Baptism: A Biblical Perspective Part II

All right, so if you were here last week, you know that we started talking about baptism.

And I know that a lot of you are hoping that I will just get right into the question that I left you with last week of how do you know that your baptism is legitimate?

But if you've known me for any length of time, you know that I will not get straight into anything that you want to hear. We'll have a lot of time.

A lot of things that we need to discuss before we get there. So with that,

I do want to remind us that last week what we did was we did something of a deep dive into what the word of God says about baptism.

And there are a couple of concepts that I want to bring forward from last week as a little bit of a refresher, but also so that we have them fresh in our mind as we talk about this today.

And what we do is move towards applying the things that we learned in Scripture so that we can bring these into our practical reality, into our life as a

Christian and our life as a believer. So one of the first things that we have to do is go to the book of Matthew, and we'll look at Matthew 28, 18, 19, and 20.

Now those verses say this. And it's from this passage that we're able to draw the conclusion that baptism is a commandment of Jesus.

This is a commandment of our Lord, something that he's given us and specifically told us to do.

And this is why, despite all the differences in the details, in the ways that it's practiced, pretty much all

Christian churches do baptism in one form or another. So this is basically our first premise, right?

Baptism was given to us by Jesus. And Jesus then commanded his disciples to continue this as a part of their ministry.

And not only that, baptism continues with us to this day, as does the other ordinance, as does the

Lord's Supper that we just finished practicing. And another concept that we discussed at length last week was the fact that baptism doesn't save you.

There's no salvific aspect to baptism. It's not a requirement of salvation.

And the idea that it is a requirement or that it does save you, as we looked at it, comes from either a misinterpretation or a really selective reading of certain passages.

And that's kind of how we got there. Again, we talked about that last week. Now from there, it's a pretty natural question for us to ask, as long as you're asking it in good faith.

But it's natural to ask that if baptism doesn't result in our salvation and it's not a requirement of our salvation, then why is it necessary that we should have to be baptized?

And again, some people might even go so far as to say, well, that is a personal matter. It's between me and Jesus.

This is my own personal faith. To which I would respond this way, that first, we need to look back, for example, at the verse we just read, to see that Jesus commanded his disciples to baptize in the name of the

Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and also to teach them. Now, of course, that's not the only time that we see it commanded.

We also see baptism throughout the book of Acts. We see it in Paul's recounting of his conversion in Acts 22.

And to further this point, we also talked about how baptism is your public profession of faith. So we're looking at the fact that Jesus has commanded his disciples to be baptized.

But this is also how we publicly proclaim that we are disciples of Christ. Because indeed, if anything is personal and private, it's the fact that your salvation takes place internally.

Your salvation is between you and the Holy Spirit, but it doesn't ever stay there.

It doesn't stay internal, it doesn't stay personal, and it doesn't stay private. And in fact,

I would say that you can't truly live the Christian life privately or secretly.

And to do so, to try to do that, would be to functionally deny

Jesus. And I'll go back to another verse that we've looked at, still in Matthew 10, verses 32 and 33.

Therefore, everyone who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my

Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny him before my

Father who is in heaven. So we don't want to deny Christ.

We don't wanna be that secret Christian. So we have that.

But also, don't forget that you can't truly live out your

Christian life if you're not a member of a local church. Hebrews 10 .25

reminds us not to forsake our own assembling together. So, baptism is doing a lot of things.

Baptism, as your public profession of faith, identifies you to your other brothers and sisters in Christ.

That you are not only a follower of Christ as they are, but that you're also part of the local body that they are as well.

And again, I'm not just making up some of these principles. This is something that we see at Pentecost.

We see in Acts with Peter preached. Peter preached, he shared the gospel with people. And then in Acts chapter 2, starting in verse 37, we see this.

This is after he had preached, he said, And then, talking about being a member of a church, what we see if we jump ahead just to verse 41, it says,

So part of the way, like we always celebrate how many people were added to the church at Pentecost.

We look at a number like 3 ,000 souls and we say that's amazing. But don't gloss over the fact that the way that those souls were identified and the way that they were counted as part of the church is that they were baptized.

And they were baptized into that local body of believers. So, that is a quick recap of some of the highlights of last week.

But, just some of those ideas may have potentially started to generate some very practical questions in our own mind as we start to think about how this applies to our specific situation or how this applies to the specific situation of other people that we know.

And we'll have questions like, who should be baptized? When should they be baptized?

Who should do the baptizing? And the question I left us all with last week, how do

I know if I've actually been baptized? How do I know if my baptism was legitimate?

So, we're gonna get straight into those questions. But as we do, what I want to start with is giving you an individual situation that we can consider as we look at these questions just to sort of help in the application.

Now, I'm not gonna give a name of this person, but I'll just give you some vague details. And in fact, I can almost guarantee that as you listen to this, it'll sound familiar.

So, I'm not talking about any of you, just in case you think that I am. So, this individual came up primarily in one of those denominations that tends to baptize people when they're young.

They'll baptize babies. They'll baptize people who are, you know, either preteens or early teenagers after they go through a series of classes called confirmation.

So, if any of this sounds familiar for all of you who have been Methodist for such a long time, this person grew up in a

Methodist church. So, after completing the confirmation classes, the individual was baptized about the age of 13, maybe a little before 13, in a ceremony in front of the church.

So, they stood up in front of the church, they answered some questions, talked a little bit about, you know, what it meant to be a

Christian, and then had a little bit of water sprinkled onto their head. Now, that's one scene.

If we jump forward a few years, we could spend a lot of time talking about the details, the things that this individual had shared about their life.

And I know that a lot of people have similar stories, but essentially what we would say is that this individual who was baptized as an early teenager could very easily have their profession of faith called into question because the way that they lived their lives as a young adult and as even not a young adult didn't really align with what we would expect somebody who professes faith in Christ or who proclaims to be a follower of Christ to be.

And we see that in verses like 1 John 1, 6. If we say that we have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not do the truth.

So, this individual was making questionable decisions, living in ways that it is very easy to argue that they shouldn't live.

Not only that, this individual also was forsaking the gathering of the saints for a number of years.

They weren't going to church. They weren't part of a church body in any fashion. And that directly contradicts what we just read, directly contradicts that passage from Hebrews that we referenced just a minute ago.

So, if someone has made a public profession of faith and then been baptized and proceeded from that point in their life to live in a way that you would look at them and say there's no way they're a

Christian, what do we make of that? What do we make of that baptism?

What do we make of that profession of faith? Well, let's jump into our first question, who should be baptized?

And on the surface, that's a pretty simple question, right? Based on the things that we've been talking about.

I mean, I don't know how many times if you had a counter, I said that baptism is a command of Jesus over the last week and few minutes.

We would say everybody who is a Christian should be baptized. But when we start to peel back the layers on this idea, the question becomes a little bit more complicated and we see a little bit more nuance in the answers.

And then it creates a bunch more questions that we have to answer. Remember that John MacArthur quote that I shared from last week where he said the big problem that we have in the church is that there are millions of Christians in the church who haven't been baptized and there's millions of people in the church who have been baptized who aren't

Christians? Well, I think part of that is a result of not considering this question of who should be baptized carefully enough or considering it properly.

And again, knowing the biblical fact that everyone who has received the gift of salvation through the

Holy Spirit, everybody who has been redeemed to live as a follower of Christ should be baptized.

But how does that fit in with this person that we're talking about, the person who we considered a moment ago?

It would appear if we just look at the story, at first glance, some very important elements were there.

There was a public profession of faith. There was a studying of doctrine. There was even a, we'll call it a reciting of doctrine that would evidence at least some level of understanding of what it is to be a

Christian, but things still didn't turn out the way we would expect them to.

And I think what this does is this highlights one error that a lot of churches make.

This highlights the error of baptizing individuals who are too young to fully grasp the nature of what it means to follow

Christ. But we'll get there in just a second because I do wanna talk about that a little bit more.

So when we look at who should be baptized, one of the first things that needs to be present is a credible profession of faith.

And we have to emphasize the word credible. The profession of faith is important, but what's more important is that we can clearly see that somebody understands.

And I will say this. There's one big caveat here, and that is that none of us can truly know what is going on inside someone's heart.

Again, we can't see the work of the Holy Spirit in somebody's heart. I mean, we should be able to ideally see it in their lives, but we can't say for certain or not that this has or hasn't happened.

Proverbs 21 too says that every man's way is right in his own eyes, but Yahweh weighs the heart. So we know that God sees what's going on in the heart, but we also know that the heart is deceitful and desperately sick, and who can know it?

So how much less can we judge the heart of someone else if we can't even judge our own heart? So obviously we can't do that.

Now that was just a little bit of a caveat because what we can do is we can make educated guesses or we can make, we'll call them inferences, because that sounds less like we don't know.

It sounds more intellectual. But we can make educated inferences from an individual's testimony as to the state of their salvation.

That can also clue us in as to whether or not they truly understand it. And that's the job of pastors and elders as shepherds of the church is to do that, is to look at what people say about their profession of faith, to look at the way they live and make the best determination that we can of whether or not that's true.

So we can begin to narrow it down a little bit from all

Christians should be baptized to believers who have a credible profession of faith should be baptized.

But even this leads us down to another question, which is how old should you be when you're baptized?

And I have to confess right up front that Scripture doesn't say how old you should be when you're baptized.

So there's not a specific age at which we consider baptism to be appropriate. And that's why there's such a wide variety of approaches out there.

That's why people baptize individuals of all ages. In fact, some churches and denominations, some churches that I have good friends in baptize babies.

These guys prowl around like a roaring lion looking for a baby to sprinkle water on. But they really don't.

But I love my Presbyterian brothers. But this is called pedo -baptism. And if you consider simply the idea of having a profession of faith of any kind, clearly infant baptism has nothing to do with this.

There's no way for a baby to have a credible profession of faith. Now, people that advocate for pedo -baptism have a variety of justifications for this.

And one of the ones that seems the most theological, and I'm just gonna give like a real brief thumbnail sketch of this because it could be its own sermon, is the claim that baptism represents participation in the new covenant.

It represents being a part of the new covenant of Jesus in the same way that circumcision represented being part of the

Abrahamic covenant in the Old Testament. Again, that's kind of an in -depth, deep topic that could be its own sermon.

And we're not gonna do that today. But even that rationale has quite a few holes in it because circumcision, well, first of all, it didn't include females.

So I don't know how we make, you know, what do we make of that, right? If circumcision didn't include females, then do we not baptize women into the church?

Well, obviously that's not the case. Our circumcision was also much more of an ethnic identification than it was a spiritual identification.

In fact, we have Jews that were still under the judgment of God despite being circumcised. But the most compelling thing that I've heard about this and the reason why

I would suggest to you that this whole continuation of a covenant idea is not necessarily true is that Scripture doesn't say it anywhere.

It would be a very simple thing for Paul or a disciple or someone to write about and to tell us exactly how baptism continues that covenant.

But that doesn't happen. So what they have to do is infer that from Scripture.

And I will certainly not go so far as to say that inferring things from Scripture is wrong because there are times when we have to do that.

But to infer that infant baptism conveys anything to a child who doesn't know what's going on is not something that's supported by Scripture.

So if we look at the examples of baptism that we have, if we look at the specific examples and acts of Paul of the

Ethiopian eunuch, what we see is people hearing and receiving the gospel, hearing and receiving the truth of the gospel and then responding to that gospel through repentance, which is brought about by the

Holy Spirit. And this is what we see in every specific episode of New Testament baptism.

So again, we talked about this last week. I don't see that we can look at infant baptism or something like that as a valid form of baptism.

But what we're talking about is what age. Oh, let me go back to the infants one more time.

So we also talk about how baptism doesn't cause salvation. And I think infant baptism is an example of this as well because we only have to look at people who were baptized as babies in the church who have walked away from the church or people who have been baptized as babies who might be in the church but are not living in a way that would evidence their salvation.

To see that simply the act of baptism is not enough to make somebody regenerate as a

Christian. And that's part of where we get a church full of people who have been baptized who aren't actually

Christians because they were baptized as babies. So going back to the credible profession of faith, at what age can a credible profession of faith happen?

That's still the question that we have to wrestle with. That's still the question that we haven't exactly answered.

And some denominations put a specific age on it. Some denominations say you have to be 21 to be baptized.

That's when you can make a credible profession of faith. Some churches or denominations say it's when you're in your late teens.

But there's not a template answer here because none of us can back up a number with a verse from Scripture.

So that's why I have a hard time with that. But then at the same time, I understand the logic behind it.

Because when you have an age, the idea is to make sure that an individual truly understands the gospel.

But there's more to it than just understanding the gospel. I think there's an aspect of this understanding what it means to truly carry your cross, to truly die to yourself to follow

Jesus, and honestly, to suffer for what you believe in. So I agree with the principle here.

I would go a step further to say that until an individual has been tested by the forces of the world, like peer pressure, or the temptation to lie or cheat or steal for personal gain, or to have to fight with sexual temptation, that it might be hard to have a real and true understanding of what it means to die to yourself.

It's almost like not knowing what you're signing up for, not knowing what you're truly signing up for. And if we're honest, none of us truly know everything that we're signing up for because we don't know what's gonna happen in our lives.

But it's not until you've experienced a few things that you know even to a small extent what that means.

Because there's a big difference between being old enough to intellectually understand who

Jesus is and what he did for you, and to truly understand how that might impact your life.

But again, I don't have a verse for that. And far be it for me to put a concrete age onto that requirement.

So when does it happen? Does a 16 -year -old understand? How about a 14 -year -old?

How about 12? 10, eight, six? I don't know, but I start to get skeptical at younger ages because this is where we're getting into where children can read and understand, but they haven't experienced a lot of things in their life.

And in fact, even for teenagers, it's easy to live as a Christian in a

Christian household. It's easy to affirm these principles and walk in them when there's accountability, when there's people watching, when your parents are

Christians and they know what you're doing. But then what happens when that person gets out into a godless setting like college?

I mean, you're laughing, but like, I'm serious. I'm actually, that wasn't actually a joke.

So you have kids that live sheltered lives all the way up to 18 years old and go to college, and bad stuff happens because they've never had to functionally understand what it means to face temptations, to face temptations like drinking or drugs or sex or cheating on academic exams, like all those different things.

So when they get there, do they remain steadfast or are they still standing up for what they believe in?

And guess what? It continues after college. So that's why we have to be careful what we accept as a profession.

In fact, I'd be more likely to accept the profession of a 14 -year -old who lives in a non -Christian house.

And the reason for that is that child is facing a repudiation of their beliefs on a daily basis from the people that are supposed to love them.

So they already know what it is to fight for what they believe. But having said all that,

I'm not gonna doubt the power of the Holy Spirit to save anybody, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

So we have to get back to the answer, what is the age? And the answer is it depends.

It depends on the individual. It depends on the situation. And to me, what that means is that I, or if we're talking about an individual at a different church, would just need to talk to that person.

I would need to hear from them what their experience is, what the work of Jesus means to them, what it represents in their life, what it is to be a follower of Christ.

And I would wanna hear that in their own words, which means that I would need to hear if it's from somebody young, not without their parents present, that's not what

I'm saying, but without their parents interjecting. Because for whatever reason, as parents, we can get an ego about really weird things, right?

We can get an ego about how old our child was when they were saved, how old our child was when they got baptized, as if it somehow reflects on us.

And I know people, I know people that wanna push their kids to be baptized because of how it looks, how it looks in the church.

And as parents, you should do everything that you can to truly disciple your kids. That's your job, but you can't save them.

So I think it's safe to say that we've arrived at an answer, even though I've skirted all the way around that question of how old should somebody be.

But we ask who should be baptized? And again, it's any

Christian who has a credible profession of faith, who can articulate what it means to be saved, why it is they believe this to be the case.

And again, that's gonna vary from person to person. It's never gonna look the same. And the next question is when should they be baptized?

And obviously, this is not a question related to age. It's related to the chronology of when they were saved and when they should be baptized.

And I would say that based on the examples that we see in Scripture, these people should be baptized as soon as possible.

I mean, if somebody has experienced true salvation, is willing to identify as a follower of Christ, then they should go to their pastor or to the elders of their church immediately and let them know.

Now, where that gets complicated sometimes is as pastors, we wanna make sure that we're not baptizing somebody who's not truly saved, right?

So we'll wanna talk to them and ask questions. But then some churches will wanna go so far as to have a month's long series of classes to make sure that you understand.

And you can say that you need to be baptized and now it's 14 months later and we haven't quite finished the academic portion of the program yet and we gotta set up a service to be baptized.

So I don't think that the church or the pastor should stand in the way of that. But when should you be baptized?

You should be baptized as soon as is reasonably possible after this salvation and after you're able to make that credible profession of faith.

You know, back to the pastors though. We're, Nick, me, we're just doing the best we can as very imperfect and very fallible people to try to make sure that that profession of faith is credible.

But we don't wanna throw up roadblocks in front of people either. That's also not the point. So the next question is who should do the baptizing?

And I don't think that it'll be controversial to say that a pastor, an elder in a local church should do the baptizing.

Other than if there is some kind of extenuating circumstance, which we'll explain in just a little bit. But the most important part of this, the part that I don't want you to lose sight of is that this should happen in the context of your local church.

The local church that you're a part of. And I won't say member because I don't think that you can be a member of a church if you're not baptized.

But it's the church that you identify as a part of, the body of Christ that you identify with.

But what this means is that there are situations where you should not be baptized.

And this happens to a lot of people. For example, a camp or a conference, especially a youth conference.

You have to be careful of these situations where emotions start to run really high and where peer pressure, not external peer pressure, but just peer pressure of seeing other people doing something makes you wanna do the same thing.

Because it takes a lot of discernment to actually realize what's going on. Again, these camps, you haven't slept, you're super tired, everybody's emotional, and then the worship music comes on and all of a sudden you think you feel the

Holy Spirit and you wanna be baptized and become a Christian for the rest of your life. Well, that's the same thing that happens, for example, at revival events.

Like at a tent meeting where we do six and a half hours of worship music and then an altar call at the end of it and everybody is like so confused that they raise their hand and walk the aisle and pray the prayer and get baptized.

You also probably shouldn't be baptized on a mission trip. And why do

I say all this? I say this because your baptism is important.

But in a lot of ways, it's just the beginning. We talk about sanctification all the time.

Salvation simply begins a process, it does not end a process. Maybe it ends a process of living a sinful life, but what it begins is a process of becoming more and more like Christ, which is something that you can't do by yourself and it's something that requires a significant investment in discipleship.

And you'll need to be discipled in ways that aren't possible and can't happen if you're baptized in a temporary situation like a camp or revival or mission trip.

The people that are going to do the baptism aren't gonna be the ones that disciple you in most cases.

And in fact, as much as a pastor should wanna see somebody come to Christ, they should not want to baptize somebody that they don't know.

They should not want to baptize somebody that they have not seen some kind of evidence for, evidence that doesn't come over the course of a day or two or even three or four or seven.

So you have to be careful about those things because your baptism should be your initiation into the local church, the local church that you're a part of.

And you should be comforted by the fact that you're surrounded by people who know you and by people who know your story and by leaders who have been set apart by God to shepherd you in that walk.

So you should get baptized at the church that you want to join. And I'll talk about that in a minute.

Why does this matter? I would suggest to you that a proper understanding of baptism is also essential to us to understand properly what the local church is because the local church, whether it's

Grace Bible Church, whether it's any of the other churches in town, Mount Zion Community Church, the local church is the representation, the earthly representation of the kingdom of God.

Now in a big way, all Christians are a part of the church of God. But it's the local churches that are given the responsibility and given the task of shepherding these

Christians. And we'll talk about church membership in the future. We'll talk about that down the road.

But I would simply ask somebody who refuses to commit to membership in a local church why that is.

Why would you not want to commit to that?

Why would you not want to be baptized before those people? In fact, I would ask you, what does your baptism really represent if it was done by somebody who doesn't know you?

Or somebody who has no role whatsoever in discipling you?

Why would you not want your baptism to be done before the group of people that are gonna be walking alongside you in this journey?

Who are you in fellowship with? Because as Christians, we're instructed to obey our leaders and submit to them for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account so that they will do this with joy and not with groaning for this would be unprofitable for you.

Now, if you don't believe that your pastors and your elders are biblically qualified, if you believe that they're acting wrongly, they're not running the church in the right way, well then, you have a responsibility.

You first have a responsibility to bring it up with them. You have a responsibility to talk with them, to show them the respect, to at least address the issue.

And if nothing happens, then you need to find a new church. But what you don't need to do is go rogue and think that you can sit at home and watch church online and call yourself a

Christian while you're not fellowshipping with anybody, you're not accountable to anybody, and nobody knows what it is that you're doing while you call yourself a

Christian. So you can't do it on your own. You can't live this life on your own.

It's just not the way we were created. So let's get to the biggest question that most of us probably have, and that's how do we know if we've been legitimately baptized?

How do we know if our baptism was real? And can we be baptized more than once?

So, in case you weren't aware, rebaptism is one of those terms and I think it's almost specific to the

Baptist world, right? Because Baptists go, well, I was baptized when

I was nine years old, but it didn't take. So then I got baptized when I was in high school at a youth camp.

But you know what? That one didn't work out so well. So then I got rebaptized as an adult and now it's good.

But that's not actually how it works. Last week we addressed the fact that salvation happens only one time.

Therefore, your true baptism should only happen one time. So how do you know if your baptism was legitimate?

Well, there are some situations that are very clear. If you were baptized as a baby and you had no say over that baptism and you didn't know what was going on, your baptism was not legitimate.

That's not a real biblical baptism. Sure. Yep.

Yep. Sure.

And then that's not a baptism then. But if somebody has been christened and not baptized, they haven't been baptized.

So, yeah. Does that answer your question? Yep. No, it's true.

It's true. But I think we're talking about two different things there. If a christening is not a baptism.

Yeah. So again, that's probably a different issue. Because what we're talking about is somebody who's making a public profession of faith.

But so we'll go a little bit farther with that, right? Because one area that's a little less clear is this.

And let me also say this right now. I am in no personal position to judge anyone's salvation.

And when I say these things, I am not telling any of you that your baptism, unless it was an infant baptism, is illegitimate.

If you're baptized as a nine -year -old, an 11 -year -old, a 16 -year -old, that could be perfectly legitimate.

And I'm in no position to judge that. So here is what I would say. Because functionally, whether or not your baptism is legitimate, because people are asking these questions now.

Was I legitimately baptized? That truly is between you and Jesus.

If there's anything that is private that you would know for sure that I wouldn't know. So I'm not here to cast doubt on what your specific situation is, because I can't do that.

But here's what I would suggest. You can ask yourself these questions about your baptism. Did you have a full understanding of the gospel and what it means to be a

Christian? That's one thing you can ask in light of your baptism whenever it was. Did you do it just because you reached a certain age and the church told you that it was time?

Or your parents told you that it was time to do these things? And I think probably the most important question, and I consider this to be a very impactful question, is did your life from that point forward reflect true regeneration?

Did it reflect the salvation, the profession of being a Christ follower that you were making when you were baptized?

And let's also be clear about this. That doesn't mean that you all of a sudden became perfect and you sinned no more because we all still sin.

But there should also be a very distinct difference in your life that separates that point where you acknowledge salvation and where you were baptized.

So if you answered no to any of those questions, then there's a chance that you weren't actually baptized.

There's a chance that that baptism would not be considered legitimate and you should be baptized. But we would not call it a rebaptism.

I would tell you that you're being baptized for the first time. So if you answered no to any of those questions, maybe it is time to be baptized.

And I'll say this too. If you have never been baptized at all and you're a

Christian, that's a bigger issue. And I mean, there's a few reasons that people that claim to be

Christians don't get baptized. The first is ignorance. I talked about that last week.

It's because there hasn't been proper teaching. You weren't properly educated on what baptism is, when it should happen.

There's also pride because you could be embarrassed to admit that you weren't actually baptized.

You've been in church for a long, long time and haven't actually had a legitimate baptism. And it's kind of embarrassing to admit that.

And it's embarrassing to try to go back and do it later as an adult. But that's probably not a good excuse for this either.

The third reason is indifference. That means you've listened, you've read about baptism. You know what it is.

You know why it's commanded, but it's just not a big deal to you. It's not a priority. Maybe you don't feel like it's something that you really need to go through with because it's not that important.

It's not related to salvation. The fourth one is defiance.

And that's you understand everything and you just refuse to do it. Now, sometimes people don't wanna be baptized.

They don't wanna make this public profession because they know that it conflicts very much with something that's going on with their lives.

And they know it conflicts with things going on in their lives that people around them see. So they don't want to be baptized.

They don't wanna take that actual step. But that also is potentially an evidence of being what is number five, which is unregenerate.

And that's that you're not actually a Christian. That's another reason that you would come to church, say you're a Christian and not be baptized is because maybe you're not actually a

Christian. That's just something you wanna ask yourself. So my plea to you today is this. It's to obey

Christ's command in Scripture and that's to be baptized if you have not been baptized. If you have questions about your baptism, if you have questions about anything that's happened in the past and you wanna know if you should or shouldn't actually be baptized, come talk to me.

You can talk to Nick before he leaves. He'll answer those questions for you too. But whatever you do, don't just continue in disobedience.

Don't just play at being a Christian. Follow what it is that God says. Now, I wanna be completely transparent with you all today as we talk about this and as we sort of close things out.

So the reason that I felt like this was an important thing to talk about is because the example in the beginning of the sermon is actually my story.

So I grew up in the Methodist Church. I was baptized at 13.

I even have the Bible. Presented by Aldersgate United Methodist Church on November 22nd, 1992.

So I went through confirmation classes in the Methodist Church. I stood up in front of the church and I don't really remember what

I said. The only thing I remember about that day was that I was going to a new middle school that didn't have a name and they asked me what school

I went to and I said, well, it doesn't have a name. So that's like my most memorable moment of me standing in front of the church and then getting just, like I said, a little bit of water put on my head.

But the reason that I'm so passionate about this idea is because if I'm honest with myself and with you, it's that while I made a profession of faith and I was baptized at 13, my life from that point on did not resemble or represent the life of somebody who was a follower of Christ.

I didn't go to church in college. I didn't go to church for quite a while after college. I didn't start going to church again until I was in the military.

So I was in my early 20s at that point. And even at that time, I still wouldn't consider my lifestyle to be what

I would say was honoring to Christ. So I don't wanna get into dirty details and it's not like I did anything horrible, right?

But I was not living as you would expect somebody who said they were a

Christian to live. So I got out of the military and I came home and I continued to be in church. And because I was a musician, there was always a place for me.

And because I was kind of good at it, there was really always a place for me. And that wound up pushing me to higher levels of responsibility to the point where I was in leadership positions in church.

And while I can intellectually assent to all these things and I'm supposedly leading people through music, my sin at that point was that my life was still all about me.

I've told some of you all this before, but my goal when the campus that I was a part of was about to close was to sell my house and to move out of town to pursue a career as a musician.

Because that was all about me. Now I was working at a church at the time, but I was still planning how

I could structure my life the way I wanted to be so that I could be famous or I could be rich or I could be whatever it was that I wanted to be.

And it wasn't until we wanted to sell that house and I'm trying to condense a long story into something that's very, very short, our house didn't sell as fast as we thought it would.

And while we were waiting, Legacy Church happened and the pastor at Legacy, you guys know that's where I came from, the pastor at Legacy asked me if I would lead worship.

And I said, well, yeah, we'll do it for a few months because I'm gonna go do this, we're gonna move and I'm gonna be famous or whatever.

And I said, okay, yeah, I'll do it. We'll move to Ruckersville and be a part of this church for a little bit.

And as soon as I committed to doing that, our house sold. And I was like, how is it possible that that timing worked out that way?

And that was really like the first spark of me understanding God's sovereignty and reflecting on God's sovereignty as I worked at that church for about eight years and grew as not only an actual

Christian, but a leader, reflecting on God's sovereignty helped me understand how sinful my desires and my motivations truly were.

That I was serving only myself and it was only through reading scripture and through prayer and being with other people that I considered to be godly that I understood that the end game of that for me, while I thought it was fame and fortune, was truly hell because that was all apart from Jesus.

Every bit of that was about me. So again, some people have drugs, some people have alcohol, some people have whatever it is.

For me, it was probably just my ego. But when I saw

God manipulate my life and I don't mean manipulate in a bad way, when I saw the way he was working and what that led me to, it was truly humbling.

Because again, what I realized was the nature of my sin and the fact that I was living apart from Jesus and that I was proclaiming him,

I was essentially being that person who said Lord, Lord and not doing what he said, right? And that verse was very impactful as well because I realized that my destination was hell.

So it was at that point that I actually dedicated my life to Christ while I was working in that church.

But I'd never been baptized. I'd been baptized as a 13 year old.

And at this point, I was in my 30s. Well, if we fast forward to a few months ago,

I wanted to join the Master's Fellowship because it's an organization of churches. I'm probably the only guy that didn't go to the

Master's Seminary that's part of the program. But it's a network for pastors to support other pastors that are all pursuing the same thing, which is the glory of Christ for their church, not the size of their church or the style of their church or all that other stuff.

So I'm wanting to network with men like this. So I reach out to a guy named Dave Jordan, who was the pastor at Grace Bible Church before Nick got there.

And I said, hey, I'd like to join. What do I do? I filled out an application. And then he was like, okay, let's get on a phone call and talk about it.

So I talked about it with Nick and Dave and told them my story a little bit longer than that.

And Dave said to me, and this is the first time anybody said to me, I'm 44 years old. And it's the first time anybody said anything like this to me.

He goes, well, when you were baptized, do you think you were really saved?

And I was like, no. And then he said, well, you haven't been baptized.

And he said, maybe you should think about that. And I said, okay, I will.

And I'll go back and I'll talk to Amy. And we talked about it. And I told Amy that day, I was like, this dude rocked my world on a one hour phone call.

Like nobody ever has in a church in my whole life. So I went back and we talked about it.

And I was like, I think I should be baptized. And she was like, well, that makes sense. And then

I called him back and I was like, yeah, I think we're gonna go ahead. I do need to be baptized. I said, and by the way, what is the status of my membership with the

Master's Fellowship? And he goes, well, let's take care of the baptism thing first, because I really don't think they want an unbaptized preacher joining.

And I said, okay, which brings us to today. This is why Nick is here.

I spent the last several weeks studying baptism, talking about baptism with Nick, because again,

I haven't been legitimately baptized. And I wanna change that today.

That's why the tub is outside. That's why Nick is here. Nick is the pastor that has truly been discipling me for the last couple of months, and is going to actually perform the baptism.

So what we're gonna do. Yes, because for me, it's about obedience, right?

Like I can preach all I want, and I can know all the things that I want, and I can say all the good things that I want, but I also need to be walking in obedience before you all, which is why

I'm doing this. Again, is it a little embarrassing? Yeah, yeah, it's a little embarrassing.

But it's what I need to do before Christ. So that's why we're gonna do that.

And Maddie, because of your profession of salvation of faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ, I now baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the

Holy Spirit, buried in the likeness of his death, raised in the likeness of his resurrection.

All right, give him a hand. Oh Lord, thank you for this faithful testimony that we have witnessed today, and we give all praise to Christ, and we thank you for his gospel, and pray if anyone is here, does not have saving faith in Christ, that they would not leave here today without truly knowing him.

And so we commit this time to you in thanks, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.