Well, we continue our sermon series this morning in the book of Acts, And we're going to finish out Chapter Two today, and we'll be in Acts chapter two starting in verse 22 through 41 and this is a very evangelistic message, because this is an evangelistic bunch of verses, Jesus has ascended. He has sent the Holy Spirit to the remaining Christians as he had promised. And now Paul, I mean, Peter, has to decide, how am I going to interpret this? How am I going to share this message and explain to people what's going on? And we remember last week, he quoted from the prophet Joel from the Old Testament, who 800 years before said, this is going to take place. The Holy Spirit is going to come, and this is what's going to happen. So Peter quotes Joel from 800 years before Jesus, and is explaining to them what has happened. And so this morning, we're going to look at the second part of his explanation as to what's happening. So if you'll take your Bibles, turn with me to Acts chapter two, we'll begin in verse 22 through 41 and will you stand with me as we honor God by the reading of His Holy Word? Men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know this, Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised Him up losing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held in it. For David says concerning him, I saw the Lord always before Me, for He is at my right hand and that I am not that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced, my flesh also will dwell in hope, for you will not abandon my soul to Hades or let your Holy One see corruption you have made known to me the paths of life you will make me full of gladness with Your presence. Verse 29 brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day, being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn, with an oath to him, that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption this Jesus, God raised up and of that, we are all witnesses, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens. But he himself says the Lord, said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Then let all of the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ. This Jesus, whom you crucified. But when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. And Peter said to the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized, everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God, calls to himself and with many other words, he bore witness and continue to exhort them, saying, Save yourselves from. Crooked generation, so those who received his word were baptized, and they were added that day, about 3000 souls praise the Lord Father, God that is our heart cry that we may hear the word of the Lord, that others may hear it. Come to faith in your Son, Jesus, be baptized, and we will see your church grow and many people come to salvation. Speak to our hearts this morning and show us exactly how we can do that, for it's in Christ's name. I pray amen. You may be seated. Isn't that a powerful passage? Now, I know there's a lot of things that you have to really pay close attention to, especially in the first several verses, because he's he's explaining this according to the way that the Jews are going to understand it, what has happened, what is going to happen. But the the basis he is that he gets down to to to verse 37 and they said, brothers, what shall we do? And he says, Repent and be baptized, everyone of you. So the the message convicted them to the heart, and they realized that we gotta take action. Now. It's time. And so the big idea that I want you to walk away understanding this morning, if you don't hear me say anything else during the the rest of this message, hear this Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. That's why we repent, that's why we're baptized. So we have forgiveness. Jesus is the only one who can offer that forgiveness. That's why it's done in in his name and his name alone. No person before Jesus and no person after Jesus has ever walked on earth that can reconcile and make sure that your sins are forgiven. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. And so that's the message of the gospel. And so when we look at Repentance, repentance, as we said last week, is a 180 degree turn in the opposite direction from you going hell down. You see your sin separates you from God. God God is holy. Cannot look on sin. And so in order to get rid of that in your life, you trust Jesus repent, and you go in the opposite direction, toward salvation, toward light and away from darkness. And then we're baptized. So there's a physical baptism that that we watch up here many times throughout the year, of people going under the water. And we'll get to that in just a minute. But there's a baptism the Holy Spirit that comes in and refreshes you and cleanses you and makes you a new creation. And so the word baptized in the Greek literally means to to dip, make fully wet, to immerse, or to cover anybody here sprinkling in there. I mean, it's symbolic. So if, if you're Methodist, then you have a right to be wrong. I'm sorry, no, we're not going to criticize, or anything like that. But literally, the the biblical translation for baptized and what we see the methodology that that Jesus and John the Baptist practiced was very similar to Old Testament baptism, when they would cleanse themselves in the ritual pools, is they would dip themselves down in the water, fully immerse themselves, yet fully wet and cover up. And so to make it simple, water baptism is an outward sign. It's just an outward sign that we have been cleansed on the inside. Let me say that one more time, water baptism what you see happen up there and the baptismal pool, or in a river, or in a pond, in a lake, what, what have you, I was able to baptize some of my family in the Jordan River many years ago. And so wherever baptism takes place, it is nothing but an outward sign to show the change that has come inwardly. And so Jesus was immersed in the water. We see this in Mark chapter one. It says Mark chapter one, specifically nine and 10. And immediately coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens open and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him. So Jesus was immersed in the water. There was a minister that was seeking to explain to a church member, a person one time, the significance of baptism. And and he was gesturing, and like I'm doing, and talking with his hands. And as he's as he's talking, he notices his shadow falling on the ground. And he had an aha moment. And and he said to the to the person, he said, Do you Do you see the shadow of my hand on the ground? And the guy said, Yes, I see that. He said, Now that's just a shadow. My hand is the real thing. That the shadow is not the real hand. My hand is the real thing. When you come to Jesus and you believe in Jesus, that's the real baptism there. Water doesn't save you, and I've made this joke before, especially that water, that's Jackson water, if anything, it contaminates you. More water does not save you. What saves you is the confession of you, allowing Jesus to take care of it, to get rid of the sin in your life. And when you come to Jesus, when you believe in Jesus, that's the real baptism. You were joined with him when you confessed Him as Lord and and what happened to him also happens to you. You see, Jesus was alive, then he was then he died, and he was buried, and then he rose again. And so this is what happens when you and I believe in Jesus and confess Him as Lord we are and you will see me when I baptize people up there. I say this in obedience to the command of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, because Matthew 28 tells us to go make disciples, baptizing them. So in obedience to His command, I baptize you my brother or my sister in the name of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit. And then you'll hear me say, you are buried with Christ in the likeness of His death and raised to walk in a whole new way of life. And you've noticed we've the people that are baptized, they wear black T shirts that have on there, raised to life on there. Boy, the power of the gospel that we can be raised to life just like Jesus was raised to life, and this happens when we believe in Him. When you go down in the water, you're raised up again. This is a picture of what has already happened, the price that Jesus has already paid for you. Water baptism is just a picture, a symbol to teach us what happens when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible says we're buried in baptism. Romans, six, four, this means that you are put fully under the water. And when you bury something, you don't just sprinkle dirt on it, do you? You put it fully under you cover it. And so this is true of water baptism as well. It's why we practice it the way that we do. There is nothing legalistic about it. You do not hear me. You do not have to physically be baptized to be saved. You should desire that because that's what Jesus did, and that's what Jesus said we ought to do, but that water is not going to save you. No matter what water you're in, it's not going to save you, but it should be the desire of your heart, because you being physically baptized in a tank of water in front of other brothers and sisters in Christ is a testimony of what you have allowed Jesus Christ to do in your heart. And I pray that everyone of you, if you, if you haven't taken advantage of that today, let that be your testimony that you contact me sometime this next week and you say, hey, I need to set up my baptism. I I've I've trusted Jesus as my Savior, and yes, the Holy Spirit has baptized me spiritually, but I want to show my church and other brothers and sisters in Christ physically what Jesus has done for me. So maybe that's a phone call that you need to make this next week. I'll be happy to set that up for you. We got Palm Sunday coming up here in a few weeks. The last time we had baptism close to Palm Sunday, we flooded the sanctuary, but that's not going to be the case this time, amen. So this morning, I have 11 points that I want to make. Are you ready? We got 11 minutes left. So one a minute, I doubt that's going to happen. First thing I want to show you is the three purposes of baptism. Number one, we are baptized because of conversion. We've covered this a little bit. So we we have accepted Christ. Peter says, And in chapter two, verse 38 that we just read, repent, which means be sorry enough to give up your sins. If you're a note taker, you can write that down. Yes, Repent means take a 180 and go to the other direction. But it all. So means be sorry enough and grieve enough over what you have done to God to get rid of and give up the sin in your life. So Peter says, Repent and be baptized. We're baptized because of the conversion. We show people that we have been converted. Number two, we're baptized because of Christ's command. Once again, we've covered this again Mark 1616. Says Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. So we do it because of Christ's command. Notice also that those who do not believe in Jesus Christ will be lost. The the Bible is clear on that, folks, that's why we gotta get out of this church and preach that message. Because if we truly believe that people without Jesus go to a place called hell, whether you think that Dante, the the old philosopher, Dante was right with it being a fiery furnace or or what have you. We know that the Bible talks about hell as being a place of separation from God. So I don't care if I drown in hell or burn in hell, I don't want to be separated from God. And so whatever you you think that hell looks like it's it's a place of torment and separation from God. We know that. That's why we have the urgency of getting this message out is to tell people you will be lost if you don't know Jesus as your Savior. Number three, we baptize we baptize one another because of Christ's commission. Matthew 2819 Go therefore make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So this was a commission, not only not just given to the disciples right then and there, but to all Christians. Notice Jesus says, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and Son of the Holy Spirit. He didn't say, if I call you to be the pastor and you're ordained, go make disciples. If I call you to be a pastor and you're ordained, you're the only one that can do baptisms. If I call you to be a pastor and you're ordained, then you're the only one who can teach and preach and and do these things. Now, if you're a Christian, this verse right here is clear, you make disciples, you baptize I'll do it also. That's why I love the picture of let's say a child comes and makes a mom and dad. I want to see mom and dad up in that baptistry together, because that's where it started, was at home. It didn't start with my preaching. It didn't start in Sunday school. Those are helps. Those are things that help it that ain't where it started. Started at home. So Mom and Dad, you have the command to make disciples, then you have the command to baptize those disciples, be it your child, your coworker, your friends, your family, doesn't have to be me. There's nothing in scripture that says you have to be ordained to baptize anyone. Thank you. Everybody has a call. Don't you? Sit back and wait for me to lead the charge to share the gospel with people, because I'm on I'm going to do it, but you gotta do it as well. So we baptized because of Christ's commissions. Then let's look at three phases of baptism. Number one, the picture. Here's the picture. We're dead in sin. We are buried. Romans, six, four, we talked about that. But we're we're not only buried. But the picture is, as we said, we are raised to life, to a new life, to live a new life in Christ. After we're baptized, Colossians, 212, you may want to write that verse down. You're raised to life. And then we see the second phase is, the plan, the plan of baptism. Baptism, once again, Matthew 2819, we baptize. The plan is to in the name of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit, to baptize people. Notice this. This is not a church rule, it. It's not something that we do as Southern Baptist. We don't get up there and say, I baptize you in the name of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit, because that's what we believe, is Baptist. That's what we believe, is whatever. That's what we believe as Christians, because it's what the Bible teaches. Jesus has baptized them in the name of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And so that's the plan, not a church rule, but God's word. And then third phase deals with the people. And the people are who those who are are born again, those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ, we don't baptize people who have not conscientiously made a decision for themselves to trust Jesus as their Savior. So we don't practice infant baptism. You. We have parent child dedication that is not infant baptism. Infant baptism is a false doctrine, theology taught by the Catholic Church that started it out many years ago in early Christianity, and that gives parents the false hope that if something happens to their child before the age of accountability, before that child can understand the decision that they're making, that their child is secure. But what that does is we believe that if, if a child, Lord forbid, something happens to them before they can make a decision for themselves. God is merciful. They they, God has forgiven them. But if someone, let's just say someone is 38 years old, and they've neglected to make it as soon but they're baptized as an infant, does that save them? No, absolutely not. The the Scripture tells us if, if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, then you will be saved. It doesn't say if mama and daddy take their kid to be baptized, then they will be saved. No one can do this for you. It's on you to make that decision for yourself and be saved. It's a free gift. So it's not like we're complicating things. It's free. You have to conscientiously know that, hey, I need Jesus as my Savior, and he is the only way nobody else can do it for me. Yeah, my grandma must my she sat in church for 83 years of her life, and she prayed for me and she tithed. But that didn't save anybody else. I didn't even save her. But what saved her was she put her faith in Jesus Christ. What's going to save me is when I put my faith in Jesus Christ, it's subjective. It's not anyone else is doing and after Peter's sermon, Acts 241 shows us praise the Lord, 3000 people were baptized. Now 3000 probably isn't specific. Just throw that out there. It may have been more, may have been less, but what 3000 the number 3000 we see it in Scripture. It means a lot. It was a multitude of people that were saved a lot. So the plan of baptism, as we close out, this is important. Number one, the plan of baptism is, you need water. Acts 836, says, and as they were going along the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, See, here is water. What prevents me from being baptized? Absolutely nothing. Need water. Need water to be baptized. Number two, you need a lot of water. You need much water. John 323, John was also baptizing at a non near silent Salem because water was plentiful there and people were coming and being baptized. So you need water. You need a lot of water. And we had a lot of water a year ago Palm Sunday, which allowed us to get new carpet, I guess. But that's why you pay your insurance premiums, right? Uh, Number three, you need to go down into the water. Acts 838, once again, Ethiopian eunuch. He commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. So you got it's gotta be active on your part. There's water all around us. There's millions of gallons that flow down the Pearl River. But you can't be baptized until you get in it. So you need water. You need a lot of water, but you gotta go down into the water. Number four, you need to be buried in the water. Romans, six, four says, We were buried, therefore with him by baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life, gotta be buried in the water. Go wonder. And number five, you need to come up out of the water. Well, duh, you're going to drown. You gotta come up out of the water. Look Colossians, 212 says having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. You. If God can raise someone from the dead, if Jesus can take up his life, he can lay his life down to save you and to take his life up again, he can save you. He can raise you. Don't question his ability, because the evidence is clear. If Jesus can do all of these things that Scripture tells us that he did, you're not too far gone. He can save you as well, and he can save you at this very moment. But Don't delay, because yes, Scripture tells us that Jesus died for our sins, that he was raised again, that if we confess Him as Lord and Savior, we will be saved too. But another thing that the Bible teaches is the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. If someone was going to rob this church and steal all of this equipment and stuff break into it, are they going to send us a notice? No. And Scripture tells us the only person that knows when Jesus will return is God, the Father. So Jesus will return like a thief in the night to get his church, and we don't know when that's going to be, and this may be your last opportunity. We can walk out that door and hear the trumpet sound, praise the Lord, I'm ready, but I know a lot of people aren't. Then it's too late. You haven't put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. It's too late at that trumpet sound, when, Lord forbid, you may walk out these doors and tragedy may strike you, and when you're standing before the Great White Throne of Judgment that we hear in Revelation, three, he's going to look at you and he's he's going to say, one, God's going to say one of two things. He's going to say, Well done, my good and faithful servant, meaning he's looking at you through Jesus, and you profess Jesus as your Savior. Or he's going to say, I don't know who you are, my son, my son never wrote your name down. My son never introduced me to you, so I don't know you depart from me. I never knew you. Don't let that be the case. Don't let it be the case because you have today, this moment all you're guaranteed the next moment is not you.