Pentecost 21

Romans 6.1-4

October 25, 2009

Hymns: 294, 306, 299, 297 10/23/09

When discussing the doctrine of Baptism it is more common to do so in reference to the Baptism of infants. Baptism is some-times referred to as a ‘christening,’ that is, the giving of a name to a child. A christening or baptism is viewed as a custom and family tradition. A beautifully made christening dress worn by infant boys and girls is handed down from generation to genera-tion and it is a thing of pride to say, "I was christened in the same dress that my great grandmother wore."

Baptizing babies was not questioned to a great extent until after the Reformation by a radical group of people known as Anabap-tists. These folks did not believe that faith was given to an in-fant at the time of baptism and required Christians to be rebap-tized (thus, anabaptist, baptized again or twice) when they were older. However the church fathers wrote about infants being baptized or reborn; men like Irenaeus, Polycarp and Origen wrote that infant baptism was handed down by the apostles. And inscriptions were found written on the walls of caves where the name, date of birth and death of infants were noted.

Suffice it to say that the church has baptized infants from the time of Jesus’ ascension back into heaven up to the present time, and for solid biblical reasons: 1) infants inherit the sinful nature of their parents, 2) but they do no inherit the Christian faith of their parents. 3) Infants therefore need to be saved from sin as do people of all ages. 4) Baptism is a miracle of God in which, through water and God’s Word, faith and the forgiveness of sins is given, 5) which provides great relief to Christian par-ents who know that their infants are forgiven and have been given a saving faith in Jesus.

This morning we will focus our attention on an area that doesn’t often get much attention: the value and use of baptism for older children, teens and adults. I want to encourage you to USE YOUR BAPTISM IN YOUR DAILY ROUTINE, in your day-to-day life.

You all have a daily routine: get up, make the coffee, take a shower, shave, brush your teeth, do your hair and makeup and head out the door for school or work or car pooling or get going on your chores at home. As you go about your routine there are things that can throw you off your routine: car has a flat tire on the way to work or school, lose your keys or child gets sick. There may be unexpected things that happen that you have to deal with, NOW. You can’t ignore them even though they throw you off your routine and come at an inconvenient time.

Another part of who we are that surprises us every day belongs to our old Adam, our sinful nature. It throws tempting, sinful curve balls at us all day long. We are faced with the opportunity to sin or to stop that temptation in its tracks and refuse to sin. If that sin came at us out of left field and we were already sinning by the time we became aware of it, at which point it’s too late to undo it, because we’ve done it, we have the option of continu-ing to sin or put a stop to it. This is the time to use your baptism when sin interrupts your daily routine.

What do you do when you get a flat tire? You stop what you were doing to get it fixed or replace the flat tire with the spare tire. What do you do if you lose your keys? Your life comes to a momentary halt as you search high and low for them because you’re not going anywhere until you find them. And if your child gets sick you become the medical caregiver and may even have to take your child to see the doctor. Your daily routine suddenly changes; you can’t delay taking care of the matter. Nor can you delay taking care of sin as it intrudes itself into your heart and mind, not just once a day but many times during the day, during your daily routine.

READ TEXT Baptism and sin are linked together. Our Baptism connects us to what Jesus did about sin 2000 years ago. Jesus came to this earth and claimed our sin to be his own sin, took the guilt of our sin on himself as though he were the one who committed every sin ever committed by anyone. Jesus was put to death on a cross an punishment for our sins (1 Jn 2.2). There is no mistake that Jesus died because he was buried. And there is no mistake that our sins were paid for because they were buried with Jesus.

So when the urge to sin comes over you, or if sin came at you so fast that you were already in the middle of it by the time you realized what you were doing...when your routine to think and act as a Christian is put to the test, what do you do?

What do you do as you scan the TV for something to watch and you come across a program that has immoral, sexual content? Or when you have a test coming up at school and you’re not sure you can do well on it unless you cheat? Or when you’re hanging around the coffee pot at work and hear people swap-ping dirty jokes or gossip? Or when you get with friends, or that special friend, who believe it’s normal to engage in sex (homo or heter) without being married? Or when you’re at a party and drinking to excess or doing drugs is part of that routine?

We face limitless sinful situations every day of our lives. Some of those sins are of our own making, in our own sinful mind, others come out of the blue without warning, others come at us in a more subtle way, through friends.

USE YOUR BAPTISM IN YOUR DAILY ROUTINE. Recall that Jesus loves you and died for you to pay for your sins so that you can be free from sin’s control. 2 Cor 5.14,15 Your baptism gave you the gift of faith and the forgiveness of sins. Put your faith to work. If you don’t love Jesus you’re going to put your faith aside, make excuses for sin, embrace the sins that can de-stroy you..and they will over time if you allow it.

But with love for Jesus, love because of his forgiveness, be-cause of his suffering and death for your sins, and because of his rising from the dead, remember your baptism, repent of your sins, ask Jesus to forgive you and for his help to turn away from sin. This is how you attack your old Adam, your sinful nature. Repentance is a direct attack on that old Adam; it tells the old Adam to cease and desist trying to control your heart and life. It uses the power of Jesus’ love and forgiveness to turn Satan aside, to rid yourself of the sin that is tempting and to get a grip on "living a new life" in Christ...free from guilt, free from the old Adam’s efforts to turn you away from your Savior, free to show your thanks and love for Jesus by using your baptism.