Acts 2:38-39 October 3, 2004
Baptism
Last Easter we baptized 3 young adults & if you remember I preached about the meaning of baptism that Sunday. You may not remember what I said, but you may remember these little vials of water. They have the verse from Acts 2: "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.”- Acts 2:38 I asked you to take one of these as a promise to yourself and to God that one day you will be baptized. I hope those of you who took one put it on your dresser or your bed stand as a reminder to do the things that you need to do to bring yourself to a place when you will be baptized. And then on that day, as a mark of completion, you can pour the water out into the baptistery.
In today’s sermon I want to once again deal with the issue of Baptism by looking at the verses in Acts 2 and other scriptures that call us to baptism and teach us what baptism means.
Pray
When I was the pastor of Humber Blvd. Baptist Church, our people were not that expressive in worship, so in order to help them open up, I did a little exercise… we were about to pray for something to God and I asked them to hold their hands out as if they were about to receive something from God. And then I asked them how they felt with their hands like that. Lets try it here. Put your hands out with your palms up as if you are about to receive something from God. How do you feel? Tell your neighbour. How did you feel?
That was just a warm up for what I want to do today. I’ll need a volunteer – hopefully a smaller person. Get some one and “baptize” them without water at the front of the church. While they are “down,” ask them how they feel. Respond to those feelings.
Is that a good way to feel before God?
Baptism is an outward sign of an inward reality – we are surrendering to God, helpless in his arms…
Washing your sins away
You may remember the story of Paul’s conversion. Paul (or Saul) was the writer of the majority of the New Testament, and the main reason for the spread of Christianity throughout the then known world. Befor he became a Christian he was a persecutor of the church. He had gained permission to travel from Jerusalem to Damascus to search for Christians their and arrestet them and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial. In Acts 22 he tells the story again and says…
Acts 22:16
6"About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. 7I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ’Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’
8" ’Who are you, Lord?’ I asked.
9" ’I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.
10" ’What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked.
11" ’Get up,’ the Lord said, ’and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’ My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.
12"A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there. 13He stood beside me and said, ’Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very moment I was able to see him.
14"Then he said: ’The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. 15You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. 16And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.’
Baptism is this great image of being washed clean of every thing that we have ever done wrong.
You might remember I told the story of how When my daughter was just 2, we baptized a man named Chuck. Hayley went around the house saying, “Chuck had a bath! Chuck had a bath!” for weeks after that. The image of baptism is symbolic of many things, one of those things is the forgiveness that Jesus gives us. He washes us clean so that all the things that we ever did wrong are removed from us.
John 8
A Woman Caught in Adultery
1Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. 3As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and Pharisees brought a woman they had caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
4"Teacher," they said to Jesus, "this woman was caught in the very act of adultery. 5The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?"
6They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, "All right, stone her. But let those who have never sinned throw the first stones!" 8Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
9When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10Then Jesus stood up again and said to her, "Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?"
11"No, Lord," she said.
And Jesus said, "Neither do I. Go and sin no more."
Can you imagine her walk home? She’s just been snatched from the fire – the Pharisees were right by the letter of the law – she, and her lover (where was he?) deserved to die. They would have been in trouble with the Romans if they has stoned her, but under their law, that is what she disserved. Depending on their mood the Romans would have overlooked this ritual death. She was looking death in the eye, but Jesus in essence removed the punishment from her. Air would never have tasted so good on that morning walk home.
This is what Jesus does for us – Romans 6 says that we all disserve death for the sin in our lives. We inherited that punishment from Adam and Eve and we joined in to the punishment with our own sin. Jesus in his death and resurrection pays the punishment for our sin, he washes us clean so that when God looks at us, we are pure and clean, spotless before him. He has bathed us with a bath that makes us truly clean. Baptism is a sign that we are forgiven people.
Romans 8 begins with these fantastic words: “Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
In the early church Baptisms were carried out differently that they are today, and they brought out strongly the rich imagery that is in the act of Baptism. They would begin by praying with the candidates a prayer of exorcism and renunciation of Satan and his ways. The men and women would have separate services because you would be baptized naked to show that you bring nothing to God that will effect your own salvation. Then as you came out of the water you would be clothed in a white robe to symbols that you have been cleansed of your sin, and `put on Christ’. They would then anoint you with oil and lay on hands praying for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus takes our sin and throws them away from us as far as the east is from the west, he buries them in the deepest sea and Corrie Ten Boone says he puts up a sign that says “No Fishing”
We all have sin in our lives that weighs us down – outside of the punishment that we disserve for the sin, we feel guilt and shame and remorse and condemnation for the things that we have done that have hurt others, ourselves and God. If you don’t have those feelings you are what psychiatrists call sociopath. We might feel like those things are tattooed on the skin of our soul, never to come off, but Jesus’ bath even removes tattoos! We walk away from that bath, saved from death, cleansed from head to toe of the sins that have weighed us down.
God takes away the guilt of our sin – he treats us as if we had never sinned, but he goes one step further – through the healing waters of the Holy Spirit, he also removes our shame – he can wash the weight of our sins off our souls.
Baptism is a picture of the bath that Jesus gives us when we come to him and place our lives in his hands.
Dying and Rising again
Jesus doesn’t just say to the woman that he does not condemn her – he says one more thing – go and sin no more.
We all have things in our lives that we need to be cleansed of, but we also have things in our lives that need to die – patterns of unhealthy behavior, wrong attitudes, habitual sins…
Baptism is also a picture of that death – that we are leaving the old person behind that used to do those sorts of things, and we are coming out of the water brand new!
Romans 6: 3-7
…all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with,[1] that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
In Baptism, we are saying that, not only have we been forgiven for all the wrong things we have done, we are committing to leaving those things behind.
In Ephesians Paul talks about "taking off" the old self (the old way of living) like a dirty shirt that is no longer needed and "putting on" Christ like a new a beautiful garment (Eph 4:22-24). Galatians 3:27 says, "all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
It is not that we are perfect after our baptism
Now Christians can believe some strange things – there was a church that believed in sinless perfection once you trusted Jesus Christ into your life and were baptized. A visitor to that church heard this teaching and asked to be baptized. He was tired of dealing with his habitual sin without any success. Unfortunately, it was in the middle of winter and the river was near frozen.
The man with much persistence got the Elders to baptize him in the river. After the man and two Elders came out of the freezing cold water, the man was so excited, he said, "I feel so good, I’m not even cold." One Elder turned to the other and said, "He’s lying, we have to do it again."
Your Baptism will not fix you, but it is a symbol and a sign that in God’s help, the life that you lived before Jesus is dead, and through the work of His Holy Spirit you will continue to put to death the things from that old life that are against God’s ways.
“A Christian is not one who never goes wrong, but one who is enabled to repent and begin over again after each stumble—because of the inner working of Christ.”
- C.S. Lewis
Call to Baptism
If you’ve given your heart to Jesus and never stepped into the waters of baptism, why not?
Or maybe today is the day that you want to accept Jesus to forgive your sins and rule your life! We’d love to pray with you for that and get you started on the road to baptism.
Talk to a pastor today.
Maybe you are not felling just ready. When I was younger, there were couples who were very serious about each other, but not ready to be engaged, and the guy would give the woman a “promise ring” to say we are serious, and one day I’ll give you an engagement ring.
I wanted to give some of you that option today. So if you know that some time soon you want to go through with baptism, We have available a little vial of water with the verse "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.”- Acts 2:38 written on it. I’d like you to take one of these as a promise to yourself and to God that one day you will be baptized. Put it on your dresser or your bed stand as a reminder to do the things that you need to do to bring yourself to a place when you will be baptized. And then on that day, as a mark of completion, you can pour the water out into the baptistery.
