Imperishable Inheritance

This last week­end I was bap­tized into mem­ber­ship at Auburn­dale Bap­tist Church.  Some of you may know that I was bap­tized into col­lege, so why did I get rebap­tized? My inten­tion is to explain why in an upcom­ing post. In the mean time, here is the tes­ti­mony I read before my baptism.

Today I come before fam­ily, friends, and the con­gre­ga­tion of Auburn­dale Bap­tist Church to be joined together in fel­low­ship through the ordi­nance of bap­tism. Impor­tant in the process of being bap­tized is to reflect on the work God has done on my behalf through his mar­velous grace. God works prov­i­den­tially in our pre and post con­ver­sion lives, and it is impor­tant to rec­og­nize the good­ness of God through all of it.

God pre­served me through tremen­dous sin and dis­obe­di­ence. High school and a cou­ple of years dur­ing col­lege was a dark time caught in the depths of drug and alco­hol addi­tion. Drugs and alco­hol were used by me, and many oth­ers, in the pur­suit of find­ing last­ing and mean­ing­ful sat­is­fac­tion devoid of the pres­ence of God. The addic­tion cli­maxed to an enslave­ment to cocaine that con­sumed all my mate­r­ial goods and rela­tion­ships with friends and fam­ily. It was not until another stretch of excess that I found myself in com­plete despair and what many addicts describe as their “low moment.” At that time I resolved to be free of this addiction.

God used out­pa­tient addic­tion treat­ments and Alco­holics Anony­mous to grow in me a desire for him but at the time my under­stand­ing of God was neb­u­lous and rel­a­tive. Turn­ing to new age post­mod­ernism and East­ern mys­ti­cism seemed the nat­ural step as I entered into col­lege. It was how­ever Chris­tians in Cam­pus Cru­sade for Christ that God used to teach me that these philo­soph­i­cal sys­tems would not pro­vide what I really needed—namely, free­dom from my par­a­lyz­ing sin.

I was taught in Cru­sade the life and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was here that I was taught that Chris­tian­ity, unlike all other reli­gions and philoso­phies, teaches that I and all of mankind are enslaved to a sin­ful nature and a bro­ken rela­tion­ship with God and only he could pro­vide the nec­es­sary means for for­give­ness and a restored rela­tion­ship. I learned that the eter­nal God came down the earth he cre­ated in the full­ness of time to redeem his peo­ple from the curse of the Fall and our own sin­ful­ness. Jesus, the sin­less God-man, obeyed where his peo­ple failed, and he was put on a cross where God the Father put the sins of his peo­ple on him and received the judg­ment and alien­ation from the Father that sin­ful peo­ple deserved. Christ did not sim­ply bear our sins in his body, but he arose three days later vic­to­ri­ous over death; and he later ascended to the right hand of the Father where he serves as the medi­a­tor and king of his peo­ple. Accept­ing this truth, through the gift of God, not only pro­vided for­give­ness of sin but also God pro­vides the right­eous­ness of Christ mak­ing us holy and accept­able to God.

By receiv­ing bap­tism, I pub­licly pro­claim my accep­tance and faith in the work of Christ on my behalf and also my desire to serve him in what­ever capac­ity he may call me. I have been raised from spir­i­tual death to life through the regen­er­a­tion of the Holy Spirit sig­ni­fied in the waters of bap­tism, and I eagerly antic­i­pate the res­ur­rec­tion of my body and an eter­nity spent behold­ing the majesty of the tri­une God. It is my priv­i­lege to join Auburn­dale Bap­tist Church in our com­mon pro­fes­sion of this gospel mes­sage and live together in covenant com­mu­nity encour­ag­ing each other in holi­ness and faithfulness.