WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.719 Okay, for a short while this morning, I'm going to go back to the reading that we had 00:00:06.719 --> 00:00:17.160 in Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter 17, which is a well-known verse or a well-known section 00:00:17.160 --> 00:00:24.000 to us here in the church, because it's one that we've looked at quite a lot, and it's 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:28.320 giving some important truths for us to share. 00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:33.600 Now, we've got water here at the front, which will be part of our service later on. 00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:39.200 We've warmed it up, so it's nice and warm for Sera, and I hope Sera will be prepared 00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:46.920 for that new experience for her to be taken in my arms and have water poured over her 00:00:46.920 --> 00:00:47.920 head. 00:00:47.920 --> 00:00:48.920 I'm sure she has. 00:00:48.920 --> 00:00:53.799 I think Andy's been doing a couple of practices at home just to make sure she's not completely 00:00:53.799 --> 00:00:55.600 traumatised by that. 00:00:55.600 --> 00:01:03.520 But someone will be bringing Sophie and Sera back in a little while. 00:01:03.520 --> 00:01:12.599 Now we know that fresh water, which obviously we use here, is a fantastic natural element, 00:01:12.599 --> 00:01:18.240 and it's a great element that God uses in the Bible to illustrate a little bit about 00:01:18.240 --> 00:01:23.480 who He is Himself and why we need Him. 00:01:23.480 --> 00:01:26.840 Water really is a great thing, fresh water is a great thing. 00:01:26.840 --> 00:01:31.280 It's very much the source of our physical lives. 00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:34.359 Without water, without fresh water, we would die. 00:01:34.359 --> 00:01:37.600 It's as simple as that. 00:01:37.600 --> 00:01:38.840 It doesn't look like it. 00:01:38.840 --> 00:01:48.600 60 to 70% of our bodies are made up of water, and it's what makes planet Earth so absolutely 00:01:48.599 --> 00:01:55.599 significant in the universe and unique among the billions of planets in the universe. 00:01:55.599 --> 00:02:09.719 This fruitful, blossoming, healthy, glorious world, which is that way because of the water 00:02:09.719 --> 00:02:11.560 that makes it so unique. 00:02:11.560 --> 00:02:17.680 And you see that when people are looking at different planets for any evidence of life. 00:02:17.680 --> 00:02:23.599 That's always water that they're looking for to see whether there is life on other planets. 00:02:23.599 --> 00:02:30.000 And we know in our own lives and in our own society, but also in our own world, how important 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:36.640 fresh water is to our health and to our hygiene and even to our prosperity. 00:02:36.640 --> 00:02:38.920 And I know we take it in many ways. 00:02:38.920 --> 00:02:41.800 I'm sure I certainly know I take it for granted. 00:02:41.800 --> 00:02:46.719 But there are 785 million people in this world. 00:02:46.719 --> 00:02:52.479 That's one in 10 of the world's population who don't have clean water close to their 00:02:52.479 --> 00:03:03.240 homes, who are having to live with the reality of dirty water and the poverty that's so closely 00:03:03.240 --> 00:03:07.120 linked to that. 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:12.079 So while it's easy for us to take it for granted, we recognize the huge responsibility at a 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:19.680 human level we have of making sure as much as possible that this world's population has 00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:23.680 clean water to allow for health. 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:29.800 I think sometimes for us it's kind of ordinary and even a bit dull because it flows out of 00:03:29.800 --> 00:03:30.800 our taps. 00:03:30.800 --> 00:03:32.320 It doesn't taste particularly great. 00:03:32.320 --> 00:03:33.720 Although maybe that's changing more. 00:03:33.720 --> 00:03:38.120 I think the younger generation are much healthier when it comes to that and drink lots of clean 00:03:38.120 --> 00:03:40.720 water, which is great. 00:03:40.719 --> 00:03:46.960 Now in this chapter in Jeremiah, God gives us a picture, or he uses water as a picture 00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:52.199 to illustrate where our trust lies, whether we trust in God or whether we don't trust 00:03:52.199 --> 00:04:00.840 in God, whether our hope lies and where our fundamental reality lies in terms of whether 00:04:00.840 --> 00:04:07.120 we just live for ourselves and trust in ourselves or whether we are relying on God and on His 00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:09.120 strength in our lives. 00:04:09.120 --> 00:04:16.079 So it's this kind of competition sometimes as it were between, is it just trusting myself 00:04:16.079 --> 00:04:20.199 and in my own strength or do I trust in God? 00:04:20.199 --> 00:04:21.199 Really? 00:04:21.199 --> 00:04:22.199 Do people still trust in God? 00:04:22.199 --> 00:04:24.439 Is that not a sign of weakness rather than strength? 00:04:24.439 --> 00:04:29.680 But it's there to make us think really, and it's there for us as Christians because it 00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:34.280 was written, this passage was written to the Old Testament believers, to make us think 00:04:34.279 --> 00:04:40.959 again about who God is and how He views our lives and how He wants us to view our relationship 00:04:40.959 --> 00:04:43.159 with Him. 00:04:43.159 --> 00:04:50.399 Because you know, if God is God and is as important as God must be, if He's God, okay, 00:04:50.399 --> 00:04:52.039 that's a very convoluted sentence. 00:04:52.039 --> 00:04:53.039 I'll say it again. 00:04:53.039 --> 00:05:00.439 If God is God and if He's as important as God must be if He's God, then it matters, 00:05:00.439 --> 00:05:02.199 doesn't it, what we think about Him? 00:05:02.199 --> 00:05:05.759 It matters what He says in His word. 00:05:05.759 --> 00:05:11.279 And so we're going to look just for a few minutes at that before the baptism. 00:05:11.279 --> 00:05:15.560 Because the first section of that, there's two sections, talks about the person who doesn't 00:05:15.560 --> 00:05:23.480 trust in God is someone who is like a shrub or a bush in a desert place, okay? 00:05:23.480 --> 00:05:27.439 And so he's basically saying, unbelief leaves us in a bad place. 00:05:27.439 --> 00:05:33.120 That picture of a, you know, you can imagine it, of a tree that are a bush that's barely 00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:42.160 surviving in the desert that is just not deeply rooted. 00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:46.480 You know the, I used this picture before here of tumbleweed, you know the old cowboy films 00:05:46.480 --> 00:05:47.480 that was tumbleweed growing. 00:05:47.480 --> 00:05:53.600 That's the kind of end result of this loosely rooted tree or bush that becomes tumbleweed 00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:54.600 in the desert. 00:05:54.600 --> 00:05:58.920 It's dry, it's isolated, it talks about these salt flats. 00:05:58.920 --> 00:06:07.480 Salt flats are hugely unfruitful places, uninhabitable places still in the world, dangerous and deadly. 00:06:07.480 --> 00:06:12.360 And there's this picture of kind of isolation and vulnerability and being exposed to the 00:06:12.360 --> 00:06:15.640 elements in an unhealthy way. 00:06:15.640 --> 00:06:22.960 And Jeremiah, this Old Testament prophet, prophet of lamentation, he's often called, 00:06:22.959 --> 00:06:28.639 he brings this warning to the Old Testament believers, the people of God, God's Old Testament 00:06:28.639 --> 00:06:33.120 people who had all the privileges, who had all the knowledge, who have all the love, 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:36.560 who had been rescued by God, who had been put in a beautiful land flowing with milk and 00:06:36.560 --> 00:06:41.919 honey and all these things, and who had been protected by God but who chose to run away 00:06:41.919 --> 00:06:47.959 from Him, who chose to turn their back on Him and to worship and serve idols and to worship 00:06:47.959 --> 00:06:55.479 and satisfy their own sinful desires without thinking about the God who rescued them. 00:06:55.479 --> 00:07:01.079 And so the reminder is today to us as Christians, as we believe in God, as we worship God as 00:07:01.079 --> 00:07:04.959 part of the congregation here today, is not to look at this and wag our finger and look 00:07:04.959 --> 00:07:10.399 at other people, but it's to remind ourselves that God is first speaking here to us as believers 00:07:10.399 --> 00:07:18.359 and challenging us that having put our trust in God as Christians, that we don't then 00:07:18.359 --> 00:07:27.679 turn away and reject Him and return to a kind of practical unbelief as it were, relying 00:07:27.679 --> 00:07:34.519 on my own strength and my own ideas, searching for joy and meaning and identity, away from 00:07:34.519 --> 00:07:38.079 God again in our lives as believers. 00:07:38.079 --> 00:07:43.159 And so that is the initial warning that comes in this passage. 00:07:43.159 --> 00:07:48.039 And God is saying that self-reliance is not a spiritual strength. 00:07:48.039 --> 00:07:50.759 You know, trusting in ourselves is not a spiritual strength. 00:07:50.759 --> 00:07:54.680 Now in everyday life that's varied, that's different, isn't it? 00:07:54.680 --> 00:08:00.199 In everyday life self-reliance has both strengths and weaknesses. 00:08:00.199 --> 00:08:02.759 It can be a really good thing to rely on your strength. 00:08:02.759 --> 00:08:04.360 It's good to be responsible, isn't it? 00:08:04.360 --> 00:08:12.639 It's good to think about how best to progress and not to be lazy and not to be unduly relying 00:08:12.639 --> 00:08:14.160 on other people in our lives. 00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:20.840 There's a lot of good qualities in our day-to-day living about self-reliance, what you can do 00:08:20.840 --> 00:08:24.040 for yourself, how you can pull yourself up. 00:08:24.040 --> 00:08:29.520 But also sometimes even in day-to-day living, self-reliance isn't a great thing. 00:08:29.519 --> 00:08:35.199 And we find a lot of that being exposed at the moment in our talk about mental health struggles. 00:08:35.199 --> 00:08:37.519 Is that it's not great to struggle on in your own. 00:08:37.519 --> 00:08:41.960 It's not great to be self-reliant and to just close in on yourself. 00:08:41.960 --> 00:08:46.519 But it's great to discuss these things and to share them and to rely on other people. 00:08:46.519 --> 00:08:51.079 It's not great to be uncooperative. 00:08:51.079 --> 00:08:55.519 It's not great to not be able to trust others or delegate to others. 00:08:55.519 --> 00:09:00.679 So just in day-to-day living, self-reliance can be a good thing. 00:09:00.679 --> 00:09:03.600 Sometimes it can be not such a good thing. 00:09:03.600 --> 00:09:11.159 But in relation to God, in relation to our relationship with God, it's a disaster for 00:09:11.159 --> 00:09:12.159 us. 00:09:12.159 --> 00:09:18.120 You know, as Christians today, and those of us who are Christians here today, we've experienced 00:09:18.120 --> 00:09:21.240 outstanding rescue. 00:09:21.240 --> 00:09:24.519 God in Christ has changed our hearts. 00:09:24.519 --> 00:09:27.519 He's transformed our perspective. 00:09:27.519 --> 00:09:34.240 We look to the cross and we don't see there just a kind of thin little weak Jewish man 00:09:34.240 --> 00:09:40.600 who has been nailed to a cross in some kind of unjust act. 00:09:40.600 --> 00:09:45.559 We see the Son of God there, who has died in the cross in our place, and we see Him raised 00:09:45.559 --> 00:09:46.960 on the third day. 00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:51.120 We know His forgiveness. 00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:53.079 He's led us like a loving Father. 00:09:53.080 --> 00:09:56.560 He's revealed Himself to us in His Word. 00:09:56.560 --> 00:10:05.600 And He's helped us to make sense of the senselessness of so much that we experience in life even 00:10:05.600 --> 00:10:14.560 our failures, the reality of evil around us, sometimes in us, and death itself. 00:10:14.560 --> 00:10:19.640 Judgment and salvation are not dirty words to us. 00:10:19.639 --> 00:10:23.240 They're words that have come to have great meaning. 00:10:23.240 --> 00:10:29.319 But even for us as Christians, the temptation, because it's hard to believe and it's hard 00:10:29.319 --> 00:10:36.000 to keep believing is to turn our backs on God and become self-reliant again. 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:41.399 Maybe we find the exclusivity of living by faith just a little bit tough, and we search 00:10:41.399 --> 00:10:46.439 for easier satisfaction again and easier meaning. 00:10:46.440 --> 00:10:51.320 And it's sometimes for us, it's certainly in my own heart, and in the hearts of Christians, 00:10:51.320 --> 00:10:59.360 sometimes like, it's a bit like a prisoner, a lifer who has been given freedom, who has 00:10:59.360 --> 00:11:05.680 been declared innocent, and has gifted a beautiful home. 00:11:05.680 --> 00:11:10.080 They can leave prison, and they've got unlimited support. 00:11:10.080 --> 00:11:15.600 Sometimes like that, I think for us, that same prisoner then choosing to go back into 00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:20.080 the dubious familiarity of the prison cell. 00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:26.080 Somehow just because it's familiar and not being able to cope with the freedom that we 00:11:26.080 --> 00:11:32.600 have, we can turn away from God as believers because sometimes we can't cope with the freedom 00:11:32.600 --> 00:11:36.800 of that because we misunderstand it. 00:11:36.800 --> 00:11:41.000 God is saying to us today, and He's maybe saying to you, reminding me as a Christian, 00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:46.799 you're living in a bad place, you've gone back to that place, it's unhealthy and isolating 00:11:46.799 --> 00:11:48.320 and dangerous and barren. 00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:50.759 It's time to turn back. 00:11:50.759 --> 00:11:55.080 Maybe He's calling you back to Himself today. 00:11:55.080 --> 00:11:57.519 But I think there's also a broader challenge. 00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:03.399 Maybe you're watching online today, or maybe you have turned on for the first time online, 00:12:03.399 --> 00:12:08.279 you've never trusted, you're uncomfortable with any talk of God at all. 00:12:08.279 --> 00:12:13.839 You just presumed in life that God's a myth or a psychological projection that people 00:12:13.839 --> 00:12:21.759 put onto their lives, some invisible thing to trust in. 00:12:21.759 --> 00:12:25.799 You presumed maybe as we all do on the right to a good life and you've accepted death just 00:12:25.799 --> 00:12:29.120 as a natural consequence of living. 00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:30.679 And what happens beyond that? 00:12:30.679 --> 00:12:33.879 Well, that's just anyone's guess, isn't it? 00:12:33.879 --> 00:12:39.480 And sometimes we can avoid the big questions about life and its origins, about meaning, 00:12:39.480 --> 00:12:44.080 about God, about His revelation, particularly in the Bible and especially in the person 00:12:44.080 --> 00:12:46.919 of Jesus. 00:12:46.919 --> 00:12:50.120 And we distance ourselves, you distance yourself from Him. 00:12:50.120 --> 00:12:54.480 And you may even be aware, as I think we all are at times in our lives of suppressing 00:12:54.480 --> 00:13:02.279 Him or consciously rejecting what you think He represents. 00:13:02.279 --> 00:13:09.919 And it may be that your philosophy of life or living is, you know, I'm just simply living 00:13:09.919 --> 00:13:11.159 as if this is all there is. 00:13:11.159 --> 00:13:13.279 And, you know, I'll make the best of it. 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:17.000 I'll just trust myself and my own instincts. 00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:18.679 I'll try my hardest. 00:13:18.679 --> 00:13:22.799 I'll build my character. 00:13:22.799 --> 00:13:27.879 Maybe you've had trust broken in many times and you find it difficult to trust others. 00:13:27.879 --> 00:13:33.399 But you're not sure what to do with your own failings and maybe the failings of others, 00:13:33.399 --> 00:13:36.399 the questions, the thankfulness. 00:13:36.399 --> 00:13:39.559 What do we do with thankfulness in our lives? 00:13:39.559 --> 00:13:47.439 And you sense that there's possibly a thirst that is not being quenched, a spiritual thirst 00:13:47.439 --> 00:13:49.519 that's not being quenched. 00:13:49.519 --> 00:13:58.799 And the passage we read in John's Gospel speaks to us of Jesus being the one who is willing 00:13:58.799 --> 00:14:02.919 to and wants to and longs to quench our thirst. 00:14:02.919 --> 00:14:08.840 He says, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink and living waters will flow 00:14:08.840 --> 00:14:09.840 from their lives. 00:14:09.840 --> 00:14:13.360 And that, again, it's a picture of what he comes to offer. 00:14:13.360 --> 00:14:18.519 He's saying, Jesus is saying in that passage, He's saying, look, I made you. 00:14:18.519 --> 00:14:22.439 You may have turned your back, but I made you. 00:14:22.439 --> 00:14:28.519 And I love you so much that I've come to put that right. 00:14:28.519 --> 00:14:34.120 Christ is the one who's gone into the shadow lands, into the desert place, into that dark 00:14:34.120 --> 00:14:38.000 place, take away our sins and set us free. 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:40.720 That's really the picture of the cross. 00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:44.000 It's actually quite interesting on the cross itself. 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:49.480 We talk about the seven sayings of Jesus on the cross, and one of them is, he says, I 00:14:49.480 --> 00:14:50.480 thirst. 00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:57.279 Now, there's a physical element to that, undoubtedly crucifixion was one of the most brutal deaths 00:14:57.279 --> 00:15:00.559 possible, and there would have been a natural thirst. 00:15:00.559 --> 00:15:09.559 But there's clearly that spiritual image there also that he is in that barren place, that 00:15:09.559 --> 00:15:17.879 place of desolation, that place of dissatisfaction as it were in our place on the cross. 00:15:17.879 --> 00:15:23.000 And so he says, I thirst, but is raised on the third day to new life in order to give 00:15:23.000 --> 00:15:25.079 us life. 00:15:25.079 --> 00:15:32.559 And so we recognize and we see that self-reliance, as God says here, is not a spiritual strength. 00:15:32.559 --> 00:15:37.839 But the second thing briefly that I want to say is that faith leads to new life. 00:15:37.840 --> 00:15:40.759 So faith leads to new life. 00:15:40.759 --> 00:15:46.720 And we see that in the second picture that he gives, which is the picture of the tree 00:15:46.720 --> 00:15:49.320 beside the living water. 00:15:49.320 --> 00:15:56.200 So as roots go down and it doesn't ever need to be concerned, even in a time of drought, 00:15:56.200 --> 00:16:00.440 it will still bear fruit because its roots are being nourished and fed by the living 00:16:00.440 --> 00:16:08.720 water, which always is a picture in the Bible of God's grace and God's strength. 00:16:08.720 --> 00:16:10.920 And interestingly, there's no difference in the circumstances. 00:16:10.920 --> 00:16:15.280 There's no difference in the outward circumstances. 00:16:15.280 --> 00:16:20.120 You know, the desert place or a time of drought for the tree, but it's where the roots are 00:16:20.120 --> 00:16:25.560 growing, it's what's happening underneath the surface, where their trust lies is where 00:16:25.560 --> 00:16:27.600 the difference is. 00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:32.240 And there's that reality that there's always still huge challenges, whatever our outward 00:16:32.240 --> 00:16:34.320 circumstances are. 00:16:34.320 --> 00:16:40.159 But there's this recognition that faith leads to a different kind of life, a different strength 00:16:40.159 --> 00:16:45.440 and a different vibrancy that comes from a relationship with God, our maker, through 00:16:45.440 --> 00:16:50.000 Jesus Christ, our Savior. 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:55.759 And that is because we come to that place and we'll see this in a moment, that in Christ 00:16:55.759 --> 00:17:02.399 we recognize Him in this picture of Him being living water, and that we come to Christ because 00:17:02.399 --> 00:17:08.799 we have been thirsting for meaning and for satisfaction and for significance and for 00:17:08.799 --> 00:17:15.200 unparalleled love and for guidance and for forgiveness and for wisdom and for worship. 00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:20.720 All of these things that we do and experience in life, we find are satisfied when we come 00:17:20.720 --> 00:17:24.079 and put our trust in Jesus Christ and give our lives over to Him. 00:17:24.079 --> 00:17:30.079 He is the living water that will course through us and give us life to the full. 00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:34.720 Deal with the challenges and the difficulties that we face. 00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:42.919 Not wipe them away, but enable us to be, yes, forgiven, but also to cope with the battles 00:17:42.919 --> 00:17:48.399 and struggles of a drought-filled world sometimes we live in. 00:17:48.399 --> 00:17:52.559 And there is always that picture of vitality. 00:17:52.559 --> 00:18:01.279 I've used this picture a lot here in the church of Shalom, that deep word that means peace. 00:18:01.279 --> 00:18:06.399 And it doesn't just mean the absence of war, it's a much deeper word. 00:18:06.399 --> 00:18:14.960 It means that there's a deep-seated peace and satisfaction that comes from being in 00:18:14.960 --> 00:18:16.799 relationship with the living God. 00:18:16.799 --> 00:18:24.240 His energy and His forgiveness and His love and His laws become laws that we love because 00:18:24.240 --> 00:18:25.799 they are laws of love. 00:18:25.799 --> 00:18:28.559 Love Him and love our neighbour as ourself. 00:18:28.559 --> 00:18:34.839 And He pours out His Spirit into our lives as we trust in Him so that we can bear His 00:18:34.839 --> 00:18:40.359 fruit so that there's that vitality of, you know, the New Testament talks about the fruit 00:18:40.359 --> 00:18:49.159 of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, perseverance, 00:18:49.159 --> 00:18:57.959 all these gifts that He gives to us we recognise and we display counterintuitively. 00:18:57.959 --> 00:19:02.639 And He also brings for us as we trust in Him the death of death. 00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:11.240 Yeah, it's an amazing phrase, the death of death, He satisfies divine justice for us. 00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:18.200 We recognise that a good world is a world where justice and love can hold hands together. 00:19:18.200 --> 00:19:22.280 You can't have, we can't really have love without justice, we can't have justice without 00:19:22.280 --> 00:19:25.040 love. 00:19:25.040 --> 00:19:27.520 It doesn't work in our lives, you know. 00:19:27.520 --> 00:19:31.840 We cry out a lot of our times in our love, you know, that's not fair. 00:19:31.839 --> 00:19:38.079 Divine is justice going to be done, especially when we've been wronged ourselves, don't we? 00:19:38.079 --> 00:19:41.639 And yet we see that, that comes from this recognition of the character and nature of 00:19:41.639 --> 00:19:46.720 God that our morality, our very beings, our justice comes from God. 00:19:46.720 --> 00:19:52.679 And you know, water, as this beautiful picture here is life-giving, but it can also be overwhelmingly 00:19:52.679 --> 00:19:57.000 strong and dangerous, incredibly destructive power. 00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:02.359 So you see that again and again, and Amos 4 speaks about the justice of God like a never-ending 00:20:02.359 --> 00:20:03.359 river. 00:20:03.359 --> 00:20:11.279 And I think very often we treat God like a kid's water pistol, you know, tiny and insignificant, 00:20:11.279 --> 00:20:12.920 doesn't make any difference. 00:20:12.920 --> 00:20:19.200 But yet He's this awesome, glorious source of life in this vast universe, infinite moral 00:20:19.200 --> 00:20:22.079 being, Creator and Judge. 00:20:22.079 --> 00:20:29.839 And His justice overwhelms us and leaves us without hope, but He takes a price Himself 00:20:29.839 --> 00:20:33.000 because He is absolutely loving. 00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:36.960 And you just, you know, you just wouldn't make that up. 00:20:36.960 --> 00:20:40.399 Why would you make that up? 00:20:40.399 --> 00:20:47.519 Someone who offers himself and says, yep, there's an issue, but I provide the answer. 00:20:47.519 --> 00:20:54.400 So we rejoice in God and we remind ourselves of the truths that we have in this passage. 00:20:54.400 --> 00:21:02.639 Now, we're coming to the baptism in just a moment and cue the entry of Sarah, which 00:21:02.639 --> 00:21:04.639 is good timing. 00:21:04.639 --> 00:21:10.440 Now, Andy and Sophie, they love the Lord, they've given their hearts to God and they 00:21:10.440 --> 00:21:14.079 trust in Him as their Savior. 00:21:14.079 --> 00:21:22.799 And they rightly want to bring up Sarah to know where true love and true life originates. 00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:28.119 They want her to have the foundations of her life in Jesus Christ, that she will send out 00:21:28.119 --> 00:21:36.199 the very roots of her being to Jesus when she understands and knows to do that. 00:21:36.199 --> 00:21:43.639 And we hope, don't we Sarah, that you will grow up to love and serve the Lord Jesus with 00:21:43.640 --> 00:21:49.160 an evergreen life and a life of amazing fruitfulness. 00:21:49.160 --> 00:21:51.520 You can be in my congregation anytime. 00:21:51.520 --> 00:21:54.040 I'm loving this. 00:21:54.040 --> 00:22:01.560 You know, whatever circumstances life faces that Sarah will know and love Jesus as her 00:22:01.560 --> 00:22:05.000 friend and companion and Savior. 00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:10.240 Now the baptism of an infant child, as we have with Sarah, is a promissory act, okay? 00:22:10.240 --> 00:22:12.040 It's an act of promise. 00:22:12.039 --> 00:22:18.920 The actual baptism will not save Sarah, but it does speak of cleansing. 00:22:18.920 --> 00:22:23.200 It does speak of the life of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. 00:22:23.200 --> 00:22:32.879 And it brings Sarah visibly and visually into the covenant of grace and into all its privileges 00:22:32.879 --> 00:22:37.639 and into God's visible family, which is the church. 00:22:37.640 --> 00:22:44.680 And all of us are to point her as she grows up among us to Jesus Christ by our example, 00:22:44.680 --> 00:22:51.120 by our love, by the shared worship we have with her and by our teaching. 00:22:51.120 --> 00:22:59.120 So we all have a responsibility today, and we all recognize that we will be responsible 00:22:59.120 --> 00:23:05.280 for praying for Sarah, for her mom and dad, for all the families in the church, for all 00:23:05.279 --> 00:23:11.559 the children and for each and every one of us, not just praying for but loving and caring 00:23:11.559 --> 00:23:15.079 for and being in community with. 00:23:15.079 --> 00:23:19.799 So in a moment, you don't really need to go and sit in these seats. 00:23:19.799 --> 00:23:22.680 You can if you want. 00:23:22.680 --> 00:23:29.119 But I'll ask Andy and Sophie to take some, to make some promises really about how they 00:23:29.119 --> 00:23:35.919 will bring up Sarah to know and to love Jesus and within the church family. 00:23:35.919 --> 00:23:44.599 And we as a church will also take, make a promise with regard to our responsibilities 00:23:44.599 --> 00:24:00.679 to her as well.