The Ingredient Of Baptism Series

INTRODUCTION

• SLIDE #1

• It is that time of the year again. There is a food product that is being sold during this time of the year that is absolutely ADDICTIVE!

• I see that the Girl Scouts are selling cookies again. I remember what my oldest was used to sell them, I would buy a dozen boxes of my favorite ones, THIN MINTS!

• I love Thin Mints, BUT I do not buy them any longer because they contribute to an expanding waistline.

• Well, over the past few weeks we have been looking at the ingredients of Salvation and in the spirit of examining ingredients, I decided to investigate WHY thin mints are so addictive.

• After I would finish a box of them, I would go after another, then when they were all gone, I would get the shakes and would want to start selling stuff to get more thin mints.

• Well, here is what I found!

• SLIDE #2

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• CRACK COCAINE?? By the way that is NOT true. 

• Today we are going to examine the ingredient of baptism. This is the one ingredient in which many today churches will say you do not need. For this reason as we do this examination I do not want anyone to think this is the ONLY ingredient or the MOST important ingredient. All ingredients are equally important.

• Let us begin by looking at Acts 2:37-38. Peter has preached his sermon at Pentecost and his message reached the heart of many and this Jewish audience is asking what they need to do.

• SLIDE #3

• Acts 2:37–38 (ESV)37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

• SO let us begin by answering the question…

• SLIDE #4

SERMON

I. What is baptism?

• When Peter told the crowd that part of what they needed to do was to be baptized. What does that mean?

• Is there a prescribed way to do it? What does it all mean?

• The English word BAPTISM is actually a transliteration of the Greek word BAPTIZO.

• The word means to IMMERSE or to DIP.

• It does not mean to SPRINKLE, it can in some instances mean to POUR.

• The word denotes a total immersion into water.

• Baptism is part of what we are called to do when we want to be a part of God’s family.

• We will dig a little deeper on a bit and see what it all means in a spiritual context.

• Jesus told His disciples to baptize those who want to be disciples.

• SLIDE #5

• Matthew 28:18–19 (ESV) 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

• In the book of Acts, we have eight recorded instances of people who wanted to become Christians; in every instance they were baptized.

• Their baptism was by immersion. That is what the word means.

• SLIDE #6

• Acts 8:38 (ESV) And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.

• SLIDE #7

• There was much water needed for baptism also. We see this in John.

• John 3:23 (ESV) John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized

• WHY DO WE NOT BAPTIZE INFANTS OR VERY YOUNG CHILDREN?

• The whole thing with infant baptism came about because people were afraid that small children would die and go to hell without being baptized.

• This false thinking was spread because people bought into John Calvin and Augustine’s doctrine of original sin.

• They basically taught that we have a sinful nature that we are born with so therefore if an infant dies, they go to hell.

• Little children and infants do not need to be immersed because they are not of age to understand what it means to repent. Therefore they are not accountable before God.

• When you look at the prerequisites for baptism, faith, repentance, confession, THEN baptism, that pretty well closes the door on infants and small children.

• When they get to an age where they understand they are sinning against God, then they need to make the decision for themselves to be baptized into Christ.