“37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off - for all whom the Lord our God will call.” ”
Symbols require interpretation. Imagine that you take a trip to India. As you walk through the streets, you come to a house with a swastika on the front door. The swastika is, of course, the symbol that the Nazis used. What kind of people would have that symbol on the door to their home? Hindus would. Many Hindus use that symbol to mark the entrance to their homes. It is one of the Hindu symbols for well-being. They have used it for centuries before the Nazis did.
Symbols require interpretation. In America, you can identify a married woman by whether or not she has a ring on the ring finger on her left hand. In Russia, you would identify a married woman by the ring on her right hand. If you were in a Hindu culture, you would identify a married woman by the gold necklace she wore.
Symbols don’t explain themselves. They require interpretation. Before looking into these symbols, I would see a Hindu woman with a gold necklace and have no idea that she was married. Before looking into these symbols, I would see assume that any swastika on the door to any home implied something about neo-Nazis. Symbols don’t explain themselves. They require interpretation.
Baptism is a symbol that requires interpretation. Baptism doesn’t explain itself. If a man with no knowledge of the Christian faith watched what we did this morning, he would have no idea what it signified. ‘The parents brought two babies to the front of the room. They apparently had to make promises before the pale man in the suit would wash the babies’ heads.’
Baptism doesn’t explain itself. We need it explained. The better you understand what baptism signifies, the better you can appreciate the grace behind it. The better you understand baptism, the better you can appreciate what it means for you and for your children.
Your baptism symbolizes your inclusion in the people and promises of God. That is the claim of this sermon: your baptism symbolizes your inclusion in the people and promises of God.
We will study this in three points. First: personal guilt. Second: amazing grace. Third: the covenant promises. We see the personal guilt of the people in verse 37. We see the amazing grace of God in verse 38. We see the covenant promises in verse 39.
First: personal guilt. If baptism is about inclusion in the people of God, then there must be some demarcation between who has joined the people of God and who hasn’t. The church, after all, doesn’t experience the joy of baptizing everyone. Something must happen before baptism occurs. We see this in Acts 2. This gathering at Pentecost had realized that they had excluded themselves from the people of God and they wanted to come in. We see their realization in verse 37, ‘When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?’
These people had become convinced that they had put themselves out of God’s favor. Peter had convinced them. This is the aftermath of his Pentecost sermon in which he told them about Jesus and his resurrection. Many of Peter’s listeners had opposed Jesus. They had mocked him in public. They had conspired against him in private and now they were convinced that what Peter said was true; “let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”
These people had just realized how shabbily they had treated the Son of God. Maybe you once treated a boyfriend like dirt for years only to realize after breaking up with him that he was really quite a catch. If so, you have doubtlessly looked back with shame over how you ignored his kindnesses. You have regretted the ways in which you spurned what you should have enjoyed. That guilt is just a small picture of the guilt experienced by this crowd. They hadn’t just mistreated a good man, they had been involved in killing God’s son.
My guess is that you would feel quite horrible to discover that you offended someone in a rather profound way. My guess is that your feeling of guilt would be greater the closer you were to that person. You don’t want to offend a friend of a friend at a dinner party, but you would feel much worse if you profoundly offended your mother. The more important the relationship, the greater the distress when an offense takes place.
These people at Pentecost had caused offense in the most important relationship. They had offended God. You and I can get in that same boat. Now, you can’t know how you would have responded to Jesus if you lived in first century Palestine. You can, however, know that your sin had the same consequence as the sin of those men. Your sin put Jesus on that cross. Let everyone in this room be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.
You weren’t in the crowd before Pilate shouting for Jesus’ blood, but, if you are a Christian, you know that you are by no means innocent of that blood. You weren’t conspiring with the chief priests, but the sins that you have chosen to commit demand that blood all the same.
If you recognize your own guilt, you can resonate with the guilt of that crowd. Luke tells us that they were cut to the heart. Being cut to the heart is part of salvation. If you have never had any sense of profound guilt for your profound sin, you are still in your sin. You haven’t recognized the beauty of God because you haven’t recognized the shabbiness of sin. As John put it, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
These people on Pentecost were no longer deceiving themselves. They asked the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” in hopes that something could be done.
That is a gut wrenching question. Imagine yourself asking it. There is a home security video going viral. It shows an out of control driver hitting a nine-year old girl with a stolen car. The video was released in hopes of catching that man who ran off after the accident. Imagine that you were that driver. My guess is that you wouldn’t run. My guess is that you would immediately get out and, with tears in your eyes, ask that girl’s father, ‘what can I do?’ You would feel completely at the mercy of that father and anything he asked you to do, you would do because you want to make it right.
The impulse to do whatever is necessary for forgiveness is a sign of conviction. “Brothers, what shall we do?” You see that in the story of Ni Yong-fa. This Chinese convert told Hudson Taylor, “I greatly believed in Jesus, I do believe in him and will come to be baptized… when I heard you preach I found what I wanted. I was so overjoyed [that] if you had said I must be immersed in fire instead of water I should have desired it with all my heart.”
A man who truly recognizes his need for God’s grace has no desire to bargain with God. He throws Himself on God’s mercy. That’s what this crowd did when they asked, “what shall we do?” Don’t try to bargain for grace. Throw yourself entirely on God’s mercy.
This crowd asked the apostles what they must do. That is remarkable because this is the crowd who earlier that day had accused the apostles of being drunks. This is the crowd who had considered the apostles misguided at best and blasphemers at worst. Now they considered this unimpressive group of fishermen, zealots, and tax collectors to be the only reliable source of wisdom for the most pressing question of their lives.
That is the situation between the world and the church today. The world often thinks the church’s message is as relevant as that drunk.
The message that is most needed by men and women today is, at first, dismissed as irrelevant just like it was on that day. Imagine a lonely man dismissing love as irrelevant. Imagine a gloomy man dismissing joy as irrelevant. Imagine a weary man dismissing rest as irrelevant. People are dismissing what they most need as irrelevant. They are rejecting God’s Son. Only the power of the Holy Spirit and the presentation of the gospel can bring out today what happened at Pentecost. Only the Spirit and the gospel can cause people to ask, “what shall we do?” and mean it.
Baptism signifies this personal guilt. To signify sins being washed away, there must be an acknowledge of sin. There must also be an acknowledgement of grace and baptism certainly signifies such. We see that in our second point: amazing grace. Peter didn’t give a message of condemnation to that crowd. He gave a message of grace. He told them how they could find forgiveness. He said, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”
Consider the confidence necessary for Peter to offer that forgiveness. Thinking back to that father with the little girl who was hit by the car, would you feel comfortable offering forgiveness on that father’s behalf? That’s what Peter was doing. ‘Rest assured. Jesus’ Father will forgive you.’
It is one thing to speak on behalf of another person; it is another thing to speak on behalf of God. Peter could only offer the forgiveness of God because he was convinced that God would forgive. He was convinced because he had been with Jesus for three years. He had heard about God’s forgiveness. He had experienced himself after he publicly disowned Jesus. Peter wasn’t a man talking down to that crowd. He was on their level like every preacher of the gospel.
Peter invited that crowd. He invited them to repent. These people had killed Jesus, but they could repent. If they could repent of killing the Son of God, you can repent of any sin. The only unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which is denying the power of the Spirit by refusing to have any conviction of sin. If you have conviction of sin, you have not committed the unforgivable sin. You can repent. If the Father forgave the people who murdered His Son, He can forgive whatever sin you can’t seem to get out of your mind.
Baptism signifies the reality of forgiveness. You can be forgiven, and baptism reminds you of that fact. Baptism reminds you that repentance is accepted by a glad God.
Repentance involves a change. Peter invited these people to change. The good news of Jesus Christ is that people can change. The call to repent is not a declaration of condemnation. It is an invitation which says, ‘change is possible.’ If you are born of the Spirit, you can change. “If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,” as Paul put it. You might need to hear that this morning because Satan might be telling you that you are beyond the Spirit’s power to change and that you are beyond the blood’s power to cleanse. Satan is a liar. Peter told the crowd to change. Baptism reminds you that people can change by the power of the Spirit.
Baptism also signifies inclusion. Peter told the crowd to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. To be baptized is to be included in Jesus’ people. Baptism is the symbol of what we studied in the Heidelberg Catechism. “I am not my own but belong body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.”
Baptism is about belonging. Fraternities and sororities have symbols of belonging. Branches of the military have symbols of belonging. Jesus’ people have a symbol of belonging and it is baptism. Even those who killed Jesus were invited to wear it and you are too.
Peter invited this crowd to be baptized. He also shared the promise of the Holy Spirit, “you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Baptism is a reminder of how desperately you need the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit was already at work in these people. That’s why they were cut to the heart. That’s why they asked, “what shall we do?”
Baptism is a reminder of the necessity of the new birth by the Spirit. Baptism is about belonging to Jesus. Baptism is a reminder that people can change. Baptism is a sign of forgiveness of sins. Baptism is also a sign of the covenant. That is our third and final point: covenant promises.
Peter invited the crowd to repent, to be baptized, and to receive the Spirit of God. Now neither Luke nor Ruth repent. Neither of them can change their diapers let alone change in any other way. Neither Luke nor Ruth are choosing to be baptized. Neither would we say that these little children have already born again by the Spirit based on this act of baptism. So why do we baptize babies?
We baptize Reformed believers’ babies because the promises confirmed in baptism are for them too. That’s how we read verse 39, “the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off - for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
This is covenantal language. Covenants are promises that God has made with humanity. God chose Israel out of all the nations of the world to be His. He made promises to that peculiar group of people. That was a covenant.
We live in a culture and age that doesn’t think in terms of covenants. We think in terms of personal choice. We tend to think that inclusion is about personal choice and that therefore your inclusion in anything should depend on your choice.
If you asked an Israelite woman, ‘why are you part of the people of God?’ She would say almost nothing about personal choice. She would tell you about the covenant. Please turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy 6:21-25. While I read this ask yourself if your answer to the question, ‘why are you a Christian,’ sounds more like this or more like a personal choice. Deuteronomy 6:21-25, “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Before our eyes the Lord sent signs and wonders—great and terrible—on Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. But He brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land He promised on oath to our forefathers. The Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.”
That answer isn’t about her choice. That is about God’s covenant promises. We think that symbols of initiation should be about us and our choice. Initiation into a covenant is about God and God’s choice
You see that in circumcision – the Israelites equivalent of baptism in our way of thinking. God told Abraham, “For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised.”
Circumcision was not an uncommon symbol of those days. Many ethnic groups around Israel used it as a mark of inclusion, but they only did it when the boy hit puberty. They only did it when the boy could decide for himself. That’s not what God did. He included babies even though they couldn’t decide for themselves because his promises are for us and for our children.
That’s what Peter said too. Baptism, the sign of the new covenant is for us and our children just like the mark of the old covenant because His promises are for us and our children.
Next week, we will see that Israelite children were called to live by those promises and that our children are to live by those promises. The promise of forgiveness of sins is for you and for your children. The promise of the Holy Spirit is for you and for your children. You must live by those promises. Your children must live by those promises. That’s next week’s study of profession of faith.
The promises are for you and your children but you and your children must trust the promises. There is nothing magical about baptism. It is sacramental. It signifies the work of God. It signifies the promises of God. If you have been baptized, believe that sins can be forgiven. Repent of your sin. Live by the Spirit.
If you aren’t baptized, recognize that you – just like those men at Pentecost – have the blood of God’s son on your hands. Believe the good news that Jesus’ Father will forgive you. Be included. Repent and be baptized. Amen.