May 26, 2002

Baptized Unto Salvation

Romans 6: 1-13

In two weeks, we are going to be having a baptism service for new believers. Which makes this a good opportunity to talk about what baptism really means, why it is important, and why the Lord wants us to do it. I preached some on baptism not too long ago, but since baptism always give me a chance to talk about the gospel, and what it means to be saved, that means I get to preach about it again today.

If you have your Bibles with you today, and I hope you do, turn to the book of Romans, chapter 6. Before we start to read these verses, let's put them into context. Paul is writing to believers, people who are already saved, and teaching them the hows and whys of their salvation. He is writing to people who have already trusted Jesus Christ for salvation; now they need to know what it is that God is doing in their lives, and why it's important.

In the previous chapters, he has taught them that they were saved by grace, not law, not works, but by the free gift of the grace of God, and the shed blood of Christ. Earlier in Romans, he taught them that the purpose of the law, the Ten Commandments and all the rest of the Old Testament law, was to show them just how sinful sin really is, and how it is impossible for a sinful person to please God by anything they can be or do in themselves. And he has just made the glorious statement that even though sin abounded in us, grace abounded even more. The grace of God to save us, was greater than the sin that condemned us.

Then in chapter 6, he asks the question, - since God saves us by grace, and God's grace abounds or grows greater than our sin, does that mean that we should sin a whole lot, so that God's grace can abound and increase even more? And that's where we'll start. Verse 1: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
:2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
:5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
:8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
:9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
:10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
:12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof."

One of the saddest things about the Christian life is when Christians fail to live up to the potential that God has provided for them. I don't know what events led up to each of you getting saved, I don't know all the things in your lives that led you to repent and receive Christ as Savior, but I do know that all of us had one thing in common: sin. Disappointment, heartache, trouble, sickness, and every bit of it the result of sin, either our sin, or someone else's sin.

If our lives were always completely happy, and content, and we never had a care in the world, we probably would not have ever realized that we needed a Savior, but God made sure it wasn't like that.
Anyone who ever got saved, got saved because they knew the burden of sin, they felt the weight of sin, they had experienced the trouble that sin brought into their life, and the Holy Spirit showed them that only God could fix it. Only the blood of Jesus Christ could deal with it.

That moment of salvation was the most marvelous moment of your life; you repented, turned from your sin, trusted Jesus Christ in His death on the cross, you received Him, believed Him, He became your Savior, and you became a child of God. Your sin was washed away, the burden was gone, you were a person whose filthy garments were taken away, and spiritually, you were clothed in perfect garments of righteousness, spotless and clean before God.

But eventually something happened, you messed up, you committed some sort of sin, and you realized that even though you were a new creature in Christ, you were still also a fallen creature in a sinful world. Now what? Where do you go from here? How do you deal with this tension; you have two natures in one body, two natures with two different appetites, and they want to go in opposite directions. Now what?
That's why baptism is important, Paul explains here what baptism really is, how God has made provision for us in Christ, and how we can live lives that do not fall under the control of sin.

In verse 2 he asks the question, "how shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer in it?" What does that mean? Verse 3: "Know ye not- do you not know, surely you must be aware,- as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?" When you trusted Jesus Christ for salvation, God did a remarkable miracle with you. He identified you completely with Jesus Christ.

When Jesus Christ died on the cross, if you trusted His death on that cross as being for you, God says it was just as if it had been you on that cross, it was a complete identification. When you believed, Jesus took your sins on Himself, it was just as if He took you into Himself, and what ever happened to Him, happened to you.

Have you ever thought about why God puts such an emphasis on marriage, on the relationship between husband and wife, starting with Adam and Eve? I think it is significant that in the Bible, a book about salvation, the first recorded thing that a man - Adam - says, is about marriage. About his wife. "This is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh... a man shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh."
Fast forward to the church, the bride of Christ, a body of many members, those whom Christ has saved, and they are bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh, He left His Father and was joined to us. A husband to His bride. The spiritual reality that earthly marriage is a picture of. He is so completely identified with us, that whatever He went through; we went through. Whatever He did for our sakes, God sees as being completely applied to us, just as if we were there, as much as it applied to Him.

That is why Paul can say that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death. The word baptized means immersed. Put into. Submerged in. Surrounded by. Covered with.

When you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you were retroactively crucified with Him. It was just as if you were able to go back in time 2,000 years and be on the cross in Him, as part of Him, and He in you.
Galatians 2:20 tells us: "I am crucified with Christ: neverthless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Just as Christ was crucified, was dead, and now is alive, so are we. We were crucified with Him, dead with Him, buried with Him, arose with Him, and now are seated with Him on the right hand of God the Father.

That is how God the Father sees us. That is the status we have. That is the position we have been adopted into. That is now our birthright, by the new birth, that is what it means to be born again.

Paul goes on to say in verse 4: "Therefore, we are buried with Him by baptism into death, that as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
:5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection."

Have you ever thought about how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly? Here is this poor dumb goofy looking worm, crawling around on this plant, and eating a constant diet of leaves. Not the most inspiring existence there ever was, sort of like we were, before we got saved. But in order for the caterpillar to become a butterfly, first there has to be a transformation. The caterpillar spins itself a cocoon, and then disappears for a time inside what appears to be this dead capsule. If you didn't know any better, you would think the caterpillar was dead. But after the proper amount of time, the cocoon opens and a totally different creature, a butterfly emerges into a totally different lifestyle than it had before. It doesn't go where it went before, it doesn't do what it did before, it doesn't eat what it used to feed on before, it is a new creature in all respects.

Which is what it should be like with us when we get saved, born again. If we are immersed into Christ, buried with Christ into His death, and raised in the likeness of His resurrection, then things ought to be just as different with us as they are with the butterfly.

And to a great extent, they usually are. It makes a big difference whether or not a new Christian is properly taught after they get saved. It is a real shame when a person trusts Christ for salvation, and then fails to get into a Bible teaching church where they can get off to a good start. If they don't, they end up starving spiritually, because we all need to be spiritually fed. Did you know that when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly, God even changes it's mouth parts? Butterflies no longer even have the ability to eat leaves, they are redesigned, remade to eat nectar. If they were to try to eat what they used to eat, they would starve.

Christians are designed to feed on the things of God, but a lot of them go back and try to feed on the things of the world, it's not surprising if their spiritual nature is so puny and unhealthy. When a new Christian fails to get into a good church, fails to spend time in their Bible, fails to cultivate that new nature, then the world, the flesh and the devil get to them, and they soon start to wonder why their new Christian life is not working real well. Well, guess what? I know why...

Verse 5, where it talks about being planted together with Him, - that's a Greek expression that means to grow up alongside of something. You have heard the old expression; "like two peas in a pod"? Same idea.
Because we have been buried with Jesus, dead, buried, immersed, planted with Him, then we will also be raised like He was raised, and the purpose is to be like He is, just like two peas in a pod, two stalks of the same plant. To be like Him in the likeness of His resurrection.

Every once in a while I run into somebody who claims to be a Christian but they don't go to church. You hear something like; "I can worship God just as well out in the woods, or in a quiet place somewhere, I don't need to go to church." If we are the bride of Christ, - and we are- what kind of relationship would a marriage have when two people who hardly know one another, and then they get married - because that's kind of how it was with us when we got saved- we didn't know Jesus very well, but we trusted Him anyway. But what happens if there is a marriage between two people who don't know each other really all that well, and then the bride just takes off and goes back home to live with momma? If you were to talk to that bride and ask her; "What is your husband really like?" She doesn't know. She didn't really know him then, and still doesn't. That's the way a lot of Christians are. They trusted Jesus for salvation, they became His bride, but they still don't hardly know who He is.

And they sure aren't going to learn if they don't spend time with the rest of Jesus' bride -His church - so they can find out. Because being out in the woods or on the lake might give you some time for thinking or reflection, but it misses out on an awful lot of what we are supposed to have. Remember where Jesus told His disciples; "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." The body of Christ -that body of believers, that Bride that is part of Him, joined to Him, symbolic of being united to Him- how does that symbolism hold up, and remember, He is the one that chose it -how does it make any sense when there is someone that refuses to be a part of that body? Who has no part with other believers?

In the gospel of Mark, let me read you what Jesus told His disciples just before He returned to heaven: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. Mark 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." It is not enough just to say that you believe in Jesus, if what you are saying is that you believe on your terms. Salvation is not on your terms or my terms, it is on His terms. To be truly saved is to be saved on His terms, to repent, to believe that what He did on the cross will save you if you receive it, and then you are expected to follow Him in obedience.

He tells us to be baptized into Him, which also means being baptized into His church. Becoming part of a local church. What the Lord offers us is not a menu. It is not like the waiter comes to take your order and you say; "I think I'll have some of this and some of that, but I don't want any of this other thing. You do allow substitutions, don't you?" No, He does not allow substitutions. Salvation does not come on a menu, God is not your waiter, and He does not offer you any substitutions. He provides salvation as a free gift, on His terms.

Those terms are that you throw down your arms and quit your rebellion. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and He expects you to swear your loyalty and obedience to Him. He expects you to make a public profession of your loyalty and obedience to Him, and He has chosen how you will do it.

You will publicly proclaim that He is Lord and Savior, and that He has saved you, and that His grace was sufficient to wash away your sin.

You will be baptized publicly before others to show your identification with His death, burial and resurrection for you, and that you are now become a part of His body, His bride, His church.

You will meet regularly with other believers to celebrate the Lords Supper, remembering Him in His death until He comes again.

Once you have made a profession of faith, baptism shows forth, or proclaims your entrance into the Christian life, joining the Christian community, becoming a member of His body, His bride, His church.

Maybe you think that you have trusted Jesus to save you, maybe you think that He really is the Son of God, and He really did die for your sins, and you really do believe that He is the Messiah, but you really can't see yourself doing any of that other stuff. You really don't see yourself as part of a church, you really don't want to get involved, and you don't think you will.

Let me tell you this just as graciously as I can, and since I am not as gracious as I might be, this is probably going to be offensive; - You aren't saved and you are going to hell. Because you are still in rebellion to God, and what you want is more important to you than what He wants. Your head knowledge of Jesus has not yet gotten below your neck. It needs to get into your heart.

The Bible says: "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believes not shall be dammed." You might have enough head knowledge to know who Jesus is and what He did and why, but if there is no repentance, if there is no desire for obedience to Him, then you don't know Him as Savior and Lord, and you are still in your sins. You have never exercised a saving faith, a belief that brings you to salvation, and you need to take it real seriously. Because rebellion is sin, disobedience is sin, lawlessness to the will of God is sin, and if you aren't willing to do His will, then that's where you are; still dead in your trespasses and sins. And it's better for you to be offended by me telling you now, than for me to be gracious, and you figure it out just a little bit too late.

Verse 6: "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin."
If you were a person who had some sort of terrible situation in your life, something that had you enslaved, trapped in something that it seemed like there was no escape from, one thing is for sure: the time will eventually come that you won't have that problem any more, and that's when you are dead. Dead people have no problems with being bothered or troubled by their sins. Of course, if they never got saved, then it is still a problem, a very long term problem, but that's not what I'm referring to here.

It's like when you've been in the poison ivy; if you can get to sleep, it quits itching. It doesn't bother you. Or if you are hungry, once you get to sleep, you don't care about needing to keep going back to the pantry to see if the doughnuts have magically reappeared. Once you're dead, some things just don't bother you any more, you are free from those problems, and the biggest problem you get free from - is sin.

Question: are you alive? Alive to sin? Or are you dead? Dead to sin? Let me remind you again of what it says in Galatians 2:20: "I am crucified with Christ: neverthless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."
The answer to the question is that I am both alive and dead. My old sinful self was crucified with Christ, just like verse 6 in Romans says, so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so that from now on, I no longer need to be the servant of sin. If I have been crucified with Christ, then I am dead to sin, and I don't have to serve it any longer. I am free from it. I am dead to it, it can't motivate me, influence me, tempt me any more, because dead men and dead women don't get tempted. The dead are not tempted...

Let's talk about this idea of dead; does that mean that I am supposed to be like some sort of guru who lives on a mountaintop, or in a monastery, zoned out from the world? Do I have to practice some sort of eastern mysticism, learn how to turn it all off, find my karma, zone out? OOOMMMMM. No. You just do like it says in Galatians: "nevertheless, I live, and the life that I now live in the flesh - in this obnoxious, aggravating, troublesome body, prone to sinful desires - I now live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

The life of faith means I consciously choose to trust God that my death with Christ, and my resurrection with Christ will be empowered by the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit will enable us to live a Christ like life when temptations come, assuming that we trust in Him to do so.

When troubles or temptations come, how do you respond? Does your mind turn to Jesus and your need of him? Or does your mind turn to you, and what you need to do, and Jesus is not something you think of? Depending on how you answer that, that is how well you will do handling trials and temptations in the Christian life. If you are relying on your own resources, then you won't do much better than your unsaved neighbors down the street. But if you are relying on Jesus to be what you need to be, by faith counting yourself as dead, and trusting Him to be your life in you, live the situation out in you for His glory, then things will turn out a lot different.

That's exactly what it says to us in verse 8: "Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
:9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
:10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
:11 Likewise - in the same fashion, after the same manner; let Jesus and what happened to Him be your role model - reckon - that means add it up, take an inventory; because it's a done deal - likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
:12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof."

Picture sin as being like a king, a tyrant, an evil ruler that wants to rule over your body for his own evil purposes. As long as you are alive, he can jerk you around any way he likes.

But once you're dead, his reign over you is finished. He can say what he wants, he can do what he wants, he can run tempting pictures past your eyes, but they don't see anything, they're dead.

He can whisper tempting words in your ears, but you can't hear them any more, you're dead.

He can try and stir you up, or he can try to beat you down, but nothing happens; you're dead.

Then here comes another king, and His name is Jesus Christ. And He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and something wonderful just happened: He called your name. And that sounds wonderful. You hear it loud and clear.

Did you ever have a good friend, somebody you loved, a favorite family member, and they call you up, and as soon as they say your name, man, it is so great, you are so glad to hear from them. And then maybe they ask you to do them a favor, and you think that's the greatest thing there is, you would love to do it, be glad to do it. That's what happens when we are alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. God calls your name, and that Spirit of Jesus that is in you loves to hear God speaking. It loves to answer. It loves to say yes. God speaks to you and it gets a quick response, what ever He says to you, you hear it loud and clear, and you would be delighted to do it. God runs something past your eyes, and that Spirit of Jesus Christ that is in you pops that into your head, and that looks like the greatest thing you ever saw. Why, if that is what God wants you to do, that would be just great.

That old king, that king of sin, he can't get a response out of you for anything, you are dead to him. But when God speaks to you, you are like a dog that just heard the master or the mistress walk in: you perk up, and you are sitting on go, all right! Just give me a clue which way to jump! That's what it means to be dead unto sin, but alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

And then he says, verse 13: "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God."
Now we are obviously in a martial arts school, and we have a number of martial artists in here, plus a few history buffs, so I expect to get an answer to this question: who can tell me what a hoplite is? -

2,000 years ago, a foot soldier, your basic heavy infantryman, armed with a shield in his left hand and a spear in his right hand, and a sword at his side. The word hoplite comes from the Greek word hoplon, which is the same word translated instruments in verse 13. Instruments of warfare, instruments for fighting. That's what we are. Weapons of spiritual warfare. We are told here not to yield our selves, our hands, our mouths, our minds; as weapons of warfare unto sin.

Back before we got saved, back when we served sin, we served that unrighteous slave master of a king by doing damage to what was good and righteous and holy. We attacked the things of God, we aggravated and hassled those around us that were the servants of Jesus.

Now that we have a new king, now that we serve Jesus, who will we use our weapons for? Will we wage a war of holiness against the things that used to enslave us? Will we fight for what is right, seek to Honor God, as a soldier of the true King?

Or will we use our weapons for incidents of friendly fire, attacking the things of God, and helping out our old slave master; sin? That's what this means here. Whose side are you on? Who are your weapons directed against?

Back in those early days of warfare, most of the soldiers provided their own weapons and armor, and it wasn't easy to tell whose side you were on. The soldiers of one army looked a lot like the soldiers of the other army, and once the battle started, it was easy to attack the wrong person, because it wasn't obvious whose side you were on. We need to make it real obvious whose side we are on, and we need to be real careful who we attack, and who we defend. We don't want to aid the enemy, and we don't want to injure our own.

When Jesus Christ began His ministry on earth, He began it by being baptized by John the Baptist. When the early church began it's ministry on the earth, it was baptized by the Holy Spirit. In two weeks, Lord willing, we will be having some new believers being baptized. How will that event affect their walk with Christ? How will their lives change because of that event?

How about the rest of us? Most all the rest of us have made a profession of faith and been baptized at some time in the past, how are we doing? We were immersed into Christ, made to be a part of Him, our old man was put to death with Him, and now we have been raised from the dead to walk in newness of life, in His resurrection. How are we doing? Are you living up to your baptism? Are you living out what your baptism means? Your baptism in Christ was an illustration of what Jesus Christ has done for you; are you enjoying the benefits of it? Or are you still living under an old slave master, that runs you around serving him whether you want to or not?

Possess your possessions. God has riches in heaven beyond your wildest dreams, and they involve you living a Holy and Christlike life here and now. You need to exercise your faith and start writing some checks on that account. Why don't we all just ask the Holy Spirit right now to stir up our faith to help us do just that? Would you stand with me? Let's pray.