Matthew chapter 28. We'll begin
at verse 18. Then Jesus came to them, that
is his disciples who had gathered in Galilee where he told them
to. He said to them, all authority
in heaven and on earth been given to me. Therefore go and make
disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey
everything I have commended you and surely I am with you always
to the very end of the age. Now having done all that the
Father had sent him to do, so our Lord Jesus Christ, Father
sent him on a mission. He did not arrive here and look
around and try to figure out what he could do to fix the mess
that Adam created. Everything that our Lord did
while on the earth was decreed by God before the earth was made. And he says, I have come to do
the will of him who sent me. And so when he had accomplished
all of that in his preaching, and most importantly, in his
sacrificial work on Calvary, he gathered his disciples to
say these words. He was now returning to the Father. We can only imagine his eagerness
to leave this world and return to his Father and to return to
that glory that he had with the Father before the world was.
Now I know that the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ had
a beginning there in Bethlehem a little over 2,000 years ago. But his divinity, his godness,
had no beginning. It says in the beginning the
word was. That is, it was already there. Sharing in the glory of God because
he is God. And he prayed, I believe it is
in John 17, that the father would glorify him with that glory he
had with the father before the world began. And our Lord is
about to have that prayer fulfilled. Now we generally are not so eager
to leave this world. Now I know the older we get the
more eager we get and that's partly because the older you
get the less you can enjoy this world. But as the old country song goes,
I say it's old, it's not that old, it's that everybody wants
to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go now. And we've got that
strain within us. But we should learn something
from the Lord here. He was ready to go, anxious to go. He stayed
for the time appointed for him. But as he was about to return
to the Father, he did so without fear or anything. And we should
look upon our deaths the same way. For the believer, death
is not an end of life, it's the beginning of it. For the unbeliever,
it's the end of any life he ever had. It's the loss of anything
good he might have had. For the believer, it's just the
beginning. So he leaves this world not driven
out by his enemies, not defeated. No one has rushed this day and
no one can put it off. The mighty conqueror is going
home to his rightful place at the right hand of God. And I
for one am glad for his sake. I'm glad for his sake that he
got to go back home. I'm glad for his sake that he
was glorified, not only in his divine nature, but in his human
nature. He goes to heaven, not just to be among the redeemed,
but there to be enthroned by God as a human ruler over all
of creation. He goes there to receive the
glory which he earned and of which he alone is worthy. I'm glad that he could finally
lay down the burden of his time on this earth and a burden it
must have been. The book of Isaiah refers to
him as the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And now he goes back to his father,
back to his home, to endless joy. And he says these words
that we read here to his disciples. Now, these words are among his
final words, and as such, they bring to a climax all that he
has said to them in the previous three years. Now, if you look
at the other accounts of this in Mark and Luke and the book
of Acts, There are other things he said besides this, but this
was part of that last message that he gave to them. Now, if
a man is about to leave those whom he has been given the job
of teaching, as he gives his parting words,
we can be sure of this, they're going to be the words he counts
most important. You know, even when we just go
visit somebody, maybe go visit family far away, and then we're
gonna return home. You know, we feel compelled to
say important things as we leave. We usually express our love or
something like that, and how much we're gonna miss. These
are the things on our heart. And our Lord has some things on his
heart, important matters. And he wants to leave these matters
on the minds of his disciples. as he leaves them. And what's
the first thing that he says to them? Which makes me think
it must be of greatest importance. He says, all authority in heaven
and earth has been given to me. The Lord is not bashful to claim
the throne that is rightfully his. Now men, through their doctrines
of free will and things like that, claim a throne that they
have no right to. And they claim a throne that
they cannot fill. But they claim it nonetheless. that famous poem called Invictus. It ends with these very proud
words which are at the heart of every natural man. I am the
master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. The Lord Jesus Christ said, no
you're not. I am. I am the master of your
fate. I am the captain of your soul.
Because all authority has been given to him, all the authority
in heaven and in earth, handed over to him, not only as the
divine word, but as the human mediator between God and men. You know, when God made Adam,
he said to Adam and Eve, he said, rule over the world. just you know I've made you for
the purpose of ruling this world and of course they lost their
right to rule when they sinned but that does not mean that God's
purpose that a human rule the world was going to be brought
to nothing. The Lord never intended that
a natural man should be the ruler over the world. Rather he comes
in human flesh and he who was God was born to be a man and
the man to whom all authority in heaven and earth would be
given. The popular gospel message is that Jesus has come to fix
your life. They present a Jesus who is essentially
a psychiatrist able to boost your self-esteem and put you
on a path of success. But the message that Jesus Christ
gave to his disciples to go out in the world with was this, Jesus
Christ is Lord of heaven and earth. Our Lord did not say I love everyone
and have wonderful plan for them if they'll just let me do it.
Go into all the world and ask them to let me have my way. Now,
that is a summary of the message I was brought up on. And they
even had a little track called the four spiritual laws. And
the first spiritual law was God loves you and has a wonderful
plan for your life. You know, you can't find that anywhere
in the gospel. God has a plan for your life, that's for sure. What we find declared in the
gospel and laid certainly as the foundation stone of the gospel
is that Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven and earth. He, and
it was him that Nebuchadnezzar was talking about, when he said,
he does as he wills among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants
of the earth, and none can stay his hand or even question what
he does. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the kind of authority he has. It was handed to him,
given to him. He did not grasp it unlawfully, but his father handed him the
throne. The Lord is saying essentially
to his disciples here, I am the Lord, disciple the nations. Isaiah
prophesied the lordship of Christ in chapter 52 verse 7 when he
says, how beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring
good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings. And when
Paul quotes this in the New Testament, that phrase good tidings is the
word that's normally translated gospel. who brings the gospel,
who proclaims salvation, who say to Zion, what? Your God reigns. You wanna know what the gospel
is? Our God reigns. What good is a Savior who's not
in control? Now you think about that for
a minute. What good is a Savior who does
not have the power and the authority to do whatever he wants to do.
If he doesn't, who knows, maybe you'll be confronted with an
enemy more than he can handle. But we have no such fear with
regard to the Lord Jesus. How much authority does he have?
All of it. Every last bit of authority in
heaven and earth has been handed over to the Lord Jesus Christ.
He even said earlier there, even before he died, he said that
God had given him authority over all flesh that he might give
eternal life to as many as the Father had given him. He was
sent to bring life eternal life to God's chosen people, but in
order to do that, God handed the whole thing over to him.
Everybody belongs to Jesus Christ. He is the Lord. Look over at
Romans chapter 14, verse 9. Now this is a surprising, I know
it would be a surprise to most religious folk in our day, in
our country. If you ask people why did Jesus
die, they'll probably give you every other reason but the one
that the scriptures declare. Verse 9, Romans 14, for this
very reason Christ died and returned to life so that he might be Lord
of the living and the dead. The lordship of Christ was the
essential message that the apostles went out and preached. On the
day of Pentecost, Peter stands up to explain to the people what
they're seeing. They're seeing some men, uneducated
men, talking languages that they had never learned. Imagine that. 11 men. And they come into the temple
courts. And they begin talking, and one's talking maybe in Hebrew,
and another's talking over here in a language, Ethiopia or whatever.
And the people that were there that had gathered, because this
was at the time of Passover. The people who had gathered from
all the nations there, Jews who lived elsewhere but came to Jerusalem
for this celebration, and some God-fearing Gentiles had come.
What did they say? They said, what is this? That
we are hearing the word of God in our own language. That kind
of puts the lie to this useless babbling that people do and call
tongues. When the apostles spoke in tongues,
it was a language that somebody understood. It was a known language. But when
that happened, people are, what is this? And Peter stood up to
tell them. And he gives them quotes a good bit from the Old
Testament. And then brings them up to Jesus, whom they with wicked
hands, and probably by those wicked hands, he means the Gentiles,
that they, the Jews, right along with the Gentiles, had put him
to death. And he says, and I'm here to
tell you, that this same Jesus, whom you crucified, God has made
to be Lord and Christ. And you know what that did to
those people? It just about, when I say just
about brought them to their knees, it did bring them in their knees
in terms of prayer, but it shook them to their very soul. because
they suddenly realized that the one that God had sent to be their
Messiah, their Christ, they had out and out rejected him, even
to the point they handed him over to those ungodly pagan Gentiles
to crucify him and make a spectacle of him. And understanding how
God had treated the Jews in the past when they had rejected his
message, They said to the disciples, what are we gonna do? What shall
we do? Why would they say something
like that? Would they say something like that because it had been
just told to them that Jesus sure would like to forgive their
sins if they would just let him? They said that because they found
out Jesus is Lord, made so by God himself. And when
they said, what in the world shall we do? I think that they
believed that there was nothing they could do. It's kind of one
of those desperate things, what in the world am I gonna do? And then Peter could go on to
say, repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission
of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. But there was no cheering news
for them until they came to terms with this reality. Jesus is Lord. And it's the fundamental confession
of the gospel. In Romans chapter 10, verse nine,
Paul says, if you will confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord. And believe in your heart that
God has raised him from the dead. thou shalt be saved. Now there's a great deal of hubbub
among some about what is called or termed lordship salvation
and people do like to argue on Facebook and everywhere else
actually and you've got some that will denounce lordship salvation And the reason they do is because
there is a version of it preached in which you cannot have God's
salvation unless your life has changed a certain amount and
proven that you have submitted yourself to the Lord. Well, of
course that's not true. Our salvation is not in any way
dependent upon our actions, whether they be righteous or not. But I can say this without any
worry of being contradicted by the scriptures. If you do not
acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord, it's because you're lost. I could go farther than that.
If you don't rejoice that Jesus is Lord, I think you're probably
lost. If you don't think Or if you
don't find it wonderful that the Lord Jesus Christ sits upon
the throne of the universe. Folks, I think that's the best
news ever was. Who else do you want sitting there? You say,
well, I want to be in charge. You do? How do you think things
would go if you weren't in charge? The scriptures say that we are
rebels against God and always resisting the truth of God. If the Lord Jesus Christ were
to get off his throne for a minute and say, okay, you all do things
like you, I don't want to get in the way of your free will,
that wouldn't be right of me. If he did that, every last one
of us would end up in hell. Our only hope, the only hope
of a sinner is that Jesus Christ is Lord and that everyone whose
sin he paid for, as the Lord, he is going to find them, he's
going to take possession of them, and he's going to protect them
by his power and authority. That's the only hope anybody's
got. If the idea that Jesus Christ
is Lord of all and has the right to do with you whatever he wills,
If that bothers you, I wonder if you know anything of the grace
of God. He is the Lord. The heart of
every child of God says, crown him with many crowns, the lamb
upon his throne. Hark, how the heavenly anthem
drowns all music but its own. Awake, my soul, and sing of him
who died for thee. and hail him as thy matchless
king for all eternity. Last week I was talking to one
of the members about either death, and then we started talking about
the return of the Lord, and all the blessings that would come.
And I said, but you know one of the things I really look forward
to that, or that makes me look forward to that day, on that
day my Lord will be vindicated before the whole world. We go
out and we preach to the world that Jesus is Lord and most of
the world says yeah right. One day the Lord Jesus Christ
will come back and say yeah right I am the Lord and every knee
shall bow and every tongue will confess that that Jesus is Lord. Christ claims a universal throne.
He says, all authority in heaven and earth is given to me. There
is nothing outside the control of Jesus Christ. And when you
think of it, it'd be rather foolish to think that God would make
a universe then give up control of it. If I make something, it's
really hard to get me to give up control of it. This universe belongs to God,
and he's entrusted it to his son. And he claims all the authority.
We may go anywhere in this world and call upon people to bow the
knee to Christ. Some folks say, well, you ought
to respect other people's religion. No. I'll be honest with you,
I'm not saying this to heap glory on me, but I don't have respect
for any religion but this one. Why? Because there isn't anything
to respect in any religion but this one. Now, I will respect
the people who practice those religions. I mean, I'll assign
them the dignity of humanity. I'll treat them right to the
best I can. I will respect their right to worship according to
their own conscience. But I have no respect for any
religion that claims a God who is less than in control, who
claims any God other than Jehovah who made the heavens and the
earth, and that leans upon any other Savior than the Lord Jesus
Christ. And when we go out and preach
the gospel, what we're saying is this word, this word has the
right to take over the entire world. Jesus Christ goes into the world
through the preaching of the gospel and it is his intention
and he does it wherever he wants and will finally do it everywhere.
But to destroy every false god, Throw down every one who sets
himself upon his own throne. He is going to establish before
the whole world, I am Lord, this place is mine, from the North
Pole to the South Pole, from the East to the West. Well, this King, who has all
authority in heaven and earth given to him, what does he have
to say? What is his command? It's to
make disciples of all nations. That's the way it's worded in
virtually all translations, and it's probably about the best
you can do. But this means something more than,
quote, getting people saved. This is something more than getting
folks to join your church instead of another church. This is more
than attracting people to a specific church by offering them the kind
of music they want to hear or preaching in the style they want
to listen to or something like that. It is to disciple people. We
aim higher than mere decisions for Jesus made at the end of
some emotionally compelling sermon. Our aim is to make followers
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I realize we can't do that. The Lord uses us to preach his
word and it's only him through his spirit that can actually
make someone follow him. But we are instruments in that.
Our aim is to teach people the truth of Christ with the view
of bringing them into submission to Jesus Christ as Lord. That's what we're going for.
And you know, that's why we don't bother to change our message. Why? If we change the message,
we would be representing not what the Lord said. Instead,
we'd be going for what men want to hear. And then if they believed that
altered version of the gospel that we preached, they still
wouldn't be in submission to Christ. So we never change the
message. Jesus is Lord. We go out and
declare that. What is a disciple? He says,
go out and disciple the nations. That's the way it's put. Well, it means someone who has
been taught and has learned. You know, I like to look up the
words in the original language, and you'll find this probably
a little bit humorous. It comes from the word from which
we derive our word, math. And math, we always think of
that just in terms of numbers, that particular science. But
actually, it meant to learn, to put in intellectual effort. Now nearly everyone says math
is hard. I liked it. I had an aptitude
for it. It was the other subjects I had trouble with. but most
people find math to be difficult. Well, you know, the discipline
of the Lord Jesus is something that must be learned. It has
to be taught and learned. There is truth declared, and
it comes right in opposition to what we already believe, and
we must therefore learn this truth that is new to us. And
you know something? All you who believe here, aren't
you still working at it? There's not anybody here, I hope
there's nobody here that thinks they've got a handle on this.
Oh yeah, I understand it. I've been preaching it for 40
years and I would not make that boast. I know some things about
it, but I'm still learning it. I'm still having thoughts in
my mind overthrown by the discipline, the learning,
the math of the gospel. disciple is someone who is willingly
submitted to the truth that he has been taught. The goal of
teaching and preaching is not merely to inform people but to
change their minds and to change their minds about the most fundamental
truth of the universe, who Jesus Christ is and who they are. You know you can teach people
how to parrot Bible words back to you, or Bible ideas. And I'm
not saying this is wrong. It's one way to teach children.
You make them learn gospel doctrine. But understand this, the ability
of someone to parrot words back to you, and you know what I mean
when I say parrot words, you know how a parrot, if you say the
same thing around them long enough, they'll say it back? but they
have no idea what they're saying. It's not language to them, it's
just a new way to squawk. So we're not just looking for
men to parrot back to us what we have said to them. Our hope
is that by the power of God, the preaching of the gospel will
actually invade their hearts and minds and change the way
they think about themselves, the way they think about God,
the way they think about Christ. That's why Paul says, I beseech
you by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, and be not conformed to
this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. You know one reason it's so important
that we gather regularly like this? This gospel is still transforming
our minds. We've got to hear it over and
over again. As God works upon us, it's not
just him suddenly creating us like he created the world. He's
more like a sculptor than we were just a block of stone and
he's chipping away. This discipline is a never-ending
work, because there's always more to learn. He says, make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now there is no simple truth
of scripture that man cannot complicate beyond recognition.
And we might wish that the Lord had laid out in very fine detail
exactly how baptism is to be done and on whom it should be
performed. I for one wish he'd have done
that because it would settle one of the bigger religious controversies
in broad Christianity. But he did not do that, and I
believe the reason that he did not do that is that it was rather
obvious to these disciples what he meant and on whom it should be performed. But in all the confusion over
these matters, how should baptism be carried
out? Who should you do it to? And
all the hubbub over that, we're forgetting the most important
thing of all, what does baptism mean? And when you learn what
baptism means, you'll know how it's supposed to be done and
who should receive it. What is baptism? Well, baptism
is first and most obviously a confession that a person has heard the message
of Christ and believe it. He says, Go out and disciple
the nations, baptizing them, the disciples. Now you're not
a disciple unless you've been taught. You're not a disciple
unless you've learned. You baptize disciples. Secondly, baptism is a confident declaration. that through the death, burial,
and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the believer is not guilty in
the sight of God, and therefore he has a clear conscience before
him. Now, don't take my word on that. Let's look over here at 1 Peter
3. 1 Peter 3, verse 21. Now just before verse 21, he
was talking about the flood of Noah. And he says, and this water,
the water of that flood symbolizes baptism that now saves you also. Now baptism's a symbol. But the
flood was a symbol of baptism, and we'll find out what baptism
is a symbol of. But it symbolizes baptism that
now saves you also, not the removal of dirt from the body, but the
pledge of a good conscience toward God. Now that word translated
pledge, it can mean a lot of things, but God never told us
to make a pledge that I'm aware of. I don't see that anywhere
else in the scriptures. You know, when I joined the scouts,
I had to take the scout oath. On my honor, I'll do my best
to do my duty to God and country. Had to make a pledge. Oh, we
don't make a pledge. Why? Well, God knows us. If we
made a pledge, we'd break it anyway. No, this word was also
used to describe the answer that someone in court would give to an accusation if he had a
clear conscience about it. They say to the, they bring a
guy to court, you've been charged with the crime of murder. How
do you plead? And if he has a clear conscience
about it, a good conscience about it, he knows he didn't do it.
What plea does he make? Not guilty. Now, baptism is a
declaration by the one being baptized. that through the death,
burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, he has a clear conscience
before God, he is not guilty. Now that's a really bold statement.
You say, what do you mean I'm not guilty before God? Well,
let me ask you this question, what's gonna happen if you are
guilty before God? God said, I will by no means
clear the guilty. So salvation can't be just about
God accepting a guilty person. It has to involve some means
by which God makes the guilty to be no longer guilty. How did
he do this? Through the death, burial, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because he died bearing my sin
before the Lord. My sin is gone. I have no sin
in the sight of God. Therefore, my conscience is clear
in the sight of God. Now, it may not be clear in your
sight. I'm sure everybody here knows things about me that aren't
good. And I know a whole lot more about
me, not you, about me. I wouldn't have a clear conscience
before you, but before God, Blessed be his name, my conscience is
clear. Why? Not because I haven't done anything,
but because Jesus Christ put it all away and it's gone. And
the man being baptized, the woman being baptized, that's what they're
declaring. It is their plea before the judge, not guilty, not guilty. All right, thirdly, it's an act
of submission. to the one who claimed he had
all authority in heaven and earth. Now, I come from the southeast
that's just full of Baptists, and there was, well, probably
nearly 200 years ago, a group of people in what they called
the Restoration Movement, and they went on to claim that baptism
was not only by immersion and for believers only, it was absolutely
necessary to salvation. And the modern-day manifestation
of this group is what we call the Church of Christ. And they
believe that. If you haven't been immersed,
it doesn't matter if you've believed. You're lost until you're immersed.
Well, of course, that brings up the question, well, does a
man have to be baptized in order to be saved? Theologically, it's
a useless question. should be a very simple one to
answer since it's not by any works which we have done or do
that we are saved. Of course baptism does not make
a man saved nor does the lack of it withhold salvation from
him. But there's to me a more important
question. Our Lord Jesus Christ here says,
disciple the nations and baptize them. He said through Ananias
who went to speak to Paul when Paul was praying there after
he had met the Lord on the road to Damascus. And Ananias said,
arise and get yourself baptized. I like the way that's put. Most
of them just say, arise and be baptized, and that's because
we don't have what is called the middle voice in Greek. We've
got active voice and passive voice. Something you do or something
that's done to you. But the Greek has what they call
middle voice. And that's what that word was put in. It's either
something you do to yourself or something you cause to happen
to yourself. And he said to Paul, arise, get yourself baptized. an act of submission, willing,
conscious submission on the part of the person being baptized. And let me ask you this, if you
claim to be saved by the grace of God, if you believe that Jesus
Christ died for you and by his blood washed away your sins,
would you resist being baptized? Would you say, Lord, thanks for
the salvation, but that baptism thing, nah, not gonna do it.
Remember, Jesus is Lord is the basic confession
of the gospel. It's pretty hard to say Jesus
is Lord if you stubbornly refuse to obey what he says. It's also an act of identification
with Jesus Christ in his death burial and resurrection. In Romans
chapter 6 Paul has just said where sin
abounds grace does much more abound And he brings up an objection
that some people might raise. What shall we say then? Shall
we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means, we
died to sin. How can we live in it any longer?
Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ
Jesus were baptized into his death? That's what it was signifying
that when Christ died, I died with him. Now, if you wanna follow
along in the scriptures, Matthew chapter three. Tell you, there's more theology
taught in the ceremony of baptism than even I realized until I
began studying this for this week. But in Matthew chapter
3, verse 13, then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to
be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him,
saying, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?
Jesus replied, let it be so now. It is proper for us to do this,
to fulfill all righteousness. I've often, I mean I've had a
hard time with that. What does the Lord mean we need
to fulfill all righteousness? In times past I've said well
any believer back in that day was supposed to be baptized by
John and so the Lord did that as an act of righteousness. But
with some reading and studying I've done I think that there's
something more important here. Jesus Christ in fulfilling all
righteousness How did he do that? Well, if
you turn over to Mark chapter 10. Mark chapter 10 and verse 36. Now Jesus, well, the disciples
had asked him, we want you to do whatever we ask. And Jesus
says, what do you want me to do for you? In verse 37, they
replied, let one of us sit at your right and the other on your
left hand in glory. Verse 38, you don't know what you are asking,
Jesus said. Can you drink the cup I drink
or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with? We can, they
answered. Jesus said to them, you will
drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am
baptized with. Now, our Lord was baptized in
water. by John the Baptist. Later he
says, I have a baptism to be baptized with. That was his real baptism. The
one back there with John was symbolic of what he was going
to do. And what he did on the cross
is the fulfilling of righteousness. For there the righteous ones
suffered in the place of the unrighteous to bring them to
God. Daniel described it in prophecy
this way, he brought in an everlasting righteousness. He did that on
the cross and so when he's talking to John the Baptist three years
earlier than that, when he says it's necessary that we fulfill
all righteousness, he was simply saying this is how it's going
to be done. Here's a symbolic representation of how I will
fulfill all righteousness for my people. I will die, be buried,
and raise again. Now our Lord said to his disciples, you're gonna be baptized with
this baptism too. Now our Lord, when he was baptized
with the real baptism, he wasn't plunged in water. What was he
plunged in? Wrath. sorrow, grief, death. We look at the cross and there's
plenty to see just to what we can see of the cross to realize
the anguish some of the anguish our Lord bore but there were
things going on that we couldn't see and in Lamentations chapter
1 it says, hey all you that pass by is it nothing to you Have you ever seen anybody suffer
like I'm suffering? For the Lord has sent his fire
into my bones. I asked our brother Scott to
read that passage from Lamentations chapter three. I know it's a
rather gloomy scripture to start a worship service with, but that
was a description of our Lord's suffering. God plunged him into
agony and sorrow and suffering. because of the sins that he bore. He didn't sprinkle him with wrath. He plunged him into it. And you know what? When he did that to Christ, he
did that to me. Because it says we are baptized
into his death. We died with him. and we will
rise with him. And so when our Lord said to
those apostles, I've got a baptism to be baptized with, can you
deal with that? They said, oh, yeah. And they couldn't deal
with it the way they were expressing it, because they didn't have
any idea what he's talking about. He went on to say, well, you will
be. This doesn't mean that some of them would be crucified, though
some of them were. What this means is when Christ
was crucified, so were they. They were in him. And they went
through that baptism into wrath with him. So now why would believers be
baptized? Well, our Lord was baptized three
years before his death to symbolize what he was going to do. And
we're baptized when we believe to symbolize what he did for
us. And our union with him in that. And then, baptism is a symbolic
display that we are new people. If any man be in Christ, he is
a new creation. Now this doesn't mean what most
people make it out to mean, and that is that when Jesus saves
you all at once, your old desires go away and your old way of living
goes away and all at once it becomes new. We know that's not
true because that's not what happens. What's he saying there? He's saying that if we are in
Christ, we died in Christ and that old man connected to Adam
and all the condemnation and death associated with him, that
old man doesn't exist anymore. We're new men. Everything about us has become
new in the sight of God. A judge one time in writing about
the essence of what a pardon is, He says, well, described
it a lot, and he says, the pardoned man is in essence a new man before
the law, and we are new men. Now, one last thing. What does
this baptism, and I hope you can see from what we've described
about what baptism is. Well, who must it be for? Well,
it's for those who have been taught and learned and confess
and believe the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore,
it doesn't make any sense that you do that to an infant because
they haven't been taught anything yet and they can't confess anything.
And we also realize from all these descriptions of baptism
that this is something more than a little sprinkling or even a
pouring would ever describe. It is a plunging into wrath by
Jesus Christ experienced by us simply by our connection to him.
Now lastly, what's the result of baptism? It's a word of acceptance.
from God. When Jesus Christ was baptized,
it said that a voice came from heaven. This is my beloved son
and who I'm well pleased. I know and I remember that many
of you, when you heard this gospel, you wanted to believe it. And
there came a time when you said you did believe it. But you were
still fearful to be baptized. But nonetheless, you did. And some of you expressed to
me that you were fearful, even as you stepped into the water.
But once you had been baptized, there was a joy and a peace about
the whole matter. Now, baptism didn't save you.
But when we confess Christ, the Father Just as he said to his
son before, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased,
the spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the sons
of God. I know there's a way in which
Jesus Christ is the son of God that doesn't apply to us, but
there is a way in which it does. And I'm just, I'm going by the
experience that some of you all told me. that your confession of Christ
in the manner that Christ said to do it brought to you a sense
of assurance that indeed you belong to God. Well, may the Lord add his blessing
to that.