In other words, He submitted to what God was saying in that hour. He went down into the water baptism, came up. Notice what it says, the experience He had: “Immediately the heavens were opened. He saw the spirit of God came on Him like a dove alighting on Him, then suddenly a voice from heaven came saying: this is My beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased.”
So He encountered God at His water baptism. He was also baptised in the Holy Ghost. Now you and I are called to be water baptised. There are two conditions to be water baptised. The first condition is very simply, repentance. Repentance, in Acts 2:37-38, Peter had preached. After he preached they said: what must we do to be saved? He said: repent and be baptised; in other words: turn away from a life that's not Christ-centred, a life that's not God-centred, a life that is self-centred; and turn to the living God. So the first thing is Repentance.
Then in the Book of Mark, in Mark 16:15-16, Jesus said: “Go preach the gospel, and he that believes and is baptised will be saved”. Now you notice: Repenting, Believing, and Baptism are all connected. It is important you are water baptised. If you were sprinkled as an infant, you were not water baptised, according to what the Bible says. You need to be baptised - after repentance and faith. There's no evidence anywhere in the Bible, that there wasn't repentance and faith - these were the conditions before baptism. It doesn't say how old a person is, but they must be old enough to be aware of sin, to have turned from sin, and have trusted Jesus Christ. Then they get water baptised.
So notice this, that water baptism itself is built on the foundation of: Repentance; Faith in Christ - the spirit of God's come in, you've been brought into Christ, into the body of Christ. Now the obvious thing to do is to bury, in a symbolic way, in a representative way, to make a statement outwardly, of the change that's taken place inwardly.
So when you get water baptised, it's not that you go down and we sing a few songs, you go down the water and come up and you get wet and maybe raise your hands. It's much, much more than that. There's a teaching connected with it; and it's the teaching of it, associated with the doing of it, that brings about the change.
It is possible for you to experience massive deliverance when you get water baptised. I've seen people get massively delivered. I've seen people go down in that water, come up and many, many aspects of their old life just disappeared in a moment. Why? Because they held onto the truth associated with water baptism.
Let's have a quick look at it in Romans 6, and then we'll just finish up. We'll read from Verse 1, and Paul is talking about sin reigning over people; and now the possibility of the power of God living in our life, and reigning in our life.
“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, so grace can abound? Certainly not! How shall we - notice what he said - who have died to sin”. Not will die, but have died to sin - that's what the Bible says. This is part of the teaching of baptism - water baptism. When you came to Christ, you identified with Him. What did you identify? He was our representative; He went to the cross representing us; He died as our representative; He was buried as our representative; He rose by faith in the power of God, and is alive, and full of resurrection life.
Here's what baptism is: Baptism - we identify with what He has done.
Notice what it says here: “Shall we, who have died to sin” - you've already died to sin. You're dead to sin. Before you were Christians, sin had power over you. You had no power over sin. You could discipline your life, you could try real hard, but sin always was there, waiting to conquer you. When a person comes to Christ, this is what it says: “we have died to sin”. “Don't you realise, as many of us were baptised into Christ, were baptised into His death”. We were immersed into His death - I'll explain this in a moment, and it says: “therefore we are buried with Him, through baptism into death; that just as Christ was raised from the dead, by the glory of the Father, we would now walk or live with a different lifestyle.