Preached in Markham Baptist Church, March 28, 2004.

Acts 8:26-40

WHY DO WE BAPTIZE?

Bruce Fong, preaching to a crowded auditorium at Moody Bible Institute began his address by saying, “you have never seen a cockroach until you have seen a Texas Cockroach. Ugly, filthy, disgusting little creatures. And when you see one you know there are a hundred others hiding out of sight."

Bruce Fong can personally attest to this because when he and his wife in their newlywed year moved into the Dallas theological seminary married students residence they had been told they could move in the 1st of July, the other residents having moved out by that time. However much to the Fong's disgust they discovered that some residents decided to stay behind.

Being a morning person Bruce would get up early every morning while it was still dark. He wouldn’t turn on the light because that would disturb his wife. He memorized his way out of the bedroom, quietly shut the bedroom door, tiptoe down the hall to the entrance to the kitchen – reach around the door jam to turn on the light in the kitchen and brace himself.

In the darkness of the night the little creatures in the Fong’s apartment had been having a party. But as soon as the light is turned on you can hear this sound, “Scratch, scratch” as all those cockroaches are looking for some place to hide.

Bruce Fong said, "It was enough to give a grown man the heebie-jeebies."

One of his neighbors across the way were entertaining one night, when the wife put the frying pan on the burner, put some butter in, reached up to the cupboard for some spices and out into the frying pan, fell the largest cockroach known to man.

1 down, 75 million to go.

Finally, they said to the seminary, please do something about this mess. They got some professional exterminators to come in, they asked the Fongs to leave and gave them some instructions as to how to prepare their apartment. They were gone for the time needed, then came back when the all clear was given and Bruce Fong said, “It was an absolutely incredible, unforgettable, experience going back into that apartment. I stepped into the dining room and looked at the kitchen floor and there were hundreds and hundreds of dead cockroaches strewn all about and there in the middle of the floor was the king of all cockroaches – at least 6 and half feet long. We got the dustpan and started sweeping up, and putting them in the garbage bin. Filling it half way full with the dead carcasses. We washed all the dishes, all the pans, and put them back in the cupboard."

But then it was the next morning. It was dark again when Bruce got up. He didn’t turn on the light because that would disturb his wife. He memorized his way out of the bedroom, quietly shut the bedroom door, tiptoed down the hall to the entrance to the kitchen. Reached around the door jam to turn on the light and he braced himself for the usual shock that he was accustomed too, flipped on the light switch.

Nothing. Absolute silence. Everything was clean. He took the wall clock off the wall were the cockroaches liked to go in and sit by the battery to keep warm during the day. And there was no sign of cockroaches inside the clock. He reached for the cupboard and opened it quickly; nothing fell out onto the counter. He took out the plates and there was no residual from where the cockroaches had left there after dinner preparations.

And Bruce concluded the story saying, “I stood there in the kitchen and I remember it so clearly, for the very first time in that apartment I felt clean. No more cockroaches!"

And from there Bruce Fong went on to tell us about Christ’s forgiveness how when we come to Him and confess our sins we are totally clean. No more stains from our sin, more guilt for our failings, no more feeling that we have to perform or act a certain way to win God’s favour because in Christ we are new creations, dead to sin, the old self crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.

In Christ we are totally clean, mo more fault for our sin.

And as I continue to listen to the recording of that message, I find myself moved to thanksgiving for Christ’s love for me. For I, like many of you, have experienced the cleansing power of Christ’s forgiveness.

Do you remember the last time you were drawn to the foot of the cross and there sensing the horridness of your sin, sensing the depth of your despair to do anything to get rid of this burden of guilt? You lived so long with the guilt, with the sin, until you were moved to cry out, "O wretched man that I am who will save me from this body of death?"

And then the vision of Christ hanging on the cross came clearly into view and you heard the voice of Christ say to you, "I forgive you. I died that you might live, therefore there is no condemnation for you who are in Christ Jesus, go and sin no more."

And do you remember the thrill of knowing that now in Christ you are new creation? O thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! Do you remember the joy of feeling that burden roll off your shoulders? The lightheartedness of it all? The new feeling of life and hope and freedom that are now yours. For the first time in your life you feel clean, no more condemnation for your sin.

And you wish that someone had put to music that great praise because it’s the only thing that is appropriate to say, "Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen!"

But it isn’t just thanksgiving that we feel – when we are cleansed from our sin. There is a new sense of devotion to Christ. Of feeling that if He was willing to give His life for me then surely I can give my all for Him. If knowing the person that I am, He still was willing to lay down His life for my sin – if knowing the magnitude of my sin, of my pride, of my self-righteousness, of knowing how many times I would fail Him and disgrace Him, yet still He was willing to die for me – then He demands my life, my soul my all.

And closely following devotion there is a new feeling of wanting to obey. Now being set free from wanting to please God in order to win a reward from Him – now we want to please God because we already have the reward. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. So having received the gift from the hand of God we must surely ask as Paul asked, when touched by the grace of God for the first time, "What is it that you would have me do, Lord?"

Thanksgiving, devotion, wanting to obey and lead a holy life – all those feelings well up within us, but we must not forget wanting to testify. O, how we want the world to know about our new state. About the new freedom we have, how for the first time we feel real life coursing through our veins; how for the first time we wake up in the morning ready to greet the day, rather than dread the day. Because the burden that we carried for so long is now gone, how we are forgiven and how we feel clean in our heart for the very first time. And oh, how we want to share that with others whom we see carry a similar burden, who are slaves to sin who continue to carry that old ball and chain of sin around with them.

We want them to feel the same way to feel the joy and the thrill of knowing that in Him we have redemption through is blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace. (Ephesians 1:7)

Thanksgiving, devotion, obedience, wanting to share it with those around us. We have experienced them all when we realized that in Christ we were totally clean. No one stain from sin is left, all exterminated by the blood of Christ. And this surely is the feeling, the sentiments of the Ethiopian eunuch as he rode along in his chariot with the disciple Philip. As he reads the Scripture,

"He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice, who can speak of his descendents? For his life was taken from the earth.”

And Philip points him to Jesus Christ, to the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world, the lamb that was without spot or blemish the good news of Jesus Christ.

These feelings must have been present in the heart of the Ethiopian eunuch and made him ask the question, “Look here is some water, Why shouldn’t I be baptized?" Indeed such a feeling must be in the heart of every believer who desires to be baptized.

Baptism is not an act through which we seek to win God’s favour. It is not our ticket to heaven. It is not a lucky charm, which you can remind God of every time we get into trouble – demanding that He do something about our situation because we have been faithful in being baptized.

When we stand before His judgment seat He will not ask us, have you been baptized? No, He will ask you, "Have you received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and sought to follow Him with all your heart and soul and strength?" It is upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ that our relationship with God depends.

But having said that – we cannot diminish the place and prominence that baptism has in Scripture as a way of expressing what has happened within us, of expressing our thanksgiving, our devotion, our obedience to God of testifying to others of how the blood of Christ has purified us from all unrighteousness.

Do you know that Jesus Christ never said that baptism doesn’t matter? He never said that it was a mere ritual that you can ignore and put off if you feel like. I don’t know where Christians get such a notion for it is very plainly said by Christ that we are to be baptized. He commanded us to submit to it.

It is an act that He submitted to Himself. He came to John the Baptist and said "I must be baptized, to fulfill all righteousness." It was a sign of obedience and complete dependence upon God. It foreshadowed his own death, burial and resurrection.

Then just before He ascended into heaven He told His followers to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And so Peter in preaching his first sermon calls the Jewish nation to repent and be baptized every one of you (which incidentally can be translated "every single one of you") in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

Some time later Jesus comes to His servant Paul and transforms his life with a great vision of this grace and Paul is told after receiving his sight back because he is struck blind by the vision, to get up and be baptized and wash your sins away calling on His name. (Acts 22)

Paul wrote to the Galatians, “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation.” Yet he was baptized.

Why? Why do we baptize? If you need any more reasons than that Christ commanded it and so we do it out of obedience, here is a reason – because it is an expression of our love and thanksgiving toward God for what He has done. It is a sign or a pledge of our unending devotion and obedience toward God and it is a testimony to those around us that we belong to God.

There are some who say, “I will allow my actions to speak for me. I will live in such a way that people know that I obey God and am devoted to God.”

Excellent – that must be done. If we don’t live in obedience to God, then the ritual of baptism is empty and hollow. But don’t allow that word ritual be robbed of its power. In our culture we don’t want anything to do with ritual because we have seen so many times how it is devoid of meaning and depth. But really, really my friends, any ritual that means anything grows out of a deep and living relationship with God.

Suppose I said to my wife Janet toward the end of our courtship, after we had been dating for some time, "Let’s skip the wedding ceremony." (Indeed her father suggested that we skip the wedding ceremony, offering to provide the ladder and several free coupons to McDonalds for all our friends - I think he was trying to weasel out of something!) But suppose I said, "Let’s skip the wedding ceremony. I know that you love me and I know I love you – so let's just live together, skip the ceremony thing – it’s only a formal thing it doesn’t mean anything any way – what really matters is that you have my heart devotion and I have your heart devotion."

I don’t think that would go over so well. Because something tremendous happens in the wedding ceremony – I pledged my love to Janet and she pledge her love to me. We celebrated our love for one another – we gave ourselves to one another. And if I ever forget during the hard times, during the difficult times how much I love Janet, I have this ring on my finger to remind me of the day I pledged myself to her and she to me and how I pledged myself only to her and she only to me.

We made this confession before all our friends, family and before God.

And so our relationship with God – having been touched by His grace, having been redeemed by His blood we can’t say to Him, "Let’s skip the ceremony because all that matters is that I love You and You love me." No, no. because something significant happens in the baptism ceremony.

For it is here that we pledge our devotion to Christ, and promise our obedience to Him, we celebrate our love for Christ, we express what He has done for us, and we testify to those around us that we belong to Christ and Christ alone.

It is an act of obedience it is an act of thanksgiving, it is an act of devotion, it is an act testifying to those around us of the new life that Christ has wrought in our life.

"Look, here is some water! Why shouldn’t I be baptized?" You shouldn’t be baptized if you haven’t been forgiven through His grace; you shouldn’t be baptized if your heart is still hard with pride and self-reliance.

But… but, if you have tasted the goodness of our Lord if you have known what it means to come out of the darkness of sin and into the marvellous light of Christ’s forgiveness; if your heart can do nothing but give Him thanksgiving and devotion and obedience, and want to tell the world of what He has done for you then what keeps you from be baptized? The Lord has commanded it, and modeled it and now He calls you by name to summit to Him through the waters of baptism.

If God has spoken to you today you need to respond.

"Look here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized? And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water the Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing!"

Copyright MBC and Tom Cullen - March 2004