143. Freedom In Finding A Church - Part 4 - Church Ordinances

I do not mean to be mean. I do mean to be mad. Those that criticize this kind of preaching, they don't like authority! If you ain't got the King James, you ain't got... Hey, if you don't have a King James, you don't have a Bible. You'd be surprised. Son, don't go to sleep while I'm talking. Hey, hey, hey, don't you lay your head back. I'm important. I'm somebody. I love you. You know I love you. Have I convinced you I love you? You better nod your head yes, all right. Come on, put it right there. Stay awake and you listen to me. I still believe if you have a cold day and healthy, probably get my balance to a woman. I'm a preacher. When you got dressed today, you dressed deity. This is the For Freedom podcast. A podcast that is part of the RFP network that seeks to bring freedom in Christ from the spiritual abuse of legalism. And so fundamentalism is designed to unpack the idea of authority from Scripture. The problem with that is that that's not the defining principle in Scripture. It is a part of the Scripture. But the defining principle in Scripture is love. I found my freedom in you. I found my freedom in you. I found a joy I can't lose. I found my freedom in you. I found my freedom in you. I found my freedom in you. I found my freedom in you. I found a joy I can't lose. And thank God it's true. You wrapped your arms around me. And heaven broke through from the moment you found me. I found my freedom in you. Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James Safer and Brad Martin. Welcome back to the For Freedom Podcast. What a great day it is. A great week that we've had. And I enjoyed you tuning in. We do this because of you and the listeners. And we never want to take that for granted. And we want to thank you for tuning in. And we are doing a series of basically what to look for in church. And I want to continue that today. And if the last episodes have been helpful, leave a rating and review. Help us out. If you'd like to rate the show on Apple iTunes Podcasts, down at the bottom, you can give us a review and give us a comment, ways that we can make it better. Always we're looking for ways that our podcasts can do better. And so if you ever have any comments or concerns or things that we can do, reach out to us. We would love to hear your input. We've gotten several of those over the weeks and months and years. And I always appreciate that. You can direct message us on our socials. You can also message me on my email or my phone number. It's out there. Back in the day, I gave that out. You can find that and reach out to us. But we are just loving what's going on, loving the feedback that we've had lately. And me and Brett, we recently got back from Nicaragua. And we're giving reports to our church. I gave a report this past Sunday. Brett's giving one this Sunday to his church. And just excited about what the Lord's doing in our lives and the lives of our church. And Brett's got a busy week this week. Brett, what's been going on this week for you? We have been in revival since our family here at our church. And they're just great singers. And then Todd, the dad, he's a great preacher. Wonderful, powerful preacher. And man, on Sunday, we had a packed out house. And we've had good attendance every night. Tonight is the last night. We're going through Wednesday. And we've got a potluck tonight. And then we've got our last night of our revival. So things have been going on. And then we've been busy in other areas. Other, our local county association. We're trying to get a crusade together. Next week, we're going to the Mississippi State Fair to give out gospel tracks. And they've got a tent set up where the state convention does where, you know, you sign up to get a, to win a side-by-side, to listen to a gospel presentation. It's a great opportunity to lab and workshop, giving out the gospel. And so we're promoting that in the county. And then I've got school, working on my master's. And so we've just got a lot of things going on. Busy season of life. But I would rather do this and be busy being in the ministry than being the CEO of a company and spending all this time working a secular job. I love being in the ministry. I love what I do. I'm so thankful to be called a pastor. I love being here and being on the podcast. You know, I really enjoy coming on here and talking with you and being here for our listeners. And just like you said, we love input. There are some podcasts out there that ignore their fans. We don't want to say fans, but listeners is what I mean. Ignore them. I know. They ignore their listeners, but we don't ignore our listeners. We encourage input from our listeners. So get us on Facebook or any other social media platform. Send us a direct message. Tell us what you think. Give us some ideas because we definitely listen to you. Yeah, that's great. I know. I heard y'all are planning on having Greg Locke come in for your crusade. Is that correct? Only if he agrees to make me an apostle. So if he can, if he can pass that holy anointing on to me, even so, Greg, come quickly. Even so, come thou Lord. Yes. Amen. Amen. Love it. And we've been busy as well. We've had, we had two deaths this weekend. So I've got funerals lined up, had one yesterday and then have one coming up on Sunday. And then Brett, we're doing, I haven't even told you this, but we're doing a, you may have seen it on social media, a combined revival with our community. And so it's going to be my church, First Baptist Church of Rhonda, another church in Rhonda, Macedonia. And we're doing it for three nights and each night is going to be at a different church and a different pastor is going to speak at each one of those churches. And so I'm speaking at First Baptist Rhonda with our choir singing. Monday we'll be at my church with a different, with the pastor at Macedonia preaching. And then First Baptist will finish it up at Macedonia. And so excited about that. Just three churches coming together, fellowshipping together, worshiping together, and looking forward to what the Lord's going to do there. But that's going to be something interesting. I've never been a part of something like that. We do a combined Thanksgiving service where we have three different churches of three different denominations come together. But I've never done one where it's been three different churches at three different locations. And so looking forward to what that's going to look like and seeing how the Lord's going to move. But yeah, we've got some busy times as well. We're at the end of the year. I always say that when things slow down in the world of, you know, school getting back in session and routines, it's sort of when our schedules ramp up because we're at the end of the year. We're starting to plan for next year. We're starting to get schedules ready and budgets ready and lots of transition things that go on in the year for pastors. And so we are in full swing is a good way to put it. And so looking forward to that. Had some great lunches these last couple of weeks with some guys just praying through some things and talking through some stuff. It's been really, really good. So my project this morning has been trying to get these pictures off of my phone to build a slideshow for Sunday. Of course, we had to skip this Sunday because this Sunday was our homecoming. But like you said, we're going to report this coming Sunday at our church for the mission trip. And we're looking forward to that, trying to make a little slideshow, a little presentation, give some testimonials about Nicaragua and kind of share a heart with the people. But just like you said, busy, busy season, a lot to do and wouldn't have it any other way. Absolutely. Well, we've got coming up in the next couple of weeks. Brett, we just booked a house for us and another couple that we're going to be at for the meetup for the sake of the gospel conference. Did talk to John this week and he said he may come down on that Friday. And he, yeah, so he may come down and join us and fellowship with the family again with RFP. And so that'd be good to have him come down. He's only a couple hours away. Don't know if he'll stay the night. He may just drive down and drive back. But looking forward to the weekend there at Katusa in Ringgold at Hope Church there with JC's church. And I'll be there Friday night and Saturday. And then I'll be driving back Saturday. But Brett, you'll be staying Saturday night and into Sunday and be going to JC's church there on that Sunday. And so we're excited about the meetup. It's always a great time for the family to get together, worship together. Great time of preaching, a great time of just hearing each other's hearts. One of my favorite things about the meetup is just seeing and hearing and putting faces to names. You know, we'll see someone. Absolutely. Yeah. We'll see someone who will comment on a Facebook post or a social media post. And we know that name, but we don't quite know the face. And then we're like, oh, you're so and so. Yeah. And so we get to talking and go to lunch or go to dinner, grab a coffee and just be able to hang out with one another. It's a great time of fellowship. And the worship is always top notch. Just singing to the glory of God, the preaching that we get to hear and then getting just the RFP network together, the host together to be able to talk through just where we're at. And looking forward to that happening, looking forward, Brett, over the next couple of weeks to be able to go through our RFP crossover event and talk with some of these other podcasts. And it's a great time just to share each other's hearts and where each other's at in their podcasts. This will be the first time you get to be a part of that. And it's always a good time just to get a couple extra voices on here. And so looking forward to that. Definitely the crossover episodes. We've had that on the schedule for a while. We've been thinking about it, getting some subjects together, talking to some of these other hosts. And we're looking forward to getting to do that here pretty soon. And then, of course, next up on our schedule is Israel. We've still got our Israel trip planned for March of 2025. We tried to get it during spring break, second full week of March. So, you know, people that have school or teachers or jobs like that, it'd be easy for someone to get off of work to go. So if you'd like to go, I know there's some things going on right now. But as of right now, our Israel trip is still planned. Who knows what's going to happen in the future? And March is a long ways away. So be planning now if you'd like to go. And, you know, push comes and shove. We'll reschedule if we have to. But I cannot wait to go. I'll always go back to Israel. That is something that just is a part of my life. I know there, you know, maybe things going on over there where you can't go right now and you might have to wait. But as far as going over there to Israel, that is something I'm going to continue to do. I have a heart for bringing people over there. Man, just brings your Bible to life. I've still, it's still impacted me. It impacts my preaching. Every time I preach, every time I read my Bible, I reference that Israel trip. It will change you. It will do something to you. And we are a proponent of that. And so we're still promoting our Israel trip. And hopefully the Lord will work things out. We'll be able to do that. Yeah, absolutely. It was good to talk with Pari just the other day. And she said that she's hoping to be in North Carolina in November at our convention, North Carolina convention. She was there last year. I know Marcus will be there again this year. Love hanging out with him during that week. And be exciting times with us. And looking forward to that and what all that holds and entails. And looking so much forward to that. Brett, one of the things you said last week was the pager incident. And it got me thinking as you were talking. I'm normally, man, I am top notch on when it comes to politics and listening to podcasts. And when we had recorded that, it was earlier in the day and I hadn't listened to any of my news. And so I and I wasn't really on social media that day. So I was way in the lost. But apparently the next day, man, walkie talkies were blowing up as well. And so make sure you don't bring your walkie talkie when you go to Israel either. And so that was to look at the logistics. And I know we're not going to talk about a lot of that. But to look at the logistics of the four and five level 3D, 5D chess that Israel played. In order to get those pagers and walkie talkies. And to get the basically the word that the cell phones were compromised. And they needed to use the backup method of communication. And then the way they had to do that was a long drawn out process of so many levels of planning. The espionage. Oh, man. It's crazy. High level. I mean, it's it's, you know, top tier level espionage going on here. That was that thing. They had to set up a fake company months and months ago. And then convince Hezbollah to buy the pagers. And man, it was very like you said, they're paying, you know, Hezbollah's playing checkers and Israel's playing 5D chess. Yeah. It's just unreal. The amount of planning that went into that. We talk about the Iron Dome and how incredible that is. I mean, this is almost a better feat than the Iron Dome. I mean, to know that they were able to infiltrate and expose their weakness like this was incredible. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I will. I know we won't go into too much of it, but I've been seeing, you know, a lot of anti-Israel social media things going on. Oh, this is the deadliest day in, you know, Lebanon because Israel, Israel did this, Israel did this. Well, people don't understand that northern Israel has been evacuated for months. Hezbollah started sending missiles October 8th, the day after Gaza, you know, did their thing in Israel. Hezbollah started on October 8th and then hadn't let up. And then they've been sending missiles into the country for 30 years before that. The missiles started coming into Israel in the mid-90s. Mm-hmm. Okay. So, I mean, at some point, you can only poke a bear, you know, so much before you get bit. That's right. You know, if you don't, I'll just say this and, you know, people may not like it, but, man, if you don't want to start a war with Israel, then don't start a war with Israel. You know, if you don't want one, don't start it. Right. And I'll say this one more statement, then we'll move on. I heard somebody say the other day that if Israel's enemies stop fighting tomorrow, the war will be over. If Israel stops fighting tomorrow, they'll be wiped off the map. Yeah. So take with that what you will. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, Brett, I appreciate that. And we will jump right into where we're at this week with our freedom in finding a church and what that looks like. We started out by talking about how to start over and what that looked like. Great song, if you've not listened to it, The Start Over by NF. And then we began talking through finding a church. What is a church? Church membership. Church discipline. And how that looks. And if you're in a church, what that should look like when you begin to see church discipline. Again, it's restoration. It's for the body and building up of one another. But all throughout the scripture, Paul talks about how we should rebuke, exalt, exalt, exalt. I'm messing that up. Rebuke, reprove, and restore one another. And so this is the mission of the church is to restore one another. But today we're going to jump through the ordinances of the church. Brett, how many ordinances are there? We'll start by asking that. 47. No, there's two. Two ordinances. All right. Two ordinances. Have you ever heard of the third ordinance, Brett? What is the third ordinance? The third ordinance is foot washing. Ah. Yeah. So there are churches. I'm finding churches in the Appalachian and Tennessee area. The Appalachian region. You're West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, region of Appalachia. They still practice and a lot of them practice foot washing as an ordinance. Now, there are churches that do like Monday, Thursday. Well, they'll do a foot washing ceremony. And it's a really cool ceremony. But they don't practice as an ordinance. But some churches view foot washing as an ordinance that Jesus instilled in this moment of the Last Supper. And the problem with that is I don't see it anywhere throughout Scripture after that. I find baptism. I don't see it either. Yeah. And I am. I'm ex-nay on the. I don't do feet. So that's a negatory for me on the foot washing. I was in one service one time where the pastor uses it as an illustration where he had a guy come up, one of our deacons, and he modeled what it would have looked like. But it was an illustration in the sermon. It wasn't like, hey, we're going to do this. Yeah. Yeah. And so that was a cool thing. But the thing is, as we look through ordinances, is why are ordinances important, Brett? Why is baptism and why is the Lord's Supper? Why is it even something that people talk about? Why is it something that we as Baptists say they're our ordinances? What is the reason for that? Well, the reason for the ordinances is because they visibly mark out the community of the local church. They're a badge. One way to describe the problems of the modern evangelical church is that we've forgotten the importance of seeing. OK, so on the one hand, some churches have become too attraction focused. They do anything to draw a crowd so that once people come, they hear the gospel. But a desire for people to hear has resulted in community that's not worth seeing. Then on the other hand, some churches believe that because they preach the word correctly, they've done all that matters. Maybe through legalistic or conformist impulses, their community has lost the vibrancy we see in Scripture. So the glory of what we hear from the pulpit isn't reflected in the congregation that's assembled around the preaching. And that partnership between hearing and seeing is critical as we come to the idea of the ordinances, because they're what mark out the community of the local church, which is the gospel made visible. Many historians point out that even more than being a debate about justification with some implication for the Lord's Supper and baptism, the Reformation was a debate over the ordinances. And I definitely can see that with some implications for justification. Today, these ordinances seem so peripheral to the church that might seem strange. Now, what are the ordinances? Exactly what are they, James? Yeah, we'll jump right in that. I do want to go back and mention one thing that you said there, because I thought it was so good. The ordinances that we go through is the gospel made visible. Again, like we talked about last week with church discipline, church restoration, it is showing the world, showing those that are unbelievers, those that are in the church, restoration and grace. And this is also showing the world and the church and those that are in the pew, the goodness and the love of God. And it's a beautiful picture. I say often, if we can't paint a picture with our words, then we're useless when it comes to speaking. Jesus often would paint a picture. Jesus often would say, imagine with me a man who walks upon a field. And he saw this field and he began looking in this field and he saw a treasure in the middle of the field. And so he went and he buried that treasure and he went and sold all that he had. And he came back and he bought that field all for the price of the pearl that was in the middle of that field. You can vividly see that. You can, in your mind, you can imagine that happening. And all throughout what Jesus did, he was painting a picture with words. He's blessed are the poor and needy. You can see that, for they will inherit the kingdom of the earth. I mean, this is Jesus talking. And this is what is beautiful when it comes to painting pictures because it's the gospel made visible. And so when we begin to look at the ordinances, this is the same way. It's taking these things that are abstract almost, but it's putting a picture behind it. So the ordinances are referring to simply the baptism and the Lord's Supper. Brett. Now, before you continue, I want to get your opinion on something. I was on social media not too long ago. And do you know who Jonathan Rime is? Yeah. Jonathan Rime is the Jesus man of the chosen. He's the chosen Jesus. Yeah. Okay. That's why I'll say it the other way. He's not the chosen Jesus. He's the chosen man that plays Jesus. Right. Now, I don't know if you watch it. I don't think you do. But I'm a fan of the chosen. I've watched every episode. I love the show. But I will say that Jonathan is Catholic. And I saw him wear a shirt the other day. I'm going to tell you what the shirt said. And I want to get your take on it. The shirt said, if it's just a symbol, to hell with it. Now, what that was talking about is like the Lord's Supper. And that's actually a Catholic, you know, father, church father that made that statement. I forget who it was. But when I seen that, I was like, what? He shouldn't be wearing a shirt like that. And I looked it up and I seen that it was a Catholic church father that said it. So I want to ask you, what do you think about that statement? Yeah. I mean, do I think that it's more than a symbol? No. I think that it is a symbol. It is a picture. And I say that every time I give it. This is a picture of the death, burial, and resurrection. This is a picture of Christ's body and blood shed for us. And we're doing this, as the Bible says, in remembrance of me, not in a substitution of me. That's right. In remembrance of me. You know, we say that we have a problem with the Lord's Supper being a symbol when that's all God has done throughout the Bible from Genesis Revelation is paint pictures over and over and over and put shadows in place. Do this in remembrance of me. It is a symbol. It is symbolic. It is a picture. And I don't know. When you were talking about that a while ago, that T-shirt popped in my head and I wanted to mention it. But let's talk about the ordinances. Yeah. Baptism is defined in a simple way here. We believe that the Christian baptism is the immersion of water of a believer into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to show forth in a solemn and beautiful emblem our faith in a crucified, buried, risen Savior with the effects of in our death to sin and a resurrection of new life. You hear echoes of scripture in this statement, Romans 6, 3 and 4. Do you not know that we've all been baptized into Christ who were baptized to death? We were buried and therefore by the baptism into death in order that Jesus, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. So, Brett, baptism doesn't save. It is a solemn and beautiful emblem. It is the faith that saves by God's grace alone. It is the picture of our death, burial, and resurrection. I use the simple illustration every time I do a baptism of my wedding ring. If I take my wedding ring off, I'm still married to my wife. My wedding ring shows the world that I'm married to my wife. It doesn't show that I'm married to every woman. It shows that I'm married to that one woman. And so that is the picture to the world that I am showing and identifying with that I am her husband. Just as when we have a baptism, we are identifying with and saying to the world, Christ is my Lord. And that is the picture of baptism. The Lord's Supper is this. The members of the church, by the sacred use of bread and wine, are to commemorate together the dying love of Christ, proceeding always by a solemn self-examination. We call it the Lord's Supper because Christians have called it also communion. They've also called it the Eucharist or thanksgiving or giving thanks before they gave bread. Some Christians simply call it the breaking of bread. And it has a precursor of the Passover meal in the Old Testament. And even earlier than that, when the priest Melchizedek brought out bread and wine for Abraham as the priest of the God Most High. So I think we should also add this phrase, preceded always. I love how we use this phrase, preceded always by self-examination. Because Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 11, 28 says this, Let a person examine himself and then so eat the bread and drink the cup. And so ever since the Westminster Assembly in 1640, Reformed Christians have talked about the ordinances. Other Christians have talked about the ordinances and talked about the sacraments. And both being a sign or a seal of a covenant. As signs, they are an outward indication of an inward reality. I use this statement often. It's an outward expression of an inward faith. And so this is the inward reality of our faith. And the sign is very powerful. To quote Westminster, There is in every sacrament a spiritual relationship or a sacramental union between the sign and the thing signified. Whence it comes to pass the names and the effects of the one who are attributed to the others. We know that from reading the book of Acts, in Acts chapter 2, Peter does not tell the crowd at Pentecost, Repent and believe, but repent and be baptized. It is not the baptism that saves. That would be faith. But baptism is so closely bound up with the faith that sometimes it's used as a synonym for faith. Before we continue on, Brett, I want to give one illustration in India when I was there. In India, it's so easy. You'll hear missionaries who come back from India and they'll say, Yeah, we preached over there and we saw a thousand people come to know Jesus. And oftentimes they use that in an illustration because they get up and they give the plan of salvation. They give the gospel and they use this invitation that we use in America. And we say, if you will accept Jesus, raise your hand, come forward, say this prayer. And thousands of people will say, yeah, I want to accept Jesus. That's great. And what they're meaning is they're going to accept Jesus as another God. They're going to take Jesus home as another God and put it on that shelf with the other gods and say, Yeah, I'd love to accept that other God. I've already got a thousand at home. What's another one? But when reality comes with the missionary that we were with, that was a homegrown missionary that was born and raised in India, he would always end his messages and his invitations with, If you want to accept Jesus and reject all the other gods you have, come and accept him now. And he said that the discipleship process that they worked in their church did not start until that family was baptized. And I asked him, I said, why is that? He said, in the Indian culture, when you got baptized into the Christian religion, you forsake your family and you forsake all your other gods. And he said, 95% of them, when they got baptized, their family disowned them because they left the faith of Buddhism and Hinduism. And he said, so this was a huge step. And oftentimes he said people would accept Christ, but they would never get baptized. And he said, it was never an evidence of their salvation because they never identified with Christ. And identifying with Christ is what Jesus said. If you're going to follow me, take up your cross daily and follow me. And in that culture, taking up your cross was being baptized and forsaking your family. And they knew that a whole lot more than we did in America. And so this was the key witness or key relationship or key evidence that was showing that they were believers. Question, why does baptism matter? Let's say I became a Christian, but I'm never baptized. I can still go to heaven, right? So what harm is done as a result of that omission of not getting baptized? OK, well, the answer to that question is I'm disobeying Christ and that dishonors him. By not getting baptized, I miss out on an opportunity to proclaim. Him publicly, just like you said, what they did in India that, you know, you that is a public profession. I miss out on the confirmation of a local church agreeing that my profession seems genuine. I lose a visual reminder of my death to self and life in Christ. Other people lose out on that reminder of their own salvation. Baptism is not just for the person getting baptized. That's why I listen. When we have an invitation at the end of the service and we got a baptism, don't leave. Don't hit the door. You need to stay in the church. You don't need to hit the parking lot and get to the restaurant wherever the crowd gets there. No, you need to sit in your pew and you need to watch this baptism because it's just as much for you as it is that person. They're going through the symbol. You're watching the symbol. And every time you see the symbol, every time you see the picture of baptism, you're reminded of the gospel. And that is the point. We should share this and not try to get to the Golden Corral before the Pentecostals get there. OK, we need to be there and we need to watch it. OK, this is a visual depiction of the gospel and it's for everybody, even the spectators, too. Now, presumably, an understanding of those benefits should inform how we do baptism as a church. Have you seen baptism practiced and dealt with in ways that subvert these purposes? OK, for the moment, we'll leave we'll leave aside the question of infant baptism and just think about the baptism of believers. So listen, churches don't require baptism for membership. They're saying obedience is an optional part of following Jesus. OK, their church to do baptism in mass. They make it less of a testimony of what God has done. It's not done in connection with a church. Who's to say what it means? So think about this. You know, there are people there are churches that do these big baptisms in mass. And I've seen churches. They do this. They go out at like on the shore or beach or something. They rent out a whole beach and they have this big baptism. And then you have these other churches that they do a baptism, but it's not in connected to a church like we. You know, I'm just going to go out here in this pond and we're going to do a baptism. And, you know, not necessarily under a church when the ordinance weren't given to individual Christians. The ordinances were given to the church. So the church is to administer it. OK, so who should be baptized? So you'll notice that the entire discussion. Brett, right before you get into that. Yeah, right before you get into that, I liked how you said it's not just for the one getting baptized. It's for the church as well. That's why I like doing baptisms at the very beginning of the service. And so I opened the service up with the very first thing we do in worship is baptism. And so that is the very first thing we'll have a baptism this coming Sunday. And. Very first thing we'll do is we'll have the tub will be filled and. I'll bring the young lady up getting baptized and that'll be the way I open the service and worship and I'll pray and it'll be a wonderful ceremony. But it's again, it's a picture to the church of what's going on and how this is done. And one question I want to ask you, Brett, is that your church is baptism required for membership by immersion. Yes, baptism is required. If that you must have been baptized, not baptized here, you must have been baptized at another church and it must be scriptural, full immersion baptism. I did hear an instance on I'm part of the Facebook group where there's a whole bunch of Southern Baptist pastors. I think you're on it, too. But this guy asked the question is like, hey, I've got a guy that was sprinkled as a baby. He wants to become a member of my church. But, you know, we're saying he's got to get rebaptized. He's claiming that's legalism. It's already taken care of. And so he doesn't want to do it. And I'm like, well, if it was me, I was like, OK, then he's not going to join my church. Right. Right. You know, I mean, you know, I just it's not going to happen. You know, he's got needs to be scripturally baptized. And for my opinion, it's full immersion. Yeah. Yeah. Same here. We're baptism is by immersion and it's for membership as well. And so when you get baptized, you become a member at the same time. And to be a member, you have to be baptized by immersion. So who should be baptized? Now, you may have noticed in this entire discussion that we've had so far, we are assuming baptism is for believers. But of course, this is something that's been debated over hundreds and hundreds of years. And we could even say thousands and thousands of years. We work as we begin to look at other churches in the area. You're going to disagree with people that surround you. And so the question begs to differ is why would we believe that baptism is only for believers? You could talk about this for weeks. We don't have that time, but we're going to give a couple of arguments here. The first one is the argument for infant baptism. To start out, not saying that we agree with infant baptism. We're just giving their platform of what it may be to help us understand and grow a little bit. We need to understand that the argument for both sides is a good debate. And sometimes it's good to hear both sides. Brett, I don't know if it was like this in college where you were at, but oftentimes we would have an idea that would come up. Baptism, for instance, infant baptism. And the professor would get up and give all the reasons why our view is the right view. And then they would say the other view is wrong. And they would never talk about the other view. Most colleges, that's probably how it was at your college as well. But most colleges, the older I get and the more I do the study is if they're talking about baptism, they're going to bring someone in that believes in infant baptism. And they're going to let them case in point tell their story and tell why they believe it. And then the other one's going to sort of tell their story and tell their point of why they believe in baptism by immersion for believers only. And you begin to see both sides and you begin to grow in your faith through it. You begin to understand which one's right and why they're right. And so that's what we're going to do. Some Baptists are surprised and even unprepared for how good an argument that it can be when you begin to talk to someone that is for infant baptism. It never does us any good to argue with a straw man that no one really believes. So now most people alive today who are baptized, their babies do so because they believe that baptism removes original sin. Because they're Roman Catholic, they don't believe in salvation by faith alone. And I'm not going to deal with all of that right now. But instead, I want to deal with those who disagree with us on the gospel. Evangelical Presbyterians and Anglicans who still baptize infants. Okay, they technically use this term pedo-baptism. And in short, the argument is that a baptism is the new covenant or the continuation of the sign or the seal of circumcision. A pedo-baptist will point out that in the Old Testament, God intended children to be part of the covenant that he made with Israel. And the sign or the seal of the covenant was circumcision. Circumcision wasn't only for infants, but it mainly applied to infants. And this rite was so important that the Lord said to Moses in Exodus 12, that no uncircumcised male shall participate in the Passover. And so when we get to the New Testament, the strong presumption is that children will continue to be included in this covenant unless we get a clear teaching to the contrary. But now the sign and seal of the covenant is baptism. We begin to see this change over with the Apostle John. John the Baptist, I'm sorry. So not all, not circumcision. So now it applies to all children, not just baby boys. And not surprising then in Acts 2, when Peter proclaims, repent and be baptized. As I read earlier, he follows that by saying for the promises for you and for your children. And so they would say, case closed, we have to baptize our children because this is the continuation of the covenant. You know, I was listening to James White do a talk on infant baptism. And while I didn't have time to listen to the whole thing, I didn't remember a statement that he made. And a lot of this infant baptism, it stems from the fact that, look, people back in the day before modern medicine, most babies didn't live. Yeah. You know, you had a baby and very few of the babies you actually deliver actually make it to maturity. Most babies died. And so when you have this belief that it removes original sin and you want your child to go to heaven, you know, you're going to do the infant baptism thing. And so I thought that really stuck with me. And I heard about making the case for it's the new circumcision. And in my mind, Paul goes out of his way in the New Testament, say that circumcision isn't a thing anymore. So I don't personally don't see the correlation. OK, but we're going to move on to the argument for believer only baptism. So what does a Baptist say to that? OK, well, let me summarize in a few points. And I should mention that the controversy here isn't whether believers should be baptized. Virtually no person on earth who calls themselves Christian would disagree with that. It's whether believers alone should be baptized. So let me give you a few statements about this question. Number one, when the New Testament describes what baptism depicts, it describes new life in Christ. So take those verses from Romans 6 that we just talked about. We are raised to newness of life, it says. The assumption is that the person being baptized has been changed. They've been regenerated. Next, when the New Testament parallels baptism and circumcision, it parallels baptism, not with the old covenant circumcision of the flesh, but with circumcision of the heart. By the way of context, it's useful to remember that through the Old Testament, God periodically reminds his people that what he's most interested in is not the circumcision of the flesh, but the circumcision of the heart. So as we look carefully at Colossians 2 to see where the parallel is, it says in verse 11, And him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, 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. Okay, so the continuity is not between circumcision of the heart. Be sure, as he says, this promise is for your children. They can repent and be baptized as well, but not baptized without repenting. And as we read on, the promise isn't just for our children. It is for your children and all who are far off. Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. But we need to think of our children in the same category of all who are far off with the desire that the Lord our God should call them to himself. So the only example of baptism in the New Testament that doesn't describe the recipients of baptism, hearing the word or believing is Lydia's in Acts 16. And as a female traveling merchant away from home, she is the least likely to have had young children with her. All right. Next, there are no known references to infant baptism in the early church, though there are many references to believers baptism. The first reference we see to infant baptism is Tertullian around AD 200, who is actually arguing against it. The first defense of infant baptism we have isn't until Cyprian around 250 AD. And he was arguing for it as something that was salvific, not the argument for infant baptism that we hear today. One would expect that if infant baptism was widespread, and if it was not universally accepted, which it clearly wasn't, then we would see much reference to it in the writings of the early church leaders, and we don't. And I will say that when you ask a pedo-baptist or somebody that believes in infant baptism, where do you see this in the Bible? They'll say, oh, where it says he and his family got saved. Surely there were infants in there. And that's really all they can point to. Yeah. No, I think that's a great explanation. Thank you for that, Brett. And it helps us really get a greater understanding of what baptism is. And it gives us tools in our belt. That's what we want to do during this is give you tools for when you are approached with something and trying to find a church and trying to figure out where you fit it, is to have these theological tools in your belt to say, hey, this is why I want to go here, because they line up scripturally. They line up biblically. They line up with the early church. They look like the church in Acts. And that's what we want to look like. OK, so we'll go ahead and switch over to the second ordinance. I think we covered baptism. Well, we'll look at the Lord's Supper and what this is. And so we'll spend the rest of our time shifting our attention to this. And a good place to start. The question is, is simply this. What is the Lord's Supper? What is it? Lord's Supper, as we saw earlier, is a meal of bread and wine that commemorates Christ's death, that secured our forgiveness by God. And this is what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you. The Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And in the same way, he also took the cup after the sup saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup and proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats this bread and drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord. Let the person examine himself then. And so eat the bread and drink the cup. So what we see here in 1 Corinthians 11 is the Lord's Supper has meaning that is grounded in three things. The past, the present, and the future. And that's what we're going to look at. In the past, the Lord's Supper is a remembrance of what the Lord did on the cross. He told us that we should do this in remembrance of him. It's a reminder that it's good for our soul. It's good for what we should do. You may recall the Roman Catholics view of the Lord's Supper as representing the Christ sacrifice on the cross. The bread and the wine become a physical body and blood of Jesus in their mouth. This is not what remembrance means. Luther taught it like this, that there was a real presence of Christ in the supper. And to contrast that, the Reformed and traditional Baptist belief of this is that we just simply partake of merely what is called bread and wine or bread and juice. That Christ really is present and his presence is a spiritual one and not a physical one. Thus, when we talk about feeding on him in your hearts by faith, we are talking about the Lord's Supper and allowing him to begin to work in our life. Does belief in the Lord's Supper is, I'm sorry, does belief that the Lord's Supper is a mere memorial of Christ's death as Baptists have generally believed? Does it make it even important? Certainly not. All throughout the Bible, God calls his people to remember. That's what the Passover was. A time to remember God's salvation for his people. And the salvation that we remember in Christ is so much greater than that. Not salvation from a temporal slavery in Egypt, but eternal slavery to sin. And if we think of the remembrance of a great event in history as important, how much more remembrance of this? Hardly just simply a mere memorial, but simply a thought of this is the foundation for what we believe and why we believe it. But recently, about five or six years ago, we went to New York and we got to go to the 9-11 memorial there because 2,900 people had died and they made a massive memorial, Brett. And so they made this memorial. And if that is worthwhile having a memorial there, this is much more than just simply a memorial to Christ. And so, Brett, why don't you talk about the present working of the Lord's Supper in our life? Okay, so you look at the past. I look at the present. The Lord's Supper isn't simply looking into the past. Paul describes it as saying something about a present reality as well. When we take the supper, it is only after examining ourselves. Examining ourselves to be sure we are in right relationship with God and right relationship with each other. Beyond that, in verse 29, he says, if we eat and drink without discerning the body, we eat and drink judgment on ourselves. Judgment that apparently had led to the death of some in the Corinthian church. This is no laughing matter. Discerning the body is more than simply recognizing what the elements represent. The Lord's Supper shows that at the present, I as an individual am walking with the Lord. It shows that as a body, we are walking in a unity that proclaims truth about who Christ is. It is a snapshot of the heavenly congregation, as best we can tell, both in who's participating and how we relate to each other. You know, we can even look into the future. You probably noticed that future tense in Paul's teaching and taking the supper. We proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. It is a supper in anticipation of his final coming, a dress rehearsal, so to speak, of the messianic banquet that is coming. That's why joyous fits the Lord's Supper just as well as somber. We are capturing all these emotions in this one token of what Christ has done, is doing, and will do. Man, so, Brett, the question we have to ask is, what does the Lord's Supper do? If it is what it is, what does the Lord's Supper even accomplish? In other words, we may ask the question, if someone was a Christian and they said, I'm never going to partake in the Lord's Supper, what would they be missing? What would they miss if they never took the Lord's Supper? We wrote down a couple of things here that allow us to talk through this, and we'll just sort of each hit one of them as we go through here. The first one that we wrote down is this. It's a regular opportunity for self-examination. Paul tells us to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith, and it's a great time to do that. As often as you begin to walk through this Lord's Supper, you begin to say, this is my self-examination. This is me looking at my faith and what I believe. What's the next one, Brett? It's also a regular opportunity to check our relationships in the church. It's wonderful to see husbands and wives or friends slip out just before the Lord's Supper to reconcile some difference. That's exactly what Paul has in mind when he tells us to discern the body as we eat and drink. Yes, we're to do that. It's such a blessing to see people, hey, during the invitation time, before we partake, they're going to people, and they're getting right, and they're saying, I'm sorry. I said this about you. Please forgive me, and they're getting right, and it's checking our relationships in the church. It's a blessing when that happens, when people recognize, hey, before I take the Lord's Supper today, I've got to go over so-and-so, and we've got to get this thing between us fixed. Yes, absolutely. It's also a powerful reminder of our own forgiveness. We begin to see something that represents what Jesus did for us thousands of years ago on the cross. And it reminds us that this is something that since the disciples were with Jesus, they did this. They broke bread often, and they had fellowship together, and it reminded them every time that they were forgiven. What else? It's a reminder of the passing nature of the physical and eternal nature of the spiritual. As we eat that bread, we remember that man does not live by bread alone. The supper is bridging from what is temporary to what is eternal. Yep. It's also a picture of heaven, Brett. What an encouragement to look around the time where we get to partake of the Lord's Supper and get a glimpse or a hint of what heaven's going to be like. Brothers and sisters from all tribes, nations, tongues, meeting together. It's so encouraging. I've always said that the closest we'll get to heaven on earth is in the church. And how closer can you get even more in church than participating in one of the ordinances? It's also a warning of judgment to those who don't partake. Perhaps someone's been disciplined or excommunicated or perhaps for pastoral reasons you've been advised not to partake. Or perhaps you can't partake because of unresolved relationships in the church. What could be a hint of heaven becomes a hint of hell. And that is remarkably powerful. Yeah, that's what we talked about last week with church discipline. Ultimately, it's that excommunion. You're not allowed to partake in the body of Christ together in that act. It's also a reminder of what is at stake with our unity as a congregation. Unity isn't something merely because it makes the life of the church more enjoyable. It's important because it's a picture of Christ. And nowhere do we see more clearly than the body of Christ assembled around the body of Christ. Right? It's a beautiful picture. Right. And then I'm, you know, sure there's significance. We just don't understand. Jesus took this remarkably seriously. He was so serious about the Lord's Supper, these ordinances. It was one of the last acts of his earthly ministry. Paul took it very seriously as well, as we can see in 1 Corinthians 11, 27 through 29. We may arrive in heaven someday to discover that it is a means of grace in ways we could never comprehend here on earth. That's right. So we need to take note of some of these things and think through the next time we partake of the Lord's Supper. You know, think about, go through these again. Which one of these have you overlooked? Which one have you undervalued? You know, we need to work together to make this supper what Christ intends for us. Now, look, I am not about scaring people away from taking the Lord's Supper. I had a lady in my church one time that I pastored. She refused to ever take the Lord's Supper. I think she had a beef with one of her sisters and they didn't speak. And she was just under the impression that she could never take the Lord's Supper because that was in her life. And she was forgiving and, you know, she would reach out to her sister and she forgave her sister. But she was so scared that she wouldn't come to church on days we were having Lord's Supper. For instance, if she forgot we were having the Lord's Supper and she showed up that day, she would leave before we took it. And she would never take it. And I think that's the wrong idea. Yes, it's a serious thing. Yes, you need to examine yourself. You need to get right relationships. But he didn't put this here for you not to take it. Okay, we need to take it. It's an obedience thing. We need to identify ourselves as a disciple of Christ. And, you know, it's a really important thing. We shouldn't take it lightly, but also we shouldn't deny it either. Love it. Love that. Love that we get to participate in something so profound, so beautiful of the picture. And we get to have something that is a little glimpse of heaven here on earth. And it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. Brett, next week we will be wrapping up this series of finding this church and finding the different things of what to look for in a church. And we will begin next week's series, next week's episode, not series, on the church gathered and what that looks like and how it should look in the gathering setting. And talk through just a little bit of how this should look, what it should resemble, how it should be a picture of heaven here on earth as well. And so I'm looking forward to that, looking forward to seeing you soon in Ringgold, Georgia. I have to continue to change the name there because JC every week gets a new building. You know, it must be nice being a big time church planner, getting all these buildings everywhere, getting to move locations. And so looking forward to that. And hopefully you guys will join us there in November. There's no tickets necessary. You just show up and enjoy the time, get your own lodging or call someone and lodge with them. And it's going to be a great time. Hope to see you there. And until next time, to God, not the pastor, be the glory. I found my new name. I found that good grace. I found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning that has no ending. I found that second chance. I found my best friend. I found my forgiveness. I found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast, or whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom podcast.

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