There are many things that we do in church that might seem a bit "odd" to people who didn’t grow up going to church. If you think about it, many of the things that we do here are quite a bit different than what is the norm in our society. Even such a simple thing as "non-performance singing" isn’t something people do very often. We’re very used to people performing music, but who sits around campfires singing songs anymore? Nobody. In what other context do people come together and spend time singing, when they’re not practicing for performance or making a fool of themselves at a karaoke bar?

There is an old story about a little boy who had never been to church in his whole life. One Saturday night he stayed over at a friend’s house and his friend’s family were Christians in the habit of going to church every Sunday. So, the next morning, this boy accompanied his friend’s family to church. As I said, he’d never been to church before and so everything was completely new to him.

When he went to Sunday school it was enough like regular school that he wasn’t too confused, but as soon as the worship service started, he began asking his friend all sorts of questions: "Who’s that man up there? Why is everybody singing? Why does everyone have their heads down and their eyes shut while that man talks?" When they passed the communion trays, he thought they were getting snacks and asked about that. By this point, he was still confused, but beginning to understand that a lot of the things going on at church had some meaning to them that wasn’t immediately obvious to the uninitiated. When the minister got up to preach, the boy noticed that he took off his watch and placed it on the pulpit next to his Bible. So he asked his friend, "What does that mean?" His friend replied, "Not a thing!"

There are many things that we do in church that might seem a bit "odd" to people who didn’t grow up going to church. If you think about it, many of the things that we do here are quite a bit different than what is the norm in our society. Even such a simple thing as "non-performance singing" isn’t something people do very often. We’re very used to people performing music, but who sits around campfires singing songs anymore? Nobody. In what other context do people come together and spend time singing, when they’re not practicing for performance or making a fool of themselves at a karaoke bar?

The fact is that many of the things we do here in course of worship could seem somewhat strange to people outside the church. It has been this way from beginning. The early Christians were sometimes accused of cannibalism because people had heard about the Lord’s Supper — Communion — and thought that maybe Christians really were drinking the blood and eating the body of Jesus Christ.

Taking communion, singing together in worship, passing the collection plates — all these things would probably strike someone who’s never been to church as peculiar; but probably the thing we do around here that would be the most foreign to an unbeliever is baptism. You may not think of it as strange at all, but for a moment think about it from the outsider’s perspective: we have people, regardless of age, change their clothes in the middle of the day, then they get into a tank full of water and in front of God and everyone, they are simply dunked underneath the surface for just long enough to get wet. In recent months, we’ve seen men and women of all ages — from retirement age to 8 and 9 years old — come forward and be baptized. Why do we do this?

If you brought someone to church with you who’d never been to church before at all and we had a baptism that day, and they asked you why we baptized people, could you tell them? Many of you probably could give them a good, biblical answer, but others of you might need some help. This is the question I want to help you answer today in our time to together: Why do we baptize people?

The easy answer is because Jesus commanded His followers to baptize people. Just before Jesus ascended to heaven, He gave some famous instructions, often referred to as the "Great Commission" - sort of standing orders for those who call themselves Christians. He said in Matthew 28:19–20:

"…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."

So, the simple answer is that we baptize people because the Bible tells us to. What, exactly, happens when a person is baptized? Is baptism merely a symbolic act, like the Lord’s Supper, or is it some kind of magical ceremony that somehow makes us immune to the effects of sin? I’ve heard people call it both, but I think both views miss the mark in some ways.

What I want to do is to look at several things the Bible says about baptism, along with what many people say about it. We’re going to do this in an effort to better understand what baptism is, what happens when a person is baptized, and therefore understand why it is we place such an importance on it. To begin, many will point out that:

This view has some truth to it. Paul wrote in Colossians 2:12 that Christians have "… been buried with [Jesus] in baptism and raised with him through [our] faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead." It is proper to say that the act of baptism - being lowered into the water and raised out of it - is meant to be symbolic of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. When a person is baptized, he or she is making a statement about themselves in a symbolic act. It’s as if they’re saying, "I’m choosing to identify with Jesus, who died and was raised from the grave; so I’m going to be symbolically buried and rise again, too."

The symbolic burial and resurrection of baptism does more than just recall Jesus’ burial and resurrection, it also reminds us of the hope that we have of eternal life, of our own bodily resurrection one day. Paul wrote in Romans 6:5, speaking about baptism: "If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection." We’re promised that when we die knowing Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, we will one day be given new, perfect bodies which we will posses for eternity in heaven with God. When a person is baptized, he or she is proclaiming identification with Jesus in a symbolic act, but they’re also proclaiming their belief in God’s promise of resurrection.

Gary Thomas, in Christianity Today, writes this:

As Vice President, George Bush Sr. represented the U.S. at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Bush was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev’s widow. She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev’s wife performed an act of great courage and hope, a gesture that must surely rank as one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience ever committed: She reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband’s chest. There in the citadel of secular, atheistic power, the wife of the man who had run it all hoped that her husband was wrong. She hoped that there was another life, and that that life was best represented by Jesus who died on the cross, and that the same Jesus might yet have mercy on her husband.(1)

In a very real sense, baptism is much like that: it is a symbol of our belief in the power of God to give us eternal life. In baptism, we’re identifying with Jesus — His death, burial and especially His resurrection to a new life. So, baptism is a symbolic act.

Unfortunately, that’s where many people want to stop. They say, "Baptism is merely a symbol of what goes on inside a person’s heart." Many believers appear to be worried that if we say that baptism is more than a merely symbolic act, we will somehow take away from the fact that it is God who saves us, not we who save ourselves by choosing to be baptized. So, they’ll say that baptism is simply "An outward sign of inward change."

True, it is that, but I believe the Bible teaches us that it is also much more than a mere symbol of what has happened inside our hearts. In fact,

 2. Baptism is the Act in which God Washes Our Souls Clean of all our Sins.

There are several passages in the Bible that allude to this cleansing of sin that takes place when a person is baptized, but the clearest one is found in Acts 22. Here, the Apostle Paul is recounting the story of his conversion to Christianity before an unruly mob in Jerusalem. He tells them about how he was blinded after having a supernatural meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus. Then he tells them about how he was led to man named Ananias, who restored his sight, then said to him:

"The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name."(2)

The Bible clearly teaches that it is God who saves us . We don’t "earn" salvation by having someone baptize us. We’re saved by God’s grace. The forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life is a free gift that we cannot possibly earn. However, the Bible also says pretty clearly that is at the time of baptism that God removes our sins from us. Jesus spoke of our need to be "born again," and it is at the point of baptism that this "new birth" happens. So, baptism is not only symbolic of Jesus’ burial and resurrection, but also of the cleansing of our souls that God is performing on us at that very moment.

This teaching is difficult for some believers to accept. Many have been taught (erroneously, I believe) that to say baptism is anything more than an "outward sign of an inward change" means that we believe we can "earn" salvation by being baptized. My wife has an old friend from her high school days who is, along with her husband, serving as a missionary in Bolivia. One time, via e-mail, they got into a discussion on the subject of baptism and Pam explained to her just what I’ve told you. She wrote back: "Well, you’re putting your faith in your obedience, in your baptism, and not in Jesus Christ!" But that is simply not true. Were that the case, we’d just try to get people in the baptistery, whether they knew what they were doing or not, and then send them on their merry way because the reasoning would be that once they got dunked, they were good for eternity. However, we realize that unless a person’s heart is in it, he’s just getting wet.

One man tells the story of how the congregation he attends finally decided to invest in a P.A. system. "As the technician and I made our way around the sanctuary we studied the best locations for the speakers. When we got to the front, the technician made a beeline for the large opening in the front wall. He leaned over, practically disappearing. I could hear his question echoing from the baptistry, ‘What’s a bathtub doing in a church?'"

Of course, the answer is pretty obvious. In our homes, we take baths to get dirt off our bodies. However, when a person is baptized, the cleaning that takes place isn't surface dirt. All our sins are washed away.

You don’t have to have lived a very exciting life to have all sorts of things about your past that you regret. I can think many things in my past that I’m not proud of doing or being. But, I try not dwell on them because I know that on Sunday, Sept. 11, 1977, when I was 12 years old, I was baptized into Jesus Christ. Not only were my past sins washed away by His blood, but so were my future ones. It’s true that I could choose to forsake that relationship that I enjoy as God’s child, but I’m also assured that as long as I choose Jesus as my Savior, my sins will be taken care of. I got more than just "wet" on that day, I got clean.

Not long before Jesus gave the "Great Commission" and ascended into heaven, He gave instructions to His disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the gift His Father had promised. Several weeks later, Peter stood up in the Temple area of Jerusalem and preached the first distinctly "Christian" sermon, where he explained who Jesus was, where He came from and what His mission had been. Peter finished and said, "Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." Those present who had been convinced by his arguments said, "Oh no, what are we going do now? He’s right, we are guilty. How can we make this right?" Peter answered, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."(3)

Not only is baptism a symbolic of Jesus’ burial and resurrection, as well as the point in time when God washes away our sins. It is also when we receive the Holy Spirit into our hearts and lives. How this happens, I honestly can’t explain. There have been hundreds of books written about the gift of the Holy Spirit, explaining how and what He accomplishes in our lives. In the end, we really don’t know more than what the Bible tells us almost matter-of-factly. We’re told that our bodies are temples (or dwelling places) for the Holy Spirit; that the Holy Spirit works to mature us in our faith, that He strengthens us when we’re overwhelmed, He comforts us when we feel like losing hope, and He can give us wisdom from God when we don’t know what to do.

The Holy Spirit’s work in our lives is sometimes subtle and can be difficult enough to measure that many have denied the reality of it, but I’ve known people who’ve changed for the good in such fundamental and dramatic ways that the only explanation is that God is working on them in a supernatural way. The Bible says the agent of such work is God’s Holy Spirit whom we receive in the waters of baptism, when our souls are cleansed of sin and we are born again to a new life in Christ.

You may get discouraged about a seeming lack of spiritual maturity - and this will happen, believe me - you will wonder why you’re still falling into the same sins that have plagued you for years, or why you still don’t have the trust in God that you earnestly desire to have - when this happens, don’t get discouraged. Remember: God has placed His Spirit inside you, inside your soul, to make you a little more like Jesus every day. I know, some days it seems like we take one step forward and two steps back, but we’ve got remember that the Bible says "that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."(4) We’re not in this endeavor on our own. We have help.

There’s one last thing I want to say about baptism this morning:

Jesus said, "Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven." Baptism is the point in our lives when we make the initial decision, in an overt and obvious way, to cast our lot with Jesus Christ and count ourselves as belonging to Him.

Baptism is a dividing line in our lives. Before we are baptized, we are unredeemed, lost in our sins, self-willed and prideful. After we go down into the water and come back up, we have had our sins canceled out by Jesus’ blood and we realize that we are in His debt. Sin does not immediately leave our lives (although some things will undoubtedly be gone forever) but we don’t live for sin because we are no longer slaves to it. And out of gratefulness, we live lives dedicated to fulfilling His agenda, not our own. Baptism is the proverbial "line in the sand" for our lives.

In Charles Kuralt’s America the author recalls a town meeting he once attended in Strafford, Vermont: