And Also With You

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It happened during the passing of the peace.

Usually, people respond to “The peace of Christ be with you” with “Also with you,” or “Thank you, Pastor,” or even “Your mic sounds weird today.”

Not him.

Not Tommy.

He responded with: “So, how does a person get baptized in this church?”

We agreed to talk after the worship service during coffee hour.

Tommy has been coming for a little while. He hit rock bottom, as they call it. A friend in that recovery group invited him to church. He hasn’t missed a Sunday since.

I remember him shaking my hand after his first time with us: “Bro, I’m coming back. This is great.”

He didn’t grow up going to church. As a matter of fact, he’s never been to a church before. Only ours. He’s hungry. He’s eager. He wants to take the next step on the journey.

Meeting Tommy and witnessing the work of the Spirit in his life has reminded me that sometimes the Spirit works blisteringly fast. A number of factors align, and the person is ready for it.

Of course, there are other moments. A person attends for a bit and then just . . . drifts away. That has happened this year as well.

The liturgy for this coming Sunday gives us Jesus telling the Parable of the Sower. I’ve linked to it in the liturgy section below. Jesus gets it. Jesus got it. We plant the seed and then, well, the rest is God’s business.

The first Christians, as we see in the book of Acts, experienced this forward breaking of the kingdom of God in dramatic ways. The person you might think is the least likely to believe ends up believing.

You have the:

• ​The Philippian Jailer. An earthquake rips a Roman prison apart, and somehow through the Spirit’s work, this midnight crisis turns into a family baptism in a matter of minutes. What does a person have to do to get baptized around here? Your world literally has to fall apart.
• ​The Ethiopian official. He is sitting in a chariot, reading the Scripture, but unable to make sense of it. Philip helps him make sense of it by connecting the words of Isaiah with the reality of Jesus Christ. What does a person have to do to get baptized around here? Explore a little bit, get confused, be open.
• And, you have Paul, who speaks to the church in Ephesus, a group of people with little knowledge of the Scriptures. And yet, by grace, they have come to believe. In Ephesians 1, Paul writes to them about what it means to live under the gracious gaze of God, having their identity firmly fixed

If you are interested in reading more about redemption in the fuller view of Scripture. I've compiled a list of verses that help show the full spectrum of such a gracious act.

For Your Sunday Have you ever wondered why people respond to the gospel in so many different ways? This week's liturgy includes the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23: Seed falls on the various types of soils. He explains: the seed is the word, and the soil is the condition of the heart that receives it. ​Go to the liturgy​

More Resources to Share

Know someone who could benefit from this newsletter? Pass it along. Below are some resources I've gathered and written for life's important moments.

Wedding

• ​Wedding Resources​
• ​Ceremony Scripts​
• ​Wedding Sermons​

Funerals & Memorial Services

• ​Funeral Resources​
• ​Calls to Worship for Funerals​
• ​Funeral Sermons​

A Benediction to End this Edition

Go as good soil for the word of God. Let it take root, grow deep, and bear fruit in you, thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold. The Spirit of God dwells in you. Amen.

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Thanks for reading. May God bless your week.
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All my best to you,

Rev. Jason B. Elder