So, you’ve been meaning to get baptized, but you just haven’t gotten around to it, eh? I get it. Life is busy. You serve on Sundays, you go to church enough to have “your seat,” you give every Sunday, you go to Community Group during the week and after all, you don’t need to be in the spotlight!
Oh, please. Get dunked already.
If it’ll help, consider this: baptism isn’t (exactly) about you anyway, but about God’s faithfulness as a sign given to you.
See, according to Romans, when you believe in Jesus, your sin was placed on him, he took it to the cross where that sin was put to death and then you are raised to new life.
Romans 6:4–11 says this:
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
We Christians can be pretty dense at times. Thankfully, God has given us simple physical signs to remind us of big spiritual realities. You go down into the water (a picture of death and cleansing of filth) and come back out of the water (a picture of being raised to new life). Simple, right? Maybe, but the implications are huge! God has put to death the old and has raises again to new life—amen!
To be baptized also means that your church family will get to enjoy what God is up to in your life. Not only that, but those of us that have already been baptized are reminded again of the glorious reality that Jesus died to sin, once and for all!
So no more excuses. Join the party, and get dunked already!
Matt Johnson is a pastor at the U-District church.
