01.20.2025
Explore God’s boundless love and transformative light, guiding us from darkness to eternal life. ✨
Sermon Series:
Summary:
Jonathan, the pastor at Journey, welcomed everyone to a special Sunday celebrating both baptism and child dedication. He expressed gratitude for everyone’s presence, emphasizing the significance of these moments in the journey of faith. Jonathan invited attendees to reflect on their relationship with Jesus, whether considering baptism, reaffirming their faith, or simply exploring what it means to follow Christ. He highlighted baptism as a profound symbol of new life in Christ, drawing from Paul’s teachings about dying to sin and rising with Christ. Jonathan’s message was clear: living in accordance with Jesus’s teachings is a transformative journey supported by community and tradition, echoing through generations of faith.
Transcript:
Well, good morning Again, I didn't get to introduce myself earlier, but my name is Jonathan and I get to be a pastor here at Journey, and we are so excited for today, baptism and dedication. Sunday is one of our favorites all year, and we are so very thankful for each of you that are here. Something that I like to say before each time when we get up to have the sermon is just simply thank you for being here. We know that you all could be somewhere else doing a bunch of other different things, but for you choosing to be here is something that is significant and we don't take that for granted. We want to just say to everyone, welcome. Today we are celebrating two of the most exciting and extraordinary moments in the life of a person who is following Jesus. Both the dedication of a child from the beginning is a parent declaring their intentions to raise them up in the ways of Jesus, to teach them the scriptures and to live according to the way of Jesus.
And then also baptism for a person to say, I am living for the rest of my life according to the kingdom of God, and to celebrate that as a community with family and friends is such a beautiful thing, and we are excited for that. Today I want to invite you to consider one of three things, and you can consider all three of them if you want to, but probably maybe only one of them applies to you and hopefully one of these applies to everyone. Number one, if you are here this morning and you are not quite sure where you stand as a follower of Jesus, or if that's something that is either interesting to you but you are a little bit hesitant towards it or you have no interest at all, I want to invite you to consider first of all, what is it that you are following?
What is it that gives you purpose, value, meaning, significance in life? And can that thing, whatever it is, deliver on the promises that it has offered? So that's the first thing to consider. If you are a person who is a follower of Jesus but you have never been baptized, I want to invite you to, as you witness other people being baptized, just consider maybe baptism is the next right step for you. One of the things that we talk about often here at Journey is what is the next step? What is the next right thing for me to do? And if you have never been baptized, would like for you to consider being baptized in the future. We have a group of people who are unable to be here or for a variety of different reasons, chose to wait to be baptized. And so sometime in the future we will have another round of baptism.
So if you have never been baptized, keep that in mind and one day in the future, we would like to invite you to consider that. And last but not least, if you have previously been baptized, if you are a solidified follower of Jesus and you have been baptized at any point in your life, I want to invite you to consider the arc of your life from that moment until now, however that has gone, and how it is that you have lived in the kingdom of heaven and done the things that Jesus has called you to do. So one of those three things I would like for each of us to consider today at Journey, we like to keep things as simple as we possibly can. A lot of times the spiritual journey and church and just life in general, we can overcomplicate things. I am a serial over complicator and I will be the first to admit that.
But when it comes to following Jesus, we believe that it is a simple way. It doesn't mean that it is an easy way. It doesn't mean that you can just haphazardly go about it, but we do believe that it is simple and all of the things that we do here as a community of faith, we try to invest in three things. The first of that is that we believe that as followers of Jesus, we should each strive to be present with Jesus, to spend time with Jesus. We believe that in spending time with Jesus, Jesus will shape and form and mold our lives. And we believe that the reason why that takes place, why that formation takes place is so that we are able to do the things that Jesus did, the things that Jesus taught and the thing that Jesus calls us to do. So both of these celebrations be it child dedication or baptism is an expression of individuals and also a communal proclamation here as a church that we are people who are seeking to do these things from the youngest amongst us to the most seasoned, we are seeking to follow the way of Jesus. In baptism, baptism is a witness to the transformation of one being buried with Jesus in the tomb and then arising out of the grave to experience
New life what we and the church would refer to as the resurrected life. And here is a part of where this idea comes from. In Galatians two 20, the scriptures say this, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in, the body I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. The baptism is for those who have traded in the ways of brokenness for the way of Jesus and the scriptures. We hear a lot about two worlds that are coming into collision with one another, the world that we all know and exist in, but also the reality of the kingdom of heaven. Over the last couple of weeks, we have been talking about a scripture from two Corinthians where Paul instructs us to live by faith and not by sight.
The world that we see in the way in which we see it and the way in which we interact it with our physical bodies, we are called commissioned by Paul, to instead of interacting with the world that way, to live by faith, to live by the reality of the kingdom of heaven and other places, Paul referred to seeing with our eyes as being influenced by the lowercase g gods of this age. Whatever age you have been alive in be at the time when Paul was writing letters all the way up until now, there are influences in the world that influence us away from the kingdom of God. Paul in other places refers to them as the patterns of brokenness. And there's a juxtaposition that is clear that the way of Jesus leads us to love, peace, joy, and ultimately life. And the patterns of brokenness add to the frustration, the bitterness, the envy, the hate, and ultimately ending in death.
\So in baptism, we, a person has come to the place to where they see the ill effects that sin has on not just them but all of creation. And from that point forward, they have been captivated by the freedom from destruction that Jesus offers in a way that leads to grace and peace. The official word that we use in the church to talk about baptism is we call it a sacrament, right? That's your church word of the day. Sacrament. So simply, sacrament means this, it is a right or a ritual that is a means of grace, which God has gifted to the church. So God has given us these things to participate in that help us receive the grace of God, the two sacraments that we celebrate here at our church, one of them, every Sunday when we gather every Wednesday night with our online crew, we celebrate the sacrament of communion.
It was something that was instituted by Jesus gifted to the church to participate in, to remember the calling of God. It is a sacrament in which means that we receive grace. The other is baptism. If you come from a different Christian tradition, there are several others that are commonly referred to sacraments, but those are the two that we recognize in practice here. And so in baptism, it is the sign and seal of the new covenant of grace. And the significance of this moment is captured by the apostle Paul Best, I think in Romans six, which I want to read now. It says this, don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death and order that Jesus Christ, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.
The ways of brokenness in the scriptures lead to death. So when a person decides that they are headed on that trajectory and they begin to desire to live for Jesus, we share with Jesus in his death. We are invited to participate in him with his death, that we might then not just be dead, but receive a new life and live the resurrected life in this world, but living in step with the kingdom of heaven. And that is what all of us who have previously been baptized, all of us who are being baptized today are attesting to. And the beautiful thing about the church that I love is it's not just isolated to us here. These traditions
Have been passed along since the very beginning of the church. Followers of Jesus have participated in these expressions of grace and passed them from one generation to the other. So we are not just celebrating these individuals and not just celebrating the church in which we are at, but we are celebrating the universal church around the world and also the generations that have come before us with the hopes that by the lives that we live generations after will follow in these sacred ways as well. A tall task I know, but one, that the power, the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives will move us to accomplish. So in order to prepare for this moment of baptism, we want to recall some of the earliest understandings of what does it mean to be the people of God. Generations ago, a group of people from all over got together with the scriptures, with their experience in the kingdom of God and hashed out what it means to be followers of Jesus.
And they summarized these into two creeds, one of which we are going to be reciting today, and it's called the Apostles creed. So the words will be up on the screen, and we want to invite you if you feel confident and comfortable if repeating these words to help us all recall what it is that the church believes, what it is that we as Christians believe, and how we are to live. So I want to invite us to read these words together. I believe, and God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who has conceived by the Holy Spirit. Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified, dead and buried. He descended it to the dead. And on the third day, he rose again. He ascended and to heaven where he is seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, and he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.
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