Oh, crossing family, I love you and I cannot thank you enough
for being part of our Super Bowl weekend.
And if you know someone who missed it, I want to encourage
you. You can watch all three
services. We posted all three services
online. You can go to wherever these
places are. We got something for you back
here. Tells you all the places we do
right there. If you go to YouTube, go to one
crossing. We got all three of them.
We got Patrick the horse on Thursday.
We had Samson the horse first service on Sunday and then I
think it was buggy bug or something for was the third
horse. We just called her the Palomino.
She was too pretty for me to mess up her name.
I've heard story after story about how people were impacted
this past weekend through Riding High Ministries and I am so
proud of you guys because I got reports that you actually
listened to what we were saying. I heard check this out that you
guys came early. Keep it up.
That's a great habit. I heard that lots of you parked
far away. Keep it up.
I heard a bunch of you invited people keep it up.
You never know what God can do with a small step of faith.
And if we're really arguing to make this region the hardest
place on planet earth to get the hell from, those are ways that
we can consistently love the people in our region.
Showing up early, parking far away, and inviting to those of
you who support this church financially, we could not have
done this weekend without you. And it is.
I'm just very, very thankful to those of you who support our
church because for our partnership with Riding High
Ministry did exactly what we thought it was going to do,
created one of the most memorable weekends in the
history of our church. I want to say a special thank
you to the 950 Club, to those of you who prayed at 9:50 in the
morning or 9:50 at night, or you prayed both for 9500 people to
show up at our church this weekend, I want you to know God
answers prayers because that's exactly what happened.
Actually, that's not true. That's not true.
We did not have 9500 people show up.
We had 11,150 three, that is butts in seats all across this
region. And so if you're part of the 950
club, I just want to tell you don't stop praying every single
week and you can join me. I have a three o'clock club and
we just do 3:00 in the afternoon.
We don't do 3:00 in the morning because then we would never
experience a R.E.M. Cycle in our sleep.
But if you want to join me in praying at 3:00 PM every
afternoon for our Weaver location to minister to 300
people 4 weekends in a row, I would love to have you join us.
I got tons of messages about last weekend, as you can
imagine, but my favorite was a mother texted me about her
daughter's prayer as she was going to bed after the Thursday
service. Here is her prayer.
This is what she had to say. She goes love last night.
So I was praying with my daughter before bed last night.
She's 8, and she prays. Thank you, Jesus, for a fun
night and that we could learn and thank you that the horse
decided to become a Christian. Isn't that I love it?
I mean, yeah. Only at the crossing do even the
horses get saved. OK.
I also want you to know we just opened up crossing camp
registration this past weekend. And for the last four years, we
have set all time attendance records for the amount of kids
that are going to our camp and using our camp every single
year. And I want to encourage you guys
to go ahead and sign your kids up for camp.
One of the ways we're able to keep our costs down, there's
very little price influx this year.
I think in most of our campuses is 0 price increase.
And one of the ways we're able to keep our prices down is when
we're able to prepare in advance for the kids that are coming.
And so we would love to have you sign up early, make those dates
holy unto the Lord and plan your vacation around camp.
And to those of you who are like Jennifer and I and you not only
want to send your kids to camp, but you want to make sure that
every kid who wants to go to camp can go to camp.
You can join us in giving to camp scholarships.
This year Jennifer and I made a commitment that we are going to
pay for one kid to go to every single week of camp.
And we have 8 camps. And I did the math and that to
send one kid to each of our camps to all 8 camps is $1695.
Which means I've I've got some saving to do.
I've done my first check, but I'm going to have to make
payments on my anyhow. I would just love, and there's a
bunch of people all across this region who call the crossing
home. But I would love for 50 couples
to join Jennifer and I and do the exact same thing.
And if we all do that, if fifty of us say, yeah, we're going to
make a way for one kid to go to each of our camps, it will
actually make it possible for 400 kids to go to camp.
And I would love that to happen. I know some of you, you're
golfers, you love to golf and you like to make fun of me when
I golf. And I've God bless you.
And if you want to leverage your love for golf, making fun of me
and helping kids go to camp, we're going to have we're going
to release our golf outings here in a couple of weeks.
And we do that when you sign up to go to one of our golf outings
and have fun with people. It is coming alongside all of
our camp scholarship efforts. So be on the lookout for that
now. I am so glad that you are here
today because today we are going to be answering one of the top
ten questions that I get about our church.
But before I do that, I want to welcome those of you joining at
all of our different locations, those of you joining online and
those of you who are part of the crossing inside.
And to those of you who are a part of the crossing inside in
Pike County, I am headed your way to spend a week, a Wednesday
evening with you in March and I can't wait to see you.
And I need to say this, I know some of you are going to get out
before I get there. Don't stick around for me to
come visit you. I'd rather you be out.
OK? But for those of you who are
going to be in there till past March, I cannot wait to get to
meet you and hear your story. With today we are launching a
brand new sermon series called Some Assembly Required.
This sermon series is Part what we believe as a Church, why we
do what we do as a church, and How to Build Meaningful
Encounters with God. Part what we believe as a
church, why we do what we do as a church, and how to cultivate
meaningful encounters with God. And these messages are going to
feel a little bit educational. So I'm not going to preach as
much as I'm going to teach. So if you're going, man,
Clayton's a boring preacher. Imagine how boring I am when I
put on my professor hat. So if you if you're if someone
next to you is falling asleep, I'm giving you permission to hit
them as hard as you possibly can in love.
OK, now I'm going to do as best job as I can.
The reason why I'm making these more educational is because I
want you to understand why we do as a church.
And if you're the kind of person who you learn best when you take
notes, this whole sermon series for the next six weeks will be
very great sermons for you to take notes for you to remember.
Today we're going to talk about baptism.
Now we make a big deal about baptism at our church.
We show them every single week during one of the songs during
our worship set. We cheer when they happen at the
service. I can only speak for 40 8th St.
We cheer the loudest when we see the number from the crossing
inside because like I said, those of you who are part of the
crossing inside, we see you as family.
We invite every single week people at our church to get
baptized. I pray six days a week for all
the people that have been baptized at our church and all
the people that will be baptized at our church.
In fact, I have a counter in my office that keeps track of all
the baptisms that happen in the calendar year.
Now here's why I have that counter in office.
It is a constant reminder to me that God is still moving and God
is still changing lives. It's a reminder for me that when
I'm working on a sermon to keep an eye on the left side of the
spiritual spectrum. If you guys remember the
spiritual spectrum, those who don't know Jesus yet, It's also
a reminder to me that every single week at the crossing,
there is an opportunity for one more person to say yes to Jesus.
And my hope is that at the end of this message, you will have a
better understanding of why baptism is so important to us
here at the crossing. But I got to give you some
cautionary notes. One, there is no way for me to
cover absolutely everything there is to cover about a topic
this big. But I'm going to try to address
some of the biggest questions that people who attend this
church have asked, people who have visited our church have
asked, or people who have really strong opinions about our church
have asked. So if you share this message,
please share it in love. I'm also going to be gone all
next week, so if you e-mail me, it will be redirected to your
campus pastor so that way you can get a prompt reply.
So let's take this apart bit by bit.
Here at the Crossing, we practice immersion.
We baptize people all the way under the water.
So you might be asking why do we put people all the way under the
water instead of sprinkling? Let me answer that.
The reason we do it is because the Greek word for baptism is
baptizo. It means to immerse or to dip.
If I were to say let's all hop in the car and go get some ice
cream and then we walked outside and I got on my bicycle, you
guys would go. I think we have a different
understanding of the word car. Does that make sense?
So when the Bible talks about baptism, it is using a word that
means to dip or to immerse. Now this will help you read the
Bible in a whole new way because what you're going to see is is
that when the Bible talks about immersion, the way it actually
uses it in context in the scriptures makes this abundantly
clear. It re emphasizes the message.
You ready to go to school? Here we go.
Here are some descriptions of baptism in the New Testament.
OK, now what I did is if I'm going to walk you through
actually all of these scriptures and we're going to kind of fill
in the XS, but I didn't want the house to fill in the XS as we
go. It's just already marked out.
So Acts chapter 10, verse 47. Then Peter said, surely no one
can stand in the way of their being baptized with water.
So he's talking about baptism and then he uses the word water.
Now let's go back to the chart. So could does sprinkling require
water? It sure does.
Does if you were poured on? Or does pouring require water?
Sure does. Does immersion require water,
putting somebody all the way under the water?
Of course it does. OK, so at least from Acts
chapter 10, verse 47, we know that water is important for
baptism. But let's keep reading.
Let's see what the other verses say.
This is John chapter 3, verse 23.
Now John was also baptizing at Anon near Salim because there
was plenty of water and people were coming and being baptized.
So John 323 actually says we need plenty of water for a
baptism to take place. Do you need plenty of water for
a sprinkling? The answer to that question is
no. Do you need plenty of water for
pouring? Maybe that's why I put a little
question mark. But does immersion, putting
somebody all the way under to dip or to immerse, require there
to be plenty of water? The answer to that question is
yes. Matthew 313.
This is Jesus's baptism. Then Jesus came from Galilee to
the Jordan to be baptized by John.
Why? Or now the Jordan is a river.
It'd be like saying the Mississippi.
Why does Jesus travel multiple miles to go to this river?
I think it was 35 or 70 miles. Jesus travels to go to this area
to be baptized in the river. If a jar of water would work, a
cup of water would work. A, you know, a flask of water.
For those of you who are, you know, risky crossing people, a
flask of water, right? Unless there was a need for
there to be a body of water large enough for a person to be
fully immersed or to be, as the Bible calls it, baptized.
Let's keep reading. Mark chapter one, verse 9.
At that time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was
baptized by John in the Jordan. Same thing again.
Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven
being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.
Can you come up out of the amount of water that you would
need to be sprinkled in? Can you come up out of the water
that you would need to be poured on?
Or does it only make sense that the word baptized means immerse
because you were coming up out of enough water that you had
have been all the way under? So I would say you don't Oh, go
back one slide. I apologize.
That was my fault. So in Matthew 313, sprinkling
doesn't make sense. Pouring doesn't make sense and
neither does or but immersion does.
Now let's look at Acts chapter 8 verse 36 through 39.
As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the
eunuch said, look, here is water.
What can stand in the way of my being baptized?
Let's keep going. And he gave orders to stop the
chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch
went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.
When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord
suddenly took Philip away. So we've got the Ethiopian
eunuch, he's travelling in an entourage.
He's and Philip comes and interacts with them.
They're in this entourage. There have been plenty of water.
There have been water in cups, there have been water in jars,
There have been water in big in big bags for them to be able to
take care of the entire entourage.
If there was enough water in the entourage for the sprinkling and
there was enough water in the entourage for the pouring, why
does he see a body of water and go look, there's enough water
for me to be baptized. The only thing that makes sense
is if baptism means what the word baptism means, which is to
immerse. Look what it says in Matthew
chapter 3 verse 16. As soon as Jesus was baptized,
he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened
and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and a
lighting on him. Well, how much water do you have
to have for someone to come up out of the water?
You need a lot, which would make sense because when you baptize
somebody it is an immersion. You are going under the water
and coming back up. Look what it says in Romans
chapter 6. We were therefore buried with
him through baptism unto 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. Paul says that when you are
baptized, you are preaching a gospel message.
Watch this just as Jesus died on the cross, was laid in the tomb,
and three days later was raised to new life.
When we are baptized, we all go down into the water.
The old is gone, and then through the new birth we are
brought back to life, a new creation in Christ Jesus.
Our baptism into Christ demonstrates what saves us,
Jesus's death on the cross and the resurrection.
And because Jesus died for us, we died to ourselves.
And because Jesus was raised, we too have the hope of a
resurrection one day. This is reiterated in Colossians
chapter 2, Having been buried with him in baptism, in which
you were also raised with him through your faith in the
working of God, who raised him from the dead.
Does any of this being buried and raised, does any of that
imagery preach the same gospel message?
If we're talking about sprinkling or we're talking
about pouring, the answer is no. The word baptism means to
immerse and every time they talk about baptism they talk about a
body of water big enough to get your whole body in.
And when they talk about how it preaches a gospel message, they
reference the going down and the coming up.
Next question, Why or is baptism important?
The answer to that question is yes.
And I'm going to give you 4 reasons why I say that.
There's more, but I'm going to just give you 4 #1 Jesus
demonstrated it. If you want to be a Jesus
person, doing what Jesus does is probably at the top of your
list. And when Jesus was baptized and
he said that, that's a pretty good like, you know what, I'm
going to do this stuff that Jesus does.
Having your little, what would Jesus do?
Guess what Jesus would do? Jesus got baptized.
You know what you should do? You should get baptized #2 Jesus
commanded his followers to baptize others as a part of the
discipleship process. Look what it says in Matthew
chapter 28 verse 19. You guys, you guys have heard me
talk about this over and over and over again.
This is what it says. Jesus Kingdom and said all
authority on heaven and earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples. How do you make a disciple a
follower of Jesus Christ? He tells you baptizing them in
the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and teaching
them to obey everything I have commanded you.
Can you make a disciple of Jesus without a person being baptized?
No, if we are Jesus people, we should be in the baptizing
business. Number three reason why baptism
is important. The very first gospel message
ever preached ordered people to do it in Acts chapter 2, verse
38, which you're going to see that verse about four more times
over the course of this sermon. But here's the deal.
Peter gets done preaching the sermon.
And when the people get done hearing the sermon, they go,
Peter, what should we do? And Peter's answer was repent.
And this is going to catch a lot of you off guard.
Be baptized. That's what you should do after
you hear the gospel #4 every spiritual transformation after
the resurrection of Jesus included it.
Post resurrection, every time somebody said I'm ready to be a
Jesus follower, the Bible describes that they were
baptized, which is getting a bunch of you to start going.
Is he gone where I think he's going?
So let me go ahead and ask. Ask the question that I know
that some of you already got going on in your head.
Does baptism save you? The answer to this question no
doubt could serve as the preeminent answer to the
previous question, Is baptism important?
Because if baptism saves you, that makes baptism like the most
important thing. The problem is, is that to
answer that question it requires a semantic answers and any time
you try to answer questions semantically, you can answer
them semantically correct and end up with an errant theology
and an errant practice. So just take a deep breath and
just stay with me for like the next 10 minutes.
The Bible clearly states that you and I are saved by the
person and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus saves.
Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 through 9 says this.
For it is by grace you have been saved through faith.
Excuse me? And this is not from yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast.
Salvation happens because it is a gift from God.
We receive it because it is God's grace to give it to us.
We lay hold of it through faith. If we saved ourselves, we would
boast in what we had done, but because we did not save
ourselves, we boast in what Jesus has done on our behalf.
If the Bible clearly teaches that we are saved by Jesus, the
better question we should ask is not whether or not baptism saves
you, but this how do we take hold of this salvation?
Pay attention here. The Bible clearly teaches that
when it comes to salvation, we do have a part to play.
Let me unpack this for you. The Bible says that in order for
us to be saved, the first thing we have to do is we have to hear
the gospel message. Look what it says in Romans
chapter 10. Everyone who calls on the name
of the Lord will be saved. How then can they call on the
1:00 they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the
one in whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without
someone preaching to them? In order to come to faith in
Christ, you have to hear about Christ.
So there's a part that we have to play.
We have to hear the gospel message.
That's not enough. Does hearing save you?
Oh no it doesn't. We have to do something else.
We have to believe. Look what it says in John
chapter 8 verse 24. I told you that you would die in
your sins if you do not believe that I am He.
This is Jesus talking. You will die in your sins unless
you believe that I am the Christ, the Son of the living
God. You will indeed die in your
sins. If we don't believe.
If we die in our sins, that is the opposite of salvation.
Salvation is being saved in spite of our sins.
If you do not believe, you die as a result of your sins.
So as Christians, we have a part to play.
We have to hear the gospel message and we have to believe
the gospel message. Hebrews Chapter 11 verse 6 says
this. And without faith it is
impossible to please God because anyone who comes to Him
salvation must believe that He exists and that He rewards those
who earnestly seek Him. How does He reward us with
salvation? Christians, we have a role to
play. We have to hear, we have to
believe, but that's not it. The Bible also says we are to
repent. We are to turn from living our
own way and start following in the ways of God.
Look what it says in Acts chapter 2, verse 38.
Peter replied, repent and be baptized, everyone of you in the
name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and
you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Could somebody be saved if they're saying, listen, I'm
going to do my own thing for the rest of my life and I'm never
going to follow Jesus? That would not be, that didn't
seem right. Repentance is going, I'm no
longer living for me, I'm living for him.
In our salvation, we have a part to play.
We have to hear the gospel, we have to believe the gospel, and
we have to repent of our ways to bring our lives in alignment
with the gospel. It goes on.
The Bible says we're also supposed to confess.
And when it says confess, it's not about confessing our sins to
one another. It is about going on record
being public in our faith. Look what it says in Romans
chapter 10 verse nine through 10.
If you declare with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in
your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be.
You guys say the word that's interesting.
For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified is
with your mouth that you profess your faith and are.
OK. Hold on a second here.
You've heard me say this before. There is no such thing as an
Incognito undercover Christian. If nobody at your work knows
that you're a Christian, it might be because you might not
be. The Bible says that if you're
ashamed of God, God will be ashamed of you.
If you deny God, he'll deny you. We have to go on record.
We have to confess, so we have to hear the gospel.
We have to believe the gospel. We have to repent of our ways.
We have to go public with our faith.
And guess what? One of the things that we do,
part of our part to play, we're supposed to be baptized.
Mark 1616. This is just the Bible.
That's all I'm doing, just teaching the Bible.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be.
Interesting that you guys said that.
But whoever does not believe will be condemned.
You might be gone, but it doesn't say whoever does not
believe and isn't baptized will be condemned.
Well if you don't believe in God, you probably wouldn't do
the things of God. So why would you be baptized,
which is a command of God, if you don't believe that God
exists in the 1st place? But it does say that those who
believe and are baptized will be saved.
So Christians have a responsibility.
Acts chapter 238. Remember I told you to see this
a bunch of times, Peter, reply to repent and be baptized,
everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness
of your sins, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Christians have a responsibility.
We have a part to play. We have to hear the gospel.
We have to believe the gospel. We have to repent of our ways
and follow the gospel, and we need to be baptized.
I got another one for you. We're supposed to remain
faithful. You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, what? I'm just saying Colossians
chapter one verse 22 through 23. But now he has reconciled you by
Christ's physical body through death to present you wholly in
his sight without blemish free and accusation.
This is all the stuff that Jesus does on our part, which is why
we love him. We're a big fan of Jesus around
here. If you continue in your faith
established and firm and do not move from the hope held out in
the gospel, this is the gospel that you heard and that has been
proclaimed to every creature under heaven.
Would it make sense to you that a person can call in the name of
the Lord, repent, be baptized, and then they go, You know what?
Now I'm going to do whatever I want to do for the entire rest
of my life. Does that sound like a heart
that has been surrendered and has Jesus Christ as their Lord?
That doesn't make sense. So in other words, Christians
have a part to play. Now hear me, Our part is like
this when it comes to saving you, God did all of the big
work. We got this stuff to do.
So you might be asking yourself, well Clayton, you just laid out
a lot of stuff for us to do. Does this make baptism a work?
Because you just read that passage of scripture that says
that this is not a work of our own.
So that way nobody can boast. Let me give you 2 illustrations.
If today I was Oprah Winfrey OK, and everybody was getting a
house today, I because I love you so much, I went out and I
bought a piece of property for every single one of you.
And I dug a foundation and I poured the concrete and I built
you a basement. And then I put I studded it up
and I drywalled and I put a roof over the top and I put
insulation in and I ran all the plumbing and all the electrical.
And I put I mudded it and I painted.
I made it look beautiful. I put all the lights in, all the
appliances, all the flooring, all the fixtures, all the
cabinets. I bought all the furniture and I
made this whole place beautiful. I paved the driveway.
I did all the hardscaping, all the the softscaping.
Your house is absolutely beautiful.
And I come and I bring you the keys and I go, I did this for
you, but you got to go down to the county clerk's office and
you got to register this house in your name.
Would you go around town bragging to everybody about how
you did all the work to make that house?
You know what I would do to you if I found out that you were
doing it? I'd squish you like a bug,
right? Because I did all the work.
You just had to lay hold go on record with what I had done on
your behalf. If we were out in a in the ocean
and I was in a big old boat and you were out in your little
dinghy and you, your dinghy got a hole in it.
And you, you're in the water and you're not a good swimmer and
the waves are just beating you all over the place, OK.
And I'm up there and I'm such a good person.
I, I got my binoculars out. Ahoy.
Somebody's in peril. And I throttle up and I, it's a
big boat. You guys love me.
You got me a bit. And I turn that big boat around
and I bring it in close and I put the engine in neutral.
And I go over and I press the little button and it lowers my
little dinghy down into the water.
And then I hop in it and I come, I'm coming towards you.
And then I jump out like Fat Hasselhoff into the water,
coming after you like the Zohan. And I get close and then I grab
my life jacket and I throw it out at you.
And then you grab a hold of the life jacket and you get back in
the boat and you get on the big boat and you're telling
everybody about how you saved yourself.
You know what I would do? It's a good thing I'm not God.
I'd throw you right back out there.
Tread water, brother, tread because everybody watching would
see all that I had done on your behalf.
But did you still have to put the own your own life jacket on?
That is not a work that you did. It is the normal response to
what has been done on your behalf.
This is how you lay hold of your salvation.
Now, some of you right now you're wondering, Clayton, I
believe in Jesus and I call myself a Christian and I've
never been baptized. Are you saying I'm not saved?
I am doing my best not to say too much to you, but to show you
what scripture seems to make clear.
And some of you right now you're processing a whole lot of
information and a whole lot of emotions.
And this is one of the tips that I tell people is that it is
important that you do when when you're talking about your
personal experience and the scriptures, that you do not put
the scriptures into submission to your personal experience, but
you put your experiences in submission to the Word of God.
What you might be confusing is the Holy Spirit working on you
versus the Holy Spirit working in you.
And if you stay with me without getting too mad and pre typing
the e-mail, I've got good news for you here in a second.
Here's what I'm saying. The Bible makes it clear that
baptism is part of salvation, along with hearing, belief,
repentance, confession, and obedience, which has LED a lot
of people to ask this question. So at what point does salvation
actually take place? When am I actually saved?
And here's what I tell people. My answer to that question is
always the same. The point or the moment of
salvation has been and is always up to God.
But here's the illustration I use.
It's a lot like baking a cake track with me here.
Food stuff is like, you know how I'm, this is how I do parables.
Todd rides horses. I talk about food.
OK, so when does a cake become a cake?
After you mix up all the ingredients, after all the
ingredients are in the bowl, does it become a cake the moment
you put it in the oven? At what point in the oven does
it actually become a cake? You know what you've never done?
You've never asked yourself that question.
You want to know why? You just do what you're supposed
to do. And when the timer goes off, you
pull it out and guess what? You have right in front of you?
A stinking cake, right? Here's what we have never done.
We've never sat around with a bunch of cake batter all over
our kitchen counter going, I think.
I mean, is it a cake? I don't know, man.
Let's put it in the fridge for a while.
You know what you're not doing? You're not staining at the oven.
Cake no. Cake.
No. Cake?
No. What about cake?
No, you know why? You just simply do what you're
supposed to do and enjoy it when it's done.
When a person hears the gospel, believes it repents of their old
way, decide to be obedient in the area of baptism and live a
life that's faithful, You know what you don't spend any time
asking? Am I saved because you've just
done exactly what Scripture has told you to do.
Now, if you're here today, my goal is not to cause spiritual
anguish or spiritual confusion, but to give you an opportunity
to be obedient to what the Word of God says.
So what would I do if I had never been baptized?
I would get baptized. When would I do it?
I would do it today and I wouldn't put it off any longer.
Why would a person? How would you feel if there was
a person who was always engaged to your son or daughter but
never married? And I love your daughter.
She's the best. And I mean, I, I like holding
hands with her and I like come at all your family gatherings.
Oh, I love it. And I mean, I think she's
smoking hot. I think this is great.
I put a ring on her finger. I'm going to provide for her
financially. But no, I don't.
I just, I'm not a marriage guy. That's just kind of not how I'm
wired. You know, I don't really want
like the work of a wedding to define our relationship.
What would you say to that person?
I think that I think that you're not going to be around here much
longer, right? Like you go, there's something
wrong. Why don't you want to go on
record and make a covenant commitment?
Let me say it this way. You would admit that there was
at least something wrong in that relationship.
A Christian desires to be obedient to God.
Hear me. If Jesus did it, commanded his
followers to do it, then our response as Christian should be
really, really easy. Which of the things that I
mentioned would you take out of salvation?
What would you say to me if I said, you know, you can become a
Christian without ever hearing about Jesus?
You'd be like, that didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
If I were to say, hey, you can become a Christian without ever
believing in God, would you go? That didn't make a whole lot of
sense. If I were to say you could
become a Christian but never repent, would that make sense to
you? How come we only ask this
question about baptism? Here's my answer.
I believe because Satan has hijacked something that was
supposed to be incredibly special for believers.
I'm going to answer a little bit of that in about 3 minutes.
Clayton, what would you say to those of you who were baptized
as infants? Here's what I would say to you.
There is no explanation or description of infants being
baptized anywhere in Scripture. It can only be inferred if when
the Bible says their whole household was baptized, that
there were young kids in the home.
I would call what happened to you when you were baptized as an
infant a wet baby dedication. Your parents were dedicating you
to the Lord and it was a wet baby dedication.
But when you are older and you decide to get baptized on your
own, you are cashing the check that your parents wrote all
those years ago. I want you to, for some of you
who grew up in a, in a, in a system of belief where you are
baptized as an infant, you're going, how do I talk to my
parents about this? Here's what I'm saying, Mom and
Dad, when I was a baby, your hope and your prayer is that one
day I would grow up to love you with all of my heart, mind,
soul, and strength. And guess what?
I want the same thing for my life that you've wanted for me
my whole life. And now I'm choosing to make him
the Lord and Savior of my life. Let me ask you this question.
Can an infant hear the word of God?
Yeah. Can they believe?
No. Can they repent?
No. Can they confess?
No. If we were to carry this line of
logic out, you're baptizing somebody against their will and
calling it salvation. And if that worked, we would
have a tackle ministry at our church where we would tackle
people and take them to the Mississippi River against their
will. There would be like 30 minute
kidnappings being reported all over our region.
Like you, we just, that doesn't make sense.
There's a part of us that knows that it has to be their
decision. Clayton, you've been funny and
all this stuff, but there's some baggage here.
What about my dead grandparent who was sprinkled as a baby and
lived for Jesus their whole life?
What are you saying about them? Here's the story I tell.
Imagine there was a guy named Chuck, and Chuck had a meat
market called Chuck's Meat Market, and he sold.
You're not going to believe this.
Chuck burgers, Chuck dogs, Chuck roasts.
And everybody loved him for it. And then one day Chuck died and
his son took over the butcher shop and he started to run it.
And people kept showing up to Chuck's Meat Market.
I mean, they loved Chuck. They were thankful for Chuck.
And they kept ordering the Chuck dogs and the Chuck burgers and
the Chuck roast. And his son would pull that meat
out and he'd throw it up on the scale and he'd measure out the
amount of, of meat that they wanted.
And he'd put a ticket, printed ticket, put it on there, and
then they'd take it out to the cash register.
But one day an inspector showed up and he went over and he
checked the scales and he found out that the scales were 20%
off, which means that when they put 5 lbs of steaks up on the
scale, they were actually only selling 4 lbs of meat.
And Chuck's son's sitting there and he's trying to try to figure
out, what do I do here? Has my dad been cheating people
all those years? There's no way for Chuck's son
to know what was going through Chuck's mind, or if Chuck even
knew. But Chuck's son is responsible
for what he knows to be the truth, and he has to make an
adjustment. He has to adjust the scales.
If your parents or grandparents were sprinkled and we're not
immersed and they're not around anymore, we cannot know their
motives or their intentions. Here's what we have to do.
We have to trust that God is a good God and knows the status of
their heart. However, just because God knows
the status, status of their heart, we must be held
accountable for our understanding of Scripture, and
we must be obedient to it. And here's what I tell you in
love. Don't compound the problem in
your family. Eliminate it.
Now. I want to leave you with a
devotion. I told you to hang on.
I got a devotion. When you and I sin, sin gives us
two big problems. There's a lot of problems, but
there's two big ones. One of them is guilt and one of
them is shame. Guilt is I have crossed the line
I should not have crossed. You guys have felt that before.
You lied and then you feel it. You steal and then you feel it.
You've done something you should not have done and immediately
you go, oh, that is not who I wanted to be and there's no way
to get back. The other one is shame.
I am separated from people because of my sin.
If the people knew about the line that I had crossed, they
would not be close to me anymore.
I have to keep it a secret because if my wife knows, if my
husband knows, if my boyfriend knows, if my friends know, if my
parents know. And when we cross a line we
should not have crossed, we are relationally separated from
people because the last thing we want is anybody to know.
And now we are alone to guilt, you know, the solution we need,
we need forgiveness. We need to our sins wiped away.
The the solution for my shame is I need reconciliation because
I'm alone. I need a community that will
receive me. When you experience sin, guilt
and shame wage a war on you. Look at how baptism addresses
this. Baptism is the only thing that
addresses both problems. How do I get rid of my guilt is
I have to have my sins wiped away?
How are my sins wiped away? Acts chapter 2 verse 38.
Look what it says, Peter replied Repent and be baptized everyone
of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of
your sins, that when you get baptized your sins are wiped
away. I no longer have guilt.
How does baptism handle my shame?
Look what it says in Galatians chapter 3 verse 26 through 29.
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed
yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor
Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male or female.
For you are all one in Christ Jesus, and if you belong to
Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the
promise. When you get baptized, you
become a part of the family of God and you are no longer in
isolation. When I got baptized, my church
used to after you got baptized, they would sing you into heaven.
They would sing the song. I'm so glad I'm a part of the
family of God. I've been washed in the
fountain, cleansed by his blood. Join hands with Jesus as we
travel. It was the whole thing.
And what they were saying is you are now a part of us.
Your sins have been wiped away. You have no more guilt in your
life. And because you are now part of
his family, you're a part of my family, which means you are no
longer alone. And if you want to know why I
think Satan has attacked baptism so much, it's because he wants
you to remain in guilt. He wants you to remain in shame.
And God is trying to give you a beautiful gift and crossing
family. I hope you'll receive it.
We're moving to a time of decision.
To those of you who don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ,
guess what I'm going to talk about?
What are you waiting for? I'm telling you today, your sins
can be wiped away and you can begin a new life in Him with a
new family, just like Philip in the Ethiopian eunuch.
You can go, look, there's water. Why shouldn't I be baptized?
And you're going, where's the water?
At every single one of our locations there is a big
baptistry, big enough to immerse you, to baptize you.
So there is no excuse for you to put it off.
So don't put it off. If you've been following Jesus
for a long time but you have never been baptized, don't put
it off any longer. It is time for you to be
obedient to the person that you call your Lord and your Savior.
And it says something about you that you do not once said about
you, that you refuse to do the things that your Lord and Savior
has asked you to do. And if you've been baptized into
Christ, the Bible says that we're supposed to make disciples
of all nations by baptizing them.
And they cannot believe until they have heard.
And so for those of you that are here today that already have a
relationship with Jesus Christ, you've already been obedient.
And baptism, I'm just going to level with you.
Who is somebody that you need to talk to?
Who is somebody that you need to call?
Maybe you have your card and you want to come to the steps and
pray over them. Because if we believe what the
Bible says, there is something that you and I must do.
And to those of you that have never been baptized, I'm just
going to level with you today. When everybody else is standing
and singing, some of the people are coming to the steps and
praying. There's going to be people right
over there next to the baptistry who would love to talk to you.
The immediate response in Scripture was there's water.
I want to get baptized. It wasn't.
And I know we do this a lot here and we try to be respectful of
where people are at. Because you want your friends
and you want your family. But I'll just be honest with you
in Scripture, it was, we're doing it right now.
And if there's some people in here who are going, it's been
long overdue. Make it today, make it this
Sunday, make it next week. Don't put off being obedient to
the thing that God clearly teaches.
Would you guys stand with me? God, in so many areas of our
life, we're tempted not to trust you, not to be obedient to you.
And this is just another one of them.
And God, I know that there's a lot of family baggage, There's a
lot of sin baggage, There's a lot of thoughts and hurts and
frustration and confusion. And God, I feel like every
single time we gather, this is the most contested moment of our
week. This is where every single
person gets an opportunity to step into what you want them to
do or to step back and keep doing what they've always done.
And man, I'm, I feel it in my own life all the time.
And I'm just asking that today, this weekend, not just here and
not just online, but at all of our locations, that we would let
you win this one. That we would just trust that
you are good and trustworthy and that the things that you have in
store for us are for our good and for your glory.
In your name I pray. Amen.