Sunday School - Teaching On Baptism - Part1

Pass them down.

We pray, God, that this morning's teaching will edify us and encourage us, and help us,

Lord, to orient our lives around your workers, who may be obedient and good stewards of that which you have given us.

We pray these things in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Amen. Pastor, do you have a song for us for later or for now?

Um, no, I have one. Later, that's a good idea. Well, today's teaching is on baptism.

We decided we're going to take a couple of weeks to talk about this topic. And it's not solely because the name

Baptist is in our name. You know, we are a Baptist church. We have Baptist distinctives.

But oftentimes, what happens is that baptism kind of becomes this gray area in, you know, in the

Christian game wars. You know the game wars I'm talking about? Alright, you know the game wars against, you know,

Presbyterians and Baptists and this denomination and that denomination. And, you know, we all have our hate.

We all have our groups. And we get involved in these game wars on Facebook or social media because of our distinctives.

And in order to sometimes appease people's sensibilities, we will turn something that's actually kind of foundational.

And we'll kind of turn it into a gray area just to avoid the game wars. Now that said, we should get into fights over issues like this.

But I do think these are doctrines worth examining, preserving, understanding, discerning, and also it's worth protecting.

It's worth protecting. So we're going to look at what the Bible mainly teaches us. So I'm not going to go into this deep, theological, historical dialogue.

Rather, what it is is just a plain teaching of the Scriptures. Because the

Bible is understandable and discernible in its basic function of giving us truth.

And so we're going to examine the basic truth of God's word in relation to baptism. We're going to take another couple weeks to go deeper into it.

But today is just to set a solid, strong, simple foundation of what is baptism and why it's important.

And so let's turn in our Bibles to Acts chapter 2 for a moment.

Now Acts chapter 2 is unique because this is essentially the inauguration of the

New Testament church. And we have the resurrection, ascension of Christ, and the end of Luke's gospel, the resurrection.

Luke's gospel, not Luke, but Acts, begins with the ascension of our

Lord Jesus Christ. And when the Lord goes on earth, what did he promise to his disciples?

He says, I must leave, but I'm not going to leave you orphans, I'm not going to leave you bereaved. What was he going to send?

Who was he going to send? Go for it. The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. Jesus said to his disciples,

I'm going to send you a helper. I'm going to send you an advocate, a counselor, who will be with you and who will lead you into all truth.

That counselor was the Holy Spirit of God. And God's promise,

Holy Spirit, came right on time when the Lord had chosen in anointed death time to be the day of Pentecost.

And anyone know what Pentecost means? Five. Five, yeah.

Pente, Greek. And so the idea is that God has given us his promised helper, his promised counselor, the

Holy Spirit. And that was marked by a powerful gospel proclamation by the

Apostle Peter. The Apostle Peter begins to preach the gospel.

And there's a response to this message at the very end. So we're going to examine that. What does that look like?

I want to start with Acts 2 verse 30.

He says in Acts 2 verse 30. Being therefore a prophet in the way that God has sworn to those who do them that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw a so -called resurrection of the

Christ in society. And he was not of that age, nor did his flesh see corruption.

This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses.

Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, having received from the Father the promise of the

Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

So what was unique about this gospel proclamation is that he said to the people there, listen.

You are witnesses of this. I'm not just telling you this. Many of you have seen with your eyes this to be true.

Many of you saw the Lord in his resurrection glory. Now you are seeing the outpouring of the

Holy Spirit. Because what accompanied the outpouring of the Holy Ghost? What accompanied that event?

What signs and miracles? Speaking languages.

I like that she said languages, not tongues. Because the word tongue, coming from the

Greek, it just simply means languages.

And they were speaking in languages known to them. The language that they were speaking, was it an apple or was it actual languages?

How do we know that from the text? Look at verse 8 for a moment.

How is it that we hear each of us his own native language? Tongue. Native language.

And so even there, early in the text, you see that when the apostles and disciples were speaking in tongues, they were speaking discernible languages that could be understood by those who had been gathered before this festival gathering in Austin, Jerusalem.

So God's Holy Spirit was poured out. These individuals were witnesses of this event.

And notice the response in verse 37.

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart.

And it says to Peter and the rest of the apostles and brothers, what shall we do? Now the fact that they were cut to the heart, what does that mean?

They were cut to the heart. Convicted of sin.

They were convicted of sin. Okay? As a preacher, you can ask for more.

When you preach the gospel, what you want is to cut to the heart so that there's conviction.

Because conviction is necessary for what comes next. Notice what Peter responds in verse 38.

He says, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the

Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are called to do good stuff.

So the response necessary to the cutting of the heart to conviction is what?

Repentance. Repentance, oppositely coupled with belief, regeneration.

They were cut to the heart like a sign that the Lord had already begun that initial work of salvation.

Now they are to respond with that same faith, with baptism.

So repentance precedes baptism. Now that raises some important questions in relation to leader's baptism, leader baptism.

What is a necessary prerequisite according to the New Testament for baptism? It's repentance.

They need repentance. It's a turning from sin. Is that something that an infant can do?

No. Infants cannot repent. They cannot turn from sin. They have not even the knowledge of sin because the knowledge of sin is brought through understanding the law.

And so when a person understands the law, they have an understanding of sin. And even the eternal law that God has given, that's what

Romans 2 and 3 are going to read about. So there needs to be conviction of sin in order for there to be an opportunity for repentance, belief, turning to Jesus in baptism.

Have you been tracking this so far? Everything make sense? Go to my office and get a print of the book of Mormon answers.

So if you're following along, then notice. Baptism is for a believer who has received

Christ. You've got to receive Christ before baptism.

How do we know this? Notice again what verse 38 says.

Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in whose name? In the name of Jesus Christ.

Okay? Now, this means, so when the New Testament writers, especially the apostles, they have us all engaged here.

We see that they do something that's, they do something of interest in that the formula we receive in Matthew chapter 28.

If you remember the Great Commission, we were to baptize in what name? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That is the baptismal formula that we use. It's the baptismal formula that most Protestants use.

When you look at the New Testament book of Acts, and how they began to administer baptism, it often says they baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

Meaning, they did so in the authority of Christ. So, in the name of simply means in the authority of.

And it's not that the apostles changed the formula. It's not that the apostles changed, you know, the verbiage that when you be accompanied with baptism.

But rather the statement that the apostles are making in Acts is that they are doing this in the authority of Christ.

This is Christ's ordinance. This is Christ's sacraments.

This is his work. And it's being administered under his authority. Does that make sense? Yes. I was wondering, let's say out in the mission field, a believer only has the book of Acts to go on.

And they were doing it in Jesus' name. Is their baptism still valid? If you're only going by the book of Acts, you shouldn't be in the mission field.

No, no, no, no. No, like Bibles get teared up and that's all they have.

Yeah, that's such a. We can make up any scenario that we want.

The reality is that the Bible gives us all that we need faith to be trusted.

And in order for us to be in the government, we need to look at what God says. And the whole council does. And people do this all the time, right?

Lots of foundation churches do this. You know, they all say, you know, we are a book of Acts church.

We are an apostolic church. We are, you know, we follow just the book of Acts.

And they do this. And they're wrong for doing so. It's not correct. So it is incomplete.

And so it is not wrong to recognize the authority of Christ.

Similarly, when a police officer stops you and says, stop, leave the law. He's appealing to the law as a standard.

He's appealing to that authority. Similarly, the New Testament of Acts is appealing to Christ's authority in the writing of Acts.

Demonstrates his lordship in the rearrangement. And so it's not changing the formula that we received from the great magician in Matthew 28.

But rather it's a recognition of Christ's authority in the administration of Acts.

But Jesus Christ is central to the act of baptism. Jesus is the one who puts the law before us and we're going to get there.

And Jesus is the one who will offer us forgiveness of our sins. And so all of these are prerequisites for baptism.

You need to repent. Believe on Christ. Because it's his name you're being baptized. You can't be baptized if it's something you don't know, recognize, understand, receive.

And so you receive the Lord Jesus Christ and therefore you're baptized. Baptism is when the believer has received Christ. And it's fully ingrained in the

Lord. And we're going to examine that a little bit deeper later on. But particularly, there's something special happening in the rite.

So baptism can often be called the rite. Does anyone know what a rite means?

So it's a rite. Like initiation? Yeah, sort of.

It's a ceremony that imparts something. Yes. It's a ceremony.

There's a ritual power to it. It is rightly understood to be a rite in that sense.

It's not just going to the motions. It's not just a play. There's something that is happening in that act that has not just emotional significance, but has spiritual significance and power in partition.

And so baptism is unique in that it is resembling something. I want to turn over to Romans chapter 6 for a moment.

I'd like for some to read Romans chapter 6, verses 1 through 4.

Let's give everyone a quick second. Romans 6, starting in verse 1, 1 through 4.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may have done?

By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

We were married therefore with him, by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the

Father, we too might walk with him.

Notice the word for Jews. You were baptized into Christ.

Why do you think that's an interesting way of looking at baptism? You were baptized into his death.

I think it's very interesting because you're baptized into something that represents your union with something you're baptized into.

So this is really giving it a very intimate picture. I would agree with that. So in the

Greek Testament, it often talks about how we are in Christ.

In the Greek word, the Greek transliteration is just two letters, E. In. Very simple

Greek word, but it's a very deep Greek word as well. In that communication, it's supposed to be like dipping your finger in water, but rather being into water.

It's an immersed experience. In the same way, there's a deep union that the believer shares in Christ.

So you were baptized into Christ. It's not just an idea of dipping a little bit of water.

This is a holy immersion. You are wholly immersed in Christ. I think that that is significant when it's used in relation to baptism as well.

You're not simply a little bit of Jesus. You're not simply kind of sort of in Jesus, you are fully in Jesus, you're baptizing into Christ, you are fully immersed into the life of Christ.

Not only the life of Christ, but you also share that baptism in his life, death, burial, resurrection.

You are sharing the gospel of life in Jesus, in baptism. That is how powerful that can be.

Understated. And in some ways, you can't really fathom what that union truly means and looks like.

It's really, really significant. So if you're born again, baptism is fully immersed into Christ, fully immersed into the law, and then we move on to death and resurrection.

Now, I have to mention this, but I have Wisconsin, where I lived initially for four years.

The two biggest churches in rural Wisconsin is the

Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church. Lutheran is really, really big because there's a huge German population in Wisconsin.

Especially in rural Wisconsin. A lot of Germans have German names, and Germans typically are either

Catholic or Lutheran. And so Lutheranism is huge in Wisconsin.

So that was our main competition. But in terms of the marketplace of our church of Christianity, Lutheranism was massive.

Massive, huge there. And people were more often culturally Lutheran, not even religiously.

You have cultural Catholics, cultural Muslims. You have a lot of cultural

Lutherans. And one of the things that when I want to talk to Lutheran pastors and people who went to the

Lutheran church, and I went to a couple of services myself, those churches were what's called high liturgy.

Which is that the order of service is very well organized, and traditional, and there's historic lineage to that order of service.

They'll often say, our liturgy is designed to emulate the gospel.

So from the reading of the scripture, to the preaching, to the ritualistic aspects.

Sometimes including things like what the pastor is wearing, the garb that he's wearing. They'll often have shepherd's staff.

They'll sometimes be accompanied with, similar to the Catholic church, some types of rites with incense and things of that nature.

Candles being lit, and particularly candles that are lit three times a year. These are all meant to be pictures to kind of emulate the gospel.

And I said to one of the pastors, I said, don't you think it's kind of ironic that you go to such great lengths to emulate the gospel in your liturgy, and yet you fail to emulate the most important aspect of the gospel in the right attitude, which our

Lord gave us. Because you practice frequently, and then you practice inversion. And it's often that you'll find that kind of contradiction in denominations or churches, where they'll have a regular view of worship.

So they'll tweak things in worship to say, oh, we're making the gospel bigger and better, and we're incorporating it in all these ways.

But then they don't stick to the word and the things that actually matter. So they go beyond what's written.

And that's something that Paul warns us about in 1 Corinthians chapter 4. And so in Baptism, you have really an image of the gospel.

It is the gospel. You are in the gospel. You are into the gospel. And it is a sign of our union with Christ.

And so Baptism is a sign of our union with Christ. Sharing in the power of the gospel is written in the notes below.

Notice what, if you're still in Romans 6, notice what verse 5 says as well. It says, for if we have been united with him in a death like his, how are we united with him in his death?

In Baptism, we are united with him in a death like his. We shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Now, notice the power of the imagery of Baptism. In the biblical right administration of Baptism, you have audio water, which represents the

Scripture. Often water or audio water represents what? Yes, but another connotation.

It's more of a negative connotation. Think of a negative connotation of large bottles of water. Sometimes they're called the abyss.

The abyss. The abyss. Which is the image of death. It's the image of death.

That's why, you know, Job and Isaiah and Psalms talk about the life and the deaths.

And it's a place that you don't want to be. It's dangerous. Psalm 103 says that only

Yahweh can contain the deaths. You know, the abyss. Only Yahweh can contain the life. And so the water, the large bottles of water, it's interestingly enough in the book of Revelation, the beast rises from the abyss, rises from the water.

And so the large bottles of water typically represent an abyss or death.

And so when we come to the laws of Baptism, you know, we come to it understanding that this is a burial site.

This is an abyss. Christ descended, as we looked at in Acts chapter 2. Where did he descend to when he died?

Hades. Hades, the abyss. He descended into the abyss. And he died not long after this.

He's even capable of raising the dead. And so he went to Hades. And again, the large bottles of water represent our association with Christ's death in Hades, in the abyss.

Okay? But, when we're dumped into the water, we don't stay in the water, even unless the preacher's trying to kill you.

Okay? You don't stay underneath that water. Just as Christ rose again out of the abyss.

So we too, in the rite of Baptism, go under the water, signifying our death, our association with Christ's death.

And then we come back out of the water, signifying our joining with Christ in the abyss of life.

Right? And that's the beauty of Baptism, is that it is an association with Christ's burial, his death, his burial, and his resurrection.

And that's why it's so awful. And that's why I believe, and I have a great conviction about this, that the proper administration of Baptism has to be administered by following that model.

Because if not, you lose the entire richness of the intended imagery associated with Baptism.

And also, you're just not doing it according to what God's standard has given us.

It's not our ordinance. It's not our right. It's the Lord's. And we don't have the right to change the administration of anything the

Lord has given us. We are to administer it how he has commanded it. And so, with Baptism, again, it's a sign of our death, burial, and resurrection with Christ.

That's what Paul can say in verse 4 and 5 again. We were buried, therefore, with him by Baptism into death.

And in order that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, by the Word of the Father, we, too, might walk into this life.

We are re -enacting the Gospel when we are baptized. When we see others baptized and give their testimony and go into the

Lord's baptism, that is the Gospel at work. That is the Gospel at work. So that's why it's so important.

There's nothing more foundational for the Christian than the Gospel. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is a good news.

Therefore, we should not alter that which God has commanded. Am I crazy for saying that?

I don't think so, right? Now, again, that kind of gets into territory of, well, what do we do with Sprinkling?

What do we do with Baptism? What do we do with all these other forms of rites and rituals? There's only one right way to do this, and it's the

Biblical way. It's the Biblical way. Question? Yes? So, as it has been prior discussed that the prerequisites of Baptism are repentance and faith.

So, then, what remains upon you in Romans 6, perhaps there's been a reason that if you do not have those prerequisites fulfilled, say, for example, in the case of an atheist or a believer, that this is going to be, if they take part in Baptism, it's just going to be an empty

Baptism. Yeah, you're just getting wet. You're just getting wet. Just getting wet. You're not united with Christ.

You're not going to be resurrected. Matter of fact, I'm not sure if this is the time to answer that.

Now, I think there's, a wrongful administration of Baptism, I think, is very dangerous.

It's very dangerous. For the same reason, I think, a wrong administration of the Lord's Table is dangerous.

I'll give you an example. The Mormon Church administers weekly communion.

And the way they do it, okay, is they administer it. The bishop will be in the back preparing the sacraments.

And he literally prepares water and bread and water. The breads aren't leavened.

And they're not even trying to use the fruit of the vine, whether grape juice or wine.

They're just using literally water. So, every single time you go to the Mormon Church, that's how they administer the

Lord's Table. Now, just by virtue of doctrine, it's not the Lord's Table.

It's not actually the Lord's Table. Because doctrine matters every day. But just by doing that, it shows the disregard for the

Lord's commandment. Does it not? That the Lord says, do this. And by your own authority, by the authority of the church, by the authority of the prophet, they're going to alter it.

They're going to change it. Who has a greater authority than the church on the cross? Christ is the authority.

That's why, again, when it came to baptism, the apostles baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, showing that his authority was supreme in the rite of baptism.

And so we don't have any right to alter the Lord's ordinances or what the

Lord has commanded us to do. And I would say that that extends in our form of how we baptize.

So we'll get more into that in a bit. But again, baptism is a sign of our union with Christ, sharing the power of the gospel, and walking in the newness of life.

Again, that's what Paul says at the end of verse 4 of Romans 6. He says that Christ was raised from the dead, but the

Lord the Father is going to lead me to my walk in the newness of life. Now, sometimes Christians think, and this is wrong when a

Christian thinks this way. I have a guy in my previous church who had been a Christian for 20 years. And guess what?

He had never been baptized. He was a member of the church.

He hadn't been baptized. He had been a member of several churches.

He was even a youth pastor. He wasn't baptized. That's so common in evangelicalism.

And I don't know how they get by with that. And I asked him, what's taking you so long to be obedient?

What's taking you so long to do what's required of you? And he said, well, no one's ever really made it a big deal.

And man, it just drives me bonkers because not a big deal.

We're talking about the gospel here. And so that was a fun experience because the guy was literally like 6 '5", 3, 400 pound dude.

And so when we baptized him in the river or the lake, we actually had to get on his knees.

Because if not, there's no way I was going to be able to make that happen. And so we got on his knees and we did nothing completely.

And it was a beautiful occasion. And he thanked me greatly for that because I was the first pastor he's had that emphasized baptism as much as they did.

And it changed his walk. It really changed his walk. It really changed his relationship with the

Lord. I still keep in touch with this guy. I text for a couple weeks. And it's important because baptism is not the end of the

Christian walk. And sometimes in evangelicalism, that's the perception that, well, I'm not ready for baptism.

I've got to X, Y, and Z. And then I'll be ready. We think of baptism as the end.

But it's not. Actually, it's the beginning. You don't put it at the end.

It's the beginning. It's like if you try to give a good picture of this.

And I know there's children here. So I don't want to get too crude. It's like getting married and waiting constantly for the marriage.

Oh, I'm married. I'm just not ready. And it's like, well, that's just silly.

What are you doing? So that's the reality is that we can't put baptism all the way at the end of the evangelical

Christian life. It's really the beginning. Because it's in that that we receive.

And we'll go into this more next week. But it's in baptism that we really receive entrance into membership in God's covenant community of faith.

And so how a person enters into that community of faith is through baptism. So we don't want to fall prey to that false mentality of saying, well,

I've got to be ready. Because the prerequisites for baptism are what? Repentance and faith on the

Lord Jesus Christ. If you've got that, you ought and need to be baptized.

You're commanded to. And it's for your good. It's for your good. So that you can now walk in Jesus' life.

You're only disempowering yourself. You're only, you know, you're disobeying the

Lord. You're only supporting the Lord. Any follow -up questions on that? What church?

What church? Oh, my previous church, yeah. Guard the community table.

There you go. That's a good way to think about it. Thank you. I appreciate it.

I was at a Southern Baptist church. And it was an interesting way the pastor handled a situation where we had somebody who wanted to become a member.

But he had this fear of water. And so, no, no, really, this is not a hypo.

And so, the way they just handled it, they just did word of mouth membership. How do you think about that?

Well, I've got a lot of thoughts about it. It's not the topic of today. But, obviously, most churches don't take membership very seriously.

This is what it comes down to. And we often, you know, churches will make the barrier of entry very low so that more and more people can funnel into the system, funnel into membership.

And if they catch into membership, they can present that as success in saying, look at all the members we've added.

Look at all the baptisms. But the barrier is very low. Right? And so, you know, it's a recipe for a lot of false conquers.

And an unhealthy church dynamic, to be honest. So, we'll look a little bit more into the importance of the link between baptism and church membership.

But today we're just going to focus on the bare basics here. Now, it's important that we understand here.

It's that with our reformed distinctions of what the Bible teaches, we understand that salvation cannot be earned.

Okay? Right there in the notes. Salvation cannot be earned. And so, what we do not attribute to baptism is a solid formula.

We're in, by baptism, by doing this work, you are now saved. We don't believe that.

There are groups that believe that. There are groups that believe that. We are not saying that. We do not believe that. We do not affirm that.

We believe that salvation cannot be earned, but is indeed a free gift by what?

Grace. By grace, through what? Faith. Through faith. Faith is through faith. For by grace you have been saved through faith.

This is not of yourselves. This is the gift of God. It's not of anybody else. It is

God's work. You are not saved by what you can do. There is no baptism.

No work or act of baptism. Getting wet. That will save you.

Now, what's interesting is that baptism in itself is not necessarily a new concept to the

Jewish person who is living in the first century. The book of Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers, is filled with ritual washing of various times.

In the Old Testament, if you were to become unclean, you could not go to the temple meeting.

You could not go to the city even, which is why in ancient times, even now, it's fascinating to look at archeology in Jerusalem.

They're covering more and more ritual pool washing stations outside the city. Because should you, for instance, touch a dead carcass on the way to Jerusalem, you are now unclean and you have to go through washing.

Sometimes, depending on the level of uncleanness, and that varied by many things, you would have to either wash and then wait until evening.

Sometimes you would be unclean for several days, which requires you to do continual washing, depending on what it is that you had come in contact with.

Ritual washing wasn't just often a mere dipping. In fact, it included washing your clothes in that pool, too.

You'd wash yourself and you'd have to wash your dirt by your clothing. This idea of ritual washing is not new to the first century

Jews who had encountered people like John the Baptist, like Jesus, like the apostles, who are now baptizing folks.

What was unique about New Testament baptism, whether administered by John or by the apostles, was the association with baptism and repentance.

When John the Baptist comes on the scene, he's baptizing them in a baptism of repentance.

He's saying, repent, for the kingdom of God is not near. He's baptizing with an association with repentance and expectation that the kingdom of God is coming.

When Christ is baptized, he sets the model for us. We're going to look at that verse in a little bit.

When the New Testament church starts baptizing, they're baptizing also with a message of repentance, but also faith in Jesus.

It's very important. Again, ritual washing is nothing new. Baptism is kind of an evolution of that ritual washing we see in the

Old Testament, but really it's a fulfillment of those ritual washings that was laid out in the

Old Testament. Now we've come to its eschatological fulfillment in the

Christian rite of baptism. We have to, however, understand that we're not saved by the rite of baptism.

There's no amount of ritual washing that you can do to make yourself clean before God.

What is unique about Christian baptism is its association with Jesus Christ.

I want you to turn to Titus chapter 3 for a moment. Let's look at Titus 3 verse 4 through 7.

It says, "...but

according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the

Holy Spirit." So it's not the washing of water, literal water for baptism that saves you, but it's the washing of regeneration and the renewal that comes through the

Holy Spirit. That's the indwelling of the Spirit. That's being born again. When you're born again, that's when you are saved.

God saved you prior to any work done in righteousness. And there's no works that can be done in righteousness that can do that favor.

So you are saved by grace or faith. You're saved according to God's own mercy by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the

Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

So crystal clear, we are not saved by baptism. You are saved not by baptism, but for baptism.

You are saved unto baptism. So baptism as a rite, as a ritual, as a practice does not save you, no more than the

Lord's Table does not save you. But that is not to strip the

Lord's Table nor baptism from the power that it has, because it has the real power and it has the real purpose.

It is not an aimless thing, no less than what's more important.

When you get married, is it when you write your name on a piece of paper and now it says you're married?

Or is there not power and meaning and significance when the rings are exchanged? You don't not exchange rings just because you signed a piece of paper that says you're married.

You exchange it because you understand there's a value, there's a power, there's a connection there in that rite, in that passage there.

So we're not saved by works, we're not saved by baptism, we are saved unto baptism, if that makes sense.

Any thoughts or questions so far? Pastor Collin, is there anything you want to add?

No. Alright. I have one more question. Go for it.

So, from my understanding of Scripture so far to this point, I understand that when a believer is indwelled in the

Holy Spirit, they have now been adopted into the spiritual church. Yes. But, to put it exactly, you have that person 20 years into the faith, has no one to baptize yet, he hasn't still taken part in being united with Christ, even though presumably he's been adopted into the spiritual church.

Yeah. So what happens is that when a Christian is born again, that moment you're a child of God.

You are heaven and earth. You're truly born again, you're truly saved, you truly know the Lord, you're heaven and earth.

And so, you will die and you will be reborn. But that's, there's a flaw almost in that mentality as well, which is exaggerated in the evangelical community, which is that the end goal is just to make it happen.

You know, and really that should be our end goal. Our end goal as Christians should be to be pleasing to God.

Right? And in doing so, in living that pleasing life to our God the Savior, when we get to heaven, because we're heaven -bound anyway, when we get to heaven, your degree of glory will be determined by the worse in the life of the tribe.

So what you do with your life as a Christian truly has significance, truly matters.

Right. You're going to have a great, wonderful, great job, but what kind of glory will you receive?

And that glory is not important because you want more glory, but it's because of the glory that you receive.

It's really going back to the Lord. It's the glory that you give back unto Him. You know, the throne, the throne we're receiving, that we see between brothers, casting their crowns on the feet of Jesus.

The crowns of glory are relations with the works of the saints. Okay? And they're casting their crowns, and to the truth of the

Lord Jesus Christ. That's why it's significant. That's why it's important the way we live our lives. So, yeah, a

Christian can be a Christian and not be baptized, but they're disobedient.

They're disobedient. So that's not good. You don't want to be there. Does that make sense? Yes, James?

I think the perfect example is when Philip was invited by the eunuch inside, and him preaching the gospel.

It did not come short for the eunuch to ask him to be baptized, because it was clear for him to follow that.

That's right. That's right. And we're actually going to look at that story in a quick moment here. So let's look at the proper administration of baptism.

What does that look like in the scriptures? And let's turn to the example of our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 3.

So far we've learned what baptism signifies. The significance behind baptism is the association with Christ's death, birth, and resurrection.

And we're walking in a newness of life. We also know that we cannot burn our salvation. Baptism itself does not save anyone, but it's the washing of a regeneration of the

Holy Spirit. That's, again, being born again and regeneration. That is what saves a person by God's mercy.

But let's look now at the proper administration of baptism as it's laid out in the

Holy Scripture. We see in Matthew chapter 3, verse 16, Jesus is baptized.

It says, What is of importance here is that Jesus was baptized where?

In the Jordan River. In the Jordan River. And what was the manner by which he was baptized?

Immersion. Immersion. He was fully immersed in the water. How do we know this from the text? He went up from the water.

He went up from the water. Okay. Which means he wasn't sprinkled.

He wasn't down with a little bit of water. He was fully immersed. The word for baptized in the

Greek, baptizo, literally means to be immersed. It's what the word means.

There's not always a correlation between the etymology of the word and its application. But in this one, I think we're obviously encouraged because we see not only what the word means, but we see how it's used in practice in the

New Testament. Right? So, we see how the word is, what the meaning is, and then how it's administered in the

Bible. So, obviously, those, Jesus, when he was baptized, he went fully immersed into the water.

And he went up out from the water, signifying again that he had been fully immersed.

And so, proper baptism is administered by the full immersion, which is written in there, full immersion of the believer in water.

Notice Christ, also of an adult age, not a baby, not someone who does not have incredible life.

Jesus sets the model for us. The model is very different to be 30 years old when you're baptized. But yet, it shows a model, a manner by which it's appropriate to be baptized.

It's someone who has incredible life and testimony. And it's someone who, obviously, is old enough to be done in the water.

So, not an infant. Let's look at the absurdity. You can ask, hey, so when you see how

Jesus is baptized, he's baptized by full immersion. How can you, the New Testament church, baptize individuals?

Well, let's look at Acts 8. Let's start with verse 34.

Acts 8, verse 34 says, He said to Philip, About whom I ask you, does the prophet say this?

About himself or about someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus.

And as they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said,

See, here is water. What prevents me from being baptized? He demanded Shiri to stop, and when they both went down into the water,

Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the

Lord appeared to Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. He didn't stop because he saw a little canister of water, and said,

Hey, why can't you sprinkle me? He saw a body of water, and he said,

What prevents me from being baptized? Love that heart, love that spirit.

He had heard the good news, received the good news, and was baptized accordingly.

Now, again, the apostolic church, every instance that we see in the New Testament, individuals are baptized by full immersion.

There is not one instance in the Bible where someone is baptized by sprinkling. We don't see one instance where an infant is baptized either.

We see only a believer's baptism in the New Testament. So what then would be the rightful way for us to baptize?

The proper administration for baptism, to quote Paul, when he's not necessarily talking about baptism in 1

Corinthians 4 -6, but I think he lays an important principle that has connotation not just for regular principle, but also for things relating to baptism and the

Lord's Supper, where he says, Do not go beyond the things that are written. Do not go beyond the things that are written.

Because at that point, what happens is that tradition, church tradition, often becomes the rule of faith for the believer and not the

Scriptures alone. And so we want to go to a strong view of Scripture, soul scriptura, and we do not want to go beyond the things that are written in regard to faith and practice.

And so adding to the Lord's ordinance, the Lord's word of baptism, would be a dishonor to His Word, would it not?

We were to say, well, we know what the Bible says in regard to the administration of this, but we're going to change it how we can be.

That was originally one of the things that the early church dealt with. And the reason why things like sprinkling was initiated was because they were so eager to baptize, and they said, well, if we don't have a body of water, then we need to figure out this problem.

So we'll allow for it to be sprinkled. So what happens is that slowly the church became the rule of faith and became the ones who were supposed to be the keepers of it.

Now they were the changers of it. They were giving themselves free range to be able to change how they administer the things in the ordinances of God.

And I don't think that is the right thing to do. Obviously, we've still got a strong view, a regular principal here, who believe that they send you into baptism.

So proper baptism, again, is administered by full immersion, with the feeding of water, following Christ's example, that of the apostolic church.

The apostolic church baptized by full immersion. Jesus was baptized by full immersion.

There is no other baptism, except for the spiritual baptism of fire, that is recognized in the

New Testament. Any thoughts or questions? Why do we say that the ordinances they receive can be offered up?

Great question. We're going to answer that in the weeks to come. The short answer to that is the

Lord's ordinances are His ordinances. They're not ours to change nor to deviate from.

And so there is a proper baptism. And what do we mean when we say proper? Does that mean that there is a license for improper administration, but still valid?

And those are the questions we're going to answer in the coming weeks. So I want you to stay tuned for that. I don't want to steal from Pastor Connolly's great teachings.

He's going to give us on that as well. You got a question? Real quick. So yesterday we were discussing this issue briefly.

And the idea came up if there was a real believer who erroneously understood baptism in an erroneous way or a wrong way, but agreed to baptism thinking that baptism was necessary, was gaining him some favor for the effort, for the work of it, for what he did, it merited something.

And then he found out later that it wasn't the baptism that merited anything. It was all what

Jesus had done. And so at that point, did that invalidate his full immersion in baptism?

Should he be re -baptized? Again, the prerequisites for baptism is repentance and belief on Jesus.

Should those be there? And it's administered properly by New Testament church, by New Testament people,

New Testament believers. I would say that it is a valid baptism.

Oftentimes it's interesting because there's not a lot of good teaching on baptism. Sometimes believers, especially new believers, have wrongful expectations or connotations associated with baptism.

That through teaching will be corrected. But as long as that person was believing in the

Lord Jesus Christ, truly repentant and was baptized by the New Testament church, I think that would be a valid baptism.

Regardless of what they understood it to mean or the reason for it. Yeah, we don't need to have a comprehensive understanding of everything that we see in the

Bible in order to be baptized or take communion. I mean, how many folks don't fully understand the power of communion and partake of communion weekly?

And so, a full comprehensive understanding of these things is not necessarily a prerequisite for still partaking of this blessing.

So, yeah. Any other thoughts or questions? Pastor Collin, do you have a closing song for us?

Yeah, pick one. 94. It's a song? 94. 94?

Wow, that was really way too low, and I didn't realize how uncertain I was of the tune. Let me do something easier.

Holy, holy, holy. Let's course -correct this shit. 87.

Holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy, holy.

Lord God of hosts.

Early in the morning. Our song shall rise to Thee.

Holy, holy, holy. Merciful and mighty.

God in three persons. Blessed Trinity.

Holy, holy, holy. All the saints adore

Thee. Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea.

Chair of heaven, stair of heaven. Falling down before Thee.

Who were dead, are dead. Evermore shall be.

Holy, holy, holy. Though the darkness hide

Thee. Though the eye of sinful man

Thy glory may not see. Only Thou art holy.

There is none beside Thee. Perfect in power and love and purity.

Holy, holy, holy. Lord God almighty.

All Thy works shall praise Thy name in earth and sky and sea.

Holy, holy, holy. Merciful and mighty.

God in three persons. Blessed Trinity.

Amen. Dearly beloved, thank you for your work.

Thank you for all the instruction you've given us. And how to conduct our worship. How to conduct the

Lord's Supper and Baptism. God, I pray that we would honor you in all that you do. And that you would prepare us for worship this morning.