Well, if you would, please take your Bibles and turn to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 28. That is the only way that I think I'm going to get through the Gospel of Matthew. For those of you who are visiting with us, we have been going through the Gospel of Matthew verse by verse. And we are in Matthew chapter 19, and we've been at it for about two and a half, almost three years now. I'm not skipping to the end just to get to the end of the gospel of Matthew. There is a very specific reason why we're coming here this morning. So let's read Matthew chapter 28 verses 16 through 20. But the 11 disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some were doubtful. And Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the age. Let's ask the Lord's blessing upon the reading of his word. Father in heaven, Lord, we come again to you this morning as we get ready to spend some time in your word. Lord, your word is truth. Your word contains the meaning of life. Your word contains the way of salvation. Your word describes who we are as people. Your word glorifies who you are as God. It is all authoritative over our lives. And we submit to you. And we submit to what you have recorded in your holy word. to last until the end of the age. I pray that you would be glorified this morning. I pray that you would help our hearts to be attentive, our ears to be listening, and our minds to be thinking along with you. In the name of Christ, our Savior, we pray. Amen. In just a little while, we are going to have the joy of baptizing a young couple that is worships with us a week in a week out and Gracie and Brendan and we are very excited about that. At least I am very excited about that. I'm always excited when we have a baptism at our church or when someone that I know gets baptized. We've been mentioning that this baptism was going to be taking place for the past few weeks in case there was anyone else in our congregation that wanted to be baptized, and that's why we made that announcement. And it struck me as I was making that announcement that, to my knowledge, we've never done a sermon just specifically on baptism. We go verse by verse through different books of the Bible, and the topic has come up, but I've never done a topical message specifically baptism. Usually when I have the honor to participate in a baptism I always say a few words from from the Word of God at the baptism and I but I always feel a little bit rushed not in the sense of I got to get out of there but in the sense that there's so much more that I want to say about baptism that you you don't have really the time to say at a baptismal service and a couple weeks ago even to add to that I had had the conversation with Wade and about if people in general, not just our church, but if people in general, Christians in general, understand the significance and the importance of baptism. That it's not just a ritual that you do if you're a Christian, and what does it mean? Why is it so important to the church to do this baptism? So this morning, we're gonna take a break from our normal verse-by-verse study, and we're going to do more of a topical study and we will be turning to a lot of different passages this morning, and I won't really have time to fully exposit any of them, but we're just going to hit a bunch of different verses this morning and passages as we consider this topic of baptism that we're going to participate in and witness here in a little bit. Baptism is something that every single Christian is commanded to do. It is often called the first act of obedience of a believer. But there are many believers who have yet to have been baptized. Maybe you're here this morning, and you're a professing Christian, and you yourself haven't been baptized. And there's several reasons why people don't get baptized. One reason is just pure ignorance. Some people just don't understand that they should get baptized. They've never been taught about baptism. They didn't grow up in the church. There are people who get saved as adults, and they didn't grow up in the church. They don't know that there's a thing called baptism. They don't know what it is. Or maybe they've sat on a bad teaching, and they've never been talked about before. Or some people might not get baptized because of embarrassment. They don't want to stand in front of a big group of people and get baptized. It is something that holds a lot of people back. The thought of getting up in front of a bunch of people and getting baptized gives them a sense of great fear. But all that Christ has done for us, I think that we can deal with a little bit of pressure of standing up in front of people and confessing Him as our Lord. Or perhaps you've been an adult and been a professing Christian for a long time and the idea of you getting baptized is embarrassing because you're admitting that I should have done this many, many years ago. And so you're just embarrassed and you just don't get baptized. Some people don't get baptized because of sinfulness in their lives. They are professing Christians, and they know that they should get baptized, and Christ really is the Lord, but they have sin in their lives that they are dealing with, and they just know that they would be a hypocrite if they would be baptized. Or some people don't get baptized that go to church because they're not even believers at all. They just go to church for the spouse. They go to church for the parents. They go to church for the children. They go to church for a social reason, but they don't go to church. They're not part of a church because they are in love with Jesus Christ and what Christ has done for them. And they're not true believers. So they're just not even going to participate in something called baptism. Whatever the reasons may be, we want to consider this topic this morning because it is one of great importance. and perhaps maybe to convince some of us that maybe we need to be baptized. We will look at four things this morning in our time together. We will look at the importance of baptism, the symbol of baptism, the requirement of baptism, and lastly the limitation of baptism. The first thing that we want to look at this morning is the importance of baptism. There are a lot of things that are important in the Christian faith. Worshipping, gathering together on a Sunday morning or a Wednesday evening or when other times are to worship the Lord, to fellowship together. Confession of sin is important. Prayer is important. Reading the Bible is important. Fasting is important. Studying the Bible is important. All of that stuff is important. in the Christian walk. And it can be hard sometimes in our lives to prioritize which ones are the ones we need to be focusing on. But baptism is not hard to figure out. Baptism ranks at the near the very, very top of what it means and how important it is for the Christian faith. Now, how can I say that baptism is that important? that it ranks near the top or is at the top of the Christian walk. Well it is first of all commanded to the church and we see that here in passage of Matthew chapter 28. While Jesus was still on the earth and before he left, he gave the church two ordinances. An ordinance is a command that is to be followed by a group of people. Think of today you have city ordinances, right? The city of Brookville has ordinances or or laws or things that they expect the people in their community to do. And when Jesus, just before he left the earth, he gave to his people, his followers, two ordinances that he expects them to follow. The first one is the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper was instituted in the last Passover. Jesus took the traditional Jewish Passover and he changed it to the Lord's Supper that we celebrate through the bread and the cup or the threefold communion at our church. We do the threefold communion. Not all churches do that, but we do. But it's the idea of a communion of Christ. And Jesus set that up as adornments to exist for his people. And the other one that he set up as an ordinance is baptism. Those are the only two ordinances that God set up for his church to do. The last one, baptism is recorded for us here in Matthew chapter 28, the very end of Matthew. have no fear that you remember anything I say by the time I get to Matthew 28 in a couple of years. But so we're just going to say some passing words about it. There is a command that Jesus gives based upon the authority that's been given to him in verse 18. All authority has been given to me in heaven and earth because of the work that Jesus had done. The father gave him all authority, total authority to do his work. That means you do not have to ask permission to share the gospel. You do not need to seek the permission of anyone to share the gospel because all authority has been given to him and he tells us in verse 19 to go. Go therefore and to make disciples. That's what the church is to do. We are to go about making disciples and bringing people into the family of God and to teach them about the meaning and nature of who Christ is. How are people identified as being a disciple? How do you know someone is a disciple? What makes somebody, how do we make somebody a disciple? Well, he tells us. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." How do you make disciples? You baptize them and you teach them. That's how you make somebody be a disciple of Christ. They come to faith, you baptize them, and then you start to teach them. No one, virtually no one, when they get baptized has hardly any understanding of what who God is, have hardly any understanding of what the Bible is. They don't know hardly anything about the gospel. They don't know a whole lot about the, they know very little about the Bible. They just come to faith, you baptize them, and then you start to teach them. We think it should be the other way around. We think, well, they need to have a really good understanding of the Bible because we don't want to baptize people too soon. We don't want to baptize any false converts. So you make disciples by giving them the gospel, and as soon as they exercise faith, you baptize them, and you start the process of teaching them. Baptizing disciples of Christ was already being done by the disciples of Jesus. John chapter 4 verses 1 and 2 says this, When therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were. So when Jesus was on the earth, his apostles were already going around and his disciples were already going around baptizing people into Jesus. So how long are we commanded as a church to do this ordinance of baptism? At the end of verse 20, teach them all that I commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. So how long do we do it? We do it until the end of the age. We are to be baptizing and practicing the Lord's Supper for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, if that's how long it takes before Christ returns. We keep doing these things as a perpetual ordinance of the Father, of Jesus. Not only is it a command to the church, it is a command to individuals. Turn to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. We were here a few weeks ago when we were talking about the rich young ruler in Matthew chapter 19. Asking about what are we supposed to do in our salvation and we are to repent is what we are called to do. But let's look again at this passage. Verse 37 is at the end of Peter's sermon. Peter's sermon is the first evangelistic sermon after Christ had been risen from the dead and after Pentecost. This is the very first message of the church with Jesus not on the earth anymore. Having been risen and resurrected and risen up to the right hand of the Father. When they hear Peter preaching, And it's a very convicting sermon in verse 07. Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart. It was conviction in their soul and said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, brethren, what shall we do? What are we supposed to do? You've convicted us. You brought us to the point that we understand we have violated God. We have killed the Messiah. We have killed the Son of God. What are we supposed to do? Peter said to them, verse 38, repent. Turn away from what you're doing. Repentance is making a 180 degree turn. I was orienting my life towards my flesh, myself, my sin, my pursuits. When you repent, you orient your life to Christ, his life, his glory, his pursuits, his word. So Peter calls them to repent and let each of you be baptized. Notice that repentance comes first. Baptism follows repentance. It is not the same act. You are saved at repentance and the first command that you are given as a repentant Christian is to be baptized. When someone comes to faith in Christ Jesus, when they repent of their sins, especially if they are an adult, especially if they're older and they come to Christ at an older age, there are a lot of sins that they have to deal with. They have developed in their adult life a lot of different sins that they need to deal with. And the Holy Spirit would deal with those sins on the Holy Spirit's timing. The Holy Spirit would deal with all of their sins that they have to deal with on various times. But the first thing that they are to deal with is to be baptized. They are to repent and then to be baptized. It is an act of obedience that Christ calls them to, that He calls us to. We are to repent and to be baptized. It is not the baptism of your parents being baptized. You're not included in your mom and dad's baptism because they were baptized. It is something that each one of you have to do. It is a call to the church to baptize and to make disciples. It is a command to the individuals. You yourselves have got to be baptized. You were supposed to be baptized. Keep your finger in Acts chapter 2 Turn back to Matthew chapter 3. The individual is to be baptized. Matthew chapter 3 starting in verse 13. John is preparing the way for Jesus and he's been calling people to repent for the kingdom of God is at hand and he's been baptizing people. That's what's going on in verses 1 through 12. He's baptizing people at the Jordan River. And then we come to verse 13 and it is the baptism of Jesus Christ himself. The baptism of Christ is an example for us of obedience. He's calling us. He's commanding us to be baptized. So therefore Jesus in perfect obedience is himself baptized. He did not need to be baptized. The baptism that John was baptizing people in is for two reasons. In verse 2 it says, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. That's why you're being baptized is for repentance. And in verse six, confession of sin. And they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they confessed their sins. Baptism for the person that John was baptizing was for them to demonstrate the repentance and the confession of sins. And then Jesus arrives in verse 13 from Galilee at the Jordan River coming to him to be baptized by him. And John resists. Verse four, 14. But John tried to prevent him saying, I have need to be baptized by you. And do you come to me? John knows who Jesus is. He knows that he is the forerunner of the Messiah. And he knows that Christ is the Messiah. And he says, I don't, you don't need to be baptized by me. I need to be baptized by you. So he resists it. But Jesus says in verse 15, But Jesus answered and said to him, permit it at this time. So allow it to happen. You're right. You don't need to baptize me for my repentance and confessions of sin, but permit it because I am setting an example. I am showing what I want my people to do. And I am living a life of perfect obedience. When you come to faith in Christ Jesus, two things happen. Your sins, your debts, the things that you have done wrong, are paid for by Christ on the cross as He bore the wrath of God for you. But at the same time, what also happens is His life of perfect obedience is applied to you. So that when God the Father looks at you, He no longer sees your sins because Christ dealt with them on the cross. What He sees is your perfect obedience through Christ. So Christ had to be baptized so that our perfect obedience could be applied to us, or His perfect obedience could be applied to us. permitted at this time what is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he permitted him. And after being baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water and behold, the heavens were open and he saw the Spirit of God descending upon the dove and coming upon him. And behold, a voice out of the heavens saying, this is my beloved son in who I am well pleased. So we have from Christ both a precept to be baptized and a precedent to be baptized. He told us to be baptized and he himself was to be baptized. It is something that you must consider doing if you have not already done it. It is a command of the Lord for you to be baptized. Now back in Acts chapter two, where we were at, It is also, it commenced at the early church, all the way back at the very first evangelistic message ever given and recorded in scripture after Christ left to go back to be with the Father. Verse 40, let's pick up where we left off in Acts 2, verse 40, and with many other words, he solemnly was testifying and kept exhorting them, saying, be safe from this perverse generation. continuing to call them to repentance. So then those who received his word, which means, what does it mean to receive his word? It means that they repented like he called them to do. They received his word, were baptized at the very beginning. At the very beginning of the church, What happens is people come to faith and they were baptized. And it's a staggering number of people. And they were added to the day that day about 3,000 souls. Half the town of Brookville came to Christ in one day. And half the town of Brookville was baptized in one day. It's a staggering, staggering thought. It was commenced by the early church. But it doesn't just stop there. Let's just look at a couple passages in Acts. In Acts 8, verse 12. Acts 8, verse 12. But when they believed Philip, so Philip is an evangelist and he's giving them the message of who God is and calling people to repentance, preaching the good news, that's the gospel about the kingdom of God, in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, men and women alike. Philip was going around preaching the gospel, people got saved, and they were baptized. Flip over to Acts chapter 16. Acts 16, verse 14. And a certain woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening, and the Lord opened her heart to respond to all the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, saying, if you have judged me faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay, and she prevailed upon us." So Lydia is the first convert in Europe, and when she's converted, the first thing that they do is she is baptized. Look at verse 30. A jailer with Paul and Silas. Verse 30, and after he brought them out, he said, sir, what must I do to be saved? And they said to him, believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all those who were in his house. And he took with them in the very hour of the night and he washed their wounds and immediately he was baptized. Baptism was a continuous thing that started in the early church, and it just kept going in their early church. There are other passages we could go to, but I think you get the point. You see the pattern of the early church in Acts was preach the gospel, call people to repentance. When they repent and say that they have faith in Christ, you baptize them. That was the picture. And that practice continued in the early church, and it is to continue even through today. All theologians agree that in the early church, all practiced baptism, most by immersion into the water as evidence of the salvation. Baptism is extremely important, not only because it's historically been done by the church for thousands of years, and it's not just a tradition of man that makes it important, but it's because scripture commands, Jesus commands his people to be baptized. Why is it so important? What makes baptism so important that Jesus set it up as an ordinance? Because it really is not much to it. It's a very simple thing. We will be over there for 10, 15 minutes. It won't take long. How can something so quick be so important? It is because there is a great symbolism in baptism. We're still in Acts, let's turn back to Acts chapter two. I'm sorry, my notes messed up. Don't turn back to Acts chapter two. You can if you want to, but we'll be moving on from there. The symbol of baptism is what gives it its meanings, what gives it its importance. God is a lover of symbols. He loves symbols and imagery. God loves pictures and analogies. It is all over the Bible. We know that because it was from the very beginning. In the garden, what did he have? The tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. Those are two symbols. There's nothing magical about each tree. The apple of the knowledge of good and evil is not like the apple that Snow White takes and eats and it's a poisonous apple. There's no magic in the apple. They were both pictures of two things. The tree of life was a picture of obedience. The tree of knowledge of good and evil was a picture of disobedience. Because God said, you can eat of anything you want, don't eat that tree. It was a setup of obedience. Either you obey me, you have the tree of life, or you disobey me, and you could eat the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The flood, the ark, is a picture of salvation from God's wrath. The sacrificial system, all the sins payments required death as an atoning sacrifice. So Jesus, God set up a sacrificial system with thousands and millions upon millions of lambs and goats were slaughtered for thousands of years by the Jewish people to be a picture, a symbol of the need of atoning work and payment for your sins is death. The Passover was a feast that represented God's wrath passing over by the covering of the blood of the lamb, of the sacrificial lamb. The crossing of the Red Sea was a picture of going through the waters of suffering in order to get away from the strongholds of sin. The tabernacle was a picture of God's holiness. God loves symbols. And he loves the symbol. And there's much symbolism in baptism. Turn to Romans chapter 6 as we consider the meaning of baptism. The gospel message, as you turn to Romans 6, can be summed up in one passage. And that is in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. But Paul says to the Corinthian church, for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for us according to the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised again according to the scriptures on the third day. That is the gospel, that Jesus Christ died, was buried, and rose again. That's the gospel message. The gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, without which you would not be saved. And in Romans chapter 6, Paul, in what can be described as the most critical passages in the Bible, Romans 5, Romans 6, Romans 7, Romans 8, are some of the most theologically important passages in Scripture, says this in verse 1, What shall we see? Then shall we continue in sin that grace may increase, may never be? How shall we who have died to sin still live in it? You cannot find life in your sin. You are dead to it. 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, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead, through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life." The reason why baptism is so important is because it is a picture of our immersion into Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. That's said clearly here. We have been baptized in verse 3 into His death. Therefore, we have been buried with Him through baptism into death in order that as Christ was raised from the dead. So that's the gospel message. Death, burial, and resurrection. When we have a baptismal service, as we will have one here in a little bit, when they go into the water, they are immersing themselves into the water. They are showing that picture that they are immersing themselves into Christ's death and His burial. And when they come up out of the water afterwards, it is a picture that they are in Christ risen to new life. Baptism is a picture of the gospel. Baptism is not the gospel. You are not saved when you get baptized. We will look at that later. It is a picture of what salvation is. It is a picture of the gospel. I heard an analogy earlier this week as I was studying this topic some. It is like at a wedding, when someone gets married, we say, with this wing, wing. Told you, you guys, there's my speech impediment. With this wing, with this ring, I thee wed, right? When you put the ring on the finger, that's not when you got married. When do you get married? When is someone married? It is when they make the covenantal vows to each other. Right? I vow to do this before God. You vow to do this before God. And the ring is a picture of that covenant. It's not the covenant itself. It's just a picture. Likewise, baptism is not what saves you. It is a picture of what saves you. And what saves you is Jesus Christ. his death, burial, and resurrection. Baptism is a picture of the saving work of Christ, the one into whom we are baptized or emerged into. We are united to Christ by faith and we show that to the world by being baptized into his death, his burial, and his resurrection. Because we are dead to sin. That's what Paul goes on to say in verse 5. For we have become united with Him. 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. If we've died to sin, Christ died on our behalf, then certainly as He rose, we should rise to newness of life. Verse six, knowing that our old self was crucified with him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. When you come to Christ Jesus in faith, that really happens. Sin is no longer your master. You need to understand that. When you come to faith in Christ Jesus, you are not a slave to your sins anymore. You are now a slave to Christ Jesus. That is something that once you grasp, it gives you great amount of freedom, but comes with a great amount of conviction. Because that also means, sin is not your master. When you sin as a believer, you sin because you willfully want to, rejecting and suppressing the Holy Spirit. That's why we sin. Because it has no power over us. We give it power. That's what Paul continues to say. Verse seven, for if we had died to sin, for he who has died is freed from sin. Now, if we have died to Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. That's the picture of coming out of the water. We live with him. Knowing that Christ has been raised from the dead is never to die again. Death no longer is master over him. So when you come out of the water, you are picturing that I am new in Christ Jesus. The old me is left in the water dead. I have come out new. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. When you come into the water, you are signifying that you are with Christ, dying and bearing your sin. And in Christ, you are rising again as a new person and coming out of the water. It is a great imagery in the act of baptism. The old self is dead, the old desires, the old flesh, the old way of life, your new self is alive, you have new desires, a new spirit. It is an identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. It, along with the Lord's Supper, both of those ordinances point to the work of Christ. Both ordinances that Christ gave to the church all point to his work on the cross. That's why it's so important that as believers, we participate in both. That's the meaning of baptism. What's the mode? How do we do it? Baptism did not start with John the Baptist. It was not called baptism because his last name was Baptist. It's not his last name, but John the Baptist did not create baptism. Cleansing by water was done in many Jewish services. Most theologians believe that when proselyte Jews in the Old Testament came to faith as part of that ceremony when they became a Jew, when they were Gentile and became a Jew, part of the ceremony was a baptism of some kind. Even pagan rituals had baptisms. So baptism did not start with John the Baptist or with Jesus. But Christian baptism did start with John the Baptist. And it did was affirmed by the command of Jesus. When it comes to the mode of how someone is baptized, there's a plethora of ways. One time backwards, one times forward, three times backwards, three times forward, dip, dip, dip, one dip, two dips, whatever, right? There's pouring, there's sprinkling, there's all kinds of modes of how people baptize. And being baptized in any of those ways doesn't like if you're baptized one times forward, well, that nullifies your baptism. It's not a real baptism. It doesn't nullify it. We're not given a command in scripture of the mode of how we have to baptize. We are given the command to baptize. The mode of baptism is not one of those hills that you should die on. But I will say this and we'll spend some time to think about this. There is one category of moods that I think scripture supports versus another category. What I mean by that is I think scripture, as we will see, clearly says that baptism is immersion, dipping down into the water. Baptism is not, as the New Testament, I think scripture shows, is not sprinkling of water and it is not pouring of water. Now, there may be circumstances where somebody is incapable of getting into a baptismal or getting into a pond. They may be, you know, bound up in a wheelchair and they can't do that. So you may pour, right? But the standard tradition of baptism is immersion. And I think scripture very clearly and importantly, I think it's important. I think the picture of baptism, I think, is lost through sprinkling and pouring. And I think we can back it up with scripture. In the Greek, in the New Testament, there are two words that describe baptism or immersion. One word is bapto, and it is used four times. And that word means to dip, like to dye something. Like if you're going to tie-dye something, you dip it. You dip it down into it. That's how you dye it, when you dye a shirt. Lydia was a? As we just read, she was a person of purple clothing, of purple clothes, right? How do you do that? You dip it down, you immerse it in, and that's how you make it a color. The other main word that is used to describe baptism in the Bible is the word baptizo. That word is used over 70 times in the New Testament. And that word means to dip repeatedly or to immerse or to submerge like a sunken vessel. It is the idea of going down into the water. The word baptizo means immersion or submerging something into water. The word baptism, baptizo became so connected to the idea of immersion that when they translated the Bible from the Greek into the English, they did not translate the word baptizo, they did what's called a transliteration. They just took the word baptizo, that is now baptism. It's just, it looks very similar. because it's the same thing. It is immersion. The meaning of being immersed into Christ Jesus, the meaning of a baptism, being fully immersed into his death, his burial, coming up out of the water, that picture is simply lost through sprinkling and pouring. You don't get that same picture of immersion into Christ and coming out new. You just don't get it. That's what the number of times, three times forward, three times backwards. That's something that people can debate. But I think what is critical from scripture, I think the New Testament view of baptism is going into the water. For the support idea, in case if you're still wondering about immersion, is it really important? John 3.23, consider some of these verses, John 3.23. And John was baptizing in Aenon near Salem. because there was much water there, and they were coming and were being baptized. Why did John need much water? You don't need much water to sprinkle. You don't need much water to pour. You need much water for people to dip, for people to go in. Even at Jesus' baptism, in Matthew 3, verses 6 through 17 that we read, And they were being baptized in the Jordan River as they confessed their sin. And when Jesus was baptized, it says he came up immediately from the water. He came up from the water. So I think scripture, both in the meaning of the word baptism and through the other's text, clearly shows that the mode that is to be done in baptism is immersion into the water. What are the means? You don't need to turn to Matthew 28. We've already been to Matthew 28. When I say means, what I mean is who is witnessing it. By how is it, what is witnessing the baptism? Well, in the Matthew 28, 19 we read, go therefore and make disciples of all men, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It is not just one of them. Your salvation is a Trinitarian effort. It requires the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Baptism is a sacred ceremony that is attesting to that Trinitarian work of your salvation. It is not just a baptism of the Father, or of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit. It is a baptism of all three of them. Salvation is of the Father, purchased by the Son, applied by the Spirit. Salvation is chosen by the Father, carried out by the Son, confirmed by the Spirit, right? It is an effort of all three of them together. So when you have a baptism, you say it is in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, which is why we do three times, and of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, three times, because you need all of them to be saved. If the Father did not originate the plan of salvation, no one would be saved. If Jesus Christ did not come to the earth to carry out the plan of salvation as ordained by the Father, no one would be saved. And if the Father had originated the plan of salvation, Christ came, did his work on salvation, but the Holy Spirit did not seal us into the day of redemption, we all would walk away from the Father. We need all three of them. So it's right and proper when you baptize to do it in the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Even Jesus when he was baptized. Do you remember when we read in Matthew chapter 3, who all was at his baptism? Jesus himself was baptized, and when he came up out of the water, the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove, and God the Father said from heaven, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit was even present at the baptism of Jesus. So we baptize in all three. Okay, so that's the symbolism, that's what it means, and that's how we do it. What's the requirement to be baptized? Maybe you've been here and you've not been baptized and you want to know, well, what do I have to do in order to be baptized? Because it seems like it's important. Hopefully I've shown you that it's important. So what do I have to do to be baptized? Do you have to join the church first? Do you have to be part of a Bible club? Do you have to have so many verses of scripture memorized? Do you have to be able to clearly, clearly articulate the full gospel message? Do you have to be a certain age? What are the requirements? There is not a bunch of requirements. There is one. You're to have faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior. That is the only requirement to be saved. Turn to Acts chapter 8. I love this passage. Philip is an evangelist, as we said before. He's going around, and he loves Jesus, and he wants to tell everybody about Jesus, and God uses him mightily. And there's this Ethiopian eunuch who's Gentile. He doesn't understand the Jewish people, and he has a passage of scripture that he's reading, and he's reading from the book of Isaiah, and he's confused. And then Philip comes up to this Ethiopian, Philip sees this Ethiopian eunuch, and he runs up to him. He says, Philip is just driven to tell people about Jesus. And the eunuch answered Philip and said, please tell me, of whom does this prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else? And Philip opened his mouth and began from the scripture, from this scripture, he preached Jesus to him. He took the man from where he was directly to Jesus and started preaching Jesus Christ as the Messiah, as the way of salvation. He told them what Jesus did. He called them to repentance. He even, he must have mentioned baptism. He called them to repent. That was the message of the early church. Repent, believe, be baptized. That was the consistent message. We know it, God, because look at the next verse. And they went along the road. They came to some water. And the eunuch said, look, water. What prevents me from being baptized? And Philip said, well, you need to wait a year. You need to show some evidence of your faith. And after you've proven that you really do believe, that you have a true confession of faith, then you can be baptized. So, join your local church, start going to Bible study, and understand who Jesus is. And after you understand really all of that, then you can be baptized. You got to make sure that when you get baptized, you really know what's going on. That's not what Philip says. And Philip says, if you believe with your heart, you may. That is the only barrier to baptism, is do you profess Christ as your Savior? Do you believe? It is all about faith. It is faith that you need to have. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. And he ordered the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, and Philip as well as a eunuch, and he baptized him. And when he came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, but went on his way rejoicing. I just love that story. Philip, I mean, what was that like for Philip, right? Baptize this guy, and boom, he's someplace else, snatched away by the spirit. It all requires is faith. Turn to Colossians chapter two, just to drive this point home. Colossians chapter two. Verse 9, For in him, in Christ, the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And in him you have been made complete and he is head over all rule and authority. And in him you also were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands in the removal of the body of flesh from the circumcision of Christ. Now what does that mean? Paul is describing the two covenants. There's an old covenant and a new covenant. The old covenant was symbolized by circumcision. And Paul says, now it's not a physical circumcision that happens. It is a removal of the flesh that happens. It is removal of the whole body. It is a complete separation of the flesh in Christ. When you are circumcised with Christ. The old covenant had his right of circumcision that was performed on the mere child. When the baby was eight days old, he would be taken to the priest and the priest would perform the circumcision to show that that child was part of the ethnic covenant of Israel. In Christ, we do not have to do that anymore. We have a spiritual circumcision that occurs. So in the old covenant, the old covenant was pictured by circumcision and the new covenant was circumcised by baptism. This is why millions of people baptize babies. They see that baptism has replaced the covenant of circumcision has been replaced by baptism. Therefore, they think, well, we should baptize babies. And I would agree with them that baptism does replace circumcision as the sign of the covenant. But I do not think that we have to baptize babies. I won't get into it, and if you want to talk to me about it, you can. But I think the most difficult thing for people who believe that way, paedo-baptism is what that's called, is I've never heard anyone explain to me how they get past Acts chapter 15. The Council of Jerusalem happens in Acts chapter 15. Paul is starting to preach the gospel, and he's telling everybody, you don't need to do circumcision. You don't have to do that. All you need is Jesus Christ. And all of these Jews are following Paul around saying, nope, you've got to be circumcised. You've got to be circumcised. You've got to be circumcised. And they go to Council of Jerusalem, Acts 15. All the apostles get together, and they settle the question, do you have to be circumcised in order to become a Christian, in order to become a follower of Jesus? And they say, no, you don't. And nowhere in there do they say, no, you don't have to be circumcised, but now you have to be baptized as a baby. They don't do that. That's not part of the picture. That doesn't replace it in that sense. There are differences between the circumcision and the Old Testament covenant and the baptism of the New Testament. In the Old Testament, only the mare was circumcised. In the New Testament, both men and women are circumcised. In the Old Testament, the foreskin was circumcised. In the New Testament, the body of flesh is done away with, as we just read. In the Old Testament, circumcision was performed at physical birth. In the New Testament, circumcision or baptism is done at spiritual birth. So if you ask me, do I think that we should baptize babies, I say yes. They are called being born again. They are called being babes in Christ. That is who should be baptized as babies. Those who are new believers, that's who is baptized, babes in Christ. Those just reborn, yes, you baptize those babies, not physical babies. But how is all of that accomplished? How are you brought into the circumcision of Christ? In verse 12 he tells us, having been buried with him in baptism. What does that mean? Baptism actually saves you? The actual act? No, it's not that. It's the baptism immersion into Christ as we looked at in Romans 6. That's what saves you and which you also were raised up through faith. That's the key. It is through faith. That's how baptism is applied is through faith. When someone believes in faith, then they are baptized. Remember earlier we talked about the early church, that as many of them believed, the number that were baptized was 3,000. But let me read to you again in verse 41, Acts 2 41. So then those who had received his word were baptized, and there were added to them that day 3,000 souls. There's boom, immediately they were baptized. Did you catch that? That day, just like the Ethiopian eunuch, what prevents me from being baptized? Do you believe? Yes, then you can be baptized. So if you want to exercise prudence and say that you need to wait for proof of salvation, I would argue with you that that does not exist in scripture. Far too many people, when they, a dog comes to faith, think that you need to wait a little while before you baptize the adult because you need to see, were they really saved? Let's wait a while. Far too many parents have children who have made a profession of faith, and they tell their parents they want to be baptized. And the parents say, well, let's just hold on a little bit. Let's wait till you're a little bit older. Make sure you really believe. That's not the picture that is in the Bible. The picture that is in the Bible, when they exercise faith and they ask to be baptized, you can baptize. Now, yes, baptism, you may end up baptizing people who are not believers. That happens in the Bible. We won't go there, but in Acts chapter 8, verses 13 through 24, you'll see a man named Simon who gets baptized. And then later, right after he gets baptized from Philip, he gets baptized, and then all of a sudden, he starts seeing the Holy Spirit's work, and he wants that power, and he doesn't have it, and he tries to buy the power of the Holy Spirit. How can I get this power of the Holy Spirit? And Peter just rips into him, and lays out, your heart is wrong. Your heart is not right. You need to repent. And the man basically says, I'm not going to. So he was baptized, but he wasn't a believer. We are not commanded to be the gatekeepers of baptism. and to keep people from being baptized, who have made a profession of faith, and as far as you can tell, it's a genuine profession of faith, you are to baptize them. Just lastly, quickly as we close, there is a limitation to baptism. There are two limitations that I just want to quickly end with here, just a few more minutes. Turn to 1 Peter 3. This is the last passage we will turn to. 1 Peter 3. The limitation of baptism is that it does not save. Salvation does not occur at baptism. When Brendan and Gracie are baptized in a few minutes, that is not when they are saved. It doesn't save them. Let's just skip, for time's sake, down to verse 21. 1 Peter 3, verse 21. Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you. Ah, so we get saved when we are baptized. That's why it's so important to get baptism, because that's when you get saved. Well, Peter says, nope. Not the removal of dirt from the flesh. That's not what saves you. It's not the act of baptism is not what saves you. But it appeared to God through a good conscience. through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That's what saves you. Faith in Christ's work and his resurrection from the dead. It's not the removal of water that saves you. No one who gets baptized is immediately saved. But far too many people cling to the baptism as proof they were saved. I have had conversations with people who you are clearly not a believer in Jesus Christ, but they say, well, I was baptized when I was five. I was baptized when I was 10. That doesn't mean that you're a Christian. Time sake, we won't turn to Acts chapter 10, but Acts chapter 10, Cornelius is a Gentile, and the gospel's starting to spread to the Gentiles, and it's kind of freaking some of the apostles out, and especially Peter. Peter's like, well, this is really strange, and Cornelius is a Gentile, and he goes to Cornelius, and he has a conversation with Cornelius, and he presents the gospel to him, and he gets saved, and then the Holy Spirit comes upon Cornelius, and he starts to speak in tongues, and then Peter says, well, then what prevents them from being baptized? They've got the Holy Spirit, let's baptize them, right? They got saved before they were baptized. That's what happens. Your baptism is not when you get saved, it is a picture of what has already occurred. And then lastly, It doesn't sanctify. Not only does baptism not save you, it does not sanctify you. You do not need to get re-baptized every time you confess your sin after you've fallen away from the Lord for a while and walked in the valley and now you've come back to Christ and you've, people use the term, rededicated your life to Christ or whatever. You don't need to get re-baptized every single time. It's not a sanctifying work. You are sanctified by Christ, which is pictured actually in the Lord's Supper with the feet washing, is a picture of Christ sanctifying work in your life. You are sanctified by the Holy Spirit who comes and brings conviction to your mind. You are sanctified by the Father who continuously brings into your life trials and sufferings and all of these things in order to sanctify and purify you. And you are sanctified according to Ephesians 5.26. that he may sanctify her, the church, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word. You are sanctified by the word of God being in the word. So baptism is indeed important because Christ commanded it to the church and we are commanded as individuals to be baptized. And the reason why it's so important is because it is a picture of the gospel. in a reality that's already happened. Brendan and Gracie are testifying that I have given my life to Christ, that I am dying to my sin, and I am rising again in new life in Christ. That's what we're going to picture in just a few minutes. Doesn't require much, requires faith. It is indeed important. something that all who profess Christ should participate in. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you for this time we had this morning to consider your great ordinance of baptism. And we pray now, Lord, as we get ready to go and participate in the baptism, that your spirit would be glorified and magnified even as we go. Thank you for the saving work of Christ on our behalf. In his name we pray, amen. We're turning your hymnals to page 25. Let's stand as we sing the perfect word of God. And then I'll have one announcement after we sing. So let's stand and sing.