This is the message given by Pastor James Lim during the evening worship service at Faith Presbyterian Church, Long Beach, California for Sunday, June 11, 2017. The title of the message is, Baptized into Christ. Well, if you would open your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 6. If you don't have a Bible, you can also look at the programs. There are probably some some around, but the passage is still in there. This is kind of a shorter reflection meditation on the same passage from this morning, Romans chapter 6, verses 1 to 14. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we come to you this evening to return and to gather around your word, to hear what you have to say, to hear the words and the truths that you speak to us, inspired by your Holy Spirit, written through Christ and about Christ, so that we might hear it by faith. And not just hear it, but to unite what we hear by faith to our hearts and to our lives. That it would really dig deep into our hearts and change us. It would dig deep into the areas of our lives that we didn't know we needed your grace. That it would shine light into those things that we need to hear. In particular, Lord, that we need to hear about dying and rising with Christ and what that means for the way that we live our lives practically every day. So bless this reading and preaching, and may it be a suitable word in preparation for the baptism that is to come. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Here now the reading of God's word beginning in verse one of chapter six. 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 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. 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 we also will 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. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace. And this is the reading of God's holy word. This evening, I wanted to reflect on Romans 6 again, just to look at it from a few different angles in light of tonight's baptism. And it made me think about Martin Luther, the great reformer of the 16th century, 15th century, excuse me, the way that he would describe the application of our baptism to the rest of the Christian life. When we think about the ordinances of God, the means of grace, the ways in which God has instituted to convey His grace on an ongoing basis, pretty much everything in the Christian life is a continual process of conveying grace to us, right? We hear the Word read and preached on a weekly basis, maybe even more. We study God's Word and we receive that grace from His Word regularly. We have the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, where we eat and drink unto faith the grace of Jesus' death and resurrection into our lives. And we do that, you know, bimonthly. We have prayer on a regular basis, right? In which we are, by virtue of our faith in Christ, our acceptance as children of God, that God hears the prayers of His children and He answers them. And that's a means of grace to us. And that's regular, right? We pray at least once a day, at least I hope, right? And we gather together as a church regularly, particularly in the worship service. When we worship together, we pray together as a means of grace. But baptism is unique in all of these things because the Lord Jesus Christ Paul writes in Ephesians that there's one Lord, one faith, one baptism for the remission of sin. So baptism is that one means of grace where there's only one, and after that, you don't get baptized over and over again. Or at least the theology of the Bible is that there's only one baptism that's effective, and so you don't need any more. And so Martin Luther used to talk about applying that once for all baptism in our lives regularly to our Christian lives, and he would call it improving our baptism. And what he meant by that is remembering, reckoning the baptism that we have received into Christ and leveraging it for the way in which we see everything in our lives. It is a complete comprehensive worldview by which we live by faith. This morning when I gave that quote where we talked about reckoning, reckoning is an action of faith in which we live in the truth of something. So maybe one example is, and I give this all the time, but I think it's a great example for everything else in scripture, is that when Peter saw Jesus walking on the water, in his worldview, it just rocked his worldview that Jesus, the Messiah, could walk on water. And so because Jesus could walk on water, the possibility of walking on water was there. for the first time I can imagine in his life. And so Peter, being kind of the brave, brave and kind of a little rambunctious person, apostle that he was, he said, Jesus, call out to me, invite me, have me walk on water and I'll walk on water towards you. And so Jesus says, okay, come on, walk on water. Now, there had to be a kind of reckoning of faith where Peter, at least at the beginning, believed that he could walk on water because Jesus said, come and walk on water. And so the way that we know he reckoned that faith as truth in his life was that he took a step out onto the water and he walked on water. But if he didn't reckon that truth as part of his worldview, what would have happened? If he didn't believe Jesus' invitation to come, what would have happened? He wouldn't have taken a step out. He wouldn't have reckoned that invitation as truth, and he wouldn't have gone forward. And so when the gospel comes to us and preaches us the grace of God in Christ, in being baptized into Christ, into his death and resurrection, that is a truth with which God wants us to reckon as our reality of faith. That this is true of you, therefore go and live in that truth of what is true of you. Live, live according to who you are. That's basically it. That's what baptism proclaims to us, even though it happened once, maybe. And for some of us, we don't remember, right? Because we've been baptized as children. For some of us, we were baptized when we do remember. And for at least one of us today will be baptized so that you can remember. But what are you to remember? You're to remember that truth of being baptized into Christ. And it is this gift. It is this once for all gift that God deposits into your life and into your heart. that it is more than all that you need for your Christian life. In all of its mountaintops, in all of its valleys, in all of its joys, in all of its sorrows, in all of its ease, in all of its trials and tribulations, God gives you a deposit in baptism by faith to where All you need to do as you trust God and you live in your Christian life is to realize, to reckon those benefits for those times of need and for those times of joy. One way I think about it is, you know, when Sophia was young, when she was like, I don't know, maybe like three or four, my daughter, my oldest daughter, My in-laws bought this government bond, this U.S. savings bond, or some kind of bond, I forget what it is. And what it is is that it was a bond for this large amount of money, but it would not mature until she reached college age, because it was like a bond for savings for college. And so on paper, I mean, it's worth $1,000, but I'm sure my in-laws didn't pay that much. But whatever they did pay, it would accrue interest. And when it matured, then she could have access to it. But for all intents and purposes, it is what it's worth. Imagine God giving you a deposit of His infinite grace and God says, you know, whenever you need it, look to it. You know, you have this rich treasure of my grace in your life. All you need to do is just kind of You know, dig deep into those resources, those wells, and get it as you need it. And that's really what baptism is for us. It is a reminder, a visible sign and seal of that deposit of God's infinite grace to us in Christ Jesus, that when we need it, we need to rehearse it and recite it and remember it in our minds, that it is the story that informs the various stories of our lives. And so that we can turn every story that we experience in our lives into a gospel story. And so the occasion here of Paul's letter is that these Christians have forgotten. They have forgotten, they have not remembered, they are not reckoning that grace that they received in their baptism. And Paul is reminding them of that. If you are continuing in sin, if you are struggling with sin, and you call yourself a Christian, how can that be? It is not logical, it is inconsistent. Why? Because of God's grace. And some people interpreted God's grace as a license to sin, right? If I'm saved by grace, not by works and not by how I live, then why can't I just keep on going, keep on going sinning so that God can keep on giving me grace? And what Paul is saying is, is that no, no, it's because you have grace that you cannot, you must not continue in your sin. Why? Because in Christ, Because you've been baptized into Christ as a sign and seal of your once for all death with Christ. That there is a kind of mysterious interplay, this mysterious union that happens when you put your faith in Christ and that is visibly signified in baptism. that you become one with Christ. And so what happens to Christ happens to you. And what happened to Christ? He died on the cross in our sin. He died for our sin in order that you and I might die to our sin. And so if we are justified and saved by grace through faith, we cannot, we must not go on sinning so that grace may abound. It's interesting here that baptism, the idea of baptism in the Old and the New Testament has a range of meaning. Some folks, they narrow the definition of baptism only to immersion. Right, baptism, when something is baptized, it is only immersed in water. But if you look at all the uses of baptism in the Old, in the New Testament, and then in the translations of the Greek in the Old Testament, you'll see a range of meaning. And simply baptism is simply a generic word for washing. Right? You know, kind of like when you talk to your kids and you say, go and wash up for dinner, go and wash yourself. You know, based upon on who your child is and what their preferable mode of washing is, you know, for my daughter, when I tell her to wash up, she takes a bath. For like a long time. Don't tell her that. But she has so much fun. But if I tell my other daughter to wash up, she'll just take a quick shower or she'll wash her hands or whatever. It's a washing with running water with soap. And then depending on, you know, if you have a boy who, you know, is kind of like pig pen, you know, washing just might be, you know, a few sprinkles, you know, and it's just kind of getting some of the dust off. But there's a range of meaning in the idea in the word of baptism. And so here, Here is one of those areas in which baptism, the meaning is immerse. It is immerse, right? It is being placed into, being overwhelmed by, being, I guess, being subsumed in, in something, someone. And so Paul is using this idea of being immersed into Christ Jesus. And he's not talking specifically about the sacrament of baptism, but it's definitely in the background. It's like, when we do baptize, I think what Paul has in mind is this is the picture that our sacrament of baptism signifies. It is being placed into, being incorporated into, the person in the work of Christ. And so God baptizes us by immersing us into Christ, just as he immerses us in the water to wash us. You see this Old Testament imagery throughout the Old Testament. For example, in Noah's flood. Peter describes Noah's flood as a washing away of sin to clear the conscience that now saves us. It was a type of baptism. Or, for example, when Israel walked through the Red Sea, the parting of the Red Sea, they were baptized into Moses at that time. They followed, they trusted in Moses as their leader, and so they were baptized as one people into him. And in the same way, Paul says in 1 and 2 Corinthians that we are baptized into Christ as we walk through the waters, just like the Old Testament people did in the Red Sea. And also, just for your information, also when there was a parting of the sea of the Jordan River, it was a small baptism of that new generation that entered into the promised land. And so in this way, I think immersion is an apt illustration of what baptism into Christ means. Being buried under and into the floodwaters of judgment and rising again from it, like the ark, like the waters, like the Israel going through the Red Sea. Now, of course, again, you know, it's not the only imagery, but I think it is the most vivid and picturesque. It's kind of like, for example, when I do the Lord's Supper, some of you see me with that big piece of bread and I kind of break it. That's a symbolic act that it kind of stimulates our faith that just as that bread was broken, Jesus' body is broken for you and for me. But I don't have to do that. I can just simply give you pieces of bread and say, take. Jesus gave his people pieces of bread. But we do that because the sign and the symbolism kind of stimulates our faith to remember what that means. And so that's what immersion in baptism does for us, that we go under the waters of judgment and we die with Christ. And Paul shows us if we've died with Christ in baptism, that inevitably means that if we died with Christ, and He died for sin, we die to sin. And if we die to sin, that means sin is no longer alive to us, no longer alive in us. You know, I like to think of it as like when When we have a flu, right, we have virus in us that is replicating to such an extent that it overtakes our own immune system and it rules and reigns over our body and it enslaves us by making us incapable of doing the things that we want to do. How many of you had a flu so badly that you were laid out in bed for three or four days with the worst headache, with body chills and aches? You were a slave to the virus in your body. But once you received that medication that killed it, that made it unable to replicate, that made it unable to reign in your life and in your body, what happened? You got better. You got better. Your body got stronger. It freed you so that you can do what you were wanted to do and what you were meant to do. That's what baptism does in our lives. It's almost as if the baptism, the power of Jesus's death, that sin-killing power of Jesus's blood is injected into us and it kills sin. That sin dies in us because we have died to sin. And so when that happens, we're on our way to recovery. We've been set free from the power and the reign of sin. Some of you might be struggling with sin. I don't know what those sins might be. Maybe these are habitual sins that you've struggled with all of your life. Pride, greed, lust, being know-it-alls. There's some self-confession there. I've struggled with it all my life and I still struggle with it. But the gospel tells us that if you are baptized into the death of Christ to sin, sin cannot control you. And therefore, I can't say, I can't give up and say, you know what? I've been struggling with sin, I give up, I'm just gonna live with it. What we're saying is, we don't believe the gospel that we've been freed from that sin. But when we do believe the gospel, we can tell ourselves, I'm free from my pride. I'm free from my lust. I'm free from my know-it-all. I'm free from my greed. I'm free. Therefore, what I need to do is struggle to walk away the best I can. It may seem like you're going uphill. It may seem like you're going against the flow of the river. But God says in the gospel, you are free, therefore you can overcome that sin. It may happen in an instant. It may happen over a long course of time. But by golly, friends, brothers and sisters, you will and you are free. Do you believe that? We are also baptized into Christ as a sign and seal of our inevitable resurrection and new life in Christ. You know, if gravity is what goes up must come down, in our baptism, what goes down must come up. And so the logic goes, if we've died to sin once for all in the death of Christ, then we will, we must, we are risen from the dead. in Christ, to live like him. Look at verse five, 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. And this is the upside, if you will, of baptism. If we go down in the floodwaters of death, then just as Jesus came up out of the grave, then so will we out of the judgment waters of baptism. When we come up out of the judgment waters of death in Christ by faith, what that means is that we too have been risen with him. We've been risen to newness of life, to live with him and to live like him. Look at verse 10, for the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So, right, he's talking to you and I now, so you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. See, the point is that when we are baptized into the resurrection of Christ, his new life becomes our new life, to where when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, now we walk in the power of the resurrection. And the power of the resurrection is the power to live for God, to do what is right, to do what is holy, to trust Him and to live out of that trust in obedience and faith. And this is the language, this is the language that Jesus bids us to come, to take up our crosses and to follow Him. This is the language of discipleship, of trusting and following Jesus in order then to become like Him as disciples who become more and more like their masters. How did he live? How does he live? The life he lives, he lives to God, says Paul. And what does that mean for you and me? The life we live, we too then must live to God, wholly consecrated and separated from sin in this world the best we can to live lives of holiness as people of God. And what does that look like? It is a life of faith, trusting Him, and out of that trust, obeying Him. And that obedience, out of death, out of faith, shapes who we are ever more deeper, ever more stronger, to where we are more and more conformed, more and more shaped, like the potter to the clay, into the image and life and character of the Lord Jesus Christ. I like to think of it this way. I don't know, maybe some of you may think this is a funny illustration, but when there are baby ducklings about to hatch, and if you know anything about ducks or geese, when they break out of their shell, the first thing they look at, they imprint. They imprint as their model, as their mother or their father. And so they begin to follow that person or whatever that animal that they imprint upon. And sometimes it's people. Sometimes it's people. And so they begin to act like the people that they imprint on. They follow the people. They try to do what the people are doing. And so real animal specialists, what they'll do is they'll actually have puppets of adult ducks feeding the little chicks so that they imprint on other ducks and not on people. But if they imprint on the first thing that they look at, That's who they want to become like, to follow. And so when we rise out of our death, out of the judgment waters into newness of life, what the gospel tells us is to put our faith, to fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, and imprint our lives upon him, to follow him, to have our character be like him all the days of our lives. to live in Him, to walk with Him. 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, Paul says, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. And this is how we apply this doctrine of baptism into Christ. Pastor Tim Keller says this, The outworking of our union with Christ in his death and new life is that we must count ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ. Why must we count, reckon, or consider ourselves to be something that we already are? Because being dead to sin, no longer under the dominion of sin, is like a privilege or a legal right. Though it may be true or in force, a person may not realize or utilize the right privilege. For example, you may have a trust fund put in your name, but unless you draw on it, it won't change your actual financial condition. The trust fund should mean the end of your financial troubles, but it won't have that effect unless it is used. So we must count ourselves dead to sin because unless we act on this great privilege, it will not automatically be realized in our experience. We have to appropriate it, live it, enjoy it. That's how we remember. That's how we improve and appropriate our baptism. It is that trust fund of God's infinite deposit of grace. And it is useless to you unless you actually reach into it. and draw from it and let it bless you. Let me end with this last kind of meditation and thought about the significance of baptism into Christ for our lives. In ancient and medieval times, if a person was accused of a crime or of witchcraft, for example, One of the ways in which they underwent trial was a trial by ordeal, particularly water ordeal. What they would do is if they thought you were guilty of something, they're like, okay, we'll let God work this out. So what did they do? They tied a rock to your leg and threw you out into the river. And if you sunk, you were guilty. If you floated, you were innocent. And And so if you rose up out of the water, the verdict was innocent and righteous and free. But if you sunk, you're guilty and dead. Baptism is a trial by water ordeal in which Jesus took the verdict of our guilt and of our sin. and drowned under the floodwaters of God's judgment as he died on the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He literally drowned. If you hear about the medical reports of what crucifixion really is, he probably died of asphyxiation because of his own blood building up in his lungs. He drowned. He drowned as God poured out his wrath upon him. on that cross. But because he was righteous, because he died in our place, after three days in the grave, he rose out of the judgment waters, vindicated, righteous, free. That is the judgment of baptism on Jesus, and it is the same judgment that is counted to you and to me when we put our faith in Jesus Christ and we are baptized into his death and resurrection. We are baptized into his verdict, into his vindication, and therefore you and I are forever free of God's judgment. That this is why at the end of history we can say that we are already saved. Because the judgment that we are going to hear at the end of history when Jesus comes back is the judgment that we hear when we put our faith in Jesus Christ and we are baptized into him. Dead to sin, alive to God. Righteous, holy, beloved child. That is your verdict. That is my verdict. All because we are baptized into Christ. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you for this wonderful truth of baptism, that we have died with Christ and we are living with Christ. We've been raised with Christ. Lord, as we are about to witness a baptism, Father, may it remind us to reckon the truth of baptism for our own lives, that we would draw from the infinite account and store of grace that you've given to us in our baptism, and we would use it to fight sin, and we would use it for our time of need, whatever that may be. And so help us to improve. Help us to remember our baptism, now and forever. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.