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You got a Bible this morning? I just want you to know we’re going to look at a few important sections of Scripture. We’re going to look actually at three passages of the Bible, three primary passages of the Bible, and dealing with what we’re talking about today, which is, was, is baptism. Once a year as a church, we make a, a big to do about baptism celebrations that we have in the Jordan River. And we like to do that because we know it’s not the same exact Jordan River Jesus was baptized in. But we have a river called the Jordan River. So that’s that’s great. We get to reflect Jesus in that way. And so we we have a baptism celebration. We honor the Lord in that. And and it’s an exciting time for all of us to celebrate not only what, um, what God is doing in the individual’s life, who’s getting baptized, but what that represents for us as a church family and seeing people come to know the Lord and desiring to want to take a stand in him and and follow after him in their lives. And so I’m excited for what today holds for us as a church. As we celebrate that, and we think about what it means for us as a church family and what Jesus has done for for us. And so when we think about baptism and pursuing Christ and giving our lives to Christ, just there’s three primary passages in Scripture that people often turn to to reflect that.
And I’m just going to share those with us some devotional thoughts. I’m going to keep my message a little shorter today because of all the events that we have happening later in the afternoon, and invite you to, if you’re interested, at at 115 today, we’ll be back at at Willow Park, uh, partaking in that baptism celebration and a meal afterwards. If you picked up a bulletin, there should be directions to Willow Park in that bulletin. If you did not pick up a bulletin when you leave, feel free to grab one and grab those directions in order to get to Willow Park. It’s off of Main Street between here and Saratoga Springs on the right hand side of the road. When you’re when you’re driving out towards Saratoga Springs. For those who are baptized, for those who call themselves followers of Jesus, and to those that are looking to be baptized. And if you just here this morning, you say, you know, I’m a follower of Christ, this is what I want to encourage us with this morning is I just want to thank you for your willingness to stand in the Lord in Colossians chapter three. If I get to it, let me click Colossians chapter three and verse one. It says this. Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Symbolizing the reflection of what Jesus has done for us. It then reflects back to us as a believer in what we should do in Christ, and that is knowing what Christ has done. We we take our stand in him. You notice there’s a couple of highlighted phrases in verse one and verse two that I pointed out in Colossians. It says this seek the things above and set your mind on the things above, meaning you now belong to a kingdom of which isn’t represented by an earthly rule in this world, but your king. Excuse me? In a physical, earthly rule. But your king. Is Christ. And your desire should be to live for him in His kingdom. In American society today. There is this hypersensitivity in truth that your truth might offend someone else who holds a truth. And so there’s this, this hypersensitivity and not wanting to express anything that we believe over a fear of offense towards someone else. I tell you, there’s there’s a positive and negative to to the way that we are becoming hypersensitive as a society. And that is the positive is we’re expressing concern in the way that we portray ourselves to other people. And that’s a good thing. To some degree. Because God created us for relationship in him.
God created us for relationship with one another. God made us in his image to connect to him. God told us the two greatest commands are to love him and to love others. And so a concern for the well-being of other people is a God given right. I think that God has instilled with us, in us as people. But the problem becomes when we use the truth that’s intended to set us free, and rather than proclaim it, to see people set free in Christ where we’re afraid to share it. A writer once wrote joking about the way that American society is going. He says this he writes a prayer to to a God, and he says this, O large person or persons of whatever you represent, gender or branch of the animal kingdom who did something great and is now someplace where we aren’t. Please forgive us for whatever you deem bad, and help us to do whatever strikes you as good, whether that be good work or eating no pork, or waging a holy war, or grant us whatever you tend to grant unless you don’t interfere with earthly concerns. Therefore just watch over us or save us from evil, or let us find out for ourselves or or randomly damn us. Amen. Praise Allah and have a nice day. And desire to please people. We’ve segregated ourselves from the God who has created us for his purpose. And writing praise to multiple gods rather than the one true God.
Not preferring to offend others, we have lost the God that. He we have been created to pursue. In his book Recapturing the Wonder, Ravi Zacharias gave his opinion on the loss of our society and the need for followers of Christ to stand in him. He said this in the 1950s. Kids lost their innocence, they were liberated from their parents by well-paying jobs, cars and lyrics and music that gave rise to a new turm, the generation gap. In the 1960s, kids lost their authority. It was a decade of protest. Church, state and parents were all called into question and found wanting. Their authority was rejected, yet nothing ever replaced it. In the 1970s, kids lost their love. It was the decade of miasm dominated by hyphenated words beginning with self, self-image, self-esteem, self-assertion. It made for a lonely world. Kids learned everything there was to know about sex and forgot everything there was to know about love. And no one had the nerve to tell them there was a difference. In the 1980s, kids lost their hope, stripped of innocence, authority, and loved and plagued by the horror of a nuclear nightmare. Large and growing numbers of this generation stopped believing in the future. In the 1990s, kids lost their power to reason less and less were they taught the very basics of language and truth and logic. And they grew up with the irrationality of a postmodern world. In the new millennium, kids woke up and found out that somewhere in the midst of all this change, they had lost their imagination, violence and perversion.
Entertain them until none could talk of killing innocents, since none was innocent anymore. Encouragement of Colossians. Let’s don’t underestimate. The importance of taking your stand in Christ. An unwillingness to stand for anything. Concern for offending something will cause us to sacrifice everything, leaving us with nothing. And truth, by its definition, is exclusive. By holding to a truth. Something else contrary to that therefore becomes a lie. But it’s Christ himself that said the truth will set you free. And you’re Stan in Jesus may not prohibit you from offending people, but it will enable you to to to be and provide the best care for people because it is his truth in love that sets people free. In fact, when Jesus came. It tells us in John chapter one. That he was full of grace and truth. So Jesus in his truth. Served the benefit of others. And I understand in a stand of truth, we don’t want to unnecessarily offend people. And better yet, than just simply trying to live a life, not offending people. We want to love people created in the image of God. In Mark chapter ten and verse 45, Jesus said this about his life. He came not to be served. But to serve. And to give his life as a ransom for the many. Therefore, our stand in Christ is one that gives us the opportunity in love through truth that sets people free to truly love people the way that they were designed to in Christ.
In fact, Ravi Zacharias further has quoted this. He says, yes, it is. It is truth. If truth is not undergirded by love, it makes the possessor of that truth obnoxious and the truth repulsive. So here’s the joy of following Jesus. As a follower of Christ. In this world. You don’t have to stand for everything. Truthfully, you stand for one thing. And that is Jesus and His kingdom represented in your life. There is nothing more loving than an individual who gives his life for the benefit of others. Now. I think as people, we want to know we matter. We want to be heard. We want to be understood. We want to be accepted. We want to be cared for. I think there’s no better place to find that purpose for which we were created in and all of those things, than through Christ. Taking a stand for Jesus in him isn’t always easy. In fact, it’s been quoted as saying, brave people. Will often be broken hearted people. Because they had the courage to love. It’s your love for Christ and your willingness to stand in him. That is exactly what the world around you need. And so if you’re getting baptized today, or you’re just profess a faith in Christ and you stand in him, you have a place to belong and a kingdom for which you stand and and nothing to be ashamed of for your God.
He is a gracious God. He is a loving God. He is a just God. He is a concerned God. He is an eminent God. He is a sacrificial God for the benefit of his people. He is a righteous God. He has hope for you and a plan for you and a purpose for you. He cares for you. He has called you into this world to stand for him when the world may reject him. He has called you to offer freedom, when in that freedom you may have rejected him. He calls you to seek others when they reject you, to love, when it’s hard to die so that you can live, to take up your cross and follow him, and to give though it may cost. Colossians. Is a symbol of baptism. Because as a profession of what Jesus has done for you and calling you to set your mind on things above. And say baptism for us is also a powerful symbol of God’s grace. In First Corinthians chapter one and verse 17. Paul writes this to the church of Corinth are in an argument over who they were baptized by. And some say Apollos, and some say Paul, and some say Barnabas. And finally Paul just says this. Listen in verse 17, for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. Paul is reminding us of the significance of what baptism is, and it’s all symbolic.
He’s differentiating between the thought of baptism and the preaching of the gospel. He didn’t come to baptize, but he came to preach the gospel. Baptism isn’t the gospel, but baptism represents what the gospel holds. So the gospel for us as believers has nothing to do with us but everything that Jesus has done on our behalf. Meaning when a person gets baptized, you don’t get baptized because you’re worthy. You get baptized because he is worthy. The gospel is that Jesus laid down his life for us when we couldn’t set ourselves free in our own power by any good that we have done, because there is no good that you have done that can ever do any wrong or any offense against God. You need a rescued. And you needed salvation. And if it wasn’t so serious, if it wasn’t something that made such a significant impact in your life in regards to eternity, Jesus would have never come and given his life for you. And that’s the gospel. And Paul says he came not to baptize but to preach that message. But here’s the beauty of baptism. It says that you stand in that message for which Christ has set you free. In fact in Romans six. Paul talks about the grace of God that has set us free. And he poses a question for us. And he says this in the very first verse. Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be.
How shall we? Who who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of those who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, so we too might walk in the newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall be also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Jesus has set you free. Paul gets to Romans chapter six, and he has just acknowledged in the first five chapters how Christ alone has paid our debt, that you don’t earn your way, that Jesus has paid it all. And Jesus sets you free in your faith in him, because you and yourself could have done nothing in your power to ever, ever suppose that you could set yourself free. And so Christ has set you free. And so then Paul asked the important question in regards to the grace If God’s grace has really come and God’s grace has really set me free and Jesus has paid it all, then it really doesn’t matter how I live now, because I can live as worldly as I want to, and God’s grace has set us free. And Paul answers the question in verse one. That’s not what God’s grace is intended for.
Yes, if God has set you free, it is possible to abuse the freedom for which God has has given you. But that’s not the reason he has called you and set you free. He has given you the freedom to finally live for him, that in that freedom you may serve a kingdom that is far worthy than any other kingdom there is to offer. And so looking at the grace of God that’s been extended to you, it becomes a place of enjoying the presence of God. For we believe there is a King who has come and we believe his kingdom wins. And he bought us to give us freedom and new life in him. And he bought us so that we may enjoy eternity with our gracious King. He gave us a new heart, and this is a love that we have never experienced and will never experience apart from him. God gives his life. For sinful me. That I may enjoy him forever. Baptism becomes an outward profession. Of what your King has done for you, and the way that you live your life reflects the glory of your understanding. Of what your king has paid for you. His kingdom is worth it. His grace is what has allowed this to take place. And grace, therefore, isn’t a license to sin, is it? It’s a freedom to finally and truly live for him. And Paul in first Corinthians 15 gives us a final thought of what the grace of God represents through through Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection.
In First Corinthians 15. There is a debate among people that I would even say, you’ll see in a minute. I don’t think are believers in Christ. And I think Paul identifies that for us. But the argument that they’re making is that Jesus was never resurrected from the grave. First Corinthians 15. The first 30 chapters just deal with the resurrection of Jesus. And so Paul, wanting to set the record straight that Jesus was resurrected. He says this for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12. After that he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time. Most of all remain until now. And so what Paul is saying is he talks about the resurrection of Christ. He says, yes, Jesus was resurrected. Yes, that is the part of the gospel in verses three and four. His death, burial and resurrection is the gospel. If Jesus isn’t raised from the grave, you don’t have a gospel. And then he goes on to say, and if you want it validated, listen, he appeared over 500 people at one time, at one point and one specific place, over 500 people saw the resurrected Christ, including apostles, including other people. If you want the validation of whether or not Jesus raised from the grave, listen, these people are still alive.
They remain until now. Go talk to them. They saw a dead man walking. Jesus was resurrected. Go on. In verse 12. Now, if Christ has preached that he has been raised from the dead. How do some among you say that there isn’t a resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain and your faith also is vain. For, since by a man came death. My man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam, all die. So also in Christ, all will be made alive. Paul then gets to the crux of his argument. And verse 29, he sums up the resurrection of Jesus, and he says this. Else. What? What shall they do? Which are baptized for the dead? If the dead rise? Not at all. Why are they then baptized for the dead? Paul’s using verse 29 to explain all the previous verses. He comes to his final point in In the Baptism. And notice when Paul writes this verse, he’s not saying, I practice this. Paul’s not even saying the Christians practice this. What Paul is saying is that they are practicing this, distinguishing they from the body of believers. So what Paul is arguing here is, whatever is being done in this verse should not be practiced. And here’s what I think Paul’s saying.
People are getting baptized. And when their baptism they have no clue what baptism really represents. When someone’s baptized into Christ. When you walk down to the water. It’s a representation of your old self. It’s a symbolic representation of who you were apart from Jesus. When someone comes to know Christ and they put their faith in Jesus and what he has done for them, the old self comes to Christ. You don’t come dolled up. You don’t come in your perfections. You don’t come offering Jesus anything. You come as yourself, the old self. You go down in the water representing the old self. When you put your faith in Christ. The Bible tells us that you become a new creation in him. God takes the old heart and makes it a new heart. God takes death of which you belong to and now gives you life. He is a God of life, and his resurrection symbolizes that he is a God of life. And so when you go into the water, having put your faith in Jesus as a representation of the old self, and when you go under the water, it’s a representation of the cleansing that Jesus has brought for you. And when you come out of the water, it’s the representation of your new self in Christ. Everything to do with baptism. Rests in the hope of the resurrection. What Jesus has done for you. If you don’t believe in the resurrection. There is no point in baptism.
And the truth is, there is no hope. Paul says within this passage of First Corinthians 15, which I didn’t read, If Christ is not raised from the dead, our faith is in vain, and we are to be most pitied of all people. And so Paul comes to this verse. And he says to the believers, what else shall they do which are baptized for the dead? If the dead is not raised? Not, not at all. Why are they then baptized for the dead? And the point is this. If if Jesus wasn’t raised from the grave, he’s still dead. And if you go into the water to be baptized, not believing in a resurrection, you have no hope in a resurrection and you are still dead. And so therefore you are being baptized for the dead. It’s the dead being baptized for the dead. Jesus is still dead, and you remain dead because there is no hope of the resurrection. So the whole point of this verse. Is to acknowledge for the believer. That when you go into the water, there is a hope for the world and for you. It’s a redemption. It’s a picture of redemption, of what God desires to not only do in your life, but but in all of creation. So the hope of the gospel isn’t just a salvation for you, but God says he will make all of creation new. Especially to those who have put their faith in Christ. The demonstration of baptism.
And the acceptance of the gospel gives God’s people the opportunity to present a message to the world that is full of hope and joy in Christ, who can set us free. For us in our American culture. I don’t think we experienced the fragile nature of life as often as some other societies. The the expectation on life though we experienced death and it is real and we experience suffering and it’s real. We’re isolated, and the expectation of life in America is far greater than many other countries. And the mortality rate of infants is much lower than anywhere in countries. I do acknowledge that there is pain. There is heartache. We do experience those losses in our lives. And to which I say, the hope of the gospel continues to be what we we should herald as a body of believers giving people hope in a God who sets them free. But we are isolated and numb to death and destruction. We watch it on TV and call it entertainment, and we see it in the news in a distant land. What to experience is often rare in our lives. After World War Two, there was the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer surveyed the ruins. That the war had left. And he said this to Billy Graham. Outside of the resurrection of Jesus. I know of no other hope for mankind. Sometimes for us as people. It takes us. The appearance of death. But the realization of death, or maybe a feeling of proximity to death.
Before we begin to even think. I need a hope for my life. I need to know that wherever I’m going from here, that I am secure. That there is promise and there is joy, and there is love, and there is freedom, and there is liberation from sin, and there is liberation from suffering, and there is liberation from death. The symbol of your baptism. It is the representation of that. But Christ alone. Is our hope because he is overcoming the grave. We are a part of the called. A part of the redeemed called in this world to share a message of love and hope and truth, that Jesus has brought salvation, that he is the way that he gives life. And your baptism will reflect the grace of your King and your desire to stand for him. As a church this morning. As those who may be being baptized this morning, let me encourage you. Take a stand in your faith. We don’t want to unnecessarily offend people, but we do want to share a truth that sets them free. And thank you for taking a stand in your faith. And think about the grace of God that’s represented as you go to the water as an old, old person that was dead apart from Christ, but now being alive in him, all because of his grace. And now your opportunity to stand for him, and finally the hope of the resurrection to come because of what Jesus has done for you.