It is an awesome privilege for all of us to be gathered to celebrate the baptism of our brothers and sisters. I want to begin by reminding you of an event that's happened not too long ago, but time has gone so fast. It's already been about six years, six years ago.

In New York, a plane took off, flight 1549, and immediately it ran into what they believed to be a flock of birds. Birds went down and they had to do an emergency landing, but where do they do an emergency landing in New York? So pilot Sullenberger, now coined Sully, decides to land it in the Hudson, into the river.

You guys remember that? Amazing story, amazing story where 150 passengers on a huge plane were all saved because of the quick thinking of the pilot, because of the crew, and basically not a single person was lost. An event like that is remembered and then afterwards, quickly, all the passengers are interviewed.

Afterwards, quickly, there are documentaries written, the pilot is interviewed, and there are books written. Why? Because it's an amazing event. The reason why I tell you this is because baptism, it is a commemoration, a ceremony signifying an amazing event. Now, the greatest event in the world in history is God coming down as Christ in the form of a man and him having been crucified on the cross, greatest event in history.

But for their lives, those who are being baptized, greatest event in their lives is their baptism where they commemorate them being saved miraculously by the grace of God. Amen? I want to tell you an interesting story about the Ark, but in order to tell you about the Ark, you know, the Ark of Noah, Ark of God saving those individuals through the flood, I want you to turn to a passage in 1 Peter chapter 3.

Please turn your Bibles there. In 1 Peter chapter 3, Apostle Peter is challenging the believers to live a holy life, to live appropriately to what they have received in deliverance of God. And in so doing, he gives this interesting comment about the Ark. I'm going to start reading from verse 18, 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 18, and it reads like this.

It says, "For Christ also died for sins once for all, just for the unjust so that he might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison who once were disobedient when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the Ark, in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through the water.

Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you. Not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven after angels and authorities and powers have been subjected to him." I would like you to think about this passage for a moment.

Now there's so much in the passage. There's so much to talk about. Christ sacrificed once and for all, what Christ was doing when he was preaching, but I'm highlighting this thought. He mentions that eight were delivered safely through the waters, just eight. He says, "Correspondingly, baptism now saves you." What does he mean by that?

Well, as we think about the Ark, when God commanded Noah to create this huge vessel in order to save and preserve lives, let's think about that for a moment. Just for the sake of time, I'm going to read to you that in the context of why God called Noah to do that was because the land was riddled with sin.

Sin pervaded everything. To such a degree, this is what he says. He says in Genesis chapter six, "Then the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that he made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart.

The Lord said, 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land. From man to animals, to creeping things and to birds in the sky, I am sorry I have made them.'" And so rightly so, when we think of Noah and the Ark, we automatically think of the great judgment of God.

This was a time in which God said, "I will blot out mankind." So whether it was wives and women and children, whether it was the precious little animals, God desired in that moment to put an end to the kind of wickedness that was pervading the land. And so rightly so, we look at that time and we say, "Judgment of God, judgment of God." But today I would like us to think about not so much simply the judgment of God, but realize that that was a time of deliverance in the midst of such judgment.

That it was God sparing the few, safely bringing those across, that the time of the flood and the great judgment over the entire face of the world, God was delivering the few. And so remember that this is a time in which although it was great divine judgment, it says that in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 7, "By faith Noah being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence he prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world and came an heir of the righteousness which was according to faith." So God having warned him, Noah had faith and his household was saved.

Correspondingly, what are we thinking about when we think about baptism? He says correspondingly, your baptism is not simply you getting clean and washed off of all the dirt. Rather, you need to think about your baptism just like we think about the flood. That there is a pending doom. There is a judgment to come.

And what we have in baptism is you being brought safely to the vessel which is Christ. That is what we have in baptism. But here is a problem. The problem is in the days of Noah, people didn't pay any attention. Noah and his family, his sons are putting together this ginormous raft.

I mean, I don't know if it looked even like a boat like we think of it. You know, he talks about the measures and you almost think like, "Is this a ginormous square?" And we talked with the youth group students, I'm going over the book of Genesis and I tried to measure out, to give them a picture of what it would potentially look like.

Their measurements would be something like a ginormous Costco. So imagine this huge building of a thing. I mean, to exactly how it looked, I don't know. But that would have been some sight, wouldn't it? But people paid no attention. Do you know what the scripture says? Jesus says in his own words in Matthew 24, he says this, "For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like in the days of Noah." What happened in the days of Noah?

"For as in those days before the flood, there were eating and drinking and marrying and giving and marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark. But they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away. So will the coming of the Son of Man be." The problem at that time is they saw this thing, but they did not ask the question, what's that for Noah?

You know, what's really interesting is in the movies and a lot of the Bible stories, they'll say Noah was building this ark, he was taking the logs and then the people gathered around him and they were mocking him. You fool. Actually, I don't think people were mocking him. The Bible never ever says people were mocking him.

But rather I think the people had such an apathy. They had such a thought of God would never judge us. They had such a thought of even if the judgment came, look how big that thing is. God would put us in there. I think now I'm just conjecture, now I'm just like assuming what probably happened.

But the scripture never says the people were mocking him blatantly and persecuting him. Rather what Jesus Christ says is they just said, "We're just going to keep eating, we're going to keep doing our lives." And Jesus uses that example to talk about the kind of problem that exists this day.

In this day, you know what's going on? Is that although the messages being preached, just like in the days of John the Baptist who came and said, "There is a kingdom to come." And John the Baptist understood what that meant. When he says the kingdom is coming, he didn't think, "Oh, look at it.

It's wonderful." When he said the kingdom is coming, he said, "Christ the Messiah is coming with a sickle in his hand and he's going to divide. And he's going to divide the wheat and the tare, so repent." And the scripture says in Matthew chapter three, John the Baptist preached repentance and he gave a baptism of repentance.

Our generation knows, I think, has a problem. We hear the kingdom is coming, Christ has come and he's going to come again. And automatically we don't know what to do with it. So what do we do? Our generation just keeps on going like every day is the same. Our generation doesn't know what to do with guilt.

Our generation doesn't know what to do with forewarning of the devastation to come. But we just continue going. And you know what I think is the worst of all that we can do? The worst thing we can do is assume we're safe. Just like in the days of Noah, they looked at the boat and they said, "We could probably fit." Likewise, we automatically think Christ is coming, he's on my side.

Just like Christ is on my side for my work, for my school, for my endeavors, for sometimes even sports. Christ is on my side and I will be safe. You know why I say this? There's an interesting thing that happened in the history of the Israelites. You guys have heard this phrase, "Hosanna, hosanna in the highest." It's a good song.

We saw it in the time when Jesus came into Jerusalem in what's called the triumphal entry. Millions of people gathered together and they're praising, "Hosanna, hosanna. Here comes the son of David. Here is the Messiah." Do you know what's very interesting? Hosanna is not a word of praise originally, but in the Hebrew it literally means, "God, save us.

Save us, God. Save us." But over time, you know what that word turns into? "Yay, the salvation is here. We're in." So the fact of the matter that I'm talking to you guys today this morning is this. Let us not make the mistake of the generations ago in the days of Noah where everybody assumed, "There's the boat.

We're saved." Don't you dare assume it. Let's not make the same mistake when Jesus walked into the city, into Jerusalem and say, "Hosanna, hosanna. Salvation is here. Yay, we're saved." It wasn't true. You can see the boat. You can know the theology. You can see him riding into the city.

If it's not true of you, you are not safe. So in the passage that I read in 1 Peter chapter 3, what's really interesting is this. He points to the days of Noah, and then if you take a look in verse ... I'm going to read from verse 20, he said, "Who once were disobedient when the patience of God was waiting in the days of Noah during the construction of the ark, in which a few," that is eight persons, "were brought safely through the water." And in verse 21, "Correspondingly to that, baptism now saves you, not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience." I want to highlight the word here.

Baptism signifies that these individuals who are being dunked into the water, that they have made an appeal to God. "God, save me. Hosanna. I understand there is a judgment to come. I understand your kingdom is coming, and that means my position now should not be, 'Yay.'" You just jumped 10 steps.

My position now would be, "Am I okay for his coming?" And many of you will hear the various stories. A lot of their stories are different. Some of them, it's been a long time coming for them to realize, "I am a sinner before God." For some of them, more recently, they realized, "I need salvation.

I need God." Now, it might look a little different. Some people, it's more of a confession. This is my sin. Others, it's a proclamation. "Oh my goodness, God is true." But what needs to be true of every single person that is a genuine believer of God is not simply affirming, "Yeah, I think Jesus is God." It needs to be, "Hosanna, save me." For those individuals who are in dire need, if you're drowning in the waters, you need to say, "Save me." For those individuals who are not right with God, we need to say, "God, have mercy." That needs to be true of us, amen?

Why am I making a big deal of this? It's because I think for many generations, we've been doing people a disfavor, saying, "Here, this is a gift of God. Just take it. God is coming. He's on your side. He has a whole plan for you. Just take it." That is a huge disfavor to everybody who hears that message.

Why? Because the second half of what Apostle Peter is saying is we have an appeal to God for a good conscience. What is he saying? Only through that understanding, the paradigm that we are going to be judged, but we are going to be saved, and when we make that true for us because we have confessed, because I've asked for it, only then can I actually feel cleansed.

Baptism, there's so much truth to what we're doing. Yes, it's a deliverance. It's a redemption. It's a union with Christ, but something that's happening to an individual when they get saved is they are being cleansed by the precious and pure blood of Christ. How are you going to experience that when you don't ask God for it?

How are you going to experience that when you do not receive, but rather you assume? May we be a people who never assumes the grace of God, but rather, as he offers it, that we would beseech the Lord for his mercies and grace. The ones who are being baptized today, they are ones who are coming before us having experienced the great deliverance.

Having experienced the great deliverance from not something as momentous as an airplane, but a million times more than that. They're on a path of destruction, perhaps self-destruction, but more than that, the destruction by the hand of the Lord, but they're delivered by that vessel, that vessel that is Christ, they're delivered by the precious one, our Savior Jesus.

Let's take a moment to pray, and we'll invite up the first person to share his testimony. Father God, we want to thank you, Lord, that you warn us, that you warn us of judgment to come. We want to thank you, Lord, that you convict us, that you convict us of the sin that resides inside.

And we thank you, Lord, that through the blood of Christ, you opened the door for us to ask forgiveness in his name. Thank you, God, that you offer salvation, and we pray to you, Hosanna, Hosanna, would you save us through his blood. And God, if there's anybody here who has not yet done so, I pray that they would take a moment to go before you, that if they do not know that they are right with God, I pray that they would ask by the name of Christ to be made pure by the blood of the Lord.

And God, that they be delivered from the wrath to come. And Lord, as we hear now also the testimonies of those being baptized, may the congregation, may we all be encouraged, and may you be glorified for the salvation that is found only in your grace. We thank you in Christ's name, amen.

Let's give a hand to the first person, who is our brother, Eugene. Hello, fellow brothers and sisters of the congregation. My name is Eugene, and I've been coming out to Berean for a year, and it's definitely changed my life in a significant way. So I was born in a non-Christian family in Korea, and none of my immediate families were Christians.

My first exposure to church was in seventh grade, when I was just at school hanging out with my friends, and this random guy that I've never talked to before just came up to me. And the first thing he says to me was, "What church do you go to?" And this was when I didn't go to church, so I was with my friends, and they're all the people who went to church, so I didn't want to stand out as like an atheist.

I was thinking of a church name to say to him, and it was really embarrassing because it took a long time to come up with a name. And because of that, I was like, "I'm going to go to church, so if someone asks me next time, I have a name to say." Actually, funny thing is, I invited him over today.

He's actually one of my very close friends today, and I go to him for a lot of advice with my faith. And I can confidently say I have the answer now. I go to Berean Community Church. So I started going to church in seventh grade, and one of the things that really stood out was I guess after the first week, no one really came out of their way to approach me.

So one of the things that I really look for in church when I first started was fellowship, but I just really felt alone in the church. And I guess because my reason for going in the first place wasn't really a solid reason, I've never really grew in my faith.

And so in ninth grade, after first semester, I just stopped going to church. I just considered it like a fad, just like a lifestyle. And ever since then, my high school experience was pretty negative. I got into a lot of anxiety issues, depression, things like that. And basically my life reflected a very sinful life.

I did a lot of sin in my life. And sometimes I did have a little guilt, but most of the time I just didn't really mind it. And this continued on until college when I first came into college thinking party and all that stuff like that. And I remember through that I met a person, and one of the things we actually talked about was Christianity.

And we both had the same agreement that people were hypocrites in the church because we see them being pretty nice in the church, but when we talk to them outside of it, they don't really exhibit a Christian life. And so we're like, "These guys are total hypocrites. They're so fake." And then while we're talking about that, I just remembered my cousin.

And I know he goes to church, and I was like, "Hey, he's a good guy. I think he's a really faithful guy." And through that idea, I contacted him, and I started coming out to Berean last fall because of that. And when I first came, I realized the first thing was that everyone's super friendly.

I was like, "This is really cool. There's a community that actually talks to you day to day." And they always approached me outside of church like, "Hey, how are you doing? You want to hang out?" And that made me feel really welcome when I first came to church. And I feel because of that, I continued to come out, not because I loved God, but because I just felt welcomed.

And so because of that reason, at the end of my first year, I actually just thought about what I was doing with my life. And I wasn't feeling like I was growing as a Christian because I was still pleasuring myself in worldly values and just sinning still. And I wasn't repenting of it either.

And so I decided maybe this is what happened in junior high. It's just a waste of time. And so I stopped coming out during the summer. But some people contacted me over the summer, including my cousin, just asking how I was doing. And I felt really encouraged by that because I just started thinking about all the people I've met at church.

And everyone's ... They actually love God, and they have that genuine heart for it. So I kind of asked myself if they could come to love God, why can't I do it? I'm sure I just need to push myself more. And so because of that, after summer ended, I decided to come back, give it a final try.

If I don't see any growth in my faith, then I'll just stop coming out again. And so for a while, I feel I was really pushing myself to just listen and see if I can really absorb as much as I can. And it's kind of like a little growth, but I was still not really having that loving God, heart for God.

And during all this time, I was still anxious and all that. And so one day it was really bad where I just came back from school, and I was just in my room. I just felt super hopeless. I remember I talked to some of my friends too, just to help me out, because I was going through a lot of issues during that time as well.

And I just felt like no one could really help me out. I was just kind of stuck in an endless cycle. But I was like a last resort, just super broken. I was really just pleading with God, "Please help me out, because it's really not fun experiencing that kind of lifestyle." So I just really just prayed to God, "If you're real, just please help me out.

I don't want to feel this way." And thankfully, God answered. He didn't just say, "Here you go, you're healed." But what he did was showed me the state of my heart. And I remember all these, everything just came into my mind. It's like sin, hatred, evil, all this thing.

And I remember just really feeling just disappointed and disgusted at myself, just for having all this inside my heart, but not recognizing it. And I remember my first just natural reaction to that was to just repent. Even though I've never really had a genuine repentant in my entire life, at that moment, I felt like that was the right thing to do.

And so I started just to really pray to God, just asking for forgiveness, just to really ... Yeah, I was just really apologetic, just not recognizing what was going on inside me. And once I was done with my repentance, I opened my eyes. And I remember it was a really strange feeling, because during the whole day, I was just ...

Not even the whole day, but for a while, not really positive. It was kind of just like, it was a real negative experience. But I remember right afterwards, and then I started smiling. It was kind of crazy, actually. I just felt all the burden just come out of myself, and I just felt really overjoyed.

And that's when I realized God is real, and he really worked in me that day. So from that moment on, immediately I just knelt down. I was like, "Oh my gosh, no, God." And I really proclaimed myself for him during that day. And I knew this was a genuine experience, because I remember Pastor Peter, at the same time, was going through Romans 1, was talking about how if God gave up on you, you would feel no remorse for your sin.

But I remember just having all that guilt. I recognized that God was still with me during the whole entire life, that I didn't believe in him, he was still with me. And so through that, I really just came to just believe in God. And ever since then, everything just involving, whether it's just ministry, fellowship, just reading the Bible, everything has been just really enjoyable.

I felt a lot of excitement when I talk about God. I remember Pastor Mark and Preston approached, or when they just told me, "Hey, when you come out to church nowadays, you look more happy and excited." And I was like, "Oh, really? I guess I didn't hide it enough." So just hearing the fact that there's the genuine excitement of learning God, just knowing about God, I just really felt encouraged by that.

And really, I just wanted to just really ... Now I know that this isn't a fad or anything. This is my life, basically. And a verse that really just touches me is 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14. And it says, "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." And it's a really reflective verse for me because this was basically my entire life until recently.

I always thought resurrection, Christianity, all those things are super fake. It sounded really dumb, but now it's like I'm on the other side where it's so real. It's so exciting. And I just can't imagine my entire life I had that kind of thought. I'm just really thankful that he was able to lead me away from my destructive path and that I finally understand why everyone says, "I love God." I can actually believe that now.

It's something that's actually important to me, and it's something that just defines my life now. So thank you. It's a little cold. It's a little cold. Hi. Hi, my name is Michelle Lee. I'm 22 years old, and I've been coming out to Berean for about a year now. So I was born into a Catholic household and grew up to be very active in the Catholic church from attending Sunday school and attending mass every week to actually leading youth Bible studies and retreats.

Since I had been taught that it was solely by good works that God will allow me into heaven, I thought I was considered to be a devout follower of Christ because I memorized every prayer they told me to and I served in church. But in actuality, I had almost no knowledge of who God is or what his word says.

I had no thought of trying to fight sin, but only thought of works that would make up for it. I saw God only as a God to fear, and my faulty knowledge of his impending judgment led me to become extremely insecure in myself. So I grew up trying to be the perfect daughter, the perfect student, the perfect friend, but I still felt like I wasn't doing good enough.

So when I came to college, all I desired was to be part of an elite group of people, and in my mind that came out to be an Asian social sorority. I fully immersed myself in their partying lifestyle and allowed myself to go through very dehumanizing hazing. I compromised all my values and principles to fit in, and through that I stopped going to Catholic church and I completely forgot that I even believed in a God.

I was failing classes, I was betraying my closest friends, and I just completely lost who I was to chase after all my worldly desires. But all the while I was popular and I was still dating my high school boyfriend, so I was content. Eventually, the cattiness of being in a sorority took its toll on my insecurities and I left at the end of my freshman year.

However, the community I had built in college was suddenly destroyed overnight since when you leave, they shun you. I became really depressed and gave up on trying to rebuild a community in college, and instead put my whole life into my then boyfriend. I gave everything I was and had, physically, spiritually, and emotionally to him.

I let myself become completely consumed by my relationship because he gave me the affirmation I needed to say that I was a good person. So I went through the next two years of my life with him literally being my only friend, and I was really okay with that. Then at the beginning of my senior year in college, my then boyfriend broke up with me and it felt like my whole world had fallen apart.

But for the first time in three years, I acknowledged God, but in fury. I was angry at God for taking away the most important thing in my life when I felt I did nothing wrong. I bargained that if he fixed it, I would go back to church and try to be a better person.

I was bitter, but confused why I was even acknowledging him at all. So all my yelling at God and crying on my own wasn't getting me anywhere, and I ended up reaching out to my closest high school friend, and his advice was just to put myself in a new, positive environment and try to move on.

He went to a different school, so he ended up contacting his friends that he knew from UCI that are plugged into churches, and the first one to reach out to me actually invited me to Breen's Friday night Bible studies. And I really didn't want to go because it's a church and I wasn't Christian and I was scared it might be a cult, but it wasn't.

So that was good. Yeah, okay, so then at Bible study, I honestly don't remember what we went over, but it was during our table group discussions that God really broke me to finally see how much I didn't know who he is and how much I depended on man instead of him.

So as uncomfortable as I was, I also felt really safe at Breen and ended up just spilling my whole life story to complete strangers. But what really convicted me was when my table group leader willingly shared her life with me. She told me, I'm sorry. She told me that no human being can complete us or fill our needs because only God can do that and how if God chose to take away her husband today, she would be okay because she trusts in his sovereignty and can rejoice in Christ in any situation.

I was so confused on how she could love a God that could so easily give and take away when my first instinct was just to be angry at him. But I know now that my greatest examples of love were nothing compared to the love God has shown by allowing his only son to die on the cross for sinners like me.

She continued to share that my constant need to do good works was not how we attain salvation, but it's solely through faith. I stood there so ashamed to be completely drenched in sin, but I finally understood that I can't do anything on my own to rid myself of it.

That it is just through Christ's death and resurrection that my sins are paid for and God truly does forgive if I repent and ask for forgiveness. So from there I knew I hadn't, I hadn't actually never heard the gospel and I desperately wanted to know more. So for the first time I went home and prayed, not because I was trying to bargain with God, but because I wanted to know who he is and I prayed that he would allow Christ's blood to wash away my sins.

So just in the past year, God has placed me in a really healthy environment with an amazing community of brothers and sisters at AACF while I was in college and here at Berean to really guide me, hold me accountable and push me to pursue Christ. I know God had to strip everything I valued in my life to realize how weak I am and how much I need him.

My decision to follow Christ doesn't mean I'll stop struggling with sin, but that instead I can fight to live a life pleasing and honoring in his sight. That it's not by my strength that I'm able to do anything, but only through his strength. I realized that I can never be perfect under his standards, that I can never do enough good deeds to gain his favor, but that all he asks for is that I obediently and follow Christ, my Lord and Savior.

Thank you. So do you understand about being baptized today? We're being united with Christ and it's back in our direction. Yes. God value in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Thank you. Hi, my name is Vincent Kano. I started coming to Berean about four months ago.

Much of my life has been characterized by me knowing of God, but not knowing God. Early in my life, I was a Catholic churchgoer. My parents took me to church on a casual basis and I didn't complete any of my sacraments as a Catholic. And when I went to church, my heart wasn't really there.

Because I hadn't completed any of my sacraments, it was discouraged to go up to accept the body of Christ during communion. And so I never did. Every time people walked past me to get a communion, I felt ugly, judged, and embarrassed. I felt like a bad person and thought, why did I feel this way in church?

What's worse is that I always thought it was too convenient to my time and my life to attempt to grow spiritually so I could one day take part in the communion. So I started to outright just reject God. When I went to college at UC Irvine, I almost completely forgot about God.

I was too involved in my own life, making friends, my relationships, partying, school. And in the few times I went to church, I felt the same embarrassment and judgment. And it wasn't that people were judging me, but I felt like I was judging myself. I was allowing myself to be this heathen who didn't try to know God.

And I went less and less to church and rejected God more and more. I found myself even asking, does God really even exist? Are evolutionists right? Is religion just man's warm hope of life after death? These thoughts were scary. And I found more solace believing there was a God instead of not existing.

My faith turned into really just a cautious optimism that someone was out there looking out for us. In optometry school, I was blessed enough to have met my fiance, Connie Sy, who in the beginning of our relationship asked me about my faith. Giving my testimony to that point and even admitting that I had weak faith, I wanted to grow for her.

She having a Christian background herself was looking for a man to lead her in her faith in God, and I wanted to be that for her. But then thinking about it more for myself. We both decided to seek God together, read the Bible together, pray for each other. But I still say that I was still lost in the beginning.

I felt like I couldn't really feel the Holy Spirit in church, and I still had a lot of skepticisms in my life. And I felt like my attempts at prayer and pursuit of Christ at times was in vain. We struggled to maintain our commitment to God, putting other worldly things before him, like school, work, fun, sleep, amongst other things.

We lived together, got drunk with friends, and prioritized things above God in our lives. When I proposed to Connie, which is when I soon realized I wasn't the man God wanted me to be. Even though I made a larger effort to go to church, worship God, and play the Christian role, I still was accepting sin freely in my life.

I didn't want to let it go. It was even absurd to think that we would stop living together since we were already engaged. Talking to different pastors, questions were asked that really got me thinking about this. And they were really basic questions too. Like, is it your intention to be married pure before God and Jesus Christ?

Did you make your conversion to Christ? Do you accept that you're a sinful person? And that Jesus Christ died and was resurrected for our sins? The last question that really got me was asked by my very own fiance. What are you waiting for? Just thinking about these questions, God gracefully gave me my answer, which was also a simple one.

The problem was me. I realized through all my struggles, I only thought about me, how my life is affected, how I expected God to reveal himself to me. I was making the choice not to fully commit to him, not to fully believe he was in control of my life.

I wanted to make a new choice, the most important choice of my life, to accept and have the saving faith that Jesus Christ died for my sins and that I needed to put trust in him. I see now that in that choice, I was also freed from those sins in my heart.

No longer do I rely on those sins for happiness or gain. No longer do I see those sins as a part of who I am. I am ready and willing to have made my decision to trust in Christ. I'm so grateful and excited that God has saved me and has made me one with Christ.

With that, decisions that first seemed ridiculous now become clear and necessary. Connie and I have decided to live apart before our marriage so that when we get married, we could come as pure and with good conscience as we can before God. In Romans 5, verses 4 through 5, it says, "Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope.

And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." I'm not only grateful that God has touched my heart and helped me to realize my faith in Christ, but also for the journey he has me on, struggles and all, which has helped shape my heart into accepting him today and has taught me to persevere in him tomorrow.

Thank you. Vince, do you understand that by going into the water, you're uniting with Christ in his death? When you come out of the water, you're uniting with Christ in his resurrection? Yes. Baptize you in the name of the Father, the name of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

I'm so nervous right now. Okay. So I'm an introvert, so this does not come naturally to me. Bearing my soul to a room full of people. So my name is Connie. I am relatively new to Berean, but I've actually come here on and off for about 10 years because my relationship with Christ was really on and off.

So I'm going to tell you the whole story right now. So I didn't grow up in a Christian home. A lot of my personal values came from hard work, getting good grades, doing skills like piano, singing, tennis, very Asian. And I had my first taste of God when I started going to church in high school.

Can you hear me? Okay. In high school, I actually served on the worship team and a choir mission team. So this was actually my way of being around God, even though in my heart I knew I wasn't fully there as a Christian, but this was the only way in my mind that I was able to be with God.

So I continued to serve and my church was lucky enough to, well, I was lucky enough to let my church do this. My life was generally pretty disciplined, so God pretty much fit right in there. It made sense to let God be my reasons to escape all the peer pressure of high school, trying to be cool, all that stuff.

But when I did go to church and I did the worship and the missions trip, I remember those moments of being really spiritually high was what I really yearned for. That's when I felt the closest to God, when I could feel really spiritually high. When you're in that moment and your hands are raised and you're just praising God, that's what I wanted.

And in one retreat in particular, a church retreat, so for those who don't know, those last about three days and it's just a time for you to immerse yourself with God. And it was the last worship night. Usually that's the most intense because that's when everyone's feeling the most holy.

And I was feeling really broken, so I was on my knees, I was like crying my eyes out. And then the pastor just picked me up. There was probably around a hundred some kids there and he put me on stage and he said, God has a plan for you.

One day you're going to speak in front of thousands and your words are going to move them. And I was really shocked because I did not expect that at all. And my friends who were there at that retreat actually still remember that and they still remind me of that.

But that was a really important moment for me because I knew that I was never going to forget God and God was never going to forget me. And that was in high school. But college rolls around, I got to UCI and then all the feelings that I had repressed in being disciplined, doing all the things like piano and just trying to be a good girl, goody, goody girl, it kind of resurfaced.

So I had repressed it in college. I felt like I was finally free of all of that and I wanted to live that independence. So I wanted to enjoy my freedom. So I joined a sorority. And for the next few years I knew I was really far away from God.

I dated a lot. I actually ended up in a really emotionally abusive relationship for about a year. And that was probably the darkest time in my life. But then, even then, I knew that God didn't forsake me. And once it was over and I had a time, a chance to heal from everything, I realized what I was looking for.

I was looking for love. Now there's a really famous quote in the Bible about love. I'm sure you all know it's really popular because even non-religious people know it. And the first time I read this passage, it really resonated with me because it was so simple. It was so beautiful and it was so pure.

So in 1 Corinthians 13, 4-7, it says, "Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." Now a few weeks ago, we actually studied this passage in Bible study.

And it was extremely convicting to me because I just learned and it was shown to me just how far I fall short. I'm really not that patient. I'm actually very impatient. I do envy. I boast sometimes. I can be really arrogant. I can be really rude. And when I read that list, I knew I failed every one of them.

And knowing that I don't meet God's love of definition of love, it really stresses me out because I'm one of those people that likes to make lists and I have to check it off and it's like a job well done. And I feel like this is like an internal list I can never check off.

Really bothers me. But it's also really encouraging to me as well because it shows how God wants me to grow. He wants me to turn away from my sins, improve myself, and thank Christ for dying on me, dying for me on the cross because he has already paid the price for my sins.

And this ultimate sacrifice from God, from Christ is what makes the entire gospel so beautiful because I know that no matter how ugly I am, not just through my own eyes, but through God's standards, I'm forgiven because I trust Christ and because I trust what he did for me.

So once I got to this point and I knew I was able to completely and utterly surrender myself to God, everything just kind of fell into place. He became my standard. He was no, it was no longer my own standard. It was about what God wanted, what he thought and not what I thought.

He takes the wheel like that song. I'm just along for the ride. So the pivotal moment was finally submitting that he was the driver, not me. I just had to get in and just stop fighting it. And I realized there's no side seat driving either. I can't, even if I see the shortest route and I know it's a direct straight shot with nicely paved roads and I say, Hey God, let's go this way.

I can't because he might want to take me through the trees. He might want to take me through a swamp off road into the mountains, but yet I will trust him because he has his plan. He has a reason for taking me through these detours and I'm going to trust him.

I just have to buckle up. And what's my seatbelt? It's Christ. Christ is the seatbelt who tethers me to God, the driver, because it can be a bumpy ride. God could be a crazy driver and there's no way I'm moving out, flying out of a moving vehicle. So I cling to him, not just for the rewards of heaven or because of the promise of a better life, but because he's the absolute truth.

I'm in absolute awe in love with the originator and creator of truth. John 14, six says, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. God is loves what I've been looking for all this time. And the more I study scripture and learn about him, I realized that he's so right.

It makes sense. It's finally making sense. The question I ask myself now is what can I get from God? What, how can I serve my God? How can I tap more into his plan for me? My job is to follow him and trust him and through his teachings, that life becomes clear and I can finally understand what my purpose is, is to worship him.

So the truth is I've actually wanted to be baptized for years. I felt ready for a long time, but it was really hard for me to find a home church because I was moving around so much. I lived on the East coast for three years and outside of freezing to death, I've been really itching to come back to California, dedicate myself to Berean because it wasn't until I was away that I realized what I had here.

Vince and I have been talking about this for years. Both of us are ready to give our lives to Christ and we want this. We're ready for this. Thanks so much for listening. (Applause) Tati, do you understand that by entering the water, you're uniting with Christ in his death?

When you come out of the water, you're uniting with Christ in his resurrection. Yes. (Praying) (Applause) Hello. Alright, my name is Travis and this is my testimony. I grew up in a Christian home. My parents were deacons and taught me at a young age the authority of God's word and God's gospel of forgiveness by grace through faith.

I thank God for my parents who are here today and their prayers. I learned at an early age to start my prayers like this. "Dear God, or dear Jesus." (Laughter) Alright, sorry I'm nervous. Alright. "Dear Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I went to more church retreats than I could count.

I have enough VBS and youth ministry t-shirts to last two weeks. I served my youth group's leadership team. I always had the most star stickers for the memory verses I memorized. I would sing a VeggieTales song when I got scared at night. (Laughter) I was not allowed to watch The Simpsons and wasn't allowed to listen to Spice Girls.

(Laughter) The church life was all I ever knew and it was such a blessing, yet my sins were not very obvious to me. In fifth grade, my mom shared the gospel with me and I asked her for forgiveness because I wanted to go to heaven. I was baptized in seventh grade due to a counselor correcting my incorrect view of baptism.

He said, "You don't need to be a mature Christian, you just need to be a Christian." So I got baptized. "So why am I here getting baptized again?" you ask. In short, I'm not sure that I was a Christian in seventh grade. Okay, fast forward to three years ago at Berean.

(Laughter) At Berean, we were studying through the Book of Acts, a book where baptism was a reoccurring theme in the book. I began to understand baptism as a lot more important than I originally thought. At that moment, I dwelled on a question that I had asked previously. Was I a believer when I got baptized in seventh grade?

Every month for the last three years, I've been really wrestling with this question, going back and forth on whether I should get baptized again or not. Alright, so rewind to freshman year in college, where God really convicted me of my sin. I went to a campus ministry called Crossroads Campus Ministries.

At the winter retreat, I heard the message on Isaiah's vision of the Lord. I left retreat convicted of two things. God is so holy, and I've got to read my Bible. It was while reading Ephesians 2, 1-10 in my dorm room, that God really convicted me of my sin.

Ephesians describes how God sees all of sinful humanity, dead in sin, following the world and Satan, living in the passions of our flesh, sons of disobedience and a child of wrath. I remember thinking, "I don't think that describes me. Maybe my dorm friend down the hall, who gets wasted every night, but not me.

I'm not that bad." Always knowing God's word to be authoritative, then I thought to myself, "How arrogant would it be of me to stand before God, and God tell me how he saw me in my sin?" And I stare back at God and say, "Nah, that's not me." God blasted through my self-righteous heart and caused me to realize that not only pagans need to be saved, but a nice, moral Chinese kid who grew up in church needs salvation.

Then I read the life-giving lines, "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved." I remember thinking, "So this is what grace is, and this is what grace feels and tastes like." I repented of having a self-righteous and prideful heart.

I believe with all my heart that Jesus died for my sins. The gospel that I learned at an early age became so precious to me, not because the gospel changed, but because God opened my eyes to see the gospel as precious. My life is a testimony to the power of God's word.

I wasn't going through any hard situation in life during freshman year. I was just reading the word of God, and God chose to deflate my inflated view of myself and show me that even a church-going guy needs salvation. So for the past ten years here, God has sustained me with its ups and downs.

God has placed a desire to read the Bible and know my Jesus. That's a pretty drastic change for someone who hated reading and survived on spark notes throughout high school. I no longer see church as only a place where a good Christian goes, but as a people who are all redeemed by the blood of Christ.

I no longer see Jesus as only a means to get me into the pearly gates of heaven, but as the God who loved me enough to die for me and who I love in return. I no longer see my testimonies as boring, but as a miracle of God to save this church-going guy.

I'm being baptized today in faith because I stand as one who was dead in my sins, but God made me alive in Christ. I do not get baptized today because I'm some super-mature Christian, but I get baptized today as a Christian who belongs to God, who is united to Christ in his death and resurrection, who has been cleansed from sin, and who was a child of wrath, but now a child of grace and mercy.

Thank you. Hey guys, do you understand that being baptized today represents your union with Christ in his death and resurrection? Yes. I baptize you in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Holy Spirit. Hello everyone. My name is Essie Liu, and I'm a third year at University of the Pacific, which is up north.

And I'm a pretty new churchgoer to Berean. I've been here for roughly four to five months. I wanted to say that I grew up in an atheist household. I would view my church exposure as really superficial. When I first moved to the United States, I was invited by my neighbor to come visit her church.

After Bible study class for my first church visit, I saw another Bible study teacher with a lot of my favorite candy. So I asked her for some. She asked me if I had received any treats yet. And with a fistful of treats from my own Bible study teacher, I lied to her and I said no.

We sat down and she just shared the gospel with me. And I feel like that was the first time that I truly repented. After dealing with burning years for a couple of minutes, I unfortunately went along my church days, running around with kids my age for the sake of companionship and nothing more.

After we moved to another place in the Bay Area, we were too far away for me to carpool to the same church. So naturally, I didn't attend church anymore. I don't think that that really affected me greatly, which just really signifies how much I didn't grow in my faith.

I didn't think about God until the end of my high school career. My maternal grandfather, whom I was very close to, passed away suddenly. This left me very distressed and threw my family into a lot of turmoil. I distinctly remember crying in my room and my father coming and opening the door.

Two years ago, my father became a Christian. He held my hand and he asked if he could pray for me. During this prayer, I felt this immense pressure, but at the same time, this overwhelming lightness of being. Looking back, I can only attribute this to the presence of God coming and covering me.

It's been a long time since I had felt peace, and then my tears just began gushing out. After this experience, I really could not deny the presence of God. I knew that he existed. He came to me during one of my darkest moments. Before I left for college, I promised myself that I would explore religion in general and really take it seriously.

At the first booth of a multicultural fair, one of my college fellowships in Traversity was tabling. Someone adamantly coerced me into putting my contact information down. They would not take no for an answer. I felt very uncomfortable, and especially uncomfortable going to small groups with other people who I assumed were really, really, really Christian.

But one of the leaders actually reached out to me and offered to do one-on-one Bible studies with me. I remember the first passage that we went over. It was Luke chapter 5, where Jesus calls his first disciples. I remember being so amazed by Jesus' authority, how he could have filled two boats with fish, to the point of sinking when no professional fisherman that day could have even caught one fish.

This Bible study lasted for three hours, and it continued every single week. It was through other people pouring into me, using Scripture, and seeing the Lord's grace working in their lives and my own, that I came to recognize Christ as my Savior in February of the following year. Afterwards, I became really excited about Christ, but I didn't understand the necessity of going to church.

I considered my college fellowship as a church and deemed it enough. As the year progressed, I led a really sinful life. I found myself getting further and further away from God. I would put academics or sleep before any church or any small group meeting. By the end of my sophomore year, last year, I came to the realization that I always put God on the back burner.

When I was going through stressful times, I never turned to God. It became very clear to me that if I went on to go to pharmacy school with this lukewarm attitude towards my faith, that I would most likely come out of graduate school as an atheist. This made me very afraid, the dire fear for my salvation.

I made the decision to take a year off this year, partly because I wanted to reevaluate my spirituality and make it a priority in my life. I moved down to SoCal this summer with my family, and this year has been filled with a lot of firsts. It was the first year that I actively sought out churches.

It was the first year that I was truly aware of the frequency of my sin and was convicted by them. It was the first year that I opened my Bible to read scripture on my own. It was the first year that I found my spiritual growth essential. It was the first year that I took my one-on-one relationship with God seriously.

It's the first year that I truly understand what it means to love God. I am incredibly thankful for all the ways that Christ has worked in my life. I really did not deserve this chance, and it was only through God's grace that I am here now. I am truly excited for how much I have yet to learn and grow.

My family is here for the first time at Brayen, and I wanted to say a couple words in Chinese. God is good. Thank you so much, everyone. Dear church family, friends, mom and dad, and Grace, my name is David. Thank you for being here on the day of my baptism.

It's a privilege to share my testimony with you, and I pray that it will encourage you and glorify God. This is not the first time I've been baptized. I was baptized in high school when I was not a Christian. On that day, I believed that going into the water would cleanse me of my sins.

It was not a proclamation of a transformation that had already taken place, but an act for what I hoped would take place. I hoped that the water would cleanse me and give me powers to never sin again. Obviously, nothing changed that day, and I sinned like ten minutes later.

I thought that maybe my pastor did it the wrong way. I count that day as a day I went swimming with my pastor, but not a true baptism. Today is my true baptism. This is what God commands me to do, and I want to obey. I only wish that I did this much earlier.

I grew up in a church and in a Christian family. My parents brought me to church every week and tried their best to teach me how to live the Christian life. I remember my dad buying our family matching study Bibles that we would study together once a week. At the time, I believed that God existed, and I thought that I was a good enough person to earn his favor.

However, after each Bible study that our family had, my heart grew harder towards his word. I wanted to live my life based purely on my own desires, and I did not want a book to dictate what I could or could not do. Isaiah 53 6 described me perfectly. "While we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way." I wanted to fit in at church so I would modify my behavior enough to make friends.

I even was baptized because I thought it would give me credentials that I needed to fit in. I lived the life of a hypocrite, believing that I had a relationship with God while blatantly living my life as far away as possible. I craved sin in all aspects of my life, and I cared about nobody except for myself.

You can ask my mom and dad because I'm sure I made their lives really miserable during those years. By God's grace, I started to regularly attend Berean and CCM my freshman year at UCI. I started to hear great teaching from Pastor Peter and Pastor Aaron, and I couldn't stop watching John MacArthur destroy Deepak on Larry King Live.

I signed up for CCM small groups, hoping that it would help me piece together all that I was learning. I remember right before the small group interviews, a friend told me that the leaders would ask you about the gospel. I remember typing to Google, "What is the gospel?" right before the interview.

If I didn't cheat, I might have put down Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I had no idea what it was. I was put in Travis's small group, and he assigned us a reading over winter break. Initially, I was upset because not only were we the only small group assigned a special reading, but I had to spend my own money on the book.

The book was called "Crossing Our Life" by CJ Mahaney, and I absolutely avoided reading it for most of the break. When I finally started to read the book, I couldn't put it down. The life story of Jesus was fascinating to me. For the first time in my life, I learned about who Jesus was.

He healed the sick, fed the poor, and dined with the rejects. He was compassionate, truthful, and meek. As the book went on about Jesus' life and character, I wanted more of him in every way. He was a spectacular God that I had never encountered before. After my dad dropped me off at the dorms, I went straight to Starbucks on campus to finish the book.

When Jesus was betrayed and arrested, I remember feeling disturbed. When Pontius Pilate gave the shouting crowd the opportunity to let Jesus go, I remember feeling angered by their determination to crucify him. My heart cried out for the crowd to let Jesus go. I hated the Pharisees for committing this action towards the perfect Son of God, not realizing that I was one of them.

That night, I learned a very haunting truth, that I myself was shouting in that crowd. I looked at my life and realized that I did not love Jesus at all. Instead, I hated him just as much as they did. He was not my friend, but my enemy. For the first time, I understood why Jesus died on the cross.

He was not only crucified by men, but executed by his own Heavenly Father in my place. It was my sin that he bore on the cross. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was a chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we were healed.

God has blessed me by preserving the memory of this night to help me remember how numb I was to my own sin, and how much I needed his grace every day. Shortly after God revealed this truth to me, I truly repented of my sinful life and trusted in Christ as the only way to salvation.

I am grateful that he pursued me, even as I rebelled against him. I did not wake up one day and choose to live my life for him. Instead, he saved me according to his own mercy. Today I live a life of joy and contentment in Christ. I still battle daily with sin.

I'm 25 years old, but I'm addicted to video games. The Bible tells me that I serve the resurrected Christ, who has given me his Holy Spirit and enables me to be his workmanship. I'm thankful that I have a great church body to keep me accountable, pastors to lead me towards Christ, and a family to show me his love.

A passage that has been challenging me recently is Luke 14, 26, where Jesus says, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." Please pray for me as I continue to live my life, that I would have a love for Christ so strong that everything else would fade in the background.

Thank you. Okay. Do you understand that by entering the water, you're guiding with Christ, and in death, you come out of the water, guiding with Christ, and in resurrection. Yeah. I pray in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.