A Discussion About Baptism

Bethlehem Bible Church

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January 13, 2008

00:00: Well, before I start, I just want to read a little letter, if I can find it.
00:11: December 12, 2007. Dear Pastor Abendroth, Thank you for preaching the
00:19: Word of God. Thank you for being our pastor. I like our church.
00:28: Thank you for putting the Word of God in me. Thank you for teaching me and my family about the
00:37: Lord. Thank you for being our pastor. Thank you for being nice to the people in our church.
00:48: Your friend, Rachel Bertrand. Thank you. Maria just said, you wrote that?
01:04: And I underlined where it said, thank you for putting the Word of God in me. That's really what we want to do.
01:11: That's our hope and our desire, that the Lord Jesus Christ is exalted through His Word, and that we put that in our children.
01:20: And that God takes that Word, as Paul said in 1 Thessalonians, and make it run swiftly down into the depths of that young child.
01:29: And so, if you want to make a copy of this, but I want it back though. Okay, thank you.
01:36: Rachel, thank you. All right, today we're going to talk about baptism and kids.
01:42: And so, if it's a big flop today, I've made other decisions in my life that have flopped, but I thought after two weeks from the pulpit of exhortation of baptism and discussing this topic, many people were asking the question, well, what about my kids?
01:58: And what about the age? And what about these questions that relate personally to my daughter and my son?
02:07: I thought if eight people have asked me questions, I should just cancel all Sunday schools, and then we could just talk about baptism and kids.
02:16: But I don't really think it's that hard, because I have a new solution. And I have a new thing that can help us, so we don't have to talk about this today.
02:24: This is called baptism in a bottle. Okay, and one of you backsliders gave me this a long time ago.
02:34: And can you believe Dallas Brown gave me this? Baptism in a bottle.
02:40: And this is all printed on here real nice. If you open it up, it's got soap in it and stuff. The next thing it says, wash away your sins, bubble bath.
02:53: And it gets maybe funnier. It says, bishop tested, cardinal approved.
03:02: It's called the sanctified soak. It says, removes stubborn guilt.
03:10: And then the laughing stops when it says on the bottom, for liars, cheaters, and wrongdoers.
03:16: Well, it doesn't have to stop. Directions for use. Kneel before thy tub.
03:26: Reflect upon wrongdoing. Run warm bath. Pour in enough bubble bath to equal your sins.
03:38: In parentheses, double the amount you estimated. Submerge thyself in blessed bubble.
03:49: Soak, arise, cleanse from sin. And ready to do it again.
03:59: Help redeem sinners the easy way. Well, I'm not setting that in front of the cross.
04:08: They're only that easy. I mean, part of it, it's kind of funny because it's language that we know.
04:14: But there's nothing funny about baptism or obeying or anything like that. So today what I wanted to do is
04:19: I know we've got lots of adults here, but I'm not going to try to give my answers to you. I hope you're informed. I hope you can be encouraged.
04:26: But I'm going to try to talk to the kids. And so today is the pastoral question and answer.
04:31: You can ask any question about baptism. You may be nervous. Maybe you don't want to speak up too loudly.
04:38: But I want you to ask me questions. And if I know the answer, I'll give you the answer. If I don't,
04:44: I'll just filibuster like I usually do. If I don't know an answer. But seriously, kids, I want you to ask the questions.
04:50: And my goal is that you know what the Word of God says so you can then obey.
04:57: It doesn't help you if you know not what you believe and try to obey something anyway.
05:02: We want to learn and then we want to do. And so my goal, parents, is not to have a bunch of 8 -year -olds baptized.
05:10: But my goal is that they understand belief and then they understand baptism. And then we'll have some discussions.
05:17: Okay? So enough talking for now. Are there any kids who have a question?
05:23: If you have a question, just raise your hand. Tell me your name and then give me your question. And we're not going to laugh at you or anything like that.
05:32: We got all our laughing out of the way with this bubble bath and stuff like that. The tempting do -it -again scent.
05:39: Any questions that we have? Yes. Mr. Johanson.
05:52: Okay. Hey, pretty good that we had a question. I thought, hey, elders, help me in case we get no questions today.
05:58: What am I going to do? So we've got a question. Let's just say it one more time. Okay. So the question is, when we get baptized, is it to show,
06:13: A, obedience to God, and, B, to show other people, in fact, we want to follow Christ, or is there any other reason we would be baptized?
06:22: Any kid have an answer to that? Why do we get baptized? Yes. Okay, good.
06:42: We're showing others that we've trusted Christ. Yes. Good. All right. That was part of the question. Thank you.
06:48: Anybody else? What else does baptism show?
06:57: A, we want to follow Christ. B, we want to show other people that we follow Christ. Is there something that you're getting at there that I don't know?
07:03: Is there a way, Caleb, that you're after a question to be answered, but I don't understand it?
07:12: Yeah, please. I knew you were here for a reason. Because I could just give you the answer and go on, but I want to get to the heart of it because I want to help.
07:33: Okay. I think that's a great question. A congregation and young ones, if the
07:38: Bible says to do something and you don't do it, what do we call that? It's sin. We want to obey
07:43: God. That's exactly right. It's called sin. So if you learn about baptism and you are saved, should you be baptized?
07:56: The answer is yes. Here's where it gets kind of sticky.
08:08: If we believed in infant baptism, we could just sprinkle it on the head and you'd be set, right? Well, you wouldn't really be set, but we wouldn't have to deal with it.
08:17: But now what we've got, and this is what I wanted to talk about today, we've got some young kids. I notice in Germany you don't tell
08:26: Germans that speak English about kids because they think, meh. Talk about children. We have younger children who say,
08:34: I grew up learning about Christianity. I believe in Jesus. I don't believe in Buddha. I don't believe
08:40: I can save myself. I've recognized that I'm sinful, and I think that God has saved me. I have new desires and new things that I like and things that I don't like anymore that I used to like.
08:50: And so now I want to be baptized. Well, it becomes difficult because the
08:55: Bible doesn't tell us anything about age. How old are you? Eleven. Going on about 15,
09:02: I think, yeah? Eleven years old. So what do we do? Austin, were you baptized at the church that you were at before you got here?
09:10: How old were you when you got baptized? Twelve, okay. So here's what
09:18: I'm after, young people. If you think you believe in the Gospel, and your parents say, you know what,
09:25: I think you do too, then here's the next step. The next step is you need to come and talk with me.
09:34: Now, here's what happens. Sometimes you're too afraid to come and talk with me because you think
09:39: I'm some guy up here throwing down thunderbolts from Mount Sinai.
09:46: Let me just tell you a little secret. I don't even need this. This is like special inside information today for you kids.
09:54: I want you to think, kids, that I'm a nice guy, that we run around and do fun things, and I'm crazy at home, and you come over and you're like,
10:03: I never knew he acted like that, and we had the Johansons over for New Year's Eve, and it becomes midnight, and I have some little firecrackers, inch -and -a -halfers from 20 years ago, and I lit them.
10:17: And as I lit them, the problem with firecrackers that have 20 -year -old fuses, it only takes like a quarter of a second before they explode.
10:27: I should have just obeyed the law and did some sparkler or something. I think those are probably illegal in Massachusetts, aren't they?
10:34: Well, we were in California when all this happened. And I lit the fuse outside, and the problem is they start exploding about a quarter of a second later, so I run in as fast as I can back into the house at midnight.
10:48: There's ice on the front porch. I fall down, kill my knee. I thought, it's off to the
10:54: ER. It's just the way we go. I disobey the law and lie to Black Cat and have to go to jail for it.
11:01: But I think the Johanson boys were thinking, when Pastor Avondroth's up in the pulpit, it is the
11:07: Bible, and thus saith the Lord, and I don't want to be known as a guy who is not authoritative and who is not aggressive and who doesn't want to just tell you the truth, but I'm also just a regular guy too and like to have fun.
11:22: So what needs to happen is if you say you're a Christian and you talk to your parents, you need to call me so we can sit down and talk about your faith.
11:30: It's hard for your parents to look at you and say, well, I think you're a
11:36: Christian, and therefore you should get baptized. I think it's better for the parents to say,
11:42: I think you're saved and you might need to get baptized, but why don't you go talk to the church? Because it's just like the adults.
11:49: When the adults think they should be baptized, what do they need to do? Kids? Louder? They need to call and talk to one of the leaders.
11:59: So if you want to be baptized, you need to call us and talk to us because we want to walk you through the same things that I would with an adult.
12:05: And if you're too afraid to make the phone call, then maybe your parents could help you, or maybe it's just not a time for you to be baptized because if you can't make a phone call, how can you get in the waters and give a testimony?
12:17: It's almost like a built -in thing where we're saying, if you're not ready to even make a phone call, to look me in the eye and say,
12:24: Pastor Mike, can I meet with you? Then you're not really ready to be baptized. And what
12:30: I'm going to ask you is I'm going to ask you about your testimony, who God is, who the Bible is. Your parents can be with you in the room if you want, but I'm not going to let them talk.
12:39: They can't answer for you. I'm not going to make you tell me a bunch of Greek words or anything, but I'm going to go straight to the
12:46: Latin. No. No, I just want to ask you, and I want to talk about it.
12:53: There's no children baptized in the Bible ever. And so I want to make sure that I don't all of a sudden start baptizing you when you're too young.
13:03: Because what would happen if I baptized you when you weren't a Christian? Would that mean you'd have to go to hell or something?
13:12: No. What would it mean, though? What would be something maybe that would be bad that would come out of it? You might think you're going to heaven when you're not a
13:21: Christian. So I don't want to do that. So I want to guard against that. I want to be a good pastor and a good under -shepherd where I want to teach you, here's what the
13:31: Gospel says, and we want to reinforce what you believe. And we can just sit down and have a nice conversation.
13:36: I'm not going to treat you meanly or poorly or anything like that, but I want you to come and talk with me because if you believe that Jesus is the
13:47: Savior and you're born again and you want to obey, you'll do whatever it takes to get baptized, won't you?
13:54: And so the first thing is come and talk to me. Yes, Daniel. Sure, that's a good question.
14:10: One of the things we'll try to do as we talk with you is try to figure out, is it that you just know the facts but you don't really know the person?
14:21: So I know a lot of facts about people. I know lots of facts about George Bush, President Bush, but I don't know him personally.
14:27: I never met him. Who's met George Bush here? Anyone? President Bush? You have,
14:34: Carl? Wow. Well, no wonder he sits in the front row. Can you kids believe that Carl Larson has met
14:39: George Bush? Wow. Which one? Both of them. Really? How did you meet him?
14:53: Hey. Hey, W, Carl's in town. Sure, come on in. Wow. But we can know all about somebody, and you hear every week from your mother, from your
15:08: Sunday school teacher. Some of you go to Christian school. Some of you have Christian homeschools. You know all about somebody, but you don't personally know them.
15:15: And in the Bible, can you think of some kind of person or thing that knows about Jesus who's not a
15:22: Christian, who's not born again? Demons. Can you imagine?
15:27: Demons and Satan know all about God, but they're not born again. So what your parents want to do and what we want to do, kids, is to see from what we can know with experience and wisdom, do you know the facts or do you know the person?
15:42: You've got to know the facts, yes? But that's not enough. We can teach you the facts from the church pulpit and Sunday school class, but we can't teach you to know him intimately because it's what
15:55: God has to do in your life. He's the one that has to do it. So that's a great question. We want to try to find that out as we talk with you in our study or office or home or wherever it is.
16:08: So the question is, if I am a believer, should I be baptized? Yes, the answer is you should be baptized.
16:15: The problem we're going to have at our church now that we've been talking about baptism, some of you maybe are going to want to be baptized and we think, you know, we don't know if you're old enough to be baptized.
16:24: And that's going to get into stickier questions we'll probably get in a little bit. Okay, let's get back to a kid's question.
16:31: Does any kid here have a question? Any young person have a question about baptism? When I look it over at the kids and then they look someplace else and that means they don't.
16:46: Okay, kids, what does the word baptism mean? Only kids answer. Come on, what's it mean?
16:53: Dunking. When we first got out here, somebody said, you know what we're going to get is we're going to get one of those dunking things in the back of the church and you can take a bean bag and, you know, you throw it at the red center and then
17:09: I get to sit up on that little thing and then if you hit it just right, then I get dunked in. Some of you would pay to do that, wouldn't you?
17:21: Oh, how many of you would pay to dunk me? All right. We have a new
17:28: Mozambique fundraiser. Mark Westcott said,
17:35: I'll take pictures. So seriously, let's just get it set up in here, set it up outside.
17:43: Let's go for it. I get to determine how much you have to pay per shot. No, just kidding. But when
17:49: I hit the water and go under, that dunking is what baptism is. It means to go underwater.
17:57: The word means, you know, if you've got a friend and you're swimming and they're bobbing up and down, you take them on the top of the head, brothers, and you grab your sister's hair and you push them underwater, you're dunking them.
18:08: The word is baptism. You're baptizing them, but it's not like a church baptism, but that's the word, is to dunk under.
18:18: Anybody in the Bible, kids, who you know is in heaven but never got dunked underwater?
18:29: John the Baptist? That's a good question. I wonder if John the Baptist was ever baptized into Jesus' death.
18:35: I don't think so. John the Baptist was dunked underwater with his own baptism. On Jewish baptism, but then
18:43: I think he got his head cut off before he got baptized as a Christian into Jesus' baptism because Jesus hadn't died yet.
18:50: It's a good, almost, not quite. You know, wait, wait, let me correct myself,
18:57: Caitlin. I don't think John the Baptist was ever baptized in a Christian baptism, but we would believe he'd be in heaven.
19:03: Right? So you're right. Good for you. Well, let's forget the
19:09: Old Testament saints. Abraham. I think of somebody in the New Testament. Yes.
19:15: There you go, the thief on the cross. How bad was the thief? We just go, oh, the thief on the cross. That's not what you did.
19:21: I don't mean you, but we, I, me, myself, and I. Thief on the cross.
19:27: Remember how bad he was? Just how bad was the thief on the cross? Bad enough to be crucified.
19:35: He was a bad man. He was one of those guys that when your parents are watching
19:41: TV and they're watching the news, and the TV comes, and the story comes on about that person, your parents say, turn off the
19:49: TV. We can't listen to that because it's so bad. And here he is on the cross, and he's saying bad things about Jesus on the cross.
19:57: Yeah? That's what he started off doing, saying bad things, and they were hurling abuse at Jesus.
20:04: What does hurl mean when you hurl abuse? It's like a baseball pitcher.
20:11: This is a hurl right here. Okay, ready, kids? Right, like that.
20:20: Hurl, they're saying so many bad things. It's like a pitcher throwing things right at Jesus. And then all of a sudden, what did
20:28: Jesus do on that cross to that man? Saved him.
20:35: And the guy started saying, you know, in the midst of all this, don't say bad things about Jesus. We deserve what we get.
20:41: He didn't. In the midst of all this, God saves him, and then did God give him a promise?
20:47: God the Son gave him a promise at Calvary? Yes, Peter. Wow, today you'll be with me in paradise.
20:57: What a great word for heaven, paradise. Just sounds like the Garden of Eden, but better. That's the same kind of language, a beautiful garden and flowers and just awesome, better than Eden.
21:08: You're going to be with me in paradise. So what do I do if I'm a pastor and I think, you know, here's a young man or a young lady, they say they're a
21:17: Christian, but they're still not to the point where the elders think they should be baptized, and we don't baptize you, will you go to heaven if you die?
21:31: Of course, because if God saves you, he saves you by his grace, and you can be not baptized and go to heaven.
21:41: All right, let's just, without giving a full -orbed thing, an answer to every question, I want to get some more from the kids, and we'll just kind of keep building.
21:48: Any kids here in the second row have any questions about baptism? Mr. Goddard, do you have any questions about baptism?
21:58: You look pretty sharp today, by the way. You look better than your dad. It's a compliment.
22:16: Okay, other questions? Because some of these are going to answer
22:22: Caleb's question, too. Is this silent prayer or something?
22:43: Okay, I have other things that I could talk about. Which one of you kids have heard of the Age of Accountability?
22:50: Haley has. What is the Age of Accountability? You ever heard it?
22:56: I'm kind of glad you really haven't heard it because we don't teach it a lot at this church. Do you know why we don't teach it at this church, kids?
23:02: Do you know why I'm glad you don't know about it? Because it's not in the Bible. I'm trying to wake you up a little bit.
23:10: There's no such thing about Age of Accountability in the Bible. There's not some special age at 13 you go, you know what?
23:20: Now you know. Although, it would be good if this was a
23:25: Bible class to get our Bibles. Turn to that last bit of Jonah. Let's go to Jonah.
23:32: Simon barred Jonah? No, this is just Jonah. Okay, Jonah is very interesting.
23:41: And so, I guess we're not going to have too many more questions. So I'm just going to have to...
23:58: All right, who's the hero of the book of Jonah, kids? Jonah's the hero,
24:06: I heard somebody say. No, who's the hero of the book of Jonah? God, because Jonah, he's not too nice of a guy sometimes.
24:12: He does some pretty bad things and some pretty wrong things. And you talk about that word hurl.
24:22: Remember, I was talking about what pitchers do. If you look at chapter 1, verse 4, the Lord hurled a great wind on the sea.
24:30: God made that storm. God and His sovereignty. God and His sovereignty in chapter 4, verse 6, appointed a plant.
24:41: God and His sovereignty in chapter 4, verse 7, appointed a worm. Can you imagine even, kids, the worms obey
24:48: God? I love that. Next time you start digging up some night crawlers, you think the worms even obey
24:56: God. I'll never forget, here's a good story for the kids. There's a man named John Gershner.
25:01: And he was kind of a rough guy. Philadelphia. And he was R .C. Sproul's teacher. You ever heard of the man
25:07: R .C. Sproul? John Gershner was the teacher. And he kind of liked to teach in a way that would get people's attention.
25:14: And so he said to the congregation, do you know, congregation, you are worse than rats.
25:24: And he said it kind of a gruff voice, though. He's like, you're worse than rats. I mean, you think
25:29: I'm hard. You think I'm tough. And he said, you know, at least when God made rats to do what rats do and act with their ratty, rat -like behavior, guess what rats do?
25:42: They act ratty. They are rat -like in their behavior. Why do I have my phone in my pocket?
25:49: That is not good. I usually take that out. That would be very bad if the pastor's phone went off during the middle of the sermon.
25:58: So rats act like rats because God made them act like rats. And God made humans to worship his son.
26:06: And some of them don't. And so rats do what they're designed to do by God. People don't until God changes them.
26:13: So God's in charge of rats. He's in charge of worms. And when we talk about the age of accountability, we look down at the very end of Jonah, chapter 4.
26:24: Jonah didn't want to go preach because he knows God saves ratty Ninevites.
26:30: He saves Ninevites who are very unholy. How many kids know what a wallpaper is?
26:37: This isn't wallpapered, but what's wallpaper? It's paper that you put on a...
26:45: Yeah, there you go. I knew you knew that. You know what kind of wallpaper the Ninevites had? Human skin.
26:53: Human skin. So when you got off the boat in Nineveh and you walked into the harbor, along the wall would be the wallpaper of human skin.
27:03: So you would know, A, you're not in charge. B, obey the speed limit.
27:11: Can you imagine? Obey the laws because there's ruthlessness here.
27:18: And you know what Jonah did? Jonah said, you know, God, I know you're loving. I know you're kind. I know you're merciful. I know you like to forgive.
27:25: And if I go preach to the Ninevites, they're going to what? Those rascals are going to believe.
27:31: I don't want them to believe. God made him go anyway. And then here at the very end, chapter 4, verse 9, then
27:40: God said to Jonah, do you have a good reason to be angry about the plant? What's the answer, kids?
27:46: Is there a good reason? No. And he said,
27:52: I have good reason to be angry even to death. How do you like to talk to God that way?
27:58: That is amazing to me. Then the Lord said, you had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight.
28:13: You're even nice to that plant. He was glad for that plant. He watered that plant. He had that plant right there.
28:19: It kind of grew up in a supernaturally fast way because you don't have a plant that grows up like a sunflower seed to hang up over you for shade overnight.
28:28: It takes a while to grow. He loved that plant. Maybe, I don't know, if I was
28:33: Jonah, I probably would have given a name to that plant. He loved that little plant. Okay.
28:40: What's this have to do with baptism? Everything. Age of accountability at least.
28:48: Verse 11, should I, God, not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120 ,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals.
29:03: Okay, kids, raise your left hand. If you raised your left hand, now try raising your right hand.
29:15: Okay, now raise your mom's left hand. I'm just kidding. You know the difference between your left and right hand.
29:22: What was the passage saying there in Jonah chapter 4? If God is supposed to destroy
29:28: Nineveh like Jonah wanted, lots of people are going to be destroyed.
29:33: And who doesn't know their left hand from their right hand? Little kids. You know when you're a little kid and your daddy says, raise your right hand, and they're like, not too sure, but I got a 50 -50 chance if I go halfway.
29:47: My dad starts to smile, I'll finish. And then they're back and forth, and you have to say, you right with your right hand.
29:55: You right with your right hand. Take a right, take a left. Some of us, even when we get older, and you're driving down the freeway, and we were in Germany, we've got our little
30:04: GPS system, and it says, take a right here, take a left here, and you get mixed up. These kids here were so young, they didn't even know their left from their right hand.
30:12: We don't know. And God said to Jonah, you want me to kill all those little kids too? So even though they were tainted by the fall, and they had
30:21: Adam's sin on them, there still was kind of an innocence there to these kids, and Jonah should have had compassion on them.
30:28: If you think you have to wait until 8, 13 years old, because God won't judge you for your sins until you hit 13,
30:34: I don't want you to believe that. You're 13, you know plenty well right and wrong, and you need to believe in the
30:40: Lord Jesus Christ. So when people say, well, what's the age of accountability? If you're old enough to ask that question, kids, you're accountable.
30:52: You already know. And so that's not the real question. The real question is, do I believe enough that the church will recognize that I believe not just the facts, but the person, and I should be baptized?
31:05: Remember what I said last week, kids? Some people don't want to get up in the water and give a testimony. It's hard giving a testimony.
31:12: What are people more afraid of than anything else in the world besides death? Public speaking.
31:19: When I first used to start speaking, I would sit here, and I'd kind of walk back and forth. I'm thinking, I've got to get up and speak.
31:26: I've got to get up and speak. I've got to get up and speak, and the Bertrands are sitting in the front row. I've got to get up and speak.
31:31: What am I going to do? If you're too nervous to give a public testimony of what
31:39: God has done on a three -by -five card, then either you're not a Christian, you don't understand who
31:45: Jesus really is, or you need some help with us so we can come alongside and encourage.
31:50: Here's the problem, kids, that your parents have. They don't want to force you to become baptized because then it's almost their baptism, not yours.
32:01: They don't want to make you. We also have another problem, too, is we can usually make kids believe in anything.
32:08: If I taught Luke and my kids about Buddha from when he was two years old, he'd probably believe in Buddha until God saved him.
32:16: You think that'd be a fair statement? What a depressing thing that is now that I'm thinking about it.
32:25: Buddha worship, I mean, that is just very unappealing. So we want to make sure you kids don't have your parents' faith, but you have your own faith.
32:33: That's why I want to talk with you. You know what I think I'll do is maybe I'll just get a little teddy bear in my office, too, and I'll hand you the teddy bear, and you can sit at the table and have something to be comforted with so you're not too afraid.
32:45: I don't want you to be afraid of me. But I want you to count what the costs are. All right, there's a bunch of kids back here.
32:51: You guys have no questions about baptism? Yes, Charlie.
33:17: No, that's a good point. Here's what Mr. Crane said. When communion is talked about, it says you better be careful before you take communion and examine yourselves.
33:26: Some people are sick. Some people are dead because they take communion wrong. How about that? Have you ever heard a pastor do a funeral and said, this person here in the casket died because they took communion the wrong way?
33:43: Now, maybe I've done some funerals of people who have taken communion the wrong way, but I just don't know it, and I would never presume.
33:48: So I just don't say anything. I just figured God's sovereign, and he takes them home with his good wisdom.
33:55: But it doesn't say anything, Charlie, about do this carefully.
34:02: But it's almost implied because the adult -functioning person in the
34:09: New Testament church, a kid old enough to act like an adult, would get baptized, and he would also now be part of this whole group that would be un -synagogued, that would be kicked out, that would be ostracized.
34:20: You couldn't buy things. How would you like to go down to Hannaford's kids? Where do you guys shop here?
34:26: Do you guys do, like, upscale stop -and -shop? Or do you like lower -scale de moulas?
34:32: Where are you in all these kind of shopping things? We go to Hannaford's or Market Basket.
34:39: Imagine you went there to go buy some food, and they said, Oh, yeah, you've been baptized, haven't you? You can't buy any food.
34:48: So even though it wasn't a warning in 1 Corinthians 11 for communion, the baptismal warning was if you want to get baptized, good luck in life because you're not going to get any help from the community because you're a weird
34:59: Christian. Now, the parents are going to have to help you decide on this one, but if you're a kid and you haven't been baptized, how can you say you're obedient to Jesus and then take communion?
35:13: Same for the parents. You need to be believers, be baptized, then take communion always. That's a good question,
35:22: Charlie. Thank you. Okay, here's a couple. Yes.
35:30: Okay, and then let's... Is this your sister? Let me get your question too, okay? Are you just raising your hand because you're trying to show me what your left hand was versus your right hand?
35:41: Or you want to know something about rats? Do you have a question?
35:47: You don't have to. All right, let's take this one. Who should be baptized? Do any of the young people in our church know the answer to that question?
35:55: Who should be baptized? Let's get somebody besides the pastor's son. Yes. Good.
36:04: Thank you, Rachel. Believers who believe in Christ Jesus. Those who should be baptized in the Bible. We looked at that last
36:10: Sunday morning, remember, in Acts? Right from the very beginning. Believe and be baptized, believe and be baptized, believe and be baptized.
36:17: So Christians should be baptized. Now, let's turn to Acts chapter 19 for just a second. Acts chapter 19.
36:24: Some kids don't think they should be baptized because their parents sprinkled them when they were a kid. And so let's look at this
36:31: John the Baptist illustration because Christians should be baptized. And if you've had water put on you in some religious ceremony before you're a
36:40: Christian, it doesn't count as a real baptism. That is to say, kids, if somehow people have put water on you or dunked you or sprinkled you, you know what?
36:49: Some churches, kids, they dunk infants. Can you believe that?
36:55: They dunk infants. It's easy to sprinkle water on a kid's head because if you have a baby that's 10 days old, 30 days old, kids, and you pour some cold water on your little sister's forehead or when your mom's not looking, what does your little sister do?
37:10: She cries. Maybe a little gets in her mouth and she gurgles a little bit, but that's all she does. What if you had to baptize that little baby?
37:20: You know how you baptize little babies? Very carefully. You just blow in their face.
37:26: And if you take a little baby and blow in their face, what do babies do? Under you go.
37:31: You can get kids to be going underwater at a very, very young age. Right, Haley? Just kidding.
37:38: You blow in their face, they close their mouth, you dunk them under. And it's the moms who are always going, come on, honey, sweet and kind, and the dads who have to kind of push the envelope a little bit and say, this needs to happen.
37:51: Brent's got a big smile on his face. You either want to do it or you're going to have another kid so you can do it.
37:58: Hello. But if you've had something happen to you when you're a kid, but you weren't a
38:05: Christian then, whatever it was, it just had to do with water. Let me show you an illustration. Acts 19, verse 1.
38:13: It happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus, found some disciples.
38:21: He said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? They said to him, no, we have not even heard whether there is a
38:27: Holy Spirit. Verse 3. He said to them, into what then were you baptized?
38:35: And they said, into John's baptism. Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Jesus, who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.
38:47: When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Okay, stop there. All kinds of baptisms in the
38:53: Bible. Let me show you two. One was John the Baptist's baptism. And what they would do is they would say, you know what?
39:00: We think that we have the promises of God as Jewish people, but those promises can't save us.
39:07: If you're a Jew, you automatically go into heaven. Wasn't true then, it's not true now. So, John the
39:14: Baptist went out into the wilderness and what did he do? Tell me some weird things about John the Baptist. Anybody who's visiting, this is the children's
39:22: Sunday school today, I usually don't act this crazy. The adults are just welcome guests today. What did
39:27: John the Baptist do? Something crazy. Yeah. Ate locust.
39:34: Can you imagine those legs that would get stuck in your teeth? I just think about those legs.
39:40: Try taking a locust leg and put it under a microscope sometime. And you see those big kind of jagged edges.
39:46: It looks like a big saw. And I thought, you know, those things get stuck in your teeth and they're very tricky.
39:52: It'd be kind of like the new toothpick. It'd be very interesting to have that happen. And all the wings and everything.
39:58: I mean, this is just survivor before survivor was ever on TV.
40:04: Some kind of fear factor. But John was austere. John was just a very simple man.
40:10: He wanted to do the right thing. So he would baptize people. He'd be out in the wilderness. He said, if you think your Jewishness can save you, stay in the city.
40:17: But if you think that you have to be more than a Jew to be saved, that is, believe in God, you come out in the middle of the wilderness,
40:23: I will dunk you under the water to show everyone that being a
40:29: Jew doesn't save you. That's John the Baptist's baptism. Now, Jesus, how was he baptized?
40:37: Was Jesus baptized? What did John the Baptist say when he baptized him?
40:43: Based on your profession of faith, it's now my privilege to baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
40:49: Amen. Out from the grave he rose. No! What did he do?
40:56: I can't believe I just said that. Jesus sinned, true or false?
41:04: False. So why would he get baptized? Does Jesus know that being a Jew can't save you? Of course.
41:10: But he wants to identify with humanity. He wants to say, you know what, even though I am sinless, I will get baptized to show you what you ought to do.
41:18: That it's the right thing. I agree with God who says being a Jew won't save you.
41:24: It's good that you're a Jew, but it won't save you. So Jesus gets baptized, but it had nothing to do with in the name of Jesus because Jesus hadn't been crucified yet.
41:33: He hadn't been raised from the dead yet. So what did Paul say to the person who had been baptized without knowing it was
41:42: Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection that saved? What did he say to them? Good job, you were baptized in a religious ceremony when you were younger.
41:52: What did he say? You need to be baptized the right way the first time.
41:59: In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are in Jesus' name. So if you've had some water sprinkled on you when you were a kid, you need to be baptized like in John chapter 19 for not ceremony, but in Christ's name, knowing that he's risen from the dead.
42:17: Okay, some other questions. Time is ticking. Any other questions? Yes, Rachel.
42:36: Okay, good question. Rachel, how old are you? Luke's age, 11, 12, 11, okay.
42:43: Boy, kids grow up fast, don't they? When did you start coming to the church?
42:51: Two years old! That is amazing. There was no carpet either. Now there is.
42:57: Hallelujah. Lane Crane, praise the Lord. With me. Asher and Luke running around banging their heads on the cement.
43:09: Some things never change. Luke just got 10 stitches last night. But it wasn't from Asher.
43:21: All right, what do you do if you're 11 years old and you say you believe? Should you be baptized?
43:30: That's going to be the question at our church. What do we do? Well, just a couple quick things.
43:37: Nowhere in the Bible does it talk about kids being baptized. When they're infants or even when they're a little older kids, like five or six or something like that.
43:48: Now they might have been, we just don't know about it. But here's what we do know. If you're a child, like 11 years old, and you say you believe in Jesus, the
43:59: New Testament church would not baptize you until they know you could act like an adult member in the church.
44:05: What do I mean by that? Well, what do adult members do that kids should be able to do if they need to be baptized?
44:15: How about if somebody's in sin? Should an adult member go to that person and say, I know
44:21: I'm not perfect, but I've seen the sin going on in your life, and I think the Lord wants to use me to help you stop sinning.
44:28: You can't sin like that anymore, and I've been praying for you. Don't sin anymore. Church discipline.
44:33: Do adult members need to do that? Do we think 11 -year -old kids can do that?
44:40: Maybe they can. Maybe they can go to their other 11 -year -old friends and say, you better stop that. But they need to act like an adult member.
44:46: How about using their spiritual gifts? Does the Bible know about anybody in the
44:52: Bible who says, I'm saved, I'm baptized, and now I don't want to serve other people in the local church?
45:00: Is there a case like that around? No, they should want to serve. And so what we're looking for,
45:05: Rachel, is if you say you believe, and I know you say you believe, at least I think you do, now
45:12: I want to obey. The best thing you can do is come and talk with the elders, because what we're going to do is we're going to just take it on a case -by -case basis.
45:20: Talk to your parents. Talk to your mom. Maybe I'll call Mrs. Arnold at school. I mean, you never know.
45:26: I'm just kidding. Principal Arnold. And so what we want to do is we want to obey
45:34: God and be good stewards. I don't want to baptize you too soon because you might think, hey, I'm set. But I also don't want to make people who think they should be baptized,
45:43: I don't want to make them disobey God. So lots of times we as elders just want to wait, and we want to just see how your faith grows and how it shows itself.
45:52: How does faith show itself? Daniel had a good question. We believe in our minds, but do we believe with our entire person?
45:59: People who believe with all their person like God wants, they start doing mature things, and they evangelize, and they help serve the church.
46:08: They say, well, you know, I want a pure church, and they do those kind of things.
46:15: I guess you're not supposed to talk about your own kids sometimes or something, but Luke hasn't been baptized at 11, but I've been watching
46:21: Luke, and Luke will do things like, hey, Dad, I've got to get to church early today because it's snowing, and I need to go shovel.
46:28: But I haven't said to Luke, you know, you've got to go shovel, or I expect the Avendroth kids to be the first in line to do all these things.
46:35: That's just a good sign so you can ask yourself the question, all you kids, do I like to serve other people?
46:42: Because that is a sign that God has done a work in your heart. Sometimes that's hard for kids because the entire universe of children sometimes revolves around them.
46:53: So should you be baptized, the best thing to do is I'd love to just sit and talk with you, and I'll be as nice as I can, and I'll be sweet.
47:00: I'll try to talk like this so it's not, you know, overpowering, but I want to try to help you make the right decision. Here's what we're not after in the church.
47:08: We don't send to anyone all the baptisms we've had and how many people come to Sunday school.
47:15: We're not in this church for numbers. Was I glad there were three baptisms last week? Yeah? Were you?
47:20: That was awesome. We need to have a baptismal service one day. That's all we have, just like 40 people baptized.
47:29: Well, okay, it's a little much, but it would be good to sit down and talk because we have to work through two issues.
47:38: Big issue, do we tell people who really say they believe, you've got to wait a little bit, or do we say, you know what, we'll just baptize them whenever they say they believe.
47:49: And so sometimes we might just have to wait. The good news is if we think you have to wait and you're still a
47:55: Christian, you're not going to go to hell if you die. Raise your right hand. One of the things we have to do is we have to teach our kids about these concepts that are really kind of abstract.
48:09: I mean, if you tell a kid orange, they can think it. If you tell a kid up, they can think it.
48:14: If you tell a kid substitutionary death on a cross, it's hard to think.
48:19: That's why parents, one of the best things you can do is read the Old Testament to your kids. Why? There's the lamb.
48:26: There's a scapegoat. There's a sacrificial death. You sin, somebody has to die. Can you imagine if this was the object lesson for the church this year?
48:34: Go buy yourself a brand new little puppy and six weeks old, and at the end of this year at Christmas time, we're going to have the dads come over and lay their hands on top of that puppy.
48:46: By the way, name the puppy, train the puppy, let the puppy sleep in the house, and we're going to put the dad's hands on the head, and then the priest, in this particular illustration it has to be me, sorry, the priest comes over and slits the neck of that dog while all the kids are standing around.
49:04: What would you do, kids, if I came over to your house and I cut your cat's throat or your dog's throat while your dad was touching that thing's head?
49:12: What would you do? I guarantee you, these days, you probably call 911, but back in those days, you would cry, you would scream, you would wail.
49:24: I know what you would do. If you're a dad, you'd probably be crying too. Just think about the Old Testament.
49:29: The dad has got his hands on the head of that little lamb, one year old, pure and white and spotless, and then that thing has to be killed.
49:37: For what lesson? How cruel could God be? Killing that little lamb.
49:44: By the way, they were killed all around. You can imagine there was rivers of blood in the street, flies, all kinds of things.
49:53: Why would God ever have us do that? Answer? What's the answer, kids? Because the wages of sin is death, and if you sin, somebody has to die.
50:07: And the goodness of God, his goodness is you don't have to die, there's a lamb to die for you. And instead of the lamb dying, instead of you dying, the lamb dies.
50:17: That's why if you teach your kids the Old Testament, when John the Baptist comes on the scene and says about Jesus what? Behold the aardvark of God.
50:24: And you're like, yeah, just a sweet little lamb. Just a sweet little aardvark. Why is it not an aardvark?
50:32: Sounds stupid, doesn't it? It's a lamb because they had to kill the lamb.
50:41: And we should cry over sin. We should weep and wail and mourn. James 4 says that.
50:49: So we want to talk about these concepts like this to the kids. You will help your children understand sin and substitution if you teach them the
50:56: Old Testament. Okay, we're out of time. One last question. I have some closing thoughts. All right, here's the scoop.
51:09: For a couple weeks I've been teaching about baptism, kids, from the pulpit. Baptism means to dunk.
51:15: Here's the water. You take a person, you dunk them underwater to show that they're being buried. It's like being buried almost.
51:22: And when you're buried, you're usually dead. Sometimes people got buried when they weren't dead. That's why they had a wake.
51:29: What's a wake, by the way, kids? I don't mean wake up, but what's a wake? Well, you know why they have wakes now?
51:36: So families can come and grieve. You know why they had wakes earlier on in the universe's history?
51:44: To make sure they're dead. Because sometimes people look like they're dead and they're not dead, and then they wake up.
51:50: And you want them to wake up out of the grave, not in the grave. Maddie's looking at me like, really?
51:57: Yeah, they just lay in there. How do you know somebody's dead? Now we can know with doctors. Put them down in that grave, dead to the old life.
52:07: I'm not living for myself anymore. Out of the water, out of the grave of the water, I want to live for Jesus Christ.
52:15: You don't have to describe me now as a man or a woman or a boy or as a girl or a fifth grader or a ninth grader.
52:21: You can just describe me with one word. And that one word is not, I'm a son of the Burns. I'm the son of the
52:27: Bartlett's. I'm the son of the Thiebaud's. You can describe me with one word because that will be my life. That will be my goal.
52:33: It is not anything else except I am a what? Christian. And then we talk about what baptism does.
52:42: It doesn't make you more holy. It shows everybody. You can expect me to act like a Christian. I will be involved in church discipline.
52:49: I'll be involved in serving the local body. I'll be involved in evangelism. I'll be involved in the life of this church.
52:57: That's why I think it's wrong to have the typical eight -year -old baptized because they don't understand all that.
53:03: So the MO at our church is what we do at our church, kids. If you're 10, 12, 13 years old and you think you want to be baptized, step number one, you need to talk to the elders.
53:18: And if you don't, you must not want to be a Christian that bad because we really are nice.
53:24: If you think I'm too mean, come to Grandpa Lewis or Pastor Steve or Pastor Dave, Pradeep, Pradeep the softer side of the elder board.
53:34: Just come. And if you can't do that, then how can you tell the entire world you want to live for Jesus?
53:46: And you're going to have to trust at the end of the day that if we say it's better to wait, that we're not saying you can't go to heaven because it's faith in Christ alone for that.
53:56: But based on what we see and based on the wisdom that we have, even though we're not perfect as an elder board, you'll just submit to us and say, you know what,
54:04: Pastor just thinks we should wait. And so I'll work on my Christian walk now, and then in a year or two we'll talk to him again.
54:11: But if I don't hear any kids coming to me, then it's because you're too afraid to say, I've got to talk to Mike or too afraid to get in the water.
54:19: When if you've really been saved and you work through the issues, nothing could stop you from obeying.
54:26: No one, no thing could stop you. So baptism means to be dunked under.
54:33: It is the first thing you should do as a Christian. You say you believe in Jesus Christ, be baptized.
54:40: How are you baptized at this church? By coming up to me or writing me a little email or calling the church or one of the other elders,
54:47: I'd like to be baptized. Could I talk with you? And if you can't do that, then you just keep learning.
54:53: Your parents will keep coming alongside of you, and then one day we'll talk again. Okay? That's the only thing we could do because there's no age in the
55:02: Bible. Whatever age I pick, it's the wrong age. If I pick eight, you bring me a seven -year -old.
55:08: You bring me a nine -year -old. If I pick 15, I don't know what to do. Mark Dever's Church in Baltimore, they have a lot of wisdom there.
55:17: They wait until about 13. Remember, at 13 years old, back in those days, did you become an adult by tradition, by heritage?
55:25: At 13, what happened if you were Jewish back in those days? You were welcome into the church as a what? Not the church, but the synagogue.
55:33: As an adult at 13 years old, that's probably where we got that age of accountability thing.
55:40: So at 13, if you're 13, you say you're a Christian, 508 -835 -3400.
55:46: You should talk to us. And I don't mean that as a sales pitch, but I just mean you need to do business with the Lord. And your parents aren't going to want to make you obey.
55:54: And I don't want to make you obey, but we want to come alongside and put some pressure on. Pressure by the
56:00: Spirit of God is good. Say you're a Christian. Here's what James would say.
56:06: Anybody here call themselves a Christian? Lord, we thank you for this time.
56:20: Lord, I just hope we could answer a few questions. And for some of the kids who should be baptized and we think old enough,
56:29: I pray that they would be courageous and bold. I know you'll help them. I know you have promised not to leave nor forsake them.
56:37: So I pray it'd be a good time for young ones to stand up and be strong in grace.
56:43: I pray for others, Lord, here that are certainly thinking they're Christians, grew up in a
56:48: Christian home. They might even be in my home, but are not born again. And Lord, I pray this time of parental discussion and church discussion would root those things out so people might cling to the
57:01: Lord Jesus Christ and might receive His great forgiveness. Lord, for all of us as a church, we know that you're very patient and kind with us.
57:12: And many of us have not obeyed instantly in many things. And you have been with us all the way because we stand before you today, not because of our obedience, but because of Christ Jesus.
57:23: And we look to Him as not just a great example of obedience, but also an example of obedience that went to the cross for us.
57:31: Thank you that you raised Him from the dead. And thank you that we stand complete in Him. And I pray that Christ's Spirit, the
57:38: Holy Spirit, would work in our church and revive our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, kid, thank you very much.
57:47: My assignment for the kids is I want you to do a little study on baptism. Here's how the study ends.
57:54: Hey, Dad, hey, Mom, I've got some questions about baptism or could you help me walk through what
57:59: Pastor Mike said? So here's your assignment. Talk to your moms and dads about baptism and see what they say, and we'll talk again.