Hi, this is the Human Proclaim Podcast. These are the messages of John Fawnville. you're listening to season five called Two Keys to Spiritual Growth. Here's message number 10. called the centrality of baptism.
By way of introduction to look at this, let me just kind of get you a context for understanding baptism and the sacraments and the evangelical culture in which we find ourselves living. When it comes to exhortations to spiritual growth, evangelicals have founded as many biblical means of grace, satisfactions, penances, as medieval believers did prior to the Reformation. Let me just give you one example of an extra-biblical means of grace that has a central role in the weekly liturgy, the weekly worship service of the Southern Baptist Church, in which I grew up in. Perhaps you didn't grow up as a Southern Baptist, but You might, I think, be able to identify with this extra biblical means of grace, this man-made right. Each week in the liturgy of the church where I grew up in, there was a man-made rite called re-dedication.
How many of you have ever heard of come to church and go through rededication? Just about every hand. When I grew up, every Sunday and Wednesday night, and on Wednesday night, even at the midweek service, if there was a fight over the budget, because usually Wednesday night, midweek service, If you're a committed Christian, boy, you show up for the midweek service, and all you did was fight over the budget. But even then, at the end of the liturgy, the pastor would always extend a call to everybody to come re-dedicate themselves. Let me explain to you historically rededication.
Rededication, historically speaking, is nothing more than medieval penance. And it is enacted as accompanied by all sorts of satisfactions. Uh Rededication is more like a weekly New Year's resolution. It was for me nothing more than getting back into God's good graces. And so, in my tradition growing up, in my Southern Baptist revivalistic tradition, Rededication would be accompanied like this.
There's weeping. A prayer is prayed after the minister, and the minister would say, if you really mean it, pray. Pray this prayer with me. Right. And then tears are expected to be evidence of washing away of all your recent failures.
But though not overtly voiced, the implicit belief was that when you have blown it, when you have grown cold, when you have grown indifferent in your Christian life, this act of rededication, which is a satisfaction, which is your promise to God, to really get serious this time. This time, I really mean business when I come forward. This act of satisfaction and penance would move God to compassion, and it would bring you back into his good graces. And so, yet, each time we all went forward week after week after week to have this crisis rededication. You know what, we will lay it all down on the altar.
As soon as we laid it all down, we would pick it all right back up and take it back to our seat. Because When we left church, we would blow it again. And when we blew it again, we would start to feel really guilty. And so this whole endless enslaving cycle of penance starts all over again.
Now, King Solomon said this in Ecclesiastes chapter 1, verse 9: There's nothing new under the sun. This form of enslaving man-made religion is not altogether different from the prescribed methods of penance in the medieval church. And this is the ironic thing about evangelicals. Evangelicals are put off by the term sacrament as if it's some kind of throwback to Roman Catholicism. But yet, they're actually practicing Roman Catholicism called rededication.
And so, like the evangelical Protestant reformers, we need to strip away from the church all these man-made sacraments. Which find no biblical warrant in the scriptures whatsoever. And what we need to do is to recover and make central in our churches, in our churches, and in our lives. The divinely instituted means of grace which our Lord has given to us. to nourish us, to strengthen us, and to assure our faith.
This was the goal of the Protestant reformers. The goal of the evangelical, that's literally not capital E, but the historic evangelical Protestant reformers, their goal was to rid the church of man-made rites, man-made sacraments. Man-made rights that our Lord never commanded. They wanted to rid the church of that so that they could highlight the two paramount means of grace that he actually had instituted. And listen, that would be baptism and the Lord's Supper.
That is the two keys to spiritual growth. Holy Communion is the first key to spiritual growth that we looked at.
So, what we do, trying to be faithful to scripture, is that rather than the habitual man-made practice of rededication. which is based on our promise to be faithful. What Jesus has instituted for us is this ongoing covenant renewal ceremony called Holy Communion, which is based on his promise to us to be faithful to us. The sacrament of Holy Communion is sustaining grace. Holy Communion can be thought like this.
The Daytona 500 comes every year right down the highway from us, about 60 miles south. And so they're, you know, they're flying around this racetrack. I only watch NASCAR once a year, Daytona 500, last 10 laps. Yeah. Because that's the most exciting part where they're just going 200 miles an hour.
two inches apart from each other, crashing all over the place, and it's just exciting. But But for that 500 mile race, they have to make pit stops, right? Because they have to refuel. They have to get new tires. They have to wash their windshields.
They have to get a pit stop. Holy Communion is like a weekly pit stop. That's what the church is for. Holy Communion is the pit stop in the race of the Christian life so that we come to church to refuel so that we can have grace for the journey of our sanctification.
So in this sacramental meal, what we have learned is that God, the Holy Spirit, comes to us and He reassures us every week of Christ's continued faithfulness to be our Lord and Savior. And that strengthens and nourishes our faith.
So that's what we looked at for the first nine weeks. But now we come to the second key for spiritual growth, which is baptism. The sacrament of baptism is very important for the growth of your faith. And we're going to spend the next several weeks, maybe a month or longer, looking at baptism because I don't know if you've ever been taught. that you are supposed to use your baptism every day of your life to pursue the Christian life.
It's not that you get baptized and then you forget about it. You use your baptism every single day of your life till Jesus comes back. And so baptism is very important for the growth of your faith.
So if Holy Communion is sustaining grace, baptism is beginning grace. Just as the Lord's Supper replaces Passover, baptism replaces circumcision. Circumcision in the Old Testament was the sacrament of initiation. Baptism in the New Testament is the sacrament of initiation. Baptism is the sacrament of inclusion into God's covenant of grace.
And by baptism, what we're going to see is that God promises salvation to those who trust Christ alone, who is freely given to us in the gospel.
So, I want you to turn to Matthew chapter 28 and let's just read the Great Commission. Matthew chapter 28, let's look at verses 18 through 20. When Jesus is giving his disciples the great commission, listen to what he says to them. He says, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.
And here's the question: Jesus, how do we make disciples? How do we do this? Look what he says. Baptizing them. That's the means of grace that Jesus institutes for us to make disciples.
A disciple is a lifelong learner. And so he says, Go therefore and make disciples. And here's the beginning, grace, here's how it starts. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. And here's the second teaching.
Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And then he gives us the promise that this will succeed. He says, And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. How do we make disciples? Jesus, note this carefully.
Jesus tells us that the means of grace that he institutes for making disciples is baptizing and teaching. It's called word and sacrament. Word and sacrament, baptizing and teaching, that's word and sacrament. And so Jesus commands that converts to Christianity are to be baptized. Baptism is to play a central role in the life of a disciple.
But disciple is a lifelong learner, and disciple is made first by being baptized. And so, baptism is very important for the growth of your faith as long as you use baptism the way that God intended for you to use it. And so, what we're going to do over this week and next week, maybe the following week, is we're going to look at five vital truths about baptism. And these five vital truths about baptism underscore the central role that baptism plays in the believer's spiritual growth. And these five vital truths about baptism will help you understand how God intends for you to properly use baptism so that you can grow.
So here's the first final truth we're going to look at: it's this: baptism doesn't save. We're just going to start with that one. Baptism doesn't save.
Okay. If you are going to use your baptism properly, you must understand that baptism doesn't save. Is that crystal clear? Many people trust in their baptism for their salvation. They're trusting in their baptism rather than trusting in Christ.
Baptism doesn't save.
Jesus saves. And so, just like the Apostle Paul prior to his conversion and all the Pharisees who placed their confidence in their circumcision and other external privileges in the covenant community, some people place their trust in the external right of baptism as that which saved them. Baptism doesn't save, Jesus saves. And so the pure administration of the sacrament of baptism involves rejecting this false idea that baptism is necessary for salvation. We always have the classic example of the thief on the cross.
He did not really have, well, I mean, he probably could have been sprinkled or poured on, but at that point, He didn't really have an opportunity to get baptized. It was pretty quick. It's like, Lord, believe me, okay, I'm going to remember you. Today would be with me in paradise. And boom, he was dead.
He didn't really have the opportunity, but ordinarily we do, but we'll come back to that in a couple weeks. But the point is, baptism doesn't save. And so if you're to properly use your baptism, don't trust in it. Roman and Orthodox communions teach that baptism is necessary for salvation. Listen to the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church.
This comes from chapter 7, paragraph 1263. It's a big catechism. It says this, it says that by baptism all sins are forgiven. No, we would change it. We would say, by Christ, all sins are forgiven.
By baptism, all sins are forgiven. Original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin. Sign me up, right? See, like Holy Communion, baptism is a sign and seal of the covenant of grace. Let me explain that.
This is what my professor says. He says, in the nature of signs and seals, they are not the thing represented and sealed. The water that you see in the baptism is not Jesus. It's water. Right.
It's the sign and it is the seal. The embossed stamp and the signed diploma is not one's education, nor is a marriage certificate one's marriage. I've never pointed anybody to my marriage certificate that I received in Winston-Salem in 1993 and said, Hey, everybody, here's Catherine. She's never said, everybody, here's John. That's not the reality, that's the sign and seal of a greater reality that it points to.
And so, justice marriage certificate is not one's marriage, so baptism is not one's salvation. The Holy Spirit creates faith in our hearts by the preaching of the gospel. Paul says in Romans chapter 10 verse 17, faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. That is very important that you get word of Christ there because it's not word of God. It is word of Christ because that is the gospel that produces faith by the Holy Spirit.
So the Holy Spirit, taking the preaching of the gospel, creates faith in our hearts by the preaching of the gospel, and then listen. And then the Holy Spirit confirms, he seals, he guarantees, he assures our faith by the use of the Holy Sacraments. The Holy Spirit creates faith through the preaching of the gospel. The Holy Spirit confirms faith through the use of the Holy Sacraments. Do you see the difference?
That's why the whole liturgy that we have in our church says the service of the word and the service of the sacrament. The service of the word is the creation of faith. The service of the sacrament is the confirmation of faith. And so baptism is God's visible sign and seal. A seal is a pledge, it is a guarantee, it is a confirmation.
That we are as truly washed from our sins spiritually as our bodies are washed with water physically. But it is not the outward washing of water itself. That washes away our sin. Listen to the Apostle John. He says, Only the death of Jesus on the cross and the Holy Spirit cleanses us from all sin.
1 John chapter 1, verse 7. The blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 21, Peter writes, Baptism now saves you. Uh-oh. Keep reading.
Baptism now saves you, not the removal of dirt from the flesh. Not the outward washing. But in an appeal to God for a good conscience, Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of Jesus Christ saves you. to which baptism is a sign and seal of that resurrection. And so the sacraments do not work faith, they reinforce faith.
Just as a wedding ring does not, listen, make a marriage, it reinforces the love of that marriage.
So that's the first vital truth about baptism. Baptism doesn't save, Jesus saves. But second, baptism is a visible gospel. Baptism is a visible gospel. To use baptism properly in your life, don't ever remodel baptism into something that is a work you do.
Baptism is not your work, it's God's gift to you. Baptism is a visible gospel, just as the Lord's Supper is a visible gospel. Baptism is pure gospel, it is not a legal right. Baptism is a sign and seal of the righteousness that you have by faith, just as circumcision. Romans chapter 4, verse 11, was a sign and seal of the righteousness that Old Testament believers had by faith.
This is how one author describes baptism. He says, Baptism is a joyful sign of the gospel. It is a joyful sign of the gospel. Baptism is a neon light flashing. Gospel.
Gospel. Gospel, when you look up at this baptismal font every week. And when you watch baptisms in a couple of weeks in this church, that is the Holy Spirit using that sign flashing to you, to you. Good news, good news, good news. You are washed and clean from all your pollution and sin.
And so, like Holy Communion, baptism is God's sign and seal to us. It is not our sign and seal to God. Baptism signifies and seals God's promise, not our promise. What is God's promise? Listen.
The Heidelberg Catechism, question 69, Christ has instituted the outward washing of water and has joined it with this promise. Just as surely as I am washed hourly with water, whereby commonly the filthiness of my body is taken away.
So certainly I am washed with his blood and spirit from the pollution of my soul, that is from all my sins. That's God's promise in baptism. All my filthy defilement before God that crushes my conscience and brings shame to my life and leaves me sitting in guilt has been washed away forever. That's what baptism tells you. And so baptism in water points to the spiritual reality, the washing away of sin by the blood of Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Paul in Titus chapter 3 verse 5 says that the water applied in baptism is the outward and visible sign of the inward washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. This is why baptism is often called the sacrament of regeneration. And so, as the visible gospel of baptism is a triune God's gift to us, it is not our gift to Him. The sacrament of baptism is intended by God to feed our faith, to comfort us, to assure us that all our pollution, all the pollution of my soul has been washed away forevermore. And so, the focus of this sacrament, what is the primary focus?
Here it is. The primary focus of baptism must always be on what God has done for us, what He is currently doing for us, and not on what we have, what we are, or what we will be doing for God.
So, one of the things that I've learned is I've grown in my discipleship, which has been a painful, long journey, right? And it's taken me a long time to get this point. I am far less faithful than I thought I was. But Jesus is far more faithful to me than I ever believed that he would be. And that's what baptism teaches us.
The psalmist, as you hear week after week after week, in the call to worship, Psalm 105, his loving kindness is everlasting. That's his steadfast love. What is that loving kindness, steadfast love? He's made a promise, and he'll keep it forever. He's made a promise, and that promise is everlasting.
His faithfulness to all generations. Baptism tells you that. Baptism confirms this. It assures you of this. And so, what the baptized is primarily confessing is not their undying devotion to God.
What the baptized are being are confessing is God's unfailing devotion to redeem me. To cleanse me, to sanctify me, and ultimately to glorify this weak, sinful believer. That's what baptism is confessing. But yet, how often is baptism presented primarily as our undying devotion to God?
Well, if you're really serious, you couldn't be baptized. Make your public profession and show how committed you are to this undying devotion to God and show them how faithful you are. That remodels the gospel. We have grown up with this notion that baptism is solely our public profession of faithfulness to follow Christ. But baptism is first and foremost God's pledge of faithfulness to draw us.
It is his promise and pledge of faithfulness to save us that draws forth our response to be faithful to him. First John chapter four, verse nineteen, we love because. It doesn't say we love God first, therefore he loves us.
So, when we're talking about baptism, what we could say is, we are faithful. We love because he first loved us. We are faithful. because he is eternally faithful to us. Do you see the difference?
And so, when baptism is set forth solely as our public profession of faithfulness, we're really meaning it, we're really radical, we're really devoted, we're really committed. When baptism is remodeled like this, Uh from a visible gospel into a legal work God's work is remodeled into a work that we do. God's pledge of faithfulness becomes solely our pledge of faithfulness. It becomes our public witness to show how committed we are. Does everybody see what I'm saying?
You just remodel the whole gospel. And so, this visible gospel becomes man-centered rather than God-centered. And so, rather than baptism being a sign and seal that God comes to us in love and grace, placing his mark of ownership on us as his covenant people, we'll look at that in a couple weeks from the Great Commission. We baptize in the name of. We receive the name of the triune God on us forever.
Rather than baptism being that, Baptism becomes something we do to show that we truly mean business with God. But when understood properly, baptism is a visible sign and seal of the gospel to show us that the triune God means business with us. And it's all good business. It's all good news. And so, because baptism is a visible gospel, guess what?
Christ's death, burial, and resurrection lie at its very heart. The paramount Uh parts of the gospel, 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Baptism declares that our discipleship is essentially a dying, burying, and rising of life with Christ. This is what Paul teaches, and so turn to Romans chapter 6 as we finish and conclude here. We can come back to this later, but just look at this for a moment as we finish.
Listen to what the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 6, verses 3 through 5. He says that our water baptism proclaims the good news of our union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. Christ's death, burial, and resurrection lie at the heart of baptism. He says, Do you not know that all of us 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 too we might walk in newness of life.
For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. And so Paul says: look, as a holy sign, as a holy visible sign and seal of the gospel. Baptism proclaims, baptism assures, baptism symbolizes our union with Christ in His death, in His burial, and in His resurrection. Do you know why this is important for your spiritual growth? Here's why.
Because union with Christ lies at the heart of your spiritual growth and discipleship. And that's what baptism proclaims to you. That's what empowers you to live out holiness. The key to living a holy life, the key to growing spiritually, is living by faith in union with Christ. And so, to keep God's law, your soul must be empowered out of the fullness of Christ.
And the power to live a holy life is something that is produced in you by Christ. That is treasured up for you in him. And this is what baptism proclaims to us. And so through the Holy Spirit gift of faith, We come into union with Christ, and water baptism proclaims this union. It assures us of this union, it strengthens this union.
Preaches this union to us. And that is what empowers me to go forth and live in holiness because that is Paul's entire context in Romans 6. Shall we continue in sin? The grace may abound. He says, God forbid.
Why? Because baptism teaches me that I'm in union with Christ and that I've been raised to walk in newness of life because I've died with Christ, I've been buried with Christ, and I've been raised as a new creation in Christ. I can't continue to live in sin because I'm not like that anymore. And baptism preaches that to me. It confirms that to me.
It assures me that this is true. And that's how you're empowered to live a holy Christian life. What does our baptism signify and seal? Paul says it signifies the mortification, the death of our old Adam. Who we are in Adam.
And then it signifies and seals the rising up of our new man in Christ. This is why Paul says, 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 newness of life. And so Paul says, our baptism calls us. Preaches to us by grace that we are those who have died with Christ. That we have been buried with Christ.
And that all of our sin, all of our sin is washed away, and that we have risen again with Christ to walk in newness of life because we are now new creations. And so baptism plays a central role in the growth of your faith. It points you to the paramount truths of the gospel: Christ's death. Christ's burial, Christ's resurrection. It unites you to those effective works for your salvation.
Christ works. It preaches this to you as a visible gospel. And so, listen, we are driven by good news in baptism. You see that we're driven by good news to obey. All our fleshly desires All these desires that we have in Adam are destroyed.
Through our union with Christ through faith and baptism, it proclaims that to us, and it drives us by this good news, and then it teaches us and calls us to pursue godliness. Of life through union and communion with Christ. And that's what baptism is. It is a visible gospel. Amen.
Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the gift of baptism. We thank you that it is a visible gospel that directs us not only to forsake the fleshly desires of our hearts. But we thank you that it calls us and proclaims to us and empowers us.
To pursue godliness of life through our union with Christ in His death, in His burial, and His resurrection. And just as baptism calls us to this communion, we thank you that now we enter in this communion through the sacrament of holy communion. And we pray that as we come this morning to receive your table, your sacrament, your signs and seals. The bread in the cup. We pray that we would, by the power of your Holy Spirit, commune not only with you, but with one another.
in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. And so thank you for this visible gospel. That preaches to us and confirms and assures our hearts of Christ and all of his saving benefits. And we pray all of this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Thanks for listening to the Himalaya podcast with John Fawnville. Him we proclaim as a ministry of John Fondill of Fairmount Church in Jacksonville, Florida. You can check out his church at paramountchurch.com. We look forward to next time.
