Sunday Service 8th August 2021 - Baptism and Communion.
1) Hymn: StF59 Lord the Light of your love is shining
2) Prayers of Praise.
3) Baptism
-The Declaration:
Minister: Sisters and brothers, Baptism is a gift of God. It declares to each of us the love and grace of God. In this sacrament we celebrate the life of Christ laid down for us, the Holy Spirit poured out on us, and the living water offered to us.
God claims and cleanses us, rescues us from sin, and raises us to new life. He plants us into the Church of Christ and sustains and strengthens us with the power of the Spirit.
Although we do not deserve these gifts of grace, or fully understand them, God offers them to all, and through Christ invites us to respond.
We recall the words of the risen Christ:
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
On the day of Pentecost, Peter preached the Gospel of Christ’s resurrection. Those who heard the message asked what they should do. Peter told them:
“Repent, and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven: and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls.
-The Request For Baptism
Please can oooo and her Mum and Godparents stand.
Minister: oooo, having heard these things, how do you respond to the offer of God's grace?
oooo : I thank God and ask to be baptised.
And now to oooo’s Mum.
Minister: Having heard these things, how do you respond to the offer of God’s Grace?
Parent: I thank God, and ask that my child be baptised.
Please can we all stand as oooo , her Mum and Godparents come to the front of the church.
(Water is poured into the font)
Minister: Gracious God we thank you for your gifts of water and the Holy Spirit, for your sustaining, cleansing, and life giving power.
From the beginning your grace has been known through water and the Spirit.
Your Spirit moved over the waters at creation and you led your people to freedom through a parted sea.
In the fullness of time you sent Jesus. He was baptised in the waters of the Jordan and anointed with the Holy Spirit.
He passed through the deep waters of death and lives for evermore. He offers living water and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Minister: Pour out your Holy Spirit that those baptised in this water may die to sin, be raised with Christ, and be born to new life in the family of your Church. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
All: Amen.
Affirmation of Faith:
Please can you all stand :
These promises that are now to be made are not only for oooo , but are also for her Parents and her Godparents:
Minister: Do you turn away from evil and all that denies God?
Answer by oooo , parent,Godparents: By the Grace of God, I do.
And now to everyone,
Minister: Do you believe and trust in God the Father?
All: I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
Minister: Do you believe and trust in God the Son?
All: I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontious Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again, he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
Minister: Do you believe and trust in the Holy Spirit?
All: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of the Saints, the forgiveness of sins,the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen
The Baptism:
A question for Mum.
Minister: What name did you give to your child?
Parent: oooo
Minister: Thankyou.
Lola, for you, Jesus Christ came into the world; for you he lived and showed God’s love; for you he suffered death upon the cross; for you he triumphed over death, rising to newness of life; for you he prays at God's right hand: all this for you, before you could know anything of it.
And now oooo , the time has come. Please bow your head.
Minister; oooo I baptise you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit . (Water poured three times)
All: Amen
Minister: oooo , I sign you with the cross, the sign of Christ.
Please can the congregation sit down and our steward offer a candle to oooo .
Minister: oooo , receive this light for you belong to Christ the Light of the world
Christ is your light and your way.
All: May you grow and live in the faith of Christ. Amen.
Please can we welcome oooo into the church by baptism with a round of applause.
(All return to their seats)
———
4) Hymn: StF839: I Walk By Faith
5): John 6:35 New International Version (NIV)
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’[a] Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
Footnotes: a.John 6:45 Isaiah 54:13
6) Sermon
I wonder, if I were to ask you how many different types of bread are there in the world, what would your guess be? About 20? About 50? More than 50?
Well I asked the internet and it came up with 97 different types of bread and I suspect that there are more. Every country in the world, it seems, has its own version of bread.
Bread can be made from all kinds of cereals and starchy fruit; Corn, wheat, barley, chickpea, maize, rice, cassava, Rye, carrots, pumpkin, bananas, oats and other plants whose names I can’t pronounce!
Bread can be leavened or unleavened, made with yeast, soda, or baking powder,
It can be white, grey, brown, black,
Bread can be savoury, sweet, spicy, gluten free, and dairy free.
Bread can be round, long, flat;
It can be squashy in texture or hard like a biscuit.
Every culture, it seems, needs to eat bread of one kind and another to be nourished and healthy. In fact today, some of us may already have eaten toast for breakfast and we may later plan to have a roll or a sandwich for tea. Bread is for the everyday and for everyone. So how did it come about that Jesus refered to himself as being the bread of life.
Well he said it to a crowd who the day before, had seen him pray over a little boys picnic lunch of five barley loaves and two fishes and then go on to feed all of them, over five thousand people, so that they were full up.
This next day, they had followed him, wanting more because their tummies were rumbling and they were hungry again.
But Jesus tells them that they had rather missed the point of what they had been part of the previous day.
They were looking for another picnic lunch from him rather than believing in him to satisfy the deep spiritual hunger in their lives.
Here’s what he said. “
It is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
We have joined oooo today as she starts her life as a Christian through Baptism. We have welcomed her into the Christian family. Being a Christian though is not about what has happened to us on the outside, like being dipped into or sprinkled with water, nor is it about how we follow a moral code, like when we follow rules and regulations and the teachings of Jesus. Rather It is all about how we worship, how we follow and how we know Jesus in our lives.
The crowd said to Jesus, “What must we do to do the works God requires?
29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
It is all about Jesus, the living bread, Jesus is the bread that satisfies spiritual hunger forever.
So how do we go about this?
We pray, we meet together regularly with other followers of Jesus to offer worship and to learn more of him together.
We ask our questions, we share our joys and we support each other in our sorrows.
We also celebrate the presence of Jesus in fellowship especially as we eat bread and drink wine together in Holy communion.
May God bless us all as we walk into tomorrow together fulfilling our baptism promises and experiencing his blessing and presence amongst us.
7).Prayers For Others
9) Communion
Hymn: STF487 You Shall go out with Joy.
Benediction: