Baptisms - Uncle William and Nephew Bobby Lee

In this multi-family baptism this morning, we do see many facets of the rite of baptism being declared and reaffirmed.  God is in the business of saving people, individual by individual.  There is no presumption to be had that you are saved because you are born into a covenantal family, a Christian family.  Both William and Robert need to be brought to the Lord for baptism at His command because both, even though brought up in a covenant family, need themselves to be saved by grace through faith in the perfect atoning work of Jesus Christ.  It doesn’t matter if your parents or even if your parents and grandparents have been saved.  Each one of these boys must also be saved.

But covenantal faithfulness for families is, at its heart, promise believing.  And these baptisms are a declaration by the believing parents and grandparents that God has made promises to them and to their children and grandchildren.  The work of baptism is a work of God and a response of faith by promise-believers before the great Promise Keeper – our Father and His Son

And with this baptism comes vows made by the parents of the children that they will love, train, and discipline these boys according to the instructions of God’s Word.  Being born into a covenant home does not take away your status of being conceived in the first Adam.  Baptism declares that you have been transferred to a new humanity, another Adam, and a perfect future-grace.  But with the promises comes the declaration that sanctification will come with it.  These two boys are anything but perfect and over time I promise that they will prove me true.  But God has promised that your training of them by faith and in faith will be blessed by His work – a perfect work.

God is setting these boys apart for His service, for His kingdom, and to the praise of the glory of His grace.  You, as their parents and family, are called on to walk accordingly even as we command these two saints, brothers with us in Christ, to do the same.