Transcript

Let’s go to Mark 8. We are in between our exposition of book studies and I don’t know when we’ll get back there. It won’t be too long but I’m enjoying what I’m doing right now looking at some things that I feel like that we need to be looking at and Mark 8, then we’ll jump over to Mark 16, all right? Mark 8:38, just an exhortation and a reminder to all of us this morning, Mark 8:38,

38 “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

Now Mark 16:15-16, as Jesus is giving his final commission to his disciples while he was on the earth, right before his ascension,

15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.”

We are now starting this morning part 2 of “Our Profession of Faith Through Baptism.” When the Lord Jesus was on the earth in his earthly ministry, we call it, he gave the church two ordinances: the ordinance of the Lord’s supper, he took the old Jewish Passover meal and he transformed it to a new memorial meal and we call it the Lord’s supper; and then he also commanded another ordinance, something he partook of himself he said to fulfill all righteousness and that was the ordinance of baptism.

Now there is a spirit and I guess it’s in every generation that says, well, now since the ordinance does not save us, we are not Roman Catholics believing in extra-biblical authority, therefore we do not believe that taking the sacrament or an ordinance of the Lord’s table or baptism or the other sacraments the Roman church adds in, we do not believe taking those brings to us saving grace, we do not believe that partaking of those somehow helps us get through purgatory and gets us into heaven. We reject that absolutely and categorically, but on the other side of the coin, we have begun unfortunately in evangelical life and in far too many folks who even hold to the same doctrines as we hold, minimizing and deemphasizing the ordinances of the church and in my opinion even worse, many who claim to be Bible-believing, conservative evangelicals, are desecrating the ordinances, turning a baptismal service into some sort of amusement or carnival event. Lots of foolish blasphemous nonsense. This should be a joyous occasion and a sweet occasion and an encouraging occasion but it is a holy occasion when we partake of the ordinances our Lord left the church.

So we’ve been diving into the ordinance of baptism and today is our second installment. Now we’ve already talked about in review, I., that baptism is by immersion only. As a matter of fact, immersion is baptism. In other words, if you take the ancient Greek word and by the way, the New Testament was written in koine Greek, koine Greek just means it was the Greek of the everyday man. It wasn’t the high Greek of some of the scholars of the day, it was just the everyday language of the people and in the everyday language of the people, the word “baptizo” just meant “to put under water.” That’s all it meant. It wasn’t some holy word. It wasn’t some sanctified word. It was just a simple word in the Greek language you would use every day. “Let’s go down to the creek and let’s baptize.” Well, that didn’t mean to do some ordinance or some sacrament of the church, that meant to go down to the creek and dive in. That’s all it meant and then the New Testament writers took that word out of the common language of the day and said that’s the way you show yourself, that’s the way you identify yourself as a believer, as a member of his church. It means immersion. Listen, baptism always and only means immersion in water. Period. It can’t mean anything else. There is no reputable Greek scholar among Anglicans or Episcopalians or Catholics or Protestants, Presbyterians, you name it, who will tell you any different. It only means immersion in water. If you take away immersion in water, you do not have baptism. It’s just that simple.

II. Baptism is by immersion in water of disciples only. Now we use the phrase of “disciples only,” that’s a phrase that our forefathers in Baptist life would have used. We can say believers’ baptism. You have to first be a believer so by saying “disciples only,” I do not mean a mature disciple, I do not mean a multiyear proven disciple, I mean just a genuine believer, a genuine one who has started their discipleship. They have been truly converted. They are already saved. If you baptize an infant, if you baptize an unbeliever, you haven’t baptized anyone. It’s not baptism if they are not already converted. That means they are not already a believer or a disciple.

So let’s talk about just for a moment what is our duty to God? In the broadest perspective, what is our duty to God? Well, we come up with the word “love” first of all. To love God with all of our heart truly is the sum of all duty. Aren’t you glad that we do not live under the law? You do not gain anything as far as your justification and ultimate glorification by the works of the law. You just can’t do it and so Jesus saves us wholly and completely of grace, grace meaning God has favored you and giving you something you cannot in any capacity merit or deserve. It’s grace, but the argument from those who would say, “Well, now salvation, to be just before God, yeah, it’s grace but it also includes we have to do this, this and this.” Well, if that’s true then it’s not grace. If you add anything on to grace, you lose grace. That’s like saying if you do anything other than immersion in water you don’t have baptism. That’s what the word means. Grace means no merit, no work, no obtaining, no earning of any way. It’s grace that saves us.

Now, those who argue again that, “Well, now there are some things you have to do,” put you under this woeful duty and every single time you add something to grace in order to gain a right standing before a holy God, you get into the creation, the cultivation, the increasing of pride; to at least some extent, you hold onto this self-exalting proud notion that, “When I get to heaven, it was 99.9% Jesus but I did this.” No, I’m sorry. You did nothing. If you did, it’s not grace. What you did do was even grace. If you believed, it was grace. If you repented, it was grace. If you called on the Lord to save you, that was grace.

God has no obligation in his Triune holiness, in his absolute justice, to give us unjust and unholy ones even the option to call upon him, the option to get to call upon him is an undeserved grace. “But I repented.” Yes, but the capacity to repent and the ability and the allowance to repent and turn to God is a grace gift of God. But here’s the key, here’s the key, guys, to everything. Here is the key to everything and all that matters centered in church life, of course, but in all that matters and that is the work of the Spirit of God. You see, you didn’t just get saved – listen now – you got changed. Something metaphysical and in some definitions something even mystical, something beyond the realm of the five senses happened. There was a spiritual new birth in your heart. Now listen to me, you might say the hub of the wheel of the new thing that happened inside of you, the center most part of the new thing that happened inside of you at your conversion is this: I love God. Now listen to me: at least the germ of that is there when you are saved. It’s got to grow. It’s got to be cultivated. It’s got to go forward. That’s what church is for. That’s what preaching the word is for. That’s what studying your Bible is for. That’s what small groups is for, to grow that germ so that loving God becomes the all-encompassing part of your life.

You’re saved, the germ of that at least is there and so you begin to realize there is no law, there is no work, there is no formula, there is no ordinance that says I’m must partake of, there is no ritual I must participate in. I stand just before God on the merits of Jesus Christ. Even my repentance in faith is a grace gift. I’m completely and totally owing to him. I love him. And that leads the next thing. Love, put it back up there, Tommy. Obedience. You love him which leads to now I want to obey him. So what happens? Because of the deep love God put in you at conversion, you begin a process of pursuing obedience to him that nobody has to arm twist you, coerce you, force you into. As a matter of fact, if you are truly saved and you get in a rut, if you get in a season of rebellion, if you go rogue and start doing your own thing and you start being disobedient, something inside of you begins to convict you which is the Holy Spirit, that’s the something, someone, not something. Something inside of you begins to trouble you and you say, “I’ve got to get back to the people of God. I’ve got to get back to a sound church. I’ve got to get back to sound fellowship. I’ve got to find myself under sound preaching because I want to get back on the track of obeying my God.” You just can’t stay out there long if you belong to him. It always leads to obedience, not to gain anything, not to merit anything, not to achieve anything but because there is a love for him in my heart. Wouldn’t it be nice if it was just instantly all-encompassing and we never ever ever again were selfish again? We never ever ever again were proud again? We never ever ever again were self-consumed again?

Well, our sanctification isn’t over yet and our glorification hasn’t occurred yet so you’ve still got to deal with the great monster that’s against you, you. The great monster, the great enemy that troubles your soul is not my brother, it’s not my sister, it’s me, O Lord. Very often in our elders’ meetings and staff meetings, I’ll pray and I’ll say, “O God, save me from me because I love you. I’m learning to love you more than I love me so save me from me.”

You see, when you love the Lord because he has changed you, given you a new heart, you want to be obedient and the first step of obedience, the first step in your obedience as a believer is baptism. It is incomprehensible – are you listening to your pastor – it is incomprehensible to know the truth and I believe there are genuine believers who haven’t been taught well, I understand that but it’s inconceivable to have a changed heart and begin to have a kindled and growing love for God without that resulting in a growing obedience, and if you’re growing in obedience and have been properly taught, then you want to do what the Lord says to do first and that is the ordinance of baptism. I don’t care. I know some of you young guys, you follow some little guru you found on the internet and he’s a great writer, he’s got a great mind, he’s a great communicator, and I’m convinced that’s why God didn’t give me strong skills in some of those areas or I would have chased those idols. God said, “No, I’m going to leave you dumb. I’m going to leave you limited so you’ll anchor yourself in a local church and do what I want you to do.” I’m convinced of that but sometimes we find these guys, especially the young crowd, these guys on the internet, “Well, we follow him. Boy, he’s a man of God. Oh, how broken he is. Oh, how he gives.” Look, if he’s not centered in obedience and baptism and the local church, he is wrong or she is wrong. Beth Moore is borderline cultic right now.

Over and over and over – now are you listening to your pastor today? If you’re listening, say amen. We are seeing a growing group of folks who are basically sound and I think God has used but they are not anchored and centered in a local church and under God ordained elders and they start flapping their wings and getting away from the nest, the truth, and they get into all kinds of extra biblical stuff because it builds crowds and fleshly professing Christians love a Christianity that is compatible with their own desires and wishes and lusts and wants. And it’s just so easy today because of the internet. You can just find your little guru and you can start following him.

If you’re following somebody online, do you know what the first thing you ought – and I’m not saying you’ve sinned if you haven’t done this but what would be a wise thing to do first is contact one of your church pastors and say, “Is this guy okay? Before I get 40 sermons in and have to reprogram some of my thinking, is this guy centered up right?” That’s what your pastors are for. Do you know what Paul tells Titus to do as he oversees the church? He says, “Guard sound doctrine, Titus. It’s your job to shepherd your flock and guard them from all these tangents and extremes.” And it’s so subtle and it’s so deceptive and it’s so manipulative. The centerpiece of God’s work and God’s glory – are you listening – the centerpiece of God’s work and God’s glory is the local church. I thank God for the Gideons. We’ve given them a lot of money. Thank God for them but that’s not the centerpiece. One day there will be no Gideons but there will always be a church. I thank God for Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I wish they would grow in some ways, I wish they would change in some ways. Thank God, we’ve given them a lot of money through the years but Fellowship of Christian Athletes may be gone next week but the church will not. Don’t you chase the stuff, don’t you give yourself to the stuff that is secondary if not sometimes even wrong. Love God so you love him and are obedient to him and you want to do what he says is right and he says is first and for the child of God, the first thing God says to do, baptism. A changed heart always means you begin to love God. Love always means you want to strive to obey him, and if you obey him, the first thing he tells you to do is believers’ baptism.

You see, you just can’t love God and not desire to please and obey him. He said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Do you remember when old Saul of Tarsus was persecuting the church? Old Saul was out there and he was locking up Christians, he was casting his vote against Christians as they were being put to death, and a sovereign God and sovereign grace said, “Boom, I’m about to get you.” All of a sudden Saul is knocked off of his horse, a bright light from heaven shines about. He doesn’t know anything much that’s going on but by the Spirit’s illuminating capacity now in his heart, do you know what the first thing was? “Lord, who art thou?” Isn’t it amazing? His heart is turned to the Lord all of the sudden. Before that his heart was turned to religion. Before that his heart was turned to works. Before that his heart was turned to the doctrines of demons that organized this religious system on the earth. Now his heart is turned to God and his heart is turned to obedience. I mean, after Paul, Saul of Tarsus then, after Saul was converted when the first throbbing love for God broke through in his heart, here he says, this is what he says, quote, “Lord, what will you have me to do?” In other words, “I’m saved now. Here’s the only thing that matters, Lord, what’s next?” Lord, what’s next?

It’s a little bit humorous to me, as you know I venerate the ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Every Bible believing Baptist, every Bible believing Christian in the world practically loves Spurgeon, but Spurgeon was an Anglican growing up. He was sprinkled as a baby into the Anglican communion which meant he was a Brit and he was a member of the Church of England, the Anglican Church, and then he visited a Methodist chapel one very snowy, I think it was a Sunday night, and the preacher couldn’t even make it and a layman got up and exhorted a little bit from the Bible and Spurgeon is sitting back on the pew and was gloriously converted.

You’ve heard me tell before, Spurgeon was a genius. Just a God gifted genius. He began reading his Bible and before long he went to a Baptist Church and requested baptism and his mother said, “Well, I’ve been been longing for you to be settled in your faith in Christ but I didn’t want you to become a Baptist.” He said, “Well, I have to fulfill all righteousness. I had to be biblical and that’s the biblical pattern. The first order of obedience was for me to be baptized. In studying my Bible, I found that the Baptists are the most obedient, the Baptists are the most scriptural.” Now before we get too gloated, Baptists have become masters at having the right stuff on their doctrinal statement but practicing in the church as if the doctrinal statement didn’t exist. Do you know what makes Grace Life Church different? We’ve genuinely purposely striven very intentionally to make sure what’s on that doctrinal statement is what we do in our practice. It just makes us normal every day Baptists but we’re weird to the rest of them because they are not doing what’s on their doctrinal statement. Do you realize a whole lot of the things Baptists have criticized us for, I can go to their office, I can open their file cabinet and blow the dust off, pull their doctrinal statement out and prove everything we do on their doctrinal statement because Baptists have a rich biblical doctrinal statement, it’s just that they have learned how not to be biblical in their functioning and in their practice. All of that to say the centerpiece of our lives is loving God from our hearts and obeying him which means the first thing we will do if we are converted is baptism and be centered in his local church.

Here’s a verse that I often quote to you in other contexts but it certainly fits here, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.” Now Jesus is talking to these religious authorities of Jerusalem and he just out of the gate, in their presence, publicly, loudly, before everyone says, “You’re hypocrites.” The next time these liberals tell you Jesus is a Casper, milquetoast, bow to everybody, whimper around effeminate, look at them and say, “You’re a liar. Either you’re a liar or you don’t read your Bible.” Jesus was a brash bold man when it came to dealing with stuff. He looks right at the religious authorities of the day and says, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.” Do you know what that will get you? That will get you killed right there and that’s what they did to him. They killed him and in doing so built his kingdom. Isn’t that just like God? They crucified him and when he was crucified, he redeemed every one of the citizens of his kingdom. Y’all are going to have to get with it or I’m going to have to preach until Memorial Day is over.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, you take the tiniest herbs of your garden and make sure you give 10% to the Lord’s work.” He said, “You tithe mint, dill and cummin and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law like justice and mercy and faithfulness.” Here’s what Jesus is saying, “Tithing is right and tithing is good but you bunch of hypocrites, you’ll go out there and you’ll get a little sprig of an herb from your garden and make sure you tithe 10% of that that might be worth one tenth of one cent, and then the great things of God, justice and mercy and righteousness, you guys just walk all over that like it’s not even one of God’s truths.” By the way, if you get God’s justice right, you get God’s mercy right and you get God’s righteousness right, you’ll always get tithing right. That’s the fruit of those things. So he said the point is on the things that the Bible is clear on, the things that God says are most important, you seem to find a way to violate those and things that really don’t matter or would naturally fall in place if you got the right things in place, you just trample all over the those.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law like justice and mercy and faithfulness.” I said righteousness, that would be included in the context of the spirit of the verse but he says faithfulness, “but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.” The ordinances of the Lord’s supper and now today believers’ baptism – listen to me – they are not as important as the new birth. We know that. The ordinances are not as important as faithful preaching of the Gospel which God has ordained as his primary means to bring people to faith in Christ. So the ordinances are not as important as the new birth or the new heart but we must not dismiss them as unimportant. You see, loving God with all of our heart and loving God with all of our mind means we will search the Scriptures to be obedient as we can in all areas, and as a believer in Jesus Christ, can I throw this in, Scripture understanding and genuine discipleship requires intellectual comprehension. Now it requires the Spirit to help your mind, certainly, but this is not a religion of osmosis. This whole concept if you get in the right setting and the Spirit is moving and God begins to do stuff and if you’re just there, that’s what pagans, that’s pagan superstition. You kind of get in the midst of the aura or something. No, Christianity requires teaching and preaching and understanding with the mind as the Spirit illuminates the preaching and teaching so that you grasp with the mind, “This is what my Lord wants me to do and that’s what my heart that has now been changed says amen, I want to do that and I want to get in on that and I want to be a part of that.” And if you’re a child of God and God has saved you, as Scripture says, be baptized and your heart says, “Yes, that’s what I want to do. That’s what I want to do.”

That’s my introduction to part 2. We’ll go a ways and we’re going to stop and then if God allows us to get back together again, we’ll pick up where we stopped. My sermons are like a stick of baloney, you can just cut them off anywhere and it’s about the same difference, but that’s about the only way they are like a stick of baloney so don’t get too carried away.

We’ve talked about, I: baptism is by immersion only. We’ve talked about, II: baptism is by immersion in water, of disciples or believers only. III: the purpose of baptism. I have several subpoints here. The purpose of baptism. A in our outline: it proclaims the Gospel that saves us. God has ordained we partake of this ordinance and in the ordinance, in the going through of the motions of the ordinance, I don’t mean that negatively but you have to go through it, you proclaim the Gospel that saves.

Colossians 2:12, “having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” So here Paul writing to the church at Colossae throws in the truth of our burial with Christ and our resurrection with Christ. As Jesus died and died to the powers of sin and death, hell and the grave, so we are buried in baptism and we have now died not only to death, sin and death, hell and the grave, but we’ve died to the old approach to life and the old values of life and the old worldliness and we have risen. And that’s the Gospel. Jesus died. Jesus was buried. Jesus rose again.

Now here’s a thought for you: whereas the ordinance of the Lord’s supper chiefly commemorates Christ’s death for us, that’s like the first third of the Gospel, the ordinance of baptism chiefly commemorates the last two thirds of the Gospel, his burial and resurrection. So no wonder the Lord only gave those two because if you add anything else, you pervert the Gospel. The Lord’s table, the Lord’s supper, chiefly says Jesus said it as he transformed the Passover into the supper, he says, “Remember my death. You proclaim my death with this supper until I come.” But in baptism, the Bible puts the weight on our burial and resurrection and Jesus’ also. So it is a proclamation of the whole of the Gospel message when we faithfully partake of the Lord’s table and we faithfully partake of baptism.

Secondly, not only A, does it proclaim the Gospel that saves us, but B, it proclaims the believer’s death to sin, self, Satan and the world and his resurrection to new life. When you go up to those baptismal waters, I really wish our baptistery was right down here and we could just keep a lid on it went we’re not using it and then we could take the lid off because I just think the visual is important. I don’t think it’s wrong to have it up there but I think it would be good to have it down here. Now we are not planning on putting it down there so don’t you, some of you tightwads, loosen up. But I just think being down here with us would be kind of, I don’t know, it just would be nice. But when you are baptized, you are proclaiming something. You’re saying, “I want this church family to know.” You see, baptism is not right unless the right people see it. Baptism isn’t your ordinance, it’s not you and your Bible study’s ordinance, it’s a church ordinance. The church, the family to which you are now joining and belonging to and with, they need to see you make the proclamation you’re making in baptism because if you decide one day, “I’m not going to live this way. I’m not going to walk this way. I’m not going to attend the meetings of the church. I’m not going to be a part.” Then we’ll say, “Wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Time-out. We were there when you proclaimed you were dead to sin. We were there when you proclaimed, ‘I’m dead to sin and self. I’m dead to sin, self and Satan. I’m dead to this world. Everything about me has now changed. I’m on a new track now.'”

Now listen, nobody is saying that you’re going to be put under a microscope or a telescope and we’re going to find out if you ever give in to sin, if you ever give in to self, if you ever give in to Satan, if you ever give in to the world. That does happen but what you’re saying is, “My heart’s been changed. I want there to be a new purpose and a new pattern to my life. Before the only purpose and the only pattern I had was to sin, self, Satan and the world. Now I’ve been changed and now there’s a new purpose and pattern in my life away from sin and away from self and away from Satan and away from focusing my values and my convictions just on this temporal world.”

I was just heartbroken when we saw the result totals from the nation of Ireland as 60% of the Irish have decided, “We’re going to change our constitution so we can now practice the killing of unborn children in our country.” Listen to me: there is no person that has any good information of what this book teaches about the sanctity and the sacredness of human life, there’s no person that has proclaimed, “I’ve said no to sin and self and Satan and the world. I’m now walking in a different purpose and pattern.” There’s no way that person can turn around and go back and say, “I embrace killing of the unborn.” Now that’s just one of a thousand things. Do you see how if your pulpit is right and if the Gospel is right and conversion is right and the church is right, the culture will be right. The laws will be right. Are you with me this morning?

The greatest need in America, the greatest need in the world, trust me, it’s not with the Republicans, it’s not with the Democrats, it’s not with the communists, not Bernie Sanders. The hope is the pulpit. You give me a couple of years with every pulpit in America thundering the word of God with conviction and spiritual power and you watch what would happen in this country. The country would be taken over by righteousness. That’s why, well that’s not why, why is because God says it in his word, but it greatly encourages us to stay the course in our missions. We don’t do basketball for Jesus. We don’t do puppets for Jesus. We don’t do 1,001 maybe okay things for Jesus. We do one thing, we preach the Gospel, we win souls and we start New Testament churches. That’s the cornerstone. When you get to heaven according to the Bible, that’s the only thing he’s going to really put a lot of basis and merit on. Other things are okay. If you think God’s led you in some ways, praise God, I thank God for your heart but you’d better make sure you get the church right. That’s the centerpiece of it all.

Romans 6:3-5, “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father,” now here’s the new life, “so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.” Your baptism proclaimed a new approach to life, a new start. Now we have to still live in the world, everyone knows that. We still buy and trade and have some fellowship with people who do not know or love our Christ. Everybody knows that, but now there’s been a change. There’s now a new centerpiece in my heart that wants to identify with Christ and with his people. So I’ve declared, I’m making a proclamation, no longer do I as the willful intent of my life look to sin, look to self, look to Satan, or look to this world, I now look to Christ and his word.

That’s why before someone is baptized, we must spend good time with them examining is there true biblical evidence of the new birth. If we don’t spend quality time with a person who believes God’s saved them, then we are functioning in a disservice to them, we are performing a disservice to the church that will receive them as a member when they’re baptized, and we’re performing or participating in a dishonoring of God who gave us the ordinance of baptism.

Romans 6:11 reminds us, “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Now listen to your pastor this morning: we struggle, we strain, we fail, but we’re humbled by it and want to be repenters about it. We never get haughty and brash and hardened and say, “No, we’re gonna sin. We’re gonna live in sin. We’re gonna line up with Satan. We’re gonna embrace the values of the world.” No, no, no. No, I went through that baptistery to tell every one of you I’m proclaiming my death to that. Something new has started. I’m asking you to hold me to that and we must hold one another to that.

Colossians 3:1 reminds us, “If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” You’ve been raised up with Christ. Keep seeking those things. You’re proclaiming in the baptistery, “I’m one of those that spiritually has been born again. I’ve been raised up with Christ and I’m proclaiming to you that I’m raised to something different. I’m dead to sin and Satan and self and the world.” 3. The purpose of baptism is to proclaim our purification from sin. Now this certainly ties in close with the second one, but just to mention it. There is something of a purification, a washing that occurs when you believe on Jesus Christ and you proclaim from the baptistery, “I’m one of those. I’m one of you now. I’m one who has received the purification of sin through the merits and the blood of Jesus Christ.” 1 John 1:7, “but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son,” here’s the idea, “cleanses us from all sin.” Titus 3:5, “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy,” now notice this purification, “by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.” A washing occurs at the moment of conversion.

It’s very common to counsel with a person who’s come to faith in Christ and they’ll say, “There’s been a burden lifted.” It’s amazing to talk with some. No matter how black or hard their sin might have been, if they’ve truly come to faith in Christ, there’s almost always that sense of, “I feel clean now. I feel washed.” When you’re baptized, that’s one of the things you’re proclaiming, “I’m one who’s been saved. I’ve come to faith in Christ. It’s nothing I’ve done but I’m one of the purified ones by God’s doing and by God’s merit.”

D in the outline: the purpose of baptism is that it proclaims our future resurrection from the dead. I’m proclaiming to you also like all of you, I am one who believes that through the power of Jesus Christ, I may die as far as my physical body, my spirit will be with the Lord but one day God will even call back together the very atoms that made up the very molecules that made up my very body, God will call them back together, energize them with purification and light and I will rise again. When you are baptized, you’re proclaiming not only Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection but you are confident you are one of those he has promised by his power and might to bring back to life. Romans 6:5, ” For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, [certainly] we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.”

Now back to those who would teach us that, “Well, it’s okay to sprinkle babies because really the parents are just making a dedication.” If you’re going to make a dedication, just dedicate, don’t sprinkle and call it baptism. That’s unbiblical. “Well, you know, but, you know, they were genuine when they did it,” etc. etc. But here’s the thing: an unbelieving infant cannot proclaim to you that they believe in the resurrection from the dead. An unbelieving infant can’t proclaim anything but, “I think I’m dirty and I think I want to eat or I think I just want to scream bloody murder to see how many people will come and check on me.”