TEXT: ROMANS 6:1-11
TITLE: “BAPTISM: A MATTER OF DEATH AND LIFE”
INTRODUCTION: A. A drunk stumbled along a baptismal service on Sunday afternoon
down by the river. He proceeded to walk down into the water and stood
next to the Preacher.
The minister turned and noticed the old drunk and said, "Mister, Are
you ready to find Jesus?"
The drunk looks back and says, "Yes, Preacher. I sure am."
The minister then dunked the fellow under the water and pulled him
right back up. "Have you found Jesus?" the preacher asks.
"No, I didn’t!" says the drunk.
The preacher then dunks him under for quite a bit longer, brings him
up and says, "Now, brother, have you found Jesus?"
"No, I did not Preacher."
The preacher in disgust holds the man under for at least 30 seconds
this time brings him out of the water and says in a harsh tone, "Friend,
are you sure you haven’t found Jesus yet?"
The old drunk wipes his eyes and says to the preacher..."Are you
sure this is where he fell in?"
1. That fellow didn’t know what he had gotten himself into.
2. There are a lot of people who don’t understand what it’s all about.
B. Baptism is taught clearly in Scripture but has been confused and
contended for a long time.
1. The Scriptures are the best and most obvious authority on this
issue.
2. Let’s shake away some of the confusion and clarify what God wants
us to understand concerning this subject
3. Have to understand that this sermon not meant to be the most
comprehensive study of all times.
a. Time constraints keep me from it and I’ll bet you’re glad that it
does.
b. We are going to concentrate on the most basic but most
important parts.
I. THE MANDATE
A. As you read the New Testament, baptism is an obvious command
1. “Mandate” – “an order or command”
2. A command is something that must be followed
B. Let’s look at what the Scriptures have to say concerning baptism:
1. Mt. 28:18 & 19 – “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on
earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…”
a. The One who has all authority gives the command for the church to practice this
ordinance of baptism.
b. It was obviously part of the process of becoming a follower of Jesus.
2. After Jesus resurrection and ascension, His followers were to wait in Jerusalem for the
coming of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost, Peter
began to preach the first gospel sermon. In it, he shared what Jesus Christ had done and
why He had to do it. The people cried out, “What should we do?”
-- Acts 2:38 – “Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of
Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the
Holy Spirit.”
3. Jesus Himself was baptized when He began the actual ministry part of His life. In Mt.
3: 13-15, Jesus came from Galilee to be baptized by John. When John said he was not
worthy enough to baptize Jesus – that Jesus should be baptizing him – “Jesus replied,
‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.’”
--Literally Jesus was saying that He was doing it because it was what was right to do.
C. A command is something that requires obedience.
1. Early Christian called baptism a sacramentum (sacrament) – the Latin word for the oath
of absolute devotion, allegiance, and obedience to his commander.
2. There was an old man who had nine cats. A friend came over to visit and noticed that
there were nine little kitty doors. He asked the old man why the cats couldn’t all use
the same door. The old guy replied: “When I say “Scat!’ I mean ‘Scat!’”
3. John 14:23 – Jesus says, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching…”
II. THE METHOD
A. The method of baptism is one of the most argued points of doctrine
1. Some say that the correct method is sprinkling
--They take a smattering of water and shake it over someone’s head
2. Others say the correct method is pouring
--They take a pitcher of water and pour it over someone’s head
3. There are those that say that the right process is immersion
--They say that someone must be totally plunged into water
4. Still others say that it doesn’t matter what method you use
--As long as you call it baptism
B. The Bible clearly describes the baptismal process:
1. Needs water – anytime someone is baptized in the New Testament it is with water
2. Plenty of water
--John 3:23 – “Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was
plenty of water…”
3. Going down into water
--Acts 8:38 – “Then Peter and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip
baptized him.”
4. Coming up out of water
a. Acts 8:39a – “When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly
took Philip away….
b. Mt. 3:16a – “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water…”
5. Being buried
a. Rom. 6:4a – “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death…”
b. Col. 2:12a – “…having been buried with him in baptism…”
6. Being resurrected
a. Rom. 6:4b – “…in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the
glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
b. Col. 2:12b – “…and raised with him through your faith in the power of God…”
C. Which of the methods mentioned just a few minutes ago meet the baptismal requirements
as given in Scripture?
1. Certainly can’t be sprinkling or pouring
2. Can only be immersion
D. A look at the original language
1. Greek - baptizw
a. “dip; plunge; immerse”
b. root – “totally overwhelm”
2. How we got the words “baptize” and “baptism”
III. THE MEANING
A. Most important part of today’s message
1. Don’t get me wrong
2. The mandate to be baptized is important
3. The method of baptism is important
4. But most important is the meaning of baptism
B. The meaning of baptism is this: It is the complete surrender of everything you are and
everything you have to follow Jesus Christ and be obedient to Him.
1. One reason that it identifies us with the death of Jesus
a. The water is not magical
b. The pronouncement of “…in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit…” is not magical
c. The person performing the baptism is not magical.
d. It is only because it’s through baptism that we come into contact with the death of
Jesus and therefore his blood that baptism is effective.
--The Bible teaches us that only the blood of Jesus can wash away our sins.
2. In. Col. 2:11 & 12 (part of which we discussed earlier) baptism is compared with the
O.T. rite of circumcision.
a. “In Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a
circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ,
having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in
the power of God, who raised him from the dead.”
b. Circumcision was an outward sign of the complete surrender of yourself to God.
Even your most private parts were yielded to God.
3. In our text today, baptism is a process in which you say to God and to the church and
to the world that you no longer want to live under the power of sin but under the
Lordship of Jesus Christ.
C. One thing I need to mention briefly
1. Answer question “Who should be baptized?”
--Actually should be another sermon but need to deal with here
2. Since baptism is part of the decision process of committing all of you to Jesus Christ
as Lord and Savior, needs to be someone who can honestly and carefully make that
decision for themselves.
--In logical terms, that statement eliminates small children or infants.
3. In the New Testament, only people you see being baptized are those able to make the
decision for themselves.
4. Also, baptism not effective in and of itself. Several things must come before
a. Faith
b. Repentance
c. Confession
D. One thing bothers me about the attitude toward baptism in a lot of Christian churches is
that people treat their baptismal certificate as if it’s their divine ticket into heaven.
1. All we have to do is wave that certificate under God’s nose and He has to allow us
into Heaven.
2. We treat baptism as the “Be-all, end-all” of the Christian faith
--On the contrary, the Bible teaches us that it is only part of the beginning of being a
Christian. There’s much more to follow.
3. Baptism is not effective because you got wet. It’s effective because it’s part of the
process of pledging your unending devotion to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior
--1 Pet. 3:21 – In a passage that points back to Genesis and the story of Noah, Peter
uses the reference to the ark as a picture of baptism: “And this water symbolizes
baptism that now saves you – not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of
a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ…”
4. Baptism is only effective if it makes a difference in the way that you live
5. There are plenty of people in churches all over that believe that got eternity taken care
of because they got wet.
--All that happened is that they went into the water a dry sinner and came back up a
wet one!
6. Your baptismal certificate does not impress Jesus Christ. His only concern is the
relationship that you’ve had with Him and the change you’ve allowed Him to make in
your life.
CONCLUSION: A. A few years ago Paul Harvey wrote in Guidepost Magazine about his
own baptism. He said that even though he had received almost every
reward for his broadcasting powers & ability that he still felt empty inside.
One summer he & his wife were vacationing in a place called Cave
Creek, AZ. Sunday morning came & they decided to go to church. So they
went to this little church, & there were only 12 other people present.
But there was a good spirit about that place, & for some reason he
began thinking about John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave
His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish
but have everlasting life."
He said, "I liked that ‘everlasting life’ part, & I believed in Jesus, but I
had never gone forward in a church service. I remembered one night
praying in my hotel room & asking Jesus to come into my heart, but I felt
that there was still something that was missing."
He said that the preacher got up & announced that his sermon was
going to be about baptism. Paul Harvey said, "I yawned. But as he started
talking about it I found myself interested. He talked about the symbolism
behind it, & how it symbolized the complete surrender of one’s life to
Jesus Christ, & how there was nothing really magic in the water. But there
was this cleansing inside that took place when you yielded yourself to
Jesus."
He went on to say, "Finally, when he came to the end of his sermon he
said, ‘If any of you have not been baptized in this way, I invite you to
come forward & join me here at the pulpit.’"
Paul Harvey said, "To my surprise, I found myself going forward. The
preacher had said there was nothing magic in the water. Yet as I
descended into the depths & rose again I knew something life changing
had happened - a cleansing inside out. No longer did there seem to be two
uncertain contradictory Paul Harveys, just one immensely happy one. I felt
the fulfilling surge of the Holy Spirit in my life.”
Paul Harvey went on, "The change this simple act made in my life is so
immense as to be indescribable. Since totally yielding to Him in baptism,
my heart can’t stop singing. Also, perhaps because baptism is such a
public act & because one’s dignity gets as drenched as one’s body, I
discovered a new unself-consciousness in talking about my beliefs."
He closed with these words, "The other evening when on a speaking
trip I was flying over west Texas & looking at the beautiful sunset. My
heart swelled with joy in my new surrender & I thought, ‘How wonderful,
we have all this & heaven, too.
B. Can you identify with that this morning?
1. Has Jesus made a difference in your life?
2. Have you surrendered totally to Him?
