January 11-13, 2014 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: Matthew 3:13-17 “WHY BAPTIZE…”

THE BAPTISM OF JESUS

January 11-13, 2014

Pastor Timothy J. Spaude

Text: Matthew 3:13-17

“WHY BAPTIZE…”

1.     Jesus?

2.     Us?

Matthew 3:13-17 (NIV1984) “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. ¹⁴But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" ¹⁵Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented. ¹⁶As 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. ¹⁷And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

          Why baptize? What does Baptism do? Whether you are new to Christianity or a long time Christian those questions come up. New Christians of course want to know about this special blessing from Jesus. Long time Christians know that since about the 1600’s a minority of Christians have questioned who is to be baptized and how they are baptized. Today if you have friends or relatives in non denominational churches or Baptist churches you’ve probably been questioned. Why do you baptize babies? Why don’t you use immersion? Why baptize?

          Actually that question goes back a ways. It goes back to John the Baptist. He was the one God chose to prepare the people of Jesus’ time to see Him as their Savior. For the most part he did a great job, when he stayed on his mission. He called the Israelite people to repentance. He told them the Messiah was coming. He pointed to Jesus as the Messiah, the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. He wasn’t perfect though. He would find himself wondering if Jesus really was the Messiah when Jesus didn’t quite act as John thought the Messiah would. He had a little problem at Jesus’ Baptism too.

          “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. Now think about this just a little bit. Jesus comes to you and says, “Baptize me.” How do you respond? Well, you could say to yourself, “Jesus wants me to baptize him. Whatever He says I will do.” Or you could think too hard and question. John chose the latter. “But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" There it is! Why baptize? Specifically why should Jesus be baptized? John didn’t get it. He didn’t understand God’s way to save people. He thought too hard and so he actually questioned Jesus. Can you imagine doing that?

          Jesus did respond. Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Jesus said, “Let it be so now.” That’s a gentle way of saying, “Enough John. Stop thinking and questioning. These are God’s ways, not yours.” Then He answered the question. Jesus was baptized to fulfill all righteousness. This goes to the heart of God’s way to save sinners. To be saved means to be rescued from sin. Sin is any disobedience to God and it covers our thoughts, our words, our actions and our lack of thoughts words and actions. God is holy. He created people to be holy. But that people are sinful means we think and say and do things that are wrong. It means that often we fail to think, say and do the right things. Those are called sins of omission. Sin condemns us to Hell. Only righteous or holy people get to go to heaven. Houston, we have a problem. God has a solution. Jesus. The substitute. We just celebrated the birth of Jesus. God’s son was born as Mary’s Son. Why? So He could be our substitute. He lives in our place. Later He would die in our place. Here He is living in our place. It’s part of God’s will. He fulfills righteousness. He is baptized for us to provide us with righteousness.

          But there is more that went on at the Baptism of Jesus. “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. ¹⁷And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." The Greek language of the New Testament draws our attention in a special way to two things. It kind of says, Look! The Spirit descending like a dove. Look! A voice from heaven. Look! People of St. Jacobi. When your salvation is at stake God breaks the laws of nature. All three persons of the Triune God are present in a special way. Why? To show to everyone that Jesus is really the Son of God, the Savior of the world. He didn’t look like it on the outside. But He was. People needed to know this. You and I needed to know this. And so Jesus was baptized.

          But how about us? Why are we baptized? Well we could make the rest of the sermon real short and say, “Because God says so.  Amen.” But God has a whole lot more for us that that. First listen to what He had written about Baptism in Galatians 3:26-27. “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” It’s that last part I want to talk about first. If you are baptized you are clothed with Christ. Clothed with Christ. Now this is not a new picture in the Bible. In a number of places the Bible talks about being clothed with Jesus’ righteousness. Do you remember our problem? Sin and lack of righteousness? Then Jesus came to be our substitute and He lived the perfect life in our place. At our Baptism through faith in Jesus we are clothed with His righteousness. Jesus was baptized to fulfill righteousness. We are baptized to be clothed with His righteousness. Kids, it’s like when you have a favorite superhero—Batman, Superman, Spiderman. Then you put on the Batman or Superman suit and you look like Batman or Superman. Now that’s just pretend. Baptism is for real. We might not be able to see it. We might not feel it. We still have to struggle with sin. But the truth is if you are baptized into Christ you are clothed with Christ. You get His righteousness.

          It’s also God’s way of demonstrating we really are His children. Remember how it was with Jesus? He looked like a regular man. Before Jesus came there were all kinds of fake saviors. Men who claimed they were the God sent Messiah and they were not. Why should people believe in Jesus? He looked like a regular man. Why should we believe we are the children of God? Why should we believe our children are? We believe in Jesus as Savior. We made promises to be faithful to Him all the way to death. We still struggle with sin. People can look at our families and see some of the same sins they see in families of people who don’t believe in Jesus. And even if we are really good at controlling what is going on on the outside, we each know for ourselves what we think and are like on the inside. Am I really a child of God? Yes. How do I know? I was baptized. “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”

          But there’s more too. Jesus’ Baptism kind of marks the beginning of what is called His public ministry, the time when He went around proclaiming Himself Messiah, preaching, teaching, doing miracles. Our Baptism does something similar. It connects us to Christ so we can publicly serve God too. Listen to what He had the Apostle Paul write about Baptism in Romans 6:1-4.  “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 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.” Earlier in Romans Paul had beautifully proclaimed God’s way of saving by providing righteousness through faith in Jesus not based on what people do but what Jesus did. It’s by grace we are saved. Grace isn’t a reason to keep sinning but to fight sinning. Why? Those how are baptized into Christ are connected to His death to pay for sin and His resurrection to prove it. Just like Jesus rose, at our Baptism we are reborn to live a new life, a life where we want to serve God.

          So why baptize? Like with John the Baptist with Jesus, sometimes we can think too hard. We can question God’s way of doing things and all that does it point out we don’t really know what we are talking about. Or we can take God at His Word and use Baptism and get all the blessings He wants us to have. At Jesus’ Baptism we get to see Him fulfilling all righteousness and that He really is God’s Son. At our own, at those of our children, we get to know that we are covered in Jesus’ righteousness, that we and our children really are God’s children. I guess there’s a better question. Why wouldn’t we baptize? Amen.