Why Not Get Baptized?

0:12 Tonight is a different service for a few reasons. Number one, we're outside in 100-degree heat. And we're out here because we want to bless the incredible Vacation Bible School staff that have transformed all the rooms, Sunday school rooms, sanctuary for our VBS this week, which is going so well. So we're outside. It's going to be a shorter service, and it's all centered around baptism. Now, this baptismal pool we had installed about 25 years ago, and the idea was we wanted a water feature that was usable. We didn't just want a water feature that costs money to make and maintain without it serving a higher purpose. So we thought, what if you made a water feature that could fill up and then go back down, and then we could regulate the temperature and have baptisms most of the year.

1:10 Not all year, but most of the year we could have baptisms. So this was built, and we've done baptisms ever since. But I realized one day that a lot of folks who come to church have never seen a baptism, and that they'll come on a Sunday, they'll come on a Wednesday, but then they'll go home and a good majority had never really seen a baptism. So I thought, I wonder if there's a way. We don't have a baptismal in the sanctuary like a lot of churches do. Is there a way to show baptisms to the congregation? So thank God for technology. We're able to do remote cameras so when people give their lives to Christ and they go through the training for baptism, We can then show their testimony on the screen. They get baptized, and we all get to enjoy that story of transformation. But then, because it's VBS and we were talking about a baptism, I just thought, let's just have the entire service built around baptism, because it is one of the ordinances given to us in Scripture.

2:21 there's a story about a little boy who wanted to make his cat into a good baptist so he filled up the bathtub in order to baptize his kitty cat and you can guess what happened even before he was able to immerse the cat just got a few sprinkles of water on the cat's head The cat went ballistic, screeched and screamed and ran down the hallway not to be seen again that day. And the boy cried out after him, fine then, be a Methodist, see if I care.

3:00 Well, sprinkling or immersion are a couple of different ways that people get baptized depending on different traditions. but I want to show you what is in scripture briefly. I do not remember my baptism, my first baptism. I was a baby. I was taken to the local Catholic church where my parents had me sprinkled or a little water poured on my forehead. But as I said, I had no idea what it was. I don't have any recollection. And many years later, when I gave my heart and life to Christ, I wanted to signify that, and so I was baptized. And it meant the world to me. Still vividly in my mind, I remember that day.

3:57 The first thing I want us to consider is the command in Scripture to be baptized. Did you know that it is not a suggestion, it is a commandment? Jesus told his disciples to go into all the world and make disciples of all men, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So the message there is those who are sent out doing evangelism are going to make that one of their priorities. They're going to preach the gospel. They're going to make disciples. They're going to then show that discipleship by water baptism. and it was telling those people who will hear and receive the gospel that it is incumbent upon them to identify and be obedient by baptism. Then in the book of Acts, when Peter preached on the day of Pentecost and they wondered what shall we do after hearing his message, he said, repent, every one of you, and be baptized.

5:01 and yet there are many Christians who have not been baptized I would even say to and I've been surprised by this over the years there is a widespread non-compliance with this commandment of Jesus Christ by people who attend churches there are many many people who fill churches who have never been baptized. And what's interesting about that is it's probably, of all the commands Jesus ever gave, it's the easiest one to do. If you think of all the commands to crucify the flesh, to live a holy life, etc., etc., etc., even preaching the gospel to people, the easiest thing to do is to go ahead and obey him and get water baptized. So if you got a person who is going to be sketchy on obeying the most fundamental commandment, it's probably indicative of where their life is going in terms of obedience. Now, why is it that people do not get baptized who claim to be believers? Well, I've listed a few reasons I want to go through briefly.

6:19 Number one, ignorance. Some people just don't know about it. They're not taught. They don't go to churches that teach through the Bible so they don't get to the part where Jesus said that you should be baptized. So they're ignorant of it, or they're wrongly taught about baptism. It's seen as an option if you want to, or for some churches, baptize your infants when they're little babies and then forget about it the rest of their life. So that's number one, ignorance. That's why probably a lot of people don't do it, ignorance. a second reason isn't as benign as the first and that is arrogance pride you know they say i've made it this far i haven't been baptized i think i'm good to go not a big deal it's not a priority for me it's not anything i have to make an issue about and they could even be embarrassed that okay I haven't been obedient to Jesus for 15 years I've been I've been a Christian 15 years but I haven't been baptized so if I get baptized now it's just going to admit a lifetime of failure so all of that is pride so ignorance number one arrogance number two let me give you a third word diffidence now the reason I picked that word because it rhymes with the other two, to be frank.

7:46 But diffidence just means they're reserved. They're shy about it. They're afraid. They have a fear. Some people have a fear of being in a public place in front of many people. Some people are afraid of water. I baptize people who are just morbidly afraid of water, and we get them in and out as quick as we can. And I just say, God bless you for, in spite of your fear obeying his command. A fourth reason some people don't get baptized is indifference. They're apathetic. They can't be bothered with it.

8:26 A fifth reason is resistance. Resistance. They refuse to get baptized. They know it's a command. They know Jesus said to do it, but they just won't do it. They are resisting it. Usually, a person who is resisting it that strongly is somebody who is courting some practice of sin that is ongoing in their lives. And they might even figure, for me to get baptized is hypocrisy. I'm not going to add to my sin by getting baptized.

8:59 And then the sixth reason that I wrote down is defiance. and defiance describes the unbeliever. The unbeliever. They are unsaved. They have no desire to make a public proclamation because they've never had a desire to make a personal, private affirmation of their faith in Christ. So why make a public demonstration? They're just opposed to the Christian gospel in general.

9:33 But nonetheless, it is a command. to be baptized. And Peter said, repent, every one of you, and be baptized. The second thing I want to make a note of after the command is the custom. How did the early church baptize? How did John the Baptist baptize? How did the apostles, Paul, baptize a few people we know of? How was baptism done? And It's a pretty easy, straightforward answer. They baptized by immersing people in water. They didn't just pour a little water on their forehead or sprinkle them or shoot them with a squirt gun. They took people and they immersed them into the water. The very word itself means to be immersed. First, baptism, bapto, baptizo, the Greek word, means to dip into. That's literally what it means, to dip into.

10:35 It was often used of dyeing fabric. They would immerse it in a fluid that had that color. You would baptize the fabric. So sometimes it's translated drowning. So the idea is an immersion. And baptism has its roots in Judaism. When John the Baptist was at the Jordan River baptizing, people were gathering around him, and they were not astonished that he was baptizing. What astonished them is that he was baptizing Jewish people. and in Judaism they had a thing called a mikvah which interestingly is very similar in design to our baptismal there were steps going into a mikvah pool where a person would immerse themselves and be ceremonially clean by dunking themselves wholly and completely in the water then they would walk out the other side in a series of steps and they could go to the temple That was part of Judaism.

11:44 And John the Baptist was baptizing people. He was dunking them in a deep part of the Jordan River by immersion. And so that is what the early church did. The early church immersed people in the water because of what baptism depicts. Baptism is an external symbol or an external symbolic act that depicts a profound spiritual reality. The water baptism speaks of being baptized or immersed or totally taken over and committed to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. So that is the custom. That is how they did it.

12:36 It was based on Judaism, but it made its way into the church. Then the last thing I want to talk about, and I'm going to read a couple verses for this, is the comparison. And the comparison is given by Paul the Apostle in Romans chapter 6 when he says, he gives a list of questions to drive home a point that he made in chapter 5, which I won't bother to expound on. But he says, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Stop right there.

13:31 In verse 3, being baptized into Jesus Christ, baptized into his death, is not speaking of water baptism. This is a dry verse, not a wet verse. This verse is totally dry. The wet part comes to indicate the dry part. and the dry part, the reality, the spiritual reality that Paul is pointing to is that when Jesus went to the cross and he died, it was as if you were dying there with him. Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into, immersed into, dipped into Jesus Christ, were baptized, immersed into, dunked into his death? When Jesus went to the cross, he went to the cross bearing your sin.

14:32 When Jesus came up from the tomb, he came out bearing your new life. So listen to the next verse. 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 have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we will also be in the likeness of his resurrection. So Jesus went to the cross bearing your sin. When he died, it was as if you died. That's the identification part. When Jesus emerged from the tomb victorious with life, he bore your new life.

15:26 In the book of Acts, chapter 8, the Spirit spoke to Philip and said, Go toward the south on the road which goes from Jerusalem to Gaza. And so as Philip was traveling on that road, he overtook a chariot, and a man was driving the chariot. He was an Ethiopian man, the Ethiopian eunuch. He was the treasurer working for the queen of the Ethiopians named Candace. And the man had pulled his chariot off to the side of the Roman road, and he was in the driver's seat of the chariot, and he was reading his Bible. And he was reading the book of Isaiah. And he was reading chapter 53 of Isaiah. So as Philip walked up to the Ethiopian eunuch, It felt like a coincidence, even though it was providence, that Philip talked to him and saw him just as he is reading Isaiah 53.

16:34 And Philip said, do you understand what you're reading? And the man said, how can I unless somebody explains it to me? So Philip climbs up into the chariot, and it says, the place where he happened to be reading said he was led as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before its shearers is silent so he opened not his mouth. and it says beginning at that scripture Philip preached unto him Jesus Christ when it was all done and the man began to believe the Ethiopian eunuch began to believe in Jesus it seems there was a pool of water nearby and the Ethiopian eunuch pointed to and he said look there's some water. What hinders me from being baptized? And Philip immediately said, if you believe with all your heart, then you can be baptized. And I want to say to you tonight, if you believe with all your heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, took your sins on the cross, rose again from the dead, then you can be baptized. It does not save anybody. It proclaims that you have been saved and you believe that.

17:56 If you believe with all your heart, then you may be baptized. Now, there are people that have signed up for baptism tonight, but it could be that you've heard this message, and you go, yeah, you know, I'm fitting in one of those categories. You talk about why people don't get baptized. I'm certainly not in the defiant category, but I've just sort of been blasé about it, and I just haven't been baptized, and I made it so far. So far, so good. Well, you could change that tonight. We have swimsuits for you. We have towels for you. We're going to make it easy. Or if you want, I've seen people get baptized in their clothes. It's 100 degrees. You'll be out five minutes, and you'll be good to go.

18:36 But if you also desire and you haven't signed up for it, you've now heard the class on baptism. If you believe in Jesus with all your heart, then you may. Let me close with a quick little story. True story. I was in Israel at the Jordan River baptizing a group that had come, and there were a few hundred people. So it was a long baptismal service that I was taking into the water and bringing them out. We were singing in a little kind of a theater like this outdoors. It was hot like this outdoors. It was the afternoon like this outdoors. And we were singing, and then people came into the water, and I baptized them. And there was onlookers through the chain link fence, tourists that were watching us. There always are. They're kind of wondering what we're doing and who we are. And as people were done and they were changing in the changing rooms, there was this one girl looking through the chain link fence who was waving her arm at me.

19:35 And she said, could you come over here? So I did. She introduced herself. My name is Olga. I'm from South America. And she said, what is it that you guys are doing? And I said, well, this is Christian baptism. She said, well, I've heard of baptism in my country, but I've never seen it done like this. So tell me about it. Who are you? Why do you do it? So I, like Philip, from that point of contact, preached Christ to her. Told her what Jesus did for us on the cross, that these people have invited Christ to come into their lives. It's not a religion. It's not a ritual. It's a reality. and they have new life and they're so grateful and so thankful and they want to identify with Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. And it's sort of like a funeral service. We're burying the old person, signifying there's a whole new life. And then I looked in her eyes as I was explaining this and I could see a longing that was there.

20:37 So at the end I said, Olga, you've been listening to me now for a few minutes. Do you think you're ready? to receive Christ as your Lord and Savior. She nodded and she goes, I'm ready. And so I led her in a prayer through the chain link fence. And then I said, Olga, I want you to be my guest. Go around here into the changing rooms. Come on into the water and I'll baptize you. And she came all the way around. We put her into the water and she, and that, by the way, happens to be the pattern in the New Testament. Most everybody in the New Testament was baptized almost immediately after receiving Christ. That was the outward demonstration of the inward change. So I'm going to lead us in a prayer. We're going to have music filling this place. If you have signed up to be baptized, you're going to be lining up right here.

21:34 And we're going to ask your name, how long you've known Christ. We're going to pray with you. We're going to put you under the water. We're going to keep you under the water. Just kidding. We're going to take you down. That symbolizes you died and we're burying the old you. And then we're going to bring you back out of the water, signifying you have a brand new life, a resurrected life. And the power of the Holy Spirit is in you to accomplish his will from this day on.