The Step of Baptism

Sometimes life comes down to some very basic questions. Like, what should I have done?

Or what can be done? Or what shall I do? You and I face those particular crossroads quite often in our lives over issues rather mundane in everyday life and sometimes rather important and critical as to the changing of the job, the issues within a family that can be quite momentous, or other events that are going to have either a financial impact upon us or an emotional, spiritual impact in our lives. But even right now, some of you may be facing certain of those questions in certain ways over certain matters within your life. These are common questions that come up all the time.

And they relate to probably the most important of decisions that we have before us at any one time. And that is the most important step that can ever be taken in our spiritual lives to determine our relationship with God, with His Church, and for our eternal life. And it has to do with the subject of the step of baptism. I'd like to talk about that here this afternoon. Some of you may be considering baptism at this very moment, and that's very, very good. Some of you have not considered baptism for many reasons and may not look at it as a very important step. Maybe you grew up in the Church, you know the truth, you believe in God, you're a good person, you keep God's laws and His way of life, but baptism is just something that you'll put off. You'll get around to it someday, but knowingly or unwittingly in our minds with that approach we treat baptism like it's kind of an elective course that we have to do. We can take, you know, when you're going, matriculating through college you have certain courses you have to take to get that major, and then there are others what we call electives that we can choose from. Sometimes if we take the approach that we put this subject of baptism off, it's kind of like taking a class that we might not really want to get into and may not be interested in, but we'll just put it off there and treat it as an elective course. Sometimes people run from baptism. They look around, they see the bad examples of other people who are baptized and have been for umpteen years and for whatever reason think, well it's not for me, if that's what it's all about, how hypocritical with issues and problems of the last 10, 15, 18 years in the church and some of those things still perhaps lingering in people's minds about the deep spiritual issues of life, some think, you know, I'm just not quite sure, and there's a hesitancy. And then for all of us, the majority of us in this room, who have been baptized, whether 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 70 years ago, I don't know. But for decades, for some of us, there is always the tendency to forget what we did, what happened when we took that step, what changed in our life.

And if we run from trial to trial, from trauma to trauma, with our life not quite firmly secured in the moorings that we anchored ourselves into when we were baptized, we may be spinning our wheels in some ways. And the need to look at what it is that we stepped into when we became baptized is very real, very present. So whatever category you may find yourself in, stay with me for a few minutes as we go through some scriptures that I wanted to go through today to look at and to show the gift of baptism and the joy that baptism brings.

I decided to give this sermon, not just for those of you that aren't baptized and perhaps to encourage you in that way, but to certainly dispel some of the ideas that are out here in our lives, at times, the fears, the uncertainties, maybe even a level of negativity about God's way of life. For years, one of the things that I've heard about people getting baptized, and maybe you've picked up on this, is some people have said after they got baptized, they got really hit with their biggest trials. A lot of things happened. I remember hearing that over the years. I know when I got baptized, I didn't get hit with some big trial. I went around for a while thinking, did it really take? Nothing happened this week, second week, nothing happened, third week, nothing big happened. I remember having that thought, wow, I'm having a big trial. The biggest trial in those years probably was some girl turning me down for a date. I can assure you, that has nothing to do with baptism or spiritual conditions there. So with that approach, a little bit of negativity comes into the subject and thinking that you take that step and you're walking into trouble. So why do it? Life's pretty good. Got enough troubles. Why get into this?

But those are some of the urban church myths that develop along with any number of other topics.

It shouldn't be the way we approach this. Baptism is a gift from God that He wants us to experience, not just at the moment we're baptized, but for what it brings to our lives as a joy from that point on. What I'd like to do today is take us through a brief overview of a few episodes from the book of Acts because there are more examples of baptism in the book of Acts than any place else. Now we could look in the Gospels and essentially focus on the Gospels and baptism of Jesus Christ, which is obviously a very important one. But there's not many others other than the incidence of John the Baptist baptizing that are mentioned in the Gospels. But you turn to the book of Acts and there are a number of different episodes where people were baptized. And I think there's some instruction there for us. So I'd like to take us through a study of the book of Acts. Some of you are already rustling your pages, which means you're probably turning to chapter 2 of Acts. Right? Because you already know that that's the first point of baptism in the book of Acts. Right? You already knew that, though, didn't you? Acts 2. Acts 2. Now, one of the things about the various episodes we're going to look at is that, number one, these people, all of them that we're going to look at, are everyday folk. They're common people, just like you and I. Today I purposely am not going to the example of Jesus. That's for another time and other lessons, perhaps, to draw from His baptism. Because sometimes we might think, well, that's Jesus, and He was God in the flesh. So let's look at the common examples of everyday people who were baptized, as we can find them in the book of Acts, people who came to a crossroads in their life, and they had to make some decisions. And they saw that the direction to take was down. You thought I was going to say up. No. The direction they took was down.

Down. Why down? Because they went down literally into a pool of water to be baptized.

They went down into a watery grave. But they literally, in these days, in the first century, they walked down. You go to Israel today and you crawl over some of the archaeological ruins that are there. You know one of the most common features that you see in Jerusalem, at the Temple Mount, you'll see it in several locations, at Qumran, down by the Dead Sea, where the monks that lived out there and copied the scrolls and hid them in their hermit-like existence down in the cave area of the Dead Sea, and other places, one of the most common features is what they call a mikvah. M-I-K-V-A-H in the Hebrew. A mikvah. And a mikvah in the Hebrew is a little pool of water where they did ritual cleansing, ritual purification. We would say baptizing. They didn't necessarily use that word and looked at it in that way because they did it as a part of their religious life on a regular basis. They didn't do it just once like we would do today to be baptized once and, you know, go into a pool of water and you're baptized just once. They did it. If you went to the temple, you were a first century Jew, and you went to the temple on whether it was once a year, once every five years, or you went every week if you lived in Jerusalem and you just wanted to go up in there and take part in some part of the service around Jerusalem, before you would ever enter the the environs of the temple, you would have to go through a ritual bath. And you can see those there. In fact, you can walk down into one of them, and it's very interesting because they have two sets of steps. One takes you down. You would walk down, I think it was on the right side, into the pool of water, and you would do your ritual bath. And it wasn't necessarily like we do where maybe a priest then was saying something over the person, asking if they repented and dunking them under. They would go through a ritual bath. But then they would come back up the other side. So the people going down would not mingle with those that were coming up. Those were going down were ritually impure. Those coming out had gone through a process, and they were pure, and then ready to go into the temple and to make an offering or to take part in some of the services in some way. And the idea was that before you approached God, you had to be pure. You had to be washed. We would say you had to be cleansed of your sins. And this was a process by which they did it. So these baths, these little mikvahs, are all over the place. And it's interesting, on the south end of the temple, where you can go today if you ever go to Jerusalem, there's an archaeological park there that is well laid out. And you can see these baptismal spots where they had these pools that people would go into. And as the temple was set up, people came up from the south end of Jerusalem where most of the city laid to the south anyway. They would go up this huge expanse of steps, but they would go through a ritual bath first. And you can see those there today as they've been uncovered. But what's interesting is right on top is the southern area of the temple mount. And that is where the area that we read about here in the book of Acts of Solomon's porch and the buildings and the place where they were likely gathered on this day of Pentecost. When they were there in the temple on the day of Pentecost is they were gathered in one place in the temple area. If there's one spot that you would likely place them, it was right there.

And if you look at the story in Acts, I'm not going to go through all of this. Peter gives us very long sermon that begins in verse 14. As the Spirit of God is poured out, people were there from all over many nations. And Peter stood up in verse 14 with the 11, and he began to talk to the people who were there, and he began to preach this sermon that showed them who Jesus was, how they had been involved in His death.

And they came down to the end of Acts chapter 2. And in verse 37, after they had heard the stirring sermon from Peter, it says they were cut to the heart. And these people who heard the sermon said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? A question. What do we do? We have been involved in the responsible because Peter's sermon said, you have been in responsible for killing the Son of God.

And they were convicted of that. They were moved by it. They had their hearts open to understand their part in the death of Christ, the Son of God. And they recognized that He was not just a good Jewish teacher or rabbi, but He was the Son of God in the flesh. And they had been involved because of their sins in causing Him to have to be put to death. And they were embarrassed. And they had come to a crossroads. And they said, what shall we do? How do we move beyond this? How do we get this guilt off of our shoulders?

How do we rectify this? And the only solution was what Peter said in verse 38, to repent. Let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. You shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Baptized. That's why I said they went down. That was the only decision they could make. Now, what is interesting, and this is a little bit of speculation, but I'm not so sure that it's that far off, they were in the temple on the day of Pentecost when this took place.

The most likely spot from what we know of how that whole temple structure was built was that they were likely on the south side in what the area that is called Solomon's porch. And it was a huge covered area. There were various rooms in there. And they just kind of rented a room, kind of like we do today when we want to have a holy day, we'll go and rent a room someplace.

And if they were there, then they could have wanted to be baptized. And they could have just looked over the southern wall and seen the baptism tanks or pools, the mikvahs, just below them. And they could have used those. Maybe they set up some other form. I don't know. Maybe they rushed out of that complex down this huge staircase that was there at the time. And maybe they just kind of took over. And these thousands were baptized in the regular mikvahs right there. Whatever they did, however they accomplished it, they knew that it was a different form of washing than at any thing that they'd ever been involved with at any other point when they'd come into the temple area.

This was a different purification. This was one that involved the washing away of something that had accumulated over the years. And they were baptized. They went down. They said, what will we do? And they had all the miracle of the languages, which certainly showed how this was a different event. You know, as I said, they may have come in on other occasions in this temple, and they'd gone through that mikvah maybe dozens of times in their lives. And they'd watch their friends and their neighbors do it.

It was all part of the community. And they had taken it for granted, just as human nature would do. But God gave them a miracle of the rushing wind and flames of fire. And they heard each other speak in other languages. And they knew this was different. Something was happening. History was changing. And they had a decision to make as to be a part of that history. They saw that the Holy Spirit was being given, and it was moving in and among people.

This was different. And as I said, they were with an eyesight of people coming into the temple on the southern steps. And they knew that they had a chance to catch the train and be a part of something different. There was now an individual duty and responsibility and a personal relationship with God that was being offered to them.

And they had to act. And we see the story, as it says, at the end, that thousands did. Most ministers have always been very envious of Peter's one sermon here. Because I've never given a sermon that brought that kind of a response. It's the dream of any minister worth his salt, is to get this kind of movement out of people to get them to respond.

But it's a heady time within the story of the church. Thousands are coming into the church. It's springing up. There's growth. There's excitement. There's renewal. A lot of things are taking place. They sense the responsibility and the duties that is on each of their shoulders before God. And they recognize that they have to take the step to do it. It's an interesting experience. In Acts chapter 8, there's another example of baptism.

Beginning in verse 26, we see where there is Philip preaching Christ down in the desert area on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. And he comes across a man of Ethiopian, a eunuch somehow connected with the royal court of the Ethiopians returning from Jerusalem where he'd been to worship. And God's spirit moved Philip to go near to engage this man, talk with him, and to explain to him the Scriptures in the book of Isaiah about Jesus, which he begins to do in verse 32. And the eunuch asks him questions, and he answers Philip. And Philip, in verse 35, opened his mouth and began at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. He showed who Jesus was from the Scriptures, that he was the fulfillment of the Scriptures dealing with the suffering servant and all the others here, as we already have seen in verse 32 and 33. And he's convicted, this Ethiopian eunuch. And as they went down the road in verse 36, they came to some water, a pool of water, whatever it was, a pond, a drainage ditch, a source of water. And the eunuch said, see, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized? What hinders me? What's keeping me from being baptized, Philip? Why can't you do this? Is this my time? Is there something that I don't know about, Philip? This question supposes perhaps a longer discussion. What's keeping me from doing this? What's keeping me from being baptized? And Philip said, if you believe, if you believe, with all your heart, you may.

Belief from the heart, not just from the head. Sometimes people think that, you know, I gotta know all these things. I gotta know all these booklets. I need to know all the commandments. I need to know all the teachings. I need to know all the doctrines. I need to know all of this. All of what? Sometimes, you know, and there is a level of knowledge that a person should have. I mean, it's not just for a novice. We don't baptize infants. We generally don't baptize young people until they're of an age when they can have a certain level of knowledge, not just of scriptures or booklets or correspondence courses and all the stuff that, you know, sometimes we in the ministry can pile a lot on. I'm careful not to have some big Talmud of booklets that people have to wade through in order to be, quote, ready to be baptized. But there is a level of knowledge and understanding, but most of all, we have to believe.

And that belief is based on the heart. That belief comes from down here. After what we know enters in up here, but it changes our heart. It changes our life. And Peter said, if you believe with all your heart that has led to changes and convictions, then he says, you may, or you're ready. You're ready to take that step. And there should be nothing to hinder you. There should be nothing to stand in one's way. And the eunuch answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He didn't say, I believe that this church is the true church.

He didn't say, I believe this man is the what? You fill in the blank. I don't believe this man. He didn't say that. I believe this man is what? You're not baptized into any men.

You're not baptized into any organization. We always say that over people's baptism. I remember, some of you will remember, in the spring of 1995, I brought that up. It reminded us all of that.

And to this very day when we put somebody in the water, we say we are not baptizing you into an organization, a body of men. We're not baptizing you to follow some man who claims to be somebody. You're baptized, every one of us, into the body of Jesus Christ. You should never, ever forget that.

Now, there's a place for an organization. There's a place for human leadership.

Not denying any of that. But that's not what we were baptized into. We were everyone baptized into the body of Jesus Christ because we believe that Christ is the Son of God. That's what Peter said to the eunuch. So when we get all that straight, all the rest will take care of itself, and we can deal with all the organizational business and all the human business that comes and goes. But once we get God straight in our heart, which the eunuch did, the eunuch recognized that he commanded and stood still, and they both went down into the water.

So again, this guy went down, didn't go up, he went down, down to the count, and he was baptized. So, some interesting things to look at and to learn.

You know, in this chapter there's another example. I've skipped over. Some of you may have caught that because there was another example beginning in verse 14, where a man named Simon in Samaria. Where Samaria had received the word in verse 14, and people were brought in, and the apostles sent Peter and John down to kind of look over, and when they came down, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. There was a baptism that took place, and laying on of hands had evidently been done. And so they went down and they laid hands on them. And they had been baptized, verse 16, in the name of the Lord Jesus. They laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. And when Simon, who was a magician and a sorcerer, long story there about him, we'll go into all of that, but he saw that through the laying on the apostles' hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money. That's the classic story of Simonie. That's where we get the name Simonie here, where he offered to buy a spiritual gift with money. And Peter clashed with him here. It's a very interesting story in the book of Acts. But the only point I want to bring out in this context is just focused on a positive of what Simon saw. His heart was not right. Peter instantly saw that. But Simon saw something. He saw that through the laying on of hands the Holy Spirit was given. Now, how did he know that the Spirit was given? Think about that for a moment, because we're not told here of tongues of fire. We're not told of speaking in language.

And it was something that he probably observed over a period of time. And I think that the answer is that he saw people's lives were changed. He saw that people were actually, there was a difference in these people. There was some joy. There was some happiness. There was probably more of what we read about back in Acts 2 and 3 of people being added to the church, and they had all things in common in this spirit, which reflected a changed life. I think that's what Simon saw, that there was a change. And he wanted that. He wanted about it completely wrong, but I think that he acted wrong from a positive experience that he saw in other people. That's what I think he saw. But he saw that there was a change. There is a change, and there should be a change when we're baptized. And the changes were the good. Why would he want it? Unless he saw that there was a change for the good. There was some power working in the people. So again, you know, baptism is not something that we need to fear, that if we do it, you know, our lives are going to be full of trials. Or there's something bad that's going to happen. When we're baptized, we have the spirit of God. And good things can happen. Our lives can be completely different.

That, I think, is a lesson to take from that of Simon here and what he tried to do. He saw that this power made people different in a positive way. Let's look at chapter 9.

This is the baptism of the soon-to-be Apostle Paul. You know the story of Saul? Breathing out threatenings and slaughter, persecuting the church. This is what Acts chapter 9 tells us.

Breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. Verse 1.

And he goes to the high priest and he gets more court orders, more arrest warrants, and he's on his way to Damascus when he is struck down.

Okay. He has this experience and God says, Christ, you know, talks to him, why are you doing this? Why are you kicking against the pricks, Christ says?

And so he has this change. And he is struck down blind. I'm just summarizing the story here. But I want you to think about what verse 1 of Acts 9 tells us. He is breathing, threatening, and murder. Threats and murder. Would you say that he had some issues?

Would you say that Saul, at this point, is probably kind of worked up?

He's got some emotional distress. Would you say that he's angry?

I'd say that he's angry.

Anger is an emotion. It's a destructive emotion. Any of us that have ever had to work through anger in our lives or had it focused on us, repeatedly, by someone else, a parent, a friend, an employer, whatever, we can know full well the effect of anger and see it. And if it has eaten away at any of us, we know the effect of it as well. Here it took Paul to the point where he calls people to be put to death. This guy's got some issues. He's got some problems.

And they're religious motivated. He doesn't like their brand of religion. He doesn't like the success he's seeing among this cultist. He would look at it, and he feels that it is his God-given duty in life to wipe it out. And so he's got indictments in hand. He's on his way to Damascus. He's struck down, and he's made blind, because God is going to turn his life around. And what God does was, after he's in Damascus and he's blind, and as a story, in verse 10, God then, the scene shifts as we see God moving and working with a man named Ananias, a disciple, that God appears to in a vision, and he says, Ananias, and he says, Here I am, Lord. God tells Ananias to get up and go to the street called Strait and inquire at the house of Judas, for the one called Saul. And he's there, and he's praying, and in a vision, he's seen a man named Ananias already coming. So he's, you've already been announced. He's very interesting approach, and Ananias says, Lord, you know, this guy is a dangerous guy. He's one I don't want to mess with. He's got a reputation. He says, I've heard about him from many how he has done much harm. He did want to be in the same room with him. You ever been told that you had to go deal with somebody that you don't want to deal with? This is how he felt. God said, Go anyway. He's blind. I've got him corralled. But he says he's my chosen vessel. Anyway, verse 17, Ananias went his way and entered the house, and he laid hands on him, and he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as he came, as you came, has sent me that you might receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And immediately there fell from his eyes, something like scales, and he received a sight at once. He arose and was baptized. And when he received food, he was strengthened, and Saul spent many days, some days, with the disciples at Damascus. The scales fell from his eyes. The blindness went away, and he said, You're going to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

You will receive your sight. We can look at what happened with Paul here as he is transformed from a man who was angry and violent, expending emotional energy toward people to their death because they didn't agree with him in a religious sense. And then he's baptized, and we see a completely changed spirit.

Now, it probably took a little bit of time for all this to work out, but I think over these few days here while he was blind that he had already been brought up short, and some of this was beginning to work its way out. But when he was baptized, he was changed. When Paul was baptized, he understood God as never before. Now, Paul understood something about God because he was a student of the Scriptures. He'd sat at the feet of a very learned rabbi named Gamaliel for years. He was trained in all of the Old Testament Scriptures. He knew about God, but now he finally understood God. God's what he knew he was able to build on. His thinking was expanded. And he went on, as we all know, to write the eloquent letters of Corinthians and Ephesians and Galatians and Romans, Philippians and Colossians, and to give the deepest, most profound teachings on love, the church, the resurrection, Christian living, how to get along with people, how to love one another. You go right down the list, and all of our Christian teaching about Christian relationships so much comes from the Epistles of Paul. When I was at Ambassador College, the favorite class everyone wanted was Epistles of Paul, the classic where we went through all the Epistles. Everyone knew that it would be a life-changing class to go through the Epistles of Paul and study that because you get into the nuts and bolts of Christianity. And this from a man who was breathing out threatenings and slaughters. But when he was baptized, his life changed. He knew about God. In a sense, he'd been raised with God, kind of like a lot of us, raised in the church, raised with a knowledge of the truth. But God had to bring him up short. And when he was, his mind opened up, and he became a completely different person. That's what baptism does. It creates an axonus to make a change for the positive, and it did with Paul. Let's look at chapter 10. Here's another long, classic story. This is of Cornelius, a Roman soldier, verse 1 of chapter 10. This is Peter's story now. We've seen shifts to Peter.

And we're told here about a man named called Cornelius, who lived in Caesarea, which was a very beautiful port. Caesarea was on the Mediterranean coast, in the north and west of Israel, of the land of Palestine then. You can go there and see the ruins, and even the ruins are magnificent. What it was at this day in the first century is built by Herod the Great, and it was a port, big port where ships came and went. Palaces, Herod had a huge palace there, and it was a seaport city. And even today, as I say, with the ruins, it's one of the most beautiful places in Israel to go to. And so it was a nice posting for Cornelius to be there. And this is where he lived. He was a Roman centurion of the Italian regiment. We're told in verse 2, he says that he was a devout man who feared God with all of his household and who gave alms generously to the people and prayed to God always. So he was a good man. He gave money to people. He prayed to God on a regular basis.

And even though he was a soldier of the hated and feared Roman army, he seemed to have a different spirit. And he feared God. Now, this doesn't mean that he knew God completely and the true God. He, no doubt, had been raised probably in paganism with pagan gods. But at some point, maybe as a result of his time spent in Judea, he began to seek the God of the Jews and do things that were pleasing there and whatever. But he began to fear this God. And so much so that God said, this is the man through whom I will open the door and show that the door of the Gentiles are open to come into the church. And Peter has this vision. I'm going to go through all the whole story here and the unclean stuff let down several times. And finally, Peter gets the point from God, go to Caesarea. It's really not a bad place, Peter. I'm giving you a kind of a long weekend or a little R&R. Go to Caesarea. He gets there and he begins to preach to the household beginning in verse 34. And he finds this man, a good man, doing all the right things.

But there was something missing. You know, you can be a good person. You can have your own level of righteousness. You could have been brought up in the church or you could just come amongst the church. There are a lot of good people in this world that don't know the true God. And they're good on a human level and they do very good things and do many good things that put many of us to shame as well.

But Cornelius, in a sense, was in that category. Well, Peter begins to preach to him in verse 34. Notice this. It says, Peter opened his mouth, kind of like I'm doing right now, opening my mouth and preaching. He launches into this big sermon. And I hadn't thought of it this way, but he goes on and says, I know God shows no partiality. And then he talks about the word of God sent to the children of Israel. Verse 39, we're all witnesses of this. And how God raised Christ from the third day and showed him openly and not to all people. And he's preaching Christ to him. Verse 43, he says, to him all the prophets witness it through his name. Whoever believes in him will receive remission of sins. So Peter's just waxing elephant, giving one of his best sermons. He's probably thinking, you know, I'm right back on the Day of Pentecost. Something's happening here. I've got a captive audience. And you know how some ministers do, and they've got a captive audience, or they think they've got a captive audience? They kind of embellish and they get wound up. And Peter was wound up this day. And he kept going on and on. And in verse 44, we were told, while Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who had heard the word.

Wait a minute. This is not a sequence here. They haven't even baptized. And they get the Holy Spirit, and it's doing while Peter's speaking.

And the circumcision who believed were astonished as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles. They heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. So those that came with Peter couldn't deny that the same thing that had happened to them on the Day of Pentecost was now happening to this group of Gentiles. So they knew that God's Spirit was moving upon these people. But wait a minute. Peter hadn't come to his punchline. He hadn't wound up his sermon yet. He's probably got three more pages of notes. I'm wondering, just speculating, but I'm wondering if God is thanking Peter. Shut up. You've gone too long. And God just says, okay, let's open the floodgates here. Let's do what we're going to do. He makes it evident. And Peter's sermon comes to a halt. Because these people start speaking in tongues, and they show that God's in charge. And that God is moving. And then what happens here? Peter answers and said, can anyone forbid water that these should not be baptized? You've received the Holy Spirit just as we have. And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord, and they asked him to stay a few days. So they got baptized. It was just a little different order here. Unique situation. But the connection with God through the Holy Spirit was made. You know, sometimes, as I say, people hold off on baptism thinking they're not good enough.

But here is a man who was already good enough. Cornelius was a good man, that he needed to be baptized. He will never be too good, he will never be good enough. And even as good as we are, we still need to be baptized. We still need to take that step. Let's go to Acts chapter 16. This is where Paul goes to Philippi. This is another jump across the waters to the European continent. And he finds a group of people down by the river. They go down by the river to pray. And he begins to talk with them. We're introduced, first of all, to a woman named Lydia in verse 11. They were on the Sabbath, they were down by the riverside. Verse 14 says, there was a certain woman named Lydia, and she heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshipped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. So here was another good person, it seems, in that she worshipped God that she understood and that she knew. And again, just to understand that not everyone that is not a part of the body of Christ at any one time are bad people. And people today, they worship God, they worship a form of God, they worship the God they know, the God they were raised with, they do it in all sincerity, they may not do it in in the true calling and a full calling of God. That's God's business. But they worship the God that they know. And God is God's time and planning and wisdom to when He makes that call. And in this case, a woman's mind, her heart was open to understand the things that were spoken by Paul. And in verse 15, it says, when she and her household were baptized, so all of Lydia and her household were baptized that day down by the river. There was a place to have it done. She begged them, saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. So she persuaded us. So Paul stayed for a while in Philippi, and evidently they took up lodging in her place. It was big enough to happen. But what's interesting, not just here was another person baptized, but just to note, again, she wanted Paul to stay around. There was a kindred spirit. There was a fellowship here that was taking place. She invited them to stay. There was a desire for fellowship with those who thought like she did. And that's another matter of God's spirit as it begins to work in us after the receipt of the Holy Spirit. We want to be with people who think like we do. There's that growing desire. And God's spirit indeed is working with us. This is something for even those of us that have been around baptized 10, 20, 35 years.

That this might be one of those little checks for us to think about. Who do you want to spend your time with? With whom do you really enjoy? With whom do you connect? As a people who think like you do, then ask how you think. How do you think? Do you think on spiritual things or do you think on physical things? Is it sports? Is it job? Is it special interests? Or is it the things of God?

Is it with people who are converted as well? See, that's another byproduct of God's spirit. It should and it will draw us closer to each other. It will draw us closer to those who think like we do. One of the things that any of us should notice at times about ourselves or maybe someone that's close to us as we watch ourselves in our fellowship and our relationships within ourselves, and sometimes I've been able to see certain things coming months or even years in advance by just looking at who people fellowship with and who they are interested in spending time with and listening to the conversations. We all are going to be interested in whether the Patriots are going to go 19 and 0. We'll talk about that for a while, but after about, well, especially for the Patriots, what, 30 seconds is about the interest span for any of us around here. The Colts will go five minutes maybe and show an interest there. But, you know, any of those things, whether it's football or baseball or basketball or those things that we get passionate about, you know, they have their place and they are, you know, their interests and diversions and whatever, but do they really feed you? Do they really feed the needs that you have in your life? I like to sit down and watch a ballgame as much as anyone else. And sometimes at the end of it, especially if that kicker is really blown at there in the last seconds, I'm thinking, why did I spend these last two and a half hours doing this? I could have read 15 chapters in my book or something, some other project that I need to get to, but, you know, the next week I'm back watching the game too. My point is, what really feeds us? What satisfies us? What feeds that hunger that we really have? Ask that about yourself and watch it among ourselves. Not that we get to the point of judging one another, but you enjoy those things. You may enjoy other people who don't have the same... they're not in the church. They may not understand why you keep the Sabbath and why you go off every year to keep that the holy days. And those people have a place in our lives.

But Lydia wanted Paul and the others, who were her teachers, who were her fellow kindred spirits, she wanted them to be around. She wanted to spend time with them. Who do you want to spend time with? God's spirit at baptism and beyond should nurture our relationships together. To where the church, God, the entrance of the church, the spiritual components that draw us together should be the things that really we understand are what really feed us. That's not to say that we exclude everything or everybody else. We just understand the balance in it. And we know what really we really need, and we don't exclude that. Lydia knew what she really needed, and she began to see that. Again, we can see that, I think, from what... in being baptized. In this chapter, there's another baptism that took place, and that is of a jailer, because Paul and Silas were thrown into jail. And verse 25 tells us that they did what you do with your thrown into jail. You pray and sing.

I think if I were thrown into jail, I'd start praying, and I'd start singing, just to keep my spirits up. Because I've visited many jails and many prisons over the years, and they're not places of happiness. They're not places you want to be. I may not sing openly, but I'd certainly sing in my heart. Okay? And I'd certainly be praying. Well, they had an earthquake, and their chains were unlocked. And the keeper of the prison woke up and saw that the doors were open, the prisoners were gone, and he was about to kill himself. Verse 27, because he knew that he would be killed for having lost the prisoners when it was found out. Paul said, Whoa, whoa, don't harm yourself. We're all here. And he called for a light, and he ran, and he fell down trembling before Paul and Barton Silas in verse 29. And he brought them out, and he said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household. They spoke the word of the Lord to him. They explained some things to him, to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately, he and all his family were baptized. So the jailer was baptized, and he brought them into his house. He set food before them, and he rejoiced having believed in God with all of his household. So here's another baptism.

Now, let's look at this man just for a moment. We're told he was a jailer. How many jailers have you known? Any of you? Some of you known jailers? If you go to visit the county jail, state prison, you see jailers. If you haven't done that, you see movies. If you see an old movie about a jailer from the first century in the Roman period, you can get a pretty good image of what this man must have been like. He was a rough man. He was probably a big man, but he had to be tough, because the people who were behind his doors were tough people. In some cases, even tougher. And so it took a certain mindset and a way of life and a person to be a jailer, just as it does today. Just as it does today. All the years I've gone in and out of various prisons, I've often thought the guards need to be locked up as well. They're a different group.

Different... I won't get there. I won't go there. It's just a different... You have to have a certain mindset even today, and it's a dangerous job in certain facilities. I guess in any facility, there's certain dangers there. And so you have to have a certain mindset. But this man was a pretty rough man. He wasn't perfect. He didn't know it all. He didn't have time to get it all of his life together. But he came to a moment, and he saw through a miraculous event something happened, and he saw that there was something about Paul and Silas. And he believed with his heart, and he was baptized. Now, he probably had to work extra hard to get up to the point where Lydia was.

Lydia was a merchantwoman, a businesswoman, lived a different type of life. Maybe she was, quote, a better person than the jailer. They all found themselves... both found themselves in church, and the jailer maybe had to start from way back here in certain attitudes and manners and things about his life to get him up maybe to where Lydia was just on a physical human level. So he wasn't perfect. But I think that we could assume that he used the Spirit of God to help that process. So you don't have to be perfect, but you have to want to be perfect.

And you have to understand that you have to work at that, and it's going to take some time, but that's what you want. And he rejoiced. This man probably came to a point in his mind where he knew that he couldn't do it all himself, and he had to have the help of God's Spirit.

So when do you know that you are ready for baptism?

Well, you know when you've reached the point where you know that you need God's help in a different way. You know you're ready when you know that you can't do it all yourself. You know you're ready when you know that this is the way of life you want to live for the rest of your life, and you want to begin building a holy life. You know you're ready when you want to take the necessary step toward salvation and eternal life, and you know that this is a step that you have to do. This is something that has to be accomplished for without it, and all that it brings, without baptism, you cannot begin the process of salvation. That has to be done. So it's a pact. It's a covenant that we make with God. It brings us to this point where we're committed to building character, developing righteous character, letting God's Spirit work within us to change our lives, to change our minds, but most importantly to change our hearts, to have a heart toward God.

When you look at all these stories, there's one common factor in all the stories that you read about baptism here in the book of Acts. To me, it's one word, joy. There is a joy in these examples of the people who were baptized. It was something they relished, they wanted to do, and the results were good. Everyone experiences a joy and a happiness at what has happened, and joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. And it is what should come when we are baptized. Baptism is a time to rejoice in the step that one person has taken toward eternal life. God says that the angels in heaven rejoice at the repentance of one person. And that joy is felt by the people and the person who knows that their sins are forgiven, the people who are a part of their lives, and everyone knows that they have the power of the Holy Spirit finally residing in them. And that is how we can answer those questions. What do we do now? What hinders us? What do we do? Where do we go from here? The questions that confront us at the junctures of our life, or we're big things, or we're not so big things, but certainly when it comes to the big question of salvation and eternal life, when we come to know that, then we can take that step. And if we do, we can take it knowing that it is the most important step, and it gives us joy. And it is a happy step. It is a happy occasion, one to rejoice along with God, Christ, and the angels when it is taken.