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Ridgecrest Baptist Church is located in Dothan, AL and exists to Reach the lost, Build the believer, and Connect people of God to the mission and purpose of God.
against. Now, as I said today, I want to begin a new series titled The Story of Jesus. Now, you may recall a few years ago, I did a series entitled The Stories of Jesus. This is not the same thing. Don't confuse the two. The Stories of Jesus was a series I did about many of the parables. But this new series is going to be a journey through the gospel of Mark. We're going to talk about the message of Jesus. We're going to talk about His manner, how He conducted Himself and the lessons for us. And we're going to talk about His miracles, all of those things. So I hope you'll be a part of all of this series. Now, God has given us four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and four gospels, but they all present different aspects of Christ. There's some overlap, certainly, in these gospels. And we call Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we call them synoptic gospels. That means that they tell much of the same stories, parables, those sorts of things. John is a little different category. It's more cosmopolitan, written to a different audience. Matthew was written to a Jewish audience. Mark was written by one of the disciples. I'll tell you about that in just a moment. And Luke was written by a physician. Luke was a physician. It's very detailed, very analytical. Also, the book of Acts, Luke, recorded. But we have four different gospels. They have four kinds of presentations, again, some with overlap. And Mark is a little different from Matthew and Luke in that he does not tell of the birth scenario of Jesus. John tells about the birth of Jesus, but in a little bit different way. He says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Now, Matthew tells us about the genealogies, and then Luke tells us in the precise of the birth. But Mark just kind of jumps in to the story of Jesus. In fact, somebody has said that Mark is a gospel of action, because he just gets right to, he cuts right to the chase. Mark is the penman of this gospel. But did you know that this gospel is really a narrative of Peter? Peter told Mark, and Mark, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recorded this book. So when you read the book of Mark, or the gospel of Mark, just understand Peter is recording what, I mean, Mark is recording what Peter told him. I think that's kind of interesting. We'll see it down the road, but I think that's why Mark leaves out the account of Peter trying to walk on the water. Peter didn't think that was worth repeating. And so he just doesn't even include that in this particular narrative. But Mark cuts to the chase, right to the chase, and here's how he opens up. He opens up talking about the baptism, ministry of John, and the baptism of Jesus. And that's what I want to talk about today. I recently read about a father who was talking to his oldest son about his upcoming baptism, and he wanted to make sure that his son understood the significance of what was about to happen, this baptism. And so he's explaining that in great detail to his older son. And while they were talking, the boy's younger brother, a little four-year-old, left the room, and he was trying to be upset. And so the father followed the youngster, and he could see that something was wrong, and the little four-year-old was crying and tearful. And the father said, son, what's wrong? And the little tearful boy, four-year-old, replied, I want to be alphabetized with my brother. Well, he was close to having it, right? You know, we don't hear too much about baptism today. In fact, a lot of pastors don't even preach about it anymore. They don't even talk about it. It's often treated like it's an afterthought in the Christian life, or it is a practice that is not that important. But the fact is, baptism is extremely important. It's an act of importance. It has an important message, and it must not be avoided or neglected, as I hope you will see with me this morning. And so I want us to read our text. Just a few verses here in chapter 1 of Mark. If you're physically able to do so, why don't you stand with me? And we'll look at verses 9 and 10. 9 through 11. 9 through 11. This is what it says. In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, and that's an important statement we'll look at in just a bit, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, you are my beloved son, with you I'm well pleased. Father, would you now open up our hearts and our minds. In fact, open up the heavens. Father, fill this place with your Holy Spirit, and fill our hearts and minds with your truth. Help us, Father, to receive from you the living word this morning. Speak to us, change us, and convict us. Father, there are many perhaps watching by television, listening on radio or live stream in this live audience, who really are confused about what it means to follow Jesus in baptism. So would you teach us lessons and truth so that we might obey you. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you. You can be seated. So how important is baptism? You just saw we opened there. We do it a lot around here. We just opened the service with baptism. We've got two more in the next service. There aren't too many weeks out of the year that we don't baptize. I love that. Somebody said, why don't you just save them all up and do them at once? And now I grew up in a little church, and that's what we did. We had baptisms once a quarter. Did anybody grow up like that? Once a quarter, you'd have a big service, and it was a baptism service, and whoever was in the queue, you know, got baptized. Now we didn't have, when I was baptized, we didn't have a baptistry like this. We were a small rural church, and what we had was a baptistry, but it was a concrete pool built under the choir loft. And so what they would do is, and that's part of the reason we did it only once a quarter, is because it was a process. They'd have to, on the Sunday that we were going to baptize, they would have to take all the chairs out of our small choir loft, take up the floor, then they'd have to bring the garden hose in from outside, and they'd have to start filling it up a couple of days before. We didn't have a heater in the baptistry. It was cold. It was cold in the summer. And they would fill that baptistry up, and then they would open up that decking, and on that Sunday night, the church would come out. Those who were going to be baptized would walk down in that pool, one at a time. The preacher was down there, and he would call everybody in the church to the front. That's how small we were. And everybody would come from all over the auditorium, and they would just gather around, and they'd just kneel down. And hunched over each other, and then that's how I was baptized. And I went down, and all these people were huddled around me, just peering into the pool. That's how we do it. We did it at that particular time. We don't hear a lot about baptism anymore, but it is important for us to understand that it is not to be avoided, and it is not to be neglected. And the text is talking to us about that. Jesus reinforced the importance of baptism by beginning his public ministry by being baptized. You realize that this was the launch of his public ministry? So before he ever began his ministry, he was baptized. And here's something interesting you might not have ever thought about. If you go all the way to the end of the Gospel of Matthew, it says, and he commanded us to go into all the world, and to make disciples, and to baptize them. Jesus started his ministry being baptized, and he ended his public ministry by commanding us to go and keep it going, and continue to reach people, and to baptize them in the name of our Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, if Jesus so emphasized the importance of baptism, dear brothers and sisters, we dare not neglect it. And with that in mind, I want to show you three things about Jesus' baptism, and the message it has for us this morning. The first thing I want you to see is found in verse 9, and it says that Jesus came and was baptized by John. Baptism relates to our identification. It relates to the identification that Jesus made with us, and us to him. And so I want you to notice baptism and the identification of the Son, the Son of God. Now, it means to be identified with Christ when a person is baptized. You notice we ask them, what is your confession of faith? And they will generally say, Jesus is my Lord, or Jesus is the Lord, or Jesus is my Savior. All of those things are the part of the confession. Baptism is a means of identification with Christ. And by the way, that tradition comes from where we ask a person, not everybody does that, but I've always done that. And just because I like the idea of a person publicly stating, Jesus Christ is my Savior, that comes out of the tradition of the first century church that was under severe persecution. And what would happen is that person that came to Christ, I mean, they understood they were putting their life in jeopardy. And in the Roman Empire, many of the Roman emperors believed themselves to be gods. And what they would do is they would demand a kind of allegiance, a worship in some cases, some of the Roman emperors did. And if you were a loyal citizen of the Roman Empire, when you were greeted on the street, you would just greet one another and say, which means Caesar is Lord. And to Christians, though, after they got saved, they refused to confess anybody other than Jesus Christ is Lord. And so a Christian's confession would go like this, not Curius Caesar, it would go Curius Christos, Christ is Lord, only Christ. And what got them in trouble is because they wouldn't recognize any other gods. Rome would have been fine if Christians would have just said, okay, we agree there are a lot of gods out there to worship, worship whoever you want, but Christians wouldn't do it. And so they'd say, Curius Christos, and they'd say, Curius Christos, and they'd say, Curius Christos, and they'd say, Christos and it got them in trouble many of them lost their life because of their confession of Christ and baptism is a means by which we we acknowledge Christ we confess Christ and Jesus said that's important in Matthew chapter 10 he said so everyone who acknowledges me before men I will acknowledge before my father who is in heaven but whoever denies me before men I will also deny before my father who's in heaven some years ago I had I had a person say pastor I'd like to be baptized but I wonder could I just come up in the middle of the week sometime and you baptize me so I don't have to do it in front of everybody and I kindly they didn't mean ill they were just they said I just I don't want to have to do that from but I really want to be baptized I said here's the problem baptism is a person's public confession of faith and I said so if you do it privately it's not being publicly confessed and they did by the way they did so well it'd make me nervous but I'll do it because I want to be baptized good for them but there are a lot of times we think well you know just you just be baptized privately well you could I guess you could and in some circumstances the underground church has done it but they've done it with the other believers as many as they could it is a public way in which we say that Christ I'm identifying with Christ Christ identified with me when Jesus was baptized there were a couple of ways that he was identifying I want to show this I guess this is on your outline the first is this that Jesus identified with a message of baptism Jesus identified with a message of baptism verse 4 says that proclaiming a baptism of repentance now this was the message of baptism John appeared it says baptizing in the wilderness and this was the baptism that John was proclaiming a baptism of repentance the message of baptism is that you must repent and in being baptized Jesus was affirming now listen stay with me Jesus was affirming John's message that repentance was essential to a right relationship with God are y'all with me that a baptism of repentance it was Jesus was affirming that message that repentance was essential to a right relationship with God now let me be clear about something so your mind didn't take you in the wrong direction in Jesus's case Jesus was not being baptized because he needed to repent Jesus didn't have anything to repent of in fact the scripture says that when John the Baptist saw Jesus coming do you remember what it says he says behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world Jesus wasn't baptized because he had something to repent of Jesus was baptized to identify to the world the importance of the message of being of being repentant when you come to Christ or you come to God and we see that message is the same message that Jesus himself would proclaim look down in this chapter in verse 15 well look at verse 14 now after John the Baptist saw Jesus coming do you remember what it says when John was arrested Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God what was the gospel of God and saying the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand repent and believe in the gospel Jesus message was the same message as John's message it was a message of repentance now what is repentance anyway well the Greek word for repentance is a Greek word metanoia and it literally means to change your mind you think one way and your mind has been changed it's a change of mind and it's a change of mind and it's a change of mind and it's a change of mind it's a change of mind that changes your direction it's like coming to your spiritual senses you're going this way and you come to your spiritual senses say that's not the way I need to be going and you turn and you begin to go this way there is a way that seems right to a man but in the end the Bible says it's the way of destruction this is the way of destruction I recognize a need for Christ and I turn and I start following Christ I go toward Christ I repent there was a an evangelist many years ago really in the early part of the 20th century named Billy Sunday if you've never read an interesting biography you ought to pick one up on Billy Sunday some of you may know that name he was a great evangelist really kind of the forerunner of what we call the Billy Graham crusades and Billy Sunday was a flamboyant kind of evangelist and at any rate he used to illustrate repentance in an interesting way and he'd do these crusades and he'd be talking about repentance and he'd be on the stage and he would say I'm going this way I'm going this way I'm going this way and then he would stop and say I repent and then with theatrics Billy Sunday would suddenly do a backflip on the stage and land heading in the other direction and then he would say friends that's what repentance is that's what repentance is now I have to tell you I considered I considered doing that this morning but then I thought I thought about it and I decided that you've had enough Olympics and I didn't want to show off my incredible gymnastic skills so I'm just not going to do it today okay you'll just have to have a mental picture there but repentance is turning around it's it's a change of direction it's a change of mind about sin and self and Satan and salvation and so we're commanded to be baptized to identify that because of Christ in us we have changed our direction now baptism isn't the act of our repentance it is the illustration of our repentance it's not the act of our repentance it's the illustration that we have repented and that that leads me to the second thing that Jesus identifies with here and that is Jesus identified with the method of baptism the message of baptism he identified with the message of repentance and then he identified with the method of baptism look at verse 10, if you will. I told you about this statement, and when he came up out of the water, when he came up out of the water, this clearly pictures immersion as the method that John the Baptist used, and as the Bible prescribes. When I was pastoring many years ago down in St. Petersburg, Florida, many people were getting saved, and they were wanting to be baptized, and I had a man and his wife, his name was Bob, he and his wife, he was retired, really had to medically retire from, he was an oral surgeon, and had been very, very successful, and he and his wife began to attend our church, and he asked, he said, Pastor, could you come visit? He was in a wheelchair, and so I went to visit them on a particular day, and they lived in this beautiful high-rise overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, and sat with them, very humble people, and he said, I want to tell you our story. He said, we've been coming to your church, and he said, we'd like to join, but he said, I want to tell you our story, and he told about how they got saved, and that sort of stuff, and then he told about why he was in a wheelchair. You see, his body was severely burned, I mean severely burned, all over his body. He had had, by that time, over 60 surgeries, and he said, we were traveling on vacation in the mountains of North Georgia many years ago, and he said, a large truck came around a corner, and it lost control of itself, and it hit us head-on, and he said, our vehicle caught fire. My wife was able to get out, but it took some time before they could get me out, and by the time they did, I was severely burned, and they didn't even know if I would survive, but God was gracious. We were believers, and God did, and he said, and after 60, in much more detail that you don't really need, but he said, after 60 plus surgeries, he said, you know, I thank God that, you know, he has allowed us to live as he has, and on and on, but he said, I want to ask you a question. We are going to join the church, and they did, and he said, but is there any way you could baptize me? He said, I've never been baptized. You have to understand he's in a wheelchair. I'm not just like partially using him. He was always in a wheelchair. He could never get out of that wheelchair without help for whatever it was next, to get into bed, whatever it was, and I said, I'm young. I'm a young pastor, and I said, well, I said, yeah, we'll baptize you. I'm thinking, Jesus, you're going to have to help me, because I don't have a clue how we're going to do this, but I began to think, and I had one of my deacons. In fact, the chairman of my deacons was a big old guy named Mickey Burrus, and Mickey was a former linebacker at the University of Auburn, and he's a big old guy, strong guy, and so I said, Mickey, how would, and he just loved God. He's a big teddy bear, and I said, I think you could help me do something. I told him the story. He said, man, I'll be happy, and I got him, and I got another guy, and I said, I want you to help me, and what we did, well, we did it here recently. Nicky Crockett. Now, Nicky's not in a wheelchair, but Nicky Crockett has trouble with his balance, and so he wanted to be baptized by immersion, and so I got a couple of big ugly guys from the church to help me. Some of you remember that. I don't want to mention their names, but their initials are Kurt Vance and Wally Roper, but I talked to them about it, and they said, oh, we'd love to, and they got in the baptistry. Well, we did the same thing down there in St. Pete. We put him in a chair, and these big old guys carried him down the baptistry, and we laid him back, but he said, I want to be immersed. I want to be immersed. I want to be baptized like Jesus was baptized, and we did that. I remember another young couple. I got lots of stories. I'll try to move on, but I got lots of these baptism stories that Pastor has on. Some of them are funny. Well, I don't have time to tell all those, but I had this young couple in the church that got saved, and they wanted to be baptized, and so I said, well, man, I'm so excited, you know, having part and leading them to the Lord and then baptizing them and all this, and so it came to Sunday morning. Now, I'm in St. Petersburg, Florida. It's sunny most of the year, and it's warm most of the year. We'd have some Sundays in the 20s and 30s, you know, but by the afternoon, it's in the 50s. That's a cold day, and so at any rate, on this particular Sunday morning, this young couple was scheduled, and they were all excited about being baptized. They'd been saved together, they wanted to be in the baptistry together, and I thought, this is going to be a beautiful picture for our church. It had been revitalized and had come to life, and so I showed up, and one of my staff members said, Pastor, we got a problem. I said, what's the problem? And this is a cold Sunday for us. It's in the 30s, the low 30s in St. Petersburg, Florida, and so when you move to Florida, your blood turns to orange juice, and so that's why if you go down there in the wintertime, it may be 60 degrees outside, but Floridians down there are bundled up in parkas, you know. You go to the beach, and it's 50 degrees outside, and a wind blowing, and you see people that are down from the north, and they're in swimsuits swimming. I mean, that's the way it was, but it was cold, and this Saturday, I said, Pastor, the heater went out sometime in the night on the baptistry. It never warmed the baptistry up. Did y'all know our baptistry is heated? That's why if you see staff members come down, you see them wiping their brow and everything. It means it was warm in that water up there, and so he said, well, I said, we can't do that, and I went and felt the water, and I thought, whoa. Now, you say, well, that'd be cold for you, too. Not really. I have on waders, and so I cheat. I get to cheat, and so I thought, well, we can't do this. We'll just reach out, and the couple showed up, and I said, I need to tell you something. The baptistry, it is freezing in that baptistry, and so we just need to reschedule this. I don't want y'all. They said, oh, Pastor, our family has come in from around the state. Could you not baptize us anyway? I said, well, I'd be happy to baptize you, but I said, I'm more concerned about you. It's so cold. They said, we're willing. I said, it's going to be cold. We're willing. Our family's out there. I said, okay. I got in the baptistry. My waiters immediately went out, and even my waiters were cold. I got down there, and then they wanted to be in there together, and so I began to walk them down, and they took a step in and went about like that. It was freezing cold in that water, and they stood there, and I baptized him first. I thought, if anybody has to stand in here wet, it ought to be him and, you know, not her, and I baptized him, and he's standing over in the corner. He's shivering for Jesus, and I put her under. She comes out. Can't hardly get their breath. big smiles on their face. They're baptized. I don't think there are degrees of baptism. You need to know that, but if there are, they got a higher degree than some other people, but that's, they understood how important it is, but because some have come to believe that it's not a big deal, there's a lot of confusion, including in many evangelical churches about what baptism is, and by the way, I'm going to spend most of my time on this point, this first point, so y'all just relax, okay? Relax anyway. It doesn't matter what.
Oh, but there's a lot of confusion, but listen, there's no confusion in the scripture about what biblical baptism is, and in the scripture, it's a big deal. Think about this in Acts chapter 2 and verse 41. It says that those who received his word were baptized. By the way, there's about 3,000 of them. What a baptismal Sunday, and so it says they received his word, and they were baptized, and they were added. That day, about 3,000 souls. By the way, just a footnote here. You ever heard somebody say, well, I don't like a big church? Well, they sure wouldn't have liked the New Testament church. Think about this. One Sunday, 3,000 people were added. If you go over just a few verses more, it said another 5,000 men were added. That doesn't even include their families, and if you go on over another couple of chapters, it says, and the church continued to grow and multiply. Multiply is different than addition, so you wouldn't have liked the New Testament church if you don't like a big church because God was adding to their numbers, and it says daily, and they were being baptized. Now, scriptural baptism, as I have indicated, is baptism by immersion, by being placed underwater. Now, again, I'm not saying, listen, I'm not saying baptism by immersion for salvation. Y'all understand that? That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying baptism by immersion for salvation. That's not what I'm saying. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying baptism by immersion as an illustration of your salvation. Now, immersion is not just a way of biblical baptism. There are some say, well, there's immersion, there's this, and there's this. There are lots of different ways of baptism. It's not just one of several ways or methods of baptism. You may have been led to believe that, but listen, biblically, it is the only means of baptism that results from salvation. Further, if you're going to understand, baptism, well, there's no better way or better example of baptism than Jesus, right? How was Jesus baptized? Well, He wasn't showered. He wasn't splashed. He wasn't doused. Jesus was immersed, and the reason we know that is because it says, and when He came up out of the water. And it's worth noting that John was baptizing in the Jordan, not near the Jordan. He was baptizing in the Jordan. He was baptizing in the Jordan. Not with the Jordan, but in the Jordan. I have a little bottle in my office. I have a little bottle from one of my Holy Land trips of water from the Jordan River. One of the people who traveled with us, she bottled this stuff and sealed it up, and when we got back, she said, Pastor, I brought you this gift back. And I thought, well, how neat. So I have it in my office, a little bottle of water from the Jordan River. Now, I don't use that for anything. It's just a kind of a symbolic thing to remember. I have baptized, and on every trip I've ever been to the Jordan, I've baptized people in the Jordan. There are people in this church that have been baptized in the Jordan River. But John went to the Jordan, and he didn't go there for convenience. It wasn't about convenience. It wasn't because the Jordan was special. Actually, the Jordan was considered fairly dirty. But it was there that John went because, listen, do you want to know why? Because it was the closest place that had enough water where you could put someone under. You say, how do you know that was John's motive? Well, I know because of what the Gospel of John, chapter 3 and verse 23 says. Listen, it says, now John also was baptizing at Anon near Salim because the water there was plentiful. So John found places where he could immerse. Now, if he wanted to douse, or if he wanted to sprinkle, or if he wanted to shower someone, he could have done that in Jerusalem because they had water to wash with, and they had water to drink and that sort of stuff. But he had to go someplace which was out where the Jordan was where he could immerse someone. So if baptism was by any other means, then John could have baptized somewhere else. But he traveled out to where there was enough water to immerse someone. Now, and if that's not enough to help you understand, maybe knowing that the word baptize is from the Greek word baptizo. And the Greek word baptizo literally means to put under or to immerse. That's why they didn't call him John the sprinkler. He was John, literally in the Greek, he was John the immerser. Now, I've had people say, well, there's sprinkling mentioned in the Bible. You can find sprinkling in the Old Testament. You can find sprinkling in the Old Testament, not for baptism. There's ceremonial sprinkling. The sprinkling of blood is mentioned, but never for baptism. I'm not talking about ceremonial sprinkling, atoning sprinkling, or that sort of thing. I'm talking about New Testament baptism of followers in Christ. The fact is, when it comes to biblical believers' baptism, it's always by immersion. And that's why you ought to baptize by immersion. That's why you ought to be baptized by immersion. It's biblical. It's commanded. It's the way that Jesus baptized. And it is, listen, an act of obedience. You were commanded. Well, let me move to the second thing. And that is, I want you to see baptism and the coronation of the Spirit. Baptism and the coronation of the Spirit of God. Verse 10 says, when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. Now, Jesus was always obedient to the Word of God. In fact, in John chapter 14, Jesus said that he always did what the Father commanded him. He said, I just do what he says to do. He always did. And one of the things that Jesus said when he came to John, you remember this, John said, well, you should be baptizing me. I shouldn't be baptizing you. And you remember what Jesus said? He said, let it be so that all scripture may be fulfilled and that righteousness may be fulfilled. You know what Jesus was saying? I obey the commands of the Father. I listen to the Father. I listen to the Father. I listen to the Father. I listen to the Word of God and the scriptures. That's what I obey. And with the obedience of Jesus, there's something that came upon him. What was it? It was the power of God. I think this is significant because this was the beginning of his public ministry. And here's what you and I have to learn from this moment. Now, get this. This is what we learn from this moment, that there is a connection between our obedience to God and the power of God. There's a connection. There's a connection between our obedience to God and experiencing the power of God. And so Jesus said, I want to be obedient to the Father. This is what the Father has commanded. Let's fulfill all righteousness. Jesus was acting in obedience to the Word of God and the plan of God. Now, you know, we all want power, right? I mean, I think it's safe to say. I think I can kind of sort of speak for everybody in this room and those listening and watching. All of us want the power of God in our life. I don't know that I ever met someone, at least in my life, that I've ever met. That was a Christian that didn't want the power of God on their life. But if you want the power of God on your life, you've got to obey the Word of God. The problem for many Christians that aren't living in the power of God is because they have not obeyed God. They haven't obeyed the Word of God. They're not walking in the will of God obediently. If you want the power of God, you have to obey God. There's a connection between the power of God in your life and your obedience to the Word of God. You know the name Dwight Moody, I guess. Many of you do. Another that you ought to read a biography of. If you haven't, Dwight Moody is a great evangelist and was uneducated, untrained, was horrible with his grammar, and yet God used him all over the world to bring thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands of men and women and boys and girls to Christ. He was a shoe salesman. That's how he started out in Chicago. And he fell in love with Jesus and he started telling and sharing his faith with everyone he met. And God used him incredibly. Well, there were a group of British clergy and they had decided they wanted to do a crusade in their area. That's what we would call it. They just called it a meeting in which they brought people from all over the area in. And so while they were planning this meeting, they said, who shall we bring to speak? And one of the clergymen there, British clergyman spoke up and said, well, he said, have you heard about this man D.L. Moody? And a skeptic in the group said, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. He said, D.L. Moody said, why do we need Mr. Moody? He's untrained. He's not ordained. He's uneducated. Who does he think he is? Does he think he has a monopoly on the Holy Spirit? But another wiser pastor in that group who had heard Moody speak, replied and said this. Well, he said, Mr. Moody doesn't have a monopoly on the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit has a monopoly on the Holy Spirit. Moody. My friend, I want to ask you this morning, does the Holy Spirit have a monopoly on you? Are you missing God's power? Then ask yourself, am I obeying God? Am I obeying God's Word? Do you want the power of the Holy Spirit? Then you must obey. Now, you say, well, I have the Holy Spirit. Now, if you're a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit. You have the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Paul said, if you have not the Spirit, you are none of His. You do not belong to God. So when you get saved, if you're genuinely saved, the Holy Spirit comes and resides in your life. But that doesn't mean He presides over your life. So you can have the indwelling presence of the Spirit, but not have the power of the Spirit. And the power of the Spirit is about being filled with the Spirit, like they were on the day of Pentecost, like Paul says in Ephesians, be filled with the Spirit. There is the presence of the Spirit, then there is the filling of the Spirit, the power. You know what the filling of the Spirit is? It's the presence of the Spirit. You know where the Spirit is? It's when the Spirit that resides in you, when you grant the Spirit control over your life. Then He fills you. You know, the Spirit of God is like Jesus Christ. He's a gentleman. He won't force His way where you won't allow Him. And so the filling of Spirit is when you turn, you surrender. The Spirit indwells, He resides, but I want Him to preside. I surrender all to Him. And the filling of the Spirit becomes, the Spirit has control of me. I do, I obey, I follow Him, whatever, I look to Him, I listen to what He has to say to me, and I obey that, all right? Now, there's also the anointing of the Spirit. You say, is that different? Yeah, that's different. The anointing is the touch of the Spirit for a special task of the Spirit. So, the Bible says of Saul, the Spirit rushed upon Saul. The Bible says that the Spirit rushed upon David. Why? At their commissioning. For the work that God had for them. Now, filling of the Spirit is the Spirit-filled life. It's the life, it's the normal Christian life if we're living right. But sometimes you need a special anointing to do whatever it is, the task that God has given to you or assigned you, and God will bring an anointing upon you for the task. It's not a new Spirit. It is the Spirit inside of you that suddenly energizes you for something specific or particular. Does that make sense? That's the difference. But if you want power, you've got to have the Spirit. If you want the Spirit, you've got to obey the Word of God. Jesus' obedience to God brought the coronation of the Holy Spirit upon Him, and that power would be necessary for the next event in Jesus' life. Because you know what the next event was? It says that He was led into the wilderness where He'd be tempted by Satan. Now, there are people listening to my voice that want to serve God, but you're tired. You're weary. You've lost your zeal for God. Listen, what you need is an infusion of the Holy Spirit. You need to let the indwelling Holy Spirit not just reside there, but you need to give Him priority of your life. You need to let Him take over. I surrender to you. And you can't do this on your own. You can't live for God on your own. You know that. Have you found that out? You can't live for God on your own. You can't do that. You can't live for Him, but you have to live for Him. Through Him, His power in you. It's not about what you can do for God. It's what God can do through you. You won't last serving Him if you try to do so in your own power. And listen, He doesn't expect you to live in your own strength. That's why Jesus told His followers to go to Jerusalem and wait there until they would be endowed with power from on high. He didn't say, get at it. And He said, but after you receive power, then you will be my witnesses. Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and all the world. Jesus said, wait, I don't expect you to go do this in your strength. Some of you have been trying to live for God. God bless you. But you've been trying to do it in your own strength and you're just worn out. You're frustrated and you think, I just keep failing and failing and failing. And the problem is you're trying to do what God wants you to do in strength that you don't have. But you have access to the Spirit inside of you. That's why Jesus said this. Jesus told His disciples, it is imperative. That I go to the Father. If I don't go to the Father, then I can't send the Comforter back to you, the Paraclete. And He says, I've been with you. But if I go, I'll send Him back. And He won't be with you. He'll be in you. Why? Because Jesus knows that you and I need inner strength that comes from Him to be what He wants us to be, to do what He's called us to do. We need that kind of power. And it's available to us through the Holy Spirit when we activate the power of the Spirit by relinquishing control of the throne of our life to Him. You say, yeah, I know that's what I need, but how? How do I get there? Well, number one, start obeying where you can. There are some things you can obey already and say, Jesus, I'm going to obey what I know to obey. And then start crying out to Him. Oh God, God, I surrender. I surrender. You say, I did that yesterday. Do it today. Take up your cross daily. I surrender today. I may have to surrender four or five times today. My flesh is that bad. How about yours? And I have to learn. It's called spiritual breathing. Exhaling and inhaling the power. I surrender. I surrender. I surrender. I turn over the throne to you. I submit to your will. I submit to your word. Fill me with the Holy Spirit. Descend on me, Holy Spirit. Then there's one last thing I want you to see. Let me move quickly. I want you to see baptism and the affirmation of the Father. Baptism and the affirmation. There was the immersion of the Son. There's the coronation of the Spirit. But friend, there's also the affirmation of the Father. Verse 11, after Jesus came up out of the water and the Spirit descended upon, it says, a voice came from heaven. You are my beloved Son. With you I am well pleased. Jesus' obedience in baptism not only brought the power of God, but watch this, it also brought the pleasure of God. Why is that? Well, it's because, now look, there's a connection between obedience to God and receiving the pleasure of God. Just like there's a connection between obedience to God and experiencing the power of God, there is a connection between obedience to God and the pleasure of God. Now this first public act of Jesus, this baptismal obedience demonstrated that Jesus, it demonstrated. That Jesus was committed to the plans and the purpose of God that God had put Him and sent Him from heaven for, and God gave His affirmation. That's why Jesus said, I've got to fulfill this. Just like that's why Jesus said in the garden, Father, not mine will, but your will be done. This is all a part of the purposes of God. Now we just finished our series about living our lives on purpose. But here's a major takeaway for us from this part of Jesus' story. Don't miss this. God is pleased. When we do what He created us to do. God is pleased when we do what He sent us to do. And that's where we find joy. You know the Bible says that the joy of the Lord is my strength. Nehemiah 8.10. The joy of the Lord was my strength. It wasn't the enemy. The enemy was attacking. He said, the Lord is my, that's where I find my joy. The joy of the Lord is a byproduct of obeying the Word of God. In fact, in Nehemiah it says, and they read the law, and then they, the law brought them under conviction. And that conviction led to correction, which pleased God, and it led to renewed joy in their lives. I want to ask you this morning. We're about done. But listen, have you lost your joy? Have you lost your joy for the Lord? There are many Christians that have simply lost their joy, and it's because they're just not obeying God. And they've lost the pleasure of God upon them. If you're not obeying God in the most basic areas of your life, your spiritual life, you will eventually lose your joy. Is that you this morning? Listen, if you neglect obedience, the world you live in will rob you of the joy that God brings no matter what's going on around you. And did you know that you can experience joy and the pleasure of God no matter what your circumstances are, or what's happening in your world? There's a lot, a lot of concern about what's going on in our world. Right? There's a lot of anxiety about it. There's plenty to bring fear and discouragement right now. I was a part of, recently, a small contingent of people that sat with a high-ranking government official. And he came and he sat down next to me for a few minutes, and I thought, well, I'm going to ask several questions. And I asked him a question about Israel and America, and will we stand with Israel? And then I asked him, I said, what's on everybody's mind right now? I asked him about the upcoming election. What do you think? And I won't go into all of that conversation. But I asked him about it, and he said this to me. He said, Pastor, and this is a quote. He looked at me, and he said, Pastor, your boss is our only hope. And he repeated it. He sat there about 10 minutes, and he repeated it two more times. Pastor, your boss is our only hope. Your boss is our only hope. And then he addressed the group. He frankly, he shared some things that sent shivers down my spine. I'll not go into all of them, but I asked him, were they anticipating any election shenanigans? And he said, oh, absolutely, certainly. He told me then, and I'm not going to tell you who he talked to, but he told me who he talked to that said, if the polls are not good for Trump, he said, this high-ranking health official, this high-ranking health official, told me, expect another pandemic. Bird flu. He said, it's already in the offings to move it toward a pandemic if needed to shut down things. I'll let you do it. I'm not making a statement about anybody. I'm just saying this is what he told me. He said, expect another assassination attempt. He said, there's going to be another assassination attempt. I don't know how he knows that or if that's accurate. That's just what he said. He said, if Trump is elected, be prepared for chaos, riots, and outright insurrection by the left immediately following and may continue on for months. And then he looked at me again and he said, Pastor, pray. And he said, get your people praying. Your boss is our only hope. I ask him a lot of other questions, but I just share that with you to say there's a lot. There's a lot to be done. There's a lot to be done. There's a lot to be done to create anxiety in this world, isn't there? You say, what does that have to do with being baptized? Well, here, let me connect the dots. Apart from God, our future is fearful and discouraging. You'd agree with that, right? But obeying God, while it doesn't exempt us from trouble, it enables us to have peace that passes all understanding. It enables us to have Enables us to experience supernatural joy in the midst of whatever's going on around us. And no matter what the future may hold.
Obeying God. And the first step of obedience really for a Christian is to be baptized. Not because it saves you, it doesn't. But it's the first act of obedience for a Christian. If you wouldn't obey God there, why could He expect you to obey Him in other areas? Dr. Adrian Rogers said this. He said, the way to understand the part of the Bible that you don't understand is to start obeying the parts of the Bible that you do understand. And then he added this. And there's just something about baptism. It is the initial confession of faith. It is the initial act of obedience. Following our Lord, what it pictures is wonderful. And while it's not necessary to salvation, it is necessary to obedience. And obedience. Obedience is necessary for a fruitful and joyful Christian life. What's the answer to the turmoil in the world? God.
God. I still wear my bracelet. Do you wear yours? God first. Jesus really is the answer, isn't He? And if Jesus is the answer, obedience must be our response to Him in everything. I ask you this morning. There are people watching, listening on radio. In this live. In this audience. And you need to be scripturally baptized. Just to be obedient. And you know what the devil has told you? Oh, it's not that big a deal. It was for Jesus. It's for you too. In fact, some of you will get released from a burden when you obey Him there. And there are a lot of people in this building that would testify to that. Because it's always there. It's always chasing you. I should obey God. I should do that. I should. Is it going to keep you from heaven? No. It's just going to keep you. It's going to keep you from walking in fellowship. In fellowship with Christ. And so I want to urge you in just a moment. Have the invitation. I'm sitting here. If that's you, you say, I need to do that. I'm going to do that. I don't care. The devil's told you. What are people going to think? You've been a model Christian for so long. Listen. We've got to get over this thing of what other people think about us obeying Jesus. Who cares? Well, Jesus, I didn't do it because, you know, Bob. He thinks I'm already such a committed Christian. Who cares? Your audience is Jesus. And by the way, some of you just need to trust Jesus. You're not even saved.
Baptism second. You just need to get saved. Not be religious. Be right. You can do that today. Why don't you come in a moment and say, Pastor, I need to trust Jesus. I'm not sure I'm saved. Maybe you're just not sure. The devil beat you up with that one. You can settle that. We'll settle that too. So in just a moment, when I step down here and when Brother A comes back up to lead us in, and music and staff are over here, you slip out. You might want to just come pray. You're praying for somebody. You're praying about something. There's a decision you've got to make. Something's weighing on you. You're going through a storm, and you just need his wisdom. Any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God, the Bible says, and he'll give it liberally. You just come and kneel before him. Use this altar. Maybe you're here this morning, and you say, you know what? I need a church home. I want Ridgecrest to be my church home, my church family. I'm saved. I'm baptized, all of that. I'm saved. You come and say, well, I want a church home, but I'm not baptized. We take care of both of that. You just obey. Listen to his voice. Look, it's time for us to go. I know that.
But it's also time for us to listen to Jesus. And that trumps time for us to go. And so we're going to have an invitation, and you're going to have an opportunity. Whatever he says that you need to do. You know what? I haven't done this in a long time. Maybe you're here, and God's calling you to ministry. And you need to come and say, Pastor, God's calling me to ministry. We have missionaries. Do you know we have missionaries from this church right now out on the field? We have some young people that went this summer. Several young people. God's been calling young people out of our church. But adults, too. Maybe you say, God's calling me. Maybe not the mission field, but he's calling ministry. God, do you want me to do? I'm listening. Here am I. Send me, Isaiah said. So the invitation is just open for whatever God speaks to your heart, whatever God says to your heart, tugs at you. You ready? Father, speak to us now.
You have spoken from your word. We know that. But, Father, right now, speak in this time of invitation. Before we're gone, Father, communicate what you want us to do. And let us hear your voice and not ignore it. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You ready? Let's stand. Well, I'm so glad that you have tuned in to the broadcast today. I hope you've been encouraged by God's word. It sure has been a joy to share it with you. And even now, people at Ridgecrest are making decisions for Christ. Perhaps as you've watched this broadcast, you've recognized the need for your own decision for Christ. The prompting of the Spirit has caused you to recognize that you need Christ as your Savior. And the good news is you can receive him right where you are. The Bible says whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Right where you are, you can call on him. Say something like this from your heart to him. Lord Jesus, thank you for loving me. I know I'm a sinner and I know that you came into this world and died on the cross for my sins. And right now, I invite you to come into my life. Forgive me and be my Savior. I can assure you if you'll call on him, based on what God has already told us in the Bible, that he'll hear that prayer and he'll answer that. And he wants to begin this new journey in your life with you, transforming you into his image. We'd love to help you with that decision as well. You'll see a QR code on your screen. And if you would scan that. If you have contact information, or if you'll contact us about your decision today, we'd love to help you take next steps. There are no strings attached, no fees involved. We'd just like to help you begin that journey with Christ. You may be watching this broadcast today and say, I need a church family to belong to. I already know Christ as my Savior. And I'd like to be a part of the Ridgecrest family. Also, if you will scan that QR code, that'll take you to a location and we'll be able to help you make those kinds of decisions. Like becoming a member here, or if you've never been scripturally baptized, those kinds of things. So contact us through that QR code or through the contact information on the screen. Well, again, it's been a joy to have you with us today. And I hope you've been encouraged by God's word. Whatever decision we can help you with, by all means, contact us. May the Lord bless you.