Sermon Tone Analysis

A Lived Faith

With that goal in mind, we crafted a statement on church practice, also known as, what the church is supposed to do.

And today I’m going to cover the first two lines of that statement.

The first is this:

Church Practice

We believe Jesus has instructed his church and equipped them to help people know God, honor Him, and proclaim His name.

God could have zapped us up to heaven as soon as we believed in him.

But we were left here on earth for a reason.

He doesn’t abandon us during this time, but gives us instruction.

So what are we to do?

Over the next few weeks, we will cover different instructions given to the church specifically.

But for today, we’ll focus on just a few.

But before we jump in, let me ask you a question:

How is Your Faith Seen?

Faith is belief in something unseen.

How do you talk about spiritual things to someone who has no knowledge of the spiritual realm?

If you just walked up to someone and started rambling about angels and demons, they might think you’re crazy.

But there are several practical ways to make your faith seen.

And they’ve been given to us by Jesus.

But here’s the main idea for today: One of the ways your faith is seen is through the practice of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

(repeat)

And here’s our church statement, on things that we do:

As the church we remember and participate in the death and resurrection of Christ through baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

As many of you know, I’ve been building relationships through my work in hopes that some of them, if not all, may come to know Jesus as their Lord and savior.

This past week, I set aside time on my day off to spend with one of these coworkers.

And we got to chatting.

It turns out that she has been to a protestant church several times.

I asked her what she thought, and being the perceptive person that she is, she made a comment about how the church participated in the Lord’s Supper: She said it was like a big lecture.

People weren’t actively participating, but were only there as hearers.

She wasn’t seeing a lived and active faith in the act of communion.

Instead, people were coming, hearing a lecture, and then leaving as if it didn’t have any significance on them or on their lives.

For me this was convicting.

I had to ask myself the question, how many times have I sat in a pew before a pastor and been lectured to on the Lord’s Supper, and didn’t take time to review my role in it?

Or how many times did I actively participate in the Lord’s Supper, but forget about everything I just did as soon I stepped foot out of the doors?

It was like what Paul wrote: that I looked in a mirror, saw my reflection, and immediately forgot what I looked like.

So I asked myself more- Was there more I should be doing during communion that could better display what was happening?

Does something need to change?

And with all of these thoughts circling in my head, and knowing the topic which we were covering this upcoming Sunday, I was moved to some more rudimentary questions: Questions such as why do we even do what we do?

Why do we practice the Lord’s Supper?

Why do we practice baptism?

What is the end goal of it?

Why would Jesus even institute it?

Well, the Lord has led me through his scripture this week, and I believe I have arrived at a a satisfactory answer: an answer that goes above and beyond “Well, Jesus commanded it”.

But let me ask you: Why did Jesus institute baptism and the Lord’s Supper?

Well, if you’re unable to formulate a response, that’s okay.

I’m here to help us walk through it together.

I’m going to assume that you already know what baptism and the Lord’s Supper are.

If you don’t, let’s chat after the service, and I’d love to walk through them with you.

But for now we’re just going to assume that you know them and you’re familiar with them.

So rather than asking what they are, I’m going to ask you “why do we do them”?

let’s ask some other rudimentary questions.

I’m not going to ask you what they are.

But rather, why do we do them?

Why do we practice baptism?

I’ve paired each of these with a do not, and a do.

Sometimes knowing what something isn’t helps determine what it is.

Why do we practice baptism?

We do not baptize .

(1 Pet.

3:21)

We do baptize because .

(Rom.

6:3-4)

Why do we practice baptism?

We do not baptize to be saved.

(1 Pet.

3:21)

We do baptize because .

(Rom.

6:3-4)

There are people in time and history who believe and have believed that baptism saves a person.

That’s why they’ll baptize their infant, or their toddler, or even bodies after they have died.

And this is one of the scriptures that they’ll appeal to:

So the physical act of baptism itself isn’t salvific.

But what is?

The process of being made new through Jesus Christ.

That’s what the picture of baptism is looking forward to.

Being saved out of death and carried forth to a new life.

In fact, God uses the picture of baptism for his people throughout scripture.

Do you know Noah and the flood?

They served as a picture, a type, of baptism: Noah and his family were saved out of the waters of death and carried to new life by God.

Do you remember how Israel crossed the dead sea and the waters parted on either side?

This moment serves as another type of baptism: The people of Israel called out of their former slavery and led through the waters of death, their hope secured on dry land, and being led to new life by God who has provided for them and made a way for them.

For us here and now, baptism is still the same initiation rite that God has for his people: we pass through the waters of death and are cleansed from our sin, and raised to walk in the newness of life before God.

It’s a physical act that represents the spiritual reality of God saving a person.

So, my friends, we do not baptize to be saved.

Instead we baptize because we are saved.

Why do we practice baptism?

We do not baptize to be saved.

(1 Pet.

3:21)

We do baptize because we are saved.

(Rom.

6:3-4)

It was the practice of the early church to baptize new believers as they saw the Spirit at work in their lives.

This is what Peter does at Capernaum to Cornelius and to his household.

He recognizes the Spirit is present, and that it’s a salvation that has already occurred.

Baptism does not precede salvation, but is a physical act that cooperates with it as an outward expression of the transformed inward reality.

Paul sheds some more light on the issue when he writes to the Roman church:

So why do we practice baptism?

We practice baptism because it is a proclamation of the inward reality which God creates in a person’s life, drawing them out of darkness and into new life.

So that’s baptism.

Secondly, the Lord’s Supper:

Why do we take the Lord’s Supper?