Luke 8:4-15 page 1

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I can't take a Confirmation Service without thinking back to previous ones. On my final day in my last circuit I brought two people into church membership. One had been a Christian in her younger days then drifted, but had been brought back to God through a quite dramatic intervention in her life in middle age. The other was a lady who first came to worship with us three weeks before her husband died. It took her a long time to understand that the Gospel of Jesus wasn't about being 'good enough' for heaven but about faith that Jesus had dealt with all our darkness on the Cross and then walking with him in gratitude.

Or there was my own Confirmation Service when I was sixteen years old. I too had thought that being a Christian meant believing that God existed and coupling that with a moral life. It was spending time with my minister at the time that changed me. He led me and some other teenagers in the church through the words of the confirmation service. In the words of the service we used then, the minister asked the candidates three questions:

I ask you therefore:
Do you repent of your sins and renounce all evil?

I do.

Do you trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour?

I do.

Will you obey Christ and serve him in the Church and in the world?

With his help I will.
[Methodist Service Book 1975, pA22.]

Repentance, faith, and only then obedience. The beginning of a journey of discipleship. A Confirmation Service is a good occasion to think about that journey of walking with Jesus - not only for Jenny today but for all of us as we review our own commitment. Let's look at the principal elements of the parable.

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Copyright © David D Faulkner, 2006 except where other sources are attributed or noted as inspiration.