The Significance of Baptism
Res Spears
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Good morning! We have an exciting morning ahead of us here at Liberty Spring Christian Church, as we are preparing to baptize a new member of the family of faith.
Now, we’re going to talk more after this baptism about what baptism is and what it isn’t, what it means and what it doesn’t, but let me give you a thumbnail sketch before we move into the ceremony.
To do this, let’s take first take a look at the first appearance of believers’ baptism in the New Testament. We see this in Acts, chapter 2. If you have your Bibles, please go ahead and turn there.
Now, let me give you the setting. This is the Day of Pentecost. Following His resurrection from the dead, Jesus had been taken up into heaven to await the day when His Father will send Him back to earth to take those who have followed Him in faith back to heaven with Him.
He had told His disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit, and on Pentecost, a group of them had been gathered in the upper room of a house, probably praying and singing hymns, and suddenly a sound came from heaven like the roaring of a mighty wind, and it filled the place where they were sitting.
Then, something that looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled upon those gathered in that room, and everyone who was present there was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in languages they didn’t know.
And as the disciples moved out of the house, a great crowd gathered to find out what all the ruckus was about — and how it was that they were hearing these people speaking in all their many languages.
And they began asking each other what this could mean. Were these people just drunk, some of them asked.
And so, picking up in verse 14 and reading from the New Living Translation:
Acts 2:14–41 (NLT)
Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, “Listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residents of Jerusalem! Make no mistake about this. These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o’clock in the morning is much too early for that.
No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on my servants—men and women alike— and they will prophesy.
And I will cause wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below— blood and fire and clouds of smoke. The sun will become dark, and the moon will turn blood red before that great and glorious day of the Lord arrives. But everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
“People of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus the Nazarene by doing powerful miracles, wonders, and signs through him, as you well know. But God knew what would happen, and his prearranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed. With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed him to a cross and killed him. But God released him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life, for death could not keep him in its grip.
King David said this about him: ‘I see that the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me. No wonder my heart is glad, and my tongue shouts his praises! My body rests in hope. For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your Holy One to rot in the grave. You have shown me the way of life, and you will fill me with the joy of your presence.’
“Dear brothers, think about this! You can be sure that the patriarch David wasn’t referring to himself, for he died and was buried, and his tomb is still here among us. But he was a prophet, and he knew God had promised with an oath that one of David’s own descendants would sit on his throne.
David was looking into the future and speaking of the Messiah’s resurrection. He was saying that God would not leave him among the dead or allow his body to rot in the grave. “God raised Jesus from the dead, and we are all witnesses of this. Now he is exalted to the place of highest honor in heaven, at God’s right hand. And the Father, as he had promised, gave him the Holy Spirit to pour out upon us, just as you see and hear today.
For David himself never ascended into heaven, yet he said, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies, making them a footstool under your feet.” ’ “So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!”
Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away—all who have been called by the Lord our God.”
Then Peter continued preaching for a long time, strongly urging all his listeners, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!” Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church that day—about 3,000 in all.
Repent, believe and be baptized. That’s the formula that Christians throughout the centuries have followed upon their profession of faith.
Peter’s bold sermon convicted the hearts of many in this great congregation. They admitted that they were sinners unable to save themselves from the punishment that they deserved for their rebellion against God.
They believed in Jesus as the Son of God, who had lived a sinless life and who then — at the cross — had taken upon Himself their sins and the punishment for those sins.
They believed that by placing their faith in Him, their sins would be forgiven, and they would have eternal life.
And then, they were baptized as their first act of obedience to Him and as a public proclamation that He was their Lord and Savior. Their baptism was a public statement that they were now to be identified as belonging to Jesus Christ.
Lowered into the water, they were identified with Jesus in His death. Under the water, they were identified with Jesus in His burial. And raised from the water, they were identified with Jesus in His resurrection.
Baptism is a picture of the death of the sinful, cursed person who lived according to the flesh and the birth of the new, redeemed and forgiven believer who has been born again by the Holy Spirit.
There is no salvation in baptism. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
Instead, baptism is a step of obedience. And baptism is the new believer’s statement of faith, his or her proclamation that “I am a follower of Jesus!”
Today, I am honored to conduct my first baptism ceremony for a new believer, Mathayus Job Peña Veliz. MJ, will you come up and join me, please?
Now, I will tell you that MJ is nervous today. So am I, MJ. So am I. But we’re going to get through this together, and I hope that you will remember this day for the rest of your life. I can promise you that I will.
Let me give the church some background before we proceed, OK?
MJ’s mother, Tina, told me earlier this year that her children want to be baptized, and she said they wanted to do it in the river, “like Jesus did.”
But, as it turns out, MJ will be heading off to Texas for a while to spend time with the other part of his family.
So, I met with him last week and talked with him about who Jesus is to him and what it means to be saved, and I came away from that meeting confident that this young man has made a true confession of faith and that he wants to follow Jesus with all his heart.
And since we wanted his family here to be able to be a part of this wonderful event, we hurried to get things in place so that we could have this ceremony today, before he leaves for Texas.
MJ, I told you I would ask you a few questions today. Are you ready to answer?
Excellent.
Mathayus Job Peña Veliz, do you acknowledge that you are a sinner, and that you can do nothing to earn God’s favor by you own merits?
Do you acknowledge that God’s only Son, Jesus Christ, is God’s only remedy for sin and that placing your faith in Him is your only way to be saved from the just penalty for your sins?
Do you acknowledge that by identifying by Christ through faith — in other words, taking His name as a Christian — that you have died to sin and been raised to newness of life in Him?
Do you then commit yourself to living a different kind of life because of your faith in Jesus and the new life you have in Him?
Excellent. Now, go ahead and step into the water.
Mathayus Job Peña Veliz, I now baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
DUNK
Buried with Christ in the likeness of His death, and now raised with Christ in the likeness of His resurrection. Welcome to the family, brother!
Now, let me pray with you before you go and change. Could I get the deacons to come and join me here, please?
PRAY
OK, that’s just wonderful! Amen?
THIS is how the true church grows. It doesn’t grow by people who come to visit once in a while. It doesn’t grow by outreach events that are designed to get people in seats. It doesn’t grow by having slick praise bands that play all the newest contemporary Christian music.
All those things are valuable for attracting new people into this building. But the true, universal Church grows when lost people turn to Jesus in faith. And when people of faith either take the step of obedience in baptism or present testimony of already having been baptized, then the local church grows, too.
In the church of Scripture, there was no such thing as a member who had not been baptized as a true follower of Christ, and there was no such thing as baptizing someone who was not then a member of the church.
So, when you see MJ again after the service, please welcome Him to the family of God and welcome him as a member of this church.
Now, I want to talk for a few minutes about the ordinance of baptism, because I know it has been done in a variety of ways in this church in the past, and I really want to be sure that we all understand the doctrines that are behind what I have done and said today.
First, you’ll recall that I asked MJ a series of questions before baptizing him. I had asked him similar questions before, during our counseling session, because I wanted to have a level of confidence that he understood the significance of his baptism and that he had made a true profession of faith.
I think that we would be frankly shocked to know the number of people who call themselves Christians simply because they were sprinkled as infants or even immersed as children.
Jesus talked about separating the sheep from the goats and the wheat from the tares. He said that there are some who call Him “Lord, Lord” to whom He will reply in Heaven, “Depart from me; I never knew you.”
And it is a great sadness to me to know that there are some who will go through this life calling themselves Christians who have never had a personal relationship with the Christ whose name they use.
They have never repented; they have never put their faith in Him. They have never become new creations in Christ. The old never passed away, and so the new never came.
This is why I do not believe in infant baptism, and this is why I am especially careful when it comes to baptizing children.
I would never want someone who had been baptized as a child who was incapable of understanding in at least a basic way the plan of salvation to go through life thinking that they were saved simply because they had been dunked in the water or sprinkled above a baptismal font.
Remember Peter’s sermon? He talked of the sins of the people who were listening, and then he called them to repent — to admit their sins and turn from them — and to believe in Jesus.
Now, that doesn’t mean just believing that Jesus was a person who existed. What it means is believing that He is who He said He is and that He will do what He said He will do.
That means believing that He is the unique and eternal Son of God, that He was miraculously born of a virgin, that He lived a sinless life, and that He gave Himself as a sacrifice on the cross, taking upon Himself the sins of all mankind and suffering both the physical death and spiritual separation from God that we deserve for our sins.
It means believing that God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice as sufficient payment for your sins. It means believing that He raised Jesus from the dead on the third day to prove His love for His Son and to prove that He will keep His promise to give eternal life to all those who put their faith in Jesus as their only means of salvation.
It means believing that if you put your faith in Jesus, your sins will be forgiven, and you will become a child of God, part of the family of God and joint heirs of His kingdom.
This is good news. This is THE Good News! This is wonderful news! If you will repent from your sins and turn to Jesus in faith, your sins — past, present and future — will be forgiven.
And that would be good news in itself, but then we who follow Jesus in faith are promised eternal life — everlasting life with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit the way it was meant to be.
And we will serve God in that life, but we do not come into His kingdom as servants.
Just like the prodigal son, who came back to his father after spending all his inheritance on drunkenness and debauchery, we come hoping just to be accepted as the lowliest servants. But we’re given a ring and a robe and a feast and welcomed into the family as sons and daughters of the God of all creation.
When the prodigal son in this parable of Jesus returned to his father, he was utterly ashamed of how he had sinned against him. His lifestyle had left him completely broken.
We know this, because he said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
It’s the same kind of brokenness that we see in the people’s response to Peter’s sermon. His words “pierced their hearts,” and they called out, “What should we do?”
If you call yourself by the name of Jesus Christ — if you call yourself a Christian — then your sins should bring you grief. There should have been some point in your life at which you felt shame over your offenses against the perfectly holy and righteous God.
I’m not suggesting that you should live in that shame. Paul wrote that he pressed on for the prize, forgetting what lay behind him and reaching forward for what lay ahead of him. But he also always remembered that he was a sinner saved by grace.
A sinner saved by grace, not by baptism.
And so, as we anticipate future baptisms in this trough here, I will be careful and intentional about asking questions and encouraging baptismal candidates to share their testimony of salvation with both me and the church.
Now, let me say a word or two to those of you who may have been raised in a different church culture than the one you’ve seen and heard about today.
Whether you were sprinkled as a baby or baptized or confirmed as a child or an adult, what matters for your salvation is whether you have believed the things I talked about earlier, whether you have put your faith in Jesus as your only means of being reconciled to God.
We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
But perhaps someone here was like me. I made a profession of faith and was baptized at the age of 7. And then I spent the next 28 years or so chasing after sin. I was the prodigal son in the flesh.
But when I was 35, I became convicted of the fact that my life didn’t reflect Jesus at all. I had no evidence of any of the fruits of the Spirit in my life, no evidence that the Spirit of God lived within me.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self control — they were all missing from my life.
I soon realized that what had happened when I was 7 was simply an emotional response to a powerful message. What had NOT happened was that I had given my life to Christ.
And so, on the couch in our living room, a godly pastor led both me and my wife to Christ, and we were then baptized together.
That baptism wasn’t necessary for my salvation; rather it was my first step of obedience to Jesus and my public proclamation that my life now belonged to Him.
Only you know your relationship to Jesus. Only you know whether you have given your life to Him. And only you know whether your baptism was that of a believer or simply an emotional response or a ritual that you participated in because you had become a certain age.
And I do not stand here today telling you that you have to be baptized again the way that I was.
But I do want you to know that if your experience was like mine — if your baptism was simply a ritual and you want to have the experience of true meaning that believer’s baptism represents — nothing would make me happier than to be able to talk to you about that.
And if you have never put your faith in Jesus — if you have never turned your life over to Him — behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Don’t put it off. Tomorrow may be too late.
As we sing our closing hymn today, I’m going to stand down at the front, and I’m going to ask our deacons to be ready to assist. Our singers are prepared to lead us in an extra hymn if needed.
If you would like to talk to me further about salvation or baptism, please come.