Show Notes
"The Holy Help of Baptism"
1 Corinthians 7:12-14
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Episode Transcript
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Well, please remain standing with me
as we hear God's word. Going to
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read from two passages this morning,
first from First Corinthians and then from titus
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three. So if you would please
turn with me to First Corinthians, Chapter
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Seven, versus twelve through fourteen.
I've been preaching through First Corinthians section by
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section and we come to the next
section in our passage, I'm going to
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be focusing on one particular part of
it and then we'll probably return to this
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passage again next week. That's the
plan for now. First Corinthians, Chapter
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Seven, verses twelve through fourteen,
I'm going to be thinking about you'll will
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get to that. So it's first
Corinthian seven, verse twelve. Let's hear
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God's word. To the rest,
I say, I not the Lord,
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that if any brother has a wife
who is an unbeliever and she consents to
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live with him, he should marry
not divorce her. If any woman has
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a husband who is an unbeliever and
he consents to live with her, she
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should not divorce him, for the
unbelieving husband is made holy because of his
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wife and the unbelieving wife is made
holy because of her husband, and otherwise
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your children would be unclean, but
as it is, they are holy.
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But if the unbelieving partner separates,
let it be so. In such cases,
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the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.
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For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband,
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and how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?
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So, as we consider the holiness
that the Lord speaks about here,
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let's turn to titus. Now,
titus chapter three. I'm here we have
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a great summary of the Gospel,
one of the many great summaries that we
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find in scripture. So this is
titus chapter three, beginning at verse.
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For but when the goodness and loving
kindness of God, our Savior, appeared,
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he saved us not because of works
done by us in righteousness, but
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according to his own mercy, by
the washing of regeneration and renewal of the
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Holy Spirit, whom he poured out
on US richly through Jesus Christ, our
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Savior, so that, being justified
by His grace, we might become heirs
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according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I
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want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in
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God may be careful to devote themselves
to good works. I'm in you may
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be seated. So in Titus,
Chapter Three, the Apostle Paul speaks to
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this pastor and he says to titus, Pastor Titus, if you if you
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want, as you should, for
your people to devote themselves to good works,
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here's what you need to do.
Right. So here's what you need
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to do if you want the people
to devote themselves to good works. He
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says, you need to insist on
these things, and the things that he
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insists on are the things that we
read, beginning in verse four, and
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other things that he mentions in this
book. When the goodness and loving kindness
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of God, our Savior, appeared, he saved us not because of works
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done by us in righteousness, but
according to his own mercy. The Gospel
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Right, the good news, the
promise of God that we have forgiveness,
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salvation, regeneration, renewal in Christ
through the Holy Spirit. The language of
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baptism is here, of course,
the language of washing, of regeneration,
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the language of pouring out, the
Holy Spirit being poured out richly through Jesus
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Christ, our Savior. As they
think about the work of Christ, as
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they think about that which their baptisms
pointed to. They are reminded of the
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Gospel, they're reminded of the hope
and the promise of God. And as
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we consider the Gospel, as we
consider the promise, the scriptures tell us
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that it is that good news that
the Holy Spirit uses to strengthen us,
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to change our hearts. In his
EECHIEL, Chapter Thirty six, God promises
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through His prophet that when he comes
in the new covenant, he will change
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our hearts so that we will no
longer be walking after foolish things, but
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we will be devoted to the heart, to the things of the Lord.
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That's the promise of that is there. Now, when we consider First Corinthians,
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Chapter Seven, from Paul's talking about
some particular questions surrounding marriage and divorce.
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But as he's doing that, he
he makes this comment about holiness,
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and it's an interesting one, isn't
it? He says that the UN that
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the believing spouse, the believing spouse
in some way a makes the unbelieving spouse
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holly through their relationship. So,
verse fourteen, the unbelieving husband is made
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holy because of his wife and the
unbelieving wife is made holy because of her
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husband. Now, clearly we see
that holiness is being used in a particular
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way the hut, the because we're
talking about an unbeliever who is marked as
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holy, marked as as separated,
as sanctified in some way. Now,
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to understand that and why that happens
and how that happens, we have to
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understand something about the nature of baptism, which I want to talk about with
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you today in light of these passages
and in light of the baptism that we
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get to enjoy and and benefit from
together. When we think about baptism,
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there are a lot of different understandings
about what it does and what it doesn't
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do. I'm according to some evangelical
brothers and sisters, baptism is important,
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but it could be easily replaced by
any number of things. Charles Ryery,
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for example, ponders whether or not
we could just construct like a closet on
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the stage in which we would go
into, change our clothes and come out
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of as a way to you represent
a new change, a new way of
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life, and it's not a crazy
idea. It would symbolize that and it
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uses biblical, scriptural language of putting
on and putting off that we find in
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Colossians three. He suggests that baptism
is good, and of course I'm we
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see it in scripture, but could
we not do other things? I'm WAIM
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GRUDOM Popular Baptist systematics professor up at
Phoenix Seminary. He wonders why our means
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of grace list is so short.
Is Baptism such a major doctrine? Right?
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The Westminster Confession of faith tells us
that it is a great sin to
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not to withhold baptism from someone that
it belongs to. When gruden would say,
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I'm not really. It's not a
major doctrine in a sense that it
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should divide the people of God.
Perhaps God uses lots of different things,
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and then of course in some ways
he does. But why is baptism so
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important? Why do we make such
a big deal out of it? What
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does it do? How does it
help us? In the Roman Catholic view,
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baptism is important because it infuses Grayson
to you, put you into a
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state of justification. However, if
you sin, that state can be lost
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and then you need new infusions of
grace. Under this view, baptism can
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fay conveys grace as a substance,
and it does its work, but it
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can be lost, it can be
done for a time and then you need
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penance and other things to sort of
fill you up again. Is that what
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happens? I think scripture points in
a different direction than both of these views
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and others as well. Baptism,
as one person put it, is not
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the cause of our salvation, nor
merely the testimony of our salvation, but
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it is the means of our salvation
and in a very particular way it baptism
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works as an act of God and
act of of proclamation, whereby he confirms
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and he seals and he assures his
promise to us that he makes in his
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word. And as such, it
is a very helpful to us for throughout
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our lives, even though we may
be baptized as an infant, baptism continues
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to bless us in this way as
the confirmation of that word. Well,
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how exactly does that work? How
do we make sense of that? Well,
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if we think about baptism as the
sign and seal, to use language
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from Romans for that Paul Talks about
with Abraham and circumcision, you have to
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ask what is it signifying in what
is it ceiling? In other words,
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there's something else there behind it.
In that is the Gospel that we read
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in Titus three. The Gospel,
the promise of the Gospel is that Jesus
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comes under the wrath of God as
a substitute for God's elect if you call
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yourself a Christian, it's because you
believe that God's wrath is no longer on
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you because God, The Sun,
took it for you. You believe,
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if you were a Christian, that
you are not going to face God's penalty
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on Judgment Day because Judgment Day is
already passed, because Jesus died on across
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so that God would would take that
death as your own. Paul uses the
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language of circumcision and Old Testament sign
to speak about the cross. He speaks
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of the cross as a kind of
circumcision and that Jesus, in the body
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of flesh, was cut off,
that wrath and judgment for sin was removed.
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We remember this even not only as
he cried out God, my God,
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my God, why have you forsaken
me, but he was crucified outside
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the city on an instrument of of
curse and condemnation. But through all that
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cutting off, because Jesus was who
he was, because he was not only
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fully human, representing us, but
he was also God with us, securing
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our salvation. When Jesus was cut
off, he was cut off not forever,
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but he overcame the curse by the
virtue of his life, by his
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perfect sacrifice. He was accepted as
righteous before God for us, and in
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that a new covenant was formed,
a new covenant, a covenant of Grace,
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was made in which we would not
have to face our own deaths,
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but we would have his. We
would know that judgment has perfectly passed for
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us because it is passed in Christ. And more than that, we would
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also have the very life of Christ, eternal and glorious. To think about
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these things in connection with baptism,
I want to turn with you to one
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of some other scriptures I'll read this
morning. This is from Romans, chapter
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six. Listen to what Paul says
Verse Fifteen. He says what then are
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we to sin? Because we are
not under law but under grace. By
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no means do you not know that
if you present yourself to any one as
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obedient slaves, you are slaves to
the one whom you obey, either of
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sin, which leads to death,
or obedients which leads to righteous steps.
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And then he goes on to say
we must present our bodies, we must
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devote ourselves to use the language of
Rightus three at to God, as instruments
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of righteousness. Well, where does
that come from? How does a person
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who is dead and sin, how
does a person who can't do anything,
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all of a sudden become this living
creature that is able and active and heart
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is beating for the Lord? Well, happens because of what Paul says at
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the beginning of chapter six. He
says in verse two. How can we
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who died to sin still live in
it? How can we who died to
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sense to live in it? Do
you not know that all of us who
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have been baptized into Christ Jesus,
we're baptized into his death. We were
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buried, therefore, with him by
baptism into death, in order that,
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just as Christ was raised from the
dead by the glory of the father,
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we too might be a might walk
in the newness of life, for if
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we have been united with him in
a death like his, we shall certainly
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be united with him in a resurrection
like is she you see what baptism does.
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One of the things it does is
it's God's way of marking a person
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in a very particular way. When
we baptize a person, we in the
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Act at warding to the scriptures.
We are not, we are changing the
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view that many people have of human
nature and of even babies. We are
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not saying, and we are declared
to the world, this baby is not
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sweet and innocent. This baby is
born in sin. This person is born
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in sin. There's a problem here, a big problem. It's so big
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that they need to be baptized into
death. Baptized into death. That's a
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very striking thing, isn't it?
It's a very harsh even marking of a
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person. But why do we do
that? We're not baptizing them into death
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in general. We're not placing a
curse on them in general. What is
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God doing? God baptizes them in
his name into the death of his son.
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Why that death? Why The death
of Jesus Christ? Why the death
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of that particular person and not the
death of a grandparent or a great grandparent
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or some important famous person in history? We baptize them into the death of
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Jesus Christ, because only he died
and overcame death. We baptize them into
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the death knowing that that sinful nature
needs to die in order that they might
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receive the Holy Spirit of God,
the Holy Spirit of Christ, and walk,
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as Paul says, in the newness
of life. God is marking them
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with this promise, a promise that
is received through faith as they come to
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believe it. Baptism to take a
step back. Then is then a marking
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of that promise. It's a marking
of that gospel of death and of life,
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of death and crucifixion, but also
life and resurrection, all of it
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had only through Christ alone. The
Promise of the Gospel is that those who
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believe this are saved. How do
we know that? How do we know
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that those who believe will be saved? Because a word is preached to us
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to that effect. Because God speaks
to us. And how does he speak
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to us? Well, as Paul
says in Romans, faith comes through hearing
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and hearing comes through the word of
God. God uses external, weak things
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like me to preach his word,
word in an external way. Right you're
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hearing it right now. You're hearing
the Gospel, you're hearing these promises right
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now in your ears. And then
God uses that external word by the Holy
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Spirit to bring about internal regeneration.
The word in itself is not powerful to
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save. Think about it this way. If God had not promised it,
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human beings couldn't just assemble the words
of the Gospel together, assemble a kind
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of testimony together of what God had
done, and then force God into action.
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Does that make sense right? If
we took the words of the Gospel
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and just kind of put them together, God wouldn't then be forced to act?
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It's not the words that have a
kind of magical power in themselves.
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The words are powerful to save because
God is the one who speaks them because,
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ultimately it's a promise from God,
as he talks to us, as
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he tells us, if you believe
in this salvation, if you trust and
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receive these things, you will be
saved. That's the word that is promised.
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He makes this promise. Well,
how does baptism relate to that?
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Baptism is the conformation of that promise. We have a great old testament example
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of this. A God makes a
Gospel Promise to Abraham. He says,
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I will call you out of this
place, I will establish you, I
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will make you a father of many
nations. Through you, all the families
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of the earth will be blessed.
And Abrasam here's that promise and then says
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how will I know this will be
true? And then God ratifies it,
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he testifies, he assures it with
signs. He puts Abraham in a vision,
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he gives him the sign of circumcision, a sign that is passed down
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from generation to generation to generation.
That says the promise is true. In
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some ways, baptism is like a
it's a visible form of the audible word.
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It's another form of preaching. In
a way. We hear the word
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preached and then we see the word
preached, and this is one of the
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ways that God confirms these promises to
us. We do something similar, and
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you've heard some of you have heard
me say this before. We do something
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similar like this when we get married
right, with this ring. I v
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WED right. We give this token. Sometimes it's used in wedding ceremonies.
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We give a token as a pledge, as a promise that we might look
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on that and remember, yes,
that promise is sure. It's a visible
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representation of a word that has been
promised. That's what God is doing in
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baptism. God Use as baptism as
a means to confirm and to ratify and
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to assure us that the preaching of
the word is true and that when we
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believe the preaching of that word,
we are saved. And so when Abraham
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received circumcision, Paul says in Romans
for eleven, he received the sign of
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circumcision as a seal of the righteousness
that he had by faith. Paul goes
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on to make the point that he
said he received that righteousness by faith before
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he was circumcised. All right,
Paul didn't, or a Paul doesn't say
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Abraham became righteous and justified because he
was circumcised. The circumcision was the seal
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of that promise that he had before
him. So, with all that said,
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I'd like to think with you,
as we close now, about how
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baptism then helps us. Right.
So, if God is using this sign
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and seal to a confirm, to
ratify, to testify to the promises that
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are preached to us, how is
that a blessing to us? Well,
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there are all kinds of ways.
The one one way we might mention is
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that as we look around us and
see these other people who have been baptized,
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these other people who have been marked, we are reminded of the life
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that we are brought into in the
body of Christ. In First Corinthians Thirteen,
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we are told that we are baptized
into one body. Jews and Greek,
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slaves and free male and female,
we all belong to one bad body
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and our baptism marks us as that, just as wedding rings in a way
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mark a person, as these two
people is belonging to one another. Are
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baptisms remark mark us as those who
belong to God. And as we look
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around and as we see these other
people, these aren't just random people with
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individual relationships with with God. These
are brothers and sisters around you are members
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of one body, a body of
Christ. Baptism, also in Pitt depicts
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our ingrafting into Christ, not just
our union with one another, but our
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union with one another in him.
That language that we read earlier, I'm
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from Ephesians, is language of being
strengthened by his strength, by walking,
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by his life, or the language
are those things that we heard from Roman
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six. It's language in which we
are empowered to move because of who we
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are in him. Baptism reminds us
of that. Baptism points us to that
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as we think about our BAPTISMS,
we remember I'm not my own, I
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am marked by the by the God
who saves. Baptism, of course,
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portrays to us that we and our
children are conceived and born into sin.
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We need not just to be marked
by God, we need to be cleansed
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by God. We don't just come
into into the church like members into a
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club. Right, if you,
let's say you wanted to get into sorry
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for getting the word, pottery,
right. You wanted to get into pottery
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and you looked up on the internet, you looked up pottery clubs and Tucson
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and you go and you show up
and you say hey, I can I
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be a member and they say yeah, as long as you're interested in pottery,
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that's great. Just come and join
us and we'll practice together and we'll
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teach you and we'll have fun.
There's nothing that really needs to change in
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you to join this club. You
just show up and start doing your work
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and doing the thing. The Christian
life is really different. The Christian life
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says you need to die and be
born again, you need to be marked
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by God in a new way,
you need to be washed, you need
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to be cleansed. That word is
a good word. That word, that
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Gospel that is both preached to our
ears and to our eyes, is a
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good word. It's a holy word, whether we believe it or not.
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Right the Gospel doesn't, isn't isn't
good only if you accept it. The
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Gospel is good because it's good because
God promises it. Baptism, likewise,
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is good because it's good because God
ratifies, he seals those promises. And
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so when we receive these things,
when we see these things, we don't,
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we don't determine their goodness based on
whether we like them or not,
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whether we believe them or not.
We believe them because they are good.
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We believe them because God is good. We see in the sign, we
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see in we hear in the promise
that a lie, that our lives need
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to be changed. How do we
respond to that? How do we respond
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to that good holy word that is
preached to us, that Good Holy Word
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that marks us? Do we bought? Do we do? We does it?
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Do we do we walk on and
say well, I guess it doesn't
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matter. Of course not. We
respond in faith. We hear the word
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and we believe, and as we
believe the word, the scriptures tell us
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we are saved, we receive Christ
and all his benefits, and that's another
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thing that the Gospel promises to us. That's another thing that baptism shows us.
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This poor haring out richly of the
Holy Spirit and all his blessings are
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union with Christ, the forgiveness of
our sins, our adoption into the body
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of Christ is and into the family
of Christ, the promises, Paul says
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and in an Ephesians, that we
become heirs right the we are no longer
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children of Wrath, but children of
the Lord and heirs of the promise of
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life, the promise of Resurrection,
the promise of walking, the promise of
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renewal. What more could we want? Beloved, we're so lost and so
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many ways, and here are as
God promising and sealing that promise to us
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in a very visible way. The
washing with water in the name of the
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father and the son and the Holy
Spirit reminds us of these things. God
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puts his name on us and calls
us his own. That's a very helpful
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thing. In Our world we find
ourselves constantly struggling and pressured to struggle about
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questions with identity. Who Are we? Who Am I? How am I
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supposed to be? How do I
fit in baptism? Preach us, to
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us all of those answers. You
are the Lord's you fit into the body
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of Christ. Your purpose is to
glorify God and enjoy him forever. It's
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received through faith alone, in Christ
alone. That's who you are, that's
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who we are, and that's what
baptisms testify to. And so, as
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God blesses us this morning, as
we and blesses, of course, a
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Bennett, let's all receive the Lord's
Word Together, as we welcome the presence
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are that a presence in the action
of God among us. Let's give thanks
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and let us believe. These promises
that are for believers and their children,
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these marks of the Covenant of Grace, promised in the Old Testament and the
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new as well, should be received
not with a whatever. or well,
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that's kind of cool, or isn't
that cute, although it might be all
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those things, but not the whatever
part. There are nice things about what
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we see, but remember what is
meant, not by US primarily, but
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by God. They're not baptized into
the name of Jalpka or covenant, but
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in the name of our triune God. That's who marks us as his own,
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and so let's praise and rejoice him
and put our faith all in him.
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Let's pray now
