A foundation of believing that causes you to step up to the reality of who Jesus says you are. I am immersed into something that I was not in before. I am a totally new person, connected to God vitally, and connected to the body of Christ. Water Baptism is my testimony to the world that to the spiritual powers, that old person died, I'm joined to the living God, the power of sin is broken. I'm a free man, there's a new person risen up, born again.
Welcome to our next session in this series, a series of Foundational Principles. It's found in Hebrews 6, and this session today we're going to be looking at the Doctrine of Baptisms.
I encourage you to have a Bible, to read your Bible, to follow along the scriptures that we share, and open you heart to let the spirit of God touch you and change you right where you are. We will pray for you right at the end of this session, and we'll believe for the spirit of God to come into the room where you're watching, and to touch your life very, very powerfully.
Let's just open our Bible in Hebrews 6. The author is saying:
“Leaving the discussions of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection or maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from: dead works; of faith towards God; of the doctrine of baptisms; of the laying on of hands; of resurrection of the dead; and of eternal judgement -and this we will do if God permits.”
So the author is speaking first of all about the challenges - that if these Christian believers were very mature, they actually should be teaching the word of God. They should have enough in them now to be able to instruct others, to help others; and yet they remained immature. They remained spiritually like infants, and so he says: we want all of us - let us all go on to maturity.
In other words, God's goal for every one of us, as a believer, is to grow into maturity; but for that to happen he says there are two things need to happen:
1) You must have a foundation in your life. If the foundation is not laid, you cannot become all that God intended you to become. It is impossible.
2) You can't go on to maturity unless God permits; so God has a vital part in your growth and development, to fulfil your course and your destiny. If you wish to remain a child, well that's fine; but it's not what God has planned for you, and you're selling yourself short of all that God intends.
So you notice he says here: “laying a foundation”. The foundation of any building is unseen - it's under the building, supports the building; and we saw in Christchurch during the earthquake, if the foundations aren't secure, and the ground it stands on is not secure, then the whole building can collapse very, very easily. So there is a foundation to be built into your life. It is a spiritual foundation.
It is something real and substantial. When it's there, you can build your life. When it isn't there, your life just goes in what seems to be a cycle of the same kinds of things, and you never grow up, and never mature. That's not God's plan. God's plan is for us to grow and to represent Him, and to advance His kingdom everywhere that He positions us.
So we saw the first two of these foundations: #1 was Repentance from Dead Works - the turning away and abandoning of activities and things that we do, trying to somehow gain favour with God - dead works that have no life in them, that are full of duty and guilt-obligation, motivated by fear, and the wrong kinds of motivations. Any work and activity you're not motivated by love, and a response from God, becomes a dead work.
The second one was Faith - Trust in the Living God; and we shared some aspects: that without faith, it's impossible to please God. We must learn how to lean on Him, and to trust in Him, and it's not just something you start your journey with. It's something you continue walking in; and the biggest challenge in all of that, is the challenge to let go control, and to learn how to trust.