This is a very special day. This day marks that there has been a beginning. Spiritual birth has occurred!
There is a clear beginning to the life of a Christ-follower. It’s not physical birth.
It is not by being born in a ‘Christian’ country that a person has the right to be called a child of God, born of God. It’s not by being born into a Christian family that one has that right.
It’s also not by ‘being nice’ that one should be identified as a Christian. It’s less used now, but the term ‘christian’ used to be another word for ‘a decent person’. But that too is a misfire.
A Christian, or the term I prefer, “Christ-follower’ is one whose life has been touched, impacted, taken over by God.
A Christ-follower is someone who has invited Christ in...not for a visit (PPT: like at Christmas and Easter), not for a favour (PPT: I’m not sure if I even believe you’re real, but if you are, please help me!)
A Christ-follower is one who has become joined to God through Jesus Christ; who has been adopted into the family of God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ; who has been called by God into the family of God through faith in Jesus Christ, and who has said: “Yes!” to this call (PPT: Many are called but few are chosen)
A Christ-follower is one who has received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour who died for their sins on the cross, and has believed in His name.
“…To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. John 1:12-13
And a Christ-follower is someone who has been made a new creation (PPT: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come”. 2 Cor 5:17)
Pastor John was a minister in Barrie. A 10 year-old boy in his congregation named Cameron, walked into his office and said he needed to talk to him. Fresh from soccer practice, and wearing his Blue Jays baseball cap, he had a request for him.
“I would like to be baptized”, he said. We were learning about Jesus, baptism in Sunday School. The teacher asked the class who was baptized, and all the other kids raised their hands. I want to be baptized too.
Using his best pastoral tone of voice, he said: Cameron, do you really want to be baptized just because everyone else is?
His freckles winked up at her and he replied: No. I want to be baptized because it means I belong to God. He was touched by the boy’s understanding. Well, then, he said, How about next Sunday?
His smile turned to concern and he asked: Do I have to be baptized in front of all those people in the church? Can't I just have a friend baptize me in the river? The pastor asked where he came up with that idea. “Well, Jesus was baptized by his cousin John in a river, wasn't he?”
Caught off guard, he conceded, You have a point. But, if a friend baptized you in the river, how would the church recognize it? The boy said simply: “By my new way of life”.
I want to draw our attention to two ideas that Paul talks about in the passage from Romans that was just read.
A New life
6 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
When we come to God through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins, we are given a new life.
That new life, the new creation that God makes us, is defined by love...love for God and love for people (PPT: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" Luke 10:27)
Jesus said that loving God and loving people sums up all the descriptions in the Old Testament about how to live in a way that honours God.
When a person decides to be a Christ-follower, it’s not that he or she has decided to try to live a good life in order to earn God’s favour.
None of the people being baptised here today are thinking that. We know that all of our good works are like filthy rags to God (PPT: All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags”.
We know that God’s love cannot be earned. We cannot do anything to make God love us more.
Those being baptised today know that, instead of all that, what’s really happened is that they have been given a gift.
Before they even accepted Christ, the Holy Spirit of God was working in them, wooing them, drawing them into a state of heart and mind that was receptive to the gospel.
All kinds of people hear the gospel, that God sent His Son into the world to teach us the ways of God and then to die for our sins. All kinds hear that, but...why is that so few respond (PPT: "For many are invited, but few are chosen.” Matthew 22:14)
It’s simple. Those who respond, respond because God has been at work in them to reveal Jesus Christ to them, and those same people have not resisted this call, but have opened their hearts and lives to this revelation.
But you might think...because the Christ-follower is not trying to earn God’s favour through good works, why is there a change of life that happens when someone comes to Jesus? Why live differently if you don’t have to in order to earn God’s favour?
There’s a simple answer. We love because He first loved us (PPT: We love because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19)
Our lifestyle changes. The way we spend our time and money changes. Our friendship circles change.
We start to have a lot of meaningful friendships with other believers, along with our friendships with others of all stripes. We make decisions more and more based on God’s will and purposes.
We’re more concerned for others and less self-centred. All of this is true, but it’s very important to note that all of this is an outcome, it flows out the fact that God has saved us.
God has called us His beloved sons and daughters.
And because we are so loved by God, because our identity is first and foremost that we know that we belong to God, we want to live to please Him. We want to live for His pleasure first and foremost.
The Christ-follower is one who has been given a new life in Jesus Christ. Amen? Amen.
Set Free from Sin
Another thing that Paul talks about in this passage is how on the one hand all of us are sinners. But he also talks about how a Christ-followers relationship to sin has changed.
Sin no longer has mastery over the Christ-follower. We are no longer slaves to sin, bounded by it, ensnared by it, tethered to it.
Paul says that since we died to sin when we gave our life to Christ, it no longer follows that we can live in sin. Does that mean we’ll never sin? Of course not.
We will sin, and if we ever get to the point where we think we don’t sin, God’s Word is right there in our faces with a needed corrective that will keep us forever from being self-righteous: in 1 John 1:8 - “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us”.
So, yes, the Christ-follower will sin, but sin will become increasingly vile to him. Yes, the Christian will stumble and fall, but she will find that the cost of sin is very high.
Charles Spurgeon, a well-known preacher from the past, said that the longer and the more you are in a love relationship with God, “the more expensive will you find it to sin. An ordinary sinner sins cheaply: the child of God sins very dearly."
So sin remains a problem for the Christian, but a very different problem than for one who is not in Christ.
For the Christ-follower, sin can threaten our sense of closeness and intimacy with God.
Practicing sin, repetitively engaging in sin creates a very clear feeling of being entirely unworthy of being called a Christian. (PPT) Our path is one of greater and greater closeness to God.
Our trajectory, our direction is naturally, as redeemed children of God to be closer and closer to God, and to feel that closeness. So it follows that the closer we walk with Jesus, the more and more it hurts us to displease Him.
The cost of being near to God, to loving God and expressing that love through obeying Jesus (PPT: "If you love me, you will obey what I command”. John 14:15), is very little compared to the cost of drifting far from God.
It’s a little like a married couple who is estranged, their marriage is in tatters, yet they still live in the same house. It’s nothing but awkward, awkward, painful, awkward, all the time.
So the Christ-follower has been given a new life, and that new life is characterized by love, by freedom from sin, by freedom from trying to live as ‘number 1’, because the Christian knows that she or he is number 2. God is number 1. Jesus is number 1.
Finally, there’s a lot of symbolism in the act of baptism-by-immersion. When the baptismal candidate first stands in the pool, it is in a sense a symbol of the old life, the life before Christ came into the person’s life.
When they are asked questions and give their answers, they are really making a vow before God and before the church; they are preparing for a new life. They are asked profound questions that you can be sure each candidate has thought a lot about.
The baptismal candidates are asked: “Do you want to follow the Saviour Jesus in the waters of baptism?
Have you received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour?” They are then blessed in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Next they are immersed in water, as Jesus was buried. It is a profound symbol of dying to the old way of life, dying to a life of slavery to sin, dying to a life where they were the boss, they were on the throne.
If the pastor’s in a good mood, they don’t stay under water for too long. Jan...Pastor Jan is doing today’s baptisms...are you in a good mood, Pastor Jan? Good.
Then they arise out of the water, another symbol in which they follow Jesus into a resurrected life, a new life, a life that now belongs in its entirely to God.
To be clear, each one who will be baptised here today was saved when they received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.
What each will do today is a symbol, an outward sign, of the deep inner work of salvation that God has done in each one.
Today also we have the pleasure of dedicating 2 children to God. We’ll actually begin with those dedications.
The parents and others who will stand with the parents today are publicly committing their children to God, they are dedicating their offspring to God.
They will make commitments to raise their children, with God’s help and with the help of other followers of Jesus, they will commit to raising their children in the knowledge of God and in the Christian faith.
So...baptismal candidates, parents committing their children to God...I commend you all for coming here today to honour God through baptism and dedication.
May you be richly blessed, and may the vows made here today continue to be a powerful witness to the grace and mercy of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
