About this episode
Meet Christ in the water. Nothing can wash away my sins--nothing but the blood of Jesus. The gospel is the story of Jesus Christ, doing what we could never do, paying what we could never pay. The gospel gets a hold of our hearts and demands a response. In the New Testament, the uniting response is to confess Christ as Lord and to follow Jesus into water for this crossing over experience.
Baptism is obedient faith. It is imitating Christ. It is retelling the gospel. It is obeying the greatest commandment. It is our crossing over, exodus moment. And the religious leaders rejected the council of God by not being baptized. They wanted to stay in the shadows. They didn’t want to go public. That’s why, as Max Lucado says in one of his books, baptism separates the car buyer from the tire-kicker. It’s time to commit. It’s time to unite with Christ. It’s time to accept the cross as your way of life.
The sermon today is titled "Step Into The Water." The Scripture reading is from Acts 8:35-39. Originally preached at the West Side Church of Christ (Searcy, AR) on August 14, 2022. These lessons fit under one of 5 broad categories: Begin, Discover, Grow, Learn, and Serve. This sermon is filed under Begin: A Joyful Response.
Click here if you would like to watch the sermon or read a transcript.
Links and Resources:
- N. T. Wright provides a powerful description of baptism as our Exodus moment.
- Randy Harris preached a powerful sermon on Baptism.
- Everett Ferguson has written the definitive study of baptism in the early Christian experience from a historical perspective.
- Read the remarkable ecumenical statement on baptism from the World Council of Churches (1982).
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