A Sufficient Sacrifice and the Baptism that Saves

1:06Well, thank you for letting me take a sabbatical this summer. I, on my way to North Carolina, as I was driving across this great land of the USA, I stopped at a restaurant and had this really nice waitress come and serve. Me dinner, and then I was moved by her generosity that I gave her a nice big fat tip. I got down the road a little bit further just to realize that she had taken my credit card and had charged all kinds of stuff on it, and they canceled.

1:53So, there I was without my means of payment, my credit card, and I was heading to this hotel along the way. And I thought, okay, now where am I going to be able to stay? Because you have to have a credit card. So, I had to find a hotel that took cash, which is kind of a little more difficult to find than you might think. But I had these two crisp $100 bills, and I'll come back to that a little bit. I needed something to get me in this hotel. But, what I want to talk to you about this morning, as we prepare our hearts and minds to baptizing and baptism and what it's all about, I want to direct your thoughts to two concepts we see in scriptures. The first is a sufficient sacrifice, and the second is the baptism that saves. So, first, I want to look at a sufficient sacrifice. A sufficient sacrifice. And what I want to do is, I want to walk through Scripture, and I want to highlight some key sacrifices that took place in the former Testament that will inform our understanding of what exactly is the sufficient sacrifice. The New Testament must be informed by the old.

3:30So, first, we'll start in the garden, right? Sacrifice that took place in the garden. If you will remember, Adam and Eve had been given this paradise, and they sinned. They disobeyed God, they rebelled against God, they listened to the voice of the serpent. And then we read, and what happened in Genesis 3:7, right afterwards? Then, right after they had sinned, the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sowed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. So, the first realization of sin that we see in Scripture is that it drives a person. Away from God, right? There's a shame that took place, and it caused them to run, to flee the presence of their good Creator, and they fled and they hid.

4:44So, what did God do? Well, he comes, we see the first sacrifice. And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and he clothed them. Now, how do you get garments of skin from an animal? Death is involved, right? Death is involved. The removal of the skin is involved. It was a covering for the animal. And that covering was taken from the animal, and it was given to two sinfully undeserving people. And the result was that Adam and Eve were covered. Their nakedness was covered. So, as we start understanding what a sufficient sacrifice is about, we must anchor it where we first see sacrifice. It's about a covering of shame.

5:47It's a covering. Fast forward, we come to the Exodus, right? Egypt, or Israel is in Egypt. Under a tyrannical yoke of Pharaoh. And then we have that first Passover, which broke the Pharaoh's resolve to keep Israel. Read about it. Exodus 11, beginning in verse 4. Moses said, Thus says the Lord, about midnight, I am going to go out into the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die. Fast forward to verse 7. But against any of the sons of Israel, a dog will not even bark, whether against man or beast, that you may understand how, how the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.

6:59How the Passover teaches us how God makes a distinction between people. And it's not going to be about a genetic bloodline. It's going to be on the basis of the blood of an innocent sacrifice. And that is how God is going to make a distinction. In fact, do you read on in Exodus 12, beginning in 3? Let me just read to you a portion of the scripture. Speak to all the congregation of Israel. On the tenth of this month, they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their father's household, a lamb for each household. And then in verse 5, your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the 14th day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight. Moreover, they should take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lentil of the houses in which they eat it. And verse 11, it is the Lord's Passover. For I will go through the land of Egypt and on that night, and I will strike down all the firstborn of the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment. I am the Lord.

8:29So as you come to that first Passover, we understand a Passover, the lamb, there is death. The lamb had to be consumed. The blood on the doorposts. It was really kind of a gruesome sight, right? Exodus 12, 13 says, The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. So there's the result being saved from the hand of God's holy destroyer. Not to mention Pharaoh's tyranny, right?

9:12They had to be saved from God's destroyer. The blood protected them while they fed upon the lamb itself. It also marked a new beginning. Exodus 12:1 says, Now the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, This month shall be the beginning of months for you. It is to be the first month of the year to you. What you have coming out of this moment in history is a distinction of a favored class of people, and that distinction is based upon the blood of a sacrificed lamb.

9:59Fast forward, we come to the Levitical sacrifices, the Levitical sacrifices. One of the very first things as you start beginning to read through Leviticus chapter 1, you get these pictures of sacrifice. The very first thing that God makes clear is that the way to God was through the sacrifice of an innocent victim. You didn't come to the tent of meeting. To the tabernacle. You didn't come to it without an offering. Let me describe one of these offerings to you. Leviticus 1, verses 3.

10:44If his offering is a burnt offering, it shall come. Bring it. He shall offer it. It's a male to be a male without defect. He shall offer it at the doorway of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, that it may be accepted for him to make an atonement on his behalf. And thus he shall slay the young bull, or whatever it was, certainly in this case, bull before the Lord. And Aaron's sons and the priests shall offer up the blood and sprinkle the blood around the altar, that is the doorway of the tent of meeting. He shall then skin the burnt offering and cut it into pieces.

11:28This is not a pretty picture, by the way. The sons of Aaron and priests shall put fire on the altar and arrange the wood on the fire. Then Aaron's son, the priest, shall arrange the pieces, the head, the suet, over the wood which is on the fire, that is on the altar. Its entrails, however, and its legs shall be washed with water, and the priest shall offer it up in smoke, all of it on the altar for a burnt offering.

11:58Get this picture as you look. Look at this worshiper coming before. God is showing them the way to him is through sacrifice. If you look at the sacrifice, it's a mess. Sin makes a mess of lives. You keep going through Leviticus, and you see several kinds of offerings. There is the burnt offering, covered, provided spiritual covering, atonement. You have a grain and a peace offering that speaks about reconciliation and fellowship with God and with each other. There is the sin offering, which comes on a substitution, a substitution. Your sin must be paid by another.

12:46And this was how one was made favorable to God. Fully meeting God's standards of righteousness was not something that one had intrinsically or could muster up. It had to be given. And this is what the word of the Lord is teaching us: that his righteousness is so much higher than ours and that we fall painfully short. But he is merciful and good, and he has provided a way for us to have that which he requires. And there's a guilt offering that involves repentance and the removal of the basis of guilt.

13:28Profound. And the result, these Levitical sacrifices, as you work through the book, the result is that Israel could walk with God. I mean, you've been saved from bondage by the Holy God. Now you've got to learn to live with him. The way to God is through sacrifice, and the way you walk with God is through the merits of another. But then you keep going through the scriptures and you come to Isaiah. And all of a sudden, you realize that the garden sacrifice, the Passover, the Levitical sacrifices are all pointing to a greater reality. They're pointing to the sufficient sacrifice.

14:19And it's going to be a human. Isaiah 53 describes this suffering servant in Isaiah as a lamb that is led to the slaughter. And that should bring back images and thoughts about what a lamb sacrifice was to do and provide. Second thing Isaiah 53 teaches us is that he was marred severely. Isaiah 52, 14 says, just as many were astonished at you, my people, so his appearance was marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of Men, something grossly defigured. Crucifixion will do it, even though the death penalty hadn't even been enacted at this time in history. But he was going to be marred severely for the sins of his people. Isaiah 53:4 says, Surely our griefs he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried, yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was pierced through for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening of our well-being fell upon him, and by his scourging we are healed.

15:50All of us. Like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. So the result, his accomplishment of the service-suffering servant of Isaiah, he endured the punishment of his people. He brought about their healing and well-being. And he justified and bore sins, and he prayed for transgressors. This is what I love about the Christ of Scripture. Know earthly kings are dependent upon the people to make them strong. But in God's kingdom, it's totally different. It is his king that makes his people strong.

16:47You see, the insufficiencies of the previous sacrifices were many. But one reason comes to the top more than any of the others. All the other sacrifices were unwilling. They just happened to show up and looked too good in the pen and they got carted off. But if you could ask them, Do you want to go do this? Do you want to bear the sin of these people and go be chopped to pieces and burn it? I think you'd have a pretty much unanimous way, right?

17:23I remember in a rather intense debate, I was engaged with a Muslim leader a few years back, a number of years back, I guess now, and it was over the justice of God. And we were talking about the justice of God, and he made the statement: he said, Well, you Christians have it all wrong. It is not just for God to take the sins of an individual and put it on somebody else. That is unjust. And that's my response: unless you Willing, unless he understands completely what he's doing. That's a problem with dear God is that he can arbitrarily just forgive on no basis. But there has to be a sufficient sacrifice, or we totally cheapen the righteousness of God.

18:22Something Scripture will not do. He is holy. So we come. As Jesus steps on the scene, John the baptizer sees him. One of the very first things he says in John 1:29, as he saw Jesus coming, he said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. This is him. This is where everything has been pointing. It's him. It's him. Now, how does a lamb take away sin? We've already kind of been walking through this, right? Through sacrifice.

19:12He removes the guilt of sin, pays the payment for sin. There's another way that he removes sin, and that's by judgment. When the course of this individual is concluded, there will not be sin on Late, great planet Earth. He will remove sin by his sacrifice in his people. And by judgment, he will remove sinners who would not be cleansed before him. The righteous one will take away the sin of the world. And this is fundamentally what we have a problem with, right? It's sin.

19:59Paul made it very clear as he took the gospel to the Gentiles, to us Gentiles, and he began proclaiming the excellencies of Israel's Messiah. That was one of the first things he communicated. You do have a sacrifice. Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed. You have a sacrifice sufficient to present you holy in God's presence. As you keep going through Scripture, you come to Revelation. You understand that the Lamb is the most worthy in heaven. Revelation 5, John is weeping because there is a book that won't be opened. And he's weeping. He says, Who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals? And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the book.

20:56Then I began to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the book or to leave. Look into it. And one of the elders said to me, Stop weeping. Behold, the lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has overcome, so as to open the book and to open its seven seals. And I saw between the throne with the four living creatures and the elders a lamb standing as if it had been slain. What in the world does a lamb look like that has been slain? Bearing the marks of a crucifixion, bearing the marks of a sacrifice.

21:37Hard to imagine. Everyone in heaven and earth bows down before him, or the 24 elders bowed down before him. As you go on, you realize that in chapter 6 of Revelation, the Lamb will unleash his wrath upon the earth. And as Scripture concludes, there is this picture in heaven with the Lamb as the ruler of heaven. Revelation 22, verse 1. Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb. And in the middle of its streets, on either side of the river, was the tree of life, bearing 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves. Of the trees were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse, and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his bondservants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads, and there will be no longer any night, and they will not have need of the light of lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them, and they will reign forever and ever.

23:00So, as you put all this together, Jesus is that sufficient sacrifice. You see it in the garden sacrifice, he provided covering. See it in the Passover lamb. It describes the way that God distinguishes between peoples. It's a way God saved his people from himself. And it provides a new beginning. We see in the Levitical sacrifice the way to God and the way to walk with God. See the suffering servant who willingly endured the punishment of his people and brought about their healing and well-being, justified them, bore their sin, and prayed. See the believers Passover.

23:49See the Revelation Lamb, the most worthy in heaven and the ruler of heaven. Yeah, Jesus is. The sufficient sacrifice. Behold the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. So I was making my way down the road to get to this hotel, trying to figure out how am I going to make it, how am I going to get in? Well, I had these $100 bills. They were new, and I went in and found a hotel that would take it, cash only, you know, that kind of thing. And first thing is, they took my $100 bill, took out a marker, marked all over it, looked through it, and I said, What are you doing? Well, we've had a lot of counterfeits lately, and just wanted to make sure this is real. You see, I couldn't check into that place without a sufficient note, right? They wanted to make sure that that note was sufficient and what it was. Same is true as we stand before heaven, and he says, Why? Why should you be let in? Because I have a sufficient righteousness. I have a sufficient sacrifice. So then the question becomes: how do you make Christ's sacrifice your own? How do you make the Messiah? By the way, Hebrew, Messiah, Greek, Christos.

25:20Same title, different language. How do you make? Well, that's the second part. Of this message. And it goes quicker than the first. I want to make plenty of room for Afi. Baptism that saves. We've looked at the sufficient sacrifice. What is the baptism that saves? By the way, that image is Noah's Ark in a great flood. What is the baptism that saves? Well, if you look at 1 Peter 3:21, I'll have it up here, but if you want to turn, that's where it is. Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you. Not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So if you just pull out your pencil and do a little Bible study and look at the connectors and circle them, the first word you'd come to is corresponding to that, or it's a phrase, but in Greek, you'd see it's a word. Corresponding to that, circle that one.

26:28Not, that's another connector, circle that. And then the word but, circle that. Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you, not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience. So there is something that baptism compares with. There is something that baptism is not, and there is something that baptism is. And that's what we want to look at real quickly. Baptism compares with Noah's flood. If you'll remember, the ancient world was baptized in water and it perished, right?

27:10The water was and is symbolic of death, right? The water was death, wrath. Noah was not exempted from the flood, was he? He had to go through the flood, right? But he went through it in a place of safety, right? But he was not exempted. The ark was the means for humanity to survive the flood, right? The flood of God's wrath. It was the means for humanity to survive the flood and come out of a world under judgment.

27:49So there are two means of salvation that are depicted in Noah's flood. One, the water. Two, the ark. The water saved Noah and his family from their corrupt world, right? That's how Noah was removed from that corrupt generation, right? The ark saved Noah from the water. Two means of salvation, right? So in order to be saved from the water, they had to leave their old world behind and get on the ark. That's the picture. Corresponding to that.

28:33So that's what baptism compares with. Second, the baptism that saves is not an external ritual, right? Baptism that now saves you, it's not the removal from dirt from the flesh. It's not some external act. It's not just going through some kind of ritual that touches the body but cannot touch the soul, that cannot touch the spirit. Man is more than just flesh. You and I are more than just flesh and blood. We are spirit. And something has to happen to our spirit, to our soul, to our immaterial being. Something has a new heart. We have to have a new heart.

29:26Third, the baptism that saves is something. What is it? Peter says, it is an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is an appeal. It's a request. It's a request to God. But that request implies the presence of faith on three levels. First of all, there is the awareness of sin. An agreement with God, His righteousness, and our painful shortcoming. And remember, man's natural tendency is to flee God's presence, right, when his conscience is awakened. And so this appeal is: yes, I agree, your standard of righteousness far above mine.

30:23And I am a sinner, and I fall short. So instead of running away, I'm running to you with my problem. It's a statement of faith, it involves agreement. Second, there is the resurrection of Christ. To be resurrected is to be brought out of the category of death. The resurrection of Jesus Christ testifies that he made it through God's judgment, he made it through the curse. And there isn't anyone else in the history of the planet that competes with that, right? He came out of the grave, conquered death.

31:07What a king. Third, there is an appeal to God. And appealing to God, as I already said, is the opposite of fleeing from him. It's saying, I have sinned, I am short. But because I see in your provision, you gave me a sufficient sacrifice. So instead of running from you, Or excusing my sin, I'm going to agree with you about my sin, and I'm going to come into your presence because I know that you are good, and because I do know you sent your Son.

31:44So, you put it all together: what is the baptism that saves? It's the plunging of faith that seeks reconciliation with God through Christ alone. It is the honest cry of the soul for pardon through solidarity with Jesus, who is the ark of God's deliverance from the wrath to come. And the good news of the gospel is such faith will always be met with God's saving embrace. So, Jesus is the sufficient sacrifice, and baptism is an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, back to the question: why should I let you in?

32:30Because your righteousness has been granted to me in the person of your Son, and I am in solidarity with him. And that was your will from the beginning, bringing forth a nation who loves you completely, thoroughly, with all of their heart, with all of their soul, and with all of their mind. Moment, I'm going to bring Effie up here to give. Your testimony, and I know I went a couple more minutes longer than I said I would go, but I knew I would, so I hedged that. But I just want to close by thinking about the images before us.

33:15It's really, you think about this as a death chamber. You have the cross, the means of Messiah's death, but it wasn't something that man did, it's something that God did, because there he poured out his wrath upon his son. The water represents the grave, a grave, wrath. You see, as Effie goes in, he is coming, he is appealing to God for a good conscience by solidarity with Christ and His work on the cross and him alone. He is buried with Christ, but that solidarity doesn't end in the grave because Christ came out of the grave. And so, what's pictured in baptism is the solidarity with Christ in his crucifixion, in his burial, where he removed sin permanently, and where he came out of the grave. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, may we all run to you, knowing that you are good, that you have made a provision for our sin, that you call men of every tribe. And every nation and women from every tribe and every nation to come to your Son.

34:38Father, thank you for the righteousness that you have revealed. Thank you for the righteousness that you have provided. Father, may we all call upon him and appeal to you for solidarity with him. What a wonderful Savior. What a wonderful King. In Christ's name. Amen.