The Baptized Life

Today we have a worship night and we have a whole host of people getting baptized as well. Will be a night of worship and prayer and baptisms so come and worship.

Acts 9:1–19 ESV

But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. 4 And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” 5 And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” 7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. 8 Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. 10 Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” 11 And the Lord said to him, “Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying, 12 and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” 13 But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. 14 And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.” 15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. 16 For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” 17 So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; 19 and taking food, he was strengthened. For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus.

I want to talk about the power of the believers baptism. The believers baptism./

There is a counter play here that happens a coupling if you like wen we see people come to saving faith in Christ in the New Testament.

There is a progression - They believe, and they are baptized.

I want to take some time ahead of tonite to talk about “the baptized life” and that’s the title today

Why does baptism matter

What is it, what it isn’t… and so on.

It’s exampled by Jesus, the Disciples and the Church.

It’s commanded by the Lord Jesus

It’s faithful In its obedience

To the early Church it was 3 things… Confession, Communion, Commitment

A CONFESSION OF FAITH in Jesus Christ. If you confess your faith

Acts 8:

A COMMUNION WITH CHRIST:

Romans 6:3 ESV

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

salvation is not conveyed in baptism. Nevertheless baptism is a crucial pivotal moment in someone’s salvation.

We call you to faith… but the question is this - are you baptized?

The apostles never made that mistake…

Baptism is an expression of your faith in Jesus Christ

“I have died with Christ, so united with him, i die to my sin and i am raised to a brand new life…”

Im hanging tough and tight with JESUS.

When he sees me, he sees me with Jesus. And in baptism we display our union.

It’s not an event. It’s and expression.

(You know that you are saved because you have a burning desire to be baptized as an overflowing expression…. You can’t NOT be baptized. You willfully want to.)

CONSECRATION TO JESUS….. AS LORD / set apart…

Romans 6:22 ESV

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

in the baptism pool, the person PASSES THROUGH.

A PICTURE OF OUR CONSUMATION WITH CHRIST.’

A COMMANDMENT FROM THE LORD / love that issues in obedience

A COMMITMNT TO LIVE FOR THE LORD /

So why is a baptized life different from an unbaptized life? I want to preach baptism today….

Acts 2:41 ESV

So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

THERE IS A PATTERN HERE AMONG NEW CHRISTIANS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH: what is anyone waiting for?

Acts 8:12 ESV

But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

Acts 8:35 ESV

Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.

Acts 8:36 ESV

And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?”

Acts 9:18–19 ESV

And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; and taking food, he was strengthened. For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus.

Encountered Christ

Repented of His sin

Filled with the Holy Spirit

Before eating….. He rose and was baptized.

What are you waiting for?

Acts 10:47 ESV

“Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”

SO WHAT IS A BAPTIZED LIFE AND WHY DO WE NEED BAPTISM:

A baptized life is….

Is

1.REDEEMED by the blood

what can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Baptism doesn’t make you saved, it proves that you already are. In this way: a person who consciously chooses to go before the church and take the faithful step of baptism is doing that because they have a conviction of Gods working in their inner man. The inside is changed, so the outside follows it.

When someone is baptized into Christ, they are lowered down into the waters of baptism, to die to themselves… and in the spiritual realm this is what happens.

Those waters change and become spiritual waters: where deliverance happens

Where a burial happens

Where a the atoning work of Jesus sacrifice is connected to ours:

Romans 6 ESV

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

A baptized life is

WASHED Clean before God

The water symbolizes washing. There is a powerful application here to our lives. The outer man is wasting away, the inner man is being renewed day by day the bible says. So what are we to do?

We are submitting that which is unclean, to the process God has prescribed called the washing of regeneration. Spirit, and water

Jesus said that you must be born of water…. And of spirit.

Is Equipped for Ministry Work

The work of the believer is to be part of the body in some way. How can you become part of the body if you haven’t been baptized into it?

The early church would never have allowed an unbaptzed person to do any work of the ministry. It wouldn’t have happened. They wouldn’t have allowed it.

There are levels for equipping obviously, but i think a base case can be made is this

You just got baptized in church - You know what was said, you know what was confessed…. So do you think you could lead someone else to it?

(Let us not get religious about this…. Anyone in the body of believers can baptize a new believer: to think that it can only be a pastor, or a specific man… or that person: there is a fuss about this in the church today. )

How can you go onto serve the church if you your self haven’t been served the example?

It wasn’t just expected it was part of their equipping. How can you baptize anyone if you yourself haven’t?

How can you lead someone else’s burial service if you

Is Empowered supernaturally to overcome

Acts 9:1–19 ESV

“Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; 19 and taking food, he was strengthened. For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus.

1.WATER BAPTISM IS THE SEAL OF THE NEW COVENANT

Its part of your IDENTIFICATION KIT as a JESUS Follower - This is vitally important —-

—all covenants have SIGNS and SEALS But there are many covenants we see in the bible: something that is pledged and there are signs and seals that come with it

(Abraham, Noah, Moses, David and so on… and now we have a “better covenant” because of the blood of Jesus… a covenant in his BLOOD

I read from genesis: What was the covenant SIGN? the rainbow.

Marriage is a covenant: A wedding ring is the Sign, But the seal is something even greater than that its if you like internal - Sexual Intercourse is the SEAL.

The SIGN or the SYMBOL is my wedding ring. I wear it and I dont take it off. It stays on there. Its a BROAD signpost to me and to the rest of the world: I am in a covenant relationship with Jill Marie McCloghry - I am in a marriage covenant.

the SEAL of Marriage is not my wedding RING its the full commitment to only give FULLY OF MYSELF to Jill and She to me. and yes im talking about SEX. That is the SEAL of our marriage. Thats what, if you like, SEALS our marriage relationship. Because it’s at the most deeply profund intimate level there is. Imagine tho if that was excluded. It would empty, it would feel symbolic and externally focused. But a covenant isn’t like that. Its a deeper thing

When we believe - THE HOLY SPIRIT COMES AND BAPTIZES us into the BODY of CHRIST.

1 Corinthians 12:13 “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. Whether Jews or Greeks or slaves or free, we were all made to drink of the one Spirit.”

Water baptism is a seal of the covenant.

communion is the SIGN. or the ongoing symbol - which we regularly do

Water baptism we do once.

But its the seal - Its a spiritual SEAL that you are IN the COVENANT Now. You have crossed a mark.

2.WATER BAPTISM DOESN’T MAKE YOU A BELIEVER, IT SHOWS YOU ALREADY BELIEVE

So this is some theology here - WATER BAPTISM…… DOESN’T SAVE YOU, IT “SHOWS” THAT YOU ARE SAVED

Now - a QUESTION…. …Can I be saved if I haven’t been water baptized?

Let me give you a qualified YES.

The thief on the cross didn’t have the time to repent, hop down from the cross 0 attend essentials at the Local Church and attend for a while, maybe join a connect group and attend a grill and chill - no.

Jesus said - Today. You will be with me in PARADISE

remember the order:

Believe (repent) and be Baptized.

(The Baptisms always happened in the context of the local church baptized into the local body)

Its one thing to repent at the final moment of your life (people get saved in hospital beds, in disaster situations that happens all the time.

But let me ask you a question: What if you could, but you wont?

Write this down: “Water baptism is a threshold act of obedience to God”

I have never met any Christian who gas gone onto to do something significant for God and live the overcoming Christian LIFE without first believing and then getting water BAPTIZED.

GOD BLESSES OBEDIENCE - If you wont do this. He keeps you at a level of an infant in the kingdom. This is so important to get.

WHEN I GOT BAPTIZED.. after i Got saved. I said to the WORLD AND THE DEVIL - IM DONE WITH YOU. I have a new life now. Im walking with JESUS NOW> He is my everything!

The early church had a strong thing for WATER BAPTISM. And I believe it’s the same for us today. It doesn’t mean you believe it proves to everyone else and especially to GOD that you already do BELIEVE.

Mark 16:15–17 ESV

15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues;

The Early church would've doubted your salvation (your saved status) if you hadn’t been baptized. They would have questioned it. They would’ve pushed for the decision.

The Churches JOB isn’t just to make converts (that’s Really GODS JOB)… it’s the churches Job to make disciples. REAL FOLLOWERS of the MASTER.

WHOS THE MASTER?? If you have a master- you do what they say?

If you really believe in JESUS. You will do what HE SAYS.

**biju thampy told me about Christians in INDIA> there is so much persecution. If you get baptized it goes on your identification documents. It actually shows that you have been baptized in CHRISTIANITY - and what comes with that? Potential loss of income, being ostracized by your own family. Friends. Job Opportunities disappear. What baptism does is it creates a threshold….…LINE for us to go over. and to go IN to a new life with CHRIST and CHRIST ALONE

(WB is the NC seal…. WB isn’t about belief its about obedience… Love issues out of obedience….

3.WATER BAPTISM EMPOWERS US TO LIVE THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

You see there is something in the waters.

There is a supernatural force at work in the waters of BAPTISM. Its the WORK of God the holy spirit

What happens when we are lowered in?

Your old life is buried

And in those waters…..…the FLESH DIES oFF

Dead things Fall away…..…

God comes and cuts the HEART in a way where the old SINFUL, FLESH that once coverered the heart is removed and all that remains is CLEAN and SENSITIVE to be able to live FOR HIM ALONE.

This is why baptism is the covenant seal. Just like the covenant of Abraham, the cutting away (or if you like the circumcision of the heart) they were cut to the heart.

Colossians 2:11–12 ESV

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

What happens when we come up?

We are RAISED UP out of the waters

You now are baptized into a new life of Faith & the bible says you now have put on CHRIST

Galatians 3:26–27 ESV

for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

When you come up you are different

There has been a clearing

A spiritual FOG lifts

a cleansing has taken over

You are CLEAN & SENSITIVE

and You have a NEWFOUND SENSITIVITY TO HIM

Thats why it’s full immersion. Your fully taken over. You are overcome with the waters of BAPTISM you are DOWN IN THOSE WATERS AND JESUS BRINGS YOU UP> and you are RAISED TO A NEW LIFE WITH HIM.

1 Peter 3:18–22 ESV

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

CLOSING: Peter said its like what happened to NOAH:

(You know when someone is trying to explain something to you and they use the example of the story of what happened to someone or something else. Peter does this hear and its very helpful)

SO what happened to NOAH? (lets make a return trip)

It says the waters prevailed. Over the earth. The mountains were covered.

Genesis 7:17–24 ESV

17 The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 18 The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. 20 The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. 21 And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. 23 He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. 24 And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.

You ever had things in your life that you felt like would never be overcome, would never be removed, would never be blotted out.

They are the high mountains of yoru life.

the Bible says the waters prevailed

So much so that you will witness them being removed from your life. Supernaturally.

a struggle with SIN -

a battle with wickedness

A fight with shame

with GUILT

a struggle to hear God and be sensitive to HIS voice and command - That you’ll now have

Why?

Because the WATERs PREVAILED

There is something in the water - those supernatuiral waters of FAITH have gone above your head.

ANd then it says (and I love this part) everything was OVERCOME… and ONLY NOAH was LEFT

When you come up from the waters of baptism. It’s just you that’s standing there.

YOUVE BEEN BROUGHT THROUGH…. JUST LIKE NOAH

…But who brought you through those waters? Who does this work?

Its JESUS.