Good morning, church family. My name is Sam. I'm part of the family ministry. This is my wife, Ohi. You can commonly see her rocking out on the keyboard. And I have two daughters, Carol and Cadence, who are four, and Cadence just turned two. So I'm here. I'm going to share my brief testimony about how I'm being here baptized today.

I was born into a loving Christian home and just simply thought being a good kid was enough. Everything was good until my junior year of high school when my sister, Diane, went off to college. And life became a bit more lonely and a bit more depressing. One weekend, Diane came home to visit and she simply asked me, "Do you think you know Christ?" If you look at Diane, she's crying already.

I answered with a "no," and she proceeded to share the gospel with me. This is the moment where I can truly say to myself that I started seeking after the Lord. During this time, the Lord continually revealed my sins, such as selfishness, lust, and pride, and that my circumstances was caused because of my total depravity.

I recognized that my wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. I also realized that I needed to make Christ my Lord and I wanted to pursue to be obedient to him. So, from then on, late at high school, I accepted Christ as the Lord over my life.

Life as a believer has been different with each life stage. In my early college years, my sins were very clear. It was constant struggles with lust and girls. Post-college, it was career and money. But now in my early 30s, my sins have become a little bit more subtle and harder to pinpoint.

A recent sin that I've been wrestling with is just making my kids a top priority. It's been a huge struggle as a father to give what I think is best for my kids, as opposed to discovering God's will and prayerfully deciding. Every waking moment, I am fighting to choose Christ as my Lord and that life is not about me or my kids, but more so about how can I die to myself each and every day.

God's word in Galatians 2.20 says, "I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me." So after years of being a believer, why get baptized now?

I was infant baptized and confirmed in college through the Presbyterian Church. And you know, even after my own personal studies on baptism and rejecting the idea of infant baptism, I just thought to myself, "What's the point of getting baptized now?" After just navigating through my own heart, the answer to that is very simple.

It's because Christ is my Lord and I want to be obedient to him. I want to uphold God as high as I possibly can. I want to be obedient in every possible way that I can. And this means getting baptized, not confirmed. So I'm here with my shortcomings as a sinner, understanding that through this baptism I'll be uniting with Christ in his death and uniting with Christ in his resurrection, which my confirmation was not able to do.

For that, I am excited for this moment. I'm excited to be obedient to his call and to continue to navigate through life, being sanctified and surrendering all to him. Today not only marks my baptism, but also marks my daughter's second birthday. So I'm excited to be baptized by Pastor Peter, who has shepherded me.

And yesterday I just found out that James is also going to be a part of it as well. And I joke about letting James marry my sister, but in all seriousness, James has been a huge mentor, a brother that helped me grow in so many ways. Not just me, but I know so many other brothers feel the same way.

So for that, I'm very excited. And I thank everyone for this time. Is it on? No, you can go all the way down. Okay. I'm going to dunk you. You've got to go all the way in. Do you understand, Sam, when you're going into the water, you're uniting with Christ in his death, and when you come out, you're uniting with his resurrected life?

Yeah. I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All the way down.