9th June 2024 All Age All Nation Service - Baptism as a Personal Perspective

The spirit came upon him. Without the spirit, we can't do God's work.

Not only that, but then and then I was convinced that I need

to have to go through my experience, because even though I profess to be

a Christian, I was struggling in my Christian work with the Lord. Now.

So after having had that teaching on Basm, I put myself forward to

be baptized, so that on that very good what I would I term as

my actual born again experienced. In July nineteen eighty six, I was asked

to stand in front of the whole church of our almost two thing people,

and the minister said, Robert, just confess what you are doing today.

So I did three confessions. The first one was that I said, I

believe in Jesus as my Lord and Savior. The second one was I have

faith in Lord and I've totally surrounded my life to Jesus. And then the

third one one yes three. The first one was in Jesus, I professed

Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I have faith in God, and then

I totally surrounded my life to Jesus. And then there was the poor I

needed to go into the rule and the significance of that I would share with

you very shortly. And so he said, Robert, on confession of your

faith in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, I baptize you in the name

of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And this

is the same commandment that Jesus actually asked us to do. To that,

I mean, that was what God Jesus said to the church in Matthew twenty

eight, verse nineteen. He says, go and make disciples of all nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Sun and of

the Holy Spirit. And that's what actually happened to me in in that,

in that, in that, in that experience. So the importance of being

baptized is that as you go into the pool or the water or whatever,

you you more or less declaring first of all that you it's no longer you

that you are living. Your old self is being, is being buried in

the water. As you get immeshed in the water, so everything, everything

that is not of God gets buried in the water. And as you come

out of it, you come out with the newness of life. And I

think there's a word in galicious where it says that it is no longer either

live Christ that lives in me. So the essence of you rising up from

the water is that you have a new life. The Holy Spirit is in

you. As I said before, I am before that I never I never

had any awareness of the Holy Spirit. But once I imaged out of the

water, I had the Holy Spirit on me. And since that day,

the Holy Spirit has been working with me, convicting me of saying telling me,

hey, Rob, you don't have to go there, Hey Rob,

you don't have to say those words. And the Holy Spirit is my guiding

force and he has enabled me to live a life worthy of praise to God.

So one thing I would say is that from that time on I experienced

the power of the Holy Spirit. I began also to speak in tongues,

which I wasn't able to do, and something that was very, very crucial

because in that big change of two thousand people and they said pray, and

I was praying in English, I felt very awkward because everybody could hear what

I was saying. But when the Holy Spirit came on you and you started

speaking in tongues, you speak different language. I could be praying tongues.

Now nobody would understand, only the Holy Spirit, and I understood what I

was praying. So that was very very important for me. As I say,

journeyed through my Christian life, and then there were certain things, the

old desires that I had before that I want to go to, the club,

I want to do with my own thing just just just vurnished. It

just vanished overnight, and I was a new creation, and the Holy Spirit

began to show me areas of my life that I needed to surrounder to Jesus.

And that was very, very crucial because when I came here, I

was very young, no family here, so it was important that I was

really guided by the Holy Spirit to be able to just work a life worthy

of praise to God. So what is the purpose of a baptism for the

church? As I said in Matthew twenty eight, Jesus commands us to go

and baptize people in the name of the Father, in the name of Son

and the Holy Spirit. And I believe that as the churge grows, we

would have those who seek to be baptized will have that opportunity to be baptized

in the Holy in the name of the Father. Son, and the Holy

Spirit, as God Jesus commanded. So that's one one essence of the command

that Jesus gives, and that's the purpose of baptism, so that we would

all flow in the things of God, the Law. And like I said,

when the Holy Spirit comes on you, he would creept you to be

part of God's kingdom, to do exploits for the things of God. You

begin a new life in Christ and and begin to and the Holy Spirit as

you allow him, he will stay up the gifts in you to be able

to encourage you, to support you and and and and and and obviously contribute

to the work of God. So this morning, without saying anymore, I

just want to challenge those who haven't had that experience to go for it when

the opportunity comes, and and and unveil yourself. And I believe that as

you do that your Christian life will go to a different level. Amen.

Mm hmmm, mm hmmmmm.