Father God, you give us many reasons to be grateful. We are grateful to you for your kind provision, protection and means of grace that sustained us since we last gathered together. We are grateful to you for the undeserved comforts of life we regularly take for granted and are prone to think are somehow deserved. We are grateful to you for the discipling relationships among the members that are anchored in your word, that foster growth in Christ likeness. We are grateful to you to witness people striving to obey your word. We are grateful to see people order their lives in submission to your truth and make personal sacrifices accordingly. We are grateful to you for all those who study and prepare to teach us scripture and help us apply truth to our lives.

Father, we are grateful to you for allowing us to see your saving work among us. We are grateful to see another brother in Christ respond in obedience to be baptized. We are grateful that you transformed Graham’s heart, that you changed his desires and affections, and that you are now conforming him to the likeness of Christ through the work of the Sprit and also your redemptive tools within the church. We are grateful to you that his parent’s faithfully preached the gospel to Graham in their home and that same good news was repeated and reinforced by countless other voices who spoke into Graham’s life among the body. We are grateful for the opportunity to celebrate your saving work in Graham’s life.

We are also grateful to you for what baptism symbolizes. We are grateful to you for how baptism reminds us of own need for a savior. It reminds us that we were indeed dead in our trespasses, unable to save ourselves and It reminds us that faith in Christ alone and his righteousness alone is our only hope. We are grateful to you that baptism reminds us of what Christ accomplished through His sinless life, his substitutionary death on the cross, and his resurrection demonstrating your satisfaction of his perfect and final sacrifice that atones for our sin. We are grateful for the reminder to all believers that we must die to self, live in the power Christ and walk in new life as a pattern that defines our justified lives. We are grateful to you for how baptism reminds all of us of our commitment to Christ and commitment to your church.

May this reminder of witnessing another baptism cause our hearts to be overwhelmed by praise of you and spur us on to good work as we joyfully submit to your authority and humbly prioritize our efforts in faith to build up the saints at Summit Woods for your acclaim and your glory.