Help Write a Sermon on Baptism

In a couple of weeks we'll be baptizing a dozen or more belivers at Fall Creek, and I'm working on a sermon based Eph. 4:1–16. I'll be keying on verses 4-5:

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

The Big Idea: Christians are members of a community and cannot remain healthy outside it.

Many Christians think of participation in a local church as optional and their commitment to fellow believers is low. But without the benefit of strong relationships in a community of faith--that is, the church--Christians really cannot grow (in spite of what Barna may say ;-) We are made for each other. Every Christian has a role to play in the life of the community, so church isn't primarily about what we gain but about what we contribute to others.

This is a totally foreign concept to most Christians, since the way we generally approach church is based on our own preferences--whether we like the music, preaching, kids' programs, etc.

So . . . . give me a hand on this one.

Does this concept make sense? Is it biblical?

Which ideas here need to be emphasized?

What creative ideas would help communicate this concept? (e.g.., images, graphics, music)

In particular, how would this apply to the life of a 15-year-old kid? A 40-year-old parent?

What would motivate anybody (you?) to get more deeply involved in the community of faith?

What do you think?

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Knowing God

Most of the people I know are on a diet, which shouldn't be surprising. I've read that some 61 percent of adults are on a diet at any given time, with nearly 1 in 5 dieting constantly. We spend some $35 billion a year on diet products, and I recently saw that three of the top 20 books on Amazon.com were diet books.

Oddly, we don't lose weight. About 98 percent of us gain back all we lose from dieting. Some 90 percent gain back more! It could be that we know what to do (eat less), but just don't do it. Clearly, if weight loss could be found in a book, we'd all be thin.

I notice a similar phenomenon in spiritual life, in which we seek the answer to our problems in best-selling books. In particular, we seem obsessed with books about finding God's blessing and our purpose. If the numbers are right, we've consumed over 40 million copies of such books in the last decade.

So why do so many of us continue feel unsure that our lives are not exactly on track or that we've discovered our purpose? As with dieting, it could be that what we need isn't found in a book. Not the books we're reading, anyway. What we need is to know God.

Ahh, but how to do that?

A.W. Tozer, a spiritual giant of the last century who wrote such classic books as The Pursuit of God, said this about knowing God: "The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian."

In other words, if you would know God, know his Word. God wrote a book, so read it.

Oddly, the best-selling book of all time, the Bible, may be the least read. I've seen stats saying that 93 percent of households contain a Bible, and the average number of Bibles per home is three. Everybody who wants a Bible has one. Yet we spend a good deal of our time doing other things in an effort to know God, besides reading Scripture.

As both an author and publisher of Christian literature, I've got no beef with reading things other than the Bible. Your reading habits pay a lot of the bills around here. Yet we have neglected what Abraham Lincoln called "the best book God has given" to us.

Scripture--along with prayer and corporate worship--forms one leg of the iron triangle of spiritual formation. You cannot know God without knowing his Word.

When was the last time you read it?

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Book Review: Through the Storm

Through the Storm by Lynne Spears with Lorilee Craker
Thomas Nelson
$24.99, Hardcover, 212 pp.

Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have written a book review that reached the dubious conclusion, “People who like this sort of thing will find it the sort of thing they like.”

He might have been describing celebrity memoirs of the current era, particularly this as-told-to rehearsal of the rise and fall of Britney Spears by her mother, Lynne.

Beginning with her own upbringing in the rural south, Lynne Spears describes her family’s life and the ascent to celebrity of her daughters, primarily Britney. The theme of the book is that the elder Spears was too trusting of people and unprepared for the deluge of attention by the public and manipulation by industry insiders that accompanied her daughter’s rise to stardom.

That theme wears thin as Lynne Spears seems to assign responsibility for all events in her life to someone other than herself. The phrase “against my better judgment” becomes a mantra that she invokes when describing nearly every choice she made, from decisions concerning her marriage to her alcoholic husband to the choices that advanced Britney’s career.

The book climaxes with Britney’s temporary committal to the UCLA Medical Center for psychiatric evaluation, an event which Lynne describes as the catalyst for freeing her daughter from her most manipulative handler and regaining control over her life.

Despite her too-much-protestation of naïveté concerning the ways of the world, Lynne Spears comes across as a sincere woman who values family and wants the best for her children. The book is a poignant reminder of the fact that tabloid celebrities are not the cardboard cutouts presented to us but are real people with families, hopes, and dreams—just like the rest of us.

If you like that sort of thing, you'll probably like this one.

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