On Sunday, August 11, Tonya and I are inviting people from the New Life congregation to our home for a service of baptism and fellowship following. This Sunday, I am going to be preaching on the exhortation of Peter to repent and be baptized to those who responded to his first sermon by asking the question, “What should we do?”
Baptism is an outward sign of an inward change that has taken place in the life of a believer who has come to a saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a constant command given in the Bible to those who would turn to Christ and away from their life of sin. In Acts 2, as Peter concludes his powerful message, those who heard the message wondered what the next step for them was. Peter’s response was to repent and be baptized. When Cornelius and his family receive the gospel they are baptized as well as the Ethiopian Eunuch.
Baptism is symbolic in that as the believer is immersed in the waters of baptism, going down as the old man and coming out of the waters as a new person in the new life that Christ has given to them, there is representation of a clean slate in Jesus as well as the opportunity to publicly proclaim that you are deciding to follow Jesus wherever He will lead you.
Baptism is not necessary for salvation, Jesus has provided for that through His death and resurrection, however, baptism does afford the believer the opportunity to publicly declare where their allegiance lies as well as to publicly declare the difference that Christ has made in the life of the believer. Jesus commanded that the church was to make disciples of all nations, and to baptize them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Himself was baptized and even as John wanted to baptized by Jesus, Jesus told Him to do it so that all righteousness could be fulfilled. Jesus was baptized as an act of obedience to His Father and so those who truly follow the Lord Jesus Christ will follow Him through the waters of baptism.