Two Ordinances
Matthew 3:13-17
This afternoon we are going to be having a baptismal service for those that recently have been saved and others who were saved but want to be Scripturally baptized. Praise the Lord for those that want to follow the Lord in baptism. So this morning I want to talk about a couple of things that I believe the Lord has left for us to observe. I will spend most of my time on baptism though because I think some things need to be explained concerning this subject so that no one is confused or misled about this topic.
The Two Ordinances
I believe that there are two ordinances that Jesus left for His church to follow. First off we need to define ordinance. An ordinance, according to dictionary dot com is an authoritative rule or law. It could also be a decree or command. It also says that it is something believed to have been ordained (intended, designed), as by a deity. Therefore I believe that there are two decrees that Jesus gave as an example for us to follow. And they are communion and baptism.
There is a denomination that will say there are three ordinances that were left for us to follow. Some (not all) of this denomination (which I will not mention) believe that not only are communion and baptism ordinances that God left for us, but He also left the ordinance of foot washing. I am not going to condemn them for believing this way. We can’t lose our salvation on whether we wash each other’s feet or not. But I do not think that it is an ordinance though. Let’s look at John 13:1-17. Here, I believe the example that Jesus had given them was the example of humility. We need to understand the custom of that day. (talk about no paved roads back then and everyone wore sandals). Jesus was teaching them a lesson about being a servant. Jesus taught many times in the Gospels Matthew 23:11 But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.
Remember when the disciples at one time were arguing which one was going to be the greatest in heaven? Jesus had to remind them that if you are going to be the greatest, then you have to be a servant. We have to humble ourselves and serve others.
But if you think about it as you read the epistles to the churches, Baptism is mentioned and so is communion. But no where do I find foot washing.
Now concerning this thing about foot washing. No one in here, unless I can help it, will wash, let alone see my feet. I can wash my own thank you.
Communion
Now back to the two ordinances. The first that I want to mention is the ordinance of communion or what we call the Lords supper or the Last supper. We can look in the Gospels when Jesus was in the upper room the night He was betrayed with His disciples and how He broke bread and gave His disciples drink. Mark 14:22-26. Now turn to 1 Corinthians 11:23-26. Scripture does not record how often we are to participate in communion. Churches set up their own periodicity. But the point trying to be made is not how often you do it, but how you do it and the reason behind doing it.
Communion is a serious time of worship that we should follow. Communion should never be taken lightly, it should never be taken without due consideration. Communion is a very important part of a Christians life. How serious is communion? Lets look at some more of the verses 27-30 in chapter 11.
Yes when we take communion we need to examine ourselves and see if there is unconfessed sin in our hearts and then we need to get them right and claim 1 John 1:9 before we take communion unworthily. Which is taking it without due regard to the authority of Jesus Christ.
Look at the first part of verse 28. It says to let a man examine himself. When we are partaking of communion, are you examining yourself to see if you are qualified to take communion? What qualifies us to take communion? What are we to examine within ourselves?
Barnes Commentary says it like this;
“Let him search and see if he have the proper qualifications--if he has knowledge to discern the Lord's body, if he has true repentance for his sins, true faith in the Lord Jesus, and a sincere desire to live the life of a Christian, and to be like the Son of God, and be saved by the merits of his blood. Let him examine himself, and see whether he have the right feelings of a communicant, and can approach the table in a proper manner.”
You see the problem with the church at Corinth was that there was no separation between communion and a regular supper. To them Communion was like any other meal that they ate and didn’t give any regard to its true meaning. We need to see the seriousness of it as something being instituted by the Lord Jesus Himself to commemorate His death. No we should never take communion lightly.
Baptism
Now we come to the second ordinance that I believe Jesus left us with and that is baptism. I believe that many people are confused or have been given the wrong impression about baptism. It is my prayer this morning that as we look at Scripture and see what the Bible says about this issue that ideas and thoughts would be cleared up. It is not my intention to make anyone mad this morning, or try to tell you that you are wrong about what your idea of what baptism is, because that is the Bibles job Amen? If you clearly see something in the Bible, but it is opposite of what you believe or think or think that you know, guess who is wrong? Its either you or the Bible. I will assure you this morning that the Bible is not wrong.
The way I would like to do this is to give some myths about baptism and then take you to the Word of God and disprove those myths. Before I go any further though, I want you to understand that every one who is saved, those who accept Jesus Christ as their Savior need to be baptized. To be honest, that should be one of the first things that you do after you are saved. There are some churches which have a baptistery right on the grounds and as soon as someone gets saved, they baptize them right after the service. We here at New Hope do not have a baptistery (yet), so like other churches, we have to go somewhere else to baptize. Either to another church or even in a river. I was baptized in a river in West Virginia. I still remember that day in 1979 at the age of 13. I had on a blue Huston oilers tee shirt.
Right now I have three myths that I would like to clear up. There may be more, but I think these are the more common ones that people will hold onto.
Myth #1 Sprinkling is the way to baptize.
Many denominations will Baptize a person by sprinkling water onto their foreheads or faces. Is this a proper baptism or does the Bible speak of something different? I believe that the Bible speaks of something different. Sprinkling is not the correct method for baptizing. It is not even another way to baptize. There is only one way to baptize and we will look in scripture to show this.
For starters, we need to see what the word baptize means. We need to go to the Greek to do that. The Greek word baptize and baptized is baptizo bap-tid'-zo to immerse, submerge; to make whelmed (i.e. fully wet);
Now please explain to me how sprinkling can be considered fully wet or even immersion? To submerge means to plunge into the water. Kind of like what a submarine does. It goes under the water. I want to look at some instances in scripture to prove this very act.
Turn to the account in our text of Jesus getting baptized in Matthew 3:13. Scripture says that Jesus went up straightway out of the water. In order to come out of the water, you would have had to go down into the water first. And again in Mark 1:10 And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him:
When Jesus was baptized, He came up out of the water. Turn to Acts 8:38-39. Now what did the eunuch and Philip do? They first went into the water and then came up out of the water. The only way to “Scripturally baptize” is by immersion or plunging into the water.
Myth #2 You have to be baptized to get to heaven
Another myth about baptism is that you have to be baptized in order to go to heaven or that baptism is part of your salvation. A lot of people worry that if they aren’t baptized that they won’t go to heaven and they get so caught up in not being baptized that they neglect the very thing that will get them to heaven.
Let me be clear when I say this. I do not want anyone to misunderstand me about what I am getting ready to say. Baptism plays no part whatsoever in salvation. Baptism and salvation are two different things. You can get to heaven without baptism but you can’t get to heaven without salvation. Salvation is a free gift. Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Listen to me, baptism is a work of righteousness that we do. A lot of people believe that they will go to heaven because they were baptized as a child. And the sad part about that is, they will take that belief all the way to the grave with them and wind up in hell. I have talked to a lot of people that are holding onto that very thing. They are relying on their baptism to get to Heaven and the sad part about that is that they won’t let it go. Some get offended when you tell them that’s not true. Look at Ephesians 2:8-10. It says in Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
Lets go back to the account of the eunuch being saved in Acts. There is a verse I want you to notice here. Look at verse 36 and 37. I want you to notice the conversation that transpired between the two. Romans 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Acts 8:37 gives the confession of the eunuch for salvation. Then he is led into the water to be baptized.
What did the jailer in Acts 16 as Paul? Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
Listen to me this morning, baptism comes after salvation. It is not part of salvation. If you got baptized before salvation, then the only difference that baptism made was that you were dunked a dry sinner and you came up a wet sinner. Again you do not need to be baptized to get into heaven. You might be thinking, well preacher, you showed us some verses in scripture, but I still think you need to be baptized to get to heaven.
Well now, do you really? Turn to Luke 23:39. There is no way that the Roman soldiers would allow them to come off the cross, look for a body of water, get baptized, and then put them back on the cross.
Myth #3 It is necessary to baptize infants
The last myth I want to look at this morning is one that I think needs to be cleared up. How many here were “baptized” as an infant? I think that parents will do that just to appease their own minds. Remember, baptism plays no part in your salvation right? So, being baptized as an infant won’t get you to heaven. Just like I mentioned in the last myth, a lot of people are riding on the very fact to get them to heaven. I don’t even think there is one person that was baptized as an infant that can even remember that they were. So how do they know they were baptized?
Again, it is not my intention to make anyone mad. I showed you scripture concerning the first two myths, and I believe I can show you scripture on this one as well. Many have heard me preach on this before and I think now would be a good time to talk about it again. How do people go to heaven? Jesus said John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. Right? The only way to get to heaven is by Jesus Christ. So with that said, where are all the babies that are getting aborted every day going? And by the way, abortion is wrong. Abortion is murder. How a mother can allow that to happen to her child is beyond me. But anyway, if Jesus is the only way to get to heaven, and all those babies that have been aborted or those that died through a miscarriage never had an opportunity to accept Him, where do they go? I have scripture to back up my answer. Many have heard me talk about the age of accountability. I believe that each child has an age to when they get to, they understand between what is right and what is wrong. With that thought in mind, what did James say sin was? James 4:17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. The key word I want to look at is knoweth. It is when you know to do good and you don’t do it, it is sin. Children I believe that die before they “know to do good” will go to heaven. God is a righteous God who demands perfection but He also is a fair God. Now to the scripture I believe that will prove my point. Turn to 2 Samuel 12:13-23. Notice the words of King David in verse 23. I believe that David is in heaven, so is his son.
Now parents, I want you to understand that baptizing your child early does not get them a place in heaven. I am not trying to be mean. I want to tell you the truth. Our children weren’t baptized when they were infants. What we did, was we dedicated them to the Lord. We brought them before the church and had the Pastor lay hands on them and we dedicated them to God. But that was more for us as the parents than for the child. Because we are claiming and acknowledging that God gave this child to us and that we would raise them in the nurture and admonition to the Lord. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
I pray that this helped and clarified some of the myths about baptism. I felt that in light of what we are going to do this afternoon, this sermon was fitting.
But before I close, I want to talk to the baptismal candidates. I want you to understand the reason for baptism. When Jesus was baptized, it was at the beginning of His ministry. He was baptized before His ministry began. Just like all others who served the Lord.
When you get baptized, you are showing to the world that you are identifying yourself to Christ. That is very important. You are saying that the things of this world are not important to me and that from the point you get baptized and throughout that you will serve Him to the best of your ability. Just like communion, this should not be taken lightly. If you are not willing to live for Christ, then you shouldn’t be baptized. I am not trying to discourage you from getting baptized, I am just letting you know the seriousness of the matter. Too many people get baptized to satisfy their own hearts and are living for the devil. Remember, when you get baptized you are saying, Lord, I want to live my life that is pleasing to you. I want to turn my back on this world and walk with you.
Closing:
Communion and Baptism are New Testament ordinances. They are for the churches (Dispensation of Grace). And they are only for saved people. Everyone that has been baptized in the Bible, first accepted Christ as Savior. You will never convince me otherwise. If you are here this morning and you have never accepted Christ as your Savior, let me encourage you to do so. Notice I didn’t say if you have never taken communion, or have never been baptized. Neither one of those two will get you to heaven. You have to accept the finished work at Calvary and call upon the name of the Lord and thou shalt be saved.
