October Baptism Party
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here with Mill City Church. Welcome to our baptism gathering. Welcome to a gathering with lots of our families in the room. Today is going to look a little bit different.
We're not going to be in Genesis this morning. We're taking a break. For this week, we're going to be in Galatians 3. So you have a blue Bible around you. It's on page 566. I encourage you to turn there as we will read through it.
So today's a little bit different. We've got all our families in the room. So this is going to be a little bit shorter for the sake of the attention spans that we have in the room. And today's exciting. It's Baptism Sunday. It's one of the most exciting Sundays we get to celebrate.
We celebrate that Jesus has changed four lives that we get to celebrate in baptism. In sports, one of the more exciting things you get to see, especially if you're a hopeless fan like me, if you love the Gamecocks or the Colts, you're always looking forward to new players. That's an exciting time. Whether it's in college, you're looking forward to signing day when players are going to declare, this is the school I'm going to go to. Whether it's in professional sports where there's a draft when a player is going to get chosen and they're going to put on a jersey or a hat, when that moment happens, everyone's excited.
Fans, players, families, coaches, because someone has been added to the team. And this moment that we get to celebrate today blows that out the water. What we get to celebrate as a church family that Jesus has changed four lives is so much more exciting because of the eternal implications of what are happening here today. So we're going to work through Galatians 3 as a church family together. And as we work through verses 22 through 29, we're going to see three different pictures. We're going to see a picture of who all of us were coming into this world as captives.
That we are all captives before faith in Jesus. And then we're going to see how faith brings us into freedom. That we have freedom because of what Christ has done for us and that that freedom was purchased and brings us into a family. The third picture we'll see today. That we belong to a church family. And as we work through these three things, we're going to see that baptism gives me a picture of how faith brings us from captivity into freedom and into a family.
So I'm going to read through this. We'll pray. And then we'll dive in. Verse 22. But the scripture imprison everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek.
There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. I'll pray and then we'll jump in. God, thank you so much for your word.
God, I pray that you would make the gospel so clear and evident as we walk through this. As we celebrate what you have done. In Jesus' name, amen. Alright, so the first part of this passage, we're going to see how we all come into this world as captives. This is in verse 22. But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin.
So the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law. Imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came. In order that we might be justified by faith. That is the reality for all of us.
That is the picture of all of us before we encounter Christ. That we are imprisoned. We are captive by sin. And chasing sin is actually an ironic picture in comparison to how culture looks at this. Because culture looks at us as Christians and says, No, you guys aren't free. Y'all are the ones that are in prison.
Your faith has imprisoned you. Everyone else gets to be free to do whatever they want. The classic caricature of this shows up all over the place. But specifically you see it in the Simpsons. Over the last two decades of that show being on, Who's the classic Christian next door neighbor? Ned Flanders.
And for over two decades, he has been the stereotype of what Christians are. He's not fun. He's kind of boring. He can be kind of awkward. And his kids get to see that. And they look over and over again at the next door neighbor, the Simpsons.
They look at Homer Simpson and Bart Simpson. And all the fun and all the things they get to do. But they have to go inside and read their Bible and pray. And it's best captured, I think, in the full feature movie they did. Towards the end of the movie, the kids look at the Simpson kids and their father. And they say, I wish Homer was our dad.
And Ned Flanders says, well, I wish he didn't have the devil's curly hair. That's the caricature that gets put on us. That we're the ones that are in prison. That everyone else is free. But that is a false picture.
Because it's not actually freedom. The pursuing sin, pursuing the things of this world, isn't freedom. It actually reveals that you're not free. It actually reveals that you are a slave. That you are captive to your desires. That your desires, your sinful flesh, your pursuit of the world, that drives the train.
And that your free choices to pursue that further shows that, no, you're just a slave. Let me just give you one quick picture of what this looks like. There are millions of Americans that have lots of credit card debt. Because in our culture, the economy is really built on buying things and pursuing things. How many of us, I mean, to keep up with the Joneses, like if you want the newest and nicest phone, you've got to drop like $1,000 every year to keep up. On top of all the other data plans that you might spend on.
I mean, Americans shop regularly. How many of us have credit card bills that are loaded with shopping? Beauty is pushed in our culture. So hundreds of dollars every month in some budgets are spent on beauty. There is always the pursuit of newer and nicer vehicles where the prices go up and up and up. There's always a pursuit of toys, of things, of guns that we keep adding and adding and adding.
And many of us are swimming in this. And what it reveals is that you are actually a slave to materialism. That you actually worship comfort. And that out of that, your free choices to spend your money the way that you like it actually reveals, no, something else is driving the train. You weren't free at all. And you can pretty much do that with every other sin set there is.
Because it boils down to idolatry. Worship things in the place of God. And that is what drives the train. You are not actually free. Because worldly freedom is not freedom. And it's actually further imprisonment.
And the law reveals this. That's what this passage says. The law reveals this. The law is talking about the Old Testament law, which is the first five books of the Old Testament. But it gets expanded in the New Testament to mean all of the Bible.
That the Bible stands guard. And what it reveals is, is that these, you will never live up to what God has called you to. And also it reveals that you are a slave. That you are not actually free. And it stands guard and it reminds us of this. And if that was just it, if that was the whole of the news, then we wouldn't have this baptism water soon.
We wouldn't be celebrating this day. But, verse 25, But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you were, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. What we see here is that baptism begins to be a picture of how faith takes captives and sets them free. That's the exchange that happens.
It's faith. Our faith differentiates us, it separates us from every other belief system, every other value system in the world. You can look at Buddhism. In Buddhism, and I know there's different, there's Therafada Buddhism, there's Mahayana Buddhism, I get this, but the whole gist of Buddhism is that there's an exchange that happens. You bring self-denial to the table in exchange for the final state, which is nirvana. In Islam, you exchange submission to Allah, you exchange that, that's the currency, and then you get paradise.
We see this in the American dream, a value system that we're all so familiar with, that you put in your work, you put in your blood, sweat, tears, identity, and then you get to level up. We used to say you used to get the house with a white picket fence, but I don't really see houses with white picket fence as much anymore. But it is, I want all the shiplap, I want all the luxury vinyl plate floors, I want all the quartz, the granite, the works. I want the cars, I want to level up in all of that. And I exchange all of that to get into that. Another value system you see that's been prevalent over the last couple decades is kind of the find yourself movement.
I mean, basically the last couple decades has been different forms of expression. You exchange expression for acceptance. You exchange identity for acceptance. That there are different tribes in our culture that will accept you, and you give yourself, you give a piece of yourself and express yourself and your identity in this and you will be accepted. You can do this with every value system, with every different religion. There's always going to be some type of exchange that you give of yourself, and the gospel cuts through all of that and says the opposite.
It says, some will say that you bring nothing to the table and Jesus takes care of the rest, and that's not even completely accurate. Because you don't just bring nothing to the table in our faith. No, you bring sin debt. You bring an accumulation of sin that stands against you with its legal demands. So we bring that to the table, and Jesus makes an exchange.
I want you to picture with me for a moment. Picture with me for a moment if you are in prison serving a life sentence. You've been serving this life sentence in prison for years. This is pretty much all that you know. And that every day is the same. You wake up, you leave your cell, you go eat breakfast, and you go, and maybe you go to the yard to do some, to work out, to play basketball, and then you go to a prison Job.
Or you work the job, go eat lunch, continue finishing the job, maybe you get done, have some more time for reg, then you eat a meal, then you go back to your cell, and then you wake up and do the same thing over and over and over again. Sounds like more than prison, sounds like reality for some of us. And you keep doing this over and over again, and then finally, someone comes and visits you. They sit across the table, and they say, this isn't actually freedom. This reality that you have isn't free at all. So here's the exchange.
You can walk out of here today. You can leave the barbed wire, you can leave the fences, you can leave the cell, you can walk out of here today. You just have to trust my word. Trust me, and you walk out, and I will take your place. I will take the sentence that you deserve, and you get to walk out. It's that easy.
That seems like a no-brainer. That seems like, absolutely, that's what we should do, but there is a chorus of lies that comes from everyone else in the prison that says, no, don't do that. No, that is a backwards system. That's archaic. That is, his followers are crazy. Don't do it.
And it's easy to get caught up in the chorus of lies. But that's all it takes in Christ, is to simply trust what he has already done. That in Christ, he went to the cross, he took death for us, so that we might not have to be slaves to sin, we might have to be, we might not be captives anymore, that we might be free. And all it takes is simply trusting in his life, his death, his resurrection, and he stands for us, that we take off the orange jumpsuits, and he gives us robes of righteousness, that all of his work will stand for us. And that's as simply as it gets in faith, that faith brings us from captivity into freedom.
And that's what we're going to get to celebrate today with these four stories that step into these waters, that they were once captive in sin, but through believing in his life, death, and resurrection, he made them free. As it says in verse 27, for as many of you were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ, that from this point forward, after placing their faith in Jesus, that Jesus' perfect record stands for them. That they get a point to that. They can't be accused anymore. All of their sin paid for at the cross. And that lastly, that they were purchased and brought into a family.
That's what we see in this last part. It says, verse 28, There's neither Jew nor Greek. There's neither slave nor free. There's no male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring.
Heirs according to the promise. This is what baptism gets to be a picture of. How faith brings us out of captivity, into freedom, and into a family. I've had some friends over the years that have adopted children. My wife and I actually currently were praying through this as adoption. It might be an option for us in the future.
There's one specific family I remember. This guy that I looked up to a lot. He has four kids. All four of his kids are adopted. And all of his kids come from different backgrounds. They're from different parts of the country.
They're different ethnicities. They have different stories. And some of these kids, they bounced around from foster home to foster home, from family to family. When you are a kid, the common questions you might have when you go through something like this is do I belong? Do I matter? Does anybody actually want me?
And these kids would land up on his doorstep and he would make it very clear. They'd make two things very clear. He'd say, listen, this is your forever family. This is the last stop. You belong. You matter.
You are here. This is your forever family. You are forever a part of this. And the second thing he would make clear is that you are a Jones. That's their last name. He'd say, you're a Jones now.
That's the most important thing you need to hear. You are a part of this family. And you are a Jones with everything that comes with that. And man, what a beautiful picture that we get in the gospel. That we are adopted into a family. We're adopted into a forever family that is so diverse with different people, different stories, different backgrounds.
That's what this passage is highlighting with some of these differences. It says, he intentionally pairs up different categories. He says, Jews, Greeks, which are different backgrounds, different stories, different cultures, but also what he's highlighting here, as we've talked about in Genesis, as we've been walking through the story of Abraham, is that the Jews ethnically thought that they were heirs to the original promise, but what happens in the New Testament in passages like this is that that gets blown up. It's not by ethnicity, it's by faith. You are heirs to the promise by faith. Jews and Greeks are different.
He says, slave, free, male, female, all different backgrounds. And that's true for us. You have black, white, rich, poor, male, female. The local church, the global church, we're all different in our backgrounds, different in our stories, but the New Testament makes it so clear. The most important thing about you when you have trusted in Jesus as your only hope is that your chief identity is Christ. Your whole, the whole of who you are is Jesus and that you are part of a forever family where God has sealed you with his blood.
And that's what we get to celebrate in these baptism waters as each steps in the water. What's going to happen afterwards is there's going to be a celebration. There's going to be people who celebrate and that's your church family as we celebrate what Jesus has done. So as we get ready for baptism, here's a couple things you're going to hear and here's a few things you're going to see. You're going to hear some stories. There's going to be some videos and it's going to tell the stories about each of these four individuals of who they were and now who they are in Christ.
And then, as a church family, we're going to celebrate which is a reminder that you've been adopted into a family. A family of different people with different stories as we celebrate the gospel together. And then, as the band comes up, I just have two closing thoughts. Church family, this is exciting. This is a fun moment that we get to celebrate together. Let's do what we do.
Let's go crazy. Let's celebrate that Jesus took people who were dead in sin and made them alive in Christ. That what happens here in these waters is that they're going to be, they're going to declare that Jesus is their Savior. They're going to be dumped under water which is symbolized that they were dead in sin. That they were once captive. And when they come out of the waters, they are free.
They are alive. It is a picture of the hope that they have trusted in. So, church family, let's celebrate. Let's be glad. if you, if there's anyone in here that has not trusted in Jesus as your only hope, if you are not a Christian, this is our hope for you today. That you would hear this word, that you would see these stories and you would see this is better. That you are actually in prison.
You have not experienced freedom and the hope of the gospel is that you can experience freedom in Christ and all it takes is faith. Faith will bring you out of captivity. It will bring you into freedom. And the hope of the gospel is that you will join our family as we celebrate what Jesus has done, as we get to celebrate together today in baptism. Let me pray. God, I am thankful so much for your word.
I am thankful so much for this holy symbol that we get to practice today. God, I pray that if there's anyone here who's not trusted in you as their only hope, they'd stop running. they'd see your freedom is better and they would surrender to you. God, I'm so thankful for how you work. Let's let this be a joyous celebration in Jesus' name. Amen.