The Sign of the Cross

ATTENTION:

Conrad and Felix liked Ulrich. When Ulrich Zwingli led the reformation in Switzerland, his absolute commitment to the authority of scripture attracted Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz to support him. They went a little further than Zwingli went, however. When they read about the early church they noted the difference it and their own. Among other things, they saw the importance of “believer’s baptism.” The Roman Catholic church practiced infant baptism and these reformers believed the New Testament taught that only those who had come to faith in Christ were to be baptized after conversion.

So, in the Fall of 1524, Conrad and his wife had a decision to make: Would they have the baby baptized, or would they stick to what they believed the scripture taught. The Grebels refused and bad things started to happen. Because the church and the state were one in that country, refusing to have an infant baptized amounted to a crime. On January 17, 1525, the city council arranged a hearing. After hearing from both sides on the question, the council sided with the status quo. It warned all parents who had neglected to have their children baptized to do so within a week.

That’s what led to that fateful day, January 21, 1525. Conrad and his followers held a “believer’s baptism. They were imprisoned and commanded to stop. As soon as they got out, however, they continued. Finally, the Zurich council lost all patience. On 7 March 1526, it decided that anyone found rebaptizing would be put to death by drowning. Apparently their thought was, “If the heretics want water, let them have it.” Within a year, on 5 January 1527, Felix Manz became the first Anabaptist martyr. The Zurich authorities drowned him in the Limmat River, which flows through the city.

Sounds like a lot of fuss over a small difference doesn’t it? After all, both sides believed in Christ; both sides held the Bible to be their final authority; both sides thought they had found God’s will in the matter. Why did they make this such a big deal?

And if you ask that question, you might go even further. You might also ask, Why does Peace Church make such a big deal about the “mode” of baptism. After all, if I’ve trusted Christ as my Savior, but I come from a church tradition that baptizes infants, why would you require me to be baptized as a believer before I can join your church.

NEED

See I know that there are some of you who really have that question in your heart. You may have grown up in a church where your parents took you to be baptized as a baby and you think that’s sufficient. You know the Lord and you know we require believer’s baptism, but you may not know exactly why its such a big deal. I want to talk to you about that today.

Others of you may have grown up here or in some other church that does practice believer’s baptism, but, even though you are a Christian, you’ve never been baptized. You may think something like this: “I’m saved by grace through faith, not by getting wet. I really don’t need to be baptized as long as I believe.” Others may think, “I was saved as a child but I was never baptized. I’ve been in this church for years and everyone considers me a Christian. It would be absolutely humiliating to have to be baptized now. Some of us, quite frankly, are being disobedient about this whole baptism thing.

Others haven’t disobeyed, but they have misobeyed. What I mean is that they have been baptized by immersion, it just happened before they were really saved. You may have prayed the sinners prayer and been baptized as a youngster, only to later discover that it was really not a genuine commitment. You have now come to Christ to be His true follower, but you’ve never been baptized as a believer. You have misobeyed.

BACKGROUND

Whatever your situation, I want you to hear what baptism is this morning. Now I’m going to talk about baptism in biblical terms. I want us to understand what the Bible really means when it talks about baptism and the first step to understanding the biblical concept is to understand this: At its heart, “baptism” is not a physical action at all. In one sense, real baptism has nothing to do with water or with whether that water is in a baptistry or a sprinkling font. Real baptism is not physical, it is spiritual.

So let’s get some background. I begin in the beginning of the New Testament. The scene is the Jordan river. John the Baptist is preaching his heart out and baptizing those who repent. In the middle of his “wilderness revival,” the Bible tells us that Jesus comes and tells John to baptize Him. Now the first question we have to ask is “why?” Why would Jesus Christ, the Son of God who had never sinned come and request baptism.

Well, I believe that will make sense when you consider another time in the life of Christ when baptism is mentioned. If you fast forward a few months, you can see another scened in the life of Christ. He has called His twelve disciples to follow Him and, in Matthew 20, one of the disciples’ moms comes to Christ with an unusual request. She says, in 20:21: . . .“Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom.” Quite a bold request and Jesus tells her so. V. 22 says: But Jesus answered and said,

“You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”

Now let me just stop and ask you: What is Jesus talking about when He says “Can you drink the cup that I am about to drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” If you aren’t sure, I think a little trip to the Garden of Gethsemane might be in order. In the Garden you remember Jesus told His Father, “If it be possible, let this (what?) pass from me. That’s right! This cup. Look back at v. 22. He asks these disciples if they are able to drink the cup He’s about to drink and be baptized with Him. In essence He was asking them if they could die the death on the cross that He was about to die. When He spoke of baptism, He spoke of the cross by which He was crucified. Spiritual baptism has to do with the sacrifice of Christ on that cross.

Paul elaborates on this idea in Romans 6:4. There he says, “Therefore we were buried with Him (watch!) 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.” Now the word, “baptism” actually means “to immerse” so you could read that verse like this: “Therefore we were buried with Him through immersion into death . . . That is not speaking of getting wet, there. It is saying that we have been spiritually immersed into Christ and united with Him in His death and His resurrection so that we can now walk in a new kind of life.

You see, at its heart, baptism is a spiritual action that speaks of what happens when we are born again and we are “immersed” into all the Jesus is. Why is baptism such a big deal? Because spiritually speaking it is not a physical activity that happens in a baptistry but a spiritual reality that happens when I come to God by faith and He immerses me in Jesus.

There is a verse of scripture that really explains this clearly. It’s one with which many of you are familiar: Galatians 2:20. It really tells you what this spiritual baptism is all about. Read it with me: “ I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

This verse tells you 3 principles that define baptism: First

DIV 1: BAPTISM IS AN “INSIDE” JOB

EXPLANATION

Very simply, baptism isn’t primarily physical, but spiritual. It happens in your heart. Three elements jump out at us in the first part of Gal. 2:20. The first is crucifixion. Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ.” F. F. Bruce says:

Those who place their faith in Christ are united with him by that faith—united so closely that his experience now becomes theirs: they share hid death to the old order (‘under law’; cf. 4:4) and his resurrection to new life. This, for Paul, is what is signified in baptism (cf. 3:27). The figure is deliberately bold, designed to emphasize the finality of the death which has put an end to the old order and interposed a barrier between it and the new life in Christ (cf. 5:24; 6:14). The perfect tense σsυ?ν?εeσsτtαaύ?ρ?ω?μαaι? emphasizes that participation in the crucified Christ has become the believer’s settled way of life.

Spiritual, inward baptism speaks of my identification with Christ, through faith, that is so powerful and real that I am “crucified with Him.” This inside job begins with crucifixion.

And then this crucifixion leads to death. I, through my identification with Christ, die to sin and to my own desires to the point that substitution takes place. “It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. Timothy George wrote

Being crucified with Christ implies a radical transformation within the believer. The “I” who has died to the law no longer lives; Christ, in the person of the Holy Spirit, dwells within, sanctifying our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit and enabling us to approach the throne of God in prayer. Paul gave a fuller explanation for what it means for Christ to live in us: “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out ‘Abba, Father’”

ARGUMENTATION

Right about now, some of you may be scratching your heads. Like Nicodemus who asked Jesus “How can a man be born again when he’s already lived a long time?” you may be asking, “How can I die while remaining alive? What does it mean for me to be crucified with Christ?”

Well, for just a moment don’t worry about the “death” part of this. Instead focus on the uniting part. Romans 6:5 says: “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,” It is inward baptism, that is immersion in Christ that allows us to be crucified with Him. It doesn’t mean that we physically die. It means that our flesh is crucified to its sinful desires and we receive a new power to live. John Calvin said of this: “Engrafted into the death of Christ, we derive a secret energy from it, as the shoot does from the root . . . As long as Christ remains outside of us, (i.e. as long as we are not consciously identifying with His death) and we are separated from Him, all that he has suffered and done fo rht salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value o us.”

I am crucified with Christ when I consciously and inwardly identify with His death, burial and resurrection. I must give all of me to all of Him. I must immerse myself in Christ. This is spiritual baptism!

ILLUSTRATION

[In an article for Decision magazine], Samuel Kamaleson illustrates [the difficulty of submission] through a Christian folk story from South India. There are several versions of it, but here it opens with a young boy who loved to play marbles. He regularly walked through his neighborhood with a pocketful of his best marbles, hoping to find opponents to play against. One marble in particular, his special blue marble, had won him many matches.

During one walk he encountered a young girl who was eating a bag of chocolate candy. Though the boy's first love was marbles, he had a weakness for chocolates. As he stood there interacting with the young girl, his salivary glands and the rumbling in his stomach became uncontrollable, and he thought to himself, I have got to get my hands on those chocolates.

Concocting a plan, he asked the girl, "How about I give you all these marbles for those chocolates?" She replied, "Sounds fair to me."

He put his hand in his pocket, searching for the distinguishing cracks on the surface of the blue marble. Once he identified the blue marble with his finger tip, he carefully pushed it to the bottom of his pocket and pulled out all the other marbles.

As he handed the marbles to the girl in exchange for the chocolate, the boy thought his plan was a success and turned to walk away. As he began to eat the candy, he suddenly turned to the girl and asked, "Hey, did you give me all the chocolates?"

Our fallen nature persuades us to posture ourselves in the same deceptive and defiant attitude as the boy in this story. We want everything the kingdom of God has to offer. We want to have a secure sense of God's presence, we want all our prayers to be answered, we want to "feel close" to Jesus, we want to flourish in the riches of God's glory—we want it all. But we are unwilling to give up everything for it. Many times there is a "blue marble" in our lives that we seem unwilling to offer to the control of Christ. Until we can fully subjugate ourselves to God's will, our participation in God's kingdom will be limited.

Inwardly speaking, baptism is giving up the blue marble. It is an inside job, but also,

DIVISION 2: BAPTISM IS AN OUTSIDE ACTION

EXPLANATION:

Gal 2:20 says, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me . . . that’s all the inside part - here’s the outside part . . . and the life that I now live in the flesh . . . You see what’s happening here. Something changes on the inside. I am immersed in Christ so that I no longer define my life, Christ does. And when that inside change takes place, it gets reflected in my outside actions in “the life that I now live in the flesh.” Now I want you to see two things about this outside life.

First, it is directed by faith. V 20 says . . . and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God. In other words, even after being saved by faith, I don’t strike out on my own. I realize that I will only live for God to the extent that I genuinely trust Him, so I live this crucified life by faith, and that greatly impacts the choices I make in life.

That truth is reflected in the second princple about my outside life. It is a life of obedient response. V 20, again, says: The life that I now live in the flesh . . . by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Timothy George writes:

The object of this faith is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, “who loved me and gave himself for me.” This is a rich expression that contains in summary form the whole doctrine of atonement. No impersonal force or cosmic law or external necessity compelled Christ to die. It was the love of God, unmerited, immeasurable, infinite, that sent Jesus to the cross. Not for his own sake but “for me” he endured the rigors of Calvary.

And when I see all that He endured on the cross, and the freedom that death brings when I identify with Christ, all of my life gets lived in obedient response to whatever He calls me to do.

APPLICATION

You see, this is where so many people go wrong! They try to live what they might call “good moral” lives without ever identifying with Christ. Just like someone who gets baptized before they really commit their lives to Christ, they end up nothing but wet unbelievers. Be as good as you want to be, or as good as you can possibly be in your own strength, but you’ll never be holy in God’s sight. Outside action without inside reality is meaningless. Worse than meaninless, its Satan’s primary deception. The lie the deceiver whispers in your ear when you hear about the cross very often is, “That salvation stuff is for people who’ve been bad. I’ve always been a good person. I don’t need the cross.” And that deception is deadly. It has taken millions into a Christless eternity.

Some Christians, on the other hand, make the opposite mistake. They think that inside action is all that’s necessary. They “get saved,” and their “salvation” never gets reflected in their outside actions. You don’t get the sense when you read Galatians 2:20 that such a situation is actually possible. Salvation by definition is an “immersion . . . a baptism” into Christ whereby you die and are brought back to life spiritually speaking. You die to what you want and live for what God wants. Too man Christians are like the cartoon by Mary Chambers. Two Christian couples are seated in a living room engaged in Bible study. One of the women is speaking. “Well,” she says, “I haven’t actually died to sin, but I did feel kind of faint once.”

There aren’t any almost dead Christians! Immersion, spiritual baptism, if you will, renders us dead to sin and alive to God. Our lives are changed!

ILLUSTRATION:

Pastor Steve Yeschek, Crystal Lake, Illinois, lost his sister, Judy, after a five-year battle with cancer. She was a woman who, as Steve described her, was a party animal—a big drinker with a self-contented lifestyle. She was someone everybody loved, because she exuded excitement and a thrill for life.

When Steve tried to share Jesus with her over the years, she would laugh it off and keep partying. But at the age of 44, her world caved in. She found out she had breast cancer. She later learned her husband had cancer, too. Adding to the devastation of these two blows, she discovered her husband was having an affair. He subsequently announced he didn't love her anymore and left her.

It was in that context that she began to ask eternal questions and soon prayed to receive Jesus as her Savior. I should say, she was “immersed . . . baptized, if you will” into Christ. From that time until her death, Jesus and his Word and purpose became her priority. With the same gusto she lived life as an unbeliever, she now approached her new life in Christ. Her greatest aim was winning others to Christ. She boldly shared her faith even as she was undergoing surgery after surgery, praying for a miraculous healing from the Lord.

Judy ultimately came to see that the greater miracle would be for her friends and family to come to know Christ. Even as she struggled for every breath, she talked her way out of the hospital about ten days before her death so she could be baptized and publicly proclaim Christ as the only way of salvation.

Judy invited everyone she knew to come to her baptism service. Under the Spirit's anointing, she powerfully and urgently shared her testimony. Her 84-year-old father came to faith in Christ that night and was baptized—along with her ex-husband, a number of nieces, a college roommate who was a New Age cultist, her aunt, her sister, and others.

Ten days later, Judy died. Even still, more people came to know the Savior. When Steve read the message she had prepared for her own funeral service, another 100 people prayed to receive Christ that day.

Listen, Baptism is an inside job that is reflected in outside action. But we would miss something very important without this last point. You see, not only is baptism an inside job that is reflected in outside action. Also,

DIVISION 3: BAPTISM IS A PERSONIFIED PICTURE.

EXPLANATION:

If you make your way through the book of Acts, it becomes very clear that the Early Church practiced believer’s baptism. The very first sermon of Peter called for it in Acts 2:38; the first 3000 converts received it in Acts 2:41; The Ethiopian Eunuch received it when he was converted in Acts 8; Paul the Apostle was baptized after his conversion in Acts 9; The household of Cornelius was baptized after they believed in Acts 10; Lydia’s household was baptized after being saved in Acts 16; The Philippian Jailor’s household was baptized later in that same chapter, after all of them believed; Crispus, the ruler of the Corinthian synagogue was baptized after he came to Christ in Acts 18. I could go on, but I think you get the picture! New Testament baptism was always after conversion, by immersion.

But what does all of this evidence mean to you, personally. I mean, when you get into the baptistry and go under that water, what exactly are you saying? Let me give you three statements baptism makes: First, baptism is a realization of truth. When someone is baptized they should realize that their not just jumping through a hoop so they can be a member of the church. Far from it! You see, the physical act of baptism should connect with the inner reality of conversion and the determination to follow Christ in your outward behavior. The act of baptism, then, becomes a picture of what has happened inside your heart. It is an opportunity to connect inner truth with outward reality. It is a realization of truth.

Then it is a statement of obedience. It is a saying to yourself that you realize that conversion has happened in your heart and that you understand that you have immersed yourself into Christ. It is telling your self that you are going to obey this Christ who has saved you, not in your own strength but in His. It is a personal statement of obedience.

And last, it is a testimony of allegiance. It is saying to the world, “I have been crucified with Christ and I am going to live for him. That’s why it is a personified picture. You see it is not some impersonal symbol that our church requires, no, it is your own personal picture to the world of what has happened in your own heart!

ARGUMENTATION

So my question becomes this morning: Have you ever done that? Have you ever understood what baptism really means, and, understanding it, have you submitted yourself to it?

You may say, “O yes, Rusty. I’ve already been baptized as a child.” That’s ok, but when it happened, did it really picture something that had genuinely happened in your heart? You see, regardless of your personal history, New Testament baptism has to do with what happened at the Cross of Christ and how the reality of that cross is reflected in your own life.

APPLICATION

So what about it Christian? Have you been scripturally baptized? Did that baptism occur after you were really saved? Is your baptism more than a symbol to you? Can I just tell you that one of the most powerful things you could do as a believer, if you have never been scripturally baptized, is to humble yourself before the Lord and before your brothers and sisters in Christ and determine that, no matter how embarrassed you might feel, you’re going to obey Christ. By the way, there’s not a single person sitting here this morning who will think less of you for being obedient, and, by the way, if they do, you don’t need to worry about them anyway!

And if you have never really become a follower of Jesus Christ today, may I just tell you that you need to be baptized! O I’m not saying you need to get wet . . . at least not at first. I’m talking about the inside job of baptism. You need to be immersed into Jesus Christ. You need to receive what Jesus did for you on that cross.

VISUALIZATION

Because Ethiopian Christians faithfully ministered to a convicted murderer in jail, God brought salvation to Mohammed Ahmed, who was convicted of killing an evangelist named Tulu on February 2, 2005….

Tulu was the fifth eldest child of eight, but suffered from an unidentified disease that made him physically weak and a slow learner. During July 2001, Tulu accepted Christ and experienced God's healing hand. Tulu's health improved to such an extent that he was able to attend secondary school in a predominantly Muslim area in southern Ethiopia.

Tulu devoted time to prayer and studying the Word of God. He became known for his warmth and affection when witnessing about God's love to the community. However, some Muslim extremists did not appreciate the change in Tulu's life and attacked him with a spear five months after his conversion. Even though the spear penetrated his skull, after intensive treatment he miraculously recovered.

"During this time," recalls his mother, Lulit, "there were only four believers in our area, but through Tulu's persecution, God saved 50 people, including his father and me."

Mohammed confronted Tulu at a secondary school on that tragic day in 2005…Mohammed swung his machete and hit Tulu's throat with a single blow as he shouted the Jihad (Islamic) war cry: "Allahu Akbar!"…The family tried to rush him to a nearby clinic, but the young evangelist took his final breath and died en route. He was 19.

On March 9, 2005, local police authorities imprisoned nine of Tulu's family members for allegedly demolishing property belonging to another tribe. … They were imprisoned in the same facility as Mohammed. …

Two local church leaders in southern Ethiopia have permission to visit prisoners at least once a week. During such a visit, the church leaders approached Mohammed with a few words of encouragement. Though at first he was not receptive, the leaders continued to demonstrate God's unconditional love…As the leaders continued to invite him to follow Christ, he started to show interest. Because of their patience in sharing the gospel and their reassurance that they held no grudge against him, God's grace broke through and Mohammed accepted Christ as his Lord.

Although local authorities attributed the cause of Tulu's murder to a disagreement between the two families, Mohammed confessed religious fanaticism, fanned by Muslim extremists, was the real reason for Tulu's murder. He sincerely regretted what happened.

The two church leaders discipled Mohammed and three other Muslim-background believers while in prison. On March 5, a little more than two years after the murder, Mohammed was baptized in the name of the God he once persecuted. The prison authorities escorted him and the other three prisoners to the church compound and witnessed their baptism.

When the excited converts were asked to give their testimonies before being immersed, Mohammed made sure all the witnesses understood that he was being baptized in the name of the Almighty God, testifying of his redemption in Jesus Christ. After the converts came out of the water, they prayed, sang hymns, and celebrated Holy Communion.

What a picture! Mohammed began as an angry Islamic Zealot; he became a Christ follower. Baptism for him began as an inside job: His heart was changed. But that “inner” baptism resulted in outside action. He publically repented and testified to His salvation. Then the inside job and the outside action became personified in a symbolic picture. Before many witnesses, Mohammed was baptized

INVITATION

Have you experienced the inside job - salvation

Have you lived out the outside action?

Have you ever personalized the picture? Have you been scripturally baptized?