Baptismal Service

here this morning to hear God's Word, to sing His praise, to remember the hope we have in Jesus Christ. The unique, specific thing we're doing this morning is celebrating baptism, and baptism is a milestone in someone's life. Usually the thing about milestones is they're lined up, though. We have a life that we're planning, and after we graduate high school, we go on to a career, to more education. spouse, and then children. And these milestones, they usually line up. They're on a certain trajectory. And something we don't typically like is a milestone that changes the trajectory. Usually these are bad. Usually these are from tragedy, death, loss of job, loss of spouse. Usually a change of trajectory is problematic. But this morning, we're celebrating a milestone that changes everything. It changes the way Dow and Peter and the rest of us, we think and live. It is remembering what Christ has done. He changes our lives. He removes our sin, removes our guilt. He keeps us and calls us out of a life of sin and calls us into a new life of righteousness. This morning, we're celebrating baptism. And as we think about baptism, we're going to be looking at not John this morning. We have been walking through the Gospel of John. We'll be looking at Acts. If you turn with me in your Bible to Acts chapter 8, if you do not have a Bible, we have Bibles there in the pew for you. And the chapter, the section we're looking at is on page 917. We're looking at chapter 8, beginning in verse 26. This is the story of the Ethiopian eunuch being witnessed to by Philip and then seeking baptism. Page 917 beginning in verse 26. Now, an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is. a deserted place, and he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning. Seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, Do you understand what you are reading? And he said, how can I, unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now, the passage of Scripture that he was reading was this. Like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shears is silent, so he opens not his mouth in his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation for his life is taken away from the earth. And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom I ask you, does the prophet say this about himself or about someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth and began with this scripture, and he told him the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, see, here's water. What prevents me from being baptized? He commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized them. When they came up out of the water, the sphere of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Asatus, and as he passed through there, he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. If we look at our passage this morning, there are three main sections. We'll be walking through these sections in order. Verses 26 through 29 give us the commission. Philip is commissioned to go to this deserted city. There's the conversion. We see clearly that after hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, this man was converted. He was changed by the gospel. That's verses 30 through 35. And finally, we have the commitment. After being converted, he seeks to be baptized. We have the commission, the conversion and the commitment. And this morning we're going to hear and see that first, Jesus Christ is the savior for every kind of sinner. That's something that's just clear throughout the book of Acts as we think about this in its context. Then more so, we need to see that we're called to humbly hear, believe and commit. Hear the gospel, believe the gospel and commit our lives to Christ. First, the commission, there's some helpful background here. The book of Acts is written by Luke. Luke also gave us a gospel, and he's seeking to give a continuation. The gospel tells us who Jesus is, what he came to do, and Acts is how the church then spread. And so there in Acts 1, The disciples are sitting there waiting. Jesus comes, he appears, he says, do not leave this place until the Holy Spirit descends upon you. Then you'll go from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, to the ends of the world. That's Acts 1.8. It's another kind of great commission passage, very similar to the one we read earlier. So Pentecost comes, the Holy Spirit descends, and the gospel goes out to all different kinds of people in all different kinds of tongues. And we see through Acts that the disciples, they didn't want to leave Jerusalem. So enters Saul. He begins persecuting the church. Now the disciples are leaving. And you see in Acts 8, if you just look over, Philip, he goes to Samaria. He preaches the gospel to the Samaritans. And they believe. The gospel is starting to break cultural and national and racial boundaries and barriers. He says Samaritans, they were half-Jews, half-Gentiles. They were Jews that had been married into the Gentiles and they were despised by the Jews. They were seen as half-breeds. But here we see God calls them to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The most beautiful part of this is right after Philip calls the Samaritans and Pentecost breaks out in Samaria. What happens at a second Pentecost for the Samaritans? What happens next for Philip is he goes to a deserted place. And here we see the fulfillment. An Ethiopian hears the gospel, he believes, and Ethiopia represents the ends of the earth. And so we see what Christ has said will happen. Well, it always happens. So Philip, he's called. Go south, the way of south to Gaza. This is a city left in ruins. There shouldn't be anybody there. And imagine you're Philip. You've been preaching in Samaria, you've seen the Holy Spirit descend, you've seen lots of fruit. All of a sudden, the spirit or the angel says, now you've got to go somewhere else. Logically, we're thinking, but there's so much to do here. Why would you send me to this deserted place? Why would I go there? Well, because it's God's will and it's God's plan. It was perfect. So notice Philip, he always obeys. He rose and he went. Now he's headed to this ruined city, he's headed to this deserted place, and God provides, and there was an Ethiopian eunuch. God had been ordaining this meeting. Now in order to really capture the beauty of this story of redemption, we have to ask, who is this man? There's a major character, Philip, he's a disciple, he's full of the Spirit, he's proclaiming the Gospel, but who is this man? We have four truths that we see about this man in verse 27. First, he's an Ethiopian. Now, this is not speaking of modern day Ethiopia, more the area of Sudan. The Ethiopia would have been the region past Egypt. If you're a Roman, you would have called Ethiopia the ends of the earth. It was the most outer part of the known world. And this highway would take you through Egypt into Ethiopia. And that was just the general area where there are a number of kingdoms. And so here we see the gospel, it's going to start breaking into the outer ends of the earth. We see in Ethiopia, this Ethiopian, he's a Gentile. So if we've been following Acts, this is our representative, most of us. We're all Gentiles. We're not Jews. We're not of that race and that nation. He's a Gentile. The gospel is for all different kinds of people. Here the gospel is crossing this boundary. The gospel knows no prejudice. The second thing we see, he's a eunuch. Now I've tried to think of how I could describe what a eunuch is in a politically sensitive way. I thought we could say he's a man who's been castrated. We could say he's a man who no longer has the anatomy of a man. Or we could read Deuteronomy 21. His man parts have been crushed. The Bible is just fairly gritty sometimes. So there you have the way Moses described a eunuch. His man parts have been crushed. He's a treasure to Candace and we actually know from other non-biblical sources, Candace was a very wealthy queen and her kingdom was very prominent. Now all this comes together. He went to Jerusalem to worship. The Passover just took place. We see that this Ethiopian who's a eunuch, who's also a treasure, he's a God-fearer. He's a Gentile. He's not born of the covenant. He's not circumcised of the covenant. But he's heard of the God of Israel. He's heard of the one God who created all things. He's heard of the one God who called out a people and said, I will bless you and you will bless all nations. He's heard of the people. He's heard of the God who said, I will send a son to reverse the curse, to bring new life. He's a God-fear. He's been to Jerusalem to worship. This is what God's desire has always been. That all people, all kinds of people, will worship him. The call of Israel was just a nation who was called to bless everyone else. Now, he's a Gentile, he's a eunuch, and he goes to Jerusalem to worship. Now this will be a long, difficult trip. And if you know your Old Testament, the readers of Luke especially, they would have seen that this is amazing. A Gentile eunuch has made this long, difficult trip to worship God. When he got there, worship was at a distance. So the temple, if you're worshiping in the Old Covenant, there was a temple. And the most direct, immediate presence of God was in the Holy of Holies. And only one guy could go in there once a year. Then you've got the court of the priest. So that's only one tribe of Israel. Then you have the court of the rest of the Jews. Then you have the court of the Gentiles and women. As a Gentile, he had to worship from a distance. As a Gentile, he didn't have access to the closest, nearest worship. Second, even more as a eunuch, He was kept from worshiping. In Leviticus 21, there's a long list of blemishes that someone, if they had them, they could not bring an offering to the Lord. And being a eunuch was one of them. His physical condition was seen as a blemish to Israel. Or Deuteronomy 23, no one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord. He's going to worship a God who says, you can't come near me. But he knows that must be the true God. So he makes this long trip to worship from a distance. Now, look at verse 28, we catch him going back home, he's reading the book of Isaiah. Many people call the book of Isaiah the fifth gospel. It is so clear in who Christ is going to be and what Christ would accomplish. And so here we see the Holy Spirit has divinely ordained this man to be wealthy enough to own scripture. Count having a Bible as a blessing. Most people throughout the history of the world have not had God's word at their fingertips. You had to be wealthy to have a copy of any book of the Bible. Here he's reading Isaiah. God has sent Philip. It's a divine appointment. And Philip asked the question, do you understand what you're reading? Now, before we go on to the conversion, let me just make a few observations of application. When we're sharing the gospel Christians, I think there's a nice model here. Start with questions. Start to ask questions to get to know who that person is, what they already believe. Don't assume that you know the person and what they need to hear. Know they need to hear the gospel, but ask questions. The question I love to begin a conversation. What do you believe about God? That'll pretty much tell you everything you need to know about the person. The first answer they give when you ask, what do they believe about God? That tells you where they're at spiritually. Ask questions in evangelism. Secondly, What makes Philip effective is that he's filled with the Spirit and he obeys the Spirit. He's filled with the Spirit and he obeys the Spirit. We constantly see Philip go. Yes, sir. He's humbled. He's a servant. He's filled with the Spirit. He's no longer following his flesh. He's following the Spirit. Thirdly, we can see God is calling every kind of sinner. The Jew. Samaritan, the Gentile, every kind. We need to remove and avoid and repent of all prejudice that keeps us from sharing the gospel with every one. Our second section, the conversion, verses 31 through 35. Philip comes. Do you understand what you're reading? Here's a he's a treasure. He's a powerful man. When Philip asks, he says, how can I let someone guide me? This is where we see the humility. This is a powerful man who's used to knowing exactly what he needs to know. He's competent. He's in charge of a vast kingdom treasure. Here we see his humility. How can I let someone guide me? I need help. Understanding this, he's educated, he's esteemed by many, but he's coming to God humble. If you're not a Christian this morning, let me encourage you to have this posture as we're opening up God's word, recognize that there's difficult things. The gospel is difficult because the first thing it tells us about ourselves is we don't have it all together. We're sinners. Ask someone to come alongside of you. Allow someone to come alongside of you and open up God's word. I'm free for lunch today. I would love nothing more than to sit down with you and open up God's word and walk through the scriptures with you. But the first step is to be humble and ask, God, will you speak to me through this word? Now, the passage of scripture was Isaiah 53. Like I said, this is the fifth gospel. I just can't imagine. Philip says, you know what you're reading? He says, come on in, help me out. He sits down. You're reading Isaiah? He must be elated. God, thank you so much. This is a softball. I mean, this is one of the clearest prophecies of who Christ is going to be and what he's going to do. It reminded me, I was once walking around the campus of UofL and I was praying, God, would you would you allow me to share the gospel with someone today? And I was walking around and I saw someone on the bench reading Augustine's Confessions. And those of you who know me know that that's my favorite book that wasn't inspired by the Holy Spirit. So I sat down. What are you reading? Why are you reading this? Can we talk about it? The only way I've been happier is if the young man was reading Isaiah 53 because it's so clear. And notice, though, even though Isaiah 53 is extremely clear, we'll read it, we're going to look at it. He still needed a Christian interpretation. He still needed to hear who this is that Isaiah is talking about. He can tell us good news. He can hear that this is good news that I must believe. I must understand. Just tell me who. God ordained this, and God brought it to be. Let's look at Isaiah. If you're using the Pew Bible, if you turn to page 613, 613, this is one of the servant songs. This is quoted throughout the New Testament. Again, one of the clearest pictures of who Christ will be, and most importantly, what he will do. If you're using a few Bible page 613, I'm going to begin an idea of 52 verse 13. The section quoted in our acts is our acts passage is verses seven and eight. Behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind. So shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him. For that which has not been told them, they see. And that which they have not heard, they understand. Who has believed what they heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of the dry ground. He had no former majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs. and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his stripes we are healed. We, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that has led to the slaughter, like a sheep that before its shears is silent. So he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away and asked for his generation who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. They made his grave with the wicked. The rich man in his death, although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief when his soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied. And by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous. And he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many. And he shall divide the spoil with the strong. Because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many. and makes intercession for the transgressors. If you look at this passage, we see it's rich in describing what we call the substitutionary atonement. Christ came to die for sins He didn't commit. Christ came to be punished, to experience the wrath of God for sins He did not commit. He came to die for our sins who believe in Him. He came to die in the place of sinners so that the wrath of God would no longer be upon us, but upon him. Notice verse seven, the passage that's quoted, he goes to the slaughter. He doesn't say a word. Why doesn't Jesus speak up? He's a righteous man. There's no deceit in his lips. There's no anger in his heart. He's righteous. Why doesn't he say, why are you putting me to death? I have done no wrong. That's the point. He could defend himself. He could stand up. He spoke the world to existence. His word is mighty, but he kept himself silent. Because the whole reason he came was to die as an innocent, righteous man for sinners. The whole plan was for this man who was righteous to die a sinner's death so that those of us who are sinners would not have to experience that death. An important part of this is what precedes verse 7. We are the sheep that have gone astray. We have turned our own way. We've rejected God. We refuse to worship Him. We refuse to follow Him. We are sinners. We've said we're going to be our own kings. We're going to do what we want to do. We're not going to listen to God. This is the iniquity that we have committed. This is our transgression. See, we have an account of sin. Everyone in here has an account of sin, and that account is being built up. Every time we lie, that account grows longer because it's sin. Every time we have a lustful thought, that account gets longer because that's a sin. Every time we're angry, that account goes longer. Every time we act out in violence with words, with physical actions, that account gets longer. We have a great account against us. And if the righteous God were to come and judge us for our account, we'd be speechless. There's no defense. Unless God takes that account and he puts it on Christ, he counts our sins towards Christ so that on the cross, when Christ was dying, our sins were counted towards him, so that when God crushed him, our sin was paid for. The wrath of God against our sin was satisfied because a righteous man died in our place. Friends, that's the good news of Jesus Christ. We don't have to pay for our sins. We don't have to face a God and fear a God who would be wrath, whose wrath should be against our sins. We believe in Christ and he takes the debt. He takes the consequence of our sin. If you're not a Christian this morning. This is the good news of Jesus Christ and the good news first begins with a very difficult truth. Are you a sinner? Have you committed the sins that we just talked about lying, lust, anger? Have you committed sins? And then you have to think, how does God view the sins? A righteous, holy, and just God, He must punish sin. And He'll either punish them on us, or He's punished them on Christ. He is the only way. That is what I would love to talk to you about after the service. Finally, let's look to the commitment versus 36 through 40 versus 36 through 40. 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? Now, there's a lot of assumed knowledge, or there's a lot being assumed here, because it's assumed that as he's heard the gospel, he's believed. And he also knows that one is baptized in response to believing. So we first can ask, what does this eunuch mean when he asks, what prevents me from being baptized? Well, we have to remember, he was just in Jerusalem. He had a lot of walls put up in Jerusalem. He was prevented from worship in Jerusalem. He had to stay on the outside. He could not bring an offering into the holy place. He was prevented in the old covenant. In the new covenant, there is no prevention. Our sin is the only prevention. So here he's welcome to come straight into the worship, to go straight into the rejoicing. There are no barriers. The gospel transcends all prejudice. The gospel is for every kind of sinner. The gospel is for the weak, the broken, the empty. The beautiful thing, the spotless lamb, he goes in the Holy of Holies to open up that way for us who have spots. This man without any blemish, with this man that was considered blemished, is now white as snow because he believed in Christ. So nothing prevents him. Also, from Isaiah, we see a fulfillment. Isaiah 56 verses 3 through 8. Notice here it speaks of the foreigner, the Gentile, and the eunuch. Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, the Lord will surely separate me from his people. And let not the eunuch say, behold, I'm a dry tree. For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths. who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. The eunuch, the Gentile, they've received the name of Christ. They received the name that brings them into the walls, into the family. The man was a wretched, weary sinner, and now he's come to worship. Now, something needs to be explained for many who may have a different translation than the ESV. Or if you're reading the ESV, you may have noticed verse 37 is missing. Everybody look down. You want to look at this. Verse 37 is missing from the ESV and the verse that's missing is this. Then Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Now, why is this verse missing? Does this mean that there's so many errors in the Bible that we can't trust it? Absolutely not. It actually encourages us how reliable scripture is. We can tell by the different ways that transcripts have been transcribed throughout the history that we can see when this was added and we can see it's not in the earliest text. So we can see that it was an early text. We know that we have a confident, authoritative text. More so, we can appreciate the scribe who chose to put this in here. It doesn't belong, it's not inspired, but I appreciate why the scribe wanted to put it in here. What's missing from the Acts 8 passage? Faith. The man has not professed faith. And so I believe a scribe recognizing this, he wanted to make sure that it's clear you're saved by believing in Jesus Christ. More so, it's actually beautiful. We know from other sources that this text is a baptismal confession. It makes sense why he would want to include it in here. It's a baptismal confession. As you will hear the question asked from me, if you believe with all your heart, you may be baptized. Do you believe in Jesus Christ with all your heart? And the baptismal candidate would say, I believe that Jesus is son of God. It's a baptismal creed, so it fits here so beautifully. It isn't inspired scripture, but we can appreciate why it's here because it emphasizes faith. Finally, he's baptized. He goes on his way rejoicing. He's believed what Christ has done, he's believed that his sins have been put on another one. He's believed that he is now dead to the judgment. He is now alive in Christ. And we see the picture of baptism so beautifully, it declares, I am no longer guilty of the sins I committed because Jesus died for them. As if as you're being buried in the water, it declares, I'm no longer guilty because Jesus died for those sins. It baptism declares, I am no longer living for sin because I've died to that old master. Baptism declares, I am now alive in Christ because I get to participate in his resurrection. Friends, what we're looking at this morning as we see the symbol of baptism, the ordinance, we're seeing what Christ has already done in Peter. He's already done in Dal. He did it in Christ. When Christ died, he died to wash away all their sins. When they believed in Christ, they are now counted innocent when they were once guilty. They're now counted as children of God, whereas they were once strangers now counted as alive. When they were once dead. We get to celebrate that the picture of baptism, we get to celebrate that we'll hear in the testimonies. If you're not a Christian this morning. You've heard the gospel in song, you've heard the gospel read from Isaiah, you've heard the gospel proclaimed by me, you'll hear the gospel from Pastor Russell, you hear the gospel from Dow and Peter. You're going to continue to hear the gospel because that's what we believe you must believe to be forgiven. That is what God desires for you to hear and to believe. And so as we sing the song, Come Ye Sinners, ask yourself, does that describe me? Am I a sinner? And then what is God going to do with my sin when I die? Or you can ask yourself, am I a sinner? What has God done with my son in Christ? Will you pray with me? Father, I'm thankful that your gospel is a power of salvation. We thank you that you are gracious. You've been gracious to allow us to have your word, to hear it, to know it. Lord, may your grace abound. May your grace abound as we sing and as we continue to hear. May your grace abound to cover our abundant sinfulness. We praise you for the gospel that forgives sinners. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.