Remember Your Baptism!

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged, strengthened in your faith, and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is. May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word, and may the Lord be with you.

Well, welcome to the, I guess, fourth official week of this little mini series that we're doing on Ecclesiology.

What is the true church? What is the church? What is a faithful church? What does that mean? What is a church that's honoring to God?

Well, as you'll remember, we'll do this quickly, the first couple weeks of this series we talked about why a true church is necessary, especially in a culture right now that's caving to all kinds of every wind of doctrine, a

Christian culture that's bowing their knee to heresy and sin and championing things like Black Lives Matter or homosexuality or abortion.

We need the true church now more than ever because there's so many watered -down and unfaithful churches.

We need the true church. Week two of this series, we talked about how the basis or the foundation for what a true church is is the presence of God.

When we gather together, we're not just gathering together as people. There's not just some kind of energy that's here, although the room temperature does go up when there's more people here, but it's not that.

There's the Spirit of God has chosen covenantally to dwell with His people. When we gather, when we preach, when we sing, when we take the

Lord's table, when we administer baptism, all of these things God is using for His glory and sharing

His grace and His presence with us. And then in week three, we talked about the so what.

Why does that matter? If God's presence is here, what is that going to require of us? And we talked about things like going to bed early.

It was a very practical sermon, if you remember. Waking up, drinking coffee, if that's a grace to you. Going to church early, praying, getting ready, because you are going into the presence of your

King when you go to church on the Lord's Day. So those are the things that we've talked about thus far, but that's far from defining what a true church is.

We've talked about the presence of God. We talked a little bit about preaching and why that's important, but there's more to what a true church is.

And I would like to read you probably, I think, the best definition of what a true church is. It comes out of the

Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 29. The heading is simply, what is a true church?

This is what it says. We believe that we ought to discern diligently and very carefully by the

Word of God what is the true church. For all sects in the world today claim for themselves the name of the church.

We are not speaking here of the company of hypocrites who are mixed among the good in the church and who nonetheless are not part of it, even though they are physically there, but we're speaking of distinguishing the body and fellowship of the true church from all other sects that call themselves the church.

Thus, the true church can be recognized if it has the following marks. Number one, the church engages in the pure preaching of the gospel.

Number two, it makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them.

And number three, it practices church discipline for correcting faults. In short, the true church governs itself according to the pure Word of God, rejecting all things contrary to it, and holding

Jesus Christ as the only head. By these marks, one can be assured of recognizing the true church.

And this is my favorite line, and no one ought to be separated from it. If you found a true church, be there.

Go there. Rest there. Worship there. Sing there. Pray there.

Learn there. And be equipped for the life that God has called you to be. If you found that, no one ought to be separated from it.

Now, according to this definition, there's three aspects of what a true church is. A true church faithfully preaches the Word of God, the true church administers rightly the sacraments, that's baptism and Lord's Supper, and the true church employs church discipline.

The most popular aspect of Christian church is church discipline, right? That's why everybody does it.

Not hardly. Now, today we've talked about preaching, and I think that this church has a reputation, at least in this community, as we want to preach the

Word of God. We want everything that we do to be rooted in and based in the Word of God, but we have to move on now to the sacraments.

How do we rightly administer the sacraments, the Lord's Supper, and baptism? Now, if you've visited upstairs and seen my bookshelf, tens of thousands of pages have been written on this, so how could

I possibly, in one sermon, try to talk about baptism or Lord's Supper together? We're not. We're gonna break them up into two.

Today, we're gonna talk about baptism. How does a true church think about baptism? How does a true church practice baptism?

What does baptism mean? What does it signify? These are the things that we are gonna be trying to cover today.

This sermon is gonna be three parts. Part number one, how does a church understand baptism covenantally?

And that will become important. Number two, how does the church understand baptism symbolically?

Meaning, what does it signify? That will be important. And then number three, what we're building to is how does a true church administer baptism biblically?

Those are the three things we're gonna cover. By God's grace, we'll get out of here by two o 'clock. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for today.

Thank you for the legacy of all the faithful men in the faith that have came before us, who have spoken on these topics, who we stand on the shoulders of to look out and see these truths.

Lord, we thank you for the Reformation and for all of the subsequent generations that came, who pressed back into what the

Bible says about these topics. Lord, I pray that in our time today, that even though this is a dense subject, even though there's a lot to understand when it comes to it,

Lord, I pray that that you would help the content of this to be very practical. And that,

Lord, at the end of the matter, that we would understand just how important it is to remember our baptism.

Lord, we ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. Well today,

I've got a couple qualifications before we begin. This sermon is gonna be dense. So listen well, take notes, listen to it again online if you have to, but we are gonna be moving very quickly because there's a lot of information to cover.

I also admitted publicly at presbytery that sermons are too long for me, so I'm trying.

I've got some witnesses here who can hold me accountable for that. So we're gonna move through the material somewhat quickly.

Number two, we have to begin with covenant theology because we can't understand baptism if we don't understand covenant theology.

See, all doctrines come from the Bible, but there's primary doctrines that are right on the surface. You can pull them out like the doctrine of God.

This is who God is. And then there's other doctrines that are built on top of other doctrines, like an upstairs bathroom.

You don't enter the house and go straight to the upstairs bathroom. You have to go through your living room, then up the stairs, then you get to the bathroom.

Baptism is built on top of covenant theology so that if you don't understand the covenant, you can't understand baptism.

So we're gonna begin there. How does a church understand baptism covenantally?

And we'll begin with asking the question, what is a covenant? A covenant is an agreement between two parties where one person's gonna do one thing, another person's gonna do another thing, and they're gonna live in agreement together until one person breaks the term.

So like, for instance, your house is probably owned by the bank, and you agree that I'm gonna pay monthly payments, and if I do that, then you're not gonna come and repossess my house.

But if I fail in that, the consequences are you're gonna come and take my house away. That's a covenant.

It's a modern -day example of it. In the Bible, there's kind of different ways to categorize this, but there's three essential kinds of covenants.

There's covenants between person to person on equal terms, like marriage. A husband covenants to his wife that he's not gonna be a girly man, he's gonna be a masculine man, and he's gonna love her to the glory of God all of his days.

Amen. A woman is committing that she is gonna love her husband, submit to her husband, be a godly feminine wife, and she's gonna love him all of her days to the glory of God.

That is a biblical covenant of marriage. But that's only one kind of covenant.

That's human to human on equal terms, male and female, equal in the eyes of God, coming together in covenant.

There's also covenants of unequal power dynamics. For instance, there's what's called a suzerain -vassal treaty.

You do not have to remember these terms. A suzerain is the powerful one in the covenant, and a vassal is the one who's the unpowerful or the one who has no power in the covenant.

And this works itself out in empires, usually. Say, for instance, we're living in Israel, Assyria comes and totally decimates us, and they make a covenant with us.

They say, all right, listen, we've got a great deal for you. We're gonna let you live as long as you pay us every month all the money that you have, and then if you do that, we won't kill you.

So your responsibility in the covenant is to make sure you give us money, you send us tribute, you do all these things, and we will be so gracious to you that we won't kill you.

And that's the covenant. So Israel, at times, experienced that. There were times where they said we're not gonna pay, and then really bad things happened.

That's a suzerain -vassal agreement when it comes to empire and nation. But there's another kind of suzerain -vassal treaty, where God enters into covenant with man.

Now, if you think about power dynamics, God is infinitely powerful, infinitely glorious in all his ways, and we are what?

We're pathetic, weak, broken cisterns that leak and that never do what's right.

So that's the greatest power dynamic that you could ever possibly imagine. The infinite God coming down and being in covenant with us, and what would

God actually benefit from that? Almost nothing. There's really a one -sided nature to the way that God does his covenants with us, where he gives us his blessings, we give him begrudging obedience at our best, and God blesses us.

And he works out these covenants with what we call federal heads. These are men that God raises up to represent people.

They're like a president represents a nation, a federal head represents a group of people. So, for instance, when people sinned, when they fell short of God's glory, when they chose the fruit, when they chose to rebel,

God comes down, and he makes a covenant of grace, and he brings

Adam into that covenant as an administrator. And he says that, I will crush the serpent's head,

I will eventually defeat your greatest enemy, I will do all of these great things for you, but I want you to obey me. And what does

Adam do? He doesn't. Instead of multiplying God's glory, which is the original commission, right?

Be fruitful, multiply, spread out to the ends of the earth, rule over it, subdue it, have dominion. Instead of doing all of that, Adam's race multiplies sin and death and devastation all across the face of the earth so that God wipes it out through the flood.

But God's not finished. Adam's administration proved that it was a failure. Adam could not administrate the covenant of grace for his people.

So what does God do? God chooses another administrator named Noah. At the end of the flood, when

Noah comes out of the boat, the command is given a second time. Be fruitful, multiply, spread out to the ends of the earth, rule over it, subdue it, you will be a blessed people.

Noah, you're gonna be my covenant head. You're gonna be the administrator of this covenant. And Noah got it exactly right, right?

No. He did the exact same thing as Adam. Adam ate from the fruit and became naked and ashamed.

Noah drank from the fruit of the vine, became naked and ashamed, and his son Canaan was cursed as well. Same old story.

So time goes on. The people find themselves in a sorry condition of sin once more.

And God, by grace and grace alone, calls Abraham out of the nations.

And he draws him back into the good, fruitful land. And then he gives him these promises.

Genesis 12, 1 through 3, some of the most beautiful verses in all the Bible. I will bless you. I will make your name great.

I will make you into a great nation. And I will spread you out so that all the families of the earth will be blessed through you, even though you were five minutes earlier, an idolater living in the land of Ur.

And I'll do it for my glory, so that no one can think that Abraham, it was about you, it was about me.

And then Abraham's family gets stuck in Egypt, lost in slavery, and they're not doing what God said that they were gonna do.

So God raises up the people again. He brings them to Mount Sinai, and he speaks to them through their federal head, their representative,

Moses. And Moses is sort of mediating this covenant. He's another administrator. And the people after that don't do what

God told them to do. They get stuck in Canaanite battles where they lose. They get stuck in idolatry.

And then eventually they say, we don't want God to be our king. We want our own king. And God allows that and then raises up the final covenant head,

David, who also unsuccessfully leads his people and administrates his covenant so that Israel is completely destroyed and Judah is in exile.

And by the time we get to the end of the New Testament, they're not a sovereign nation anymore. They're subjugated under various empires like Greece and Persia and eventually

Rome. So by all accounts, every human administration that God raises up fantastically fails.

Nosedives. And that's intentional. I don't want you to think that God was surprised by this.

Where he was just like, man, I really thought David finally was going to get it right. God raises up these men for a couple of different reasons.

Number one, they point forward to the better covenant administrator and the better covenant that's coming in Jesus Christ. Number two, they showcase, because we're hard -hearted people, that no matter if I bring the very best of you, the one who says that he's a man after God's own heart, the one who everybody looks at and it's like, that guy gets it.

Even if I bring him, he will fail because the heart of man is desperately sick and wicked above all things.

And you need a better man. You need a better administrator. You need a better covenant keeper.

You need a better covenant. Which is what all of the Old Testament is about, pointing us forward to the moment where Jesus Christ comes.

And then he takes the covenant of grace and administrates it perfectly to his people.

The final covenant keeper, so that now we're brought into covenant through him. That's the point, that Christ is the faithful vassal in the covenant treaty with God.

Christ fulfills the covenants in order. I've talked about this before. You notice that it's Adam, then

Noah, then Abraham, then Moses, then David. Well, Christ fulfills these covenants in reverse order. The first thing that he does is he becomes the true king, the son of David, who's going to lead his people and sit on the throne.

He fulfilled the covenant of David when he ascended to heaven, sat on the throne, and he's reigning there forever. So he fulfilled the covenant of David.

We're not waiting on that fulfillment. It's happened. The next covenant he goes to is the covenant of Moses, where he perfectly fulfills the ceremonial law so that you and I are not justified anymore through our obedience and through our sacrifices, because the final sacrifices come, the final temples come, the true and better priest is here.

Christ has fulfilled the covenant of Moses so that you and I can be in relationship with God. What's the next one?

Abraham. Instead of choosing a family, he chose a church. He elected us and brought us into covenant with him.

And the same promises that apply to Abraham apply to us. If you're a

Christian who thinks that the Old Testament doesn't have any relevance for your life, Genesis 1 or Genesis 12, 1 through 3 is your promises that God's going to make you into a great nation.

He's going to make your name great through Christ, and he's going to bless the entire world through the seed of Abraham, which

Paul tells us in Galatians is Jesus. The covenant promises of Abraham are what

Jesus has been fulfilling for the last 2000 years. And you and I are a part of that.

In both covenants, the Abrahamic covenant and the covenant we have with Christ, God chooses a family. One is

Israel, one is the church. In both covenants, he chooses to bless a people, bless the

Israelites. And what are we? We're a kingdom filled with priests, a holy nation, a blessed people unto our

God. In both covenants, there's a sacrifice that's been provided. Isaac was the one who was on the altar.

The knife was raised and God said, do not do this. And he allowed Abraham to have the ram that was caught in the thicket.

And yet in the new covenant, Christ was that true and greater ram.

Christ was the true and greater Isaac. And instead of God sparing the son,

God allowed the knife of his wrath to come down on Christ. Because he's the true and greatest sacrifice.

Do you see the continuity between these covenants? They both have a sacrifice, one's better, one's greater. In both covenants,

God takes the curses upon himself. Did you realize that? And in covenants where you have a very powerful king who's making a covenant with a very languid and weak people, they never take the consequence.

This is always it's always your fault. Remember, things roll downhill, right? In human covenants,

I'm not going to say that it's my fault. If you're beneath me, I'm going to say you messed up. You get the consequences, but not with the covenant that God makes with Abraham.

God puts Abraham in this deep sleep and he does this covenantal ceremony where the animals are split in half and God himself through this theophanic vision walks through these split animal pieces saying that if I do not fulfill this covenant, then may

I be ripped apart just as these animals have been ripped apart. And Abraham sits watching with his mouth dropped saying,

God is going to do this without me. He's going to be faithful to the covenant so that I can be brought in without my help.

That would have been a shocking thing. You mean if I sin right now,

God's still going to bring the covenant? He's not going to bring the wrath down on me? Well, no, because he didn't invite you into the consequences.

The consequences he said he will take on himself. Look at the new covenant in Christ. God does not say to us, clean yourself up and then

I might think about saving you. He doesn't say, make sure you go to church every week and if you miss, better be careful.

He doesn't say at the end of your life, like in Islam, that your good deeds and your bad deeds are going to be on this cosmological scale and if your good deeds outweigh your bad, then you're going to get into heaven.

That's not what he says. He says, by the work of Christ and Christ alone, who on the cross was ripped apart for you, the promise that God made all the way back to Abraham so that you could be brought in.

Do you see the continuity between these covenants? It's astounding. Abraham's covenant, if you're a

Christian, is your covenant. Paul says that if you have faith, you're children of Abraham. You've been made the

Israel of God. These promises are what he came to fulfill. There's continuity in this covenant, even in how it chronologically develops.

If you think about it, the covenant develops over Genesis 12, Genesis 15, Genesis 17.

Genesis 12, Abraham's called out of the world. He's adopted by God into a family of grace.

He's made to be a blessed nation. He's given a commission to go to the nations. Then in Genesis 15, God takes the consequences for himself.

Genesis 17, Abraham finally is told what to do. After God has made all these promises and has taken all the consequences upon himself,

Abraham's finally said, now you will be cut into the covenant as well through circumcision, you and your children after you.

That's what I want you to do. I want you to be holy as I'm holy, and I want you to take the sign of this covenant. Do you think that the new covenant that we have in Christ is any different than this?

The first thing that God does to us is what? In eternity, he elects us. He draws us out of the world.

He adopts us into a family of grace. He makes us into a blessed people and a blessed nation. He gives us a commission in Matthew 28 to go tell the world about Jesus.

Then he dies on the cross, takes the consequences for our sin, and the first act of obedience that we do is that we're cut into the covenant through the sign of the covenant, not circumcision.

In the New Testament, it's baptism. It's the exact same chronology that's playing out from Genesis even into the

New Testament. Again, this is a very strange covenant in the ancient world because the suzerain would have never put the consequences before the stipulations.

He would have never said, I'll take the consequences if you don't obey. He says, he would say, you have to obey me or I'm gonna punish you.

Not with God. And then we see the same thing in the New Testament.

So what we need to know is that there's great continuity between these covenants. What we need to know is the covenant is agreement between two parties, and God to man, it's a covenant where God is gonna share his relationship with us.

We see that God has made several covenants in the Old Testament, and we see that the Abrahamic covenant specifically applies to this moment that we're at in human history where God is working out these promises through his church.

We see that the sign of circumcision, which was the promise that everything God said was gonna happen to Abraham was the old covenant sign, and now, because we needed a better sign, we have the covenant of, or we have the sign of baptism so that we can believe all the promises that God has made apply to us.

That's the way signs work, and that's where we're gonna transition now to the next part is why does

God give signs? God gives us signs to show us that he is serious about his promises.

You think about the covenant with Noah, and he said, I'll put a rainbow in the sky so that you will know all the days of your life that I will never flood the world again.

God already told them. He already said, I'm not gonna do this. You'd think that us as humans would just take his word for it, but God shows grace upon grace in that he gives a sign that still hangs in the sky today that I will not do this thing.

The sign is for us. It's for our benefit. In the old covenant, the sign was to show his people that they really are set apart.

Circumcision showed that they really are God's people. They really have been brought into covenant with him, that they really are his people, but that sign was limited, was it not?

Because in that covenant, it only applied to males, and it only applied to those who became

Jewish by proselytism or those who were born into the Jewish community as children.

Think about it. Jesus, everything that he does is better. He's a better temple. He's a better sacrifice.

He gives a better sign. Now the sign of baptism applies to both men and women.

Now the sign of baptism applies to both Jew and Greek. Now the sign of baptism applies to not just adults who profess their faith.

Jesus is not regressive. It applies also to our children as well.

And I'm gonna prove that to you here just by even looking forward to what Peter says in Acts chapter two.

He's talking to a group of 3 ,000 men. He's talking to a group of people who've been Jews all their life, who've been in line with Jews, who've been

Jews all their life, who always take the sign not just for themselves, but for their children.

This is what Peter says to a group of 3 ,000 Jewish men who are under the Abrahamic covenant, pay really close attention.

Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him, that's Jesus, both

Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. I wanna read between the lines just for a second here and just point out to you what

Peter is actually saying. Peter is saying that the Abrahamic covenant was not good enough, was not great enough in order to save you, so God has appointed

Jesus Christ as a new covenant head. God has appointed Jesus Christ to be the head over this covenant so that he now is both

Lord and Christ. So the Jews are thinking to themselves, new covenant administrator.

Let's keep going. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both

Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Now, when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brethren, what shall we do?

It's a really good follow -up question. They're asking, how can we come to this

Christ? How can we be in covenant with this Christ? Peter continues, repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sin, and you will receive the gift of the

Holy Spirit. He's saying, you don't need to be re -circumcised,

Jewish men. He's saying, repent and believe and be baptized, which is the sign of Jesus's covenant.

Baptism is now the sign of the new covenant promise, that if you repent and you're baptized, that sign signifies everything

God has promised to you. And who does it apply to? The Jews who've been circumcising their children for thousands of years probably said this, you know,

I think this only applies to people who profess their faith. No, for thousands of years they've been circumcising their children.

When Peter says in verse 39, for this promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the

Lord will call to himself, they're saying that Christ is a new covenant head, has given us the covenant sign of baptism, and it applies to us and our children forever.

They wouldn't have said, but wait, they can't make a credible profession of faith. They wouldn't have said that.

That would have been so foreign to their experience. They would have said, praise God, and they would have baptized their children.

Right then and there. Baptism is the sign that you belong to God.

It is the sign that you've been brought into covenant with God. It is the sign that you've been brought into his kingdom.

And it is the sign not just for Jewish, but for Gentile and for all who are far off.

All those whom God has called to himself. When Peter says, for this promise is for you and your children, we take that seriously.

We do not treat our children in this church as if they're heathens. We don't treat our children in this church as if they're outsiders.

We don't let them come to church and listen to the sermon and listen to everything that we do and the way that we pray.

And then when it comes to baptism, they're not Christians. They're not Christians. We treat them like Christians for like an hour and a half of service, but then when we get to baptism, we're like, no.

No, we don't do that. We treat them as though they're believers and that as believers, they deserve to receive the sign of the covenant, just like all covenant members have for all time.

That's why we had to talk about covenants because you needed to understand all the substructure that's underneath it. And you need to understand that all covenants have a sign and the new covenant has the sign of baptism.

And Peter says it applies to us and our children. That's why we had to go there. Now, second part is

I wanna now talk about what baptism symbolizes. Because now that you know what it is, now you know who it applies to, you need to know what it means.

Because I think baptism is one of the most significant acts that we will ever experience on planet

Earth. Even if you got it as a child, as an infant, you don't remember yours, but I'm gonna appeal to you in this part of the message that I want you to remember your baptism and you're gonna say, well,

I was too young. I don't remember it. No, I want you to understand what God is promising you in your baptism.

And I want you to remember it because when you're depressed and when you're broken and when you're stuck in sin, one of the most applicable things that you can do in your life is repent and remember your baptism.

And I wanna show you what I mean by that by talking about what baptism means. First thing it means is it means that you were washed and that you were cleansed.

Look at Acts 22, verse 16. A certain man named

Ananias, a man who was devout by the standard of the law and well -spoken of by all the Jews who lived there came to me, that's

Paul, and standing near said to me, brother Saul, receive your sight.

And at that very time, I looked up at him and he said, the God of our fathers,

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he's appealing to the old covenant, has appointed you to know his will and to see the righteous one, that's

Christ, and to hear an utterance from his mouth, for you will be a witness for him to all men of what you have seen and heard.

Now, why do you delay? Get up and be baptized and wash away your sins calling on his name.

The first thing that Paul is told to do after his conversion, after the gospel was preached to him and he understand what it means is to get up and be baptized, not to delay baptism until he can have a credible profession of faith.

Paul gets that later. Paul is not able right now to even properly articulate what it is that he believes, but he's told to go get baptized.

And he's told that it's a symbol of the washing away of his sins. Now, I wanna tell you what Ananias is not saying.

We are not baptismal regeneration people here. What I mean by that is baptism doesn't save you. The water is not magical.

We didn't add anything to it before we baptize you and it literally doesn't wash away your sin. That's not what

Ananias is saying. Ananias is saying that it's a sign of your sin being washed away.

He's saying that Christ on the cross has washed and cleansed your sin with his perfect blood.

And this act, this baptism symbolizes that. It symbolizes that your sin now has been defeated by Jesus.

So that when you're tempted to doubt, Paul, when you've been shipwrecked way too many times, when you reach down and a snake bites you and you're like, oh, what is this?

You can look to your baptism and you can say, all of this is worth it because Christ for the joy set before him endured the cross and scorned his shame and by his blood

I've been washed. And these present troubles are not even worth comparing to the glory that will come to you. It will be revealed when

Christ comes back. And all these things are working for me in eternal weight of glory. He's not gonna doubt that he's been washed because he's been given the sign of baptism.

The sign of baptism is there to remind him of all that Christ has done so that if you, even today, if you're tempted to doubt that God has washed you clean, if you're still struggling with that same sin that makes you feel dirty or broken or makes you feel guilty and you're carrying that weight even in here today, the first thing

I would tell you to do is repent and sin no more. And the second thing I would tell you to do is remember your baptism because in your repentance you don't have to work your way into forgiveness and you don't have to clean yourself.

That's already been accomplished by Christ and your baptism signifies it. Remember your baptism.

The second thing baptism symbolizes is the forgiveness of sins. Acts 2 .38,

Peter said to them, repent and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and you will receive the

Holy Spirit. He's saying that baptism is a sign that you have been forgiven of all your sins.

Baptism is not the work. Baptism itself, the water, does not wash away your sins in the same way that the rainbow is not up in heaven fighting raindrops so that the world doesn't flood.

The rainbow is a sign of God's promise. Baptism is a sign that you have been forgiven.

If you're in Christ, all your sins have been forgiven. So that when you're baptized, it's a symbol of what

Christ has done for you so that you can have the most incredible assurance and confidence.

One of the great sins I think in evangelicalism is this sin of this sort of humble doubt.

I just don't know how God could save me, I'm so broken. Well, take your eyes off of you and focus on a very infinitely powerful

God who can save anybody, even Paul and Peter and all of them. And if you struggle with this, remember your baptism.

Your baptism is the sign that God gave you because he loves you, that your sin has been forgiven.

Remember it. Think about it like this, there's an example, a property deed. If I were to sell you my home, we would draw up a purchase and sale agreement, we would agree on a price that was way too high for you but really nice for me.

And then you would move into the house and you would put that agreement and all that mountain of paperwork, you'd put it in a drawer somewhere and you would remember it because it tells you that that house is yours.

You would not be hanging out in my driveway snuggling with paperwork because the paperwork doesn't do anything but tell you that it's yours.

Hold onto the paperwork for that reason. Hold onto your baptism for that reason because it tells you that forgiveness is yours.

It's not Jesus' work of forgiveness but it is telling you that his work is yours. And that sign is given for your joy.

Baptism symbolizes purification in Matthew 3, 11. Notice what John the Baptist says. As for me,

I baptize you with water for repentance but he who is coming after me is mightier than I and I am not even fit to remove his sandals and he will baptize you with the

Holy Spirit and with fire. John's baptism was for repentance to prepare them for Jesus.

Jesus' baptism is a baptism of fire. And you're like, what is that?

In the New Testament and in the Old Testament, there's two signs. There's the sign of circumcision that's applied to the flesh.

Moses says that he wished that those hard -hearted Jewish men had been also circumcised of their heart.

There's a spiritual circumcision. Well, it's the same in the New Testament. We have the physical sign of baptism where we pour water on your head, but it applies to the act of God in bringing his

Holy Spirit upon you and baptizing you with fire that purifies you. Like gold that has many imperfections, you throw it into the flame and you let it cook those imperfections out and purify and it becomes a better product after it's been put through the fire.

In the same way, we become better, more refined. More holy, as God is continually putting us into the fires of sanctification.

Your baptism is a sign of that, that you've been purified and that you are being purified.

Isn't that incredible? When you look at your life and you say, I just don't think

I'm growing. I don't think I love Jesus more than I did last year.

Repent, but also cling to your baptism because it is Jesus' sign to you that his work will not be finished until the day that he calls you home.

His work will continue and you will grow. If you're his, if you belong to him, that baptism will be effective for you to remember that he will purify you.

Baptism, I wanna say this very clearly, is not your sign to show you how sincere you are to God.

Baptism is God's sign to you to show you how sincere he is about his promises to you. It's his sign to you because he loves you.

Baptism also symbols that you die in the best way. Romans 6, one through three says, what shall we say then?

Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be. How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death?

We have to know what baptism is. Baptism is a sign. Jesus is not saying that you teleported through time back to first century

Palestine and you got lumped into the tomb with him physically. That's not what he's talking about. It's saying covenantally and spiritually you were crucified with Christ on the cross.

You were buried with Christ in your sins so that when Christ raised, and we'll talk about that in a moment, that you were raised with him.

The work that went into your salvation predates you by thousands of years and even more than that in the eternity of God's decreative will.

Think about baptism like a marriage certificate. If you forget your marriage certificate at home, you're still married.

Your marriage certificate points to the reality of what was done in a past event. Your baptism points to the reality of what was done in a past event.

It wasn't done by you. It was done by Christ. Remember your baptism. Remember your baptism that you're dead in sin and you no longer have to struggle.

I think sometimes we don't give ourselves permission to say that this sin can die at the feet of Christ and I can live in victory because sometimes

I think we're so used to living in our sins that we become comfortable with them.

If you're struggling with a sin right now, remember your baptism. Remember that your baptism signifies that you're dead and that you've been made alive in Christ.

I don't think I've heard a single sermon. I've been in the wrong circles my whole life. Thank God, now we're finally on the right track. I don't think

I've ever heard a single sermon where somebody says, if you're struggling with sin, remember your baptism. It's God's sign to you that his promises are true.

Why wouldn't you remember it? Why wouldn't you cling to the truth of it? It's your green card of grace.

You thought about it like that? If you're an alien and you come into this country and you don't have a green card, well, the way it's supposed to work is that you get kicked out.

Like Jesus says, you're the one who tried to come in inappropriately and you're cast out into the darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth. Baptism is your green card of grace.

It shows you that you are welcome here and that these are your people and that this is your nation.

Remember your baptism. Baptism symbolizes our exodus. 1 Corinthians 10, one through two.

For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses.

In the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them and that rock was

Christ. In the same way that Israel was called out of Egypt and was brought into this land where they were gonna be

God's special people and he was gonna be their God and he was gonna dwell with them in the same way that all of that happened is the same way that it happened to us.

We were pulled out of the land. We were pulled out of slavery to sin. Instead of Pharaoh in Egypt, it was

Satan's sin and death that was accosting us and had us shackled in our sin and in the same way, Christ, the true and better Moses, led us out and instead of us being baptized into Moses, we're baptized into Jesus Christ.

What does that signify? That now we have freedom. We're the most free people on earth as Christians.

Freedom doesn't come from being extricated from righteousness.

Freedom doesn't come from hedonism and licentiousness. Freedom comes from being bound to Jesus Christ. We're the most free people on earth if we are in him because he's our true and greater

Moses who led us into freedom and one day, one day he's gonna lead us fully home to the promised land, the new

Jerusalem where we'll live with him forever. Our life today is following him like Israel followed the spirit, the cloud by day, the fire by night.

We follow the spirit now, clinging to our baptism as a sign that he will take us home.

Our baptism symbolizes freedom. Our baptism symbolizes that our ticket's been punched and we're on our way home.

Oh, isn't that good? Almost the entire

New Testament promises are symbolized by baptism. It's the trophy of God's grace that hangs on your mantle that says that he won the battle, he won the war.

All the things that afflicted you have been brought to nothing so that now the only thing that exists is you and Christ.

Your baptism is a sign that the war is over and that you are free. It symbolizes our resurrection.

Romans 6, four, we talked about this earlier. You've been buried with him through baptism and death so that in Christ, as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, so we too might walk in the newness of life.

We weren't there 2 ,000 years ago when Jesus was raised from the dead, but covenantally we were. When he raised, we raised.

The power of his resurrection now lives in you. A past event has the greatest impact ever on your life.

In a small way, I was looking through family photos this week and I looked at a photo of Haley who, if you know

Addison, Haley was Addison seven years ago. Very spicy, saucy type of personality.

Pistol, just funny. She was dressed in this ridiculous outfit that she insisted upon wearing.

It was all mismatched and it was horrendous, but it was the most beautiful thing. And in that moment, all

I could do was just almost weep in tears and just laugh and cry and so many different emotions were flooding into my heart because it felt like I was there in that moment again.

Seven years had passed and I felt like I was right there and that's just a picture. That's just paper and ink that froze time for a moment so that I can remember it.

That's what your baptism has done. Your baptism is a picture of what Christ has done for you and all of the emotions that come with that and all of the freedom that comes with that and all of the forgiveness and all of the power of his resurrection comes with that.

Remember your baptism. Baptism symbolizes new birth in the kingdom.

John 3, five says, "'Truly I say to you, unless one is born of water "'and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.'"

This is a passage that's really alluding to baptism. Baptism of water and baptism of the

Spirit, it symbolizes that we've been brought into the kingdom of God. Baptism symbolizes regeneration. I'm gonna go quickly through these,

Titus 3, five. Baptism doesn't regenerate us. Baptism is a sign that God has regenerated us through Jesus Christ and through his

Spirit. It symbolizes our salvation. 1 Peter 3, 21, corresponding to that, "'Baptism now saves you, "'not the removal of dirt from the flesh, "'but an appeal to God for a good conscience "'through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.'"

Many people have misused this passage and said that baptism is what saves you as if baptism is a personal thing that's doing your personal work for you.

Baptism doesn't save you, and that's not what Peter's saying. Peter is saying that baptism is the sign of your salvation, and baptism is what you can cling to as an appeal to God.

God, remember what you've done for me by me remembering my baptism. That's what Peter is saying.

Not that your baptism saves you, but you are saved by Christ, and your baptism reminds you of that truth.

Remember your baptism. How many here have doubted their salvation? How many here have doubted that I don't belong to God?

I've done something, I've done something waste, so bad that I can never be forgiven? Remember your baptism.

1 Peter 3, 21, your baptism is a sign of your salvation. "'Baptism symbolizes communion with God.

"'Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, "'baptizing them in the name of the Father, "'Son, and the Holy Spirit, and what?

"'I am with you always.'" Imagine what the disciples said when they went to those first generation of people, and they're like, this is who

Jesus is, and they're like, how do we believe in Jesus? And they said, repent and be baptized, and he will be with you.

His baptism that he gives is a sign of his presence. When you feel like you're all alone in the world, when you feel like God is distant, your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling, when you feel like that my relationship with God is in shambles, you can look to your baptism and say that God is with me even though I'm the problem.

Remember your baptism. Remember your baptism. Acts 19, four tells us that our baptism symbolizes that we're identified with Jesus.

First Corinthians 1, 13 tells us that our baptism symbolizes that we're in union with Jesus. Acts 2, 41 tells us that baptism symbolizes that we've now been entered into the church through Jesus.

Acts 1, Corinthians 12, 13 says that we're now in unity with one another because of Jesus.

For by one spirit, we were all baptized into one body, whether Jew or Greek, whether slave or free, we were all made to drink of one spirit.

How many of us have grown up in churches that are chaotic, filled with gossip, broken, have no unity whatsoever?

May I suggest that that church has forgotten their baptism, that Jesus has made us in one body to be in unity with one another and our baptism signifies that.

A church that remembers its baptism will not have infighting, will not have gossip, will not have backbiting, will not have conflicts that are unresolved and that lead to lifelong bitterness or someone leaving the church.

A church that remembers its baptism will remember that Christ has won unity for us.

He not only prayed for it in John 17, he won it on the cross. Baptism symbolizes our spiritual clothing.

This is the last one in case you're wondering how long this goes. Galatians 3, 26 through 27 says that we are closed with Christ in our baptism.

For you are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ.

Think about the implications of what that means. You're clothed with Jesus. You are not insignificant.

You are not a person who never gets anything right and you need to live in this sort of lack of confidence.

You can face your day with courage and with tenacity because you've been clothed with Christ. Christ has called you into the war.

Christ has called you to share the gospel with all the nations. You can have confidence because you were armored up with Jesus.

Our baptism, one of the spiritually rich things that has ever happened to us, whether we were a baby or whether it happened last week, reminds us that we've been washed of our sins, cleansed and purified of our iniquity, forgiven of our trespasses, purified of our defilements, dead to our depravity, brought out of slavery and ruin and into freedom and life, raised with Christ as a new creation, reborn by the

Spirit in space and time, regenerated and made alive at our conversion, saved and justified by Christ's mediatorial sacrifice, faithfully being sanctified by the working of God, given communion in Christ and with the

Godhead by being in union with his one and only Son who granted us entrance into the church, access to the visible community of God, inheritor of all of the things of heaven, while also ensuring that we have unity with our brothers and sisters until he returns, clothed with his armor so that we can fight the good fight and finish the race, that is what baptism signifies, which is the

New Testament. The whole thing, our whole life in Christ is symbolized by baptism.

Why wouldn't we remember it? When we sin, why wouldn't we remember it? When we doubt, when we stray, when we're broken, when we're hurt, when we feel like we're all alone, why wouldn't we remember this gift that God has given you?

This down payment on your inheritance in eternity? Remember your baptism.

It is God's gift to you so that you will not forget. Now, as we transition into the final part of the sermon, this one's shorter than the last.

I share that for your grace. We now know what baptism is and who it applies to and we know what it signifies and we know that one of the most spiritually significant things we can do is remember it and remember it off often.

But now, because the Belgic Confession has said that a true church administers baptism truly, we need to understand what baptism looks like and how it's administered.

Because if you've been in church for a while, you've seen there's a lot of different ways to administer baptism. During COVID, I saw an

Anglican priest shoot someone with a water gun and call it baptism. I don't think that falls under the

Belgic definition. Now, some of this I've already covered in a session that we did here at the church on baptism where I go over the meaning and the mode of baptism.

You can find that on our church's YouTube account. You can watch that. It literally is called The Meaning and Mode of Baptism. But I do want to highlight just a few things so that we can cover the topic well.

I know there's a lot of information you've already been given, but I want you to know what is a faithful application of baptism and what does this church practice and why does this church practice it that way?

That's my goal here in this final section. Baptism comes from a Greek word, baptizo, which means to wash and to ceremonially cleanse.

It does not mean immerse. You can't draw an equal sign from baptizo to immerse because there's lots of examples where that doesn't apply.

So for instance, the Pharisees complained that Jesus did not baptize his hands. That's the word.

We render that wash. Jesus did not go to the Jordan River and have John delicately immerse his hands in the name of the

Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit through immersion and then bring them back up so he could eat. The same as in Mark, we're talking about plates.

The Pharisees complained again that they didn't baptize their plates and their pots. The word means wash.

The word means cleanse. The words mean dip. Doesn't necessarily mean immersion, although that's where most of us from a

Baptist background and a charismatic background believe that that's what it teaches.

I'll prove to you that it doesn't. Now, I may need to prove it more and more times to you than just this one sermon, but I do want you to hear the evidence that's gonna be presented.

So nowhere in the New Testament does the word baptizo mean specifically immersion. The second thing is the

Hebrew cognate for that word, taval, in the Old Testament, never describes an event where something is fully immersed.

It describes things that are dipped, sprinkled, and poured, but it never means full -blown immersion. There's only two examples that most people cite why immersion is the only way to do baptism.

There's only two passages, and that's the baptism of Jesus, and that's the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch by Philip. Both of those do not require immersion.

I'll tell you why. It says that Jesus went down into the water. In Greek, those prepositional phrases means that he went toward the water, not into the water, which means that he was standing on the shore.

He walked down into the water. John baptized him, and they both came out. That's what that means.

If you take it to mean Jesus was immersed, then you have to say that Jesus went down into the water, and then both him and John came out of the water, and you're like, why did

John, why was he under the water? How did he get there? The word means that they both walked out of the water together.

We see that in the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch. They're riding along on this desert road on the way to Africa where there's not very much water, and the

Ethiopian says, look, there's water! That was a surprise to him, that there was water in that region.

Have you ever stopped and thought about why that was a surprise to him? Because that road down to Africa wasn't really filled with big, deep pools where you could do immersion baptisms.

It was shocking to him that they found water, and he says, what's stopping us from doing this baptism right here and there?

It was probably, it might have been knee -deep, it might have been a wadi where rainwater had collected, which is what some scholars say,

I don't know, it wasn't there, but he was shocked by it. Says they both went down into the water, the

Ethiopian eunuch was baptized, and they both came out. Now, either you have a two -for -one

Baptist special where both of them locked arms, and they both went down into the water and baptized themselves, which is not what happened, or you have them going down into the water from the shoreline, the

Ethiopian eunuch being baptized, and then both walking up together. That, I think, is more faithful to what the

Greek grammar is actually saying. Now, maybe you'll argue with me, okay, okay, fine, maybe that's not applicable, maybe the

Chosen got it wrong, maybe all the other movies I've ever watched about Jesus being baptized got it wrong. Hollywood has got a really good accuracy rate, right?

They're always faithful to history, right? But I get it, that's a powerful image, we've all seen it, we bring that to the text, but maybe you would say, okay, well, baptism symbolizes burial, so that we're buried in our sins with Christ, and we're risen out of the grave, so that really looks like a sort of immersion baptism, where I go down into the grave and I come back out, but that's not how burials were done back then.

When you were buried, you were not put six feet under the ground in a modern burial ceremony, you were elevated and put up into a compartment of a cave, wrapped, and you were set there for a year while your body decomposed, and then you were put on a shelf in an ossuary where you would remain with your fathers forever.

There's nothing at all about going down, it's actually going up, so when Paul says that you're buried with Christ, we have to get out of our head this modern view of what it means to go down into a grave and come up out of something, that's not what he's saying.

There's nothing about that metaphor that Paul's talking about, there's a directional reality that's happening, he's saying our sin and the power of it has been crucified with Christ, it is dead, we are raised with him, that's what that means.

So even that doesn't require immersion, that symbolism just does not work with the evidence that we have from the

Bible, so if you are going to say, and I've said this before, that the only legitimate baptism is by immersion, you do so on the scantest evidence, biblically speaking.

And we believe that baptism by immersion is a legitimate form of baptism, but it's not primary.

Now let's move to the second kind of baptism mode, which is called aspersion or sprinkling.

I think there's better evidence for this, I think there's actually more evidence for sprinkling, much more evidence that this is a biblical mode than with immersion, because the

Hebrew word for it shows up all over the Old Testament where the priests are baptizing their fingers and sprinkling it, that shows up all the time in the

Old Testament, so the word baptism is used with the act of sprinkling, that gives it by itself a leg up on immersion, which is not paired ever with the word baptism.

Exodus 24 -6, Leviticus 7 -2, Numbers 18 -17 are just to name a few examples.

There's many more, I chose three in three different books to show you that it's not just one book.

The symbolic meaning of sprinkling also aligns perfectly with what baptism is.

Sprinkling something is to purify it and to consecrate it unto the Lord. You think about the covenant ceremony after Mount Sinai where Moses dips the hyssop into the blood and he sprinkles the entire nation of Israel, some two million people, with the blood?

He's bringing them into covenant relationship with God. What does baptism do? Baptism brings us into covenant relationship with God.

The same sign paired with the same meaning, I think that gives it a really interesting and very powerful evidence that sprinkling is a biblically viable method.

But I actually wanna move now to the last method, which is the one that we use. Of course, I would stack it in that way because we're doing it right here, right?

Effusion, or pouring, I think is the best. And I think so because it has all kinds of biblical meaning that undergirds it.

The reason we pour is not because we're stingy with water. The reason we pour is not because we're too cheap to buy a baptismal tank.

The reason we pour is because we think it is the biblically best method to signify what is covenantally happening to you in your baptism.

So let me explain. In context, in the Old Testament where the word baptism is used, it most frequently is shown with pouring, where blood is poured out on the altar, where water is poured out on the ground, where all kinds of different pouring is happening.

Pouring in the Old Testament symbolizes consecration unto God. And this happens in a lot of different places.

For instance, it happens when Jacob pours out oil onto a rock because he's just had a vision of the living

God. He's consecrating that space as God's space. The pouring out of the oil signifies that this doesn't belong to me, it's yours.

When men are brought into political office like a king, they have oil poured over top of their heads.

Why? Because that man is consecrated unto God. He doesn't belong to himself anymore, he belongs to God.

When men are put into sacred office as in priests in the Old Covenant, they have oil poured out over their head.

Leviticus 8 .12 is an example because they don't belong to themselves anymore, they belong to God. Pouring represents

God's blessings coming down from above, consecrating something unto him.

Pouring is a symbol of judgment. We see in Daniel 9 .11 where God is going to pour out his judgment on those who are not his.

We see Christ in the New Testament having the wrath of God poured out onto him so that we could walk away free.

Pouring represents consecration and it represents judgment and baptism is a sign of judgment, not against us, but against the

Christ who saved us. Baptism represents covenant cleansing. We talked about this earlier,

Exodus 29 .12. It represents God's contribution to the needy. Do you remember that fun story in the book of Kings where the poor widow goes to Elijah and she's like, how can

I possibly survive? And he says, what I want you to do is take your jar, go get jars from all your neighbors. You have one little jar of oil and pour them into all the jars until the oil stops pouring.

That is indication of God's blessing and God's provision for us in our need.

Pouring represents God's outpouring of grace to those who are his. Doesn't baptism represent

God's outpoured grace upon his saints? This way of doing baptism by pouring has theological depth to it and meaning that goes back into the depths of the

Old Testament and shows that God is a God who pours out his grace and his provision onto his people. Ezekiel 39 .29

talks about pouring as a revival that's coming through Messiah. It talks about in Proverbs 1 .23,

Isaiah 32 .15, Isaiah 44 .3, Joel 2 .28, that the pouring out of the Holy Spirit is coming.

Doesn't baptism symbolize that? That we who've had water poured over our heads have had the

Holy Spirit also poured out into our hearts? Zechariah 12 .10

represents sanctification and repentance. The actual word pouring is used. Romans 5 .5, the coming love of God will be poured out into our hearts.

New Covenant regeneration, Titus 3, 5 -7 will be poured out into us. Jesus in his baptism, the

Holy Spirit comes down from above and is poured out onto him. The apostles in the upper room, the

Holy Spirit comes from above and is poured out onto them. The Gentiles and the God -fearers in Acts 10, the

Holy Spirit comes from above and is poured out onto them. Pouring is all over the

Bible and it's consecration and God's blessings coming on his people.

You remember James, all good gifts come from above, from the Father of lights, poured out on us.

The reason that we chose pouring is because from Genesis to Revelation, every good thing that the believer has comes from God above and is poured out onto us.

Why wouldn't baptism align with that beautiful biblical imagery? Now, to be fair, reformed churches have done sprinkling, reformed churches have done pouring, and reformed churches, especially in the

Baptist tradition, have done immersion. They're all legitimate. If you were baptized by immersion, you don't need to get rebaptized.

If you were baptized by sprinkling, you don't need to feel deficient. There's nothing magical in the water. If we're not

Greek mythologist here, like Achilles, his weak spots where the gods were holding him by his ankles that didn't get the water or the oil, we're not like that.

You have a legitimate baptism if you've been baptized by a minister of the gospel in the church to the glory of God in the triune name.

You have a faithful baptism. What we're saying is that we have to, as a church, make a choice on which mode we're going to do, and we're gonna do it with the

Bible. And what we think, from studying the scriptures, is that the pouring out of water onto the head of the saint is the most rich and beautiful biblical imagery available to us, so why wouldn't we do it that way?

Why wouldn't we do it that way? To sum up, baptism is a symbol of every good promise that God has ever given you, poured out on you.

And what I hope that you get out of this message is not the word aspersion or effusion. That's great.

What I hope you get out of this message is that how practical baptism is to you in your life as a believer. What I hope you remember is your baptism.

When you're struggling, when you're hurting, when you're broken, I pray that you would remember what God has done for you and the sign that he's given you.

And if you do that, if you regularly remember your baptism, I promise you it will be a blessing to you in your walk with Christ, and it will help you in all manner of times that you are struggling.

Let's pray. Lord, we want desperately here to be a true church.

We want to be a faithful church. We want to be a church that rightly preaches the word of God, that rightly represents your truth in scripture, and we want to be a church that rightly understands baptism and all of its covenant elements.

We want to be a church that rightly understands what all baptism signifies. And Lord, we want to understand why baptism is administered and how it's administered to the saints.

Lord, just as application, I ask that you forgive me for thinking for years of my

Christian faith so lowly of my baptism. Lord, I ask that you forgive me of when in counseling situations with your people, and they've brought concerns or challenges or struggles that I've not reminded them to remember their baptism.

Lord, I pray for all of us here that we would remember that this baptism signifies all the good things that you've ever done for us, and that by remembering it, we're remembering you.