Beyond the Sinner’s Prayer: Steps to True Christian Baptism - David Bercot

We know for a certainty that the Crowning Act is baptism, but baptism isn't—you get baptized, you're automatically a Christian. There needs to be things that precede that. And so that's what I mainly want to talk about, and particularly for our young people here, our parents, that you know your children may approach you at some point and say, "Hey, I want to become a Christian, and yeah, what do I need to do?"

Now, in so many churches, what they want to make normative is the thief on the cross. You know, he believed in Jesus, that was it. Well, I mean, that can work. I mean, if you're in that situation, if you're about to be put to death, yes, that's all you can do. And I think, obviously, that was sufficient. But I don't think the thief on the cross is the normal experience that most Christians have. To me, a much better norm, if you're going to look at something in the Scriptures, would be Acts 2, the very first Christian sermon we have recorded, preached by Peter. And then we hear the response on the part of those that they were cut to the heart and asked, "What should we do?"

And Peter told them to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. So there are several things. You see a conversion in these people. They heard a message. Their hearts were changed. They were obviously repented. And Peter even told them that they needed to repent if they hadn't already at that point. But it says they were cut to the heart and then to be baptized.

So baptism doesn't, in itself, save a person. As I said, it's more the Crowning Act of all the things that precede that. But there's some action, internal to a degree, external, that has to take place in the person before they are baptized. And that's why we, as Anabaptists, a name that we didn't choose, it was given to us. Well, we don't accept infant baptism because there's no faith. There's no belief there. It's based on the false assumption that I or any of you can believe for somebody else. You know, like when you were a baby, "Well, I have faith, so I want to believe on behalf of Pierre." It doesn't work that way. It has to be a personal belief, a personal faith of your part.

Okay, so when you're ready to take that step to walk towards baptism, all right, what do you do next? And the answer is there is no magical formula. It's often presented as if there is, but there isn't. I remember when I was in my 20s, my wife and I had both been raised as Jehovah's Witnesses, and we'd left Jehovah's Witnesses. And we were on a journey, a journey that ended up being a very long one. We didn't know at that point in time how long it was going to be and where it would eventually lead us. But I remember, well, we were attending a church regularly, but sometimes on Sunday evenings, I would watch some of the televangelists.

I was not a big fan of televangelists, in case you're wondering. But some of them were, I'd have to say, very, very good speakers, very mesmerizing. And I heard this a number of times, but I remember a particular occasion. I don't remember who it was who was speaking, but you know there was this sinner's prayer. Say this prayer and that's it. You know, you become a Christian, everything is going to change in your life. And then he had different people come up, give their testimony. I said this prayer, and now everything is different in my life. And they would, you know, trace it from there. And I don't think any of them were lying in doing that.

And you know, I'm sitting there listening to that, and I thought, well, I don't know. Maybe I should do that. I already believed all of those things, and I'd already been baptized. But I thought, wow, it sounds like this is some kind of magical thing. If you don't say these words, then maybe you're not a Christian. So, you know, I prayed the sinner's prayer, and I mean, nothing happened, I think, because I was already a believer. But I mean, like I say, it made it sound like, wow, this is some kind of magical formula. And you know, I learned in the years after that, well, I would say there's probably millions of people who could honestly testify that was the starting point of their walk with Christ.

And so I'm not going to ridicule it. On the other hand, what they don't put up there, they put people who can say, well, this is the beginning of my life and how everything changed. They don't put up there the millions of people who have prayed that prayer, and nothing has changed in their life. They're still doing drugs on the street or whatever. Nothing has changed.

Nor do they ever put up the millions of people who prayed that prayer. Nothing happened. And two years later, they prayed it again at another revival meeting, and nothing happened there. But then, you know, there was a time in their life where they prayed the sinner's prayer, they answered an altar call, and things became permanent after that. So again, don't look for a magical answer. You've got to say this particular prayer.

But it is a start. I mean, you know, there's, like I say, I'm not ridiculing the sinner's prayer because there are a lot of things in there that are good. Now, the one that was given on that, it was something like this. I didn't write it down. This comes from a tract that I had at my house, an evangelical tract.

This was their form of the sinner's prayer. "Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner. I believe you died for my sins, and I ask you to come into my heart and be my Lord and Savior. Amen." So that's pretty short. I think there can be a fuller prayer than that, but I'm not going to say that that's inadequate.

If there's genuine faith accompanied with it, and that's the big thing, why it's not a magical formula is because it depends on what's in your heart. You know, you can say that just because you've been momentarily stirred by a really good preacher who's, you know, made you feel very uncomfortable and all of that. And so you pray that prayer, but maybe there's not a deep conviction inside it. You know, that's why I say there's no magical formula because it depends on what's really, you know, inside of you.

But let me just talk a minute about what has to happen before a person qualifies to be baptized.

Again, why we don't baptize infants and why we don't just baptize anyone who walks in off the street. All right, I'm going to read some verses, but because we're going to try to keep this brief, you don't need to look them up. I'll read them to you. So Mark 16:15-18, it says, "And Jesus said to them, 'Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.'" This is Jesus talking to his apostles. "He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned." So Jesus' very short formula was believe and be baptized. And again, why we don't accept infant baptism, because an infant doesn't believe.

Now, I don't know that it's that simple. I mean, that's, I think, a very brief summary, but we do know that belief has to come first. Okay, it's a little bit more specific when we get to Acts 8:35-37. This is the account of the Ethiopian eunuch. I'm not going to read the entire passage. Probably most of you are familiar with it. Are you familiar with it, Pierre? Okay, I thought you would be. All right, then Philip opened his mouth and beginning at this scripture preached Jesus to him, to the Ethiopian eunuch who's in a chariot. Now, as they went down the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, "See, here is water.

What hinders me from being baptized?" Very good question. What hinders me from being baptized? Then Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may." Okay? So again, it wasn't anything complicated. If you believe with all your heart. Believe what? Okay? And he answered and said, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." Okay?

And Philip baptized him on that confession. So again, you don't have to have a whole bunch of theology going into it. It doesn't hurt to understand the basics of the faith. And we as a congregation want to be sure you do before you're baptized. But again, it's not required. Like I say, the Ethiopian eunuch, now he was a Jewish convert. He would have understood a lot. I mean, he wasn't just someone off the street. But you do see other ones in Acts who were got just a very short discipling, maybe you know an hour or two, and were baptized later. We like something a little more than that. But again, it's like I say, it's not a magical formula.

I believe Jesus is the Son of God. Okay? And he baptized him. Now, Romans 10:9 says this, "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

Now, the context of this, the early Christians, most of the time this is shared in the context of like an altar call or a private at your home. And I mean, that would work, but they didn't have altar. You don't read of any altar calls in the book of Acts. So the early Christians understood this to be normally that what Paul is talking about at your baptism, that you make a public confession with your mouth and believe in your heart for salvation. And that's what we will be doing at the baptism, give you the opportunity to do that.

Now, I'm going to read to you to me a little better, quote, "Sinner's Prayer." This is from a booklet that it's actually our church was handing out. Okay? This isn't bad. Okay. It says this on how you can receive Jesus. Admit your need. You are a sinner.

Repent of your sins. Tell God you want to turn away from all sin. Ask the Lord Jesus to forgive your sins. Come into your heart. Take control of your life and be your Lord and Master. Believe in the crucified and risen Lord Jesus. Trust him to forgive your sins and to give you the power to resist temptation. Okay? That's a fuller version. I like that a lot better. I think it covers all of the essentials.

There is one thing missing that I would encourage. I'm not going to say it's essential that if you don't do this, then your baptism isn't valid. As long as you believe and you've repented of your sins, your baptism is valid. You don't ever have to question it later in life. Was my baptism valid?

As long as you believe and you're repented. And that's why we have the instruction class so that the ones doing the baptism, which today will be me, that, yeah, I could be convinced, yes, I know Pierre believed. I know he had repented of his sins. Doesn't mean you're going to have further sins. I mean, it's an ongoing process, not because we want that. In fact, we're going to be talking about the need to die to sin, but you're never going to die perfectly. So there's an ongoing walk, and the walk is one of a disciple, but an imperfect disciple. Okay, so here's a little fuller approach than just the sinner's prayer as it's mentioned.

We're going to go to look at two verses. First, Matthew 28:19-20. Jesus said, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you." So here Jesus says to first make disciples and then baptize them. And that's, again, that can be pretty brief as we see in the book of Acts. But again, those were apostles doing the baptism. They could read people's hearts better than we can. And so as Anabaptists, in fact, I think pretty well all Christians, by the time you get to the second century, you do see that they had an emphasis on making somebody a disciple before they baptized them.

They'd probably witnessed too many people who responded suddenly to an invitation, got baptized, and then returned to the world. So they wanted to make sure this is a disciple of Jesus that we're baptizing. Again, I'm not saying these others are invalid. Don't misunderstand me. I'm just saying it's one reason why we take a bit of time. And this has always been the Anabaptist practice. Again, although it didn't have to be a long period of time. And one of the scriptures that our Anabaptist forefathers quoted a lot in relation to baptism was Romans 6:1-4. I'm going to read that real quick.

And this talks about the importance of making a commitment to live for Jesus Christ, okay? The one thing I would find lacking in this prayer, again, not lacking in the sense that your baptism isn't going to be valid if that's all you prayed.

No, if you prayed those things from your heart, your baptism is valid. But the thing lacking in it is a commitment to Jesus Christ. I think it's good to also have that in there. And Romans 6:1-4 says this, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" So that was one of the things that he's saying at baptism needs to happen. Of course, it's not going to happen unless you've already made the commitment beforehand that you want to die to sin. Again, we're not talking about Christian perfection. You are not going to live a sinless life that way, but you can live a godly, holy life.

And that's what Paul is meaning. Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? And he's talking here that we're baptized because we have died ourselves to sin. Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

So it's important, I think, to make that commitment before baptism that I don't just repent of my sins, but I want to really die to sins, and I want to walk in the newness of life with Jesus Christ. Again, as your grandfather just mentioned, it's a relationship. You want it to be an obedient, love, faith relationship with Jesus for the rest of your life.

When you're dying, you're dying. When you're baptized, you're dying to your old life and rising to a new life. Now, this is with the power of Christ. You're not going to go out there on your own power and live an obedient life to Christ.

On the other hand, Jesus isn't going to do your obeying for you. You need his power, but you have to cooperate with that power and make your own decision that you're going to obey Christ. When you've made that decision, that commitment every day, I mean, it's something you have to renew every day. Christ will give you power. You don't have to live like people you know that we have witnessed to here on the streets who just live a defeated life in immorality and addicted to drugs and alcohol and all that. I mean, that doesn't have to happen.

Christ will give you the power to change all of that. Of course, it's good you've never been down that road. So here, I'm going to close with this recommendation.

When someone wants to become a Christian and get baptized, they shouldn't just pray the sinner's prayer like the one in the booklet. Again, that's a good start. But I think they should also pray this. And again, I'm not making this a magical formula.

Father, I hereby consecrate my life to you and your son, Jesus Christ, my Lord. I want to live for you and your son for the rest of my life and to follow your will, not my own. Again, not a magical formula, but I would say that should be added to the things that are in the sinner's prayer.

It's good to recognize you're a sinner. You need a savior. You can't save yourself. You want Jesus to live inside of you. But I think you also need to make that commitment. I want to consecrate my life, dedicate my life to God and to his son, Jesus Christ, and live for them the rest of my life. I made that commitment when I was 14 years old, and I've never turned aside from that. I've stumbled. I've had periods of doubt. I've had trials in my life. But that commitment I made has stayed throughout my whole life because Christ is there to help us. Even when things look dark, he is there.