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  FULL IMMERSION IN GOD： WATER
  by Sam Caldwell
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Summary: This sermon focuses on the concept of full immersion in God,
likening it to the act of baptism. It emphasizes the importance of being
fully immersed in God's grace, surrounded by Him at all times, and
living a life surrendered to Him. The sermon delves into the
significance of baptism, highlighting how it declares one's faith,
provides a lasting picture of being immersed in Christ, and signifies
entry into the church community for lifelong participation.

Topics: "Full Immersion in God", "Significance of Baptism"
Scripture References: Acts 2:36, Matthew 3:16, John 3:23, Romans 6:3, Colossians 2:12, Ephesians 4:4, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:27

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon focuses on the concept of full immersion in God, likening it
to the act of baptism. It emphasizes the importance of being fully
immersed in God's grace, surrounded by Him at all times, and living a
life surrendered to Him. The sermon delves into the significance of
baptism, highlighting how it declares one's faith, provides a lasting
picture of being immersed in Christ, and signifies entry into the church
community for lifelong participation.

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CONTENT
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And I want to start a brief series today that'll take us into the new
year. And this series will be called full immersion in God Full
immersion in God. Let me tell you a little about where we're headed in
the coming weeks Think with me brothers and sisters On a hot summer day
We love To plunge Into a cool lake, don't we? On a cold winter day, we
love to sink into the bath, don't we? After a hard week at work.

We love to come home and binge watch tv shows, don't we? Oh, don't have
to raise your hand there But what am I pointing to? We're made in the
image of God and God has Directed us to love Immersion, to love being
immersed in things, immersed in water, immersed in a bath, immersed
outside in nature To be immersed when watching a tv show or watching a
movie There's something in us as humans that we just want to be covered.
We want to be hidden. We want to just be immersed in things And it's the
privilege of every christian to be fully immersed in God Amen And I want
to talk about that for the next few weeks how we as christians are in
christ We as christians are plunged into God.

We are dunked into the realities of God We are surrounded by God at all
times. We're encompassed by him. We're swimming in his grace Amen So
that's where we're headed in these next few weeks and I want us to start
Where we all ought to start with glorious water baptism glorious water
baptism And i'll say this too We're going to study immersion for the
next few weeks and so this Baptismal tank here is going to remain open
in the coming weeks If anybody through these sermons gets convicted and
you see that you want to be baptized too We can do it next sunday If you
think about it for another two weeks, we can do it the third sunday But
this will be open to you Amen today glorious water baptism Let's read
the book of acts Chapter two and we're going to read verses 36 through
42 Verses 36 through 42 Peter says at the end of his sermon in verse 36
Therefore let all the house of israel know assuredly that god hath made
that same jesus Whom ye have crucified both lord and christ amen Peter
ends a sermon Now look what happens brothers and sisters verse 37 Now
when they heard this They were pricked in the heart And said unto peter
and to the rest of the apostles men and brethren What shall we do? Then
peter said unto them repent and be baptized Every one of you in the name
of jesus christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift
of the holy ghost For the promise is unto you And to your children and
to all that are far off even as many as the lord our god shall call And
with many other words did he testify and exhort saying save yourselves
from this untoward generation Verse 41 Then they that gladly received
his word were baptized And the same day were added unto them about three
thousand souls And they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine
and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers Let's pray Lord
jesus.

I thank you for this precious precious text before us Lord I thank you
for the reality of baptism I thank you lord for baptism in water and
that this word baptism means immersion Lord, would you teach us today
from your word? Teach us not from my mind lord or from any one of our
minds But we want to know the mind of christ today lord We want to know
exactly what the spirit is saying to the church today lord We want to
know your word We want to speak the oracles of god lord and as we go
into this new year Help us lord to meditate on this theme of being
immersed in god lord Help us to live our lives in the new year in christ
Immersed in you dunked in you baptized in you lord swimming in your
glories forever lord We want to enjoy you in that way lord Not just on a
sunday not just one day in the week Not just a few times in the year,
but lord we want our entire lives to be surrendered to you So teach us
today and bless us In jesus name amen Amen Glorious water baptism I pray
that each one of you Would have a new appreciation for baptism in water
today And I was talking with ben right brother just a few days ago about
this baptism today And ben asked me a really really deep question he
said Well, what what's going to happen? What are what are the results
going to be? Is that right brother? You asked something like that? What
what's going to happen afterward? And i've been thinking about that ever
since and I I really want to preach to you about that I could tell you
personally some things that happened to me And I bet others could
testify in this room after you get baptized Some things happen, don't
they? After I got baptized there was a boldness in my life. There was a
desire to go tell everyone about jesus there was Well, I can tell you
many many stories But I want to give us three points right from the
scriptures three things that I know are going to happen in our brother's
life And here they are So please think this through with me And if you
are considering baptism I pray that these three points come as an arrow
to your heart and you think these things through and you wonder Do you
want that to be a reality in your life? Here are the three points in
baptism your faith is declared to everyone Secondly In baptism you have
a picture to remember the rest of your life And thirdly in baptism you
enter the church Amen So those are our three points. Let's look at the
text before us today And like I said, we want to learn from the lord
today.

We want to learn from his precious word First point in baptism your
faith is declared to all I want you all to look with me at verse 36 And
peter ends his sermon here by saying this jesus Whom you have crucified
is both lord and christ They hear this sermon And there were many people
there on that day And you know what god started to do he started to deal
with their souls And I want you all to notice that God starts to deal
with these people's souls through the preaching of the word Their souls
are getting dealt with and look what they do in verse 37 It says now
when they heard this sermon they were pricked in the heart What does
that mean? It means they were convicted. They heard the word and
something got to them Do you know that so many people hear the word of
god preached and they never get pricked in the heart? Nothing happens to
them This is a great privilege when you get pricked in the heart and you
say Something's going on lord. I have some faith.

Something's happening to me And then look what peter says in verse 38
then peter said unto them repent And be baptized every one of you What
does that word mean repent that again means god is dealing with their
souls He's saying you were headed toward the world You were walking in
your own way you were pleasing yourself you were just going after your
sins and the word repent means turn Turn away from that and turn to god
make a 180 turn turn to god Do you all see? First god deals with their
soul and then They get baptized in verse 41 We have to keep that in mind
And Here's our first point in baptism your faith is declared to all And
ben I told you I was going to do this So I just want to address you As
my brother in this first point of the sermon and you all can listen, but
i'm going to address ben here I hope you don't mind Ben I just want to
say to you That this is the most courageous thing you could do to go
through the waters of baptism And what you're telling everyone in this
room is that the lord has dealt with your soul Isn't that a beautiful
thing brother? You and I talked about it just the other day And I want
to highlight these three words in front of us here for you so that you
can remember this the rest of your life verse 36 Peter said to them
Jesus has been made lord and christ First Ben you're declaring before
everybody today that jesus is lord In your life. Amen And that's
something that you're going to grow in the whole rest of your life after
you go through those waters of baptism In the coming days, you're going
to realize more and more that jesus is lord That's so precious. I
remember when I wrote that in my journal and just writing jesus is the
king of my life And how just that thought and meditating on that saved
me from so much self-hatred It saved me from using Antidepressants, it
saved me from wanting to kill myself.

Actually it saved me from alcoholism It saved me from cocaine abuse all
of these things. What's the thought? Jesus is now lord to you brother.
Isn't that beautiful? And every day you go on and you realize okay now
he owns my hands Now he owns my car Now he owns my behavior in the
workplace Now I want to get married and he's going to own my marriage
now.

I want to be a father and he owns my child Amen Jesus is lord That's
what peter preached to these people and that's what started to deal with
their hearts So I want to impress that on you ben you're going to grow
in this And jesus every day is going to show you how he is lord it's
such a precious thing And then look at verse 37 It says when they heard
this they were pricked in the heart Now this is actually the verse that
I got saved through my pastor in toronto showed me verse 37 And he said
look sam they heard this and they were pricked in the heart And when my
pastor showed me that it was like Like when you see a big lock right and
there's one piece here and one piece here and these pieces come together
and they go And it locks And I just knew I've been pricked in the heart
something has happened to me lord And in that moment, I even thought I
don't even know if I want this I don't even know if I want to go on in
this life of faith But god was powerfully dealing with me and he was
pricking my heart And I know you and I've heard you pray and i've we've
walked together for these last few months God has been pricking your
heart. He's been cutting you to the heart And I want to say this too
after you get baptized There's going to be more conviction and he's
going to come and he's going to he's going to prick your heart every day
And show you don't go there Do go there do more of that do less of that
And I want to say this brother don't ever ever let that die When the
lord pricks your heart when he speaks to you in your conscience when he
speaks to you You know late at night and gives you a song That's the
most precious thing ever God is speaking to you in your heart And then
verse 38 peter says to them repent And I want to remind all of you if
you've been baptized You repent And we repent every day of our lives, is
that right christians, is there anyone here who stopped repenting? No,
if you're a christian, we keep repenting which means And sometimes we
can think of repentance as a really negative word. It's not It means you
turn from the evil of the world and you turn toward god And we want to
celebrate both of those parts of repentance Turn from the evil in your
life brother and turn toward god And some days we're going to live in
victory and we say i'm turning i'm going toward god And we need as a
community to celebrate that together.

Amen So walk in repentance every day of your life. You turn away from
evil and you glory that you're turning toward god Amen That's our first
point in baptism. Your faith is declared to all Look at a verse 41.

It says then they that gladly received his word were baptized What comes
first? Gladly receiving the word then baptism. Amen faith Then baptism
repentance then baptism What a glorious reality second point In baptism,
you have a picture to remember the rest of your life And here I want
everybody To study with me. I want everybody to remember this.

So please listen the word baptism in greek literally means full
immersion or dunking Isn't that beautiful? We're going to dunk in that
tank there dunking Baptisto is a greek word and our translators. They
actually didn't translate that word They did something called
transliteration. They just wrote it in english, right baptisto and they
wrote baptism But they should have translated it because it would have
helped a lot throughout church history Because people have looked at
baptism and said we can baptize and just sprinkle a little bit Or we can
pour just a little bit or we can Oh, i've seen these very bizarre videos
in eastern orthodox practice.

Have you all seen that? Where they dunk a part of a baby then they dunk
the other part of the baby and they do it really fast You can look at it
on youtube They dunk this half then dunk the other part and dunk the
other Okay, they're sort of like half dipping a baby That's that's them
the bible Tells us to dunk all the way Baptism is full immersion This
word appears 77 times in the new testament and in every single case it
means full immersion or dunking Listen to this. There's a little greek
word bapto and that word means to dip Okay, so if I take a piece of
broccoli and I dip it in ranch dressing That's bapto. Everybody see that
just a little dip and then I eat it but if I take a piece of bread and I
Dunk it in cheese fondue and I put it all the way down in that fondue.

Amen All the way down and it's just it's totally enveloped in that
fondue. Then. What is that? It's not bapto.

That's baptisdo So bapto means to dip And baptisdo means to really dip
You all get that it means to dunk it means to go all the way to immerse
So that you don't see anything going all the way into that water You
guys are going to notice when ben gets immersed there. You're not going
to see him for a few seconds And then he's going to come back up Amen,
it's beautiful. What a beautiful thing this greek word baptisdo Study
with me for a moment is used in greek for a few different contexts It's
used when you see a ship sinking when a ship sinks underwater.

It is Baptized in the water When you wash clothes in ancient greek you
baptize your clothes. Does that mean you just sprinkle them with a
little bit of detergent? No, it means you dunk your clothes under the
water to wash them When you soak food in ancient greece, like if you
were soaking chickpeas or soaking beans so that you could make them the
next day What do you do? Baptisdo you baptize your chickpeas So am I
making my point everybody with me baptism means full immersion And every
time you see a baptism in the new testament, you'll see people going
down into the water all the way John chapter 3 verse 23 and john also
was baptizing in enon near to salem. Why? Because there was much water
there Why would they need much water if you could just sprinkle? There
was much water there.

They were going to go dunk in that river Matthew chapter 3 verse 16 when
our lord was baptized and jesus when he was baptized went Up straight
way out of the water. What does that mean? It means he went all the way
down into the water with john the baptist and he came up all the way
Acts chapter 8 verse 38 philip in the ethiopian eunuch It says they went
down into the water and he baptized them and they walked out of the
water Amen, is everybody seeing this picture? And why does that matter
so much it matters for where we're going to head in the next few weeks.
You have to see Baptism in water as full immersion because this is the
picture that you should remember the rest of your life If anyone here
has been baptized When you struggle with sin Go back and think of your
baptism and you know what you want to remember is I was immersed in
jesus.

I was immersed in the life of christ And when when we go back into the
world and we say I want to use this hand to do something evil Or I want
to use this hand to do something evil. What are we doing? We're
forgetting no My body my soul my spirit is immersed in christ. I can't
go there.

Amen Think of this picture of baptism also when you think of your own
identity Where are you if you're a christian you are baptized in christ
Sometimes I get into trouble because I sign all of my emails with in
christ or in jesus And if you all receive an email from me, you can just
know i'm doing that to remind myself I was baptized into christ. I'm
immersed in him Everything in my life is surrendered to him amen And
then a final reason you've got to remember this picture Is because
immersion underwater will lead you to constant worship When we remember
I was immersed in water. That means i'm immersed in christ.

That means I worship him all the time It's from there that we can say
yeah, I worship when we're singing with the band But I also worship when
i'm changing a diaper I also worship when i'm drinking a cup of water. I
also worship when i'm eating with my family I also worship when i'm
doing the laundry why? Because i'm baptized in christ I'm immersed in
him. I'm always in him.

I'm always worshiping amen everyone following Praise god our final point
here is in baptism you enter the church Look with me at verse 41 Then
they that gladly received his word were baptized And the same day were
added unto them about 3 000 souls circle that word added Were these
people dunked in water? And then they just went off and went back to uh,
ephesus and wherever they were from No, they were added to the church of
god And then look at verse 42 and They continued steadfastly in the
apostle's doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in
prayers I want everybody to circle that and and remember it for the rest
of your life and verse 42 and They continued steadfastly I want to say
this baptism leads to lifelong participation in the life of the church
You want to see baptism as a doorway into the church? And this is so so
important When we've been on the streets of portland you start to talk
with people And you ask them are you a christian? And I can't count how
many times the reply has been Well, I was baptized And i'll say okay,
you were baptized. That's great. But are you a christian? Are you
following the lord? Do you love the lord? Do you go to church? Do you
praise him? Do you worship him? and a lot of people will say No, but I
was baptized and we want to say Baptism is the doorway into the church
You don't get baptized and then just go off into the world you get
baptized and then again look at 42 You continue steadfastly in the
apostle's doctrine and fellowship and breaking of bread and in prayers I
want to just warn us as we conclude here many people have false ideas
about baptism They think if i'm baptized it'll be like a ticket into
heaven and i'm fine and I don't ever need to come to church again Or
other people say if i'm baptized, I won't ever sin again nothing to
worry about Or other people say if I get baptized, I won't have any
major problems anymore Is any of that true? No, the fact is if you get
baptized you enter into a community of love where you can deal with your
problems Amen You see the difference? It's not that you get baptized and
you're perfect Is that you get baptized and you continue steadfastly
with brothers and sisters until the day you die You study the word of
god You have fellowship with people you break bread and take the lord's
supper with people And you commit to prayer meetings to praying with
your brothers and sisters to praying at home Everybody see that Let's
end with this idea Everybody, please imagine baptism as a funnel And
that funnel goes right back into the church We get baptized and after
that we want to be accountable to each other And it's my prayer Look
again at verse 32 42 It's my prayer that every ministry in this church
in the new year Would have this and spirit in it Let me explain what I
mean.

Look at it again And they continued steadfastly In church life Can we
say that brothers and sisters? We have prayer meeting on wednesday And
we continue steadfastly with one another We have community dinner on
thursday And we continue steadfastly in church life We have celebrate
recovery and We want those people to continue steadfastly In church
life. Amen. We have men's group And we try to get all the men to
continue steadfastly in church life We have women's group and we want to
continue steadfastly in church life That's my prayer for this year that
all of our ministries in this church would funnel back into healthy
participation in church life And that's what baptism is I'll say these
three points one more time.

Let's think about these as we head toward baptizing our dear brother in
water In baptism your faith is declared to all second in baptism You
have a picture to remember for the rest of your life And third in
baptism You enter the church Amen Let's pray lord Baptism is so special
and it is so clear and john the baptist started it for us lord and we We
pray that ben's baptism now Is just like that Simple and beautiful and
full of zeal lord And we pray that these three points are true for ben
Lord and we pray that the whole church is blessed through it and I pray
that souls are encouraged through it and I pray That if you've been
dealing with anyone's soul here today lord that you would Convict them
and prick them in the heart that they would get baptized in the coming
weeks lord What a glory What a beautiful thing lord, we praise your name
for baptism in water. We praise you lord We say hallelujah to your name
for all that you've done for us lord And we want to praise you forever.
We enter into your church.

We can Continue steadfastly in these beautiful things lord. We want to
have fellowship until we all meet again in heaven We bless you for full
immersion in god We pray in jesus name amen Amen

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/H0v5ik34ds4.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/sam-caldwell/full-immersion-in-god-water/
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