Adult Sunday School - Going Public Part 8 (Chapter 8)

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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that which is good for building up in our most precious and holy faith. Pray God that you would, in your sovereignty, provide room in our hearts for the information.

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Lord, that this information would not just be for the puffing up of the mind, but Lord, for the edification of the soul.

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And Lord, as we covenant together, as we come together in the name of Jesus, Lord, we recognize again our great need of you.

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And we pray, Lord, that in this moment you would grant us the gift of thy Spirit to do all these things and more for the glory of your name.

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In Jesus' name we do pray, amen. Okay, so we're in chapter 8 today of our book, you know,

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Going Public. And today is really a summary chapter of the things that we've already laid on.

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So again, the premise of this book, the premise of this literature, the premise of this study is to recognize really the importance of two major themes.

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One is the purpose and significance of baptism, now also the purpose and significance of church membership, and how these two things are correlated and directly linked to one another.

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And the reason for this literature is because of the modern error of evangelicalism today, which

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I engaged in when I was an evangelical pastor of an evangelical church, now the denominational church, which is essentially that church membership and baptism are optional for the

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Christian. Okay, now as soon as a person says that, there's always a hand that comes up and they say, are you saying that you need to be baptized in order to be saved and go to heaven?

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Well, that's not what I said. That's not what I said. It's not the premise of this book. I think it's one of the first things that's kind of dispelled in this book,

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Going Public, is this notion that, well, here's what we're not saying. When we are saying that baptism and membership are requirements of a

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Christian, we're not also saying that your eternal salvation hangs upon a particular work.

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So can these two things be true at the same time? Can something be required, but also not be contingent upon your eternal soul?

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And I'd say that's the hardest struggle here is to determine what do we mean by required?

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And what we mean by required is this is what the Lord requires for all those who want to walk in obedience.

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Okay. Does a Christian need to be perfectly obedient in order to make it to heaven? No, no.

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Do you have to be 100 % without sin? No, it's impossible, right?

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We cannot be perfect in our obedience. Does it mean that we stop striving towards more obedience?

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Does it mean that we stop trying to be sanctified and draw to a closer image of Christ?

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By no means. So we are called to obedience. It's like the Great Commission.

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Is that required or is it optional? It's required.

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Anything the Lord commands is required. Okay. So when you think of it from that mindset, from a biblical mindset of what does it mean in regard to what does

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God require of me? I want us to quickly examine a text of Scripture.

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I believe it's in Micah chapter 5. It might be Micah chapter 6. Let's find that.

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It's in the 12 Minor Prophets. Yeah. Chapter 5 or 6.

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I'll let you know in a second once I find it. Chapter 6, verse 8.

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And this is what the Lord God says. This is Micah chapter 6, verse 8. Micah 6, 8 says,

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He has told you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your

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God? Well, I love about this text. It's really a summation text. It's a text that summarizes

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God's heart and intention in terms of what He requires of His people. There's a lot of things that God could have said.

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In the same way, when the question is asked of Jesus in the New Testament, Lord, what must

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I do to inherit eternal life? What does Jesus point to? He points to the law.

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That's right. He points to the Ten Commandments. He could have said, just believe in me and make sure that you put me in your heart and that, you know, you make me

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Lord and Savior. Hashtags, things Jesus never said. Okay. Jesus never said those things.

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What does Jesus point to? He points to the requirements of the law. He summarizes it by saying, love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. And in these two things, what does

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Jesus say? You fulfill the law and the prophets. Okay. And that's a summation text.

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That's Jesus summarizing the heart and intent of the law. Micah chapter 6, verse 8 is also a summation text where God is summarizing what it is that is required of us.

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And it means that just like when Jesus says that these two things fulfill the whole law and prophets, what he means by that is if you love

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God, you'll be careful to honor his name. You'll be careful not to have other gods before him. You'll be careful to make sure that you keep his name holy.

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If you love your neighbor, you won't covet, you won't steal, you won't murder. These are all things that summarize

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God's heart and intention for us. In the same way, Micah chapter 6 summarizes God's heart and intention of what is required of us.

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And he starts by saying, he's told you, man, what is good. He told you what is good.

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So think about these things as to what is good and what is God's best. Okay. So when we ask the question, why then is baptism, why then is church membership a requirement?

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We have to have God's mind in this. We have to have the mind of Christ. And it's because it's good.

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Okay. When God says something is good, he's saying, this is what is best.

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And he wants what's best for you. Okay. So you have to understand God's heart. He wants what's best for you.

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He knows what's best for you. He's told you what is good and what the Lord requires of you, but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your

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God. And humility often requires us to think of ourselves as lesser, or I would rather say to think of ourselves in the right way, because Bible says that we all overestimate our own value.

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We think of ourselves higher than we ought to, which is why the scripture says to consider others as being more worthy than you.

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And so God has told us what is a requirement. And so in the New Testament, baptism is a covenant oath.

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It's a sign in which we are being brought into the covenant community of Christ.

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And nowhere in the New Testament is baptism looked upon as optional. If you were baptized, you were counted among the disciples.

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How do we know this? Let's go to Acts chapter 2 for a moment. Okay. So anyone remember on the day of Pentecost, how many

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Christians were in the upper room? 120. How does the day end?

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3 ,000. So notice what it says in Acts chapter 2, and let's look at verse 37.

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This is after Peter declares the gospel for the first time as a New Testament community of people.

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He says, now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?

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So asking what is, what's the requirement? What do we need to do now? So Peter answered them, verse 38, repent and be baptized.

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Every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the

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Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the

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Lord our God calls to himself. And so the clear apostolic message was repent and be baptized.

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So repent, believe, be baptized. This is the apostolic model. This is what you are to do, which is to mean this is what's required.

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You want to be a Christian? Great. Repent, turn to Christ, believe in him, be baptized.

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You see the natural progression? So then what happens next is very important, verse 41.

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So those who received his word were baptized. Now this part is where you have church memberships.

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You have baptism. Now immediately after you have church membership, how do we know? And they were added that day, about 3 ,000 souls added.

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This is a membership role, okay? So we have people believing, confessing, being baptized, now joining that community of faith.

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So the 120 turned to 3 ,000 by the end of the day, okay? They were not counted among them until they were baptized.

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So they weren't, it wasn't anyone who, so here's how evangelicals do this. I come from an old school

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Southern Baptist style of church life. Here's what

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Southern Baptists love to do. We love doing crusades, okay? We love doing campaigns, and we filled pews, we filled tents, and then what we do is we ask people to raise your hand to believe in Jesus, okay?

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They raise their hands, and what do we do? We count them, one, two, three, four, and then a report is sent out at the end of the service saying 20 people today gave their lives to Jesus.

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That's not how the New Testament counts disciples. It wasn't about raising a hand.

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It wasn't about, you know, someone coming down the aisle. It was people who were baptized upon profession of faith in Jesus.

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That's who were counted and added among the disciples, okay? Is this pretty clear? Any thoughts or questions so far?

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Anyone? Okay. And now notice what, just to continue this text in Acts 2, verse 42 onward says,

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And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teachings and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

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So here you have the formation of the church, okay? So as they were believed, repented, were baptized, what did they do immediately?

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They devote themselves to the apostles' teachings, this is the Apostolic New Testament teaching of the church, and the fellowship, that's the assembly, that's the church, and to the breaking of bread, that's communion, okay?

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And to prayer. So you have the elements of worship here, regular principle of worship, as we adhere to here at SVRBC, and it says,

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And all came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and belongings, distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

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And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food of gladness and generous hearts, praising

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God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

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So you have now the success of this New Testament church as they were adhering to the apostles' teachings, as they were now grafted into full church membership.

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So it's pretty clear from the onset of the New Testament church that the model is repent, believe, be baptized, and that is what grants you entrance into the new covenant community of faith.

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Now, we learn in chapter 8, again, it's kind of a summation chapter, we recognize that He gives seven reasons why baptism is required for church membership, okay?

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So again, one of the premises that we're fighting against is this maybe easy believism and easy church membership process where, well, if you just want to be a member, well, great.

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You're a member just by, you know, just by showing up. You know, they give you the name of the cubby, and now you're part of the club.

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But no, what is required of us and what's required of our faith is baptism. And the reason why is because baptism is where faith goes what?

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It goes public, okay? Again, it is akin to the wedding ring.

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It's what I always like to say. Wedding ring is a public symbol that you are in covenant relationship with someone, that you are exclusive with someone.

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The same is true of our baptism. We are in an exclusive relationship with Jesus Christ, okay?

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So we don't serve other gods. We don't serve other religions. We are exclusively a part of the community of faith of Jesus Christ.

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And baptism is that outward symbol, okay? Now, the thing about baptism and the thing about circumcision, because circumcision was the

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Old Testament equivalent, these were met as public signs, but were they actually public?

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People didn't go around checking if you were circumcised in the Old Testament. Kind of weird. People wore loincloths, okay, to cover.

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It would be inappropriate for someone to be walking around in a nude, you know, like as if they were in the middle of San Francisco.

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You know, there were still some, you know, etiquette that had to be used. So circumcision, though essentially a public ordinance, because it was for all the males, was also private because people didn't outwardly necessarily see this as a thing.

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Same is true of baptism. You know, you go into the waters of baptism, you get wet. There's no physical mark on you that says, you know, like a wedding ring is a physical mark because everyone sees it, versus baptism where the water comes on your body and then it washes off.

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And how do people know? How do people know that you are a baptized Christian?

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It's church membership. Your church membership is that public sign as well. And so baptism is, again, it's where faith goes public.

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It is the initiating sign of the new covenant, which is in page 162 of your books.

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Baptism, again, just to go through what is written, baptism is also the initiating oath sign of the new covenant.

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Though Jesus inaugurated the promised new covenant, all covenants are ratified by an oath. An oath is a solemn pledge, promise.

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And you do that by virtue of baptism because what happens upon your baptism?

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The preacher usually asks you a set of questions. Here's the questions that I ask when, and we're going to be doing a baptism fairly soon.

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And one of the things that we ask as preachers at a baptism is, so and so, have you confessed, have you repented of your sins and trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?

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And the answer should be a resounding yes, right? And then the question is, do you recognize that by means of your baptism you are now forsaking the world, sin, and Satan?

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So, I'm paraphrasing what I usually say, but to that effect, and the answer is yes. And then so we say, okay, by means of your proclamation, by means of your public confession, we now baptize you in the name of the

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so that is a public declaration and the person affirms it, and then they're baptized in the public waters of baptism.

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Exactly, exactly, right? And so because it has to be, there has to be a public oath component to it, right?

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There needs to be some verbalization that, yes, I affirm this, yes, I believe, yes, I know what

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I'm getting myself into, okay? I think I shared this story with you before, but when I was probably three or four,

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I have very few memories. One of the memories I have as a kid, we grew up Jehovah Witnesses, and so in the

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Kingdom Hall, there was a wedding that I was a part of. I was one of the ring boys, and so I remember that day

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I got dressed up in a tuxedo. I remember I had really shiny black shoes, and I was just cute as can be.

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And then I had to walk down the aisle of another girl, and her, and I knew her, this is her nickname, but this is how

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I knew her. Her name was Cookie, like Cookie, but Cookie. And she was dressed in a wedding gown, and I'm like, wait a second, am

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I getting married? And I remember having to walk down the aisle, and this is, someone recorded this in the old 90s camcorder, and I remember literally halfway down the aisle, and I literally just jet run and run to my parents, because I was like,

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I don't want to get married right now. I don't want to get married. And, you know, a lot of folks sometimes, you know, as they're contemplating marriage, don't think about this, but what you're doing in marriage, when you go to that pulpit, when you go to the front of that congregation, or group, or friends, or family, what you're saying is you're making an oath in front of a community of people, right?

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And that's exactly what baptism is. You are standing before witnesses, and you are pledging an oath, okay?

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So baptism is the initial sign of the new covenant, just like in the old covenant, it was circumcision, new covenant, it's baptism.

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And that is, you know, essentially the sign that you are a

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Christian, and that ongoing sign is your church membership, okay?

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And so, does this make sense? Is this computing? Any questions so far? One of the things that we've gone over in this book as well, you'll see in page 163, is that baptism is the passport of the kingdom, and the kingdom citizen's swearing -in ceremony.

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What is meant by the kingdom passport concept that is brought up in this book?

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What is meant by that? Say again? That's right.

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Anything else? What does a passport grant you?

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That's right, I like that word, access. Grants you certain accesses and privileges that you would not have otherwise if you don't have that passport.

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Now, does every citizen of a given country have a passport? No. How many of you have passports?

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Raise your hand. I should only raise my hand partially because mine is like literally going to expire in like two weeks, so I have to renew that.

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If not, I can't leave the country. I don't plan on leaving the country anytime soon, but you know, it would be nice maybe to take a trip to Mexico.

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If you don't have a passport, that doesn't mean you're not a citizen, right? You're still a citizen, but you're not going to be granted certain privileges of travel if you don't have that passport.

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In the same way, church baptism and church membership act as a passport because it says, it speaks of who you're representing, okay?

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So I'm very skeptical, and I've met in my 10 years of ministry, I've met a lot of folks who are passportless

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Christians, okay? Well, here's what a passportless Christian looks like. Passportless Christian is someone who says,

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I love Jesus, but I hate the church, okay? They say,

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I love Jesus, but church for me is just me in my living room listening to Hillsong, okay?

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Church for me is just being out in nature, taking a walk. That's church for me.

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I don't need a church in order to serve Jesus, okay? That's like saying,

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I don't need food in order to survive. You know, it doesn't make any sense.

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It doesn't compute. There's no sense to it because if you love Jesus, how could you possibly hate his bride?

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How can you possibly hate his body of which you are supposedly a member of?

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Because if you're in Christ, you are a member of the body of Christ. You are a member of his body. So are you going to say that you hate the body that you're supposedly a part of?

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It makes no sense. A passportless Christian is someone who relentlessly criticizes the church but offers no solutions, okay?

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And these are Christians who, I've met some really great passportless

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Christians as well who really genuinely love the Lord, who know their Bibles pretty well. And some of their frustration is they just don't see a church that's doing it right, okay?

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I totally get that frustration. I totally get that. But to them, in my experience, these are folks who tend to be critical.

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And even if a church was doing it right, they likely wouldn't commit to it. These are people who often have commitment issues.

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And no lie, as soon as I say these things, I think of a couple that I had in our previous church in Wisconsin who were really great folks who genuinely loved

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Jesus, but they couldn't commit to a church because they could always point out 100 reasons why.

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And yet, their personal lives were a mess, their marriage was a mess, their finances were a mess, everything was just a mess.

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Because these are things that are reflective not just of our spiritual state but of our life.

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If you have commitment issues, if you've got issues of covenanting together with a community, then that's going to follow you in many other aspects of your life.

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So with this particular couple, you know, my admonition to them was like, just commit.

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Let your yes be yes, your no be no. Church is not going to be perfect. Pastor is not going to be perfect. You're not going to be perfect.

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As long as we all understand that, we'll probably be okay. But they never got there.

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They never got there. And so unfortunately, pastoralist Christians are those who, again, tend to be critical of the church but offer no solutions.

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And these are folks who don't have a firm grasp of the theology of church membership.

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The theology of church membership in relation to things like Matthew 16, Matthew 18, it's our conviction here in our church, and this is what's usually called a

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Baptist distinctive. A Baptist distinctive in our circle is our form of church government.

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What is our form of church government? Do we have a pope?

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No. Are we ruled totally by elders?

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No. Our form of government would be then congregational. Okay. So you have different levels of…you'll have a lot of different forms of church government, but the two main ones are kind of what's called papal, and so that's having like a pope or archbishop or something to that degree who rules over the church.

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So you have a particular office that rules over the church. Then you have kind of what the Presbyterian…so anyone know what the word

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Presbyterian means? Okay, so we get the word

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Presbyterian comes from the Greek word for elder, presbyter, and it means essentially elder ruled, so it means that the elders kind of run the church, the congregation.

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And then you have what's again a Baptist distinctive, and that is congregationalism. Congregationalism is a

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Puritan Baptist distinctive, and that means that the congregation collectively exercises authority.

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It's not just one person, one office, it is a collective authority. These keys of the kingdom are for all of God's people to share collectively, right?

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So this is a New Testament theology of ecclesiology. Ecclesiology just means, fancy word for the purpose or theology or teaching of the church, of what it means to be a church.

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Yeah, yeah, this is a Puritanical and also a Baptist distinctive.

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And so, because again, think about church history for a moment. You know, even during the Protestant Reformation, Protestants, if you look at some of the denominations that come out of Anglicanism, Lutheranism, you know, you have elders, pastors, bishops, archbishops, you know, this kind of high ecclesiology that is kind of a vestige of the papal system, right?

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And, you know, the Puritans were the first ones to be like, no, we understand the Bible to be teaching that this is, the keys of the kingdom are something that we collectively hold.

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It's not just one office or person. And so, this is why, you know, democracy flows out of a

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Puritan tradition, okay? So, in Western American history, it's when you have the

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Puritans coming over to the new world that you begin to see the formation of democracy.

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For instance, I grew up in the state of Connecticut. Connecticut, if you've ever seen a Connecticut license plate, it says the

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Constitution State. The reason why Connecticut has the motto being the Constitution State is because it is the first state or territory that adopted a constitution.

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And when you look at that original constitution, it's called the First Orders of Connecticut. This is the first constitution in the

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United States. It was based upon a biblical worldview, and the first opening words of the

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First Orders of Connecticut was that this document, this constitution, is based upon the gospel of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So, they understood that a congregational, almost,

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I hate to use this term because it's so convoluted today, but democratic system was the biblical system, and they wanted to ingrain that also in our civil system.

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So, we had the religious system that was congregational -led. That was not congregational -led, but it's congregational because it's the collective power authority of the people, and then they wanted to see that, but it's also still under the leadership of elders, so it's still elder -led, not elder -ruled.

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In a similar system today, we're in what's supposed to be our republic today, is we're supposed to have a similar system where we're led, not ruled by our leaders.

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So, our elected officials are called civil servants because they're to serve us, not us serving them.

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Now, it's been kind of changed in practice a little bit over time, become convoluted, but you see how this early understanding of congregationalism really is what led to modern democracy today, for better or for worse, but it is this biblical theology surrounding the concept of the keys of the kingdom, how to identify a citizen, how to identify a

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Christian. This was brought into the civil world through Baptist and Puritan understanding of the keys of the kingdom and church membership.

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Does that make sense? And so, yes. Well, they would say yes.

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Yeah, so I've noticed a lot of evangelical churches are heading towards the Presbyterian model as well, in that a lot of evangelical churches are no longer congregational.

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So, if you look at like Matt Chandler's church, Acts 29, all these really trendy evangelical churches, they're more elder -ruled now.

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They would call themselves elder -led and they may be congregational to a degree like where they might vote on budget issues and things like that, but beyond that, there really isn't much voting.

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And so, a lot of churches today are adopting an elder -ruled, you know,

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Presbyterian model essentially. And their argument for it is that the

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Bible says that obviously churches need to have elders. Scripture says, obey your leaders in the Lord. Scripture says that elders are essentially, you know, the leaders.

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So, you know, why would we be led by the congregation when the church is supposed to be subject to its leaders?

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And of course, there is some validity to that, but that's harmonized perfectly within a congregational model because, for instance, in our church, you recognize when we have our church meetings, you know, it's who's leading the meeting?

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The pastors. The elders are leading the meeting, and we usually try to lead also through consensus.

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So, you know, if we have something that we have a deep conviction about, we're going to teach you on it.

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We're going to try to persuade you, not just because we think our position is best, but because we have a sincere desire to adhere to the

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Scriptures. And so we try to minister to you in that, and the church elders will make a recommendation as to how we think a church vote should go.

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And so we've seen that recently in the life of our church where we say, here's our recommendation.

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Here's why we believe this to be the right case. And it's our hope that the congregation affirms that, and they affirm it through the voting process, okay?

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And that's still elder -led because we're leading, and we're persuading you.

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But as I'm always reminded of what the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1, that we are not masters over your faith, but we are fellow workers for your joy.

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And so it's a servant leadership position as a pastor in helping persuade the people of God to think more biblically about things.

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And so unfortunately many evangelical churches and Presbyterian churches have a different view of church government, which is not to say that these church structures are completely devoid of voting.

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There are far from congregational in the biblical sense.

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Are there thoughts or questions? So, that's an area again where, you know, within Protestantism you have a divergence between Protestant denominations that hold to vestiges of the old papal system, right?

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And the papal system is one that's marked with unbiblical practices like, you know, papal baptism, high church ecclesiology, which is to say it has a high governance that looms over the church.

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So, you'll have, you know, pastors who are way too powerful. You'll have bishops, archbishops, and maybe some papal, you know, a person or leader.

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These are all vestiges of Rome. And so when you look at within Protestantism, those who have the least vestiges of Rome would be

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Puritans, would be Baptists, and so Reformed Baptists in that, to be clear.

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Again, so these are Baptist distinctives, and these are obviously things that come from the

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Scriptures. Any questions so far? I like questions. Questions are good.

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Okay. What else is referred to as a reason that baptism is required for church membership?

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What are some of the other arguments that have come forward in this book so far? So, we see that baptisms where faith goes public, baptism is a sign, initiating sign, oath sign of the new covenant, baptism is the passport of the kingdom and the citizens swearing in ceremony.

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What are some other arguments that are presented in this book that demonstrate that we, you know, the importance of baptism and church membership?

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Yeah. Yeah. Part's part of it. And that's a great point, you know. So, we understand that baptism is a sign that you are part of the church, and Paedo -Baptists, you know, include children.

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Now, I don't know the answer to this, but a question

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I'd love to see is, do they actually keep them on the membership rolls? So, if a baby is baptized, are they now members?

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And this is one of the reasons why Paedo -Baptists tend to be elder -ruled is because, again, in a congregational system, then that baby would get to vote, right?

37:11

Because they'd have the authority to exercise the keys of the kingdom. Because if we baptize them, we're formally recognizing them as a

37:17

Christian. But this is why Paedo -Baptism is linked closely to an elder -ruled model where congregationalism isn't the rule of the church.

37:40

Yeah, that's right. So, the assumption is that because… So, like, for instance, Roman Catholics, you've heard of the term godparents, right?

37:49

And so, the purpose of a godparent, theologically, is that this person now will serve as an instrument to help rear this child in the ways of the faith so they would not depart from it.

38:03

So, you have the natural parents, they're going to raise up this child both physically, spiritually, mentally, but now they also have the assistance of these godparents who are going to instill these

38:13

Christian principles, teachings, morals, so they don't also depart from it. But, man, that's not the practice.

38:21

I mean, if you know Roman Catholics and people who have, you know, do those godparent things, I have seen some of the most ghetto people in the world be godparents.

38:29

I'm like, wow, are you a godparent? Like, you don't even, you know, you smoke weed and you don't even go to church, and you're a godparent.

38:37

It's just, it's a bizarro world. And though the intention is kind of interesting and nice, yeah, it's just not a biblical, you know, thing.

38:49

I mean, that's why it's the community of the church that needs to come alongside families, children, and not just assign some, you know, godparent of some sort.

39:01

You know, I had a weird thing over Christmas. My cousin, who moved to Charlotte recently, his girlfriend, he grew up Jehovah Witness.

39:10

His fiance is Roman Catholic, and they're having a baby, and they want to baptize the baby in Roman Catholicism.

39:20

And they know I'm a pastor, and then they asked me, could you baptize the baby?

39:25

And I'm like, uh, no. I said, I'd love to baptize him, maybe when he's older, and he believes in Jesus.

39:33

I said, that's when I'll baptize him. But even a lot of Roman Catholics don't have a really firm understanding.

39:40

Like, I'm pretty sure a priest has to do this. Yeah, priests, you need to, like, be a part of a church here. You need to, you know, seek out a priest if that's what you want to do.

39:48

Yeah, you wouldn't, I said, you wouldn't want me to baptize your baby in the first place. Like, it's not something you would actually want.

39:54

So a lot of it is just very cultural, very cultural. It's not, you know, there's not a firm basis in scripture or theology for it.

40:02

So, any other thoughts or questions? So, that's a good point.

40:08

Any other points that were brought up in regard to reasons why baptism is required for church membership that you maybe found personally persuasive, or maybe you had questions about?

40:31

Say again. Well, that's why those churches have other ordinances such as confirmation.

40:50

Yeah. Yeah. So, within Lutheranism, within Catholicism, within Presbyterianism, you have some form of confirmation.

41:00

So, confirmation is simply a process that maybe a young person would go through who was baptized as an infant, and they'll go through this process of usually going through some catechism, and then having, you know, questions and answers, similar to what we do here on Sunday morning.

41:17

You know, we, on Sunday, we have, of course, teaching from the catechism. And once they go through that process, and the priest or the elder is satisfied in their, you know, understanding or grasp, they'll say, well, now we're going to confirm your baptism.

41:35

So, you were baptized, right? So, we don't have to do that again. We're just not going to confirm it and say that now we formally recognize you as maybe a member of the church or as a

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Christian. And so, yeah, confirmation is the process that they have in place.

41:52

And what biblical precedent is there for that? Zero. There is not.

41:59

There is not. And I've read a lot of good Presbyterian works. I've read a lot of really interesting things on the understanding of the covenant, you know, covenant theology.

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And I have yet to find a persuasive argument for this. And so, it's, you know, it's not just because I'm Baptist.

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I'm Baptist because I don't find a persuasive argument for these things. You know, again,

42:25

I think we should not take for granted the wealth of theology that our faith is based upon and how good, solid biblical theology informs our teaching worldview here.

42:45

And so, these are truly gems and gifts to the church. Again, these are not to judge our brothers and sisters who necessarily hold to those views, but clearly from our perspective, you know, we think they're in error.

42:58

Any other thoughts or questions? Well, we've got the last 10 minutes here, so we're going to just go over some of these last things on page 168.

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Again, this is a shorter chapter that just kind of summarizes his argument so far.

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And so, under the headlines, he says, because baptism is how a church publicly identifies someone as a

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Christian, it's also a necessary criterion by which a church recognizes who is a

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Christian. So, again, what happens prior to baptism in our context?

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What do we hear from them first? Your confession of faith or testimony, right?

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And then what we do as a church is we weigh that testimony. We hear that testimony, we weigh it, might talk to them, might ask a couple questions.

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These are things that we invite people to do in our congregational system is when you hear testimony, talk to that person at lunch.

43:55

Call them during the week and say, hey, I just wanted to talk to you. I really appreciate your testimony. You know, hey, maybe

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I had a question or just have an encouragement for you, you know? These are things that we want to really encourage in our, you know, congregational system because it's by this means that we are declaring collectively, exercising those keys of the kingdom.

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What do keys do? Open and close doors, okay? You need a key in order to get into a room.

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You need a key in order to get into a building. What we're talking about is the kingdom of God, and we collectively share in those keys.

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So, what we're saying is when we exercise those keys and we open a door for a person whose testimony we have just heard, what we're saying is, come in, brother.

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We recognize you as a brother. We recognize you as a Christian. Come on in, right?

44:47

That's no simple task. That is a weighty thing. And so, there's a weightiness that comes with congregationalism that I don't want it to be lost on us.

44:57

And so, we are publicly declaring along with them that they are indeed Christians, okay?

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Which is important for us not to just, you know,

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I've baptized lots of people, and I have not always been fully convinced that they were

45:17

Christians when they were baptized. But because it's one of the things you do as a

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Southern Baptist is you baptize. Like, that is your thing. You get really good at it, right?

45:28

You get people in water. You become really efficient at it. Maybe a little bit too much so, which is why within the

45:35

Southern Baptist denomination, you're seeing a lot of upheaval recently in the last five, ten years. It's because I think we've brought in way too many people who are not truly converted, who are not truly regenerated.

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And that begins to erode the foundation of any good denominations.

45:52

When you bring in a lot of people who probably shouldn't have been brought in the first place, you see a lot of erosion, you know, at the foundation.

46:02

Even, you know, people who've been presidents of the, you know,

46:08

SBC convention probably shouldn't have been presidents. Again, it's this easy believism, it's this seeker sensitivity that has infiltrated the church that is going to be the downfall of mainline denominations in America.

46:25

Baptism is like the team jersey of Christianity. I don't like this one so much. Baptism is like the team jersey of Christianity.

46:32

It identifies a Christian so the church can recognize them, okay? The problem with that is a lot, there's a lot of people wearing a jersey they shouldn't be wearing, right?

46:42

I think I use this term a lot. You know, here in this church, we don't have a lot of football fans, right? Not really.

46:47

Even though we've got like the 49ers like five minutes down the road, there's not a lot of football fans here. Now, I lived in Surgeon Bay, which was 45 minutes away from Green Bay.

46:57

It was another religion. People were so obsessed with football, so obsessed with the

47:03

Green Bay Packers. And so I use a lot of football analogies in my preaching and sermons there.

47:09

And I'm not very knowledgeable about football in the first place. But I always say, you know, football is a team sport.

47:18

But not everyone who claims victory is on the team. There's a lot of people who wear the jersey and they go to the stadiums and when their team wins, the first thing they say is, we won.

47:31

We? They were sitting in the stands. They were sitting in the pews. They didn't do anything.

47:37

How can they claim victory? They weren't on the field. They didn't do the hard work. They didn't do all the things that were required of them to be part of the team.

47:44

They just wore a jersey, right? And because of that, they think they can now associate with the winners. And man, is that a good metaphor for modern day

47:52

Christianity? A lot of people just put on the jersey and then when things go well, they say, we won.

47:59

When things don't go well, they say, well, I wasn't really ever part of the team in the first place. Right?

48:05

And so they claim the highs and then they walk away from the lows. And the purpose of a church community is that we're together in the highs and in the lows.

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That we stick together. That we truly understand the commitment that's being made as a covenant community.

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And so whether the team wins or loses, we're in it together. That's church.

48:31

Amen? And so it's not enough for someone to claim to be a

48:37

Christian or for everyone in the church to think someone is a Christian. Jesus has bound the church's judgment to baptism.

48:45

Jesus gave us baptism in part so we can tell one other part from the world. Again, it's an identifying mark.

48:53

Church baptism, church membership. These are identifying marks of what distinguishes between someone who is in the family and outside the family.

49:05

Church membership is a statement by the church, not by an individual Christian. Okay? Now this is important because one of the flaws of modern evangelicalism today, again as well, is the overemphasis on rugged spiritual individualism.

49:21

Okay? Where again, the passportless Christian is like, another term for it is the lone

49:27

Christian. You ever heard of that term before? The lone Christian is again, same thing as the passportless Christian, is the

49:32

Christian who's usually pretty critical of the church, who doesn't value the covenanting aspect of community and church membership.

49:44

And so the lone Christian will say, well I don't need the church. I can just do church in my backyard.

49:49

I can do church in my living room. I'm doing church in the shower. You know, church is wherever their feet touches.

49:56

And that's not true because you are not the church. The church is the covenant community.

50:04

We are part of it, but you are not it. You're part of it. Okay? And so again, it's not for the individual to simply say,

50:17

I'm a Christian, therefore that's good enough. That's not even a biblical, that's not even biblical in the slightest because according to the

50:24

Old Testament and the New Testament, what is required for a matter to be established? What is required for a matter to be established?

50:37

Exactly. Deuteronomy chapter 17, New Testament teaches this, Matthew 18, it's by two or three witnesses that every matter is established.

50:48

This is why Jesus in Matthew 18 says, where there's two or three gathered in my name, I'm in their midst.

50:54

Okay? It's because it's when we come together collectively, exercising those keys of the kingdom, that a matter can be established.

51:03

So it's not biblical for a person to think of himself as the only person who declares himself a

51:10

Christian. Every matter is established by two or three witnesses. Okay?

51:16

Last part of this is because membership is a prerogative of the church, the church speaks for Jesus, the church may extend membership only to those whom

51:25

Jesus has authorized to be members. And baptism is among the criteria Jesus has given the church for recognizing and affirming

51:32

Christians. So again, another premise that we're fighting here is it is not appropriate for one to be considered a member of the church apart from Christian baptism.

51:42

Okay? An example of this I shared before as well is in my previous church. I had a guy who was a

51:49

Christian for 20 years, never been baptized, served as a youth pastor, never baptized.

51:55

And he just, you know, just never got around to it. And I was like, how are you a member of the church?

52:03

He's like, what do you mean? He's like, how are you? Like, he was actually a member. I was like, because you're a member of the church, but you haven't been baptized.

52:09

He's like, how did that happen? Well, I don't know. And I love this guy,

52:15

Patrick, he's a good friend of mine. And man, has he really come a long way in the Lord. And now they're still serving at the church in Wisconsin and just doing a great job.

52:26

What's that? I did baptize him. And the funniest thing is that this guy is like six foot five, 400 pounds, just a big bear of a man.

52:36

And so, you know, I'm tiny, I'm, you know, five, seven, five, eight. And so, you know, so we went to the waters, we went to the lake to baptize him.

52:48

And I said, all right, he said, all right, how are we going to do this, boss? That's how he always calls me, he calls me boss. I said, all right, you're gonna have to get on your knees because I can't baptize you any other way.

52:58

And I needed my other guy, my other elder to hold him too, because he's just a big guy. And so, all right, so it was a team effort, two or three, in order to baptize this guy.

53:09

But man, has he just come full circle in his walk with the Lord and just so pleased with him.

53:15

And again, this is a criteria, this is a requirement for church membership is to be baptized.

53:25

And so, there's a commitment issue that I see

53:30

Christians fall into, it's a trap, where they think, you know, baptism, you know, they see the seriousness of baptism, which is good, yet they claim

53:42

Christianity apart from baptism. And it just doesn't make any sense, right? They say, oh no, I'm a Christian, I'm a

53:47

Christian, I just, I'm not sure if I'm ready to be baptized. Well, then how do you know you're a

53:53

Christian? Like, seriously, people think this through. They think being a

53:59

Christian means that maybe you prayed a prayer one time, a long time ago. Maybe it means that you loosely agree with most of what's taught in the

54:08

Bible. Maybe it means you go to church every once in a while. Those are what people think makes a Christian a Christian, but it's not.

54:14

What makes a Christian a Christian, first and foremost, is belief, faith, repentance, and baptism.

54:22

This is what makes a Christian, okay? And that baptism through the testimony of that individual before covenant community of believers who affirm that testimony and affirm him in his walk with the

54:35

Lord Jesus. This is what makes a Christian a Christian, and that was one of the things that were brought up in this, maybe two or three chapters ago in this book, is what makes a

54:42

Christian a Christian. And so, we don't get just to declare ourselves Christians, we, these are things that need to be affirmed, and it's affirmed through the testimony and baptism of that individual before a congregation.

54:57

Any other thoughts or questions before we close? So, again, in summary,

55:05

I think this book is doing a tremendous job of laying this solid theological framework for the importance and necessity of baptism and church membership, and that these two things are linked.

55:20

You cannot have one without the other. You cannot be a member without baptism. And, you know, you can be a

55:28

Christian without being baptized, meaning, again, you'll die and you'll go to heaven, praise

55:33

God, but without baptism, you are in disobedience.

55:41

And that has to be crystal clear. If you are not, that's one of the things that convinced Patrick to get baptized in our previous church.

55:49

And I said, Patrick, you're disobeying Jesus, and you need to repent of that, and you need to get baptized.

55:57

And when it was put in those terms, he says, I never thought of it that way. When's the next baptism service, okay?

56:04

And so, if you don't believe, you know, if you don't believe you're not a Christian, but if you don't get baptized, you're disobeying

56:10

Jesus, okay? And so, when we think of it in terms of what is good, going back to that text in Micah chapter 6,

56:18

God has told us what is good. And among those things is to love justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our

56:28

God. Walk humbly with Him by submitting to His ordinances and submitting to His way of doing business.

56:37

Last chance for thoughts or questions. John, you got something, you always got something cooking.

56:53

There's exceptions of course, but they don't make the rule. That's right.

57:03

Those kinds of things, but they're not the rule. Amen. Well, let's close in prayer.

57:15

Our Father in heaven, we thank You, Lord, that You have given us Your Word, which is clear, concise. Lord, thank

57:21

You that in the New Testament, You have set a model for us to follow, to follow in the footsteps of the apostolic church, to follow in the footsteps of our

57:28

Lord Jesus Christ, who Himself was baptized in order to fulfill all righteousness. Lord, if our

57:35

Savior went into the waters of baptism, how much more should we? For He who went into those waters of baptism to be baptized by John the

57:44

Baptist had no sin. He was indeed the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. How much more should we who are sinful, those of us who have fallen short of the glory and the mark of God, ought to be baptized in order to have the forgiveness of sin, the remission of sins through the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross?

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Lord Jesus, be with us as we consider these matters. Bring clarity by means of Your Spirit and by means of the clear teaching of Scripture, that we too would be an apostolic church that would devote ourselves to the apostles' teachings, to the fellowship, and the breaking of bread in prayer as we will do even this morning as we gathered in the name of the

58:22

Lord Jesus Christ to exercise these priestly keys for the glory of Your Son and of the