Imago Dei desires to see lives changed by the gospel! On March 13th the Imago Dei Family was blessed to spend a wonderful night together around food, fellowship, and baptism as we got a glimpse of this vision that we are pursuing.
Since we are preaching through the book of Exodus, we first gathered to celebrate the Passover (Seder) meal. This is the meal instituted by God for the Israelites to commemorate their redemption from bitter slavery in Egypt. More significantly, however, it was a meal that would point them to the coming Messiah who would be the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). It is likely that this would have been the meal that Jesus and His disciples were eating together as our King instituted a new meal, the Lord’s Supper. Tim Keller points out it would have been the strangest Passover meal ever because there is no Lamb mentioned on the tables in the gospel. The reason, Keller points out, is that the Lamb was sitting at the table. It was a very rich and instructive time as were able to fellowship together around this meal. We are so thankful for Mark and Shelly Haugh who led us through this Seder meal.
We ended the night with baptism and the testimonies of three young men. Donnie, Will, and Hunter all shared their testimonies from the waters of past lives of drug abuse and how they have surrendered that life to Christ. Baptism is a fitting picture of what has taken place in the lives of these men as they have been transferred from the Kingdom of Darkness (buried beneath the waters of baptism) into the Kingdom of the Beloved Son (raised out of the waters to a new life under the reign of King Jesus). Baptism is a fitting picture of our vision statement as we rejoice that the Gospel has changed their lives and re-directed their affections.
We are grateful to Wake Crossroads Baptist Church for their kindness to us in allowing us to use their facilities for baptism while we don’t have one of our own. We have been so encouraged by the spirit among the churches in the Raleigh/Durham area for cooperation.