Five youth were baptised at Christ Church on Sunday! What a joy it was to celebrate new life for those who trust in Jesus, made possible by his death and resurrection!
At Christ Church we desire to glorify God by making fruitful disciples of Christ in ever increasing numbers. Jesus, when he sends his apostles out to carry out his mission, tells them to make disciples, “…baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19).”
A central part of a person becoming a follower of Jesus; a Christian, is to be baptised. But what is it?
Baptism is an outward symbol that expresses an inward reality. The outward symbol is where a person is either washed with a bit of water, or fully immersed under water. The inward reality that is expressed is new life (Rom. 6:4). Baptism publicly declares that those who have placed their trust in Jesus receive the blessings of his death and resurrection; they receive new life, they become God’s children, they belong to God’s family.
The message of Christianity is that all people are “dead in [their] sins” (Col. 2:9) and so are not able to be a part of God’s family, but are in fact deserving of God’s wrath (Eph. 2:3). It is a significant predicament that we are all in, which is why it is utterly incredible that God did something about it. The Bible tells us that God so loved you and I that he “sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10).” Jesus is that son whom God sent. He died a criminal’s death on a Roman cross so that we could have new life! No longer dead in our sins and cut off from God’s family, but made alive in Christ as one of God’s children (Gal. 3:26-27). In Jesus, we have someone who took the penalty for our sin in our place, so that we could have new life – in a new family with an adoptive Father who didn’t hold anything back from us, not even his own Son.
Baptism is about this reality. We are washed with water or put under water to symbolise having our sin taken to the cross by Jesus, and being washed clean of its guilt and power. Being raised up out of the water, symbolises that we are spiritually raised to new life and a new family.
We love to celebrate baptisms at Christ Church, because we love to receive a new brother or sister!
