I was 18 when I got baptized. In the days leading up to it, I was wondering how it would feel, and so I called up a friend who had been baptized recently. I don’t even remember what he said, but I know that his answer didn’t really satisfy me. Maybe I was expecting something mystical or obviously supernatural. Then came my baptism day – it all seems quite a blur now. All I remember feeling afterward was like I’d just had a bath – my skin felt clean and smooth. But I don’t recall feeling anything much inside.
Yet I know that my baptism marks a milestone in my walk with God. It was on one hand simply a step of obedience, that as a believer, I should be baptized. But it also was, and is, a tangible reminder that my faith is a serious thing. It is one of many steps of faith in response to what Jesus has done. And this faith journey continues every single day.
Today, we will witness four people who have come to know Jesus as their Saviour and Lord, and who are taking this step of faith and obedience to be baptized. Like us, their faith journey does not just start with baptism – it started before that, when the Holy Spirit worked in their lives to bring them to faith in Christ. And the faith journey does not end with baptism. It continues each day, as the Holy Spirit empowers them – and us – to live by faith and grow in our relationship with God, God’s people and God’s world.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”(Ephesians 2:8-10)
We also welcome eight people into our church membership, who have already been baptized in their former churches. As a church, we look forward to journeying together with them and the four who will be baptized, as we continue to live in Christ, “rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith… and overflowing with thankfulness.” (Colossians 2:7)
And as a church, we also join together to pray for our new members, “… that our God may make you worthy of His calling, and that by His power He may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12)
By Jan Choo, Assistant Pastor (YCKC Bulletin 10 November 2013)