Father, it is our joy to celebrate as a church in the baptism of Kelby.  We get to rehearse and rejoice together the work you have done in her heart.  We praise you for transforming her from a person lost and hopeless into a person who now understands the depth of your grace and love for her.  From a person marked by loneliness and anxiety transformed into a person who expresses her sense of peace and confidence in Christ.  You have transformed a person who pursued satisfaction in the world into a person who seeks to align her heart, actions, and decisions according to your word.  Father, you chose to use a person in need of change to help another person in need of change to show Kelby the love of Christ in gentle and compelling ways.  You used a church body to help her understand the gospel with clarity.  We know you opened her eyes to the truth.  You softened her heart to repent and believe.  We know you did the transforming work that only you can do, but we marvel at the notion of you using ordinary, sinful people gathered in this room as instruments in your hands.  You are the redeemer, but you kindly use people like us in your perfect plan of redemption.  Might that realty humble us, motivate us and cause us to praise you even more.   

Father we know, the baptismal waters do not save.  Believer’s baptism simply displays the saving work you have accomplished.  We also know according to Galatians 3, that all who repent and believe are your true spiritual children.  Believers are now one with Christ.  We are clothed with Christ.  We are to put on Christ.  We are being wrapped in the covering of Christ.  We cast off the filthy rags that covered us as unbelievers and put on the new righteous nature of Christ.  This change of attire reflects the radical transformation that marks believers who are recognized as your children and your heirs.  We praise you for this new standing.  We don’t deserve this status, but it is solely by your grace that we are counted as your heirs.   

We are also reminded of the corporate nature of our inheritance.  As believers baptized into Christ, we belong to you as sons and daughters and to each other as brothers and sisters.  Your family consists of people from every nation, ever culture, every skin color and every language.  In Christ, we have not distinction.  We are all on equal footing.  We don’t deserve or earn our position.  We all receive it as a gift from you, our gracious Father through the work your son Christ accomplished on the cross. Father, I pray our fellowship as a church body would reflect this truth. 

Father as we approach resurrection Sunday next Lord’s day, I pray each of us would be mindful of opportunities to tell others of your saving work in our lives.  Make us bold ambassadors this week to speak of how our old selves have been crucified with Christ so that sin has lost in power in our lives.  Speaking about how we are no longer slaves to sin but slaves to Christ.  For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the enslaving power of sin.  Help us Father, this week in particular, to be your faithful ambassadors so that we might hear more testimonies in this room of your saving work done through the faithful gospel proclaimers sitting in this room now. 

All for your glory I pray in the name of Christ.