4/1/2024
Dear Fairview Community Christian Church,
I hope you had a glorious Easter celebrating the resurrection of our King Jesus. My hope and prayer is that many thousands of people would have come to know Jesus as their savior through the preaching of Christ crucified. There is nothing more important for the souls of men than to know that Christ had redeemed them and through him may be reconciled to God. Now there is something else that also comes to mind as I think about people being saved and that is once someone is saved what should they do? Scripture reveals to us that once someone has heard the message of the gospel and has received and believed in it one of the first acts of faith is baptism. Peter in his famous sermon preached on the day of Pentecost tells us this, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Chirst for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38). We see in this verse how Baptism is directly related to the gospel and a person's belief in Jesus. In the early days of the church everyone who heard the good news preached to them by the apostles was always taught the importance of being baptized. It was very uncommon for someone to be a christian without having been baptized.
Now, you look at our current day it is very common for professing believers to have never been baptized. I notice this to be especially true with young adults. I think this is because a lot of churches have stopped preaching the importance of baptism for believers. Baptism has become something very personal that someone does when they feel ready. I do believe it's important to feel confident in your faith before baptism but this is not something that should take months or years to wrestle with. If I know Jesus Christ is my Lord and savior then I want to do whatever he tells me I should do. I also think this is what a lot of people have lost sight of. They see Jesus as having saved them and they are thankful but they don’t see their relationship with Christ as having surrendered their life to him. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 tells us “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”. When we turn to Jesus we are giving up everything for him, we are no longer our own for we were bought by the precious blood of the lamb.
That passage in Corinthians tells us that we ought to honor God with our bodies and one of the ways we can do that is through being baptized. I’m sure you have heard it said that baptism itself does not save you and this is true but nevertheless if you are a believer in Jesus you should be baptized. Going to church, praying, reading your bible, good works, also don’t save you but we all know that these are things we do as Christians. It tells the world that we are serious about Jesus and we want to live lives that please him. That is the heart of baptism, it is a public declaration of your new faith in Jesus Christ and it tells the world that you are his. So my prayer for anyone reading this is that if you haven’t been baptized that you would prayerfully consider doing so. If you are a new believer and still have questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.
God bless you all and may the peace of Christ be with you!
Pastor Ben