The Almighty Jesus Commissions Us To Go With Water And Word

Jesus could have chosen His angels to be His full time messengers. He could have chosen to speak Himself from heaven. But He chose to use His disciples. He chose to use US too! Think about what a neat thing it is to be involved in the PROCESS. When I played on sports teams growing up, some of my most miserable experiences were from sitting on the bench and never getting to play. I wanted to be INVOLVED. God involves us in ministry, even though he knows we will mess up, He still is able to work out victories time and time again. When you get to see that first hand, it’s an awesome thing. Think of Philip and the ethiopian eunuch. The Holy Spirit directed him to the chariot where the eunuch was sitting. He “just happened” to be reading from Isaiah 53 - out of ALL the chapters in the Old Testament - one of the most specific verses that speaks of Jesus’ death for the sins of the world. Philip was able to not only tell him about Jesus, but the eunuch also believed and was baptized right then and there!

Therefore go and gather disciples from all nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and by teaching them to keep all the instructions I have given you. One powerful tool we have is baptism. It’s not just some sort of magic rite or formula that we use. It’s interesting to note that Jesus told us to baptize IN the name of and not WITH the name of. We are baptized into the Triune God, not just WITH the name of the Triune God. God is giving us the authority to place people in the realm of the Triune God, to put them INTO Him. Thinking of taking some water and pouring it INTO a cup. We are the empty cup. Baptism pours the Triune God INTO us as the water flows OVER us.

The NAME is the reputation. God the Father is oftentimes thought of as the Creator. The Son is the Redeemer, the One who paid for our sins with His bloody death on the cross and rose from the dead to conquer death. The Holy Spirit is the One who enables us to believe in Jesus. He opens our eyes and our hearts to cling to Jesus as our Lord and Savior. So when we are baptized into the name of this God, we are receiving all that this Triune God does for us. We are being made HIS as He puts HIS name on us. We recognize that not only are we God’s creation, but we are also His adopted and paid for children, and we can then cling to Jesus as our Savior.

You go to buy a car. They pull out the contract. There is a place for your signature. With that signature you are saying, “I will pay for this car. It is now mine.” When you are baptized God puts His signature on you. He says, “You are now mine. I have adopted you into my family. I have bathed you in my blood. I have paid for you, and now I have given you my Holy Spirit. You are now my child.”

Who would think that such a seemingly small amount of water poured over the head could do such a powerful thing? Yet Paul also wrote in Romans 6:3–4, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 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.” This is how Jesus chose to expand His kingdom. This is how He chose to make disciples of all nations, everyone, of every age and place, through the waters of baptism.