Baptism reminds me that our God is a Waymaker! Exodus chapters 1-14
The Exodus is a wonderful Old Testament water story that points to what God does in baptism. It is the story of how God delivered the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. He did it by raising up a person, a Deliverer. His name was Moses. Someone would broker freedom for the Israelite people. Moses was chosen. He negotiated for the release of the enslaved people through signs, miracles and wonders.
God’s way involved a person. The same is true for the way He has made for us to be free from the slavery of sin. He sent Jesus, the sinless Son of God, the only One who was worthy to offer His life as a ransom for the sins of humanity. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no man comes to the Father except through Him, John 14:6.
When they were enslaved, Israelites were marked safe from a death angel that was sent to destroy the firstborn in Egypt. They were marked safe by applying the blood of a spotless lamb on the doorposts of their homes. We know that we are marked safe by the blood of Jesus that atones for our sin. The whole story is a good read! I do hope you’ll take a look at it since I can only highlight the Cliff Notes this morning
Let me move to the baptism imagery. After the Israelites were free and took their leave from Egypt and even took plunder from the Egyptians on their way out, after all of that, they came to a no-way-out-situation. Pharaoh changed his mind about releasing them and sent his army after them. Pharaoh is a type, a shadow, a symbol of our enemy, Satan, who doesn’t give up easily.
Their no-way-out-situation was that in front of them was the impossible, impassible Red Sea. Coming in behind them was Pharoah’s army with their horses and chariots and weapons. The people were terrified. They believed they were going to die. They looked to Moses for deliverance, and he said to them in chapter 14:13-14-13 Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
I love the prescription Moses gave to the people. When your back is up against the wall, when the way forward doesn’t look possible, when you are being squeezed and pressed from all sides, STAND STILL. Let the Lord do the fighting. After all, He is the only One who can! Our God is the only One who can deliver! Our God is the only One who can deal with our enemy.
Verse 19 gives me goose bumps! It says that the angel of the Lord, who had been traveling in front of Israel, who had been escorting them out of Egypt, the angel of the Lord (Let’s just call the angel of the Lord, Jesus, because that is the conclusion biblical scholars have come to) Jesus withdrew and went behind them. Do you know what that says to me? God’s got your back! Tell that to your neighbor! God’s got your back!
Ours is the God who can take down any enemy that pursues us. Isn’t that SO good? There was also a pillar of cloud that had been leading the Israelites and it moved behind them to create darkness, to create a barrier so that the army couldn’t get to the Israelites. What an epic display of power!
Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night, while God was covering the Israelites and keeping the enemy at bay, all that night, the Lord parted the Red Sea. Church, we aren’t talking about Summersville Lake! We are talking about a massive body of water that split in two and formed a wall on their right and left and a hallway right down the middle! Approximately 2 ½ million people went through the Red Sea on dry ground. Don’t miss it! When God’s people needed complete deliverance and freedom from their enemy, He took them THROUGH THE WATER! Sounds like baptism to me!
When the Egyptian army tried to take the same route, the Lord created great confusion in their ranks. He jammed up the wheels of their chariots. They couldn’t make forward progress. They recognized God was fighting for Israel, and they were afraid and wanted to retreat, but God instructed Moses to stretch out His hands back over the sea and the waters came back together. Not one of the enemy army survived! Friends, our God is thorough. When He delivers you, He does a complete job!
Oh, baptism reminds me God has taken care of my enemy!
There was a spontaneous praise and worship service and an incredible recognition of God as Deliverer. Those waters that came back together provided a barrier between a new life and the old life of slavery. There would be no going back.
That water story points to what God wants to do in our baptism into Christ. He has made an impossible, impassible way possible by becoming the Way, Himself. He delivers us from sin and Satan. He dealt with our enemy, dealing a blow to Him on the Cross of Calvary, from which he will never recover.
Listen, believer, you will never face anything bigger than God’s ability to take you through it! Hallelujah! Baptism reminds me that our God is a Waymaker. Baptism also reminds me that God is my Protector. Another wonderful Old Testament water story is the story of the Flood and how God kept Noah and his family protected when unprecedented rain fell on the earth.
You can read about those happenings in Genesis 6-9. God brought judgment to humanity through a worldwide flood, but Scripture says Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. God’s grace flows from the beginning of Scripture all the way to the end, and it is front and center in the story of Noah.
Noah walked with God. He had a relationship with God. He believed God. He lived a life surrendered to God, and God shared His plans with Noah. He did. He told Noah He planned to wipe out humanity, to judge the wickedness and evil that had been embraced and had become so pervasive everywhere. However, God told Noah He was going to keep him and his family safe from the coming destruction.
Ours is a God who discloses His plans to His people, and He covenants with us to keep us safe. I guess you could say there was a major cleansing that took place when God flooded the earth. There was a fresh start for Noah and His family when the waters receded, and because Noah had built the Ark as instructed by God, and because He got his family on board, and because God shut the door of the Ark, signifying the sealing in of that godly family, they were protected from the devastating flood.
Baptism points to the protection of God as we are inside Jesus, our Ark of Safety. Just as there was only one door on that Ark, there is only one way to be protected for all eternity, and that is through Jesus. Jesus is our Ark of Safety. He is our Protector in the storm. It doesn’t matter what we face, regardless of how dark the night or long the storm, we will be kept safe as we stay inside a relationship with Jesus.
Baptism also reminds me that God is my Transformer. Listen, God loves us too much to leave us the way we are. He makes a way for us and protects us so that He can walk with us and impact us and shape us from the inside out. Listen to this baptism language from one of my favorite passages of Scripture from Ezekiel 36:
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.
Oh, how I love all of this Old Testament baptism talk! God says He will do the hard work, that He will do the “heart work” in our lives. He will take out the bad and put in the good. He will remove our stony, stubborn hearts, and give us hearts that desire what He wants for us. He will transform us from the inside out. He does the baptizing on the inside. He does the cleansing from sin, the washing to make us clean. He gives us a heart that beats after His heart, and as He does, He makes us His people. The transformation He takes us through proves we belong to Him! Hallelujah!
Fast-forward to the New Testament where we see the example of Jesus as He was baptized by His cousin, John the Baptist. John was baptizing people who were admitting they were sorry for their sin. Jesus never sinned, but He willingly identified with sinful humanity when He was baptized.
Look at the account from Matthew 3:16-17, As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Do you see the whole Trinity in this picture? Jesus was in the water. The Spirit descended on Jesus, and God the Father spoke from Heaven about His Son. This is a monumental moment. Where else do you see the whole Trinity on the scene at the same time? In Creation, right? All members of the Trinity were present in Genesis 1, and here at Jesus’ baptism, here in a moment that symbolizes a person’s re-creation in Christ Jesus, all three members of the Trinity were present.
Matthew helps us picture baptism in fullness. There is an anointing, an empowering that is given to the person who obediently follows God as a true disciple. As we take steps of discipleship, as we obey the commands of Scripture, the Holy Spirit empowers us to live for God. Listen, if you are waiting on an empowering before you obey God and take the next step of discipleship, whatever that is for you, let this picture of baptism be an invitation to simply step into whatever water God is calling you to be immersed in and trust that He will empower you as you do. Maybe you have been baptized, but you stopped taking obedient steps after that, and you don’t sense God’s power at work in your life. This is a spiritual principle: Power is given to those who obey Christ with every step. Get into the water God is calling you to. An empowering to do His work and His will, will follow your obedience!
Also pictured here in this incredible baptism moment is how God is pleased to call us His sons and daughter. He spoke and said to Jesus, “This is my Son, whom I love, with Him I am well pleased.” God the Father was pleased that the Son had accepted God’s plan and will. He was pleased that Jesus was obediently undergoing baptism even though He didn’t need any personal benefit from it, but it had been prophesied hundreds of years earlier that He would be “numbered with the transgressors,” that He would willingly identify with sinners. We see from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry that He wasn’t taking shortcuts. He was going to fulfill every prophecy and do everything “by the book!” What an incredible moment between the Father and the Son.
Do you understand that through salvation, you and I are adopted into God’s family? That we become His sons and daughters? Ephesians 1:3-5 tells us we have been chosen by God and adopted to be His children in accordance with His pleasure and will. As a result, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Baptism reveals our true identity! We are children of God!
Oh, Church, baptism reminds me where my power comes from. It comes from the Spirit of God. Baptism reminds me who I am! I am a Child of God! Holy Spirit empowering and God Given identity are pictured in baptismal waters!
Isn’t this rich? Baptism also reminds me who I am following! Jesus identified with me, a sinner, through His baptism, and in my baptism, I am identifying with Him. I am conforming to the life He lived. I am living to follow the example He has set. I am living to tell people with my life that I have surrendered my life to Jesus, my will to Jesus, my plans to Jesus, that I am dead to self and that I am living for Him.
Romans 6:3-5: “Or don’t you know that 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. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.”
Listen, Jesus came to elevate your life! You want to live the high life? Follow Jesus! He will raise you! He will give you new life and a new purpose. He will give you eternal life. Baptism is the perfect symbolism of dying to self and being raised new in Christ Jesus. People who are baptized are literally acting out the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus in a symbolic way. But hear me, it is more than symbolic. It is experiential as you let Jesus have full control of you. Resurrection, and I mean the resurrection of all things, including your life when you pass from this life, resurrection is yours in Christ.
I’m also talking about a resurrection of your hope, your joy, your peace, and your God-given purpose! Who doesn’t want to be in a relationship with the God who can bring every dead thing back to life? For me, “resurrection” is another word for victory! Baptism reminds me of the victory I have in Jesus.
Jesus died, but He didn’t stay dead! He overcame death, Hell, and the grave, and because He did, when I receive what He has done on my behalf, when I am saved, I can claim the same victory. Ephesians 2:6 says, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” That is baptism talk. That is victory language. He rose, and I am risen with Him! In a spiritual and in a very real sense, I’m already there.
To recap, Baptism reminds me: God is a Waymaker! God has taken care of my enemy! God is my Protector! God is my Transformer! The Holy Spirit is my Empowerer! I am a Child of God! I am following Jesus! His victory is my victory!
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