Baptism

Good morning. My name is Mario. I'm one of the pastors here.

I'm happy to see you guys. Today we are continuing our series,

Church Unpacked. Today is Church Unpacked part three.

This is a series that is designed to help us make sense of church life.

It seems to me that if you are new to church, I think sometimes church can be confusing.

You could, you know, you could show up and you go, wow, why did they dip that

person in water? That's weird. I don't know why that happened.

Or if you come on a different week, you might go, wait, why are we eating this

little piece of bread and drinking this little amount of juice.

Like, this just seems like a weird thing. This doesn't happen anywhere else.

And so if you're new to church, I wanted to be able to preach something that

would help you as far as figuring this stuff out. But I also thought about it.

If you're not new to church, if you're someone who has been around for a while,

and in fact, you have maybe gone to like four or five or six or seven different

churches, that also can be confusing, right?

You can be around church for a long time, but you see a whole bunch of different

churches and go, wow, well, but this one does it differently than this one,

and this one does it differently than this one. And so I like, what's going on here?

This church over here, they're sprinkling water, a little bit of water on a

baby. And the last church I went to, like they were like putting whole adults under the water.

And the one church I went to just said I could take communion.

But then this other church I went to said I had to take a class before I could

take communion. Like, how does this all work? What's the way it's supposed to be?

And so whether you are new to church or old to church, or have only been to

one in your whole life, or have been to several, like the goal of this series

has been to like take some of the confusion out of it for you.

And so we began this series two weeks ago by talking about what a church is. Do you remember that?

We looked at the Greek word for church. We talked about what church is.

And then last week, week two of this series, we talked about what a church member

is and what our role is, what it is that we are to do.

And so today I want to move on to a couple of topics that are unique to church

life. And that would be baptism this week and then next week, the Lord's Supper.

Um, you see these topics today's and next week's, um, I say they are unique

to church life, I guess because because they are like, they don't happen anywhere else.

There are a lot of things that happen within church that, that are not very

mystifying because we are doing something that you also do outside of church

or outside of Christianity. There's a lot of, there's a lot of church stuff that's like that.

Uh, for instance, music, music is definitely not exclusive to church, right?

It's not exclusive to Christianity. So you come here and, or you go,

maybe go to another church and there may be an organ or there may be a choir

or there may be a band, but still there's like music and you show up and you're

sort of expected to participate and sing along.

But I don't think that's super confusing because that happens plenty of other

places as well. There are all sorts of places where music is played and people sing along.

So that's not like this on you, oh wow, these religious people.

No, that's just kind of human.

Right now I'm up in front of you and I'm giving you a speech,

but that is not unique to church, right?

There are all sorts of situations where someone stands up in front of a crowd

of people and says stuff, or someone prepares something and then teaches something

to a group of people, something that they didn't know. Like that's not a uniquely

Christian or churchy thing. That happens all over the place.

We as a church, we accept donations, but that's not a specifically Christian

thing. The Ocala Civic Theater, I've been there where they have clearly accepted donations.

Some churches have things like they'll have a gym or they'll have a softball

team, but it's not like, what is this about, like it's not hard to figure out,

like gyms are all over the place, there are non-Christian softball teams too,

like these are things that you can kind of figure out.

But the topics that I want to cover today and next week are not like that.

Baptism and Lord's Supper don't happen anywhere else. They don't happen outside of Christianity.

And so it's definitely our job to explain them. And both of these topics have

the potential to be difficult topics because different Christians have different

opinions about them. Did you know that? Uh-huh, it's for sure true.

Just as a for instance, let me tell you the backstory of my baptism.

So I grew up as a Presbyterian, okay? My mom was Presbyterian before I was,

and then she brought me along. And so that's the church that I grew up in.

And those were my people.

And I was baptized in the Presbyterian church before I was actually a believer in Jesus Christ.

And that was something that was not unusual in the Presbyterian church.

In fact, most of the people in the Presbyterian church, most of the people my

age, they were baptized way earlier than I was.

That was really late. I wasn't baptized till I was 10. And the more typical

thing in the Presbyterian church that I went to is they would be,

kids would be baptized when they were just a few months old.

And so that was not an unusual thing. And so that's how I grew up.

And I was Presbyterian for a long time. And they explained why they did it.

And I understood it and went along with it. It made sense to me.

And then I was like, I did youth ministry within Presbyterian Church. It was wonderful.

And then at some point in my 20s, as I was reading the Bible and as I was thinking

through all this, I came to the conclusion that I was like, you know,

I think that I'm supposed to like repent and then be baptized.

Like, I think I'm supposed to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and turn from

my sins and then be baptized in his name.

And that's not what happened. I repented and I believed in the Lord Jesus and

then I didn't get baptized as a believer.

And so I was in my 20s at the time. And so I start sharing this with my friends.

And at this point, all my friends are Presbyterian, okay? All of them are.

And I had pastor friends and they were all Presbyterians.

And so if I would have went to them and said like, hey, will you baptize me,

now as a believer? I was already baptized in the Presbyterian church,

but I need to baptize now as a believer.

Like they would have said like, whoa, we can't do that. We took vows,

you know? Like that's not what we do in our denomination.

And by we took vows, I mean, if you're a Presbyterian pastor,

you take a vow that you go by the doctrine of the Presbyterian church,

which is the Westminster Confession of Faith.

And so they had this, the belief is if someone's been baptized,

whether they were a Christian or not, doesn't matter, if that you don't baptize

them again later, because that would be like saying the first one didn't count.

And I was sitting there going, yeah, but I think that's what I believe.

Like, I think the first one didn't count.

And so that's why I would want to be baptized. And so I knew I couldn't.

And so I talked with my pastor at the time, his name was Matt,

you know, and he was like, go for it, brother, but like, I can't,

you know, I can't touch you with water, like, there's not, that's not, I.

And so, and so he's like, maybe, and so I had, I, I had one Baptist friend at

the time, okay, all my friends were Presbyterians, not even a friend,

an acquaintance, I had one Baptist pastor acquaintance that I had had lunch with one time.

And so I called him up, his name was Chan, and he was a pastor in Orlando,

and I was like, Chan, I know you don't know me very well, we just had the lunch

the one time, but I just, you know, I repented, and I think I need to be baptized,

and all my friends are Presbyterians, and they will not get anywhere near me in water, and so...

Would you be willing? And so Chan was a Baptist, and he was like,

come on down this Sunday. Come this Sunday and do it. And so we did.

We got in the car, and we drove down to Orlando that Sunday.

He baptized me in the pool at the YMCA at Lake Nona there in Orlando.

And I start off with that story, I guess, as a way of pointing out there are

different positions that different Christians hold on this topic.

And so today, I think the only thing that I can do is explain baptism to you

as best as I understand it.

Okay? Like, from what I can understand from the Bible, I'm going to try to explain that to you.

And your job this morning is not to simply believe everything I say because

I said it out loud, but rather to always check your Bible to see if the things

that I'm saying match what it says. Amen?

And that is true of every sermon we do here. That's not like special for this

sermon. Anytime anybody gets up here and preaches, it is important to check

and see if it is so in God's word because God's word is our authority and not ourselves.

So today I'm going I'm gonna give you a definition of baptism.

That's how I wanna start off. And this is, I guess, my definition of baptism.

This is based on the Bible, not like just me like sitting around eating a fortune

cookie and I had an idea. I mean like as I've studied the scriptures and if

someone were to say to me like based on what you understand about the Bible, what is a baptism?

This is the answer that I would give you, okay? Baptism is a ceremonial immersion

or washing with water in the name of God or Jesus,

which is done to a believer in Christ signifying what God has done in their

life and I'm specifically saying salvation, because God's done a lot of things

in our life. He's created us.

But I mean, specifically there, salvation being signified in the washing of

water in the name of God and Jesus done to a believer.

So my plan for the sermon is to just go through this definition and explain

to you why I think that this is what baptism is. I'm just going to go phrase

by phrase and tell you why I picked the words I did and from the Bible,

why I think this is the case.

So let's start with the first phrase, a ceremonial immersion or washing.

Mario, why would you say that baptism is a ceremonial immersion or washing?

Why would you choose those words? And my answer to you is, because that is what

the word baptism means in Greek.

The New Testament was originally written in Greek, and the word that they used

in the New Testament that's translated into our English Bibles,

baptize, is the Greek word baptizo.

And then there are all sorts of like conjugations of it, just like all words.

Okay, so baptizo is the word that is translated into the word baptize.

I think it's helpful for you to know a little bit about this word,

because this word, baptizo, is similar to a word that I taught you two weeks

ago. Okay, do you guys remember two weeks ago, the Greek word that we learned? What was it?

Ekklesia. Very good. Look at the smart people sitting over here.

Okay. Ekklesia was the word. Anybody know it over here? Okay. Yeah. No.

No. Okay. You did. Middle group. That's good. All right. You guys, sorry.

Either you don't know or no one wants to raise their hand.

Okay. So we learned the word Ekklesia. And the thing that I wanted you to remember

today from two weeks ago was the word Ekklesia I told you was actually not a

religious word. It's translated into the English word church.

And the English word church is a religious word.

But the Greek word that we get the word church from actually was not a religious word at the time.

It was just the Greek word that meant assembly or congregation or gathering.

The word baptizo, as best as I can tell, is like that. Our word baptism is a

very religious word. It was not in Greek. It was just a word, okay?

Now, I'm going to confess, I do not know ancient Greek, but a lot of people do.

And a lot of people have written books on it, and they have put their research

findings online, and so it is not difficult to research this.

And so I will tell you, as I have done research, there are people who can read

ancient Greek, who have read ancient Greek texts, not only the Bible,

but other ancient Greek texts.

And they will testify that the word baptizo, that verb is used in different

ways in Greek literature. Sometimes it is used to describe a ship that is sinking.

The ship is being like baptizo'd, okay? And why is that word used to describe

the ship that's sinking? Because the.

There are times in Greek literature where it was used really as a synonym for

the word drowning. Like when people held people underwater to kill them,

they were baptizing them.

They held them under the water and they drowned. It was a word that meant that.

Sometimes it is used as a synonym for the word die, D-Y-E.

That you would take a fabric and you would dip it into like a solution with

color in it. And then you would pull it back out and it would be red or blue.

And the verb that they used where they dipped it into the thing and then pulled

it out with a color. that was that word.

There was a pastor in Atlanta that I learned from that he talked about this

ancient pickle recipe that he found, okay?

A pickle recipe written in ancient Greek, and it had the word baptizo in the

recipe, and it was not used in a religious way.

It was just, the recipe said, you take the cucumber and you baptize it in vinegar, right?

You baptizo it in vinegar, wait around, and then you got a pickle,

okay? Nothing spiritual, like the Holy Spirit didn't go into the pickle.

Like there was just, it was just a word that meant, you know,

that we put it underneath in the vinegar.

So what I'm trying to tell you here is, baptizo, this word that we got all of

our stuff from, it is not a religious word.

It is just a word in Greek that was used at the time period of Jesus that means

something like submerge or immerse or dip or cover with a fluid.

And you may go, well, why isn't that more obvious to us? That's a good question.

In fact, I think it's a very interesting question. The reason why it's not obvious

to us in English is because the translators of the Bible chose to transliterate

the word rather than translate it when most of the time that it appears in an English Bible, okay?

And if you go, I don't even know what the difference between translating a word

and transliterating, well, I've got a little friend for you here named Mario,

and he will be happy to explain it.

So here's what it means. Translate is when you take a word from a particular

language, and now you're going to want to write, let's say you've got a document

that's written in a particular language, and you're translating it into language two, okay?

So you take a word from language one, and then you find the equivalent word

in language two, and you swap them out, okay? That's translation.

Sometimes it takes two words to translate a word, or one word to translate two words.

But let's say you have a Spanish document, okay? And the word is gracias,

and you're translating into English. you're going to translate the word gracias into what?

Thank you. Okay. Even though that's two words and gracias is one word,

but it's the, it's the English equivalent of it. So you swap them out.

That's translation. Okay.

Transliteration is when you take a word from language one and you move it into

language two untranslated.

Okay. But the reason it's called transliteration is instead of translating it,

what you're doing is you're taking the word, you're moving it into the new language,

and then you are changing it to match the alphabet of the new language.

So if you have a Greek word like baptizo, and you move into English,

you would not change the word into an English equivalent. You just move it over

into English, but you don't write it in Greek letters.

You would write it in English alphabet, and you use the English alphabet as

best you can to approximate what the word was, and that's what they did.

That's why the word baptizo and baptize sound so similar, because they didn't

translate it. They just moved it over into English and spelled it with our letters,

okay? And now it has become a loan word.

Baptize, baptism, baptizing, These are all loan words, they're Greek words that are in English now.

Now, if you hear that and you go, well, that's crazy, why would they have done

that? Who would just take a word and move it over to another language, untranslated?

The truth is you do this all the time and you don't even know it.

This is just a very common thing that happens with language.

How many of you have at any time in your life lived on or known someone else

who lived on a cul-de-sac? Can I see your hands?

Okay. Yeah, most of us. Now this is interesting. Cul-de-sac is not an English word.

Cul-de-sac is three French words. Cul-de-sac. It's bottom of the bag. Okay.

But we don't ever translate it. I've never met a person in my life that go,

I live at the back of the neighborhood, just keep driving around.

I live at the bottom of the bag.

No, they just keep it in French for whatever reason.

Okay, same thing is true of the word karaoke, right? Karaoke is a Japanese word.

It means empty orchestra, okay? I've never heard an American say,

hey, this Friday, want to go empty orchestra?

Like, no one translated it. They just take the Japanese word and moved it over

into English. Now, not with Japanese characters.

They changed it to the English alphabet, right? But they just took the word

and made it an English word.

So we have that with baptism most of the time in the Bible. Most of the time

in the Bible, it is just transliterated.

And so we just have a Greek word in our Bible.

But there are a few times where it is actually translated into an English word.

And so I'm going to show you an example of both of these right now.

We're going to have Matthew 28 and Luke 11 come up.

Matthew 28, this is Jesus speaking. Jesus said, go therefore and make disciples

of all nations, doing what?

Baptizing. They just took the Greek word and moved it into English.

What is that? Figure it out, okay?

Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Whatever this word means, it would mean whatever it meant in Greek.

However, in this passage, the word is also there, but they translated it rather

than transliterate it. Let me show it to you. Luke 11.

As he was speaking, this is Jesus, as Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him.

So Jesus is talking and there's a Pharisee there and he goes,

hey, will you have dinner at my house? And Jesus goes, sure.

Now look what happens. So he went in and reclined at the table.

And when the Pharisee saw this, he was amazed that he, Jesus,

did not first perform, and here it is, the ritual washing before dinner.

It's that same word. He didn't baptizo before dinner. But in this case,

they didn't transliterate it.

They translated it. Why?

I think because it would have been really confusing if they would have thrown

the word baptism in there.

What is happening here? What's happening here is the Pharisee says,

want to come to my house for dinner? Jesus says, sure.

Jesus walks straight in and sits down at the table and the Pharisee goes,

whoa, why are you not washing your hands?

Right? We're about to eat a meal. Like we are Jewish people.

Like we are Hebrew people and we have a tradition. We have a ritual where we

like put our hands up under the water before we eat and you just sat down and

you're just ready to eat.

And so he's like, I just, I'm amazed that Jesus didn't wash his hands before

dinner. That's why they translated it. Because if they had translate it.

The Pharisee was surprised that he did not baptize before dinner.

I think a lot of us would be like, what? What does that even mean?

Because it's not talking about baptism the way we think of it.

So they just translated it to a word in English, which is why I said baptism

is a ceremonial immersion or washing.

That's what the word means. Okay? So that's my first point.

How are you defining the word baptism? Just by what the word means in the original

language. It's a ceremonial immersion or washing. Now let's move to the next part.

With water, okay? It's a washing with water.

I figured I'd be clear. They baptized people with water, okay?

No other fluids were used.

Sometimes the word is used in the New Testament to not talk about water,

but it's not because there's some other, you know, liquid that was used.

It's just sometimes it's used maybe in a more metaphorical way because it can

mean that you are soaked or drenched or overwhelmed with something.

And so in Mark chapter one, verse eight, you'll see actually both uses of the

word right here. John the Baptist is the one speaking at this point.

And John the Baptist says, I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize

you with the Holy Spirit.

John the Baptist is saying, I have submerged you in water, right?

I have drenched you with water, but Jesus is going to come and he is going to

drench you with, he is going to submerge you in the Holy Spirit.

And so you can see it's used in a way with water, and then it can also be used

in this kind of, whatever you want to call that, a more figurative way.

So when people do baptize though, throughout the Bible you see,

like they go to the Jordan River because there's water there.

Okay, so baptism is ceremony, washing with water. Let's go to the next phrase.

In the name of God, and then I also put in the name of Jesus. Why?

Because either one of them works. The Bible uses both formulas.

So I'll show you an example of each one. This is Matthew chapter 28,

Matthew 28:19

verse 19. We already looked at it once.

Jesus said, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in

the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

So, what name is the person being baptized in?

The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So you can see this is something

that is being done on behalf of God, right? You're baptizing them in whose name?

The name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is a reference to the God of the Bible.

However, a much shorter version is used in this verse. In fact,

all throughout the book of Acts, you'll see stuff like this.

When they heard this, like when they heard whatever it is, this thing they heard

about Jesus, when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord

Jesus, instead of saying in the name of the Father, and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit, okay?

So sometimes we see this formula, at least Matthew gives you this formula,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Actually, lots of times we see this one, just baptize in the name of the Lord Jesus.

So which one is the right one? It doesn't matter. They're the same.

They mean the same thing, okay? There's no like, you can baptize someone in

the name of the Lord Jesus, you can baptize someone in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

It's not like make sure you get the right words or the spell won't get cast

right. Like that's not how it works. It's just we're doing this on behalf of the God of the Bible.

Also, the fact that you are baptizing someone in the name of,

okay, in the name of, that points back to the idea of why I was saying this

is a ceremonial immersion washing.

This is not just every single time something is submerged, it's a baptism, right?

Because you're doing it in the name of. So if like you were at a pool party,

and your uncle was standing like near the edge and someone was like,

wouldn't that be so funny if you pushed Uncle Larry in?

Go push Uncle Larry in. I'll go with you. How about we go, let's go push Uncle

Larry in, okay? You know when this happens, right?

And you do it. You You didn't baptize him, okay?

Just because you immersed him and got him fully wet does not mean you baptized

him, why? Because you did not baptize him in the name of the Father,

Son, and Holy Spirit. This is not something you did like as an ambassador of

Jesus Christ and his kingdom.

All right, next phrase. So in the name of Jesus Christ, which is done to a believer in Christ, okay?

Ooh, now we're starting to move into some controversial territory because some

churches baptize people, babies usually, before they believe in Jesus Christ.

Have you seen this before?

Baby's one or two months old, they baptize the baby. The baby couldn't believe

in Jesus Christ, couldn't possibly say that they believe in Jesus Christ.

And we see that all over the place. So the question would be,

Mario, why would you say baptism is done to a believer in Christ when clearly

it's done all sorts of times to people who couldn't possibly believe in Christ yet?

Okay, why do you believe that baptism is done to those who believe in Christ?

Here's my answer for you.

Because that is the consistent and unbroken pattern in the New Testament.

That's what happens every single time. I'm gonna put three verses up here,

but I'm just gonna let you know there are way more than three verses that I could have used, okay?

There are many verses that are along these lines. So I'll use Matthew 28 one more time.

Jesus said, go therefore and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Baptizing who?

It looks like it's saying the disciples, right? So you take someone who doesn't

believe in Jesus and you help them become someone who does follow Jesus.

And then when they follow Jesus, you baptize them. You're baptizing someone

who believes. Look at Acts 2, 41.

So those who accepted his message were baptized. We actually looked at this

verse last week. Do you remember it? Peter was the one that was talking,

right? Peter was speaking.

To this giant group of people, right? And so when it says his message,

it's Peter's message about Jesus.

Peter was presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ to this huge crowd of people

and the people who accepted the message were baptized, right?

Because that's what baptism is for, the people who believe the message.

Let's look at Acts chapter eight, verse 12.

But when they believed Philip, it really doesn't matter who the messenger is.

It was Peter in this verse, it's Philip in this verse. When they believed Philip

as he preached the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus

Christ, Both men and women were baptized.

Which men and women were baptized? The ones that believed Philip.

Believed Philip when he said what? When he said the gospel.

And this formula is over and over. There are many verses in the Bible and they

all sound like that, the verses that bring this topic up.

In the New Testament, baptism is done to believers in Jesus Christ.

That is the pattern every single time.

Okay, then you might go, okay, well then why do some churches baptize infants?

So I guess to answer that, my best advice I think that I can give you,

if you want to know why someone baptizes infants or why your friend got their

baby baptized, my best advice to do would be go ask them.

Okay? Go ask them why they did it. Okay? Because different people that do that

do it for different reasons.

Okay? I'm not trying to dodge the question. I'm telling you that Methodists

baptize babies and Presbyterians baptize babies and Lutherans baptize babies

and Catholics baptize babies.

And if you ask them all, why do you do this? I think you would get four different answers.

Because even though Catholics and Presbyterians and Lutherans and Methodists

all baptized babies, they do not all do so for the same reason.

They would not all tell you the same thing.

So I don't have time this morning to tell you why every single denomination

out there does what they do and why.

What I can do is I can tell you what I was taught growing up,

because I grew up Presbyterian and I understood this.

Like this was something that was done in the church that I grew up in made sense

to me. I believed it up until my 20s. Like, I got it. And so I'm going to explain

to you what was explained to me and what made sense to me at the time.

I was taught this, that in the Old Testament...

The sign of the people of God was circumcision.

Did you know this? In the Old Testament, the sign, like the outward marker that

people were in covenant with God was circumcision.

If you were to say, like the thing that made an Israelite, at least a man,

look different on the outside from an Ishmaelite or an Amalekite or a Philistine

was the worshipers of Yahweh took on a sign and the sign was circumcision.

So the sign of God's covenant people is circumcision all throughout the Old Testament, okay?

Now, who was circumcision administered to? It was administered to babies,

to baby boys on the eighth day.

It was also administered to adult converts to Judaism. So if you were born into

this family of Yahweh worshipers, you would take on the sign of the covenant as a little baby.

But if you were like 35 years old and

you converted to Judaism in the Old Testament, guess what you had to do?

You would get circumcised as an adult, okay? Which, I mean, These people must

have really believed in Yahweh to do that.

I don't think scalpels were even invented yet. So okay, so the sign of the covenant

was done to the children of believers and also adult converts.

So after that was explained, then the next thing that was explained is then

you go to the New Testament.

What is the sign that people belong to God in the New Testament?

It's baptism, right? The outward marker that says, this is the family of God.

These are the people who believe in Jesus. Who are the people that are marked out as Jesus's people?

These people who've been baptized in his name.

And so the question was, okay, well then who should we administer baptism to?

And the answer would be the children of believers and the adult converts who

come to Jesus later in life. That's who you would baptize.

So there's a logic to it. Does that make sense? Okay, yeah. That Mario,

that is very logical. So why don't we do that here?

And my answer to that is because the Bible doesn't say to do that here.

The New Testament baptisms were all done to believers in Jesus.

There are no instructions about infant baptism in the Bible.

There are no examples of infant baptism in the Bible. Like there's no place,

unlike the Old Testament, there

is no place in the New Testament that says that anybody should do it.

There's not even like a story where it happens to anybody.

So why do we do believers baptism here at good news church we do it because

it's all we know to do because it is all that we have been told to do okay well

then should uh should we look down on other christians who baptize their babies,

i wouldn't if i were you.

Personally, I owe a huge debt to the Presbyterians who raised me.

And I cannot imagine looking down on them over that.

Well, does that mean you'll baptize my baby, Mario? Not a chance.

Go to a Presbyterian if you want that. They're wonderful people.

Okay, next final phrase. So it's done to a believer in Jesus Christ,

signifying what God has done in their life, signifying their salvation.

Now this is the part of the definition that I'm the least certain of because

the Bible doesn't say it exactly this way.

But as I've been teaching the Bible for years now, I have not been able to come

up with a word that I think is better than the word signify, okay?

This washing is done in the name of Jesus to a believer and it signifies what

God has done in their life, their salvation.

My understanding is that baptism is a sign, okay?

Which is what the first four letters of signifying is, okay?

It is a sign. It is an outward marker of an inward reality.

I am aware that there are some denominations that would use a much stronger

word than signifying if they were defining the word baptism.

They would say that baptism is something that's done and it actualizes what

God has done in their life, like actualizes salvation.

There are denominations that believe that baptism, it's not like it's a symbol

of grace on the recipient.

It conveys grace upon the person that's being baptized.

And I can't get there. So baptism is connected spiritually to circumcision.

I believe that that is true. I think the Presbyterians are correct about that

because Colossians chapter two, verses 11 through 12 says it.

You can look it up. Colossians two, 11 through 12 talks about baptism in terms

of circumcision, that it is a spiritual circumcision. So there is some sort

of connection. There is some sort of analogy there. I think they are correct. Paul said it.

So circumcision, it seems to me, in the Old Testament was a sign,

right? It was an outward marker of the people of God.

It is how the Hebrew people looked different than the Canaanites,

well, when they were naked, okay?

I mean, I guess it'd be hard to tell, I guess, the difference between a Canaanite,

and an Israelite in wintertime, I guess. But thank you, Dustin.

You're always there for me.

Um, so anyway, but it is, it was an outward marker. Sorry. Sometimes it's hard

to get back to things. Okay.

It was an outward marker. There was a sign. And so what I guess what I'm saying

is when you look through the old Testament, it seems to me circumcision didn't

save anybody. It just showed who the Hebrew people were.

Okay. And so I think the same thing with baptism. I don't think it saves you.

I think it shows who you are. Also, there are too many verses in the Bible.

At least it seems to me, there's way too many verses that indicate that you can be forgiven.

You can be saved, and you can belong to Jesus without any sort of external ritual.

And so I won't show you all the verses. There are many, but I'll just show you

two of them right now. Romans 10 verse 9 says, if you confess with your mouth

Romans 10:9

Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Like there's no mention of baptism there, right? It's just something that you

just, you can say it with your mouth, you can believe it in your heart, and you're saved.

I remember talking to a guy, a Church of Christ guy, who said that he thought

that it's just baptism would be implied in this verse.

You confess with your mouth, Jesus, Lord, you believe in your heart that God

raised from the dead. And of course, implied in that is you'll be baptized in

his name and then you'll be saved.

That seems like a big omission. It doesn't say that. And there are a lot of

verses that don't say that. And to assume that that's just implied,

I mean, I do get that sometimes words imply more than just the word.

So for instance, I even believe that when it says you have to believe,

okay, and confess, I think that that implies even more than just that.

I think that implies like repentance and obedience, okay? There's an implication

here that if you're going to follow Jesus, you have to obey him.

But it doesn't say to obey him.

I think it's implied in the phrase, Jesus is Lord, right? If you're saying Jesus

is Lord, the assumption is like you actually believe that you're going to obey him as Lord.

So I do get that words can imply other things, but to imply the ritual of baptism, I just don't see that.

And it happened so many times. I mean, here's another example, John 20.

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not

written in this book, but these

are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the of God.

And by believing, you may have life in his name.

And so if it meant, like if you believe in Jesus as the Son of God and are baptized

in his name, you can have life in his name, that just seems like a big omission,

a big omission that happens almost every time the topic comes up.

You might go, okay, well then why do some Christians believe that?

Why would some Christians believe that baptism like causes grace in someone's

life? Okay, well there's a good answer to this. There are some verses in the

Bible that sound like that.

Okay, so when you go like these people are stupid. No, they're not dumb.

Like there are verses in the Bible

that sound like that. Let me show you a couple of them before we close.

Look at Acts chapter two, verse 38.

Repent, Peter said to them, and be baptized each of you in the name of Jesus

Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

I could see how someone would read that and go, you have to be baptized,

and the result is that you'll get forgiveness of your sins and receive the gift

of the Holy Spirit. Can't you see?

Like, that's what I would believe. Now, do you believe that,

Mario? No. I think I would believe that if this is the only verse I had about it.

But because I have the rest of the Bible, I have to interpret the whole thing

as a whole, and I go, here's what I think's happening here.

I think Peter is looking to this crowd of people, and he's saying, you need to repent.

You are going in a particular direction, away from Jesus, away from the ways of God.

You need to turn around and you need to go toward Jesus. You need to accept

everything that he has for you.

You need to join team Jesus. Yes, you need to be baptized in his name.

You need to become one of his, move away from your old ways of doing things

in your life and move into what he has called you to do.

You do that, you're going to be forgiven of your sins. You're going to receive the Holy Spirit.

I think he's talking about the whole package, not specifically that this one ritual will cause this.

Look at 1 Peter, though. Here's another one that comes up. 1 Peter 3, verse 21.

1 Peter 3:21

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you.

Not the removal of filth of the flesh, but the pledge of a good conscience toward

God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So you go, well, that's crazy. There's people that think that baptism saves

you. Where'd they get that from? I mean, well, I mean, it could be the verse

in the Bible that says baptism saves you.

I mean, it says that. And you go, okay, well, what do you think that means?

Okay, here's what I'm saying. Baptism, and look what it says,

which corresponds to this.

And that means he is referring to the verse before it. Baptism corresponds to what?

He had just been talking about Noah and his family being saved in the flood,

that the waters rose and killed everybody. And there's Noah and his family.

And it specifically says they were saved through the water.

And then after he says Noah's family was saved through the water,

he says baptism, which corresponds to this. So he's kind of talking,

it seems to me, in a metaphorical way.

Just like Noah's family was rescued through water, so baptism,

which corresponds to this, now saves you.

And then as soon as he says it, he says, not the removal of the filth of the

flesh, not the water physically washing the dirt off of your body.

No, the pledge of a good conscience toward God.

Baptism is like this thing with Noah's time where you're saved through water,

not actually the water washing the stuff off, but the internal thing that happens,

the pledge of a good conscience toward God.

And so I think that baptism is an,

like in baptism, we externally see what happened in someone internally.

The last thing I'll say about this before I'm done is I just going to admit

that I am biased and you need to know that I am biased because of my experiences in my life.

One of the reasons I think I am on Team Signify is there were 12 years between

my salvation and my baptism.

Okay. I don't think it was supposed to be that way. I don't think that's ideal.

I think when you become a believer in Jesus Christ, you should get baptized

kind of as soon as you can.

But in my case, that didn't happen. I was baptized, sorry, I became a Christian.

And at the time I was a Presbyterian and there was just not a lot of emphasis

of, oh, now you gotta be baptized now that you believe. Like that just wasn't

a thing that they emphasized.

So it was 12 years later. So I was saved in 1994.

As best as I can tell you, I believed in Jesus, trusted in him in 1994.

And my sins were forgiven then. Like I asked him to forgive my sins and I believe

that he did. And like I felt the weight of shame go away.

And I believe I received the Holy Spirit because my life was going in a particular

direction and then suddenly it was not.

Something changed in me. And I believe I received the Holy Spirit in 1994.

Then I was baptized in 2006, which I already told you that story.

And when I was there in the YMCA and being baptized in that pool,

12 years after having received the Holy Spirit and being forgiven,

I was baptized and I think it was good, but nothing special happened,

okay? Like there was, well, I shouldn't say that. I was obeying the Lord, that is special.

But I'm just saying like the Holy Spirit didn't enter into me that day at the

baptism or an extra helping of Holy Spirit didn't show up. Like it was just,

I obeyed the Lord and I was baptized as I'm supposed to do and I did it way

late, but I got around to it.

And so, I guess what I'm telling you is, as best as I can understand this,

based on the Bible and my own personal experience, like, I was saved,

and I was baptized, and as best as I could tell, they did not happen at the same time for me.

Well, then, why did you even get baptized, Mario? If it doesn't save you,

if it doesn't literally wash away your sins, then why did you even do it?

Because God commands it. Like, he said to do it.

Like, he doesn't have to threaten. It's not like God has to be like,

do this or you go to hell. And you're like, oh, I got to really obey this one.

Like anything he says, you got to do.

And so baptism is a matter of obedience, which brings me to the application of this sermon.

If you are here today and you are a follower of Jesus Christ who has not been

baptized since becoming a follower of Jesus Christ, and you now realize,

ooh, I ought to be, then I urge you to be baptized.

You can call the church this week. We can set it up and it can happen right

over there at some point over these next few weeks.

Next week, we'll get to Lord's Supper. And the weeks after that,

we'll continue to unpack church. Thank you for listening. Let's pray.

Father, I thank you for the opportunity to talk about this. I thank you for giving us the church.

I thank you in this church in particular, you have brought together people who'd

never been to any other churches before and people who were atheists before

this and Presbyterians and Lutherans and Anglicans and Baptists.

And like, we've come together and not all of us even all agree on all the same

things. Some of us have different views on baptism and Lord's Supper and what have you.

And that has not prevented us. I mean, for 15 years now, that has not prevented

us from being arm-in-arm or sometimes back-to-back, like doing the work that

you've called us to do as a team.

And so I thank you for that. I thank you for bringing together like a diverse

group of people and making us a part of your family and giving us your mission.

I thank you for the Presbyterians in particular, the ones that were in my life.

I thank you so much that I grew up surrounded by people who would share the

gospel with me and teach me the Bible and care about me. I just,

that is so wonderful. Not everybody gets that gift. And so I just,

I thank you. I thank you for them.

And I guess on behalf of this group, anybody in this room who has benefited

from the people that you've put around them, we thank you for that.

We also thank you for Jesus and his salvation we thank you that's it's so big

it's so great it seems to me it is it is much greater and bigger even than the

picture that we have of it in baptism but it's the picture you gave us and so we submit to that,

in Jesus name we pray amen let me end with these good words from God's word

this is from Colossians chapter two, starting in verse 11.

You were also circumcised in him with a circumcision not done with hands by

putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of the Messiah,

having been buried with him in baptism.

You were also raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead.

And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh.

He made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.

He erased the certificate of debt with its obligations that was against us and,

opposed to us and has taken it out of the way by nailing it to the cross. That is good news.