in Christ our Saviour.

Now this transformation, this conversion does not occur at baptism. It occurs when we place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ and when we accept Jesus Christ personally as our Lord and Saviour.

That’s when we are born anew, born again in the language of Jesus, the language of Scripture.

A seismic shift occurs in our life when this happens, and the pathway, the future, the trajectory of a person’s life is altered when they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

And a mark of belonging to Jesus is that we live our lives with Him as our Lord and our Saviour. He is our King and we are His people. Amen?

And as His people we love Him. We focus our lives on Him. Jesus said: “If you love me, you will obey what I command”. So we seek to obey Him in all things as an expression of that love.

And what was the commandment that Jesus gave to His disciples after He rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father?

He said to “Go into all the world and make disciples, baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”. Mt 28:16-20. Since that was first spoken by Jesus, His Church has done just that.

The entire Christian life is about following Jesus. It’s about living in a love relationship with Him. We love Him, but we do so because He first loved us, and as the Scripture says,

“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins”. 1 John 4:9-10

The Scriptures read earlier by Doug and Pastor Jan speak of baptism. And here the Apostle Paul speaks to those who have already been baptised, and for those here today about to be baptised, and perhaps for us who are here in support of them as well.

6 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

First Paul speaks of the change that comes into the life of a believer that relates to honouring God as opposed to offending God. The Bible calls anything that offends God “sin”.

One big difference when you look at the before and after in the life of a Christ-follower is that the ‘before’ picture includes a lot of what I’ll call ‘selfies’.

Usually ‘selfie’ refers to awkward self-portraits that people take. You’ve likely seen some of those online. Let me slightly redefine that word, “selfie”, that has crept into our language.

In the before picture, prior to one becoming a follower of Jesus, there are other kinds of ‘selfies’: Self-will – “I’m going to do things my way. I’m going to define goodness myself. I’m going to say what is right and what is wrong. “I’m going to sin when and how I want, and I’m not even going to call it sin. I’m going to call it me being me”.

Another kind of ‘selfie; is selfishness. I’m going to live life on my terms, with myself as the centre of my universe. I will live for number 1, me. My energies and my decisions will focus on what is best for me, first and foremost.

In the after picture, when one has become a Christ-follower, there is a distinct shift in the exercise of our wills. We are learning to put the will of another, the will of God, ahead of our own will.

We are learning God’s will and God’s ways - those things that matter to God, like justice, goodness, faithfulness and the spreading of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Those things, which are God’s concerns, are coming to matter more and more to us; and the things that offend God, well we daily make the decision to turn from those things.

We are learning together to live life on God’s terms, and we find in doing that we discover our own freedom.