The uniform of a Believer
FEBRUARY 21, 2008 (THURSDAY)
Several years ago I drove by the vacant lot where Liberty Road Baptist Church was located before the building burned. The lot had brush and trees on it, and a concrete structure of some kind. I realized the ruin still standing was the old baptistry. I recalled the day I was baptized there many years ago.
When a recruit in the army holds up his hand, and takes an oath to be loyal, he becomes a soldier. Soon he puts on his uniform, and he feels like a soldier. Baptism is like putting on the uniform. It identifies the person as a believer and a follower of Jesus Christ. People are not baptized to be saved; they are baptized because they have been saved.
After I became a pastor, I had my first baptism service. I had been in a revival meeting as singer with a missionary, Howard Shoemake, as evangelist. I asked him to show me how to baptize. The method he showed me became the one I always used. On the day of that first baptism service, one of the local men offered his stock tank for the ceremony, and I baptized about eight young people. The church members gathered at the pond, we sang a hymn, read some Bible verses, had prayer and proceeded with the baptisms. It was a beautiful sunny day in 1952.
For many years I kept records of the names of those I baptized, but somewhere along the line I stopped doing that, so I don’t know how many I actually baptized, but the Lord knows, and that’s what matters. During my recent interim pastorate at Rockport, several adults reminded me that I had baptized them as young people or children.
As soon as it can be arranged, we will have a baptism service at Timbergrove Baptist Church in Houston. The baptisms will take place in the church’s baptistry. It will be a beautiful service; all baptism services are, because they represent the beautiful experience of becoming a follower of Jesus Christ.
The Great Commission of our Lord is clear: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20 NIV). Each time we baptize a person upon his/her profession of faith, it is done in joyful obedience to the command of Jesus our Lord.