Understanding Baptism
Today we have the joy of having a baptismal service, we are baptising four believers into the membership of the church. Everyone knows what baptism is, but not everyone is clear on what baptism means. Some of this is due to ignorance; some of this is due to confusion due to disagreement between Christians. Today I am going to do a topical sermon on the issue of baptism. I want to put forward a definition that I am borrowing from Bobby Jamieson, an American Reformed Baptist who is deeply involved with 9marks. And I would like to unpack his...
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Ephesians 5:26-27: Glorify Your Wives
When Lynn and I got married we asked for a full sermon to be preached. Our pastor at the time, Leigh Robinson preached a four point sermon on the purpose of marriage. Marriage is for partnership, marriage is for procreation, marriage is for pleasure, and marriage is for perfection. One of the main goals of marriage is holiness. This is a distinct perspective that Christianity brings to the issue of marriage. For many marriage is about not burning, or not being lonely, or having kids, these are true but a major part of marriage is God’s purpose to make...
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Matthew 28:18-20: Baptism and the Great Commission
One of the distinctives of a Baptist Church is that only those baptized by immersion as believers, in other words baptized according to Christ’s command, can become members of a local Baptist Church. We believe that we do not have the right to make baptism into whatever we want it to be, nor decide on any old practice being defined as a legitimate baptism. I am sure you will agree with us that baptism is defined by Christ not us, and we are obliged to practice what He commands and not what we think. Today we are having a...
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Luke 3:15-22: The Baptism of Jesus
Many people have claimed to be or have been thought to the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God. For example, ‘Krishna Venta (1911–1958), born Francis Herman Pencovic in San Francisco, founded the WKFL (Wisdom, Knowledge, Faith and Love) Fountain of the World cult in Simi Valley, California in the late 1940s. In 1948 he stated that he was Christ, the new messiah and claimed to have led a convoy of rocket ships to Earth from the extinct planet Neophrates. He died on 10 December 1958 after being suicide bombed by two disgruntled former followers who accused Venta of...
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Luke 3:1-14: The Ministry of John the Baptist
On the big screen at the moment is the latest instalment in the Downton Abbey world. The latest movie revolves around the King and Queen coming for a one day visit to the Crawley family estate. The movie opens up for us a little window into what an event a royal visit really was. Back in the day the whole town would have to prepare for the coming royalty, things would get freshly painted, roads would be repaired, and uniforms would be remade all in preparation of the visit. On the Island of St Helena they painted a giant...
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Colossians 2:11-15- Sufficient salvation shown in Baptism
Introduction: The waters of baptism are a lens through which we can see certain things clearly. It is a lens which helps us see something past, something present and something future. Through the baptismal waters we look back to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Baptism would be a meaningless action if Christ had not in fact died and resurrected. The waters of judgement, like at the flood and the drowning of Pharaoh’s armies at the Red Sea rolled over Christ. As the breaking of the bread calls to mind His body broken and offered for us, so the...
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The Organisation of the Church
Introduction: When do we call a group of Christians a church? What distinctive marks does it have to have to qualify as a church? At what point would you call a church apostate and say they were once a church but they are a church no longer? What is the bare minimum for having a church? Isn’t a church when 2 or 3 are gathered? Is it a church when: A few friends meet at a coffee shop to discuss the spiritual message in a film like the Matrix? When a family is having its daily devotions? When the...
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Baptism and Membership
Introduction: This is our second sermon in our membership refresher series. We have dealt with the issue of why every believer ought to be a member in a local church. We attempted to show by 7 arguments that the modern notion of membership is very different to our modern opt in understanding of membership. The Bible paints a picture of de facto membership, in other words, it would be odd for us to talk about our membership in the country of New Zealand. If you are born here you are a ‘member’ of the nation. When you are born...
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Seven Reasons for Church Membership
Introduction: This morning we are beginning a refresher course on membership or being part of the church. So today I would like to begin and give us seven reasons why membership is biblical. I used to be one who believed that membership of the local church was an unbiblical innovation that true biblical Christians should cast off, just as they have cast off many man made practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Today I stand before convinced of the opposite position. We live in a day and age that has seen the death of many important and biblical teachings....
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Colossians 2:6-15: What Are You Thankful For?
Introduction: My passage is Colossians 2:6-15. You can turn there now. What are you thankful for? As you think back over the last year 2017 what are some things that make you feel particularly blessed? If we are honest though. Thankfulness is something that we often find hard. And we find it hard because the priorities of our hearts are wrong. We focus on the wrong things and thus we find ourselves disappointed and ungrateful, don’t we? Christmas presents and thankfulness: Christmas as children Christmas as an adult: getting pineapple socks And retailers know that we find contentment and thankfulness, hard don’t they? That is what...
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Romans 13:12-14: Walking In The light
Introduction: Augustine, one of the church fathers of the 4thcentury is one of the most influential men in Christian history, was converted by this text. He grew up in a home with a Christian mother and unbelieving father. He was given the best education and went on to succeed in Rhetoric and teaching. He went through various religions looking for truth and came under the influence of the great preacher Ambrose. At first it was merely an appreciation for his preaching ability, but the Spirit began to work on his heart. Augustine was a man who was given to...
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1 Corinthians 12:12-13: Baptism into the body
Outline Unity of the Spirit Baptism of the Spirit Drinking of the Spirit Introduction What is baptism? For some it is a cultural tradition which goes along with your nationality. For some it is a private devotional moment that becomes subject to personal taste and timing. For others it is something irrelevant you don’t have to worry about, an optional extra like a fashion accessory. For some it is baby insurance applied to babies as a type of protection. There are many things we could say about baptism but today we want to focus on baptism as a command...
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Galatians 3:19-29: Children by faith
Outline Law Faith Introduction How does one become a child of God? A most simple but a most important question, and one which has been answered a number of different ways. The Liberal answer to this question is, every human being is a child of God; that man is basically good, and therefore they believed in the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. This is a view of our being children of God without taking into account the problem of sin, and God having to judge us for our sin, and having to provide a...
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1 Peter 3:21-22: Baptism and Salvation
Outline What does baptism mean? Can baptism save me? What am I doing when I get baptised? What is the power that really saves me? Introduction “21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” ‘Does baptism save?’, is the question that is forced upon us from the text before us. In these verses we have words which seem to say that baptism saves; “baptism that corresponds to this now saves you.’ One of...
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Baptism in Corinth: 1 Corinthians 1:10-17
Outline Disunity in Corinth Baptism in Corinth Introduction Once again we have the wonderful opportunity to baptise believers. Today we will be looking for some instruction on Baptism from 1 Corinthians 1:10-17. Lets remind ourselves of the situation in Corinth and then look at how this text by implication teaches us how baptism was practised in Corinth. The Corinthian Church was born on Paul’s second missionary journey. Paul started out in Philippi where he was beaten and imprisoned, then went on to Thessalonica where he was chased out by the Jews. Paul went on to Athens where there was...
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Acts 19:1-7: Second Baptisms
Introduction: A controversial issue among Christians is the question of second baptisms. At the time of the Reformation this was a huge issue. The Reformers, who practiced baby baptism had to ask themselves the question, is baptism by a Roman Catholic priest legitimate? They concluded that it was because it was done in the name of the Trinity according to Matthew 28:19. But then there were those known as the Anabaptists who rejected the practice of infant baptism declaring that baby baptism is no baptism at all and true believers need to be baptised after they have believed in...
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