Good evening, everybody. It's good to see all of you here tonight and welcome all who are joining us by Zoom. If you'll take your Bibles and turn to Matthew chapter 28, we'll actually look at several different scriptures tonight, but we'll begin here with a great commission of our Lord. Matthew 28 verses 18 through 20. Jesus came and spoke to them saying all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth Go therefore make disciples of all the nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you and lo I'm with you always even to the end of the age Amen, let's pray Our Father, we ask that through the merits of Christ that your Holy Spirit would be our teacher tonight, that you would open our eyes to see wonderful things from your Holy Word, and that you would give us clarity of thought and good application to our souls, especially, Lord, as we have many children here tonight. that many, some of whom have not yet closed with Christ. We pray that even this night, your spirit would work in their hearts to draw them near to Christ and save them. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. This evening, we're coming to the eighth of what should be nine messages about the public means of grace. And then God willing, June 11th, we start the series on shepherding a child's heart. And I've been using Augustine's description of the public means of grace as my outline. Augustine famously said that when we worship God, what we do is we read the Word, preach the Word, hear the Word, pray the Word, sing the Word, and then in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, we see the Word. They're a visible proclamation, as it were. And so thus far in our study, I've devoted one entire evening to exploring the reading, preaching, and hearing of Scripture. The next time we gather, we talk about praying the Word. And then most recently two weeks ago we talked about singing the Word. Which leaves me with a joyful task then of talking about seeing the Word. Which means tonight we're going to be looking at seeing the Word in baptism. And then in two weeks from now, we're not meeting next week, but two weeks from now we will talk about seeing the Word in the Lord's Supper. So for tonight we're focusing upon baptism as the visible Word. What that means is we're saying that baptism is a means of grace, and we want to understand what that means. So in the verses I've just read from Matthew's gospel, which you're very familiar with, it's the Great Commission, Jesus commanded his apostles, and by extension, the church through every generation since, that there's three basic things that we have to do to fulfill the Great Commission. We make disciples, we baptize disciples, and then we teach disciples. So what we believe in is called credo baptism. Now, does someone tell, someone, you wanna know what the word credo means? What's? Believer's baptism, but what's the word credo mean? To confess. To confess. When someone is baptized, it's a confession that Jesus is Lord. And it's a profession that the person being baptized is saying, I have believed the gospel. I have been transformed by it. The Holy Spirit has come up to take residence in my heart. I am a follower of Christ. So credo baptism is the practice of exclusive believers baptism, which is why we are Baptists. That's why Baptist is in our name. We are named after a sacrament for a reason. So whenever a sinner repents of their sins, renounces their confidence in their own righteousness to save them and trust in Christ alone to do for them what they can't do for themselves, they've passed through the narrow gate of conversion. And once they've gone through the narrow gate of conversion, they are now beginning to walk upon the difficult path of discipleship and baptism and church membership are the two basic first steps once you have passed through conversion that takes place at the very beginning of your pilgrimage to the celestial city. So we want to think about this in helpful terms and to wrap our minds around what baptism means and specifically how baptism serves as a means of grace to us. And so what I want to do is teach you under three headings tonight. The first is, we want to talk about briefly what baptism does not mean. Secondly, what baptism does mean. And third, how baptism serves as a means of grace. So first of all, what baptism does not mean, there's two things it does not mean. First, physical baptism has no power to wash away your sins. called the Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration. And the place I would turn your attention to, interestingly enough, is a place that almost everyone who believes in baptismal regeneration will cite in order to prove their case. But it actually teaches just the opposite. It's 1 Peter 3, verse 21. There the Apostle says, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit there is also an antitype which now saves us baptism. Now you hear what he just said. Baptism saves us. But then he gives a parenthetical statement after that to clarify what he means. Not the removal of the filth of the flesh. but the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In other words, it's not water baptism that washes away dirt from your body that saves you. That's not what I'm talking about, he says. I'm talking about the inward baptism of the Holy Spirit by which your sins are washed away, by which the Holy Spirit applies the blood of Christ to your soul and cleanses you of your sin. External baptism is a symbol of that inward reality. But it's a sign of that inward reality, it's not the thing signified. Historically, God's people have had a hard time confusing the sign with the thing it signifies, and confusing the two. Pastor Matt's been preaching through the book of Galatians. And what is the heresy that Paul's having to address? He's saying, you were converted, you were baptized, you were established as local churches, and already you're embracing a different gospel. And what was that different gospel? They were taking an Old Testament sacrament, the sacrament of circumcision, and saying, faith in Jesus isn't enough to justify you. It's faith in Jesus plus the observance of this Old Covenant sacrament. And Paul says, if I preach such a thing to you, may I be accursed. And if anybody else comes to you and preaches that to you, may they be accursed. And if an angel from heaven preaches that to you, let him be accursed. Because that's not the gospel. That's not the gospel. You're adding something else to the work of Christ. You're adding something else to faith by being a sacramentalist. And therefore, you've substituted the true gospel for a false one. Do you realize that when people teach baptismal regeneration, all they're doing is taking the same old heresy and dressing it up in the emperor's new clothes? In other words, you just swap out the sacraments, remove the sacrament of circumcision from the Old Testament, in its place put the sacrament of baptism from the New Testament, and there you go. And so it's faith in Jesus plus my baptism that saves me. Well, that's not just error, that's heresy, that's a different gospel. So, baptism itself does not save you. Baptism is a sanctifying ordinance for the believer. It's not a converting ordinance. Does anyone know what converting ordinance God has given to His church? You want to know? Preaching. That's the only converting ordinance we have, which is the preaching of the gospel. Okay? So salvation and the forgiveness of sins is a free gift given by God's grace alone, received through faith alone, which is placed in Christ alone, apart from the works of the law and apart from the sacraments of the local church. So Acts 15, the Jerusalem Council, condemned all forms of sacramentalism in favor of justification by faith alone. That's the message of Romans chapter 4. It's the message of Galatians. It is all throughout the scripture. So that's the first thing that it doesn't mean. Secondly, receiving physical baptism does not guarantee that you're truly born again. In other words, just because you're baptized with water doesn't mean you've experienced the new birth. When God poured out His Holy Spirit upon the Samaritan people through the preaching of Philip in Acts chapter 8, hundreds of people professed faith in Christ and were baptized. One of those was a man named Simon the sorcerer. And when Simon the sorcerer saw Simon Peter and John lay hands on the Samaritans, and they received the Holy Spirit through their laying on of hands, he offered money to Peter and said, give me this ability that you have. He was from the magic arts. He was used to a cult phenomenon. And now he says, wow, this is a different kind of power than the one I've had. Give me that one. And you remember what Peter said to him? He rebuked him for his blasphemy. And he said, you have neither part nor parcel in this matter. Pray to God if perhaps he may forgive you this sin. What he was saying is, you may have crossed the line to the point that you've blasphemed the Holy Spirit. But maybe not. Can't say for sure. But one thing I can tell you, you're a false convert. You have neither part nor parcel in this. Now this was a baptized man he's speaking to, but he says you're a false convert. So just the fact that you're baptized doesn't guarantee you're truly born again. You have another example in John the Baptist. John the Baptist baptized multitudes of people, hundreds, even thousands, who professed that they were repenting of their sins. And yet, as he's baptizing them, he said to them in Luke 3, verse 8, that they must bear fruits in keeping with repentance. In other words, don't just profess to be repentant of your sin. Let your subsequent life prove that you are truly repentant by the fruit that's born, the fruit unto holiness, that is. You're not going to be perfect. But you should be marked by perseverance in following after the Lord. So every time someone applies for baptism and church membership to our church, we carefully examine them for their profession of faith. And we try to be very charitable. But what we're looking for is, do they have an intellectual understanding of the gospel? Are they clear in understanding what the gospel is and what it isn't? And also is there some subjective sense that they have experienced the transforming power of the gospel? Now obviously we're just men, we can't see that infallibly. But nonetheless as much as we can we want to see do they have an experiential understanding of the gospel so that we're only baptizing people that we're confident are regenerate so that we can hopefully have a regenerate church membership. But even as Philip baptized a man who proved to be a false convert. It can happen to anyone. As a matter of fact, Jesus himself appointed his 12 apostles. Have you ever thought about this? Judas baptized people. If you were baptized by Judas and then you find out later about his apostasy and killing himself, would you wonder if your baptism was valid? probably would struggle with that. And maybe some of you were baptized by someone who later apostatized from the faith. Well, here's the thing, who authorized him to baptize? Jesus did, and He held that office legitimately even though He was truly unregenerate. But nonetheless, so the baptisms were valid. There was no, you didn't have to be re-baptized because Judas turned out to be a false convert. So, I hope that's a comfort if any of you have been through that experience yourself. Actually, something about that at a conference one time and a pastor came up to me and goes, the man who baptized me apostatized from the faith and I've always wrestled with that in my heart. So that was helpful for me to know about Judas. But nonetheless, well this is the view not only of Baptists but of Presbyterians as well. In other words that baptism doesn't save you and it's no guarantee that you're saved. In the Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 28, paragraph 5 says this, Although it's a great sin to treat with contempt or neglect this ordinance that is a baptism, yet grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it as that no person can be regenerated or saved without it, or that all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated." In other words, not everybody who's baptized is guaranteed to be saved. And then there's a modern adaptation of the Baptist Catechism. We have it on the back. Back there is free if you want to get a hold of it. This is from Simpson Publications. I'm going to quote from it several times tonight. Question 92 says this, That's a good answer. The answer is, not all who outwardly profess obedience to the Gospel, but only those who persevere in faith and holiness to the end shall be saved. And then the next question 93 is, who then will persevere in faith and holiness to the end and be saved? And the answer is all true believers. That should be a comfort to you. If you are a true believer you will persevere to the end. All true believers, by reason of God's eternal decree and unchangeable love, Christ's intercession, and the Spirit and Word of God abiding in them, are preserved by the power of God and supplied with every spiritual blessing in Christ, and therefore will most certainly persevere in faith and holiness unto the end and be saved. Now, that's a wonderful paragraph to read right before you go to bed. It's really an amazing thing to think about. The people whom God saves, He preserves and will preserve. That's Paul saying to the Philippians in Philippians 1-6, the work Jesus has begun in you, He will perfect until the day of Christ Jesus. So, this is what baptism doesn't mean. Let's consider then on the positive side, what does it positively mean? What it does mean. Have you ever wondered why Jesus commanded John the Baptist to baptize him? That's bizarre, isn't it? Because his baptism was a baptism for who? For sinners. It was a baptism for repentance, for people who needed to repent. Did Jesus need to repent? Absolutely not. Did he have any sin to repent of? Was he a sinner at all? No. And so he comes to John to be baptized, and John is astonished. This is the one he said he knows is the Messiah, and yet what's he say? He says, permitted to be so for now. In other words, don't ask questions, just obey me and do it. And so he baptizes him and of course he hears the father cry out, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. He sees the Holy Spirit descend as a dove. But why did Jesus have to undergo a sinner's baptism at the very beginning of his earthly ministry? The answer is because he didn't come to be identified with the righteous. Who did he come to be identified with? In fact, the Pharisees were constantly, look at them, you are the friend of sinners. You sit and you eat with them. You're eating with harlots and tax collectors and all these horrible, wicked people and you won't hang out with the religious people like we are. Well, what did Jesus say? I've come to seek and save that which was lost. I've come to die not for the righteous, but for sinners. Who did I come to be identified with? Sinners. In other words, Jesus came to be numbered with sinners so that you and I could be numbered with the righteous. That's the point. So it's identification. So if Jesus' baptism is identification, what's your baptism? It's also identification. It's identification specifically to say, this is who my God is. Because you're baptized in whose name? The singular name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The triune God of the Bible, that's my God, that's who I'm identified with, that's who I worship unashamedly. And I am a disciple, a born-again disciple of Jesus Christ. And I'm unashamed, no matter if you persecute me for it, no matter if you stone me to death for it, I am identified with Jesus unashamedly. I'm in this to the very end. That's what baptism is symbolizing. How do people confess their faith today in most Baptist churches? the altar call, right? Or you raise your hand. I see the hand. I see the hand. Whatever. You walk down the aisle, pray the prayer. That's how you confess your faith. That's not how the Bible tells you to confess your faith. The way the Bible tells you is through baptism. In the waters of baptism, you're saying I'm unashamedly identified with Jesus Christ. Our confession of faith gives a wonderful definition of what baptism means. It actually just pulls it right from the Westminster Confession. Paragraph 1, chapter 29 says this, of remission of sins and of giving up into God through Jesus Christ to live and walk in newness of life. That's a good definition. There's four basically things that baptism symbolizes. Let's work through them very quickly, because I want to get to the section on how does baptism serve as a means of grace. First of all, baptism is a symbol of regeneration. That is, that God's sovereign grace takes you when you're dead and takes out your dead heart of stone, and in its place gives you a soft heart of flesh. That's called by Jesus being born again. We're gonna get to encounter that soon, God willing, in John 3, as he says to Nicodemus, you must be born again, and Nicodemus is so perplexed. How can a man get back into his mom's womb? Bless your hearts, ladies. I'm glad that doesn't happen, right? And be born a second time. But then he has to explain to them, you've been born physically. But if you're gonna enter the kingdom of heaven, you gotta be born spiritually. You gotta be born again. You have to be renewed, revived, made alive by the Holy Spirit. And so water baptism is the outward sign of this inward washing of the Holy Spirit. Titus 3, 5, Paul talks about the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. So regeneration is referred to as a washing. And so the outward symbol is a symbol I have been born again. That's what the person is basically declaring who's being baptized. Secondly then, baptism is a symbol of being united to Jesus Christ in His death. When Jesus died upon the cross, probably April 30 AD, when He died upon the cross, was He dying for Himself? Was He being punished for His own crimes? No, it says there in Daniel chapter 9, the Messiah will be cut off. He'll be put to death. He'll get the death penalty. but not for himself. He's gonna die in the place of someone else. He's dying in the place of God's people, his elect. And so the father poured out his wrath upon him after he had imputed our sins to Christ. Jesus became legally responsible for the sins you and I have committed. That's what that means. In other words, God treated him, the father treated him as if he himself had committed the sins that you and I have done. He imputed it legally to him without Jesus ever becoming a sinner, but the Bible says he who knew no sin became sin in our place that we might become the righteousness of God in him. The father poured out his wrath upon him so that his justice was satisfied and therefore there's not so much as one smoking ember of wrath against us because Jesus has quenched it all. And he died and was buried in the tomb for three days and three nights. Now the language of Isaiah 53 comes to mind. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. As the baptismal candidate is placed under the water, It's a symbol of them being buried and to share that union with Christ's death. And because of his death, we know the forgiveness of sins because our sins have been paid for in full. Colossians 2 verses 11 to 14. It's interesting because circumcision and baptism both symbolize the same thing. Even though they're different things themselves, they symbolize the same things. And you're going to hear them juxtaposed in Colossians 2, verses 11-14. Listen carefully, because you'll hear circumcision and baptism mention the same breath, but connected to forgiveness of sin. In Him, verse 11, in Him you also were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. This isn't physical circumcision, see? It's circumcision of the heart. Buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, there's the regeneration aspect, having forgiven you all trespasses. There's the next part. having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross." So does baptism wash away your sins itself? No, but it's a symbol of the sins being washed away so that you're clean. As the hymn writer says, my sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin, not in part, but the whole. nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh my soul. That's what it means to be baptized and to say my sins are now forgiven. But do we leave the baptismal candidate under the water? No, we bring it up rather quickly. And that leads us to the third thing. Baptism is a symbol of being united to Jesus Christ in His resurrection. And that's Romans 6, verses 1 through 5. He's touched upon in the Colossians passage. We've been raised with Christ. But it says this, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? The point is, Paul has been teaching that if you're in Christ, you've been delivered from the penalty of sin. But is that all God has delivered you from? As glorious as that is, there's more than just the penalty of sin, there's also the power of sin that God has delivered us from. So he says this, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not, or as the old King James says, God forbid. How shall we who die to sin live any longer in it? How can you go on living in sin when that's the very thing Jesus came to set you free from? Right? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death, therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we've been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection. Jesus was buried in the garden tomb and they did everything they could to keep Him there. because they thought someone was going to come steal the body. So they post the Roman guards. They take a waxen seal to seal the space between the mouth of the tomb and the rock so that it would be obvious if someone had tampered with it. And you know the story, they couldn't hold him. The angel came, broke the seal, moved it aside. The Roman soldiers are scattered off their feet like dead men. Jesus rises from the dead. He's risen, and He's risen indeed. And so He's risen, and here's what Paul's saying. You cannot claim to know the joy of having your sins forgiven because you're united to Jesus' death, and yet not also be united to his resurrection, so that you have newness of life. You have a transformed life. If somebody says, I know Jesus, and their life hasn't changed, they're lying, and they're self-deceived. Because Jesus comes in, his Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you, and he absolutely insists that he's going to make the place of his habitation holy. So He works through you, He begins working in you and through you, and it's a slow process, but He does it the rest of your life, and because of that, we're united to Christ in His resurrection, and so newness of life is the inevitable result. We're not saved by our works. But works have something to do in our salvation. We're saved unto good works. We're saved for good works, not by them, but for them. Ephesians 2, 8 to 10, for by grace you have been saved through faith in that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. No one can brag because my righteousness didn't do anything to save me. For we are his workmanship. We are his poema, his poem, literally is what it says. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. God has ordained them. That's exciting to me. Whatever is in my future for ministry and in holiness and growing in grace, God has already ordained it. He's already decreed it. It's gonna come to pass because he's already created. It's exciting stuff So as the new converts are being baptized when they emerge from the water what we're saying is they've been raised to walk in newness of life And in fact, they can be held accountable to walk in newness of life because they named the name of Jesus in other words baptism says Jesus name is now on you and And not only do you have the joy, the privilege of having His name on you, you also have the responsibility of striving to walk worthy of the name by which you're called. And that leads us to the fourth symbol. Baptism is a symbol of being united to the Church of Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 12 13 says by one spirit We were all baptized into one body now. He's not talking about water baptism here He's talking about regeneration the baptism of the spirit inside But that's the the outward sign is a symbol of that reality. I wasn't just baptized into Christ I baptized into the body of Christ. I am now members with them. I am now part of a spiritual family. Wherever there are true believers I have brothers and sisters in Christ and we better learn to get along with one another because we are going to spend a long time with each other, all eternity actually. And so the Baptist Catechism of 1693 asks this, what is the duty of those who are rightly baptized? answer. Is the duty of those who are rightly baptized to give up themselves to some particularly and orderly church of Jesus Christ, that they may walk in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. What is the duty of a baptized believer? To join a church, to become a formal member. I'm just going to say for a Christian to not join a church formally is sinful. It's rebellious. It's self-willedness. We are to be under the authority and the accountability of the local church. That is a non-option for us who are in Christ. In our local church, you know this, but it's worth saying again. we're interviewing someone who's applied for baptism and we're finding out, you know, about their profession of faith and we're concluding, hey, I think they have a credible profession of faith. That baptismal interview transforms into something different. It transforms into a membership interview. Okay, alright, let's talk about joining the church. And if the baptismal candidate says to us, well, no, no, no, I want to be baptized but I don't want to join the church. then we're gonna say to them, then you're not ready to join the church yet. Or you're not ready to be baptized yet. Because this is a symbol, not only of your union with Christ, but of your union with his people. And if you're not prepared to be united with his people, then you're not ready to be baptized. And so we're going to need to work through that and think through that for a while. And then when we are ready for that, then it's time to baptize you. So, what have we seen? We've seen that baptism is a symbol of God's sovereign grace in regeneration. It's a symbol of our union with Christ's death. by which we experience the forgiveness of sins. It's a symbol of union with His resurrection, by which we walk in newness of life. And it's a symbol of our union with Christ's church. You become a member of the invisible church by being born again. But then you enter into, the entranceway into the visible church, as it were, is baptism with a credible profession of faith. Now, there's so many other things that we could work through in baptism. I'm going to just summarize them real quick by reading through the catechism, okay? And I'm not going to explore this except to just give you the answers because in our minds you may want me to go and say, but what about infant baptism and all that? I've taught on the subject in other places. You can go on Sermon Audio and find all that if you want. But what I'm going to do is just summarize here. Infant baptism is known as paedo-baptism. Paedo-baptism, the word paedo comes from paideia. It's a Greek word that means little child or infant. So therefore, paedo-baptism is infant baptism. Well, do we believe in infant baptism? No, we don't. believe in exclusive believer's baptism. So, I'm going to read to you from the Simpson Publications Catechism, question 100, 101, 102, and 103, and give you the answers. And that's how I'm going to just summarize this. This is what our church believes. First, what is baptism? Question 100. Answer, baptism is a sacrament of the new covenant instituted by Jesus Christ to be unto the person baptized a sign of his fellowship with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection, of His being engrafted into Him, of remission of sins, and of His giving up Himself unto God through Jesus Christ to live and walk in newness of life. That's what we've just discussed, isn't it? Second, next question, question 101. To whom is baptism to be administered? Answer, baptism Baptism is to be administered to all those who credibly profess repentance towards God, faith in and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ and to none other. Question 102, are the infants of professing believers to be baptized? Answer, the infants of professing believers are not to be baptized because there is neither command nor example in the Holy Scriptures nor certain inference from them to baptize such. And then 103, how is baptism rightly administered? This gets into mode, which is the very least important issue in baptism, but here it is. Answer, baptism is rightly administered by immersion, or dipping the whole body of the believer into water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, according to Christ's institution, and the practice of the Apostles, and not by sprinkling or pouring of water, or dipping some part of the body, after the tradition of men. And I would add one more question, which I've already addressed but I'll put it in modern terms. 103b, here it is, what is the duty of those who are rightly baptized? Answer? It is the duty of those who are rightly baptized to submit themselves to the membership of a local church that is sound in doctrine and practice, that they may walk in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless." Do you hear that? What that's saying is the Great Commission. You make disciples, baptize them, and then what do you do to those baptized disciples? You teach them. You instruct them. You teach them the whole counsel of God. And you teach them by formative discipline, not corrective discipline. formative discipline to form them into the disciples Christ would have them to be. Okay, so we've seen what baptism does not mean. We've seen what it does mean. Let's now get to our subject of this, how baptism serves as a means of grace. Now I would recommend a book to you that is just a sweet little book. It's called, Green Pastures, Ordinary Means of Grace for Ordinary Believers by J. Ryan Davidson. He's actually a professor at IRBS. He teaches homiletics through IRBS. A pastor in Virginia of the Reformed Baptist Church. This is from Broken Wharf Publishers. It is a sweet little book. I encourage you to get a hold of it and work through it. I think you'll find it edifying to your soul. And I'm going to quote from him here in a little bit. So, I found some help from him on his chapter on baptism and the things I'm going to tell you now. So, when we say that baptism is a means of grace, as I've already said it's not a converting ordinance. It's not a regenerating ordinance, but it is a sanctifying ordinance. God uses it to sanctify His people. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are sometimes called visible signs or sensible signs. Why do you think the term sensible? What does that imply? Senses there are things you can observe with your five senses, right? You can touch them taste them, you know, feel them all those things. There are things that we can physically see and touch God loves us so much that he knows we are weak and He knows we're weak and that we get anxious. Our faith, I wish our faith just grew steadily stronger, but it doesn't. It does like this, doesn't it? It grows up and down and some days it's weak and some days it almost seems non-existent. And we struggle with things. And God loves us so much that he's accommodated our weakness by giving us these visible signs to remind us, to help us remember. And if you thought about this, what are both baptism and the Lord's Supper centered on? Jesus Christ and Him crucified. His death and His burial and His resurrection is symbolized in baptism. What's the Lord's Supper? There's his body and his blood, his death for us, but he's also risen because we end by remembering he's coming again. Can't come back again if he's dead, right? So in other words, he's the risen Christ. So both of them, what both ordinances are doing is telling you, reset the gaze of your soul. You've gotten it on your circumstances. You've gotten on all the stuff around you. You've gotten it on your sin. You've gotten it on your struggles. Get your eyes back on Christ. Because that's where they need to be. If you want to grow in grace, don't look at yourself, look at Christ. because as you look at Him you become conformed to Him. Remember what the Scriptures say in 1 John, when we see Him as He is we'll be like Him, because we see Him as He is. Right now we see Him through a mirror dimly, but the more I can see Him in this present age by faith, the more like Him I'll become. And then when I finally see Him face to face in His glory, then I become just like Him, as it were. But baptism and the Lord's Supper are reminders, get your eyes on Christ. Remember the basis of your acceptance before God, which isn't baptism in the Lord's Supper, but the things that they symbolize. Remember what Jesus has done for you. So, how does baptism serve as a means of grace? I'm going to suggest four ways, and I'm going to use four one-word headings, all that begin with R, so they alliterate to boot. should baptism do for us as means of grace? Well, here they are. Rejoicing, remembrance, reassurance, and repentance. Those are the four things that I think should be produced in us at least. First, rejoicing. When I think of baptism and baptismal services we've had seven in our history thus far. When I think about baptism and our baptismal services the primary thing that comes to my mind is joy. because the rejoicing that I see in our church and in my own heart, it's amazing to see it. Jesus said, there's more joy in heaven. over one sinner who repents, then over 99 just persons who need no repentance. We have the opportunity when a new convert's being baptized to join our voices to the angels in heaven in praising God that Jesus is still in the business of saving sinners. It's such an encouragement because look at this culture we're in. There's so much hardness, so much compromise in the church that true conversions are rare. And when they come along, man, you're reminded God does still save sinners. The gospel hasn't lost any of its power. And it's a great encouragement to us all to see. Wish that we had 21 baptismal services. We would love to see that we're having to fill up this baptismal pool over and over again because so many people are being converted. Absolutely. In Luke 15, which is where the quote came from that I just gave you, we read about the prodigal son. And of course, you know the story, the wicked prodigal returned to his father with a broken heart. But it's interesting that the parable also talks to us about the older son, the older brother, who is representative in the parable of the Pharisees, by the way. They're like, why do you spend time with tax gatherers and sinners? And so Jesus is talking about the joy of sinners being converted. But the older son, he comes near the house, and what's the father done? Has he reproved his younger son? No, he's kissed him. He's put a robe on him. He's put a ring on his finger. He says, kill the fatted calf. And they're having a party. And so the older brother comes in, and there's dancing going on, and there's singing, and there's rejoicing. And he's like, what in the world? And he's all sullen, and he's mad. You never threw me a party, right? And I've always done what's right with you. But then the father says to him, it was right that we should make Mary and be glad. For your brother was dead and is alive again and was lost and is found. And so when we think about baptism, the first thing it should produce in us is joy. Joy that God is still saving sinners. It fills us as God's people with the joy of the Lord. And we're supposed to be a joyful people. And it's an occasion in which the Lord does that very thing. Secondly, remembrance. Baptism is a means of grace in that it causes us to remember. You ever thought about this? Maybe you've had it preached to you, I don't know. Maybe this is the first time you've ever heard it. Whenever we see someone baptized, it should remind you of your own baptism, to make you think back to when you were baptized. The Lord's Supper is served perpetually throughout our lives, but baptism typically takes place only once in people's lives, unless they were not truly converted and they want to be baptized again after their conversion. But when I see others baptized, it ought to make me think back to July of 1977. I'm dating myself. But when I was baptized, that's when I was baptized on a Sunday night. And I would say to you, it should remind you of at least three different things. So here again, they all start with the letter C. Baptism is covenantal, confessional, and communal. think about each of those. Baptism is covenantal. It's a covenant sign. It's a sign of the new covenant. So it's saying that the person being baptized has become by grace an heir of the new covenant. I preached on the new covenant a lot long ago, and we talked about the four effectual blessings of the new covenant. When you see somebody being baptized and you remember your own baptism, it should be a reminder, even as when we take the Lord's Supper. I'm an heir of the new covenant. And that means all of his blessings are mine and I wanna know what my blessings are. What are they? Well, the law of God's been written on my mind and my heart. That's the first one. The second is God has written his name upon me. You'll be my God. You'll be my people, I'll be your God. So we've been marked out as worshipers and followers of the triune God. Third, you know the Lord. God has reconciled you to himself through Jesus Christ, and you don't need anybody to evangelize you. Had a man come up to me one time at a fair, Angeline and I were at a fair, and he handed me a gospel tract, which I really appreciated. And I said, no, why don't you keep that and give that to someone else, because I don't need it, because I already know the Lord. And this brother was like, oh, well, praise God. And we rejoiced and shook each other's hands and hugged each other and all that stuff. But what's the point? He didn't have to counsel me to know the Lord because I already did. And if you're in Christ, if you're an heir of the new covenant, you know the Lord. You've been reconciled to God. And then the fourth blessing is God remembers not your sins. So when I watch someone being baptized, to think about those things in my own heart, I'm an heir of the new covenant and God has separated my sins as far as the east is from the west. I can't be reminded about that too much. How about you? But every time you see baptism, that's what you should do. Secondly then, baptism is confessional. That is, the person being baptized, is openly confessing their faith. And I don't know if you've, I'm sure you've noticed, but when we baptize people, we ask them questions before we put them under the water. Because we want to make it be very, very clear what is the content of the faith they're professing, right? And really, if someone departs from those things, kind of denied their baptism. They've denied the Gospel in so many ways. We ask them seven questions. The first six are just yes or no questions. If they say no we don't baptize them. But the seventh question is not a yes or no, it's we want them to confess something. Let me just remind you briefly what those things are. Do you believe and confess that the Bible is given by inspiration of God's Holy Spirit and is therefore infallible, inerrant, and fully sufficient for all matters of life and godliness? That's our first question. If you don't believe the Bible, then we can't teach you anything. Second, do you believe and confess that there is only one true and living God who exists in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and that each member of the triune Godhead is as distinct in his person, yet one in essence, immutable perfections, power, and glory? In other words, do you believe God is triune? Third, do you believe and confess that Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh, perfect God and perfect man, that He suffered and died for your sins, that He was buried and was bodily raised from the dead on the third day, that He ascended into Heaven, and that He will soon come again? In other words, which Jesus have you put your faith in? Not the Mormon Jesus. Not the Jehovah's Witness Jesus. The Jesus of Holy Scripture. And not the liberal Jesus who's still dead, by the way. The one who's risen. Very, very important, right? Fourth, you confess that you hate your sins and desire to forsake them and that you're trusting in the person and finished work of Jesus Christ alone as your only hope for the forgiveness of your sins and eternal life. In other words, do you believe in justification by faith alone? If you don't, we're not going to baptize you because you're lost. If you depart from justification by faith alone, you're an apostate. because you don't believe the gospel anymore, right? Fifth, do you confess it's your desire by God's grace and through the power of His Holy Spirit to devote yourself to Christ's church, to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship of the saints, to the Lord's Supper, and to the prayers? That's Acts 242. Are you committing yourself to these things? Six, do you commit yourself to love, to care for, and to suffer with your brothers and sisters in Christ as members of the same body? In other words, my fortunes rise or fall with the church. I'm committed to them, and I'm going to share in its joys, and I'm also going to share in its sufferings. because I'm unashamed to be identified with Christ. And then the seventh and final thing that we ask is, will you unashamedly confess before God and these witnesses that Jesus Christ is Lord? And that's not a yes, no question. That's the time for them to say, Jesus Christ is Lord. Because what does the Bible say? If you believe in your heart, God has raised him from the dead and confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. And if someone was too ashamed to say that, then they have no business being baptized and added to the church, right? So when you see somebody being baptized, You should remember your confession, as it were, the content of your faith. What is it I believe? What is the gospel that I'm clinging to? And the third thing is baptism is communal. That is, it connects us to the church. It's a church ordinance. And so when you witness baptisms, you're reminded that you belong to God's people. J. Ryan Davison pointed this out, and I never had thought about it. Remember when Corinth was so full of strife, and they're saying, I'm of Paul, I'm of Cephas, and I'm of Jesus. So they're dividing themselves by their favorite teachers, basically, not that ever happens today. But anyway, they're identifying with different teachers, and they're using that to divide each other. And Paul rebukes them, and he says, were you baptized in the name of Paul? The point is, whose name were you baptized into? Jesus' name. And you were all baptized in Jesus' name. You all have union with the same Savior. And you know what? Your disunity is a hypocrisy because you are lying about your baptism. Go remember your baptism and start being unified. That's what he's telling them. because it's communal. I belong to the same family. A couple of months ago, Pastor Matt was officiating the Lord's Table, which I really enjoy being able to receive the Lord's Table. I love officiating it, but I've done a lot of it too, so it's nice to be able to receive it. But something really struck me. The Spirit of God, I believe, really hit me that particular day. I was overwhelmed by the fact that I have the right, by God's grace, to partake of that simple meal. and the reality that how many people that connects me to throughout history. That I'm part of God's family. That I'm part of His church. Not just His church here, but His church throughout the ages. And that I have the privilege, as sinful as I am, as nobody from nowhere as I am, that I am a part of God's family. And it was just hitting me. Same thing true when we say baptism is communal. I'm baptized into a church. I'm baptized into God's people. And that reminder, every time I'm seeing someone baptized, hey, I'm a part of God's body. And that's a beautiful thing. Third thing, reassurance. I've already quoted Romans 10, 9 and 10, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. There's something incredibly powerful about publicly declaring before God and men without shame the things that you believe. One of the folks who was baptized not long ago, said to me after we had interviewed him and concluded that he was a viable candidate for baptism and church members there, he said, you know, it struck me, that's the first time in my life I've ever verbally confessed what I believe out loud. And what a powerful thing to say, I'm owning this. This is mine. This is my gospel. This is my God. That's what I believe. That's a massive, massive thing. The modern Armenian church has substituted the altar call for the baptismal pool as the God-appointed means by which one unashamedly confesses their faith in Christ. But there's a kind of assurance that I think comes from obeying the Lord's command once you're converted. A confidence, that it's like you're saying, I'm no longer straddling the fence here. I am throwing my lot in with Christ. If Bell be God, then go serve him. But if Jesus be God, serve him. And I'm casting my lot with him. I'm forsaken the world, this is who I am, this is who Christ is, and he's mine. There's a powerful thing in that. Let me quote from Ryan Davidson, what he says here, quote, in many churches over the last few hundred years, baptism has been jettisoned as a continual reminder of certain promises, specifically in times of wrestling with assurance. However, baptism in the New Testament was meant to be a once for all sign that constantly points the baptized person to the realities that he needs to consider in times of weak assurance. Do you hear that? You see somebody in baptism, it should be a means of assurance for you. Namely, the promise of God. Unfortunately, in many church contexts, churchgoers have been instructed to instead look back on a sinner's prayer or aisle walk. We have taken baptism from its rightful place as a covenant sign and added it as a tack-on. In no way do I doubt that sinners crying out to God for the first time in faith and repentance are saved. What I am saying, however, is that baptism is the sign the Lord has given His people as a continual reminder of the promise of the covenant. Therefore, remember your baptism is an appropriate phrase for the believer. Not that baptism is what saves a person, but that it points the person back to the promises of the one who saves. Baptism is something that God has given to us to remind us that we have been buried with Christ and raised to walk a new life. Every time you see a baptism, you indeed offer praise to the Lord for His saving work in the life of others. But you can also remember your baptism as a sign of the Lord's covenant of grace and all that that means for you. We may have other reminders of God's saving work, a date written in our Bible, or the story of an evangelistic crusade wherein we came to know the gospel. By all means, continue to rejoice in those memories. However, look to the main sign that the Lord has given you to continue to recall his saving promise. Baptism is a sign that we are called to remember over and over again. Fourth thing, repentance. What I mean when I say repentance is every time we see a baptism take place, It is a call to the unconverted to repent of their sins and believe on Christ. Now that comes to the preaching of the Word, which should always, in my mind, precede baptism, because where does the Lord's Supper and baptism get its authority? It's sanctified by God's Word. The authority of the Word is where the authority is derived. But what I'm getting at is this. The waters of baptism distinguish those who are God's people from those who are not. It distinguishes the church from the world, the sheep from the goats. The one being baptized has forsaken the world, and as I've already said, has cast their lot in with Christ. And they're saying, I'm unashamedly identified with God, and I'm going to be His follower, and I'm going to be connected to the church without shame. And to those who are unregenerate watching that, witnessing that, that's a powerful testimony, isn't it? Parents, it's good for your children who are unconverted to constantly be under the preaching of the gospel. It's actually good for your children who are converted to constantly be under the preaching of the gospel. But to hear the gospel repeated over and over and over again. And it's good for them to witness baptisms whenever they take place. And to recognize those people are in Christ, and I'm not. It's a good thing for your unconverted children to have the elements of the Lord's Supper pass by them. Because it's reminding them, you are not able to take care of this meal because there's something more fundamental that's important. And that is that you be reconciled to God. So in other words, the point is, there's an evangelistic element to the observance of the Lord's Supper. In that sense, it's a means of grace, or excuse me, of baptism. And in that sense, it's a means of grace. Well, I only have one application to make. And here it is. While baptism cannot save you from your sins, it's a great sin to neglect it if you are saved. In other words, Jesus commands it. It's not his suggestion. If you are truly in Christ, and of course you have to be evaluated by the church and they have to give their approval to you being baptized, but nonetheless, it's that first step of obedience on the difficult path of discipleship once you have passed through the narrow gate of conversion. And so there's really two different applications in this one application that I want to make. I believe there are a number of our children who are here, and our young people, who are very close to the kingdom. Either you're standing just outside of it, waiting to go in, or you've just passed through it, and you're wrestling with your soul, and you're wrestling with the assurance of your salvation. waiting for the confidence to take that next step and to say, I'm ready to confess Christ. To those of you who are outside of it, you're right there. You've heard the gospel so many times, but you're hesitating. You're right there on just the outside of it. My question is, why do you halt between two opinions? If Jesus is the promised Messiah, If Jesus is the only savior of sinners, or to put it another way, if Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, and he is, then why are you halting? What's keeping you back? I've just begun reading a little book by Charles Spurgeon called Around the Wicked Gate. In the Wicked Gate, he's talking about the narrow gate of conversion. He writes it specifically to give counsel to those who've drawn near to the kingdom of God, but they've stopped short of entering into it. Let me read to you from his introduction, quote, millions of men are in the outlying regions, in other words they are far, far from the Kingdom. Remember when children we talked about a year ago, we talked about nine different kinds of people. People who are way out there, never even heard the Gospel. He says, millions of men are in the outlying regions far off from God and peace. For these we pray and to these we give warning. But just now we have to do with a smaller company. who are not far from the kingdom, but have come right up to the narrow gate which stands at the head of the way of life. One would think they would hasten to enter for a free and open invitation is placed over the entrance. He who does not take the step of faith and so enter upon the road to heaven will perish. It will be an awful thing to die just outside the gate of life. almost saved, but altogether lost. This would be a most terrible positions. A man just outside Noah's Ark would have drowned. And the man who is within a yard of Christ and yet has not trusted him will be lost. Therefore, I am in terrible earnest to encourage my hesitating friends over the threshold. In other words, if you're here and you've heard the gospel over and over and over again, what is keeping you from entering in the gate of life? If you should remain outside that gate, however close you are, don't flatter yourself into thinking it's okay to be close to the kingdom and not be in the kingdom. How often have Pastor Matt and myself pleaded with you and set before you the promises of Jesus? When will you believe them? How often have we told you that God loves you? How often have we told you that Jesus is able to save you? How often have we told you he's willing to save you? How often have we told you he desires to save sinners? How often? How often have you been warmly invited, and yet if you stay outside, you're going to starve to death when you've been invited to come into a banquet hall and feast. Stop hesitating. Throw in your lot with Christ. If he is God, serve him. Believe on him. Hang the hammock of your soul upon him without delay. For he's able to carry you. He's able to support you. If you put your trust in him, you won't be disappointed. But let me turn the application to those of you who are just inside the narrow gate. Perhaps you have been converted and it's time to confess your faith in the waters of baptism, but you're wrestling with your assurance. And I can appreciate that. And it makes you hesitate to confess Christ, not because you don't trust him, but because you don't trust you. If you don't trust you, keep that up. Don't trust you, ever. Never, ever, ever trust your own heart, because it's wicked and it will deceive you. But you can always trust Christ. Because he'll never lie to you. You can trust him completely. Let me ask you some questions about yourself. Think about this in your own heart. Have you come to hate your own sins? Have you forsaken them? Have you discovered that you can no longer get away with them, even when they're done in secret and your parents don't catch you because the Holy Spirit won't let you get away with it? And that's a really wonderful place to be. Do you know this about yourself? That you have no righteousness of your own that can commend you to God and you're fully convinced of that? Have you come to the place where you do not trust yourself nor your own heart? As I've already said, good. You should never trust it. But do you trust Jesus? Do you believe him? Are you willing to take him at his word? Do you believe that He can save you? Do you believe He's willing to save you? Do you believe He desires to save sinners? Are you resting in Him alone? Are you trusting Him to do for you what you have no ability to do for yourself? If that describes you, you know what you are? You're a born-again Christian. It's what you are. And it's time to confess it. It's time to confess he's Lord and say, I'm throwing in my lot and I'm going to boldly say, yes, Christ is Lord and he's my Lord. And I'm not ashamed of him. Be added to his church. Because that's what a Christian is. And you may find that your struggles with assurance are over when you finally say, let's take the plunge, so to speak. and throw my lot here and say, this is who God has made me to be by His grace. And this is my Savior. It's time for you to say, it's time to apply for baptism and to confess Christ before men. So may God give you the grace to do so. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word and thank you for this ordinance that is so precious. Help us, Lord, to see many, many baptisms in the coming days. not for the glory of our church, and certainly not for the glory of the Reformed Baptist cause, but for the glory of Christ. It is to Christ's glory that sinners should be saved. In this hardened, wicked world we live in, this vile culture, you still have the power to save, and your gospel has lost none of its power. So, Lord, do your work by your Spirit to save sinners. And for any who are truly in Christ, but they're hesitating, I pray you'll give them the courage and the boldness to approach the elders and to say, I'm ready to confess Christ. Do this for Your glory we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.