Baptism Sunday

Praise for what God is doing at JCCC. Yes. Now, listen, I saw that video about a week ago, and I just about jumped out of my chair. To see God transform lives in that way, and baptism being the outward expression of the transformation that's happening in the human heart, it is worthy of our praise to God for all that He has done in the lives of those men in that video. Praise God. Now, I'm DeWayne, I'm one of the pastors here at Willow Creek. I'm excited to be with you today as we step into our time and our conversation about baptism. Now, every single Sunday, I wake up in the morning, and as a pastor, I get excited for these days. We get the opportunity to gather as the body of Christ, and I celebrate every single Sunday morning. But then there's some Sundays, if I'm honest, where I got a little bit more pep in my step. You know what I'm talking about, right? There's some Sundays where I got a little more move in my groove, a little more dip in my hip, a little more glide in my stride. Today is one of those days, amen, because today we get to see the evidence of transformation. Praise God. And I'm excited for it. I don't know about you, I'm excited for it. I got up this morning just thanking God for this day. And here's what I know. I know that in a room like this, or if you are watching online, I know that there may be some people who have already said yes to Jesus, but maybe for whatever reason, you haven't yet said yes to baptism. Can I give you just a little bit of a secret? I'm only going to share it with you and about 7,000 of our friends today. A small secret, I've been praying for you. We have been praying that if you're in that position, if you've decided to say yes to

Jesus, but not yes yet to baptism, we've been praying that today would be the day that you take the step of faith that is baptism, that you would come to the water and be baptized. And in that way, your story would intertwine with my story. My story of baptism goes back a really long time, I'm getting older now, and so I got baptized in 1999, right? I was a new believer, I had been a believer for about a year, and I knew that I knew that I was a Christ follower, but I hadn't yet stepped into the step of obedience that is baptism. And I had been encouraged to do so by the man who discipled me, but for whatever reason, maybe it was my schedule, maybe it wasn't that I fully understood what baptism was all about, but I had not yet taken this step of faith. And I found myself in this position, just like you, I walked into a service, I had my jeans and my Jordans on, and I was ready to hear about baptism, but maybe wasn't ready to take the step of baptism. And I remember the pastor that day sharing a message, just like I'm doing right now, and saying, listen, we've done everything we could to remove every obstacle from you, we've got some shirts and some shorts, and this is a great opportunity for you today to be baptized, and I heard that, and then he made it real to me. Because growing up in church, baptism was a churchy word, right? It wasn't something that I fully understood the depth of. So that day, the pastor shared, hey, baptism is one of the most powerful steps of faith that you will ever take in your life. Because it sends a message to the world around you that you have decided to follow Jesus, and that message has ripple effects that flood through the lives of your friends and your family members and your coworkers. And you could choose to be obedient today or be disobedient, but I hope that you choose to be obedient because delayed obedience is just disobedience. That hit different. You know, a few weeks ago, we had Pastor Humphreys here, and he said, he came from Malawi during our COH, and he said that, like, when something becomes personal to you, it becomes powerful

to you. Well, in that moment, baptism became both personal and powerful. He invited me to come to the water and be baptized, and I got to be honest with you, like, my first thought was, Pastor, for real? Am I Jordan's? You want me to be baptized today? Like, seriously? But then my next thought was, I want to be obedient. And I stood up, and I stepped forward, no excuses, just obedience. And that was the day that I was baptized. I had no idea that that moment of obedience would send ripple effects through my family, through my friends, through my coworkers, through every church that I've had the privilege to be a part of. That one step of faith had the power to do so much, and I had no idea that God was going to do all that in just one simple step of obedience. Like you, I just had to take one step of faith. You might be asking yourself, like, why? Why is baptism so important? Why is it so valuable? Why does it matter so much? Why is it so important that people be baptized? And so that's what we're gonna spend our time talking about today. And I wanna share just three simple truths through the lens of scripture that talk about why baptism matters so much. So if you have your Bibles, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go ahead and open them up to Matthew chapter 28.

And we begin our time in that passage. Now, for those of you who have heard this passage before, you know that it is termed or called the Great Commission. And in the Great Commission, we get some instructions just before Jesus ascends into heaven. It's like the basic instructions that Jesus gives believers before leaving earth. B-I-B-L-E, that spells Bible, extra points for the pastor. Let's keep rolling. B-I-B-L-E, basic instructions before leaving earth. And in Matthew chapter 28, there's this beautiful thing that happens where Jesus gives his people, those who would be followers of him, some instructions, some commands. And right before he does that, he says these words. All authority in heaven and earth has been given unto me. And then he gives a therefore. He says, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And surely, I am gonna be with you always, even to the end of the age. Now, right there, what Jesus gives us in that moment is what we would call some imperative language. The tone of the text is imperative. He's telling us, not as a suggestion, not as a recommendation, but as a command.

And one of the first reasons that we learn about why baptism is so important is simply this. It's found in Matthew chapter 28. It's because Jesus himself actually commanded it. Now, for those of you who don't know my story, like, I'm a military guy, and so I spent a lot of time as an active duty Marine. I retired in 2014, and I can tell you that I had to experience up close the difference between a recommendation or a suggestion and a command. And I wanna be clear, like, commands are different than recommendations. They're different because in a recommendation, you have the ability to choose whether you wanna follow it or not. But when somebody gives you a command, when I gave my Marines a command, the expectation was obedience. And not obedience that took a long time to get to, on the spot. Instant obedience to a command. When Jesus gives us this command in Matthew chapter 28, he expects us to respond in the same kind of obedience. It's not meant for us to interpret. It's not meant for us to figure out when we wanna feel like doing it. It's meant for us to move forward by faith and obedience, and it's one of the best and first steps of obedience that we will ever undertake, a step that ends up bridging

into a whole lot of other steps of obedience. So when Jesus tells us to do this, he gives us it as a command. You know what I love about Jesus is he doesn't just give us command. He gives us the command, but then he actually demonstrates it for us, right? I've been a parent for a long time. I have a 27-year-old and a 26-year-old, beautiful children. They're growing up. They're adults. They are off the payroll, praise God. You know what I'm talking about, right? And I have watched as they've grown up, and one of the best ways that I could get them to respond in obedience when I was asking them to do something is if I actually did it myself. And so there were times where I would ask them to do something, and I maybe wouldn't actually do it, but what I learned over time is that if we want our children to respond in obedience, then we need to do the things we're asking them to respond to. If we want them to be praying people, it really matters that we are praying people. If we want them to be people who keep their word, we need to be the kind of people who keep their word.

And if we want them to step out in obedience, we need to be the kind of people who are obedient. Jesus steps forward and demonstrates baptism for us. He didn't just tell us to do it. Jesus did it. You know, if you open up your Bibles to just a little bit earlier in Matthew's gospel, in Matthew chapter three, the Bible says that as Jesus was preparing to be baptized, that he goes to this place, and when he goes there, he goes up from Galilee to Jerusalem. Jordan, and he's preparing to be baptized by John. And John sees him there, and John says, like, really, Jesus, you want me to baptize you? Like, shouldn't it be the other way around? Like, shouldn't you be baptizing me? Like, I need to be baptized by you, and why do you come to me? And then Jesus replies, and he says, let it be so now, because it is proper for us to do this, to fulfill all righteousness. And then John consents, and as soon as that happens, Jesus was baptized. The Bible says that he goes up out of the water, and that there's this beautiful moment that happens, and in that moment, the Bible says that the heavens open up, and he sees a spirit descending on him like a dove, and then he hears the words of heaven, the words of God say, this is my son

with whom I am well pleased. I mean, you're talking about the most beautiful picture of baptism that has ever existed. It's a beautiful picture of the Trinity at work, and it's Jesus demonstrating for us what baptism is supposed to be. He didn't just talk about it, he did it. And in doing it, he sets the tone for us to respond in obedience as well. And you know, that would be enough. If Jesus just commanded it, and he just set the example for us, because Christ followers are supposed to follow Christ, right, that would be more than enough. But he does more than that. He even goes a step further, and he invites us into it. He calls us into baptism, and in calling us into it, he calls us into this beautiful picture, this beautiful story that has been developing since the beginning of time. You know, when he calls us into, it's found in the book of Romans, because Romans depicts a picture of what actually we're demonstrating when we step into baptism. The chapter says that, like the portion of the text says that we are buried with Christ in believer's baptism, and we're raised to walk in new life with him. And so our sin, all of the things that we have held so closely to,

when we accept Christ in our Lord and Savior, we are buried with Christ in that baptism. Our sin is buried, and Jesus himself was actually buried and dead, and those things die in the same way that Jesus died. But at Easter, we celebrate it here at Willow Creek and at every other church that Jesus didn't stay dead, amen, that he rose, and that he lives. While our sin stays buried, in baptism what we celebrate. Is that our spiritual lives have been raised with Christ. Buried in believer's baptism, raised to walk in new life with Jesus Christ. It's this beautiful picture that Jesus calls us into. And can I say like that picture is such a contrast from the picture that the world wants to share of who we are, right? Like I pay attention to the news and the social media from time to time. I don't spend a lot of time on it, amen. But I do every now and again get a glance, and what I've seen is this reason or this desire to want to show us at our very worst and not at our best, right? Like if you actually watch the news, if it bleeds, it leads. It's the first story on the news. If there's a problem, if it's problematic, then we post it on social media, right? For some reason, we have this deep desire to show people at their worst possible moment

in their lives. You know, a few years back, I had the privilege of spending time with one of my cousins who played top level tier one division A football, whatever you want to call it. The top tier of football, he played there. I know, big surprise. I had a cousin that played football. Big shocker, right? But I got to sit in the friends and family seats every single week with him, and I loved my time in the friends and family seats. Like it was a great opportunity to see things up close. The person who sat next to me was the mother of the kicker, and every week when her son got up to make a kick, I noticed that she would grab my arm and say, and she knew I was a pastor, Pastor, will you pray for me? And I would say, I'm gonna pray you stop grabbing my arm. But I would pray for her, and then one weekend I asked her, what's going on in those moments? She said, Dwayne, here's the thing. If my son misses a kick, it's gonna play on loops on ESPN. And my 19-year-old is gonna be seen over and over again at the worst moments. moments that he has. A lot of pressure for a 19-year-old. But what we see in our current culture is that kind of pressure. We wanna show people what they're very worst.

But what Jesus calls us into with baptism is to put on full display our hearts at their very best. Praise God. You know, when people make the decision to follow Jesus, oftentimes we'll say, you have made the best decision you will ever make in your life. This is gonna be the best moment in your life. You made the best decision. And when we respond in obedience to baptism, the baptism that Jesus calls us into, we put on full display that decision, the best decision. It's being seen at our best and not at our worst. And this is what Jesus is calling us into. A much more beautiful story than the story that the world wants to tell. And it's a story that begins even in creation of God doing some powerful things through the water. And it continues on into moments like the flood where Noah and the ark are rescued by a loving God. And it continues on into the exodus as the water walls are parted. And we see this beautiful picture of God's faithfulness and grace. And it even continues on into the river Jordan where we see God move in some mighty ways. And when you step into baptism, you step into your place in God's story, amen? And you find yourself in this moment where the ripple effects have affected you.

And those ripple effects flow through you. Who knows what God might wanna do with this one step of obedience. The ripple effects flow out and they hit places that we could never imagine. They impact people that we would have no idea would be impacted. I told you before just a few years back that I was one of those people who had yet to be baptized and I could not imagine the ripple effects that God would use that baptism for. The evidence of that is I'm getting to stand here in front of you today, amen? That's God at work. And the ripple effects continue to flow. And what I know is that sometimes we tell ourselves a story and we stop the ripple effects. And the story tends to fall into these two different categories. One side of the category is these are what we call reasons of why you wouldn't wanna be baptized. And listen, the reasons are actually valid reasons. Valid reasons. There are some reasons why a person shouldn't be baptized. I'll deal with those in just a moment. But then there's this other side that we just call reservations. And these are things that range from the comical to the really serious, right?

Let me just give you some of the reasons why a person shouldn't actually be baptized. The first one is that you're doing this to please somebody else. Like baptism shouldn't be a thing that we do to get the favor of a friend or a family member or somebody who's pushing us towards it. The only person that we're seeking to please in baptism is Jesus and Jesus alone. So our baptism is between you and God. And we shouldn't do it to please somebody else. And that's the reason why you shouldn't actually be baptized. Let me give you another one. You haven't actually personally trusted Jesus yet as your Lord and Savior. And if that's you, just know that this is baptism for believers. You know, one of the things that Jesus says in that verse that we looked at earlier, Matthew chapter 28, make disciples, so we need to be made disciples first and then be baptized. So baptism is for believers. If you haven't trusted in Jesus yet, can I invite you into that step of faith as well? At the end of our time today, we have an area called the next steps area that's just out in the center of our lobby. We'd love it if you would stop there.

We'd love to talk to you about the greatest decision that you will ever make in your life. The decision to trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior. But if you have not yet taken that step, it is not time yet to be baptized. Let me give you another one. You might think that baptism saves you. The Bible says that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. So baptism does not save us. And if you think that that's the case, then that's a good reason not to be baptized yet. But then there's these other things that we call reservations. And these sometimes mask themselves as reasons, but they're actually just things that we think about sometimes and we tell ourselves a different story than the story that's actually being told. Let me give you a couple of them. Again, they range from the comical to the really serious. The first one, there are times where I'll say, hey, do you want to be baptized? And people will say, well, pastor, I can't swim. It's not just me, is it? And I'm like, well, I can promise you we're not gonna ask you to swim, so that's good. What that actually equates to is a little bit of a fear of the water. Can I just say like today,

the water's about three feet tall, and so if you're above three feet, you're good, right? If not, we got somebody in the water that can help you, and in the worst case scenario, you could just stand up. You could just stand up, like it'd be great. And so I understand it. Those are some of the reservations that people have, and if you're afraid of the water, we want to be in the water with you. We'll help you any way we can, right? But then it gets a little bit deeper. Things like, I actually need to get my life together first before I get baptized. Now, this is a tough one because baptism is a beginning and not the end, right? And so the desire of our hearts might be to cleanse ourselves completely before we take this monumental step of faith, but here's the thing. If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, every sin that you have ever committed has been washed away by the blood of Jesus, amen? You are already clean. You don't need to get clean. You just need to move in obedience. There is no other thing that you need to do except for step forward by faith and obedience. Then there's this other one that seems to poke its head up all the time. We talk about it pretty regularly here,

but it's, I was baptized as an infant. Can I just say, like, if you were baptized as an infant, can I just say, like, if you were baptized as an infant, that's a great step of faith that your parents tried to pursue, right? What we see in scripture says that baptism is for those who have made a decision to follow Jesus Christ. And what you would be doing in being baptized even today is that you'd be affirming the parents' desires to have you be a person of faith. So if that's you, I wanna invite you too to be baptized today. And I want you to be reminded that your story has great effect on the people who are in your sphere of influence. You know, a few years back, I had a friend get baptized, and it was a story of God's power through baptism. And I've seen this over and over and over again for decades as a pastor. And I don't ever see a bigger smile on people's faces than when they get baptized. Like, it's the biggest, boldest smile. I was even backstage earlier talking to some folks about being baptized, and they were stepping into baptism today, and the smile on their faces already was overwhelming. I was like, yes, praise God. I told you I had more pep in my step. And I was talking to them,

and I've seen this play out so much. With my friend, we had been really close friends. We worked together as Marines. We were on active duty together. We started playing golf together. He's a really good golfer. I own golf clubs. We hung out from time to time, but I could see God was at work in his life. He had never told me that he was a believer, but God was clearly at work. Well, fast forward a little bit, and I'm getting stationed in a different place. I'm about to move from Charleston, South Carolina to Okinawa, Japan. And so I'm preparing for that transition. I'm in the hotel with my family. I'm one night away from getting on the plane, and my brother calls me and says, hey, Dwayne, I am a follower of Jesus Christ. Listen, that's not true. I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. Listen, there's no better news to get from a friend than I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. I was so excited. He said, I was talking to my mom, and she said that you should baptize me. I was like, well, great, come to Japan. It'll be great. And then we put our heads together

because I could hear the conviction in my brother's voice. He just wanted to be baptized. When we put our heads together, we realized there was a hotel pool downstairs. So we grabbed my family, and we came to the water so my brother could be baptized. And right there in front of God and all the hotel employees, he got baptized in the name of Jesus. Praise God. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we baptized him right in that hotel pool. Remember I said there was ripple effects? His children are all Christ followers. They have all been baptized. His wife is a Christ follower. She has been baptized. He volunteers in his church, and he's continuing to send ripple waves all throughout the people that he meets. and experiences, and the places that God places his feet. All because of that one step of obedience. No delays, no excuses, just obedience. And the question that we have to answer today, because I think the scriptures make it clear that baptism is a big deal. The question we need to answer today is, will I obey? Will I make the decision today to be baptized? Now I wanna give you some instructions and some logistics before we prepare to have our baptism time today.

Like, the first thing I wanna share with you is that you will see children actually being baptized today. We have some children who have made that decision to follow Jesus into baptism, praise God. And those, yeah, praise God. Willow Kids Ministries is doing a phenomenal job. They have a full out conversation with the family and so those have been pre, they have it already. And if you are a child who'd like to be baptized, we invite you, there'll be somebody from Willow Kids. We do not take walk-up baptisms on the day when it comes to children, because it's a much more robust conversation with their parents. But we do invite you to come and talk to one of our Willow Kids people who will be there, who will set a time to talk to you about baptism for your child. Now when they get into junior high ministry, there's a different thing that happens and we allow them to step into baptism. So you will see junior high kids today being baptized. As a matter of fact, they're up there in the balcony. Can we just welcome them into the room? They just got here, praise God. Yeah. Our high school ministry is here as well. We're excited for them to be baptized. Many of them will be baptized today. But then I wanna talk to three distinct groups of people.

Listen, if you are somebody who has already been baptized, here's the tendency when you hear a message like this. You might check out, right? Can I invite you to check back in? And I wanna do that from the lens of saying this. If you have already been baptized, there may be somebody sitting next to you who desires to be baptized. Would you just lean over to them and let them know that when the time comes to move, that you will walk down the aisle with them? Because they might need just a little bit of courage. And you already know the power of baptism in a person's life. You've already seen it for yourself. So would you be willing to walk down the aisle with them? You can let them know right now. I'll go with you if you want me to. And then the second group of people that have already registered to be baptized is a second group. These are folks who have already had the conversations. They've already done all the things and they're already ready to be baptized. And we're gonna put their names up on the screen. Praise God. Look at that, look at that. It's gonna keep going. They have already said yes to baptism. And you can go ahead, if that's you,

if you're one of the people on that screen, you can go ahead and move into place right now and just right over here to the stairs and they'll receive you and you can get ready to be baptized. And then there's this third group. And that's those of you who were just like me. You're right on the edge of obedience. Can I invite you to step over the line of obedience? To choose today to come to the water and to be baptized. And here's what I'll tell you. You have no idea the ripple effects that God is gonna use your story for. So in this moment, we have done everything we could to clear every obstacle. We have some t-shirts and some shorts. We've got a towel for you. We've got an army of hair dryers in the back. And this is a moment where you can step forward by faith and choose today to be baptized. And if that's you, as soon as I finish this prayer, I invite you to come to the front and over to the stairs here and to step into baptism. Let's pray together. We thank you for this time today. We thank you for your grace and mercy. We celebrate today the inward transformation

that you've had in people's lives and the outward expression through baptism. Father, would you have your way during this time? Might it be a time of celebration, a time of worship, a time of reminder that you are good and that you are with us and that the world needs to know the story of all that you have done in our lives. We thank you and we pray for many to be baptized at all of our campuses and even around the world today. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.