Latest / Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers / #111: Do I need to be baptized?

Transcript

#111: Do I need to be baptized? · Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, Tim Wright here along with John D. Burgess, the Deep Grace Diving Podcast.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: And today the question is, do I need to be baptized?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it important?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Is it important?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: If I am not baptized, does that mean something bad?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're going to talk about baptism.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to talk about why it is important.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to talk about what happens in baptism.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Our good friend Terry is still currently in the show here in Phoenix, Les Miserables.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Two shows a day, six days a week, and they're running through the last weekend of October.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that is one grueling pace.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's a two and a half hour show.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: She's not in every scene.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: My goodness, what a journey that is for her.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I got the chance to This past week, she was amazing, as Mrs. Tenardier, and just great fun.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Great fun.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, getting some reviews too, Tim.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, great reviews.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and when the reviews come out.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Recognizing her specifically, yeah, it's amazing.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we have been doing this series,
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Christianity 101, looking at some of the important topics about Christianity today.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to turn our attention to Baptism.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: And let me just start by reading something that Jesus says about baptism to kind
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: of give us a sense of its importance in the life of Christians.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's from Matthew chapter 28.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is about to leave and head up into heaven, wherever that is, whatever that means.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And he gives his disciples some marching orders.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: He says to them, so this is Matthew chapter 28, starting verse 16.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted, which is interesting.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father,
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: and of the Son,
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: and of the Holy Spirit,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And remember,
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: I am with you always to the end of the age." Now, John,
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: when you hear that, how is it that Jesus is telling us where to make disciples?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what I,
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: when I hear that and when I read it, the,
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: what always strikes me,
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: this does not answer your question by the way,
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: but what always strikes me is I will be with you always,
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: even to the end of the age and that with you always.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the end of the age is a very, very, very long time.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And with you always, that's like, I just can't get past that promise.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a nice promise, but that's not the topic for today.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: The topic for today is baptism.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: So let me just read it for you again.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Go, therefore,
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: make disciples of all nations,
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: So what is Jesus' formula, so to speak, for making disciples?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, apparently it starts with baptism.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: It does in this passage anyway, right?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so to understand why Jesus places such a high premium on baptism,
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: we need to kind of understand the communal nature of faith in the Bible versus
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: the individualistic nature of faith in the United States of America.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: In the United States of America, we have made faith personal and individual.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: You as an individual need to make a decision for Jesus.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: And unless you make a decision for Jesus, you're going to hell.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's oversimplifying, but that's the main message of evangelical Christianity.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about you.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's about your decision.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's about making the right decision to accept Jesus.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about the individual.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the way it was in the Bible.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: For the Jewish people, faith was a communal experience, not an individual experience.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so the way that someone was invited into the community under Judaism,
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: which is still true to this day, is the male boys were circumcised.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know how old they were when they were circumcised?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: They were infants, right?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: They were infants.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: They were eight days old.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: So they had no choice in the matter.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: This was a communal faith expression,
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: and the experience of being circumcised as an infant Was God's way of saying,
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: I claim this child as a part of the community of faith.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so even though it's the Jewish people doing the circumcision,
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: it's God making a promise to the Jewish people that I am your God from
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: the moment you come out of the womb.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just about individuals.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's about my decision.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's about my embrace of you and my love for you.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And circumcision is going to be the identifying mark that you belong to the community of faith.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Now, obviously,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: they didn't circumcise girls because they had different plumbing and
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: because it was sort of a more male-dominated patriarchal system.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: At least some would argue that.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: I would maybe see it a bit differently.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: But nonetheless, it was almost immediately that children were embraced into the faith.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't an individual decision.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can't make a decision when you're eight days old.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was a communal decision based on the promise of God.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: That God creates communities of faith, not just individuals of faith, but communities of faith.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it begins the moment you come out of the womb, which makes sense, right?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: We don't say to our children when they're born, well,
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: once you're old enough to make a decision to be my child,
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: then I'll feed you and clothe you.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as that child is born,
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: we make the decision to feed and clothe that child,
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: to love that child,
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: regardless of whether or not that child's going to grow up to love us.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a decision made by the parents.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's what sets the tone for faith,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: not my decision to accept God or to accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Faith always begins with God making a decision for us.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: So the Christian faith is birthed out of Judaism.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: And if Judaism is a communal faith, Christianity is going to be a communal faith.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And people are going to be asking the question, well, And we'll see this in a moment.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, when I was Jewish, I was in this community of faith through circumcision.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: How do I enter the community of faith now as a Christian?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: What does that look like?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And what does it mean for my children?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so we will see throughout our time together today that baptism became the way
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: that God would adopt,
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: so to speak,
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: or welcome People into the community of faith,
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: into the Christian community of faith.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that it was not dependent on decisions that we make.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's dependent on God's love and God's embrace of us and God's baptism marks us
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: as children of God, so to speak.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: So to kind of look at this,
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: John's got a passage from Colossians, which is a letter that Paul writes.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to just look at two or three passages today.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: To kind of help people understand and then we'll talk
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: about things like infant baptism and so on.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: You said Colossians, Tim.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Did you mean Titus or Acts?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you had the Acts passage.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I had the Colossians.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, you're right.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: The Colossians passage is Colossians chapter two.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it starts at, I'm going to just start at verse eight.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'll start at verse six.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: As you have therefore received Jesus Christ,
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: the Lord,
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: continue to live your lives in him,
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: rooted and built up in him,
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Be to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit,
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: according to human tradition,
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: For in him,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: the whole fullness of the deity dwells,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: and you have come to fullness of him,
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: In him you were also circumcised with a spiritual circumcision by putting off
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: When you were buried with him in baptism,
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God and who raised him
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: from the dead.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: God made you alive together with him when he forgave you all your trespasses,
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: erasing all that stood against us and its legal demands.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: So what Paul does here is he compares circumcision to baptism.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now again,
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: circumcision was a communal faith expression where infants were welcomed into
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: the community faith based on the promise of God, that God claimed them as God's own.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Paul is saying that's what baptism does.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And notice here that baptism does something.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to talk about this a little bit because there are those who believe
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: that baptism is only an outward sign of something that God has already done in us.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: But there's no scripture passage that says that.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Every time the Bible talks about baptism,
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: baptism does something to us or God does something to us in baptism.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: And here,
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: when you are buried with him in baptism,
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: You were also raised with him through faith in the power of God who raised him from
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: the dead.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: God made you alive together with him when he forgave all of our trespasses.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: So what Paul's saying there is that something is happening when we are baptized.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: That God is, in a sense, burying the old self, whatever that means.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: And raising us up to new life in Jesus.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, we are now identified with Jesus.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: We are grafted into Jesus.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: We are adopted into the family of Jesus.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: So through baptism, we die, and then we are reborn as children of God, so to speak.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so something is happening here.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: God forgives us through baptism.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: God is welcoming us into the community of faith.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Something is happening.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, Tim,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: right in the middle,
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: in the middle of the comparison, he says, you were saved through faith.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: So is that my faith?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Is that my effort?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what is that?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Faith here is more about God's faithfulness, right?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's always God's faithfulness that saves us.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it's God's faithfulness that creates faith in us to believe,
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: to receive, to accept, to live in it.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: It always starts with God.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: God is doing the work.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's not my faith.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: My faith is always a response to whatever God is doing in my life.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: So is this the point in the podcast where we can talk about some churches that say,
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: The reason why we can't baptize infants is because they can't make a choice for God.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Before we do that, let's go to Acts.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go to Acts.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: So in Acts chapter 2,
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Peter gives this big dynamic sermon about Jesus, and people are moved by it.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: And here's their response from Acts chapter 2.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, starting at verse 37.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when they heard this,
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles,
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: brothers, what should we do?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Peter said to them,
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: that your sins will be forgiven and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: For the promise is for you,
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: for your children,
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: So let's remember, first of all, that he's already talking to adults, right?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: So when they say, what must we do?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: How do we respond to this?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: He says, repent.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, it's time to move in a different direction and be baptized.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And these are this isn't two separate acts.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is kind of one in the same right now for these adult converts.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Their repentance is being made a reality through baptism.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: In other words,
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: you're changing your direction as you are baptized or God is changing the direction
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: of your life.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And in the name of Jesus, so that your sins will be forgiven.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: So Peter is saying here quite clearly that when we're baptized,
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: it's through baptism that Jesus forgives our sins.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we receive the Holy Spirit.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now let's stop there for just a moment and remember that the first thing Jesus did
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: before he went out and began his preaching ministry is he was baptized.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: And when Jesus was baptized and came up out of the water,
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: the Holy Spirit descended onto him and filled him.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And from that moment on,
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, went out and did his mission and ministry.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it was through baptism that this moment happened, right?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus was commissioned, so to speak.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: So Peter is saying here,
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: it's through baptism in the name of Jesus that our sins are forgiven and we receive
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: the Holy Spirit.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then he says, for the promise is for you, for your children, and all who are far away.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: So let's remember who the audience is here.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Most of them are going to be Jewish people.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: And how is it, at what age do people enter into the community of faith in the Jewish faith?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: As infants.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: As infants, at eight days old.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so the question they're going to be asking is,
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: all right, you've got this new thing, Peter, you're asking us into.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: What about our children?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: What about our children?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, this promise is for you and for your children.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so this isn't just something that adults do as an act of saying,
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: this is what I've done now.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is in my heart and this is my outward expression of what God's already done in my life.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Peter is saying, God is doing something here.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: God is filling us with the Spirit.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: God is forgiving us through the waters of baptism.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's not baptism per se that does that.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's God through the waters of baptism.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Just like God saved through circumcision, so to speak.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: All right, it's God saving.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: And God always,
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: when God works in the world,
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: God always uses something human and tangible to connect to us.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And the human tangible for adopting us is water.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: The life, I mean, it's a symbol of life, right?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: You got to have it, you got to drink it to live.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: You got to have it in order to grow your plants and your food and feed your animals.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to have it in order to Cool off,
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: water is essential to life and that becomes then the means by
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: which God conveys grace to us.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: So he uses a human element to come to us,
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: just like he uses the human element of bread and wine for communion.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: So let's look at one more passage and then we can start looking at some of
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: the questions that this raises.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: I want to go to Titus chapter 3.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Titus chapter three, starting at verse four.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: But when the goodness and loving kindness of God,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: our Savior appeared,
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: he saved us,
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: not because of any works of righteousness that we had done,
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: but according to his mercy through the water of rebirth and renewal by
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: the Holy Spirit.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: This spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: so that having been justified by his grace,
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: The saying is sure.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: So this is pretty powerful stuff here.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Notice where it starts.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: We don't save ourselves.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: We don't make decisions.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: God saves us.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: And how did he do it?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Not because of any works of righteousness that we've done,
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: but according to his mercy,
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: That is baptism language.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: The water of rebirth is baptism.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: He could have just said through baptism.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: And renewal by the Holy Spirit.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: And this Spirit he poured out unto us richly through Jesus.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: And all of that is happening through this gift called baptism.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is the means by which,
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: the communal means by which God adopts us, draws us into the community of faith.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it's not about my decision.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: There may be decisions in my life that I make about faith,
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: but they always are a response to what God has already done.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's nobody who has ever said, I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: I made a decision to follow Jesus.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: There is nobody who can say those words unless God had already moved their heart
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: and said, I believe in you and created faith in
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: them.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: The language they're using is very clumsy.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody who is a follower of Jesus is a follower of Jesus only because Jesus came
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: to us in some way, shape, or form and birthed life and faith and hope in us.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're dead people.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're dead in our trespasses and sins and dead people can't make decisions.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: So the only thing that God can do is raise us to life and God does that through
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: the waters of baptism.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And Titus makes it pretty clear here.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Titus makes it pretty clear.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: There are other passages in Peter,
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: for example, that says baptism now saves you a lot of other places.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: But every time,
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: if you do a deep dive on baptism,
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: you'll see every time the word baptism is used,
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: it's always used in the context of salvation.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Something is happening.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: God is doing something.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now, sometimes people will convert, so to speak, and then be baptized.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: That usually happens more with adults.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Especially in the New Testament, it's a first-generation document.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: They're reaching new converts, adult converts.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: But once the question starts moving toward, what about our children?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible suggests that baptizing children is okay,
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: and we know from history that the disciples baptized infants.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have that in Scripture, but we have it from reliable church historians.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because again,
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: it was a communal understanding of faith, not an individual understanding of faith.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: So when we baptize,
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: for example,
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: a baby or even an adult, we're baptizing them into the community of faith.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's always communal.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's not an individual thing.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's always communal.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: All right, go ahead, John.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I have a lot of questions,
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: but I guess the first one is,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: So what I'm hearing is if you were baptized as an infant and you later go to
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: a church that says, well,
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: you need to be baptized so that you can make a public declaration
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: of what's happening here.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, the public declaration, is that important?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then number two, well, maybe your infant baptism didn't quite take.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you need to make a choice.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: So how are we supposed to think about that?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you've basically captured two understandings of baptism.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: The first understanding of baptism is the one you articulated there where the action
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: of the baptism is from me to God.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's my act based on the decision I made.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: The one that I'm advocating for,
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: the one that I believe the Bible speaks about,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: is where the action starts with God and comes to me or comes to us.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that baptism is not just a declaration of faith.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just a symbolic act.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: It is, to use the language of the church,
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: a sacrament,
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: a gift where God comes to us with a promise and does something in our lives.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: It does something to us.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you believe that, then it doesn't matter what age you're baptized at.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: God made a promise to you and God's going to keep that promise.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to be baptized again because you've already been baptized.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of like saying, well,
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: you need to get You know,
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: back into the womb,
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: if you're not quite sure, you know, what your status is with your parents.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want to make a commitment to them,
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: a public declaration that these are my parents,
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: well, you're not going to climb back into the womb and be born again.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: So there are times when even people who are baptized as infants will have moments
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: in their life where they say,
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: you know, I just,
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: this is a moment in my life where I feel God is calling me deeper
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: or God is just calling me to say something.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's all right.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: But it's always about God.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's not about initiating it, not about me initiating it.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's not about my commitment, it's God's commitment.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: But in those moments is,
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: even though it may not be,
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think you said necessary, reaffirmation of your baptism?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's all good, right?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: So what Lutherans do is,
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: and many mainline churches will do,
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: is a reaffirmation,
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: exactly,
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: where you're not baptized again,
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: but you're just reminded of what God did for you all those years ago.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of a chance for you to say,
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: yeah, God did this in my life and I want to live in that promise.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what a reaffirmation.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: You don't use the water again.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need to baptize again.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a reaffirmation of the promise.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Think of it as a renewal of your wedding vows.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: You don't get married again.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: You're already married.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Renewal is just,
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: this is a moment in our life where we want to just recommit to each other or we want
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: to Confirm what has been true in our lives all these years.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we want to do it publicly.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that makes total sense.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: My next question is really like, what do we mean when we say baptism?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: So is this,
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: if I stand out in my front lawn and blast people with a hose as they drive by,
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: what is, there's a sanctity here and a beauty here, but who has to be involved?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: If I reaffirmed my baptism in the River Jordan, that's a little extra, extra, extra, right?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Of course it does, John.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: So God is the one who baptizes.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: And when God baptizes, God is giving a promise.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: God is giving us grace.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: God is filling us with the Spirit.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's a sacred moment.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it needs to be treated as such.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: We don't just go out with hoses and blast people.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: That debases the gift of what God is giving us.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: So baptism is this act of God in our lives,
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: an act of grace,
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: where God comes to us and essentially adopts us into God's family and marks us with
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: the cross of Christ and claims us as God's own.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not something that you just splash onto people.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: You want people to have an awareness of what God is up to in their lives at that moment.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why the ceremonialism and the ritualism around it is important.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Why it normally takes place in a church and it takes place with a priest or
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: a reverend or a pastor or something like that because
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: the There's beauty there that's part of the gift.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's beauty there and it's just a way for us all to take it seriously.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: And we do it in the church setting because it's a communal experience.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Again, this is hard for us as Americans to understand.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Faith is not an individual game.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Faith is a communal game.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a communal game for our Jewish friends.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's a communal game for the Christian faith.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: We are baptized into a community of faith.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that community of faith is the church, expressed usually by the local congregation.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And do I need to be worried about whether,
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: I made a joke about the River Jordan,
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: which would definitely be cool,
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: but some churches are like, you need to be fully immersed in the water.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Some are like, hey, we can sprinkle you.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Is that part of the ceremony important?
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all, it's not the amount of water that saves.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's the promise of God that saves through the water.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not the amount of water.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Both sprinkling and immersion are referenced in the Bible.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think immersion is a powerful symbol of,
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: you know, you go back into the water and you come up again.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a powerful visual of what's happening in baptism.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: But most parents of kids who are a month or two old don't want them immersed in water.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: And probably back in the day when things were not as safe and sanitary,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: you didn't want to do that anyway for fear that kids would get sick and so on.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: So again, it's not the amount of water, it's the promise of God through the water.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And in Lutheran,
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of our listeners won't get this anymore,
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: but we used to say a little dabble, do you?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a real dream or something like that.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a hair product that you and I both use a lot.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we did probably.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, I never did.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: So again, it's not the amount.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's the promise of God.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so sprinkling.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Immersion,
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: however people want to do it,
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: when it's done within the sacredness of the moment and there's
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: gratitude
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: for what God is doing,
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: yeah, then it just doesn't really matter how much water we use.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, some people will ask the question, well, if I'm not baptized, does that mean I'm not saved?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a couple of ways to answer that.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was St.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Augustine who said,
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: it's not the absence of baptism that condemns you,
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: it's the despising of baptism that condemns you.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's in Mark's Gospel where it says something about,
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: if you believe and are baptized, you'll be saved.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't believe, you will not be saved, something like that.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's sort of saying that there are moments when people can't be baptized.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: The thief of the cross, for example, Jesus couldn't baptize him.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think Augustine's point is this.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: If baptism is important to Jesus,
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm a follower of Jesus, then baptism should be important to me as well.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: And if I don't think it's important,
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: then I maybe need to sit down with Jesus and say,
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus, you think this is really important.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: What am I missing here?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's figure this out.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus places a high premium on it,
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: as do all of the biblical writers in the New Testament.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if you haven't been baptized, you probably should.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: You probably find that local church that makes sense to you and walk in and say,
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: for some reason, this is the moment, right, on the podcast.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is the moment I've been waiting for, for a little reminder that this is a good idea.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you've already been baptized and you want to reaffirm that baptism,
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: that sounds like a good idea, too.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: there are people who,
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: it doesn't matter if they're baptized as infants or adults,
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: people tend to wander away like the prodigal son.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: And when they come back, when God brings them back, they look for a moment to mark it.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And a reaffirmation of baptism can be one of those great moments
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: where you just remember, I was on that day that God captured my heart again.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of those beautiful gifts, right, Tim?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: One of those beautiful gifts that's waiting for you to open or reopen again
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: or re-experience again.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of, in a nutshell, why baptism is important.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's important to Jesus.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: He has a gift for us.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: He has a gift for our children and our grandchildren to be raised in the faith.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: What a beautiful gift.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I would remember in the evangelical world, testimonies are always the thing, right?
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the worse your life was, the worse your background, the better the testimony.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember somebody once saying that the greatest testimony he'd ever heard is
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: that from somebody who believed in Jesus all of his life or her life and didn't go
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: through all of that stuff.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: Raised in the church, raised in the faith, and always believed.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: That that was the greatest testimony to God's faithfulness.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: That you would live a lifetime of following Jesus.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Not that these other things don't matter.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're dramatic.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: But there's something about a God who is faithful to us for a lifetime.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, indeed.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I think we will stop it there.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not sure what topic we're going to tackle next week, but we'll tackle something.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: We appreciate you all listening.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: John, Terry is not here.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: Next time, the Deep Grace Diving Podcast.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Love you.