Wearing the shirt: baptism
Ezekiel 2: 1-7
Galatians 1:11-17
Here is a wonderful thing to tell
you. Jake, Kirsty and Kevin, everyone:
say this to yourself very slowly: Gold set me apart before I was born and
called me through his grace. God set me
apart before I was born and called me through his grace.
Jake, God has set you apart from
before you were born. He has made
youuse special. God has set you
apart. There were lots of others babies
born around the world at exactly the same time as you, but God sees you. God has set you apart from everyone else and
said "There's Jake". You
could be in the middle of an ocean on a raft, but God would see you there -
because he has set you apart before you were born. You could be in the middle of a football crowd-God sees you
there. When we baptise you, we are
saying that God has set you apart. He
knows your name. He knows your
fingerprints. He knows your life. He has set us apart since before we were
born.
How do we know this? It is impossible isn't it? Well, it's impossible for us to know it or
make it up ourselves, but as Paul writes-this truth is not of human origin, we
can't get it from human beings, we can't be taught it by people. We only know about it because Jesus revealed
it to us.
What we do here today is like
putting on a football shirt. It's like
showing people our colours, our team.
Now there are two kinds of people who wear football shirts. One day soon Jake your mum and dad might
want to buy you a football shirt, a little one which will fit you when you're a
boy. It will show who you support, or
who they support at least! It will show
who you watch, it will mark you out.
But being baptised isn’t like wearing a shirt just to show which team
you support.
The other kind of person who wears
a football shirt is someone like David Beckham. When David Beckham wears a shirt he puts it on to get ready for a
match. He puts it on not to show people
who he supports, but who he plays for.
When David Beckham wears a shirt it’s a shirt he lives for, trains for,
plays for. David Beckham put on a shirt
to show he is a player.
Jake we are baptizing you to show
that you are going to be a player and not a supporter. You are not on the benches, you are in the
team. It's perfectly possible for a
player to wear a shirt and just stand in the pitch not moving. But that's not what we want for you. We want your baptism to throw you into the
middle of the game. We want people not
only to know which side you are on, but to see you playing for that team. You are going to need training. You are going to need training in following
God, you are going to need to learn about him from your mum and dad and from
other people. If you don't learn from
them, you will not be able to play as well.
Because
Jake and everybody, God wants us to play on his team. It's the only game worth playing. He is the only captain worth following. Because here is the second part of that wonderful thing I told
you at the beginning. Jake and
everybody, God has set you apart, but God has also called you through his
grace. Just repeat that to yourself
again: God has called me through his grace.
Your life has a destiny Jake.
God has called you. He has a
purpose for you. He has called you
through his grace. You are not going to
be mediocre if you hear that call, you are not going to be left wondering what
your life has been about at the end of it if you hear that call. God has called you through his grace. You can be like Ezekiel who was told by God
to go and tell people about him and not be afraid. God has called you through his grace. We baptise you here because you are getting ready to be a
player. He has picked you-he has set
you apart from before you were born.
And he has called you by his grace-called you to make him your goal.