The One Who Does All Our Works for Us

In my quiet time today, I considered Isaiah 26. Verse 12 hit me:

"O Lord, you will ordain peace for us,
for you have indeed done for us all our works."

It's the second part of the verse that struck me. Nothing good that we do comes from us. That's because in our own power or moral strength, as Isaiah writes elsewhere, "all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment." (Isaiah 64:6) The moment we set out to consciously do a good or righteous thing, our sinful natures stand up to applaud and tell us what wonderful, good people we are, giving the lie to our pretended intrinsic goodness or righteousness.

In Jesus' portrayal of the day when He returns to bring the Kingdom of God in its fullness, He tells His sheep to enter into the joy He's prepared for them because they had visited imprisoned disciples, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and given drink to the thirsty. In giving these gifts to "the least of these," Jesus says, the sheep really cared for Him. But the sheep have no memory of these good deeds. 

This underscores the transformation that happens in the baptized as they turn to Christ in trust. The God revealed to us in Christ invades their lives and God does HIS good work through them. They're just living their lives in the freedom of forgiven sin, the freedom of knowing that as God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, He will do the same for those who trust in Jesus.

This is exactly what the apostle Paul talks about in his famous verse about those who are saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ and not by any good thing they do. He says: "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Notice that good works, being a good person, cannot make us acceptable to God, bring us forgiveness for our sin, or give us eternal life with God. That's because in ourselves, we could never be good enough.

Instead, God gives us faith in Christ, then, as we turn daily turn to Christ (Luke 9:23), Christ does His good works through us and in us. If Christians do anything good, righteous, or loving, they'll know not to take credit for it. In fact, they'll be completely unaware of having done anything good at all. 

But Isaiah's words apply to more than just good works. He says to God, "...you have indeed done for us all our works..." 

ALL is an ALL-ENCOMPASSING WORD. Without God, we can do nothing. 

In Athens in the first century, Paul quoted one of the Greek poets and said of the God we all now can know in Jesus Christ, "...in him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28) 

If you're living, breathing, and reading these words, it's the work of God. 

If you're able or have been able to make a living by your brain and brawn, your brain and brawn comes from God, along with your capacity to work or think. 

God didn't have to give us life. And once the whole human race fell into sin, God didn't have to give new life through the crucified and risen Christ. But He does. And He works in our lives.

Today, like every day, is a good one to repent--turn away from our sin, including our sins of pride and pretended self-sufficiency--and trust in Jesus. 

Turn and Live

[This message was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio during worship yesterday, the Second Sunday of Advent.]

Matthew 3:1-12
Once, in the days before cell phones, GPSes, or even Mapquest and Google Maps, I missed the biggest part of a farewell party--thrown for Ann and me--after driving past (and continuing to drive past) the house where it was happening. The party came at the end of my pastoral internship in Michigan.

Ann had gone separately because I needed to make a run to Traverse City before going to the farewell. By the time I finally made it, the whole thing was nearly over. All because I hadn’t asked for directions...and because once I was lost, I didn’t turn back when I should have. When we go wrong, the most sensible thing is to turn around. But I didn't do the sensible thing.

For a long time, as I was going wrong that day on the backroads of Benzie County, Michigan, I was too proud to turn back, too proud to admit that I was going wrong, too proud to find a payphone and call someone who could help me, too proud to confess that maybe Ann had been right about my need of her written directions offered earlier in the day.

Have you ever gone wrong in life, set out in the wrong direction and gotten lost? 

I’m not just talking about the places you drive but also being wrong about

• the things you’ve thought, 
• the decisions you’ve made, 
• the relationships you’ve harmed, 
• the untruths you’ve told, 
• the walls you’ve built between God and yourself? 

It’s so easy to lose our sense of direction and end up doing the wrong thing, the hurtful thing, the destructive thing, isn’t it? 

That’s because we’re born with our moral compasses that are askew. 

We actually like to sin. 

We like to play God and travel the lost roads that go away from God. 

We’re so messed up that we sin even when we don’t want to. The apostle Paul talks about this in Romans 7: "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing." (Romans 7:19)

Like King David, we can confess, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5)

In today’s gospel lesson, on this Second Sunday of Advent, we meet John the Baptizer, we meet John the Baptizer, whose message is as much for us today--when we look either to the return of Jesus to this world or the day when, just beyond our deaths, we meet Jesus face to face--as it was when John spoke them to prepare His fellow Jews to meet Jesus in the flesh for the first time. 

Take a look at what John says near the beginning of the lesson, Matthew 3:1-12: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (v.2) 

“Turn around,” John is saying. “You’re going in the wrong direction. Turn back toward the promised Savior and King because He’s bringing His Kingdom soon and you want to be ready!” 

Are you ready to meet Jesus? 

He died on a cross and rose from His tomb and is now ascended into heaven. He is Lord of heaven and earth. So, you will meet Him someday. Are you ready for that?

We may say, “Sure, I’m ready. I try to do the right thing.” God’s Word says, “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6) 

We may say, “I’m better than most people,” hoping that Jesus will judge us on a curve. But God’s Word says, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) 

We may say, “God is gracious and loving. I don’t have anything to fear.” But in God’s Word, Jesus, God in the flesh, says, “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32-33) 

We may say, “I’m a member of Living Water Lutheran Church.” But Jesus says that He will let the wheat and the weeds live side-by-side in His Church until the day of His return. If mere membership in the club were all that it took to be part of God’s Kingdom, John the Baptizer wouldn’t have told his fellow Jews, the Sadducees and Pharisees, “I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham” (Matthew 3:9). There’s nothing that we can do to make ourselves ready to meet Jesus.

But there is good news! Even within the harsh words of John the Baptist in our lesson today. 

After warning that the coming Messiah Jesus had ax in hand to take down all those whose lives don’t bear the fruit of repentance--the fruit of habitual turning back to God--John says (starting at verse 11): “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Did you hear the good news--the gospel--there? 

John is saying, “Look, my baptism here on the Jordan River is nothing but you saying that you’re turning to God.” 

That’s great, of course. But if our being right with God depends on our good intentions, we still end up a long way from God. 

• I intend to work out every day but don’t always. 
• I intend to get enough sleep at night but often don’t. 
• I intend to write the great American novel but I haven’t yet. 

John’s baptism of repentance was meant to prepare his fellow Jews for Jesus’ Baptism--God’s Baptism--that brings us forgiveness and new life with God. 

It’s this Baptism, Jesus’ Baptism, that changes us, that brings God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into our lives, that daily goes to work to kill off our old sinful selves, and that calls the ever-new, ever-righteous child of God to repent--to turn back--to Jesus. 

It’s this Baptism that helps us to hear God’s call to us to turn to Jesus whenever we get lost and to trust that He has done everything (and is still doing everything) needed to make us right with God--to make us righteous, to trust that He will lead us in the right direction.

John’s imagery is interesting. He says that Jesus will institute a Baptism in “the Holy Spirit and fire.” Later, he says that those who turn from God will burn in “unquenchable fire.” 

Fire is judgment. 

The Holy Spirit is the One Who brings life into being. 

Holy Baptism as instituted by Jesus first brings judgment on we who are born in sin, then gives new life from the Holy Spirit. 

Our call from the moment we’re baptized is to keep turning to Christ, whatever our circumstances, even when we’re lost or afraid or conscious of our sin or overwhelmed. 

We who have been baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire know that as we turn to Christ, our old selves are being drowned or burned away to make way for the new person God is retrofitting us to be, today and for all eternity. 

In Jesus’ Baptism, we die with Jesus and we are raised to be with Him. Saint Paul puts it like this: “We were therefore buried with [Jesus] through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6:4)

You and I have a penchant for going in the wrong direction. But the life-giving Word of God, the gospel of Jesus, has entered into our lives in Holy Baptism and comes to us again and again in the Word proclaimed and read and heard, and in the body and blood of Jesus given in Holy Communion to turn us back to Him and to the life that only He can give. 

If you remember nothing else from this message, remember this: Turn to Him as He calls you and live in His Kingdom, today and eternally. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Justified by Grace Through Faith in Jesus Christ (with audio)

[This message was shared yesterday during Reformation Sunday worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Romans 3:19-28

Today is Reformation Sunday, a day that calls us to focus on the whole idea of righteousness and what it means to be righteous.

These are two words used a lot in the Church, but hardly ever in the rest of the world. But according to the Bible, the Word of God, being righteous is of eternal importance to every human being. Righteousness is the quality we must possess in order to claim an eternal place in heaven and avoid eternal consignment to hell. 

So, this business of being righteous is, to put it bluntly, the single most important thing any of us can appreciate, appropriate, or understand. And that’s no overstatement.

To be righteous means to be in sync with the Law of God, the will of God for human beings. To be righteous is to walk in the ways of God.

A young German, Roman Catholic monk named Martin Luther, who lived in the sixteenth century, knew how essential being righteous is for anyone to have a relationship with God, either now or in eternity. 

Luther likely would have read words like those of Jesus in Matthew 5:20--”...unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven”--and think, “I need to get busy. I need to do more good things. I need to remember more of my sins and repent for them. Otherwise, God will damn me for eternity.” Luther thought that to become righteous, he had to work at it.

The problem was that no matter how much he repented or how many good things he did, he would always remember one more unrepented sin or commit new ones after confessing the old ones or fail to do enough good or fail to do good for the right reasons. Through daily experience, Luther learned that there was nothing that he could do to attain the title of righteous.

And guess what? Luther was right. Luther couldn’t make himself righteous. 

Neither can you and I. 

When we consider the sinful things we do or think or fantasize about, we’re bound to confess with King Solomon, who writes in Ecclesiastes 7:20: “...there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.” No one. 

And so, Luther looked at how far he fell short of the moral standards of righteousness embodied in the Ten Commandments and realized that he would never measure up. Life with God was out of his reach. 

Luther later confessed that there in the monastery, working at being righteous for God and realizing that he never could make himself righteous, he hated God. And in hating God, his guilt and his sense that there was nothing he could do to avoid being swallowed up by the fires of hell, only increased.

Then, something happened. At the direction of his superiors, Luther became a student and teacher of the Bible. (Dangerous things can happen to us when we start studying the Bible!) 

Through his study of God’s Word, Luther came to realize that righteousness can never come to us through our perpetually failed attempts to keep God’s Law. 

That’s what our second lesson for this joyous day, Romans 3:19-28, tells us. Take a look at what the apostle Paul, writing to Christians in the capital city of the Roman Empire in about 65 AD says, starting at verse 19: “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.”

It’s good and loving for God to give us His commandments. They mark out the boundaries within which the righteous life happens, the ways in which our lives not only are more pleasing to God but also more fulfilling for us. All of us, for example, would acknowledge that it’s better for us not to steal, or covet, or live in hatred toward others. But because we can never keep God’s Law perfectly, His Law can never make us righteous. 

At the most, the Law is a mirror that shows us the awful truth with which Luther wrestled about himself, which is true of us as well, that we aren’t righteous and can’t make ourselves righteous. The Law makes all our pretense of being wonderful people pure nonsense. 

The Law is very bad news for anyone who thinks that being nice or doing good is enough to give us an in with God. But there is good news!

Verse 21: “But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” 

To understand the message of these magnificent verses from our lesson, let’s consider the meanings of two words that Paul uses. They’re Greek words, of course, because Greek is the language in which Paul and the other New Testament writers composed their books and letters. 

The first word is δικαιοσύνη, which we translate as righteousness. 

The other word, which you see in verse 26, is justifies; in the Greek in which the apostle Paul wrote the verse, that word is δικαιοῦντα, a form of the verb dikaio. 

These two words share the same root., which you can detect just in hearing them pronounced: dikaio, dikaiosune.  

What these two related words tell us is that despite our sin, despite our inability to obey God’s Law or to make ourselves righteous, God GIVES Christ’s righteousness to those who trust Christ, to those in whom, by the power of God the Holy Spirit, the fire of the faith has been kindled by the good news of Jesus! 

We can’t attain the righteousness necessary to enter God’s Kingdom. 

We can't work to become righteous, but God makes righteous, He "righteous-fies," all who entrust their lives to Christ. 

Jesus has perfectly obeyed God’s Law for us and then shares the perfection of His obedience, made perfect by His death on the cross on our behalf, with those who believe in Him to make us righteous. 

Martin Luther said that when he realized that we can be justified--made righteous--not by anything we do, but only by faith in Christ through the charitable grace of God, it was as if the doors of heaven opened to Him. 

Through Christ, he came to know God not as an angry judge, but as our loving Father. 

And whenever we trust in Christ rather than ourselves, our efforts, our goodness, our achievements, our success, our worthiness, or our parents’ faith, heaven opens to us too.

Look at how Paul finishes our second lesson. Verses 27-28: “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.”

Many of the self-identified Christians who get play in the media are people who seem to make a point of telling others how good they themselves are, how wholesome they are, and what good values they have, while others are evil, devoid of values. 

These phonies are braggarts, counterfeit Christians. 

If people brag about their own goodness or imply that they’ve attained righteousness by being wonderful people, they’re probably not Christians. 

Or, at the least, they’re Christians who need to repent for their sin and surrender their egos to Christ.

When Christians do brag, it’s about something else altogether. After Martin Luther died, a scrap of paper was found in his pocket, on which he had written six words: “We are beggars; this is true.” As Christians, we don’t brag about how wonderful we are. We know better. Our daily gaze in the face of God and into the mirror of God’s Law will tell us that. Instead, we brag about how wonderful God is! 

We’re not braggarts, we’re beggars: completely, utterly, totally dependent on the crucified and risen Jesus to justify us, to make us righteous, fit for life with God. Like the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 64:6), we can honestly confess: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags...” 

But we live with the joy of knowing that even when the devil, the world, and our sinful selves are forced to agree with the Law that, in our own power, we aren’t and never can be righteous, in the power of God, through the spent blood of Jesus on the cross and our faith in Him, we are justified, we are right with God, we are righteous!

And so, Paul writes elsewhere in Romans: “...there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 8:1) We’ve been set free from sin and death and condemnation. And set free, no longer under the thumb of the Law, we can focus on truly living as disciples: following Christ, drawing on the Holy Spirit’s power to love God as He has loved us and to love others as Christ has loved us.

In Christ, we are justified, we are righteous. That’s worth celebrating not just on the October Sunday closest to October 31, but every single day. Friends of Christ, happy Reformation Day!

Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Here is the audio of this message.

The Church: How God Helps Us Live Out Our Baptism

[This message was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, earlier today. This is the second part in a four-installment series on living out our Baptism.]

Acts 2:41-47
Everybody loves baptisms. In fact, we seem to bathe baptism in sentimentalities. This is true whether the baptized is a child or an adult. 

I have a feeling that much of the sentimentality about Holy Baptism involves things like the cuteness of the baptized child or the supposed uprightness of the adult submitting to baptism. In such cases, the baptized is the center of attention rather than God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Who, through water, brings His saving Word to the person being baptized.

We seem to forget what happens in Holy Baptism. 

The first thing that happens as the water connected with God’s Word hits our foreheads is that we die. Our sinful selves are drowned and we share in the death of Jesus, God the Son, on the cross. 

We die to sin and self so that a second thing can happen when we receive Holy Baptism: We rise to new and everlasting life with God. 

This is a life that still must be apprehended by faith in Christ, to be sure, faith in Christ created within us by the Holy Spirit. 

But in Holy Baptism, the man, woman, or child who was born in sin and who has died with Christ for that sin is lifted out of sin, chaos, death, darkness, and futility by the gracious hand of God. 

The apostle Paul says in Romans 6:4: “We were therefore buried with [Christ] through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” 

Through the waters of Holy Baptism, God graciously reaches down to make new the person who dies and rises at the baptismal font.

But even new creatures can take wrong turns. (Think of Adam and Eve.) 

Baptized Christians, who are simultaneously saints by the grace of God and sinners by nature, are daily called to return to the One Who saves us. 

In The Small Catechism, Martin Luther asks what the significance God’s decision to baptize us through the means of water might be. His answer: “It signifies that the old Adam in us, together with all sins and evil desires, should be drowned by daily repentance and sorrow for sin, and be put to death, and that the new person should come forth every day and rise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” 

After we have been baptized, neither the devil, nor the world, nor our sinful selves give up on dragging us back into the chaos of sin, into ruptured relationships with God, with others, with the self, with creation. 

Luther says that our call is to daily be re-membered or reconnected with Christ so that sin, death, and the devil are unsuccessful in pulling us down again into the deep of separation from God.

But this lifestyle of discipleship--a lifestyle of daily repentance and renewal--isn’t easy, especially if we try to do it ourselves. The person who thinks that they can be a Christian or grow as a Christian without God is bound to fail.

When one’s faith life is just Jesus and me or Jesus, me, and the people I find companionable, it’s too easy to confuse my ideas and my preferences for the ideas and preference of God. It’s too easy to fall into the thought that Christian faith isn’t about what God has done for me through Jesus, but about all the things I do that I think are good by Jesus. In our own power, we can never be good enough to warrant entry into God's eternal kingdom or even have a relationship with God. Isaiah rightly says of our human race, "...all our righteous acts are like filthy rags." (Isaiah 64:6) 

“I guess I’ve done enough good stuff for the Church and other people to get into heaven,” a man once told me with a straight face. He could only have said that if he’d been listening to the devil, the world, and his own sinful nature more than he’d been listening to God’s Word or the testimony of the Church. 

Yet God has decisively acted to safeguard and guide us in living out our Baptism each day. And how has He done that?

Let’s take a look at Acts 2:41-47. These verses from Acts, a New Testament book written by the Gospel writer, Luke, come right after Luke’s account of the first Christian Pentecost. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came to Christ’s Church, then sent all of its members out to tell of God’s mighty acts. Using God’s Word in the Old Testament, Peter explained to the crowd that it was Jesus, crucified, risen, and ascended Who had sent the Holy Spirit to enable the Church to tell everyone about the new life Jesus offers, three thousand people were baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the first Christian baptisms.

And all the baptized became part of the Church. Verse 42 says: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” 

Notice that the old and new believers all were sustained in living out the Baptism God had given to them in four ways. 

First, they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching. They spent time in God’s Word. God’s Word has the power to transform us from enemies of God to forever friends of God. Churches and individual Christians start to depart from God when they stop reading God’s Word together and individually. The apostle Paul tells the young pastor Timothy: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3:16) 

Second, the first Christians spent time in fellowship with each other. The word translated as fellowship from the Greek in which Acts was originally written is koinonia. This is more than having a laugh with someone in the hallway of the church. Koinonia has the idea of partnership. The Church is a group of people called together by Christ for the common mission of being and making disciples. 

Third, the first Christians devoted themselves to “the breaking of the bread.” I feel sure that this means the disciples regularly and frequently received the body and blood of Jesus, Holy Communion. In Luke 24:30, on the first Easter Sunday, two disciples who hadn’t yet figured out that they were in the presence of the risen Jesus, immediately knew Him as He broke the bread and gave it to them. In Holy Communion, the baptized are re-membered to Jesus, forgiven for our sins, and filled with His life. We are renewed in our relationship with Christ. 

Fourth, the first Christians devoted themselves to prayer. They prayed together.

Acts 2:44-47 goes on to say: “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Some suggest from this passage that the early Church was a socialist community in which all the people owned and shared “the means of production.” That’s a stretch. But what we do see clearly from this passage is that the early Church members were in community with each other and shared what they had, including the good news of new life through faith in Jesus, with each other and the world. 

To live with this kind of love and sacrifice of self is not only foreign to how society teaches us to live, it’s foreign to our very nature. 

Only people who know that they are desperately, totally loved and saved by the God we meet in Jesus, would even want to live this life of complete trust in God and love for others. 

I  confess that when God asks me to love people I find unlovable, to give to a cause from which I can’t imagine I will ever derive benefit, to spend time with someone I’d rather not be around, or to interrupt my plans by in doing something that I’d rather not do, the old Mark in me, wants to run the other direction. 

I especially want to run the other way when God calls me to trust in Him even in times of pain, adversity, or grief...or when I’m not getting my own way. 

But I find myself trusting in the God I know in Jesus, doing things that I don’t want to do because, through the Church, I have heard God’s saving Word, been called to the common mission of the Church, received Christ’s body and blood, and prayed with God’s people. 

Through the Church, I am reminded again of God’s grace given to me through Jesus, the grace in which I was washed clean at my baptism, and I am filled again with the Holy Spirit to will and to do what God wants for my life and not what I want to do.

The celebrated writer and philosophy professor Dallas Willard, a mentor to our bishop, John Bradosky, once observed, “The average church-going Christian has a headful of vital truths about God and a body unable to fend off sin.” 

That’s why the Church is so important. 

The Church is God’s support group for baptized Christians, God's support group for recovering sinners. 

The Church, the body of Christ, helps saints and sinners saved by God’s grace to have the faith to keep following Jesus when everything in us and everything around us scream at and the devil whispers to us to go our own ways, to look out for our own perceived and earthbound interests and to forget about God or others. 

For we baptized Christians, the Church is our family, the fellowship through which Christ gives those who believe in Him the benefits of His death and resurrection.

In Holy Baptism, God makes us part of Christ’s family, the Church. We acknowledge this at every baptism. 

“Through Baptism,” the pastor says, “God has made these new sisters and brothers members of the priesthood we all share in Christ Jesus, that we may proclaim the praise of God and bear His creative and redeeming Word to all the world.” 

And the Church responds, “We welcome you into the Lord’s family. We receive you as fellow members of the body of Christ, children of the same heavenly Father, and workers with us in the kingdom of God.”

Baptism, as I said last week, is a big deal. In it, God saves us, giving us a share in Jesus’ death and resurrection. 

But, as we see from Acts 2, He also makes us part of Christ’s eternal family, the Church. 

May we then, be avid participants in the life of the Church, supporting one another and deepening our own relationship with the God Who has baptized us by 

• being together regularly to hear God’s Word, 
• partnering together to fulfill the mission of the Church, 
• receiving Christ’s body and blood together, and 
• praying together. 

These elements, more than any other things we might name, are what God uses to help us live out our Baptism. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]