back to index2021-02-28 Joanie Cheung Baptism
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Growing up in the church, I said yes in accepting Christ as my Savior when my dad asked me in 00:00:19.520 |
elementary school, but there was no true repentance and knowledge of God. 00:00:23.560 |
I did my devotion worksheets, memorized verses, served in ministries, and went on mission 00:00:28.960 |
trips, but I was caught up in Christian culture. 00:00:32.040 |
I knew all the right answers and all the external things a Christian should do, but I did not 00:00:37.560 |
have the right heart and intention in rendering my life as a living sacrifice to God. 00:00:42.880 |
And since I grew up in the same church, I had the same core group of friends for over 00:00:47.280 |
a decade, until my family moved and started attending a different church. 00:00:52.360 |
I started to not want to attend fellowship or Sunday service. 00:00:56.960 |
It was here when I realized that I'd only gone to church because of friends and not 00:01:03.640 |
However, in my senior year of high school, my family still commuted to my former church, 00:01:08.760 |
and it was in this year that I got baptized, but I continued to view church and the Christian 00:01:19.520 |
I wanted to find a local church that taught the Bible and consisted of believers who worshipped 00:01:24.280 |
and loved God, and as one that finds comfort in the people she knows and doesn't like meeting 00:01:29.200 |
new people, it is truly God's grace that I first had the desire to find a new local church 00:01:34.160 |
that loved God, his word, and his people, and it's his grace that I attended Berrien. 00:01:39.820 |
So in my first small group in sophomore year, we read Holiness of God, and it was here that 00:01:45.120 |
I came to understand that I was at the hands of a wrathful and holy God who sees my sin 00:01:52.480 |
I did not deserve to be saved, as it is written, "There is none righteous, not even one," in 00:01:59.480 |
My sin is cosmic treason against him, and I deserve his wrath. 00:02:06.400 |
The almighty God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to save this world, making a way for sinners 00:02:14.240 |
No amount of works or biblical knowledge could make me worthy or better. 00:02:18.520 |
Only faith in Christ's death and resurrection and turning away from my former life could 00:02:27.540 |
From here, there was a difference in my heart because I sought to live for the Lord and 00:02:32.720 |
I began to do my spiritual disciplines in wanting to know him more. 00:02:36.520 |
I loved those around me and sought to love others because of God's love, as it says in 00:02:41.440 |
1 John 4:19, "We love because he first loved us." 00:02:45.860 |
My heart's shift in not seeking validation from man, career, or success, but living for 00:02:51.120 |
the Lord aligned with Paul's heart in Philippians 3, 8-9, when he says, "More than that, I count 00:02:57.400 |
all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for 00:03:03.120 |
whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish so that I may gain 00:03:09.360 |
So I'm getting baptized today because I don't think I truly repented for my sins before 00:03:16.520 |
My younger self did not deny herself, take up her cross, and follow him as Christ commands 00:03:24.320 |
She did not see her depravity, her need for the Savior, nor submit to him. 00:03:29.000 |
But this conclusion was three years in the making because I was scared to talk in front 00:03:33.880 |
of people and prideful and not wanting to admit that I was peer-pressured into getting 00:03:41.520 |
It was when I was asked recently if I was baptized after I became a Christian that God 00:03:46.520 |
pressed into me what the meaning of baptism is and that I have been buried with him through 00:03:51.280 |
baptism into death so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, 00:03:56.560 |
so we too might walk in newness of life, Romans 6-4. 00:04:00.480 |
Since my life hadn't reflected one who died to sin, it meant that my previous baptism 00:04:05.080 |
was done in vain and avoiding believer's baptism would mean disobedience. 00:04:10.080 |
So as I wrestled about this throughout these past months, God humbled me and reminded me 00:04:15.400 |
of his grace in reconciling me to himself and that he is my king. 00:04:19.960 |
Getting baptized now doesn't nullify my justification three years ago, but I want to be baptized 00:04:25.560 |
to be obedient to my heavenly Father, that I praise him for saving me, continually working 00:04:34.180 |
For he rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved 00:04:40.880 |
And it is here that I love and proclaim him as my Lord and Savior and that I have been 00:04:45.560 |
crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.