We had some families from Canada and
Oklahoma join us in worship yesterday.
In fact a couple from Kansas sang a few Southern Gospel songs for us. The first one went quite well. The second one took a while to get through,
though. We had some technical issues with
the cd she wanted to use as accompaniment. Between our tech crew and her husband, they
finally found the problem and got it going.
The whole time they worked, she came up with topic after topic to talk
about to fill the dead air. All things considered, they did an admirable job.
One new family was there who live in Sea
Isle. They have three kids, one of which
is just barely youth camp age. I
mentioned camp to the Mom, and she said she remembered going to camp every summer
as a kid. Hope she can join up with our
guys this time. This was one of those
Sundays where I got thanked for the service several times. I said thank you, of course. My Mom would settle for nothing less. But I did let them know that anything that “worked”
must have been evidence that the Holy Spirit was with us. One thank you came because I “made the idea
of baptism so easy to understand.” The
other thank you came from our Accidental Visitor. We get those from time to time. This guy had been given directions to a
church somewhere in Galveston. At some
point, however, he made a wrong turn or missed a sign or something, because he
realized he must have gone too far. He
didn’t turn around, though. Instead he
looked up and saw our church sign.
Intrigued, he came in and joined us.
His thank you was for being a place where the Spirit of God was very
evident. He believed there are no such
things as accidents, and that God must have directed him to Seaside. Oh, and did I mention that he was from
Nigeria? Fascinating guy, but very hard
for me to understand because of his broken English. I heard enough to understand that he loved
Jesus a lot, though. And I certainly
agreed with him about his presence having nothing to do with accidents.
I didn’t do a separate Kids sermon this
week. Instead I mixed in a lot of
participation with the rest of the teaching.
Boy, did I have some good participation.
The teaching was about baptism.
About time in a series on John the Baptist, don’t you think? And the kids’ involvement? Well, at one point we played Follow the Leader. I was the leader, and had a string of little guys
behind me. We walked and hopped and
twirled, and I finally got on my hands and knees and crawled for a while. That got the older folks’ attention. The kids did a great job. Mother May I went well. Especially for the little guy from Canada who
followed commands and ended up getting a bag of M&M’s. And then there was Will. I asked if anyone wanted to volunteer to be
in a special club. All you had to do was
one thing. Just got the one
volunteer. Will. I told him he could be a member if he stood
in front of everyone and said, “Hi, I’m Will and Pastor Kelley is
awesome.” That was the name of the club,
The Pastor Kelley is Awesome Club. Will
didn’t just say it. He proclaimed
it. Loud.
So, the
sermon itself was about how baptism is a picture. How could I teach something like that and not
have a lot of images? A bar of soap
showed how baptism represents spiritual cleansing. A toy boat I carved helped me show the
original meaning of the word “baptism.”
It’s what happens when a boat sinks to the bottom – it is completely
immersed in water. I used one of Chris’ little spades to picture
baptism as a picture of dying to your old life and being buried and raised to a
new life with Jesus. Playing Follow the Leader
with the kids was the next one. It’s
kind of an obvious one, too, isn’t it?
We get baptized we follow Jesus, and he got baptized. It’s a way to be like him. The games were going so well, we did a round
of Mother May I. That showed how baptism
is following Jesus’ command in the Great Commission. Next I talked about the culture of being a
runner and how once you complete that first milestone race, whether it be a 10K
or making it around the block, you are officially considered “one of the gang,”
a real runner. Like that, baptism shows
you are one of the family of God. Then
came the new club experience. That
showed how baptism initiates you into a community of common experience with
others who have done the same thing. Finally,
good old Mike Bell had his trusty Houston Texans hat on, so we all looked at
him and saw that baptism also identifies you with a local organization of
believers, in our case called Seaside Church.
After all that, the bottom line question came to light: If all this is true –
if Jesus really lived a perfect life, and died, and rose from the dead … for me
– then why would I not want to commit
my life to him? And why would I not want to get baptized?
Matthew 28:19-20 says, “Therefore
go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything
I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the
age."
Father, thank you for
being so … present. Amen.
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