Baptize America Sunday Message
From Death to Life
Think about the strangest event combinations you could imagine. Twin siblings sharing a birthday party makes sense. Joining an anniversary celebration with a graduation party would be a little unusual. But a joint funeral and birthday party? That would be unthinkable.
And yet, that is not far from the picture we see in baptism. How can one symbol represent both death and life at the same time?
What Paul Says About Baptism
The letter to the Romans was written by Paul, one of the most influential leaders in the first churches, roughly two thousand years ago. Many people consider it their favorite book of the Bible. In chapter six, Paul digs into the purpose and intention of baptism, and the picture he paints is striking.
Romans 6:3-4: "Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives."
The funeral and the birthday party. We share in His death, and we share in His life. The old is finished. The new begins.
The Power of Sin
Paul continues in Romans 6:5-11: "Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin."
When Paul talks about the power of sin, he is not simply describing individual mistakes or moments of regret. He is describing sin like a master that imprisons people as slaves. Before Christ, sin shapes our desires, distorts our thinking, corrupts our worldview, and pulls us away from God. That is why Paul returns to the language of slavery throughout the chapter.
But the good news is that through Jesus' death and resurrection, that power has been broken. Christians still struggle and still fail, but sin is no longer their master. Through Christ, believers can walk in freedom and newness of life instead of living enslaved.
The Glorious Power of the Father
Paul says Jesus was raised by "the glorious power of the Father." In Scripture, God's glory is not just a shining light or a symbol. It is His overwhelming power and presence breaking into the world. Paul's point is that the resurrection required nothing less than the power of God Himself to shatter death open. And Romans 6 tells us that the very same power is now at work in every believer.
Two Words for Life
Paul promises that because of Jesus, we can begin to live new lives. It is worth noting that the original Greek language actually had different words for life. Bios is biological life: survival, existence, keeping the species going, waking up, eating, working, sleeping, and doing it all again tomorrow. But Jesus offers zoe. Not merely existing, but truly being alive. It is the life of God breaking into a person, a life filled with purpose, peace, joy, and relationship with Him.
We all know there is more to life than just making it through the day. Our souls are crying out for that zoe kind of life, and that is exactly what Jesus promises. This new life is possible because Jesus' death on the cross was not the end of the story. Three days later, He rose again. On that first Easter morning, when His followers found an empty tomb, it meant that sin and death had been defeated. The door opened for us to share in His new life.
Not One or the Other: Both
Here is something worth sitting with: we need both halves of this picture.
If we focus exclusively on dying to the old life, we are honest and direct about the problem of sin. But without the other half, we are only emptying ourselves out without refilling with anything. It lacks a solution. "Leave all of this behind, and good luck" is not the gospel.
On the other hand, if we focus exclusively on the new life, we get the good stuff without understanding the weight and the cost. When we forget what we are being saved from, it becomes easy to underestimate the good news that we are actually saved.
Our passion for the empty tomb cannot exceed our gratitude for the cross.
Galatians 5 gives us a vivid picture of both sides. Paul writes about the internal struggle of leaving the old life behind and embracing the new: "So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants."
He goes on to describe what life led by the sinful nature produces: sexual immorality, idolatry, hostility, jealousy, anger, selfish ambition, division, envy, and more. Then he turns the page: "But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."
It is worth noticing that the second list is exactly what we want our closest friends to be like. The question is whether we want it for ourselves.
True Life Is Not Possible without Death
There are several places in the New Testament where the death of Jesus is illustrated by the image of planting a seed. Unless the seed dies, new life cannot come. That image deepens our understanding of baptism considerably. A seed is buried, and from its death, new life becomes possible.
In baptism, we are crucifying our old selves. Our old life is dying and being buried. We associate death with tragedy and pain, and yet the verses we are looking at today are telling us that this is the death of something that needs to die. The days of being spiritually enslaved and imprisoned are over. Instead, we have true freedom, true hope, and we are included in the promises of God.
We get to experience the zoe life. Not because we have apologized enough, or behaved well enough, or done enough good deeds, or given enough to the church, or never made a mistake. We get to live the life that only Jesus can give because we accepted His invitation to follow Him and placed our trust in Him.
The gospel message is the Creator of the universe saying: "I have done everything necessary for you to be forgiven. Do you want it?" All who humble themselves and receive the forgiveness of God start a new life following Him, with Jesus on the throne.
Coming to Your Senses
In Luke 15, the prodigal son has hit rock bottom. He is in a pig pen, far from home, having wasted everything. Then Luke 15:17 says: "When he finally came to his senses..."
What does it mean to come to your senses? It means your eyes are opened. It means you are thinking clearly. It means you are finally believing the truth. It means arriving at the correct conclusion.
Until we come to our senses, we will justify and defend our pig pen. Until our eyes are opened and we honestly assess our surroundings, our decisions, and our priorities, the message of Jesus will not make sense. Because the message of Jesus is that He made it possible for us to escape. And if we are comfortable in the pig pen, we will not care about the message of a new life outside of it.
If we do not care about the problem, we will not care about the solution.
1 Corinthians 1:18: "The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God."
When you come to your senses, the free gift of grace and forgiveness becomes the best news you can possibly imagine.
Freely Choose
It should be said plainly: no one should follow Jesus or go through baptism under compulsion or religious guilt. The hope is that people would freely, enthusiastically, and with deep sincerity make the greatest decision anyone can ever make. Not because they were shamed into it, but because they know they have an opportunity to find life.
Deuteronomy 30:19-20: "Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life..."
Leaving Death Behind
The language we have seen in these scriptures is strong and weighty. Death. Slavery. Imprisonment. And that is exactly what we get to leave behind.
It is an incredible deception to think that following Jesus means leaving behind things that are good. We hate sin. But we do not hate sin because we are angry or judgmental or self-righteous. We hate sin because it ruins people's lives. We hate sin because it has caused us to reject God and has put a distance between us and our Heavenly Father.
We hate sin because we love people.
The invitation to be baptized and leave your old life behind is not a challenge to abandon joy. It is an invitation to finally discover where joy is actually found. Jesus is not trying to rob people of freedom. He is trying to rescue people from slavery. The call of Jesus is not "say goodbye to everything good." It is "leave behind the things that are destroying you."
The message of forgiveness is the greatest news any of us can ever hear. That God sent His Son so we could receive forgiveness. Not only once, but that we keep on receiving His forgiveness. That His love does not expire on a bad day. That He is committed to walk through life with us, whether we are up or down, whether we are making great decisions or making a mess of things.
And this is not only true for one person. It is true for every single person who would humble themselves and receive His free gift of grace.
From death to life. It is not just a phrase on a shirt. For everyone who puts their faith in Jesus, it is the reality and lived experience of a life that has been made new.
