Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Romans 6:1-11
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  July 12, 2020

What is your idea of being buried? Perhaps it isn’t the most idyllic thought with which to start a sermon, but what do you think of when you hear the word Buried? Are you picturing a gravestone, a casket lowered into the ground, a tomb? What about a baby sprinkled with water at the font? How many of you pictured water flowing over your own head and a pastor saying, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? When I asked about your idea of being buried did you think of baptism? It sounds odd, but this is how the Apostle Paul pictures baptism in Romans 6 today. He calls it a burial, he pictures it as a death, and for this reason, he claims that baptism is meaningful every day of your life. That’s what we will explore today. Now, this is a section of somewhat dense rhetoric here in chapter 6, so I want to walk you through just verses 1-4 and really get into Paul’s mind to understand this profound truth of being buried in baptism.

Romans chapter 6, believe it or not, is preceded by Romans 1-5. Those five chapters have been all about what God has done for us in the gospel. Now, here in chapter 6, he pivots to speak about what the gospel does to us. The gospel is not just about forgiving us of our sin, it is about being delivered from the power of sin in our lives. 

He says, “What shall we say then? Shall we keep on sinning so that grace may increase?” Paul is looking back into the previous chapter at the passage “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Romans 5:20) and he brings up a false conclusion to prove a point. If when we sin, God always forgives us, then shall we keep on sinning so that God’s grace would increase? It is technically logical, but it is preposterous, right? If we sin more, God will forgive more, grace will increase. But of course, we shouldn’t want to sin against God as his forgiven children, right? It’s a ridiculous conclusion. So why does Paul bring it up? Well perhaps, the reason he includes it is that our sinful nature often tries to use this logic. 

I shouldn’t have too much to drink this weekend, but Sunday’s coming and I’ll be forgiven at church. I shouldn’t watch pornography again, but I know God’s mercies are new every morning. I shouldn’t harbor hate against that person, but God forgive me because I do! Have you ever used God’s grace as a license to sin?  Shall we keep on sinning so that grace may increase? This conclusion is immature and ridiculous, but we try to use it all the time. There’s a clear difference in attitude between recognizing a weakness in temptation and being content to fall into them repeatedly because you know God’s forgiveness is there to catch you. Can you imagine a tightrope walker who takes two steps out on the rope and then just jumps off because they know the net will catch them? They wouldn’t be much of a tightrope walker, would they? Let us not do the same thing spiritually.

God’s grace is free, but it wasn’t cheap. Jesus died to forgive our sins. They nailed him to the cross. They were the spit on the face of our Savior. How could we, who love our Lord, abuse his grace? And so Paul doesn’t so much answer this question as snort at it. Shall we keep on sinning so that grace may increase? Absolutely not!  I won’t get into it, but this is the strongest way to state a negative in Greek, the exclamation point is there for a reason. Paul says, “We died to sin. How can we go on living in it any longer?  And then almost expecting the question, “What do mean we died to sin?” Paul says: “Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him by this baptism into his death…”

We were baptized into Christ’s death. We were buried with him by this baptism. So, a lot could be said here. But first, note that baptism is a passive action on our part. God is the one who acts in baptism. Baptism, in the Bible’s own words, is always something that God does for us, not something we do for God. Baptism isn’t a symbolic ritual for babies. It isn’t just for adults when they decide to join a church. It is a sacrament, a sacred act of God. In baptism, God claims us as his children and he forgives our sin by uniting us with the death of his Son, Jesus. He takes our sinful nature and he drowns it in the waters of baptism, that a new child would rise from the waters, reborn to honor him. 

There was a Pharisee, in Jesus’ time, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council in Jerusalem. He once came to Jesus at night and said that he believed Jesus was sent by God. Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” And Nicodemus asks? “How can someone be born again when they are old?” And Jesus answers, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.” He’s talking about baptism! He says, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” Flesh is often shorthand in the Bible referring to our sinful, carnal nature. We all have sinful parents, and so we all were born as sinful people. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but there is another way to be born. In baptism, our sinful flesh is put to death with Christ who bore our sin, that we might be born again of water and the Spirit. Baptism is both burial and new life.

Among the many pictures of Baptism throughout the Old Testament are the Flood and the crossing of the Red Sea. Notice that in both those stories, water buried sinful people and became their tomb. In the flood, God’s creation, which was so corrupt that “every inclination of the thoughts of their heart was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5) was drowned and buried by water (Genesis 7:21). In the Red Sea, Pharaoh and his army, who were God’s enemies and hostile to him, were drowned and buried (Exodus 14:28). In the same way, we, who have a sinful nature which desires “only evil all the time” and we, who, by nature, were enemies of God and hostile to him, were drowned and buried in the waters of baptism. That sinful part of us died with Christ. But dying with him is just the start! We also live with him through his resurrection! Paul said, “We were therefore buried with him by this baptism into his death, so that just as he was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too would also walk in a new life.”  Because we were buried with Christ, who rose from the dead, there is new life promised in baptism. Notice in those two examples from the Old Testament, the water didn’t just bury people, it also gave new life. In the Flood, Noah and his family were saved to start over in the fear and love of God. In the crossing of the Red Sea, the Israelite nation was saved, set free from the bondage of the Egyptians. In the same way, you didn’t just die in the waters of Baptism, but you were also set free by them. In verse  7 Paul says, For the person who has died has been declared free from sin.”  We are free to love God, free to love others, free to say no to sin, free to walk in “a new life”.

This is why baptism is meaningful every day of your life because it reminds you that you have been born again. Every day, you can look in the mirror and remember that you walk in a new life. Despite what you’ve done in the past, despite what others might say or think, you were baptized. You died with Christ and you are set free from sin. Living in our baptism means first of all having faith in what God has said, trusting in his Word even when it doesn’t feel true to us. 

For instance, you may become very discouraged by the struggle against sin and feel like you have no power–but your baptism reminds you that this is not true! If Jesus broke the power of sin, it cannot rule over you. If Jesus died to sin, so did you! And if Jesus is alive, then so are you! In fact, Paul ends this section by saying, “In the same way also consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (vs. 11) In other words, prepare for a real fight! The battle of faith is not just in the will, it is in our understanding, in what we believe to be true. We are to think of ourselves as dead to sin–even when we don’t feel like it. We are to believe that we will have the strength to obey even when we don’t see it before the test comes. Christians are those who have been set free to fight against sin! If you live in your baptism you should remember that our faith consists, not in the absence of struggle, but in the daily spiritual battle against our sinful nature.” I’m going to get more into this struggle next week in Romans chapter 7 next week. But as I close today, I’d like just to give you one application and one invitation.

 The application is that the practice of confession and absolution, just like we do at the beginning of every service, is a small recreation of baptism. We confess our sinfulness and then hear that our sins have been put away and forgiven by Christ. Martin Luther used to joke that the sinful nature is drowned in baptism, but he is a good swimmer. We need to confess our sins and remember God’s forgiveness often. We cannot let our sinful nature come up for a breath. Let us die each day with Christ and rise to walk in a new life through repentance and confession. There is no better way to start your morning with a small prayer of confession and taking a moment to revel in God’s love. Perhaps let the water in the shower remind you of the cleansing flood of your baptism. I have a friend who says that he washes his hands every morning and thinks of his baptism. 

Finally, I’d like to include an invitation to Baptism if you or anyone in your family is not baptized. There is no wrong time to be baptized. It is all God’s act, it is his grace in action. Even if you are already a Christian, it is a powerful gift of the Holy Spirit and will strengthen your unity with Christ as it is a burial. If you’d like to be baptized or have someone baptized, please contact me. Let us give thanks for our burial and resurrection with Christ and let us remember our baptism every day.  Amen.