Join Lori as she shares the importance of teaching children about baptism.
Well hey, friends, it's Lori Joiner your discipleship coach. This season we have covered some fantastic topics when it comes to discipling our own children and raising them to be God’s men and women in their generation.
In episode 3, I talked at length about sharing the Gospel message with your children. Make sure they understand that the gospel is:
1. God loves them
2. We are sinful
3. Jesus Christ Died on the cross to pay the penalty of our sins
4. We must individually trust Christ as Savior and Lord.
And when our children do come to the point where they place their faith in Christ the next step for them is to be baptized. To follow the Lord in Believer's baptism.
So this week, Your Discipleship Coach Kids Edition tip is…To teach your children what Baptism is and to encourage them to be baptized.
So first of all, let’s see what the Bible has to say about baptism.
In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
So what we can deduct from those verses is that the church, and the believers in the church, are responsible to:
· teach Jesus’ word
· make disciples
· baptize those disciples
· And further this was to be done everywhere (“all nations”) until “the very end of the age.”
We can see that since Jesus commanded baptism, it is important for us to heed what he said and obey.
Being baptized is an outward symbol of an inward decision.
The inward decision comes first: A person makes a decision to trust Christ as Savior. That was when that person surrendered their will and life and soul to Jesus. That is when that person confessed they were a sinner in need of Christ's salvation. When they placed their faith in Christ they were born again, they are saved, they will spend eternity in heaven with God.
Baptism comes next: it is a public profession of that heart decision. It’s the opportunity to put their flag up for Christ so to speak and publicly identify with Christ.
Water baptism is a beautiful picture of what our Lord has done for us. As we are completely immersed in the water, we symbolize burial with our Lord; we are symbolically baptized into His death on the cross and are no longer slaves to self or sin.
When we are raised out of the water, we are symbolically resurrected—raised to new life in Christ to be with Him forever.
Baptism is important and it is an act of obedience we should obey. If for no other reason than to simply follow Christ’s example. He himself was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. This is mentioned in all four gospel accounts. You can start in Matthew 3:13 or Mark 1:9 to get you started if you would like to read it for yourself.
Ok, so now we understand a bit about baptism, and really I have just brushed the surface. There are tons more verses in the Bible and books written on this topic. As a side note, if you would like to dive into this topic more-just go to GotQuestions.org and type in the word “Baptism” and you will get a list of great short biblically-based articles on this subject.
So we need to teach our children about Baptism. Here are some tips to do that:
1. The next time your church has a person baptized, go to the baptism. Let your child see this take place. My church has an outside baptismal and after church, each week, people that have placed their faith in Christ can go outside and be baptized. My children and I have seen this. Then, on the ride home I explained what it is. That this was a person who had placed their faith in Christ and they were letting their friends and family and other people in attendance know that they were on God’s side now.
2. Read to them the verse in Matthew 28:19-20 that I quoted at the beginning of this podcast. Then explain what the word baptize means-like I have already done in this podcast. Or read to them about Jesus being baptized in Matthew chapter 3 and talk about baptism.
3. I love that the children’s department at my church took each class of kids to the baptismal one Sunday morning and showed them everything about it. They got to see where people change their clothes, they got to see the faucet that turns on the water, they saw the tub-like structure holding all the water, then teaching was given about what baptism is-putting your flag up for Christ after you have placed your faith in him.
4. Explain your own baptism story to your children. Do they know your story? Teach it to them. My sons know that when I was 16 I got on my knees and placed my faith in Christ. They know that a week or so later I went back to church on a Sunday evening and was baptized. I shared the details of how I was asked, publically, if Jesus was my Lord and Savior, and I said “Yes”. I told how I held my breath when I went under the water and how they gave me some clothes to wear so I could change back into my dry clothes when I was finished.
When we explain to our children step by step what it is, where it happens, why people do this, it helps them not be scared, it normalizes baptism and sets them up so well for when they put their flag up for Christ.
Now before I tell you the story of my children being baptized and how we celebrated that, I want to make one point EXTREMELY clear.
That is, baptism is NOT, I repeat is NOT salvation or a prerequisite for salvation. You do not have to be baptized to be saved. Baptism does not save you. It is only an outward symbol of an inward decision of being born again.
When I have explained this to my sons and to the women I disciple I turn to the account of the thief on the cross in Luke 23:39–43.
39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
So did this self-confessed sinner have an opportunity to hop down off his cross and go get water baptized? Well, no, and yet Jesus said you will be with me in paradise.
So please never scare a child into thinking they are not saved if they have not been baptized. We want them to be baptized as a step of obedience to Jesus' command in Matthew 28, but please don’t dangle salvation over them or anyone else because of baptism status.
Both my sons placed their faith in Christ early in life. One I led to Christ at his bedside at Easter when he was 5 and the other trusted Christ at Church at a children’s event. But both had apprehensions about baptism.
Even though I had taught them clearly what it was and they were involved in a great children’s ministry where they learned about baptism on their level, they still did not want to be baptized. I talked with my husband about this and he asked me to let it go and let them make the decision when they were ready. He asked me not to push it on them, to trust God and let them decide.
But I did pray over the years that God would bring them to the place where they would follow the Lord in believers' baptism. Every once in a while I would say, “Sweetheart, just so you know, if you ever want to walk forward and be baptized I will go with you.” Or You let me know when you are ready and I will set it up at church.” But over the years they just resisted it. I could not even understand why but entrusted them to the Lord.
Then this past year, in October, both were in a youth meeting on Wednesday night. The youth pastor asked if anyone wanted to be baptized. And both boys went forward to be baptized. You can imagine my shock when they told me on the way home that they were getting baptized soon! I was like what?!
I am so glad I trusted the Lord and let them make the decision. As you can imagine, after hearing me on this podcast season after season I can be pretty persuasive. But this truly did need to be between them and the Lord.
We arranged it to be a few weeks later and you had better believe I made a big deal out of it! I had my family come in town for it, we had lunch afterward at my home. Both boys had gifts to open-new Bibles and Bible covers were given to them. I wrote on the inside of their Bibles their names, the date they got baptized and we prayed over them as a family-to be mighty men in God’s Kingdom and to shine a light for Christ wherever God may lead them. I told them how proud of them I was for putting their flag up for Christ.
I will re-post the picture of them all wet directly after they were baptized on my ministry Facebook page-search Lori Joiner Ministries Facebook page and look there and you will see their wet smiling handsome faces!
When your child, or disciple for that matter, places their faith in Christ take pictures, go to lunch, buy gifts, celebrate the step of obedience, and the decision to publicly confess that Jesus Christ is Lord!
Let’s Pray!