Get Ready

I want to welcome all of our campuses this weekend across the Triangle, but a special greeting I want to send out to our college students, most of whom, as I mentioned, are getting back after being home for the summer or mission trips or internships. We have missed you guys. We are definitely a different church without your presence here. There are so many things that you add to our church. There are a couple of things that are not impacted when you are not here. One of them is the offering. I am not bitter about that.

I am just saying. The other is our parking. There is another example. Lance Michaels, who is our Chapel Hill campus pastor, said, I can't figure it out. He said, college students, when they leave for the summer, he said, literally, in one weekend, our attendance drops by 700 people. He goes, and our parking lot looks exactly the same. He said, but then I figured it out as I watched him come back. He said, because they average about 150 people per car.

Those two things are not impacted, but everything else is. And so we are really glad that you are here. If you have a Bible, college student or otherwise, I would invite you to take it out and open it to Matthew 3. I always hope that you have your Bible with you on the weekend. Matthew is the first book in the New Testament.

We are in chapter 3. Matthew, this kind of symbolizes us. This very week, this week, on Monday, we are crossing over officially from the Old Testament into the New Testament in our Through the Bible reading plan for the year. For those of you that started off really, really well in January reading the whole Bible with us, and you fell off somewhere in Leviticus at the first of February, like I told you you would, it's time for you to slip back onto the bus and act like you've been here the whole time.

We won't judge you. Let's just read the New Testament together. If you're new to our church, we're reading the Bible through for the year, and we would love for you to just, there's bookmarks or the social media will let you know how to do it. But where I'm preaching loosely along with the things that we're reading that week, I preach them on the weekend as we'll just work our way through the New Testament. So you can join back up today. Today in Matthew 3, we're going to jump into the story of a rather strange figure who was sent by God ahead of Jesus in order to prepare everybody for the coming of Jesus.

This guy was sent to prepare the way. He captured the attention of the entire nation of Israel in part because he was so odd. I just got back, most of you know, from being overseas with my family where everyone regarded me and my family to be a little odd. Little things that we in our country take for granted, they find weird, like wanting ice in our drinks. It doesn't seem weird to me, but it seemed weird to them, even when I ate at McDonald's.

And I'm typically not a McDonald's regular, but you'd be surprised how good those golden arches of capitalism look after you've been overseas for a while. In fact, here's one of my pictures as I was on my way back. But even there at McDonald's, when I ordered a Diet Coke, they gave it to me with one cube of ice in it. And so I asked the guy at the counter very politely, could I have some more ice? He looked at me with a very strange look on his face. And so I said it more slowly and loudly because that's always the way that people understand things. And then he disappeared in the back, I guess, to go talk to the manager.

And a few minutes later, he emerges with tongs and one more cube of ice, like he's holding a national treasure. So they thought our customs were strange. They thought that we talked strange. In London, where people obviously speak English, they would tell me that I needed to speak more slowly because they couldn't understand my accent. And I'm like, my accent? I ain't got no accent.

Y'all are the ones with the accent. In South Africa, where they mostly speak English also, I learned that they use different words for things than we do. There are words that we use here commonly that you just can't use there. For example, at dinner one night, I said that I needed a napkin. And my South African host informed me, he said, I don't think that means what you think it means. Napkin here in our dialect means adult diaper.

And so it's not typically the kind of thing you ask for in the middle of a meal. At another meal, a South African guy said, man, he said, I can't wait to get home and take a nice long doodoos. I was like, why would you tell me that?

I don't care. But doodoos in their dialect, it means nap. It means I want to go take a nap. So later when I was talking with our missionary there, one of his South African colleagues as he was going home says, hey man, I'll hit you with a tinkle later. I was like, what? He said tinkle, like phone call.

That's our word for phone call. So I told our missionary, have you ever had a tinkle in the middle of one of your doodoos? Sorry for the potty humor, but when you're from a different culture, you seem strange. John the Baptist in Matthew chapter three is going to seem strange, but for different reasons. He's not strange for cultural reasons, as if he's from a different country. He's a Jew that's sent to Jews, but his ministry and his lifestyle are so odd that it gets everybody's attention.

And that is by design. God designed that because he wanted to show Israel what they needed to do in order to receive Jesus. You see, maybe you've asked that very question. How exactly do you receive Jesus? You're like, you know, I've heard Christians talk about that, but what does that mean? Does it mean that you come to church a lot? Is there a certain level of morality that you obtain?

If so, how much is enough? How much of those things do you have to do in order to qualify as a Christian? Or maybe you thought this, you know, I would like to know God. I'm interested in that, but I'm just not interested in getting involved in organized religion.

I mean, maybe you're thinking that. You're like, you're looking at me and you're like, hey man, no offense to you, but I just don't trust organized religion, but I am interested in knowing God. Or maybe you say, I'm interested in God, but I just don't see what the big deal is about Jesus. John is going to point you, John is Jesus's cousin, by the way. John the Baptist is going to point you toward the answer to all of those questions. Matthew chapter three, verse one. In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and his message was pretty simple. Repent. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord and make his past straight. Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist and his food was locusts and wild honey.

Those details are included because that's what made John seem so odd. Now the wild honey doesn't sound too bad, but the locusts? I just, out of curiosity, how many of you at all of our campuses, how many of you have had locusts before eating them? Raise your hand.

That's a good number in this audience. I actually have had them once on a mission trip to a rural part of China. They're not so bad if they're fried, they taste like chicken. In fact, I brought you a picture just so you would be blessed by that. There you are.

There I skewered up for you. If you dip them in caramel sauce or like John, I think that's what the wild honey was about, is you dipped them in there to cover up the taste. The worst part, by far, is when their legs get stuck in your teeth.

It takes flossing to a new level. Let's just say that. But these things are not strange to Jews because they were gross. It may seem gross to us, but they weren't gross to Jews. They were strange because they revealed that John was not part of the aristocracy. You see, most religious leaders back then were part of the aristocracy. They all lived in Jerusalem.

They had degrees, they wore nice clothes, they drove nice chariots, and they were fairly wealthy. But obviously, John wasn't. But there was something about John that was really odd to them. And that is that he reminded them of someone that they'd heard about but never met.

That was somebody in their history who had the reputation of having the same kind of persona as this, this Grizzly Adams kind of persona. And that was a prophet named Elijah. And so as they listened to John, they thought, he sounds like Elijah.

We've always heard sounded. And see, there was these prophecies in the Old Testament, several of them, that said that before the Messiah came, that Elijah would precede him. You see one there in Matthew, Isaiah says, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, that's about Elijah. In Malachi 4, 5, which we read yesterday in a Bible reading plan, the prophet says, Elijah is going to come before the Messiah comes.

And so they thought, maybe this is him. Maybe this is Elijah reincarnate. He dresses like Elijah. He talks like Elijah. He preaches like Elijah. He smells like Elijah.

This has to be him. And so he got their attention. Verse 5, then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the River Jordan confessing their sins. All right, let's spend a few minutes talking about John's message. First, I want you to note the simplicity of John's message. You can summarize it really in one word, repent. All repent really means is turn away from your sin. That was basically his whole sermon.

If you were taking notes on the apostle or on John the Baptist, you would not need to download his transcript from the internet. You would just write down one word, point number one, repent. And after a while, you'd be like, okay, John got point number one. Why don't you move on to point number two? And John would say, I don't really have a point number two.

All I really have is point one. And you would say, well, John, I came, I'm wanting to learn a little something. I'm here to learn. And John would say, then you better get serious about repenting because the problem is not that you need to know something new. The problem is you're not doing what you already know. The problem for most of us is not that we don't know enough. The problem for most of us is that we're not obedient to the things that we do know. You see, evidently, most of the people listening to John did not need to be told what to repent of.

That's why there's no list in here. They already knew what they needed to repent of. The vast majority of people today do not need to be told.

They already know. What area of your life right now is not under the full authority of God? Are you obeying Him? Is He first in your finances? Is He first in your heart? Is He first in your relationships?

Is He first with your time? Are you obeying Him in the area of sexuality? Is there anything that He has forsaken that you have not forbidden? Is there any area of your life He doesn't have lordship over?

Any habit that you have you know is not pleasing to Him? If so, you don't need to come here and take notes. You need to repent. Now, here's what you learn from John. God's got nothing else to say to you until you do. And you're like, I'm ready to move on to point two. He's like, you don't need a point two.

You need a point one. Do you understand how wicked it is to know that God wants you to do something and then to choose the opposite? Need I remind you that the entire human race was plunged into darkness and death not because of some morally depraved act but because they knew that God wanted them not to eat of a forbidden tree and they did it anyway. What was so bad about that one act? Now, they didn't like stomp on puppies on the way to the tree or skewer angels with Java. No. All they did was eat of a fruit that God told them not to.

Why was it so bad? Numbers 25. You got a story that's really disturbing to be quite honest. God's just given the law to Israel. One of the laws says not to work on the Sabbath. Well, there's a guy in Israel who knows that's the law, but he needs some things for the house. So he goes out and he gathers up a bunch of sticks in defiance of the law. Now, it's a morally innocuous act, right? He's not hurting anybody.

He's gathering sticks. Israel brings them up before God says, God, what should we do? And God says, stone him.

Stone him for gathering sticks on the Sabbath. What was so evil? Sin does not get its wickedness.

Listen to this. Sin does not get its wickedness by the depravity of the act. Sin derives its wickedness from the one whose authority you throw off when you commit it. Do you understand how wicked it is to know that God wants something and to deliberately go the other direction? Do you realize what that is? Samuel, 1 Samuel 15. To rebel, to know what God wants and do the opposite is like the sin of witchcraft, which means if there is an area of your life that you know is not pleasing to God and you're like, I just don't feel like dealing with that, God says you might as well be worshiping Satan because that's how I see those things.

The problem is not that we need to learn a bunch of new things. The problem in every age is that we just need to repent and come to Jesus in the areas that we know are not under his control. Second, note the tone of John's message. The simplicity was repent. The tone was what we call apocalyptic. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Apocalyptic just means it concerns the end of the world. Now usually when you talk that way, that makes people think you're crazy. You see a guy with a bumper sticker or a t-shirt that says the end is near. You don't usually think, no, that's a guy I really would like to know.

I want him to influence my family, babysit my children. That's not what you think. But it made people listen to John because they believed him. And there's nothing that will get somebody's attention like actually believing the end is near. Right?

Right. I mean, they always say that there's two ways you can get people back in church. One is to do a series on the end times. The other is to do a series on sex. It's always made me wonder if I could come up with a series on what kinds of sex we will have in the end times, if we can make attendance go through the roof. But the thing is, I don't really know when the end is going to be here. And I can't tell you as if it's going to be next week. But what I do know, what I do know is that Jesus said for us to live ready, that there's always an apocalyptic kind of edge to the gospel, because there are two things that could happen at any moment that none of us know. I am very aware that this very day, one of two things might happen to you that would essentially mean the end was near.

One is that Jesus could return. He says, he's going to come like a thief in the night. Thing about thieves coming in the night is they don't tell you, they don't make appointments. They don't show up.

They don't send a courtesy call. They just come when you're not expecting it. And Jesus said, ultimately, when I come, that's what it's going to be like. You're going to find a generation that's sleeping and I'm going to show up and they're not going to be ready. That could happen before I end the sermon. The other thing that could happen with you not knowing is death.

Death comes as a surprise to most people. Sometimes when I come up here, one of my last thoughts that I'll have is when I, a few years ago, I was speaking at a student event on the weekend, not our student event, but another one. And there was a kid there that sat on the first row.

He sat literally right there, took copious notes the whole time I talked. I was talking about the assurance of salvation. Now you could know that you were going to go to heaven.

Great kid, athletic, that afternoon got into an accident and died. And what it's always made me realize is I stand in front of 10,000 people on a weekend. There's a real good chance that for somebody, this is the last chance you're going to have to hear and understand who Jesus is and actually respond. And when you begin to grasp that, it suddenly makes the message like John's take on a greater urgency.

I wish that I could carry the authority that John carried in making you realize that you are playing with things that you really can't play with because you just don't know. That it really could be over this weekend for you. And what it means to start to live with wisdom is to think about that day, that last day, and start to live today the way that you'll know you want to live when you get there.

That's why Moses prayed Psalm 90 verse 12, Lord teach us to think about death so that we might know how to live. The only way I'll ever live correctly today is when I think about what I'm going to wish I would live like when I was there. I mean, even if death doesn't take you by surprise, even if it doesn't come in the form of an accident, have you noticed as you get older, how much faster life seems to go? I mean, I'm like, there were some college students at my house the other night and one of them said, man, this last year just flew by.

And I'm like, you ain't got no idea. I mean, it's like every year I'm like, are the years literally getting shorter? Is something happening to the rotation of the earth? How does this happen this fast?

Right? You feel that? I looked in the mirror the other day and I'm like, I'm 43 years old.

How did this happen? I mean, I'm 40. I looked at my wife. I'm like, I don't feel 43. Do I look 43? And she was like, no, you used to look 43, but now you don't look 43 anymore.

I don't know. And it just seems like you suddenly arrive at a place where you look back and life is in the rear view mirror. You ever heard that phrase? Only one life to live will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. And so you begin to live today in light of what you know is coming.

And that is the end. And it got people's attention. And they thought about their lives in the present from a glimpse in the future. The tone was apocalyptic.

Number three, notice the response. Baptism. Baptism was not completely unknown in those days. A lot of people think John invented the baptism, like John was the first guy to, oh, I got an idea.

But it's not true. Baptism was actually pretty common in Jewish life, but it was always used in one of two ways. The first way, it was a part of the conversion process, listen, when a Gentile became a Jew. So when a Gentile non-Jew wanted to become a Jew, they did three things. First one was circumcision, which had to reduce the male convert potential pool pretty dramatically if you ask me.

In fact, I was thinking about this. You know how we do spontaneous baptisms here? Oh, come, we got everything you need, tile, change of clothes. What's a spontaneous circumcision? We got all that you'll need, bandages, Vicodin.

I mean, somebody drive you home. I mean, I don't know how to do that. But they did circumcision. Number two, you memorize some sections out of the Torah. And then number three is you got baptized, showing that you were leaving your Gentile life and entering into this new life as a Jew. Well, the second kind of baptism was baptisms that Jews put themselves through as a ritual purification when they want to offer a sacrifice.

John's baptism is clearly not either of those. It's directed at Jews, not Gentiles. So it's not about Gentiles becoming Jews, but it's also more than just a ritual cleansing. He calls it a baptism of repentance. He is talking as if Jews need to be converted and need to repent the way Gentiles do.

And that was completely unheard of to them. Verse seven, when he saw many of the Pharisees and the Sadducees coming to his baptism, all the religious people started to come because that's what religious people do. They find out what cool religious things are happening in the religious world.

So they go do those religious things so they can add them to their religious resume. So he looks out there and there's all these Sadducees and Pharisees. And John says to them, you brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath to come.

It's not up on his secret church nomenclature. Verse eight, bear fruit therefore in keeping with repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, we got Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. In other words, stop hiding behind religion and quit telling yourself I'm a Jew. I'm a church elder.

I give it the church. I'm going to be okay. I've gone through this ritual because I'm not talking, he says, about something that needs to change in your behavior. I'm talking about something that needs to change at your very roots. Listen to this. I know exactly where I'm at.

I'm in the south. Religion is the cover-up for true repentance always. Religion is always the great substitute for true repentance.

It is religion that keeps most people like the Pharisees and Sadducees from dealing with repentance. One of the most revolutionary stories that Jesus told involves two sons. Very few people understand this story as illustrated by what we call it. We call it the story of the prodigal son, singular, but there's actually two sons in there. The first son is the prodigal who runs away and he, you know, the way that you think, he takes the money and he goes riotous living and frat parties and smoking weed and prostitutes and basically lives on Franklin Street. There's that one, okay?

That's the one we know about. But there's a second son in Jesus's story and Jesus makes sure to point out that this son, while he stayed home and didn't run away in rebellion, this son stayed outside the house. That's Jesus's way of showing that even though he's around the home he's not in fellowship with the father. And this son is furious at the grace that the father shows the returning prodigal which Jesus says shows that he doesn't understand that he also is a recipient of grace. This second son thinks that he deserves the father's possessions and his blindness to his own desperate need for grace makes him proud and bitter and judgmental and shows that he's every bit as separated from the father as the son who went out and lived with prostitutes. There are two ways to be separated from God.

Hear this. One is by defying the laws of God like a rebel. That's the first prodigal. But the second is in thinking you're good enough to earn the father's approval and never dealing with the core issues of your heart and failing to recognize the grace that you need to be accepted by God.

Religion keeps a lot of people from ever dealing with the root problem in their heart which is that they love themselves more than they love God. I've described it before like this. You got a guy who keeps a mistress one day a week only on Saturday. Now you know you're like well man your your wife is upset with you you're not a very good husband and he says you know what you're right so I'm gonna really be a better husband on Sunday through Friday.

He's not dealing with his mistress he's just gonna bring her flowers and take her to dinner on Sunday through Friday and you're like bro the problem is not that you're not a good enough husband and you're not busy enough Sunday through Friday the problem is you have a heart that is divided and you're faithful to two things. Basically Jesus says the religious people your problem is not that you're not religiously busy if you don't need another ritual you need something that's going to go down to the core of who you are because you think you're good enough to earn God's favor you think he owes you and you think that just another ritual and somehow you're going to to prove your place before God stop doing your damnable good works and actually repent and cling to God's grace because it's the only hope that you have it's why John is so harsh with him. Listen in the south you've got to hear this religion is going to delude more people out of repentance and send them to hell than rebellion ever will because it keeps you from understanding your need for grace and keeps you from dealing with the core of your heart. So now verse 11 John begins to show you the significance of his baptism now that he's prepared the way now he's going to show you the significance of his baptism verse 11 I baptize you with water for repentance but there's one mighty coming after me that's mightier than I whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and and with fire. John says that his baptism in other words is symbolic of something a greater baptism the real baptism happens not in water like John is baptizing with the real baptism he says is going to happen in the Holy Spirit and that makes listen to this that makes the place of John's baptism really significant. You see the Jordan River two ways it describes it the Jordan River on the edge of the wilderness the Jordan River was the boundary between the wilderness and Israel the Jordan River was the place where Joshua after the children of Israel had wandered in sin for 40 years in the wilderness the Jordan River was the place they crossed over to go into the promised land it was the place where they figuratively speaking left the wilderness of sin to live in the faith and obedience of the promised land of Israel and so what John says is the real baptism is when you leave the wilderness of sin for the promised land of faith and obedience and the only way that you can do that is not through a baptism like this the only way you can do that is through the fire of the Holy Spirit which is why you need a messiah who can give you the Holy Spirit not somebody that can just take you through a religious ritual so verse 13 enter Jesus then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John and then in order to be baptized by him and John recognizes him I mean they're cousins after all and John's like whoa you can't do that Jesus this is a baptism watch of repentance in order to have a baptism of repentance you got to have something to repent of and Jesus was perfect how would Jesus undergo with integrity a baptism of repentance if he had nothing to repent of so what does Jesus answer look down at verse verse 15 but Jesus answered him let it be so now for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness what Jesus has righteousness that needs to be fulfilled I thought Jesus was righteous did Jesus when he left heaven did he like was his righteousness did he need to top it off maybe he lost a little bit need to add it back up no he was always fully righteous he was never anything less than 100% righteous what does he mean I needed to fulfill righteousness so John consented I mean Jesus was baptized immediately he went up from the water and behold the heavens were open to him and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him and behold a voice from heaven said this is my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased did you see it there's the whole gospel right there what's all right what's happening Jesus doesn't need to repent Jesus doesn't need to fulfill his righteousness yet he's being baptized in repentance and he's being baptized to fulfill righteousness even though he doesn't need to repent and he doesn't need to become any more righteous why is he doing those things because he is beginning listen to this his ministry of substitution you see Jesus is going to live the life that we are supposed to live and then die the death that we are condemned to die it is true that Jesus did not need to repent but we did so Jesus does it perfectly in our place so that he can continue to live in our place so that when he dies he's actually going to bear the condemnation that we bore he's going to live the life we're supposed to live and then die the death we're condemned to die you see it's almost as if you think of it this way imagine all these people standing around the shore of John's baptism and they all are wanting to repent and be baptized so imagine they've all got a name tag on and their name tag says hi I'm JD I'm a sinner and everybody's got their own name and I'm a sinner below and Jesus has a name tag on that says hi I'm Jesus I'm righteous so Jesus from the back of the crowd begins to walk through but as he does he begins to take off people's name tags and he begins to put them all over his chest and he walks down into the water and he gets baptized confessing not his sin but theirs and then Jesus you see is going to go to a cross where Paul is going to say in second Corinthians that God is going to make him who knew no sin to become sin for us so Jesus is going to be beaten with a cat of nine tails that leaves his back flayed open it lacerates his skin he's going to be beaten to where you can't even recognize him his beard ripped out they're going to take a crown of thorns and shove it down on his face so that his his face is so disfigured people can't even recognize him who know him and when people are new to Christianity they're like that's disgusting and what we say in response is that's the point your sin is disgusting and Jesus actually became your sin on the cross he became your sin we say that Jesus did not merely die for us he died instead of us he took our place so watch when Jesus gets out of the water and the father looks at him and says this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased because Jesus repented and died for me I can actually take that accolade and apply it to me because we traded places so now the father looks at me and says this is JD he is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased not because I've lived in a way that deserves that but because Jesus lived for me he died for me and all that was mine became his and all that was his became mine the gospel at its core its substitution Jesus in my place this this is what separates Christianity from every other religious message in the world every other religious message has a prophet that gives you a list of things to do do this say this rub this touch that don't touch that and if you do these things you need to do them often enough and well enough God will accept you the list may differ but the content is essentially the same Jesus did not give us a list of things to do or rituals to go through Jesus gave us a story about something he has done for us he substituted for us and he gave himself for us so that in him I could become the righteousness of God and I could hear I'm his beloved son in whom I'm well pleased he wore my name tag of sin so I could put on his name tag of righteousness substitution is the core of the gospel it also is something that I just think so few people really get and the way that you know that you haven't gotten it is it's never offended you deeply when you really get it you're going to suddenly be very offended because I don't like to think of myself as needing a substitute substitute means you're helpless I would I prefer to think of myself as God's like HGTV project I'm a little fixer-upper the bones are good he's gonna have to patch up a few things but you know what I don't when you say I need a substitute that means I can't even really get in the game I was my wife and I will sometimes go to the same gym to work out and one of the classes that will go to is they'll do these things called partner workouts you know what a partner workout is it's when you have a certain like reps of a certain exercise and then one person does it while the other one rests and then when they get tired you switch off back and forth well I've learned that there are certain exercises that my wife is just a lot better than me at one of them is a burpee you know what a burpee is burpee is something invented by the devil for the vexation of God's people well she is a lot better at burpees than I am so if we're doing one of these partner works out and we have to do like a hundred burpees then what that means is that she does about 65 of them and I end up doing about 35 which is humiliating for me because I'm the man and I want to be able not just to carry my weight I want to be able to take care of my girl right but it's humiliating because she's just a lot better than me what essentially the gospel is is not Jesus saying you do what you can and I'll do the rest he's basically saying you can't even get off the floor I'm gonna have to do all 100 because you are dead in your sin and you can't go anywhere so I'm gonna do them all and then I'm just gonna credit you with them because I'm going to be your substitute and when you feel that it suddenly becomes at the same time really humiliating and totally blessed because your salvation no longer depends on you it's Jesus who did it in your place it is the sweetest and most difficult gospel truth but once you get it I'm telling you everything in your life is going to change that's why when people tell me they're like oh you Christians are so weak Jesus is a crutch I'm like you don't know the half of it Jesus is not a crutch he's a if anything he's a stretcher because you can't even limp into heaven without Jesus he didn't come to help you along he came to say you're dead I'm gonna carry you there and then I'm gonna credit my righteousness to you and then I'm gonna live through you and the power of the Holy Spirit so let me end today by talking about baptism for us for you and me what it means for us today because Jesus you see catch this is going to take this thing from John his cousin and he's going to make the centerpiece of the great commission so the great commission says go make disciples baptize them it's going to be the centerpiece of the message because it was a symbol of us whether we're gentiles or Jews and almost everybody here's a gentile it's going to be symbol of us crossing over from the wilderness of sin where we're in charge to the land the promised land of faith and obedience where Jesus is in charge Paul is going to say in the same way it's a symbol of us going from the death of sin to new life with Christ therefore Romans 6 3 we are buried with him by baptism into death that just like Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father even so we also now should walk in the newness of life so let me point out four quick things that we learn about baptism from John that still apply to us number one from John we see that baptism publicly declares your repentance baptism was a public symbol that symbolized I'm leaving the wilderness of sin and entering this promised land of obedience passing from death to life there are many people especially in the south who get baptized but never repent and that's revealed by the fact that they're not really living in the land of faith and obedience they're still essentially in the wilderness of sin because somebody convinced you somebody convinced you wrongly that you could accept Jesus as savior and not surrender to him as lord as if Jesus was a salad bar that you could take the parts you want leave the parts you didn't but what it means to come to Jesus is to cross through that river metaphorically speaking where you say I'm leaving behind the wilderness where I'm in charge and I'm going into the place where God's in charge and that will be revealed by the fact that my life is surrendered to him there is a large number of people in the south that have gone through baptism but not actually repentance if your life did not radically change when you got baptized it was not a baptism of repentance you just got wet in front of a bunch of people it's a baptism of publicly depairs your repentance that's the first thing we learn number two baptism is by immersion baptism is by immersion now I'm not trying to theologically quibble and there's a lot of things that we would consider more important in Christianity than this but I want to explain to you why we do it the way we do it we submerge people when we baptize them for two reasons number one because that's how they did it in the bible john wasn't standing on the shore throwing water out on top of their heads he brought them into the river the word baptize is an interesting is an interesting word in greek because most words you just translate from greek to english but there's a handful of words in your new testament that they didn't know a good english equivalent for so they just kept the greek word and just kind of englishized it if you'd say that anglicized it i guess um and basically they they baptized was one of those baptizo in the greek and they're like i don't know how to translate this so just write baptize um so baptize back then do you go back and look at literature what it meant was to soak or to plunge they used it when somebody drowned not as a joke but like for real like someone so drowned they were baptized when a ship sank that meant someone was baptized we even have a um a recipe that was written down in the first century by a greek poet and physician named nikander on how to make pickles this is why you have me as your pastors because i look up stuff like this okay and he nikander says literally he says the first thing you do when you're making a pickle is you bapto the cucumber in water which meant dip bapto means dip quickly he goes after that you baptizo the pickle in vinegar which means you don't dip it quickly you put it in vinegar and hold it down until the vinegar soaks all the way in and it changes the constitution of the cucumber to make it a pickle he says then when you pull it up it will come out filled with the spirit and speaking in tongues no no he didn't he didn't say that i mean i made that part up but what it shows us is there's a way that they thought of baptism um and so what we do when we baptize you is we put you under the water until you can quote the entire nicene creed and then we pull you no i'm kidding um but there's a sense in which in which it's not unclear what the word means it is not unclear at all it means put somebody under in which the second thing is what it symbolizes it symbolizes death when you bear i'm not trying to be cute but when you bury somebody you don't sprinkle dirt in their head you put them into the ground so we are being buried with him by baptism into death that's why we do it by immersion number three we see from this uh story here with john that baptism is not a condition of it's an evidence of salvation it's not a condition of salvation it's an evidence of salvation the repentance came first nowhere in the bible is baptism made a condition of salvation but i still meet people who are like hey you got to get baptized if you want to go to heaven i tell them i can prove that's not true in one story one story you got jesus and a thief on the cross right next to it and the thief on the cross after a lifetime of sin realizes that jesus is the messiah he repents and he says lord remember me when you come into your kingdom and what does jesus say go get a hose quick and get you a bucket no and he he says today this very afternoon you're going to be with me in paradise the apostle paul said that that if you will confess with your mouth that jesus is lord and you'll believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead that that jesus was your substitute then you will be saved because with the heart you believe unto righteousness with the mouth you make confession unto salvation whosoever calls on the name of the lord shall be saved there ain't nothing about baptism anywhere in that so baptism is not a condition of salvation but it's an evidence of salvation i often describe it to my kids and i've said this to you before too that it's like this wedding ring that i wear this wedding ring i tell my kids symbolizes that i'm married to your mom if i take it off i didn't suddenly become unmarried to your mom if somebody else puts this ring on it doesn't make them married to your mom but this ring just shows everybody that i have a covenant with your mom in the same way baptism is this public declaration that we have repented and that we have been saved by jesus which is why we teach people you ought to do it after becoming a believer because if it's an evidence of your repentance if you do it before you repent then it can't be an evidence of repentance you haven't done and if you do it when you're an infant that's not an evidence of your repentance it's an evidence of your parents repentance and your parents faith and by the way thank god for your parents faith thank god for what they wanted for you when they baptized you and what we say is you should be baptized the way they are in the new testament which is as an evidence of your salvation and not a hope for your salvation so everybody we see in acts gets baptized after they believe acts 241 3 000 people believe and are baptized acts 8 ethiopian eunuch believes and is baptized acts 9 paul believes and is baptized acts 10 the holy spirit falls on all who believe the word and are baptized then they're baptized act 16 15 lydia's heart opened by um god to hear what paul says then she's baptized act 16 30 flippin jailer what must i do to be saved believe in the lord jesus christ you and all your household they all believe they get baptized act 18 8 many corinthians listen to balls preaching they believe and are baptized now let me read the verses and explain the verses where the people in the book of acts get baptized before they repent or when they get baptized as infants and now i'm completed with that list okay there are none not a single one so what we say is yes i'm not trying to make a mountain out of a molehill but we're just saying it's an evidence of your salvation it why not if you got baptized when you were an infant thank god for the faith that your parents showed in that moment you get the joyous privilege of calling them and saying mom and dad what you hoped for me 19 years ago 35 years ago what you hope for me has come true and now i have repented and i belong to jesus and i've entered the promised land of faith and obedience i ratified i ratified what you hope for me by joining my baptism to what you did for me so that now i've publicly declared that i belong to him i put on that ring which leads me lastly to number four john shows us that baptism is important but the soul story shows us that baptism is important people often are like well i just don't get what the big deal is it's just like a ritual why do you have to go through it it doesn't seem to change anything notice what happens to jesus when he's baptized he hears the affirmation of god this is my beloved son and he gets filled with the spirit he's about to go into the wilderness to be tempted matthew four if you read ahead he's about to go in the wilderness to be tempted by satan for 40 days and this affirmation from the father is going to become the core of his strength in resisting satan because he's going to say the father has declared over me his love and that love and that assurance is going to give me the strength to withstand satan to his face your baptism is important because it's a marker that you put in the ground where you say i have left the jurisdiction of satan you got no more authority here because i now have crossed over this jordan river and i'm now in the promised land of obedience where god rules so you shut up satan that's essentially what what why it's so important it becomes this marker um i have struggled with whether i should do this next part because for some of you this is the only thing you can remember from the whole sermon and i definitely lost the vote when i asked the other pastors but you know what i got the mic so here we go martin luther um who's one of my favorite theologians 16th century martin luther um said that the devil every single night would come to dispute with him what he meant by that was he would tempt him he would whisper discouragement in his heart lie to him he said i felt like i was wrestling with satan in my soul every night he said i learned that there are two things that could drive away the presence of satan number one he says is i say out loud to him satan i am baptized and i declare to him that i have left his wilderness of sin where he is jurisdiction and i've entered into the promised land of jesus where jesus rules and that he cannot talk to me because i am not under his rule anymore and that drove the devil away that was number one he said the second thing that i do is he says i pass strong gas he said because satan's core sin is pride and there's nothing that shows greater disrespect for somebody than passing gas in their face he says so satan can't handle it when i mock him that way and so i humiliate him by passing gas and that drives his presence away you gotta admit the logic is pretty sound correct now there are two ways that luther has given you for you to wage battle against satan the first is more effective and more pleasant for the people around you than is the second but it is important that you have this confession that you harken back to that you say that is this symbol that i made to god that i made the people that i made to my family that i made to satan himself i said i'm leaving the wilderness of sin and i'm not going back i'm crossing over this river and this is the land of repentance and obedience that i'm in here's the question have you repented i i'm not asking you've been baptized and actually pray to prayer i don't have you really repented does your life show that you've repented are you i'm not asking if you're perfect are you surrendered to jesus right now is there anything in your life you know he's not in control of and you just haven't yielded to him then that's what you need to do that's what john's message is repent have you received jesus that's the preparation is repentance have you then received jesus as your substitute that's the gospel because you can do it right now today repent and believe repent and receive have you been baptized since but after you've repented even if you're not repented today maybe you did in the past but you've never been baptized as a public declaration on your seat there's a little card notice exactly what it says i'm interested in learning more about baptism this is not a commitment to be baptized it just means you want to continue the discussion what we'll do is we'll contact you and we'll tell you when the next baptism back next baptism is we'll tell you when the next informational meeting is about baptism we'll also invite you to a thing called starting point which is kind of our entry into several things like this in our church i'd love for you if you've never been baptized just take a moment you're not committing to it but just take a moment fill it out and when the offering comes by in a minute you put that card in the offering and let's just get this conversation going why don't you bow your heads if you would all of our canvases bow your heads have you repented have you repented you can do it right now jesus your lord not me i'm leaving the wilderness of sin where i'm in control into the promised land of faith and obedience where you're in control i receive you right now as my savior my substitute i'm ready to follow you with all my heart some of church if you've already done that and you know that you've done that and you've been baptized right now i want you to let god put somebody on your heart who you know needs to hear a message like that one why don't you just pray for them once you pray in the the days to come for you to have an opportunity to invite them with you over the next few weeks to hear messages like this one as we just kind of walk through the life of jesus for the next several weeks pray for them by name right now god i pray that over the next few weeks we'd see hundreds of people cross the line of faith surrender and trust jesus and be baptized as a public declaration of and be baptized as a public declaration of that use this god to reach out to people around us and