Review:
Personal Evangelism 101:
- Look for those that are Seeking. (Acts 8:26-29)
- Meet people where they Are. (Acts 8:30-35a)
- Make it about Jesus. (Acts 8:35b)
- Encourage a Decision. (Acts 8:36-40)
Review: John 4
- What is baptism?
Baptism is a visible, God-chosen, God-commanded, response to my faith. See Acts 2 - Who is baptism for?
It is for people who have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. - "I was baptized when I was a baby."
- "I'd offend my parents and and family." See Acts 5:29
- "I need to wait until I'm on track spiritually."
- "I don't like being in front of people."
- "I need to pray about it."
- What is the purpose of baptism?
It is the profession of faith. See Rom 6:1-5 - When should a person be baptized?
It is to be done immediately upon belief.
Common Excuses for not getting Baptized:
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Open up your Bibles with me please to Acts 8.
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Acts 8.
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While you're turning there, just by way of review, we've been walking through the book of Acts.
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Our theme for this year really has been from Acts 1.8 when Jesus promised the disciples, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." And as we've been walking through Acts, that Stephen, a young minister, was violently murdered by the religious council for preaching Christ.
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And after Stephen's death, a great persecution against Christians arose in Jerusalem and the church scatters.
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But as the church scatters, the believers went everywhere preaching the Gospel.
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One of Stephen's peers, by the name of Philip actually went to Samaria and preached Jesus to a receptive audience except for a magician named Simon.
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We talked about him last week.
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He wanted to purchase the power to transfer the Holy Spirit.
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Today, we're going to continue looking at Philip's ministry.
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We're going to be picking up in v. 26.
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The title of the message is just simply this - You know, last week we saw an example of somebody that Philip ministered to that didn't get it.
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And this week we're going to see a different story, as Philip shares the gospel with someone who does get it.
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So, Personal Evangelism 101, are you ready?
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Personal Evangelism 101, how can I be effective in sharing the gospel with someone?
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Write this down first of all.
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Number one, look for those that are seeking.
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Look for those that are seeking.
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Verse 26 says, "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.
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This is a desert place.'" There were actually two roads that went from Jerusalem to Gaza.
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The one road was very traveled, very busy.
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This road in particular was the one less traveled.
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That's why Luke points out for us that this is a desert place.
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Interestingly, your Bible doesn't say, at this point, Philip interjected to say, "You want me to go where?" I mean, this wasn't exactly prime evangelism spot.
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And Philip would have seen great ministry opportunity while he was in Jerusalem, and then when he was in Samaria, and things were happening, and all of a sudden, the Lord has this divine appointment for Philip.
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I just want to encourage you church, you know, from time to time, we have these mission opportunities that come up.
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And a lot of times I hear people say things like, "Well, I'd really like to go, but... I feel like God wants me to go." But, if you feel like God wants you to go, then go.
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Maybe God has a divine appointment for you like He does for Philip in this passage.
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Look at verse 27.
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It says, "And he rose and went.
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And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure.
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He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning seated in his chariot.
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And he was reading the prophet Isaiah.
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And the Spirit said to Philip, "Go over and join this chariot." So Philip encounters this man.
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He's an Ethiopian.
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He's a eunuch. He's actually a court official.
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The Bible says that he was in charge of the treasury.
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And he went to Jerusalem to worship.
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And on the way back, he had a scroll of Isaiah.
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I read this week that it would have been something that would have been very expensive for him to buy and very hard for him to get.
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Being a Gentile, getting a scroll of Isaiah.
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See, we're sort of spoiled when we want God's Word.
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We have copies available in book form, You have a stack of free ones on a resource table that you can take.
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It wasn't like that in this day.
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It was, you could buy parts of Scripture, these scrolls, and he just happened to buy the scroll containing Isaiah.
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And this is what he had his nose buried in when Philip found him.
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It wasn't like he was leafing through People magazine.
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The Bible says, "He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, reading the prophet Isaiah." I want you to see before we go on that this is somebody who was seeking.
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This is somebody who was seeking.
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I heard James MacDonald one time teach on red apple evangelism.
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And he said the best evangelism is red apple evangelism is looking for the people that ripened for the Gospel.
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And it's the circumstances of life that ripen people to the Gospel.
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And the point is this, you look for people that God is preparing through some trial or through some adversity.
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Or like the Ethiopian, people who are searching for life's answers.
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And you'll find that these people are everywhere.
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In your family, people you work with.
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You look around, you find people and looking for answers.
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People that the Lord is allowing some hardship into their lives.
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It's awakening them to spiritual realities.
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That's the first thing we see here is Philip found someone who was seeking.
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This was a divine appointment.
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Numbers 2 goes right with this.
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Jot this down.
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Meet people where they are.
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Meet people where they are.
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I don't know how you are when you read the Bible, but this seems kind of funny and you think about how that must have played out.
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Verse 30 says, "So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, 'Do you understand what you are reading?'" And if I'm this Ethiopian guy, my first question is, where in the world did you come from?
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Could you imagine sitting in your car in the passenger seat and you're reading something and all of a sudden somebody runs up and he pokes their head in the window of your car and says, "Hey, what are you reading?" "Who are you?" And here's this Ethiopian eunuch on this abandoned road in this chariot on this 500 mile trip back to Jerusalem, and Philip just shows up.
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"What are you reading?" I just thought that was kind of funny.
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But apparently he was so engrossed in the text that he didn't care.
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"What was he reading?" Look at verse 31.
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"Do you understand what you're reading?" Verse 31, "And he, the Ethiopian, said, 'How can I unless someone 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 its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth.
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In his humiliation, justice was denied him.
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I can't even describe his generation, for his life has taken away from the earth.
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The Ethiopian was reading specifically from Isaiah 53.
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Verse 34, "And the eunuch said to Philip, 'About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this?
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About himself or about someone else?' Then Philip opened his mouth, And beginning with this Scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus.
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I want you to notice here, Evangelism 101, you look for those who are seeking, but secondly, you need to meet people where they are.
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That's exactly what Philip did with this Ethiopian.
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He's reading Isaiah 53, a very familiar passage to us.
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He says, "Who is the prophet talking about here?
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for somebody else.
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Notice Philip didn't go off on a rabbit trail to say, "Well, that's nice that you're reading Isaiah, but let's talk about Leviticus." Well, that was a wonky transition.
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The Bible says that Philip began with this Scripture.
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That's so important for us as we're looking for opportunities to share Christ with people, because people are searching for different reasons.
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Everybody has the same need.
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But the thing that awakens the hunger in people is often different.
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For some it's a tragedy.
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For some it's death.
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For some it's a self-examination.
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What am I living for?
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For some, it's just not experiencing real fulfillment in life.
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And that was my testimony.
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I went through a season in my life I just had zero fulfillment.
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And I was trying to find meaning and reason and satisfaction and all sorts of things - sinful and otherwise.
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And nothing was doing it until somebody told me the good news of Jesus Christ.
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Everybody has the need.
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God just allows certain things to come into their lives to awaken that need.
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What you need to do in your personal evangelism, like Philip meeting people where they're at, you need to show people how Jesus meets every need.
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For example, if somebody's experiencing a death, it's your opportunity to say, yeah, it is a tragedy.
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It's a tragedy, unfortunately, that we all have to face.
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We have good news.
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Because the Bible says that Jesus Christ conquered death.
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You're dealing with somebody with depression.
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God created you to have a relationship with Him, and even though life is hard, God made a way that we can know Him and experience real fulfillment in life.
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You need to learn to meet people where they're at.
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Jesus was the Master of this, by the way.
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Think of John 4.
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Remember the woman at the well?
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Jesus promised her living water that spring up from within.
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Jesus was showing her that all of the things that she was looking for fulfillment in her life weren't working, and He was the one that could bring real fulfillment to her life.
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This Ethiopian obviously wanted to know God.
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He traveled 500 miles to Jerusalem.
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What made him buy a copy of Isaiah?
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What made him seek the Lord in Isaiah?
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I don't know.
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But Philip saw that he was seeking.
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And he saw where he was seeking.
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And Philip, the Bible says, he began with that Scripture.
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Philip met Him where he was.
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And when you identify people that are seeking, when you discern where people are, number three, this is very important about evangelism, and make it about Jesus.
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Make it about Jesus.
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It says, "Beginning with this Scripture, He told him the good news about Jesus." That's what makes it so exciting to share Jesus.
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This is good news.
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But underline in your Bible that this is good news.
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Underline "about Jesus." Underline that. "About Jesus." It wasn't some generic, There's a higher power that wants to bless you.
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This is about Jesus.
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A week or so ago, one of the elders at our church - I won't mention who - but one of the elders at our church loaned me a book called "Pulpit Crimes." I've got to tell you, it made me a little nervous when one of the elders comes to you and says, "Here, you need to read this book called 'Pulpit Crimes'." About all the wrong things that preachers do when preaching.
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that he wasn't trying to give me a hint.
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But the gist of the book, in order to remove the offense of the cross, which is motivated by various things, pastors will tweak the message to make listeners happy.
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One of the elders at a church I served in previously had told me that there was a study done by this man.
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He was going around the churches.
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This was a really weird study.
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I don't know what motivated this, but I remember what the study was.
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He was going around to different churches and he was counting how many times they mentioned the name of Jesus Christ in their worship service.
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Isn't that a weird thing to study?
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But that's what this guy did.
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He just went around, and he was shocked at how seldom Jesus was actually mentioned in the church.
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The man actually said that many of the churches didn't mention the name of Jesus one time in their service.
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Like, what in the world is going on in these churches?
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What are people talking about if they're gathering to celebrate?
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What are they doing?
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So many churches didn't mention the name of Jesus even one time.
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Why does that happen?
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Well, the reason that happens is It removes the offense.
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You see, people are content to keep God generic.
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People are content to say things, "God bless America." "God bless you." People are content to say things like that as long as we think of God as being generic.
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But as soon as you mention Jesus, now you have a problem because Jesus is a threat.
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Because you see, the very foundation of the Gospel of Jesus, Jesus said there's a throne on your heart you're seated on that throne.
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You need to get off.
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You need to allow me, my rightful place on that throne.
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Jesus said you need to deny yourself.
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You need to allow me to be the absolute supremacy in your life in all areas.
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That's a threat.
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So it's much easier to just sort of make God ambiguous.
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Sort of a poetic concept.
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And when you're sharing the gospel with someone, You can dive into all kinds of theology.
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You can talk about creation, you can talk about sin, you can talk about the church, you can talk about heaven and hell, you can talk about how amazing the Bible is, and all of this is good stuff.
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But if salvation is only found in the name of Jesus Christ, then you better talk about Jesus Christ.
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That's the point in your personal evangelism.
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Get people talking about examining You is Jesus Christ.
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And finally for today, and this is what I really wanted to emphasize, Evangelism 101 #4, you need to encourage a decision.
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You need to encourage a decision.
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Look at verse 36.
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It says, "And as they were going along the road, they came to some water.
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And Eunuch said, "See, here is water.
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What prevents me from being baptized?" So obviously, in Philip's sermon to the Ethiopian, in his Bible study with the Ethiopian, he must have mentioned baptism at some point.
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Now notice, your Bible probably jumps from verse 36 to verse 38.
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Does your Bible do that?
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Does your Bible sort of skip verse 37?
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It's actually a footnote in most Bibles.
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Like, why isn't it with the rest of the verses?
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Well, verse 37 isn't in some of the oldest manuscripts.
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But obviously, some confession of faith had to have occurred at this point.
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Philip again must have mentioned baptism.
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Because as soon as they see some water, the Ethiopian says, "Well, here's water.
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and it prevents me from being baptized.
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Verse 38 says, "And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him." I love how unashamed that is.
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Let's just do it right now.
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Let's just stop and do this thing right now.
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Verse 39, "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.
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But Philip found himself at Azazelus.
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And as he passed through, he preached the Gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.
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So Philip vanished just as abruptly as he arrived.
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And it says that he ended up in Caesarea.
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When you go to Acts 21.8-9, you see that apparently Philip settled there and began raising a family.
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Because we encounter him again much later in Acts.
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What you have here in Acts 8 is Philip explains Christ.
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The Ethiopian accepted Christ.
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And Philip looked for a response.
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Just as God does.
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And when you share the Gospel with someone, You can't stop short of letting them know that a response is required.
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Sometimes I think we're content to just make the Gospel on FYI.
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You know, Jesus died on the cross for your sins.
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Jesus rose from the dead to give you eternal life.
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Just thought you might want to know. Have a great day.
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You need to look for a response.
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Yes, salvation is a gift.
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But even with a gift, you have to take action to receive it, right?
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It doesn't just get dumped on your head whether you want it or not.
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You have to do something.
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You don't earn it, you don't work for it, but it is a gift, and gifts must be received.
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Encourage a response.
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And one of the responses is you need to encourage for someone who is born again, is baptism.
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I'm going to talk about baptism.
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Some of you have never made this step.
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If you study your Bible, this is actually step one when you come to Christ.
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Actually, an unbaptized Christian is foreign to the New Testament.
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You just don't see that.
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What you do see when you go through the book of Acts, Christ is preached, Christ is received, people are baptized.
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There's actually a blog that we put back up on the website that just follows that pattern throughout the book of Acts.
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That's what baptism's about.
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Before we close today, I want to talk about baptism.
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I'm just going to answer four questions.
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What is baptism?
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Who is baptism for?
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What is the purpose of baptism?
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And the last question, when should a person be baptized?
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When should a person be baptized?
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Let's answer these four questions.
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Letter A, what is baptism?
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What is baptism?
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baptism is the visible, God-chosen, God-commanded response to my faith.
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It's visible - it means you can see it.
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It's God-chosen, meaning it's something that God came up with.
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It wasn't that some church invented baptism or some ancient theologian decided it was a good idea.
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It was something that God chose.
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And it's God-commanded.
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Acts 17 says, "God now commands all men everywhere to repent." It's commanded that when you turn to Christ, you are baptized.
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Peter in Acts 2 says, "Repent and be baptized." It's commanded. It's part of coming to Christ.
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It's a response to my faith.
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The best way that I can describe baptism is it's like a wedding ceremony.
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A wedding ceremony doesn't make me committed to my spouse.
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It is the declaration before God and before man that I'm giving my life to this person.
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You see, when I got married to Aaron, we didn't fall in love on the wedding day.
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It was because of the love that we had for each other that we had the wedding ceremony.
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But nothing magical happened at the ceremony as far as, "Well, now I love her, now I'm committed to her because we went through the ceremony." Baptism is the same way.
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Baptism is a symbol.
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And just as on the wedding day, I declared before God and man that I'm making a commitment to this woman, baptism is you're making a declaration for God and man, that you are committing yourself to being a follower of Jesus Christ.
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Baptism is a visible God-chosen, God-commanded response to my faith.
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So who is baptism for?
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Letter B.
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It is for people who have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
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Again, baptism does not save you.
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is the expression that you have been saved.
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Baptism itself does not save you.
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There are some preachers and there are some churches that teach unless you're baptized, you're unsaved.
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I actually knew a hospital chaplain that had this elderly woman that was hooked up to all sorts of machines and tubes and she wanted to receive Christ and this hospital chaplain said, "We need to get her to the tub.
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to get her baptized so she can go to heaven." And the medical staff was like, "You can't move this woman.
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If you unhook her, you're going to kill her right now." And this chaplain was like, "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do for you." And he walked away, leaving these people feeling like this elderly woman was heading for hell simply because she wasn't able to get baptized.
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Now let me ask you, does that sound like the character of God?
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Does that gel with what you read about God and His Word?
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Absolutely not.
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Baptism doesn't save you.
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It's the expression that you have been saved.
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It's for people that have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
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Common excuses for not getting baptized.
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I want you to jot these down.
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Common excuses for not getting baptized.
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now as soon as we talk about baptism there's somebody here that hasn't been baptized and you're like yeah and here's why I haven't I'm gonna go through these number one I was baptized as a baby I was baptized as a baby well the problem with that is babies are unable to accept or reject Jesus Christ I remember when Both of my kids were born at McGee Hospital, and I'll never forget each time, "Congratulations, Mr. Miller, it's a boy." And they handed me this baby, and I would say, "Owen, are you ready right now to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?
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Are you ready to turn from your sin?
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Okay, let's get baptized." Obviously not.
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Babies are unable to do that.
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You don't see baptism for babies anywhere in Scripture.
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You don't see it.
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Every single time somebody's baptized, because they are responding to the call of the Holy Spirit.
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They're responding to salvation in Jesus Christ.
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The result of being born again.
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It's a picture.
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So being baptized as a baby doesn't count.
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I kind of wish that it did count though, because I was baptized three times.
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I was baptized as a baby Lutheran.
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I was baptized when I was 12 Methodist, baptized when I came to Christ when I was 20. I'd like to think that that gives me like three times more spirituality than the rest of you. It doesn't. It doesn't. Baptism that I experienced when I was a baby, I don't even remember it. And it doesn't mean anything, biblically.
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So, common excuses for not getting baptized. I was baptized as a baby. That's I defend my parents, or I defend my family.
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Some people don't want to get baptized because they're afraid of who that might offend.
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And we already saw in the book of Acts, the slogan that hangs over every true follower of Christ is in Acts 5.29 when the apostles said, "We must obey God rather than men." We live in a day that we're so afraid we're going to offend somebody, except for God.
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Let's be more concerned about offending Him.
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Number three, I need to wait until I'm on track spiritually.
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Some people say, "You know Pastor Jeff, I know I need to get baptized, but right now I'm just not on track spiritually, and I'd really rather wait until I'm on track." So you're saying you're struggling in some area of obedience, so you're going to forfeit another clear area of obedience until you get this other one cleared up.
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You can't change yourself.
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Be obedient. Yield to Christ. He's the one that changes you.
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If you're waiting until you're perfectly on track spiritually, it's never going to happen.
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You don't have the ability.
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Number four, I don't like being in front of people.
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I can promise you that there's nothing to be shy or ashamed about.
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This is a glorious testimony.
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It's a glorious testimony.
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Don't let shyness hinder you from taking this important step.
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Number five, I need to pray about it.
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I need to pray about it.
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Really, we talked about this last week.
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It's not really to pray about.
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It's a matter of simple obedience.
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When God says to do something, you honor Him and you do it.
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What is baptism?
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"Baptism is a visible, God-chosen, God-commanded response to my faith." Letter B, who is baptism for?
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It is for people who have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
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Letter C, what is the purpose of baptism?
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It is the profession of faith.
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It is the profession of faith.
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Meaning, coming to Christ was never meant to be signified by signing a card or walking an aisle or raising a hand.
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Biblically, the profession of faith is in baptism.
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This is what God chose.
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Romans 6:1-5 In baptism, you are graphically identifying with the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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That's why it's done by immersion.
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You see, it's a picture, just like we talked about a wedding ceremony.
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In a wedding, you have all these pictures.
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You have the white dress, and you have the wedding ring, and you've got the flowers, and you've got the smashing the cake in each other's faces or whatever.
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You've got all these pictures at a wedding that symbolize something.
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Well, baptism is a picture of death and resurrection.
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When you go under the water, what you're saying is, "I'm dead.
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I'm buried." And then when you come up out of the water, you're identifying with the resurrection of Christ.
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"I am raised in the newness of life with Jesus Christ." It is the profession of faith when it's done by immersion.
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And finally, when should a person be baptized?
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It is to be done immediately on belief.
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The question comes up, "What if I've already been baptized?" Well, has it been since you believed in Jesus Christ?
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If not, then you should be baptized.
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Or some say, "I came to Christ a while ago and I didn't get baptized immediately.
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Is it too late?" Is there an expiration date?
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Is there a statute of limitations on how long between conversion and baptism, all I can say is this, I don't know what you knew then about baptism, but now you know some things about baptism, and you can only act on what you know.
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So if you've never taken that step, as of today you don't have an excuse not to take that step.
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I encourage people to take their next available opportunity.
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So what is baptism?
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The visible God, chosen God, commanded response to faith.
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What is baptism for?
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It's for people who have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
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What's the purpose?
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It is the profession of faith.
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Once you're a person, be baptized.
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A person should be baptized as soon as possible on belief in Jesus Christ.
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We're going to close our time in worship, and we're going to have some people up front here to pray.
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And you can come up and pray for any reason.
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Or maybe there's someone here today that says, you know what?
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I need to take that step.
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I need to be baptized.
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I want to come forward.
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And I want to have my name on that list for August 7 so I can glorify God with a professional.
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Let's pray.
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and we'll worship and you come down and pray with us.
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Father in Heaven, You've called every single one of us to be ambassadors for Christ.
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And I thank You for clear instruction like we see in the life of Philip.
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What effective evangelism looks like.
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It's finding people who are seeking.
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It's meeting people where they're at.
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It's talking to them about Jesus.
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is encouraging a response.
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Father, I pray for those that are making that profession of faith here in August.
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What a glorious testimony it is at the way You've taken a dead person and made them alive.
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I pray, Father, if there's anyone else here that needs to take that step.
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Whatever obstacles in the way, Father, I pray that the desire to glorify Your name, the desire to do something very simple that You've called us to do, I pray that that desire would override anything else that might be hindering that decision.
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Father, we thank You for this glorious picture that You've given us in baptism, what actually takes place when we're born again.
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We are dead and we have been made alive in Christ's name.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 8:26-40
How can you tell if an unsaved person YOU know (coworker, gym buddy, neighbor, whatever) is seeking?
In Acts 8:35, we see Philip’s message was about Jesus. What specifically do unsaved people need to know about Jesus?
*Imagine a Christian friend of yours never got baptized, but asked you, "Why should I get baptized?" How would you answer this?
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.
