I went to The Movement last night, like I normally do on Saturday nights. My friend Mike is the young adult pastor, and it’s always a joy to hear him preach the gospel and make much of Jesus. I had been studying the background and introduction to 1 Peter most of the day, and debated on not going out of sheer mental exhaustion. Something pressed me forward and compelled me to go anyway. I’m glad I did, because I witnessed a miracle.
Last night was a celebration service at The Movement. A time to focus on worship and baptism and being grateful for the work God has done in the lives of our friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. We watched a ten year old boy get baptized, then his mother, and then his father. It all started with the Holy Spirit working in the ten year old boy, and his being unashamed of the gospel (Rom. 1:16-17). The gospel moved up the family line to the mother from the child, and then to the father from his wife and child, answering the prayers of a family member who had been praying for a long, long time. The mother baptized her son. The father baptized his wife, and this boy’s aunt baptized his father. The Spirit was heavy and the tears sweet.
Then Mike took a break to read and expound on this passage:
Colossians 2:6-15 ESV
Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Then he said that they not only wanted to be prepared for what God had done, but also wanted to be prepared for what God was going to do. Then the miracle happened. Mike asked us to keep our heads up and our eyes open, and asked if there was anyone who wanted to confess Christ as Lord and Savior. Just like that, a young man shot up his hand. I don’t know this man. I have no idea if this was his first, tenth, or hundredth time to hear the gospel. I do know that on this night, God performed a miracle and breathed life into a spiritually dead man, giving him faith to believe in Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior.
He was buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk in newness of life that same night (Rom. 6:4).
This is why we do it. This is why we gather, pray, study, teach, and develop community and invest in one another. We do it to see God bring a dead person to life in Christ.
