|PIC1|The 400th anniversary celebration of the worldwide Baptist movement came to an end on Sunday night with a challenge to Baptists to relinquish their privileges and take up the cross of being Christ’s hands and feet in a broken world.

The President of the Baptist World Alliance, the Rev David Coffey, said that being sent out like Jesus started with the realisation that God wants to share his life with us “in order that we might be unbelievably transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ”.

Preaching from Philippians 2, he said that Christians had to be prepared to give up their privileges of position and power for the sake of service.

Rev Coffey urged Baptists not to give into the temptation of doing things their own way, but to follow the difficult way of Christ.

“If you want to journey with Jesus then you either do it His way or your theme song is going to be ‘I did it my way’,” he said.

“If we are going to be sent like Jesus there is a cost we have to endure. Don’t avoid the cost,” he said.

Recalling Jesus’ example of washing the feet of His disciples, Rev Coffey added that Christians should expect menial service in the name of the King.

“You may never stand on a platform, your name is never in lights, it never appears in a magazine. Sometimes you’re never thanked. But the Lord says I need your healing hands in all the broken places of the world, I need your servant hands to wash the feet of those nearest you, I need your outstretched hands to welcome home the prodigal child, because your menial service matters to me,” he said.

Rev Coffey went on to challenge delegates at the celebration to follow in the footstep of their Baptist forebears and drink the cup of Christ whatever the cost.

“’Can you drink the cup which I drink?’ This was the heart of what happened in Amsterdam 400 years ago,” he said. “Our Baptist forebears answered a resounding yes to that question and they made a bloodstained journey of discipleship not only across Europe but to all parts of the world. That question of Jesus rings out again: will you drink the costly cup?”

Rev Coffey concluded with a reminder to Baptists that taking up the cross of Christ ends in glory.

“There is glory to be shared with King Jesus. If we suffer with Him we shall reign with Him in glory,” he said.

“You are not going alone because He is already out there bidding you come.

“His footsteps are discernible to those who pray and wait and all you have to do is put your small footprints in Jesus’ big footprints.”

Rev Coffey’s address marked the end of the three-day celebration in Amsterdam over the weekend.

It was in 1609 that Baptist founders Thomas Helwys and John Smyth left England in search of the freedom to worship God free from the interference of the king. What started out as a small group praying and studying the Bible in the backroom of an Amsterdam bakery grew over the centuries to become a worldwide movement of more than 100 million Baptists.