Please turn with me in your Bibles to Acts 16. The book of Acts teaches us that Christ, who is in heaven, builds His church on earth, and it describes for us the first three decades or so of the progress of the gospel in the early church, beginning with Jesus' ascension to heaven and finishing with Paul's ministry in Rome. We've spent some number of weeks now in chapter 16, and that's a happy providence from my perspective, because Acts chapter 16 is one of the most significant New Testament passages describing household baptism or covenant baptism. And so if you're visiting with us this morning, we're not studying the subject of infant baptism or covenant baptism just because, but because we're in the context of a study of the book of Acts, And here we've bumped right into it in Acts chapter 16, and that makes for a happy preacher and hopefully a happy congregation too. It's so important for us to understand, isn't it, that the things we do in worship, what we believe and how we live in the Christian life must come from God's word. And so we don't baptize infants merely or because it's sentimental. or because it's tradition, but because we find it in Scripture. And that is the litmus test, the only litmus test that matters when it comes to God's worship. Well, last time we studied the conversion of the Philippian jailer, that wonderful question, What must I do to be saved? And that crystal clear answer that the apostles gave, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. What I'd like us to see this morning from Acts 16, we're going to look at verses 13 to 15, and then again in verses 30 to 34, is that scripture teaches us to baptize believers and their children. Scripture teaches us to baptize believers and their children. And we're going to pull apart, I hope, for our encouragement, different reasons why, and then what encouragement, what help that has for us in the Christian life. So let's pray, and then we'll read God's Word. Father in heaven, apart from You, we can do nothing. And so we pray for the help of Your Holy Spirit to give light as your Word is opened, and to give understanding, and to give conviction, and to give faith. O Lord, we pray that today would be for us an Emmaus Road day, that our hearts would burn within us with joy and love and reverence and awe as the Scripture is opened to us. We pray, Father, deal with our hearts. Encourage us. Fix our eyes on Jesus. We ask in His name. Amen. Let's hear the Word of God, Acts 16. I'm going to read verses 13 to 15, and then skip ahead to verse 30. Let's hear the Word of God, Acts 16, beginning in verse 13. And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside where we supposed there was a place of prayer And we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. And she prevailed upon us." And then in verse 30, after Paul and Silas had been delivered through the earthquake in Philippi, we read in verse 30, Then he that is the Philippian jailer brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds. And he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. and he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God." So far, God's Word. As I said, Scripture teaches us to baptize believers and their children. And the first thing I want us to see here from Acts 16 is the fact of household or covenant baptism. The fact of covenant baptism. A head of house believes, and the entire household receives the covenant sign of baptism. We see that first in the case of Lydia in verses 14 and 15. Paul and his companions were preaching the gospel. Lydia was in the group that would have been a synagogue group gathered together on the riverside. And Paul came, as he did so often, to open the scriptures to them, these Jews and others associating with the Jews who had gathered together. And we have that wonderful phrase in verse 14, the Lord opened her heart. So as she was hearing the Word of God from Paul and his companions, God used the Word to open her heart to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then we read, after the Lord opened Lydia's heart, in verse 14, look at what we find in verse 15. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, So here's a woman, a prominent woman, a seller of purple goods, a woman from Thyatira working and operating in Philippi. She believed. Her heart was opened. And she was baptized along with her household. The chapter doesn't tell us whether individual members of that household also profess faith in Christ, whether they were young or whether they were old, whether they were children or whether they were servants. It doesn't tell us that. But it tells us she believed. and everyone in her covenant household, because she, the head of this house, believed, received the covenant sign of God's grace." It's just a fact. Here it is in Acts 16, 14, and 15. And we see that fact repeated in verses 30-34. This Philippian jailer goes from holding Paul and Silas in the inner prison where their feet were clamped into stalks. An earthquake comes that sets the prisoners free. He's afraid because if he loses the prisoners, he'll lose his life. Paul and Silas say, we're still here. God uses this providence to bring him to conviction. He realizes his real issue is not escaping prisoners. His real issue is God. And he says to Paul and Silas, what must I do to be saved? They say, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You and your household. And then we read in verse 33, after he washed their wounds, they washed him with the waters of baptism. He was baptized at once. Look there in verse 33, but it doesn't stop there. He and all his family. Now it seems that there was more, at least more explicitly stated about the discipleship that happened in this home. In verse 32, we see Paul and Silas taught the household of the Philippian jailer. But it's the Philippian jailer who believed he was baptized, but not just him, he and all his family. It was Chrysostom, the early preacher, who described the double washing that takes place here. This man, newly converted, washes his new brothers in Christ from their wounds that they received at the hands of his bosses. And then he's washed in the waters of baptism a sign that he now belongs to the God of grace. But not just him, his family with him. So this is a biblical fact. That's the first thing I want us to see. It is a fact that in the scripture, in the New Testament, the sign of the covenant of grace is applied to believers and to their children. Lydia believes, and her household receives the sign. The Philippian jailer believes, and his household receives the sign. We're not told whether there were infants in the house, whether it was servants, whether it was children, whether the Philippian jailer was married, and we don't need to know. The principle is the same. When an adult comes to faith in Jesus Christ, they receive the covenant sign, and their household along with them. By my count, the word baptize appears in the book of Acts 19 times. 19. And by my count, eight of those 19 happen in connection with households. Hardly a small percentage. My mother was a math teacher, and my calculator tells me that that's about 42%. This isn't something unusual or odd in the New Testament. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1.16, I baptize the household of Stephanas. It's simply a biblical fact. When someone comes to faith in Christ, When an adult comes to faith in Christ, their household receives the covenant sign with them. And that's why we baptize Mary Ellen this morning. Because she belongs to believing parents, and because they belong to Christ, the sign goes to her as well. So that's the first thing I want us to see. The fact of household or covenant baptism. The second thing I want us to see is the reason for it. The reason for it. Why does God place this sign on believers and their children? We can summarize that in one word. Because of His covenant. Because of His covenant. God promises, and here's a summary of God's covenant. God says to his people, I will be your God, and you will be my people. That's what he promises to us as the church. That's his covenant with us, his covenant of grace, that on account of nothing that we've done, on account of no works that we have worked on, not on account of a righteousness that we have performed, but because of his faithfulness and his grace, he says to his people, I will be your God, and you will be my people. And we know from Scripture that that you doesn't merely include adults, but as God said to Abraham in Genesis 17, 7, I will be a God to you and to your children after you. That is His covenant. And we see in the Old Testament and in the New Testament that God includes the children of believers in his covenant of grace. In fact, every time you find a covenant made with God's people in the Old Testament, their children are included. When God gives the first promise of grace to Adam in Genesis 3.15, after they've miserably fallen, and he says to Eve, a descendant of yours, your child will crush the head of the serpent. And then boys and girls, just a few chapters later in the book of Genesis, When Noah, when God delivered Noah from the flood, who was with Noah on the ark? All sorts of animals who were there two by two. But not just Noah and Mrs. Noah and animals, his children. Because God was their God, along with their parents' God. And when God came to Abraham, he didn't just say, Abraham, I will be a God to you. He said, Abraham, I'll be a God to you and to your children after you. And when God came to Moses and gave him the law in Exodus, He didn't just tell them, Moses, teach the adults in Israel. He said, Moses, set these over your doorposts, write them on your heart, and teach them diligently to your children, because I am their God. And when God gave promises to David in 2 Samuel 7, He didn't just promise David that he would have great victories like the one he won over Goliath. He said, I will place a descendant upon your throne who will reign forever, whom we know to be the Lord Jesus Christ. Every time God makes a covenant in the Old Testament, He makes it with believers and their children. But does that stop in the Old Testament? When you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Do you find the Lord Jesus Christ standing up in the Sermon on the Mount with a big stop sign? That says, perhaps in the Old Testament, children belonged to My people, but no more. Stop! My covenant is now with adults only. Is that what you find the Lord Jesus saying in the Gospels? Of course not. In fact, when His own disciples People are trying to bring their children to Jesus, and they say, He's very important. He's the Son of God, He's the Messiah, He's the Savior, He has to preach, He has to heal, He has to raise the dead. Keep them away. Jesus rebukes them. And He says, let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such is the kingdom of heaven. But not just Jesus, Peter on the day of Pentecost. Christ ascends into heaven. He sends the Holy Spirit from on high. And people come to hear the good news of the Gospel of the risen Savior. And what does Peter say? They cry out hearing the good news of the Gospel. They say, what must we do? And do you remember what Peter said? This promise is for you and for your children. And then when Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, a church filled with troubles and trials, he said to them, your children are holy. And when Paul wrote to the Ephesian church, to the saints, he addressed the children and reminded them of God's promises to them in his word in Ephesians chapter 6. So why do we place the covenant sign of baptism on children? It's because of God's covenant that He promises to be a God to us and to our children after us. And because His covenant promise is for us and our children, the covenant sign is for us and our children as well. Abraham's sons received the sign of circumcision. And here, Lydia and the Philippian jailer come to faith, and the sign of the covenant is placed on them. In 1 Corinthians 12.13, Paul describes baptism as a sign of belonging to the church, and in the New Testament, the children belong to the church. Paul speaks to them just like he speaks to their parents. The fact of household baptism, the reason for household baptism, God's covenant of grace, and then third, I want you to consider the responsibilities associated with household baptism, the responsibilities associated with household baptism. And the first responsibility or the first group of people I want to talk to you about responsibilities is the children. So boys and girls, the whole sermon's for you, but this part of the sermon is especially for you. And in God's grace, I'm easy for you to see. And so you look at me and I'm going to tell you something very important, okay? This is very important and you need to remember this. Christian children are covenant children. You boys and girls are the most blessed children in all the world because you belong to God. There are millions of families in this world that don't know the Lord Jesus Christ. but God in His grace has placed you in one that does. He has blessed you. You belong to Him. I want you to see if you can imagine with me for just a minute, a vast castle. Can you imagine that? With a moat surrounding it. A large wooden door. Many towers where knights might stand and from which they might shoot their arrows. And in that great castle, there are many rooms. One room says over it, promise. And all the promises of God are in that room. And one room has written over it, forgiveness. The forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. And another room has over it, belonging. You belong to God and to His people. And all of that is yours. He's put you right in there. And do you know, boys and girls, that there is one key that opens every door of that room? The door that says heaven. The door that says forgiveness. The door that says promise. The door that says blessing. There's one key that opens every door. And do you know what that key is? Faith. Faith. God has placed you in His church. He has promised to be your God, and you need to trust Him. You need to trust Him. He says to you, I will be your God. So believe in Him. Do you know, boys and girls, there is nothing, nothing your parents want more for you than for you to love their Savior. He has been faithful to them. He will be faithful to you. And you need to trust Him. He will never let you down. He will never let you go. So the first responsibility is for the children. You need to trust in Jesus. That's what your baptism says. It says that in Jesus, there's washing away from sin. In Jesus, God is my God. Trust Him. But there's also responsibilities for parents. I want to think of three briefly with you. The first is to teach your children. To teach them about Christ. That's why God has given you to them. They belong to Him. And He's given you these children to teach them about the Lord. The first way you do that is by bringing them to worship. Do you know the people in the book of Acts 16 did not have Bibles? It might shock some of you to even know they didn't even have iPhones. So how did they learn the Bible? By gathering together with God's people to hear it taught. And as Christian parents, if there is one thing, one stone that doesn't get moved, It's the worship of the people of God. And you say, we are going to build our lives on that stone, so our children will hear the gospel of God's grace. And not only that, you pray. You take God's promises back to Him. God would not have told you, I will be your God and I will be a God to your children after you, if He did not want you to believe it and pray it back to Him. And so you say, Lord, these are yours. I can't save them. I'm not the Holy Spirit. My example is flawed, but you are faithful. You are powerful. You are good. Remember what you've promised. And bring my children to trust you and to live for you. So you teach them. And you pray with and for them. And then you wait. For some, The subject of infant baptism and God's covenant promises to children is like the sweetest dessert they have on Thanksgiving. And for others, it's a difficult subject because they have children, adult children, who don't yet know the Lord. And when they hear of God's covenant promise and they look back and they say, Lord, we taught them the scripture, Lord, we've prayed for them. And Lord, they don't yet know you. If that describes you this morning, what should you do? You should wait upon the promise of God. Wait with prayer and keep bringing his word back to him and say, Lord, you put your promise in the scripture. Bring my child back to You." And you pray it again, and you pray it again, and you pray it again. I love to tell the story, I've told it to you before, of Daryl Strawberry. Growing up in the Northeast and cheering for the Red Sox, he was not our favorite player, but he became one of my very favorites a few years ago when I heard him speak at First Baptist Church in Jackson at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting. Darryl Strawberry, immensely talented baseball player whose career was plagued by addiction and drug abuse and poor choices. He actually had a turning point in his career when he was playing for the minor league team in Jackson. And even as a Red Sox fan growing up, I knew Darryl Strawberry, great player, but he just doesn't have it together. And his career was in many ways thwarted by his own poor choices. And he went on after being a baseball player for some time, not knowing the Lord, not being a Christian. And at some point his life went on through many near scrapes. A near scrape is one he described, a near scrape with death. a series of trouble after trouble on account of addiction, his mother died. And when Darryl Strawberry's mother died, he found her diary. And in her diary, he saw that she had been praying for each, I believe it was her five children, each of her five children to know Christ. And Daryl Starbury said before, I would have to say multiple thousands of people at First Baptist Jackson. He said, my mother died, not one of us was converted. There were five of us. Not one of us knew the Lord. But Daryl Starbury said, but now each one of us is a Christian. And here was this man, his mother died not knowing that he would be trusting in Christ. But here's this man standing before thousands of people spewing scripture. An answer to the prayers of a mother who made it to heaven before He made it to faith. And so if that describes you this morning, keep taking God's promises back to Him in prayer. And ask Him, Lord, You have said, Lord, be there God. Those are some of the responsibilities connected with household baptism. And I want us to close thinking of some of the privileges. The privileges. Praise God in the Christian life, there are responsibilities and there are privileges. Things that God calls us to do for him, things that he promises to do for us. And there are a number of them that can all be summarized under one heading. The great privilege of baptism is that it promises you that you belong to God. That's the summary promise, the umbrella privilege under which all these other privileges will flow. What does that mean? What does it mean that you belong to God as a Christian? First, it means that you have his name, his name. In baptism, the living God puts His name on you. Think about what the Bible says about this God. For example, in Isaiah chapter 40, He's the one who sits above the circle of the earth, and He's so great and so high that when He looks down, all its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He commands the stars on their courses and their hosts, knowing and naming each one. He raises up kings and brings them down. Scarcely are they planted and scarcely sown. When He blows on them, these mighty men of the earth, and they wither. The Scripture tells us He stretches out the heavens the way you stretch out a curtain and spreads them like you would spread a tent on a camping trip. It describes him as holding the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific and the Indian oceans in the hollow of his hand and measuring, boys and girls, the distance from Saturn to Earth to Alpha Centauri, all of the galaxies in the universe is with the span of his hand. And that God who always has been, who lacks nothing, who needs nothing, who is fullness of glory, that God says, you are mine. My name is upon you. And I will never let you go." Have you ever stopped to think about the greatness of the One to whom you belong? Who says, you belong to Me. One of the privileges of baptism is that in baptism, God places His name upon you. Baptism also shows us God's provision Did you notice here the context in Acts 16 of when the Philippian jailer receives the sign of baptism? It's right after he's washed the disciples. Their backs had been beaten. Surely there was dry blood on their backs, and who knows what else, and he washed their wounds. And it's in that context of washing that he receives the sign of baptism. And we know from elsewhere, for example, in Acts 22, when Paul describes his own baptism, that baptism is a sign of washing. Why do I say that? Well, if baptism tells you that you belong to God, and part of the purpose of baptism is to communicate this idea of washing, here's what you need to know. Baptism tells you that through faith in Christ, God has washed your sins. It tells you about his provision. To belong to the living God through faith is to have provided for you the one thing you need more than any other thing. And that's for your sins to be washed away. And baptism doesn't point you and say, if you really reform yourself, then your sins will be covered. Or if you really get specifically exacting in your religious observance, if you cross a particular line, then your sins will be covered. Or if you compare yourself to enough other people and see that you're better than 50% plus one of the other people that you know, a little bit more religious, a little bit less vulgar, a little bit less lewd, and you're just over the line, then you'll be forgiven. Baptism says the one thing you need more than anything else, the washing away of your sins, it doesn't come from you, but it's provided by God in Christ. That through faith in His Son, He will wash your sins away. That's what it means to belong to God. Through faith in His Son, to have your sins washed and cleansed. and gotten rid of. So the privilege of His name, the privilege of His provision, that in Christ there's washing for sin. There are many others, but there's one more that I want to point to you. And that's the privilege of His presence. Baptism reminds you as a Christian that God is near. Listen to what Paul told Titus in Titus 3, verses 4-6. But when the goodness and lovingkindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, and listen now to what He says, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. Baptism is a sign of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, the washing of regeneration. And when you belong to God, how close does God stay to you? Paul says, his spirit has been poured out upon you. As Donald MacLeod, the 20th century Scottish theologian said, he says, God is closer to you than your elbow. Everywhere you go, he is near. Your shepherd, your Keeper, the I Am, your Savior. Everywhere you go, your baptism reminds you God is near. He does not leave nor forsake. He doesn't run when the danger comes like the hireling does. But He is near. He is upon you. He is within you by His Holy Spirit. Parents, as we think about parenting our children, what a blessing. to know that God is near. Christians, when we face temptation to sin, God is near. Your baptism promises that it's true. Near with all of His power and grace. When you face your greatest fears, your baptism tells you God is near. His Spirit has been poured out upon you. Baptism reminds you of the privilege of His presence. All of this from one covenant sign on a small covenant child. A child who has never done anything for God, who has yet to speak God's name on her lips, but to whom God has reached down in grace and says, you are mine. Let us pray. Father in heaven, make us through the Holy Spirit's help to remember the responsibilities that come with bearing your holy name. And Father, make us especially mindful of the privileges that through faith in Christ there is washing, that your people have your name, your great name upon them, and that you are near in the power of your Holy Spirit. Lord, make us never to forget these things and to remember our baptism and to live in its light. We ask in Jesus' name.