Baptism Sunday | April 26th, 2026

This service, we welcomed believers dedicating their lives to Jesus and publicly declaring Him as their Lord and Savior! Join in the celebration and watch them get dunked into new life and listen to their powerful testimonies on our Youtube using the links below! 

9:15AM Service Baptisms

11:00AM Service Baptisms

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, all right, all right. Well, y'all are talkative this morning. That's fantastic. Hey, my name is Ben, and I have the honor of serving as lead pastor. Yeah, if y'all are coming in, feel free to uh make your way if you're in the lobby. Um, this is Baptism Sunday. It's one of my favorite Sundays of the year. I say that often. Yeah, thanks. A little woo. Yeah. One thing you need to know, by the way, and let me just get this out of the way. If you've never been here for a baptism service, um, it is it is by every means a celebration. We think when Florida State scores a winning touchdown, or just a touchdown, really, you know, we all go nuts, ride a home run, we go nuts, ride a hole in one good grief, you know. Or or whatever kind of the you know non-sports version of that, you know, you have a fantastic painting, right? And you just like kill a tree. You're not like kill a tree, but you know, you're painting it. Anyways, it's this celebration, and so when people go from death to life, which we're gonna talk about in a second, when we're when we're celebrating that and commemorating that, it is an absolute celebration. And so if there's a little bit of buzz in the air and the energy in the air, that's why. I want to tell you for a second a few um a few things about baptism. And not just because it's like, oh, it's baptism, we should talk about it. It's because what's actually happening here is is incredible, it's beautiful. In fact, there is a dynamic and robust history that exists that dates back far beyond um what we're gonna see here. In fact, what we're gonna see here in baptism really goes back to Genesis. And the reason I want to talk about this for a second is because we're all here, and there's gonna be baptisms that happen in this service and the next service, but the depth to which we understand what's actually happening is the depth to which I think we really understand and enjoy this entire time together. If you got your Bible, you're welcome to um open it up. We're gonna uh spend primarily a little bit of time in Colossians. I'm only gonna talk for about 10 or 15 minutes. We're gonna talk primarily from Colossians, but I want to give you some backstory. Because to understand baptism, it's to understand what baptism is. Baptism is what's called a sign, it's a sign of a covenant, right? It's the sign of this idea of a covenant. And if you've never been around church very much, maybe you don't know what a covenant is. So let me tell you a little bit about covenants. Covenants were a relational kind of contract. If you think about it like this, way back in the day, back in Bible days, back in Old Testament Genesis days, in fact, there was there was this idea that two people they would enter into a contract together. And typically how a covenant would work is that it would have a more powerful party and a less powerful party, right? What would happen is the more powerful party would say, I'm going to pledge to protect you. And usually the less powerful party would pledge to say, I'm going to pay you, pay you taxes for that protection. And they would enter into this contract together, this covenant. But their contracts, honestly, were way more strong than ours. And the reason I say that is for us, right, if you've ever signed a contract, then you know what you do is exactly that. You sign a contract, you get your little ballpoint pen, you know, you just and you sign. They did something that actually showed the implications of what happens if you break the covenant. You see, in every single contract, there is a what happens if we don't live up to this contract. The way that they cut a covenant was this: they would take animals. They would take a cow, they would oftentimes take a goat, a bird, they would take a number of different animals, and they would legitimately saw them in two, cut them in half. They would put one on one side and one on the other side. And the idea was is both parties would walk between the two just mangled components of the animal. Now it's it's it's a lot and it's a little bit grotesque. But the idea was is if any of us are unfaithful to this covenant, may what happen to these animals happen to me. If I'm unfaithful to this covenant, may what happen to these animals happen to me. Well, God, in Genesis 12, made this promise to Abraham. And it was a covenantal promise. Abraham, I'm gonna be your God. Abraham, I'm gonna bless you. He said there's three things that's gonna happen. You're gonna have a land, you're gonna have people, and Abraham, I'm gonna make your name great. I'm gonna bless you so that you will be a blessing. And then in Genesis 15, he does the craziest thing. He says, Abraham, I know you're old, I know you kind of don't believe this, but we're gonna cut a covenant. So, Abraham, I want you to get these animals and I want you to cut them in half. One on one side, one on the other side. So Abraham still goes ahead and does this. And this would have been crazy for them, right? Because people cut covenants with people. People didn't cut covenants with God because how could God even be unfaithful to his covenant? Well, an even crazier thing happens. So, Abraham, he's in that, and all of a sudden he's got this relationship. God says, I'm gonna be your God, you're gonna be my people, this is how this is gonna roll. And Abraham has this kind of vision, dream, this experience where it's he falls into his sleep, and as he's there, he he sees. In fact, in the in a real context, that there's this smoking pot in this flame, this torch, which we would later go on to see in Exodus, is the representation of the presence of God. And this is what was crazy. And you should read this. In fact, Genesis 15, you should read this for yourself. What happens is God is the only one who walks through the covenant. And the imagery is this if either of us are unfaithful to this covenant, God said, I'll die. For your unfaithfulness, I will die. But the beautiful thing about God is he's not a God who just sits in this kind of, he knows he's to us, he's not in this, you know, kind of this, as Matthew talks, or Jesus talked about in Matthew when we pray, you know, pray to your father who's unseen. He's an unseen God. And so what he knows is that he gives us tangible, tangible signs that mark the covenant. And so in Genesis 17, God says to Abraham, Abraham, I'm making this covenant with you, I'm making this covenant promise with you. Abraham's in about 99 years old, and he says, so that you will have assurance, here is the covenantal sign that I want you to have so that you will know that this is real and legitimate. And he institutes this idea of circumcision. And circumcision in the Old Testament was a sign, and this was the sign, that you have said yes to the covenant. That you have said yes, me, my family, kids, all that kind of stuff, right? They were they were circumcised, and the idea was, again, it was a sign of the covenant. Why? Because God's thoughtful. Because as a good, loving heavenly Father, he doesn't just leave us in obscurity, but he leaves us with tangible things to remind us of these spiritual realities. And exactly what we would anticipate would happen, happen, the nation of Israel, the people of God, would do like we do. Know what they ought to do and not do it. And know what they ought to do and rebel. And generation after generation, there was this back and forth, this seesaw, until one day, until one day, this guy, Jesus, shows up. And he's about to get baptized, and John looks at him and says, The Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. And sure enough, that's what we would find out. Just like he promised in Genesis 15, through this covenant ceremony, God would in fact die. In fact, right before he dies, he gets as close as followers together. Remember this? And he says, This is my body, this is my blood of the what? Of the new covenant. In other words, I am creating a new covenant, a new establishment, a new relationship. That the sign of the old covenant was circumcision. But this new covenant, it's different. This new one is gonna be in my blood. In fact, it's gonna be completely, in fact, the in some ways the fulfillment of the old covenant. But an established new relationship. What we would come to know is this that this new covenant was not about how good we are, was not good about about how well we perform, was not about how often you go to church, was not contingent on whether or not you go to community group, was not contingent on whether you serve. It's one thing. It's Jesus. That I place my faith, my hope, my trust. That I am innately sinful, and that I in and of myself can't gain a right relationship with him. And he not knew that. And he, in fact, knew that from the jump. Which is why he said, I'll die for your covenant of unfaithfulness. And on the cross, he died to bridge the way. To not just say to forgive us, but to actually declare us righteous. Did you know that? I mean, I mean just pause for a second. Think about the implications of this. Think about the worst thing that you've ever done, that you hope no one ever knows about. And he says, not only loved, accepted, forgiven, but righteous. Well, so Acts. The story of the early church. Acts chapter 2. Believers are gathered, and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit comes down, falls on them. They start speaking in different languages, different tongues, and then Peter stands up and he gives a sermon. It says about 2,000 people that day came to faith, came to believe, came to hope, came to trust in Jesus. And there's this wild thing because they look around and they say, Okay, we're in. We want to be a part of this covenant. What do we do? And he looks at him and he says, Be baptized. Be baptized for you. In other words, you want to say yes to this covenant, you want to say, and you want to have this sign that is the sign that points to this spiritual reality. He says, be baptized. In fact, Colossians, Colossians 2, this is where he really drills in. In fact, I'm going to read a couple verses before we go on the screen. Let's start at verse 9. For in him, Jesus, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority. He says, okay, so if you are in Christ, if you if you know Jesus, if you place your faith, your hope, your trust in him, then the fullness of God was in the person of Jesus. In that person of Jesus, you now have. And you have been filled in him. He says, also in him you were circumcised. He says, but it's not like what you're thinking about. In him you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, but putting off the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been in the connection. You see what he says, okay, so Old Testament, Old Testament, the idea was the sign of the covenantal community or the community of people who have said yes to the covenant of God or the people who had been circumcised. But he says, okay, now there is a sign of this new covenant. And here's the sign of the new covenant of the covenantal community of God. 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. And by the way, did you know that the difference in theological ideas between infant baptism and adult baptism is simply the idea of covenantal continuity. Because in the Old Testament, baptism of kids was a part of the covenantal community, which was the mixture. It was for all of Israel. What we see in the New Testament is just the people who have taken on the covenant and said yes to Jesus. And so he says, You've been buried with him in baptism. In which you were also raised with him throughout. And when people are about to get baptized, when they go down, right, it's the sense of this is their old life. They have been buried with him. Their old life is gone. He says, You were raised through faith. When you come back up, you're raised into newness of life. And you. He said, just in case you missed how this whole thing worked, you were who were raised. Or in you who were dead in the trespasses. In the uncircumcision of your flesh, we were incapable. He said, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of death that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside. He nailed it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. He says, this is the story of both our salvation and our sanctification. This is the story of we're saying yes to this covenant of God. This is the story that we say, yes, Jesus, if you would die for me in the same way I, my life, I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I that live, but you that live in me. And so in this baptism, this is the sign, and the sign is that before this is my old life. Dead, I'm buried with Christ, and I'm raised in newness of life. What's fascinating, what's fascinating is multiple times throughout the New Testament, they call on baptism to be a place of encouragement. I mean, 1 Peter, he talks about, he says, hey, hey, hey, and when life gets tough, when life gets incredibly difficult, and you're trying to figure out which way is up and which way is down, and everything's tough, and it feels like you're doing the right thing for God. But your entire world is consistently getting turned upside down and your entire life is cast. He says, remember your baptism. Remember that the way of Jesus is that suffering and death ultimately leads to life. Romans 6. Paul's giving a uh a rebuttal to honestly somewhat of a common question. They said, Well, well, if Jesus died for my sins, can I keep sinning? And in fact, if I keep sinning, and he died for it, the more I sinned, the more he died for it. It actually makes his blood more valuable. Right? The greater the debt, the more valuable the price paid. And Paul says, not at all. He says, Don't you remember? In the same way that Jesus died, your old life, you have died. And you were raised in newness of life. In other words, that doesn't define you, that's not your identity anymore. What's beautiful about this is as people get baptized today, we're literally participating in somewhat of a ceremony, somewhat of a thing that people have done in different ways, in different forms, different signs, different covenants, but legitimately since Genesis chapter 17. And they walk through, taking on the sign of the covenantal community. So every person here who's getting baptized has said yes to that sign. There's three things that I want you to actually know and to do with that. Number one is again, it's a celebration. Here's how this matters to you. Number one, it's a celebration, right? And so when we do that, this is somebody saying, Yes, I have gone from death to life. That's bigger than any touchdown, any home run, any wonderfully painted tree or whatever it is, right? Like this is an incredible thing. And so what we do is we celebrate, we go nuts. When you see them come back up, right, we clap, we yell, there's confetti cannons, perhaps an air horn. We'll see what happens. But I'm just telling you, we celebrate. It's not like, oh, church clap, you know, golf clap. No, no, no, no. This is like Tiger 2019 when in the Masters. I'm so done with sports references, I'm sorry. So number one is we celebrate. Number two is this. If you're here and you've been baptized before, this is an opportunity for us to remember. Remember our baptism. Remember the story, the track. Remember how we were once in death and now we've been brought to life. Remember how we were walking in our old ways and how putting those to death raised in you. I want us to be encouraged as you see this to remember the work that God has done in you. And if you're here and you're trying to figure this whole Jesus God Bible thing out. In fact, I'm gonna go ahead and invite the band up because they're gonna come and play. We're gonna have some back and forth between people are gonna share stories. We're gonna have baptisms, and I'll explain a little bit more of that. But if you're here and it's kind of new to you and you're trying to figure this whole Jesus God church Bible thing out, you're trying to figure this whole baptism thing out. Here's what I want you to know. Zero people who are getting baptized today are on staff. I don't know a single one of them who's been to seminary. Maybe they have, probably not, though. I don't know any of them who have been to Bible college. These are normal folks, like you and like me. These are people who just walked in and God was doing something in their life. He was working in their life. Some of them are older, and they're gonna have stories, stories of brokenness, stories of difficulty. Some of them are younger, and they're gonna talk about the realization that Jesus is now my Lord and Savior. They're gonna make a declaration once and for all that publicly I'm taking on this covenantal sign. But if you're here and you're trying to figure this whole thing out, here's what I want you to know. These are not professional Christians. These are people who just continue to be open and aware to the movement of God. And if you hear their story and something resonates with you, hear your story and something there's somewhere and something pings inside of you, I just want you to lean in a little bit. I just want you to lean in just enough to realize perhaps their story can be your story as well. Because their story has nothing to do with them, it's simply the power of God as they've said yes to the work of Jesus. So in a second, we're gonna have our baptisms, our people come up. Every single baptism that we have, we love for them to tell their stories. Again, everybody has a story. Everybody that's coming up here, they've had friends, they've had parents, maybe grandparents, that have been praying for them, that have been inviting them, that have been loving, they have people in their life, right? And today, when they come and share their story, they're gonna share just this little bit of this magnitude of what God has done in their life. It's an encouragement to us. And then when they get baptized, we get to see and know what's happening as a snapshot in that person's life. Again, as they're taking on this covenantal sign of the covenantal community of God, we we hearken back to Genesis chapter 17 and we just join together with them. They're getting baptized, we celebrate, we go nuts, we worship all at the same time. And the whole deal is it's a ceremony where we honor God and we acknowledge people's steps that have said yes and to taking this next sign of the covenantal community of God. Let's pray. Jesus, I ask that as we hear these stories, these testimonies, I pray as we just lean in. God, you have been doing a work in every single person's life. And we know today you're doing a work still in many of our lives. Help us to see you clearly. Help us to celebrate you as we join with people, with women and men of faith, going back to the book of Genesis, who have said, Yes, I'm a part of this community, this covenantal community that is established in the New Testament by the blood of Jesus, by his death, in his resurrection, by his pardoning work, by the justification that we now receive. Buried in baptism, raised in newness of life, the sign of the covenant, of the new covenant of Jesus. Help us to be encouraged and aware. In your name we pray, Jesus. Amen.