Pictures of the Gospel

Listen Online:

Transcript:

We’re going to be in Acts chapter 2 this morning. Acts chapter 2. You know, as Baptists, we tend to frown on traditions and rituals, don’t we?

But let me ask you a couple questions. Where are you sitting this morning? Did you sit there the same place last week?

For 40 years. For 40 years. Where’d you park this morning?

I park in the exact same spot anytime we’re here. Habit. We have rituals and we have traditions.

We have things we do. They’re not necessarily evil. Traditions and rituals can be useful.

I was just talking the other day with my mother about one of my favorite rituals from when I was growing up. every year we would commemorate the land run of 89. And I don’t know if they do that here, but where I grew up was part of the land that was settled there in Moore.

That area was settled by that land run. And so every year on April 22nd, in elementary school we would draw names, or not draw names, we would draw out of the hat a slip of paper that told us whether we were going to be an Indian, a boomer, or a sooner. the boomers were the ones who waited for 12 o’clock noon for the gun to go off to steal the land if you’re new to this if you’re if the Sooners were the ones who snuck in early to take the land and the Indians were the ones they took the land from so we would uh we would draw which we were going to be we would come in costume bring a blanket uh bring a sack lunch and at 12 o’clock noon they would they couldn’t have guns in school even then, so they’d blow a whistle, and we’d take off across the playground to stake our claim and have lunch.

Sometimes we’d have stick horses, whatever. It was a little different every year, but we had that ritual, and I loved it. You know, I’ve done it with my children.

By the time I was a teacher, there was starting to be some controversy over whether you could do that or not. As somebody who had relatives that took the land, as somebody who has relatives who the land was taken from. I understand both sides of that argument.

But whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, it taught us about what our history was and where we came from, where our state came from. It was a good ritual. It was a meaningful ritual, I’ll put it that way. There are some other rituals that we do that have kind of lost meaning.

I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal to my family that we eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day. Y’all do that, though, don’t you? Some of you do.

And I know that because they start marking down black-eyed peas and putting them on display in late December at the grocery stores. People do that. And my mother swears up and down, you’ve got to eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s.

I like black-eyed peas, but I’ll eat them when I’m ready for them. I eat okra on New Year’s. She asked me about that, and I said, well, there’s never a bad time to eat okra.

apparently there’s an old there’s there’s an old ritual that developed that it’s good luck if you eat black-eyed peas on new year’s day but why we’ve forgotten I’ve studied it tried because I was curious and there are several stories my favorite of which was that after the civil war when the when the northern troops took everything the only thing they didn’t take were those peas because they were considered animal feed, so you could eat them and survive, and it was good luck that you didn’t starve to death. But there are several stories. The fact is we can’t agree on what the reason is for the ritual. We just do it.

And at that point, I think, unless you just really love black-eyed peas, it’s a meaningless ritual. I hate to burst your bubble there. So rituals can be meaningful, or they can be meaningless. I love a meaningful ritual, but there’s nothing more annoying to me than a meaningless one, one that we just do and don’t think about and don’t think about the reason for.

We can teach our children and a watching world spiritual truth through a meaningful ritual. I love the whole idea of the Passover that is celebrated, and I am not an expert on this. I don’t pretend to be one, but I know a little bit about, just a little bit about the Passover and some of the elements of that meal that they share together, the lamb that they eat. And it’s a reminder of the lamb that was slain the night that the angel of death came through Egypt when God told them to slay a lamb and paint the blood of the lamb over the door frames, which we know that even that was a picture of something else to come.

That was a picture of Jesus to come. But that’s a reminder to the Jewish people even today of the lamb that was slain so that they could be spared from this plague, this final plague that was put on Egypt. There’s the unleavened bread that they served.

It’s a reminder of how quickly they had to get out of Egypt. They didn’t even have time to let the bread rise. That tenth and final plague came through.

Pharaoh said, get out, and they had to go. They eat bitter herbs on their plate at the Seder at Passover, and it’s a reminder of how bitter and awful the slavery was while they were in Egypt. And my understanding is every Passover, they go through these rituals and some others, and they tell the story, and every bit of it is designed to pass on to their children and to convey to the rest of the world where they have come from as a people and what God has brought them through.

And we share in that heritage. We have forgotten a lot of it, but we share in that heritage with them, not that we went through the slavery, not that we’re the descendants of the people who went through the slavery, but that we serve the God who brought them out of Egypt. And we see the fulfillment in our Passover lamb, who was Jesus Christ, who was slain.

That ritual is meaningful. And folks, the ritual that we’re going to go through this morning with observing the Lord’s Supper is meaningful. It has meaning.

There is a purpose to it. There’s nothing wrong with rituals and traditions in church as long as they fulfill their proper God-given role. You know, if you have the ritual and tradition of, I want to sit in this same seat, that’s fine, as long as you don’t act like it’s revealed Scripture truth that you have to sit in that seat, and you’re not rude to a visitor because they sat in your seat.

See, we can’t take our rituals and elevate them to where God’s rituals are, but we can’t take things like this and treat them as though they’re just something we came up with and something we just do because we want to. If you haven’t already, turn with me to Acts chapter 2. And we’re only going to look at a couple verses here.

Many of you are familiar with the story already of what happened in Acts chapter 2, that they were standing there at the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit came on the disciples and they began to speak in foreign languages. And it lists what languages they spoke in. They were not just making up syllables.

They spoke in languages that people understood from various parts of the Roman Empire. And they spoke in these languages and began to testify, not just speaking in foreign languages like, Donde esta la biblioteca? Where is the library?

Not just random things that they might have picked up through some language course, they were testifying to the fact that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah, and that he had been crucified, and that he had risen again. And when some of the people saw how they were acting, they said, these guys are drunk. and Peter said these people are not drunk it’s nine o’clock in the morning he said what they are is they’re overflowing with the spirit of God and Peter stood up and began to preach to them began to preach to the people there at Jerusalem about how Jesus was the Messiah that God had promised all throughout the Old Testament and yet when they found this Messiah they killed him but he said that even though you did that of your own free will it was still part of God’s plan because you crucified him and God raised him up again.

And God has made him Savior. God has made him Messiah. God has made him Lord.

And he preaches this incredible message about how they needed to repent and start looking to Christ as their Messiah instead of looking to the law for their salvation. And some of the people responded, the Bible says they were pricked in their hearts. In other words, God nailed them right in the conscience and they realized they were wrong.

And if you’re a believer in Christ today, that’s happened to you before. That time, at least that first time when you realized, I need a Savior. I have sinned against God.

Well, they were pricked in their hearts. They were cut to the heart. And they cried out and they said, what must we do to be saved?

And Peter said, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And by the way, and I’ve talked about this here before, and I’m sure we’ll talk about it again, that is not teaching that we have to be baptized for salvation. Because there are too many clear passages of Scripture that say it is not by works, no ritual is involved in salvation, it’s just by grace through faith. We talked at length about one of those passages last week.

But the main thing is the repentance. The heart of repentance. Because I don’t see how you separate repentance from faith.

Repentance doesn’t mean I turned away from my sin and cleaned up my life. Repentance means a change of mind. Repentance means I’ve gone from sinning and loving it and wallowing in the sin to saying I agree with God about it.

This is wrong. And it deserves a penalty. And I’m going to come under the judgment of God and I need a Savior.

It’s getting on the same page with God about sin and judgment. And when you do that and you realize God’s free offer of salvation, folks, that repentance and faith is just two sides of the same coin. And so when they heard this, they responded, verse 40 says, And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.

Many of them responded in faith and he continued to teach them. Verse 41 says though, Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers.

And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. What we see is once these people responded to the message of the church, the message of that early church at Jerusalem was that people needed to repent and trust Jesus Christ as their Savior because he had paid for their sins on the cross and then he’d risen again from the dead to prove that he could forgive their sins. So their message was finding salvation in Jesus Christ. And when people responded to the message of the church with faith, then they began to go through some activities that are part of our Christian life, part of their gateway into this Christian community.

And they were baptized. They were dunked under the water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine, meaning they studied God’s Word, they were taught God’s Word.

That’s something that we need all throughout our Christian lives. That’s why you come here for church, why you come here for Sunday school, why you come here for the 5 o’clock class, why you come here for Wednesday night, is to be taught, and not just by me. I listen to Bible teachers as well on the radio, try to go into Sunday school when there’s not something else going on that I’ve got to take care of.

I’d need to be taught too. You never get to a point in your Christian walk where you’ve learned it all and you don’t need to be taught anymore. But they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine, meaning they were being taught what God’s word said and what Jesus had taught, because if anybody knew what Jesus had taught, it was the apostles.

And they continued in fellowship. You need one another. We as Christians need one another.

When we cut ourselves off from the herd, the dangers of this world can be way too much. Any nature documentary you’ve ever watched, the predator goes after the sick and the lame and the one who wandered away from the protection of the herd. Folks, we are little sheep who are at the mercy of the roaring lion the Bible describes Satan to be apart from the fellowship and safety of our herd under the care of our shepherd.

We need each other. We need each other. There’s safety in numbers.

There’s encouragement in numbers. There’s strengthening in numbers. So they continued in fellowship.

And in breaking of bread, that doesn’t mean just that they ate together. That’s part of fellowship, right? Right?

Do we ever have a fellowship where there’s not food? Somebody walked in Wednesday night, all the snacks back there, and said, What’s going on? I said, Wednesday night?

People wanted snacks when they got together. This doesn’t mean just that they got together and ate together. This breaking of bread is talking about the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

And in prayers, they prayed together. They prayed together. And signs and wonders were done.

They went and they ministered together and saw God at work. And folks, all of these are things that were done by the early church. These are all things that need to be done by churches today.

These are all things that we should commit ourselves to. But out of all of these things that you and I do as part of the life of this church, as part of this Christian community, there are two that stand out to me here that are not things that we can just go and do on our own at any time. There are two of these here that really stand out as serving a particular purpose.

All of these serve a purpose. But two of these stand out as rituals that were given to the church. Those are baptism and the Lord’s supper.

Folks, these were given to the church in perpetuity. These were given to us to carry out until the Lord comes. They were given to us to carry out together.

And they were given to us to carry out not for salvation, but as a picture to the world. I will jump on you if you use the word, but I don’t like the word sacrament. The word sacrament that’s used by a lot of churches indicates that there’s something about these, there’s some kind of grace in these activities that lends itself to salvation.

I prefer the word ordinances, meaning this is something that God gave us to do as a responsibility, as a matter of obedience, but it’s not something that saves us. You are not saved by being immersed under the water. There’s nothing magical about the water back here.

But it is a way to publicly profess your faith in Jesus Christ. It is a way to follow him in obedience. There’s nothing mystical or magical about these Lord’s Supper elements down here. I bought the juice at Walmart.

And I don’t say that to minimize what we’re going to do. I went and found something that was just grape juice, no sugar, no anything else. But we bought it at Walmart, folks.

And that bread is not, Jesus’ body is not physically present in that bread or anybody else’s bread who may be observing the Lord’s Supper or any form of communion today. His body is not, I’m sorry, there’s no magical process where it becomes his body. It’s bread that we got at Lifeway.

and if we had run out I was trying to figure out what else might work oyster crackers or something else because see it’s not about it’s not about some magical element they took bread and broke it apart we could have done that we could have gone and gotten flat bread and broke it apart his body’s not in there physically it’s not in there mystically it’s a symbol it is a picture and as I began to look at these two these two rituals, these two ordinances of the church, they were given to us for some very specific reasons. First of all, they are matters of obedience to Jesus Christ. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper were given to us as matters of obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we know that they’re matters of obedience because while he was here, he told us to do them. He told us to do them.

In Matthew chapter 28, And you can turn there if you want. If not, it’s copied on the bulletin for you. I’m not one to say close your Bible and look at me or close your Bible and look at the bulletin.

It’s there printed out for you, but you’re also, I invite you to check what I’m saying against what’s printed in your laps, in your Bibles. Matthew chapter 28, verses 19 and 20, when Jesus is giving the great commission to his followers, he says, go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Stop right there. He said, go and teach all nations.

Not teach them their alphabet, not teach them math. Teach them about the gospel. All nations.

Not just the Jews, not just the Samaritans, but go to all nations, teach them the gospel, and then baptize those people. Why? Why?

Because baptism was how they professed their faith in Jesus at that point. That was a public ceremony. where you said, where you were saying, I am done with the old life and I am committed to following Jesus Christ. I have followed Him in baptism.

And it was a big deal back then. Now churches will just baptize people for any old reason, whether they mean it or not. Hey, I want to be baptized.

Fine. I want to be baptized again. Great, that’s more numbers for our report.

Back then, people weren’t lining up to get baptized if they didn’t mean it. Because identifying yourself with Jesus Christ could cost you your life. Could cost you your family.

In some places in the world today, it can still cost you those things to identify with Jesus Christ. As I was talking about prayer for our country earlier in the service, I mentioned North Korea. Folks, that’s one of those places. that government is so threatened by the idea that its people would show allegiance to anything else that my understanding is you can end up with years in a hard labor camp for owning a page of the Bible.

And God forbid, well they don’t do God in the North Korean government, Kim Il-sung forbid that you should try to lead anybody else to Jesus Christ. They’ll just execute you in three generations of your family. There are places in this world today where it is still a matter of life and death to admit that you’re following Jesus Christ. And in their day, there were people like Saul of Tarsus, who would eventually become the Apostle Paul, who would hunt you down, arrest you, and have you killed if you identified with Jesus. And yet Jesus said, go and preach the gospel and baptize those who respond, because it was a matter of obedience.

It was demonstrating our loyalty to him. We learned in school, and our kids still learn in school here in town, the Pledge of Allegiance. My son can lead the Pledge of Allegiance.

He’s led one of my political meetings in the Pledge of Allegiance. I had to get it on video. It was so cute to me, and I was so proud of it.

But we learn to salute the flag and show our allegiance to our country. That is a small thing, but that is one way we show our loyalty to our country. Baptism is one of the ways that we show our loyalty to Jesus Christ. Oh, I love Jesus.

I want to follow him. I don’t need to be baptized, though. Wait a minute.

You love him and you want to follow him, and you won’t do the first one little thing that he told you to do. it’s a problem. And I’m not trying to jump all over you this morning if you’re sitting out there and saying, well, I’ve trusted Christ years ago, but I’ve never been baptized.

I’m not trying to make you feel bad, but that’s something you need to take care of. And if you agree with me and agree with God’s word, more importantly, that that’s something you need to take care of, come see me and we’ll get that done. But it’s a matter of obedience.

He said, go preach the gospel. Baptize these people. teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo I am with you always even unto the end of the world.

And as I’m reading that I realize that your notes say teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I command you. Which reminds me of how Ricky Ricardo would have said that. That’s why I tell you check what’s printed for you against your Bible and make sure it’s correct.

He said, all things whatsoever I have commanded you. Don’t just stop at the gospel, but teach people to be obedient to Jesus Christ. And it starts there. In Luke 22, in one of the passages in the gospels that talk about Jesus instituting the Lord’s supper with his followers, he took bread and gave thanks and broke it and gave unto them saying, this is my body, which is given for you, this do in remembrance of me.

that word do is an imperative it’s a command do it it’s not would you like to do it if you’ve ever been a parent you know what a command is get in there and clean that room get and clean are the commands if you’ve ever had a parent you know what a command is Jesus isn’t asking us he’s saying do this in remembrance of me likewise also the cup so same thing with the cup after supper saying this cup is the new testament in my blood which is shed for you folks we’re supposed to observe this because Jesus told us to whether it’s the water or whether it’s the blood and the wine we’re supposed to observe these things because Jesus told us to it is a matter of obedience to Jesus Christ and when a church is willing to to give up those things, when believers are willing to give up those things and say, I’m not going to be obedient in these little things that we do, we’re probably not going to be obedient in the big things either.

By the way, he doesn’t place a timetable on it for us either and say, do this in remembrance of me every Sunday morning. You know what? There’s nothing unbiblical about doing it every Sunday morning.

There’s nothing unbiblical about doing it once a quarter the way we do it. A church I pastored in the past, they didn’t really have any set when do we do it, when do we not, so they finally just said whenever you feel like it, and we ended up doing it, feel like it is not exactly the way they said it, but whenever you feel we need to do it, and there’d be times when I’d think it’s been too long since we’ve done this, and we’d get it on the calendar and we do it. He just says do it.

He just says do it. In other words, do this in remembrance of me. Don’t forget.

Don’t forget this visual reminder. And that’s exactly what it is. Baptism, the Lord’s Supper are matters of obedience to Christ, but they’re also visual reminders of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection.

They are visual reminders. These are the rituals that we go through so that we can show them to our children and teach them with a visual aid. Charla last night needed help putting together a rocking chair that she’d gotten for her and the baby.

I don’t know that she needed help, but I volunteered help. I had dozed off in the living room and kept waking up because she’s dropping an Allen wrench or a bolt or something. Do you see it?

Just let me do that. So she’s halfway through it, and she hands me the book of instructions. Here they are.

I didn’t start the instructions from the beginning because she’s halfway through. So it’s telling me, put the blah, blah, blah X in blah, blah, blah, purple. I don’t know what this is.

Thank God. Thank God there was a picture underneath it. Or I wouldn’t have understood what was going on or where to put what.

But there was that picture I could look at and say, oh, that little bolt goes in there, and then this other one slides in there once you put the arm up to, okay, I got it figured out. I got it put together in about 10 minutes because of the picture. I was able to learn from that picture.

Our kids forget 99%, I’m sure, of what we tell them, but they remember a lot of what we show them. And this is one of those places where we show our children. And I don’t mean our individual children.

I mean as a church, our children. Because whether you signed up for the responsibility or not, you have a hand in raising those two back there and pointing them to God. The others that come in, the young people, the youth, you have a hand in being those who show them what it means to be a Christian as they’re part of this community.

This is one of these things where we show our children, the next generation, the new Christians who come in, the unsaved who may be in our fellowship from time to time see what we do. This is where we show them this is what we believe. And I can stand up here and yammer away all day, and sometimes I do, yammer away all day about justification and the blood and sanctification and the resurrection and all this stuff, and they’re going to forget most of it.

And let’s be honest, y’all probably forget most of it when you walk out of here. I figure if I can give you one thing you can remember, then that helps you get through the next week. Folks, they’ll remember the picture.

I’ve yet to see a child. I’ve yet to see a child watch the Lord’s Supper and say, why did you do that? I’ve yet to see them not ask, why did you do that?

Why couldn’t I have some of that? Or watch a baptism and say, why did they get dunked in that water? And it provides us the opportunity to tell them.

It provides us an opportunity to tell a waiting world, a dying world, that Jesus Christ shed his blood and died and rose again. When we take this Lord’s Supper, he says in 1 Corinthians, as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death until he come. We are commemorating that that body was broken for us and that that blood was spilled for our sins.

Whenever we baptize someone, as Romans chapter 6 says, we’re remembering the resurrection of Jesus Christ and identifying with the Savior who died and rose again. He says, therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death. There’s a typo in there, too.

So check it against your Bibles. Into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. He says, just like Jesus died and was buried and rose again, so we should die to the old man and rise to walk in newness of life.

For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. They are visual reminders. They are pictures to the next generation and to the world that this is what we believe.

This is what Jesus did for us. And then finally this morning, not only are baptism the Lord’s Supper matters of obedience to Christ, not only are they visual reminders of the death, burial, and resurrection, but it’s important to make absolutely clear they have no part in saving us. No part whatsoever in saving us.

They are a picture of what has been done to offer us salvation, but they have no part in saving us. And for that I point you to the passage that we studied last week in Ephesians chapter 2. For by grace are ye saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, lest any man should boast. If you could be saved by being immersed in water and having a prayer said over you, if you could be saved by consuming bread and wine, if you could be saved by anything that you could do or that I could do for you, then the cross was absolutely unnecessary.

then Jesus died a horrendous death for nothing but folks he did come and die he had to come and die as the only acceptable sacrifice any rituals you or I do make no difference to God in terms of salvation because they don’t deal with the fact that our sins are still there they don’t erase the problem of sin only the blood of Jesus Christ erases the problem of sin. And then we come together and we go through this ritual, this ceremony, this ordinance, whatever you want to call it, this commemoration of the blood that was shed and the life that was laid down and the new life that was raised up for you and me.

Powered by atecplugins.com