Dear Family at Christ Community,

     This Sunday we will celebrate Jacob Wilson’s baptism by profession of faith. What a joy it will be to witness God’s goodness at work in the next generation! It is fitting that we will hear Paul emphasize the centrality of faith in Romans 14:20-23. Paul will continue to challenge us to build one another up in hospitality by grace alone and through faith alone—a challenge that gets to the heart of our ministry to the coming generations.

     The Westminster Larger Catechism shows us how baptism shapes and empowers our hospitality to one another. Ponder these words from the answer to Question 167 (“How is our baptism to be improved by us?”):

The needful but much-neglected duty of improving our baptism is to be performed by us all our life long … by drawing strength from the death and resurrection of Christ, into whom we are baptized, for the mortifying of sin, and quickening of grace; and by endeavoring to live by faith, to have our conversation in holiness and righteousness, as those that have therein given up their names to Christ; and to walk in brotherly love, as being baptized by the same Spirit into one body.

     The Catechism shows us that everything we need to show hospitality to Jacob and one another comes from our union with Christ. As you ponder these things, pray that the Lord would use Jacob’s baptism to continue to mature him in his faith in Christ. Finally, ask the Holy Spirit to use our baptisms to empower us to build up Jacob and one another through hospitality for God’s glory and our joy in all generations!

Yours in joyful union with Christ,
Matt