There is nothing quite like a baptismal service! Celebrating new life in Christ and seeing people’s obedience and desire to follow Christ are great things. We had a wonderful time tonight!

Dave spoke from Matthew 28:19 on the subject of baptism. Some churches baptise babies, but in our church we baptise believers. He dealt with some frequently asked questions about baptism and also asked ‘what does baptism do for us?’ Baptism ultimately is a symbol of Christ’s death and resurrection (see Romans 6). It doesn’t make us a better person or have any magical powers; what it is is a symbol that when we accept Christ’s sacrifice as the means by which we are reconciled to God, we are dead to sin and can rise from the water just as He rose from the dead, a new creation. We obey Christ’s command to be baptised and declare publicly our allegiance to Christ. Sin has separated us from God and the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 6:23). We simply have to sink our pride, admit we can’t do it on our own and surrender the ownership of our lives to God.

We moved some of the older chairs from church to Beever Street:

Then we filled up the baptismal tank again:

Lorraine gave her testimony, explaining how her daughter’s baptism two years ago had been the start of her own journey to faith:

Then she was baptised:

It was wonderful to see three generations of a family being baptised. Here, Emma reads verses from James 5, watched by her mother, whose turn was coming!

Before…

… and after:

Karen reads from the Apostles’ Creed:

and is baptised:

Finally, her husband, Paul, was baptised:

After the service we had some food. Emma decided to take advantage of the wheelchair on hand:

Debbie volunteered to be photographed like this!

We are grateful to all who helped to make this a wonderful service and pray especially for those who were baptised as they continue to learn more about the Lord and grow in grace and in a knowledge of the Lord Jesus, as well as for all those in the service for the first time.

In the Bible study last night, we studied Romans 12:2:“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” J.B. Phillips, in his paraphrase of the New Testament, talks about ‘do not be squeezed into the world’s mould.’ The Message version says ‘Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.’

The first step to God recycling our minds as well as our bodies is our recognition that we are born into a sinful way of thinking, and our culture and philosophy feeds the lie that we can manage quite successfully without any reference to God. The devil doesn’t mind which ‘pattern’ or ‘way’ of the world we follow, so long as we are not following God. In one of the American presidential campaigns, anti-Bush followers coined the phrase ‘ABB’ – ‘anyone but Bush’ – as their slogan for the campaign. The devil’s slogan is ‘ABJ’ – ‘anyone but Jesus’. We can follow Eastern religions or humanist philosophies, atheism or any other cult or fad we like, so long as we don’t follow Jesus. The challenge is to recognise the mould and understand that we no longer have an obligation to be squeezed into it.

A mould forces something into its shape, whether that’s injection moulding for bottles:

or fancy cake shapes:

Our minds are shaped and influenced by the culture all around us – by the media, by music, by TV, by films, by peer pressure, by advertising, by our family. From birth, we are bombarded by ‘nurture’, often in ways that are directly contrary to God’s ways, and we need to be re-moulded so that our thinking is renewed and we can see things from God’s perspective and think His thoughts. Just as the water in a fish tank gradually becomes unclean and this change is not necessarily visibly noticeable, so too we often fail to see how the world is squeezing us into its mould.

The process of transformation and renewal required is not easy. It’s achieved by fixing our attention on God and being washed by His word. (Eph 5:26) The Message translates the rest of Romans 12:2 like this: “Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognise what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” The difference is profound and life-changing. And just as we need to wash our bodies on a daily basis to remain clean, whether we ‘feel’ dirty or not, so too we need to wash our minds in the word of God so that we can know how we should be thinking and can therefore discern, recognise and do God’s will.

God’s original creation was good. Genesis 1 and 2 show us the idyll of Eden, the perfection of God’s creation and the fact that God created man for communion and fellowship with Him. Sin marred that creation and since then, we have lived with that ache, knowing that we were created for something we don’t yet fully possess. Paul talks about how “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.” (Rom 8:22-23) Most of us understand that feeling of yearning, of longing for something more.

“When the first light brightened the dark
Before the breaking of the human heart
There was You and there was me
Innocence was all I knew
‘Cause all I had to know was You
We were running underneath the trees

I wanna see you face to face
Where being in Your arms is the permanent state
I want it like it was back then
I wanna be in Eden

I remember how’d You call my name
And I would meet You at the garden gate
How the glory of Your love would shine
And I remember when the stars were young
You breathe life into my lungs
Oh I never felt so alive

I wanna see you face to face
Where being in Your arms is the permanent state
I want it like it was back then
I wanna be in Eden

To be naked and unashamed
In a sweet downpour of innocent rain
I want it like it was back then
I wanna be in Eden

Where my eyes can see the colours of glory
My hands can reach the heaven before me
Oh, my God, I wanna be there with You
Where our hearts will beat with joy together
And love will reign forever and ever
Oh my God I wanna be there with You.” (‘Eden’, Phil Wickham)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGlLL_m4dWQ

As Matt Redman says, a day is coming when the troubles of this world and the burdens of this place will be gone:
“I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
Still I will praise You, still I will praise You” (‘You Never Let Go’, Matt Redman).

God is actually preparing something even more amazing than Eden for us:
“Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” ” (Rev 21:1-4)

May our hearts be encouraged even in the yearning.

A baptismal service is always an occsion for great joy as we celebrate people’s public commitment to Christ, that outward sign of the new life He has brought. We are thrilled to be celebrating the baptism of four people on Saturday 12th November at 6.30 p.m. Please note that this service will be held at the old church building on Beever Street, Goldthorpe (since we do not yet have a baptismal tank at our new building!) Light refreshments will be served afterwards.

Romans 6 has much to say about baptism. It tells us that when we turn to Christ, we have ‘left the country where sin is sovereign’ (Rom 6:1, The Message). “When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!” Paul goes on to say. It is truly wonderful to contemplate this new country of grace in which we find ourselves, thanks to Christ’s love and grace. Do come along and hear the testimonies of God’s saving power and be part of this great work that God is doing locally.

Mark initiated a ‘swap shop’ in the service last night, where we all brought items costing £1 or less to swap. Here is a range of the items we brought in:


We had a range of items: pencil cases, angel wings, a tiara, shoe polish, a cheese grater, a hat, gloves, torches, not to mention a range of food. Gillian produced 3 Mars Bars to represent the Trinity and to emphasise that God is in our work, rest and play! Garry insisted his grater was greater than any other item on offer!
Some people really liked their swaps!


Mark then preached from Isaiah 61 about some of the exchanges God gives us: beauty for ashes, joy instead of ashes and garments of praise instead of a spirit of despair:

He went on to talk about how God takes away our sins and offers us forgiveness instead and how we find life instead of death through Jesus:

This exchange cost us nothing: it was free to us. But it cost God everything, including His own Son:

We also had a birthday to celebrate:

Continuing in our studies of the Apostles’ Creed, today we looked at the phrase that we believe in Jesus Christ who was ‘conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary’. Heresies have abounded when trying to understand who Jesus is, since it’s so difficult to understand how He can be both fully God and fully Man, but although we may not understand everything about Him (see Romans 11:32-36), God has given us in the Bible everything we need to know to be saved. We need to be careful to stay within those boundaries, which tell us (in Dorothy L. Sayers’ words) “That Jesus Bar-Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth, was in fact and in truth, and in the most exact and literal sense of the words, the ‘God by whom all things were made’… He was also in every respect a genuine and living man.”

The Biblical accounts of the conception of Jesus are found in Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 1:26-38. Here, we have the angel appearing to Mary to tell her that “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.” (Luke 1:31-32) When she queries how this can happen because she is a virgin, she is told “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35) Similarly, an angel appears to Joseph to reassure him of Mary’s purity: “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:20-21)

These words fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy (Is 7:14) and whatever the disputes about the translation of the word ‘virgin’, it is clear from both Mary’s and Joseph’s reaction that they were astounded at the news, the most logical conclusion of which is because she was indeed a virgin at this time and their relationship had not been consummated. The Bible tells us of the miraculous conception of John the Baptist to Mary’s relatives, Elizabeth and Zechariah, but this is not in the same category as the conception of Jesus. There, God’s miraculous power enables a barren woman to conceive (as in the case of Sarah or Hannah in the Old Testament); with Jesus, the power of the Holy Spirit comes on Mary to enable her to conceive.

Why does this matter? Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, Paul tells us (1 Tim 1:15). He tells us that “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them” (2 Cor 5:19) and “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8) Romans 5 goes on to tell us, however, that sin came into the world through Adam: “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.” (Rom 5:12). That passage goes on to compare Adam, the first man, with Jesus, sometimes referred to as ‘the second Adam’. It tells us that ‘just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.’ (Rom 5:18). It tells us that ‘just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man, the many will be made righteous’. (Rom 5:19) But if sin came into the world through Adam, and therefore all men sin, if Jesus was conceived and born in the same way as every other human being, the logical conclusion to that is that he too was a sinner… and if he was a sinner, He would not be able to offer the perfect sacrifice to God for sin. It matters enormously, therefore, that Jesus was NOT conceived in the normal manner and was born to a virgin.

God is the Creator of all life. Colossians 1:15 tells us that Christ Himself was involved in that work of creation. The rescue mission of Christ was not an afterthought (see Rev 13:8, 1 Pet 1:20) but was part of God’s plan all along. God knew that if sinful mankind were to be redeemed, we would need a Saviour who could share our humanity but who was free from any taint of sin. The method that He chose to work that out is celebrated every Christmas as we rejoice in the fact that Immanuel was born – God with us.

Rejoice! O, world
Your Saviour has come
Through the love of a virgin’s womb
Son of God, Son of Man
Born that we may have life (Chris Tomlin, ‘Born That We May Have Life’)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vPlNX9HlVM