The Church and Baptism (Galatians 3:26-29)
This sermon was preached to Grace Church Guildford on 27 August 2023. The audio recording of the sermon can be found below along with the transcript.
Have you ever been part of something that you didn’t quite understand? Attended an event where you had to try to work out what was actually going on? A few years ago, my wife and I, went to a baseball game while travelling in America. Now let’s be honest, the basics of baseball aren’t that complicated. A ball is thrown at the batter, who tries to hit it and run past as many bases as possible. It is basically just a less complicated version of cricket! And yet, when I went along to that game, I realised that there was actually quite a lot about baseball that I didn’t understand. And so as I watched, I found myself asking all kinds of questions: Why do the fielders stand out there? Why is the batter now out? What do those lines on the grass mean? And, as the evening dragged on, I found myself asking the most important question of all: how many times do these teams have to be put out before we can all go home!
I wonder if you feel a little bit like that tonight. You’ve come along with a basic idea of what is going to happen. Maybe you’ve been to lots of church services or baptisms before. Or the person who invited you told you want to expect. Either way, you know we will sing a few songs, read from the Bible, pray to God, and listen to someone give a talk. And you know what to expect for baptism as well. That there will be a pool of water, and somebody is put into it. You have a rough idea what is going to happen tonight. And yet, like me at that baseball game, now you are here, you find yourself asking all sorts of questions: Why do these people all come to church? Why do these four young men want to be baptised? And what does baptism do anyway?
Well, if you are asking some of those questions tonight, then you can find the answers to them in the verses we just read together. Our reading was from a book in the Bible called Galatians. It was a letter, originally written by the Apostle Paul about 2000 years ago, to churches in an area called Galatia, which is in modern day Turkey. Paul had helped to start these churches. And now some years later, he is writing this letter to them after hearing of some of the difficulties they were having. Paul uses this letter to clarify what Christians should believe, and in 3:26-29 he does this for two topics in particular. We are going to see in our passage, Paul answers two questions, that these Galatians had, and you might have: (1) Who are the church? (2) What is baptism? Those are the two questions that Paul answers in our passage, and so they are the two questions that we’ll think about together. [...]
1. WHO ARE THE CHURCH? – THE CHILDREN OF GOD
Now I want you to notice that I have chosen the wording of this question very deliberately. For we are not asking, ‘What is church?’ But ‘Who are the church?’ And that is because the church is not a what, the church is a who. We sometimes use shorthand to speak about the church being this building we are now meeting in, and yet in the Bible the church is not a place, it is a people. And so, we don’t ask, ‘What is church?’ But ‘Who are the church?’
And this is really the main question not only answered by our passage, but by the whole book of Galatians. You see, after Paul left the churches in Galatia, others came and started to spread false teaching about the church. They told the Galatians that a church is a group of people who not only follow Jesus as their Saviour, but also follow a Jewish way of life. They said the church is both Christian and Jewish. And they taught we should be circumcised and keep the food laws and purity regulations for Jews found in the Old Testament, the first part of the Bible. As Paul puts it in 2:14, they forced Gentiles (that is non-Jews) to follow Jewish customs! To belong to the church, they said you needed to be Jewish.
Now, it is correct that in the Old Testament, the people of God were Jewish. God chose a man called Abraham, and his descendants (the Jewish people) to be his people, and blessed them with land, gave them his law and promised to send them his Messiah to save them. And yet, here in Galatians 3, Paul explains that the coming of the Messiah, or Christ (another word for Messiah), changes the composition of God’s people. That because Jesus was Jewish, a son of Abraham, all who are joined to Jesus, connected to Christ, are part of God’s people, adopted as sons of Abraham as well. Paul teaches us that the door into God’s people is not becoming a Jew, but belonging to Jesus. For as we read in 3:29, ‘If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.’
Now I doubt many here tonight share the views of those false teachers 2000 years ago, believe a church should keep Jewish customs. If you do, I’d love to talk more to you afterwards about how the Old Testament itself, shows us that it was always God’s plan to have a people made up not just of Jews, but of every country and culture on earth.
However, even if you don’t share the view of these false teachers in Galatia, it is possible that you actually hold a modern version of their view this evening. For like them, many today still understand Christianity to have more to do with custom and culture, than with Jesus Christ himself. It is common today for people to think of Christians as those who are born to Christian parents or brought up in Christian homes. Those taught Bible stories when they are little, taken along to church and Sunday school, brought up with the morals of Christianity. For many today, a church is simply a community of those who have been born into or brought up according to the customs of Christianity.
I wonder if you think about Christianity that way. Do you just assume that Christianity passes from one generation to the next in the same way that our musical or sporting interests do? After all, why do I like the music of Bruce Springsteen so much? Well, it is probably because my dad loved his music and introduced me to him when I was a teenager. Or why do I support Everton Football Club? Well, it certainly isn’t because they regularly win trophies! No it is because my mum supported them, and so I decided to do so as well when I was a little boy. And I wonder if you put religion into the same category. When you think about why someone is a Christian, you would say it is probably because they were brought up that way, taught the Bible and told to live according to Christian customs. For you, Christianity is mostly a matter of nature (who we are born to) and nurture (how we are brought up).
If that is what you think tonight, then there is a great danger that what you are about to see, will somehow confirm that view. For this evening, we will witness the baptism of four young men, all of whom were born into Christian families and brought up around the church. And so, there is a danger that you might see this evening as a kind of Christian Bar Mitzvah, a kind of cultural coming of age. And yet, that isn’t what this evening is about at all. For as they will soon share in their testimonies, while these young men are thankful to have Christian parents and had a Christian upbringing, they are not getting baptised tonight because they are children of Christians. No, they are getting baptised tonight, because they are children of God.
That is exactly what Paul tells us in our passage, is it not? Who are the church? Well, writing to these churches of Galatia in 3:26, Paul explains, ‘So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God.’ Paul claims that the church of God are the children of God. And that they become children of God, not by being born to Christian parents or brought up in Christian homes, but by being ‘in Christ Jesus’. [...]
If you just look through our passage, you can see how much emphasis Paul puts on this connection to Christ: [...]. Whether it is being in Christ, with Christ, or belonging to Christ, again and again, Paul explains that the fundamental characteristic of a Christian is not their relationship with their parents, but it is their relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Paul says that everyone who is connected to Christ, joined to Jesus, is a child of God, part of his people, a member of his church, no matter who their parents are.
What’s more, Paul explains in 3:26, what this relationship is, how we find our way into God’s family, become connected to Christ. For he explains, ‘in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith’. Paul says that it is not who you are born to, but who believe in, that makes you a Christian. It is not a matter of family, but of faith.
You see, the Bible teaches us, that while it is a blessing to be brought in a Christian home, far from delivering us, our relationship with our parents actually damns us. For at our birth they give us a sinful human nature, a rebellious heart against a holy God. And so, no matter how we are nurtured, we are all sinners by nature, we disobey God’s law, fail to keep his commands. As David explains in Psalm 51:5, from conception, we are captive to sin. Or as Paul puts it in Ephesians 2:3, ‘by nature [we are] children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.’ Friends, the Bible is clear no one is born a Christian, but we are all born sinners, deserving of God’s just and eternal judgment against our sin.
And yet, praise God, that here in Galatians 3:26, we read that through faith in Christ Jesus, we can become children of God. That we, who are heading towards Hell from the moment of our conception, can become heirs of Heaven. For the good news of Christianity, the Gospel, is that just as God promised in the Old Testament, he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, in the New Testament. And on the cross, he suffered all of God’s punishment for his people’s sin, so that if we turn away from sin and have faith in him, we can be forgiven. And not only forgiven, but Paul says here in 3:26 that that faith can bring us into God’s family. That when we believe in the Son of God, we become a son of God (Keller). When we are connected to Christ by faith, we become children of God. Friends, see here that Christianity is not about nature or nurture. But it is all about a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ!
I wonder if you see what this means, are you able to draw out some of the implications for this truth this evening? I want to briefly highlight three implications, or applications of this truth. Firstly, it calls you to have faith in Jesus. Friend, do you see here that no matter who your parents are, no matter how you were brought up, no matter if this is the first church service you have ever been to, or the five thousandth church service you been to, that Christianity offers you the same thing: salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, a place in God’s family by believing in God’s Son. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’ve come from or what you’ve done, you can be part of God’s people, belong to his family this evening, if you only believe in Jesus Christ.
Is that not what Paul says there in 3:28? He goes on to explain that in the church, ‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ Now he doesn’t mean there is literally no difference between these groups – as we saw in Titus 2 this morning, Paul can give different instructions to these different groups: tell masters and slaves how to separately behave, talks to men and women about their different roles, addresses those from Jewish and Gentile backgrounds in different ways. Paul here is not saying that we all somehow become identical. No, the distinctions remain, and yet there is no division. The church retains a wonderfully diversity, a deeper diversity than any company policy or political agenda could ever produce, and yet it also exists in complete unity, for we are ‘all one in Christ Jesus.’ Brought together, and belong together, because of our belief in him. Our connection with Christ is the one thing, the only thing, we Christians all share in common. And so, whether you are male or female, old or young, married or single, middle class or working class, British or Brazilian, Asian or Caucasian, struggling with mental health or physical health, brought up around the church, or away from church, born to Christian parents or to non-religious parents, see here that none of that ultimately matters. The only thing that matters is whether you are in Christ, or not; believe in Jesus, or not. For no matter who you are, where you have come from, or what is going on in your life right now, if you believe in Jesus, you belong to the church. For if you put your trust in the Son of God, become are a child of God.
Secondly, it convinces us of the power of the Gospel. If you are a Christian here tonight, then I hope this reminds you of just how powerful the good news of Jesus Christ really is. Brothers and sisters, this faith isn’t simply some cultural preference passed onto you from your parents. Christianity isn’t just a cluster of customs that come down to us through the centuries. No, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe, it is the hand of God reaching down into history and redeeming a people for himself.
God is creator of the whole world, and he wants children from across the whole world. God is sovereign over every nation on earth, and so he wants subjects from every nation on earth. And no culture or country, no closed heart or clenched hand, can resist his will. For on the cross Jesus purchased a people for his own possession, a people made up of every tribe and tongue, country and culture. And this Gospel that we preach and proclaim, is powerful enough to save them. This Gospel can save those who are brought up in communist China and those who are born in Islamic Iran. This Gospel can save those with post-modern secular assumptions and those who are all signed up for sexual revolution. Oh brothers and sister, this Gospel is not just for good kids brought up in Guildford. It is for all who believe, any who will come and cry out to Jesus. It is not just for our children, no, it is for every culture and country on earth.
Thirdly, see how this truth comforts us. One of the wonderful things about a baptismal service like this one tonight is the joy that we get to experience as a church family. Afterall, this church has literally been praying for these 4 young men for years. And in this room are many of the Sunday School and Bible Class teachers, Tuesday Club, Activate and YPF leaders who have week after week taught them God’s Word and urged them to trust in Jesus. And tonight, we all get to hear how they have done just that. And yet, surely even above our joy, is the joy of the parents and grandparents, family and friends, who have not just week by week, but day by day sat with these four since they were little boys, reading the Bible, talking about Jesus, praying with them and for them.
Praise God that there is so much joy in this gathering this evening! And yet, I am conscious that there are also those here tonight, who though you are rejoicing in the faith of these four, are grieving that this is not something that you have yet experienced in your own family. For your children and grandchildren have not trusted in Jesus. Indeed, some of them, even though you too read them Bible stories and prayed with them and for them day after day, have rejected Christ and turned away from all they were taught about him.
If that is you this evening, if your children are not yet God’s children, then see here how this truth about who the church are can be a great comfort to you.
For Christianity isn’t some custom you can simply pass on, like musical interests or sporting affiliations. Faith isn’t a matter of nature or nurture. It doesn’t depend on what you do or don’t do as a parent. No, it is down to the grace of God, a matter of the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart. Nights like this one are not somehow earned by exemplary parents who do it all right. No, they are given as good gifts from a gracious God.
That God would save any of our children, is a pure gift of his grace. And so, if your children or grandchildren are not yet God’s children. It’s not because of something you have done. No, it’s because of something the Lord has not yet done. In his perfect wisdom and goodness, it seems he has not yet decided to save your loved one. And yet, the faith of these four young men is evidence that he can do it; that our God, in his grace, can save our children. And so let us press on in praying that he will save them. For God is the one who will make the difference, not us. Salvation is of the Lord, not of parents! And so we must keep on praying that he will take our children, and make them his children.
2. WHAT IS BAPTISM? – THE CLOTHING OF CHRIST
We are covering this question more briefly, because while Paul answers it in our passage, it isn’t really his focus. These Galatians weren’t confused over baptism. However, in 3:27, to stress our unity in Christ, Paul uses baptism as a clear illustration of this, and by doing so teaches us something important about it. For in 3:27, he says, ‘for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.’ In 3:26, Paul taught that believing connects us to Christ. However, in 3:27, he tells us that baptism clothes us with Christ. Literally everyone who is baptised [‘all of you...’], put on the clothing that is Christ, dress themselves with Jesus. It seems like a strange and confusing image, but I hope it becomes clearer when you think of a modern-day equivalent.
Earlier I said that I was an Everton Football Club supporter. Now, how would you know that? Well of course, I could tell you directly. And yet, the clearest most visible way I can show you is by doing what? Well, it is by wearing an Everton football top. By clothing myself with a shirt, I can tell you who I support. And Paul is simply saying the exact same is true of baptism. By being baptised, we are declaring who we believe in! When we are baptised, it is like we set a big sign over our lives, stick a big badge over all our clothes, saying ‘I believe in Jesus’, ‘I am connected to Christ’.
As an aside, that’s why at Grace Church, and other Baptist churches, we don’t baptise babies! We only baptise believers, because in the Bible [...] we see that baptism is a sign of belief! It claims we are connected to Christ, clothes us with Christ! If we are baptised when we don’t have faith, then it is phoney, false! Just as a Liverpool supporter wearing an Everton shirt is a false supporter. Baptism isn’t for our children, it is for God’s children. [...]
Now you might think baptism is a very strange way of doing all this! Surely it would be much better to have an actual sign saying you are a Christian, or wearing some kind of a badge or shirt that everyone could see! Afterall, what does going under and coming out of water show us? And yet, in Romans 6, Paul explains that being baptised is actually the perfect way to picture that we are joined to Jesus. For when we go down into the water, we declare that we are united to him in his death, and when we come back out of the water, we declare that we are united to him in his resurrection! By being baptised, we are showing that we have joined Jesus on his journey through death and into life. That we are connected to Christ, are in Christ, as he suffers for our sin and is raised for our salvation.
That is how baptism takes the internal belief that connects us to Christ, and makes it externally visible for all to see! It acts out, pictures, our connection with Christ. As if we all put on Christ as our clothing, are all wearing the same football shirt together, showing who we believe in, and what family we belong to.
CONCLUSION
That evening I went along to my first baseball game, I found myself with a lot of questions, and struggled to follow the game for the first few innings because of them. However, once I got some answers to my questions by looking them up on my phone and listening carefully to those around me, it all started to make a lot more sense. Ands o was able to follow along and enjoy the game far better.
Now that you have answers to these two questions, I hope that that will also be true for you this evening.
I trust that when you look around at this gathering and wonder who the church are, that you now see that this isn’t some cultural community following certain customs, but a group of people made up from lots of different backgrounds, brought together not by culture or customs, but by Jesus Christ. Connected to one another, because they are connected by faith to him.
And I hope that now see that you too can come be a part of God’s people, if you only you would turn from your sin and trust in him this evening. I know I, or the person that invited you along this evening, would love to talk to you afterwards about what it means to become a Christian.
Similarly, I trust that as you now watch these four young men go down into and come back out of the water in baptism, you will see that it is a picture of their connection to Christ, a kind of clothing themselves with him.
And that you will consider whether you too are ready to make such a public profession. I wonder if you are here tonight and would call yourself a Christian, and yet you haven’t yet been baptised and joined the local church. If so, can I politely say, that unless you understand yourself to be baptised, you have no right to publicly call yourself a Christian. For we see here that baptism is the way that you make such a public profession, clothe yourself with Christ.
Being a Christian without being baptised, is like supporting a football team, but refusing to wear the shirt. Sure, you might be a supporter, but you have a very strange way of showing it. And so, yes you might say you are a Christ and you may well be a Christian, but baptism is how you show that you are a Christian.
If you are ready to do that, like these four young men are doing this evening, then why don’t you speak with Jamie or one of the other elders about it. What a joy it would be to be back here again in a month or two watching another brother or sister take this step that we are about to see tonight.
