Baptism - What's Trending in Scripture?

This Sunday, we will be discussing baptism. This subject sees a wide spectrum of beliefs, everything from “baptizing babies brings them into the covenant family” to “unless you are baptized you are going to hell“.

As always, we are just going to the Bible for answers. With all due respect to theologians and “church fathers”, their creeds and beliefs are not absolute authority - only the Word of God is.

As a preview, an appetizer, food for thought… get your Bible and check out these passages in Acts. The church came into being in Acts 2, and the book records accounts of people being baptized throughout the rest of its chapters. See if you notice any patterns or recurring themes…

Acts 2:37-41 -

The promised Holy Spirit came down and Peter preaches at Pentecost! Those who believed were baptized, the text seems to indicate it was immediate (v41). 

Acts 8:12 - 

Philip preached, the men and women believed, and they were immediately baptized. 

Acts 8:26-39 -

Philip shares the Good News of Jesus Christ with an Ethiopian Eunuch, and upon belief, he is immediately baptized (v36).

Acts 9:1-19 -

Saul, persecuting the church, encounters Jesus Christ and is blinded for 3 days. God sent Ananias to Saul, who then was filled with Holy Spirit. He regained sight and was baptized immediately (v18).

Acts 10:44-48 -

Peter learns (v34) God shows no partiality - Gentiles included! Cornelius and company listen to Peter preach (v44). They believe and the Holy Spirit came upon them. Then they were, you guessed it, baptized immediately (v47-48).

Acts 16:11-15 -

Paul was preaching at a ladies fellowship (v13), they received the Word and were baptized immediately (v14-15). Then in verses 25-34, Paul and Silas are in prison and having a worship service! An earthquake brought a jailhouse rock. When the jailer is about to commit suicide, Paul stops him, preaches the Word to him, and he is baptized immediately (v32-33).

Acts 18:-1-8 -

Paul is in Corinth, and facing rejection at the synagogue from the Jews. He shook his garments and walked next door and preached to some Corinthians who believed and were baptized immediately (v8).

Did you see the pattern?

The Word preached, person believes, person receives Christ, person immediately responds by being baptized.

Have you been baptized?

Harvest Bible Chapel will be joining North Way (Wexford campus) in a worship / baptism service on Wednesday evening, March 21 at 7:00. Honor the Lord by making this profession of faith! 

p.s. - Need more info about baptism? Come Sunday and hear all about it.

Earth: A Nice Place to Visit, but I Wouldn't Want to Live Here

My wife will tell you - I get in a funk sometimes. Actually, she would more accurately say, “a lot of times”. Sometimes it is personal frustration. Other times, which I want to type about today, it is just sorrow that this planet is so messed up.

Have you ever just been so… I don’t know, overwhelmed at the horrible condition of the world…? Pick up the paper, turn on the news, get to cnn.com. The theme of the earth: something is seriously wrong. Wars, murder, rape. Innocent people taken advantage of. Children, who should be protected, instead severely abused physically and used to gratify sexual desires for reprobate monsters. Sometimes, just the thought of living on such a world brings an anguish to my soul that is almost too much to bear.

I shared in a recent sermon how dismayed I was to hear a man scream at his infant in Costco. That was the most minor thing to disturb me, all things considered.

Did you hear about the man, Josh Powell whose wife (Susan) went missing? In 2009, she went missing and it was a big mystery. Then one of their sons drew a picture depicting the family on the way to a sudden camping trip, the one in which Mom (Susan) “got lost” and was never found. Suddenly it looks like the father (Josh) may know more than he is letting on. When it looked like the truth was going to come to light, he murdered his sons with an axe / house fire combination and killed himself.

http://articles.cnn.com/2012-02-06/us/us_washington-powell-explosion_1_mails-josh-powell-carbon-monoxide-poisoning?_s=PM:US

I barely rebounded from that news before I was hit with the story of Donovan McKee. This 11 year old Pittsburgh boy was beaten by his mom’s boyfriend - with sticks - for 9 hours - because he didn’t vacuum the apartment.

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/tag/donovan-mckee/

What is going on here? Why doesn’t God do something about this?

Two things shock me about these stories. The first is the level of depravity it takes to inflict harm / death on a child. The second is that I am still shocked at how horrible sin is.

And it is horrible. So horrible that…to answer that last question I asked… it took the death of the Son of God to conquer sin. The sin in my heart was just as wicked as any of these stories - all affronts against God, all ways we spit in God’s face and decide we will live a life of self-destructive sin regardless of what He might say about it.

Yet God pours grace on a wicked world. The offer of forgiveness. Eternal life. Reconciliation. So God has done something about sin.

But what about those who will not accept God’s gracious gift? What about sinners who persist in selfish rebellion that hurts those around them?

Reminder: God will deal with that, too. In His perfect timing, He sent His Son to deal with sin. And yet future, His Son is coming back. Not to deal with sin, but to deal with sinners.

He closes His book with these words: Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy." Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. (Revelation 22:11-12)

Is He telling people to sin? What is He talking about?

He is simply saying, “Keep it up.” You want to sin? Go ahead. Sin. Reject Christ. Reject the Gospel. Do whatever you want. You love sin more than you love Christ? Go for it!

But He is coming with the ultimate payback - to repay everyone for what they have done.

This is what keeps me from crawling under a rock until I die or He returns. I have a commission to share the Gospel of His love. And He has promised that someday, He is going to make everything right. No more pain, no more injustice, no more betrayal. The world as it was meant to be. 

Being discouraged at the state mankind's existence is like watching a football game and leaving at halftime, saying, "That game was terrible." 

Let's hold all final comments until the end. Things are scheduled to get amazing.

Come, Lord Jesus.

p.s. - groans with the earth

"Do I Love My Spouse?" - Take a quick test and find out

This weekend at Harvest, we are looking toward the homestead as we examine Colossians 3:18-21. As you prepare to receive the Word, as the Lord tells us to (James 1:21), here is a quick test for husbands and wives.

Men, do you love your wives? Ladies, do you love your husbands? Ephesians 5:1 tells us to be imitators of God, and 1 John 4:8 tells us God is love. So if we are imitators of God, we will see His love in us, right?

 What does love look like? 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says:

Love is patient
and kind;
love does not envy
or boast;
it is not arrogant
or rude.
It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable
or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrongdoing,
but rejoices with the truth. 

Love bears all things, 
believes all things,
hopes all things, 
endures all things.

So here is the test: If you put your name in place of the word / pronoun / implied love, would the passage make sense? Would it read true? 

Go slow, do one at a time and really examine yourself. Try it, your name goes in the blank:

________ is patient.

________ is kind.

________ does not envy.

________ does not boast.

________ is not arrogant.

________ is not rude.

________ does not insist on getting his/her own way.

________ is not irritable.

________ is not resentful.

________ does not rejoice at wrongdoing.

________ rejoices with the truth. 

________ bears all things.

________ believes all things.

________ hopes all things.

________ endures all things.

How did you do? I am sure we all see areas where the Lord, by His grace, is still growing us! And let's be thankful that He is going to finish what He started in us...

p.s. - do polar bears hibernate during the summer?

Election / Free-Will: An Answer

Note: I said AN answer. Not THE answer. Not THE PERFECT answer. Not THE BEST answer. Maybe just the best answer I can give. 

It is coming up in the sermon Sunday on Colossians 3:12-17, so I thought I could use the blog as a sort of appendix to discuss the topic.

I get roped into the conversa… ok, debate, all the time. The big question concerning how a saved person came to Christ in the first place. Do we pick God, or did God pick us? The answer is: yes.

For the record, I don’t consider myself a Calvinist. Or an Armenian. Or a Reformed Dispensational Covenant… guy. I am just a follower of Christ. Some people love to wax eloquently about these frameworks some men built around theology. I just don’t care. And I don’t mean that in a mean way. I just literally don’t care. I don’t think about it. I don’t read books about it. And I have never doodled John Calvin’s name on the front of my notebook.

I care about the message of the Bible and presenting it to people that know the Lord and people who don’t. Sometimes the Bible says God chose us. Sometimes it says we are to choose to follow Him. I simply want to preach the message of each passage, and let the Word of God speak for itself. Let the text be the message, let the message reflect the text. Do the homework, yes. Cross reference, yes. Scripture interprets Scripture, yes. Preach theological constructs from men, no. (The real danger in these is going to the extreme on either side, but that is a discussion for another time).

And at the end of the day, whether you are a Calvinist or Armenian, what difference does it make? It doesn’t change anything. I am to love God with all of my heart / soul / mind / strength and my neighbor as myself either way. I am to worship, to witness, and to pray either way.

My preacher friends are aghast that I am not a Calvinist, in the same way my wife would be if I wore skinny jeans. But I want you to think of the guy who comes to church because his life is a wreck. He needs to know the beautiful simplicity of the Gospel, Jesus revealed in His Word. His death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit indwelling those who believe. I have no interest in introducing him to all this Calvinism / Armenian stuff. Just pursue God, man! Get in the Word and on your knees and revel in the fact that the Holy Sovereign Eternal God loves you and became a man and forgave your sin and gave you eternal life. Then go love people and share that message. "Then what?" Do it again!

The Bible teaches God chose us and we chose Him. At the same time. This makes no sense to us because from the day we were born, we have always ever known 2 things: time and space. We can’t fathom a reality outside of those. But God is not bound by time or space. So whether it is the “who chose who” debate, or the Trinity, or “repentance: a command (Acts 17:30) or something granted by God (2 Timothy 2:25)?”, and many other issues, sometimes we can’t just systematically explain things into a neat and tidy little outline.

These things all make sense to an infinite God. Don’t be shocked that man can’t figure these things out. He is God and we are… not. Is it okay with you that there are things about God that we just don’t understand? Deuteronomy 29:29 says God has some things we don’t know, but He made sure to give us what he wants us to know in His Word.

If using these labels of identification help you, that’s cool, and you are still my brother / sister. Nothing said here was meant to be intentionally offensive, but to share my heart about these things because I am often asked about my position on them. 

So if I have to pick a label, I’ll just go with “clueless but joyful”.

Leave a comment below. I know you want to respond somehow. And we can handle a lively discussion, right?

p.s. - does not wear skinny jeans, for the record