Water Baptism
I.
Introduction
a.
Illus: Hiking (I hate it), hiking up the coast,
reaching the top, but not continuing to the goal, then went back to the
beginning.
b.
We talked about Jesus being the only way to God
last week, and this was summed up with the idea of salvation, but often times
we think this is the pinnacle of our Christian Journey. But that decision to make Jesus your God and
ask him for forgiveness is really only the beginning.
II.
Body
a.
Read
Matthew 28:18-20 – “Then Jesus came to them
and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, and teaching them
to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always,
to the very end of the age.”
i.
We are all on a journey of our faith and here we
see the beginnings of a road map.
1.
Become a Disciple, Be Baptized, Learn/Obey, Tell
Others
ii.
Become a Disciple
1.
We choose to be a follower of Jesus. This includes the making of him as your God
and asking for forgiveness, but also committing to following Him the rest of
your life.
iii.
Be Baptized
1.
We will talk about this in a second
iv.
Learn/Obey
1.
We then learn what it means to be a Christian, how
to be more like God wants us to be, how to follow the destiny God has for us,
how to have a successful life
v.
Tell Others
1.
The final part of this journey is restarting the
whole process by recruiting others to follow Christ on this journey.
b.
But let us move back to baptism
i.
What is it?
Baptism is a picture and a commitment.
ii.
What is the picture?
1.
Read
Romans 6:3-4 – “Or don’t
you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into his death? We were
therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as
Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we
too may live a new life.”
2.
It is a picture of what has
already happened when we get saved
a.
We die to our old master
(sin), we get forgiveness through Jesus, and then come into a new life of
serving our new master (God)
iii.
What is the commitment?
1.
You are committing to following Jesus the rest
of your life, rather than doing things your own way.
2.
It isn’t a commitment to take lightly, as some
of you have already seen. Life happens
and temptations arise, but with this commitment you are saying you are going to
stick with it, despite those temptations.
c.
So why do it?
i.
It is the next step
ii.
It is what God wants
1.
Read
Matthew 3:13-15 – “Then Jesus came from
Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.
But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and
do you come to me?” Jesus replied, “Let
it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”
Then John consented.”
III.
Application
a.
So are you
interested in being baptized?
Tonight we did a one shot called: Wipeout -- Water Baptism. We talked about what water baptism is (being dunked underwater). What baptism represents (dying to serving yourself and instead serving God and publically declaring that you want to follow God). Whether we are supposed to get baptized (yep). And then we concluded by giving each of you an opportunity to decide if you are ready to be baptized or not in our upcoming baptismal service.