Dear Baptized Ones,

    This Sunday we will have the joy of seeing Steven Walters baptized. His parents, Tyler and Jessica, desire for him to know and live in the covenant promises of God and respond to God’s call to faith in Christ. They confess both their and Steven’s helplessness in being reconciled to God apart from His grace and the application of Christ’s finished work by grace alone.

    In preparing for the sermon on Sunday, I was struck by John’s reason for writing his Gospel as stated in John 20:31 “…but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John’s desire for all who read his Gospel is that it would result in faith in Jesus Christ that would produce true life in the name of Christ. In The Gospel According to John, Leon Morris writes, “John thinks of the faith of which he writes not as an end in itself, but as the means of bringing men life, life in Christ’s name. Life is another of John’s great themes….He writes of it constantly and invariably he thinks of real life as something to be had only through Christ….That is to say, the abundant life of which he writes is connected with the very person of Christ. It is His gift.” How amazing is it that Jesus came to grant us the ability to be more alive in Him! Who wouldn’t want to be more alive and be able to experience the gift of newness of life that is available only in Christ?

    Baptism serves as a beautiful picture of this reality for us. The washing of the water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a sign of how we are cleansed and made new through the blood of Christ. We who have been baptized and profess faith in Christ are reminded of how we are set apart in Christ to walk in the resurrection reality of newness of life. As you prepare for Steven’s baptism on Sunday, give thanks for Christ delivering you from death to life through His crucifixion and resurrection. Meditate on how you are walking in newness of life as a result. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you how to grow in life becoming ever more abundant for the glory of God. Pray for those who have been and are being baptized to one day have life in Jesus’ name.

In Christ,

Cameron