Good morning.  Well, with our theme today being Christmas in July, I wanted to try and tie the sermon in somehow.  So, because of the birth of Jesus, we have someone who came to save us from the punishment that we deserve.  The way to accept that is to have faith in Him, and to be Baptized, and that is what we will be looking at this morning.

As we continue our series, “Would you get wet,” we come to a topic that we hope to say yes to.  The last couple of weeks we have said don’t get wet in the story of The Parting Of The Red Sea, and in the story of Noah And The Ark.  However, today would be a good time to get wet.

Before we go on though, let’s open with a word of prayer.

A drunk stumbled along a baptismal service one Sunday afternoon down by the river.  He proceeded to walk down into the water and stood next to the Preacher.  The minister turned and noticed the old drunk and said, “Mister, Are you ready to find Jesus?”  The drunk looks back and says, “Yes, Preacher.  I sure am.”

The minister then dunked the fellow under the water and pulled him right back up.  “Have you found Jesus?” the preacher asks.  “No, I didn’t!” says the drunk.

The preacher then dunks him under for quite a bit longer, brings him up and says, “Now, brother, have you found Jesus?”  But again, the drunks says, “No, I did not Preacher.”

The preacher in disgust holds the man under for at least 30 seconds this time brings him out of the water and says in a harsh tone, “Friend, are you sure you haven’t found Jesus yet?”  The old drunk wipes his eyes and says to the preacher... “Are you sure this is where He fell in?”

Well, this morning we aren’t looking for Jesus in the water – so why do we baptize people in the water?  I take a bath and go swimming - Why is this any different, and what makes this important?

Baptism happens today because of what Jesus said just before He went to heaven.  Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…”

In our modernized, “comfort zone Christianity,” we tend to take God’s commandments far too lightly.  As Chuck Colson points out, “Most Westerners take baptism for granted, but for many in the world the act requires immense courage.  In countries like Nepal it once meant imprisonment.  For Soviet or Chinese or Eastern bloc believers, it was like signing their own death warrant.”

Now, a wedding ring is an outward sign that a person is married.  A military uniform is an outward sign that a person is involved in that particular branch of service.  Similarly, baptism is a symbol designed by God to identify a person as a disciple of Christ.

However, I use the word “symbol” here with caution.  To say that it is “just a symbol” takes away from the depth and beauty of baptism.  Baptism is a symbol, but it is so much more than that.

Baptism is, in essence, a funeral.  It is an act of faith in which we testify, both to God and to the world, that the person we were before is dead and buried, and we are raised as a new creation in Christ.  This is beautifully illustrated in Romans 6:4, “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.”

To take a look at Baptism this morning, I want to look at a few pictures.  Each of the stories that I will share with you this morning are true, and provide some clues about why Jesus thought baptism was important enough to include it in His last words to His disciples.

First, in I Peter, 3:20-21.  Here in I Peter 3:20-21 it says, “1”

You see, the first thing that we have is the Flood as a picture of baptism.  The 8 people on board the ark that we looked at last week knew that they were different than all the other people in the world.  They were saved because they believed what God said would happen.  The wickedness of the people was gone, and these 8 would start over.  It was a fresh start, a new beginning.  The old was gone.  And that is what Baptism accomplishes for us today.
The clearest example that shows the meaning of baptism is a text from the Greek poet and physician Nicander, who lived about 200 B.C.  It is 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” into boiling water and then “baptized” 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 knowledge is not enough.  There must be a union with Him, a real change, like the vegetable to the pickle!

So, from the first story we see that through baptism, the old is gone, and we are made new.  A fresh beginning.  It is a real change.

Now the second story deals with the other passage that we started this series with.  If you want to look at I Corinthians 10:1 with me.  In this passage, it goes back to mention the parting of the Red Sea.  Here in I Corinthians 10:1-2 it says, “2”

By crossing the Red Sea many things were taking effect:
The Israelites had to trust God
They were leaving their past behind
They had a new future, but it was unknown and a little scary
They were leaving slavery
They were becoming warriors
The past ruler or leader over them died – was done away with
And they now had a new leader
Doesn’t that sound a lot like what our baptism does for us?

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, “When the minister leaned me back in the water, I never felt so helpless.”  Summerall testified, “I knew I just became a Christian.  And 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.

For us, Baptism gives us this brand new life in a new land.  We leave our old ruler, and we follow a new on, Jesus.  We gain our citizenship in Heaven with Him.

The third picture that I want us to look at is in Matthew 3:13-16.  Here in this passage we see a real baptism.  This baptism took place 3 years before Jesus gave His final instructions to go and Baptize others.  Jesus walked nearly 75 miles on foot to the place where John the Baptist was preaching and baptizing in the Jordan River.  Matthew’s Gospel, the same book from which our opening text came from records it this way.  In Matthew 3:13-16 it says, “3”

Jesus had been dedicated as a child when he was 8 days old according to the custom of His people.  As an adult He affirmed His commitment to the will of Heaven by being baptized Himself.  No one can accuse Jesus of asking us to do something that He wasn’t willing to do Himself.  He walked His walk and didn’t just talk a talk.  It is no surprise that when He instructed His disciples to recruit others to follow Him that He included the act with which He began His own public ministry.

Peter, the first disciple to publicly invite others to follow Jesus, also included baptism as part of the process of beginning the Christian life.  In Acts 2:38 he announced, “Repent and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Jesus did it at the beginning of His ministry.  He asks His new followers to do the same.  Jesus’ baptism demonstrates that baptism is about beginning.  For us today, it is about beginning a new life, and beginning a relationship with Christ.

Now, those three stories of baptism came from different passages in the Bible.  But, the last 2 stories that I want to share with you aren’t from the Bible, but they illustrate something important about baptism as well.

Several years ago, well-known radio commentator Paul Harvey was asked to write a personal testimony for Guidepost Magazine.  He chose to tell about his own baptism.  In the article, Harvey told how he received almost every possible award for broadcasting yet still felt empty inside.

One summer while on vacation, Harvey and his wife decided to go to church.  That wasn’t something they always did.  They ended up in the Sunday morning service of a tiny church in Cave Creek, Arizona.  Only about a dozen people were present.

Harvey said there was a good spirit about that place.  For some reason he began thinking about John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  He said, he liked the everlasting life part.  He thought he believed in Jesus, but he had never publicly acknowledged it or been baptized.  He said, “I remembered one night praying in my hotel room and asking Jesus to come into my heart, but I felt that there was still something that was missing.”
When the preacher got up, he announced that his sermon was going to be about baptism.  Paul Harvey said, “I yawned.  But as he started talking about it I found myself interested.  He talked about the symbolism behind it.  He said it symbolized surrender to Jesus Christ.  He insisted that there was nothing magic in the water.  But he said a cleansing took place inside when you yielded yourself to Jesus.”

Paul Harvey said, he surprised even himself when he stood up and walked to the front when the preacher offered an invitation to be baptized.  Listen to how He describes what happened, “The preacher had said there was nothing magic in the water.  Yet as I descended into the depths and rose again I knew something life changing had happened.  The change this simple act made in my life is so immense as to be indescribable.  Since totally yielding to Him in baptism, my heart can’t stop singing.  Also, perhaps because baptism is such a public act and because one’s dignity gets as drenched as one’s body, I discovered a new unself-consciousness in talking about my beliefs.”

Paul Harvey discovered what baptism is all about.  It is about surrendering.

This is what the New Testament is talking about when it says in Romans 6:3-7, “4”

You see, Baptism is about yielding to God’s will.  It is about becoming a servant of Jesus Christ.  It is about drenching one’s dignity and pride.  It is a humbling act.  It is exactly what Jesus meant it to be.
It is stripping us of what we are, and humbling us and making us new.

Now the final story that I want to share with you is the one I know best, my own.  It took place on April 4, 1995, but I can still remember it.  I can remember where it took place.  I can close my eyes and still see the church building in West Portsmouth Ohio near where I grew up.  I can see the old organ to the left, and the piano to the right.  I can remember the minister’s words as he asked me if I believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

I can also remember what led up to my baptism.  That’s important.  That’s what makes baptism different than going swimming or taking a bath.  I can still remember the minister sitting in his office talking about baptism with me and my family.  He started with my mom and dad, and talked to them about the decision that they wanted to make.  Then he made his way to me.

He emphasized that it was not the same as going to church.  Though going to church and Sunday School was a good thing, he said that a Christian was somebody who had made up his mind about Jesus.  Now I think that there are a lot of church going people that haven’t made up their minds yet.  They are still thinking about someday making up their minds, but as of today, they haven’t.

Anyway, he told us that a Christian was a person who knew he needed forgiveness and believed that Jesus died on the cross and arose from the grave so that could happen.  He explained that a Christian didn’t do everything right.  In fact, Christians still made mistakes.

But a Christian wants to follow Jesus and do what pleases Him.  When a Christian falls, he doesn’t make excuses.  He gets up, asks for forgiveness, and for help to do better next time.  He said that a Christian has the promise of God’s love and blessings now and for all eternity.

The minister asked my parents if they were ready to take that step, to move beyond just thinking about becoming a Christian and actually become one.  He then turned to me.  All 3 of us said yes.  That wasn’t the first time we heard some of those things about baptism.  That wasn’t the first time we had thought about spiritual questions like that.  But that was the day we decided to follow Jesus.  Our minister talked with us some more for a while.  He explained the process that would come next, he prayed with us, and then he left.  The following Sunday, April 4, 1995, my parents and I were baptized.  That was the day I did something about that decision to follow Jesus, and I can still remember it.

Through the memories of the actual event and the memory of what led up to it, my baptism still speaks to me.  Baptism is, in part, about remembering.  My baptism reminds me who I am in Christ.  In Galatians 3:26-28 it says, “5”

Well, I can remember my baptism, and I hope that you can remember yours.  You should.  You deserve that.  Jesus intended that all of His followers be able to remember how it began.  That’s why He included in His last words “baptizing them.”

I have read before that a man or woman from a Buddhist family can attend a Christian church every week of the year, take part in church services, and even pray in the name of Jesus Christ.  No one in his family objects.  But once that person is baptized, their families will ostracize them.  They will have nothing to do with them.

Why?  Well, it is because they realize their family member has made a decision to identify fully with Jesus.  Up to that point, the family member who goes to church is still a Buddhist who is experimenting with Jesus.

Here’s the obvious question: “If you haven’t been baptized yet, why not?”  Well, let me tell you something, you can do something about that.  You can take the first step today.

If you have been baptized, I want to give you an assignment this week.  Go out and tell somebody about it.  Just share your story.  It will do you good, and it might be good for the other person as well.

Let’s Pray