BAPTIZED WITH POWER!

by

Eldridge E. Fleming, Ph.D.

New Hope Presbyterian Church

Rienzi, Mississippi

January 9, 2000

Our Old Testament reading this morning is one of those very easy to find. It is the first five verses in the Book of Genesis. So if you would, turn with me to Genesis 1:1-5. Our emphasis this morning - our thoughts - are on the coming of the Holy Spirit, and so appropriately, we begin with this.

Our reading in the New Testament comes from the Book of Acts 16:11-15 and I want to add a passage to the one in chapter nineteen that is already marked for us to study.

Then in Acts 19:1-7.

Our Gospel for the morning comes from Mark 1:4-11. And would you stand if you can while we hear the gospel read.

The word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

Today I want us to think about the baptism that we have and have received. Most all of us here have been baptized. That baptism means something and I want us to look at three or four things about being baptized with power.

Baptism is one of the two things that we carry as sacraments or ordinances as stated in some churches. In all of Christian faith, two things stand from the New Testament and are still being practiced: Baptism and Communion - or the Lord's Supper - the maintenance of remembering Christ's last supper by Communion, as we call it. And the reason those two things have stayed is because those were the things that Jesus commanded his disciples to do. Other churches and other denominations may add more. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, have seven sacraments that one can engage in, including such things as marriage and even the extreme unction that is given to those who are dying. But baptism is one of the things that all of the Christian churches recognize as important.

Let's talk some, then, about the reasons for baptism. In the passage in Mark that we just read, we find in the first place that it is a sign of repentance. This is what John's baptism was about. Taking John's baptism and using its pattern or style after Jesus' resurrection is the reason baptism is even practiced by us today. John started it. John came out of the wilderness - sort of out of nowhere - and appeared on the scene preaching that Israel needed to repent. And as a sign that they had repented, they would be baptized. You can see this guy standing in the Jordan, preaching to all these people and saying to them, "You need to be baptized." You need to be baptized, though, as a response to having repented of your sins. That was very, very significant. So John was baptizing. John was baptizing a baptism of repentance.

I get fascinated with prepositions. I don't know about you. You may get fascinated with other things, but I get fascinated with prepositions. Prepositions mean a lot. We may take, for example, "I'm going to do such and such FOR," or "I'm going to do such and such OF." "Of" and "for" are the two I like to pay close attention to. If you'll look at the fourth verse of Mark 1, you'll find the use of prepositions that creates an interesting theme. "A baptism of repentance." Not "a baptism for repentance," but "a baptism of repentance." There was a reason for that baptism. It was of repentance, meaning that repentance is what created the situation for the need of the baptism. But there was a reason for the repentance and the baptism was for forgiveness. This gets my imagination; it gets me to thinking. The only way that one would get to the baptismal service legitimately - now anybody can be a hypocrite and do that - but to get there legitimately, one had to repent. John's message was to repent for the kingdom of heaven was at hand. Repent. Make straight the way of the Lord. Repent. Get things right.

R-I-G-H-T. Right. That correct way to do it. And you do that by repenting of your sins.

But baptism was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And so, John is saying in essence to them, "You are coming to me repenting and the reason you are repenting, you are repenting from your sins to get rid of them. And you're coming to me for baptism so that, indeed, we may get rid of the sins - for the forgiveness of sins." That's interesting. Forgiveness of sins. Again. Forgiveness of sins. You don't get the sins wiped out. The sins are still there. If you shot somebody, that person is still wounded. Forgiveness doesn't take that away. The sin is still there. But forgiveness does something with the sin. It changes that sin. It changes the power of that sin. If you have hurt someone, if you have hurt their emotions, if you've hurt their feelings, if you've betrayed their trust - whatever you have done - if you've hurt someone and you seek to right that wrong, and you seek to make it correct, you seek their forgiveness of it. They may forgive you. But it doesn't mean you didn't do it. It just means that you've corrected a situation between the two of you. You might make amends for it, but you can't take it away. It is still there. And the sins that we commit against God are still there, but by our repentance and our baptism, God's forgiveness covers our sin over and makes it have no longer it's power. It takes away the power of the sins. And so, John came preaching for people to repent, and baptism was a sign of their repentance. His baptism was for the forgiveness of sins.

There is another way of looking at baptism. In Acts, in the twenty-seventh chapter, when the Philippian jailer fell at Paul's feet and talked with him, Paul said to him, "You need to believe in Christ and be baptized," and that night he was baptized for the washing away of his sins. Watch the imagery. You repent and you are baptized. This is called believer's baptism. You are believing before the baptism occurs. In most of our lives, baptism occurred when we were young and then at the age of confirmation we had to say, "Yes, this is what we believe." We, indeed, wrap this in our mind, we take that sign and we make it our own. That symbol that was done with us long ago, most often before we could even talk, we now hold as our act as well as the act of our parents, or whoever did it for us. We take it and we hold it as our own, our own experience. We confirm it as our own act. That act of baptism for one who is older and makes the decision to seek it is an act whereby we say "Yes, we have belief and we have faith." So, there is the act of repenting and the act of being forgiven, and then the Spirit comes as an act of washing away of our sins. Our sins are forgiven.

But in that same movement, you get the image of forgiveness, of sins washed away, of the Spirit coming and washing away. It is like the water that we pour on the head of the individual and the water goes down and it symbolizes the washing away of the sins, but it also symbolizes at the same time the coming in of the Holy Spirit. That Spirit fills us. And when that Spirit fills us, Paul tells us in Galatians 3:27, we have "put on Christ." (As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. NRSV)

How do we "put on" Christ? I came through here earlier going back to the choir area and I had on a blazer and brown - tan - pants. I looked one way. I went back, I put on this robe. I put it on and it changed the way I looked. I don't look the way I did before. I look different. Does it change the core of my being to change the robe on the outside? Only if I take on the spirit of what that robe means. If I feel as the prophets did when they put on the mantle, that I'm draped in God's own Blessing and God's own Spirit, then it might change me. We change our appearance. We change the way others see us. We change the way we act, and that is putting on Christ. So in that baptismal service, in that coming of the Holy Spirit, we put on Christ, Paul says.

Now at the same time, we receive the Holy Spirit. Back to our text. In Acts 19, notice that Paul came to Ephesus. This was Paul's second visit but his first time to spend any time in Ephesus. Oh, he came by sometime before, but only had a chance to speak in the synagogue and move on to Jerusalem. Now was Paul's first time to really work in Ephesus. So he looks up those persons who have heard of Christ and he talks with them, finds a small group and talks with them. He asks them if they had received the Holy Spirit when they believed. They said, "We don't even know that such a thing exists." Then you heard the discussion. "What were you baptized into?" And they said, "John's baptism."

Apol'los was very bright and very sharp. But he knew only John's baptism. You remember that Aquila and Priscilla took him aside and taught him the more perfect way of the Lord. Others had come and preached, even in Ephesus. But they hadn't taught the way of Jesus Christ. They had not talked about the baptism Jesus' way. John baptized believing one was coming after him, so you repent of your sins and you have the baptismal service, believing that later someone will come and fulfil that baptism. And they said, "We don't even know there is such a thing as the Holy Spirit." So immediately they were all baptized in Jesus' name. And then notice what happened. After the baptism there was the laying on of hands, and it was in the laying on of the hands that the Holy Spirit came upon them.

When you watched the last baptismal service, you watched those two things happen. You watched the pouring or the putting on of the water on the person's head; you watched that baptismal service with its rituals and its words. And then immediately following, there was the laying on of hands and a prayer for the Spirit of God to come upon that individual and guide and control their lives. And this is where it started. This is where Paul set the example - in Ephesus. He laid his hands upon them after they were baptized and prayed for them, and the Holy Spirit came upon them. So they received the Holy Spirit after their baptism. Sometimes we miss that point. We forget it. As a baptismal candidate, sometimes we forget that, but it is with the laying on of the hands that comes the Spirit of Christ. In baptism we have baptism as a sign of repentance, for the washing away of the sins, for the forgiveness of the sins, the putting on Christ, and receiving the Holy Spirit.

There is something else that is the purpose of baptism: it is the entry into the Body of Christ. Everyone who was baptized was brought into the church. This is what Paul says in First Corinthians 12:13. That is what we think of too often as the reason for baptism. That it is to join the church, but it is not to join the church so much as it is to get into the Church, to get into the Body of Christ, that Body universal. And the reason we want to do that is for one other thing - to help prepare the way for the coming of the Lord in the new day. John's baptism was about that. He was preparing a way. Make straight the path; make straight the highway through the wilderness, so that the Lord may come. When John was baptizing he was looking out over his shoulder all the time, looking to see where was this one who was coming. And one day he saw him, and said, "This is the one I've been telling you about."

Look at a few illustrations quickly. One is that baptism doesn't have to be in any certain place or time. I want to give you some New Testament examples. One is of one of the deacons in the New Testament church - the first one in Jerusalem. Seven, you remember, were selected. Their purpose was to help care for those people in need, the orphans, the widows, those people who were giving everything or losing everything - it was to care for the nurturing of the church. Well, one of them got stoned to death. Stephen, you remember. One of them started itinerant preaching, one by the name of Philip.

Philip felt moved by the Holy Spirit to go into Samaria. He went up north of Jerusalem to Samaria and started preaching at one of those little towns and people began to listen to him. Pretty soon he had a congregation going and some people from Jerusalem went over to check him out. He appeared to be doing well. But Philip was one of those persons who would stay for a while and then he would disappear and you wouldn't know where he was. So Philip, in his moving around, felt urged by the Holy Spirit to go down to Gaza. Now, friends, Gaza is not exactly the garden spot of the world. And I know that when we hear about the Gaza strip today and all the controversy that's going on among the Palestinians and Israelis about the Gaza, we may see it as a fertile plain. It's not exactly the garden spot of the world. Kind of reminds me a little bit of Arizona. Not that Arizona is not a beautiful place, but if you're going to enjoy Arizona, you've got to get your mind set for a different kind of beauty than roses, gentile flowers and pansies and daisies. Gaza. Sandy. Desert-like. Highway built by the Romans down through it.

So Philip, in the Spirit, was caught up and told to go down to Gaza - and he went - and as he was there, here came this entourage of people down the highway. Riding along with all of his escorts and so on and so forth was a person of high importance with his dressed up horses with tassels and all the beauty of it. They were chugging along on the highway and Philip was out for his morning exercise - just jogging down the road - and as they came by he decided he'd catch up to them and run along side and see what was going on. And you know the story. The fellow from Ethiopia was sitting there reading his scroll and trying to make sense out of it. He'd been up to Jerusalem and didn't understand all he was reading, but he had the book, the scroll. So he and Philip got in a conversation. You know the long and the short is that Philip got up there with him and rode for a while, and as they rode, Philip explained and he believed.

And as he believed, he turned to Philip and he said, "What must I do?" Philip explained about faith, believing and baptism. As they traveled, they came upon a little patch of water along the side, and he said to Philip, "Hey, here's some water. What's to hinder me from being baptized and being a believer?" They pulled the chariot off and went out to the water. Philip baptized him. He got back in his chariot and asked Philip to come in, but Philip said, "No, I've got something else to do." And the first thing he knew, Philip was gone. Here is one, not strange to God, but strange perhaps to the ways of Israel, out in the desert place, riding down the highway, and he believes in Christ and is baptized and goes on his way home.

I read to you a few moments ago about Paul going to Philippi. He felt called to go over to Macedo'nia from Tro'as where he'd been holed up for a day or two. He went over to Philippi and stayed around and watched the town. Martha and I were there. As the Sabbath, Saturday, came it was time for worship, but there was no synagogue. Not enough Jews. So he decided he'd go outside the town, he and his companion, and go down and find the river. The Mishnah said something about people who were not numerous enough in number to have a synagogue could gather for prayer preferably beside a flowing stream. And there was a flowing stream. Paul and Silas went there. And sure enough, some women were there. It doesn't say anything about any men. Wonder where the men were? Maybe that's why they didn't have a synagogue, because you had to have enough men to have a synagogue. So, Paul sat down and they talked.

That was the way it was with the Jewish teachers, they sat down to talk. Preaching like I do is a western thing, with long-winded speeches. Well, sitting down you could talk for a long time, too. But in that group of women there was a woman named Lydia. Lydia was a sales person, a businesswoman, and an influential, wealthy person from Thyati'ra, and she heard the word of God with an open heart. She believed and was baptized. And as Luke put it, after she was baptized - and her household - she invited Paul and his friend to come and stay with her. She didn't just invite, she insisted, and they gave in. She believed, and there at a flowing stream, she was baptized.

Another example is in the passage I read from Ephesians about being baptized in the name of John and John's baptism. But that was a different kind of baptism because they did it with Paul. Interestingly there were twelve of them. Saints at Ephesus. Baptized. And then with the laying on of hands, the Holy Spirit came. The Holy Spirit is needed for a successful life in the Church, no question about that. The Holy Spirit is needed in the successful life of the Church to understand the difference in heavenly and earthly things.

One other example, that of Mark's gospel. Mark, the writer of the gospel, is an interesting person. If you look at his gospel you don't get any of Jesus' background, and it's as though that didn't matter to Mark. What started out mattering to Mark was what happened to Jesus when he responded to John. Mark makes a statement in the very first verse that's outstanding. He says, "This is the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." He was Inspired by God, no doubt. Because if you walked down the streets any Roman city, like in Ephesus where Paul was with those persons we just referred, there were gods and goddesses on all the markers down the street. Statues were here and there all over the place. In the whole of the Roman Empire you had all kinds of worship of different gods. And, friends, we think today that we're in a sinful, evil world! The world hasn't changed. We think today with our contrasts of different personalities and our lifestyles, our conflicts over homosexuality and abortion and all those things, we think that's new? If we do, we haven't read our history. Those were just as prevalent and just as practiced in the days of the New Testament as they are today. They were approved just as much then as they are today. We need the Holy Spirit to show us those things that are heavenly and those things that are earthly.

When Jesus was baptized, Mark tells us that he came up out of the water and he saw the heavens open. And when the heavens were open, he saw to the throne of God, to what God's will for him was. And he saw the Spirit coming like a dove and he heard the voice saying, "You are my beloved son with whom I am well pleased."

We need to be able to see the heavenly things and understand and discern those things that are earthly. We need the Holy Spirit to endure when things go rough, when there is no word, no new word, from the Lord. There are times in our lives, my friends, when we won't hear God's whisper in our ear. There are times in our lives when it seems that we have been forsaken and God is not even anywhere around. That is not the case, but that is how it feels, that is the way it seems, that is what all the evidence would point to - and in those dry seasons, the Spirit of God is still working for us and with us. We may not see it and we may not understand it.

When we're new in the faith, when we've just been at that converted state, we are doing those things that are helpful in allowing the Spirit to work with us. We get saturated in studying God's word, we look at new understandings, and we explore everything that we can. Because our mind is curious we want to know and we go plowing around for new information. But after a while our minds get kind of satisfied and we leave off some things and we back up from some things and we let the Spirit sit sort of numb and idle. And before long we get no word from the Lord.

But that's not new. There were periods of times in the Old Testament where they went a hundred years or more with no word from the Lord. Oh, they and we had the old writings and we had the old things to live by. God had spoken in that way, and in a sense the prophets and those words were still speaking to our ears. But we did not have the feeling of the Spirit working within our souls. In the dry times we need to have our faith strong. We need to have had the experiences of the Spirit so that we would not forsake the Spirit, or God Himself.

We need the spirit for two other reasons. We need it especially to evangelize those who are struggling with life, to reach out and touch those who are struggling with life.

I don't know if I can tell this - I'll try to do it very briefly - but Tuesday I went to my cousin's funeral. My cousin was a man who was sixty-five. He died with cancer after over a year of struggling. His service - the funeral service itself - was held in Praise Cathedral Church of God in Meadville, Mississippi. Meadville has a population of four hundred and fifty-three. It is the largest town in Franklin County; it's the county seat. Pine trees in the Homochitto National Forest mostly populate it. Harry B. King was a member of Praise Cathedral. Praise Cathedral is a new building, nicely built. It has cushioned seats and lining on those pews on front and back, carpeted floor, and is a square building. It has fifty or sixty seat choir. And, of course, being a Church of God, they have drums, keyboard, piano, organ, trumpets, and something else. We were there for his service.

By the way, on Sunday mornings this cathedral will seat probably three hundred to four hundred people and is usually mostly filled. "What's happening? What's happening here?" I thought to myself when the service began -- they started with the music - and the first thing you know, in spite of me wanting to, I was lifted with the music. There was something about it that had reached out to the needs of the people and they had responded.

People are struggling with life, the Church can reach out and touch them. It is this kind of reaching out to touch the people in their needs that I see us needing to do. We need to be filled with the Spirit to do it. It is part of that need that we are responding to in our plans for the near future. We need the Holy Spirit to help us as we reach out to people who are struggling.

And then in the last place, we have to have the Holy Spirit when it comes time to die into the arms of Christ. I don't want to do it by myself. I want to do it with God's help. This is so important. Those of you who have watched your loved ones die, those who die in the faith, there is a kind of peace. Oh, there is a struggle there, the pain is there, all of that is there, but we want to make sure that as we go, we go with the Holy Spirit into the arms of Christ.

Baptized with power! When Paul had finished baptizing them he laid his hands upon them and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. They were empowered. So may it be with us! Amen.