September 14, 2013

As I have already mentioned, water has always played an important part in the plan and purpose of God.

Perhaps that is because it, like the Trinity, exists in three forms – gas, liquid and solid.

But, for those reasons and more, there are several very familiar stories in the Bible where God used water to save and deliver His people! I can’t think of a more appropriate way to set the stage for water baptisms than to review these stories.

THE FLOOD

"The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” Genesis 6:5-8

WATER DELIVERED FROM GOD’S PENALTY

THE RED SEA

“I want you to bear in mind, Brothers, that all our ancestors were beneath the cloud, and all passed through the sea; That in the cloud and in the sea they all underwent baptism as followers of Moses” I Corinthians 10:1-2

The late Pat Summerall spent 50 years with the national Football League. He was drafted by the Detroit Lions in 1952 and played with the Chicago Cardinals and New York Giants until 1961. After his retirement from the game, he joined CBS as a broadcaster, and in 1993 switched to Fox. During his CBS years he and a fellow broadcaster partied hard off the field. "We raised Cain. I was the first guy at the bar and the last to leave." Summerall was told that if he kept on drinking he was going to die. 

After checking himself into the Betty Ford Clinic, his counselor urged him to seek a better life through faith. At age 66, Pat Summerall was baptized. In USA Today he told a reporter that when the minister "leaned me back in the water, I never felt so helpless." Summerall testified, "I knew I just became a Christian. I can’t tell you how great life has been since then." 

There may have been a helpless feeling when the Israelites walked through the waters seeing the past coming after them. But when they came up out of the water and the waters rushed back – they had a brand new life in a new land.

WATER DELIVERED THEM FROM THEIR PAST

CROSSING THE JORDAN

^“So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground” Joshua 3:14-17

WATER BROUGHT THEM INTO GOD’S PROMISE

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?  Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,” Romans 6:1-8

Baptism is a visual representation of the death and burial of Jesus (going under the water) and the resurrection of Jesus (rising from the water). Through His sacrificial death and supernatural resurrection, Jesus destroyed the two most powerful weapons the enemy used against us!

WATER DEMONSTRATES THE POWER OF GOD!

Greek poet and physician Nicander, who lived about 200 B.C. gives an interesting insight into the Greek verbs “bapto” and “baptizo” in a recipe for making pickles and is helpful because it uses both words. Nicander says that in order to make a pickle, the vegetable should first be `dipped’ (bapto) into boiling water and then `baptized’ (baptizo) in the vinegar solution. Both verbs concern the immersing of vegetables in a solution. But the first is temporary. The second, the act of baptizing the vegetable, produces a permanent change. When used in the New Testament, this word more often refers to our union and identification with Christ than to our water baptism.  For example: Mark 16:16. “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.” Christ is saying that mere intellectual assent is not enough. There must be a union with him, a real change, like the vegetable to the pickle!

Here’s the beauty of what we are doing this morning as we celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism. As these five candidates go into the baptismal waters this morning – as they get “ALL WASHED UP” – they are testifying to the grace of God and the fact that the Devil in all his efforts to destroy and defeat them – IS ALL WASHED UP!

THE BAPTISMAL WATERS TESTIFY:

1) WE ARE DELIVERED FROM GOD’S PENALTY! – (Or You Can Be)

2) WE ARE DELIVERED FROM OUR PAST – (Or You Can Be)

3) WE ARE DELIVERED INTO GOD’S PROMISE – (Or You Can Be)

4) WE ARE A DEMONSTRATION OF GOD’S PROMISE – (Or It Can Be)