Baptism/Pentecost Sunday

Announce about the 4th of July event with everyone bringing food for their family and having family fun, as a church family. (7-9:00, leading into the fireworks)

OPEN WITH VIDEO, “The Story of Pentecost”

Pastor Tabitha Webb, would like to meet with all of the volunteers, who will be helping with this year’s VBS, immediately following the service, back in the children’s church.

Mention of the cancelling of Rodney Howard Brown.

Mentions silencing phones, watches and social media during the service!

I would like to mention to everyone a thought and a request that I have, that pertains to our services. What is the reason that we assemble together?

I mean, large and in part, why do we come to church on Sundays and Wednesdays?

We come to honor and glorify Yahweh and Yeshua and to see their names lifted on high, right? I mean isn’t glorifying them, the prime reason to assemble?

Because of our great love for God and for our Lord and Savior, Jesus?

And with this being the prime reason that we assemble as believers, let me ask you to do something as part of the body.

There may be times where, we just go silent during the services, whether it is during Praise and Worship time, or anytime thereafter. And in those silent times, we are to wait upon the Lord and see what His holy Spirit is saying and wanting us to do with our service and with our part of the Body.

The Bible has much to say on waiting for the Lord:

,

Psalm 27:14 NLT

Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.

,

Lamentations 3:25 ESV

The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

Psalm 33:20–22 NLT

We put our hope in the Lord. He is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. Let your unfailing love surround us, Lord, for our hope is in you alone.

,

Micah 7:7 ESV

But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.

, “Be still and know that I am God!”

So,if the worship time, or even the main sermon time goes quiet, there is a reason for it. We are waiting on God and His Spirit to speak.

I know that sometimes people feel very uncomfortable with such quietness and we want to make something happen, maybe by beginning to pray aloud, or give a message in tongues, thinking that the quiet was meant for that very reason, but this is not always the case.

Sometimes, we may simply need to be still and recognize that He is the Lord God and that maybe His Holy Spirit is wanting to speak to us, AMEN?!

Does that bare witness with you?

PLAY VIDEO, “The Story of Pentecost”

Well, as you just saw from the video, today June 9, 2019, is in fact the day that we celebrate what is called, Shavuot, or, The Feast of Weeks, or the Feast of Harvest or the more commonly known name, Pentecost Sunday!

Today is also a special day in our part of the Body of Christ, because today is a baptismal service!

This date was a date picked out as random and with no known correlation at to today being the Sunday of Pentecost!

And in case you are wondering why I mention there being a correlation between a baptismal service and Pentecost Sunday, we’ll get to that in a couple of minutes.

For those who saw the email about today being a baptismal service and you forgot and never responded to it, but you would still like to be baptized today, or for those who NEVER saw the email, and you would like to be baptized today..............this is YOUR DAY and this is YOUR SERVICE!

We can hook you up today!

Now, in a minute, I am going to cover some basic understanding as to what being baptized means and why we are to be baptized.

But let me say this first, I am full of emotion this morning and I consider myself to be one of the most blessed men in the world, as I stand before you today.

The Bible says this in

Psalm 107:1–2 ESV

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble

The Lord God has redeemed me and saved me, and so I am going to say why I am so blessed today!

First of all, I am blessed beyond measure, because Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God is the Lord and Savior of my life and because He is in fact Lord of my life, I KNOW, that my name is written in the Book of Life in heaven! AMEN?!

Second, I am blessed because God has chosen me and allowed me to be the pastor and the shepherd and His servant over this part of His body; my church family at Cumberland Worship Center! THANK YOU for walking with Dee and myself on this journey!

Next I am so blessed because God has given me my best friend and the love of my life, Desirae Marie Palmer, to be my wife!

And God has also blessed us with two of the most beautiful and amazing daughters that I could ever hope or wish for!

And finally, today, after many years of prayer and intercession from multiple members of our family, as well as myself, I get the pleasure and the honor of seeing my sibling and also my best friend, my big sister, Lisa Palmer, make her open profession of faith to the Lord, by coming to our church family for her baptism today!

This is truly what the Lord God means, when His word says to us, in ,

Psalm 37:3–5 ESV

Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.

Let me encourage all you here today, by saying this. NEVER stop praying and believing in God for a miracle! His ways are not our ways and this thoughts are not our thoughts!

To

Now before I mention the correlation between this being a baptismal service and the day of Pentecost; let me briefly share with you about the necessity of the baptism of a true believer.

The use of water to clean oneself in Jewish custom and culture, has existed for centuries and goes back further than the days of Jesus and His cousin, John the Baptist.

In fact, in the ancient Jewish/Hebrew culture, and according to the Law of God, the use of water to symbolically cleanse the priestly line and then ultimately the people of Israel, was well indoctrinated.

The priests had to be ritually clean (tahor) in order to serve at the tabernacle, and Israelites who had become ritually unclean (tamay) had to restore their situation with the passing of time and bathing their whole body in fresh, ritually clean water, according to .

Then later, when the temple had been built, it was necessary for everyone to be immersed in a “mikveh” (a pool of water) so as to become ritually clean before they could enter the temple.

According to one website that I researched on, “The word “mikveh” shares the same root as the word for “hope” (tikvah) as well as the concept of hoping or waiting on God (kiviti l’Adonai).

In fact, the word, “mikveh”, in Hebrew, shares the same root word, “kaw-vaw”, which is usually the word that is used for “wait”, which the Psalmist uses, when he says that he “WAITS” (kaw-vaw) upon the Lord!

And let me tell you this, I had absolutely NO idea that the same root word for the “mikveh” (the pool of ritualistic cleansing), was the same word which is used for and has the same meaning as “waiting”, when I was typing this message out yesterday!

In other words, when I typed out the part of this message yesterday that I just mentioned about our, “waiting upon the Lord” in our services, which came from a conversation that I had with Pastor Clyde and Nancy Webb here at the church yesterday; I can honestly tell you that I had absolutely NO idea that the root word for the very thing that we get our concept of for a baptistry, had the same root meaning as the word, “waiting”, that the Psalmist used to mention, “waiting” upon the Lord!

And so, the same Sunday that we have a “baptismal” Sunday here at CWC (which happens to be, Pentecost Sunday), is also the same Sunday, that I mention the need to wait upon the Lord; and the word from which we get our understanding of a pool of water for baptizing, is also the same root word for “waiting” that is mentioned in “WAITING UPON THE LORD”!

Tell me that the Lord God is not AWESOME and desiring of our praise and worship!

So, anyway, the use of washing in water, to become “ritualistically” clean before God, whether you were a Jew, or maybe a gentile who was seeking to convert to Judaism, was used way before Jesus’ day and the baptism of John the Baptist!

That being said, John the Baptist did not invent the use of submersing people into water, as a symbol of becoming clean.

He only directed this to the issue of someone cognitively admitting and openly repenting of their sins before God and then being submersed in the water as a symbol of being cleansed.

The real cleansing would come later, by the pure shed blood of Jesus the Christ and the washing of the water of the Spirit of God that would flow through the believer, at the point of their conversion!

So, baptizing someone by submersing them under water, existed way before Jesus and His death on the cross.

Jesus, Himself, was not baptized by John for salvation, but as a symbol of being purified and cleansed, according to the law and the custom.

It was the blood of Jesus Christ, Himself, that would cleanse us from all unrighteousness and make us right with God again, not an act of men, or of the law.

tells us, that the Law could NEVER save us, and so God did what the Law could never do, and sent His Son to condemn sin in the flesh.

Romans 8:3 NLT

The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.

For the same reason that partaking of communion, does not truly give you a share in the body of and the blood of Jesus the Christ and make you clean and give you eternal life, neither does being baptized give you your salvation.

They are both symbolic of what Jesus did for us, and they are both symbolic of our sharing in His death and resurrection.

Jesus said that unless you eat of His flesh and drink of His blood, you would not have eternal life and then He said that the bread of the communion was His body and the wine was His blood. So, was He saying that if you ate of the bread and drank of the wine, that you had become secure through His flesh and His blood?

No, these were only symbols/representations of the real body and blood that He was about to give for all of our sins!

So also, was the baptism, a symbol of our identifying with His death and resurrection, as tells us,

Romans 6:3–4 AMP

Are you ignorant of the fact that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by the baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious [power] of the Father, so we too might [habitually] live and behave in newness of life.

Romans 6:4 AMP

We were buried therefore with Him by the baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious [power] of the Father, so we too might [habitually] live and behave in newness of life.

Baptism in water, is how we publicly identify with Jesus and His death, burial and resurrection.

Salvation comes from our faith and belief in who He is and what He did on that cross for us, by shedding of His blood. ,

Ephesians 2:8–9 ESV

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Our being baptized, is how we symbolically identify with Jesus’ sacrifice for us and also it is our public profession of faith in Jesus before witnesses.

It is our identifying with the death to our own life and being resurrected into a new life in Christ Jesus! But, it is not our salvation.

, shows us that the gentiles in the house of Cornelius were filled with Holy Spirit and His power, before they had even been baptized with water yet.

You cannot be filled with Holy Spirit, unless you have been saved through Jesus and his blood!

For this reason, Jesus said, in His closing great commission, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

You cannot make disciples of people, who are not already saved. So, He was saying that those who are drawn by His Holy Spirit and who come to Him and through His shed blood, were to be baptised and then made disciples to spread the good news of the gospel message!

TODAY, we will witness the continued work of that great commission from our Lord; the act of baptizing a believer who has made Jesus Lord and Savior of their life and who is thus making a public profession of their faith in Jesus the Christ!

Now, as to the correlation of water baptism and this being Pentecost Sunday, let’s take a closer look.

First of all, what is Pentecost, what is Shavuot, or the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Harvest?

Well, all the way back in , God commanded the children of Israel to to count seven full weeks (or 49 days) beginning on the second day of Passover, and then present offerings of new grain to the Lord as a lasting ordinance.

It was a festival that was for giving thanks to the Lord God, for the blessing of the wheat harvest.

The first of the wheat harvest, was to be made into two loaves of leavened bread and brought before the Lord as an offering of thanks for His provision.

So, from the first day of the Passover celebration, plus the 49 days of the 7 weeks out, you would come to the 50th day, which is when the Feast of Weeks, or Shavuot, was to be celebrated.

This was a harvest celebration and it was also one of the three major festivals often called “pilgrim” festivals because all Jewish males were required to observe them at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The other 2 being the Passover and the Feast of Booths, (Sukkot).

The Jews also celebrate Shavuot (which is Hebrew for “weeks”), as being the time in which God gave Moses the Law, the Torah, on Mt. Sinai, 7 weeks after leaving Egypt and their bondage.

So, 50 days after leaving their place of slavery, they received the Law of God, for their lives!

In the Greek, the word for “fifty”, is the word, “Pentecost”, so, we call this Pentecost Sunday.

As the Body of Christ, this day is very special for us, because it is our “birthday”, if you will!

The Day of Pentecost, as we find it in the book of Acts, is the day that the body of Christ, or what we call the “church”, first began.

In Acts chapter one, Luke records that Jesus stayed on the earth and with the disciples, for 40 days after His crucifixion, speaking to them about the kingdom of God.

In verses 4,5 and 8 of , we read of Jesus saying the following to His disciples, “And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Now, real quick, before we get to the verses that show the initial birth of the body of Christ in , let me point out a couple of other verses to you.

reads as follows,

Acts 1:9–11 NLT

After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!”

Here is my point for reading these verses to you. Jesus had just been taken up into heaven in these verses and the disciples stood there watching, even after He was gone.

And so, two angels appeared and said them, “What are you doing still standing here. He’s gone to heaven.”

In other words, “Didn’t He tell you to be doing something after He was gone, before He left? If He told you to be doing something, then why are you still standing here?!”

The angels found the disciples doing this, [STAND LOOKING UP INTO THE CEILING].

Now, flash forward 2,000 years and to the modern day Body of Christ, and what does the Lord find many of us doing today? [STAND LOOKING UP INTO THE CEILING]

We have been given a commission, a job to do for the Lord!

Not to stand around gazing up into the clouds and awaiting our heavenly taxi service!

He’s coming, make no mistake about it folks, His return is drawing very close!

WE NEED TO GET BUSY!

Now turn with me, if you will, in your Bibles, to the book of ,

Acts 2:1–4 ESV

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Now, go back really quickly, to verse 4, of chapter one and look at what it says.

“And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

What was the “promise of the Father”, that Jesus mentions here?

Go back and look at , for a very similar thing that Jesus said to them, where He said,

Luke 24:49 ESV

And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Pay close attention to the fact that Jesus makes a direct connection between the promise of the Father and being BAPTIZED with the Holy Spirit.

Then in , the Bible says,

Acts 2:4 ESV

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

So, Holy Spirit was poured out upon everyone who was a believer in the upper room!

Now turn real quickly with me, to the Old Testament book of ,

Joel 2:28–29 ESV

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit.

All the way back in the Old Testament prophecy by the prophet Joel, God had promised that He would do something as never before.

He said He would “pour out His Spirit upon all flesh”.

That is the awaited promise that Jesus makes mention of!

And when this happened, on the day of Pentecost, in the upper room in Jerusalem, the promise of God and the promise of Jesus was fulfilled.

All believers in that room, were filled with, empowered with, strengthened with and, as Jesus, Himself said, “BAPTIZED” with the Holy Spirit of almighty God!

And for the very reason that he continues with in verse 8 of chapter 2, where He says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

The Bible doesn’t tell us that they were to await their salvation in the upper room, by Holy Spirit, but rather they were to await the BAPTISM of Holy Spirit, which was acknowledged as being the same thing as receiving the POWER of Holy Spirit!

Jesus told the disciples the night of the last supper, in ,

John 15:3 ESV

Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

And then in , the Bible says,

John 20:22 ESV

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

Here is my point, the disciples were already believers and they were already made clean by Jesus and His Word and His shed blood and then He breathed on them, and told them to “receive/take” the Holy Spirit.

They were blood bought believing saints in that upper room at Pentecost. They were not there for their salvation, they were there for their equipping!

Jesus, softly breathed and they recieved Holy Spirit, as a sign of their salvation.

Then at Pentecost, Holy Spirit came in and upon them, not as soft, gentle breath, symbolizing new life, but rather, He came in as a mighty rushing wind, symbolizing POWER!

Interestingly enough, as I have mentioned before, this is Pentecost Sunday, but is also called the Feast of Weeks, in which the Jews celebrate the giving of the Torah/Law to Moses.

On the day that Moses came down the mountain carrying law into the people’s presence, he found that they had rebelled and built an idol to worship and so, 3,000 people died that day.

Fast forward,centuries later, to the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit of God was poured out, and the the New Covenant, under the grace of God (versus the Law of God), had come to be. On that day, after God gave His Spirit to empower the believers, 3,000 lives were saved, according to !

Today, we observe and thank God for two baptisms. The baptism of those who are submersed into water, so as to identify with and make a public profession of their faith in Jesus the Christ. And also, we thank God for His empowering baptism of His Holy Spirit, which is available to all believing saints, who, by faith, ask for and wait for it to come. It is available to all who have been REDEEMED!