37 Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men, brothers, what should we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:37-38 (LSB)
Read 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 on the site.
This last Sunday morning when we attended church we witnessed the testimony of a young man that reminded me so much of my own. Just like mine, when the Holy Spirit made that call, that drawing to Jesus that cannot be ignored. It is life changing. He told his wife that it wasn’t like all those other times before….
This was different. That’s the way it was for me as well that cold January Sunday morning in 1986. Nothing has been the same since. Afterwards, we worshipped and prayed then we heard the Gospel preached with power by a young man who was one of the youth in our church when I was teaching there back in the 1980’s. Why does our church have such a large number of people being baptized each month while so many other SBC churches do not? The key to that is that God is moving through the obedience of our people in sharing the Gospel and making disciples as our Lord commanded in His Great Commission.
16 But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. 17 And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to keep all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:16-20 (LSB)
Notice the importance of baptism in the passages I shared here. However, if we dig deeper we will find that there is the Baptism that is a sign which we witnessed this Sunday in church and then there is the “One Baptism” that Paul talked about in 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, which is not the same thing at all.