Pastor James Hopkins preached from the following sermon outline on Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Lent, 3/30/2022. The service was not broadcast due to ongoing technical difficulties with the sound system.
The order of service, psalm, and hymns are listed below. Page and hymn numbers are from the Lutheran Service Book.
Order of Service: Vespers, page 229
Psalm 42
Water, Blood, and Spirit Crying, #597
To Jordan Came the Christ, Our Lord, #406
Now Rest Beneath Night’s Shadow, #880
The texts for the sermon were The Sacrament of Holy Baptism, from Luther’s Small Catechism, Genesis 17:1-14, and Colossians 2.
The Sacrament of Holy Baptism
1. What is Baptism?
a. Water
b. Word (God’s own promise)
c. Comes with God’s command
d. God’s authority and power
2. What does Baptism do?
a. Saves
i. Mark 16:16 (whoever believes and is baptized)
ii. Titus 3:5 (new birth)
b. Victory over death and the devil (Romans 6)
c. Forgiveness of sins (Acts 2)
d. It creates faith
i. 1 Cor 12:3 (no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Spirit)
ii. The Word of God is there in the water, spoken aloud
iii. Faith is required to receive the benefits of baptism and is given
e. Separates
i. Circumcision marked God’s people as His own
ii. It incorporated them into Israel, wherever they came from
1. Little boys on the 8th day
2. Grown men
iii. Circumcision of the heart
3. Now what?
a. Live like one who is baptized
b. What can we learn from how Baptism is performed?
i. Going into the water and coming out
ii. It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.
iii. “We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Rom. 6)
c. Sanctification
i. God’s work in you, but one in which you participate
ii. Sin and vice are supposed to decrease.
iii. When you struggle in this, what do you do? Return to your Baptism.
1. When sin besets you, don’t say “I was baptized.”
2. You are Baptized.
3. You are righteous, pure, innocent, and holy.
4. You are God’s child.
