Baptism & Communion
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When my family moved here in 2011 we noticed a foundation that had been laid over by Wal-Mart. Not having much knowledge of the area or history we watched the foundation area in expectation and wonder of what we might see be built. And we waited, and waited and waited…
Christ is building His Church… it is our relationship with Him (through His finished work on Calvary) that stands as the foundation with Him as the cornerstone.
The areas we will look at over the coming weeks are CORE to the Church
The Concepts we will look at… reveal from Scripture Christ’s plan, purpose, and expectations for His Church
This morning we are going to look at two FOUNDATIONAL concepts those of Baptism and Communion.
What our Doctrinal Statement Says:
What our Doctrinal Statement Says:
We believe in the ordinances of believer's water baptism and the Lord's supper as scriptural means of testimony for the Church age.
ORDINANCES: … a decree, a practice that is done, direction or directive given
SACRAMENTS: … a sign or a symbol of a spiritual REALITY!
The practice and participation in Believer’s Baptism and Communion is because in scripture we were directed to engage in them, and they serve for the believer as an outward sign or symbol to the lost world around us as a testimony to the REALITY of what GOD HAS DONE spiritually in the life of the believer!
Baptism and Communion:
BOTH… are commanded of believers
BOTH… are for believers only
BOTH… symbolize / picture Christ’s work
BOTH… serve as a testimony
BOTH… state when they should be practiced
We will look briefly at both of these today in our time together. Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 28:18-20…
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Baptism
Baptism
COMMANDED
Jesus with ALL authority is giving us the great commission.
BAPTIZE them He says!
Father, Son, Holy Spirit
The work of salvation involves all three
There is NOT an option to not be baptized
Who is the them? Disciples, followers of Jesus Christ
BELIEVERS
This is only commanded of believers
For this reason we do not baptize infants… an infant is not able to understand and believe
Paul and Silas with the Philippian jailer Acts 16:30-33
and after he brought them out, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house. And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household.
Salvation is by faith (each member of his home had to believe)
Now because of Salvation and faith there was a desire to be baptized
He did not want to wait!!!
PICTURE
Jesus gives us the example of baptism… “coming up out of the water”
Baptizo = immersion, to dip, with water
Jesus was fully immersed in the water
Colossians 2:12 = it is a picture of His death, burial, and resurrection
having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
Romans 6:4 we are baptized into His death… raised to walk a NEW LIFE!!!
Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
The picture of baptism illustrates the cleansing of sin from the life of the believer.
It pictures outwardly what Christ has done inwardly
It pictures the believers NEW LIFE
TESTIMONY
The testimony is both the event and the NEW LIFE we walk in!
In Mali I witnessed a baptism service… all the Muslim people were there, city leaders, and family. Belief was okay, attending church services was okay, but when you were baptized there was no turning back!
Dr. Ryrie’s Articles (The Ordinance of Baptism)
They would have realized that they were being asked to identify and associate themselves with this new group who believed Jesus was the Messiah, and Christian baptism at the hands of these disciples signified this association as nothing else could. Even today for a Jew it is not his profession of Christianity nor his attendance at Christian services nor his belief in the New Testament but his partaking of water baptism that definitely and finally excludes him from Judaism and sets him off as a Christian. And there is no reason why it should not be the same line of demarcation for all converts to Christianity, signifying the separation from the old life and association with the new
WHEN…
Baptism occurs AFTER belief. But note this, it is part of your testimony of your faith in Jesus Christ!
Before we look at communion can I just say as your pastor, if you have trusted Christ as your Savior for your sins and you have not been baptized, what is holding you back, why are you waiting… someone asked me this question when I was in middle school. Fear, embarrassment held me back… I WILL NOT HOLD BACK ON TESTIFYING FOR HIM NOW!
In our time remaining I want us to look at communion and partake together today as well… 1 Corinthians 11:20-29 speaks to this ordinance
Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.
Communion
Communion
COMMAND
“Do This...” for the purpose of REMEMBERING what Jesus Christ did!
This command was instituted the night Jesus would be betrayed,
Jesus would do the selfless act of sacrificing Himself for our sins
He offered His body to take the penalty of death for our sin
He shed His blood as an atonement, covering our sin!
BELIEVERS
The Lord’s Supper… often referred to as communion due to the fact that partaking of this is to represent UNITY with both Christ and believers.
There is a common union… fellowship
Originally it was an actual meal, breaking bread together… unified
Warren Wiersbe states this:
In the East, to eat with people is to make them your friends and allies. It means the end of hostilities, or the sealing of friendship. In the church today, the Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist, is a simple meal that shows the unity of God’s family. That’s why it’s called “the Communion.”
Paul in 1 Corinthians was actually scolding the church because they had allowed something Christ had told His followers to do in remembrance of Him… to be abused and actually totally forget what He did!
Christ had been selfless, yet the church was being selfish!
In his scolding Paul warns them to examine themselves before they partake of the Lord’s Supper.
God does not take this lightly
They were desecrating the picture Christ had left them…
PICTURE
It was to picture the UNITY that Christ brings (man, woman, slave, free, jew, gentile… ) coming together fellowshipping dinning together (our potlucks)
It pictured a betrothal… the verbiage Christ used that night was not the normal wording, but more common to a marriage proposal
A set bride price to be paid to the Father for the Bride (church)
The Bride Price… a dowry was not only part of this process of acquiring the bride, it was also given to care for the bride in the absence of the groom… this was the betrothal not the wedding yet this would come later.
Father chose bride John 3:16 “God loved the world”
The Holy Sprit given in the grooms absence to care for her
- Rich Traver had this to say concerning this custom…
In presenting the cup, if the young girl accepted the young man’s proposal of marriage, she would take the cup from him and drink of it. To seal their betrothal, the young man would then take back the cup from her and he would drink of it himself!
Jesus Christ, our Passover, formally presented the New Covenant to His Bride, at Passover, in the format of a first century Jewish marriage proposal. But, He pointedly declined to drink of that cup just then, as the Biblical narrative specifically states! At that point in the ceremony where He, as the prospective bridegroom, would have partaken of the cup Himself, He made a rather startling statement, that He would not drink of it from that day onward, until He drank of it new, with them, in the Kingdom!
THE BREAD… Jesus would state was His body, broken for you and me
THE CUP… Jesus would declare was a new covenant in His blood
TESTIMONY & TIMING…
Jesus states what our testimony will be as we do this in UNITY, in FELLOWSHIP, …
“ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”
This is declaring what Jesus Christ did to UNIFY His Body, His Bride, His Church!
More Than A Foundation…
More Than A Foundation…
Every time my family and I went to Wal-Mart we would see that FOUNDATION… waiting and waiting to see what it would be, what it would become. Nothing ever came of that foundation. It would eventually be removed and something else came along later.
Sadly there are those who say they trust Christ as Savior.
They get baptized, check it off for show
They make sure to come on Sundays to partake of communion
They make the claim, the foundation is there… and yet the world waits and waits to see what will come of it
Where is this “newness of life” where is this “power” that comes from Christ death burial, and resurrection?
Christ is building His church… and the world needs to see!!! Romans 6:4-11
