Christian Baptism
6/24/2018
GRM 1188
Selected Verses
Transcript
GRM 118806/24/2018
Christian Baptism
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh
As I mentioned, I want to talk a little bit with you about Christian baptism this evening. This was prompted by some questions that came up, and I try to put the questions together, maybe, that tie with what we have done recently. Some of the other questions we’ll be covering, as I’ve mentioned, down the road, so I haven’t lost them, but we’ve been talking about the Church because that’s the foundation. We talked about how we interpret Scripture and some of the matters of church. Last week we talked about church discipline, so I thought this question on baptism and interest in this area tied to that so it would be a good time to pick it up, and again, I’m just highlighting the subject.
We have booklets on some of these topics. One on baptism, which will go much more thorough because at other times I’ve done a series on baptism in the New Testament and the different baptisms like John’s baptism, which is different than Christian baptism. The baptism of Christ, even though it was by John, was unique in and to itself, and Christian baptism is different, also. Then many of the passages that deal with baptism, some of the passages that raise questions, we deal with more thoroughly in the booklet, or you can get the information to listen to if you want, but I just want to highlight it, and then deal with some issues related to how we do baptism at Indian Hills. We have age guidelines and so on, so this is just a little bit.
Let’s start and talk about why we do baptism. We’ve talked about the Great Commission at the end of Matthew and that’s the first reference to Christian baptism in the New Testament, Matthew chapter 28 where Jesus instructed the disciples. “All authority” (verse 18 of Matthew 28) “has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always to the end of the age.” “Make disciples,” or as one commentator on this passage noted, the later term in the New Testament is “Christians,” and you do that as Luke emphasizes at the end of his Gospel, in the instructions given by Christ. You preach the message of the death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the One who is the Savior, and when people believe that message, they become disciples of Christ, followers of Christ, whereas the name was given to the disciples in the Book of Acts, as we saw.
The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch, and so for those who have come to faith in Christ, they are to be baptized and taught, so the command, as you’re familiar here, is make disciples, and there are three participles. Often our participles have “ing” on the end of the word so the first one was go or going or having gone. The second one is baptizing and the third one is teaching. Now obviously, to make disciples, they’re going to be going out, because up until the death and resurrection of Christ, and we looked at this remember, the ministry was limited to Jews. When Jesus sent His disciples out he said, “go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Don’t go to the Samaritans, don’t go to the Gentiles. It is interesting, at the end of chapter 9 of Matthew, he tells them the fields are “white for harvest.” Pray that the Lord will raise up workers to go out and harvest.
Then you move right into chapter 10 and he tells them, now I want you to go to Israel but don’t you go to the Samaritans, don’t you go to the Gentiles, but now that all changes. Verse 19, as we have studied, “make disciples of all the nations,” and when you do you are to “baptize them,” then you are to “teach them,” so it’s pretty simple and we go to the Book of Acts to find out how it is unfolded. They’re to be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and you have the one God, comprised of three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This verse alone but there’s many others make clear the deity. You couldn’t put any other name here. Baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You recognize the difference here because they are baptized in identification with the true and living God and all He has provided, so that we might become His children. Baptism is an identification; we are baptized in identification with Him so we go through the Book of Acts.
For example, go to the end of the Book of Luke. I do that because Luke writes not only the Gospel of Luke but he is the human author of the Book of Acts so the history he is writing, you see the continuity. I just mention at the end of the Gospel of Luke chapter 24, Jesus is meeting with His disciples and He tells them how the Scriptures had to be fulfilled regarding Him. Verse 45 “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations.’”
Again, something striking! It’s going to take a while for the disciples as we go to the Book of Acts to recognize this. Remember, by the time you get to chapter 10 of the Book of Acts, the Holy Spirit tells Peter to go to the house of the Gentiles, and it takes special revelation from God to Peter, before he’s willing to do that. He goes to the house of Cornelius and preaches the gospel to these Gentiles; they believe it and they are saved. Then he’s called before the other apostles in chapter 11. They want to know what in the world are you doing, going and preaching to Gentiles, so you see there is an unfolding process for them to come to realize that God is really going to save Gentiles. That’s an eye opener for them, so here that the message of salvation is to be proclaimed!
It’ll start in Jerusalem and it does, so come over to the Book of Acts and chapter 1, Jesus meets with His disciples and He ascends to heaven. That marks His departure from walking on earth, meeting with them for the forty days after His resurrection, instructing them. Those times are going to be over. There’ll be revelation but it won’t come from His personal bodily presence on earth. In chapter 2, the Spirit comes so they were told to wait. The Spirit will come to empower them, verse eight of chapter 1; “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” Remember He had prepared them on His last night in John chapters 14, 15 and 16, how important it was for Him to leave and go back to the Father so that He could send the Holy Spirit. This opens up now a whole new realm, a whole new dimension, if you will, not revealed before in the plan of God with the establishing of the Church, so chapter 2, the Day of Pentecost comes. Peter preaches the gospel, and the Holy Spirit descends on them, and manifests His presence with tongues and so on and we will talk about tongues and the gifts of the Spirit in one of our future Sunday evenings.
So, now evidence of the coming of the Spirit, the establishing of the New Covenant, in at least part of what it promises is here in Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36, of the coming of the Spirit. And what happens? These Jews and there are basically only Jews here on the Day of Pentecost. They are there for a Jewish feast, Jewish celebration, and Peter preaches the gospel. They believe, Peter says to them and you’ll see the Spirit has “pierced their heart” with the truth, verse 37 and he says, “What shall we do? He says, “Repent each of you and be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins; you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Now they’re not saying here baptism is necessary for the forgiveness of sins but repentance is. Repentance becomes used interchangeably for faith because saving faith involves repentance, where you turn from you’re sin and turn to Christ. Place your faith in Him, so words that give a little different perspective but they’re talking about the same event. They are to repent, the same thing as you must believe, but for the Jews their repentance becomes the key emphasis because what? They must turn from that attitude of rejection of the Messiah. I mean they were involved in crucifying Him.
Chapter 3 Peter will address the leaders and put the responsibility on them for the crucifixion of their Messiah. You need to repent and then be baptized and the call to baptism calls them to step out and declare that they are turning from their sin and guilt and the rejection of Christ and placing their faith in Him and now that public identification with Jesus Christ. The message concerning Him and “be baptized” as Jesus said, “in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Cuts them off from, if you will, Israel. These are the nucleus for a new entity, the Church and being identified in this new way with Jesus Christ and the message concerning Him, and so you see the message is preached people respond in faith, they’re baptized.
You come over to chapter eight. We’re not going to go through every passage but this is a good time, maybe, for you to take some time if you can do it. If you set a block of time, just read through the Book of Acts and see the pattern that is followed in the preaching of the gospel and the responding in faith and then being baptized. In chapter 8, you have the many disciples being scattered out from Jerusalem. The apostles basically are going to remain headquartered there but the persecution under Paul, whose name was Saul at this point, chapter 8 opened up, “Saul was in agreement with putting Stephen to death” in chapter 7, so you see persecution is breaking out. Again led by the Jews here to put an end to this message that Jesus is the Messiah, who came, suffered and died to be the Savior and you must believe in Him for salvation, so verse four “those who had been scattered about went preaching the word.”
Phillip went to Samaria, so you see, now we’re moving out. We need to be careful about allegorizing certain passages like chapter 1, said “you’ll be My witnesses in Jerusalem and Samaria to the uttermost parts of the earth” and we sometimes sort of say, now Lincoln’s our Jerusalem and then we’ll reach out to others further out and then we reach out from there. They are talking about literal, historical Jerusalem, and literal, historical Samaria, and then the parts that are reached out there. I’m not saying you can’t do other but we don’t tie it to allegorizing or spiritualizing of passages of Scripture because we have a literal unfolding of that.
The gospel will come to the Gentiles in chapter 10 but it really won’t be carried out to other places. Remember the Samarians are mixed blood Jews who have intermarried with Gentiles, but it won’t be until Paul’s ministry in chapter 13 that we have a concentrated effort now to carry the gospel to other places. It has happened with the scattering of disciples here, we have Samaria, and Peter goes and he preaches the word and come down to verse 12, Phillip preaches and when they believed Phillip preaching the good news about the kingdom in the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized men and women alike. Now in Chapter 8, verse 14 “when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word they sent them Peter and John who went down, and prayed for them and they might receive the Holy Spirit.”
This is the pattern we’ll see when we talk about the Charismatic Movement. You’re going to have the same specific manifestations of the Spirit coming to unify all these different groups now. Before, the unity was the physical entity, Israel. Now it will be the Church, but it’s going to be comprised not just of Jews, but now of Samaritans and then of full blood Gentiles, but each of those groups, when they come to trust Christ for the first time, you’re going to see the coming of the Spirit manifesting His coming in the same way.
There can be no question that they received the same gift as us so the evidence of the Spirit coming into their life is visibly demonstrated so there can be no question. God has saved Jews. Now He has saved Samaritans and, most amazing of all, you’ll see in chapters 10 and 11, He saves Gentiles, but you’ll see the pattern that He is following. They believe, they are baptized. That baptism cuts them off.
The Samaritans had their own religion. Remember the woman at the well in John chapter 8? The Jews say you worship at this place, the Samaritans say here. They had their own mixed worship system, the result of having been deported to other lands by the Assyrians and so on. They intermingle with those people and as happens over time, they have an amalgamated religion, but here now they’re going to be cut off from that, because they’re publically being identified with the message of Christ, and it goes on in chapter 8 with the Ethiopian eunuch that Phillip has a meeting with as well.
Come over to chapter 9 and you have Paul, and Saul, Paul who gets converted on the Damascus Road, and then he’s baptized. You come to chapter 10, I’ve talked about the Gentiles and in chapter 10 it took a special vision from God to prepare Peter, so he would even go to the house of a Gentile. We say, boy, you know, you would expect they’d have been excited to go. If a Gentile wants you to come and tell them about Jesus Christ, but Peter said he wouldn’t have gone if God hadn’t given him that special vision that he shouldn’t call unclean what God is going to call clean. Peter will still struggle this. We saw that in Galatians 2 where Paul had to rebuke Peter when he stumbled and wouldn’t go eat with the Gentiles when Jews from Jerusalem had come to town, so in chapter 10 you have that occasion.
Come to the end of chapter 10. Peter preaches the gospel verse 39 and tells them verse 39 “they put him to death by hanging him on a cross. God raised Him up on the third day” and He became visible to individuals like me. I’m an eyewitness of the resurrection. Verse 42 “He ordered us to preach to the people, solemnly testify this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge to the living and the dead. Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins. While Peter was speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon them.”
How did he know the Holy Spirit fell upon them and then when Peter preached the message, as happens sometimes some of you have shared testimony, you were sitting, you heard the word, and you believed it while you we’re sitting there. All of a sudden my eyes, I knew it was true and I believed it. That’s what happens here, so the Holy Spirit comes to indwell them.
Verse 44 “while Peter was speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon them. All the circumcised believers who had come with Peter were amazed.” The circumcised believers were the Jewish believers. “The gift of the Holy Spirit has been poured out on the Gentiles also.” I mean wow; this is getting more amazing as we move along. “They were hearing them speaking with tongues” so you see it took this because these Jews couldn’t deny it because the same thing happened to them that happened to us back in Acts chapter 2. “When the Holy Spirit came upon us, we spoke in tongues” and here it’s happening to Gentiles. “No one can refuse water,” look at verse 47 it’s crucial for the order, “for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did,” so you see the order is important. It’s not that they weren’t truly saved because the Holy Spirit had come upon them, come to indwell them, they had been baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ. Well now, they are ordered to “be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ” and this becomes the focal point.
Jesus Christ, He’s the One who is the Redeemer, who came suffered and died. This is not just a general reference to God that you could get by Jews who, yeah, well we believe in the same God. These Gentiles now believe in the God of Israel. Well, we believe in the God of Israel too. No-no-no it has to be more specific, and the Son of God, whom the God of Israel sent to earth to be the Savior, not only of Jews but of Gentiles, and then you have chapter 11, when there’s a little bit of an uproar and chapter 11. “The apostles and brethren,” verse 1 “heard that the Gentiles had received the word of God. When Peter came to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised took issue with him.” Note verse 3, “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” You went to non-Jews. What in the world were you thinking and Peter goes on and explains how God gave him a revelation. “What God has cleansed don’t you call unclean,” so verse 12, “the Spirit told me to go with them without misgiving” and verse 14 He had prepared these Gentiles, and while I’m preaching verse 15, “the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as he did with us at the beginning. I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say, ‘John baptized with water, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Therefore, if God gave them the same gift as He gave to us after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I who could stand in God’s way?’ They quieted down and said, ‘Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’”
What I just want to note, you see each time it’s salvation by faith and then baptism. We won’t go on through chapter 16 the Philippian jailer, chapter 18 the Corinthians, chapter 19 even the disciples of John are rebaptized because Christian baptism is not the same as the baptism of John the Baptist. So these disciples of John the Baptist, now when they believed the message of Christ, then they are baptized in identification with Jesus Christ. Baptism is not part of the gospel. This is something that happens as a result of the gospel. In First Corinthians chapter 1 verse 14 Paul says, that God didn’t send him to baptize, but to preach the gospel and Paul didn’t, as a practice do the baptisms. Verse 17 of 1 Corinthians 1 says that “Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel,” so you see he separates the baptism from the gospel, but those who have believed the gospel and been saved by faith in the gospel, the message of Christ, now are baptized and that’s consistent as well.
I want to take you to one more passage here. Romans chapter 4 and this is where I often go with people from groups that want to say baptism is necessary for salvation, the point argued at the end--remember for the Jews circumcision. Remember the Jerusalem conference in Acts chapter 15 where Jews who had professed Christ were saying, some of them; you also have to be circumcised to be saved. That’s not true so at the end of chapter 3 of Romans we speak about--verse 29. “Is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes of Gentiles also, since He the God who will justify the circumcised by faith, and the uncircumcised through faith is one.” Making the point, you don’t have to be circumcised to be saved and then he gives an example, of how you’re saved by faith.
The Jews were never saved by circumcision! That corruption entered in, in their thinking, but it never was what God taught them. They had to have a circumcised heart. There was a place for circumcision for the Jews but because they were circumcised didn’t mean they were saved, and we’ve been through that, so He used Abraham as the example and Abraham is declared righteous by faith in Romans chapter 4 verse 3. “What does the Scripture say? ‘ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS,’” so verse five “to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness” and then the issue comes. When did this happen? Well it happened in Genesis 15. When was Abraham circumcised? Not until 20 years later in chapter 17. Every Jew knew that! That’s why he uses this argument, so Romans 4, verse 9 we say, “FAITH WAS CREDITED TO ABRAHAM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.” How was it credited? While he was circumcised or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised but while uncircumcised, he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the Father of all who believe without being circumcised.
Then you go on down through the chapter and into chapter 5. So often, when I’ve talked to people who want to insist baptism is necessary for salvation they’ll quote a verse that seems to connect it. I say well let’s go to Romans 4, we know circumcision is not necessary for salvation because God declared Abraham righteous years before Abraham got circumcised and God says that’s a demonstration you don’t have to be circumcised. Now I want you to tell me when Abraham was baptized and there’s no record of Abraham ever being baptized. Well the argument at the end of chapter 3 of Romans was verse 30, “since indeed the God who will justify the circumcised and the uncircumcised through faith is one.” Since there’s only one God, there can only be one way of salvation, so at the end of chapter 4, let’s find out how God justified one sinner, and since there’s only one God that tells you how it will happen.
I was reading this past week as background for this and the writer was saying, well things changed with the coming of Christ, now baptism is necessary. It destroys the whole argument of Romans here. Christ has been crucified and raised from the dead, and He’s saying there is only one God, there can only be one way of salvation. How was Abraham saved? What did he do? He didn’t do any works, he just believed what God said, so circumcision’s not necessary for salvation so however you work through the other passages, we’re not going through them all obviously and we’re not going to look at the disputed passages right now, but you say baptism can’t be necessary for salvation or you’re saying there are two gods, the one who saved Abraham by faith alone and the one who saves people today by faith plus baptism. That does away with all the religion of works because we’re told that Abraham didn’t do anything. Verse 4 “now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but what is due but to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies, his faith is credited as righteousness,” so anyone who says anything else is necessary for salvation is taking issue with God. That was just a little overview.
Let me say something about the age of baptism. We practice at Indian Hills, adult baptism. How did we come to this? Well, we started out like some churches do. You know you baptize kids and if they’re four years old and this is what tripped me on it. At that time, I was doing interviews for baptism and one of our solid families who he had been involved in leadership here brought their four-year-old daughter to be interviewed for baptism. I said well I want you to leave the room and I’ll talk with her and I did and she was sweet but at four years old she didn’t know or understand. Something's wrong here and so I told the parents that, you know, I don’t think it would be good for us to be baptizing her this time. They were hugely offended! That’s something they should decide, not me. So you know, you begin to think through, why do we baptize children? I noticed if you had some fourth graders. it seemed like you had a whole group of fourth graders, because if their friend is getting baptized you’ll get baptized. I grew up--after we got saved, I was a little older, I wasn’t in grade school by then but you know you sort of did it as a family thing.
It’s interesting to me to look back, issues we’ve had that seemed so great. We had some people leave church here and go to another church. You know the first thing they did at that church, they had a baptism service for all the kids who couldn’t get baptized at Indian Hills, and that’s fine that’s their business. We worked through this and said, what is baptism to be? First, it is to be a testimony of your faith in Jesus Christ. You have trusted Him and now committed your life to Him. That is to be the testimony of that person. You begin to look and say, when can an individual make that as his own statement? When are they able to make an independent decision?
I wrote down some of the questions that we worked through. You know we don’t baptize, we wouldn’t baptize a six year old without parental approval, but this is to be the testimony of the believer not the parents. Paedobaptism, baptism of infants is a testimony of parents and we’ll talk about that maybe at another time with covenantalism. But when could they make an independent decision? In other words, regardless of the parents involvement, when would they be held accountable for that decision. When could they be subject to church discipline which we’ve talked about? Well, we don’t discipline junior highers, that’s a parental problem, issue, if their conduct is not there. When would we tell them to be baptized regardless of what their parents say?
Past years when we’ve had people come to the university and get saved and perhaps come out of a Lutheran, if I can pick on the Lutheran’s, it could be any of the other denominations that do that. I’ve had parents call me on the phone from out of town; they heard their child was going to be baptized. Horribly upset that we would do that. They were baptized; you’re having them deny everything we raised them for and these kinds of things. This confusion, well we don’t tell children that are still under the authority of their parents and need parental approval to go ahead regardless of what their parents say, so there has to be some independence for it to be their---so you come to the conclusion that--when are they that independent?
Well, it comes around the age of 18. My brother wanted to join the military before he was 18. My dad said, I’m not signing because once you’re in; you’re not going to like it. My dad served in the military, and then he said you’re going to blame me for signing and putting you in, so on my brother’s 18th birthday he went down, signed and joined the Marines. He went to Vietnam a couple times and learned dad was right, but what? He had to be of a certain age.
When would we tell a person—well your baptism is a cutting off. It separates you and you have to be able to make a stand, and you will be held accountable for your stand. You will be held accountable—that’s how we came to be—that’s around graduating from high school and you hear the testimonies of people that are baptized. They say well you know I made a profession when I was this age but as I got older, I realized it wasn’t really, real for me. My life didn’t change and it’s….so we’re concerned you don’t give false assurance. I couldn’t understand and never did—was able to work through, why was it so important for these parents that their children get baptized, if you understand. I’m not saying children can’t be saved, I believe I was saved at 10. As far as I can look at my life, look at what happened, but I didn’t get baptized until later. That didn’t mean I was less than saved. Why is it so important that--you know what parents are looking for, some kind of conformation that the church believes and agrees, my child is saved and when you won’t baptize them, then you’re saying my child is not saved. No, I’m not saying that, we’re just saying they are not yet of an age.
It is interesting, I happened this week to read, you know you think you’re out on your own, sorting through some of this and I picked up one of the books on my shelf. One of the chapters in there, a pastor who happens to be Southern Baptist but talks about how their church has worked through this. This is rather current, it’s a recently published book and he’s still pastoring this church, but he talks about wrestling through the age at which a believer is to be baptized, and he says I don’t find an age in Scripture and our church hasn’t found that. What we look for is the kind of maturity that—and this is what we look for, when do we find the maturity that they are able to be out from under their parental authority, and able to make their own decision. They worked through that and he’s got quite a bit here. I won’t say that, then at the end he noted they have done some research on this, that this baptizing of young children among, not the covenantalist who connected to circumcision, but like in Baptist churches, which he is, is a recent development. Largely the early 20th century and limited largely to the United States.
They find, and he’s looking at Baptist churches again--around the world are still much more conscience that modern American Christians often waiting in Europe, Africa and Asia to baptize until children are grown and are in their twenties. So we think, well we’ve done something that’s never been done, so that’s how we come and why we don’t baptize children, and yet we present the gospel to children and we pray for their salvation early, so they can begin to walk with the Lord and grow at an early age. I don’t know what age, we don’t have to settle that and he expresses the same concern we have.
We give false confirmation. We had children who have been baptized here but when they got to be adults, they left and went off on their own. They’ve not been interested since. I don’t want them looking back and thinking, well Indian Hills wouldn’t have baptized me if they didn’t think I was saved. Some probably just not being what everybody else thinks I should be but I’m sure I’m alright, and as parents we don’t want to give that, so you share it with your children but there are some things. The bible says you baptize a person who believes, but the bible’s not dealing with children or you know the day of Pentecost, these coming forward. We’re talking about, I think, adults. That’s an area that, these are old enough now, you have a 20 year old that comes and he says well my parents are Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, whatever, they had me baptized. They’re really going to be offended by my being baptized and I say well you don’t like to offend your parents unnecessarily, however one of the reasons for baptism is for you to take a stand for Christ.
One evening, I’ve shared this, but years ago I taught on baptism in an evening and we had people from Russia who had come here, Baptists from the country of Russia. They were waiting for me in the parking lot that evening to be sure I understood, in their broken English, they’re trying to tell me, you do not baptize children! They thought I had been saying you should baptize children. The language was still—they said, in Russia you have to be able to go to prison when you get baptized, so you can’t baptize children. They said, well that makes sense to them. They’re concerned, they come to the United States and you’re going to baptize people that aren’t adults. You can’t do that, so a little aside on that.
I should open it up for questions for that. Well, I will if you have a question on that. I have a question then that I’ll address that came in. If we have time, if not I can do it next week. If it’s on baptism, since I just talked about that--we’ve been doing it so long it’s not an issue any more. The things that were issues, you know if I remember correctly, we had over a hundred people leave when we moved from congregational style government to elder. Is it that big a deal now? I have contact periodically because of geography with one of those families. They’re great people. We don’t talk about that issue, they’ been in another believing church and that’s fine. We get worked up about things that passing of time--and say well it’s not that big an issue and it’s exciting to see young people baptized, older people baptized but you know, they’re standing up here on their own.
Anybody have any questions or things? I have one that came in on baptism. Although our age policy for baptism makes it a bit of a moot point for us, in different circumstances if there were for example a middle schooler or high schooler who is saved and wants to be baptized against their parent’s wishes would that be a situation in which they should obey God rather than men? No, I wouldn’t think that situation requires that kind of action, because God says that as long as they are living in their parent’s home, they’re under their parent’s authority, and they respect that. Now their parents aren’t saying that they can’t do something biblical, and if they say, you can’t read your bible you may want to talk about that. The bible doesn’t give an age so I wouldn’t encourage children or young people that are at home to go against their parent’s on that and we wouldn’t baptize them at that age, but tell them look, it’s not necessary for you to be baptized at this point. There are a lot of things that go on that you have to be older to do and we live in a day that you want to push the age down. Now we’re happy when kids walk out of school doing protests and we’re proud and applaud it.
There’s not an understanding. You’re not an adult yet. It may be a good time to explain to them, you know you’ve trusted Christ, you want to live for Him and you want to grow now. Part of your growing is you’ll respect your parents on this. When you become independent, on your own, your parents may say if you get baptized you have to move out. Say, well I love you I like living here, it’s cheaper but I’ll move out. Well that has to come to an age because we as a church are not going to support them. They’re just not in a position to make that kind of decision, so I think they ought to understand, and whoever leads them to Christ should understand, this is not required at this stage for you but when you get old enough to be independent and make your decision, like my brother could sign up for the military, then you can make the decision. I think it’s good we show that part of being a believer is, you show respect to your parents and as long as you live in their home like that, you do.
I had a question on church discipline that we did last week, and I thought I might mention it. Come to Luke chapter 17. It’s a question we all have, whether we voice it or not, when we read this subject of church disciple. I’m going to start with Luke 17 and then we’ll go back to Matthew 18. Luke 17, Jesus speaking to His disciples, talking about stumbling blocks and the seriousness, you don’t want to do anything that would cause a child of God to sin or stumble, and He says verse 3. “Be on guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him, if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times saying, I repent, forgive him.”
The question is here, what about repeated sins, what do we do? It seems a person won’t get disciplined because they’ll just keep saying I repent. I repent, I repent, and you know all I can say is, it’s not something I came up with, Jesus said, “if he sins against you seven times a day and comes to you and says I repent,” and some of the commentators note it’s not given as a command, you must forgive him, it carries more force. It’s a direct statement, you will forgive him, there’s no wiggle room here. Now seven times a day, one day, he comes—he says I repent and lo and behold, you figure it out. If you take sleep time and meal time, and take the hours that day left, and divide them by seven, this is going on, you just about settle down to do something else and here he is, he sins against you again.
Well, you know, the disciples have the same question. If you are still in chapter 17, there’s still a problem because what’s the next verse say? I don’t have it before me. It said “Lord, Increase our faith!” Well, I think how are we going to do this. I mean you’re stretching us beyond what can be expected, seven times a day! He didn’t say you should forgive him, you must forgive him; you will forgive him. Lord increase our faith.
You come back to Matthew 18. It’s the same kind of thing. After you went through steps because what is here is the importance of restoring a believer. You know, it’s like a family and many have gone through, many of you, struggles with a part of your family. One of your children gets off track and, you know, you deal with them and they say, I’m sorry I won’t do it and then they do it again and again and again. You know you never stop your love for them and your desire to draw them back, and it is a last resort if you say you’re out of the family. You say, well it’s come to that. Well, this is what God is dealing with here. Verse 14 of chapter 18, “It’s not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish.” And I love the way it’s put, Jesus said, not the will of your Father, who is in heaven. You keep in mind here who’s speaking and whose will has to be done that not one of these little ones perish. So, if your brother does sin here’s what you do, the goal is getting him back, so you go the steps.
We pull these verses, 15 to 20, out but the bulk of this chapter as I talked about last time is about restoration and forgiveness. Peter understands, all right, sounds good. Now verse 21, “Lord how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive Him, up to seven times?” That’s a lot. The Jews taught three times, three strikes, you’re out. Three times they thought and then you didn’t have to forgive anymore. “Jesus said to him, ‘I don’t say up to seven times, up to seventy times seven.’” Let me give you a picture of this, and then that picture of the king and he forgives a great debt and then that one forgiven the great debt won’t forgive a small debt and then the warning. You should have had mercy. I had mercy on you.
You know we didn’t look through, but you look through forgiveness, you remember the Lord prayer. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive those indebted to us.” It’s expected that those forgiven will be forgiving people. We often look for reasons to discipline. Now I realize this has to be worked through but what I’ve got to focus on first and foremost is what God says my responsibility is. He says forgive. I didn’t write it. That’s what we as elder, as leaders have to work through and you have to as believers.
People have gotten upset. I could bring some of my mail but I’m not going to and amazing how other people—I didn’t write it. They’re telling me how unbiblical I’m being, Indian Hills is being and you know this is not just one, this goes back as people get so upset. He said forgive them. Well they’re getting off easy. It’s not my problem it’s Gods. I don’t know what else to say. You know, this is not just people who holler in the window, “I repent” as they’re going by.
Then we have people come in often times and say, I’ve sinned and I want to acknowledge it’s sin. I want to repent before God. I want to make it right and the next thing you know they’re back again, and it happens again, but, you know, I can’t insert myself here and take God’s place, my Father who is in heaven, and say I’ve decided this time we’re not going to forgive. Now wait a minute, wait a minute, what am I going to tell God when I get there. He says I have a question to ask you. You said you would not forgive. Well Lord it happened 13 times. What’s that got to do with it? What did I tell you to do? Well Lord, it’s just not practical. Now you think I’m going to stand before the Lord and say, You’re not practical. I don’t think so! So this is what—I appreciate the letter and I’ve got to say, yeah we’ve struggled through the same thing.
That’s why I said, there are times when the elders have worked through and we might think among ourselves, you know, I have to be honest, in my heart I have serious doubt whether it’s genuine. But the Scripture says if they repent you forgive them. Sometimes you share with a person, you know I’m seriously concerned for you. This is a pattern of your life. You need to consider seriously whether you really know the Lord and there are consequences even with forgiveness. That doesn’t mean everything has to be--I may have loaned them money and he wasted it and won’t pay me back. That doesn’t mean I have to keep loaning him money, but by the same token, I can’t be lying in bed thinking of ways to get back at him and revenge.
I don’t think we take forgiveness seriously enough, so the question here, I wanted to draw your attention to it because I agree, but study the passage here. Read it, reread, it reread it. Peter understood. Lord how often shall I? He sinned against me. This becomes personal and I forgive him seven times? I mean I think that’s pretty gracious.
The problem is God, doesn’t think it’s gracious because you know what? He’s forgiven me more than seven times. Stop and think about it. Since I’ve been a believer you know how many times I’ve been forgiven? Jesus says when you develop an unforgiving attitude, you really have minimized My grace shown to you and I’m supposed to be what—reflecting God’s grace to them. That doesn’t excuse sin but my response.
I get concerned every time we have church, not every time but I’m still getting mail and this goes back years. People that are upset and it comes about, you didn’t do it. They want to be justified by you discipling them and sometimes that’s what goes on. Well, what’s wrong here? You may have rights, biblically be in a position to make a decision that you’re free to make, so there’s no problem with that. They’re certain things when sin happens, the person has certain freedoms and certain decisions to make. They can decide, but they can’t be bitter. We can’t be unforgiving, we’re not looking for vengeance. Well we won’t go any more than that, so I appreciate the question and I have the same thoughts but I come back to Scripture.
This is what the elders do so don’t get upset with the elders. If you’re upset with what the Scripture says and I’ve dealt with those people—I’ve had some people in my office, you’ve got to help me out. This is what the Scripture says. Don’t the elders have to do what the Scripture says? Finally, the person, I appreciated their honesty, says, I don’t know, I’m just frustrated. Well you’re frustrated, of course. Just do what the Scripture says and leave it with the Lord. I can’t see hearts so the Lord says keep forgiving, so I keep forgiving. Now there may be consequences. If you’ve been a Sunday school teacher, you may not be able to keep teaching, it doesn’t mean you’re not forgiven, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t certain things that are follow through. Things like that, so we think they got off easy. In some ways, we all do, don’t we?
You know I think David got off easy. Now we see things that happened in his family but you know what, I wonder what Uriah’s parents thought after David murdered Bathsheba’s husband, and a group of soldiers that had to die with Uriah, so it would look like it was out in a battle, so it wasn’t just Uriah but I think about Uriah’s parents. What did they think? Our son was murdered. He was so faithful to David and David had him murdered. That’s what God said, and now he stays married to Bathsheba, and then after the baby dies and the only mourning recorded in Samuel is over David praying that the baby won’t die.
The baby dies, he says well that’s done, I can’t do anything about that. Bring me dinner I’m going to get a shower and then I’ll go down and comfort my wife. Wait a minute; you’re going down to come to comfort your wife? Well don’t you have any feelings? Could this relationship ever be acceptable and then God blesses the baby that’s born out of that relationship and it’s Jedidiah. You know what it means, loved of the Lord. We know him better as Solomon and you know who becomes the Queen Mother, Bathsheba. You know, I say well Lord, that’s not the way I would have done it. Don’t you want to make a statement? I wonder what Uriah’s parents are thinking. This doesn’t seem right. Our son’s been murdered, and David is still on the throne. And he’s got Bathsheba and now their child that should have been in our family with Uriah our—if you don’t let the Lord run the world, and your life, you’re never done so we want to be careful.
We think we’ve got to meet out the Lord’s vengeance and it says we don’t take vengeance for ourselves. “Vengeance is mine. I will repay says the Lord.” You never take your own vengeance so all we have to worry about is how are we going to restore this person. And if they step on us after we’ve worked to restore them, let’s work on it some more, and we work on it and we work on it. You know that sometimes we think, well we wanted everybody to know we’re hard on sin. Well, I don’t want the Lord to be too hard on me. I don’t want to become soft, sin is sin but I thank the Lord every day for His grace. Otherwise, Scott shared his testimony. I remember that in my early young life. Every night, Lord forgive me one more time, one more day, I’ll never do it again. Never do it again and I did. Lord just…and He keeps forgiving me, forgiving me.
All right, we have to pray. Let’s pray: Thank You Lord for Your grace. Thank You for a salvation that keeps on cleansing us. How wonderful it is that the blood of Jesus Christ keeps on cleansing us from all sin. Lord it’s easy for us, with the passing of time as we grow in our relationship with You, sometimes Lord an ugly self-righteousness can begin to creep into our lives, and then we become intolerant and hard hearted. Lord, we want to manifest Your grace never soft on sin. Never fearing to address sin as sin but Lord, we are privileged to manifest Your grace and Your forgiveness. May we do that freely. Bless the week before us we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
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