Well, good morning again. So grateful for the presence of all. Would you take out your Bible with me and turn to the Gospel of Luke? The Gospel of Luke, the third book in our New Testament, the Gospel of Luke in the 14th chapter. We'll begin reading in verse 25 here in just a moment. Luke chapter 14 and verse 25.

Now, as you're turning there, there's some young men who are going through the congregation. If you would like to join handout for the lesson this morning. You can get one of those. It's two sided. And it's a little bit different than what we normally do in our handouts. There is a blank or two to be filled in.

But what I've done instead is I've asked a bunch of questions on this handout. And so you can answer those questions and fill that in as we're going through the lesson. You can take that home after hearing the lesson and fill those in if you'd like. Or you can just have that for reference as you think about the things that we talk about this morning.

So, if you'd like one of those handouts, just raise your hand, and these gentlemen will get one of those to you. And then if you'll turn to Luke chapter fifth, fourteen, and verse twenty five, You'll be ready for the lesson this morning. There are lots and lots of ideas about salvation in Jesus. Those who are believers believers in Jesus Christ believe that you have to be saved through Him.

But how exactly that happens is a point of some contention. I've asked that question of many, many people through the last 20 years or so. Are you saved? And if they say, yes, I'm saved, I often ask, how? How were you saved? And what's amazing is I've gotten a wide range of answers to that question, how I was saved.

Some people say, I did nothing. I just had an experience and, and, and I felt Jesus coming to my heart. Others said, well, I was told to say a prayer called the sinner's prayer and they related to me the words of that prayer. I prayed that and then I was saved. There's a very popular phrase. Well, I was saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Others leave out, not intentionally, but grace in Christ and say, well, I was just saved by faith alone. And I've asked a follow up question to that. Well, well, just faith, anything else? And a lot of times the question comes back, well, also, you know, faith plus repentance and confession. Other peoples talk about the ABCs of salvation.

Admit you're a sinner, believe in Jesus. And then there's the confession aspect of repenting and praying. I've had people say, well, when I was a kid, my parents took me and I was baptized as an infant. Others have said repentance and baptism of believers into Christ for the remission of my sins. That's how I was saved.

And, and I've never had somebody come out and say, well I was saved by my own works because I'm working and doing what God told me to do. But they've kind of implied that, you know, my works, that's how I'm saved in Jesus Christ. Now all of those are different. I'd, I'd go so far as to say some of those are even contradictory in nature.

Are all of them okay? Are none of them right? Where do we begin in answering this question, how Christ intends to save us? I want to suggest this morning, the real heart of the matter, the foundation question and the answer to it is not all of the ways people say they're saved. It doesn't even really begin with figuring out how to be saved, though that is found in Scripture and we're going to talk about that some this morning.

Where this question really begins to be answered is, is with our hearts. It really comes down to a willingness to be saved. to submit to God. That I'll do what God says no matter what. I'll only really be saved the way He saves. Amen? Right? I'm only gonna be saved the way God saves. And so I need to be willing to submit to that, no matter what it means to me, no matter what it means for my life or my lifestyle, no matter what that That, that means about what I have to give up or rely on him for.

No matter what that means about what I have to start doing or stop doing. No matter what it means for my family. No matter what it means about those who have died and gone on, no matter what it means for those that I love who still live, or those that I hate that still live, no matter what it means for how I should lead in my home or in my workplace, no matter what it means for my job or my hobbies or my relationships or my thoughts, no matter what, I will submit to God and His will for me.

If that's your attitude, I mean, the rest is kind of easy. If my attitude is whatever God says, however God saves, that's what I'm willing to believe and do. Then the rest all kind of falls into place. In Luke chapter 14 and verse 25, the text says that great multitudes went with Jesus. This is toward the height of His popularity.

Lots and lots and lots of people are following Jesus and listening to His teaching, and Jesus turns to them and, and says this to them. Some, some really difficult words. Some challenging words. In verse 26, If, this is conditional in nature, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

Now, you're good Bible students. You know that Jesus doesn't demand us to hate anyone, not in that sense. But Jesus is using a comparison here. He says, If You have to love me so much more than anyone or anything else. It has to be, in comparison to your love for me, it has to be as if you hate your father and your mother and your wife and your children.

That's how far in first place I have to be in your life if you want to be my disciple. And if that's not your attitude, he says, Jesus says, you cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. And Jesus uses a couple of illustrations to show this idea of counting the cost.

Of figuring out ahead of time, am I really willing to go all the way? Am I really willing to do whatever it is he requires? He uses the illustration of building a house. And, and you gotta figure out if you have enough money to build the house before you start building. If you don't figure that ahead of time, you might run out and then everybody will make fun of you.

This man began to build and wasn't able to finish. He didn't count the cost. And then even more seriously, he uses the illustration of a king who's going out to war. And before you go out to war, you need to figure out ahead of time, do I have enough soldiers to beat the army on the other side? And if I figure out ahead of time I don't, I need to figure out another way to make peace.

If I don't count the cost ahead of time, I might lose my kingdom and my soldiers and my life. You gotta count the cost beforehand. That's the illustration. And so Jesus says in verse 33, summarizing this, So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple. So what I'm asking of you is to go home today and drain your entire bank account, sell your house.

No. But what Jesus is saying is, would you be willing to do that? If that was what was required to follow me, count the cost side ahead of time. Is it worth it to me to be saved in Jesus Christ? No matter what I have to Are you willing to submit to God's will for how you are saved? Total submission to Christ's will is what it's going to take for anyone to be saved.

And when Jesus looks at us, in love, like that rich young ruler who came to Him, and says, one thing you still lack. We cannot go away sorrowful because we're not willing to do that one thing. Whatever that thing is. And so I encourage you, and that's part of why I gave you the handout for the lesson this morning, I encourage you, like, You know, Jordi LaForge on, on Reading Rainbow, don't take my word for it, right?

Search this out for yourself because that's how important this is. And you can't take my or, or any other person's word for it. You need to figure out for yourself, what is it that God requires of me? And so go to the source, go to God in prayer, go to the word of God, find God's will and follow it. So what would you be willing to do?

How far would you be willing to go? in order for these things to happen, to be made a disciple of Jesus Christ, as he describes here in Luke chapter 14, to have your sins remitted or forgiven, to be buried and raised with Christ so that you might hope, have hope of the resurrection to come. What would you be willing to do to get into Jesus Christ, to show your face in the working of God and what He can do to save you?

What would you do to be saved through the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Lots of things are involved in order for those six things on the screen to happen. God's working. God's grace, Christ's sacrifice, the work of the Holy Spirit in revealing God's will and God's word to us so that we might know Him and come into a relationship with Him.

But in Scripture, these six phrases are all directly tied to the act of baptism. You know, I've thought a lot through the years about why this issue is such a stumbling block. It's such a divisive thing among those who believe in Jesus. And I've thought a lot, how can I express things in a different way that might be more understandable, that might break down some of those barriers that come up between us.

So here goes. We talk a lot about what baptism is for, and rightfully so. Why do I have to be baptized? Is it for salvation or not? And those are good questions, honorable questions that we should answer. But maybe, and I hope this isn't just semantics or a distinction without a difference, but think about it in just a slightly different way this morning.

Maybe we should just use the Scriptures To point out what baptism does. And do I want these things that it does? Do I have to have these things that it does? It does these six things, and many more. Do we need these six things? Can we be saved without them? And even more, does the text, does the Bible say that baptism shows That these six things are already done, or that these things happen when we are baptized.

So, we just have five passages that we're going to look at this morning. Five passages to consider. There are many more that address salvation. There are many more that address baptism directly and indirectly. But we're just going to focus on these five this morning. And consider what it is that baptism does.

So, I, I encourage you to turn in your own Bible, I'm gonna put some of these on the screen. But turn in your own Bible, read for yourself, see what the Scriptures say that baptism does. And we'll start there in Matthew chapter 28. Our first passage is Matthew 28 verses 18 through 20. So, the very end of the first book of the New Testament, Matthew chapter 28,

beginning there in verse 18.

And Jesus spoke to them, to the apostles, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Amen. So Jesus says that they were supposed to go and make disciples of all the nations. A disciple is just a follower. It is a learner. It is an apprentice if we put it in modern terms, right? So someone who follows a teaching. But even more someone who follows a teacher who tells them the way things work.

Someone that we follow after because we believe in what they're doing and what they can do for us. And so how is it that one becomes a disciple of Jesus? How do you become a disciple of Jesus? Do we have any English teachers in the audience? Any English teachers? Okay, try again. Oh, we got one quick hand like this.

Do we have anyone who's ever taken an English class ever in their life? I want us to look at this passage. I'll put it up on the screen behind me. There's one, what's called an imperative. There's one command in this passage. One command that Jesus makes. And the command is, make disciples. You need to go and, Make disciples of all the nations.

And then there are three modifiers, three participles, three I N G words that explain that one command. This is how you make disciples. We might say in another context, maybe to our kids or somebody else, we might say to our husbands, we might say, Clean the floor. Clean the floor. That's the command, right?

And then we might use three participles to explain how you do that. Well, picking up your stuff, sweeping it, and mopping it. So it's those I N G words that explain how you do it. actually fulfill the command that was given. So make disciples is the one command in Greek and in English, the one command in this passage.

What are the I N G words? How do you go about making disciples? Well, you make disciples of all the nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit. And teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Now, they don't have to be taught everything, but they have to be taught to observe all that Jesus commanded And then have a heart that wants to seek out all of those things that Jesus commanded.

And then it's obscure in English. You can see it in the Greek. There's a third participle. It's translated in English, go. Literally, it's just in your going, I N G. And so if you want to make disciples, here's what you have to do. You have to be going. And what's implied there is not a command, you go to these places, but as you go about your life, as you're going to different places, you need to make disciples.

And the way you do that is by baptizing them and teaching them to observe all that Jesus has commanded. How are disciples made? I ask you, by going, baptizing, and teaching. And if you want to be made a disciple, a follower of Jesus, you want to come after Him, Yes, you have to be baptized according to this passage.

That's what baptism does. Our second passage is in Acts chapter 2. Will you turn over there for a moment? Acts chapter 2.

The fifth book in the New Testament, Acts chapter 2.

There's a long history of sermons in the Bible going all the way back to the Old Testament. Jesus preached lots of sermons about the kingdom and the good news of the kingdom. But after Jesus's ascension he promised that he was going to send the Holy Spirit who would bring to mind and tell the apostles all the things that he had told them so that then they could tell others.

And so we find Peter preaching a sermon right after that happened. And the sermon is about the Holy Spirit coming and the things that they had seen and heard. But really all of that is doing is bringing them to Jesus, so that they could see what it was Jesus was doing. And so he says in verse 22, Acts 2, 22.

Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through him in your midst. As you yourself also know, him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, this was all God's plan, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death, whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it.

Jesus died as a sacrifice. He was buried, but he didn't stay there. He rose. Because it was not possible that death could hold. And so, he talks about how this was all foretold. David saw these things to come. He quotes David a couple of times. If you drop down to verse 32, this Jesus God has raised up of which we are all witnesses.

Therefore, being exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out this, which you now see and hear. These things are from Jesus as he sent to the the Holy Spirit. All according to God's plan, all three persons of the Godhead are involved in making this happen.

For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself, The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know, assuredly, that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord, Master, and Ruler, and Christ, the promised Messiah, who came to take away the sins of the world.

Verse 37, Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? And thank God Peter didn't say, Sorry, there's nothing you can do about it. Instead, Peter gives them this answer. Then Peter said to them, verse 38, Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.

Maybe your translation says the forgiveness of sins. That's the word we're more familiar with. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises to you and to your children and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God has commanded. Here's the promise of salvation in Jesus Christ.

And what you are given is the remission of sins. So I ask you, can you be saved without your sins being remitted? Without your sins being forgiven? No, that's the barrier. That's what salvation is, is removing that barrier of sin so that we can come into fellowship with God. And if you want to have your sins forgiven, what does the text say you must do?

Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And it certainly seems that they understood that, because that's what they did. Verse 40, And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, Be saved, or maybe your translation says, Save yourself from this perverse, this ungodly generation.

Then those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day about 3, 000 souls were added on that occasion. So, what does baptism do? It remits our sins. It forgives our sins. The third passage is Romans chapter 6. Will you turn over there with me please? The next book in your Bible, Romans chapter 6, after Acts is the book of Romans, and in Romans chapter 6, beginning in verse 1,

there were some on this occasion who knew God's grace was amazing. Awesome. And yet they misunderstood what God's grace does by saying, well, if God's grace is so great, I just thought of sin a lot more so that God's grace can give me more. And so Paul addresses that attitude in verse one. He says, what shall we say then?

Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Whom does the text say you were baptized into? into Christ Jesus and into his death.

Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. When are you buried with Christ? In baptism. 4, verse 5, If we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin, for he who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we also believe that we shall live with Him. Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more, death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. So, again, Jesus came and lived and died, was buried and rose again to live forevermore.

Likewise, you also. This is us. Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God. In Christ Jesus our Lord. So, question. When, when are we dead to sin, alive to God, and in Christ Jesus our Lord in this passage? Is it not when we're baptized? Surely all believers agree that we must be in Christ to be saved.

In Christ is salvation. Outside of him is death and despair. And baptism is when you get in to Christ Jesus. Our fourth of these five passages is Colossians chapter two.

Colossians chapter two. I messed up earlier and I was telling you, oh this is the first book of the New Testament, and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth, and I don't know how many Colossians is. It's in the middle there somewhere, right? So Colossians chapter two. Colossians chapter two. Let's read verses 12 through 14 together.

Colossians chapter two, verses 12 through 14. Through 14. We'll start in verse 11. The image here is of a covenant, a coming together in a covenant. In him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands. By putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.

So, coming into this covenant of Jesus Christ, what is it? Verse 12. Buried with Him in baptism. So again, what we just talked about before, being buried with Christ in baptism. In which you were also raised with Him, again being raised with Christ, through what? Faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

and you being dead, and your trespasses, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, the law of Moses, that we couldn't keep perfectly, which was contrary to us, and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

One of the accusations about baptism is, well, you're just having faith in yourself and your own working, This passage says exactly the opposite of that. When I'm baptized, what I'm doing is, I'm saying that I have faith. I have faith that the same God who raised Jesus from the dead will raise me from the dead.

I have faith in God's working. Not my own. I know I can't earn it. I know I can't live perfectly. But I have faith in God's working. In the working of God. It isn't my work that is doing this. It is my submission to God's working that is doing this. Have you ever seen the videos? They were popular a number of years ago.

There were a number of pastors throughout the country who were doing this maybe even around the world. But I went down a rabbit hole a number of months ago where I was watching these videos of like hardcore baptisms where they like body slam people into the water. Have you seen these? You know, like, bang, right?

This, this one right here, I mean, slow motion, slam into the water. This particular guy, I heard an interview that he did, and he says he asks people when they come to be baptized, I need to know on a scale of 1 to 10, how serious you want me to get. How, how physical you want me to get when I baptize you.

I mean, yeah, he just body slammed that guy into the water, right? It's kind of interesting. These people all asked, I guess, for a 9 or a 10 on the scale of how hard they want to be baptized. But let's take that a step further. Have you ever been to the pool or the lake and out on a pier and somebody just pushes you in?

Or maybe even worse, I had to do this one time, somebody pushed me in so I got out of the pool, I picked them up and we both body slammed into the water together. I wasn't going to have that. If I'm wet, they're wet too, right? I don't know. Well, why don't we just do that? If baptism does all of these things, why don't we just baptize people by unexpectedly running up behind them, and if there's a body of water, man, I'm gonna go down to Sam Rayburn, and I'm gonna save some souls today, right?

I'm making a little bit of fun, but why don't we do that?

Because the power is in God, and God is the one who is working. And it's not merely the action of getting someone submerged in water that saves them. If it does then we would start like black ops baptisms, right? We got to find people, we got to force them into some water because we're going to be saving their souls.

But it has to be God's working. Along with our hearts that makes this water baptism mean something. That's the last passage that I want us to consider. 1 Peter chapter 3. If you'll turn there with me. 1 Peter chapter 3.

1 Peter chapter 3. We'll read verses 20 and 21 together. I'm going to put this up on the board. You can read in your Bible. I'm going to put it up on the screen behind me. In talking about the days of Noah, Peter's using an analogy here of Noah and then our salvation. This is what he says, who formally were disobedient when once the divine long suffering waited in the days of Noah.

While the ark was being prepared in which a few. That is, eight souls were saved through water. Now, I want you to notice what he says here. How were these eight souls saved? Well, they were saved in an ark, right? In this boat. They had to build the boat in order to be saved. And we often say saved from the flood, but is that what Peter says?

What does Peter say? Saved through the flood. Saved through this water. I think a lot of times we say, well they are saved from the flood, and in one sense that's true. They're saved from that punishment. They're saved from that destruction. But in many ways the water itself is a saving agent, is it not?

That Noah and those who were saved with him, they were saved because this water washed away all of that sin. And wickedness in a time where the thoughts and intents of the hearts of the people was only evil continually. It is wickedness everywhere. And this flood saves Noah from the wicked world by the flood in an ark.

And without the flood, that wickedness would have continued. But without the ark, Noah would have been lost like everyone else. This is a type, a shadow. A shadow of baptism. How are we saved? There is also an anti type. This is the other side of the comparison. This is what it means for us. An anti type which now saves us.

Baptism. Not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, most of our Bibles have my thing's not working, but you see this parenthetical thought here, right? That's clear in English, It's pretty clear in the Greek, too, that what Peter's doing is explaining what he means here.

The, the phrase that he actually uses is, there is an antitype which now saves us, baptism, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so that makes the analogy pretty clear to us here, doesn't it? That we are saved, just like they were saved in an ark, we are saved in baptism. But just building a boat wasn't enough to save Noah without the flood that washed away the wickedness.

And so, too, getting wet for us is not enough to save us without the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So we are saved in baptism through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is Christ, as we've sung this morning, it is Christ's blood, his sacrifice, that ultimately makes this water mean something. Without Jesus's sacrifice and resurrection, there could be no salvation.

Without baptism, we would remain lost like everyone else. Now, Peter wants to be clear. So he has this long, parasitical thought in the middle. That the power is not somehow in the water. The power is not in the water itself. We didn't sing, There's power in the water. Soul cleansing power in the water a moment ago.

What did we sing? There's power in the blood. There's power in Christ's sacrifice. There's power, not just in his sacrifice, but in his resurrection to conquer death and the grave. That's where the power is. And so he wants to make clear it's not just about the water, not the removal of the filth of the flesh.

It's not just getting wet. But the answer of a good conscience toward God, going all the way back to the beginning of our lesson, I will do what God requires of me, whatever He demands, because I want to be saved according to His will. And my good heart, my conscience says, I'm going to answer God's call, whatever He calls me to do.

And if we have that kind of heart, then baptism, through the power of Christ's resurrection, through His blood, Amen.

The power is not in the water, and maybe that's what bothers so many people with baptism. Getting dipped in water is supposed to wash away my sins? I mean, how does that work? Surely it must just be symbolic of something that's already happened. We reason to ourselves. But the power is in God. The power is in the blood.

The power is in the answer of a good conscience. But when all those things take place is when I'm baptized in water. The title of this lesson is, What Baptism Does? But the title could just as easily be, What God Does? What grace does? What faith does? But when and through what does God do all of those things?

Baptism is what God chose to wash away sins and to save us. And that's not me saying that, but that's the Word of God. Now, why baptism? I've admitted before, and people always seem surprised when I admit this. I don't know. I don't know why God chooses baptism for salvation, why He commands that. I understand the metaphor, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

My death, my burial, my resurrection. I understand the anti type of all of those Old Testament stories, you know. Noah's flood, like here in 1 Peter the Red Sea in 1 Corinthians the Jordan River and crossing that, Naaman dipping with his leprosy, all of those Old Testament types and now we go through water to receive salvation.

I understand all of that, but why did God choose to say you gotta be dunked in water instead of saying a prayer? I don't know. That's not my job. My job is to submit to His will, whatever it is for me. And baptism isn't at all, isn't all that's involved with salvation. Not by a long shot, but how can we exclude it from the process when God so clearly included it?

Look on the back of that handout that I gave you. There's a chart there in blue on the back of that handout. Here is what the first Christians did. In the book of Acts, this is what they did to be saved. And we've got. A lot of things on the list here, they heard preaching, they believed, they repented, they confessed, they were baptized, and then sometimes it explicitly says they were saved.

But what's interesting to me is that all of these examples, every single one of them were baptized, and they were baptized right away. In fact, I was reading an article not too long ago by John MacArthur, and he's quoting the Greek scholar Daniel Wallace. And this article is about, basically, why we don't have to be baptized in order to be saved.

But, so this is not somebody who believes this, but notice the quote. They say the New Testament speaks of only baptized believers, as far as we can tell. Every single example is of a believer who was baptized. That's all Christians. And if you were to ask about unbaptized Christians in the first century, you would have been met with confusion because such a Christian did not exist.

All Christians were baptized because that's what they understood it took to become a Christian. And they didn't wait three weeks to do it. They didn't do it to become the member of a church. They did it because they understood. It was what they had to do in order to become a disciple. Have their sins remitted.

Be buried and raised with Christ. To get into Christ. To show their faith in the working of God. In order that they might be saved. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Shorthand for His sacrifice and saving grace. And so the only question that I have for you. Have you? Have you? If you haven't, why not?

If you have, well that's not the finish line of being a Christian. It's the starting line of a lifetime of service. Of the kind of person who has counted the cost and says, Whatever God requires, that I am willing to do. Because I see the power and beauty of God's grace and what He is offering me in Jesus Christ.

That's the offer to you and to all of us this morning. And if we can help you with that, come now, where together we stand, and while we sing.