Baptism Service Sermon
With Pastor Timothy Porter
Read Mathew 3:13-17
We are going to put your baptismal experience into a bigger picture and hopefully make for you a more memorable spiritual experience.
Jesus started His ministry by being baptized. As a young man he left His mother and the carpenter’s shop and made his way to a baptismal service at the Jordan river.
For years he had worked as the village carpenter, but the time came, He realized He had a much bigger mission in life. Though he was born a human, he was really the Son of God, sent to reveal God in a very specific special way and to provide for all of us a way to be saved, live life abundantly and go to heaven when we die.
>Today you have publicly started your place in God’s kingdom. This baptism experience is your way to publicly witness your faith in Christ, your forgiveness of sin and your willingness to follow Jesus. When you placed your faith in Jesus and decide to be a faithful follower of Christ, you testified to several important realities in your life.
This is what I want you to understand this evening:
1.) You have asked Jesus to forgive your sins and to continue to forgive as you ask Him to. He has done that and will continue to do that.
2.) You have now received His spirit, the Holy Spirit, to be a constant resident in your life.
Your body is now the “temple of the Holy Spirit.” He will work in your mind to help you think His thoughts and speak His words. He will work with your emotions to guide your feelings. He will direct your actions to guide you in serving Him.
3.) God has a plan and purpose for your life and He will empower you to find and live out that plan and purpose. He will never leave you or forsake you and, even if you try to exclude him from your life or turn from Him, He will love you and call you to listen to Him.
4.) He has promised to prepare a place in heaven for you so that where He is, you will be also.
>Today you have joined a larg family called “church.” Just like everyone in your family has a matching blood called DNA, you have a spiritual blood characteristic because we all are saved by the blood of Jesus. We welcome you into the family!
You have a home with your church family. Some of us have been in the church family for a long time. We want to help you as you grow in your spiritual life and relationship with Christ.(There has been a Life Group already put in place to help you with this new life and I encourage all of to be apart of this group) All of us, including you, have a special place to serve and learn in this spiritual family. You will benefit from that only as you stay involved in this your church. God Has a plan this is why He has allowed all this to happen
I want you to fully understand ~ you will represent Jesus and His church from this day forward. What you do to help Jesus and your fellow family members will benefit us all.
What you do that is wrong will hurt not only your church family but also, Jesus and your testimony. We will all be working to serve Jesus and to help build His kingdom.
Today you have a new story – one that is uniquely yours. Jesus came to be baptized by John the Baptist not because He needed forgiveness but because He was doing what God, His Father, had sent Him to do. He left the baptismal waters and entered into a wilderness to experience temptations that would shape how He would carry out His mission.
> You will experience some questions and testing to shape how you should fulfill your mission for Jesus.
The test is always, “How do I live out this commitment to Jesus?”
ILLUSTRATION:
I wear a ring on the third finger of my left hand that we call a marriage ring. On a specific day and in a specific place, I made a vow to “love and cherish” my wife, to be true “for better and for worse, in sickness and in health,” and to be faithful to my wife. The preacher told us, “The ceremony is over, but your life of being faithful and loving is now beginning.”
Marriage is a “need-meeting” relationship. We need each other and do what it takes to meet the needs of each other.
Our relationship with Jesus is also a “need-meeting” journey. Jesus has no hands but ours, no feet but ours, no voice but ours. We have no strength but His enduring strength.
I challange to you Love, Serve, Give, Read, Pray and Forgive !
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