Importance of Baptism - Pastor Greg Addison - October 4, 2026

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

That's really fun.

If you want it done right, we called our best and brightest.

We have a student and a lawyer, and all things go well that way, right?

Isn't that good?

We have our student ministry involved, and uh so we're excited about that.

So it's good.

Well, good to see you this morning.

I just came from our first Baptist chaffee campus.

I can't say that yet.

Let me try again.

I just came from our first Baptist Chaffee campus, where we celebrated one year as a campus.

Is that exciting?

Isn't that good?

Praise the Lord for that.

We are very excited about what God's doing there, and it's great.

Uh we're also excited about we have a mission trip coming up to London, and if God's been telling you to go uh and you haven't signed up yet, it's time.

It's now like deadline, you gotta get there.

And yesterday, Pastor Joel just sent a word of encouragement and greeting to the church.

So let's show that.

This is from Pastor Joel, who we're partnering with.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank you so much for your friendship and support, both to Stone, here where I am today, and beautiful Ainswood Baptist Church.

Friends, you have been such faithful and encouraging friends to us over the last couple of years, and we couldn't be more grateful for you, for your church, and for your pastors.

This morning I wanted to share with you that in a couple of weeks there's an opportunity to visit with us.

And this morning is the sign up deadline.

We would be so excited if you wanted to come and visit with us once more, and as we celebrate our equivalent of Veterans Weekend.

For as we call this Remembrance Day, and it's a solemn opportunity to consider those who have given their lives in service of our nation and of peace and security around the world.

You would be so welcome to visit with us.

We've got some wonderful plans to go and see some of the World War II sites, as well as the opportunity to be into the church in Ainsford with us and worship together.

Friends, thank you for your friendship, for your partnership, for the encouragement that you are week in, week out to us.

God bless you in worship this morning.

Have a great day.

It's always grateful to hear from Pastor Joel.

And those of you who have been know, man, we love Pastor Joel.

You've been, and if you haven't, I just know there may be another person or two guys out there poking you about going.

We're going to do some light construction, kind of cleaning up some apartments that we have helped build in the upstairs of the church at Ainsford.

And then we'll be in Ainsford that weekend, as he mentioned, doing Remembrance Day.

And so it's an incredible deal.

Our uh Ainsford Church, Baptist Church there, they have had the privilege of hosting this event for the entire village of Ainsford.

And so as they go through those festivities, there'll be 300 plus people attending the events there.

And then the church hosts a fellowship afterwards.

And so you get a chance to meet all those folks.

It's a chance for the church to be a part of the community.

It's an incredible opportunity.

So I hope that you will uh I hope you'll pray about that.

And if God's been poking you, go ahead and sign up.

Let's uh let's have a time of prayer.

Let's just thank the Lord for what he's doing in so many ways in our church.

Lord, we thank you for uh the partnership that we have with Pastor Joel as they're revitalizing that church in Ainsford, as we support his church in uh in in London, uh Stone Baptist.

We pray, Father, that you will use that weekend uh in an incredible way to bring more people to faith in Christ at the Ainsford Church where we're serving.

And Lord, we thank you for our own church plant here, uh our Chaffee campus that we've planted as a part of moving towards that property.

Father, I thank you for a year.

I thank you for people that have been baptized, I thank you for lives that have been changed, hearts have been encouraged.

I thank you for members who've joined and become a full part of our church family, participating in everything that we do.

Father, we're so grateful that you are opening doors for us as a church.

And we pray, Father, that you will help us to be faithful, to step out in faith and follow through those doors.

We pray that you'll help us to be faithful to share Jesus in the gospel.

I pray that you'll help us to be faithful to invite people to church at either or both campuses.

And Father, we pray for you to work so more we can see more people saved.

It is in your name we pray this morning, and everybody said.

Okay, I want to brag on you.

It's a special day for yet another reason.

You have just finished reading the Old Testament together as a church.

That's awesome.

That's a milestone.

At Chaffee Campus, they started applauding and cheering, and I said, Whoa, whoa, are you applauding because you did it or are you applauding because you're finished with it?

Uh but no more minor prophets, man.

We're through all that.

You guys have done a great job.

I just want to tell you again how proud I am of all of you as a church family for the way we're doing that study together and walking through that.

The testimonies that you share, the stories, Sunday school classes, the discussions.

It's just incredible to do that with y'all.

And so I just want to take again a moment just to brag on you in Jesus and say thank you for what you're doing.

And this week we've started the New Testament.

And we have here this morning in Matthew chapter 3, if you'll turn there, the importance of baptism.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

Because we have this moment where Jesus is baptized, and what happens here is he identifies what those four books are about.

This is the beginning of Jesus' ministry, and he does it to identify himself to the world as the Savior.

In fact, I want you to see this truth before we read in that text that this moment where Jesus presents himself for baptism is a foundational moment in his ministry.

And it is also one of the few moments outside of the crucifixion and resurrection that is told in all four Gospels, which tells us how vitally important it is and foundational it is to that moment.

In fact, you're there in Matthew 3.

I just want to read to you the first little part of the book of Mark, chapter 1.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

Don't turn there.

You're where you're supposed to be.

But I just want you to hear how he introduces this moment.

He says, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

So Mark is saying, this is where it all starts.

This is the beginning.

Gospel, that word, is translated good news or joyful tidings, and it's really kind of the idea that an event has happened that has changed things, and we're excited, and they're bringing joyful tidings about it.

So what he literally says is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus, the person Jesus identified as the Savior, Jesus Christ, his title, his identifier as the anointed sacrifice of God for our sins, the Son of God.

This is the beginning of the ministry.

And he says, as it is written, Isaiah the prophet, a prophecy of Isaiah, see, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, and he will prepare the way.

A voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

And so he says, You know the Messiah is coming because God has prophesied there would be one to prepare the way.

And that's John the Baptist.

John the Baptist came baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Now, every time you hear the word repentance, remember good news.

This is not John the Baptist or even Jesus as he begins his ministry preaching repent because you're all dirty, rotten sinners, and you're horrible people and you need to grovel and shame on all of you.

That's not what repentance is, because that wouldn't be good news.

The good news is Jesus came to be the Savior and to take away our sins, to create eternal life for us.

It is the promise of God to send, under one illustration that's given, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.

And that's why it's good news, and that's why Mark says a baptism of repentance and forgiveness of sins.

That is the good news.

That when you come to Jesus and you trust him as your Savior, he forgives your sin and you are made new.

It is good news.

And then he says this the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem are going out to him, and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

And then it says, in those days when this is happening, and there's this revival movement, and all these people are getting saved and being baptized, in those days, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John.

By John the Baptist.

So you see, right there is this beautiful picture of how foundational this moment is that Jesus is presenting himself for baptism to announce that he is the Messiah, the one who's come to pay the price for our sins.

Now we're in Matthew chapter 3, and let's read.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

In those days, it's the same time we just read in Mark, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

For he, John the Baptist, is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, who said, It's the same prophecy, it's the same picture.

God is giving an identifier that you will know the Messiah has come when I have sent this messenger to prepare the way.

And he quotes Isaiah again, just like Mark did, a voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord and make his paths straight.

In other words, he is paving the way, he is creating this time that we can identify God has sent the Savior.

Now, John had a camel hair garment with a leather belt around his waist.

Now I thought about, you know, we want to literally follow scripture, so I thought about what if we made this the dress code for our staff?

But then I figured our business administrator, Trey Overton, he's really the only one with that bushy beard and big thing, he's the only one who could pull that off.

Man, we just I just don't have that.

Jacob and I, we don't have a chance.

We can't really pull that off.

So I thought, nah, let's ditch that plan.

And his food was locusts and wild honey, and I never gave a thought to making that the menu, right?

Then people from Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the vicinity of the Jordan were going out to him, and they were being baptized in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

So again, it is this move.

God is identified.

This is the one preparing the way.

When he, John the Baptist, saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to baptism, he said to them, Brood of vipers, who warn you to flee from the coming wrath.

Now let me talk just for a minute about who Pharisees and Sadducees are.

Pharisees are the religious leaders of the day.

They're priests and priests adjacent and all of that.

And they believed very much in legalistically keeping the law.

In fact, they went from the law to all the other Deuteronomy and Levitical things, and then they created a whole bunch of regulations beyond that, and they're beating everybody over the head about you violated some minor little, you know, infraction of some rule or regulation that you never even heard of.

But we're awesome.

We keep them all, and they're bragging and they're proud and they got this whole thing.

And they are really upset because this movement looks scary to them, and it's going to wreak havoc with their power base, how they view religion for the Jewish people, and all of that.

The Sadducees are more like political leaders, they have a rooting in their Jewish identity and faith, but they're more like political leaders, and they're coming out to check this out because they don't like what's happening, and they don't like the message that John is preaching.

And so here's what he says: brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the coming wrath.

It's a rhetorical question.

And then he says, produce fruit consistent with repentance.

In other words, your self-effort in behaving yourself worthy of God is not working.

Repentance is, I have come to the Lord and I've realized that I am not worthy and I cannot meet the law.

It is recognizing, as the Bible says, all of sin that comes short of God's glory, and I am repenting of my sin and I'm asking for God's forgiveness.

And to do that, repentance means that there's life change.

And so he is challenging them.

You are doing your own thing arrogantly.

That's not what repentance is.

Repentance is recognizing that the law shows you you're a sinner.

And then he says, and don't presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father.

Now what does that mean?

They thought because they were Jewish, they would participate in the Jewish coming of the Messiah, and it would all be about them.

And he is telling them, listen, your Judaism does not get you to heaven.

No one's position, no one's race, no one's family or whatever else, none of that qualifies any of us to go to heaven.

Just because your parents went to church doesn't mean that you get to go to heaven.

It is only repentance before the Messiah, trusting Jesus as your Savior, and He's telling them this is a shocking message.

It's one of the reasons that they're out there mad at what he's saying.

I tell you that God is able to raise up children from Abraham from these stones.

In other words, God will raise up his own children everywhere.

How he does this through the gospel.

The axe is already at the root of the trees, therefore every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown in the fire.

And then he begins to explain what's happening, what he's doing.

I baptize you with water for repentance.

But the one who is coming after me, the Messiah, is more powerful than I.

I am not worthy to remove his sandals.

He himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Verse 13.

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by John.

But John tried to stop him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me.

Now, if you know Scripture, and we're not that far from Christmas again, and so you'll remember what happens in Matthew and in Luke.

The angels come to Mary and to Joseph and say, Mary's going to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit and going to give birth to the Savior.

As an encouragement to them, he went to one of Mary's family members.

There was a family.

And God says, You're going to miraculously have a child well beyond childbearing age, kind of like Abraham and Sarah.

And so she becomes miraculously pregnant, not the way Mary did.

She and her husband did that.

But they are way beyond.

So here's a miracle baby.

And then the Bible says that Mary went to Elizabeth and lived with them for Elizabeth to disciple and encourage her through this experience.

Elizabeth's miracle baby was John the Baptist, who we're reading about.

So they're in essence cousins, he and Jesus.

And so they likely had a relationship, they likely knew each other.

John certainly would have known about his calling to prepare the way.

His dad, who is a priest, would have educated him on this whole process, and he knew Jesus was the Savior.

So this is not a random comment that Jesus that John is saying to Jesus.

He sees him and he knows he's the Savior.

He's just said, I'm not worthy to remove his sandals, and so I don't need to be baptized, baptizing you.

Jesus, you need to baptize me.

That's what's going on here in this moment.

And then Jesus tells him in verse 15, allow it for now, because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.

Then John allowed him to be baptized.

And verse 16, when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water.

Or in other words, he came straight up out of the water.

The heavens suddenly opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him.

And a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.

Now let me encourage you on a couple of things.

Sometimes there's a temptation when we see a passage like this.

Oh, we know it.

We know about the Holy Spirit in a dove if you've been in church.

Sometimes we think, oh, baptism, yeah, I did that when I was nine and a half, and I got baptized, and let's like just blow through that.

And we just miss the incredible truths that are going on in a passage like this simply because it becomes familiar.

And then some of you are maybe this may not be.

You don't have a church background, and this is a new thing.

We have a lot of people in our church that we're God's bringing, praise the Lord, and they're learning these things for the first time.

And so this is a fundamental passage, not because it was something you did years ago when you got baptized.

It is first a fundamental passage because it establishes clearly who Jesus is and what he did.

He came to die on the cross for our sins and be raised again.

The next thing I'm going to tell you is there is never a room this large.

I have never been in a room this large that there was not someone who was struggling with a baptism decision or needed to be baptized, or was baptized some time a long time ago, and then Jesus has intervened in their life, and now they've really become saved in that journey, and their baptism was on the wrong side of when they really knew they got saved.

And so it's a fundamental issue for us because we're going to talk about the importance of baptism.

And there are a lot of people here today, there are people on the internet and watch on television who I know need to be baptized.

And so I'm not going to arm twist you or do some weird, you know, emotional thing or whatever, but I want to show you, I want to walk through this scripture to help you understand how fundamental this moment is and how fundamental baptism is for us.

Now, let me give you a couple of key truths from this passage of scripture that we read.

First of all, the word baptism.

When you see the word baptism, it is literally translated into English, dip or dunk or immerse.

That's literally the word.

Now, when it was translated from all the original languages and Latin and all that, and they translated it into English, at that time, uh it the king who was translating it or all those things, man, they they sprinkled and they did all that, and they come to this word, and they, you know, what are we going to do with that?

And they did what's called transliterated the word, and that means they just adopted it from the original language and created a new word in the English language.

And they go, What does that mean?

Oh, that's that thing you do after you get saved.

And they created a lot of this struggle through the years because they didn't directly translate the word.

The word means dunk or immerse, it means to dip something completely in the water.

And you get that every time you read baptism, you get it and you understand it.

And the Bible says when Jesus was baptized, he came up or went up immediately from the water.

You can't come up out of sprinkle.

I mean, it's just the reality of it.

He came up out of the water because they put him all the way down in the water.

And so baptism is an act that is a complete dunking, and we'll talk about why in a minute.

Because it is an adapted cleansing ceremony.

They had dunking type ceremonies, cleansing ceremonies in the Old Testament Jewish life.

They were not as common as some of the others that we talk about.

It certainly wasn't as common as sacrificing, you know, turtle doves and lamb and all that stuff, but it was a part of their life.

And it represented a ceremonial cleaning or cleansing of who you are.

It was often used when a Gentile wanted to be a follower of Jehovah God and identified with the Jewish faith and nationality and became Jewish.

And it had this connotation that you went down in the water, you were ceremonially cleansed, you did that because of your commitment to follow Jehovah God and become one of his children, and you were raised up out of the water, and now you had a new identity.

You went from who you were now to Jewish.

And that's one of the reasons it was so offensive to the Pharisees because they would have known.

This and they thought that they were going to have a place in heaven because of their identity in who they were, not in the Messiah.

And when he is taking this ceremonial cleansing and adapting it to everybody's got to repent, and your identity is changed when you're repented, they found that horribly offensive, bordering on heresy.

It is clearly symbolic.

John explains to them what's happening.

First of all, it comes from a symbolic cleansing.

And then John explains to them, I am only baptizing you with water, but when the Messiah comes, he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit.

And so what we're doing here is simply a precursor and a picture of what the Messiah will do when he brings salvation.

That is a spiritual occurrence that happens through the work of the Holy Spirit.

And then finally, he makes it clear it follows repentance.

Like this is an indicator of a decision of faith that you have made in your life and your heart.

I am repenting of my sin, and that's why I'm going through this ceremony, because I am identifying with someone whose sins are clear, and I am identifying with someone who trusts in the promised Redeemer.

That's what John is teaching and what's happening there.

And from that, we begin to understand how important baptism is for us.

Truth number one, that this is a first and foremost about Jesus.

The reason that you have this discussion between John the Baptist and Jesus, and I'm not going to baptize you, you should be baptizing and all that, is because Jesus is coming to do one thing.

Jesus is submitting to baptism because he is identifying who he is as the Savior, and Jesus is identifying with our sin and humanity.

Jesus is coming, he has to come and be born in the form of a man.

He has to be a human to die for human sins.

The Bible says all of us have sinned and fallen short of God's glory.

And then the Bible says that for the wages of sin is death.

God is a holy God, must judge sin, but he is also God of grace, not just holiness.

He's going to judge that sin, but he steps out of heaven in the form of Jesus.

He becomes a person, a man.

That's why you have the miraculous birth with Mary and the virgin birth and all of that.

He can be a human now.

He lives a human life.

He goes to the cross.

There is no judgment attached to his life.

Jesus would never die because he was not judged.

The wages of sin is death.

But that's why death occurs.

So Jesus goes to the cross and he voluntarily places himself there on the cross.

And he dies a death that has no judgment attached to it because he understands a human must pay the price for humans' sins.

He is buried and he is raised then in resurrection power, conquering death and sin.

And when Jesus goes through this deal, what he is saying is, listen, John, I get what you're saying.

I love you, cousin, for that.

That's not what we're doing here.

This is so that righteousness can follow.

This is so that everyone will know.

This is so we're showing who I am, and I am identifying with people that I'm dying on the cross for their sins, and I am coming up out of the water and symbolizing that I will bring new life, and that is going to be my ministry, and that is why I've come, and that is what I am going to do.

And Jesus, his entire adult ministry begins in this moment.

In fact, we know very little about Jesus up to this moment.

We only know about the virgin birth and all of that deal.

Then we have one story when he was twelve.

And if you'll remember this story, or if you've been reading this week as we've started the New Testament, Jesus, his family goes to Jerusalem for the Passover.

When they leave, they have that conversation.

His mother and father, Mary and Joseph, have the conversation that we all dread, right?

They're a few days out, and one of them goes, Hey, have you seen Jesus?

And then Mary says, No, I haven't seen him.

I thought he was with you.

And Joseph says, No, I thought he was with you.

And Mary says, Well, maybe he's with the cousins, and they go check.

Maybe he's with the, you know, Abraham Joneses or whatever.

And where's Jesus?

And then they have this panic moment.

Where's Jesus?

He's not in the caravan, heading home.

They go back and they find Jesus at the temple.

Jesus is 12 years old.

The Bible tells us that that's important because that was the traditional age for a young man to start for a person to start being becoming a young man.

He would start learning the father's business and the family business and all of that.

And so here he is as a 12-year-old.

He's sitting at the feet of the priests.

They're having these conversations.

They're in awe of what he knows.

They say, Jesus, where have you been?

Man, we've been worried sick.

And he says, Why were you worried?

Don't you know I would be about my father's business of being the Messiah.

And that's all we have until this moment when Jesus is 30 years old and he steps into the world and he begins it with identifying with us and our sins and who he's going to be.

Truth number two, it's not just Jesus identifying with our sins, but now you reverse that.

And baptism is us identifying with Jesus.

It symbolizes what we believe and what happened to us at salvation.

So after this moment where Jesus shows what salvation is and he baptizes, then we are commanded to follow in Jesus' example and do what he did because now God has created baptism as our identification with Jesus.

I want you to look at these scriptures in Romans chapter 6.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

It explains it better than I ever could.

Here's what he says.

Verse 4 and 5.

Therefore, when you see the word therefore, you ask what was there for.

We've been talking about salvation and all of that.

And then he begins this chapter with a rhetorical discussion about now that I'm saved, I shouldn't be sinning like I was anymore.

My life should be different.

Therefore, we were buried with him by baptism into death.

See, we are identifying.

Jesus died for my sins.

I am a sinner under judgment and penalty of death for my sin.

I am going to trust in Jesus' death on the cross for me.

And so I am identified when I go down under the water, I am identifying with Jesus that I am dead in my sins and that Jesus paid the price for them.

In order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too walk in newness of life.

And so now I know when I come up out of the water and it's dripping down my face and hair and all that kind of stuff, I am realizing I am a new person in Christ.

Not because of the water, but because of Jesus.

I am identifying with Jesus' death on the cross, and I am surrendering my life to him, and I'm giving my trust to Jesus and what he did to pay the price for my sins.

And then I am trusting Jesus when he was resurrected that that's how I am born again.

That that's how I have a new life.

The Bible says in 2 Corinthians, if any man's in Christ, he is a new creation.

Old things have passed away and all things have become new.

What does that mean?

How am I born again, as he told Nicodemus?

Because Jesus resurrected from the dead, and I've placed my faith in him and I am identifying with him.

And baptism is an exercise that teaches us that truth.

For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection.

First of all, likeness.

Baptism doesn't save you.

There are people through the years who have preached that you're not saved until you go down and come up out of the water.

It's called regenerational baptism.

That's not what the Bible teaches.

Paul said it was, I mean, John the Baptist said it was symbolic, and now Paul says it's symbolic.

In the likeness of his death, and the likeness of his resurrection.

And again, he's proving the point that if you confess your sins and you give your life to Jesus, he will save you.

If we are united with him, if we are identified in the likeness of his death, we will be, we will be, certainly be, absolutely be, definitely be, born again and raised in newness of life.

Because we're identifying with Jesus, who is the author of life, the giver of life, the saver of life, and the one of resurrected life.

And so that's what it is.

And so it is a chance for us to identify with Jesus the way he's identified with us about our salvation.

And then truth number three baptism is an important command that you must obey in your relationship with Jesus.

It is vitally important that when you give your life to Christ, you follow up in baptism.

I want you to read again what it says in Romans, the next couple of verses in chapter 6.

For we know that our old self, that's Greg before he was saved.

That's sometimes the Bible says old self or old man.

It's talking about the person before we were saved.

That old self was crucified with Jesus.

So that the body that once was ruled by sin, as a sinner, you're captive.

You keep sinning whether you want to or not.

But when you're saved, you're changed.

We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be slaves to sin.

Since a person who has died is free from sin, now if we died with Christ, we believe that we also will live with him.

And that's what baptism is picturing.

It is teaching us our identity in Christ.

And what he's saying is, listen, I used to sin whether I wanted to or not.

I was captive to that sin.

I was certainly captive to the judgment of that sin.

But when I give my life to Christ, my sins are paid for.

They are buried, they are dead and gone, and the old person that I was as a sinner died with Jesus.

And when I come up out of that water, and that water's dripping down my face and all of that, I am reminded that what happened to me when I gave my life to Jesus was I was born again.

I was made new.

I'm a new person.

The old man is gone, and this is a new Greg.

And I have a new future, I have a new eternity, I have a new heart, I have a new life, I have a relationship with Jesus I did not have.

I have the Holy Spirit working in my life, and because of that, I am no longer a slave to sin.

I do not live that way anymore.

I don't have to, I don't want to.

I am pursuing a new path because I am a new person.

And that's what he's teaching us.

And baptism is an important lesson to learn in that moment.

Now here's what I'm gonna tell you.

I've been in church my whole life.

My parents, I've told shared my testimony before.

My parents were church people, Sunday school teachers, deacons, Janet's parents were church people, same testimony.

When I was nine and a half years old, I gave my life to Jesus, and from then on I was, you know, a church guy.

I mean, I was involved in student ministry and all the stuff.

In college, I started teaching Sunday school.

Pretty much every Sunday since I was 18, except for three years in law school when I was in the library most of the time.

Uh I was I've taught almost every Sunday of my life since I was 18, either teaching Sunday school or preaching or whatever.

And in all of that, in all of that church life, in all of that pastoring and all that, here's what I can tell you.

Oh, what I can tell you.

When people struggle with baptism, it is a spiritual decision.

And people do, they struggle with baptism.

We have some here this morning.

So I'm not trying to pound on you or whatever.

I'm trying to teach you and encourage you.

And if it is a hard decision for you, then that tells you it's a significant decision.

Anything that's difficult to do has to have some weight in it.

That's why it's difficult.

I mean, how hard is it to go up there and to get like in the bathtub?

It's just a bathtub.

And as long as we remember to turn the heater on, it's warm water.

Every now and then it doesn't work, and that's pretty cold.

But it's a whole lot better than the Jordan River, let me tell you.

I've been to the Jordan River, you couldn't pay me enough to get in that nasty water.

I mean, you think the Arkansas River's bad.

Ugh.

You don't want to get in the Jordan River.

I went on one of those trips and all those people are paying$100 to get baptized again in the Jordan River.

I'm thinking, you're paying to get into that?

Are you kidding me?

Like, no way.

I'm not doing that.

You couldn't pay me$100 to get in the middle of that.

I mean, I know why they're doing it and all that, but listen, we you it's just water.

It's a symbol.

It's just water.

Okay?

It's just water.

We have for next week scheduled two baptisms at our celebration service on our property next week.

Two.

One person from this campus, one person from the next campus.

And when we baptize them, we're going to take our horse straw that we use out of the Chaffee campus.

And one of the guys in our church is a construction guy, rancher, got a big old water thing, puts on the back of his truck.

He's going to fill it up, and we're going to baptize folks on our property out there.

Right?

But why are we doing that?

Because it is an important command that teaches us who we are.

Now I want you to think about these things right here.

As you're praying through that baptism decision, I want you to see this.

Identity affects behavior.

Identity affects behavior.

Who you think you are guides the choices that you make.

Who you recognize yourself to be, what your identity is, what your heritage is, what your personage is, what your thoughts, what you have set as the vision for your life, what your identity is, it directs your behavior because you make decisions based on who you are and where you want to go because of who you are.

And what the Bible tells us is this whole picture in Romans is that we are identified with his death.

Our old man is gone.

We are identified with new life in Christ because of what he did, and I am no longer captive to sin because Jesus paid for it on the cross.

And my identity now is a blood-bought son of the child of God.

And because of that, I am free to be who Jesus saved me to be, and I have a vision who he saved me to be, and who he's working in my life to make me, and when I have that identity, my behavior is completely different.

And that's important for all of us.

Whether you've been baptized or not, listen, your identity is supposed to determine who you are.

All this nonsense about playing Christian and barely waving at it and faking at it and giving Jesus the last part of your time, money, effort, and emotional whatever, that is not who Jesus saved you to be.

Jesus himself went into the water and was baptized and came back knowing that he would teach us this identity issue and model it for us because he knew we would need it.

I had a discussion this morning, just one of our guys over there.

It was a great discussion.

We were talking about sports and all yesterday and all that.

And then we came up to, somehow we got on paramutual betting and online betting and apps.

Do you know in just the short few years that that has started, we are now billions of dollars in the hole?

Do you understand that?

Billions of dollars in the hole.

If you have that app on your phone, you need to repent of that sin.

Did you hear you, Pastor?

It's wrong.

It's wrong.

And what happened is all of these men, especially in their 20s, it is epidemic with young men in their 20s.

Like we'll never recover from the financial crisis that's already been created because of that.

And if you are thinking those 20-somethings that don't know anything, and you're going to the casino, well, you need to repent for your sin also.

It's just sin.

And we have Christians everywhere.

Statisticians are now telling us that Christians give at a less rate than people outside the church.

They give more to colleges and hospitals and all this other stuff than we give to Jesus.

That's an identity issue.

That's an identity issue.

And you come back to that gambling deal and they fall into that.

Why do they fall into that?

Because they do not have a fundamental, foundational identity question that defines how they face things moving forward.

If I'm a bloodbought child of Jesus, I'm not going to that app because that's sin.

And that's not where my money goes, and that's putting me in a mental place that is walking away from Jesus, and all of that is wrong.

And I'm validating that for all the other people that get lost and can't handle it.

Listen, the only two businesses in America that are paying their own dollar to advertise not to use their product are sports betting and alcohol.

They are literally paying millions of dollars to tell you not to use their stuff.

I'm at a loss at this point in life how we get involved in that.

Except you come back to this fundamental issue about your identity affects your behavior.

Are you allowed to take Jesus, redeemed mind, life, focus, and checkbook through that?

No.

Identity affects behavior.

And then you get to spiritual choices.

And that is a spiritual choice of baptism.

It affirms our identity.

That spiritual choice that I make.

If it wasn't difficult, then why is it difficult?

It's difficult because it is significant.

And we understand when I do this baptism thing, I am reaffirming this salvation and I am reaffirming my identity in Christ.

It doesn't have anything to do with how big the room is or any of that kind of deal.

It is a spiritual decision that I am working through, and that's a good thing.

Praise the Lord.

Man, I would want you to be hesitant and work your way through that because it shows you understand it's a significant decision.

So if it's a decision that you've been struggling with, this is not a negative thing for you.

This is positive because I'm saying, listen, I know that it's a real decision, and praise the Lord, you understand it as a significant choice.

That's awesome.

Now make the choice.

Why?

Because it is significant, it is spiritual, it has an impact because it shows that you understand when I come out out of that water, physically I'm just wet, but spiritually, when I came up out of that water, I am, I cannot do that without thinking through, man, Jesus came out of that grave for me.

Jesus died for me.

Man, I'm wet, but I'm also clean.

Praise Jesus for what he did for me.

And it's a spiritual decision.

And finally, it practices the process of obedience.

How does that work?

Well, it works this way.

You know that the Christian life is I'm going this way, and let's say Jesus is Jesus is there, and I'm over here, and I'm going this way, and I repent, that means turn from myself and my own way, and I turn to Jesus and I place my faith in him.

Then I am entering a journey where I am growing to change and learn to walk with him, become more like him.

It's a journey.

But at the beginning of it, I don't know all that how that works.

It's all new for me.

I'm trying to figure this out.

I'm excited, but I'm trying to figure this out.

And God says, listen, go be baptized.

Well, I can do that.

I just get in the water, and then Pastor Matt, when he does baptism, goes like this.

Right?

Or you get Eli and he's gentle and sweet, and he goes like that, you know.

And I mean, it's kind of how everybody does it, right?

But I can do that.

And I'm in there with a brother in Christ.

I've got my family cheering me on.

And I go down and I do this baptism and I sign up for it.

I commit to it.

I'm excited about it.

People are praying with me before I go into that.

And I go into that baptism, and my church family cheers for me, and I come up out of the water, and I know what it means, and I feel the significance, and I've taken a step of obedience, and God blesses you for it.

And all of a sudden, you have this first step experience that God has built into the journey.

To teach you how to obey and to teach you how to take a step of faith and to teach you how he blesses you and how wonderful it is, and it encourages you how you step out in faith and obey him.

He embeds in the process this incredibly wonderful spiritual moment where you are encouraged and you are taught the rhythm of how we step out in faith and obedience and God blesses and we begin that journey.

And I can't tell you how many folks I talked to and have through the years that when they face the significance of that baptism decision and they're working their way through that, if they have not said yes, they miss this opportunity.

They miss this beginning step, and they miss the identification of, man, I am clean before Jesus because of what he did for me on the cross.

And listen, if you're missing that opportunity, if you're missing that identification moment, I'm gonna ask you, either during the invitation or afterwards, come out there and see me, we want to baptize you.

Be baptized.

And if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, one of the reasons you may be holding back, you may have this baptism idea and you have a different picture of what it is.

It's just water, it's just a picture.

But it is an opportunity for you to know who Jesus saved you to be to help you begin the journey of walking with Him in a beautiful way.

If you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, man, there is no clearer time to be saved than a message like this right here.

If you've never been saved, you're online, you're watching on television, you're in the room.

Listen, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, I want you to give your life to Jesus.

Trust him to save you.

Give your life to him, identify that he paid the price for your sins, and realize that because he died for you and you trusted him to pay the price for your sins, when you are saved, you are clean.

And then let us baptize, do baptism with you.

Not for us, for you and your journey, as we've explained today.

I want you to bow your heads as we close.

Lord, I thank you for this incredible picture of baptism.

And I want to ask, Father, this morning, you get me out of the way, putty the cracks for whatever's going on.

And Father, I pray that you will speak to hearts this morning.

I pray that there are people who be saved.

Because they got this picture of what it means.

They got a picture of how you've built in from the very beginning the chance to help us learn how to walk with you.

And Father, I pray for brothers and sisters in Christ who've been saved, but this has been a hard decision for them.

First of all, I want to ask you to bless them for taking it seriously and recognizing it's significant.

It is.

And so thank you for that sense that they have of how important this moment is.

And I pray, Father, today, that you'll use the example of Jesus, the teaching of Paul and Romans, the teaching of John the Baptist with those crowds.

Schedule that baptism, to take that significant step of faith, to walk in obedience into that moment so that you can bless them and encourage them and give them a sense of identity.

And since we've talked some about identity here, Father, I pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ, already been saved, already baptized.

But Father, I pray that in this picture of baptism and what it means and the significance when we did it, that it will challenge us and our identity to redefine according to Jesus who we are.

Something here for all of us today, Lord, and I pray you'll help us respond to you.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Everybody said, We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.

Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.

Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.

Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith at First Baptist Church.