Hope Church LV Sermons
Baptism Celebration
- Hi, I'm Rob Peterson, and I was Hope's first baptism back in 2001. - Hi, my name is Alicia Plannigan, and I gave my life to Jesus in 2002. - My name is Brittany Masterson, and in 2003, I was baptized at Hope. - I'm Kristi Semler, and I made my faith public at Hope in 2004. - My name is Luba Bawa, and in 2005, I was baptized at Hope. - My name is Patrick Samberg, and in 2006, I started following Christ. - I'm Ryan Pulliam, and in 2007, Jesus changed my life. - My name is Jerry, and in 2008, I had the joy of proclaiming that my life belongs to Jesus. - My name is David Immersion, and in 2009, I made my faith public at Hope Baptist Church. - We are the Amzons, and in 2010, we are saved and baptized at Hope. - Hi, I'm Zach King, and in 2011, I gave my life to Jesus Christ. - My name is Chaddis Feathers, and in 2012, I became a Jesus follower. - My name is Sierra. This year, I became a Christian, and today, I'm getting baptized. - At Hope, our mission is to connect people to live the life of a Jesus follower. - Following Jesus is more than just a simple decision that you make. - The way we say it at Hope is like this. We say that being a Jesus follower is all about relationships. - You say, what do you mean when you say that following Jesus is all about relationships? - Well, when we first became a church family over 11 years ago now, when we started as a fellowship, we took a year, and we studied through the Gospels, and we examined the life of Christ, and here's what we discovered. You can take every story in the Gospels, and you can drop it into one of three file folders. Every story in the Gospel revolves around one of three situations or relationships. First of all, as you read the Gospels, you understand about Jesus and His relationship with the Father. Everything that Jesus did, He did out of the overflow of intimacy with the Father. But then secondly, Jesus and His relationship with the disciples, those that were following Him. Jesus lived His life out of the overflow of intimacy with the Father, but He also lived His life in fellowship with His disciples. But then thirdly, Jesus and His relationship to unbelievers, think of all the stories in the Gospels that fall into one of those three categories, either Jesus and His relationship to the Father, John 17, being along with the Father in the wilderness in Luke chapter 4, or Jesus and His relationship with the disciples as they were praying in the garden, or as he was in a boat with them and the seas were being tossed and the waves were crashing and he calmed the storm or Jesus with his disciples as they fed the 5,000, or Jesus and His relationship with unbelievers, Zacchaeus, Nicodemus, the woman at the well, all of these stories in the Gospels that summarize the life of Jesus. And here's what we understand about Christianity. Christianity is not me trying to live for Jesus. Christianity is literally Christ living His life in and through me. And when Jesus was on the earth, let me tell you what His life looked like, an intimate love relationship with the Father that spilled into His relationship with His disciples and overflowed into relationships with people that didn't know God at all. So if His life today is now being lived in my life, guess what my life looks like as a follower of Jesus, a relationship with God. That's first and foremost. Everything is built on that. Being a follower of Jesus is through the person of Christ having an intimate love relationship with God. But it's not just about a relationship with God. Because of my relationship with God, I now have a relationship with you as my brothers and sisters in Christ. We are the family of God. But also it's about a relationship with unbelievers. As I live my life, I live my life on mission with God to make Christ known to people that have never known him before. Now we use three words in hope to kind of summarize all of this. Here are the three words I want to give them to you today. Some of you know them because you've heard us say them so many times. The first word is abide. The word abide talks about our intimate fellowship relationship with God. It's daily and personal. Second word is the word connect. We're to connect with other believers in small groups and in large groups. And then third word is the word share. I'm to share in the mission of Jesus both locally and globally. What is that? A bide connect share. Let me tell you what that is. It's the life of Christ being fleshed out in our lives as we live out of the overfill of an intimate love relationship with God. When we say that we exist to connect people to live the life of a Jesus follower, that paradigm is exactly what we're talking about. People who are living their lives in an intimate love relationship with Jesus and out of that living in fellowship with other believers and through that engaging unbelievers with the gospel to introduce them to the person and work of Christ. And today is one day every year, the Sunday after Easter, that we set aside to really celebrate what it is to follow Jesus. Once a year, we do this several times throughout the year, but in this weekend in particular, we really throw a party. So if you've come to hope today for the very first time, you've come on a really good first Sunday because this is party Sunday, amen? Hey, this is party Sunday. Once a year, we celebrate life change in a big way. So I'm gonna be finished here in just a few minutes and we're gonna dismiss and we got free food, we got hot dog. I don't know what he's being cooked out there. I don't have a clue with. I'm assuming hotdogs and hamburgers, but we make it out there may be something else. It may be filet mignon and lobster. I don't know what we're having today. But we're gonna throw a party to celebrate life change in our fellowship because we get excited when people become followers of Jesus Christ. Amen? Now, how are we gonna do that? We're gonna do that through something Jesus gave us called baptism. You say, well, if following Jesus is all about relationships with God, with one another, with the world, what in the world does baptism have to do with that? Let me tell you what baptism has to do with that. Baptism is a public celebration testifying proclaiming that I am a Jesus follower. That's what baptism is. It's a public celebration that's a testimony that I am a follower of Jesus. We're gonna be baptizing people all day long in our services. Some of them came today prepared to be baptized. You heard the young lady in the video. She's gonna be baptized today. Some of you didn't know you were gonna get baptized today, but guess what? You are. You said, what are you talking about? Hang on, I'll explain it. I want to show it to you in the Bible. Turn in your Bible if you have it with you this morning to Acts chapter 2. Turn over to Acts chapter 2, and I want to read verses 41, and then I want to skip down and read verses 47. And then I want to draw some truths out of these verses to help us understand why we celebrate this thing called baptism. Verse 41, then verse 47. If you don't have your Bible, we get it up on the screen for you so you can follow along. It says, so then those who had received his word were baptized. And that day there were added about 3,000 souls. Now skip down to verse 47. This is praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. Baptism is a public celebration testifying that I'm a Jesus follower. So what I want to do is I want to break that down for you with three very simple statements so that we understand what baptism is and why it is so significant. We've done, in the evangelical church in America, somewhat of a disservice to baptism in our emphasis in the gospel and the reality that it's only Jesus that saves. And listen, that is the truth. We so de-emphasize baptism that we almost made it seem like baptism is not really important at all. But the new Testament gives us something very different than that. Baptism is very important. Baptism doesn't save us. Baptism doesn't make us any more right with God. But baptism is very important and I want you to understand why. Here's the first reason. Baptism publicly declares my relationship with Jesus. Remember how I said following Jesus is about three relationships? First of all, it's about a relationship with Jesus. Second, it's about a relationship with brothers and sisters in Christ. And third, it's about a relationship with the world. Well, baptism first and foremost publicly celebrates it publicly declares my relationship with Jesus. Look back at verse 41. It says, "So then those who had received his word were baptized." Let me give you the context. In Acts chapter 2, Jesus empowered the church by the Holy Spirit to begin to proclaim the gospel. And if we read all of Acts chapter 2 up to verse 41, here's what happened. Simon Peter stood up on what was called the day of Pentecost and Simon Peter boldly preached the gospel. He expounded the truth of Jesus' death, birth, and resurrection. He did it from the Old Testament. He shared out of the life of Christ that he followed for three and a half years. And after Simon Peter preached the gospel, the Bible says that many were pierced to the heart and they said, what must we do to be saved? And they gave their lives to Christ. And then we pick up in verse 41 that there were that day those who had received his word were baptized. And then it says there were about 3,000 of them. 3,000 people responded to Simon Peter's message of the gospel, surrendered their lives to Christ. And the Bible says, those, this is important, who had received his word were baptized. The word received is a word that means to embrace or to take fully. And did you hear the way he said it? It was past tense. Those who had received his word, those who had embraced the gospel. Those who had fully received everything that Christ had given them. The Bible says those who had received his word were baptized. Why is that important? These people were not being baptized to begin a relationship with Jesus. These people were being baptized because they had a relationship with Jesus. And baptism was the platform by which they were publicly telling everybody else, hey, let me tell you what I've done. I've received the gospel of Jesus Christ. And as a public testimony, now I'm being baptized. The greatest illustration that I've ever heard in talking about baptism is the illustration of the wedding ring. When you see this on my finger, on my left wedding finger, what does it tell you about me that I'm what? I'm married, right? It's a wedding ring. Now, I can take this wedding ring off and I can lay it right there. Now, am I now single? No. I'm still married. Why? Because this is a what? It's a symbol, right? It's a symbol. A single person can take this wedding ring and put it on a single person. Does that make that single person married? No. Because this is just a what? It's a symbol. But it's an important symbol, right? Because when I put it on my finger as a married person, here's what I'm doing. I'm giving a testimony. You see, this ring gives a public testimony about a love relationship that exists in my life. This ring says something about a relationship that is current and existing in my life today. This ring makes a public statement. That's exactly what baptism is. You can be a Christian and not be baptized. You can get baptized until you're as wrinkled as a California raisin, right? And still not be a Christian. Why? Because baptism doesn't save you. But let me tell you what baptism is. It is a public testimony like a ring of a relationship that exists in my life that is current and active and today what's going to happen for a lot of people. Let me tell you what's going to happen. They're going to put their wedding ring on and they're going to say, I have a relationship with Jesus and I'm not ashamed of it. Some people say, well, you know my relationship with Jesus, it's just private. It's just between me and him. And so I don't choose to be baptized. Let me kind of help you see what that's like. Alright, let's just say I go home this afternoon. My wife's sitting right over here and I say, hey Christy, I kind of like to keep our relationship just between us. So I'm going to take this wedding ring and I'm going to put it in my nightstand drawer. And that's just going to kind of be personal. That doesn't even make sense, right? Jesus saved you. Jesus changed you. Jesus has given you life. And you didn't just make a decision so you can go to heaven when you die. You've entered into a personal vibrant love relationship with God. And every person who's done that needs to publicly give a testimony through baptism that I've given my life to Jesus and I'm not ashamed of that. When you study the New Testament, there's a lot of different teaching. I understand in different churches about the issue of baptism. But when you study the New Testament, and as a pastoral team, we took an entire year and we just spent time reading and researching and studying this issue of baptism because so many people in our fellowship come out of different denominational backgrounds. And there's a lot of things that we can kind of disagree on when it comes to the issue of baptism, but there's two things that are absolute certainties. When you do an honest approach study of the New Testament on the subject of baptism, here's the two certainties. Number one, the only baptism that's found after the death, bail and resurrection of Jesus in the New Testament with the birth of the church. The only baptism that's found is a baptism of believers. People who have already come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, giving a public testimony that they followed Jesus Christ. It's the only baptism found after the death, bail and resurrection of Jesus in the New Testament. The second thing we know for sure the New Testament knows nothing of believers not being baptized. One of the most frustrating things for me here in Las Vegas, and really in ministry now for 24 years, is seeing people that will say, "I've given my life to Jesus Christ." And then they just don't get baptized. And again, I think it's where we've done a great disservice in the church by emphasizing or de-emphasizing the role of baptism. Listen, baptism does not save you. Baptism does not make you right with God, but baptism is extremely important. Jesus commanded us to follow him in baptism after salvation to give that testimony. And when you study the New Testament, one of the reasons there's some theological confusion about the significance of baptism is because for many people the minute they got saved they immediately got baptized. Here in Acts chapter 2, 3,000 people got saved and then they baptized them. As you read on through in Acts chapter 8, an Ethiopian unit comes to Christ out on a desert road and as soon as they came upon water, there Philip baptized him. In Acts chapter 10, Cornelius and his whole household, the Bible said, gave their lives to Christ and immediately right there they baptized him. In Acts chapter 16, a woman named Lydia down by the river gives her life to Christ and Paul immediately baptizes her and because of what's happening in her life, Paul and Silas get put in jail and at midnight that the jail has an earthquake and the doors swing open and Paul and Silas lead the Philippian jailer to Christ and they go and share the gospel and his whole household is saved and right there in the middle of the night they baptized him because baptism is a public celebration testifying that I've given my life to Jesus. Let me give you the second reason why baptism is so important. Baptism also publicly identifies me with the family of Jesus. Remember how I said that following Jesus is about a relationship with God? But it's also about a relationship with God's family? Well you see baptism not only declares about my relationship with Jesus but let me tell you what also baptism does. Baptism identifies me with the family of Jesus. Let me show it to you. Back in verse 41 it says and that day there were added about 3,000 souls. First it says those who'd received his word were baptized and then it says and that day there were added about 3,000 souls. Now that begs the question added to what? The word added is a word that literally means to join together with. The Bible says these people embraced the gospel and then they were baptized and that added them to something. Now let me tell you what it didn't add them to. It didn't add them to the spiritual family, God's family. As soon as you're born again in the relationship with God you become a part of the spiritual family of God. But let me tell you what it did add them to. It added them to the visible expression of the spiritual family of God which is the local church. You see up until this point the Bible tells us that there were about 120 followers of Jesus there in Jerusalem. They were meeting together. They were fellowshipping together. They were studying the word together. But after verse 1, there were 3,120 of them. They were added to the visible community of Jesus there in Jerusalem. And it's a powerful statement that's being made. You see when these people were baptized in Jerusalem they were not only saying we're now followers of Jesus. They were publicly saying we're a part of this community called the family of God. And this is still a big deal. Because here's what's going to happen today. After this service we're going to go outside we're going to eat some food and we're going to baptize some folks. When we baptize those people, you know what those people are saying? Those people when they're being baptized they're saying I've given my life to Jesus. I am a follower of Jesus Christ. But let me tell you what else they're saying. They are saying I'm one of them. I belong to the family of God. But Church let me tell you what else is being said there. We're saying something. You see for every one of these people it's going to be baptized today. We're sitting down with them. We're talking with them about their relationship with God to make sure they know what it is to have a personal relationship with God. When they get baptized let me tell you what we're saying is a family of faith. We're saying we're not one of us. Here's what we're saying to them. You're not alone anymore. You're not by yourself. You're a part of the family of God. And this is a really big deal when you get in certain parts of the world like Southeast Asia or the Middle East. You know when persecution begins and places in the world where the gospel faces hostility. You know where persecution begins as soon as somebody gets baptized. Oh they can pray prayers. They can read their Bible. But as soon as they're baptized that's when the persecution begins. Let me tell you why. Because that's when a significant statement is being made publicly about not only belonging to Jesus but an identity change that now I belong to the family of God. I'm a part of God's Church. Third statement being made of baptism why it's so important. Baptism publicly introduces Jesus to those who don't know it. Baptism publicly introduces Jesus to those who don't know him. Remember I said following Jesus is about a relationship with God. Baptism is a public celebration testifying that I'm a Jesus following. Following Jesus is also about a relationship with God's family. Baptism is a public identification with the family I belong to them they belong to me. The third following Jesus is about a relationship with people that don't know God. How does baptism celebrate that? Baptism introduces people that don't know Jesus to Jesus. Look at verse 47 in the text that I read for you. The Bible says praising God and having favor with all the people and the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. On that first day 3,000 of them came to know Christ as Lord and Savior. They were publicly baptized. You say how in the world did that happen? You ever thought about just the math of that? You don't just baptize 3,000 people in a minute right? I mean that takes a little bit of time. Historians and scholars like A.T. Robertson and others who are great Greek scholars tell us that probably what happened is after all these people gave their lives to Christ the disciples divided up that 120 and they, 120 people started going to different areas. There were little pools and waddies all over the city of Jerusalem and this 3,000 broke up into groups of 25 and 50 and 100 and they went all over the city of Jerusalem and they just began back. Can you imagine can you imagine if all over the city of Las Vegas there were just thousands of people being baptized in pools and in homes and in neighborhoods and in community centers at the YMCA. All at the same time just thousands and thousands of people. That's what happened in the city of Jerusalem. And in the city of Jerusalem it wasn't like our cities today where everybody's driving around in cars. Everybody was walking everywhere they went. So what's going on? It's a public spectacle and everybody's taking notice and like what in the world's happening here and it's one by one people begin to ask that question. They begin to tell their story of how they give their life to Christ. They begin to share the gospel. And here's what the Bible says others begin to be saved. They begin to come to Christ and day by day by day they begin to lead their friends and their co-workers and their family members and their classmates to Christ and they just kept seeing them baptized and this thing began to spiral and inside of six months historians and scholars tell us that a hundred thousand people in Jerusalem had given their lives to Christ and followed them publicly in baptism. You imagine what would happen if in the next six months we saw a hundred thousand people in the city of Las Vegas born again into a relationship with God baptized, identified with local churches all over the valley and serving Jesus and following Him faithfully. Word that all started started in baptism. You see baptism is a picture of the gospel. Let me show it to you Romans chapter six verse four. Look at it on the screen. Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father so we too might walk in newness of life. Baptism is an illustration of the gospel. When we baptize somebody what do we do? We take Him down into the water. Why do we do that? As a symbol that when Christ died we died with Him. His death is our death. When Christ died He died in my place. All of my sin all of my unrighteousness all of my ungodliness died with Christ. We take them down into the water as a symbol that in Christ I died but we don't leave them underwater. Amen? We bring them up, right? Why do we bring them up out of the water? As another picture when they come up out of the water it's a picture that in Christ we've been raised to walk in newness of life who I was died with Christ. All of my sin all of my condemnation died with Christ but when I'm raised out of the water I'm raised to walk. It's a picture of the new life that I now have not me anymore but Christ in me, His life in it. Now listen that didn't happen in the water. It happened in the moment of salvation but the water is a picture and God gave us the water so that every new Christian the first thing that a new Christian gets to do is preach the gospel buried with Christ. I've been forgiven but then raised to walk in newness of life. Now that's why today we're going to celebrate baptism and this morning as I bring this time to a close there really a couple of major questions I want you to think about today and here's the first one. Are you a Jesus follower? You see what we're about to do in baptism is important but it doesn't mean anything if you're not a follower of Jesus. It's like wearing a wedding ring and being single. It doesn't have any significance. Are you a follower of Jesus Christ? If today you'd say pastor I'm not a follower of Jesus Christ the greatest thing that could happen in your life today is that you'd turn away from your sin and embrace the gospel and be born again in a relationship with God. You see being a follower of Jesus doesn't mean I go to church that means I try to be a good person now that's not what I'm asking. Are you Jesus follower? What's that? Somebody who has a vibrant personal love relationship with God that then spills into relationship with other believers and spills out of their life into relationships with people that don't know God. That's what it is to be a Jesus follower Do you have a love relationship with God? If you don't know Jesus Christ in just a moment we're going to stand and sing a song of worship and we're going to have a couple of our pastors here at the front. If you've never given your life to Jesus when we stand to sing here's what I want you to do. I want you to slip out of your seat come to one of these pastors and say I need Jesus and we'll have somebody show you how you can be born again into relationship with God. But the second question I want you to think about today is this Have you ever been baptized as a public celebration testifying that you're Jesus follower? Have you ever been baptized? Don't stop the question there. Have you ever been baptized since beginning a relationship with God as a testimony of your love relationship with Jesus? I'm not asking if you've got baptizers little kid I'm asking since you began a love relationship with Jesus Have you ever been baptized? Have you ever put on your wedding ring? Now there are two groups of people here today that need to respond to that question Some of you are here today and you've been saved in the last few weeks here at Hope. Just in the last few weeks here at Hope we've had 100-150 people that have indicated a first time relationship with Jesus just since we've been in the building last March since over the last year we've had I think somewhere between three and four hundred people that have indicated a first time relationship to Jesus probably more than that by now with counting Easter Some of you have been saved in the last few weeks or months you've given your life to Jesus Christ and today you need to be baptized You say well pastor I didn't come prepared to do that Listen don't worry about that. We took care of that for you You say I didn't bring clothes. We went to Walmart We have shorts and shirts in all sizes They even went to, I don't even know what you've got, Bath and bodies, that's the way he said Bath and body works, is that what he's got? Bath and body, they went to Bath and body They got hair products, they got gel, they've got deodorant They've got everything you could possibly need today If you're here today and you're a follower of Jesus Christ and you've never been baptized Today we want you to respond When we stand in just a moment to sing I don't want you to slip out of your seat and come this way When we stand to sing I want you to slip out of your seat and go that way We have people that are going to be out in the lobby ready to meet with you And they're going to ask you a couple of questions about your relationship with God And if you're here today and you've been saved but you've never been baptized We encourage you when we start to sing you need to go that way There's a second group, not only those that have been saved in the last few weeks Some of you have my testimony I was raised in a Christian home at eight years old I could answer the questions and I was baptized when I was eight years old But it wasn't until I was a freshman in college that I began a personal relationship with God When I was a freshman in college I was born again in a relationship with God And God began to change my life I surrendered to ministry I started pastoring and about four years in the ministry I was pastoring I was a student pastor at a church in Alabama A church that ran about twelve, fourteen hundred people had about three hundred students in our youth group And I kept wrestling with my salvation I kept wrestling with assurance of my salvation And here's why because I kept trying to go back and say well I You know I was baptized when I was eight But it wasn't until I was a freshman in college that I began a personal relationship with God And here's what I realized Baptism before salvation isn't baptism, it's a cheap bath Genuine New Testament baptism happens after salvation And God convicted me as a pastor in that church that I'd never followed him since being saved and been baptized And I went before our church and I shared that story that I just shared with you And about forty or fifty other people in our fellowship that day Said God had spoken the same thing to them and we all that evening That Sunday evening in our church all of us followed Christ together and baptism As a pastor I went first And then got to baptize a lot of other people that had had the same testimony I had They had something when they were a child but they didn't come to know Jesus till later in life There's some of you with that testimony, you were religious, you were moral, you're a good person But since you've come to hope or in recent years God's changed your life You've begun a personal love relationship with God And it's time for you to get baptism in order Time for you to follow Christ publicly in baptism If you're here today And you have come to know Jesus And since beginning a love relationship with Jesus You have not been baptized today We want to see you take a step of obedience and put on your wedding ring So here's what's about to happen, I'm going to ask our worship team to come Just a minute, I'm going to pray And here's what's going to happen, I want to make it real plain real simple We're going to stand, we're going to sing If you're here today and you want to be saved Or you want a pastor to pray with you about something in your life You come here to the front, we're going to have some pastors We'd be honored to pray with you and pray for you If you're here today And you've been saved But you've never followed Jesus in baptism Guess what, we've thrown a party for you today And we're going to be baptizing I'm going to, after this invitation is over I'm going to slip back over here real quick And I'm going to change because then I don't get to baptize very often here But on this day every year, I get to baptize I'm getting into water with you out there today We're going to have a good time, we're going to baptize We're going to celebrate life change So if you're here today and you've never been baptized When we stand to sing, here's what I want you to do Immediately, leave your seat, go out one of those doors in the back Look for somebody with a lanyard on that says counselor And they will talk to you about your relationship with God They'll get you some clothes that you need To change into, to be baptized Get you whatever kind of products that you need For after baptism, we'll get all that And we're going to be feeding people, we're going to be eating And we're going to be celebrating outside the joy of life change Listen to me, if you've never been baptized But you know Jesus, don't miss the joy and the freedom of what today could be for you Don't miss it today, I don't regret for a second When I took that public step of following Jesus in baptism I don't regret for a second the joy and the peace and the assurance That that brought into my life just simply obeying what Jesus asked me to do So if today, you've never been baptized When we stand to sing, you go that way [ Silence ]