God’s way to confirm his love: Word, Baptism and Holy Communion!

Last Sunday we rejoiced in the baptism of two infants.

This Sunday, 12 July 2015, we share in the Lord’s Supper and in faith we expect to have holy communion with our living Lord.  We are privileged to hear these “two words of Christ”, two Sundays in a row.  For those who listen to the assurances given in the Name of God, it remains a rare, encouraging growth experience!

The same Word of God that addresses us verbally through reading the Bible and through preaching and the personal witness of our fellow believers also comes to us visibly and clearly through the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Both sacraments are much more than symbols of the Word and never just visual aids to understand the Word better. They are visible, material forms of the Word of God itself. In the most personal way they apply, confirm and seal the promises of the gospel to the individual Christian. In both Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the Lord comes to speak to each of us by name, to both comfort and challenge us personally to receive his Word and he promises and renews his covenant of grace with us individually to redeem and sustain us as his children.

To all who are keen to receive the holy Sacraments with open hearts and minds, Christ speaks personally and with saving grace, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

As the Holy Spirit awakens faith by means of preaching and personal witness to Christ, so by means of the Sacraments the same Spirit confirms our faith and binds us to Christ. They create a faith relationship with our Lord and establish the the assurance of our faith and our experience that we are God’s children.

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper convey and effect God’s promises of love, forgiveness and restoration within his family of believers  to all who in faith accept these divine assurances when we through our participation continuously experience the grace and the love of God.

Through remembrance the Lord every time “recreates” the moment that faith entered our lives!  As we at the Lord’s table remember what Jesus did for us at the cross, we see his love and come in awe to rejoice in the open grave.  

We are renewed by his resurrection power and his light shines in the realities of our daily lives. We are encouraged to continue to fully live for our Lord till the end and at the end!