United Church of God

Our Baptism and the Upcoming Passover

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Our Baptism and the Upcoming Passover

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Our Baptism and the Upcoming Passover

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When was the last time you thought about your baptism ceremony? You were asked if you repented of your sins, you were asked if you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. You were then immersed in water and hands were laid upon you as a prayer was given asking for the Holy Spirit to be given to you so that you can become one with God and become a member of the Body of Christ. When was the last time you went over that covenant you made at baptism? And at this time of year as we prepare for the Passover and Days of Unleavened bread, why should you think of them now?

Transcript

When was the last time you thought about your baptism ceremony? You were asked if you repented of your sins, you were asked if you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. You were then immersed in water and hands were laid upon you as a prayer was given asking for the Holy Spirit to be given to you so that you can become one with God and become a member of the Body of Christ. When was the last time you went over that covenant you made at baptism? And at this time of year as we prepare for the Passover and Days of Unleavened bread, why should you think of them now? Turn over to Luke 12: Near the end of Christ’s ministry, Jesus spoke to his Disciples before a vast multitude and said the following words…. Luke 12:1 NKJ In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together, so that they trampled one another, He began to say to His disciples first of all, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

He was no doubt looking to the day when the church would be lead by them and not the Pharisees, He did not want them to fall into the same Human nature trap that caught them. And then down in verse 49, 49 “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! What was the Baptism he had to undergo considering He had already been baptized by John the Baptist? He was referring to the baptism that would be in the form of His coming death and resurrection as that is what our baptism pictures. The Death of our old self and new life we have as a result of our conversion. Have you ever considered your baptism ceremony on the night of Passover? Christ was purposely using the term Baptism to refer to His upcoming death and resurrection for a reason. Turn to Romans 6. Romans 6:3-4 NKJ Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him 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. We focus on the suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, but there is a reason to focus on that ceremony that pictures the death of our old self and the newness in life we have as Christ begins to live His life in us.

As we examine ourselves at this time of year, let us focus on the covenant we made with God at our baptism to accept the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in our lives, to become a new person. The title of the sermon today is Our Baptism and the upcoming Passover There are two aspects to our baptism that relates to the upcoming Holy days. One I am going to cover today. That is our life we give up at baptism. The other I will cover on the Unleavened Bread Holy day and that is our life after baptism. It is a topic too big to cover in only one message and at this time of year we should really look deep into that commitment we made when we joined the family of God. I remember the Day I was baptized in southern California. It was a warm evening and I was fortunate to be baptized in my minister’s pool. The water felt nice and the atmosphere was ideal. I remember him asking me those questions about repentance and if I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior. Then I was put under the water to signify the death of my old self and resurrection into the family of God. The warm evening felt nice as I stood outside the pool with a towel and then had the laying on of hands. But not everyone had it as nice as I did. My parents were baptized in Washington State. It was not warm, it was a lot closer to winter than summer. Their minister did not have a pool but rather a large metal washtub in his garage; and as you might have guessed the water was cold. My dad is sure he filled it with the garden hose.

My mother would tell us stories how she shivered in the cold but it was still special. Each of us has stories to share about when we said goodbye to the old life and accepted a new way of life. Each of us had a life on the other side of our baptism where we walked according to the cares of this world. My Parents were baptized when I was about 10. I was a second generation Christian. In the years to follow I remembered how seriously my parents kept the Passover. Both were always happy go lucky most of the time but I remember how their demeanor would change at this time of year and how somber they were as they left and returned from Passover service. It made me really think before I chose to be baptized. Was I ready for such a commitment? Could I be as serious about this new life as they had been? I had seven years to prepare for my own baptism. In my case, I grew up in the church but that didn’t mean I had an easy road with my own path toward my baptism and first Passover. Those that did not grow up in the church cannot fully appreciate what it is like for a 10-year-old to have to tell his friends and teachers about the Sabbath and the Holy Days. I barely understood them myself at that age. In those early days when talking about the church I would usually blamed my weird ways on my church or family.

When you’re an adult you can look at thing logically but as a child you see things as a child. You try to reason your way out of things that are hard. It seemed so many activities were always on Saturday. Satan see’s to that. It is his world and he makes sure the road is not easy for the children. You can’t dress up on Halloween with your class. You can’t sing in the Christmas pageant with the rest of your class and during the many practices you have to go and sit in the library, by yourself. You feel like an outcast. When the rest of your class is making holiday decorations for Halloween or Christmas, or participate in Valentine’s Day or Easter projects, you have to sit out and feel terrible. It seemed as those most of my early years in the church my Grade School went through each of the winter months doing projects for one holiday after another. You are teased, picked on, people call you names. Still you have to endure it in those early years. I had many pulls from this world to join along. I remember kids at school tell me that if their parents would stop keeping Christmas they would run away from home. My parents were just learning about this way of life themselves and did not know what to tell us as we struggled.

Sometimes I stood proud of my beliefs, and sometimes I gave in and followed along. Sometimes you just want to be a regular guy and fit in. God was there but I had to learn and decide what kind of life I wanted to live the rest of my life. I really understood why so many of the youth in the church decided to leave the church when they were older because it was just too hard for them. I think about my own Kids as I think about my upbringing into the church. Lisa and I worked to teach them the lessons we learned at their age and it really helped them through many of the trials that they went through. I do remember having a discussion with one of them years ago, I won’t say which one, where the conversation went something like this, “l know Jesus was not born in December but what is wrong with going to the party?” I remember my friends telling me it’s a holiday party, not a Christmas party. It’s tough for our little ones and we can never forget that. They are special in God’s eyes and need our support. As I got older I could begin to see the contrast between the way of life God was revealing to me through His truth, and the way of life that everyone else was trying to have. It seemed the number of people in the world that really seemed happy was an ever-shrinking minority.

How many people in this world really are happy, I could not be sure. What I was sure of was that this world was not at peace and was not moving closer to peace and if I wanted any shot at seeing a world at peace with people really being happy, I had only one choice to make. That was my road to Baptism that brought me to my first Passover in Fontana California in 1987 at a school auditorium. My path toward baptism pulled me out of that world and into the Church of God. As we prepare for Passover, we must examine ourselves as it tells us in: 1 Corinthians 11: We will be reading these words on Passover evening. 1 Corinthians 11:26-28 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes. 27 Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. And another passage in 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 13:4-6 4 For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you. 5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? -- unless indeed you are disqualified. 6 But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified. If we are examining ourselves regularly we know that we are not disqualified. But not everyone takes the time to do this regularly. It is a hard road and many give up along the way. But as we examine our own faith and we see God working in our lives and in the lives of others, we understand why such a struggle is necessary.

God does not want to put us in the same situation that Lucifer was in when he had everlasting life but could not walk the road given him. The old self that is perishing cannot make that trip but the new person we are called to become can and will make that trip. Our old self does want happiness. The world wants happiness, it really does. But the carnal nature is not willing to do what is necessary to achieve it. That is why that self cannot inherit the next life. They are incompatible. So Paul is exhorting them to examine themselves to see if they are truly on the right path, that Christ lives in them, and they are living up to the covenant we entered into at baptism and what we renew each year at Passover as we take the symbols. That is why we cannot take the symbols in an unworthy manner. It would be like someone getting baptized that did not count the costs and entered the process rashly. The Game There is a phenomenon each of us has experienced after baptism. It reminds me of a game my girls used to play. It is called the game. The object of the game is not to think of the game. To play you simply do not think about the game. As soon as you think about the fact that you haven’t been thinking about it, you lose. At that point you exclaim to your friends, I lost the game, a fact that then makes each of them think about, and then lose the game.

The Phenomenon is the fact that at the moment of our Baptism we have been completely forgiven our sins, we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit by which Christ lives in us and for that moment, we are perfect, without sin. As soon as we focus on that fact, sin enters and we are again with sin. We lost the game as my kids would say. The fact is, we can repent again and once again have our sins forgiven and be without sin, but to truly win we cannot just be without sin. We must become a new life full of God’s Character. Our baptism pictures our solidarity with Jesus sharing His death. Just as He died for us, our going into the water pictures the death of our physical bodies. His resurrection to life is pictured in the new life given to us upon coming out of the water with the laying on of Hands. Let’s continue on in Romans 6: We read earlier that we were baptized into the Death of Christ. That was in verses 3-4. Picking up in verse 5: Romans 6:5-6 NKJ 5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

For us to really embrace this concept of a new life, we must first be willing to say goodbye to our old life. Have you ever found yourselves falling prey to familiar old patterns that you once thought were no longer a part of your life? Satan knows our buttons and knows when to push them. He sees when we are vulnerable and uses familiar sins to bring us back to our old lives. But why is Paul using this metaphor of slavery? Believe it or not, some taught in Paul’s day that it no longer matters if you sin or not because you have been freed of it and even a few decades after the resurrection of Christ some taught that sin brings you closer to God because it reminds us how much we need him so we should sin all the more. So what does it mean to no longer be slaves of sin? The life we have been called to live competes with our carnal self in this physical body which is perishing. We have these two minds in us that are competing to control our heart; one to life and the other to destruction. A carnal life that is concerned with self and a new life, that lives in harmony with Jesus Christ and the Father as the bible tells us in John 17.

Here Jesus is praying for those of the faith, and those that will join them through the Holy Spirit. This He prays on his last evening on earth before his crucifixion. John 17:20-22 20 " I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 "that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 "And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: NO LONGER SLAVES OF SIN So what does it mean to be no longer slaves of sin? Does it mean that we will live sin free? Does it mean, as some have said in this world, that sin has no hold over us? That seems pretty naïve to think that sin no longer has a hold on us. Some people think that you can never turn from God once you have fully committed. But we are repeatedly warned to not allow ourselves to be disqualified as we earlier read in 2 Corinthians 13:5, or as Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 9: where he talked about the idea of training our spiritual life like an athlete trains his physical body. 1 Corinthians 9:27 27 But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. Surely being freed from the bondage of sin does not mean we cannot fail. If we cannot fall away and fail then Jesus would not have told His disciples about their place in the Kingdom and about the ongoing battle between the faithful and Satan.

Consider Christ’s words carefully in Luke 22: Luke 22:29-32 29 "And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me, 30 "that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." 31 And the Lord said, "Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. 32 "But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren." We can learn a lot by looking at what this verse doesn’t say. For instance. When Satan asked for Simon Peter to sift like wheat (thinking about how Satan worked with Job), Jesus could have said, “To late Satan, you can’t touch them because they are mine now and sin has no power over them”. But Christ Prayed for Peter that he would return to him after the 3 denials that He knew was coming. So what is the Slavery of Sin spoken of in Romans 6 then? The answer is plainly given and the key here is to read the entire passage. In chapter 5 of Romans Paul is talking about the promise given in Christ as the second Adam.

Romans 5:12-14 12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned -- 13 (For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. So sin is the breaking of God’s Law but it is also death because death is the penalty for breaking the law. Let’s read the end of Chapter 5 as it transitions to Chapter 6. Romans 5:19 - 6:4 19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous. 20 Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, 21 so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So Paul is contrasting two ways to live, one to death and one toward eternal life. Lest anyone think that as long as we have grace then sin no longer matters, let’s keep reading.

NKJ Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? So we have come back to where we started in Romans 6. So here Paul is contrasting the idea that some in his day had that thought you could continue to live your old way of life once you have accepted Christ and been baptized. Continuing on we see more of this explained. Romans 6:17-23 17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Those that are slaves to the old way of life have only death to look forward to. But those of us, who are slaves to God have a brighter future ahead of us.

We still have sin in our lives to be continually forgiven of, but we are moving away from that life toward a better one. As far as the east is from the west When we examine ourselves, we see the need to re-dedicate ourselves to our calling. To recapture that moment when we repented of our old way of Life and we were forgiven of all sins. At that moment we knew that whatever was in our past, God had erased. In Psalm 103 David praises God for the way He removes the sins from our lives when we are forgiven. Psalm 103:10-12 10 He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities. 11 For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; 12 As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us. When we are forgiven it is a huge weight lifted off of us and yet because of Human nature we crawl right back under that weight time and time again. We should at this time of self-examination take stock of our lives to see if we are growing and becoming a new creation. There is a song that I recently came across that speaks very well to this point. Now because of copyright laws I am not going to play it but I will read a few lines from it. It is about the forgiveness we receive from God and how we can feel like we are throwing that away.

The song is by Casting Crowns and is based on Psalm 103 that we just read and is called “As east is from the west”. I don’t want to end up where you found me It Echoes in my mind Keeps me awake tonight Can you show me just how far East is from the west? ‘Cause I can’t bear to see the man I’ve been Rising up in me again The song goes on to reaffirm that the singer understands his sins are forgiven but sometimes he feels he is “one mistake away” from God, “leaving him this way”. I know I have felt this way. Even though I have been called to a new life, I have found myself what seems to me to be very far from God. One mistake away from God leaving me this way. This is why we examine ourselves each year. We never want to become complacent and feel that since we have been forgiven and joined the church we have nothing to worry about.

• If we have stopped growing we need to worry. • If we have lost some of the excitement for God’s coming Kingdom, we need to worry. • If we do not love the life we have been given more than the life we left behind we are in grave danger of what it says in Luke 9:62. Luke 9:62 62 But Jesus said to him, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." But God does not want us to worry. He wants us to focus on a new world, full of peace and happiness. A world where everyone knows the ways of God and happiness abound. If we examine ourselves and see that this is what we want more than ever then we can confidently take of the Passover and continue to grow in faith and love. Next time for the Holy Day I am going to cover what comes next after we have put our hand to the plow. How should we look at our potential and what does God expect of us? If Unleavened Bread is just about removing sin, then why does He tell us to eat Unleavened Bread? But for now, let’s look forward to the days ahead and let’s have a truly meaningful Passover and start to the Holy Day season.