WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.679 Let me just read a few words from one of the passages we've read already from Romans chapter 6. 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:14.000 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:21.760 death? We were therefore buried with Him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ 00:00:21.760 --> 00:00:28.000 was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 00:00:30.400 --> 00:00:38.560 Now later this morning we're going to be baptizing someone. Well I'm not going to be 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:45.040 baptizing someone. Derek is going to take that part of the service. We're going to be baptizing 00:00:45.039 --> 00:00:52.399 Neil and Day's son, Murdo. So I thought it would be helpful simply to think a little bit about 00:00:52.399 --> 00:00:58.879 the significance of baptism as it's represented within the New Testament. Now this isn't going to 00:00:58.879 --> 00:01:02.960 be a comprehensive lecture on baptism. That would take an awful long time and I'm going to try and 00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:10.239 not talk for too long. All I'm going to do is to talk about a couple of the aspects of significance 00:01:10.239 --> 00:01:18.399 that's associated with the ritual or rite of baptism within the New Testament and particularly 00:01:18.959 --> 00:01:27.759 by the Apostle Paul. Now both of these aspects that I want to think about which I've entitled 00:01:27.759 --> 00:01:36.640 Hope and Responsibility. Both of these aspects are associated particularly with an element of 00:01:36.640 --> 00:01:44.799 the significance of baptism that we ourselves perhaps often overlook. And this is particularly 00:01:44.799 --> 00:01:53.359 connected to the way that baptism is represented by the New Testament writers as representing 00:01:53.359 --> 00:02:00.960 something about the believer's identification with Jesus. Now perhaps one of the helpful ways 00:02:00.960 --> 00:02:06.560 to begin thinking about this is just to think about the word baptize itself. The word 00:02:06.560 --> 00:02:12.080 baptize originally wasn't a technical word, it didn't originally refer to a particular rite or to 00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:19.599 a particular practice. It was just a particular form of a verb that was associated either with 00:02:19.599 --> 00:02:28.800 immersing things in liquid or sprinkling liquid onto things. So the verb was simply a verb about 00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:38.000 effectively dunking or sprinkling. And because of those associations it came to have two particular 00:02:39.439 --> 00:02:46.560 functions if you like. It was often used of washing where you would immerse your hands or 00:02:46.560 --> 00:02:53.200 you would sprinkle water on your hands to cleanse them. That's one of the associations we're often 00:02:53.200 --> 00:02:57.920 very aware of ourselves and that's obviously fairly prominent within the New Testament's 00:02:57.919 --> 00:03:04.959 representation of baptism. Baptism is associated with cleansing. But the other aspect of the 00:03:04.959 --> 00:03:11.039 significance of baptism that we're perhaps less aware of is that the same set of words, because 00:03:11.039 --> 00:03:18.719 they were connected to the idea of immersing or sprinkling, were also commonly used in connection 00:03:18.719 --> 00:03:26.959 with dying things, not things that are dying, but with textiles where you would immerse textiles 00:03:26.960 --> 00:03:33.360 in particular dies and they would take on the properties of that die. Or you would sprinkle 00:03:33.360 --> 00:03:40.719 textiles or spray particular liquids onto textiles and they would take on the properties. 00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:47.600 So that the language of baptism also comes to have a connotation of identification, 00:03:47.599 --> 00:03:56.879 a connotation of the fact that when things come into contact they become entangled with each other. 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:06.319 Something that is true of one thing becomes shared with the other, becomes communicated 00:04:06.319 --> 00:04:15.439 to the other. They become entangled or they become united to each other. This is actually a very 00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:21.519 prominent element within the Reformed tradition that this particular denomination is part of. 00:04:22.160 --> 00:04:30.160 But it's something that has quite widely slipped out of the common imagery within more contemporary 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:36.319 evangelicalism. We don't talk perhaps as much as we should about union with Christ, 00:04:37.199 --> 00:04:43.360 about the emphasis that we find brought out in the passages before us, that the believer is 00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:52.240 united to Jesus. And in that union our lives and the life of Jesus becomes entangled. So that it's 00:04:52.240 --> 00:04:58.639 not simply the case that Jesus does something for us from which we benefit when we trust him. 00:04:59.759 --> 00:05:05.840 But it's that our lives and the life of Jesus have become entangled so that he is united to 00:05:05.839 --> 00:05:14.159 himself, all that we are, with all of its failings and deficiencies and lacks. And he is united to us 00:05:14.799 --> 00:05:23.759 all that he is with all its perfections. Baptism represents that. And when we read Paul in Roman 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:33.919 6 it's clear that that is what's in his mind. Not solely the imagery of baptism as something 00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:39.680 that represents cleansing, but the imagery of baptism as something that represents union. 00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:49.439 We have been baptized into Christ Jesus. And the way that Paul talks about this baptism 00:05:50.080 --> 00:05:58.160 is that unlike this morning when water will be sprinkled on myrtle and that water afterwards 00:05:58.160 --> 00:06:08.400 can be wiped off with a towel, this particular implanting into Jesus is one that definitively 00:06:10.240 --> 00:06:16.960 transforms. Now the right itself, that's simply an outward representation of that reality. 00:06:17.680 --> 00:06:24.240 But the reality itself is one that leaves an imprint on us. And that's what I want to talk about 00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:33.680 this morning. So baptism, hope and responsibility. And our two titles are really taken from the two 00:06:33.680 --> 00:06:39.759 passages or are associated with the two passages we looked at. So first of all let's turn to Roman 6 00:06:39.759 --> 00:06:48.079 and to think about baptism and hope. And the hope that I think is particularly represented in Roman 6 00:06:48.079 --> 00:07:01.199 is the truth that the prospects and possibilities for our lives rest on something, on someone 00:07:02.079 --> 00:07:09.439 outside of ourselves. That the prospects and possibilities for our lives are not defined 00:07:09.439 --> 00:07:20.000 by ourselves, by our abilities, capacities, performances, by our pasts, our histories, 00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:29.360 but that the prospects and possibilities for our lives are defined rest upon the reality 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:38.319 of the identity of Jesus Christ. Look at the language again that Paul uses. We've read it a 00:07:38.319 --> 00:07:42.800 couple of times but let's read it again. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into 00:07:42.800 --> 00:07:50.319 Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him by baptism into death 00:07:50.319 --> 00:07:54.319 in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, 00:07:55.120 --> 00:08:02.000 we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:07.360 we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. We know that our old self, 00:08:07.360 --> 00:08:14.000 or that's literally our old man, was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:21.520 brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been 00:08:21.520 --> 00:08:28.560 set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will live with Him. 00:08:29.439 --> 00:08:34.560 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer 00:08:34.559 --> 00:08:40.639 has dominion over Him. These are amazing words because in these words Paul says, 00:08:41.359 --> 00:08:53.439 your reality, our reality, is one that's defined by the identity and by the story of Jesus. 00:08:54.639 --> 00:09:02.799 And again, not simply as something that has been lived and done for them from which they benefit, 00:09:02.799 --> 00:09:11.279 but as something in which they have come to participate because it's a story to which 00:09:11.279 --> 00:09:19.359 they have been united. Again, this is one of those passages that doesn't really read well, 00:09:20.319 --> 00:09:27.199 the way that we often read it, the way that we often limit our ways of talking about the atonement 00:09:27.200 --> 00:09:33.920 to particular ways of thinking about Jesus doing something for us. This passage speaks of Jesus 00:09:33.920 --> 00:09:41.120 death as something to which we have been united, as something in which we participate, and as a way 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:48.000 of speaking about Jesus' resurrection as something to which we have been united and in which we 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:56.560 participate. Paul effectively says to us, who died on Calvary? And the answer to that is that 00:09:56.559 --> 00:10:08.479 Jesus died, but I died. Who rose on the third day? Jesus rose, but I rose. And in time that resurrection 00:10:08.479 --> 00:10:15.839 will be manifest fully when my body is raised from the dead and shares in the perfection of his life. 00:10:17.439 --> 00:10:23.759 It's the language of identification with the story of Jesus that for Paul is associated 00:10:23.759 --> 00:10:32.480 with this incredible new possibility and prospect that I can live not as a slave to sin, 00:10:33.439 --> 00:10:41.039 but as someone who has died to sin and been raised into newness of life, that I can share in the life 00:10:41.039 --> 00:10:48.559 of Jesus. Perhaps the most radical place where Paul expresses this is in Galatians chapter 2, 00:10:48.559 --> 00:10:54.559 where he says, I have been crucified with Christ, and now it's no longer I who live, 00:10:55.759 --> 00:11:01.119 it's Christ who lives in me. Now it's very clear, you know, when you read Paul's wider 00:11:01.119 --> 00:11:06.959 writings, it's not that Paul feels like he's been effaced from existence. He still writes to people 00:11:06.959 --> 00:11:13.839 as Paul, and he still writes to people addressing them by their names. So it's not that the people 00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:19.280 to whom he writes or he himself have been sort of obliterated from existence, and everything has 00:11:19.280 --> 00:11:27.519 become this amorphous thing. There are ideas like that out there in other religions, but it's not 00:11:27.519 --> 00:11:37.759 the idea that Paul has. Paul's language is that I live, but it's no longer I who lives, it's Christ 00:11:37.759 --> 00:11:47.039 who lives in me. My whole identity has been redefined by the one to whom I'm united. His story has 00:11:47.039 --> 00:11:57.439 become my story. His backstory has become my backstory, and his future has become my future. 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:04.639 And why is that hope? Well, it's hope for Paul because it means that those futures 00:12:04.639 --> 00:12:13.279 are no longer limited by those deficiencies and weaknesses, failings, powerlessnesses 00:12:14.319 --> 00:12:24.240 that are part of our being, part of our flesh. Shall we go on sinning? He says, no, because we've 00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:32.159 been united to the one who has died and been raised. We've been redefined, re-identified. 00:12:32.159 --> 00:12:39.360 We will be raised with him, Paul goes on to say. That's the hope, that's the prospect. 00:12:41.679 --> 00:12:50.480 The prospects for our lives, for each of us, are not governed by our past. They're not governed by 00:12:50.480 --> 00:12:57.839 our intelligence. They're not governed by our own cognitive abilities. They're not governed by our 00:12:57.840 --> 00:13:08.639 capacity to live obediently to God. They're governed by the history, by the identity of Jesus. 00:13:09.519 --> 00:13:18.560 His story is now our story. His future is now our future. Baptism, the act of 00:13:18.559 --> 00:13:29.439 applying water to this child, signifies that great reality. It signifies the reality that the hope 00:13:30.079 --> 00:13:38.000 for each of us, the hope for murder, lies outside of murder. It lies in the person of Jesus. 00:13:38.799 --> 00:13:44.879 So if any of us are here this morning and perhaps we're feeling a sense of despair, 00:13:44.879 --> 00:13:49.679 because our own lives have not turned out the way that we thought they would, because we've come to 00:13:49.679 --> 00:13:56.159 realize that we ourselves are just powerless to deal with those sins in our lives, because we feel 00:13:56.159 --> 00:14:02.000 perhaps that we've blown it, that we've failed, that we've taken our testimony and thrown it away. 00:14:02.960 --> 00:14:12.879 As we watch the act of baptism later this morning, it's a reminder to us that our futures are not 00:14:12.879 --> 00:14:20.240 ours to lose, that our futures are Christ's future. So if you're here this morning with that sense of 00:14:20.240 --> 00:14:25.840 despair, the act of baptism, even apply to someone else, preaches something to you. It 00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:32.480 preaches to you that our hope lies in Jesus Christ, and not just in something that Jesus has done for 00:14:32.480 --> 00:14:44.320 us, but in Jesus himself. I use a lot of cliches, my own cliches. So there's a lot of things that I 00:14:44.320 --> 00:14:50.560 say a lot of the time. And this is one of them, because baptism is associated sometimes with 00:14:50.560 --> 00:14:57.759 the imagery of clothing. Sometimes you find the language of baptism occurring very close to the 00:14:57.759 --> 00:15:06.319 image that the calling of the Christian life is to take off our old man, or to put off our old man, 00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:15.519 and to clothe ourselves with Christ. So here's the point. The prospects of our lives is that we can 00:15:15.519 --> 00:15:22.639 live in fellowship with Jesus the King, because we have clothed ourselves with Jesus the servant, 00:15:22.639 --> 00:15:30.080 and because we enjoy the prospects and the future of that servant. It's an encouragement to us. 00:15:30.879 --> 00:15:37.039 It's also a challenge to us, because if any of us are here this morning and we feel that actually 00:15:37.919 --> 00:15:46.480 that we're in pretty good shape, then this is a reminder that our own goodness, our own righteousness 00:15:46.480 --> 00:15:53.200 will never suffice. That's the lesson that Paul in the chapters prior to Romans 6 has learned. 00:15:54.080 --> 00:15:59.759 Paul used to think that he had done everything right. So when we read in Philippians 3 of Paul's 00:15:59.759 --> 00:16:04.720 former life, it's a life that he describes as something in which he did everything right. 00:16:04.720 --> 00:16:10.960 I came from a good family. I was righteous. I was zealous. I kept the law meticulously. 00:16:10.960 --> 00:16:21.440 But when he encountered Jesus, he realized that all of these things were just idols. They had no 00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:29.519 capacity to truly deliver him from the power of sin that really affected and marked his whole 00:16:29.519 --> 00:16:37.759 constitution, his whole flesh. Deliverance is mine only in Jesus. That's the recognition that Paul 00:16:37.759 --> 00:16:45.360 has in Philippians. That's why he says to live is Christ and to die is gain. 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:54.799 So for those of us this morning, as we watch the act of baptism, this is the first reminder that 00:16:54.799 --> 00:17:02.639 it's a declaration of hope, a declaration that is at once a comfort, but a challenge, to ask us 00:17:02.639 --> 00:17:10.160 where our hope lies. And for a moment just to think about a murder himself and about his parents, 00:17:11.359 --> 00:17:18.960 the act of baptism is one in which his parents are reminded, are invited to declare something 00:17:19.680 --> 00:17:27.920 that they will rear murder to know through his life and that this community, this church, 00:17:27.920 --> 00:17:34.640 will have a responsibility to remind Mirdo off day after day that his own prospects, 00:17:34.640 --> 00:17:41.680 his own hopes, must lie outside of himself, that he will never be the captain of his own destiny, 00:17:41.680 --> 00:17:47.279 that he must never be the captain of his own destiny, the key to his own future, 00:17:47.279 --> 00:17:54.720 that his key will always be Jesus because Jesus is the key. So that's the first thing then, 00:17:54.720 --> 00:18:01.200 baptism and hope. Secondly, baptism and responsibility. And this is from 1 Corinthians 00:18:01.839 --> 00:18:07.360 chapter 12, which is the second of the passages that we read. Now there's a couple of things that 00:18:07.360 --> 00:18:11.039 I want to notice before we look at some of the details of this text, and we're not going to take 00:18:11.039 --> 00:18:20.799 too long over this. The first is the language that Paul uses in verse 12, because it's very easy to 00:18:20.799 --> 00:18:27.359 pass over something. For just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the 00:18:27.359 --> 00:18:35.039 body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. That's a very interesting turn of phrase, 00:18:35.039 --> 00:18:41.279 because he doesn't say just as the body is one, so it is with the church, or just as the body is one, 00:18:41.279 --> 00:18:48.960 so it is with the Christian community. He says just as the body is one, so it is with Christ. 00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:55.440 Now this is effectively an outworking of what we've just seen in Romans 6, that the identity of the 00:18:55.440 --> 00:19:02.720 believer and the identity of the community of believers are derived from Jesus himself, 00:19:03.600 --> 00:19:09.120 participate in Jesus himself, so that when we look at the church we're not simply looking at a bunch 00:19:09.120 --> 00:19:16.480 of people, but we're looking at Christ himself. When we're looking at the body of Christ, we're 00:19:16.480 --> 00:19:27.039 looking at Christ. Paul's language there, just as the body is one, so it is with Christ. 00:19:28.400 --> 00:19:33.759 The second interesting thing requires us to go back a little bit. You don't need to go back, 00:19:33.759 --> 00:19:38.799 I'll just walk you through this. But this language of oneness that we find here throughout this 00:19:38.799 --> 00:19:46.639 chapter is language that actually has run through not only this, but also the preceding chapters, 00:19:46.639 --> 00:19:54.159 right back to chapter 8, where Paul speaks about the fact that there is one God, one Lord, 00:19:54.159 --> 00:20:00.960 and one mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ. Now the interesting thing about that 00:20:00.960 --> 00:20:09.519 passage, that's 1 Corinthians 8.6, is that the language of oneness that Paul uses there really 00:20:09.519 --> 00:20:17.519 picks up on one of the classic statements of divine monotheism, of the uniqueness of God 00:20:17.519 --> 00:20:24.240 from the Old Testament, a passage that's known as the Shema within Jewish tradition, Deuteronomy 6, 00:20:24.240 --> 00:20:33.599 where Israel is told, Hero Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. So worship the Lord your God 00:20:33.599 --> 00:20:42.400 with all your heart and so on. The Lord is God, the Lord is one. And when Paul speaks about the 00:20:42.400 --> 00:20:51.359 oneness of the body in this chapter, it's as part of a long spell in 1 Corinthians, where he's been 00:20:51.359 --> 00:21:00.079 saying to believers, you are united to God in Christ. You are united to the one God through 00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:06.719 the one mediator. You have been made to drink of the one spirit. That's represented in one loaf 00:21:06.719 --> 00:21:14.000 from which you eat, one cup from which you drink, because the unity, the oneness of the church 00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:25.599 is a function of the union of that church to its God, and that God is one God. The oneness of God 00:21:25.599 --> 00:21:35.039 is shared with the church. Now of course Paul's writing to people who are evincing a lack of unity. 00:21:35.039 --> 00:21:40.799 He's writing to people who are competing with each other for honor and status. He's writing to 00:21:40.799 --> 00:21:44.879 people who are neglecting the needs of each other. He's writing in other words to a community that 00:21:44.879 --> 00:21:51.759 doesn't embody unity the way that it should. But what he doesn't say to them is, you need to sort 00:21:51.759 --> 00:21:57.200 your unity out so that you can finally be one. What he says to them is, you are one because 00:21:57.200 --> 00:22:02.000 you're united to the one God through the one Savior, through the one mediator. You've been 00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:09.839 made to drink of the one spirit. So start manifesting, start embodying the oneness which is really yours 00:22:09.839 --> 00:22:19.119 because of your union with God. And that's what we see worked out here in the imagery of the 00:22:19.119 --> 00:22:26.240 diverse body that Paul uses. It's a very common image of course, and it's a very, it's an obvious 00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:34.159 image to use. Bodies are complicated things. They have many parts, and those parts all 00:22:34.159 --> 00:22:39.279 perform different functions. They all look different. But one of the key things with this 00:22:39.279 --> 00:22:44.879 image that Paul is using is that it allows him to speak about the fact that we are naturally, 00:22:46.480 --> 00:22:55.039 and I want to qualify this word in a moment, we are naturally drawn to certain parts of the body 00:22:55.039 --> 00:23:04.160 that are attractive and engaging. We are naturally drawn to handsome faces. We are naturally drawn 00:23:04.160 --> 00:23:13.920 to perfect teeth. We are naturally drawn to muscular figures. We've been, now I'm going to 00:23:13.920 --> 00:23:20.640 qualify that word naturally in just a moment, we've been rewatching the Marvel Cinematic 00:23:20.640 --> 00:23:26.480 Universe movies, The Avengers Cycle. And for those who don't know what that is, it's fine, 00:23:26.480 --> 00:23:33.040 I won't explain it. It's a superhero series. But here's the thing with that series, we love them. 00:23:33.039 --> 00:23:38.960 Most people, not everyone, most people love these kinds of films because they're full of strong 00:23:38.960 --> 00:23:44.960 people who can do incredible things. They're full of handsome people, beautiful people. 00:23:46.079 --> 00:23:53.519 Captain America has perfect hair and perfect biceps. Scarlett Widow has a beautiful face, 00:23:53.519 --> 00:24:03.359 and so on and so forth. Certain people are cast to be the superheroes because they look fantastic. 00:24:03.359 --> 00:24:08.720 They're portrayed in particular ways because we're naturally drawn to those. And here's the key. 00:24:10.879 --> 00:24:18.079 Paul recognizes that our natural attraction to such things can cause us to place more value 00:24:18.079 --> 00:24:25.839 on one than the other. And he says, that's wrong. That thing that is natural is actually 00:24:25.839 --> 00:24:34.799 sinfully natural for you. It's part of your fleshly constitution. You judge people according to the 00:24:34.799 --> 00:24:39.839 flesh. That's the language that Paul uses repeatedly. It's sometimes masked in our translations 00:24:39.839 --> 00:24:46.480 because the word flesh is sometimes retranslated as sinful nature, which captures the negativity 00:24:46.480 --> 00:24:53.599 that Paul often associates with it. But the word flesh itself is really important because what Paul 00:24:53.599 --> 00:24:59.360 effectively is saying is that this is part of your constitution. This is part of the way you're made up. 00:25:00.079 --> 00:25:06.480 You're made up to value people who are strong, handsome. It's in your flesh. It's in your bones. 00:25:06.480 --> 00:25:16.559 It's in your neurology. And Paul says, for the Christian, for the Christian church, that's something 00:25:16.559 --> 00:25:25.039 that we need to recognize and that's something we need to set ourselves against. We need to deliberately, 00:25:25.759 --> 00:25:35.519 deliberately, intentionally re-evaluate people, not according to their impressive characteristics 00:25:35.519 --> 00:25:42.480 or lack thereof, but according to their union with Jesus, according to their union with Christ, 00:25:43.119 --> 00:25:48.960 and according to the fact that that is linked to God's choosing and placing of them in the church. 00:25:49.920 --> 00:25:56.319 So what does he say? For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body, 00:25:56.319 --> 00:26:08.159 Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit. We were all baptized 00:26:08.159 --> 00:26:15.839 into one body. It's baptism, again, that Paul goes to. And in the passage that follows, he speaks 00:26:15.839 --> 00:26:20.240 about the different parts of the body and particularly the parts of the body that we're not 00:26:20.240 --> 00:26:27.680 attracted to, that we don't place value on. He's writing to people who are competing for honor, 00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:32.880 competing for status. You want to be a smile. You want to be a hand, but you're an eye and you 00:26:32.880 --> 00:26:37.039 resent the fact that you're not a smile or you're an ear and you resent the fact that you're not 00:26:37.039 --> 00:26:44.960 something else. And he says to them, your body is made up of parts, many of which are covered, 00:26:44.960 --> 00:26:51.600 many of which are not on display. And we need to recognize that those parts are as valuable as every 00:26:51.600 --> 00:26:59.039 other part. Few of us, I think, watch the Avengers movies and think Chris Evans, who plays Captain 00:26:59.039 --> 00:27:07.200 America, he must have a fantastic liver. But he must. And this is the point, is that everyone 00:27:07.200 --> 00:27:17.440 is dependent upon parts of their bodies that are less, obviously, appealing, significant, valuable 00:27:17.440 --> 00:27:22.960 than other parts. I gave a lecture on this. I've been doing some work on one of the aspects of 00:27:22.960 --> 00:27:28.319 the work I do at the moment is on autism and the church. And this has been a big theme for me in 00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:36.400 my work. Because, again, one of the realities of autism is that autistic people often don't 00:27:36.400 --> 00:27:45.040 evince the kinds of qualities that other people, social qualities, that other people tend to place 00:27:45.040 --> 00:27:51.280 a premium on. So they tend to interact with people socially in a different way to the way that most 00:27:51.280 --> 00:27:56.640 people interact with each other. And that means that other people often don't find them quite as, 00:27:56.640 --> 00:28:02.160 and I maybe put this in scare quotes, they don't find them quite as likable as they find other 00:28:02.160 --> 00:28:08.320 people. They sometimes find them difficult. In many cases, their behaviour can be challenging, 00:28:08.320 --> 00:28:14.960 in more profound cases. In other cases, they just don't necessarily fit in or conform to the kinds 00:28:14.960 --> 00:28:20.960 of social expectations that we have. So I've been looking at the kind of language that Paul uses 00:28:20.960 --> 00:28:27.360 here and applying it to that to think about how the church ought to think about autism and autistic 00:28:27.359 --> 00:28:36.639 people, both for adults with autism in perhaps less extreme, even hidden forms, if you like, 00:28:36.639 --> 00:28:44.159 but also for people with more severe, more profound autism. And this material is absolutely key 00:28:44.159 --> 00:28:54.319 because it highlights that our instinct is to make value judgments in their own way. Our instinct 00:28:54.319 --> 00:29:01.200 is to say someone is valuable because they're handsome, because they're witty, because they're a 00:29:01.200 --> 00:29:08.159 great speaker, or because they're a good company, or because they perform Christian identity 00:29:08.159 --> 00:29:17.839 extremely well. And Paul says, you are baptized, they are baptized. We've been baptized into one 00:29:17.839 --> 00:29:25.839 body. Their value resides in the fact that they are united to Christ. And from that value, 00:29:25.839 --> 00:29:34.319 they are an essential and necessary part of the church. I gave a lecture in the States a couple 00:29:34.319 --> 00:29:38.959 of months ago, and I had PowerPoint there. I could probably have brought this today, but I wasn't 00:29:38.959 --> 00:29:47.359 well enough organised. But I put up a picture, and it was one of these idealised pictures, 00:29:47.359 --> 00:29:55.119 from the 50s, of a happy, beautiful family going to church. Probably in America, but that's not a 00:29:55.119 --> 00:30:01.679 judgement on anyone. Happy, beautiful family going to church. Their smiles were perfect, their skin 00:30:01.679 --> 00:30:06.159 was perfect, they all looked like they were having fun. Not necessarily the kind of reality that 00:30:06.159 --> 00:30:14.240 families will experience on a Sunday morning, trying to curral the children into church. But the 00:30:14.240 --> 00:30:23.200 point is that it's a myth, it's not the reality. And so I put up the next picture, was the cover of 00:30:23.200 --> 00:30:30.720 Grey's Anatomy, which is, you might not like this detail, but it's one of these images that shows a 00:30:30.720 --> 00:30:37.519 face, but also the skin peeled back to show what's under the face. And here's the point of 00:30:37.519 --> 00:30:45.519 application. Paul effectively says that's what we need to recognise that the church is. The church 00:30:45.519 --> 00:30:53.519 is not an airbrushed picture of perfection, where everyone conforms to a particular social 00:30:53.519 --> 00:31:02.639 expectation. That's a gutless church. The church is the complexity of a body, with its innards, 00:31:02.640 --> 00:31:09.520 with its parts, with its bits that aren't as attractive or as likable as others. And there's a 00:31:09.520 --> 00:31:17.920 challenge to each one of us to value the others in the church, not because they agree with us, not 00:31:17.920 --> 00:31:26.720 because they look like us, but because they're united to Christ by the Spirit. That's an absolutely 00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:32.720 vital point, because again, this is something I was taught when I went through the Free Church 00:31:32.720 --> 00:31:38.160 College here, and it's always stuck in my mind, that we so often define our Christian unity, 00:31:38.160 --> 00:31:44.720 either by the performance of identity that agrees with how we think the Christian life should look, 00:31:44.720 --> 00:31:52.720 or what we think Christians should look like, or by agreement in theological principles. But the 00:31:52.720 --> 00:31:58.720 truth is that we are united to every believer who is united to Christ, whether we like their doctrine, 00:31:58.720 --> 00:32:04.720 whether we like their lifestyle or not. That's not a reason not to argue over those things. In fact, 00:32:04.720 --> 00:32:10.720 it's more of a reason to argue over them. But we can't overlook the fact that we are united to 00:32:10.720 --> 00:32:18.720 them, and that they are every bit as valuable and as precious to the church as we are, or as those 00:32:18.720 --> 00:32:26.720 who conform to our image of what a Christian should look like. So baptism is not just a hope, 00:32:26.720 --> 00:32:34.720 it's a responsibility, and one that devolves upon each one of us. So I'm going to close with this, 00:32:34.720 --> 00:32:41.720 and I've gone on slightly longer than I meant to, so I'll do this very quickly, which is simply to say 00:32:41.720 --> 00:32:50.720 that what we celebrate in baptism is not ultimately the testimony of our faith, the testimony of the 00:32:50.720 --> 00:32:59.720 fact that we are believers. What we celebrate in baptism is Jesus, and is who Jesus is. One of the 00:32:59.720 --> 00:33:05.720 things I haven't done today is to talk about why we baptize children. That's an argument for another 00:33:05.720 --> 00:33:10.720 time. It's not an argument for this morning, or a conversation for this morning, because not 00:33:10.720 --> 00:33:18.720 everyone believes in that. But often people talk about baptism as if what it is is a testimony to 00:33:18.720 --> 00:33:24.720 your faith, a testimony to the fact that you are a believer, that you have put your faith in Jesus. 00:33:24.720 --> 00:33:31.720 Baptism is a testimony to His faith. Baptism is a testimony to His goodness, and to the fact that 00:33:31.720 --> 00:33:39.720 all that we are doing in our faith is laying hold, not just of what He has done for us, but laying 00:33:39.720 --> 00:33:50.720 hold of Him, because it's not simply that He gives us hope. He is our hope. And what we are called to do 00:33:50.720 --> 00:33:59.720 in faith is not simply to trust in what He has done, but to trust in Him. What we are called to do in 00:33:59.720 --> 00:34:11.720 faith is not simply to receive what He is giving us, to receive Himself. Baptism as a sign is a sign 00:34:11.720 --> 00:34:22.720 that our hopes, our prospects, our possibilities are grounded not in us, in ourselves, in our cognitive 00:34:22.719 --> 00:34:32.719 capacities, in our intellects, in our abilities, nor in our pasts, but they are grounded in Jesus Christ, 00:34:32.719 --> 00:34:53.719 in His past, in His power, and in His future. Amen.