Let me say that it's good to see everyone here this morning. It's always, I guess, a fear when you're going to preach is that nobody shows up. But thank you for being here and we're, we have guests with us. We are glad they are here. Going to be back in Mark chapter one, if you'd like to turn there in your Bibles this morning, Mark chapter one. You know, there's many things in life that, that brings us joy and pleasure. Along with there's also times that things may not be so pleasurable when we face things that we face in this life. And as a child, one of the things that I remember, I say a child, we were fairly old. You know, kids this day and time have four wheelers and they have motorbikes and motorcycles and all kind of things to ride. We had bicycles. And those bicycles, we probably rode no telling how many miles, and they were not speeded bicycles either. They had one speed. If you were going uphill, a lot of times you couldn't make it. I remember a friend of mine lived on a really high hill, and always one of the goals that I had was to make it up that hill. Well, I don't know if I ever did. Most of the time I didn't. It was just too high and too hard. Well, see, life, a lot of times, is that way. It gets too hard sometimes. We can't bear it. And somebody said yesterday, I think it was Charlie, is that I don't know how people make it that are not Christians. I just don't see how they can live in this life and the things of this life without Christ and the things of Christ and his word as it comforts us. But there in Mark, And we're going to look also in the book of Matthew chapter 3 later on because Mark, the sermon this morning is on the baptism of Christ. But I want to read the first 12 verses there of Mark chapter 1. It says, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. As it is written in the prophets, behold, I send my messenger before thy face, in other words, face to face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, make his path straight. John did baptize in the wilderness and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And there went out unto him all the land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. And John was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins. And he did eat locusts and wild honey, and preached, saying, there cometh one mightier than I after me. the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have baptized you with water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized of John in the Jordan and straightway coming up out of the water he saw the heavens open and the spirit like a dove descending upon him. And there came a voice from heaven saying, thou art my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Now when you look at this, the baptism of Jesus is kind of confusing. Sometimes if you don't take a little bit of time to read and look at the words that the Bible says here, But one of the things I think is very important, and you'll see that if you look in Matthew chapter three in verse 13, one of the things that you see there, and let me read Matthew chapter three in verse 13 through the end of that chapter, Matthew having a little bit better and more detailed description than what Mark wrote, said, then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. But John forbid him saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me, or you're coming to me. And Jesus answered and said unto him, suffer, or allow it to be so now. For thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water. And lo, the heavens were opened. unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him. And lo, a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." Well, there's another verse of scripture, if you look at it, in chapter 17 in verse 5, it adds something to that. It says, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him. And see, that tells us as Christians that we need to hear Christ and the things of Christ and what Christ tells us. But here the question remains, what is this baptism and baptism As I said in Sunday school this morning, there's many different religions today that believe so many different things about the Bible. Many of them have added to the Bible, taken away from the Bible. So what is baptism? We say what the Bible says. It's an ordinance. It's not a sacrament. See, if you're, this morning, if you were Catholic, or you were some of the other faiths, They believe that it is a sacrament. Well, here's what a sacrament is. A sacrament means that grace is passed by the act. So in other words, they believe that salvation is in the water. Well, see, that's why we say it's an ordinance, because the Bible teaches us that there is no saving grace in this water back here. It's totally symbolic. And it's for John here. John was baptizing sinners. He wasn't baptizing righteous people. He was baptizing sinners. And the prerequisite, the thing that he required before he baptized them, was that they confess their sins. In other words, they had to, number one, they had to acknowledge they were sinners. And number two, they had to declare that to John before he would baptize them. John the Baptist that we're talking about here. Well, Jesus was sinless. So why did Jesus need to be baptized? Why did he desire to be baptized? And see, that's what we need to look at in this. But the symbolism here is because of what he did. And in that, we understand that it's a commandment to us. But I want to read something. Brother Carey read this passage of scripture not many weeks ago, but in Acts chapter eight. If you turn over a few chapters in your Bible there to Acts chapter 8, we see here the Ethiopian eunuch, and here what Philip gave him the commands of before he would baptize him. The prerequisite here is what we understand about baptism, what's required of baptism, what's required of us before we're to be baptized. So anyway, Acts chapter 8, begin reading in verse 26. And it says, the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip saying, arise and go toward the south unto a way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose and went, and behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasury and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning and sitting in his chariot read Isaiah, the prophet. Then the spirit said unto Philip, go near and join thyself to the chariot. And Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah and said, understand thou what thou readest. And he said, how can I accept some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he should come up and sit with him. The place of the scripture, which he read was thus. Now this is out of Isaiah 53. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter. Like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth. In his humility, his judgment was taken away. And who shall declare his generation, for his life is taken from the earth? And the eunuch answered Philip and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? Of himself or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth. and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. Now notice that. These apostles and evangelists in the New Testament preached from the Old Testament, not from the New Testament, because it didn't exist. But he preached this, preached him unto, he preached Jesus unto him out of this prophecy from Isaiah 53. And it says, as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water, and the eunuch said, See, here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when he came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord called away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more, and he went away rejoicing." So several things you notice about this. Number one, here's the prerequisite for baptism. is a man who believes and confesses, just like this man confessed, he said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Not before. So therefore, we do not believe in baptizing children because the Bible, nowhere in the Bible does it lay out that you baptize a child. We don't believe that because the Bible doesn't say that, but instead the Bible says that the prerequisite of baptism is a man must be saved and he must profess that, as this unit did there to Philip in the Book of Acts. Now something else that's very important is what the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith says about that, this baptism. It says, first of all, in chapter 29, of the confession. It said baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament. See, an ordinance. It's not a sacrament, but an ordinance. There's no grace passed by baptism. It's an ordinance. It's also something that we're required to do as Christians, to be baptized. Now, you're not baptized to be saved, but because Christ was baptized. It says, this is ordained by Jesus Christ to be unto the person that's baptized, the party baptized. It's a sign of his fellowship with him, with Christ, in his death and resurrection, of his being engrafted into him. See, we're engrafted into Christ, as the book of John talks about. We're engrafted in, as Paul wrote about, as Christians. And it goes on and said, This is important too, giving up unto God. This is a symbol of us giving up unto God through Jesus Christ to live and to walk in newness of life. So you see that in baptism. As you go under the water, the old life is dead and buried. And when we come up out of the water, we're raised to newness of life. And that's what the confession is saying here. And I'm not gonna read all the scriptures that go along with that, Scripture that goes along with each one of those statements in the confession of faith. And that's what we believe because that's what the word of God says. Just like this eunuch was, he came to Philip. Well, Philip came to him because the spirit sent Philip to baptize this Ethiopian eunuch after and only after he confessed Christ. And see, that's what we believe is what the Bible says there in the book of Acts. And there's other scriptures, there's many other scriptures there in the book of Acts about that. But the prerequisite is that a man believe in Christ. And the other important thing, as I've already said, there's no salvation in those baptismal waters. It's following the example of Christ. But if you look at Matthew and look back at Matthew chapter 3 there, beginning in verse 13, that Jesus came to be baptized of John. But John refused to baptize Christ. John had already confessed that there's one coming after me whose shoes I'm not fit to stoop down and untie. So it's important to realize here where John, what elevation he thought of Christ, See, he was highly elevated in John's eyes. He saw Christ high and lifted up, as Brother Carey's preached many times in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah saw God high and lifted up. See, that's the way we must see Christ. We must not see him the way a lot of people see him. I mean, I hear things all the time from people that I think, how do you think those things? And I've said this before many times, and a lady that I know well that's in a Baptist church right here in Jones County said that they did something and said Jesus just showed up and showed out today. Well, how? demeaning that is to Christ himself because he never leaves us, he's always with us. The Bible tells us that even the very things that we depend on, everything is of him, it's of Christ. But I want to look at the words of Christ here when you look at this. John agreed to baptize Christ even though There had to be a feeling in John's life, it's just like us, whenever we read the word of God, especially if you're a teacher or a pastor, and you go to teach something, you don't feel worthy to even teach the things of God because they're so high above us and we're sinners. John had to see that in himself, even though he was a man called to preach the gospel, and he did, and to baptize. He saw himself, I believe, as a man. And we must see ourselves as that. We must see our sin. That's what I mean by that. We must see our sin. But look what Jesus said to him there in verse 15. He said, allow it to be so now. Well, looking at these words and breaking these words down one at a time, see, John Christ required him, it is, you have to do this and it has to be done now for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. So why in the world would Christ come, a sinless God, God in the flesh, sinless, never even had a bad thought in his mind, come and desire to be baptized with a group of sinners? to fulfill all righteousness. Well, what is that? To do the will of the Father. See, if you notice that, and I have a book that was written by James Snowden, who is a Presbyterian writer, and here's what he said. He said, everything that you see of Christ in all of his ministry, you hear him say, I'm doing this to fulfill righteousness, to fulfill the will of the Father, not of my will, but of the will of the Father, the Godhead. See, A.W. Pink said it like this, everything was determined in the Godhead before the beginning of time, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Well, see, there's never a time that you see a closer knit relationship here than you see the Trinity. And there's pastors and men that preach who do not believe in the Trinity. But what do you see here? The Spirit. The Spirit, first of all, led Philip. He led Philip to go to the Ethiopian eunuch and to baptize him and to preach the gospel to him. The Spirit led John the Baptist to preach the gospel. Well, you see it here. The Spirit descended on Christ like a dove. The Spirit, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. You see the Trinity very plainly here, so you can't deny it. But there's, he said, allow this to be done now. For this it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness, to do what the Father the heavenly father has determined what he has predestined. Well, if you look at the life of Christ and you can look in Luke chapter two, and here's what you see in Jesus life at 12 years old. And we can read the scripture. If you look at Luke chapter two in verse 49, here's what you see in the son that as he preached the gospel or as Christ at 12 years old, in Luke chapter 2. And the story goes, and you know the story just like I do, the story goes and it's like this, that Joseph and Mary and the people that they were with went to Jerusalem and it says here that If you look at verse 46, it says, it came to pass after three days they found him in the temple. See, he didn't go with them. He stayed back. He was old enough. He was 12 years old. Sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. See, in the synagogue. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and his answers. Now 12 years old, and says, when they saw him, they were amazed, talking about it, and his mother said unto him, son, why hast thou dealt with us, or this way? Why have you done this? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, how is it that you sought me? Do you not understand that I must be about my father's business? See, that was Christ. Everything that he did was to be about his father's business, right down to the fact of being this, even though he was sinless, being baptized there with sinners. But there's another word here that's very important in this passage of scripture. He said, now. The Bible tells us that now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. But there's a lot more to that now than just that, even though that's very important. It's an important part of it. But the rest of that is this. The Lord has for each one of us that's in this room, if you're a Christian today, he has a purpose for us. And he has a purpose for Bethlehem Baptist Church. I mean, this church was built in the 1800s. It still stands on the same hill that it was built on. And it was built for a purpose. The men that built this church, and I can just imagine, I'm thinking what it was like back in those days when nobody had any money, nobody was rich, nobody, the things that they built, I remember the old building, it had patches of carpet in the classroom. because they didn't have any money to buy a whole piece of carpet and do the classrooms. But they had to have been excited about what they built because they were building it for God. Well, see, the thing that we have to look at in ourselves when you look at what the Bible says, this is important and it's important, this gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is so important that there is a limit on it, there's a time on it. Because we're limited. I mean, I can see the end of my life coming a lot more now than I did back many years ago. We only have a limited amount of time. And what Christ was saying here to John is it's important that this is done now, right here today, because Christ knew that three short years from then, the cross was waiting on him. And he knew this had to be done now. And it also tells us the importance of baptism, the importance that we're baptized the way he was. Once the Lord saves us, we're to be baptized like he was. But there's something else about these waters that's important. If you notice here in these scriptures, it says when Jesus was baptized, He went up straightway out of the water. He was dumped into the water. He wasn't sprinkled. And the important thing about that is, even with our Presbyterian friends, is that this baptism, this sprinkling, what they call baptism, which is not biblical baptism at all, but what it does is it gives those children, when they grow up, a false sense of security. They're salvation. they think is based on the fact that they were become a member of this church because this water was sprinkled on their head. And certainly that's true that with the Catholics, the Catholics even claim that, that they're baptized into the Catholic church and their salvation is secure in the Catholic church, not in Christ, but in the Catholic church. So what does that tell us today? It tells us that it's very important, first of all, that we seek the Lord's will, what he's calling us to do. Now that doesn't mean that, and see there's a lot of people that do these things, and I heard one lady say, it was an elderly lady, a lady I thought the world of and still do. She's been gone many years. She always said that she thought the Lord had called her to be a missionary and one pastor The pastor of our church, not this church, but another church, told her, said, no, Ms. So-and-so, if the Lord had called you to be a missionary, you would be a missionary today. Well, the Lord calls us. He gives us purpose. We just read that this morning in Ephesians chapter one, that Paul, or excuse me, Ephesians chapter four, verse one, Paul said that we have this calling. We have this, this thing that God has destined us to do, and here Christ is saying it's now that we must do these things. See, we can't wait because our lives, if for no other reason, our lives are limited. But he's given us these tasks, he's given us this calling, and we have something to do for the Lord here in this community, wherever we are, whatever it might be. I can't tell you what that is. Why in the world did the Lord call us to do these things? The Bible says in the book of Ephesians, he gave some apostles, he gave some pastors, he gave some prophets, some teachers. Whatever he's called you to do, we need to be doing those things and we need to be in the Word of God and praying about those things and being energized by the Word of God. See, the Word of God energizes us to do those things by the leadership of the Spirit. What led Philip to go and preach to this eunuch? so that he would be baptized, the spirit led him. See, we must be led of the spirit of God through the word of God, that we do the will of God. And he certainly has called all of us in Bethlehem Baptist Church. If you're a Christian here this morning, he's called you to do his will, to do the things that he's called us to do. So there's this great urgency and this calling. It's not just something that's going to go away either. He's called us to it. But the other thing you see in this very clearly, you see is the deity of Christ. That's very evident. But one of the things, so why was Christ baptized? He was baptized to do the will of the Father. So if you remember, the Jews came to him and they said, And anyway, they came to him and asked him a question. And here's what he told them. He said, I'll answer your question. You tell me, was the baptism of John, was it of heaven or was it of man? Well, they wouldn't answer him. Well, we know it was of heaven. It was of God, this baptism of John. It just wasn't something that happened. These are not just words on a page. It happened for a reason. But Jesus did not need to be baptized because he was confessing his sin. And we need to get that straight. And as we go into where Christ is led by the devil or is led by the spirit and he's tempted of the devil, we cannot ever get in our mind the fact that he could have sinned because he could not have, because he's God. But look at what else happened. In verse 16, it says, in Jesus, there in the book of Matthew, in Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water and lo, the heavens were opened unto him and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him. and lo, a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. The declaration of who he was. See, this declaration had to happen, this baptism had to happen because it was the will of the father, the will of the triune God, the Trinity. See, he had to be declared that he was Christ, that he was the Messiah. And later on, John is going to question that even after he heard this. But you see that here. The spirit revealed who Christ was here by this dove ascending, the Holy Spirit descending like a dove and it lighted on him. The thing that you see too is the dove did not go away. He did not fly away from Christ. He stayed with Christ. He was led of the spirit. And you're going to see that when we get into the very next part of this gospel tonight. about the temptation of Christ. What led him? Why was he tempted? And it says there in verse 17, this voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved son. This is Christ. This is the Messiah. Now, as I said last week, the thing that was happening there in Israel at this time is it was they were looking for this coming Messiah. There had even been false messiahs come. And it had been 400 years at this time before since any prophecy, any word from God, there was 400 year blank time, empty time. And the Jews, as Brother Carey said, had perverted the Jewish faith. So they could no longer depend on that. Now, here's what we see, this declaration. Here he is. The Messiah's here. It's Christ. It's my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. The question I'll leave you with today is this. Where do you stand with this Son of God? Where do you stand with this God who was God in the flesh here upon earth? Where do you stand? Because that's going to determine where you stand in eternity. Pray with me. Heavenly Father.