Offended By The Truth

Luke 7:22-26 KJV Are you easily offended? Offended by the truth? Offended by Jesus? 

What Does Baptism Give?

What does Baptism give or profit?

Answer.

It works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.

Which are such words and promises of God? 

Answer.

Christ, our Lord, says in the last chapter of Mark: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

                                                 Book of Concord, Small Catechism, Baptism 



I have run a across a very sad thing: there are those within the church on earth who have not been baptized! How does this happen? How is it that a believer has not received the Sacrament of Baptism?

I've heard a few reasons. Mostly, it has come down to being embarrassed over not having been baptized earlier, as a younger person. Those who have not been baptized; yet, are within the church receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion, will rarely just tell you that they are not. You will have to ask them. 

I first ran across this years ago when I was working on membership rosters and official congregation records. We were missing information that should have been in the books: things like birth and baptismal dates that would have been registered decades earlier. I thought that this might be a good reason to do some extra home visits and get to know some of the members a little better. An elderly woman whom I regularly visited in a nursing home was on the list for missing baptismal dates. When I asked her where and when she'd been baptized, she was relieved that I had asked her about it. No one else ever had. She confessed that she had never been baptized. When she was a child, they had a circuit pastor, who normally did baptisms during hay making season. As a child, she and her family had been in the fields working when the pastor came around. After she got older and got more active in the congregation no one asked her about her baptism and she was a bit embarrassed to admit that she hadn't previously been baptized. That's the short version of a very long story. Ultimately, she received the Sacrament of Baptism in the nursing home with her children and grandchildren around her about a week before she died.

This was not a lone incident. Most of the people I encountered that attended worship regularly and had not baptized were then baptized. 

We are to go and teach and baptize so that others might come to faith and be assured that they have received forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. The mission field is huge. It begins within our own congregations. Do not assume that someone is saved just because they attend worship once or twice a year or even every Sunday. Do not assume that they know Jesus. Do not assume that they have received the Sacrament of Baptism. Proclaim the Good News to all people and encourage them to receive this life saving gift from God. And... don't forget to tell them about the benefit of Baptism, a gift from God for them.

God's Peace - Pr. J

Bearing Christ's Name

Some of Christ Lutheran's Worship Team That Ministers to

residents at Princeton Senior Living, Palm Coast, FL

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. (Luke 24:45-48 NIV)

Those first disciples were witnesses. We, too, are witnesses. We must have seen or heard or experienced something in order to bear the name of Christ. What was it? Surely, you do not call yourself Christian because you belong to a specific earthly congregation. There is more to being a Christian than being on someone's membership rolls. As one of my friends use to remind her congregation, "Sitting in a garage doesn't make you a car anymore than sitting in a church makes you a Christian."

Christian's bear the name of Christ and we are to bear it to the entire world. We are to proclaim, in Christ's name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins, to all nations; to all people. Now, repentance does not mean simply apologizing. It means change. It means turning around and doing things in a way that will reflect the love of God for all people. It means, even as Christ put others before himself, even his own life; we are to put the needs of others before our own desires. We are to set aside our own desires so that the will of God may be done.

We do not bear the name of Christ for our sakes alone. We ought not hide our faith for a hidden faith is no faith at all. Our faith may be personal; but, it cannot be private. We are to proclaim the mighty works of God through our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ, to all the world, for as Christians, we are witnesses to the great love that God has for all people.

May God help us to be more faithful witnesses to all that He has done for us through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

God's Peace - Pr. J