It takes a church to make a disciple - Baptism & thoughts
1 Corinthians 3:5-9
5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.
Meet Daniel, who took the step of faith towards baptism last month, it is a privilege to be a part of, but the baptism itself is much like a glacier, yes, the glacier is a totally overused metaphor, but there’s a reason for it because it is such a good picture to describe so many things.
Well, you can see the step of faith in the baptism, like you can see a glacier on top of the ocean, but what you cannot see is the much bigger side of the glacier submerged under the water, and while you see the baptism and that awesome step of faith you so often don’t get to see the story leading up to that one point that is visible to so many.
What I would love to highlight in Daniel Maxson’s story is how the entire Church (capital “C” church, that is the global church of Jesus) partakes in the mission to disciple a person together… It is awesome to see how God uses so many people to teach and demonstrate different lessons at different times just when that person needs it, and maybe I’m just weird, but for me, it is also a huge source of relief to see how God operates, it means that I as a follower of Jesus don’t have to be ready with profound lessons for every person I meet, I don’t have to have answers to every question, nope, it may only require a simple action that you do or a word that you say in passing that leaves a lasting impact on someone’s life.
Not only is it a relief to me, and perhaps many more, but as the story unfolds it also makes it so that it’s almost impossible to give any single person, church, or institution credit for the profound impact that the good news of Jesus has on someone’s life, only God gets the glory.
So, who were the people who had an impact on Daniel’s life leading up to baptism?
It was his mom who was used by God to talk to him about the concept of sin and his need for a Savior at 7 years old.
It was people whose names Daniel cannot remember who volunteered at the church AWANA program that helped him memorize Scripture and left their impact on him for life.
It was that program that also made him realize the joy of volunteering at a church, although taking care of other people’s kids freaked him out.
It was going to another church on Sundays after he moved to college where he continued to learn a lot of truth.
Then there was a godly lady in his life who demonstrated and displayed to Daniel what seemed to be divinely empowered forgiveness that flowed from being forgiven by Jesus after he moved to Iceland.
It was God using that godly woman that opened his eyes to the fact that he may believe in Christianity on an intellectual and theoretical level but he knew he was not living in accordance with what he knew to be true.
Lastly, it was another individual at our church who sought to meet up with him and to aim to seek recovery together and speak with radical honesty about their struggles that God used in an amazing way in getting him the help he needed and shifted his focus from simply morally improving into chasing after God, that you run to God to get your act together, you don’t get your act together so that you can run to God.
It was this pursuit of being radically honest that highlighted to Daniel the importance of community, then another member of Loftstofan starting a Bible study with him led to Daniel not simply seeking to be a part of the community but to even be the one who creates community, which lead to him starting that Bible study on his own.
All of this preceded and lead up to his baptism, the visible part of the glacier, but there was so much leading up to this, and this is just the tangible stuff, who knows what impact the prayers of his family and friends have had on his life and God’s involvement in it, that we will only fully realize in heaven.
Yes, it is amazing to see and be in awe of the top of the glacier that is visible to the eye, but even more amazing is just how God uses ordinary people, and how he can use you and me to be a part of a story that we may not even see right now, heck, he may use you or me to leave an impact we never even know about until we see it in eternity.
How awesome to serve this amazing God, how great is He!