Baptized to Go and Bear Fruit
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last.
Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.” John 15:16
Intro: A church had purchased a new grand piano.
Not a baby grand but one of the large grand pianos.
The only way to get the piano into the Sanctuary was by taking out the back windows
and raising the piano over thirty feet into the air.
Ordinarily the company that sold the piano would deliver it
but to save on money the trustees decided to harness two of their strongest young men
to pull the piano up and into the building.
The entire congregation stood and watched.
The signal was given.
The men began to pull but nothing happened.
They tugged and strained but they were not able to lift the piano more than a few inches.
Several of the trustees took hold of the rope and they pulled.
But the piano wouldn’t budge.
Other leaders of the Ad Council began to take hold of the rope,
then the Sunday school teachers,
next choir members all began to pull.
Still they couldn’t get the piano to rise.
Finally every able bodied member of the congregation took hold of the rope.
With every member pulling together,
the piano rose into the air
and thru the window
straight into the Sanctuary as planned.
There was a round of cheers and applause.
Next Sunday we will be celebrating baptism at the Paintsville Lake at our annual church picnic.
You the congregation will be asked to make a pledge or promise.
To include and nurture the people who are baptized.
To proclaim the good news before them
and to live according to the example of Christ.
To encircle these persons with a community of love
To surround them with forgiveness
So that they may grow in their trust of God and be found faithful in their service to others.
These new Christians are going to work and serve in the church as much as you will allow them.
Their fruit bearing will depend on our willingness to pull on the rope along with them.
It is important that we understand the true nature and meaning of water baptism.
Baptism is like making a movie. There are three things you need to make a movie.
Actors or performers. A director. And an audience.
Most churches believe that God is the audience in baptism.
That God is up in heaven looking down over us.
That God is observing what we do.
That God is inspecting our choices.
That God watching us to see how we do.
Most people grow up believing that God is the audience.
Most people believe that in the church or the pastor is the performer or actor.
That the Pastor or church is the one who does the baptizing.
Therefore unless you are baptized by their person in their church your baptism in not true or real.
They teach that their pastor or church is the performer or the one doing the action.
Most people believe that the candidate in baptism is the director.
The person being baptized makes the decisions.
They call the shots.
They much choose where and when and how they are baptized and be old enough and accountable enough to make those decisions. They call it the age of accountability. Therefore they exclude children and infants from baptism because they are not old enough to direct their baptism.
All three of these images are incorrect and mistaken beliefs.
In the baptism of grace.
God is the one doing the action.
God is the performer.
God is the one doing the baptizing.
God is the one who sanctifies the water.
God is the one who sets the water apart from all other waters and makes it holy.
God is the one who does the baptizing not man. Not the pastor. Not the church.
God is the person doing the action.
God is the one who does the cleansing.
Jesus Christ is the one who provides the grace to save us.
Therefore it does not matter what church you are baptized in.
Or who you are baptized by.
Or how much water is used during your baptism.
Baptism is all about God at work.
God takes center stage.
God is the one doing the action and performance during your baptism.
In true baptism the church or the pastor becomes the director.
The church ordains clergy to carry out the duties of the sacraments.
Elders are charged to take the authority to preach the Word of God
And administer the Holy Sacraments of Baptism and Communion.
That is the way it has been done since the Elders in the Early Church of the Book of Acts laid hands on
and ordained the first clergy to direct these sacred services.
The pastor and church are the directors leading and guiding the baptism.
And that leaves the candidate or the person being baptized as the audience.
The candidate is the one receiving.
The candidate is the one watching what God is doing.
The person being baptized is getting the show.
Not putting on a show.
God is actor
The Pastor of Church is directing the service.
And the person being baptized is receiving what God is doing in his or her life.
One of my favorite cartoon movies is the Lion King.
The Lion King tells the story of Simba, a young lion who is to succeed his father, Mufasa, and become king;
At the beginning of the movie the priest like character who is a monkey.
Takes a coconut
Breaks it open
Marks Simba on the forehead with the water.
Then takes him to the top of the ledge and lifts him up
and presents him to the whole jungle who is watching below.
Let’s watch a video clip from that movie.
Simba is born a child of the king.
He is chosen and appointed and marked.
By the waters of baptism we are identified as a child of the King.
“You did not choose me,
but I chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last.
Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.” John 15:16
• Baptism is less about us choosing God and more about your discovering God has chosen you.
By the water of baptism we are initiated into God’s mighty acts of acts of salvation.
We are incorporated into the church the body of Christ.
We are identified and marked as children of God.
A pastor tells the story of a two year old he was about to baptize.
There were a couple of other children in line ahead of him.
When the two year old realized that it was his turn next,
He wiggled loose from his parent’s arms and ran toward the door.
An usher grabbed the boy
Picked him up, and carried him kicking and screaming all the way to the front.
The pastor asked, “Is the kid throwing a fit? Or does the devil know what is about to happen?”
Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
The devil doesn’t like it when we get them young.
The devil would prefer that we didn’t baptize infants and children.
If he can get parents to wait and put if off long enough then maybe when they are teenagers the devil will have a better chance to tempt them and turn them and hook them into bad habits, and hang ups, and brokenness till they will not want to be baptized.
If we don’t’ reach a child for Christ before the age of 11
the odds of them becoming a Christian decline exponentially.
Remember when the Pastor/Church is the director
The candidate/child is the audience
God is the Actor/Performer
It doesn’t matter how old or how young you are.
It doesn’t matter how much or how little water you use.
It doesn’t matter where, what church, or what pastor baptizes you.
It is all about God performing.
It is all about God’s actions.
The beautiful plan of God’s baptism is you are just there watching, receiving,
as the audience of what God is performing.
I met a lady in seminary who told me she was baptized as an infant.
She felt God’s presence in her earliest childhood memories.
She said, she had never felt alone.
Acts 16:33 “At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds;
then immediately he and all his household were baptized.”
Were their women in his household? Absolutely.
Were there children in the household? Surely there were teenagers and kids.
Some who were old enough to be at the age of accountability
and some who maybe did not yet understand the meaning and the eternal consequences of right and wrong.
Where there infants in the house?
Babies who had been born only eight days old
are no longer taken to the temple for the ritual of physical circumcision
but were now touched and sprinkled with the water of the New Covenant.
Were there elder people who could not make it to the river to be baptized?
Did they bring water back to them and sprinkle them with the waters of the New Covenant?
I am convinced yes, to women.
Yes, to children
Yes to infants.
Yes, to sprinkling.
The whole household was baptized.
Ezekiel 36:25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
Do you think that everyone who was circumcised in the flesh did what was right and pleasing to God?
Of course not.
Acts 7:51 “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears,
ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.”
It has never been about the physical circumcision or the physical baptism.
It has never been about obeying mans laws to prove you are holy.
It has always been about what is in the heart.
Closing: Have you ever felt the tug, the pull of Jesus upon your heart?
Today I invite you to come forward and kneel at the altar to pray.
Have you been baptized?
Do you know God has chosen your?
Have you claimed your identity as a child of the King?
Have you received Jesus as your Saviour?
Have you made a promise to raise up your child
and teach them the truth about faith
and to teach them the lessons that are found in the bible?
If you have then your response is baptism.
If you have never been baptized
or if you need to reaffirm your baptism then come forward.
