The Threefold Movement to Live Like Jesus

Jesus Asking: A Lenten Series by Seedbed

Matthew 3:13-4:1: 

“Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. But John tried to stop him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?” 

Jesus answered him, “Allow it for now, because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John allowed him to be baptized.  

When Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water. The heavens suddenly opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him.  

And a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.” 

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” 

Romans 12:1-2: 

1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. 

Transcript
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There's a story of a brilliant professor who was once asked the question, sir, if you were told the world was going to come to an end in an hour and you had the the means to, you had an hour to stop it. You could come up with a solution. It was solvable. But how would you spend your hour? And he said, I would spend fifty five minutes trying to understand the problem and five minutes trying to solve it. But before we can understand the answer or a solution to a problem, sometimes we really need to know what the question is first. Really understand what is the problem? What is the question? What is it we're trying to solve here? And so here's our first problem. I always think it's funny when people are like, what's wrong with you? And it's like, oh, well, first of all, I'm a sinner. Second of all, I've got an autoimmune disease. Uh, here's our biggest problem. We are all sinful people who do sinful things and have a sin nature. But we want to be in a relationship with God, who is the God of the universe, who is holy and cannot tolerate sin. That's quite a problem. Uh, and I'm sure that you won't be shocked to find out that the answer to that problem is our classic Sunday School answer. Jesus. Jesus is the answer to this problem. And that's essentially what we're talking about today with Jesus baptism. So I agree, yes, I want to know what John was thinking in that moment, because I was imagining what would happen if Jesus walked through the doors of this church and he said, Leah, I need you to baptize me. First of all, I think I would lose the power of speech. Um, which is possible sometimes I run out of words. Um, I think I would lose the power of speech, possibly the power to stand up. I don't think I would be shocked. Yes, shocked is the right word. You want me to do what? And I'm sure John felt the same way. Or at least very similarly. He knew Jesus. His cousin, who he probably knew was was the Messiah. Yeah. He knew that there were some miraculous things happening around both their lives. And it's amazing. And so Jesus, his cousin the Messiah, walks up to him and says, baptize me. And John's like, yeah, I don't think so. That's maybe this is a test. That's what I wonder. I wonder if John thought this surely is a test. He's trying to figure out if I'm humble enough to say no, but that's not what it was. God had called John to be a baptizer and to start Jesus earthly ministry. He was to be baptized. But he does give John an answer. He doesn't just say, just do it, John. Come on. He says, this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness. If that was a simple answer, the sermon would be over and we could all go home. But what in the world does that mean to fulfill all righteousness? What does it mean that for the only righteous person, truly pure, sinless, holy to ever live? For him to be baptized is how you fulfill all righteousness. How do. How do these things relate here? What does this mean? I think to understand this, we need to understand what is righteousness. Think about it in your own mind for a second. What is righteousness? What does it mean to be righteous? Does it mean to do good things, to make good choices? Maybe to some degree, but there's a lot more than that and not a lot more in the sense of we have to do more. There's just a great depth here. Jesus, of course, the perfect Son of God was sinless. And so yes, everything he did was righteous. Everything he did was for God. Everything he did was part of God's will. And so he, of course, received this. There was this moment of righteousness. And in this moment he did receive the approval of God. That's what in this moment I love. Oh my gosh, I love the baptism of Jesus. This is one of my favorite Trinitarian passages where you're scratching your head going, does the Bible really teach the Trinity? Yes, they're all here in two verses one verse two. One Jesus was baptized, the heavens opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. And a voice from heaven says, this is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. I love this passage. We see all three members of the Trinity present in this moment. It's so beautiful. But we're going to look at the words of God, this is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. And it's a beautiful moment. It's an amazing moment. But we're like, yeah, of course you're pleased with him. He's got I mean, he he he's part of you and that he is part of the Trinity. He's your son. He's perfect. He's sinless. He's never done anything against you. Of course you're pleased with him. Of course. That makes sense to us. But what if God wants to say that to you? And what if that's what righteousness is really about? And what does baptism have to do with it? Now we're going to get into a little bit of nitty gritty with baptism, but it's important and this is why I'm doing it. It's because baptism tells us a little bit about how God has brought us into the fold, into his family. When we're baptized and y'all are probably wondering if we have a baptism today, no, we don't, but we're all going to kind of remember our baptism together or look forward to it. If we haven't done it yet at baptism, you have these fonts. And the the pastor pours water in. The last time we did this was for Savannah. It was my first baptism. And we pour the water in and we bless it. And there's all kind of liturgy that goes around it. But the point is that in these waters, we it's a symbol of God's grace, God's grace that has gone before us. Even for an infant. Are you wondering, why do we baptize babies? That's a good question. It's a question that gets asked a lot. Why do we baptize babies when they can't make the choice for themselves in that moment? I, I pray that Savannah accepts Jesus into her heart when she is older, but for now. I mean, she just she she barely knows her name. She thinks her name's Nana. She doesn't really understand Jesus yet. Uh, why? Why would I baptize her as a baby? It's because baptism has very little to do with the person receiving it. And a whole lot to do with the one in whose name we are baptizing the father and the son and the Holy Spirit. And that's going to be true with an infant or a believer's baptism. Now, a believer's baptism. You do have more of that choice going in of the they know what's happening. They understand they've they've made that commitment of faith already likely. And this baptism is a symbol of God's grace that has already been covering them, waiting on them to accept it. That baptism is a symbol of God's grace that is already present. And so whether it's an infant or a child or an adult. Baptism is about God's grace on that person. And this is what this has to do with righteousness. Jesus lived that perfect life. He was perfectly righteous. He was sinless. And his righteousness covers us. And so when these baptismal waters, in our case, we sprinkle, don't we? Yeah, they come on our head. We like to joke as Methodists, that the last few drops are actually the most important part. So we don't actually have to go all the way under the water. Now, um, the, the drops that are on our head remind us who's covering us. And that's, that's Jesus. His righteousness is what makes us acceptable to God, his righteousness. So yes, the father said to Jesus With you, I am well pleased. And because we have accepted that gift of grace. Because we have entered into a relationship with Jesus. And we're trying, we're we're walking in his way. Because of that, we are covered by those same baptismal waters of Jesus, that same grace. So that God can say to you or about you, this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. This is my beloved daughter. In whom I am well pleased. So that the father can look at you, and he sees the righteousness of Jesus. And so he says to you, I am proud of you. Sometimes we don't hear that enough from our earthly parents. Sometimes we do. But either way, our Heavenly Father says it to us. I am proud of you. I love you and let alone I like you. There has been said in our house sometimes, you know, I and none of my family's here. But he'd be fine. Um, I love you, but right now I'm having trouble liking you. But I will get around to liking you again. But in this moment, I'm having trouble. Oh, God. The father, he likes you. He wants to spend time with you. He wants to be with you. So the righteousness that Jesus is talking about is Jesus's righteousness that covers us all. And again, it's as if these baptismal waters that Jesus entered become our baptismal waters where his righteousness covers us. Wear his righteousness covers us. And lest we think that the approval of the father or being covered in Jesus righteousness makes for an easy life, I want to read the next verse to you again. Then Jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Isn't that what life feels like? Sometimes? You have these moments where you're like, wow, I feel so close to God or so close to my family, or our work is going great or whatever. It's just like things are going like you want and it's great. And then the next day something happens and you're like, well, what happened to that? Can we go back to yesterday? Yesterday was easier. I wonder if Jesus felt that way. He had this moment where he was. He was with the father and the spirit. And it's this glorious moment he's he's transformed in this moment as we are transformed in our baptism. And it's just beautiful. And then he was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil for forty days. By the way, that's a long time. The very next verse of that to say, yes, God really does know what it's like to live our lives because he's he's done these routines of these, these mountains that we seem to just fall down into the valleys. And he certainly lived it in that moment. And we're going to talk more about the temptations next week. I had I had Sheila read a second scripture. I almost didn't include it. But I think it's important because I think it tells the same story of Jesus baptism, and we already read the whole thing. So I'm going to give you the simplified translation. Present your bodies, consecrate them. Set them aside. And be transformed. Okay, so this is what this is saying. Jesus took his body and he offered it. He presented his body for baptism by John. He presented himself. And then in that moment, we have this transformation moment with the full Trinity present. And then he does. He must go discern the will of God in the wilderness. Put it more simply, he comes. He consecrates himself in baptism. He's transformed. And then he demonstrates what that transformation looks like in his life. Consecration. Transformation. Demonstration. That's what Jesus models for us. And that's what's taught in Romans twelve. Consecration, transformation, demonstration, consecration. Set yourself aside for God saying, I don't belong to this world anymore. I belong to you, God. Be willing to let him transform you and then demonstrate it with your works. But here's the thing. I think this sounds weird to us because we're used to the opposite order. We want to demonstrate our faith, allow that to transform us, and then present ourselves to God. This is a classic works based theology, basically, but but it's much more in line with, I'd say, earthly wisdom. The world says, demonstrate what you believe in, even if you gotta fake it till you make it. Put on a smiley face. Do what you gotta do to get through. Do the things. Eventually you'll. You'll probably figure it out. And then when you figure it out, that's your transformation moment. Congratulations. You've. You've done it. You did it. You transformed yourself. All right. Now give yourself to God and see if it's good enough. That's a workspace theology. That's not what Jesus teaches. No consecration. Present yourself to God as you are Sunfall poley that mix that we all are of sinner and saint. Present yourself to God, I say. I'm ready for your transformation. And then the demonstration comes from that. It's a natural flow from presenting yourself to God, him doing his work in you, and then you do the deeds based on that change. And there's truly so much I could say here. And, but I'm going to, I want to come back to step one here, consecration and this threefold movement to live like Jesus. Consecration. Consecration is when you present yourself for God. I think a lot of us start our mornings in prayer or in scripture reading or with a devotional. I've encouraged many of you to listen to the Wake Up Call podcast, which I listen to most mornings I listen to that and it's it's a great way for me to start my day. But in the past, I found that sometimes me presenting my body to God in consecration is, is quite the effort. It feels more like demonstration than consecration at times in the past where it's like, oh, I'd rather do this or that, but I guess I need to spend time with God. And so I'm going to prove my love for him by showing up anyway. And there's something to be said for for making that choice. But I don't think that's what consecration is. Consecration is you coming before God and you're like, I need you to get through this day. I saw something on Facebook. It says, um, oh, what was it? I need Jesus to get through this situation. And the response was, I need Jesus just to go to Walmart. So we all need Jesus everywhere we go. And so we're presenting ourselves to Jesus and saying, okay, you see me as I am. I'm presenting myself to you. What do you want to do? What transformation are you willing to do? And there's many ways to do that. And if you already have a morning routine of spending time with God and this isn't part of it, it could become part of it. Uh, this isn't about doing more or spending more time or taking more time necessarily, but a way to just focus yourself more on the Jesus that we're, we're worshiping. And if you want to start with something, you've, you've heard this before. If you have listened to the wake up call, this is a prayer of consecration that you can pray every morning to God. It is steeped in Scripture. I mean, each of these lines comes from some Scripture reference steeped in Scripture, of a prayer of consecration to start your day, to consecrate yourself to God. And what's great about this is it doesn't matter what happened the day before, it doesn't matter now. We have to deal with the consequences of whatever happened the day before. Good or bad? Yes. But when it comes to your relationship with God, it doesn't matter. You can still come to him each day and say, I'm giving myself to you and pray a prayer like this. Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice that comes right from Romans twelve. Jesus, we belong to you, praying in the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I love that prayer, man. It's intense. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Our minds, our wills, our physical beings, all of it given to God, which means everywhere we go at work or at school or with our families or on the road. All of it is a sacrifice for God. Not performance, not getting it right. But we present ourselves to God and we let him transform us. And I think we will find that our deeds do follow that as God begins to transform us, we start to respond a little differently. So when the world tells you to fake it till you make it, get it together. God says, just, just, just come. Be consecrated. Present yourself to me. Jesus's righteousness is covering you. I am proud of you and I love you, and I like you, and you are my son. You are my daughter and nothing can change that. Nothing. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I thank you that you love me. I thank you that you love every single person here. I thank you that you love us when we can't love ourselves. I thank you that you love the person we have trouble loving and that you're Jesus's righteousness is ready to cover us, but we have to accept it. It's like taking a medicine. We have to take it. We have to accept it. We have to make it part of our lives and our bodies. And so we do. We accept the free gift of grace that you have given us, whether we've been baptized or not. We are covered by your grace. And yet, what a beautiful symbol to remember that Jesus is. Righteousness covers us. And you say that you love us, God. Thank you. In Jesus name, Amen.