Here Is Water, What Hinders You
First B Jackson
2023-01-01

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Good morning, everybody. How are you all? Happy New Year. I'll move the whole shooting match in here. Welcome.

Glad that you're here. And would you stand up with me? We're going to sing some good old hymns. Blessed assurance. Jesus is mine.

Amen.

Blessed assurance. Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine. Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of his spirit, washed in his blood. This is my story.

This is my song. Praising my savior all the day long. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my savior all the day long perfect submission perfect delight visions of rupture now burst on my side angels descending bring from above echoes of mercy whispers of love this is my story this is my song praising my savior all the day long this is my story this is my song praising my savior all the day long perfect submission all is at rest I and my savior am happy and blessed watching and waiting looking above filled with his goodness, lost in his love.

This is my story. This is my song, praising my savior all the day long. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my savior all the day long.

Amen. We're sing another one.

How about that? Redeemed how I love

to proclaim, hymn number three fifty six. Here it is. Whatever comes up on the wall.

Redeemed how I love to proclaim it. Redeemed by the blood of the lamb redeemed through his infinite mercy his child and forever I am redeemed redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed redeemed his child and forever I am. Redeemed and so happy in Jesus. No language my rapture can tell.

I know that the light of his presence with me doth continually dwell. Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed, redeemed his child and forever I am I think of my blessed redeemer I think of him all the day long I sing for I cannot be silent His love is the theme of my song. Redeemed. Redeemed.

Redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed. Redeemed his child and forever I am. I know I shall see in his beauty, the king in his mighty light, who lovingly God is my footsteps and giveth me songs in the night. Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the lamb.

Redeemed. Redeemed. Child and forever I am. Amen. Y'all can have a seat.

I have

a few announcements this morning. One of them I did not mention in the first service. It's called the Word Retreat. There's the Word Retreat, it's coming up. Hey, look at there, Men's Retreat.

It's $200 but there are scholarships available. It will be February 23 through the '26. It ends up on a Sunday morning. It will end up right here in this place, in this fellowship, but it's over in Idaho. It's a good thing.

Matt Lutzelman has been involved with these retreats for some time now, and it's going to be a good thing. If you'd like to go or be a part of it, let us know, firstbjackson dot org. If you have any questions, you can get in touch with Matt or you can get in touch with me and I'll put you in touch with Matt, either way. But the word retreat, that's coming up soon. We have a men's snowmobile retreat that is January 22.

That weekend, it's happening. Hey, look at there, January twenty through twenty two. Old Faithful Christian Ranch is $100 for adults, 75 for kids. It's usually men and boys that go, that's the plan. Men's snowmobile retreat, January twenty three to twenty two.

That is a fun time. I can testify to that one myself. I don't have the little clickity clicker up here. There it is. Excuse me.

Monday nights at First Be are happening. So January two, Monday night at First Be. It will be meal, music and a message. Carl will be bringing the message from the book of Mark, and the meal will be Mexican food made by Felix Guadalupe. It's a good time.

This is a good one to get in on first part of the year here. Monday nights at first be happening tomorrow at six. Awana is back on also tomorrow night. If you would like to help out by preparing a meal for Monday night or if you'd like to prepare the connect hour for between services, you can let us know and we'll get you signed up for that. There is a congregational meeting that's coming up, January 29.

We bumped it backwards because of the snowmobile retreat that was double booked. So congregational meeting, January 29, between the services and the sanctuary. So that's happening. That's the one that we do every year. We'll approve their budget, copies of the budget in the back.

We hope to approve the budget and slate of elders and Board of Trustees members for the next year. And I think that that's it. Did I forget anything? Or is there anybody who wants to proclaim anything else right now during the announcements? Okay.

Being none, would you stand and rise, Will? We will sing His Name is Wonderful. What a beautiful name.

His name is wonderful. His name is wonderful. His name is wonderful. Jesus, my lord. He is the mighty king, master of everything.

His name is wonderful. Jesus, my lord. He's the great shepherd, the rock of all ages, almighty God is bow down before him adore him His name is wonderful. Jesus, my lord.

Let's sing that one again.

His name is wonderful. His name is wonderful. His name is wonderful Jesus my lord he is the mighty king master of everything his name is wonderful Jesus my lord he's the great shepherd the rock of all ages rock almighty God bow down before him adore him His name is wonderful. Jesus, my lord.

Amen. And how

about lamb of God? Do you all

know this song? I I don't think I knew this song as a child. I do know this song now. I love it. Really appreciate it.

There's a change in the last verse, in the chorus of the last verse that I think is interesting. Jesus Christ is the lamb of God, but he is calling us to be a Lamb of God. It's an interesting thing. He is the, capital l, Lamb of God, but we can, following after him, be lambs of God. That's a that's a great thing.

The turn, I I really appreciate. So let's sing Lamb of God.

Your only son, no sin to hide, But you have sent him from your side to walk upon this guilty son and to become the lamb of God. Oh, lamb of God, sweet lamb of God. I love the holy lamb of God. Oh, wash me his precious blood my Jesus Christ the lamb your gift of love they crucify they laughed and scorned him as he died the humble king they named a frog and sacrificed the lamb of God Oh, lamb of God, sweet lamb of God. I love the holy lamb of God.

Oh, wash me in his precious blood. My Jesus Christ, the lamb of God. I was so lost, I should have died. But you have brought me to your side to be led by your staff and rod, and to be called a lamb of God. His precious blood till I am just a lamb of God.

Y'all can have a seat. I'll pray, and I'll ask the ushers to come forward too for the the operatory prayer, worship through giving. Lord God almighty, we thank you that we can be here this morning, gathered in your name, to worship you, to sing your praises, lord, but we pray that those praises would ring out beyond just this building, that the way that we walk in our daily lives and the way that we use our words, Lord, that we'll be led by your Spirit, that your Spirit would flow, that it would illumine the Word for us, and as we speak it, that it would be illumined for those in this community. Lord, not just this community, but around here and spreading to the very uttermost parts of the world. In Jesus' name, Lord, we ask that you'd bless your people to do your will in your way.

I pray, Lord, that you would take all that is given this morning, Lord, this week, this coming year, that you'd take it all, Lord, that you would bless it and multiply it, and that it would be effective for the advance of the gospel. We know that nothing done for the Lord is ever in vain. Lord, would you use us the way you would have us be used. Amen. Amen.

Thank you, Judy. Oh, boy. Well, for Christmas, I've I've stepped away from our Harmony of the Gospel study, and I plan on getting back to that. But this morning, in the first service, we had Noah Radek come forward to be baptized. He I've known for some time that he was willing and he was ready and I knew it, but they were looking for a good time, right?

And so he said on Christmas Eve, he said, How about tomorrow or maybe better next week? So better next week. That's what we filled the pool up here. So there's a baptistry full of water right here. And I thought, Well, I'm going to do a topical sermon on baptism.

And you all seen the Princess Bride? You all seen that? There is too much. Let me sum up. That's there was just so much about baptism.

Old Testament, New Testament, there's so much in there, and I was thinking, I can't really reduce that down. You know when you come into a church and it's First Baptist Church, there's that's a part of what we do. We practice two ordinances here. We're going to do we did one of them this morning, baptism, and we're going do the Lord's Supper here before we leave. So those are the two ordinances that we typically do.

Not we don't count them as sacraments so much. But I am not one to arm wrestle over practice so much. And I thought this I often say when we've done a baptism that morning, I often say, here is water, what hinders you from being baptized? And so it sounds a little antiquated, the language, what hinders you? But I get that from this story and I thought this is what we're going to do, go through a text and look at that text.

But before we do that, I want to look at a couple of pictures. So throughout the history of the church, it has been practiced a lot of different kinds of ways. This is from the catacombs. It's a picture of a naked participant in baptism. Peter, you can't see him because he's kind of been scratched through over to the right over here, but Peter is actually baptizing this guy in the picture.

And he's doing it by taking a shell of water and pouring it over the guy's head. If you look in a different place in the catacombs, both of these folks are standing in water and there's a splashing going on of a bringing up of that. But this one's a little later too, like third century or so. The other one's about third century too. Throughout the history of the church, it's been practiced a lot of ways.

I had a professor when I was in seminary. His name was Bill Larkin, William Larkin. And he's an interesting guy. He was built like Barney Fife, but he had the comportment of Mr. Rogers, like Fred Rogers, which makes sense.

Fred Rogers was a Presbyterian minister. This guy is a Presbyterian minister. And he would greet someone in the hall and they'd say, Doctor. Larkin, I'm struggling. I'm doing a study on baptism and I just I don't know where to go from here.

Can you help me? And he'd go, when considering baptism, you must consider at least seven ways that it's been practiced. Effusion, aspersion, immersion, submersion, all these different things. And he would give a fairly exhaustive thing. When I started to do that this week, I thought, I'm gonna mention a few.

In the Old Testament, baptism, when it's mentioned in the Septuagint, is typically baptismas. It is certain way that is about a purification ritual. This is a mikvah, a mikvah from the time of Herod the Great. This is one of the purification pools. I think that one's at Masada, I'm not positive, but it's one of those purification pools.

It is a ceremonial tub for washing ceremonial rite that happens again and again in order to prepare oneself for to be clean, to worship properly. But that's not the way we practice baptism. In the New Testament, when baptism is used, it's not exclusively always for an initiatory rite, but most of the time it is. This is another one of Peter baptizing the neophytes. This is from the 1550s.

And Peter is pouring out of a shell over the head of someone who is kneeling in a creek. Most of these you've noticed the people are nearly or all the way naked. I'm going to call for people who want to be baptized later. I'm not asking you to come up naked,

all right? Because we haven't done that in many, many years.

That's been a long time. For modesty stake, it used to be that women would baptize women in a lot of cases and men baptize men. It's been practiced a lot of different ways. You might have been to one of these sort of baptisms. If you have been to an Episcopal church or a Catholic church where the baby is brought forward by a family and then a priest dips into the water, sprinkles a little bit on the baby's head.

That's infant baptism. We do not practice infant baptism here. I will occasionally have somebody from a Lutheran background or from a Catholic background or Episcopal background who have come into our fellowship here and they say, we want you to baptize our baby. I said, well, that's not really what we do. But we will do baby dedication, which is a dry baptism as I've experienced it, seen it.

It's not the washing away so much as a promise between congregation and family that we are going to do the best we can to help. And that's what most infant baptism ceremonies lean towards these days. There has been in the history of church a lot of superstition. And at times, it was very uncommon for anybody to get baptized until right before they died. That's interesting.

It's kind of hard to dunk somebody who's just about to die. You're finishing them off is what that feels like. So that was traditional for a while. And then others are as they're born, it's right away. It's almost like circumcision.

It's a sign of the covenant between our family and this baby. We're going to raise them as best we can and we're going to baptize them right now because of original sin, we don't want them to die with that. We're washing that away. So that's in practice, there have been a lot of different ways. In history, the Anabaptists came along and they had the audacity to take infants who had been baptized by perhaps the Catholic Church usually, Catholic Church.

And the Anabaptists had the audacity to baptize them again. Ana means over again or once again. So the Anabaptists would do that. So this is probably Episcopal, looks like Catholic baptism. This is Eastern Orthodox.

Check that out. That's a deeper well there. They dunk their babies.

They're babies, clunk,

and bring them back up. I think that would really surprise me. I know it surprises the baby. But it's been practiced a lot of different ways. And I'm not going to arm wrestle you over which way is proper.

Proper. I will explain the reason that we do it the way that we do it is because baptize actually means to dip or to plunge. The Neste plunge, yes, that's baptism, all the way in, right? So that's the reason we do baptism by immersion or submersion here and for believers. This is from early in the actually, it's probably the nineteenth century or early twentieth century of a baptism in North Carolina.

And these are people who have trusted in Christ, Come on into the water. Come on into the water. I mentioned that baptism sometimes in the past had been practiced nude. It is a taking off of the things of the world and a being baptized, buried with Christ, raised to walk in newness of life, and given a clean robe on the other side. That's a great symbol.

These white robes are like that. So that's Pascal and I are sitting on the baptistry in Florence. This is the steps of the baptistry in the Great Duomo in Florence, 2017 for Tanya and I have our twenty fifth anniversary. We were able to go there. And this is one of my favorite baptisms ever in Jackson Lake.

That's Judy Wales right there with Moran in the background. It's pretty awesome. This one was just before the snow flew this year, Salt River Access in Grover, Wyoming. Two of the Larson boys, Robin Lindy Larson's boys were baptized down there with grandma and granddad and an aunt there with us. It was pretty fun.

That's Ross. I mean, that's Slade Ross getting baptized just below Swinging Bridge after the snow flew this year. Freezing cold. Wyatt and Reagan and Slade were all baptized right there in the river. There are lots of different writings in the history of the church of how this should go in the Didache.

The Didache was one of the earliest church documents, And it was basically not exactly policies and procedures, but kind of like that. And the Didache said that you ought to use running water if you can. It needs to be cold. I don't know why. You can use stagnant water if you have to.

If the person is not able to go under, then you can dip them you can sprinkle them. It's funny that all the way throughout the history of church, there have been multiple ways to do this. We practice believers baptism by immersion. And there we go. That's a terrible face I'm making.

That's actually in the Jordan River. When we went and took a trip to Israel, there was a girl on the trip that had never been baptized before. A couple who already had Anna baptized them, but this one was Inger Hanson. And then the last not the last time I was in Georgia, but the last time I was home for a weekend, a dear friend from high school called and she said, what do you think about folks that are believers but aren't able to express it? And I said, well, you're his mother.

This is a 25 year old nonverbal autistic boy named Ryan. Wonderful soul. And Amy Turner called, my best friend's widow, called, and her sister Patty is in the pool there with me and with Ryan. And she said, What do you think about that? And I said, What do you think about baptism for him?

And I said, Where are you right now? And she said, We're about fifteen minutes from Amy's house. I said, Well, I'll see y'all at the pool in thirty minutes. Because here's water. What hinders him?

He's a believer in Jesus. I asked him if he believed, and he says almost no things, but he said, Jesus is Lord. One of my favorites. So sweet. Hard to get him to go down though.

I will say that. He believed in Jesus, but he didn't want me to put him under. I had to sweep the leg. His mama helped. It was fun.

I mentioned baby dedications already. Summary of Acts eight so far. Actually, want to go back to Acts six. In Acts six, we see people coming forward and the church is growing like crazy at this point. Acts is just beautiful.

It's wonderful. I want to go through Acts again. So Acts six, the gospel is spreading and spreading and spreading, and mainly it's in Jerusalem. And in Jerusalem, all apostles are gathered and the people God's adding to their number daily after Pentecost, you know, those who are being saved. And then comes a complaint.

And it's a complaint from the Greek widows are being overlooked in the distribution of food. And the Greek widows are being overlooked. Well, most of these apostles, they're mostly Jewish boys, right? These guys didn't intentionally, I'm sure, but there was a complaint that arose. And Peter and the other apostles got together and said, Who?

Should we be waiting tables? Or should we be ministering the word? And they made a decision to minister the word and also that you choose from among you seven people that you trust that will do a good job kicking up dust, deacons that will get this done. And it's an interesting thing that the apostles appointed whoever they would choose, and all of those names were Greek names. Philip was among them.

Stephen was among them. So Stephen, in Acts seven, simply for doing, for living out his call, living out his reasonable service to God, he was stoned. Philip, in Acts eight earlier than this, because of the stoning of Stephen in Jerusalem, Jesus had said, you're gonna be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, the uttermost parts. They had not been spreading out. They've been clumping up in Jerusalem.

But after the stoning of Stephen, it said they began to move forward into Judea and Samaria. And Philip particularly was seeing a pretty mighty revival going on in Samaria. So the scattering of believers from Jerusalem after Stephen's stoning is context for chapter eight. Actually, the beginning of it says, and Saul was approving of his stoning. That's the way it starts off this chapter.

So the believers are scattered after his stoning, and there's a great move of the Holy Spirit in Samaria. We know Jesus had spent three days there after he ministered to the woman at the well. We know that there had been other occasions where they went through Samaria, the cities of Samaria, that people were accepting the message of the Lord, that Christ had done miracles there, and he was planting seeds that would sprout up during this time. The great move of spirit in Samaria, things were going great for the advance of the gospel in chapter eight, and then we see this verse. So when they had solemnly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they started back towards Jerusalem, and they were preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans.

It was a mission trip that was just an ongoing mission trip, but as they had saturated the place and they're going back, they're hitting more villages and spreading the word, but some pretty strong disjunctive there, but an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip. Now Philip is ministering and things are going really well. He's kicking up dust and seeing a lot of people come to Jesus, and then all of a sudden, the spirit of the Lord says, get ready and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza. It's a desert road. Well, wait a second.

I've got fertile ground right here, and they're all accepting the word. This is good stuff and but I like that this is what it says. But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, get ready and go south. And the next verse says, so he got ready and went. Ain't that great?

To take the word of the Lord, whatever the message is he has for you, and when he says, get up and go, you got up and went, that's a wonderful testimony of your faithfulness. And that's what Philip did. He got ready and he went. And there was an Ethiopian eunuch. Ethiopia was bigger then than it is now.

It's from Aswan to Khartoum. It's a big section of Africa. It's a long ways away. And if you think about Ethiopia, and this sounds in any way familiar, all the way back nine fifty years BC, the Queen of Sheba had heard of the wisdom of Solomon and came up for a visit from Ethiopia, Queen of Sheba, queen of the Ethiopians. Candace is actually means queen.

It is their female ruler monarch type person, queen mother, queen of the Ethiopians. And this eunuch was in charge of all of her treasure, and it's a very rich area. And he had come to Jerusalem to worship. So this guy was a eunuch and had come to Jerusalem to worship. If you know much about the Old Testament and you know much about the Levitical law, that might seem to be at odds with each other because he was a eunuch and he had come to worship.

In Leviticus, there is a prohibition for eunuchs from public worship, partly because of self mutilation was often performed for heathen gods, but also because a maimed creature of any sort was not deemed fit for service of Yahweh. And so the tradition had grown up around that too that they weren't really welcome. They're kind of excluded. Certainly wouldn't be allowed into the assembly, into the place for the male Jews, these eunuchs. And actually, I think the next slide just says eunuch.

I'm gonna give you a definition straight out of the book, okay? This one can be touchy. The English form of the Greek word which means bed keeper. In the strict and proper sense, they were the persons who had charge over bed chambers and palaces and larger houses, in some cases over harems. But as the jealous and dissolute temperament of the East required this charge to be in the hands of persons who had been deprived of their virility.

The word unit came naturally to denote persons in that condition, emasculated males. But as some of these rose to be confidential advisors of their royal master or mistress, the word was occasionally employed just to denote persons in such a position without indicating anything of their proper manhood. That's the quote. Emasculated male. It was a high ranking official, had the funds to get from Ethiopia to Jerusalem.

It says specifically that he went there to worship. So we'd probably put him in the category of God fearer, but not allowed into the main worship among the Jews. And he was returning, and he was sitting in his chariot, and he was reading Isaiah the prophet. It's interesting he'd be reading Isaiah too. In the Levitical stuff, like I said, there were prohibitions against his entry into the fellowship.

But in Isaiah, there's an interesting passage. Let me get to it. So Philip ran up and heard Let me just skip onto that interesting passage. Here it is. We'll see later what passage he was on when Philip got near him, but this is an interesting one from Isaiah 56, three to five.

Do not let the son of the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord. So there's a lot of history in the Old Testament of don't mistreat the stranger or the foreigner among you. Right? And this says, don't let the son of the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord, a God fearer, don't let them speak saying the Lord has utterly separated me from his people. I'm a part if if you're part of the Lord's family, you're part of the Lord's family.

Nor let the eunuch say, here I am just a dry tree. For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths and choose what pleases me and hold fast my covenant. Even to them, I will give in my house and within my walls a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters, and I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. Isn't that good? It's good hope for this guy who's come a thousand miles probably to see and worship God.

And then he's reading Isaiah's scroll. It says right here, then the spirit said to Philip. Now when the spirit said, get up and get ready and go, he got ready and went. And now the spirit says to Philip, go up and join this chariot. And Philip ran up.

He ran alongside the chariot. Can you see that? And he heard Philip heard the guy in the chariot, the eunuch, reading Isaiah. It's common at the time to read out loud. I almost have never mind.

We used to say that an intellectual in Alabama is somebody. They can read without their lips moving. Sorry, that

one snuck up on me.

I didn't see that one coming. It was common at the time to read out loud. So Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah, the prophet, and said, Do you understand what it is that you're reading? It's actually a pun in Greek. It says, Do you get what you're getting up there?

Are you understanding? Are taking in all that you're seeing? Do you understand what it is you're reading? Obviously, I can hear what you're saying, but do you get it? Now, that's a couple of chapters later, but this is a humble response from the very powerful, wealthy minister of Candace of the Ethiopians.

And he said, Well, how could I? How could I? Have you all read Isaiah? How could I? Unless someone guides me.

And he invited Philip to come on up and sit right here with me. Stop running alongside. Jump up here with me. How could I unless someone guides me? He invited him up, and now this was the passage which he was reading at the time.

And he was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb that is silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In humiliation, his justice was taken away. Who will describe his generation for his life is taken away from the earth? Now, if you've been a Christian for longer, if you've read through the Bible before, are several suffering servant passages in the book of Isaiah. And those in Jerusalem that were gathered for whatever worship, whatever this celebration was, they really didn't know what to do with the suffering servant passages of Isaiah.

If they encountered them at all or spoke about them at all, they spoke of them in a national sense that Israel was the suffering servant of God. That Israel as a nation, as a people were the suffering servant of God. But they really didn't know what to do for that. And there's really not any historical evidence that any that anyone had seen it as Messiah would be this. They were expecting a conquering king, not a humble suffering servant.

But it's Isaiah 53, part of seven and part of eight, and this is seven and eight. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, and yet he did not open his mouth. Think about Jesus there. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away.

And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off from the land of the living for the wrongdoing of my people, Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Right? That's last week. During Christmas, we saw that several times. For the wrongdoing of my people to whom the blow was due, he stepped in and by his stripes were healed.

That's the same passage. That's the passage that he just so happened to be reading. Just so happened when Philip is having this amazing revival in Samaria and all of a sudden he's taken up to South Of Jerusalem headed towards Gosse, a desert road, desolate situation. And this is the passage when he runs alongside, he's invited up to start from. And it says, the eunuch answered Philip and said, please tell me.

Please tell me. Of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of someone else? I'm sure that Philip, who's just been preaching this mighty revival, was glad that he asked. Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this scripture, he preached Jesus to him. Isn't that great?

Do you think God had divinely ordained this appointment? He had. He knew where he needed he knew where he needed Philip, and he took him there. He gave him actually, kind of a softball. Really?

This is the passage?

Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. It's beautiful. There it is.

Philip opened his mouth, beginning from this very scripture, he preached Jesus to him. He told him the good news. And as they went along the road, they came to some water. It's a desert road. We know that.

It's kind of rare that you'd hit water on a desert road. But as they went along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, look, water. What prevents me from being baptized? Now that's verse 36. If you go forward in your New American Standard, which is the translation I'd usually use here, it'll skip right to verse 38.

There's no 37. It just skips right to 38. So it goes from, Here's water. What hinders me or what prevents me from being baptized? And he ordered the chariot stop, and they both went down into the water, and Philip as well as the eunuch and he baptized him.

And that's good. That's he he knew. He preached Jesus. The guy accepted it, and immediately, it was a step of obedience and he was baptized. And that's kind of what I said.

That's the way I am. Now if you go in your King James version or your new King James or your ASV, those three, we talked about this last week, go with the Textus Receptus tradition of manuscript, and you'll see this verse. Eight thirty seven says this, and then Philip said, if you believe in with all your heart, you may. So what hinders me from being baptized? You got to believe it.

And Ethiopian eunuch answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. And so they went down into the water and he baptized him. So this is a sticky situation. I don't ever want to erode confidence in the word of God. But Nick came in the other day when he was printing up the bulletin and he said, Hey, what happened to verse 37?

Well, we have a lot of manuscripts from various times from the 200s all the way forward to the 800s, 900s that have hardly any disagreement with them whatsoever. But occasionally, there's a verse. There's 16 of them in the New Testament, 16 times in the New Testament where there's a verse that in the Textus Receptus will be in there and it'll be in the King James, New King James ASV. And it won't be in the other ones because they believe, we believe that these other manuscripts were earlier. This one, we don't know.

This one's attested all the way back to Tertullian and Irenaeus in 180, so it probably was there, but we can't say it with great certainty. Like I said, I don't like to inject doubt. We know what the guy believed because he preached Jesus and he asked to be baptized, right? So we got that. But this one is from the New King James.

I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Before Noah got in the water this morning, I said, Noah, is there anything you want to say before you get in this water? Now getting in the water is making the statement. I believe in Jesus. But is there anything you want to say?

He said, I am blessed to know that Jesus is my savior and I want to follow him. I was like, man, that's good. So yes, let's dunk this kid. Here we go. He ordered that the chariot stop and they went down into the water and Philip as well as the eunuch and he baptized him.

And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away. Divine appointment. He took him there and he took him away from there. And the eunuch no longer saw him, but he went on his way rejoicing. Isn't that beautiful?

I got a word yesterday from day before yesterday from my mom that an uncle had passed. And I remember this uncle, I remember him fondly. I always liked him. But when I was younger, I remember him being a wild man, pretty out there. And then through a series of events, he came to be living in the same town where I grew up as kind of a Mayberry type town.

I mentioned Barney Fife and now Mayberry, I didn't mean to do that. But we grew up in this little greenhouse for Christian people. It was great. And my uncle Kenneth came into that community, and I remember him coming into church, he would would wrath. He would sit there and just wiggle.

He didn't want to he was kind of uncomfortable in a lot of ways. And I remember singing, why do you wait dear brother? If you all are Southern Baptist, you've heard this one. Why do you wait dear brother? What do you hope dear brother to gain by your further delay?

There's no one to save you but Jesus. There's no other way but his way. Why not? Why not? Why not come to him now?

And I remember after seven verses probably, I don't know. I remember uncle Kenneth surrendering to the spirit of God. And he came forward and not long after was baptized. And not long after that, he was a missionary in Guyana, and he served the Lord for the rest of his life. And so he died the day before yesterday.

At just the right time, right, in the fullness of time, God did what was necessary to get Philip to this Ethiopian eunuch. He did what was necessary to have the ground tilled up and ready. He he lobbed the the Isaiah 53 passage. Right? Can you tell me what this is all about?

I can't. And then he just took him away. He no longer saw him. He went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, a completely different city, different place.

And as he passed through, he just kept on preaching the gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea. It's pretty amazing that God has us here right now for this time. And he is continually making the way ready. But if if the way is ready right now, I'm not gonna sing seven verses of why do you wait, dear brother. But if if the if the time is right for you and the right now, you believe in Jesus and you wanna be baptized, here is water.

What hinders you? That's a sincere invitation. We're gonna go to communion next. I won't belabor the point, but if anybody wants to be baptized, come forward. All right.

Well, like I said, I'm not going to sing seven verses. I've gave you your shot. If you want to and you see from the pictures, I've had all different manners of baptism, and I love to be a part of it. So if you would, let me know. I'd be glad to help you out with that step of obedience to be where it is that God wants for you to be.

So I'm going to invite the ushers to come forward now. And Judy, if you come play something pretty. Florine surprised me this morning and asked me to come over and just sing a couple of songs during, but I'm not you got something pretty over there, right? No, no, I don't want to sing. Very that this would be a very real real experience.

Experience. It's symbolic, and we practice it as a symbol, as an ordinance, not a sacrament. This is, Lord, a statement about your grace, that you have given your body and your blood, that you have taken the stripes, Lord, for our healing, for our correction, for our atonement. So Lord God Almighty, as we distribute this bread, I pray a blessing over it and over everyone who would receive it, But also, Lord, over those who must let it pass just because it's not what they believe. It's not what they've come to put their faith or trust in.

Lord, I pray that the body of Christ in this place or wherever they live carry themselves in such a way as to draw them into relationship with you, our God. In Jesus' name, ask for your blessing on this bread. Amen. On the same night that Jesus was betrayed he's so faithful. He's so faithful.

On the same night that he was betrayed, he took bread after supper, and he said to his disciples who were there with him, this is my body which is given for you. Take this and eat, and do it as often as you will in remembrance of me. Lord Jesus, when I think of this, I think of your body living out in time and space, though you created the world's very agent of creation. You came born as a baby, grew in wisdom and in stature, Lord, and you lived it out in that body, Lord. You walked out perfect submission to the Spirit.

And so, Lord, I pray that we would be, by that same Spirit, able to walk it out, walk out, following after your good example, the steps that you have established in advance for us, that we'd be sensitive to the spirit, that when you say, Get ready and go, we'd get ready and go. Lord God Almighty, I also thank you for this representation of your blood, this cup, little plastic cup of grape juice. Lord, that we are celebrating the sacrificial atoning blood that was shed voluntarily in Jesus' blood, Lord. There's remission of sin. So God, I pray that you would attend right now, that you would attend with everyone who partakes of this cup, Lord, and again, for those who must let it pass.

Lord, that you would be actively pursuing perceptive, that they would perceive it. In Jesus' name, we ask your blessing on this cup. Amen. Manner that he had taken the bread, he also took the cup after supper and said to his disciples there, This is the new covenant in my blood. Now, those good Jewish boys there listening out knew what the old covenant was all about, and they've been longing for what Jeremiah had spoken of, this new covenant.

Jesus said, This is the new covenant in my blood. Take this and drink, and take me in. Take this in. As often as you will, do it in remembrance of me. Amen.

Paul says that as often as we do that, we proclaim the left the the Lord's death until he comes again. The Lord's death is forgiveness and an end to sin. Even the the ordinance of baptism when we buried with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life. Remember, the life, the death, burial, resurrection, the ascension. And actually, like the good old concept of the session.

God is Jesus is seated at the right hand of the father and interceding for us. Would you stand with me? And we're gonna sing, have thine own way, Lord.

Have thine own way, lord, have thine own way, thou art the potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me after thy will while I am waiting yielded and still. Have thine own way, Lord. Have thine own way. Search me and try me.

Master today, whiter than snow lord wash me just now as in thy presence humbly I bow have thine own way lord have thine own way wounded and weary help me I pray divine have thine own way lord have thine own way hold over my absolute sway

Amen. And we've got a benediction today from Colossians three. The putting off and the putting on passage there. It says, and let the message of Christ dwell among you richly. Whatever it is that you do, whether it's in word or deed, be doing it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.