Baptisms - April 2025
Heavenly father, we ask that you would just move in your holy spirit, that you would awaken our hearts, open our ears, that as we look into your word this morning, we would behold you. I pray that you would humble us through your truth, that pastor Cameron would be filled with your spirit, that he might be given words to say, that he might be given the passion to say them, and the clarity to give them to your people. Lord, we trust that your word is sufficient for all things. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Speaker 2:Amen. Good morning, Conduent.
Speaker 3:How are you today? Good.
Speaker 2:Blessed to be here, and it's good to see you. We've been praying for you. Sometimes when we say that, you know, it can become We've talked about this before, right? When we say things like, Hey, we're praying I'm praying for you. It almost becomes kind of this colloquial way that Christians just greet each other or talk to each other, like, hey, see you later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll be praying for you. And then sometimes we fall into these patterns of our lives where we say things that we don't actually do them. But when we say, when we come here on Sunday morning, we say, hey, we have been praying for you. I want you to know and to be confident in the fact that when we say that we pray for you, we really do pray for you. We pray for you throughout the week as staff, as we're preparing, for Sunday morning.
Speaker 2:We pray for you on Sunday mornings, twice, actually. We pray for you as a volunteer team. We pray for you as a worship team and staff team before anyone else gets in the building. We are praying for you because we believe that God works through the prayers of his people, and he hears our prayers because we are his children. And just like any father hears the requests of their child, that God hears our prayers.
Speaker 2:And so we want you to know that you have been prayed for this morning. We love you, and we desire God's best for you in your life. As pastor Luke said, these types of Sundays are my favorite. Favorite types of Sundays to be a pastor, there are a lot of great reasons to be a pastor. There are a lot of hard things about being a pastor.
Speaker 2:Days like this make all the days that are really difficult fully and completely worth it. So I'm grateful that you're here to celebrate this today. We're gonna be baptizing nine people at the end of the service today. So after the sermon, we're going to go back into worship, and then those of you who would like to stay for baptism, you can run out, and if you have kids and Conduit Kids, get your kids and Conduit Kids, and we're gonna meet downstairs in the multipurpose room that's right below us, because we just can't fit everyone in this room anymore for baptisms and have our baptismal in here. So we have to move it downstairs for that, and so it will be a great celebration.
Speaker 2:What I wanna do today is I wanted to bring some clarity around what is conduit's position, theological position on baptism, and what I believe to be a biblical position while also juggling the reality that there are faiths, denominations, whatever you want to say, that believe differently on some small points. And we might talk about some of those, but this is not like us better than them, the way that we do it, or think about it better than anyone else. What my hope is, what my goal is, what my prayer is today, is to just be really honest with what we see in scripture, and how we've chosen to practice what we see in scripture as it pertains to baptism here at Conduit. Because most people, whether or not you've been to church before, or never been to church before, this is your first time coming into a church building, hearing a guy stand up and talk about something that you may or may not care about, most people at least have some kind of, at least cultural understanding of what baptism is. Meaning, like if I say, what would it mean to baptize someone?
Speaker 2:You would have a picture in your mind, you've seen it in a movie, right? You've watched it on a YouTube video. You have an idea of what's being talked about there. But typically, we have an idea of the process, what it looks like on the outside of a person. There's usually water involved.
Speaker 2:Right? And depending on the faith tradition, maybe it's a baby that's having water poured, over top of its head. Or maybe if you're in the orthodox position, they're taking the whole baby and dunking it in the water a few times and bringing it back out. Or whether or you're in another faith tradition and they are dunking the whole person underneath the water and bringing them back out, or they're taking a little bit of water and placing it on the top of someone's head. You you you see the outer presentation of what baptism is, but there's so much more about baptism than what we see on the outside.
Speaker 2:And in fact, as you've heard us talk before about baptism, you would have heard us use a metaphor about it that indicates that there is an outward dynamic of baptism, which is what we see, the water acting on a person, right, but that there is an inward dynamic that is already has occurred and is currently occurring that has brought us to the moment of actually practicing baptism. Sometimes the metaphor that we use is the metaphor of I don't know if it's a metaphor or analogy or a euphemism. Which one is it? What's that? A metaphor?
Speaker 2:Okay. It's an example. I don't know if I believe you. I don't know I don't know that anyone actually knows the difference between metaphor and analogy. Anyway, so when we talk about baptism, we talk about a similar metaphor to that of a wedding ring,
Speaker 3:right? My wedding ring is an outward symbol that
Speaker 2:communicates an inward commitment that I have made to my wife. A covenant that we have taken with one another and before God to live in faithful covenant partnership as husband and wife, all till do us part. And that's something that has occurred here in my heart and with my words. And then as part of the marriage ceremony, we often put on a ring so that it communicates or displays outwardly as a sign and a symbol, a bullhorn of the commitment that I have made in my heart. It says to everyone else, this is who I am, this is who I've committed my life to, this is how I intend to live in faithful love and service for my wife until death do us part.
Speaker 2:And baptism, in a small way, is similar in that way. That when we come to faith in Jesus Christ, that when we respond to the grace of God on our life, and put our faith in Jesus Christ, and when we repent of our sins, and when we turn from our old life, and turn towards the righteous life that God calls us to, that we step into an eternity that is offered to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our sins are forgiven. The Bible says that though they be a scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow, that God separates us from our sin as far as the East is from the West,
Speaker 3:right? And that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that his resurrection becomes our resurrection through faith in him.
Speaker 2:Now when we are baptized, we are putting on the proverbial wedding ring of salvation to say to the world around us, these are the things that I believe. This is what I place my faith in. This is what I place my trust in. Jesus is my Lord and savior. I repent of my sins.
Speaker 2:I turn from my life of sin. I turn I and I and I'm walking with Jesus in righteousness and in resurrected life. Now that is the kind of the gist of it, but there is more theological depth there that I want to
Speaker 3:talk about this morning. Just as a starter, as a kind of quarter of the way through
Speaker 2:the sermon starter, I would say this about baptism, and this is what we believe here at Condo. We believe that baptism is a core practice of the church that comes as a direct commission
Speaker 3:from the Lord Jesus to the disciples and revealed to us in scripture. What in
Speaker 2:the world do I mean by all of that stuff? Here's what I mean. Baptism is an important practice of the church, and the reason that it's an important practice of the church is because Jesus himself told his disciples to do it, and that is revealed to us in the words of Jesus that we find in scripture. Okay? Primarily, and probably most well known is a portion of scripture called the great commission, kind of the last words of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew chapter 28 verses 18 through 20.
Speaker 2:It says that, Then Jesus came to them. This was I've said this before, but you know that the last words of a person are usually pretty important. You want to pay attention to them. These are the last words of Jesus to his disciples in the gospel of Matthew. He said, then Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Speaker 2:That verse alone should make us press the hard stop period at the end of every sentence of me having lordship over my life. Of me having my my own thoughts, and my own opinions, and my own preferences, and my own desires to rule my own life. That Jesus, the resurrected Lord, is proclaiming to his followers, just wanna make sure we're all on the same page here, brothers and sisters, all authority on heaven and earth has been given to me. Meaning that every bit of our attention, every bit of our focus, every bit of our heart's affections should be attuned to the things of Jesus. Jesus, how would you have me live?
Speaker 2:How would you have me think? How would you have me speak? How would you have me love? How would you have me serve? How would you have me live and breathe, Jesus?
Speaker 2:All authority on heaven and earth has been given to you, Jesus. Alright. That means none of the authority on heaven and earth has been given to me. It's been all been given to you. So in light of that, whatever comes next from what Jesus says should be weighed on the scale of all authority has been given to Jesus.
Speaker 2:Then he says these words, All authority on heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore, or because that's the truth, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. Jesus gives the disciples here in Matthew chapter 28, four really, really, really
Speaker 3:clear distinctives, four verbs, right? They need to go, one, meaning, hey, don't stay. This right here, this is not the game. This is the huddle. You know, if you like football metaphors, analogies, euphemisms, similes, right, examples.
Speaker 2:I know I'm gonna get like 10 emails about the difference between these things, Right? Right? Listen. The commission of the Lord Jesus is that we should be going. Right?
Speaker 2:That disciples that disciples of Jesus go, they don't stay. Right? This is not the game. This is not this is not it. This is the huddle.
Speaker 2:We're huddling up so that we go out into the game to go. It's not go to church. It's go into all of the world
Speaker 3:and make disciples of all nations. Baptizing
Speaker 2:them, it's
Speaker 3:the second thing, right? Second verb, teaching them to obey everything.
Speaker 2:So go, make disciples, baptize them, and teach them to obey everything that I have commanded. And then, of course, the encouragement of Jesus is that and I just wanna let you know, you're not gonna do it alone. You're you're not gonna do it alone. It's not all it's not all on you. You have a responsibility in this, the Lord says.
Speaker 2:You need to go. You need to make disciples. You need to baptize them in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. You need to teach them everything that I have that I have teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you to obey, and surely, I will be with you
Speaker 3:always to the very end of
Speaker 2:the age. I'm going with you. I am going with you. My holy spirit will be with you, proclaiming truth, convicting the world of sin and guilt, bringing them into relationship with Jesus Christ. So as we talk a little bit more about baptism, I want to talk about theological principles in general, because if there's one thing that Christians across denominations and churches and faiths do, It's argue with each other about who is right and who is wrong.
Speaker 2:And in some ways, it's very important for us to have theological distinctives, and to be very clear about what we believe, and why we believe it, and where we get the beliefs that we have from. To be honest with ourselves, when we're saying, Yeah, no, I kind of believe that because that's just kind of like
Speaker 3:the church tradition that I was brought up in, but I don't really know where I could root that in the word of God. Or for
Speaker 2:us to say, know, like, yeah, that's a belief or a tradition I don't find anywhere rooted in the word of God, and so I'm not inclined to believe it, even if it's something that you want to believe. You do you, I'm going
Speaker 3:to do me. As a general theological principle, I think that we should, as Christian people, hold really tightly, I mean really tightly, to belief, to theological beliefs that are clearly and explicitly found in scripture. I mean, that's fairly baseline. Right? If stood up
Speaker 2:here and said something different, I would expect that the elders would fire me, and they should, okay? As Christians, we should hold very tightly to theological beliefs that are clearly and explicitly found in scripture. We're gonna
Speaker 3:talk about some of those today. And at the same time, we should be willing to hold fairly loosely to beliefs that are generally gained by inference, nuance, or
Speaker 2:simply found as a matter of our the church history that we grew up in, or a particular denomination or practice that we grew up in. Not to say that those things are not important and do not have value, right? But the level to which we should white knuckle them, refusing to consider any other type of position or perspective, should be based on whether or not we find these things explicitly in scripture or not. Here's an example. Few Christians would argue that communion, the bread and the cup, is an optional practice for the Christian faith.
Speaker 2:Jesus himself, do this often in remembrance of me. Breaking the bread, giving the cup, John chapter 13. Right? Beautiful, beautiful witness of the way that Jesus practiced this meal and gave it to his disciples or believers in him, followers of him, as an ordinance to remember the breaking of his body and the shedding of his blood unto salvation. So few Christians would disagree that communion is an important practice for the Christian faith.
Speaker 3:But there is, listen, there is disagreement, and I think therefore some semi reasonable Christian freedom around the way that communion is often celebrated. Around the way in which it's practiced. What do you mean by that, Pastor Cameron? Well, here's an example. How many people have been here to conduit when we've served communion before?
Speaker 3:Okay, quite a
Speaker 2:bit of you. So you know the format that we've chosen to serve communion. You come up to the center aisle, you break off a piece of the loaf, and you dip it in the cup, and then you take communion at that time. Can stay up at the altars and pray if you would like, return to your seats to the center aisle. How many of you have been to a church where you don't come up front, but you all get a little cup
Speaker 3:with a little bit of juice in it, and maybe even the little cellophane peel back that's got the little wafer on it, right? And
Speaker 2:you break your own bread, and drink your own cup. I grew up in a church where we came up front to receive the bread, and you would have thought that there was some little old church lady in the kitchen for hours before service cutting the most perfectly symmetrical and uniform squares of bread you have ever seen in your life. She was like, I'm not letting some kid break off a too big piece of bread. We're cutting these things up. Right?
Speaker 2:That's what that's how I grew up.
Speaker 3:Okay? Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then and then the little glass cups. That explains a lot. Right? And then you have the little glass cups.
Speaker 3:And so even in that,
Speaker 2:we all recognize that there is differences in the way that some churches or faith traditions practice something that we all believe to be extraordinarily important at its baseline fundamental theological level. There are questions with communion about, Hey, who is invited to participate in the communion table and not? Can kids come? What about if you're not a member of this church? What about if you've never taken communion before?
Speaker 2:These are all How often? How often should you take communion? Most churches these days, if you're not a Catholic or an Orthodox, most churches these days take communion on what Sunday of the month? First Sunday of the month. It's almost like it's written in the Bible.
Speaker 2:Right? That's how that's how strongly most Protestant churches hold on to even that tradition in the here and now. So what I'm saying is this, is that we should hold strongly to things that we find explicitly in scripture. Christians should be celebrating communion regularly, and we should hold loosely to aspects of theological tradition that are maybe just contextualized to the environment that we either grew up in, or have been trained in, or have a personal conviction about when there is not an explicit commission or declaration in scripture. If Jesus was like, Don't you dare eat a wafer for my body.
Speaker 2:It better be gluten free bread. Then we would have reason to say, okay, this is something we're holding onto. See, where there is scriptural ambiguity, or where
Speaker 3:there is just not information in scripture about theological belief or practice, we use the measure and the filter that we use on everything else in Christian faith. We use the measure of love in relationship with others.
Speaker 2:Oh, you don't believe we should take communion like this?
Speaker 3:Okay. That's okay. I love you. This is
Speaker 2:not something I'm not gonna hold tightly onto this because the filter through which I am in relationship with you already anyway is the love of God, the love of Jesus Christ that lives in me. So I'm not here to convince you of anything. I'm not here to to pry you into my belief. I'm not here to make you think like I think. I love you, and I trust that the spirit of God is working in your life, recognizing that Christians of various traditions can all be committed to biblical positions and come out choosing different stances on non critical issues.
Speaker 2:Kind of the worst stance that we can take is being like, well, you take communion like that, you obviously don't believe in the Bible.
Speaker 3:Okay. I love you. I love you anywhere. See now, if we
Speaker 2:were to apply this thinking to baptism, then here are some things that I think we could confidently say about baptism, both from a strong biblical position, as well as a, here are some things where there is not information here. Number one, baptism is a clearly commanded practice by Jesus,
Speaker 3:the Apostle Paul, and the
Speaker 2:early church as found in scripture. We see it in Jesus, we see it in Paul, and we see it in the early church in general. This is like just the baseline. Matthew 28, again, Jesus commanded it. We see it in the life and ministry of Jesus.
Speaker 2:We see it in the life and ministry of the Apostle Paul in the second two thirds of the New Testament. We see it in the life of the early church. The book of Acts is full of examples, some of which we'll get to today, people responding to the proclamation of the gospel through repentance and baptismal. Right? We see Paul talk about baptism in Romans chapter six, where we're gonna talk about today.
Speaker 2:Number two, baptism always this is important. Baptism always in scripture followed the profession of faith in Jesus Christ, and normatively was after the proclamation of the gospel to that person.
Speaker 3:So what we see in scripture most clearly is that baptism was the response of the person who had the gospel preached to them, and they responded to the proclamation of the gospel with attitude and heart and posture of repentance from their sins. The gospel was preached. The people responded with repentance. Baptism happened. That is the normative pattern that we see in scripture.
Speaker 3:Meaning,
Speaker 2:what we see in the New Testament, people often responded to faith in Jesus Christ almost immediately right after the gospel was preached, and baptism soon immediately closely followed that profession of faith. We're going look at a few examples here in just a minute.
Speaker 3:Number three, baptism both was and is, we've already talked about this, the outward invisible sign of an inward decision to repent of my sin, to profess my faith in Jesus Christ, and to be sealed for eternity by the Holy Spirit. Number four, baptism, we do not see in scripture, baptism is not necessary for our salvation.
Speaker 2:Although the New Testament
Speaker 3:does not have a category for the unbaptized disciple of Jesus. I wanna unpack that a little bit. Okay? We do not believe that the scripture describes baptism as the necessary, a necessary ingredient, a necessary quality for our salvation unto the Lord. But it also does not really have a category to think about someone who has responded to faith in
Speaker 2:the gospel, and put their hope and trust in faith, hope and trust in Jesus, but is saying, but I just don't think baptism is for me. Not a thing
Speaker 3:that I'm gonna do. Not not a thing
Speaker 2:that I'm gonna do. Both of these realities are true, that baptism was not necessary in scripture. In scripture, baptism is not necessary for salvation, but it's also not necessarily an optional thing for those who have responded to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This often comes into question, especially with those who desire to have their children baptized. Babies or small children say, Pastor, would you baptize my child?
Speaker 2:I am nervous, or I am worried, or I want them to be protected, I want them to be safe. We understand and honor and love the heart of a parent who wants to do everything that they can, even for their small child, to bring spiritual blessing upon their life, to offer them spiritual protection, but we don't baptize babies here at Conduit because we do not believe that baptism is necessary for salvation, and so we do not believe that your children are in spiritual danger into eternal life if they are not baptized. See, baptism is the normative and prescribed response to salvation. It is not the thing that activates salvation in your life. Now how could we possibly say that if baptism is so clearly seen in scripture?
Speaker 2:Remember what we said, that when there is clear, absolutely crystal clear information in scripture, then those are the things, the theological beliefs that we hold tightly to. Okay? And what is very, very clear in scripture is that there is one way to salvation, and it is not baptism.
Speaker 3:There is not one way plus a footnote and baptism.
Speaker 2:It is not when Jesus was talking to his disciples in John chapter 14 verse six, he said what? I am the way and the truth and the life,
Speaker 3:and no one shall come to the father except through who? Me and baptism.
Speaker 2:No. No. No. No. There's no footnotes here.
Speaker 2:The Greek does not say anything about baptism, if you're wondering. It doesn't. Right? This is not just Jesus saying this, right? The apostle Paul, probably one of the most famous passages of scripture that Paul spoke on, Ephesians chapter two verses eight and nine.
Speaker 2:Right? For it is by what that you have been saved? It is by grace that you have been saved through faith.
Speaker 3:And this is not from yourselves, it
Speaker 2:is the gift of God, that no not by works, so that no one can boast. So we have very clearly in scripture the proclamation, right, that while baptism is important as a response to the saving work of Jesus Christ in our lives, that it is the saving work of Jesus Christ in our lives that saves us and nothing else. No one comes to the father except through me. It is it is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ that we are saved and nothing else. Scripture is clear on that.
Speaker 3:Here's a third thing.
Speaker 2:Or not a third thing. It's like a something thing, fifth thing. I'm getting a lot of emails this week. I can feel it
Speaker 3:already. Sorry.
Speaker 2:Welcome to conduit. This is this is something that may may speak to some of the traditional ways that we have chosen to practice and celebrate baptism, both in this church as well as in other churches that you might have been to or have experience with. The pre and the post process of baptism, meaning, like, what is required of people who are going to be baptized before they're baptized, and what is required of people that are gonna be baptized after they're baptized. The pre and post process of baptism in scripture is not clear,
Speaker 3:but it leans in the direction of baptism being as close to the moment of salvation as reasonable or possible.
Speaker 2:See, most of church history has instituted, and you might into own kind of tradition yourself. I fell into this tradition. This was my story. Anyone had to go through confirmation classes before they got baptized? Anyone Catholic had to go through catechesis before you were baptized?
Speaker 2:Right? Like, it's very, very common, even in Protestant churches, conduit. We had free classes that I wanted to sit with these people
Speaker 3:through, right? But for most of church history, the church has instituted a longer kind of teaching process, education process prior to baptism. Meaning, get them in a
Speaker 2:classroom, make sure they understand all the theological material, make sure they understand the decision that they're making, teach them
Speaker 3:some church history, teach them some church doctrine, give them some tools for following Jesus. Are these all great things? Dod your head yes. These are all great things. These are all great things.
Speaker 2:Heart of the Pastor, I want all, everyone, to experience these great things. But if we're being honest with the trajectory of scripture, the trajectory of scripture shows that people were the gospel was proclaimed. They were like, Oh my gosh, what do we do?
Speaker 3:And Peter's like, Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins. And they were like, Okay. And then they were baptized in that moment, right? It was never We don't see anywhere in scripture that's like, Okay, I'm so great, so encouraged that you made
Speaker 2:a decision for Jesus. What I need you to do now is we got like a 12 course, and we're going to sit you through this twelve week course, and at the end of that twelve week course, we're going to determine whether or not you are theologically astute enough to understand the complexities of this mysterious water of baptism, and then if so, we will dunk you at that time. Meaning, we bounce at the doorway of baptism. I look like a bouncer, right? This is me.
Speaker 2:This is my bouncer stance, right? Troy, get up here for me, would you? Listen, we don't stand guard over baptism as if somehow someone sneaks in the water without going through our twelve week course, that there's going to be an issue when they get up to the pearly gates. Jesus is going be like, ew, Will. Sorry, there were some prerequisites, and you didn't meet them.
Speaker 2:Now I say this, and it is funny, right? Like, We can joke about it, okay? But again, what I want us to do is I don't want us to just Don't just regurgitate theological material all of your life, Okay? Let's think critically about what the scripture tells us, and how we apply it to our lives and our own souls, because it literally is matter of life
Speaker 3:and death. Okay? And so we often just kind
Speaker 2:of regurgitate whatever it is that we've been discipled in, grown in, talked without any sense of like, yeah, but is that actually what we see in scripture, or is that just like what I saw in church tradition as I grew up? In fact, if you were to take the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 28 as prescriptive of the path of a disciple, then you would see that baptism happens at the beginning of their spiritual journey, not sometime after they have ascended to some intellectual bank of theological material in their head.
Speaker 3:Make disciples, okay, then baptize them, and then what? And then teach them everything, then teach them, then bring them up in the faith. As an example here, in Acts chapter two, verses 38 through 41, we see this. When the people heard this, this was Peter's big post Pentecost sermon in the book of Acts, and he is just hammering it. He is getting after it.
Speaker 3:And at the end of
Speaker 2:the sermon, Acts says this, Luke, who's writing, Acts says this, When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, brothers, what shall we do? What shall we do in response to the proclamation of Jesus Christ as Messiah and Lord? What shall we do in response to this revelation that Jesus is who he said he was? What should we do? And Peter's like, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 3:I don't know how much more clear you want it to be.
Speaker 2:Very next verse, those who accepted his message were baptized, and 3,000 were added
Speaker 3:to their number when? That day. Baptism came as closely as reasonable to the response of the gospel and repentance. I repent of my sins, Lord. Baptize.
Speaker 3:Boom. New life. Let's go. This is the same for Philip when Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter nine. In Acts chapter nine verse 35, it says that Philip, after a long story It's a great story, I wish I
Speaker 2:had time to tell it, but you want to leave at some point today. It says that in Acts chapter nine verse 35, that Philip began with that very passage, the passage that he heard, the Ethiopian reading in Isaiah chapter 53, the passage of the suffering servant that we read here on Good Friday if you were here. And Philip was like, I
Speaker 3:don't know what this means. And Philip's like, well, I got you, bro.
Speaker 2:And he said and it says there in nine thirty five that he began in Isaiah,
Speaker 3:and then he told them and then told them, everything.
Speaker 2:Acts chapter eight, nine eight thirty five, is that what it is?
Speaker 3:What did I say? Nine? Okay. I'm gonna get here. Thank you, Stan.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. Acts chapter nine is Saul's converting. What am I thinking?
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you, Benny. Yes. Eight thirty five. Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Then Philip began with that very passage of scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. As they traveled along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, Well look, here's water. Why shouldn't
Speaker 3:I be baptized? He's like, Oh, that's the gospel? That's it? I believe. I believe.
Speaker 2:And obviously Philip had told him at some point about baptism, right, because the eunuch didn't know The eunuch's the one that brought The Ethiopian's the one that brought it up. So Philip at some point was like, and then you believe in Jesus Christ and repent of your sins, then we baptize you in unity with Christ? In unity with death and resurrection? And he's like, well, here's some water right here. Let's go do this right now.
Speaker 2:And Philip's like, yeah, let's do it. And he does.
Speaker 3:Oh, jeez.
Speaker 2:Mean, these are some things that we believe about baptism, but there like, I
Speaker 3:want to look at one passage of scripture to give some deeper theological grounding to how
Speaker 2:we even talk about baptism, why we talk about it in the way that we do, so that as we go downstairs to celebrate baptism with the nine individuals who are going on record in public today to say, I repent of my sins, I put my faith in Jesus, I follow him, right, and I am unified with him into eternal life, that we ourselves have an opportunity, that we ourselves have an opportunity to reaffirm our own baptisms as well, those of you who
Speaker 3:have been baptized, to say, Yeah, that is what I believe. And yes, I am here to celebrate that same reality with these people today. In Romans chapter six, verse one through 11, we see this description where baptism is this kind of tangible re demonstration of the core tenets of the gospel. What's beautiful about this is that Paul isn't even really setting out to talk about baptism here in Romans six. He just goes into baptism because it is the reminder that the people need Their baptism is the reminder that people need to be re solidified and reconfirmed in the foundation of the gospel that they first responded to,
Speaker 2:because in Romans chapter six, Paul is dealing with this issue in the Roman church. Answers a rhetorical question right at the beginning of the chapter, and the rhetorical question is this. He says, What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? The issue that Paul is dealing with here, and he understands that
Speaker 3:the church is dealing with here, is
Speaker 2:this issue of a large group of people, right, within the church being like, Hey, well you know, have ever heard of, have
Speaker 3:you heard of grace? Grace is awesome.
Speaker 2:God's grace is given to me, and since I know that I have God's grace, and since I know that I have God's forgiveness, I'm gonna kind of just keep doing the things in life that I want to do. I'm going continue to live in the midst
Speaker 3:of my sin. I'm going
Speaker 2:to continue to live in the death of my soul. I'm going to continue to live in the darkening of my mind and the hardening of my heart, because you know what? At the end of the day, lay my head down on the pillow and be like, Hey, Lord, on that grace thing, apply it here. That forgiveness thing, apply it here. Okay, good.
Speaker 2:Can sleep now. Right? And what Paul is going
Speaker 3:to say, he was like, What are you doing?
Speaker 2:Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? And he says, By no
Speaker 3:means. No way. Why? Because we have died to sin, and we live in it no longer.
Speaker 2:We can't go on living this way, Paul says in Romans six one and two. This is not who we are in Jesus. We do not we no longer when Jesus is Lord of our lives, we no longer entertain the heartbeat of the old person, chained down by our sin in bondage to the way in which we once lived. We have died to our sin. And this is not an uncommon belief or way of talking about sin in scripture.
Speaker 2:Paul said it in two other letters,
Speaker 3:the letters to Colossians, the Colossians, and Ephesians. In Colossians chapter three, he says this. We're going to actually go there rather than trusting the notes right now. Colossians chapter three, verses three through seven. He said, For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
Speaker 3:When Christ who is your life appears, then you will also appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming. Listen, listen. You
Speaker 2:used to walk in these ways in the way that in the you used to walk in these ways in the life that you once lived. Listen, there was a before the death of sin in Cameron Linehart, and there was a after the death of sin in Cameron Leinhardt. And all the time, right, the enemy and my own flesh is seeking to pull me back into the old man where I come over here and I do this kind of spiritual CPR to get this old, dead, sinful part of me back to life so that I may live in obedience to its desires. But the life of Jesus Christ in me has raised me from the dead and led me into a resurrected life where the old man stays in the grave, and I come out of the tomb with Jesus.
Speaker 3:This is the gospel. Right? And this is
Speaker 2:what Paul is saying in Romans chapter six. See, many of us come to faith in Jesus Christ, but fail to leave the old man in the grave. We constantly return to it, being like, hey, wake up. You were fun for a season.
Speaker 3:There's nothing but death over here. Death.
Speaker 2:Going further into Romans chapter six,
Speaker 3:Paul continues, he says, Don't you know we
Speaker 2:died to sin, how can we live it any longer? Verse three, Or don't you
Speaker 3:know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. What is he talking about? He's referencing the baptism that these believers in Romans went through. Hey, we baptized, you remember? And don't you remember that those
Speaker 2:of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? He's saying, Don't you remember that when we put you down under the water, we were putting in the tomb, in the grave, the dead,
Speaker 3:old, hardened, darkened, sinful part of you. It was dying in Christ.
Speaker 2:When we are baptized into Christ, we are baptized in our sin into his death. That the physical act of putting someone underneath the water is a symbolic act of putting them into the grave, referencing the death of their sin. As Christ went into the grave,
Speaker 3:we go into the water. And then verse four, says, we were buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead, we too may live a new life. See, if we want to live a new life in unity with Jesus, there are things from our old life that must be put to death. In Romans chapter six verse five, he
Speaker 2:goes on to continue. He says,
Speaker 3:if we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. What What did he say?
Speaker 2:In the same way, right, that we are united with Christ in his death, the death of our sin. We are united with him in his resurrection. Listen, when we baptize someone and we put them under the water, they don't stay under the
Speaker 3:water. Why? Because baptism isn't just death of sin. Baptism is resurrection to new life. It is
Speaker 2:a symbol of resurrection to new life. Just as Jesus came up out of
Speaker 3:the grave, having been dead, but now conquered the grave. He comes up out of the grave
Speaker 2:triumphant and victorious over death. And what Paul says is that when we unite ourselves with Jesus by faith and in baptism, that we unite ourselves both with the death of our sin symbolized in the tomb and the life of resurrected life as Jesus comes strolling out of the grave on Easter Sunday. It is a both and, it's not an either or. Sin is dead, and we are new in life in Christ Jesus. As Christ came out of the tomb alive, we come out of the water alive.
Speaker 2:The old self crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, Paul says in Romans six:six, we are no longer slaves to sin. Paul ends this portion of Romans chapter six with this verse.
Speaker 3:He says in the same way, verse 11, Romans chapter six verse 11, in the same way, count yourselves dead to sin,
Speaker 2:but alive to God in Christ Jesus. I know a lot of people walking around feeling really dead.
Speaker 3:Feeling really dead here and here, feeling like you just wear grave clothes. Listen. There is life available for you through faith in Jesus Christ. There is life there is life not just eternal, but there is life abundant. There is life full.
Speaker 3:There is life free from the bondage and chains of death and sin.
Speaker 2:There is life beyond the hopelessness of the life that you feel that you are living, constantly just spinning your wheels in the rat race of trying to make it work. I'm just trying to be a little bit better today than I was yesterday, and a little bit better the next day. Listen, We are saved by grace through faith
Speaker 3:in Christ Jesus, not by our works so that none of us can boast. You cannot be good enough to satisfy the holiness of God in light of our sin. But thanks be to God that while we were still sinners, Christ has died for us, and
Speaker 2:given himself as an atoning sacrifice for our sins that we may know him, and that we may have life.
Speaker 3:Praise God. This is what we celebrate in baptism, brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2:What we celebrate today is nine people who said, I don't want to be dead anymore.
Speaker 3:I don't want to live my own life anymore. I have a Lord. I have a savior. I have someone who has shown me the light and love of God, and
Speaker 2:I'm gonna respond to that by turning my back on my old life, repenting of my sin, and walking in faithful trust with Jesus, that I may be united with him in the death of my sin and the resurrection of my life to eternity.
Speaker 3:Now, if you Here's what we're gonna do, okay? So like I said, we're going to be baptizing people downstairs. It's a big open room. We should
Speaker 2:have plenty of room for anyone that wants to come down.
Speaker 3:The reason that we do this in church is because baptism is
Speaker 2:a public event. Baptism is not a private event. Again, you may have a belief that baptism can be done in your back lawn just by yourself. I love you. I love you.
Speaker 2:But baptism is meant to be a public proclamation proclamation of an inward faith, an inward decision that we have made, and so that's why we do it in public, in the public of the community of faith. And so I want to invite, if you are able to stay after worship to go downstairs and to join us for baptism, please do it. Please come downstairs and join with us and celebrate. Listen, this is not somber occasion. This is
Speaker 3:not like, everyone be quiet, we're in church kind of occasion, right? This is like, there is no greater celebration in
Speaker 2:the life of the church than when people come from death to life, Okay? There's no greater celebration. I expect you all to make some noise.
