Sacraments: Into the Water

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Hey, Awakening Church.

My name is Chris, and as Christina said, we're in a two-week series called Sacraments, where we're looking at the sacraments, which is communion and baptism.

And you might be thinking, why are we going through this right now?

Well, hopefully last week we provided some clarity for why we need to talk about it and also how we're going to practice communion and baptism during these unique and crazy times.

These are still really important things.

The word sacraments, as we talked about last week, it literally means to make holy, to set aside, to create a kind of importance around them.

And so even during this time, we have to make baptism and communion important, even though it might look a little different.

And so today I want to teach on baptism to help us consider how we might do this.

If you're new to baptism, it's when someone confesses Jesus as Lord, they convert, they become a Christian, they say, I'm going to follow Jesus.

And we, as the church, in a symbolic gesture, um put them underwater.

It's kind of crazy.

We put them underwater and we bring them back up out of water in a symbol of the death that they are joining with Jesus and the resurrection to new life, saying, I'm dying to my old ways, I'm raising to new life in Jesus.

I'm going under the water and putting my old life behind and raising to new life in Jesus.

If you've never witnessed the baptism, they're powerful.

They're really special, incredible moments in the life of our church.

And, you know, you might be thinking, well, Chris, I've already been baptized.

You know, maybe, I don't know, a large percentage of a large percentage of you has have already been baptized, and you're thinking, well, well, what is this message for me?

But here's the thing, guys, just like communion, baptism is it points to something.

There's a deeper reality to it.

There's a more importance, uh deeper importance to the sacrament than you may think.

And my hope for today is that like as we talk about baptism, all of us, wherever we're at, would come to maybe one of two conclusions.

The first is if you haven't been baptized, that you would be baptized.

But the second is if you have been baptized, you would be understanding it with a deeper importance in your life.

Because baptism isn't just about the water.

It's not just about the physical act.

There's something beneath it.

Three things to start off with just before we get going.

The first is baptism is a visual of the gospel.

So this is why we need to think about it, right?

Is that just like communion, baptized baptism visualizes the gospel for us.

We actually see what Jesus has done for us in baptism.

Just like in communion, the bread and the cup, we saw what Jesus did for us there.

In baptism, we see his death and his resurrection and the power of that work in people's lives.

But secondly, baptism, it's this outward expression of an inward reality.

We say this a lot at Awakening.

What do we mean by this?

Well, what we say is that someone is baptized, there's nothing magical happening there.

It's simply this physical expression of something they have chosen to commit to.

Inside, in their soul, in their heart, they have committed to follow Jesus.

The baptism just displays that on the outside.

Third and finally, baptism, it's the clearest picture of the church's mission.

I don't just mean that for awakening.

Our mission at awakening is to awaken new life in Jesus Christ.

That's the whole point.

In this generation, that we would see people awaken to new life in Jesus Christ.

Well, baptism's a perfect picture of that.

But not just awakening, but the church at large is on this mission to watch people encounter Jesus Christ, put their old ways behind, and be brought to new life.

I always say baptism, it's it's like a wedding ceremony, right?

Think about a wedding ceremony.

In a wedding ceremony, we see the not the relationship, but a expression of the nature of the relationship.

So here's what I mean.

When I was married on my wedding day, that that wasn't a good expression necessarily of my relationship.

It was pointing to the marriage, right?

To the relationship.

So it's it, there's nothing magical that necessarily happens at a wedding other than expressing the deep commitment and displaying that for a community.

This last week, I actually was fortunate to do a socially distant, very sensitive and safe wedding.

And uh there, you know, at this wedding, you are kind of always transported back to your wedding.

If you're married, you know this.

You go to a wedding and time almost acts like an accordion, right?

It kind of like squeezes in, and your wedding day and their wedding day are kind of in the same day, and you kind of have this experience of like remembering what you vowed to someone many years ago.

Um, and it's interesting, baptisms serve that way too.

I think when we see a baptism and we're Christians and we've been baptized, or we hear a sermon today on baptism, I hope that time works like an accordion.

It's kind of squeezed back, and you are transported back to the time that you committed your life to Jesus, and God's Spirit would fill you and remind you of the importance of that day.

You know, the importance here again, it's like a wedding service.

It's the ceremony itself, baptism itself, it's not the relationship, but it expresses the nature of the relationship.

And so if you have not been baptized and you desire to express that relationship, I hope through this message that would be your step.

But again, if it's just to encourage you in your faith, that's what this message is for, to take you back, to remind you the importance of your relationship with Jesus.

Either way, we're gonna discuss baptism by actually looking at the story from the book of Acts.

It's longer title for this book is The Acts of the Apostles.

It's the book after the four gospels.

Four Gospels tell the story of Jesus.

This long 28-chapter book called Acts is the story of the early church, the first followers of Jesus enacting the mission of Jesus.

And we're gonna be in Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

If you have a Bible, go there.

And at this point in the story, we're still relatively early on, but the gospel's been expanding.

It's been going to new areas and new spaces.

And both church leaders and just random people who are filled with God's Spirit are moving and pushing the mission of God forward.

And we get this story in Acts chapter 8 of this man named Philip.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

And uh Philip shows up, and we're gonna kind of dive into this story where God calls him to do something very unique and to baptize someone very unique.

So join me, Acts chapter 8, starting in verse 26.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

It says this.

Now, an angel of the Lord said to Philip, in other words, a supernatural voice came to Philip as he was doing ministry.

It says this, rise and go toward the south to a road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.

This would be going south from Jerusalem.

This is a desert place.

27.

And he, Philip, rose and he went, and there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, we'll get to what this means in a second, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure.

He had come to Jerusalem to worship, and was returning seated in his chariot.

He was reading the prophet of Isaiah.

This would have been on a scroll.

Imagine him unveiling a scroll and reading this Old Testament book of Isaiah.

And the spirit said to Philip, Go over and join this chariot.

So Philip ran to him, heard him, reading Isaiah and the prophet, and asked, Do you understand what you're reading?

A great question when anyone's reading the Old Testament.

31.

And he said, How can I, unless someone guides me?

And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

Now the passage of scripture that he was reading was this: Like a sheep, uh, he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth.

In his humiliation, justice was denied him.

Who can describe his generation?

For his life is taken away from the earth.

And the eunuch said to Philip, About whom, I ask you, does this prophet say this?

About himself or about someone else?

He's saying, What is this prophet talking about?

Verse 35.

Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus.

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

What prevents me from being baptized?

What's stopping me from being baptized in this water?

He says.

Verse 38.

And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down to the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.

This is a story from the New Testament that shows us three things: the person for baptism, the purpose for baptism, and the process for baptism.

In other words, the person who can be baptized, the purpose, why do we even baptize, and the process, how and when do we baptize?

Let's take these one by one.

First, the person, who can be baptized?

Who's right for baptism?

Is this something for super religious people, for people that have been following Jesus for a long time?

Who is this for?

Well, the scene is set early on in this text, 26 and 28 in those verses, uh, showing us two characters, Philip and this Ethiopian eunuch.

Philip is uh actually not really talked about too much in the book of Acts, other than this chapter, in chapter 8.

In fact, before this, he's rarely mentioned, just a handful of times.

And I love this because Philip is not one of the heavy hitters of the New Testament church.

He's not James, he's not John, he's not Peter, he's not one of the major players in the movement of Jesus.

He is a leader in the Church of Jerusalem, he would be someone who has been serving under the apostles, and he's out preaching.

And right before this text, if you actually just look a little bit earlier, if you've got a physical Bible and you look a little bit earlier in Acts chapter 8, um, Philip is preaching in a land called Samaria.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

And this would be kind of uh dangerous territory for anyone of a Jewish movement like this, which Christianity started as this Jewish conversion movement.

Philip going to the Samaritans, this was high racial tension.

Uh, this was uh a lot of racism was happening between the Jews and the Samaritans.

They were enemies culturally, and uh a lot of history is beneath that.

But Philip goes to the Samaritans and preaches because Jesus told his church in Acts chapter 1, verse 8, at the very beginning of this, Jesus says, You're gonna be my witnesses, and he says, To Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.

Acts 1:8

It's really cool.

The book of Acts, it actually works in those concentric circles.

Starts in Jerusalem, goes to Judea, to Samaria, Samaria, which we're in just at Acts chapter 8, and then to the ends of the earth, which is where we meet this Ethiopian.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

So Philip moves from Samaria and the Spirit says, go down towards Gaza, go to the south, go even further.

And the gospel continues to move.

It breaks through ethnic barriers, it breaks through race, racial segregation, it breaks through cultural differences.

And the Spirit of God unites people throughout this region in this story.

It's beautiful.

And here Philip is charged to go one step beyond Samaria, Samaria to the ends of the earth, which is where he meets this Ethiopian.

Now, this man is maybe the most uh strange uh character in the book of Acts if you were a first century reader.

Um and what we're gonna see is that God uses all people to reach all people.

God uses all people to reach all people.

He uses Philip, not one of the major heavy-hitting preachers of the early New Testament church, to reach this Ethiopian eunuch who's on the far outskirts of any religious system that the Middle East would be familiar with.

Here's how he's described this Ethiopian eunuch.

Well, first he's described as this official of a high court.

It says that he's connected to the queen.

And actually, eunuchs would be connected to uh royalty, they'd be serving royalty.

And if you don't know what a eunuch is, it's a really intense kind of position somebody would be in.

The nicest way to put this is this is a man without his manhood.

Now, eunuchs were kind of framed two different ways.

One is they would do this by choice, they would actually sever their primary organ to serve the royalty of the time, or the royalty of the time would do that to the person.

Now, we don't know the Ethiopian eunuch story, but either way, this man is um mutilated.

And in fact, he could be described then as sexually ambiguous.

That's what the eunuchs were.

They were neither necessarily male nor female.

They were kind of ambiguous in this way.

And this would have put him on the outskirts of everything else except the royal court, where he was on the inside.

But everywhere else, they were seen as sexually ambiguous and culturally effeminate.

Um, they would have recognized him as someone who was a man, but not necessarily a full man, because he was fully connected to the queen.

And he was obviously rich because he's riding a chariot and he's carrying a scroll.

So this is why we know he's rich, is he's connected to the queen, but he's also he's got his own chariot, which back then that's a pretty big deal.

He also has his own scroll, which was very difficult to come by in the early days.

He's also reading, which the literacy rate was probably less than 1% in the ancient known world.

So he's reading this on his own with his own chariot in his own scroll that he has with him.

And so he's obviously a very rich person who's well connected.

And he's a man living uh in Ethiopia.

And this would mean that his skin would be darker than many of the Jewish people in the Middle East.

This would be a black man who's moving from Ethiopia into Jerusalem to worship.

But you know, Ethiopians at the time, Ethiopia, you you probably know, is on the eastern side of Africa.

But during that time, uh Ethiopia would have stretched to like Sudan and Egypt.

It was kind of like most of the northern side of um Africa, the northern eastern side.

And at that time, Ethiopia was the ends of the earth.

Like they didn't know really what was past that into Africa.

And it encompasses this interesting idea, like I said, that the gospel is truly going to the ends of the earth.

In the Old Testament, Ethiopia is called Kush, and oftentimes it's referred to as the edge of the world.

And here we see a man from the edge of the world encountering the gospel.

He's an outcast, though, because as a eunuch and as an Ethiopian, he would not be welcome into the temple.

And so he would be called a God fearer.

He was kind of worshiping and acknowledging the God of Israel, but he was definitely on the outside of Israel.

Let me summarize this.

This Ethiopian eunuch that we're meeting is a sexually ambiguous, culturally effeminate, wealthy and well-connected black man serving as an official of the high court that was at odds with Jerusalem, God's main city.

He's about as outside as outside gets.

Like, this is a character that if you're running into it in the first century and you're reading this story, you're thinking, why are these two men talking?

What is happening?

Why is this man getting baptized?

Yeah.

This is the kind of remarkable scene that's set.

And the scroll that he's reading, he he pulls this out, and you might be thinking, like, this is a new thing God's doing.

God's bringing this eunuch into the family of God.

He's reading the scroll, and the scroll quote that you see that we read in Acts chapter 8 is from Isaiah 53, okay?

Acts 8 · chapter mention

That talks about Jesus being a lamb led to the slaughter.

That's Isaiah 53.

Three chapters later, if the Ethiopian were to just keep reading, and I believe, by the way, you know, I want to believe that Philip took him here, but just three chapters after that, in Isaiah 53, Isaiah 56, prophesies about someone like this man.

Look at this in Isaiah 56, verse 3.

Isaiah 56:3

It says, Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, The Lord will surely separate me from his people.

And look at this, let not the eunuch say, There's that character, there he is.

Don't let him say, Behold, I'm a dry tree, for thus says the Lord, to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath, who choose the things that please me, and hold fast to my covenant.

I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters.

I will give them, the eunuchs, an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

This is incredibly important because the eunuch is not God's plan B.

The eunuch is God's plan A.

Outsiders, non-Jews, Ethiopians of all kinds, and people from all nations were always all in God's plan to bring them into his family.

Israel always existed as a nation for the nations, always existed as a blessing to be a blessing.

And so the church's plan from here on out is to not find a plan B, but to go with God's plan A, to have all people welcomed in all places to the all-encompassing gospel of Jesus Christ.

You see who can be baptized?

The short answer is anyone who confesses Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

That's the short answer.

I love Willie James Jannings.

He says this God has come to the eunuch precisely in his difference and exactly in the complexities of his life.

He matters, not because he's close to worldly power and thus a more appealing pawn.

He simply matters.

So again, who can be baptized?

Who can be baptized?

Simple question, simple answer.

Anyone who confesses Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, anyone who confesses Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior is welcomed to the baptism waters.

Maybe some of you say, I'm not ready for baptism.

I'm not ready for baptism.

And my question is, have you confessed Jesus as Lord?

You say, Chris, I have this, I have that, this is a part of my story.

Um look to the Ethiopian eunuch.

He had every reason to be afraid of his future, of what might happen.

We'll talk about that in a little bit.

But if you've confessed Jesus as Lord, you're the person to be baptized.

The implication here, you guys, is that our baptism waters will be messy.

Messy to us, not to God.

God looks at all the baptism waters, everyone getting baptized and says, it's a mess.

But I'm cleaning you as you are baptized, right?

I am sending you into cleansing.

We have to get the order right here because I think a lot of times we think we have to clean our act up before we get into the baptism waters.

But this story would suggest the exact opposite.

There's so many unknowns about the Ethiopian story, and yet he gets baptized.

I remember talking to a guy recently about baptism, just a couple of months ago, and he said, Yeah, I want to get baptized, but Chris, I'm living with my girlfriend right now, and we're not honoring God.

And so I want to fix that and then get baptized.

Well, I got to preach the gospel to him.

I said, the gospel is not fix yourself and then be baptized.

The gospel is be baptized to show the cleansing work of Christ has begun in your life, and now you'll walk into new life.

So it's not fix my relationships and then be baptized.

It's be baptized and watch God empower you to fix your relationships.

That's the correct order.

And from the baptism waters, we live repentant lives.

But hear me very carefully.

Baptism is not done at the completion of repentance, it's done at the start of repentance.

In other words, baptism is done at the beginning of our new life in Christ, not at the completion of it.

And so you might feel not ready, but baptism is the beginning, not the end.

Baptism is the start, not the finish.

That's who should be baptized.

Do you confess Jesus is Lord?

Begin with baptism.

But secondly, the purpose.

Why do we baptize?

This passage is can it's connected to the who, to who is baptized, but the purpose of why we baptize.

Well, very simply, uh, you know, we could get through this point really quickly and just say, well, Jesus told us to baptize.

Matthew 28, he said, go make disciples and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

That's why you baptize.

But why, more importantly, right?

We got to kind of dig deeper.

Why would Jesus tell us to baptize?

Well, in short, we baptize in order to display what faith in Jesus really is.

We baptize to show what faith actually is.

You see, I told you earlier that baptism is the uh outward expression of the inward reality.

Well, what's the inward reality, right?

What's going on inside someone where we should say, oh, that's baptism, this inward reality that's happening?

What is really going on in there?

Well, you get a window into the eunuch's inward reality because the eunuch is reading Isaiah 53 about a lamb slaughtered, about a Messiah, Jesus, who would die a death that he did not deserve, and raise in victorious life, the gospel in Isaiah 53.

And he says in verse 34, he goes, Who is this about?

He asks this to Philip.

He goes, Is this about the prophet or is this about somebody else?

And it says that Philip started with that scripture and told him everything about Jesus.

You see, then the eunuch has the inward reality happen.

Faith in Jesus happens because the eunuch identifies with a savior who's been slaughtered.

You see, through Philip's preaching, he finds out that God knows the pain he's been in.

He reads the Isaiah passage that says, like a lamb, in his humiliation, justice was denied him.

And the eunuch looks at that and identifies himself in Jesus Christ.

He takes his Ethiopian eunuch identity and realizes it should be hidden and placed within the identity of Jesus Christ.

The inward reality happens.

And I want you to notice that the eunuch is met by God not in his pride, but in his humiliation.

In the eunuch's own humiliation of being a slaughtered man, of being a man who has been mutilated, he looks to Jesus who has been slaughtered and mutilated and identifies with him and realizes that God has taken the pain and the mutilation on his own cross.

And on in that moment, you see the eunuch shift, and the eunuch suddenly moves to faith and towards baptism.

God is found not in our highest of highs, but often found in our lowest of lows.

The eunuch does not relate with God as this high, mighty, majestic, distant father figure, but he identifies with him as the God who has died, who has experienced death.

And this is how all of us come to faith in Christ.

All of us come to faith in Christ.

And again, if you've been baptized before, this is your reminder.

You did not come to Jesus at the height of your game.

You did not come to Jesus and have him be a little addition to your awesome life.

No.

Faith in Jesus, like baptism, it begins with a death.

Faith begins with a kind of dying.

Faith is the surrender.

Faith is flying the white flag.

Faith is the abandonment of self-obsession.

Forsaking all paths of self-improvement, we find Christ not at the completion of our goals, but the abandonment of them.

How many of you had goals for 2020?

How many of you had these great dreams for 2020 that now you're finding are not capable of holding water?

You find your life to be unplannable.

Just there, in that moment, that's potentially where you might find God.

Not where we focus and win a battle and see him in our own victory.

No, we see his victory in our own defeat.

Something I've heard in this season is a lot of people saying, I'm just trying to keep my head above water.

I'm just, I'm, I'm, I've got kids, I've got a job, I've got roommates, I've got school, I'm trying to finish up online.

I'm just trying to keep my head above water.

You know what's beautiful about baptism?

It reminds us that God is not found when our head is above water.

God is found when our head is below the water.

See, baptism is the very image that in going to death, we find Christ.

In going below the water, when we can't keep our head above water, Christ is found and we identify with Him.

It's so easy for me right now as a pastor to focus on what's being subtracted from the church.

We can't gather together, we can't sing together.

But this past week, um, couple weeks, like our team has responded to a lot of people who are coming to faith at Awakening.

And I want you to know that through our online services and our online groups, and all of you, people are coming to Jesus.

The story of a coworker talking with another coworker who is at the end of his line and found Christ.

And these two guys over the phone, just one guy led him to the Lord.

This is happening in our church where people are being moved towards Jesus during a pandemic.

Why?

Because Christ is not found when our head is above water.

He's found when our head is below water, when we are defeated.

Quite literally, Jesus shows us that in death we find Him.

That's why Michael Gorman, New Testament scholar, says faith is a death experience that leads to a resurrection experience.

And a lot of us want just the resurrection experience.

A lot of us just want the highest of the highs.

Baptism reminds us faith is a process that goes under the water and through the power of Christ is raised into victorious life.

But friends, never forget that you did not find Jesus on your own doing.

You know, I love Ephesians 2.

It says, when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, Christ made us alive together with him.

It doesn't say while you were, you know, um, kind of bored.

It doesn't say while you were walking around, Christ finds you.

It says while you were dead.

What does a dead person do?

Nothing.

Christ finds us right in the middle of our nothingness, right when we don't have anything, right when we don't have what we usually have.

And so I know it's hard to not meet together.

I hate not meeting together.

But to focus on what is subtracted is to lose what God is adding to our number right now.

God is saving people right now.

God is saving people, not because everything's great.

God is saving people because we are experiencing a kind of symbolic death on many accounts.

Death of a social life, death of a financial life, death of relationships.

And Christ is meeting people there because that's what Jesus does.

That's why Paul says in Philippians 3, verse 10, he says, I want to know Christ, right?

Philippians 3:10

Amen.

I want to know Christ.

Yes, to know the power of his resurrection, but look at this.

I want to know also the participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in death, and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

That is baptism.

I want to know Christ, I want to know the resurrection.

It comes through the participation of his sufferings.

But the mission statement of our church is to awaken this generation to new life in Jesus Christ.

Hidden within that is the presupposition that this world is dead asleep.

And we know Jesus meets us when we awaken, but he meets us when we're slumbering, when we're asleep, and when we're dead.

And when we watch baptisms, if you've been baptized before, you know, you should be reminded of this.

Reminded that this is so much more about God's activity in your life than your activity in God's life.

So why do we baptize?

We baptize to see that.

To see that faith, to see that faith means a dying so that we might live.

Faith is the death experience that leads to a resurrection experience.

And once we truly know what faith is, and once we truly receive that faith, when Jesus meets us in that place where we're lost, where we're dead, where we're asleep, we then might ask the question, though, well, when is like the right time to be baptized, right?

And I hear from a lot of people, like, I'm not ready to be baptized.

Well, let's finish with this: the process of baptism.

When and how should we be baptized?

So we talked about the person who should be baptized, looking at the Ethiopian eunuch saying, Man, if you confess Christ, anybody.

You know, we looked at the purpose.

Well, the purpose is to reveal faith, to see the inward reality.

But finally, the process, how and when.

I love Willie James Jennings, the scholar I quoted earlier.

He's he has this simple line.

He says, Faith will always find the water.

Faith will always find water.

Like if you have faith in Jesus, you'll just be looking for water.

And you see the eunuch knows this.

Like the eunuch sees this.

So there's a good question from the eunuch in verse 36.

After he understands Jesus, has the inward reality, meets Jesus in his own symbolic death experience, he asks this question.

What prevents me from being baptized?

It's a really good question.

What's stopping me?

He says, look, there's water.

What's stopping me from getting in the water and being baptized?

Well, the implicit answer, because there's not really an answer there, is, well, after confessing Jesus, nothing, like I said earlier.

But there's an explicit answer that is in a footnote, actually, in your Bible.

If you're reading your Bible carefully, um, or you were looking at the screen carefully, you would see that there's verse 36, which he says, what's preventing me from being baptized?

And then there's verse 38.

Yeah, there's no verse 37.

It's because there's a footnote after 36 that if you look to the bottom of your Bible, it says this.

Some manuscripts add this verse, verse 37.

Philip said, If you believe in your heart, you may be baptized.

And the Ethiopian eunuch replies, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

Now, the only reason that's not in the forefront of the scriptures is because it wasn't in every manuscript.

But many scholars believe, well, either it's implicitly answered or it's explicitly answered.

But either way, this Ethiopian eunuch confessed Jesus with all his heart.

And I love this because, you know, in America, when I say all my heart, what I mean is with all of my emotions.

But what the Hebrews thought was the heart meant your intended will.

And so the Ethiopian eunuch says, it is my intended will that from this moment of being baptized, I will follow Jesus for the rest of my life.

From that is my intended will.

And if you have faith in Jesus with all of your heart and with all of your intention and all of your will, then go and be baptized.

This is why at awakening we don't baptize infants.

And it's why we handle children who wish to be baptized very carefully alongside their parents.

Because we believe, as the Ethiopian eunuch stated, it is with your intended will that you're going to follow Jesus for the rest of your life.

That is when we baptize.

And that's also, by the way, why we hold our baptism class.

We don't hold our baptism class before your baptism to make sure you're a super good Christian or that, you know, you're religious enough.

We actually literally just walk you through what you're confessing, all the questions we're going to ask you in the baptismal, in the water, which is why do you want to get baptized?

Do you believe that Jesus Christ died and rose again?

Do you believe that his death paid for your sin in full?

And is it your intention to follow him for the rest of your life?

That'll be covered in the baptism class.

And as people answer those questions in the affirmative, their faith is confirmed and we baptize them.

How and when is when someone with their intended will says, I want to follow Jesus the rest of my life.

I understand what Christ has done for me.

He's met me in my death.

I want to live the resurrected life.

And so let me summarize it with a couple of points here.

We baptize, quite simply, first, with little reservation.

We baptize with little reservation.

What I mean is when someone confesses Christ and it is their intended will to follow Jesus, we we might just say, look, who am I to stop you from taking your first step in Christ?

Again, baptism is the first step.

It is the start of the repentant life, not the completion of the repentant life.

So we baptize with little reservation.

There's often reservation.

We have to ask questions.

Sometimes people aren't ready.

That's what the baptism class is for.

If you have a million questions, if you were baptized as an infant, if you were, we cover all that in the class, okay?

So so that that's why we kind of um talk through it.

Secondly, we we do after instruction.

So with little reservation, but also after instruction, we want to make sure you know what baptism is.

Because while at the same time the baptism waters are messy, we want to make sure that you're making the correct decision.

For example, some of you were baptized six months ago and you want to get baptized again.

We would say to you, hey, trust in the Lord's work in that baptism that was six months ago.

You know?

That's because we want to instruct you on what baptism is.

You don't just get baptized over and over again through your adult life.

You trust in the start of that process as you move forward, with little reservation after instruction and alongside a confession.

Again, you have to say, I believe in Jesus.

Now you might be saying, Chris, do I have to be baptized?

I mean, the confession of Jesus saves me.

Well, yes, and amen.

Baptism does not save you.

I remember someone in my seminary asking a professor this very question like, do you have to be baptized?

Is it, you know, for for salvation?

Well, we know it's not, I mean, the thief on the cross is a great example of someone who goes to be with Jesus without being baptized.

But my seminary professor answered in a really cool way.

He just said this.

All I know is in the New Testament and in the early church, everyone who could be baptized was baptized.

It's a good way to answer that.

It's like saying, you know, look, it doesn't save you, but if you have the option to be baptized, all of our records of early Christians was that they were baptized.

Look at the book of Acts.

It says oftentimes, they come to the Lord, they confess Jesus, and then they were baptized.

It says it very, very often.

So we baptize alongside the confession, and we baptize in water, because this has been done through Christian history.

We submerge in water.

Um, during certain circumstances, we won't because of somebody's physical ailment, for example, or they're extremely elderly, something like that, and they can't get in the water to be submerged.

But for the most part, we submerge people in water to again reveal the full death and full life that Jesus brings to us.

And we also baptize before a community.

That could be like the Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, that could be one person.

Or it could be 300 people at Del Mar, like we've done in the past.

We're gonna have to get creative with this during this pandemic.

We might have to have a time where a couple of people uh who are close are baptizing each other in a pool and we video it and show it to you guys because we have to be safe and protective during this time.

But we want to make sure that baptism is always done before a community because the community is joining with you in your faith.

Fifth, we baptize by any other follower of Jesus.

Again, I told you I love that Philip is the person who's baptizes here because it's a very clean and clear example of not a heavy hitter, not a capital P pastor or capital A apostle, but a guy who is serving the church, who went, led somebody to the Lord, and baptized them.

It's always my joy as a pastor to actually not to be in the water, but to watch the water and to watch other people baptize other people.

If you're a follower of Jesus and you've been baptized yourself, you can baptize people.

We would love for other people to be baptizing each other.

It's a beautiful picture of the body of Christ.

We are equal members of that body.

And finally, as a communal step of faith, we baptize as a step of faith.

You know, I told you the baptism waters are messy.

That's on our end.

On God's end, he doesn't see it as messy, he sees it as his provision and his plan.

All of us are a mess.

And as a communal step of faith, we all step into the baptism waters together.

We all jump in together in some ways to join you as you step into the waters in the communal step of faith.

This Ethiopian, you guys, he had a ton of questions before him.

I mean, would he be allowed to worship with other Jewish converts?

When he returns to Ethiopia, is there a church for him?

He's a royal court, he serves the royal court.

Could he serve the royal court and also serve Christ?

How is that gonna work?

If he continues his travels back to Jerusalem to worship, will he be allowed in the temple?

Because he's a eunuch.

He's probably thinking he's not allowed.

Will his sexual identity scar him from a community forever?

How will he learn the rest of the scriptures?

Philip taught him some of Isaiah, but what about the rest of the Old Testament that he had probably access to him?

You see, I love this story because, you know, after this, we don't really hear much about Philip, and we hear nothing about the Ethiopian eunuch.

Except we know history.

And it's interesting, this Ethiopian, many believe, was essential to early church life.

Because, you know, many people think the early church, it worked like this.

It's like in Jerusalem in the Middle East, and it went to Italy, and Italy was its access to Western Europe and Western Europe to America.

But that skips over hundreds of years of essential church history.

For the first 600 years of the church was primarily a Middle Eastern movement and an African movement.

Did you know this?

There's a great book by Thomas Odin called How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind.

And actually, before Western Europe ever received the gospel of Christianity, it had cemented in northern Africa.

People from Africa know this because the Ethiopian Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, is an essential part of Christian history.

It's just that it's usually been glazed over by a lot of people because they've missed those first 600 years.

But from the early church, it took root fastest in Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopia, in that northern region of Africa.

And that's where a lot of incredible and brilliant theology was formed.

And that theology ended up making its way to pagan white people in Western Europe.

But it went to Africa first.

And scholars often go, well, how did it get to Africa?

Well, could it be that this Ethiopian eunuch was the start of a wildfire for the gospel?

Could it be that this man in a communal step of faith between Philip and him, two guys who had nothing in common, but through baptism joined with one spirit, one gospel in one baptism to be on one mission for one church for the history of the world?

What if that was the story?

You see, when you are baptized, your trajectory changes.

And potentially your history, well, certainly your history will change, but potentially other people's history will change.

Maybe there is where we find the great beauty of baptism and the great beauty of the communal step of faith.

And so what's your step?

Well, I think for some of you, baptism is certainly your next step.

And I hope this message is clarified for that, that for you.

If you wish to be baptized, I would love for you to text this number that's at the bottom of the screen right now.

I would love for you to put that number in again.

It's not a robot on the other side, it's a person.

That person will reply to you and get you signed up for our baptism class, which is coming up on Monday, June 8th at night.

And Felicia, our pastor of spiritual formation, will lead that class and answer all your questions, all the particulars that you might have.

But I think your next step, if you want to be baptized, is to text us so that you can sign up for that class and that we would, in faith, I'm saying this, be able to baptize you in some way at the end of June or early July.

That might be again in a pool with just a few people and we video it and give it to the church, or it might be at the beach or whatever, it might be somewhere else, it might be in a different space.

But the question hangs over us now.

What prevents you from being baptized?

If you're confessing Jesus, it's time for you to be baptized.

If you have been baptized, though, I want to lead you now to communion.

Christina mentioned at the top to take that we're going to take communion together.

And this is because we're in this two-week season of sacraments of this uh two-week series.

And communion is really your weekly reminder of your baptism, is it not?

It's the weekly reminder that it's not about your activity, it's about God's activity in your life through his broken body and shed blood.

And so I want you to take these elements this week and remember your baptism.

And in order to do this, we're actually gonna have worship together through our awesome worship team that's done a video from all their homes in quarantine.

And this song, Graves into Gardens, is a beautiful illustration of baptism.

And we're gonna have images of baptism show up.

And my whole hope is that right now you'd kind of lean forward, take communion if you've got the elements prepared, and remind yourself of who Jesus is to you.

What is the inward reality?

As you look at these outward expressions of baptism, would you reflect on the inward reality?

And I'd love for you to participate in worship in this way.

Do you need to be baptized?

Text us during this song.

Have you been baptized?

Allow these images to serve and remind you of who you are in Christ.

And so let's worship now the God who conquered death and gave us victory.

It's no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us.

Thank you so much, guys.