Baptism: God’s Will for Every Believer

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, August 17. Have you ever wondered what the big deal is about baptism? Today you'll get the answer to that question in part two of the series explaining the foundations of Christian living.

One of the continuing challenges we have as believers is to come to the Scriptures and realize how long ago they've been written and bring the truths, the principles of Scripture into our present time, this generation, this millennium, this century and apply these truths to our life, make it work. And sometimes people have the idea, well, this is just ancient writing and therefore doesn't apply to us today. Oh, yes, it does. And the reason it does is because it is the eternal Word of God. It does not change.

It has not changed. And so that means that whatever God wrote in the past, in the Scriptures, is applicable to us today. And that doesn't necessarily mean that all the laws and the customs that he gave to the nation of Israel just for them primarily applies to us today. But the principles are still there. And especially we come to the New Testament and we hear the very clear commands of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul of the apostles.

And as God has given us his inspired word, it is to be applied to our heart to direct our life, to show us how to live. And so oftentimes people have the idea, well, you know, that was so old. Maybe that doesn't apply to us today. Yes, it does apply to us because principles never change. Customs change. Societies change. People's thinking change. The principles of God never change. He would never give us a principle that we have to live by today and not by tomorrow. And so one of those principles that I think God has given us that oftentimes people have the idea that they can just either decide to do it or not do it. And it's just a matter of pick and choose or it's a matter of no obligation, but just an option on my part.

One of those is what I want to talk about in this message. And I want you to turn, if you will, to Matthew chapter twenty eight. And I want us to read the 16th through the 18th verses, 16 through the 18th verses. And the title of this message is Baptism, God's will for every believer, God's will for every believer. Now you say, well, I've been baptized. So what do I have to learn from this message? Well, depends on how you got baptized.

It could depend upon a lot of things. So if you have never been baptized, you genuinely need to listen very carefully. Even if you have, you need to listen carefully. You may be one of those persons who has been baptized when you were a child and you wonder what in the world did it take or did it not take. You need to listen very carefully for two reasons. Number one, it may be that you've never been baptized and so you need to understand. It may be that you have, that you are saved.

But do you know how to explain it to someone else? Do you know how to answer people's challenge to you when they challenge what you believe about baptism and why you're baptized the way you are? So very important. And I am certain that this message is far more crucial and critical and important than most people realize because they think, many people have the idea, well baptism, you can sort of take it or leave it. Baptism is serious business.

It is not a take it or leave it command of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I want you to notice in this sixteenth verse, Jesus has risen from the dead. He's told his disciples to meet him in Galilee.

And so here's what happens. Verse sixteen, But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some were doubtful. Now the reason I believe that probably there were more than just eleven there, these eleven had already seen him several times and I don't imagine there's much doubting going on with them, with that particular eleven by this time.

But could be, but I don't think that was the case. So more than likely, there were more than eleven people who met him there. And Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore, or as you go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you, and lo, I'll be with you always, even at the end of the age. Now we usually call that passage of Scripture the Great Commission.

That is God's final charge to the Lord Jesus Christ, to his followers. And this charge he prepared to make, he said to them, I want you to meet me in Galilee at this particular place. Notice what he said when he arrived and when they all arrived there.

He said, All authority has been given to me in heaven and in earth. He wanted to make very clear that what he was about to say to them, he had the right and the divine authority to charge them, to commission them. They were to go into the entire world and to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to the entire world.

Now, when he gave them that commission, he knew it was impossible. Those eleven or even if there were five hundred of them there, they would not be able to go into all the world and preach the gospel. So what was he saying to them? He was saying to them, As you go, you make disciples, you baptizing them, and you teach them to observe all the things that I've commanded you. And he knew that they would have to pass that down from generation to generation to generation because they wouldn't live so long, for example, as to do it.

And secondly, those eleven men couldn't spread out all over the world to preach the gospel. And so they were to do well what they did. They were to listen carefully and to be reminded of what he had said to them. He said, The Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance the things that I've been telling you, because it was their responsibility to pass on from generation to generation so that when somebody picks up the Bible and says, Well, he just said that to a small group of disciples. He didn't mean that for everybody.

Yes, he did. Jesus certainly was wise enough to know those eleven would never be able to cover the earth. But from generation to generation, as the apostle Paul said to Timothy, he said, You teach others who in light turn would be able to teach others also. That's the reason that all of us who know Christ as our Savior are saved. It has been handed down from generation to generation. It's crossed oceans and deserts and plains and mountains and all the rest. And here you and I have trusted Jesus Christ as our Savior because somebody handed it down to somebody from generation to generation to generation, person to person, family to family.

Finally, it got to you and got to me. That's the reason we're saved. He said, All authority has been given to me to tell you this. Now, he said three things to them. He said, As you go in your life, you're to make disciples, introducing them to the saving knowledge of Christ. Secondly, he says, you're to baptize them. And third, he said, You are to teach them to observe all the things that I've commanded you. So they had three primary tasks and one promise. He said, This is a promise I'm giving you.

I'll be with you all the way, even to the end of this age. That's all the promise they needed, because when you have the Lord Jesus Christ with you, you've got everything you need to enable you to become and to do and to accomplish and to achieve all that God has required of you in your life. Now, we will all agree that certainly we all need to be discipled. We would certainly agree that we all need to be taught to observe the things of Scripture. What about baptism? You would think that many people think, Well, you know, I know that a person ought to be saved and certain ought to be taught. But baptism seems to be an option. For example, this is true in many churches.

Many churches, people receive Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, and some are baptized, some are not. It's as if it's an option. It's as if it's a matter of personal opinion, whether I want to or whether I do not want to.

What I want you to see is this. Jesus said, Go and baptize. When He said that, He didn't mean just baptize some and leave some out. But every single believer is to be baptized.

That is the will of God. The will of God is that every single believer be baptized for some very, very specific reasons. And so when we think about the whole idea of baptism and the fact that Jesus is the one who commissioned it, that doesn't mean that every single person who's saved is to do the baptizing. He's certainly given the pastors primarily that responsibility to baptize. But there are places out there in the world where there are no pastors, that people have trusted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, and there's no ordained pastors we think of to baptize them, then some other godly man can baptize those people who need to be baptized. And so there's nothing in the Scripture that says it is limited to a particular person.

What I want you to see is it is not an option. It is the will and purpose and plan of God that every single believer is to be baptized. Now, a second thing that's very clear in the Scripture and that is the method of baptism.

Now, I know that we will walk on very solid ground scripturally but on very light ground with some people because here is the issue. Many people have been baptized. They've been poured on, sprinkled, and some immersed. Now, somebody says, well, you mean to tell me there's one way to be baptized? There is a scriptural way to be baptized and it is called immersion.

And so the issue of method is very important. It's very important because of what baptism symbolizes. What it symbolizes is directly connected to the method by which a person is baptized.

If the symbolism of it is not important, then it doesn't make any difference, but it's very important. What does baptism symbolize in the first place? Now, what's this all about? What's this going on in the water and coming back up?

And you see, we said it could be lots more convenient just to sprinkle and pour. Why all this immersion business? Well, because it symbolizes what happens when you get saved. What happens when you get saved? Here's what happens. Let's say you're heading in the wrong direction in life, doing things your way, lost as you can be, and you're confronted with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Confronted with the gospel, you're convicted of your sin, the Spirit of God convicts you. What happens? You place your trust in Jesus Christ and you repent of the way you've been living and you, listen, repentance, listen, is a change of mind. It's going to result in a change of conduct. You head in the other direction.

So what's happened? It symbolizes that you have died to your old way of life and now you're walking in newness of life. And Paul in Romans chapter six, look there if you will, he makes it very clear.

Here's the picture. Here's what baptism's all about. Romans chapter six, verse four, therefore, we have been buried with Him, that is with Jesus, through baptism into death. Now, none of us have been buried physically so we're talking about something symbolical. So that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

What is he saying? Baptism by immersion symbolizes what? It symbolizes that we died to our old way of life, we have been buried in Christ, we have placed our life, listen, into a relationship with Jesus Christ and now we have risen to walk in newness of life. If you want to express baptism the way God chose to express baptism and to symbolize the message that God intends to send, you get baptized by immersion. Because that's death, burial and resurrection. And so that is the reason and that is one of the primary purposes for which we do it. And so baptism is a deliberate, listen, is a clear command of God for every single believer. Any excuse, any rationalization, any putting off, any rejecting, any ignoring is an act of sin from God's viewpoint. Now you say, well, you know, I don't know why that's so important. It hadn't been important.

He wouldn't have made it a part of a threefold commission. He said, as you go make disciples baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things that I've commanded you and though I'll be with you all the way even to the end of this age. Very, very important that a person is baptized, baptized scripturally, knowing that you're saved first of all and doing it God's way and in God's time.

But there's a fourth thing that I think we need to clarify here and that is simply this. And that is the relationship between salvation and baptism. When I think about some scriptures that are very, very clearly given to us in the Word, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life, period. When you listen to the Apostle Paul, listen to what he says, For by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Then he says in Romans the 10th chapter, he says, If thou shall confess with our mouth, Jesus Christ is Lord.

Believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead. You will be saved, period. Now Jesus did not propagate a halfway gospel.

And the Apostle Paul, so accurate in every single way, he would not have said that if it had not been true. So salvation and baptism are two different things. Salvation precedes baptism. Baptism follows salvation. Baptism, and we're going to talk about in a few moments why it's so meaningful and why it's so strongly given to us in the commission here. Baptism says something about what I have already done. Baptism is a symbol of something. And so there is a difference between salvation and baptism. Both of them are absolutely essential.

Now watch this. Salvation is essential to get you to heaven. Baptism is essential to living an obedient life. You cannot be in the will of God and reject baptism. You cannot be full of the Spirit and reject baptism. Baptism is an act of obedience for a child of God who has been saved by the grace of God. And so therefore, very important that you and I are baptized. Very important that we follow the Lord Jesus Christ obediently to be baptized because He commissioned that.

He commanded that. That is not an option on my part. And so when somebody says, Well, how long can you wait? You shouldn't wait. And when I hear that people have waited six months, two years, three years, and I've met people who've waited years and years and years and years and have never been baptized. Why?

Well, you know, I just never got around to it. Listen to me. If Jesus, He didn't say, I suggest that you be baptized. He didn't say it would be a great idea that you be baptized. One of these days, it would be fine if you get baptized. In the New Testament, you get saved, you get baptized.

Why? For the simple reason, God knows that we need to take an unashamed stand for our faith in the person of Jesus Christ. And so very important that we understand there's a distinction between the two, but both of them are important. Now, you can't ever tell anybody, you don't understand what the Bible teaches about baptism. You've heard it. It's just that simple and just that clear. Now here's the issue.

The issue is this. Is Jesus, let's say that you're saved. Who is the Lord of your life? Well, you say Jesus Christ is Lord of my life.

Okay. If He is, did Jesus Christ say we're to be baptized? Well, yes, He did. Have you been baptized?

No, I haven't. Who is making the decisions in your life? Well, Jesus says, no, He's not. Because if He says you're to be baptized and you choose not to be baptized, you have said, I refuse to acknowledge His Lordship in my life in this given area.

Listen carefully. When you refuse Christ's Lordship in your life in any given area deliberately and willfully, my friend, you are also disregarding Him in other areas of life. You do not disobey God deliberately in only one area of life.

That's not the way this human makeup is made. And so I simply ask you a question. Who's the Lord of your life? You want to walk in obedience to God? You want to be the person God wants you to be? You want to achieve the things God has helped you to set in life? Here is a very clear command given in the final great charge of Jesus to His disciples. He made it crystal clear. Every single believer is to be baptized.

And I only have one of two decisions. I can obey Him and be baptized. I can disobey Him and refuse baptism and one day stand before Him to give an account. And I will have no acceptable excuse then and I have no acceptable excuse today for refusing to obey, listen to this, for refusing to obey the Lord Jesus Christ who, because of His love for me, went to the cross, stretched out His arms upon a wooden cross. They nailed Him there and He was hanging there until the wrath of Almighty God came upon Him and punished Him for our sin and then you mean to tell me you will not publicly confess your faith in this awesome Christ by following Him in baptism.

Would you not agree that would be an awful, serious, not only mistake, but a sin against your Lord who is your Master and who holds in His hand your whole eternal future? Father, we thank You and praise You for loving us, for being patient with us when we don't understand, being patient with us when in our own sinfulness we insist on having it our way. I pray the Holy Spirit will take this message, drive it home deep down inside to every heart. For all of us who have been saved and baptized, just to remind us again of how grateful we are, that You would even want us identified with You, to be Your followers. That You would identify Yourself with us and as You said in Your Word, You're not ashamed to be called our Father. I pray that every person who hears this message, who has never been saved, place their trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sin. Those who have never been baptized would say yes, identify themselves with a given local church somewhere, be baptized into that fellowship. But Lord, that no one would deprive You any longer of Your rightful lordship in their life when it comes to baptism. And we ask this and praise You for it in Your name.

Amen. Thank you for listening to Baptism, God's will for every believer. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.