Dear Baptized Ones,

     This Sunday we will have the privilege of witnessing the baptism of Ford Burns.  What a joy it will be to see Ford receive this sign and seal of the covenant of grace, testifying to God’s faithfulness to richly bless all who call upon Him for salvation by faith alone through Christ alone.  While this baptism itself will not save Ford, it will remind him all his days of the inestimable privilege that it is to be born and raised among God’s people, and it will spur him on to one day confess Christ by faith.  

     We also have the joy and privilege to improve upon our own baptisms as we witness Ford’s.  If we come with eyes to see prepared by faith, we will see much more than the sprinkling of some water upon Ford’s head.  We will see the great and awesome reality of our own status as washed-clean, forgiven saints who belong to the Lord.  Of all the good and wonderful things we get to celebrate on Christmas, this is the highest and best.  The better we remember this fact, the more we will be encouraged to walk in the newness of life that Jesus really has given us because we are His.  

     Let’s make it our goal to come to worship on Sunday prepared to celebrate Ford’s baptism with the Burns family as people who know and rejoice over its real significance.  Let’s ask the Lord to help us to remember and to love what our own baptisms continue to testify about us.  God is so good to remind and confirm for us His faithful love and our salvation in the seemingly ordinary element of baptism.  May He help all of us to see the extraordinary, supernatural reality behind it.

In Christ,
Robby