Baptism: Buried and Raised with Christ (Romans 6:1-11)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

Thank you for tuning in to Newsong Church's Sermon Podcast.

At Newsong Church, we want to see Jesus lifted high in Port Perry, Ontario, as we worship, grow, and serve.

You can learn more about us and find contact info at newsongportperry.ca.

For our next reading, we are going to be turning to the book of Romans, reading from chapter 6, verses 1 to 11.

What shall we say then?

Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

By no means.

How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we also shall live with him.

We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again.

Death no longer has dominion over him.

For the death he died, he died to sin.

Once for all.

But the life he lives, he lives to God.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Word of the Lord.

If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

So let's pray.

Lord Jesus, maybe your question to us this morning is the question you asked to Mary.

Whom are you seeking?

Lord, would we seek you and find you?

Risen, Lord Jesus, would you be our hope in life and in death, now and forever.

Amen.

Please be seated.

So, brothers and sisters, Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed.

Hallelujah.

This past holy week the church has journeyed with Jesus.

We hailed the arrival of our humble King with palms and praise.

We have joined Jesus at his table in this upper room.

We have borne witness to Christ's betrayal, humiliation, and suffering on our behalf.

We have gathered together, as it were, at the foot of the cross, where Jesus bore the penalty for our sin.

And we have waited since an eerie stillness as Jesus rested in the tomb.

But today, today is Easter Sunday.

Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed.

Hallelujah.

Today the church celebrates the bright dawn of a new creation where life triumphs over death because of his resurrection.

Friends, Jesus' resurrection from the dead on that first Easter Sunday is not a strange, superstitious feature of an otherwise respectable Christian gospel.

Such thinking would suggest that the resurrection is best left out of our faith, or at the very least, treated as something that's kind of ornamental rather than something that's foundational to the gospel.

No, the resurrection of Jesus, we must understand, is the gospel.

If Christ has not been raised, writes the Apostle Paul, then your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

In other words, no resurrection, no good news.

But, in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.

For Paul, the church's greatest pastor and thinker of the first century, Christ's resurrection from the dead is not speculation, it's not mere symbolism, it's not metaphor or blind faith.

It is a historical, verifiable fact that changes everything.

One scholar named Tom Wright agrees.

He says, of course, in the ancient world there were lots of legends, lots of myths, lots of things floating around.

He says, my problem as a historian is that unless you say Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead, it is very, very difficult to explain historically many of the features of early Christianity.

He goes on to say that people sometimes say, well, we have modern science, so we prove that the resurrection can't happen.

He says, this is ridiculous.

Plato knew that dead people don't rise.

Homer knew that.

Socrates knew that.

This is not a new discovery.

But early Christians said the Creator, God, is launching his new world.

And Jesus' bodily resurrection is the beginning of it.

The resurrection is not an isolated bizarre event within the old world.

It is the beginning event within the new world.

But the new world nests within and is transforming the old world.

So if it's true that Jesus' resurrection happened in real history, then we can no longer say that human life inevitably ends with death.

Now, by the power of God, the risen Lord Jesus has put the power of death to death by his resurrection life.

Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed.

Hallelujah.

Stick with me, you guys.

But the gospel of Jesus' resurrection is not merely an announcement of what has happened on the first Easter Sunday, as world-changing an event as that is.

The gospel of the risen Jesus, the gospel that the church has proclaimed since that first Easter Sunday is this.

You and I are invited to share in Christ's resurrection.

His resurrection life can become our resurrection life.

For as in Adam all die, writes Paul, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

All in Christ shall be made alive.

This is God's promise, ratified in history on the first Easter Sunday, that we proclaim as the gospel.

But we must read this passage precisely and notice to whom this promise is given.

All in Christ shall be made alive.

Church reformer John Calvin writes that we must understand as long as Christ remains outside of us and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value to us.

If we want his promise to apply to us, then the question we ought to ask is this.

How do we come to be in Christ and not outside of Christ?

Let's have a look at our reading from Paul's letter to the church in Rome.

Romans 6, let's start at verse 3.

Paul answers our question with a question Do you not know that all of us who've been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Theologian Marcus Johnson writes that baptism is God's pledge to us in the visible sign and seal of water of our incorporation into the death and resurrection of Christ, the cleansing of our sins, and our inclusion into Christ's body, the church, by the power of the Holy Spirit through faith.

So baptism is God's chosen means of signifying and sealing this union between the Christian and the risen Christ.

Being united with Christ in baptism means that we're united with him in his death.

Christ's death is more significant than the fact that he stopped breathing there for a little while.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, writes Peter, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness by his wounds.

You have been healed.

Christ died as the sacrificial Lamb of God who uniquely and unrepeatably takes away the sins of the world.

Through his cross, he does away with everything that separates us from the love of our holy God.

Being baptized into Christ's death means that we are spiritually united to the crucified one, and the penalty and power of our sin is put to death through his cross.

And there is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

But to be united with the crucified Christ is the same thing to be united with the risen Christ.

If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Baptism is simultaneously an ending and a beginning.

It's an ending to our life outside of Christ and the beginning of our life in Christ.

Our catechism reads the inward and spiritual grace given by God in baptism is death to sin and new birth to righteousness through union with Christ in his death and resurrection.

So baptism is mortification and vivification at the same time.

Because of the spiritual union that it affects with the crucified and risen Lord Jesus, who puts sin to death through his cross and raises us to new life in him.

Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed.

Hallelujah.

We shouldn't understand that the water of baptism is magical, you know, like a resurrection potion.

The church baptizes with water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not because we believe that the water itself saves us, but rather because our risen Savior, who commands Christians to be baptized in this way, has promised to work salvation from sin and death through this water.

As a means of grace and a sure witness to his promise.

He wants to douse us in his resurrection life.

Baptism is a sign that effects what it signifies.

But why water, we might ask?

Couldn't God use any other means to unite us to Christ?

And that's a fair question.

In one sense, yes, God can use whatever means he'd like to unite us with Christ.

He's God, after all.

But he's also quite purposeful.

Cleansing rituals had been around for a long time before Jesus commanded baptism.

We remember Jesus' own baptism by John in the River Jordan.

See, water removes dirt from the body and makes one clean.

In the water of baptism, God gives a clear and outward sign of the inward spiritual reality taking place.

His grace working to cleanse us from the power of sin and death.

A little while ago I got mesmerized by an internet phenomenon.

I couldn't figure out how to describe it, so I decided to show you a video.

This was something that, believe it or not, kind of took the internet by storm and had people just watching cycles and cycles of these videos.

If we can get that going.

Okay, so this is this is a tarnished coin being put into what's called the forbidden Gatorade.

And it really is called that.

Whatever this substance is, just instantly removes all the dirt, everything that tarnishes that coin, and there you see the difference.

Friends, this is just such a vivid illustration of what baptism is all about.

This is the spiritual reality at work right here in the font, cleansing us from the power of sin.

Baptism, writes the Apostle Peter, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Wait a minute, Creighton, you might be thinking.

I thought we were saved by God's grace through faith.

Now you're saying we're saved by grace through baptism?

What about faith?

We should understand that faith is not opposed to God's appointed means of grace.

In fact, faith alone grasps the grace of God at work through his chosen means.

See, if we want to hear a beautiful melody, we might need to gather around the piano to hear Jonathan play us a tune.

But having heard the tune, we'd be mistaken to call the piano the music itself.

Does that make sense?

The piano is the instrument through which the melody is played.

So too if we trust in God.

That is, if we have faith in Him, then we gather around the instruments that He's chosen to use to exhibit the beauty of His saving grace for us.

To neglect the instruments of His grace would be to neglect the beauty of His salvation.

So we are saved by God's grace through faith, and saving faith takes us to where God has promised in his word to deliver us from sin and apply his saving grace to us.

This journey begins at the water of baptism, where we are incorporated into Christ's atoning death.

Having been buried with him in baptism, we are united with him in his resurrection life.

So, friends, if you're baptized, remember your baptism.

Take it to heart.

The promises you'll hear proclaimed at this font belong to you too, regardless of whether or not you are baptized with a liturgy that looks like this one.

These promises belong to you because they are given to us in God's word.

Embrace these promises by faith and never let go of them.

They will assure you of God's great love for you when you are in doubt.

They will guarantee his forgiveness when you feel accused, and they are a pledge of new life to those of us who walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

Remember your baptism and be glad.

You are united with Christ in a resurrection like his.

But perhaps you were baptized years ago, maybe when you were a baby or when you were young, maybe on an impulse at summer camp.

Maybe you haven't given much thought to the significance of your baptism or its promises.

Maybe you can relate to what Sam Albury writes about Easter.

He writes that many Christians, while believing in the resurrection and rehearsing that belief every Easter Sunday, effectively stick it back in the drawer for the rest of the year because they're at a loss to know what to do with it.

Do you feel like your baptism is tucked away in a drawer because you're not quite sure what to do with it?

The risen Christ has pledged to you his resurrection life through your baptism.

No matter how old you were when you received it, this promise belongs to you.

It is yours to claim by faith, trusting in Jesus.

We can be baptized and yet still keep Christ at a distance, can't we?

We must remember, so long as Christ remains outside of us, his saving benefits are of no value and useless to us.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Today could be the day where you begin to walk by faith in the newness of life that baptism promises by putting your trust in Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

And if you're not baptized, will you consider Christ's great promise of resurrection life that he makes at this font?

One commentator writes that it is certain that Paul did not regard baptism as an optional extra in the Christian life, and that he would not have contemplated the phenomenon of an unbaptized believer.

Friends, we are never too old, never too far gone, never too sinful to heed Peter's exhortation.

Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins.

Jesus longs for you to know the hope of resurrection life that He gives you in this water.

Our baptism bears witness.

As surely as Christ is risen, we too will be raised.

This promise is for Cayley.

This promise is for me.

This promise is for you.

Take it to heart.

If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly, certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

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May God bless you and keep you today and every day.