Easter Baptism Easter, 2004
Romans 6:3-14
Show the story of Easter – From the Gospel of John film
What does it have to do with me?
My dad went to see The Passion on the Christ, as he has leaving the theatre, he passed two teenage boys. The one boy said to the other, “I don’t get it.” The other responded, “The guy died, eh!”
There might be people who hear the story year after year and don’t get it like these two boys – he died, yes! & he rose again! Yes! But it is not just a historical fact – his death and resurrection have everything to do with my life and my relationship with God right now.
Romans 5 (MSG)
12You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we’re in -- first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death. 13That sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. 14Even those who didn’t sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it.
18Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! 19One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.
20All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. 21All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life--a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.
Jesus’ death and resurrection puts us back in right relationship with our creator. When Peter explains this on the Day of Pentecost in Jerusalem, the people were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"
38Peter 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. 39The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off--for all whom the Lord our God will call." – Acts 2:38-9
The way that we step into Adam’s sin is just to be born – we can’t get away from it. The way that we step into Jesus’ removal of that sin through his death and resurrection is to repent and be baptized.
This is one of the reasons that we love to Baptize people on Easter Sunday – because the two are so intricately connected.
These days the normal way to accept Jesus sacrifice for our wrongs and his rule over our lives is to pray a prayer of confession repentance and acceptance, usually with another Christian. In the Bible you prayed the prayer and were baptized at the same time!
The way that they became separated was when the Roman emperor Constantine became Christian, it became fashionable to be Christian, whether you believed or not. So the leaders of the church became reluctant to baptize people until the saw some evidence of a changed life.
So if you’ve accepted Jesus, and not been baptized, you may wonder if you are ready to be baptized. The reality is that if you are following Jesus, you are ready! Baptism is not for advanced, really “holy” Christians. It is for all those who believe! Because of the separation of the accepting and baptism in our current way of doing things, you could compare it to engagement and marriage – you get engaged by privately pledging your love and commitment to each other, but the wedding is a public event where you tell all your family, friends and a few strangers that you are in this for life. For those who really want to be married, you want to have as short an engagement as possible. The same with baptism – the time between becoming a Christian and getting baptized should be as short as possible.
The process in our church. – ask a pastor, get some teaching, meet with two Leadership team people & set a date.
Romans 6:3-14
How baptism speaks of the new life with Christ
Union with him in his death & resurrection: 3-7
…all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. 4We 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.
5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with,[1] that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Baptism is this amazing picture of death, burial, and resurrection. When we go under the water we are saying that we accept Jesus’ death as the payment for our sins – that we accept Jesus’ death as our own.
The Bible teaches us that the payment for sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life! We are uniting ourselves with Jesus so that his death counts as ours. And just as his death is ours, so his resurrection is also ours!
Baptism is a sign that our sins are washed away – verse 6b – “the body of sin might be done away with”
Part of the picture of baptism is that of being washed clean.
When my daughter was just 2, we baptized a man named Chuck. Hayley went around the house saying, “Chuck had a bath! Chuck had a bath!” for weeks after that
Ananias’ word to Saul when Saul became a Christian - 14"Then he said: ’The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. 15You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. 16And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.’ – Acts 22
Hope for our future Resurrection: 8-10
8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
John 11
25Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
Call to a new life:11-14
11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
I remember hearing the testimony of a man who gave his life to Jesus in an army broom closet. He described it by saying that he stepped into the closet, got down on his knees and prayed, and in that closet God killed him. And in that closet God brought him to new life in Jesus.
Our baptism speaks to a radical break with the old life that we lived when we were not living for God. In Baptism, we are leaving our old life behind us in the water.
Our Baptism is a picture and a sign of what God has done for us through Jesus’ death and resurrection, but it is also a pledge on our part to live differently – to no longer allow sin to master us, but to let God master us. We are raised up as his people, and we need to act his way.
Call for baptism
In Acts 8, an angel comes to Philip and tells him to go for a walk on the desert road to Gaza. As he is walking he meets up with an Ethiopian eunuch who is reading about the Messiah in the prophet Isaiah. He is not understanding it. So Philip explains it and the Ethiopian is saved. Then it says 36As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?" 37 Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may." The eunuch answered, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." 38And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.
I want to ask you the same question: “Why shouldn’t you be baptized?” If you’ve given your heart to Jesus and never stepped into the waters of baptism, why not? Why spend all your life engaged? Isn’t it time you sealed the deal publicly?
Or maybe today is the day that you want to accept Jesus to forgive your sins and rule your life! We’d love to pray with you for that and get you started on the road to baptism.
Talk to a pastor today.
Maybe you are not felling just ready. When I was younger, there were couples who were very serious about each other, but not ready to be engaged, and the guy would give the woman a “promise ring” to say we are serious, and one day I’ll give you an engagement ring.
I wanted to give some of you that option today. So if you know that some time soon you want to go through with baptism, We have available a little vial of water with the verse "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.”- Acts 2:38 written on it. I’d like you to take one of these as a promise to yourself and to God that one day you will be baptized. Put it on your dresser or your bed stand as a reminder to do the things that you need to do to bring yourself to a place when you will be baptized. And then on that day, as a mark of completion, you can pour the water out into the baptistery.
