Making Disciples

Transcript

GRM 1214
Making Disciples
02/03/2019
Matthew 28:16-20; Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

We talked a little bit about the church last week, just an overview; God’s plan for the local church. I’m going to follow up on that as we talk about the ministry of the church and what its focus is. I want to talk about the Great Commission and a portion of the Great Commission, so if you turn in your bibles to Matthew chapter 28, we’ll start there and then move into some other areas of the word. This will be a little bit of a two-part study, in that tonight I want to talk about some of the passages that create problems in the areas we’re going to talk about, particularly as we talk a little bit about baptism today and how it fits in what God is doing today. There’s some passages misunderstood so I’ll address that. Then we’ll have time for some questions this evening as well, as we usually do.

We come to the end of the Gospel of Matthew. We’re getting to some of Jesus’ final words and instructions to His disciples on what they are responsible to do, now from this point on. The ministry changes somewhat, the focus changes, the audience changes, the content changes somewhat in that there is a clarity that will now be given that was not understood before. Jesus Christ has died on the cross, paid the penalty for sin, He was buried, He was raised the third day. He spent some forty days with His disciples after His resurrection, appearing to them off and on during that time, and instructing them and clarifying to them Old Testament Scriptures regarding what had happened, because they were in somewhat of despair, confusion. You can understand they were looking for the Messiah of Israel to come to earth, to bring judgment on His enemies, and to establish the kingdom for Israel.

What has happened? He was rejected by Israel. He was crucified on the cross. He was buried. No kingdom but something miraculous happened; He was raised from the dead. He’s not dead, He is alive and so you have that emphases as you begin Matthew 28 and they come to an empty tomb and so on. But we want to come down to a meeting He had with His followers, His disciples in Galilee. The crucifixion of Christ took place in Jerusalem if you refresh your mind on the geography there. Jesus was from Galilee, known as a Galilean of Nazareth. That’s to the northern part of Israel so He told His disciples to go to Galilee. Jerusalem is a hotbed of opposition, it’s the center of the nation, the capital for the Jews, the opposition there intense, so He calls for His eleven disciples, Judas is out of the picture now, to meet Him in Galilee. So that’s what verse 16 says. “The eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him.” Now remember when we finished up Revelation, John was in such awe of the angel who gave him some of this revelation that he fell down to worship the angel, and the angel rebuked him firmly and said, “Do not do that.” He reminded him. I am just a servant, as you are, of the living God, but here Jesus accepts the worship and encourages it because He is God.

The God-Man now in a resurrected glorified human body, but all the fullness of Deity still dwells in Him, in bodily form, so Jesus came up and spoke to them because some were doubtful of what is taking place. He says, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” Now as God He always had authority, but again we saw this in our study of the Book of Revelation. In chapter five in that heavenly scene, all of heaven joins in adoration, and declaration of the wonder of what the Lamb that was slain has accomplished. It gave Him authority to open the seven-sealed scroll, which unfolds the plan of God down through the establishing of the kingdom, which will be eternal, the time when God will dwell on earth with men. His redemption has given Him authority. In what sense? God has all authority in the sense that by His death on the cross, He paid the penalty for sin that enables God, to give forgiveness and cleansing to everyone who trusts in Christ. He died because the penalty for sin was death.

Without the death of Christ, there could be no glorious end for you and for me, because the penalty for sin is death, it’s an eternal hell. Christ has authority now to bring salvation to a lost world and ultimately to bring for creation its appointed conclusion of victory. When redeemed people will live on a redeemed earth, in the presence of God for eternity, so all authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. That’s important for us as the church. We recognize, acknowledge and reside; we live under the authority of Jesus Christ. Philippians chapter 2 said that Christ humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name, which is above every name that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. The One with full authority to the glory of God the Father and He has given Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body. The One who fills all, in all, so He has all authority, and we recognize and live under that authority in a special and unique way as the church of Jesus Christ, the body of Christ in this place.

Now He gives a command, which we call the Great Commission. It’s not only found in Matthew it’s found in various ways at the end of each of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and then it is found again at the very beginning of the Book of Acts. That commission, we’ll focus on it here, we’ll look at one or two of the other places. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you…” What encouragement what a statement now follows, “and lo, I am with you always,” or as you have in the margin, all the days, “even to the end of the age.” Some commentators would take that and say all the days. One commentator said that really means I am with you each and every day. A day never goes by that He is not with us in the turmoil, the unsettledness, in the trials that come to our lives individually. I am with you, all the days, each, and every day, I’m never alone. I’m never abandoned. What a promise!

This commission, there is one command here. We’ve looked at this on other occasions but we need to be clear. There is one command given, “make disciples,” that’s the command. There are three participles and we’re not going to get into the grammatical possibilities with “Go” and its connection to the imperative, “make disciples” but go is a participle, baptizing is a participle, teaching is a participle. We often recognize participles in English with ing endings and you have in the margin of your bible if you’re using a New American Standard that number one before the word 1go, in the margin says “having gone” because it is a participle. It is a participle in what is usually viewed as the past tense. In Greek the aorist tense is an aorist participle so it might be translated “having gone.” We give it more of a connection with the command here, “make disciples,” but I think for our time that’s where I want to focus. There’s one command here, an imperative, “make disciples.” That’s what they are commanded to do. The three participles modify that and elaborate on that. We could translate it “having gone,” maybe even “as you’re going” but the point is wherever they go this will be their task.

“Make disciples,” and something is unique here that I draw to your attention often. It’s of all the nations. This is something new for the disciples. It will take the first 10 chapters of Acts for the disciples to understand this in the early history of the church that this command means all the nations. Back up to Matthew chapter 10 where we have been recently. Matthew chapter 10. This is early in Jesus’ ministry here and He calls His twelve disciples. You’re familiar with them and they’re going to be named here in verse 1. “Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority…” He’s exercising authority during His earthly ministry, and He names the twelve, then He sends them out, verse 5. “These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them” and note these instructions, “Do not go in the way of the Gentiles…” Don’t carry the message concerning Me to the Gentiles. Don’t go to any city of the Samaritians. He adds that because the Samaritians are mixed blood Jews, as a result of the deportations and so on, of the Jews and intermarriage. Some Jews had intermarried with Gentiles. They’d even developed their own religious system. We see that in John’s Gospel, chapter 4 when Jesus confronts a woman of Samaria at the well, and the Samaritan woman says the Jews don’t have any dealings with Gentiles. The Samaritians had their own worship center and so on. You don’t even go to those who have some Jewish blood mixed in. You go verse 6, “but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The Jews are sent out with the message of the presence of the Messiah of Israel. The Messiah here, if you will believe, He’s here to establish a kingdom, of which Israel will be the center, but you don’t go to Gentiles you don’t go to Samaritans.

Now in Matthew 28, He tells them go and make disciples. A disciple is a follower or a learner. Jesus during His earthly ministry, we’ve talked about discipleship, called people to become His disciple but He warned them. To be My disciple you must give up all your own possessions. You must love Me more than you love your family. You must love Me more than you love your wife. Following Me will be a costly thing. You have to take up your cross and follow Me. It’s not going to be an easy life. It’ll be a life of humiliation, rejection, persecution, pain, and suffering. So, that was life as a disciple, and now you’re going to go and make disciples, but the message and the audience has become more focused. What are they going to preach? Leave a marker in Matthew 28. We’re coming back over to the Gospel of Luke. We’ll look at basically this same commission, not necessarily the same time in each of the commissions, but the same emphases is given at the end of each of these Gospels.

Luke is pulling together these words of Christ to His disciples, and His meeting with the disciples and He did this at a variety of times during the forty days after His resurrection and before His ascension to heaven in Acts 1. We’ll look at that in a little bit, but here He’s meeting with them and officially, they don’t recognize Him. Then in verse 45 of Luke 24, “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures…” Now they recognize that He’s telling them about the Old Testament Scriptures because part of their confusion was that they had ignored the Old Testament Scriptures that talked about the Messiah coming and suffering and dying, like Isaiah 53 as payment for sin. They just focused on the kingdom the Messiah would establish when He came, so the preceding verse of what I just read. “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” He’s taking them now in a lesson in interpreting the Old Testament. These passages were there but you didn’t see them. You didn’t pay attention to them.

Now He opened their minds. He said to them, verse 46, “Thus it is written, that the Christ (the Messiah) would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day.” That’s the foundation and then what, “that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things,” So that’s the message to make disciples now based on the fact that Christ has come, He has suffered, He’s died, He’s been raised from the dead. Now the message is repent, recognize your sin and guilt, so that your sins can be forgiven. You place your faith in Him, you turn from your sin, your selfishness. You turn to Him and recognize He loved me, He died for me, and He paid my penalty. Only in that, repentance, is there forgiveness. That’s what you preach, that’s how you’re going to make disciples, and you’ll note, this message is to be proclaimed in His name, to all the nations. You begin at Jerusalem but it doesn’t stop there, it doesn’t stop in Israel. It will go on and beyond them.

Jump over to Acts chapter 1. We have skipped Mark and John for time but you can read a form of the commission at the end of those as well. But Acts chapter 1. Remember Luke was the human author of the Gospel of Luke that we just read and also the history of the early church in the Book of Acts. He really at the end of Luke now, just transitions in the Book of Acts to Acts chapter 1 to these disciples, followers. Verse 3, “He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God”. He’s sorting out for them the Old Testament Scriptures.

You see the Messiah had to come, and suffer and die, so the penalty for sin could be paid, so there could be forgiveness of sins, for those who would repent of their sin and place their faith in the Messiah. John the Baptist came as Jesus’ forerunner and he preached repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, calling the nation to recognize their sin. The individuals in the nation, their guilt before the Lord, turn from their sin to place their faith in the Messiah, but the nation as a nation, said no. So, the kingdom will not be established, but the provision of Christ for the establishing of the kingdom was. His death and resurrection but the kingdom is still a future entity because God promised that just like He foretold the death and resurrection of the Messiah, He foretold the establishing of the kingdom. Now things are getting sorted out.

He tells them, you wait at Jerusalem and remember what I promised you when in John 14, 15 and 16, John’s Gospel that last night with the disciples. He said it’s important for you that I die and return to heaven, ascend to heaven, so that I can send the Holy Spirit and when He comes, He’ll convict the world, not just Jews, the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. So in verse 4 He gathered them and He told them not to leave Jerusalem. Now here you know we’re back to Jerusalem, so a different time-period but a similar content and what the instructions are, as you end each of the gospels. The same idea, not necessarily the same exact time, but the same exact message that concludes each of those. That’s the message that picks up where Luke left off in Luke 24, and now they’re in Jerusalem and He’s telling them to stay in Jerusalem.

Why, for verse 5, “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” John prophesized in his preaching, John the Baptist, and you read this early in the gospels. I baptize with water, there’s One coming after me who will baptize with fire and with the Holy Spirit. The fire representing the judgment that He would bring on the enemies of the Messiah and He would baptize with the Holy Spirit those who were believers and received Him. Now He’s telling them finally we’re going to have Him who had borne the judgment, if you will that would enable people to escape the eternity of hell, of fire in that final consummation as we saw in Revelation, but now we’re going to have the baptism of the Spirit. The Jews, these disciples, they’re beginning to put it together but not well. You know it’ll take time. They still haven’t grasped that message of we’re going to carry this gospel to all the nations.

They’ve got pieces now, like putting a puzzle together. You know sometimes if it’s complicated. You’ll put sections together and then you think, Oh, I think I’ve got it now. This is going to go over here, but then you realize after a little bit of time, no that doesn’t go there. That’s part of the problem; we put that in the wrong place, we’ve got to move that over here. This is a little bit how they’re beginning to understand what God has said, so now they understand the Messiah according to Old Testament Scripture had to suffer and die on the cross, be raised from the dead, so the penalty for sin has been paid. Now there is forgiveness of sins for all who believe in Him. You had to have the provision of the sacrifice. Well now that’s taken place. Now we can have the kingdom so their next question is at the end of verse 6, “Lord is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” Now we understand, so we’re ready now for the kingdom.
Jesus doesn’t get into details. He just tells them you don’t need to know. It’s not God’s plan for you to know. He will establish the kingdom on His timetable. It will become clearer as additional revelation is given as we’ve gone through the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ given to John but He gives them a promise. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” Now note this, “and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest parts of the earth.”

Remember we read Matthew chapter 10. Early in His earthly ministry Jesus said now you go out and tell about Me, but you don’t go to Gentiles, you don’t go to Samaritans; you only go to Jews. Here you see now you’re going to carry this message. It’ll start in Jerusalem. It’ll spread throughout Israel, then it will go to Samaria. It’ll take us to Acts chapter 8 to get there. Then it’ll go to the outermost parts of the world. To Gentiles in Acts chapter 10, and then with Paul’s ministry in its fullness in chapter 13, it will begin to be carried to the outermost parts of the earth. So, the responsibility is clear. Now in each of these commissions the command is to make disciples, preach the truth concerning my death and resurrection.

We have looked on occasion at the Book of Acts. The picture is always the same. Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin. You must recognize your sin, turn from your sin and place your faith in Him as your Savior, the One who is alive and you will be forgiven, it’s clear.

What are His followers to do? What are we to do down to today? Make disciples. How do you do that? Preach the gospel of Jesus Christ; the death, burial and resurrection of Christ as the payment in full for our sin. What is the church to be? First Timothy 3, “the church is the pillar and support of the truth.” It’s His body. It is in the world to make Him known, to proclaim Him. I have in my file, I downloaded a statement from a local church, not a bible believing church. They call themselves a Christian church. Nothing in the name but if you ask them, they say we’re Christians. You know what one of their basic tenants is? We do not believe that Jesus is the only way. Now how can you call yourself Christians? Now that’s ones who belong to Christ. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch as Acts 11 says. We’re Christians, but we don’t believe Jesus is the only way. But Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by Me,” and they say they don’t believe that. Well then, why would you call yourself a Christian? It’s like me saying I’m a Buddhist but I don’t believe in Buddha, and I don’t believe the doctrines of the Buddhist system, but I’m a Buddhist. Well, what is that? What does it mean? I’m a Christian. We just take that and it can mean anything we want.

Now I want to be careful here. We who claim to be Christians because we believe the true message, this is where we’re going. What does that mean? Come back to Matthew 28 and then we’ll come back to Acts, so you can leave a marker in Acts if you like. Come back to Matthew 28, we’re going to concentrate on this commission and then we’re going to move on to other parts of the word. Matthew 28, one command, “make disciples.” There’s no limit to that. The first participle modifying that one command, as you’re going or having gone. They’re not necessarily saying we have to go, every one of us to all the nations. It doesn’t mean you won’t. The point is, wherever you go, for whatever reason. The disciples will be scattered out throughout the world initially to other places by persecution. You might be scattered by a job change. You might be scattered because you believe God wants you to go to that part of the world and carry the gospel. The point will be wherever we’ve gone, because we live our lives under the authority and control of the God that we serve. Right, so whatever the reason might be that you’re transported to another place, you’re there for one prime reason. To make Christ known. As Paul told the Philippians you’re light in the darkness, so make disciples. That’s if we’re going to fulfill the command, having gone, wherever we are, we’re here to make Christ known. We’re in Lincoln Nebraska gathered as a congregation of believers, the body of Christ in this place. What is our responsibility? Make disciples, tell others the truth concerning Christ. It’s simple.

Well aren’t we here to help improve our city? Aren’t we here to meet social needs? Aren’t we here to make sure the right people get voted in? I know I believe in one—no! Make disciples. It doesn’t mean that in your individual walk you won’t be doing other things. Cut the neighbor’s lawn if you want, fine but that’s not what the church is. It is the pillar and support of the truth. Once you lose that focus, it gets watered down and you know we have to be careful about our own life. You know when it starts.

He’s talking about the church, hasn’t even been started here, but he tells them what they are to do because we have been put together as individual parts, to make one body. We talked about this in our previous study and together we are here to make Christ known as we function as His body, in this place, gifted by Him. But we are committed to one thing, present the truth. Make Christ known. As we go out and we leave here after a Sunday meeting, and we’re spread to a variety of places and some of you get on a plane and travel to other places for business or vacation or whatever. Well having gone, what are you to do there? Relax, take it easy, hide? Make Christ known. Make disciples, that’s what we do. That’s the first thing, having gone.

Second participle in verse 19, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” We’re not only identified with Christ in the truth concerning Him, when we do, we are identified with the living God, the triune God, the one God who eternally exists in three Persons. Because if you reject Christ, you reject the Father. If you have the Father, you have the Son, as Christ elaborated. You baptize them. What is that? It’s an identification. We’ll talk in our study this evening about some of the problem passages that people want to connect with the baptism being necessary for salvation, but I want to stress also that baptism is not necessary for you to be saved. Being baptized is a follow-up to your salvation. You are saved by faith. We’ll talk more about that tonight. That does not mean baptism is not necessary. Jesus gives clear command here. You make disciples, having gone wherever He sends you and you baptize them.

The New Testament knows nothing of a disciple who hasn’t been baptized. Someone comes, you go up and ask somebody, “Are you a Christian? Yes. Have you placed your faith in Jesus Christ? Yes, I have. When were you baptized? Oh, I don’t think that’s so important.” It’s not necessary for you to be saved, but it’s necessary for you to be obedient, after you’re saved. It seems to me that’s what it says; you baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Well Lord, I decided that wasn’t important. Well, who’s the authority been given to? Verse 18, “All authority has been given to Me…” Jesus said. Now I haven’t been given authority to overrule Him or make changes, so I want to let the word be our authority, so you baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and you’re not done.

Then the third participle is you’re “teaching them to observe…” at least the basic things about Me. That’s the way some churches take it, and that’s great. You might get a gospel message every Sunday, but He says you teach them “to observe all that I commanded you.” That’s why we go through our bibles, begin at the beginning, and go through every verse. What, take in everything? He’s commanded it, and you teach them to observe it, not just to know about it.

Biblical truth has to be learned so that it can be lived. There are many scholars, who know Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and know much of the bible, but they’ve never had a changed heart and that affects the outcome. We have to observe it. You have to live it. How long do we do this? Well, He’s with us to the end of the age so we do it until that time. We’re 2,000 years after these events basically, but the responsibility hasn’t changed. How does a church keep getting off track? It seems the drift is the same. We had a speaker here one time and he made it clear, every Christian School, every church goes liberal. Well that means it moves away from the truth. Why? Sometimes we just get weary, as we’ve talked about, sometimes we get distracted, sometimes we get involved in “good things” and give up what is the necessary essential thing. We’re teaching the word. Well I’m not as interested in that as you know other parts. It doesn’t matter. “Teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.” He didn’t give a recommended reading list, so the One with all authority says teach all that I command, so I guess we have to be diligent and busy. That’s why we’re encouraging through the biblical reading. The reading of various parts of the bible so we include it all and taking it in.

You know you can’t live what you don’t know. When our kids disobey something we usually tell them, you know better than that. But if they never knew anything about it, it’s hard to do it. You tell me go fly an airplane. I don’t know how, I can’t. I don’t know anything about it, so ignorance will not be an excuse before the Lord. We have to know. I will be accountable for having taught you. The other teachers will be accountable for teaching you, but you will be accountable for applying yourself, taking it in and for all of us to put it into practice.

I want to focus now on the baptizing. We’re going to back up. Charles Ryrie wrote a book a number of years ago called Balancing the Christian Life and the title does tell you something. You know, we think we can correct something by going to the other extreme. Now some people say baptism is necessary for salvation. I’ll talk more about those passages that they may use for that tonight. That is unbiblical, and if that’s what you teach, you corrupt the gospel and keep people from being saved.

People think because they were baptized, they’re saved. They think it’s necessary to be baptized to be saved. They have the same problem some of the Jews had with circumcision, but other Christians go along and say since it’s not required for salvation, it’s not essential I do it. Now we have to come back. “All authority has been given to Me.” You teach them to observe all that I commanded. Well, He said they’re to be baptized. They’re to observe all that I command, so I think that sometimes we go the other way. We don’t want anybody to be confused. It’s not necessary to be baptized to be saved. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. That’s all true, but that’s not all there is to salvation. Now that you’ve been saved if any man be in Christ, he’s a new creature, a new creation. Old things will pass away, new things have come. Now we begin a new life and the beginning of that life is I step forward to be publically identified with Jesus Christ, as the One that I serve. The One that I follow. The One that I learn from, if you will. A disciple is a follower, a learner.

All right lets run through the Book of Acts quickly. I don’t do anything quickly, but we’re going to the Book of Acts. When I say that, you know I’m in trouble because I’ve fallen too far behind. Acts chapter 2, Peter preaches on the day of Pentecost and you understand now how Peter understands. Christ had to suffer and die before we could have the kingdom. Israel has to believe the truth of the gospel before they can be saved and we can have the kingdom, so now he explains to them Old Testament Scriptures. In verse 21 of Acts 2, “It shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,” he explained to them. Christ has been exalted to the right hand of the Father, and the coming of the Spirit that had just occurred on Pentecost is proof that Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. So verse 36, “‘Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.’” And “when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart.”

Remember what Jesus said the Holy Spirit would do when He descended from heaven. He’ll convict the world of sin, of righteousness, of judgment. The Holy Spirit is doing what only He can do. You can tell someone the truth but only the Holy Spirit can pierce the heart with that truth. I had a homiletics professor when I was in seminary and he would remind us aspiring preachers. “You are not the Holy Spirit. You can proclaim the truth. Only the Holy Spirit can make that truth effective in a life.” That’s what happens here. All Peter does is tell them the truth of their Old Testament Scriptures. But on this occasion, the Spirit of God takes that truth and drives it home to their heart. What do we do, they say, we’re guilty. That’s part of convicting, recognize your sin, your guilt. Peter said to them, “Repent each of you, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Again, we’ll talk about this verse tonight and where it seems like baptism is connected to forgiveness. We’ll talk about that, but it’s expected that those who believe will get baptized, and so you follow on. They believe, they get baptized, three thousand people! I want to note there’s a pattern here. There’s not a long period of time, and how we get the idea that we don’t accept that a person has believed has repented, until we see the evidence. It doesn’t say now after you’ve taught them, and after time goes by and you’re sure they really believed, then you baptize them. Maybe some of these people became the Judaizers that are such a later problem. We don’t know.

They got caught up in the emotion of the moment. They’re like the seed on shallow ground. You’ve got thousands of the people responding to the invitation to place your faith in Christ and publically identify with Him. Some of those people might say, yeah that’s me, but then with persecution, with trials, with oppositions and family some of them may have decided, I don’t know, that’s the best course. I don’t know, but they’re baptized. Later we’ll have examples of someone who gets baptized and then Peter says I don’t think you were really saved. It doesn’t say we made a mistake baptizing you. We baptize you on profession of faith, but you understand that if you didn’t have faith in Christ, the baptism didn’t do anything for you, so they are immediately baptized.

Come over to Acts chapter 8. Chapter 8 is an interesting chapter because this is where the Samaritans are going to hear the gospel, and it’s persecution that’s going to drive the Jews out from Jerusalem and the confines of Israel out to the regions of Samaria. Saul, who we know better as Paul, began an intense persecution of the church and of course, Jerusalem and Israel would be the center of that because the Jews are leading it. Verse 3 says, “But Saul began ravishing the church…” so “therefore, those who had been scattered went about…” So, having gone, they’re driven out of Jerusalem, the persecution made them go. They didn’t make a missionary plan. Nothing wrong with a missionary plan. Paul will have that but the point is it doesn’t matter what God uses to move you. When He’s moved you, focus on the fact that I’m where God wants me to be. If you’re not convinced you’re where God wants you to be, get out. Go elsewhere. Don’t be in Lincoln, Nebraska, if God wants you in Somalia, and don’t be in Somalia if God wants you elsewhere. For whatever reason, it was persecution that made us move.

Peter goes. What’s he do? They went about preaching the word. Why? Having gone, make disciples. How do you make disciples? You preach the gospel. We can’t do it, we’re running. It doesn’t matter now that you’re in a new place. God put you there. He used persecution to get you there. If He puts you in the hospital, He put some kind of physical illness there, so maybe you could be a light in the darkness there. You know that sometimes we look at the circumstances that brought us here, rather than see the hand of God in whatever He’s doing. He’s with me wherever I am, all the time, to the end of the age, and my life belongs to Him. I’m not my own, I’ve been bought with a price. I get caught up with the frustration of what I would have wanted. I have to stop persecution! That’s a bad thing, Lord! Everything’s coming apart. Things were going so well. Only if we didn’t have this miserable persecution, think what we could do for You. You’ve got some that think that way, like the hand of God using the wretched rebellion against God of Saul to accomplish His purposes.

Sovereignty. So there’s a man here, Simon, who hears the gospel, is baptized and when Peter confronts him he says, I think you’re still in the bondage of your sin. The Ethiopians are reached, verse 12 chapter 8, “But when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God….” What’s the good news about the kingdom? You can be part of it. Remember Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3 you must be born again or you’ll never see the kingdom. The kingdom is a future entity, but you get your ticket to be part of it, so to speak, today, when you believe in Christ. They’re “preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike. Even Simon himself believed…” This is where Simon gets maybe caught up in the emotion, but you see what happens. They believed the gospel. The gospel is preached, people believe, they’re baptized. It doesn’t matter, well if Simon hadn’t believed before. See, if you had been more careful, waited a longer time, it might have been evident. I don’t come up with Plan B for God. He hasn’t delegated His authority to me in that sense. He tells me what to do. I have authority to do what I’m told, but I don’t have authority to come up with plan B. You say I think we should do this. I feel this way. It does not matter! It doesn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t matter what I feel. We have One who has all authority and all authority has been given to Him to the church. He’s like the head of the body, so they baptize him. For Simon that was his bad decision. Peter doesn’t take responsibility for it. He doesn’t rebuke those who preach the gospel and baptized him too soon, so baptism takes place immediately.

The same thing down in verse 30 when Philip meets the Ethiopian eunuch. This was the representative of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. Evidently a convert here to Judaism and he’s studying the Book of Isaiah of all things, and just in the plan of God. Here you’ll see, he’s been on a trip and he’s reading Isaiah, and he just happens to be reading Isaiah 53. Philip is directed by the Spirit and sent by the Spirit to talk to him and he says, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” Then he says, how can I understand it, I need somebody to explain it. So, Philip says that’s why I’m here. Let me explain it to you, so “he preached Jesus to him” from the Scripture, verse 35.

You ready to do that? You walk out of here and you bump into somebody. You come across a person who’s had a heart attack and he’s laying on the sidewalk, maybe breathing. Are you ready to preach Jesus to him? You’ve got to get to the point. You know they have to know now. You can’t say well, we’ll make an appointment in a week, and I’ll try to get things together. Today’s the day. He may not have tomorrow. So he preaches to the Ethiopian eunuch, verse 37, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” They stopped the chariot; he baptizes the eunuch, and sends him off to Ethiopia.

Well, you mean you’re sure he was saved. Only God is sure, only God sees the heart. Sometimes the pastors can be the worst of this, they think they ought to determine. God determines. I share the gospel, a person professes to believe; I’m going to rejoice with him. He’s trusted Christ and now you ought to publically identify with Him and let everybody know. God isn’t making provision. Remember when Christ talked about discipleship during His earthly ministry. It wasn’t a secret society. You know what part of the purpose of baptism is, it puts you right out in the public arena. If somebody comes up and says I heard you trusted Christ. Well, if you think they’re not going to like it, you fudge it, say, yeah somebody was telling me about it and I’ve thought about it. You get baptized what do you say. Yeah I went. Well, why were you baptized? You either deny Christ or you don’t.

There’s a dividing line here. It puts you out in a public forum. It declares, I’m not trusting anything else but Christ. It doesn’t matter that my parents baptized me as a baby. I didn’t know what I was doing when my parents carried me up there and got my head wet. I probably didn’t cry, I was a good baby; but I didn’t know what was going on. Baptism puts you out in the public forum. God isn’t calling together a secret society in that sense. He’s calling those who’ll be lights in the darkness. You know what a light does in the darkness. I had the lights that are given to me. If we turned out all the lights in here, it would be dark. When I turn out the light, it would stand out. That’s what we are. We’re bringing truth to those who are fighting against truth. They’re baptized.

All right, come to Acts 9. We have to go through five passages. We’re going through them, so hurry up. Acts 9:17. Paul gets saved and you know Paul’s been the leading persecutor of the church. He’s saved on the road to Damascus where his intention is to arrest and persecute Christians. He had no emotional feeling; He arrested and imprisoned women as well as men. A prison in those days wasn’t a pleasant place to be, not that it’s pleasant today but in those days they didn’t think they were responsible to make things comfortable in any way. What happens? Ananias comes, Paul tells him what has happened to him, and Paul is baptized, verses 17 and 18. At the end of verse 18, Paul is baptized. Well don’t you think we ought to give time for this persecutor of the church to demonstrate that he’s really trusted Christ? He’s put out right in the public forum. If he hasn’t truly believed, that’ll become evident. But you know we’ve come up with plans that I think are detrimental.

Look at chapter 10, Peter goes to the house of the Gentiles. He still hasn’t grasped until the vision he’s given in chapter 10 that Christ was serious when He says you’ll carry this gospel to all the nations. The idea that Peter still was stuck with, I’m going to limit that. He didn’t have authority to do that, so God sends him to the Gentiles. Peter preaches the gospel in verse 39 he tells about the earthly life of Christ. “They put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross.” In verse 40 of chapter 10, God raised Him from the dead, granted He become visible. We’ve seen Him. Verse 42, “He ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead…through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.” The Holy Spirit falls upon them. Peter says in verse 47, “Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did…” and he baptizes them in the name of Christ. You see immediately and then goes away and thinks, well these are Gentiles. Peter will struggle with this for a time, we know Galatians 2 Paul said he slipped; he didn’t want to eat with Gentile Christians because some Jews would think that was defiling. This is a major thing and he baptizes them.

Chapter 16 the Philippian jailer and he’s imprisoned these disciples and then the prisons opened supernaturally. Verse 30 he asks the question, “‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved? They said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved’” and that goes for your household. Everybody who’s in your family can be saved by believing and they believed, and immediately they were baptized that night. You see God’s intention is to put us out in the limelight, in the public forum if you will as followers of Christ. Now wait a minute, this jailer’s got a lot at stake here. What is going on with the prisoners and now you’re declaring yourself a follower of that One who was crucified in Jerusalem, under the authority of Pilot as a threat to Rome. What’s going on here? Here you are, you’re out there. What are you going to tell people? Are you a believer in Jesus Christ? Well, I’m a secret, but I don’t have to tell you what’s in my heart. Were you baptized? Yeah. So you’re a follower. That’s the point, you’re there and you’ve declared it.

Chapter 18 verse 8, Paul carries the gospel to Corinth. He preaches the gospel, the Corinthians are saved. They believed, and at the end of verse eight, when they heard and believed, they were being baptized. Paul said he didn’t baptize them in chapter one because he didn’t want any confusion. He’s got a very prominent role. They weren’t becoming followers of Paul, they were becoming followers of Jesus Christ, so Paul didn’t perform the baptism, but he has them baptized. Then in chapter 19 verse 4, you have the disciples of John because this is another group. We’ll talk tonight, as we need more clarification. The disciples of John believed the message of John the Baptist, but then they were gone from Jerusalem, and they hadn’t heard the finished story that Jesus was the Messiah crucified as the payment, for the penalty for sin. When they hear that message concerning Christ that He was the Messiah who paid the penalty for sin, they believe it and then they’re rebaptized. Before they had been baptized as those who were followers of John the Baptist and believers in the coming Messiah, but now they’re baptized as believers in the Messiah who’s come and paid the penalty for their sin.

Baptism is immediate, so the pattern so I would say to you, are you a believer in Jesus Christ? Have you ever declared that faith by baptism? Well, the New Testament if you say “no”, would say then, upon what basis shall we accept you as a true believer? Are you ashamed of Him? Jesus said if you’re ashamed of Me before men, I’ll be ashamed of you before My Father. Well my family wouldn’t understand. Will Christ understand if you don’t? We come up with these things. We think we’re helping God out of a predicament He’s created for Himself. Read the article on the immutability of God. He’s a God we don’t have to help out with anything. He doesn’t need help. He needs obedience. Am I saved if I wasn’t baptized? Yes, if you’ve truly believed, but it’s hard for me to understand why you wouldn’t want to obey Him, because you’re supposed as a believer to obey everything. We have reversed the order. We say we preach the gospel, make disciples, teach them all things, then baptize them. Now Scripture says you baptize them and then you teach them all things. Give it consideration. The most important one is, have you really recognized the gospel and believed it? If you have, obedience is the next step. Let’s pray.

Thank you, Lord, for your word. How amazing it is that You love us. You sent Your Son to die for us. The amazing thing is You claim us as Your own. Why would we be ashamed to declare we belong to You? It’s our highest honor. Our greatest privilege. The living God says I belong to Him. He wants me to be publically identified with His Son, with His salvation, with the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You are an amazing God who has demonstrated unfathomable love. Lord, we want to be responders to that love with our faith in Christ and we want to be responders to that love with our full obedience. May that be true. In Christ’s name? Amen.
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