Romans 6:1-11
1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 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.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Baptism Binds Us to Jesus
Have I ever told you what my favourite winter sport is? Biathlon. I’ve never participated in the biathlon. I don’t even know how to cross-country ski. But whenever the biathlon comes on TV I cannot tear my eyes away. It’s fascinating!
For those of you who don’t know, biathlon is a sport in which you cross-country ski for a while, and then you take a break and shoot some targets with a bb gun you’ve had strapped to your back the whole time. Biathlon is the weirdest, quirkiest sport, and I’m here for it. I could watch it all day long.
I think what fascinates me the most is how biathletes have to somehow calm themselves down enough to be able to shoot a gun with any kind of accuracy. Imagine that you just skied over hill and under dale for 3km while racing other people and without skipping a beat you have to slow your breathing and calm your heartrate and try to hit a disc about the size of a coffee cup lid from 100m away.
To be fair, you do get eight bullets to hit 5 targets. If you miss once, that’s fine. Twice, you’re OK. Three times, now you have to be perfect the rest of the way. If you miss more than that, you have to ski an extra lap in the circle of shame, and your chances of catching up to anybody else and winning the race absolutely plummet.
Clearly I can talk about biathlon for a while, but that’s not why I’m standing up here today. Today is all about baptism, and while there don’t seem to be many similarities between baptism and biathlon, there is one similarity that is absolutely necessary for you to understand if you have any hope of getting anything out of baptism. It comes down to a single word that the Apostle Paul used 7 times in 11 verses: sin.
ἁμαρτίᾳ is the Greek word for “sin.” The picture behind that word is of a target, like a biathlete would aim at. “Sin” is anything other than hitting the dead centre of the bullseye. That is the standard that God sets for your life. He doesn’t just want you to hit the target. He demands that you hit the bullseye.
Unfortunately, oftentimes, I’m afraid that we have a very different understanding of what sin is. We all know that it would be terribly wrong for a biathlete to take his rifle, turn around and fire on the crowd; that’d be awful, inexcusable, punishable to the highest degree. Even if they accidentally clipped their opponent while loading their gun, they’d be disqualified from the race, not because they’re hate-filled monsters, but because they’re recklessly endangering other people’s lives.
We understand that actions have consequences. I don’t have to convince you that murder is wrong, or that endangering other people’s lives because you’re driving recklessly on the Henday deserves to be punished.
The harder truth in Christianity is that that’s not all that sin is. The harder truth is that anything less than perfection is sin. You can hit the target – you can be an eyelash away from the bullseye – but because you didn’t do exactly what you were supposed to do, exactly how you were supposed to do it, with exactly the right attitude in your heart about it, you’re sinful.
Now, my guess is that most of us here would think that we’re pretty good people. We’re in church on a Sunday morning, after all. I heard recently that only 13% of Canadians go to church regularly. You’re in the top 13%... if you’re here regularly. Even if you were here every week – even if you were part of every Bible study, every outreach event, every community service activity – it doesn’t matter. You’re sinful, even while you’re here.
Here's something that none of us wants to hear: a Christian sins in all of his good works. We sin while we pray, we sin while we’re at church, we sin while we listen to God’s Word. Do you ever pray as earnestly and selflessly as Jesus taught you to? Do you ever listen to God’s Word as attentively as you should? If you are anything less than absolutely perfect all the time, then you’re sinning.
And the terrifying reality about sin is that the wages of sin is death. The soul who sins is the one who will die. In God’s court of law, there are no do-overs, no mulligans, not even three extra chances to get it right or a circle of shame to ski around to try to make things right. Sin, of any quantity and of every variety, is punishable by death, both on earth and in eternity.
You don’t have to be a hate-filled monster to be a sinner. Everyone in this room is a sinner, including the 10 month old baby, the guy in the front wearing white, and you. Everyone here deserves to suffer the consequences of their sin. Everyone here has earned death for their sin.
But for everyone in this room – and for everyone everywhere who hears God’s Word of promise – there is grace. You can literally hear the sound of that grace right now; it’s bubbling over in the baptismal font you all walked past to be here today.
Baptism is this amazing gift that God gives us to save our lives and to change our lives. The Apostle Paul laid it out for us in Romans 6:
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.[1]
Now, Paul packs a lot into a few words. If your eyes glazed over a bit as I read that to you, I wouldn’t blame you. Allow me to unpack it for you.
The first thing to notice is how intimately baptism binds you to Jesus. You were baptized into Christ Jesus and into his death. You were buried with him into death, so that you could be raised with him to new life. Baptism binds you to Jesus so that you become the beneficiary of everything he did for you.
I said before that the wages of sin is death, and that every one of us is guilty of sin, and therefore every one of us deserves to die. Well, we have died – in baptism, because baptism is the thing that connects you to the death of Jesus. When he died on the cross, he sacrificed his perfect, sinless life for yours. He paid your debt. In baptism, God assures you that Jesus’ death paid for your sins.
And after Jesus died, he was buried. For three days he stayed in that tomb, but when Easter morning dawned, he rose from the dead a completely different person. He wasn’t meek anymore; he was mighty, because he was done bearing the burden of your sin. He buried that sin in the grave and left it there.
Baptism is the thing that connects you to Jesus’ burial. It was a happy accident in our church architecture that the basin for our baptismal font looks vaguely like a coffin. It wasn’t intentional, but it fits this imagery very well. In baptism, we were buried with Christ and our sins were buried too. That’s why we have this tradition of stones with our baptismal date engraved on them forever “buried” in the waters of baptism. You can rest in peace, knowing that God does not count your sins against you anymore, because in baptism, you were buried with Jesus.
And after Jesus was buried, he rose to new life. That’s your daily reality too. The remembrance of your baptism gives you the ability to wake up every day and say, “I have died to sin; how can I live in it any longer?” “I know that my old self was crucified with Christ; I’ve been set free from sin.” “I consider myself dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Baptism gives you a whole new lease on life. It’s not a second chance. It’s not a do-over or a clean slate, as if from now on you have to try to be perfect. Boy, if that were the case, we’d be conducting baptisms all day, every day. No, baptism gives you a new lease on life, a new perspective and a new purpose.
Your goal isn’t to be perfect. That’s what Jesus did for you. Your goal isn’t to be good enough to get into heaven. That’s God guarantee to you by grace. Your goal is to be alive to God, to live for him, to let your life be changed by what God did for you in your baptism, to let your life be changed by being connected to Christ.
That’s the new life that Paul talks about in Romans 6. It’ll look different for each of us. We each have our own pet sins that we will struggle to set aside. We each have spiritual gifts and God-given opportunities that are unique to each of us. So, the new life that is ours in baptism isn’t always going to look the same, but there are some things about that new life that are universal – coming together regularly for worship, studying God’s Word together to grow our faith, working together to spread that life-saving, life-changing Gospel with others, celebrating gifts of God’s grace like baptism together.
Baptism binds us together with Jesus and makes us beneficiaries of his life, death and resurrection; in baptism, we receive the benefits of forgiveness for our sins, a new lease on life here in this world, and eternal life with him forever in heaven.
If you have a stone with your name on it in our baptismal font, wonderful! I rejoice to know that we get to share this precious promise together every week as we gather together as a church family. If you were baptized somewhere else and don’t even know when, wonderful! You are still a child of God, bound to Christ and a beneficiary of his grace. If you haven’t been baptized yet, I know a guy. He’d be willing to baptize you today if you wanted, or to talk about it, at least, for some day in the future.
Whoever you are, whatever your story, baptism is for you. Baptism saves lives and changes lives. It binds you to Christ, buries your sin in his grave, and frees you to live for God. May God strengthen you to live in your baptismal grace all the days of your life. Peace be with you. Amen.
[1] Romans 6:3,4