- Hello, good morning. My name's Elise Chin. I'm married to Isaac Chung. I've been attending Berean for over seven years and I'm going to share my testimony. I'm really nervous, so sorry if I cry. By the time that I was a sophomore in high school, I'd moved over 15 times and was living with my mom in Georgia while my dad was serving the US Army as a chaplain stationed in Korea.

My brother was attending UCLA as a freshman and because of the constant moves throughout our lives, my brother became the closest person to me. He wasn't a good kid though. He was always getting into fights. He got suspended, ran off with a car without a license. But when he came home for that first summer, he was a changed man.

He would now ask my mom and me to spend time together. He would drive us to get desserts, offer to do the dishes and mow the lawn. But the most distinguishing memory that I have of that time was that he wouldn't stop talking about Jesus. He'd constantly ask questions that I didn't have answers to.

And many nights he would come into my room and ask me if I loved Jesus. And that was offensive to me because between the two of us, I'm the one who loved Jesus. I'm the good kid after all. So one day I finally asked him, "Why do you keep talking about Jesus?

"What happened to you?" And that was when he shared the gospel with me. I was confused because weren't we already Christian? Doesn't dad being a pastor automatically give us heaven? Sorry, I'm just nervous. Nothing's emotional. Sorry, where was I? Okay. And that's when he shared the gospel with me, but I was confused.

And before he went to California for school again, he gave me one last advice, which was to be involved in the church community. And so that's what I did. Eventually, God led me to the revelation of the fact that if I lived as if God didn't exist, that was just as much an offense as my brother's badness.

And by God's grace, I recognized my sinfulness and begged God for mercy on my life. I understood and believed the good news that Christ achieved perfect obedience for me and paid the price of all my sin and insurrection that I could never accomplish. I praise him because I'm completely forgiven and justified, restored back to God.

For Christ also died for sins, once for all, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God. First Peter 3.18. And before that moment, I lived in fear of disappointing those in authority, much like I saw my brother do. And looking back now, that was such a purposeless life, bondage to another man's approval.

However, I learned that God the creator is the only one worthy of worship from any and all creation. Ironically, it disappoints many when I do follow God. And so why am I getting baptized over 10 years since that happened? Well, my dad is a Presbyterian minister, and so I was sprinkled as an infant and confirmed after I was saved.

I never questioned it because I just accepted whatever was taught, and that was all I knew. I'll begin by saying that I was saved at a charismatic church. And when I left Georgia to attend college in California, I was taught that I don't really need the physical church because I am the church and the spirit lives in me, stuff like that.

So I didn't attend church and it was a really rough college experience. In my first year, I was kicked out. I had depressing and suicidal thoughts. Sorry, I'm just nervous. I performed self-harm. I met with a counselor and fell into some of the more obvious sins. I can't cry and talk at the same time, sorry.

Such is the sensuousness and a lack of temperance. But I truly believe that God brought me to a place where I would be challenged to know him by really studying the Bible rather than just reading it or relying on sermons. And I happened to be here at Berrien. And so I moved a lot of times throughout my life, and how I started attending Berrien was a lot of different events that I believe was all purposeful.

Long story short, I could only attend college in California because while my dad was overseas, that was his declared state. I ran into someone at UCI who I knew from when I lived in Temecula for only a year, and that was when I was 12. The fact that this person recognized me on Ring Road was really incredible.

And he invited me to a campus ministry called CCM where I met another person who coincidentally attended high school with my youth leader back in Georgia, who I was very close to. This person also introduced me to Sharon Singh, who I had more opportunities to get to know because lo and behold, she was a sister-in-law of one of the two senior girls that I confided in.

During that difficult year, Sharon went on to disciple me for several years, which led to my consistent attendance at Berrien. I did BCC later on, and I started to wrestle on and off specifically with baptism. I always knew where I stood, but I also knew that my parents would not approve.

But especially once married, Isaac and I knew that we couldn't avoid this conviction any longer. I read and studied Jesus' baptism in Matthew 3 over and over, studying the Old Testament, sorry, and studying Judaism for a little bit. And over time, I came to the decision that I wanted to simply obey, just as our Savior did, to fulfill all righteousness.

Oh my gosh. I know this doesn't change his miraculous calling of my life over 10 years ago, but I see this as something important enough to do and something so important that I don't wanna brush off. I'm also given the opportunity to be baptized by submersion at a church that I love, so why not take it?

I thank God for this time because in a lot of ways, I got to struggle in something that a lot of people don't necessarily have to. And it's a privilege that I got to understand a little more deeply the why's, what's, and how's of baptism in this way, and so I'm grateful.

Thank you. (audience applauds) (gentle music) (water drips) (water splashes) - Just to understand when you go into the water that you're uniting with Christ in his death, and then when you're coming out of the water, you're uniting with his resurrected life. - Amen. - Then I baptize you in the name of the Father, of the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

(water splashes) (audience applauds)