Last week I preached wounded for me. When we understand the Substitutionary death of Christ, realizing it is for us; it will have a profound affect on us. It is cause in us a desire to be obedient to the Lord. We then have a desire to identify ourselves with the Lord. How do we identify ourselves with Christ. Acts 2:37-41 The first act of obedience to Christ is to be identified with Him in Baptism. Why were they immediately baptized? Romans 6:3,4. To show we are raised to walk in newness of life. Baptism is a proclamation the death of Christ was for me. Is this true in our text? Let's look at Acts 2. In our text, we see the church assembled on the day of Pentecost. After the church is empowered, they go and preach the Gospel. Peter preaches a Gospel message on that day. He preaches concerning Jesus. He preaches Christ I delivered by the counsel of God, they had crucified Him, and God had raised Him up. Upon hearing the message, the people asked, "What shall we do?" Peter then responded to the question. Repent, and be baptized. Notice, the question followed the audience being pricked in their heart, after they felt the weight of their sin. They were told to repent. to repent means to change ones mind about sin. We want to remember they are to repent toward God, Acts 20:20,21. Repentance precedes faith. Repentance is toward God, faith is toward the Lord Jesus Christ. Then after repentance, they were to be baptized. for the remission of sins--because of the remission of sins. Some erroneously teach this verse to mean to be baptized in order to receive the remission of sins. Here I use an illustration to explain the word for. etc. |
