July 24, 2025 • 15 mins
Have you ever wondered about the purpose behind John the Baptist's peculiar wilderness ministry? What could this locust-eating, camel-hair wearing prophet teach us about our relationship with God today?
Matthew chapter 3 introduces us to John the Baptist—affectionately dubbed "Johnny B" by Pastor Brandon—who serves as the perfect hype man for Jesus's arrival. Much like the enthusiastic opener at a concert who builds excitement before the headliner appears, John prepares the hearts of the people for the coming Messiah.
The backstory is fascinating. Likely orphaned young and possibly raised among the Essenes (a separatist Jewish sect focused on end-times prophecy), John emerges from the Judean wilderness with a powerful message: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!" His distinctive appearance—camel-hair clothing and leather belt—deliberately echoes the prophet Elijah, fulfilling prophecies about who would prepare the way for the Messiah.
What's most striking, though, isn't just John's baptism ministry or his bold confrontations with religious leaders. It's what happens when Jesus himself appears for baptism. Despite having no sin to repent of, Jesus insists on being baptized "to fulfill all righteousness." As he emerges from the water, heaven opens, the Spirit descends like a dove, and the Father's voice declares: "This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy."
The profound truth? God expresses complete love and delight in Jesus before he performs a single miracle. This revelation transforms our understanding of God's love—He doesn't love us because of what we do, but because of who we are: His children. As Pastor Brandon beautifully puts it, "We don't live for the favor of God; we live from the favor of God."
Have you been baptized since placing your faith in Christ? If not, consider following Jesus's example in this significant step of obedience. More importantly, embrace the liberating truth that God's love for you isn't earned—it's already yours.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, hello everybody .
Welcome back to the BibleBreakdown Podcast with your host
, pastor Brandon, today, matthew, chapter 3.
Today's title is the King'sHype man.
The King's Hype man.
I don't know if you've everdone this before, but have you
ever been to a concert?
And before the main guy comeson, there's somebody who comes
up and they just say all theseglowing things about this guest
(00:24):
and they are the main person andthey'll just like these glowing
things about this guest andthey, they would, or the the
main person and they'll justlike, like, almost get in tears,
like, like they have a just aalmost a crush on this person.
You know what I mean.
And the idea is to build thisperson up before they come on
stage.
And I love all that.
But at the same time I get it,it's like, hey, listen, I'm
already a fan, so like out ofthe way.
But for the people who don'tknow that person, it gives them
(00:47):
some kind of context.
So when that main person comesup, it's like a hype man.
They're there to get everybodyexcited.
Well, we're going to talk aboutone of my favorite people in the
Bible, john the Baptist, or asI affectionately like to call
him, johnny B, and we're goingto hear about how he is
preparing the way for Jesus.
He's got a great backstory Ican't wait to tell you about.
(01:08):
So you want to get your Biblesout.
Open up with me to Matthew,chapter three.
While you're doing that, asalways, make sure you take just
a moment to like, share andsubscribe to the YouTube channel
and the podcast.
Make sure you leave us afive-star review on the podcast
it really does help and makesure you're going to the Bible
Breakdown Discussion on Facebook.
There's an amazing group ofpeople doing a wonderful job and
(01:34):
, as always, the more we dig,the more we find.
Well, if you've been with us forthe past few days, we've been
jumping into the Gospel ofMatthew.
If you remember, the overallgoal of Matthew is to talk about
how Jesus is the King, and hestarted it off in chapter one
just really bringing receiptsand he's saying I can prove that
, at the very least, jesus isthe rightful heir to the
physical throne of Israel.
(01:55):
But then he spends chapter twothrough 28 saying he is so much
more than an earthly king.
He is the Messiah.
And so then chapter two is theorigin story of Jesus and how he
talks about you know how he gothere, and then the Magi, and
then all of this interestinglittle kind of twisting journey
that ended Jesus from Bethlehemto Nazareth, and we talked about
(02:18):
how what may seem like chaos tous is actually very much the
plan of God many times.
And now we're going to talkabout a guy named John the
Baptist.
Now I'm going to give you alittle bit of background about
John the Baptist.
If you read Luke, chapter one,you hear that John the Baptist
was actually born of thepriesthood and he was born of
(02:40):
this wonderful family who didn'tthink they were going to have
any kids, and then they did.
Well, we don't really know whathappened to John after he was
born until chapter three today.
But there's a lot of scholarswho've kind of done a lot of
digging and they've got someguesses as to what happened to
John.
So I'm going to give you alittle bit of the guesses.
Okay, once again, we don't knowthis for sure, it's just
(03:00):
guesses, okay?
So during the time, there werethree major religious groups
that all claimed to worshipYahweh.
You had the Sadducees, whichwe've heard about them.
They were more your aristocrats.
They really sided with Rome.
They barely believed in thefive books of Moses.
I mean just very secular Jewishpeople.
You had the Pharisees, who wereabout as far the other
(03:21):
direction as you can get, verylegalistic, they loved the law
of God and they were reallytrying to bring people back to.
If we can just get this right,god will come and bring the
Messiah.
So their heart was in the rightplace for most of them.
But they were doing it allwrong.
Well, you had this other groupcalled the Essenes.
The Essenes didn't like anybody.
They knew the Sadducees werewrong.
(03:43):
They also thought that thePharisees were wrong because
they were too legalistic and sothey really had just separated
themselves from society, livedout in the desert areas, and
they were very interested ineschatology, very interested in
the coming of the Messiah, andeschatology means the end times,
study the end times.
They were very interested inthe end of things, the coming of
(04:06):
the Messiah.
So their message was, oddlyenough, repent, prepare, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand,which happens to be the very
message that John the Baptistpreached.
So a lot of people think thatbecause John the Baptist's
parents were very old when hewas born, he was likely orphaned
at an early age and he wouldhave found himself out in the
desert with the Essenes, and wehave learned from them the
(04:29):
message of the Messiah.
And then, anointed of the HolySpirit, he started preaching.
The message of the Essenes,which is, the Messiah, is on his
way, and what was amazing,though, is that it was time for
the king to come, and so he wasgetting the people ready,
bringing an air of repentanceback to the nation that prepared
the way for the kingdom.
(04:50):
And so, with that background,let's read chapter three.
Here we go.
Verse one says this In thosedays, john the Baptist, johnny
the Bee, came from the Judeanwilderness and began preaching,
and this was his message Repentof your sins and turn to God,
for the kingdom of heaven isnear.
The prophet Isaiah was speakingabout John when he said he is a
(05:12):
voice shouting in the wildernessprepare the way for the Lord's
coming.
Clear the road for him.
John's clothes were woven fromcoarse camel hair and he wore a
leather belt around his waist.
The food he ate was locusts andwild honey.
Now pause, now, what's up withall that?
Well, many people think thatJohn wore camel's hair and a
(05:33):
leather belt, because somepeople think that is kind of
what Elijah would have wore.
So it's possible that he worethat, symbolizing that I am
coming as Elijah, because it wassaid that Elijah would come to
proclaim the coming of the Lord.
So he was using that assymbology, but then also eating
locust and wild honey because,number one, there's not a lot of
stuff to eat out in thewilderness and, number two,
(05:54):
these would have been consideredclean as far as in kosher,
clean and unclean.
And so, since he had verylimited options, he was also
living a clean lifestyle, holylifestyle, and this would have
been all that was available tohim.
So here we go, let's keep going.
Verse 5, people from Jerusalemand from all Judea and all over
the Jordan Valley went out tohear John, and when they
(06:15):
confessed their sins, hebaptized them in the Jordan
River.
But when he saw many Phariseesand Sadducees coming to watch
him baptize, he denounced them.
You, brood of snakes, heexclaimed.
Who warned you to flee thecoming wrath?
Prove by the way you live thatyou have repented and turned to
(06:35):
God.
Don't just say to each otherwe're safe, for we are
descendants of Abraham.
That means nothing, for I tellyou, god can create children of
Abraham from these very stones.
Even now, the ax of God'sjudgment is poised, ready to
sever the roots of the trees.
Yes, every tree that does notproduce good fruit will be
(06:58):
chopped down and thrown into thefire.
I baptize with water those whorepent of their sins and turn to
God, but someone is coming soonwho is greater than I, am so
much greater.
I am not worthy to even be hisslave and carry his sandals.
He will baptize you with theHoly Spirit and with fire.
(07:19):
He is ready to separate thechaff from the wheat with his
winnowing fork.
Then he will clean up thethreshing floor, gathering the
wheat into his barns, butburning the chaff with
never-ending fire.
And so what he's saying is youfools, better get ready.
The king is coming.
And what would happen backduring the time is when someone
(07:40):
wanted to repent of their sins.
That it was a symbol,especially if you wanted to
enter into the Jewish faith.
It was a symbol that you wouldbe baptized, because it was a
symbol of leaving your past life, entering your new life.
So that's where the baptism ofrepentance that's what he is
saying is.
I'm baptizing these people torepentance, but when the Messiah
(08:01):
comes, he's gonna baptize youinto the kingdom of God, the
Holy Spirit and with fire.
And then here comes the king,verse 13,.
Then Jesus went from Galilee tothe Jordan River to be baptized
by John, but John tried to talkhim out of it.
I am the one who needs to bebaptized by you.
Why are you coming to me?
But Jesus said it should bedone, for we must carry out all
(08:25):
that God requires.
So John agreed to baptize him.
After this baptism, jesus cameup out of the water and the
heavens were open, and he sawthe spirit of God descending
like a dove and settling on him,and the voice from heaven said
this is my dearly loved Son, whobrings me great joy, wow.
(08:46):
Well, two things I want toshare with you today, and then
we'll be done.
First of all, notice that Jesusdid not have to get baptized
because of sin.
The Bible tells us in manyplaces, one of them being the
book of Hebrews, that Jesus hada body just like ours.
He was fully human, yet fullyGod, but without sin.
(09:06):
Therefore, jesus did not go toJohn to be baptized for
repentance of sin, but so thathe could fulfill the righteous
requirements, because that'swhat Jesus was doing, is he was
filling the righteousrequirements that we couldn't
fulfill, and so, therefore, wefollow Jesus in water baptism,
and so we've had people saybefore well, why should I get
(09:28):
baptized?
Well, there's reasons where theBible talks about baptism being
a public declaration of yourfaith and you should definitely
do that.
But the second one is is wefollow the Lord and all that he
did, and so if Jesus wasbaptized, why should you not be
baptized?
We should definitely bebaptized when we follow the Lord
in baptism.
So I want to encourage youtoday that if you have received
(09:49):
Jesus and you're a follower ofChrist, but you've not been
water baptized since you havebelieved, I would encourage you
to contact your church, contactyour pastor, and ask for more
information about being waterbaptized.
Now some people have asked mebefore should I get baptized
again if I was baptized by achild?
Well, first of all, there'snothing holy about the water.
(10:11):
It's about the commitment.
So if you're worried aboutsomehow undoing baptism, that's
not how this works.
Right, it's a symbol of whatGod's done on the inside.
So what I tell people isthere's nothing wrong with being
baptized as a child, because wehave many children at our
church who they know the gospel,they've received Jesus, and we
baptize them in waterdeclaration of their faith.
But many times what happens ispeople will walk away, their
(10:35):
relationship with God will getcold and then, when they come
back to their relationship withGod, they want to kind of almost
like renew their vows.
Well, just like there's nothingwrong with renewing your vows
in a marriage relationship,there's nothing wrong with being
baptized Again.
I have this story when I gotbaptized as a teenager.
I was honored and my dadbaptized me, and while myself
(10:57):
and a couple of other guys werebeing baptized, there was a
gentleman who he might've been70, 80 years old His name was
brother Lambert.
I never knew his first name andwhile we were being baptized,
he uh got so excited that hejust just started just shouting
like praise the Lord, hallelujah.
And we were like, yeah, praisethe Lord, brother Lambert.
I mean, we're pretty excited,but you're really excited.
(11:18):
He got so excited that my dadused to always have this thing
he would do and he would saydoes anybody else want to get
baptized?
And he'd have this dad jokethat we dads have.
He's like the water's wet.
Who wants to get baptized?
Well, he shouldn't have saidthat that night, because a bunch
of us young teenagers weregetting baptized.
Teenagers that got were gettingbaptized, and brother lambert
(11:40):
was so excited that he said it'smy turn, brother, pastor, you
know, and he gets up and and mymemory a long time ago, so I
don't remember if this isexactly accurate or not, but to
the best of my memory he gets inthere and he basically baptizes
himself.
He puts his hand over his noseand just boom, he just splashes
underwater, comes back up.
He's soaking wet.
My dad's soaking wet.
Everybody's just like what inthe.
And I'll never forget the gistof what he said afterward.
(12:00):
When someone asked him why didyou do that?
He's like, he's like guys.
He said I've been saved forover 50 years.
And he said I love Jesus todayas much as the day I first met
him and I just wanted to remindthe world that he's still my
king.
And you want to talk abouteverybody else going?
Well, I believe I'll go next.
You know what I mean.
(12:21):
It was awesome.
It was awesome just seeingsomebody so excited about the
things of God.
So I want to encourage you ifyou've not been water baptized,
take the step of faith and watchwhat God does.
The second thing is I want toremind you of something before
we pray, and that is this Do younotice the last verse.
When Jesus comes up out of thewater, the Heavenly Father
(12:43):
speaks to the Son and he saysthis is my dearly loved Son, who
brings me great joy.
You know why I love that verseso much.
The Father was ratifying hislove for his Son before Jesus
had ever done one miracle.
Jesus had not raised anybodyfrom the dead, he had not fed
5,000.
He had not died on the cross.
He had not done anything Forthe first 30 years of his life.
(13:07):
Jesus was anonymous, other thanthis one time when he's a
teenager but we'll get to thatlater.
He was anonymous.
It wasn't what Jesus did thatcaused the father to love him.
It was because of who he was.
Can I tell you that's the samething for you today.
God does not love you because ofwhat you can do for him.
(13:28):
Think about it for a moment.
God is God.
His throne in heaven issurrounded by angels who worship
him day and night.
He has the most beautifulvoices in all of creation, not
just in your neighborhood, butin creation.
Literally.
The most prized medal in ourworld is gold, and that is what
paves the streets of where he is.
(13:49):
There's nothing that we cangive him.
I mean he does not love usbecause of what we can do for
him.
He loves us because of who weare, and that is that we are his
.
So don't ever feel like youhave to earn the love of God.
We don't live for the favor ofGod, we live from the favor of
(14:10):
God.
And so before you do anything,before you get anything right,
you know what he says to you.
He says you are my dearly lovedchild and I'm so proud of you.
You bring me so much great joy.
I know you don't get it rightall the time.
I don't love you because youget it right all the time.
I love you because you're mine.
Let's pray together right now.
God, thank you so much fortoday.
Thank you, god, for theopportunity to be baptized.
(14:33):
Thank you for the opportunityto be called yours.
I pray today, god, that youwill help us to realize that
we're already loved when we haveyou.
I celebrate that today InJesus' name.
We pray amen and amen.
What God's word says in Matthew28, verse 19,.
He says all authority in heavenand on earth has been given to
(14:53):
me.
Go, therefore, and makedisciples of all nations.
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow forMatthew, chapter four.
Well, hello everybody .
Welcome back to the BibleBreakdown Podcast with your host
, pastor Brandon, today, matthew, chapter 3.
Today's title is the King'sHype man.
The King's Hype man.
I don't know if you've everdone this before, but have you
ever been to a concert?
And before the main guy comeson, there's somebody who comes
up and they just say all theseglowing things about this guest
(00:24):
and they are the main person andthey'll just like these glowing
things about this guest andthey, they would, or the the
main person and they'll justlike, like, almost get in tears,
like, like they have a just aalmost a crush on this person.
You know what I mean.
And the idea is to build thisperson up before they come on
stage.
And I love all that.
But at the same time I get it,it's like, hey, listen, I'm
already a fan, so like out ofthe way.
But for the people who don'tknow that person, it gives them
(00:47):
some kind of context.
So when that main person comesup, it's like a hype man.
They're there to get everybodyexcited.
Well, we're going to talk aboutone of my favorite people in the
Bible, john the Baptist, or asI affectionately like to call
him, johnny B, and we're goingto hear about how he is
preparing the way for Jesus.
He's got a great backstory Ican't wait to tell you about.
(01:08):
So you want to get your Biblesout.
Open up with me to Matthew,chapter three.
While you're doing that, asalways, make sure you take just
a moment to like, share andsubscribe to the YouTube channel
and the podcast.
Make sure you leave us afive-star review on the podcast
it really does help and makesure you're going to the Bible
Breakdown Discussion on Facebook.
There's an amazing group ofpeople doing a wonderful job and
(01:34):
, as always, the more we dig,the more we find.
Well, if you've been with us forthe past few days, we've been
jumping into the Gospel ofMatthew.
If you remember, the overallgoal of Matthew is to talk about
how Jesus is the King, and hestarted it off in chapter one
just really bringing receiptsand he's saying I can prove that
, at the very least, jesus isthe rightful heir to the
physical throne of Israel.
(01:55):
But then he spends chapter twothrough 28 saying he is so much
more than an earthly king.
He is the Messiah.
And so then chapter two is theorigin story of Jesus and how he
talks about you know how he gothere, and then the Magi, and
then all of this interestinglittle kind of twisting journey
that ended Jesus from Bethlehemto Nazareth, and we talked about
(02:18):
how what may seem like chaos tous is actually very much the
plan of God many times.
And now we're going to talkabout a guy named John the
Baptist.
Now I'm going to give you alittle bit of background about
John the Baptist.
If you read Luke, chapter one,you hear that John the Baptist
was actually born of thepriesthood and he was born of
(02:40):
this wonderful family who didn'tthink they were going to have
any kids, and then they did.
Well, we don't really know whathappened to John after he was
born until chapter three today.
But there's a lot of scholarswho've kind of done a lot of
digging and they've got someguesses as to what happened to
John.
So I'm going to give you alittle bit of the guesses.
Okay, once again, we don't knowthis for sure, it's just
(03:00):
guesses, okay?
So during the time, there werethree major religious groups
that all claimed to worshipYahweh.
You had the Sadducees, whichwe've heard about them.
They were more your aristocrats.
They really sided with Rome.
They barely believed in thefive books of Moses.
I mean just very secular Jewishpeople.
You had the Pharisees, who wereabout as far the other
(03:21):
direction as you can get, verylegalistic, they loved the law
of God and they were reallytrying to bring people back to.
If we can just get this right,god will come and bring the
Messiah.
So their heart was in the rightplace for most of them.
But they were doing it allwrong.
Well, you had this other groupcalled the Essenes.
The Essenes didn't like anybody.
They knew the Sadducees werewrong.
(03:43):
They also thought that thePharisees were wrong because
they were too legalistic and sothey really had just separated
themselves from society, livedout in the desert areas, and
they were very interested ineschatology, very interested in
the coming of the Messiah, andeschatology means the end times,
study the end times.
They were very interested inthe end of things, the coming of
(04:06):
the Messiah.
So their message was, oddlyenough, repent, prepare, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand,which happens to be the very
message that John the Baptistpreached.
So a lot of people think thatbecause John the Baptist's
parents were very old when hewas born, he was likely orphaned
at an early age and he wouldhave found himself out in the
desert with the Essenes, and wehave learned from them the
(04:29):
message of the Messiah.
And then, anointed of the HolySpirit, he started preaching.
The message of the Essenes,which is, the Messiah, is on his
way, and what was amazing,though, is that it was time for
the king to come, and so he wasgetting the people ready,
bringing an air of repentanceback to the nation that prepared
the way for the kingdom.
(04:50):
And so, with that background,let's read chapter three.
Here we go.
Verse one says this In thosedays, john the Baptist, johnny
the Bee, came from the Judeanwilderness and began preaching,
and this was his message Repentof your sins and turn to God,
for the kingdom of heaven isnear.
The prophet Isaiah was speakingabout John when he said he is a
(05:12):
voice shouting in the wildernessprepare the way for the Lord's
coming.
Clear the road for him.
John's clothes were woven fromcoarse camel hair and he wore a
leather belt around his waist.
The food he ate was locusts andwild honey.
Now pause, now, what's up withall that?
Well, many people think thatJohn wore camel's hair and a
(05:33):
leather belt, because somepeople think that is kind of
what Elijah would have wore.
So it's possible that he worethat, symbolizing that I am
coming as Elijah, because it wassaid that Elijah would come to
proclaim the coming of the Lord.
So he was using that assymbology, but then also eating
locust and wild honey because,number one, there's not a lot of
stuff to eat out in thewilderness and, number two,
(05:54):
these would have been consideredclean as far as in kosher,
clean and unclean.
And so, since he had verylimited options, he was also
living a clean lifestyle, holylifestyle, and this would have
been all that was available tohim.
So here we go, let's keep going.
Verse 5, people from Jerusalemand from all Judea and all over
the Jordan Valley went out tohear John, and when they
(06:15):
confessed their sins, hebaptized them in the Jordan
River.
But when he saw many Phariseesand Sadducees coming to watch
him baptize, he denounced them.
You, brood of snakes, heexclaimed.
Who warned you to flee thecoming wrath?
Prove by the way you live thatyou have repented and turned to
(06:35):
God.
Don't just say to each otherwe're safe, for we are
descendants of Abraham.
That means nothing, for I tellyou, god can create children of
Abraham from these very stones.
Even now, the ax of God'sjudgment is poised, ready to
sever the roots of the trees.
Yes, every tree that does notproduce good fruit will be
(06:58):
chopped down and thrown into thefire.
I baptize with water those whorepent of their sins and turn to
God, but someone is coming soonwho is greater than I, am so
much greater.
I am not worthy to even be hisslave and carry his sandals.
He will baptize you with theHoly Spirit and with fire.
(07:19):
He is ready to separate thechaff from the wheat with his
winnowing fork.
Then he will clean up thethreshing floor, gathering the
wheat into his barns, butburning the chaff with
never-ending fire.
And so what he's saying is youfools, better get ready.
The king is coming.
And what would happen backduring the time is when someone
(07:40):
wanted to repent of their sins.
That it was a symbol,especially if you wanted to
enter into the Jewish faith.
It was a symbol that you wouldbe baptized, because it was a
symbol of leaving your past life, entering your new life.
So that's where the baptism ofrepentance that's what he is
saying is.
I'm baptizing these people torepentance, but when the Messiah
(08:01):
comes, he's gonna baptize youinto the kingdom of God, the
Holy Spirit and with fire.
And then here comes the king,verse 13,.
Then Jesus went from Galilee tothe Jordan River to be baptized
by John, but John tried to talkhim out of it.
I am the one who needs to bebaptized by you.
Why are you coming to me?
But Jesus said it should bedone, for we must carry out all
(08:25):
that God requires.
So John agreed to baptize him.
After this baptism, jesus cameup out of the water and the
heavens were open, and he sawthe spirit of God descending
like a dove and settling on him,and the voice from heaven said
this is my dearly loved Son, whobrings me great joy, wow.
(08:46):
Well, two things I want toshare with you today, and then
we'll be done.
First of all, notice that Jesusdid not have to get baptized
because of sin.
The Bible tells us in manyplaces, one of them being the
book of Hebrews, that Jesus hada body just like ours.
He was fully human, yet fullyGod, but without sin.
(09:06):
Therefore, jesus did not go toJohn to be baptized for
repentance of sin, but so thathe could fulfill the righteous
requirements, because that'swhat Jesus was doing, is he was
filling the righteousrequirements that we couldn't
fulfill, and so, therefore, wefollow Jesus in water baptism,
and so we've had people saybefore well, why should I get
(09:28):
baptized?
Well, there's reasons where theBible talks about baptism being
a public declaration of yourfaith and you should definitely
do that.
But the second one is is wefollow the Lord and all that he
did, and so if Jesus wasbaptized, why should you not be
baptized?
We should definitely bebaptized when we follow the Lord
in baptism.
So I want to encourage youtoday that if you have received
(09:49):
Jesus and you're a follower ofChrist, but you've not been
water baptized since you havebelieved, I would encourage you
to contact your church, contactyour pastor, and ask for more
information about being waterbaptized.
Now some people have asked mebefore should I get baptized
again if I was baptized by achild?
Well, first of all, there'snothing holy about the water.
(10:11):
It's about the commitment.
So if you're worried aboutsomehow undoing baptism, that's
not how this works.
Right, it's a symbol of whatGod's done on the inside.
So what I tell people isthere's nothing wrong with being
baptized as a child, because wehave many children at our
church who they know the gospel,they've received Jesus, and we
baptize them in waterdeclaration of their faith.
But many times what happens ispeople will walk away, their
(10:35):
relationship with God will getcold and then, when they come
back to their relationship withGod, they want to kind of almost
like renew their vows.
Well, just like there's nothingwrong with renewing your vows
in a marriage relationship,there's nothing wrong with being
baptized Again.
I have this story when I gotbaptized as a teenager.
I was honored and my dadbaptized me, and while myself
(10:57):
and a couple of other guys werebeing baptized, there was a
gentleman who he might've been70, 80 years old His name was
brother Lambert.
I never knew his first name andwhile we were being baptized,
he uh got so excited that hejust just started just shouting
like praise the Lord, hallelujah.
And we were like, yeah, praisethe Lord, brother Lambert.
I mean, we're pretty excited,but you're really excited.
(11:18):
He got so excited that my dadused to always have this thing
he would do and he would saydoes anybody else want to get
baptized?
And he'd have this dad jokethat we dads have.
He's like the water's wet.
Who wants to get baptized?
Well, he shouldn't have saidthat that night, because a bunch
of us young teenagers weregetting baptized.
Teenagers that got were gettingbaptized, and brother lambert
(11:40):
was so excited that he said it'smy turn, brother, pastor, you
know, and he gets up and and mymemory a long time ago, so I
don't remember if this isexactly accurate or not, but to
the best of my memory he gets inthere and he basically baptizes
himself.
He puts his hand over his noseand just boom, he just splashes
underwater, comes back up.
He's soaking wet.
My dad's soaking wet.
Everybody's just like what inthe.
And I'll never forget the gistof what he said afterward.
(12:00):
When someone asked him why didyou do that?
He's like, he's like guys.
He said I've been saved forover 50 years.
And he said I love Jesus todayas much as the day I first met
him and I just wanted to remindthe world that he's still my
king.
And you want to talk abouteverybody else going?
Well, I believe I'll go next.
You know what I mean.
(12:21):
It was awesome.
It was awesome just seeingsomebody so excited about the
things of God.
So I want to encourage you ifyou've not been water baptized,
take the step of faith and watchwhat God does.
The second thing is I want toremind you of something before
we pray, and that is this Do younotice the last verse.
When Jesus comes up out of thewater, the Heavenly Father
(12:43):
speaks to the Son and he saysthis is my dearly loved Son, who
brings me great joy.
You know why I love that verseso much.
The Father was ratifying hislove for his Son before Jesus
had ever done one miracle.
Jesus had not raised anybodyfrom the dead, he had not fed
5,000.
He had not died on the cross.
He had not done anything Forthe first 30 years of his life.
(13:07):
Jesus was anonymous, other thanthis one time when he's a
teenager but we'll get to thatlater.
He was anonymous.
It wasn't what Jesus did thatcaused the father to love him.
It was because of who he was.
Can I tell you that's the samething for you today.
God does not love you because ofwhat you can do for him.
(13:28):
Think about it for a moment.
God is God.
His throne in heaven issurrounded by angels who worship
him day and night.
He has the most beautifulvoices in all of creation, not
just in your neighborhood, butin creation.
Literally.
The most prized medal in ourworld is gold, and that is what
paves the streets of where he is.
(13:49):
There's nothing that we cangive him.
I mean he does not love usbecause of what we can do for
him.
He loves us because of who weare, and that is that we are his
.
So don't ever feel like youhave to earn the love of God.
We don't live for the favor ofGod, we live from the favor of
(14:10):
God.
And so before you do anything,before you get anything right,
you know what he says to you.
He says you are my dearly lovedchild and I'm so proud of you.
You bring me so much great joy.
I know you don't get it rightall the time.
I don't love you because youget it right all the time.
I love you because you're mine.
Let's pray together right now.
God, thank you so much fortoday.
Thank you, god, for theopportunity to be baptized.
(14:33):
Thank you for the opportunityto be called yours.
I pray today, god, that youwill help us to realize that
we're already loved when we haveyou.
I celebrate that today InJesus' name.
We pray amen and amen.
What God's word says in Matthew28, verse 19,.
He says all authority in heavenand on earth has been given to
(14:53):
me.
Go, therefore, and makedisciples of all nations.
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow forMatthew, chapter four.
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