Believer's Baptism — Romans 6

0:01 Morning. Hope my notes are in here. I stole Scott Bingham's notes once years ago. He left his bible open and he was speaking and was sitting on the edge over there and I took his notes out of it. And I watched him right before he went up and he was going.

0:28 So every time I set my bible down, kind of look around and just make sure now I'm probably toast. I shouldn't have said that. I don't know why I used that example. But anyway. What we're doing, for those of you who may not have been here, we're going through the New Testament principles of gathering.

0:55 And our assembly here, that's what we call ourselves, an assembly of godly believers, or assembly of believers. And what's that? Yeah. New Testament. Okay, thanks.

1:14 New Testament principles that we follow. So, I encourage audience participation, you know. I'd prefer it verbal other than just facial. Because if you see an elder going, and you know, you're trying to think what did I just say while you're still speaking and at the same time and it's then, you know, sometimes your words say in reverse. But I will be asking some questions because the topic this morning is baptism.

1:46 I've been asked to speak on baptism. I've been asked that before, but it was usually right before the baptism and it was just a ten or fifteen minute talk. It's a little longer time period here. So I'm going to ask some questions and we're going to talk about a couple different things or a couple different aspects of baptism. So, as I started to say, we're following these in somewhat of an order.

2:13 The elders have laid out the topics to cover and as we go through the New Testament principles. So today we're speaking on believer's baptism. The Lord Jesus established two ordinances. And what is an ordinance? Not something that explodes.

2:33 My son's in military and basic training. He talked to me yesterday and we have to identify the ordinance and protect it. And we got back from training at fourteen hundred hours. And I said, sixteen hundred hours? Yeah, got back at sixteen hundred hours.

2:45 I said, oh, 04:00? Oh yeah, yeah, that's right, 04:00. What's an ordinance? Dictionary definition. I probably wouldn't have known it had I not read it.

2:54 But it's an authoritative direction or a decree. Kind of like an executive order, you could say. So we're going to use that definition. Jesus established two of those. What are the two?

3:08 Somebody here in the front row. What are the two? No. Two ordinances. Two things that we do.

3:17 Kind of... I'm speaking on one of them. So one of them is? Baptism. Baptism.

3:28 No. We want participation. What's the second one? It also occurred today. Right.

3:39 Breaking of bread. You guys were bailed out. Okay. So what are the two, Micah? Okay.

3:47 Good. Breaking of bread and baptism. So that's what we're we're and we're discussing baptism this morning. The text I want to turn to is Romans chapter six. There's a lot of verses and a lot of different references, but we're going to stick to Romans six for simplicity and also because it really outlines, it's really the picture of what is taking place in baptism.

4:18 So, read Romans six verses three through 11. Or do you not know that all of us who were bapt, who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead, through the glory of the father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him in order that our body of in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.

5:01 For he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again. Death no longer is master over him. For the death that he died, he died once to sin, he died to sin once for all.

5:23 But the life he lives, he lives to God. Even so, yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. There's several references there to what baptism pictures in a believer's life. But first, I'm going to talk about four points. The first one is why baptism?

6:03 Why baptism? Why anything? Why do we do what we do? Why do we need to be baptized or why do we talk about baptism? Anybody know why?

6:15 Right. It's an ordinance. Thanks Jim. A little deeper than that. Jesus was baptized.

6:27 Right. Jesus was baptized and Jesus commanded it. Right? In Matthew twenty eight nineteen, the Great Commission, Jesus said, go into all the nations and baptize. Preach, make disciples, and baptize in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit.

6:42 So Jesus commanded baptism. That's one of the reasons why. And there are several examples. Jesus was baptized. And there's several pictures of baptism in the New Testament.

6:54 Who can name another baptism other than Jesus is being baptized? Was somebody else? The Ethiopian. Ethiopian was baptized. Another picture of baptism by another prominent bible character.

7:15 John the Baptist. The back row. Zach, right off the cuff. John the Baptist. John was baptizing, right?

7:22 What was John baptizing into? Or picturing? Repentance, right? John's baptism was a sign of repentance that the Israel Israelites were coming and saying that they agreed with his testimony, right? That they were agreeing with John's call to be baptized.

7:45 And that was a picture of baptism. But when those believers, when those disciples of John, if you want to say that John had his disciples and followers that he also baptized, when they became believers in Christ, what happened? What all... Right. They were baptized as believers, right?

8:13 So those believers of John, followers of John, were baptized into his repentance, but they were also, after they accepted the Lord and believed on his name, they were also baptized as believers. Correct? Am I wrong in that? Okay. I'm getting some questioning looks, so.

8:33 So, why baptism? First, because Jesus commanded it And because it's a, it's a, there's several examples. Jesus being baptized and we see the picture. So what is baptism? I think a lot of you have a definition in your mind of what baptism is.

8:53 Who has an idea? Who has a definition they'd like to share? What is baptism? Believer's baptism. Okay.

9:10 That was one that I wasn't thinking about. That's good. I like it. Okay. Amy?

9:51 Right. The definition that a lot of us are familiar with or we've heard or we might read is, it's a public identification of the believer with the Lord Jesus Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. So it's after we have accepted Christ, have have placed our faith in Christ, we are sealed, we are permanently saved by his blood, by his sacrifice. Baptism doesn't do anything for salvation. Well, I'm getting ahead of myself.

10:25 That's into the next section. But the definition, it's identification with the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's you making a public statement. A lot of times baptism is public. We have a big baptismal, kind of a big tub in the back.

10:44 It's a public service, if you want to call it. There are witnesses there. You're baptized. Some of you have been baptized at camp. My wife was baptized in their swimming pool.

10:57 I was baptized in Lake Huron. Like Abi mentioned, it can be in public bodies of water anywhere, but it's a public confession that you are identifying yourself with Christ. You are acknowledging that I am a believer in Christ, and I identify myself with his death, burial, and resurrection. What does the water symbolize in baptism? What's the water symbolize?

11:45 And then as you come up out of the water, that's symbolizing the resurrection. So there's a reason for that. It's not just a chance to get Mr. Reeder wet in baptismal pool or tub there. There's a reason we do complete immersion, complete underwater and up out of the water.

12:06 Now, there's a lot of different groups that don't do that anymore. I don't think there's very many people that would say that's not how it was done in the New Testament. You know, they were in the Jordan River. John was in the Jordan River. Jesus was baptized in the river.

12:22 The eunuch went down into the river, the body of water, the lake, whatever was there. So the picture is over and over again of complete submersion or immersion under and coming up. And that's a whole picture of that whole process of coming out of the water. There's a reason why we do that. Baptism by immersion.

12:43 And that's what we practice here in the back. So that's a little bit about why baptism. The Lord commanded it. It's one of the two ordinances that he set out. And what it is by...

12:59 What it's a picture of and what it signifies in our life as believers. So let's talk a little bit about what baptism is not. Justin, do you need to be baptized to be saved? How do you know that? Give me an example of someone who was saved in Bible that was not baptized.

13:31 I'll give you a clue. It was on the cross. Jesus, but Jesus, there was somebody next to Jesus. Right. The thief on the cross, right?

13:48 He placed his faith in Christ on the cross. He said, remember me when you enter your kingdom. And Jesus said, surely I say to you, you will be with me today in paradise. So that is one example of someone who was placed his faith in Christ and couldn't be baptized. Obviously, he was on the cross.

14:07 So baptism does not add to salvation or is not required by salvation. It doesn't add anything and it doesn't subtract anything. If you've not been baptized, it doesn't mean that you are not going to heaven if you've placed your faith in Christ. But I found a little booklet that I had read through and it was from what's called New Testament Principles, a Synopsism or something. And the inscription on the front was to Guy and Betty from David Long.

14:40 So it went back a ways. Anyway, J. Boyd Nicholson, Sr. States in that he has a paper. There's several papers in this little booklet.

14:51 He has a paper on baptism. And he states in there, there are two things that the New Testament never considers. Let me get these right. Two things never contemplated in the New Testament. One is an unbaptized believer.

15:07 The other one is a baptized unbeliever. Okay, and today we have a lot of both of those scenarios. I think part of it is because it's it's taught or it's understood by some that it's not required for salvation, but it's it's expected of the believer. It's almost expected. I mean, Jesus said, go and preach and baptize.

15:30 It was right in right in the command and his last words to the disciples. So, it's expected that as a believer that we're going to do that. And I think because we've taken something away from that, and maybe we have not emphasized that in the church enough, it's kind of become an optional thing. Or something that, well, we'll get to it somewhere down the road. I think we've wrongly reduced the importance of the requirement of that or the symbolism of that in our faith.

16:25 I think we've lost a little bit of what Christ has really delivered us from. I mean, we're all guilty to that to some extent. We're born in this country. A lot of us have been born here. We've had pretty easy lives as compared to the rest of the world.

16:45 It was mentioned in the breaking of the bread. There's believers probably being headed at being being beheaded as we speak or certainly tortured. Their faith, their life is on the line all over the world. And we take a lot of that for granted. And I wanted to think a little bit as a backdrop to baptism, think a little bit about our sin nature.

17:09 Okay? We understand in our head that we're sinners, that we're born that way, and that the only way we can be released from that, that hereditary nature, is through the blood of Christ. I think we understand that, but somehow, it's just not real in our minds and in my mind, on a consistent basis. So, as I was reading in Oswald Chambers, I'll read a little, just a little excerpt from one of his devotionals. The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man's sin, but that the nature of sin, namely, my claim to the right to myself, entered the human race through one man.

18:02 But it also says that another man took upon himself the sin of the human race and put it away, an infinitely more profound revelation. The nature of sin is not immorality or wrongdoing, but the nature of self realization which leads us to say, I am my own God. When we... When Adam and Eve, when that first initial sin took place, our entire nature changed. I mean, everything changed.

18:30 You know, we kind of think, oh, that's, know, took a bite of the apple or whatever the fruit was, and sinned, their eyes were opened. I mean, think about that. What does that really mean? Their eyes were opened? They understood good and evil?

18:45 They became... All of a sudden they realized that they were naked and they were afraid and they hid and just the whole self realization just, I just kind of vision it as, or glasses, if you ever put on like some of the red, you know, they say you see everything in rose colored glasses. You put on some different glasses and everything changes, Or three-dimensional. Changed. Our whole physical, mental capacity as humans, everything changed and we became self centered like that.

19:16 There are no other animals on the planet, as far as I know, that have self realization. Chimpanzees, apes, they don't have a realization of their own self existence. Like, I'm up here now and if I see my wife going, I'm going to think I got something on my face, you know. Or, you know, we are aware of ourself. I put the tie out.

19:44 What do you think of the tie? The tie looks good. You didn't do a very good job ironing. She told me I didn't do a very good job ironing my shirt. I said, I don't think Jesus ironed his tunic.

19:55 That was the way our... It was fun. It wasn't... We weren't angry this morning. But, so, we're self aware.

20:04 We have a self real, we're selfish. We're selfish beings and we struggle against that every minute of every day in our whole life. And I don't even think that I even realize how much I struggle with it. Almost every thought is a struggle with selfishness. Can you imagine if we were unselfish?

20:19 I tried to think of, well, as mentioned this morning, the guy that, you know, someone that dives on the grenade, right? That's an ultimate, that's an unselfish act. Obviously, the Lord Jesus, death on the cross, that was the ultimate in unselfishness and dying for our sins. Those are instances, at least with the... Apart from Christ, humans, we might get it right once in a while, but on a daily basis it's very tough, isn't it?

20:48 I try to think of an analogy and the best I could come up with was my dog. As far as being not realizing self. A dog will kind of, you know, as you know dogs, they don't have a lot of self realization going on. Our dog runs, we let it run, it'll run-in pig manure, pig manure flying all over, drool running down its face. The other day it was just running, running, running, running.

21:14 That drool, like white drool went around its nose and you know, we're just thinking, wipe that off and you know, can he run through the manure and eats manure, you know. So the dog doesn't have a lot of self realization. But a dog is loyal. I mean, for the most part, she's a good dog. She'll obey you.

21:35 She'll follow you anywhere. She loves to play, she loves to do just about anything. Always ready to do something with a ball. But a dog is fairly unselfish and fairly unself realized. But we struggle with that.

21:50 And my... I shared a little bit with some of the guys yesterday talking about the boys to men. I mean, that's a struggle in our family and with our kids and with our relationship, with everything. It boils down to self. And we can say one minute, I understand that.

22:08 You're right, selfishness is a big problem and I can be unselfish in one thought and then the next thought is right back to self again. It's that ingrained into us. So my point in talking about some of these things is just to think about what happened at the fall. What happened when sin entered the human race? What really took place?

22:37 And because of that change, why it was necessary for Christ to die and shed his blood and free us from that bondage. That is the only way, as Oswald Chambers points out. He makes another observation that I think is very good. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into anyone the hereditary nature that was in himself. And all the standards he gives to us are based on that nature.

23:10 His teaching is meant to be applied to the life which he puts within us. The proper action on my part is simply to agree with God's verdict on sin as judged on the cross of Christ. So the beatitudes, the the commandments, the guide... The instructions that Christ gives us in the bible, we're not meant to live those on our own. On our own strength and our own nature that we inherited as as result of the fall of man.

23:39 Those are to be lived through the power of Christ, through Christ's nature in us. We can't we can't live that on our own. That's what we're talking about in Romans. We are freed from sin but we we cannot do it apart from Christ taking that hereditary nature in us. So I started to think of, as far as inheriting sin, what are some things to to...

24:22 I tell everybody that it's jet black, but I dye it so I can look wise and experienced, I dye it gray. But I have a tendency towards gray hair. Some of our kids have a tendency that their... Two of their toes are together. They're like grown together, skin all the way up, they're like webbed toes.

24:41 So we're waiting for the great swimmer to come out of the family, but that hasn't happened yet. They inherited those things. We inherited certain things that we had nothing, no control over. We couldn't stop it. The readers are tall.

24:58 You know? Look at Josh. What is he? I mean, he's, I don't know, six... What?

25:04 Six? He's going to... I mean, he's in what? In eighth grade or something? He's going to be...

25:09 Ears. Ears. Jim. I wouldn't have pointed that out. I wasn't going to go there.

25:17 Why is that going like this? He's going to Jim. Is there any inherent... No. So we've inherited things that were beyond our control and sin nature is obviously the main thing that we inherited that has put a barrier between us and God.

25:35 And I think we get used to living with our sinful nature. We allow ourselves a level of tolerance of our sin nature and we we get comfortable with that. And we forget God's call to be holy as he is holy. And we allow ourselves a certain comfort level with that. And along with that, maybe goes a little less realization for the what Christ has done.

26:03 And along with that, goes a little less realization of what baptism means and maybe a little less realization of the importance of baptism and it kind of goes right on down the line. And pretty soon, baptism is just an option. A lot of things become options because really the only thing that matters is that we place our faith in Christ. And that is true, but that has other implications. And baptism is one of them.

26:26 And breaking of the bread is the other. Being participating in worship service and the breaking of the bread. These are things should be desired from our hearts, should come from within us as we realize what exactly Christ has done for us. Genesis five:one has an interesting contrast as far as we're talking about what changed in our nature. Genesis chapter five.

26:53 There's a picture there of change, dramatic change in the human race. Genesis five chapter chapter five verse one says, This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and he blessed them and named them man in the day when they were created. Now, the next verse, verse three says, when Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness according to his image and he named him Seth.

27:38 You see the difference there? God created man in his image, in his likeness, in the likeness of God. But at... But by the time Adam's son was born, he was in his image, in Adam's image, not God's image. We're we're no longer have that perfect reflection of the image of God that Adam and Eve had in Genesis.

28:02 There's a dramatic change in our nature. And I think I've spoken about this before. I have a psychology professor at Taylor that talked about when you can look in these awesome examples of talent. There's five year old, six year old kids that can speak multiple languages. There's the Woodhams that have incredible musical talent.

28:28 There's talent that you see and you see glimpses of this talent and you think, Wow, that's amazing. And one of the things that he would say in classes, his thoughts were that some of those examples of extreme talent and accomplishment and amazing feats were what man was capable of in God's image before the fall. And there are little glimpses that have made it through all the fall and the genetic change and everything that's come about. And maybe there's a little glimpse of, wow, that kid could do that at five? What do you think Adam and Eve, you know, were like before the fall?

29:03 That's just his thinking and I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it helps us think about the fact that we have such potential in God's image and we're restored to that through faith in Christ. He restores us into that relationship. So that leads us to what baptism is not. And I've covered most of that already. Not a means of salvation.

29:33 And that's example by thief on the cross and other examples. We're told, obviously, verses upon verses of salvation by faith alone. That's how we're saved in Christ. So what are some hindrances to baptism? This is the last point.

30:13 That is not described or talked about. There are families that were baptized in the New Testament. We don't know that there were infants in those families or that there's no clear direction that, yes, you should be baptized as an infant. The picture is a public confession of your faith in Christ, so therefore it would stand to reason that you should have made that decision and be old enough to reason that you are agreeing with Christ and you're placing your faith in him. So unbelief is obviously a reason for lack of baptism.

30:46 And one of the reasons for unbelief is our lack of accepting responsibility for our sin. Right? We don't like to say we're sinners. We don't like to take responsibility for our actions. And there was an article a few years ago with a stockbroker, an advertisement that a stockbroker put in the newspaper and he said, for $1.95 I will run one mile for you for an entire year.

31:09 I will send you a certificate stating that I will gain those benefits for you of feeling better, muscle tone, sleeping better, clearer thoughts. I will send you that certificate for $1.95 a year. So what was he doing? He was taking that responsibility of the person to have to go run. I don't want to have to go run.

31:29 I hate running and I know there's a lot of benefits but I don't want to do it. So he'll do it for me. We don't want to take that responsibility. We don't want to tell, we don't want to say, I agree, I confess, I'm a sinner, repent from my ways, and turn to Christ. We like to put, look at Adam and Eve, right?

31:47 I mean, Adam pretty much said Eve did it and Eve pretty much said God did it. And the serpent did it. And Adam said, Eve, the woman you gave me, which essentially was sort of blaming God indirectly, right? I mean, they pushed it right along, right from the beginning, and we still do it today. And this stockbroker, by the way, had about three fifty people pay him the $1.95 to run for them for a year.

32:17 Probably kind of let jokes and letters to the editor and those kinds of things. Could see my father-in-law, Harry, if he would have seen that ad, probably would have said, I'll pay him $1.95 to run for me and send him a letter about his great entrepreneurship and ideas. So one is a lack of belief, hindrances to baptism. The other is a lack, what we've talked about, a lack of understanding and conviction of what Christ has done for us and the importance of that picture of taking that public stand of confessing that Christ has done that for us and acknowledging that we are uniting ourself with Christ. One might be a fear of others.

32:59 We might fear what other people are going to say or what's, what they're going to think. Another might be pride. A little prideful. We don't really think it's necessary and I don't really want to commit myself to that. If we go back to our text in Romans, We really see how critical identifying with Christ and accepting his death on the cross is.

33:43 Therefore, we have been baptized, we have been buried with him through baptism unto death. So that as Christ was raised from the dead, through the glory of the father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. What a fantastic privilege.

34:19 What an incredible miracle that Christ died for our sin, that he took it upon himself to restore our relationship through his blood and that that's what it took. And I guess baptism and even even seeing others baptized here is an encouragement to the believers here, isn't it? When we've had those baptism services and you see other believers identifying themselves with Christ's death and burial and resurrection, it's an encouragement. It's an encouragement to see young people taking that stand and making that identification when there's so many other things that they can be identified with and stands that they could take in this world today. So I leave you with just the final thought that I read earlier from J.

35:14 Boyd Nicholson, that the New Testament really never contemplated two things. One is an unbaptized believer and the second is a baptized unbeliever. And if you fall into either one of those categories, I would encourage you to first, if you're not a believer, to talk to one of us here, one of the elders or one of the brothers about what salvation is through faith in Christ, number one. Number two, if you're a believer who has not been baptized, I would encourage you to talk to the elders or your parents about baptism and the importance of it and the picture that it is of our united with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. Let's pray.

36:48 It was so important in the New Testament that when a believer was saved many times, he went right into the water, right there on the spot. If there was water there, they went in immediately. It was that important. We just thank you for that picture of going under the water, dying to our sins, coming up out of the water, being freed from sin and being tied to Christ in his resurrection. We thank you for that promise that we will be with him together forever in eternity.

37:18 We thank you for this simple yet profound picture of baptism. We thank you that it is a practice in the New Testament that we can see clearly and we strive to follow that. We pray that you would lead those here who don't know you into the saving knowledge of yourself, draw them to you, this day. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.