2020-11-01 Jessie Yu Baptism

00:00:00.000 | - Good morning, my name is Jessie Yu,

00:00:05.000 | and I'm a second year at UCI majoring in Criminology.

00:00:09.140 | I grew up in a Buddhist household

00:00:10.560 | practicing religious ceremonies,

00:00:12.280 | like bowing down to idols, burning incense and papers,

00:00:15.400 | and putting plates of food at the altar.

00:00:17.880 | However, I never understood the rituals,

00:00:19.880 | and I even questioned why I was doing so much for a god

00:00:22.980 | that I wasn't even sure existed.

00:00:26.440 | When I was eight, a friend shared with me

00:00:28.720 | about God on Father's Day.

00:00:30.480 | She asked me, "Did you know we have another father,

00:00:33.480 | "a father in heaven?"

00:00:35.220 | I laughed, not understanding her words,

00:00:37.480 | only assuming she must have meant

00:00:39.040 | that her father passed away.

00:00:41.120 | Though she did not share the gospel with me,

00:00:42.960 | she introduced the existence of a heavenly father,

00:00:46.040 | and when I only knew, oh,

00:00:48.100 | when I only knew of having an earthly father.

00:00:50.960 | But afterwards, the thought of God

00:00:52.480 | would pop in and out of my mind.

00:00:54.560 | For some reason, whenever I needed help

00:00:56.680 | or even wanted something,

00:00:58.280 | I would turn to God, not fully understand

00:01:00.200 | who I was talking to or whether he existed.

00:01:03.320 | I just wanted to entertain the thought.

00:01:06.200 | That very summer, I attended church for the first time

00:01:08.720 | through an invitation of a stranger

00:01:10.520 | my mom and I met at the park.

00:01:12.480 | I pushed my mom to let me go

00:01:13.960 | because the words of my friend left a curiosity in me.

00:01:17.440 | Initially, I wanted to continue attending

00:01:19.440 | because of the Bible stories.

00:01:21.200 | They were also new and fascinating to me.

00:01:24.160 | I ended up attending weekly,

00:01:25.720 | and that spanned two years,

00:01:26.800 | with the entirety of my family eventually attending.

00:01:29.920 | My parents threw away their idols

00:01:31.440 | and became devout Christians.

00:01:33.280 | I saw the transformation that took place in the household

00:01:35.800 | and how my parents would react

00:01:37.160 | to difficult situations differently

00:01:39.280 | from when they were Buddhist.

00:01:40.860 | That spoke very loudly to me

00:01:42.240 | because I was still in a place

00:01:43.580 | of attaining just head knowledge.

00:01:45.920 | Even though I confessed Christ as my savior

00:01:48.320 | around my early middle school years,

00:01:50.360 | it was really just to maintain

00:01:51.800 | the image of a good student,

00:01:53.200 | and I only accepted Christ

00:01:54.480 | because I saw him as the solution to my fear of death.

00:01:57.760 | For some reason, I was terrified of death.

00:02:00.220 | I was not struggling mentally or emotionally,

00:02:02.620 | but the fear of death gripped me to the point

00:02:04.360 | where there'd be nights of panic

00:02:05.480 | from attempts to fall asleep.

00:02:07.820 | During those moments, I felt so hopeless and weak.

00:02:10.520 | That pushed me to look at Christ seriously,

00:02:12.400 | but only enough for him

00:02:13.640 | as a means to overcome this fear.

00:02:15.820 | I did not place God as Lord of my life,

00:02:17.840 | nor did I pursue a personal relationship with him.

00:02:20.600 | I just wanted heaven.

00:02:22.140 | Despite my lack of understanding

00:02:23.600 | of what it meant to be a believer,

00:02:25.120 | I was baptized because I thought

00:02:27.720 | that's what Christians do.

00:02:29.460 | I didn't evaluate where my heart was

00:02:31.200 | and if I truly understood repentance.

00:02:33.540 | As I continued to identify myself as a believer,

00:02:35.880 | I knew my relationship with him was absent.

00:02:38.440 | I did not read the Bible and only prayed occasionally.

00:02:41.460 | By the time I reached high school,

00:02:42.760 | I tricked myself thinking I had a solid foundation

00:02:45.320 | as I would share my faith

00:02:46.400 | and defend my Christian beliefs.

00:02:48.640 | Yet internally, I knew God was not a priority of mine.

00:02:51.780 | I would be annoyed by the time of family prayer

00:02:53.620 | that we would have

00:02:54.460 | and I had an obligatory heart for discipleship.

00:02:58.200 | I was never able to pinpoint

00:02:59.480 | why my actions were contradictory.

00:03:01.540 | I didn't like personal time with him,

00:03:03.120 | yet I was sharing about him.

00:03:05.080 | In Matthew 15, eight, it reads,

00:03:06.760 | "This people honors me with their lips,

00:03:08.500 | "but the heart is far from me."

00:03:11.160 | I acknowledged his existence,

00:03:12.520 | but again, my heart was far away.

00:03:14.760 | In James 2, 19, it says,

00:03:16.600 | "You believe that God is one, you do well.

00:03:18.780 | "Even the demons believe in shudder."

00:03:21.320 | But now I see why my attitude was like that.

00:03:23.800 | I saw God as an inconvenience

00:03:25.340 | when he interfered with my life

00:03:27.040 | and the things that I wanted to do

00:03:28.420 | and only accepted him when he made me feel good.

00:03:31.280 | With all worship and gratitude to God,

00:03:32.920 | that changed in college.

00:03:34.440 | Looking back, I could have easily started my life

00:03:36.520 | as a nominal Christian,

00:03:37.840 | but by the grace and love of God,

00:03:39.480 | he gave me the desire to truly learn and grow.

00:03:42.540 | College, as many say, is when faith becomes personal

00:03:44.880 | and it's up to us to pursue.

00:03:46.960 | I wanted to find a fellowship

00:03:48.200 | that was theologically grounded in scripture

00:03:50.040 | and my specific desire was to learn

00:03:51.680 | how to read the Bible on my own.

00:03:53.840 | I knew I had to work on my intimate bond with God

00:03:55.960 | because the absence of it convicted me.

00:03:58.220 | God had been too gracious with me

00:03:59.680 | and I realized that as he led me to Berean.

00:04:01.840 | The first time I attended Friday night Bible study,

00:04:04.780 | Pastor Nate explained how to do inductive Bible studies.

00:04:07.920 | All I could think of was how God answered me

00:04:09.880 | and that led to a true feeling of how undeserving I was,

00:04:13.400 | but God remains good and faithful.

00:04:15.360 | My hunger for the word was strong,

00:04:16.840 | which was something I never felt prior

00:04:18.600 | and ever since then I have been working

00:04:20.080 | in my spiritual disciplines.

00:04:22.020 | Truly understanding the gravity of the gospel

00:04:24.240 | and what it means to be a believer

00:04:25.760 | has reached clarity for me

00:04:27.520 | through personal studies of scripture,

00:04:29.440 | most importantly because I finally understood

00:04:31.560 | what being a sinner meant.

00:04:33.360 | Before I understood sin as something

00:04:35.340 | that was always going to naturally live with,

00:04:37.800 | but I did not see myself struggling with it

00:04:39.600 | because I never saw how it manifested itself in my life

00:04:42.800 | and I didn't understand the depth

00:04:44.120 | of how sin separated me from God eternally,

00:04:46.960 | but now I see that being a believer means

00:04:48.880 | I need to fight the flesh daily

00:04:50.640 | and live in constant repentance,

00:04:51.880 | which can only be done through Christ

00:04:53.600 | because I am forgiven and redeemed.

00:04:55.600 | That helped me view the word prayer and worship

00:04:57.500 | from being an obligation to response to God

00:04:59.780 | as I continue to grow in what it means

00:05:01.200 | to love and thank God for his sacrifice.

00:05:03.400 | Thank you.

00:05:04.240 | (audience applauding)

00:05:08.340 | (water gurgling)

00:05:11.080 | - Jessie, you understand when you go into the water,

00:05:30.380 | you're united with Christ in his death

00:05:32.020 | and when you come out,

00:05:32.860 | you're united with his resurrected life?

00:05:34.940 | - I do.

00:05:36.260 | - I baptize you in the name of the Father,

00:05:38.460 | the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

00:05:40.620 | (water gurgling)