With great joy and gratitude to our Heavenly Father this past Sunday, we administered the sacrament of holy baptism together after the confession of faith. There were 4 members from our confession class who received the adult baptism and confessed their faith. They all stood in front of the pulpit together with their spouses. Some of their spouses are not members of our church but we have requested that they be present when their spouse or child is baptized. The confession class was questioned by the church council. During the worship service, I handled the sermon, the baptism form and my emeritus colleague the ministry of baptism. A total of 5 members professed their faith, 4 children were baptized and 4 received adult baptism.
The Scripture passage was Genesis 25 which also served as a warning to each of us who are part of the covenant of grace with Abraham. Abraham, which literally means “a father of a many of nations,” by the grace of the Lord also includes us who are not Jews by nature, but are part of the multitude of nations. Esau was probably one of the most privileged or merciful people there was. He was not only the firstborn, but also born in the covenant. After all, he underwent the sign of the covenant, the circumcision. What a sad day it must have been when he turned his back on that covenant for a pot of lentil soup. In short with that the explanation that it still happens today. This happened to Demas in the time of Paul, who loved the present life. It still happens today that you have the sign of the covenant, as in our case baptism, but that the lentil soup of this world simply makes you turn your back on the Lord and his covenant. This was the devil’s old strategy in paradise, but with the second Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ, he, the devil, failed completely in his attempt, when the Lord Jesus refused to make bread from stones and also refused to bow before the devil for the sake of these earthly treasures. In and through Christ we can also triumph today.
After the service we were able to look back with gratitute on how the Lord has carried us and still carries us everyday.
Greetings and blessings from Botswana.
Your brother in Christ, Hendrik du Plessis.