The Baptism of My Daughter & the Vision of ANY

First off, I’m super proud of you. God has created an amazing girl with an amazing heart and what a gift you are to all of us. I have no doubts that God will do incredible things in you and through you. In fact, I’m confident he has a special plan for you in this life.

So…we’re here today to baptize you as a Christ follower. This is a public and physical statement that you are committed to serving Jesus for the rest of your life. That you want to signify that the sin you were born with is forever buried with Jesus and that you are a new creation filled with his heart and his mind and his Holy Spirit.

But…what this does not mean is that you are already like Jesus. You are not perfect nor free from sin. So one of the things I want you to remember about this day is an idea called the “already and not yet.” So I’ll try and give you an idea of what that means.

We are already made perfect in the sight of God through salvation, but yet we still struggle with sin every single day. So…already, and also not yet.

God, the creator of this universe has given us all of the relationship we could ever want or need and yet sometimes we feel completely alone. So…already, but not yet.

We already have access to the mind of God and the Holy Spirit renewing our minds and yet we will still have moments of crippling fears, sadness and depression. So already, but not yet.

God has already purified our hearts and yet we still struggle with sins of the heart. We battle shame and guilt all the time. So already, but not yet.

And that list could go on and on.

But what you are doing today is humbling standing before God and saying that you need him. That you want to bury your sinful nature and allow him to make you new. So this physical and symbolic act of baptism today doesn’t finish the work of dying to our sin. Dying to your sinful nature is a daily journey, and making yourself new is an every day process. And you will stumble. You will fail. You will make mistakes. What literally will be a countless number of times. Shame and guilt will set back in. Fears will take over. Loneliness will feel closer than God sometimes. But never forget this…all of this is built into God’s perfect design. If you humble yourself like you are right now, coming before Jesus and saying you need him to take over your life, you can always access that close relationship with him. In fact, even when you aren’t humble, when you have pushed yourself away from him, he’s still there waiting for you. He’s closer than you know. Just like the sinful and wayward son whose father welcomes him home with a huge feast of Thanksgiving, so will he always welcome you back into his loving arms. The truth is that it’s our lack of humility that keeps us from God. We push ourselves away from him and his goodness because we think we have it all figured out. But when we fail, we have the opportunity to realize how much we need him back in our lives.

And it’s in this failure and in this sin that will always remind you of how much you need him.

The consistent fear and anxiety you experience will keep you calling on him for peace and joy. It will also give you grace and humility towards others that are burdened in this life.

Your loneliness will remind you of his goodness and that he’s always near. It will give you a heart for others that are lonely and need friendship and fellowship.

When you feel abandoned, you will be reminded that God never leaves you. Never forsakes you. And because you have the heart of God in you, you will have a broken heart filled with humility towards those that have also been abandoned.

Anger towards those that have wronged you will be turned to grace and forgiveness because you see them through the eyes of Christ. You see the pain and the hurt that led them to their own brokenness so you see them the way Jesus sees them. Broken sinners who need his love and his grace.

All of these truths are why you are here today. Again, physically and symbolically you are putting to death and burying the pieces of you that would keep Jesus from transforming you. You’re accepting the “already” transformation God had finished in your soul. But…you’re also accepting the “not yet” sinful pieces of yourself that will keep you running back to Jesus. And trust me, I know there’s a lot here for a 14yr old, but Christ will make these truths more and more known to you as you grow in your relationship with him over the course of your life.

So my prayer for you is that when you think of this day and the day of your salvation, that you would see this baptism and dying to your sin as a spiritual act you will seek every single day. Not to seek perfection or to appear righteous amongst other Christian’s. Not to make yourself look and feel good because you’re checking the boxes of a religion or a church. But so the genuine goodness of God and the fruits of His Holy Spirit would take over your life so you can experience what true love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control looks and feels like in your life. And in those moments, when you’re living those fruits, then, others will see Christ in you. They too can see and taste his goodness.

So, this is what it means to be baptized into the Kingdom of Christ. We are grateful and humbled for what he has already done, but we…not yet…fully understand or live out.