Baptism Service 2021
Notes
Transcript
What we all just witnessed was what the world would call an identity crisis. You heard the testimony of each of these people and they all basically said the same thing in slightly different ways. My name is ______________ this is my story. They then proceeded to tell you various details of their lives, things they identified with, but then a new reality moved in and overshadowed and overtook every aspect of their lives. They expressed belief in sacrifice of Christ for their sins and that belief birthed them into whole new reality.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
These people were formerly identified with the wages of their sin that had lead them to death. By now they have been united with the death of Jesus, who died for their sins, but did not stay in the grave, but rose triumphantly over sin, death and Satan…and now these people are identifying with the new life that has been given to them in Christ.
These are whole new people…not because they got in the baptism waters, but because they got “in Christ.” They have been identified with Christ.
They were guilty of high treason against God the Father. And they were marched into a holding room along with Jesus who knew no sin and together they were put in a line up so that God the Father could from behind a two way glass mirror identify the guilty ones.
He looks them all over and He is very acquainted with all of them. He even knows the numbers of hair on each one of their heads. He is familiar with all their ways…and He looks also at His Son. He looks at His Son. And as He looks a Jesus He remembers the time when he opened up heaven and spoke loudly for all to hear while Jesus was identifying with the accolades of sinful men as he was being plunged into the waters of the Jordan River by his crazy cousin John. He remembers saying, “This is my Son with whom I am well pleased.”
God the Father looks through the two way glass and through the line up consisting of all of us cosmic criminals and He points out Jesus as the guilty one.
And we are able to go free while Jesus takes the full brunt of the punishment of God’s Just Wrath that was due us, but poured out on Him. Amazing!
Jesus was identifying with us in our humanity while he was being baptized, and now we in response to that great love with which we have been loved enter into the baptismal waters to fully identify with Him.
These are new creations. They have a new identity.
The world will see this as an identity crisis. We are infatuated with identity in our culture. We assign purpose and meaning and value to anything and everything. We also over estimate every things purpose, meaning and value.
I am with the Seahawks. I am with the Huskies. I am with the Mariners. I am with the Kraken.
I am from here. I am not from here. I went to LC. I am a Lynden Lion. I am a Ferndale Golden Eagle. I am from Bellingham.
I am a dentist. I am a freshman. I am a truck driver. I am a farmer. I am a student. I am a guitar player. I am a sound tech. I am in between jobs. I am fill in the blank.
I am an Iphone guy. I am an Android user. I am a Mac guy. I am a PC person.
I’m with Calvin. I’m with Luther. I’m with Jacob Arminius. I’m will Paul. I am with Apollos.
We assign purpose and vale to a whole host of things that will not last beyond the grave that we are all heading too, but what these people are ultimately saying is… “I am with Christ.” They are saying what Paul said to the Galatians.
20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
What we have just witnessed is what the world would call an identity crisis, but we call it assurance. The path that these people have entered in is indeed narrow, but it leads to life and it is the wisdom of God, but their decision to follow the ways of Jesus will be considered foolish and will be ridiculed by the world.
People can look at what has happened here today and think. What fools. I pay money at carnivals to throw balls at clowns to make them fall in water. You just did it willingly and publically.
Church, we must come alongside and support these young people as they seek to follow Christ in a world that assign value and identity to everything but Christ.
But these people have been fundamentally changed. They are new creations.
Did you hear what Maddy said? - “I see everything differently now.”
…the only explanation is that she has been given new eyes to see everything and see every thing rightly and in its rightful place. Everything that was peripheral and fuzzy to her, has now been brought into laser focus and she can see everything that makes up the reality of her life and she can put everything in it’s proper place, because now Jesus is in the dead center of her being.
She doesn’t need (blank) to make her happy. She doesn’t need (blank) to give her security. She doesn’t need (blank) to give her purpose or identity. It has been found in Christ and Christ in her is the hope of glory.
Her words scream out to us…all I really want to do is be identified with you Jesus! I was buried in my guilt and shame and the spotless blood of Jesus cleansed my guilty conscience the way no other substitute can and I want to demonstrate how amazing this cleansing has felt and has been so why don’t I invite a bunch of people to my church and I will share my story and then I will tell everyone that I believe that Jesus died and paid for my most horrific sins and then declare that I want to follow Him the rest of my life and then I will allow this crazy pastor guy to push me under water and lift be up out. That will be a good picture right? Right!
These are new people who are testifying to a new birth. A new existence. A new reality. A new creation…the old has gone and BEHOLD the new has come.
So with our final minutes I want us to hear Paul words to the Colossians.
1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming.
7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.
9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Remind yourself of your baptism (v 10).
I wash my face most mornings. (3 times) - I need to remind myself of who I am.
We are all witness here today and we are also needing to come alongside these dear ones who have publically testified about the all sufficiency of Christ to renew them. The bible indicates that the world we live in will ridicule them for their decision to pattern their lives off of a crucified Jewish man who lived 2000 years ago. “If that’s what floats your boat…you are narrow minded, closed off and you are a fool.”
But we will stand alongside them like a great cloud of witnesses and tell them to lay aside every weight and let go of their former ways of life that has so easily entangled them in the past. We will keep in stride with them as we together run the race with endurance that has been set before us. We will do this while looking to Jesus who is not only the Author, but also the perfecter of our faith. And He has begun a good work in them and He will continue to perfect it. We will look to Him because He also endured hostility from sinners and although there was a cross set before Him that He was going to have to die on, He did so with joy because He knew that after despise its shame He would be able to bring you to His Father!
Dear brothers and sister in Christ do not ever forget what your baptism points to.
And don’t ever forget what this meal symbolized and anticipates. It symbolizes the broken body of our Lord and His precious, priceless blood that was poured out so that our wouldn’t have to be. It also anticipates a time we will do this in it fullness when we sit around table at the coming wedding feast of the Lamb.
God is to be highly praised as we identify with Him in baptism and in communion.