‘You Are Mine’ Isa 43:1-7, Rom 6:1-11 & Lk 3:15-22

These texts touched on Baptism, Christ baptism. As it looks at the Saviours’ Baptism, it is also an indication of looking at our own baptism which is also an important part of a believer’s relationship with Christ.

Baptism is one of the ways we (Christians) declare publicly that we are not secretive believers of Christ, neither are we ashamed of being identified as Christian. Because being a Christian is not being religious, but it is being into a relationship with the Creator. What a way of telling the world that we are Christs’ just as He is ours.

Isaiah, Romans, and Luke have very important things to teach us and tell us. Isaiah reads ‘I have called you by name, you are mine’. These verses are important because they help us understand something very fundamental & foundational of our union in Christ that is Relationship. God values our relationship, that is why he created us relational belonging to a family/community. However, through Christ we are born into a divine relationship with God.

We were knitted in our mother’s womb by God as Psalms 139 points out, David is simply reminding us of the relationship God has with us. God wants his people from all the ages to know of his wonderful-love relationship. He loves us so much to knit us together, to send a Saviour to redeem us & to allow His Spirit to help and guide us through all godliness and living.

These words of prophet Isaiah speaks to the spiritual deafness, and blindness of his people, today some openly & brashly sin against God. Yet again God is calling us to come back to the relationship he is offering us.

‘I have called you by name, you are mine’ what God is saying is I know what you have done, I know your sins, I know you’ve turned from me but I still claim you as my own. God is saying He still proudly tells the world that it is He who created us and formed us. Even now, He wants us to know that we are redeemed and saved in His care, He wants us to know right now he has called each one of us by name and for us to truly know whose we are so he says ‘you are mine’.

Brothers and sisters, God’s love or his relationship is not just any kind of love. His relationship and love for us is like the relentless waves of the ocean, day after day, hour after hour comes crashing down on shore as they have from everlasting. Relationship with God is something we have because of God’s love for us, we are precious and honoured in God’s eyes and because he loves us, he desires none to perish so He is pre- warning us through his Word, so we should heed to His message, all because of his amazing love for us.

Friends, over the history of Christianity, there have been many instances where people have lost sight of the importance of Baptism. Baptism is one means by which God connects us to Himself; he connects our stories to his story. Christianity is a relationship with God and his followers, so Paul wonderfully gives us exactly what happen to us in our relationship with Christ through baptism, saying ‘Do you not know that all who of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (Rom 6:3)

In Baptism we are dead with him, then raised into a newness of life that is in baptism we are made part of Christ death for sins and his resurrection from dead to life eternal. God gives us a newness of life because we are his. He gives us hope in a place of hopelessness, forgiveness, and holiness in the place of our sin and the fullness of life in the place of eternal death.

If anyone says he/she is a follower of Christ and do not get baptized, it raises a lot of questions like is that one ashamed to be identified with Christ? Is that one following people’s opinion of baptism not as being about a divinely relationship. Please do not let people’s perceptions rob you for they might tell you baptism is only a simple act that was only meant to cover sins committed before a person is baptized. However, Baptism and believe are meant to be intertwined for the purpose of salvation. Baptism is an amazing gift and a mystery, one that we should not take for granted.

Listen our baptism is a gift that means as much to us, our faith, and our life today as it did the day we were baptised, and it will mean that much to us for all eternity. Because none of our baptism was about what we did for God, rather it is all about what Christ has done for us. (ie His death, resurrection, and his unrelenting love for us).

Remember before you compare with Mark 16; the thief believed only for 5 or so minutes before he died on the cross beside Christ. You and I have had the opportunity to hear about all godliness; if you are still hardening your heart my brother, my sister we may not be given the same privilege as the thief….

Sometimes one may have doubts after hearing God’s words especially about forgiveness & grace and they wonder if it can be for them… Yes it is for you, for all who believe in Christ Jesus that is why we are reassured of who we are in Christ, we are God’s.

Jesus showed us the way to follow, if baptism was to be brushed under the carpet, Christ wouldn’t have made us know it was vital so if we claim we are his followers then why are we finding so difficult to follow his life example with regards to baptism.

Hear this it’s all about what God has done for us through Christ, Christ had given a pattern for all believers to follow suit for baptism is our public show that we are Christ, we belong to Him who has called us by name and says to us ‘ you are mine’

Hey thank God for all who have believed and are baptized into His family because it means something. Brothers and sisters, here is an opportunity, if you have not yet been born again or you have been born again and not yet been baptized, speak to your spiritual leader, pastor, priest or me so together we can fix it by leading you through the believers prayer for salvation or for you to be baptized.

My beloved in the Lord, what a joy to know that God says to you and I ‘you are mine’

May the Lord by the Holy Spirit grant us the grace of a receptive and a willing heart to obey His word/call today in Jesus name

Amen.