BAPTISM

INTRO:

You know it’s the holiday season thanks to one important commercial reminder: cologne & perfume commercials.

Christians need reminders. We need reminders because we forget what matters most. We get distracted. We get busy. We get overwhelmed. And the spiritual truths that should define us can get buried under the noise of everyday life. Reminders pull the truth back to the surface. They wake us up again.

When we talk about baptism there’s so many ways we could go:

What: baptizo, dip/immerse

Where: Over 70 times in the NT…OR for “where” it’s asked if it has to be in a baptistry, river, horse trough?

Why: tied directly to salvation and what all Christians have in common (Eph.4:4-6) — but why is it that way? Why is this the moment we see in scripture that God gives salvation?

Maybe you don’t agree with that though. Know this: None of scripture contradicts itself, if it did that means we have an imperfect God - and I know you don’t think that. So lets focus on just one place, and see what just one section of Scripture says about baptism and see what conclusions we can draw about it — about WHY Baptism at all.

Paul in Rom.6 gives us a strong reminder for Christians to look back and remember something foundational — something God already did in us and something we already committed to. Before he ever talks about how a believer should live, he points them back to a moment they all shared and says, “Don’t forget this. This is who you are. This is what you stepped into.” Romans 6 pulls us back to the beginning so we can understand everything that comes after it.

Romans 6

V.1-2

Who is “we who have died to sin”? It must be Christians Paul speaks of!

Paul begins with something every Christian already understands — following Jesus means you made a break with sin. Not perfection. Not instant maturity. But a decisive change of direction.

“Died to sin” means we made a commitment to walk away from the life that was destroying us. It means we recognized where sin was taking us and chose a different road —— We tried it our way but it didn’t work!

Paul isn’t saying Christians are immediately mature and perfect, he’s saying Christians don’t get comfortable with the very thing they walked away from. There’s a world of difference between fighting sin and living in sin. Fighting means you’re resisting. Living in it means you’ve put your feet up and made yourself at home again.

The reminder is that becoming a Christian isn’t just joining a church or improving your habits…it’s stepping into a completely new identity.

So - Christians are those who have died to sin. That’s a GREAT reminder.

V.3-4

The “all of us” is the “We who died to sin” — that’s Christians! The point is that if you’re a Christian, that means you’ve died to sin and have been baptized.

Since the old self died, you do what you do with a person that has died — you bury them.

That old self…sometimes he tries to stick a hand out of the grave and wave to say “remember me”…

But when we bury this one we don’t put a headstone up that we come visit.

See, this is WHY baptism -

(PPT) The old self also dies there, that’s what v.3 says. You don’t find anywhere else in the NT a moment when you’re old sin dies and departs. But Paul reminds us, and maybe teaches us for the first time, that at the moment of being immersed into Christ is when the old is dead and buried.

(PPT) And because when you’re immersed and buried under water, you bury the old.

We all who are Christians Paul said have this in common!

So far the “WHY” of baptism: Because it’s where the old person that dies, its where the old person is buried, but the WHY behind that reason is because v.3 it’s not just into water and getting wet but because it’s us getting out of death and INTO CHRIST!

(PPT) Jesus makes us alive and a Christian. Not getting wet. Don’t pull Jesus out of baptism! We’ve all been swimming or taken a bath (I hope). It’s not the water that saves, it’s Jesus saving at the moment we are immersed for that purpose.

V.4-6

WHY: Because it’s what places you INTO Christ Jesus, it’s the moment we’re UNITED with Him (do we find that anywhere else in the NT? No.)

“united” = perfect tense, its in the past but has effects NOW in the present (married in the past, still married now). The ONGING effect means that it happened in the past, it’s going on now, and in the FUTURE because of that uniting it will result in resurrection into eternity!

Those united in Him become ALIVE, unperishable, unblemished, cleansed! We KNOW that’s the future if we were BURIED with Him being united with Him at that moment of Baptism. This is “why it matters beyond the moment”.

My baptism has an affect on my past, what I do with my present, and the eternal future! I know I will be resurrected with Him not because of how good I am or all the great things I do or how much I know. But I know that I will because of when I was united with Him in baptism.

(PPT) WHY: “NO LONGER ENSLAVED” — we’re purified for a purpose, set free, rescued! IF we’ve been united with him in a death like His, we’ve been raised up in a new life where sin is no longer the master! I don’t have to be a slave to it, to my old habits, to my fleshly desires…why? Because I’ve been released and set free! RESCUED by Jesus!

Jesus mission was a RESCUE mission! Because I couldn’t save myself. What can a dead person do about their state? Nothing.

If you’ve been united with Him you can think back to the exact moment you were rescued — even if you haven’t been fully faithful since them…but He keeps you saved if you come back and strive after Him.

And Paul reminds YOU CHRISTIANS look back and remember to keep the dead buried and remember the covenant you made with Jesus at Baptism!

And Paul TEACHES YOU who haven’t been baptized into Christ the necessity and the beauty of it!

You can know the exact moment, day, time, place that you were saved because the moment you’re saved is the moment you’ve been united with Him. You can see the exact moment that you exited the domain and sphere of Sin and entered into Christ and His sphere and Kingdom!

Jesus, the good King, came, conquered, and released the slaves that sin and Satan captured. Sin no longer has power over me, my old life doesn’t control me. I’m free to serve God!

“WHEN” (I know, new question) — tie v.6 with v.3…Does Paul leave any room that anyone can be set free from sin without dying to sin? Any room for anyone to be set free from sin without being buried and united with Christ in Baptism?

There’s not a special way to interpret this — you read what Paul is saying and decide whether or not to trust God and obey what the Holy Spirit had inspired Paul to say - so really what He is saying about what the WHY of baptism is.

It’s not just something that God or Paul plucked out of the air and said “this would be a interesting thing to throw in” — no it’s rich in PURPOSE, it’s the certified moment of covenant that is known by both parties — you can know you enter into covenant relationship with God!

That’s what we’ve been talking about isn’t it? A “uniting”. Covenant unites two together into one - like marriage, right? This is us entering into covenant relationship with God, uniting with Him, aligning my will and purpose to His while trusting Him to do what He says —— it’s the moment God guarantees “I’ll save you” and the moment we pledge loyalty saying “I live for YOU”!

Oh…we just stumbled onto another “why” for baptism. Because it’s for people that can do this, that can make an educated decision. It’s something we have to choose for ourselves.

V.7, what’s he talking about?

Luckily, I didn’t have to physically die and face the penalty my sin deserves. Christ did that for me. And He made it to where at Baptism that’s where my spiritual death occurs and new Life is created!

I can’t live in sin, my old sin and sinful self had to die and be punished! And Christ did that for me at the cross and it is taken to the cross at Baptism!

Sin only has a claim on a person as long as they’re alive. When someone dies, the relationship is over — sin’s authority ends. So when your old self dies with Christ at baptism, sin loses its legal right over you.

Put simply: Because my old self died with Jesus, sin can’t boss me around anymore. Its authority ended. Its claim on me is canceled.

Before baptism, sin had a grip on me. But at baptism, God counts Christ’s death as my death — the death of the old me. I didn’t have to physically die. Jesus died in my place. And in baptism, God applies that death to me spiritually.

(PPT) So what happens?

The old guilty me dies.

The record of my sin dies with him.

Sin’s power is broken.

Sin’s claim is canceled.

Sin is no longer my master.

(PPT) “WHY baptism”, because it’s where sin’s claim and authority on my life ends. That’s what “set free” means — not that temptation disappears, but that sin has lost its authority.

I now live under a new Master. A new Owner. A new Kingdom. A new life.

Sin can knock, but it can’t command — because the person it used to own died in the water.

V.8-9

Paul talks about it as something that happened in the past, at baptism. And it gives us confidence for the future! Not because we earned it or deserved it — but because its a gift.

Not only that, but it changes how we live in the present. Regardless of how long you’ve following Jesus, or if you’re not started yet — you need to know this is the life Jesus wants you to have. Not just in the future, but NOW in the present.

God wants for you a life without corruption, without being enslaved to an evil master. God wants nothing but the BEST for you, He wants that for you NOW.

And it’s the moment we chose to seperate from sin and be united with Jesus. Because I want what God wants for me, I want what ETERNALLY GOOD.

The Bible talks about Baptism as a decision YOU must make with the right intentions. To seperate from evil and unite with the light, with good, with Holiness, with the source of it all who is Jesus!

For those of us who have been baptized, we ought to filter our life through the fact that we’ve been baptized and created new, we constantly go back to it to be reminded — JUST AS PAUL HERE IS REMINDING CHRISTIANS OF THEIR BAPTISM — to say “remember, you can’t keep living in sin and expect God’s grace to cover it if you live the life you lived before. You made a commitment to be done with that life, to die to that, you buried that person, don’t dig him up again! Stop visiting his headstone missing him!”

Jesus said in Luke 9:62 “Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

It doesn’t mean you’re going to be perfect. But it does mean that you’re committed to not letting the old life of sin and death rule over you like a master that makes the decisions.

Jesus is the King now. He is my master I choose.

Have you done that? Have you chosen Jesus is the ruler of your life’s decisions? Paul’s point is also that you haven’t if you haven’t been baptized, because that is WHY we are, it’s the moment we make that decision in faith.

Maybe you made that decision a long time ago but you haven’t lived it out, you’ve been allowing the echo and memory of the old dead man to call the shots. Recommit to Jesus, keep the old one buried, come back and walk in life and light.