Baptisms and Celebration Sunday
Go back to friends, family, loved ones.
Make your way on back luck.
I know I always, uh, hate breaking up
the greetings and conversation, but
especially on a day like this where
I know we have families and friends
and, uh, folks here to celebrate.
So if you haven't been
with Salt and Light before.
Uh, my name's Ben.
I get to serve on the Salton leadership
team with some other great folks.
Um, and we are glad that you're here
for some celebrations and party.
Uh, and, and for those of us who are
believers, I know not everyone in the
room follows Jesus, but for those of us
who are believers, uh, we get to welcome
some friends into, into our family.
Um, and it's always a very good day.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
Yes.
I think we could say that better.
It's always a very good day.
Yes, yes.
All right, so here we go.
Um, I just wanna explain a little bit
of what we're gonna do, uh, knowing
that not everyone, uh, walks with Jesus.
Not everyone has been to salt and light.
Different churches do different
things in different ways when
we talk about celebrations and
baptisms and, and dedications and
proclamations and this kind of stuff.
So, so what we're doing today.
Flows directly from our,
our church's mission.
What we believe that God has called
our little church family to, uh, and
that is making disciples of Jesus by
seeking His kingdom in everyday life.
We believe that's the call of
every follower of Jesus, actually.
But as a church, we've just stated that
we wanna make disciples of Jesus by
seeking his kingdom in everyday life.
And so baptisms, one of the things
we're gonna celebrate today is
a declaration of people's faith.
Saying God's kingdom, God's story,
God's way is better than my kingdom
and my story in any other way.
Uh, in the Great Commission, Jesus
tells all of his followers, go
and make disciples, and the very
next thing he commands them is to
baptize and teach them to follow.
The ways of God.
Dedications are also a,
a declaration of faith.
It's a declaration of intent, it's
commitment from grownups to make disciples
of their kids, to carry out that great
commission even in the home, and to help
others seek the kingdom in everyday life.
And so on one hand, what's happening
today is a proclamation to the
world of people's priorities.
God over self, his way over my way.
On the other hand though, and this
is why we love doing this with, with
friends and family and church members,
it's a celebration of our communal
call and all of our engagement that
God's people have with these families.
Um, 'cause as a church and as believing
friends and family surrounding the folks
who are gonna get baptized surrounding
the family, who's dedicating a kiddo
today, we know that our call is to enter
into each other's burdens, to share each
other's joys when we have opportunities.
And so baptism gets to display the fruit
of a devoted community of friends and
families and loved ones, and church
members and kids, class teachers and
DNA leaders and, and people coming
alongside one another and helping
these people come to know Jesus.
We believe that Christian faith is
a very personal thing between us and
God, but it is not an individual faith.
We get to all celebrate.
God's work through each of us
in what we're witnessing today.
Lots of conversations, lots of meals,
lots of classes, lots of prayers.
We're celebrating God's work in
these folks, but we also get to be
reminded of God's work through each
of us, uh, and and for all of us who
have been baptized at some point.
It's also a reminder that we're just in
this long legacy, this long generation
of folks who gave their selves.
To, to God and, and brought us along,
and, and the folks before them who,
who gave themselves to Jesus, who
brought those people along and all the
way back, and honestly, we could train
this, trace, this whole lineage back
to Jesus's first disciples and his
first charge to go and make disciples.
That's a really sweet,
really sweet reality.
Dedication, on the other hand is,
is part in part A, a display of, of,
of a family's need for community.
Um, we get to pursue these one
another commands or like 101
another commands in the Bible.
Love one another, serve one another,
rebuke one another's in there.
We don't talk about that one
a lot, but it's in there.
Um, we get to take responsibility
for each other's growth.
Um, Jesus validating, validated, inviting
kids to participate in kingdom things.
Uh, and grownups need all of us
to come alongside each other and
help us disciple our children.
And so again, today's an honor to get
to join and celebrate with some of
you families, some of you households.
It's also a day where we get to witness
some proclamations and some commitments
within the salt and light family.
So if you're unfamiliar with these
couple practices, lemme explain
briefly what we're doing first.
We're gonna, we're gonna witness and
participate in a child dedication.
Um, and this, this idea of dedicating
things to God, it finds itself way back
in the Old Testament, near the very
beginning of the Bible, a long time
before Jesus walked the face of the
earth, God's people would dedicate some
of what they owned back to God, some
of what God had given them back to God.
It was called a first fruits offering.
And so there were crops and there
were animals, and there was, there
was some of the things that God
had given them and they took it
and said, God, you've given to me.
This is yours.
I offer this back to you, and this
dedication was an act of gratitude.
It's saying, you gave this to me.
Thank you.
It's from your hand.
It's an act of worship.
You gave it to me and I wanna
give it to you for your glory,
and it's an act of faith.
Take what I'm giving you
and your will be done.
I trust you to provide
more than these crops.
I trust you to provide
more than these animals.
I want your will for my child.
Because parents would dedicate offspring,
firstborns, like first fruits of
a crop season, maybe most overtly.
In the book of one Samuel, which I know
you all read this morning, um, a barren
woman named Hannah earnestly praised
that God would give her a child and God
finally answers and she named him Samuel.
And Hannah is so grateful to God that
when Samuels weaned, she took him to the
temple and dedicated his life to full
ministry to God with the priest named Eli.
And here's what she says.
She says, as long as
he lives, he is God's.
As long as he lives, he is God's.
You gave him to me.
I give him to you as long
as he lives, he is God's.
That's maybe the most overt model
of a child dedication that we see.
But at the same time, zooming out
from that story, raising a child,
it's a high calling throughout the
Old Testament, throughout the New
Testament, throughout May, most societies
throughout history, the Bible calls
parents to, to bring up their child in
the destruct, in the not destruction.
I, I mixed two words together.
So I'm gonna back up and start that over.
What do we do for trying to go fast to
get over to the, the fun part over here?
Instruction to bring a child up in the
instruction and discipline of the Lord.
Discipline and instruction.
Don't mash up those words.
Uh, the Bible calls grownups to train up a
child in the way that he or she should go.
And, and in this light, as much as
this dedication is about a child,
it's also about these parents.
It's about the grownups.
Um, what we get to do when we, when
we participate in, in dedications is,
is a little bit of a commissioning
of sorts, a commissioning of grownups
to make disciples in their household.
It's moms and dads and others accepting
this mantle and, and committing to this
high calling, dedicating themselves to
raising their child according to God's
way and to point to Jesus and to seek to
make disciples even of their own family.
And so this is a twofold dedication.
It's grownups dedicating a child to
God and his will and his purpose,
and it's dedicating themselves
to God's leadership and God's
priorities as they raise their kid.
So in a few moments, the plays are gonna
come and share a little about their
kiddo and make a commitment and dedicate
their child and their parenting to God.
And then we're gonna
participate in baptisms.
And, and, and baptism is always
a symbol of someone entering
into God's covenant community.
I wanna be very clear.
The act we're gonna watch up
here does not save anyone.
Baptism doesn't save, but it's
a declaration from someone that
God has saved by his grace.
And it's them proclaiming that salvation,
displaying it to the gathered community
and saying, yes, I belong to God.
Through his son by the
power of his spirit.
I am a member of God's family, John
the Baptist, who's Jesus' cousin,
baptized people who turned from
their sin and trusted God with
their brokenness bore the fruit of
repentance, is the way he said it.
Jesus himself was baptized and
then he started this consistent
pattern through the rest of the
New Testament throughout history
that that once someone is redeemed.
Once someone turns from their old ways,
that's what the word repentance means,
turning from your ways and turns to God's
ways, which is just to say, I trust that
Jesus' life and death and resurrection
and reign invites me into a new life.
And a better story, once someone
declares that they would be baptized
and throughout the Bible, well
before Jesus walked the face of the
earth, water was a symbol of life.
And so in baptism, we're reenacting.
The core of our salvation.
As we go down into the water,
we say, I've died to myself.
As we come up out of the water,
we say, I've risen with Jesus.
And if that concept that symbolism
is new to you, then then know this.
If you're new with us.
The last month or so, salt and light
has spent a lot of time in in passages
like one Corinthians 15, a letter
from Paul to an early church, and
we've been talking a lot about doubt.
We've been talking a lot about
trust and how how doubt can be
good if we're asking questions.
Hopefully, 'cause our doubt can
lead us to a stronger belief.
And we've been talking specifically
about doubt as it relates to Jesus'.
Death and resurrection and baptism is
a visible representation and a visible
reminder of Jesus' death and resurrection.
And so if I may read this.
This is from one Corinthians 15.
If Christ has not been raised, your
faith is futile and you're still in
your sins, then those who have fallen
asleep in Christ will have perished.
If in Christ we put, we have
hope in this life only I.
In other words, if following the
ways of Jesus is just some empty
religion, if it gives us a bunch of
rules to follow and then feel guilty
when we break all this kind of stuff.
If that's true, then we are of
all people most to be pitied.
But in fact, and this is the core
of what Christians believe, Christ
has been raised from the dead,
Christ has been raised from the dead.
Do you believe that?
Yes, he's the first fruits of
all those who have fallen asleep
for as by a man came death.
So by a man has come.
The resurrection of the
dead in Adam all die.
So also in Christ, all
have been made alive.
All shall be made alive again.
Folks who are being baptized,
going down into the water is
a way to show that your way.
Your desires, your sin, your brokenness,
your life in Adam and Eve, the humanness
that we all share, that life is dead.
And as you come out of the water,
those of you be being baptized.
You're saying, I've been
made alive in Christ.
I've been raised with Christ.
I've been led by the spirit into
God's way and God's desires and
redemption and restored abundant life.
Not always easy life, but
abundant life in Christ.
We believe that Jesus died and rose
again, and we believe that because
of Jesus and with Jesus, anyone who
follows Jesus will die and rise again.
And so to that end, anyone being baptized
in salt and light is, is able to explain
that belief, explain what baptism is.
We've sat down with them and, and
talked with them no matter what age.
That's true.
And anyone being baptized in salt and
light has had at least a few close
friends and family, or DNA members
or community members affirm that
there's fruit of Jesus', life, of
fruit of the spirit, spirit led life
in age appropriate ways in their life.
And so again, today's a celebration.
Parents are gonna share about their
child and we get to celebrate that.
And then those being baptized are
gonna get to share their story and then
we'll baptize them and celebrate that.
