Simple Reminders
The primary idea you need to keep revisiting during this Following Jesus Pathway is that we are following and being formed by Jesus. This pathway can be learned simply or in great depth. We trust that you as a leader know your people and the dynamics of your group well enough to adapt and impart this topic with grace and wisdom.
This guide is designed to help you and others follow and be formed by Jesus. Remember to keep it Jesus-Centered.
We pray that you will be Spirit-Led and Spirit- Empowered as you lead and learn together.
Be Baptized in Water and in the Holy Spirit Hand Motion
Researchers have found that moving our bodies and adding actions to our learning significantly increases our ability to remember. Here is a hand action you can add to the command to remember it:
Be baptized in water; Step 1: Take both hands in front of you and close them like you are holding a piece of clothing.
Be baptized in water; Step 2: Move your hands up and down next to your left side (as if plunging an item in and out of water)
Be baptized in the HS; Step 1: Place both hands in front of your chest, palms facing you: interlock thumbs (makes the shape of a bird)
Be baptized in the HS; Step 2: wiggle your fingers/hands
Brief Commentary and Context
Baptism in Water Overview - “Baptism literally means to ‘immerse’. In water baptism we are by faith symbolically identifying with Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. As we are lowered into the water we choose to die with Christ to our old life, and then being lifted from the water we are being raised to new life and new identity in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are also embraced into a new family, identifying as members who belong to the body of Christ, the Church. This powerful act of obedience and identification begins the pattern of daily denying ourselves, taking up our cross and living a new life in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our new life is a process of being conformed to the image of Christ in love for the sake of others. ”
Brief Commentary for Romans 6:1-11 (Water Baptism and the Pattern of New Life)
The apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Roman church made up of both Greek and Jewish believers struggling to be united. These two ethnic peoples had a long and violent history of tension with one another. He spent the first chapters of his letter masterfully laying out the gospel of Jesus Christ declaring a new righteousness provided for us through the life, death and resurrection of Christ that can only be received by faith. The apostle makes clear that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory and cannot be made right through their own efforts or even the Jewish law. Through Jesus a new covenant family has been born where all who have faith in Christ are now included. What incredible abundant grace we have been given, the gift of right-relationship (righteousness) with God, and a new family in Jesus! As we get to chapter 6 in Romans, Paul challenges the church to not take advantage of God’s grace by continuing to live in sin that damages themselves and others. He reminds them of their union with Christ in baptism. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 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.” (Rom. 6:3-4) The message is clear; If we began our journey with Jesus dying to our old way of life, that old life should stay buried in the water. Sin has lost its power in our lives and been exchanged for resurrection power! How we began in baptism is how we are called to continue for the rest of our lives, the transformational process of dying to sin and living in a new life in Jesus!
Core Truths from the Topic:
Summary Scripture: Matt. 3:11- “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
Acts 2:38- Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
1 Corinthians 12:12,13- For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free – and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.
Eph 4:4-6- There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all
Gal 3:26-27- For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Col 2:11-12- In him you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
Biblical Stories of Baptism
Jesus’ Baptism – Matt. 3:1-3,13-17, Mark 1:9-11 & John 3
Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch – Acts 8:27-40
Paul Baptizes new believers in Ephesus – Act 19:1-6
Philippian Jailer – Acts 16:16-33
People in Samaria are baptized in water and the Holy Spirit- Acts 8:4-17Extra
Resources to help you Prepare