As a follower of Christ, one of the most important things that we do when we're growing and becoming
wholehearted in our devotion to Christ is the importance of baptism. And in the Bible,
in the New Testament, baptism is seen as one of the first things we do when we're born again.
We get saved and we've given our heart to Christ. It's so important to get baptized. As a matter of
fact, Jesus, in giving his last command to his disciples, he said,
All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all
the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So not only as a
pastor, but as a missionary. And then when I first got saved, baptism was a really key part of my
development and my discipleship in growing in Christ. And sometimes there's some disagreement
about baptism. Some talk about infant baptism, some talk about believer's baptism, and you may
not even be aware of the differences. Just in a nutshell, a number of your older, more traditional
Protestant denominations, say like Methodist and Presbyterian Episcopal, they do infant baptism.
And the Roman Catholic Church, you may have come out of that background, does infant baptism. And
the idea behind that is taking the act of circumcision in the Old Testament that Israel
did, and it's believed, and I think it's really true historically, that the early church did
practice an aspect of infant baptism. We actually have some etchings on the walls of the catacombs
in Rome that would indicate that. Because the early church was looking at a sign of the new
covenant in Christ, and the covenant sign in the Old Testament was circumcision, which was
done to a baby. So that carried over. Now, what we do have in the book of Acts, which is the fifth
book of the New Testament, is what's happening there. And that is that 3,000 people get saved
at Pentecost, and then they were immediately baptized. And the indication there seems to be
that it was through immersion. And that's actually what the word baptism means. Baptizo
is dipping. It's actually the same word used for a dye. Like they used to dye cloth back then by
hand, and they would take the cloth in, say, a red dye or a blue dye or a yellow dye. And I've been
to Morocco and North Africa before, and you can still see this happening today. But they take that
cloth, it's a white cotton cloth usually, and they dip it. They dip it into the dye, and it comes
out with that color on it. That dipping is baptizo. It's the idea of baptizing. So what I practice now
in my ministry is what we call believer's baptism. And that means that after you come to know Christ
and have faith in Him, we baptize you through total immersion in the water. So the whole body
goes under. And where does that come from? Well, that comes a lot from Romans 6. So let me read
Romans 6, 3 through 8, because I think this is the seminal passage on the importance of baptism,
and also what baptism does when we are in the actual act of baptism. Here's what Paul says in
Romans 6. Don't you know that all of us who are baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His
death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism unto death, in order that, just as Christ
was raised from the dead, through the glory of the Father, we too may live with new life. If we've
been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His
resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with Him, so that the body of sin
might be done away with, and that we should no longer be slaves to sin, because anyone who has
died has been freed from sin. Now if we've died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live
with Him. So what Paul is saying is that the actual literal physical act of baptism is the
immersion into the death of Christ. In other words, it's literally we're going under the water like
we're being buried with Christ. That's the old man, totally covered. When I baptize people,
I get them all the way down, man, and no little nose sticking up or anything. I want everything
in the water. You're being buried with Christ when you go through the actual act of baptism,
but then you're coming out of the water. You're being raised.
Just that picture of the resurrection of Christ.
So it is a baptism, as Paul said, into his death,
but it's then a resurrection into new life.
So you ask the question, does that save you?
The answer is no.
Baptism does not save you, but baptism is an act.
It's your first steps of obedience.
And if you've never been baptized this way,
I wanna challenge you to do that,
that this is an important part of your discipleship.
Because here's what you're doing.
You're publicly, before a church, before a group of people,
you're publicly declaring, I am now a Jesus follower.
And when you're standing there, and everybody's there,
and you're identifying with the life, death,
and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that's huge.
I mean, that's huge in your first step
as an act of faith, of publicly making that stand.
But it's also a private affair.
In other words, it's your private baptism.
It's you being baptized by a pastor
or by a Christian leader that's there to baptize you
because it's your private faith in Christ.
You've made your faith in Christ,
you've declared your faith in Christ privately,
but now you're expressing it publicly.
And that's why a public ceremony of baptism is so important.
That's why we do it periodically at our church
in Colorado Springs.
I mean, we do baptisms because people are getting saved
and they want to identify that way in a public way.
And so there's a group of witnesses around
that were publicly there to acknowledge
that you are now putting your faith in Christ.
But the point here is that Paul is saying,
by being immersed in the water,
it's like the death of Christ.
Coming out of the water, it's the resurrection of Christ.
Does that save you?
Again, I say, no, it's really important to understand this
because there are certain traditions in the church today
that would teach if you have not been baptized,
you are not saved.
Or if you've not been baptized in our church,
you can't be a member of our church
and we question even your salvation.
That's not what I'm saying.
I believe that you first put your faith in Christ.
And I've already talked about that in this series
about it's your personal faith in Christ.
For by grace, you've been saved is what the Bible says.
For by grace, you've been saved through faith,
not of yourself.
It's a gift of God, not as a result of works,
even baptism that anyone should boast.
So it's not your outward work.
It's your faith from your heart in Christ.
But then baptism follows that
because you're entering into a covenant of grace.
You're entering into a family, the church.
And I'll talk about that
in another part of the episode of this,
I talk about the church and the importance of the church.
But first of all, it's that identification with Christ,
identification with Christ's body,
with the people through baptism.
And it's really, really important.
And so even, I mean, look at this example.
Here in the book of Acts,
first thing that happens is the Holy Spirit falls.
People speak in tongues.
They're baptized with the Holy Spirit.
Then 3,000 people in Jerusalem get saved.
And here's what it says.
It says, then those who gladly received his word
were baptized.
And that day, about 3,000 souls were added to them.
So, I mean, there was like an immediate baptism.
So if you haven't been baptized,
I wanna encourage you to be baptized.
It's really important.
It's an act of obedience to Christ to be baptized.
So what happens at baptism?
Here's what I think happened.
I think baptism signifies first
that you're engrafted into Christ
through the death and the resurrection of Christ.
So it's that, it's John 15.
And you should look that up.
I'm not gonna read it right now.
But John 15 talks where Jesus says,
I am the vine, you are the branches.
He who abides in me bears much fruit.
So there's an engrafting,
like a limb that's grafted into a vine.
We are grafted into Christ.
And baptism is the grafting into Christ.
It's a symbol of that.
Now, you might ask the question,
well, Steve, if you're talking about it's only a symbol,
which is fine, is there anything that special
about baptism other than it being symbolic?
Now, I'll tell you what I believe.
I really believe there's actually
a spiritual power in baptism.
Now, I'm not talking about salvation again.
I wanna remind you.
But I'm talking about the process of these covenants
and this holy new covenant
that we have in the New Testament.
There's power in that.
And it's like communion.
It's like taking.
Lord's Supper.
When we take the Lord's Supper, God is spiritually present there.
His manifest presence is there.
Same with baptism.
God's manifest presence is there.
I have had numerous occasions where during baptism people have gotten healed or where
during baptism people have had demons released over them.
I was baptizing a guy in a pool, a hot tub in California, Southern California, many years
ago.
He came out of a Mormon background.
When I took him under the water, he just manifested this demonic presence and began to squirm
and scream.
I had to call for help.
Basically, we cast out a demon out of this guy.
He was set free from that day forward.
There's something about the baptism that has spiritual manifest presence of God in it.
I think number two, that baptism is a regeneration within us through the act of coming out of
the water from sin.
There is something, again, the spiritual impact of that when we actually walk through the
act of baptism that begins to set us free in a new way.
Again, I can just tell you story after story of men and women who struggle with certain
areas of their life, sin areas of their life, that when they got baptized, it was boom,
it was gone.
It was like off of them.
I don't know if it was demonic.
I don't know.
Sometimes it is.
Sometimes it's not.
I just know that from that day forward, they were cleansed.
They were free.
God chose water.
I mean, John the Baptist being the first to bring baptism into the New Testament, he came
and he was baptizing with water.
Baptism has always been with water.
Water symbolizes cleansing.
There is a cleansing aspect to this that's just, it's really supernatural.
Then I think thirdly, lastly, baptism is a precursor.
It sets us up for the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
I've seen, again, I mean, I've done so many of these, but I've seen people get filled
with the Holy Spirit at baptism, speak in tongues, have this manifest presence of God
in their life of power that transforms from that day forward.
Baptism's important.
It's got power on it.
The presence of God is there.
We're commanded by Jesus to get baptized.
So I want to encourage you, if you haven't been baptized, get baptized.
If you were baptized as an infant and through this episode, this broadcast, you feel like
you want to get baptized, then, man, get involved in a church.
Next time there's a baptism, go get one or grab a pastor that you know or a Christian
friend that you know.
Go get baptized on a hot tub.
It doesn't matter where you do it, but baptism's a key part of your journey with Christ.
So God bless you, encourage you to get baptized and experience all, everything that God has
for you, all the power that he has for you as a kingdom of God, revolutionary Christian.
God bless you.