An Important Invitation

Good morning, everyone. Excuse me. Yeah. I'm John Wandschneider. I'm one of the pastors here.

! How's everyone doing?! I'm one of the pastors here.

I'm one of the pastors here. But praise the Lord. Praise the Lord for our awesome country. Amazing. So today we're going to talk about an important invitation. Boy, I hope that looks better up there. It doesn't.

What's going on? It's supposed to be centered, but anyway. We're going to talk about baptism today. So as Pastor John Hopkins mentioned, in a couple of weeks we've got opportunity to be baptized.

We're going to kind of go into that and talk about the details a little bit. So we're talking about believer's baptism. This is kind of a topical message.

But at Tri-State, we try to, even when we're covering topics, we try to exposit the Word of God. We let the Word of God do the speaking, even on topics.

So I kind of call it a topical expository teaching, you might say. We've been doing books and going through books. We're going through the Book of Colossians right now. We went through Timothy and Mark.

And that's in an effort to do expository teaching. But even those end up being topical somewhat because obviously God is covering topics as He's revealing the Scriptures to us.

So kind of call that an expository topical teaching. This is a topical expository. Anyway, we want the Word of God always to do the teaching.

And so we're going to be digging into some Scriptures today. Let's see. Could you give me the remote? I think I forgot it. It's sitting there? Yeah, there it is.

Thank you. I know I'm going to need it eventually. All right. So turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter 8, verses 26 through 40.

In your Bibles, in your Bible apps. I'm actually an app guy. I haven't used a paper Bible regularly for seven years. I know Pastor Hopkins and I talked about this.

And he encouraged us to be in our paper Bibles. And I think that's fine. I've found that apps work better for me. I know some of you are that way too. And that's fine as well. So anyway, please turn in your Bibles if you would.

Acts 8, 26 through 40. If you use the Pew Bibles, it's page 917. So, and that's the ESV.

I usually teach out of the ESV. All right. So context here is, of course, you got the book of Acts. And, you know, the gospel is going out.

The church is growing. But for the first few chapters, all the disciples were hanging out in Jerusalem. They were just staying together, praying together. And then, of course, you had the big persecution of Stephen.

I think it was chapter 6, chapter 7. And then what happened is, beginning with chapter 8, it says a great persecution broke out against the church.

And it basically scattered the believers. The disciples were scattered. And obviously, you know, God, at the very beginning of Acts, he says, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth.

So this is by God's design that they would spread out. They weren't doing that. Persecution came, and they started doing that. And so we're going to talk about a little story here of Philip and how God used him.

So Acts, chapter 8, verse 26 through 40. Now, an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.

This is a desert place. And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure.

He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot.

So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, do you understand what you're reading? And he said, how can I unless somebody guides me?

And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now, the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this. Like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter. And like a lamb, before it shears and silent, so he opens not his mouth.

In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth. And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this?

About himself or about somebody else? Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, see, here is water.

What prevents me from being baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stop and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord carried Philip away and the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing.

But Philip found himself in Azotus and as he passed through, he preached the gospel to all the towns till he came to Caesarea. Let's pray.

Dear Father, we thank you so much for your word, God. We thank you that it is a treasure. It is a treasure of truth for us, Lord. We thank you that you live inside us as believers.

If we've trusted you, you literally live inside us, that you interpret, you speak, you apply, you encourage, you strengthen. We ask you that you do that today, Lord.

I thank you for these people, Lord, for this church. Thank you for how they've impacted my life and how we can impact each other's. We ask you to speak to us through your word, God.

I ask you to bless the churches around here and all over the world where your people are gathered, God. Speak to all of us, God. Help us to be different because of what you say to us.

In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right. What a great story, eh? Isn't that cool?

You know, here's Philip and God says, hey, I want you to go down here. All right, you know, and so he travels down there and then he says, go stand by this chariot, you know? And so he goes and what an awesome opportunity to talk about Jesus.

I think it is so cool the way he did that and God will do that in our lives if we're walking with him, if we're trusting him, he'll do that. I know many times I've seen where he's done that kind of thing with me.

Oftentimes, Kath and I, when we're on vacation, you know, we'll just, you know, kind of trust the Lord to guide us and we'll have this opportunity to share with somebody or we'll meet somebody or somebody I haven't seen in a while.

Like the last time, a couple times ago, we were in Door County, ran into this friend of mine from college, from way back. I hadn't seen her since college, a Christian lady and all of a sudden, we're renting a canoe and here, I'm like, who is this?

She's familiar. Who is it? We thought she was somebody else and all of a sudden, it hit me who it was and it was this good friend of mine. Of course, it's been 40 years, you know. So, another time, when we were in Maine a number of years ago for our 35th, we were hiking, walking, looking at lighthouses and we met this lady who was making her way up the coast by herself.

She had just lost her father, I think it was, or her mother, wasn't it? Her mother. She just lost her mother and she's, on her own, she's just kind of touring the coast and just, you know, and grieving and we had a chance to talk.

We ran into her a couple of times. We had a chance to pray with her and it's awesome how God, he does that. He'll do that. He did it for Philip here, didn't he? Well, one thing I want to do at the onset here is I want to distinguish between baptism with water and baptism with the Holy Spirit because oftentimes you'll read verses and the Bible will use the word baptism and you'll be like, what's he talking about here?

You know, is it baptism with water? Is it baptism with the Holy Spirit? You know, obviously the Bible talks about both. So I just real quick want to help us distinguish that. John, of course, he was a Baptist.

He used water. His ministry was baptism with water. Years ago, I was in college and I was going to a Baptist church and there was a young lady and we were in a Bible study and this young lady was sitting next to me and she had grown up in the Baptist church and you know how sometimes people get kind of proud of their denomination, you know?

Anyway, the pastor says that we were talking about John the Baptist. She says, what do we know about John the Baptist? And she spoke up. She goes, he was Baptist. I thought, oh, yeah, okay.

Well, he was the Baptist, I guess, wasn't he? Anyway, in Mark 1, verse 8, he says, I baptize you with water but he, referring to Jesus, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

Distinction there. Jesus, of course, after he rose but before he went back up to heaven, he appeared to a lot of people and in Acts 1, he said this.

It says, on one occasion while he was eating with them, he gave them this command. Do not leave Jerusalem but wait for the gift my Father promised which you have heard me speak about for John baptized with water but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Okay. Again, distinction. A few days you're going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So, John's baptism, of course, was water baptism. The scripture says it was for repentance.

All right. He was preparing the way for the Lord. Came to prepare the way. Of course, we know repentance, the word actually means change your mind.

Change your thinking. Change your direction in life. It's, I'm relying on myself, my religion. I'm living in sin, whatever. And it's, no, I'm going to change my thinking and I'm going to come to Jesus.

It's a decision to choose to come to the Savior. Savior. It's not so much turned from sin, that's part of it, but it's really turned from my life the way it is and I'm going to come to Jesus.

Remember, we went through the Gospel of John a few months ago, might have been a year ago, and we kind of just quickly went through the Gospel. The Gospel of John, of course, was written to demonstrate how to come to Christ, how to receive eternal life.

It was literally written for that purpose. And so, as we went through it, there were two things that came up. The Gospel of John never uses the word repentance, but what it does say is that you need to come to Jesus and you need to put your faith in Jesus.

So it's kind of like, yes, we need to come to Jesus, but we need to put our faith in Jesus. We need to, you know, Jesus is Lord. And so we talked about that a while back. So, once Jesus was baptized, remember, he was baptized, and, you know, the Spirit came down in the form of a dove and the voice of the Father, this is my beloved Son whom I love.

That's what began his ministry. Before that, he hadn't started his ministry, so that began his ministry. You remember, John the Baptist, what did he say?

He must increase, I must decrease. So, John's ministry was diminishing. It says that John sent his disciples, a lot of his disciples went to follow Jesus.

So, I had a question when I was thinking about this. Why didn't John the Baptist follow Jesus? I mean, why didn't he just, when Jesus was revealed, why didn't he just say, that's him.

We're done here. I'm following Jesus. Why didn't he do that? It's just a question that came up. One answer I have is I don't think he was quite sure.

even though this happened, you know, he was expecting Jesus to, you know, it was like a military Jesus to come and conquer, conquer the Romans and, you know, all that. And it wasn't happening.

Remember, at one point, he sent his disciples to Jesus to find out, are you the one? It was like, are you really, are you really him or are you not him? So I don't think he was quite sure. But the real thing is that he was imprisoned very early in Jesus' ministry.

So all of a sudden he was in prison and he couldn't, you know, so anyway, that answers that question. He had his role to play though, didn't he? So, what about baptism of the Holy Spirit?

Again, it's important to distinguish and we see verses that come up that talk about it. Next verse we're going to look at, just a bit of context, so, got to remember the context here.

Oh yeah, so 1 Corinthians chapter 12, the Apostle Paul is writing about spiritual gifts and it's quite extensive in chapter 12. He's going into details about spiritual gifts.

Right in the middle of that, he says this, or writes this, for we were all baptized by one spirit so as to form one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free, and we were all given the one spirit to drink.

Alright, so, it's important to recognize we were all baptized, you know, talking about people that have come to Christ, baptized by one spirit so as to form one body.

I think it's important for us to recognize the importance of that. When we come to Christ, we've joined his body, we've joined the church to form one body.

You'll recall when we were, a few months ago we were talking from Ephesians, I think Pastor John covered this, Ephesians 4, where it says, be diligent, Be diligent to preserve or to, be diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.

Unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. Extremely important. Alright? So we are one, we are one body. So take note of that. This is baptism of the spirit.

It happens when you first put your faith in Christ. God literally comes to live inside you in the person of the Holy Spirit. Some may ask and you may wonder, you know, do you feel him come into you?

Do you feel the spirit come in? I felt the spirit come into my life when I trusted Christ, when I received Christ. I felt, I could feel him come in and I knew.

He was there. Some will, some won't. That's alright. But I knew, I knew he had come into my life. I didn't speak in another language but I knew He was there. And obviously there are different traditions, different beliefs about baptism in the spirit.

Not really going to get into that right here because we're talking about water baptism. So, alright. So what I want to do is I want to ask and answer a number of questions pertaining to baptism.

baptism. You know, kind of like who, what, where, when, why, how, how questions. Alright, that's the reason I chose the text that we have because this text answers a lot of those questions and we're going to be going back to that as we go through it.

So, another note of distinction that's important. John's baptism, again, was preparatory. It was in preparation. We're talking about Christian baptism.

So both are water baptism but John was baptizing, preparing people for the Lord and what we're talking about is people, after they've come to Christ, baptism is, is a declaration that they've come to Christ.

Alright, so, again, an important distinction there. Okay. Alright, toward the end of Acts 2, you remember, you know, it happened at Pentecost where they're speaking different languages and people, you know, everyone's there, you know, all these people from other countries and they're like, wow, what's going on?

And then Peter stands up and he delivers the gospel, tells them how, you know, Jesus came and he died for your sins and, you know, you crucified him but God's made him both Lord and Christ.

And then, and it says this, those who accepted his message were baptized and about 3,000 were added to their number that day. So, once again, note the sequence.

Those who accepted his message were baptized and 3,000 were added. So, they accepted his message, they were baptized. All right. Okay.

So, once again, they were baptized following coming to faith. Note, note the eunuch's question, what prevents me from being baptized? That's what he asked.

Verse 36, what prevents me from being baptized? Put another way, you know, why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I be baptized? I would like each of us to consider that question.

Why shouldn't I be baptized? I want you to think about that as we go through this. Why shouldn't I be baptized? All right.

So, by the way, this may seem a little dry. You know, we're kind of covering the mechanics. We're covering, it's pretty technical. But I do have a special treat for you at the end, so I think you'll like that.

Everybody's like, what's the treat? What's the treat? Yeah, we'll get to it, hopefully, Lord willing. All right. So, believer's baptism, it's an outward sign of what happened inside.

All right? Outward sign of what happened inside. I've decided to follow Jesus. Jesus. And you can note the symbology or the symbolism.

You've got the surface of the water here and what happens is I've decided to die to myself. I go under the water and I'm raised to new life in Christ.

Come back out of the water. Symbolic of what happened in our lives when we trusted Christ. I've decided to, again, the repentance, turn from my religion, from my, from, you know, my way, from my thinking, from my sin, turn to the person of Jesus Christ.

And remember, this is about Jesus. This is all about Jesus. Again, I've died to myself and then I'm raised to new life. And again, it's symbolic.

It's a declaration. It's, it's, it's a declaration of the world. It's an outward sign. All right, so I've decided to follow Jesus. Death, raised to life.

Our text passage, verses 38 and 39, says Philip the eunuch went down into the water, came back out of the water. Literally, down into the water and came back out. Why shouldn't I be baptized?

All right, so, it's important to recognize that it's a declaration that I've decided to follow Jesus. It's also a declaration that I've joined his family.

Because, because that's essentially what happens. It's not just I'm following Jesus, but I've become a part of his family. You know, that's what he says, the, the unity of the spirit, baptized to form one body.

So, I'm, I'm telling people that I've decided to follow Jesus. I'm also telling people that I've decided to join his family. It's a decision. In Bible times, of course, that meant something.

and it, and it, and it, it could mean that you are excommunicated from your family. So, you know, you're becoming a part of a new family anyway kind of thing.

But, I mean, that's how serious it was back then. It's important. It's, it's like an assimilation to God's church, to God's family. It's a part of it.

I'm deciding, I'm declaring this. This is what happened. I've, I've decided to follow Christ and I've decided to follow, to become a member of his family. Again, it's an outward testimony of your decision to follow Jesus.

The eunuch knew this. Here is water. So, he knew what this meant. Here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized? And it's also a sign of joining the family of believers.

Here is water. He knew this. And again, in Bible times, it was huge. Alright. So, that's pretty much the what about baptism.

Let's talk about why. Alright, we are, a lot of that was already covered in what we talked about. Again, it's a demonstration. But, how important is it? Or why is it important to be baptized?

Well, Jesus himself began his ministry by being baptized, didn't he? So, so do you think he felt it was important? I think he did. He marked the beginning of his ministry and again, it's kind of a mark of the beginning of our new life with Christ.

It's a declaration of that. Also, he commands us to baptize. Right? This, a very familiar verse, you know, Jesus came to them, his disciples, and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go, make disciples, baptize them, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you.

Okay, if you're a disciple of Jesus, this command is for you. If you're following Jesus and if you've trusted Jesus, you're a disciple, you're following Jesus. That's all hand in hand.

He commands us to baptize. He commands us to baptize. And I love the completion of his plan here. It's just so, you think about it.

This is, of course, this is one of the last things Jesus says, and we've studied this and there's a reason why this is one of our core values here at Tri-State. What does he say? All authority has been given to me, therefore go, make disciples, tell people about this, introduce them to the faith, make disciples, and he says, baptize them, and what does that mean?

Essentially bring them into the family and then teach them to observe everything I've commanded you. It's an awesome plan. It's such a complete plan.

So we're commanded to baptize. By implication, we are also commanded to be baptized. You know? If we're to baptize, we should be baptized.

So it's also commanded to be baptized. I started, I called the sermon an important invitation. It's also an important command. It's an important obligation. God wants us to be baptized.

He commands us to be baptized. All right. So one big question comes up. Is baptism needed or required to get to heaven?

Do you need to be baptized in order to qualify to go to heaven? I think that's a common question. And some people believe that. I'm going to let the scriptures do the speaking again.

All right. So context here. Paul and Silas, they're in jail. And the Lord miraculously opens the doors, unlocks the doors.

All right. They're still there. The jailer wakes up and he's like, what happened? And he sees that the jail is open and he figures they all left. And so he's about to kill himself because he knows he's going to be executed anyway.

And so they're like, wait, wait, don't do it. We're all still here. All right. Can you imagine how that impacted that jailer? So the verse says this. He then brought them out and asked, sirs, what must I do to be saved?

They replied, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all others in his house.

If baptism was a critical part in salvation, don't you think they would have mentioned it here? They didn't mention it.

What did they say? He's asking them, what must I do to be saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. All right. And obviously, we know the word believe.

We're not talking about believing, you know, that they historically existed like you believe in Santa Claus or whatever. We're talking about faith, trust. We're talking about a decision to, you know, once again, I'm turning from this, turning to Jesus and I'm putting my trust in Jesus.

Salvation. Baptism comes after. All right. Does that make sense? I can't emphasize that enough. Baptism is not a requirement to get to heaven.

If you were never baptized, if you've trusted Christ and you died, you'd be with Jesus. All right. Next question, who?

First of all, who is eligible to be baptized? And then, who is eligible to do the baptizing? All right. So, who qualifies to be baptized?

I think we know the answer to that, but again, I'm just going to let the scriptures speak. Those who accepted his message were baptized and about 3,000 were added to their number that day.

All right. Another verse related to that. Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They've received the Holy Spirit just as we have. So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus.

From the scriptures, again, very clear. The requirement to be baptized is that you know Christ, that you've come to faith. You've come to Jesus. The eunuch, you know, what did he say?

You know, what must I do to be saved? You know, I mean, he actually, I mean, he actually just, like, they laid it out and I guess I'm confusing my characters there, but the eunuch, you know, he's like, here's water.

You know, why shouldn't I be baptized? All right. By the way, the word eunuch, I think it's really pronounced eunuch, eunuch, like that, and I'm not going to tell you what one is.

You can go look that up. But essentially, they're somewhat equipped to be responsible for important things in, you know, emperors' castles and things like that.

So, anyway. All right. So, who's qualified to baptize? Who is qualified to baptize? Once again, back to this passage, disciples of Jesus.

If you're a disciple of Jesus, you're qualified to baptize. If you're following Jesus, you're qualified to baptize. Okay. You must be a disciple of Jesus. All right.

The how. How is baptism done? Okay. There's a lot of traditions, a lot of different ways. Some believe that sprinkling water is adequate or pouring water, maybe dipping or full immersion is the fourth way.

Full immersion seems to be the biblical standard. And once again, I point you to the symbolism. Surface of the water, death to yourself, come back alive in Christ.

The symbolism is very important. Obviously, some people, maybe they have health problems or something, they can't go in the water and so you can use other means and that's fine.

But generally speaking, you can see it from the scriptures. Once again, we look at our text passage, verses 38 and 39. He commanded the chariot to stop. They both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him and they came back out of the water.

Also, Jesus' example in Mark 1. Once again, Jesus was coming up out of the water. Full immersion is, and that's the way we do it here, full immersion.

All right. Where? Where should a person be baptized? Does it need to be in a church? You need to have a baptismal, that kind of thing?

Obviously, from the passage, from the scriptures, in our text passage, again, they're going along the road, the eunuch says, we've come to water, why shouldn't I be baptized?

And he was baptized. What prevents me from being baptized? Also, Matthew 3, John the Baptist was baptizing in the Jordan River.

So, you can baptize anywhere, rivers, creeks, streams, anywhere there's enough water, swimming pools, certainly you can do it in a church, in a baptismal, that kind of thing.

All right, last question, when? Okay, certainly following faith. We've already explored that, we've talked about that.

When to be baptized is after you've come to Christ, after you've trusted Christ. Okay. one thing you'll note if you look at the scriptures closely at our passage, there's no verse 37.

Did you notice that? Or maybe you have a translation that has verse 37 in there. Verse 37 was actually, it started appearing in later manuscripts, so it's not in the earliest manuscripts.

And so, generally, at Tri-Straight, we kind of, we don't give that as much creed, I guess, credence. But what it says is certainly true.

It's true elsewhere, so it's not a big deal. Verse 37 says this. So it's when he says, here's water, why shouldn't I be baptized? All right?

Verse 37, again, not in the earliest translation, or earliest manuscripts, in the later manuscripts, he says, Philip says to the eunuch, if you believe with all your heart, you may.

And his response is, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And so they just, essentially, they put in there somebody, whoever, some later manuscript, script, I guess they call them.

Anyway, it's certainly true. It's certainly part of it. But obviously, Philip had shared the gospel with this guy, and he knew what he was doing. And so, you know, we knew he had something like that in there.

Acts chapter 2 says this, those who accepted his message were baptized. Again, we talked about that. And about 3,000 were added to their number that day. So, they were baptized.

You know, those who accepted the message, 3,000, they were baptized. It happened right away, essentially. How long should one wait? How long should you wait? So, again, I'm pulling from Acts chapter 16.

This is, again, where the jailer is like, the doors are locked, you know, I'm going to kill myself, and they'll hold on. And he says, what must I do to be saved? They replied, believe in the Lord Jesus and you'll be saved, you and your household.

Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all others in his house. At that hour of the night, the jailer took them and washed their wounds. Then immediately he and all his household were baptized.

Isn't that interesting? Immediately. They did it immediately. So, as far as the answer to the question when, you know, if you're saved, when should you be baptized?

I want you to think about that. Right, so that's kind of the who, what, where, when, why of baptism. Pretty exciting stuff. In the beginning of this message, I asked you a question, for you to consider a question.

Why shouldn't I be baptized? It was the question that the eunuch had. And I can only think of two reasons. Number one, you're not a believer, you haven't trusted Christ yet, shouldn't be baptized.

Number two, you're already baptized. And I mean baptized as a believer. We call it believer's baptism. So, if you're baptized as a child, you know, according to the scriptures, that doesn't count.

As a believer, baptism following faith. Okay. So, why shouldn't I be baptized? Think about that. Last July, we had a church picnic and baptisms.

And in a couple weeks, we're going to be doing that again. I just was going to show you a couple of pictures. First of all, years ago, this guy was baptized at Catfish Creek. I think we may have showed this last year.

Anyone know who that is? Getting baptized? Tom Krause. Right there. Handsome Tom Krause. Still handsome, by the way. There's Pastor Tim there, long before he was a pastor.

I don't think he was even a deacon then. Maybe he was. Pastor Jack. Last year, we had some people get baptized. Here's Jaden, just before getting baptized. You can tell because he's still dry.

And then Caitlin was baptized. That's Kathy and me baptizing. I didn't get your permission. Is that right to show this? All right.

And then Coral, another friend of ours. All right. Well, so we've been baptizing in Catfish Creek again.

We used to years ago. And we started doing again. And we've got the picnic planned. We've got baptisms planned. For a long time, we all went over to Jim and Carol Loney's house. All right.

Jim and Carol had a pool. Had, past tense. They no longer have the pool. And they opened the place up for the whole church to have a party. And we did baptizing there. I want to show you just a handful of videos from that.

I think this will bless some people. All right. Tim's going to help me out with this. We'll get there. We'll get there. I asked him to play the sound.

So we usually don't have sound in our So you may recognize some people there. Maybe not.

It's kind of hard to tell. I apologize for the technology. This is 90s, I think. So this is what it looked like. This isn't the baptism but this is kind of the picnic leading up to it obviously.

All right. Hannah, do you see yourself? There's Jim and Carol's daughter, Lindsay.

And there's Hannah right there. And that's Jeff. I haven't seen him in a while. So here's the doffing family.

You've got Tim and the kids. And here's Maywee. Sorry, Maywee, I didn't ask your permission either. Uh-oh. Who's this guy?

It's hard to see. That's Roger there. Mary Kretz and Brian Smith holding Emily, I think, right? Because they had actually dedicated Emily earlier.

Well, maybe after this, but before the baptisms. All right, here's Roger again. Guy named Troy.

Good man. There's Jeff. Oh, I guess you are in here, Jeff. There's Jeff. There's Kathy and our youngest son.

I'm in there, too, a little bit. Some other people from the past. And here you're going to see someone.

There's Michael Johnsrud and Tommy Krause. Michael's got the white hat. Here comes Tom. Yeah. All right. What did you think of that?

Okay. All right. So I'm going to try to get to the next one. Here, let's get to some baptisms. Do I have control or do you have control? Okay.

You know that guy? Roger, he hasn't changed a bit, has he? I did that a few years ago. Pastor Jack also hasn't changed a bit. Jack's not here today, is he? Oh.

He can watch the video. All right. Pastor Brian is joining him there. Sure, Roger's making some joke about them holding them down in the water too long or something.

It's a privilege to baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. All right. Roger. All right. Next video.

You know that guy? He hasn't changed a bit, has he? Maybe a little grayer, but kind of looks the same. Mr. Brian Smith with his Trans Am shirt on.

Where is he? Is he in here? Does he still have the Trans Am? He does. You bet he does. I better do it again.

keep him with commandments of the Lord. He said he was baptized as a baby, but he got saved at 11. He said he as a baby, but he got saved at 11.

Somebody time this so I don't keep them under too long. Got Jack and Tim. Based on your professional faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, I give them the pleasure to baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

All right. That's Mr. Smith and here comes Mrs.

Smith. Why are they saying uh-oh? I don't understand that. Does anyone know? It's amazing how you guys still look the same, both of you.

Maybe you look even better. I don't know if it's a fact that it may be and it's been saved for a lot of years and a lot of years. But Brian and I talked about it and I felt that it was kind of especially as an opportunity with Emily being dedicated to kind of get all in the right track and in the same direction.

Amen. Based on your profession with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ we give us the pleasure to baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

All right. I don't know where I've left. There's Darlene.

I pray for this young lady here based on your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ it is a deed and you know I prayed for this young lady here for almost 30 years and the Lord answers prayers you just got to keep it up.

Amen. We would be in great honor and pleasure to baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen. I asked Darlene if she had permission she said it was the best day of my life definitely definitely show it.

All right and sometimes kids get baptized. Michael Johnsrud his son Eli Eli got saved three years ago and he says likewise he wants to get baptized today because he wants to walk in the ways of the Lord and follow his commandments.

So the name is Father and Father and Holy Ghost. All right. And I want to kind of give you the whole experience here.

This is after the baptisms just kind of panning around. There's Donna and there's Frida, right? Your mom, Frida? Yeah. There she is.

I mean it's ready to go under. She's with Jesus. Peg and Kathy I think I'm in there a little bit. A few others. Well last call.

Okay if not I guess you're young cannot. All right. So am I able to get back to my slideshow?

Good. So again I ask you this question. I ask you to consider the question and really I ask you to ask God this question.

Why shouldn't I be baptized? And so if you're at all considering I'll think about it. Talk to one of the pastors, one of the deacons.

Talk to us and we'll help you get lined up for it. Yeah. Let's pray. Lord Jesus we thank you so much for your impact on our lives.

I thank you for retro videos like that. Thank you for how you've touched us for so many, many years, many decades in some cases. again, this is baptism.

It's about you. It's not about us. It's all about you, Lord Jesus. It's all about our decision to follow you. You died for us.

And we can die to ourself and be raised to new life if we trust you, God. If we decide to put our faith in you. I believe that this many people here, there are some people that maybe have considered you or are considering you.

I just ask you and I ask them maybe to pray along with me here and just say this to God, just quietly, God, show yourself to me.

Reveal yourself to me. Or maybe some people are here and they've considered your truth, they've considered the word and they've decided they're ready.

They're ready to come to you. I ask that they follow me in this prayer. Dear Jesus, I thank you that you died on the cross for my sins.

I thank you that you were raised to life, that you were resurrected. God, I ask you to forgive me of my sin, Lord, and make me the kind of person you want me to be.

And I decide right now I'm leaving behind my religion, my beliefs, my sin, turning to you, Lord Jesus, and I'm putting my faith in you, my trust in you.

You are Lord of my life, in Jesus' name. Keep your heads bowed, please. I'm going to keep praying. God, we, yeah, maybe we've been saved for a while, but we've never been baptized.

I pray, Lord, that you'd speak, you'd speak to those that have never been baptized. And I'm going to just lead you in a quick prayer. Why shouldn't I be baptized?

Lord, why shouldn't I be baptized? And I pray that you would answer that question for us, for them. We ask you, Lord, to continue to lead us, to bless us, Lord.

Help us to follow you, Lord. Help us to trust you. Thank you, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.