2020-01-19 Baptism Sunday-Romans 6:1-4 New Life In Christ

NEW LIFE IN CHRIST (Rom 6:1-4) January 19, 2020 Read Rom 6:1-4 – We have the privilege this morning of witnessing some people following their Lord in baptism – a wonderful depiction of a glorious truth. Those who have committed their life to JC are no longer slaves to sin, but have new life in Him. This is an amazing gift from God. Baptism doesn’t create that new life. It does not. It simply depicts what has already happened. Baptism is God’s way for us to pix outwardly what really happened inside. A pastor named Ron Ritchie was conducting a baptism in the Pacific Ocean once when a woman asked if he would baptize her 9-year-old daughter. He was reluctant, concerned that she knew what it was all about. As he talked with her, but noticed his hand made a shadow on the sand. He said, “Do you see that shadow of my hand on the sand?” She said, “Yes.” He said, “You know that shadow is not the real thing; my hand is the real thing. Same with baptism. When you gave your life to Jesus, that was the real thing. You joined Him in His dying for your sins, and like He rose again, He gave you a new life inside. So when you go down in the water, that is a picture outwardly of what happened to you inside.” She caught on immediately and said, “Yes, that is what I want to do because Jesus has come into my life.” That is Paul’s point here. He’s telling us the outward act of baptism doesn’t save us, but it shows what has really happened inside. It’s an outward picture of an inward reality. And because it has happened, life can never be the same. He has 2 points – I. We Died With Christ II. We Were Raised With Christ. I. We Died With Christ 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? What does Paul mean we’ve been baptized into his death? V. 5 says, “we have been united with him in a death like his.” But Jesus’s death was very physical. We haven’t died physically. The folks we will witness today are very much alive. So what does he mean? Well, Paul knows Jesus’ physical death represented something far greater that was happening on the cross. Jesus was not just experiencing physical death; He was also experiencing spiritual death -- the wages of sin. He was taking that penalty on Himself for all who believe so that they would not have to. He said in Mark 10:45: “For the Son of Man has come not to be served, but to 1 serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.” The Bible says, Isa 53:5b: “He was crushed for our iniquities.” It was not for His own sin that He died; He had none. It was for our sin. Isa 53:6: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned – every one – to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” That was the greater death Jesus was experiencing on the cross – the spiritual death of separation from the Father as payment of sin. Jesus made an interesting comment to his captors at His arrest: Lu 22:53: “When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me (it wasn’t time). But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.” He is saying that the forces of darkness will prevail -- for a brief time as an innocent man pays sin’s penalty And so it happened. Mt 27: 45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” During that 3 hours as the whole earth was enveloped in absolute darkness, the Son of God bore our sins in his body on that cross. In those hours He experienced the hell of separation from the Father; He did it consciously, willingly, selflessly, for us. So, what does it mean to be “united with him in his death?” It means to accept His payment for our sin and to join Him in dying to sin in our own life. Lu 9:23: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” In other words, join me in my death to sin. By faith we accept His death as ours. And when we do, Rom 6:6: “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” This is saving faith – the heartfelt commitment to leave sin behind and to live to Him. By faith our old sin nature has died with Him. This is what Paul meant when he says in Gal 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ.” He willingly renounced his old sin nature in exchange for new life in Christ. Oswald Chambers says it this way: “The inescapable spiritual need each of us has is the need to sign the death certificate of our sin nature – [to renounce] any claim I have to my right to myself. Paul said, ‘I have been crucified with Christ.’ He did not say, ‘I have made a determination to imitate Christ,’ or ‘I will really make an effort to follow Him’ – but – I have been identified with Him in His death. Once I reach this moral decision and act on it, all that Christ has accomplished for me on the Cross is accomplished in me.” I have died to self to come alive to Him. 2 In Goldfinger, Jas Bond is strapped to a table by the villain Goldfinger who watches as a lazer beam moves ominously to divide him right down the middle. “Do you expect me to talk?” 007 asks nervously. Goldfinger replies, “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.” And so Jesus invitation is not to do good things or give Him an hour now and then – it is an invitation to die to all our own ambitions, dreams, agendas and come alive to Him. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” Die to all selfish ambition. What He gives back is up to Him, but in saving faith we first die to self. That’s the first picture in baptism as we go under the water. II. We Were Raised With Christ Now, so far, salvation sounds ominous – death to self? Lose everything? But that is exactly what it is not. 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Coming to Christ does require us to give up the old life – BUT we walk away with a glorious new life in Christ. We trade what is against God for that which is for God; that which is restless for that which is restful; that which is empty for that which is full; that which is temporary for that which is eternal. It’s not just a good deal, Beloved; it’s the best deal ever! Paul says in II Cor 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” You can’t see it on the outside, but it’s there on the inside -- a whole new set of values, ambitions, loves and priorities. Suddenly there is a desire for the Word, for godly living, for prayer, for communion with Christ that just wasn’t there before. There’s a new appreciation for all God has given us in this life, but an even greater anticipation for what comes next. “The old has passed away; behold the new has come.” Has the new come for you? Are you in Christ? Have you died to self with Him only to be raised to an infinitely better life? Pat Summerall was a respected football and golf announcer for years on CBS. But he was also an alcoholic and womanizer who used his celebrity to further his relentless pursuit of pleasure. But he got so bad that one day his family and his employer held an intervention. Against his vociferous protests, he was registered at the Betty Ford Center to get help with his addictions. He was angry and resistant, but with nothing else to do, he began to read the Bible. Expecting to find nothing, he found Christ. And he found him for real. 3 Here’s the rest of the story in his words: “I stood in white robes before God and everyone – a 66-year-old man waiting to be immersed in a baptismal pool. . . . Four years after my 33-day stint at the Betty Ford Center in 1992, I hadn’t had another taste of alcohol. I had left that life for another. My reliance on the bottle had been replaced by a healthier thirst – one for knowledge about Christianity and the Bible. I’d abandoned the hedonistic lifestyle for one of physical and spiritual transformation. And my wife walked the walk with me. We began attending church every Sunday as a couple. She listened each morning as I read aloud from the Bible and other devotional books. Our lives have changed immeasurably for the better.” Conc – The testimonies we hear this morning may not be that dramatic, but they are no less important or real to God. In each case, the baptism we witness testifies to a life that has died to self and come alive to Christ. Jesus paid a lot to give us this privilege: I Pet 2:24: He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” That doesn’t mean we’re perfect. None of us are. But we have this promise from the risen Christ: Phil 1:6: “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus.” These we see today are on their way to that great day. Are you on your way? Is He your Savior and Lord? If not, we urge you, invite Him in right now, right where you sit. Repent of your sin and ask for new life in Christ. He has never failed to give that gift to all who ask. Let’s pray. 4