Great Memories (Bulletin Article for September 10)

It’s a day you’ll never forget. People were patting you on the back and giving you hugs. You were congratulated many, many times. Songs were sung and prayers were made in your behalf.

It truly was a special day. It was the day you decided to put Christ on in baptism.

But how often do you think about that day? Does it still motivate you as it did in the days after you were baptized? It should! We should look back on that day often and remember just how excited and thankful we were that God wanted us as a part of His family.

I believe that is one of the reasons we have Romans 6:1-6. We often use this passage to teach about how baptism is a burial and resurrection. We teach how baptism is a picture of Christ’s burial and resurrection.

But notice something from the passage. In verse 3, Paul begins by saying, “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” (emphasis added). While it does no harm to the passage to teach the necessity of immersion from it, that was not Paul’s original intent. He was reminding those who were already Christians of their baptism.

Keep in mind that, in the first few phrases of the chapter, Paul is answering a question about grace. Some Christians had the idea that, since God’s grace covered their sins, they could sin more and more, so that God would give more grace. Paul says that this was (is) no way to live! (verses 1-2)

Instead, Paul reminded his readers that, when they were baptized, they “died to sin” and should not “live any longer in it” (verse 2). And then he talks about the burial; that is, baptism.

What is the point? Paul is teaching us to look back on the day of our conversion to keep us away from sin. These Roman Christians had been converted, but, then they had let a false teaching permeate their thinking. Paul is setting them straight by reminding them of the reason for their conversion: salvation from sin.

Do you need to be reminded of that? What a great day it was when you were buried with Christ Jesus in the waters of baptism. It was the greatest of all days! But, since, have you let some false teaching or sinful lifestyle permeate your life?

If so, remember that great day. God has given us a lot of “motivators” in our Christian life, but one of the greatest is memory; the memory of how we felt when we were saved. Indeed, “how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.”