If you will, we're going to kind
of reverse things today. I'm going to bring the Sunday
school on the second go around, and you all are going to get
a message on baptism. So if you will, turn with me
to Ephesians chapter 4. Lots of folks over the years
have read what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1. about baptism. The people there were beginning
to boast about who they were saved
under and who baptized them. It'd just be like somebody telling
me, well, Marvin Stoniker baptized me, and I'd say, well, Henry
Mayhem baptized me, and so on. And so Paul said, I thank God
I didn't baptize any of you. And so on occasions like that,
and one where our Lord said something very similar over in John, people
take that and read that and say, well, baptism don't really have
a significance. If you're sprinkled, it's okay.
If you were dunked, that's okay. Somebody poured some water out
of a pitcher on you, or whatever they did, or you was baptized
out in a river and buried, whatever. It doesn't make any difference.
But it does make a difference. And it makes a difference in
many ways. Over here in Ephesians 4, in
these first several verses here, Paul just keeps using one, one,
one, over and over and over, one, one, one. We're not a part of that scattered
variety and options and all of that kind of stuff. Paul was
emphasizing that his gospel, they're just one. They're not
two or three or four, they're one. and you either know it or
you don't. You either believe it or you
don't. But you can't change the gospel
into something else and then still call it the gospel and
still call it faith. And since the Lord has granted
to me, you know, the Lord's granted to me many privileges, many great
privileges. I was thinking about this yesterday
First of all just to believe on his son What a privilege when
I look around and see folks Who aren't even interested in the
gospel? But they're interested in in life after death there
That's a mystery to them, and they you know if there's really
something to this well I don't want to go to hell, but you know
I don't want to I think you can overdo as far as devotion and
prayer and worship to this one God. Faith is His gift. It's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. And then another privilege that
the Lord has given to me is to preach. He's given me an understanding
of His gospel and the ability to communicate that. And that's
a privilege, that's a great privilege of God. I've known men who've
dedicated their whole young lives to being a pastor who never pastored
anything and never preached, never did. But to preach his
gospel, and the Lord has been pleased in his purpose and grace
to give me a hearing He's ordered his providence in the hearts
of men and women to account me as the ambassador of Christ with
his gospel of reconciliation. And I count that a great privilege. And then he's called me to be
a pastor. Pastors, that office consists
of three things, basically. The first is the perfecting of
the saints. Well, do I mean by that a progressive
sanctification? No. No, but those who truly believe
find in the gospel that they're made perfect in Christ. There is a perfection out there
and that perfection is Christ. If I'm in Christ, I'm perfect. I'm perfect. Listen to this, by one offering
he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Well, you
don't just pick that up on the street. You have to be taught
that. You have to see that. You gotta
be convinced by the Holy Spirit of God that this is so. I'm not
lacking in anything in Christ. I'm perfect. I'm perfect. And so what comes through time
is satisfaction with that perfection. Seeing that He's sufficient. I don't need anything. I have
everything in Him. It's all in Him. And then, of
course, we're sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. And secondly, the work of the
ministry. That's the second thing pastors do. They're involved
in the work of the ministry. And though God is the power behind
all that we do, yet it pleased God through the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe. And by his spirit, Paul said,
he made us able ministers of God. And he said, our sufficiency
is of God. We have no sufficiency of our
own. So we're engaged in the perfection
of the saints and the work of the ministry, and thirdly, the
edification of the body of Christ. Pastors and preachers are involved
not only in this little group that's here, But our messages
go out among other churches and is used in other congregations
and used for other believers all over the world. The ministry by the grace of
God far exceeds their own congregations used by God for the edification
of the whole body of Christ. And then another great privilege
God has given to us is to administer his ordinances. And over the
years, I've baptized several men and women. But I've never,
like Paul, baptized a whole house. This is the first time. This
will be the first time I've ever baptized a whole house. I've read about it. He took that
Philippian jailer and it says he and his whole house were baptized. Lydia, down on the bank of the
river, at that worship service, she came to know Christ through
the preaching of Paul, and Paul baptized Lydia, and it says,
and her whole house. Her whole house. And I've always
looked at that in wonder, but as far as I know, I don't know
any preacher anywhere who's ever baptized a whole house. I'm sure
there's some out there who have. But by the grace of God, I hope
this morning to baptize Brother Luke, Miss Veronica, and her
three boys. And I thought it might be in
keeping with such a thing to talk a little bit about this
precious ordinance of baptism. We have two ordinances practiced
by the church, the Lord's Table and baptism. And I don't know
if you've ever thought about it much. I was talking a little
bit about it before the service. But one of these ordinances is
a very private matter. He told his disciples, he said,
you go see such and such a man and tell him that the master
has need of a room. And he'll take care of it. And
so they did. And the man took care of it.
And they met up in a private room. And he and his disciples
in this room partook of the first Lord's table, up in that room. Very, very private. And Paul,
they were turning it into a public feast in the book of Corinthians,
and he really come down on through it. I'll never forget, Luke left
that morning, I was talking about those things, and he said, I
ain't eating that bread. He said, this is frightening. Well, it is frightening, if you
believe God. It is frightening. These ordinances
are not to be taken lightly. It's a serious matter. It's a
serious matter when I stand up before God and before men and
I say, I believe, I believe, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm gonna confess Him in believers' baptism. That's a serious matter.
That's a serious matter. And what hinders a man from being
baptized? Do you believe? That's what he said to the Ethiopian
eunuch. He said, there's water. Here
am I. What does hinder me from being
baptized? What do I lack? He said, do you believe? I believe. They both went down into the
water and he was baptized. But the Lord's table is a very
private matter. And baptism was done in rivers
and creeks in lakes, ponds, all sorts of places. I want to use Ephesians four
as a kind of springboard for what I have to say this morning
on this subject. In verses four through six, the
Apostle Paul is inspired to write a series of ones, ones, to kind
of sum up what he said in verse three about endeavoring to keep
the unity of the spirit. in the bond of peace. There is
a unity concerning the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is
not whatever you want Him to be. There's a unity about the
Spirit of God the same as there is about the Son of God and the
same as it is about the Father. There's a unity there. They don't
vary. They don't vary. But the only
person of the Godhead that you and I have ever known is Christ,
and it's through Christ that we become acquainted with the
Holy Spirit, and it's through Christ that we come to know the
Father. There is no knowing God apart
from Christ. In verse three, he talks about
endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and a bond of peace,
and so he tells us that there's one body. What's he talking about
when he says there's one body? Is that just talking about one
person? No, he's talking about his body,
the church. The church. You can read about that over
in Colossians chapter one. He is the head of the body, the
church, who is the beginning. It's his elect, it's his sheep,
it's his bride, it's his people, whatever you choose to call it.
And you can't have such wide variations in doctrine and in
administration and in worship and still lay claim to be in
his body. His body is in harmony with the
Spirit of God. and the revelation of God in
Christ and the teaching of the word of God. It's all in harmony
together. Secondly, he tells us there's
one spirit. Now, if there were many spirits,
there might be many teachings and many concepts of God, but
there's only one spirit. I was talking to Brian last night
and I was quoting that scripture over there in 1 Corinthians 2.
And Paul reached back into the Old Testament, and he was quoting
that. And he said, I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared
for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto
us by his Spirit. By his Spirit. There's one Spirit. And as the inspiration of the
Holy Scripture, was that of the Holy Ghost. These men wrote as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost. They were inspired of God. This
word is God-breathed. So he's also the power behind
its teaching and the revelation of its mysteries. When he said
he hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit, it didn't mean
that he waited till we was out on the lake somewhere and way
up in the woods somewhere by ourself and then he revealed
it to us. No, it simply means that he used
the scripture and he used the ordained means of God to teach
you and to reveal to you the truth. Now what we preaching
here is totally different from what's being preached around.
Anybody that's been here more than three services ought to
know that. It's totally different. It's nothing like what's being
preached from your average pulpit. Well, who told you that this
is the truth? Who convinced you that this is
the truth? Me? No. The Holy Spirit of God. That's what he's talking about.
There's just one spirit. A man vocally and harshly rebuked
my preaching on that subject, telling me that the Spirit of
God revealed these things to him when he was just a child
and without any of the ordained means of God that I'd mentioned.
But we were both believers. No, sir, we're not. One of us
is not. One of us is a liar. There's
one spirit, and as God, he is in perfect harmony with God and
with his word and with his gospel. The spirit of God doesn't teach
you one thing and teach me something else. Anybody tries to tell you
that, say, show that to me in the scriptures. He can't do it. It's not in there. There's one
body. There's one spirit, and watch
this. There's one hope of your calling.
There's just one hope in this thing. People talk about streets
of gold and their vision of heaven is mountains and lakes and streams
and just fishing and laying back and no more work and no more
heat and no more cold and no more misery. We're just going
to go up there and do what we love to do all of our lives.
That's heaven to them. That's not heaven. There's just one hope of your
calling. Well, what is the believer's hope? Well, to boil it all down,
it's Christ. It's Christ. That's my hope.
Christ in you, the what? The hope of glory. That's my
hope. I have no idea what heaven's
gonna consist of except that Christ will be there. Christ,
and he's all to me here, Why would he not be all to me there? There are no degrees in this
thing. There's just one hope. From the least to the greatest,
the inheritance is the same. Doesn't vary. That thief on the
cross, we don't know how many minutes before he died that he
professed faith in Christ. We don't know. All I know is
the Lord said, this day shalt thou be with me in paradise. There are no degrees in the inheritance. It's all the same. We're all
loved with the same love. You'd have had a hard time convincing
Peter of that. He had such a hard time. And
John just, he was so loving. That man was so loving. Everything
in the scriptures, tend to show that to us, how
loving this man was. He loved Christ. And he never
said, I John, he just said that disciple whom the Lord loved. We're all loved with the same
love. We're all chosen in the same head. We're all secured
with the same covenant, bought with the same price, wear the
same righteousness and joy, the same rest and are justified by
the same resurrection and called by the same gospel. We're called
in one hope of our calling. And our hope is Christ. Verse
five. There's one Lord. He's Lord. You don't share his Lordship.
He's Lord. No questions, no debates, he
Lord. Well, you'll be saved when you
make Jesus your Lord. Oh no, God's already made him
Lord. He's already made him Lord. And
if God be gracious to you, he'll allow you to submit yourself
to him. He'll allow you to bow your knees
to Him now. But now or later, you're gonna
bow that knee to Him and you're gonna confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And you cannot have Him as Savior
and not have Him as Lord. If He doesn't reign in your life,
He's not your Savior. Grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life. And then he tells us this, there's
just one faith. Just one faith. If you believe, God will heal
you. That's not faith. That's not faith at all. Actually,
I'm already healed in Christ, and when I die, I'll be plum
healed. There's just one faith. Faith
is God's gift to His elect. And he himself will dispense
it. He said he'll show, Ephesians 2.7, he will show the exceeding
riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. He's gonna show all that were
quickened together with him who were dead in trespasses and sin,
who walked according to the course of this world and according to
the prince of the power of the air, All those who live by their
own lust and that's all they live for. But he quickened us together
by that great love wherewith he loved us. We were quickened
together with him, he raised us up together with him, made
us to sit together with him in heavenly places that in the ages
to come he might show. He might show. You reckon he's
gonna show it? You better believe it. He's gonna
show the exceeding riches of his grace. You cannot believe in different
gods and be a true believer. And then back in verse five, of our text, he tells us that
there's just one baptism. One baptism. And it's a mistake
to give adherence to different baptisms, giving them all a sort
of credence, if you will, to be used of God. So what do we
really know about baptism? Well, first of all, the scripture
teaches us that baptism is an act of faith. It's an act of faith. Those who believe, he said, he
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Does that mean
baptism's necessary to salvation? No, but I tell you, that's a
strong, strong word when when the spirit of god takes and and
and puts that in there with baptism and salvation that's a strong
strong connection between salvation and baptism it's an act of faith
faith walks, faith lives, faith does you don't I really, I just
don't like to hear people talk about Well, I was saved way back
then because faith ain't like that. Faith is like being born
of God. That's the term he uses. We're
born of God. And if we're born of God, then
we're alive. And we might be babes. I was
at one time. Don't have a whole lot of memory
about several years there when I was real little, just what
people told me. But I was alive. And I was the
person that I am today. I just wasn't mature. I was little,
helpless. But I don't have to go back and
find my birth certificate to tell you I'm alive. I'm alive.
You're looking at me. You're hearing me. Baptism is an act of faith. It
says in Colossians 2 verse 12, it says, Turn over there with
me, I want you to read this. Colossians chapter two and verse
12. He just got through telling us
that we're complete in him who is the head of all principalities
and powers. We're complete, he is our sufficiency. He's our complete savior. And
now he's gonna talk a little bit about our baptism. Colossians 2.12. says, we're
buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him, now
watch this, through the faith of the operation of God who hath
raised him from the dead. And you can read all the way
through Ephesians chapter one and you'll find Paul giving you
the same explanation. He prayed that the Lord might
open their eyes to see the power of God in their faith as they
look at the resurrection of Christ, because that's what it is. We're
raised with him to newness of life. And that's what this baptism
we're about to perform back here, this is what it's showing. This
is what it's confessing. I have many friends who were
immersed in water, sprinkled by a priest, and they did it
as an act of obedience to what they were told to do. But they
didn't understand anything at all about baptism. And I did
the same thing. True baptism is an act of faith
which is a confession of the faith which God has given to
you. And that confession is about
your union with Christ. That's what it's confessing.
You can take these terms if you're an intellectual and you can break
them all down and you get into an argument with somebody who
believes in sprinkling and you're probably gonna lose your argument.
That's not what defines the matter of baptism. What defines the
manner of baptism is the context of the scripture. And the context
is we're buried with him in baptism. Now I defy you to take some water
on your fingers and tell me how I'm buried when you sprinkle
me. There is no burial. No burial whatsoever. And there
is no resurrection. We're buried with him in Baptism,
Romans chapter six. And you just can't sprinkle somebody
with water or pour a little bit of water out of a pitcher on
their head and call it baptism. You might picture an anointing
that way, but not a burial, and certainly not a resurrection.
John the Baptist went down into the water, it says, with our
Savior, and buried him beneath it and raised him up out of it. And you don't need a river to
sprinkle, all you need is a bottle or a dish. That Ethiopian eunuch
riding along in there, he spied a big body of water. He said,
there's water. Well, they had water. They had
water in their little canteens or whatever they had on that
chariot. If it was just a matter of sprinkling, Phil, just give
me a canteen. Franklin, he didn't do that.
They went down into the water. Baptism also is an act of faith,
and as such, it's according to the operation of God, who raised
up his son from the dead. And then secondly, baptism is
an act of repentance. You remember those Pharisees
came in there, and they still had on their broad phylacteries,
and they were dressed to the hilt, and they were all in their
little clique, and here they come to John's baptism. And John
said, you vipers, You vipers. You go back and bring meat for
repentance. Isn't that what he said? You
want to be baptized of me? I'm going to have to see some
repentance. What is that? That's a turning
from this world. A turning. A turning from your
old traditions. A turning from your old beliefs.
A turning from Arminianism. There's a turning involved here.
It's a lifelong turning. We just keep turning. We think
we're turned all the way around and then we discover we still
got luggage. Still carrying that old luggage
with us. Peter said in Acts 2.38, repent
and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ. Repent and be baptized. And also in verse 40, he said,
save yourselves from this untoward generation. Abandon it. Come ye out from amongst them
and be ye separate, saith the Lord. And we do not adhere to
their principles or follow their instructions or submit to their
authority. Baptism is a public declaration
of your repentance, which is also an act of faith. Repentance
is an act of faith. I was preaching a message, wasn't
even thinking about it. And I wanted to state those two
things. And I said, faith and repentance.
And after that, the young minister came up to me and he said, I'm
glad to hear you said that in its right order. Faith, then
repentance. Can't repent without faith. Faith
is what moves you to repent. And then thirdly, baptism is
an act of obedience. See, I'm not the authority behind
the command, God is. I can stand up here and tell
you all day, you need to be baptized. You ought to be baptized. God
tells you to be baptized. But until you realize that this
is the commandment of God, you're just not gonna be moved to do
it. But once you are, you'll never be satisfied. It's like
carrying around a, I don't know, something that just festers and
won't go away. It just nags and nags and nags
and nags at you. You know what you need to do. We do not pick and choose what
commandments to follow and which ones to ignore. We don't pick
which ones that we have to do hastily and which ones we just
take our time about. A believer will never find peace
until he's obeyed his Lord's command to be baptized. He's
not going to find any peace. Brother Barnard likened baptism
to putting on of a uniform. When we graduated from boot camp
in the Navy, they issued us a uniform. And on graduation day, we put
on our dress blues, and we all got together and we marched all
in unison before the command of that base and made a public
declaration. And everywhere we went, when
people saw that uniform, that he's in the Navy, he's in the
military. Baptism declares your allegiance
to Christ and your public confession of Him as your Lord. So it's an act of obedience.
And then fourthly, baptism is symbolic. Why would we baptize
anybody? What's that all about? What are
these ordinances all about? They're symbolic. They're symbolic. It pictures the work of faith
which is brought to you to Christ. Now I want you to listen to this.
I'll just read it for you. You don't have to turn over there.
In Romans chapter six and verse four, it says, therefore we are
buried with him by baptism into death. that like as, you see
that? Like as. It wasn't the same thing,
but it was like that. Like as Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should
walk in newness of life. For if we'd been planted together
in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness
of his resurrection. Over and over, Paul uses the
term like as, in the likeness of, like unto. Baptism is symbolic. It's the symbolic picture of
the work of faith that has been given to us and by which we've
been effectually called. And then fifthly, baptism, is
a public declaration of devotion and consecration. After reasoning the importance
of the resurrection of Christ and the church for whom he died
and for whom he was raised from the dead, Paul's last statement
on that subject was this, else what shall they do which are
baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all? Now he's
not talking about being somebody died and we go and proxy and
baptize for them that died. He's talking about being marked
out for martyrdom, being set before the world. This local
community around here, I guarantee you, by now, knows what this
church preaches. I guarantee you, it don't take
long. And I would love, I've got this all set up for a baptistry,
and probably that's what we'll do. But I would love to have
an in-ground something right out here in the front, right
out here where you can see it from the road, to baptize in. I think that would be more in
keeping with what baptism is about than all the other baptistries. I know this is convenient, and
I know in the winter, you got a nice warm thing to go to. But
they make heaters. They could be done out there. For years, this was done in rivers
and streams and lakes and ponds. Walter Gruber down in Mexico
takes them over to the ocean. And these people never even seen
a creek or a pond. There's no creeks, ponds, or
rivers in the Yucatan. Everything's underground. And
all of a sudden, they take them over there to be baptized. And
it's a big deal when you're looking at an ocean that you can't see
across. It's the biggest body of water you've ever seen. And
to walk out in that water and be baptized, that's a big deal. It's a big deal. There were some whose public
baptism marked them out for certain death, and while this is probably
not the end of your baptism this morning, but if you be sincere
in it, it'll be followed by the enmity of this world, I guarantee
it. I guarantee it. May the Lord help us to understand
what we're about to do and press it deep into our minds and hearts
So now I'll dismiss you and we'll get on with the business of this
baptism. If y'all wanna go ahead and get ready.