Should I Get Baptised?

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 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. (Romans 6:1-4)

 

Dear Friends and Members of IBC,

On Sunday, we spoke about how encouraging it must have been for the early Christians, scattered throughout Asia Minor, to be assured by the apostle Peter that God had chosen them, that He loved them before the dawn of time. You see, this is what truly gives us value and meaning. That we are loved and known by the Creator of the world. Yet in our post-truth society today, we currently face the ever-increasing influence of the ‘religion of self’. This may be seen through pride parades, the modern feminist movement, and new-age spirituality. ‘Self-love’, which has been defined as ‘not sacrificing your well-being to please others’ has now become a buzzword, and seen as a necessity if one is going to live a happy, fulfilled life. This might all be best encapsulated by Whitney Houston’s 1986 hit ‘The Greatest Love of All’, which included Whitney belting out the lyric, ‘learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all’.

Well, if that is the case, then why would we need to be chosen by God, loved by Him? We could just choose and love ourselves. Self-love goes hand-in-hand with the 21st century obsession of promoting oneself on every available platform, and the growth of narcissism. It is clearly at odds with Jesus’ exhortation that we are to die to ourselves daily (Luke 9:23), and Paul’s statement that we have been crucified with Christ, so that it is no longer ourselves who live, but Christ who lives in us (Galatians 2:20).

Yet there is a sliver of truth in all of this, because as Christians, we ought to practice ‘self-care’. We must learn our God-given boundaries, and what each of us can/can’t do. We should practise Sabbath rest and go on retreats. It doesn’t help if we are spiritually dry because we end up giving so much but never receiving. The nineteenth-century preacher Robert Murray McCheyne, who by the age of 23 was leading a Presbyterian congregation of over a thousand, yet worked so hard that his health collapsed and he died at 29, famously said: “God gave me a message to deliver and a horse to ride. Alas, I have killed the horse and now I cannot deliver the message.”” Let’s not kill the horse. Let’s learn to rest in what Jesus has already done for us and rely only on His strength for all the work to do.

If you are interested in learning more about some of the falsehoods promoted by the new-age movement, which include the recent trend for practising yoga and other such activities, then we will be holding a seminar on this on Saturday 4th May in the church office. It will run from 10:30 to 15:00. You can find out more information or sign up at office@ibc-hamburg.de.

God bless you

James