June 9, 2025 • 31 mins
Join Pastor Joe Liles as we explore the River Jordan and the profound meaning of baptism in our 'I Found Jesus' sermon series! Discover the historical significance of Jesus' baptism, learn about the River Jordan's geography, and understand what it means to carry your Christian identity everywhere you go. Perfect for anyone seeking to deepen their faith and understanding of biblical locations.
Highlights:
• Journey through the River Jordan's biblical history
• Understand the theological significance of baptism
• Learn how to live out your faith beyond church walls
Key Quotes:
- "We cannot contain the Holy Spirit just to where we're comfortable. In fact, our hope and our prayer should be that we ask for forgiveness for the times that we have contained the spirit, and ask for the spirit to release us into the world so that we may care for others."
- "The longer that you keep Jesus to yourself in the spaces that were comfortable, the longer it will take the kingdom to grow what God intended."
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pastor Joe Liles (00:02):
You. So in a series right now that is called
I found Jesus, and the serieswas originally titled, Jesus was
here, and in a beautiful way, wegot to a space where there was
an Easter, where we packed 1000eggs and we hid little mini
Jesuses inside those eggs, andwe hit about 50 Jesuses in the
(00:23):
1000 eggs, and 950 were empty,because it was the empty tomb.
And so the kids had to gothrough a lot of empty tune. And
hearing about the tomb beingempty before they found Jesus,
what we didn't realize is thatone the kids would be so excited
that when they came out of kidcity, they shouted, I found
Jesus. And it was wonderful. AndI was like, Oh, that's really
special. I kind of really enjoythat as Pastor Joe, like hearing
(00:44):
the kids say, I found Jesus, andit was like this real, tangible
reality. And they meant it forlittle mini Jesus, right? That
you can get in bulk. But whatthey were saying in their heart
was, there was this moment wherethey found Jesus, and it's
something that we could movewith them and talk with them
about. What we didn't expect iswhen the kids came out and said
that they had found three foundthree Jesuses and then they
(01:04):
stole other Jesuses from otherkids. That was unexpected. So
we're gonna revamp that a littlebit next year, and we're gonna
move from that, but it workedout really well. And so what
we're doing is we had a seriesgoing into summer that was
talking about travel. How manyof you are traveling this
summer? There's by show of handstraveling this summer. That's
great. Okay, so with travel thissummer, we wanted you to know
(01:24):
that you might be leaving yourhome church, you might be
traveling right now and visitingthis church. You might be in a
space where you're going ontravel and vacation. And you
know what? I would love to see,a show of hands. How many travel
and go to church? If you'rethere on a weekend like you go
to find a church that you go towhere you travel sinners. Okay?
How many of you, three of youcome on now. This is great. So
(01:45):
our family is actually mixed onthis. I love to go to church.
Love to go to church, right? Andand church is not where we find
our faith. Church is where wegather with the body, right?
Church is not the end all beall. You can discover your faith
in the mountains, on the lake,right? You can discover it and
travel in different spaces. SoI'm not saying that, but I love
to go to church. So if I'm in adifferent city, I'll try and hit
(02:07):
one, two or three churches on aSunday morning to walk in and
experience the different waysthat churches do things. Because
it takes me three churches tostop judging other churches. Is
what really happens about Iwould be honest with you, I walk
in, I wouldn't do that. I'mlike, that was that's not good.
And I'm like, ooh, we're goingto take that and use that at the
neighborhood. And I was like,That is fantastic. So about the
third church, I'm tired of doingthat. I'm like, can I just have
(02:28):
coffee and I just want to listento the word that would be
wonderful. But what we thoughtis, if you're traveling this
summer, how many of us trulythink of the identity that when
we travel, we're traveling withJesus, right? We're traveling
with our Christian identity.
We're traveling as Christfollowers. We're not just
showing up to a national park,we're not just showing up to the
beach, we're not just going to ahotel, we're not just going to a
concert somewhere or a cabinsomewhere. What we're doing is
(02:51):
we're showing up to a differentlocation as representatives of
Christ, from where we've learnedabout Christ. We take Christ
with us, and I don't want us toremove that if you're not here
on a Sunday, that your faithgets to stop for the week.
That's not what being aChristian is about. What being a
Christian is about isunderstanding that your life is
now changed because you are aChristian and you are identified
(03:12):
as a Christian, which means thatyou walk into this world saying
that my life has been changed byChrist, and because of that, I
have a proclamation, I have amessage that I need to share
with others about what's changedin my life, and it's a beautiful
way to live. And in fact, justtwo times this week, I was
walking out of a coffee shop oneday, and a person, as I was
walking out, opened their cardoor, looked at me, and they go,
(03:35):
Joe. And I was like, you know, Ihave no idea how this is gonna
go. I was like, I don't knowwhat the next statement is
beyond are you who you think Iam? And I was like, yeah. And
they're like, pastor at theneighborhood. And I was like,
oh, man, it still could go 5050,right now. And I was like, yeah,
(03:56):
no, I'm just kidding. I didn'tdo that. I was like, Well, that
was like, Well, that was one ofmy responses. That is, I was
threatened right up a littlebit. And I was like, yeah. And
he goes, Oh my gosh, I've beenwatching the neighborhood. You
guys are doing incredible stuff.
I work over here, and I work atwork matters, and love the
partner. And I was like,beautiful. And we ended up
talking for 510, minutes, rightin a beautiful space. We
(04:18):
represent Christ, wherever weare. If you walk out of this
church and it's the last timethat you think about Christ
until next Sunday, we have notdone our job effectively, as a
church, to teach you that youhave a message to bring to this
community. So we thought aboutthis series is, what if we
walked you through literalplaces where the historical
(04:38):
person of Jesus walked when weread about these places in
Scripture, and we open them up,we want to know that when we get
to these spaces, we have aliteral, physical representation
of where Jesus was at this time.
And so last week, we started atthe Sea of Galilee. We started
the Sea of Galilee, and wewalked through that. And there
was many different differentmiracles performed around the
Sea of Galilee, the feeding. The5000 was on the shores. Right?
(05:00):
The Sermon on the Mount was saidto be on the shores overlooking
the Sea of Galilee. Peter,walking on water was on the Sea
of Galilee, Jesus walking onwater, and then Peter falling
into water. Still, same story.
Sea of Galilee, another boatstory with the disciples. Sea of
Galilee, where the disciples arereally afraid a lot of the
times. So if you wonder ifyou're in your Christian life,
if it's okay to be afraid. Itis. The disciples have shown us
(05:23):
that. And if you want a neatrevelation from last week, we
got into the podcast this week,and we are breaking down the
scripture on the podcast. Andwhen we broke it down, right in
the middle of it, we are readingthat third text where the
disciples are in the stormagain, and Jesus says, Come to
me on the water. And right inthe middle, I was like, oh, did
you guys see how they said thisword here? And it's not like
this in the first text. Andthere was this really cool,
(05:44):
like, break open moment, thetext for me personally, that I
had not read before, and it waslike, kind of this really neat
moment of, like, the Scriptureexpanding again, about how I
understood it, and it happenslive on the podcast. So if you
want to see what happens when apastor is like, whoa, you
haven't read that before. Let'sgo back into it. Check out our
podcast this last week. But withthat, I want to get us into
today. Today, we're going totalk about the River Jordan. The
(06:06):
River Jordan. So if I say theRiver Jordan, right, what are
you thinking about with theRiver Jordan? Like, what is a
Bible story that comes to mindwith the River Jordan? Baptism
of Jesus. That's great. Beforethe baptism of Jesus, John was
baptizing at the River Jordan,right? And had that going on
(06:27):
too, and so you have the baptismof Jesus, right? The River
Jordan, interestingly, is alsoin the Old Testament, and it is
where the Israelites crossedover into the Promised Land,
right? And they were led byJoshua into the promised land,
and the water stopped, and theyhad the Ark of the Covenant, and
they're walking with that. Andthey had all the priestly,
priestly cast, kind of takingthat ark across. That is also
(06:48):
the same river Jordan thathappened there also. So we get
these stories that continue inthe Old Testament to Elijah and
Elisha. Horrible time in the OldTestament with those two. But
with that they also is the timewhen Elijah was raised up in a
pillar of cloud, right? That wasat the River Jordan, which was
happening. So the River Jordanhas historical precedence and a
lot of Scripture as you'relooking for it, but I want to
(07:10):
take you through what it lookslike. So if you're looking here
up on the screen, that is theRiver Jordan as a piece of it,
right? That's just a small pieceof it. The river Jordan is 165
miles long. The River Jordan 165miles now it goes all the way
south of the Dead Sea, south ofthe Dead Sea, from the
Mediterranean all the waythrough the Dead Sea, all the
way up into the Sea of Galilee,and then beyond the Sea of
(07:32):
Galilee into the Lebanonmountains. Is where it goes to,
and that's where it gets fedfrom. So now if you see, this is
kind of a water map of the sea,sorry, the River Jordan, between
the Dead Sea and the Sea ofGalilee. The reason I
highlighted that is becausethat's Jesus's ministry area,
right? Jesus's ministry now, ifyou look down by like Jericho,
and you go a little bit east ofJericho, across from where,
(07:56):
across the River Jordan, that'swhere you're going to find
Jesus's baptism site. So here'sthe two stories in text. You
have Jesus's baptism site, andthen it says he went into the
wilderness for 40 days, and thenhe ended up on the Sea of
Galilee, calling disciples. SoJesus went from right down near
Jericho on the east side of theriver all the way up to the Sea
of Galilee, which is 65 miles inthose 40 days, 65 miles to end
(08:19):
up on the Sea of Galilee, whereyou have there. Now I just want
to give you some other picturesso you can some other pictures
so you can kind of get a visualrepresentation of the River
Jordan. This is also the RiverJordan. Everyone go, oh, it's
really nice. How deep do youthink the River Jordan is? You
can shout it out. No one knows.
So just guess what? Six feet, 10feet, wrong.
(08:47):
Sorry, trophy, so wrong. Youkind of nailed it right out of
the gate. It's between six and10 feet. Six and 10 feet, the
deepest part is say it again, 15feet. Wow. That was great. Good
job. That was awesome. It's sogood. See I was giving you wind.
You just didn't know it wascoming at sometimes there's
patience in ministry. Sometimesthere's patience in ministry,
patience in ministry. And we'llget there. It'll be beautiful.
And so with that, 15 feet ofdeceive us, but it's not a deep
(09:09):
river. So I want you to takethis moment when you think about
the rivers you've seen andwading into the river, when
we're talking about the baptismof Jesus, five to 10 feet, seven
to 10 feet in most areas, right?
It's kind of a really lightRiver, and the river is getting
shallower and shallower. Nowthat's because a whole bunch of
things going on in Israel, andwater conservation,
conservations, and them fightingover the water and where it
comes from, and the tributaries.
(09:30):
There's a whole bunch of modernday things happening that are
lessening the flow of the river.
But then, I mean, it flowed, andit flowed from all the Lebanon
mountains, and three distinctrivers in the Lebanon mountains
feed right into what we know isthe river, the Jordan River, and
it comes down into this. And soI wanted to show you that they
have a site that has beenpreserved as the baptism site of
Jesus. And this is also from allthe different religions, is
(09:55):
claimed to be the baptism siteof Jesus. So this is not like
one. Religion says. And thisreligion that UNESCO says, this
is the World Heritage site ofthe baptism of Jesus, and this
is what it looks like. So thisis the World Heritage site of
the baptism of Jesus. How manydo you expect that would be what
it looks like for the baptismsite of Jesus, right? Okay, so
it's a little bit interesting,right? There's a little bit of
(10:17):
interesting narrative that thissite. Now, the reason it kind of
looks like this is because theRiver Jordan has moved right
over these years, and it's movedaway from the original baptism
site, and so now you havechurches and different
monasteries and everything elseplanted around where you can get
baptized at the River Jordan,which is near where Jesus got
baptized, right on the RiverJordan, but this is about six
(10:38):
miles north of the Dead Sea. Sosix miles into that 65 mile
distance between the Dead Seaand the Sea of Galilee is the
baptism side of Jesus. And soyou walk into the bottom right
there, and you will see rightwhat happens right. Right in
this bottom area is wherethere's water from the river
Jordan. That's still there. Theyhave some chapels in those
(10:59):
areas, and some different otherthings that happen too. So
here's a couple other picturesof the River Jordan, just so you
can see this. This is the nextone. It's a little video of the
River Jordan. So you kind ofkind of see how it cuts through
the mountains. And I got justtwo more for you. Here's how it
flows the River Jordan, right?
So you can kind of get a littlebit so there's your shallowness.
So just painting a picture ofwhat Jesus was walking through
(11:19):
in this time. And then Iparticularly love this one,
because I'm going to take youfrom biblical times to modern
day rafting down the RiverJordan. So how many of you
considered rafting down theRiver Jordan? Right? Apparently,
that's the thing too, which isreally wonderful. So now that
being said, we have our baptismstoday, right? That was
wonderful, because today isPentecost Sunday, the alighting
(11:41):
of the Holy Spirit in theJesus's baptism, which we'll
read about in a second. TheSpirit came down like a dove.
It's a beautiful moment.
Baptized at the River Jordan byJohn the Baptist, and we go out
to the river to have baptisms.
And it's beautiful because wenever went to the river before.
We always did baptisms in thechurch, and it was usually for
infants that we did baptisms forin fact, up until the moment
(12:02):
that we went to the river, I hadnever baptized someone older
than an infant. I had actuallynever seen a baptism from
someone older than infant. Andso I got into northwest
Arkansas. That is how much theLutheran church baptizes
infants. And so with that, I hada youth come to me and say, I
want to be baptized in our youthprogram. This is second, third
year of the church. And I waslike, This is awesome. I can
(12:23):
figure out how to do this inchurch. Like, I've never seen it
before, but I can figure it out.
I know I can, right? This isgreat. They're like, what? Like,
people do this in church all thetime. Like, no, no one does this
in church all the time. I'mlike, I'll be the first No, I'm
just kidding. I didn't thinkthat. But at the same time, I
was like, let's figure this. Andhe goes, okay. And I said, so,
yeah, it's playing a Sunday.
We'll get the sponsors together.
Let's play this. And he goes,um, he was, yeah, I don't want
(12:43):
to be baptized in the church.
And I was like, what? And hegoes, Yeah, I don't want to be
baptized in the church. I said,Where do you want to be
baptized? He goes, I want to bebaptized in a river. And he
smiled all big, I'm baptized ina river. And I was like, boy,
that's like, give me one goodreason, one good reason to
(13:07):
baptize you in a river. And hegoes, wasn't Jesus? That's like,
look good enough for me. I waslike, we're, we're gonna go find
a river. I was like, what'sthat? So that's when we actually
went out and found mckissaCreek, which is beautiful now,
machisse Creek is gorgeous. Itis what they call the Blue Hole.
It is a cascading, like greeninto a blue I mean, it's
(13:29):
beautiful. It has this lightlike walkie rock out area where
you can walk out into it. It'swonderful. It's a little bit
frigid right now, but it's stillwonderful. And it's a beautiful
place to do baptisms. It's rightnorth of us in Bella Vista.
We're going to be doing thosetoday at 1245, and beautiful. We
have, like, there's 23 peoplesigned up, including baptisms,
affirmations and baptismalsponsors, which is awesome. And
(13:51):
yesterday there were storms, andthe day before, there were
storms. And I got a text fromone of baptismal families that
said, Hey, have you checked outmckiss Creek? And I was like,
not yet, but I was planning tolater today, and they said, Let
me save you the trouble. Andthey sent me this picture of
makiza Creek. And I was like,yep, that used to be out in the
middle where we go to dobaptisms, which you could walk
(14:13):
out to, and that tree was notdown before that tree was up.
And so we had this moment whereI was like, Okay, this isn't
gonna work. Do you have a couplemore pictures? Tom of just other
things that are going on? Sothat's a really close end
picture. So we can go to thenext one, but that's another
close end picture, so we'regonna go to the next one, and
then I just hit the next one.
There's a tree. Okay, that'sgreat. You can see how hard this
is, like, you're so close to it.
(14:36):
So yeah, so there's the downedtree, right? You can see that
one going on. And so that'sright where we do baptisms. And
then if you see that that riveris actually flowing, it's
usually kind of like, justgentle right there. And I was
like, can't do baptisms, and asI can't do baptisms out here,
right? And so I was like, It'snot safe. I don't know what's in
there. I don't know what'shappening. You know, it's down.
So I went up to taneyard Creek,and I hiked that. That's worse,
(14:59):
that has waterfall. Was like,that wasn't better. So I was
like, well, maybe we'll just dolike, a barbecue at the Pavilion
and say we're gonna do baptismslater. I was like, we'll do
something. And then we found apool, which was wonderful. We're
gonna do baptisms in pool. Andthen I'm happy to say that this
morning, I went back out thereat 7:30am and it is gorgeous. It
(15:19):
is absolutely beautiful. Sowe're still, yeah, there we go.
God is good. God is good. Sowe're gonna be back out at
McKissick Creek today, doing ourbaptisms, which will be
wonderful. But the River Jordanlooks like McKissick Creek last
night, and there was nodifference between wading in
that water and moving into thatand so I wanna share with you
today the story of Jesus'baptism and walk you through
(15:41):
that, and talk you through alittle bit about what we believe
about baptism. We did a baptismclass last week, which is
incredible, but I want to walkyou through some of the things
that we specifically HEAR fromJesus in this story. So we're
gonna open our Scripture. We'regonna be in Matthew chapter
three. So we're gonna be in thebook of Matthew, the gospel of
Matthew, Matthew, Mark, Luke andJohn. It is the first gospel.
And these tell the story ofJesus Christ from birth all the
(16:05):
way through resurrection andascension into heaven, and then
the New Testament continues onabout the early church, and then
continues on with that and thestories and letters to the
churches until the revelation.
But we're going to be in Matthewchapter three, and we're going
to be talking through thebaptism of Jesus, and it's going
to be verses 13 through 17. Soif you got your Bibles, raise
them up. If you got Bibles, welove Bibles in the church. Who's
(16:25):
got Bibles today, I can seeBibles out, yes, yes, yes.
That's great if you don't have aBible um, we're on the Bible
app, so just pull out the churchapps card in front of you, you
can download the Bible app andopen that and have scripture
notes in there. Same thingonline, uh, that's me. I
apologize. Same thing online.
There's a link in thedescription for the Bible app.
So you can take that and clickon that, and you'll open the
(16:45):
Bible app. And we have Bibles inour Bible boxes around the
church too, so you can grab aBible. So here's what it says in
Matthew chapter three, verses 13through 17. Then Jesus came from
Galilee to John at the Jordan.
This is John the Baptist, right?
And John the Baptist was meantto pave the way for Jesus,
right? This was always what Johnthe Baptist intention was, and
(17:07):
what he was fulfilling was thatsame thing. And he came to be
baptized by him, and John wouldhave prevented him. And I love
this. John would have, forBrendan, been saying, I need to
be baptized by you. And do youcome to me? But Jesus answered
him, Let it be so now, for it isproper for us in this way to
fulfill all righteousness. Thenhe consented, and when Jesus had
(17:34):
been baptized, just as he cameup from the water, suddenly the
heavens were open to him, and hesaw the Spirit of God descending
like a dove alighting on him,and a voice from heaven said,
This is my son, the beloved,with whom I am well pleased.
This is the baptism of our Lordand Savior, Jesus the Christ.
(17:56):
Now I want to take you through alittle bit of what John the
Baptist is doing when he'stalking through this. And if you
want to read back a little bitin your text, in your text, if
you're in Scripture, just take asecond and read back through 11.
And it's going to be what I talkabout. But back in 11, it's
talking about how John isbaptizing. Now it's weird
because we think of baptism inthe Christian identity, to be
baptized in the name of ourFather Son and Holy Spirit right
(18:17):
to be baptism, to be baptized inthe name of Jesus. But imagine
that Jesus has not startedministry yet. This is the
beginning of Jesus's ministry.
So at this point you'rebaptizing into, what are the
Jewish traditions and rights andrituals leading into worshiping
God, and what's happeningthrough here? And so you have
Jesus coming on saying, I'm thefulfillment of Old Testament
prophecy, and I'm come, and I amthe one that is talking about. I
(18:40):
am the Son of God, the Messiah,the Anointed One. And through
me, you will have access to theHoly Spirit and to the kingdom
of God. And so you have Jesuscoming into there. Well, John
has been out in the woodspreparing people for this,
preparing people that the Son ofGod is coming and I am not
worthy, is what John says. Tountie the throng of his sandal.
(19:00):
He is coming, and I baptizedwith water for repentance, but
He will baptize you with theHoly Spirit. And here was the
very interesting about John, isthat John was already doing
things that were contrary to theJewish church at that time, to
Judaism and the Jews. See, Johnwas baptized Jews and Gentiles,
those who were in the church andout of the church. Is how you
can think about that those whowere understanding a
(19:22):
relationship with God and thosewho had relationship with God,
and John was baptizing themboth. But in the church, what
would happen is that if Gentilescame in and they weren't a part
of the church, they had to gothrough purification rituals,
which were called immersionsbaptism, to be fully immersed.
And so they would go throughpurification rituals to enter
the temple and go through therites and rituals of the day.
(19:42):
And so you have this kind ofnature where those who are
unclean had to be made clean inorder to embrace the altar, in
order to embrace their faith.
And so now you have John in thewoods baptizing Jews and
Gentiles, saying, Hey, we'repaving the way for someone
that's coming after us, forsomeone. That's coming, that is
greater than I, who is baptizingin a different way than I, and
(20:04):
people are starting to bebaptized by that. And he's
saying, I'm baptizing forrepentance, which means a
changing of your ways.
Repentance involves confession,right, asking for forgiveness
and changing your ways. Thoseare the three parts of
repentance. And so he's saying,I'm baptizing you with water for
repentance, to confess right, toask for forgiveness and change
(20:25):
your ways. I'm baptizing youwith water, the person after I
will baptize you with the HolySpirit. And so when Jesus comes
up, John's like, cool, I'm out.
Like, this is everything thatI've been waiting for. In fact,
he will send his disciples toJesus. And Jesus says, No, I
need to be baptized by you,which is a great question that
people ask often. Why doesJesus, who is part of the
(20:49):
Trinity, need to be baptized?
Why would Jesus need this? Jesusis one in three, one in the same
with God sent by God is thefulfillment of the grace of God
is called The Word of God, andyet Jesus comes and says, I need
to fulfill this through you tobe baptized. So I want to walk
you back into this. If we'retalking about the baptism of
(21:13):
John, I want to walk you throughwhat our definition is of
baptism. And it's this thatbaptism is an outward expression
of an inward faith that isbaptism outward expression
inward faith. And what thatmeans is that we are going to
publicly acknowledge our beliefin Jesus Christ and our faith in
(21:34):
Jesus Christ from something thatis happening inside of us, not
necessary for salvation. This ispublic acknowledgement. This is
saying, I am being welcomed intothe kingdom of God. And we have
the element which is water. Wehave the command by Jesus to go
into all the nations, baptizingthem in the name of the Father
Son and the Holy Spirit,teaching them to obey everything
that I've commanded you. So wehave the command. We have the
(21:56):
promise of the kingdom of heavenand being welcomed into the body
of Christ. And then we have theelement, which is water. So we
have this beautiful sacramentthat happens, and it's an
outward expression of an inwardfaith. But another way to think
about this is that it's a publicaffirmation of an experienced
grace. This is why I asked youat the beginning. How many of
(22:22):
you walk outside of these wallsand take your faith with you?
How many of you, when you arewalking and traveling publicly
affirm your faith as anexperience of God's grace every
single day of your life? That'swhy baptism is beautiful.
Baptism is beautiful because wego out to McKissick Creek. And
you know what? We don't knowwho's gonna be out there. We
(22:44):
show up with a tent. We walkdown with 4050 people, and
everyone who's down therehanging out and jumping off the
rope swing and doing all thiskind of stuff, and laying out
there in swimsuits and on theirchairs. And they look at us and
like, that's about to happenwith this colt, you know, and
I'm not gonna lie. I mean, whatwould you think? I mean, you got
fear? I'm not gonna lie that.
(23:07):
And here's the deal. That's whyit's hard to publicly affirm
your faith, because you'rewalking with an identity that is
how you enter into everysituation in your life. And
until you embrace that situationuncomfortably, you will never
find a reason or a way to shareyour faith. Uncomfortably. You
have to find yourself insituations and places where you
(23:30):
can share your faith. And itlooks like living out your faith
is an experienced grace in abeautiful way. But here's what
Jesus says in this, and I wantyou to take you back to this.
This is verse 15, and this isright after John said, but I
want to be baptized by you. Andthis is how Jesus answers. But
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Jesus answered him. Let it be sonow, for it is proper for us in
this way to fulfill allrighteousness. All
righteousness. Here's what allrighteousness means when we live
into this world now as a baptismwith Jesus through the Holy
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Spirit. What all righteousnessmeans is that Jesus came and
said, We have relationship toGod the Father through Jesus,
Christ, the Son and the HolySpirit. John baptized with
water, Jesus says, Now we haverelationship to the Father and
the Holy Spirit, because I amthe Messiah. I am the one that
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fulfills all of theseprophecies. What he was talking
about was full righteousness,full right relationship with
God, and that is the differencebetween John's baptism and
Jesus's baptism. The heavenswere opened. The Spirit came
down like a dove and said, Thisis my son, the beloved in that.
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Moment our baptism changes tobeing claimed in all that we do.
So now listen to this text thathappens next. So let's go on.
We're going to go on to Romanssix, right? Sorry. Romans. We're
going to get into yet Romanssix, and we're going to go
through verses three and four.
And here's what Romans six,verses three and four says. And
this is dying and rising withChrist. And I want to share with
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you what baptism truly is inthis moment. And here's what it
says, Do you know that all of uswho have been baptized into
Christ, Jesus were baptized intohis death, therefore we have
been buried with him by baptisminto death, so that just as
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Christ was raised from the deadby the glory of the Father, so
we too might walk in newness oflife. This is the difference
between John the Baptist with awater baptism of repentance,
changing our ways, and Jesus andbeing baptized into death and
rising to new life. ThroughJesus Christ, we now have the
experience of grace and theresurrection and the conquering
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of sin, death and the devil.
Baptism has changed in ourreality. It's become this
newness of life. And so we getto this incredible moment where
we realize that we're notbaptized into this moment of
life, we're baptized into thismoment of death, which is a hard
language, because baptism, wealways talk about is new life.
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I've been washed by the water.
I've been changed. I've beentransformed. I've been made new.
And that is true, because youhave died to your old self. This
is what it means to live withthe life of Christ, that you
have to change your ways and dieto your old self, because when
you know Christ, everythingchanges. That is the moment. So
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when we baptize, and you'refully immersed under the water,
and we don't, it doesn't matter.
It never says how much water andbaptism, just so everyone's
clear, it doesn't say thatbaptism does mean full
immersion. But at the same time,when he says, Go and baptize, it
doesn't say with this amount ofwater, you need a flowing river
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at this many feet per second inorder to baptize. It doesn't
happen that way. And so when webaptize people, when we dunk
them under the water and wefully submerse them, that is the
moment when they die to theirold selves, and as they rise out
of the water, and they take thatbreath of life that is the
newness of life that is enteringthem, saying that we cannot go
back to the way that it wasbefore we are now baptized in
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the name of the Father and ofthe Son and of the Holy Spirit.
And what that means is that theheavens have opened for you, and
you've been claimed as abeloved, divine love, not just a
love child of God, but a divinelove of God. You've been claimed
as a child of God. That is thebeauty of what's happening in
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this text, is that we'retransforming
this is why baptism is soimportant. This is why when we
talk about the River Jordan andwhere Jesus was and the parents
that people saw Jesus beingbaptized, it becomes a public
affirmation. It's the reasonwe're doing this series. The
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longer that we keep Jesus toourselves in the spaces that
were comfortable, the longer itwill take the kingdom to grow
what God intended. The longeryou keep Jesus to yourself, the
longer it will take to becomewho God intended you to be. This
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is why we walk with Jesus. Thisis why we're going back through
it. It's so that we can betransformed, not just by water
and repentance, but transformeda new life in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of theHoly Spirit. And all God's
people said, Amen, let us pray.
Oh Heavenly Father. We thank youfor this gift of baptism to be
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welcomed into the kingdom andfor Jesus to be obedient to full
righteousness, to this fullyright relationship between God
the Father, Jesus Christ, theSon and the Holy Spirit, to see
the heavens opened andexperience the spirit in baptism
on a day of Pentecost, where weknow that the disciples
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experienced this, and all whowere gathered they they
experienced these tongues offire from the Holy Spirit that
enabled them to speak to all thenations. And if, and if we think
about all the nations that theywere able to proclaim to. We go
back into baptism when we thinkthat you commanded us to go into
all the nations, baptizing themin name of the Father, Son and
the Holy Spirit in all thenations, means that we're an
experience of God where we haveto not only be here in Northwest
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Arkansas and here in our cities,but we have to expand that to
wherever we are. We cannotcontain all. Holy Spirit just to
where we're comfortable. Infact, our hope and our prayer
should be that we ask forforgiveness for the times that
we have contained the spirit,and ask for the spirit to
release us into the world sothat we may care for others.
Lord, My prayer is that youremind us of our baptism today.
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You remind us that we'veaccepted these gifts of
discipleship. You remind us thatwe are sent to publicly affirm
this experienced grace of God inJesus Christ, that we cannot
leave that and that we livethose gifts every single day for
the sake of the world, to bringpeople, not just a church Lord,
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but to relationship with you. Itis in these things that we pray
in Your holy and precious nameAnd all God's people said, Amen.
You guys enjoying our series sofar. Look.
You. So in a series right now that is called
I found Jesus, and the serieswas originally titled, Jesus was
here, and in a beautiful way, wegot to a space where there was
an Easter, where we packed 1000eggs and we hid little mini
Jesuses inside those eggs, andwe hit about 50 Jesuses in the
(00:23):
1000 eggs, and 950 were empty,because it was the empty tomb.
And so the kids had to gothrough a lot of empty tune. And
hearing about the tomb beingempty before they found Jesus,
what we didn't realize is thatone the kids would be so excited
that when they came out of kidcity, they shouted, I found
Jesus. And it was wonderful. AndI was like, Oh, that's really
special. I kind of really enjoythat as Pastor Joe, like hearing
(00:44):
the kids say, I found Jesus, andit was like this real, tangible
reality. And they meant it forlittle mini Jesus, right? That
you can get in bulk. But whatthey were saying in their heart
was, there was this moment wherethey found Jesus, and it's
something that we could movewith them and talk with them
about. What we didn't expect iswhen the kids came out and said
that they had found three foundthree Jesuses and then they
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stole other Jesuses from otherkids. That was unexpected. So
we're gonna revamp that a littlebit next year, and we're gonna
move from that, but it workedout really well. And so what
we're doing is we had a seriesgoing into summer that was
talking about travel. How manyof you are traveling this
summer? There's by show of handstraveling this summer. That's
great. Okay, so with travel thissummer, we wanted you to know
(01:24):
that you might be leaving yourhome church, you might be
traveling right now and visitingthis church. You might be in a
space where you're going ontravel and vacation. And you
know what? I would love to see,a show of hands. How many travel
and go to church? If you'rethere on a weekend like you go
to find a church that you go towhere you travel sinners. Okay?
How many of you, three of youcome on now. This is great. So
(01:45):
our family is actually mixed onthis. I love to go to church.
Love to go to church, right? Andand church is not where we find
our faith. Church is where wegather with the body, right?
Church is not the end all beall. You can discover your faith
in the mountains, on the lake,right? You can discover it and
travel in different spaces. SoI'm not saying that, but I love
to go to church. So if I'm in adifferent city, I'll try and hit
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one, two or three churches on aSunday morning to walk in and
experience the different waysthat churches do things. Because
it takes me three churches tostop judging other churches. Is
what really happens about Iwould be honest with you, I walk
in, I wouldn't do that. I'mlike, that was that's not good.
And I'm like, ooh, we're goingto take that and use that at the
neighborhood. And I was like,That is fantastic. So about the
third church, I'm tired of doingthat. I'm like, can I just have
(02:28):
coffee and I just want to listento the word that would be
wonderful. But what we thoughtis, if you're traveling this
summer, how many of us trulythink of the identity that when
we travel, we're traveling withJesus, right? We're traveling
with our Christian identity.
We're traveling as Christfollowers. We're not just
showing up to a national park,we're not just showing up to the
beach, we're not just going to ahotel, we're not just going to a
concert somewhere or a cabinsomewhere. What we're doing is
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we're showing up to a differentlocation as representatives of
Christ, from where we've learnedabout Christ. We take Christ
with us, and I don't want us toremove that if you're not here
on a Sunday, that your faithgets to stop for the week.
That's not what being aChristian is about. What being a
Christian is about isunderstanding that your life is
now changed because you are aChristian and you are identified
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as a Christian, which means thatyou walk into this world saying
that my life has been changed byChrist, and because of that, I
have a proclamation, I have amessage that I need to share
with others about what's changedin my life, and it's a beautiful
way to live. And in fact, justtwo times this week, I was
walking out of a coffee shop oneday, and a person, as I was
walking out, opened their cardoor, looked at me, and they go,
(03:35):
Joe. And I was like, you know, Ihave no idea how this is gonna
go. I was like, I don't knowwhat the next statement is
beyond are you who you think Iam? And I was like, yeah. And
they're like, pastor at theneighborhood. And I was like,
oh, man, it still could go 5050,right now. And I was like, yeah,
(03:56):
no, I'm just kidding. I didn'tdo that. I was like, Well, that
was like, Well, that was one ofmy responses. That is, I was
threatened right up a littlebit. And I was like, yeah. And
he goes, Oh my gosh, I've beenwatching the neighborhood. You
guys are doing incredible stuff.
I work over here, and I work atwork matters, and love the
partner. And I was like,beautiful. And we ended up
talking for 510, minutes, rightin a beautiful space. We
(04:18):
represent Christ, wherever weare. If you walk out of this
church and it's the last timethat you think about Christ
until next Sunday, we have notdone our job effectively, as a
church, to teach you that youhave a message to bring to this
community. So we thought aboutthis series is, what if we
walked you through literalplaces where the historical
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person of Jesus walked when weread about these places in
Scripture, and we open them up,we want to know that when we get
to these spaces, we have aliteral, physical representation
of where Jesus was at this time.
And so last week, we started atthe Sea of Galilee. We started
the Sea of Galilee, and wewalked through that. And there
was many different differentmiracles performed around the
Sea of Galilee, the feeding. The5000 was on the shores. Right?
(05:00):
The Sermon on the Mount was saidto be on the shores overlooking
the Sea of Galilee. Peter,walking on water was on the Sea
of Galilee, Jesus walking onwater, and then Peter falling
into water. Still, same story.
Sea of Galilee, another boatstory with the disciples. Sea of
Galilee, where the disciples arereally afraid a lot of the
times. So if you wonder ifyou're in your Christian life,
if it's okay to be afraid. Itis. The disciples have shown us
(05:23):
that. And if you want a neatrevelation from last week, we
got into the podcast this week,and we are breaking down the
scripture on the podcast. Andwhen we broke it down, right in
the middle of it, we are readingthat third text where the
disciples are in the stormagain, and Jesus says, Come to
me on the water. And right inthe middle, I was like, oh, did
you guys see how they said thisword here? And it's not like
this in the first text. Andthere was this really cool,
(05:44):
like, break open moment, thetext for me personally, that I
had not read before, and it waslike, kind of this really neat
moment of, like, the Scriptureexpanding again, about how I
understood it, and it happenslive on the podcast. So if you
want to see what happens when apastor is like, whoa, you
haven't read that before. Let'sgo back into it. Check out our
podcast this last week. But withthat, I want to get us into
today. Today, we're going totalk about the River Jordan. The
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River Jordan. So if I say theRiver Jordan, right, what are
you thinking about with theRiver Jordan? Like, what is a
Bible story that comes to mindwith the River Jordan? Baptism
of Jesus. That's great. Beforethe baptism of Jesus, John was
baptizing at the River Jordan,right? And had that going on
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too, and so you have the baptismof Jesus, right? The River
Jordan, interestingly, is alsoin the Old Testament, and it is
where the Israelites crossedover into the Promised Land,
right? And they were led byJoshua into the promised land,
and the water stopped, and theyhad the Ark of the Covenant, and
they're walking with that. Andthey had all the priestly,
priestly cast, kind of takingthat ark across. That is also
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the same river Jordan thathappened there also. So we get
these stories that continue inthe Old Testament to Elijah and
Elisha. Horrible time in the OldTestament with those two. But
with that they also is the timewhen Elijah was raised up in a
pillar of cloud, right? That wasat the River Jordan, which was
happening. So the River Jordanhas historical precedence and a
lot of Scripture as you'relooking for it, but I want to
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take you through what it lookslike. So if you're looking here
up on the screen, that is theRiver Jordan as a piece of it,
right? That's just a small pieceof it. The river Jordan is 165
miles long. The River Jordan 165miles now it goes all the way
south of the Dead Sea, south ofthe Dead Sea, from the
Mediterranean all the waythrough the Dead Sea, all the
way up into the Sea of Galilee,and then beyond the Sea of
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Galilee into the Lebanonmountains. Is where it goes to,
and that's where it gets fedfrom. So now if you see, this is
kind of a water map of the sea,sorry, the River Jordan, between
the Dead Sea and the Sea ofGalilee. The reason I
highlighted that is becausethat's Jesus's ministry area,
right? Jesus's ministry now, ifyou look down by like Jericho,
and you go a little bit east ofJericho, across from where,
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across the River Jordan, that'swhere you're going to find
Jesus's baptism site. So here'sthe two stories in text. You
have Jesus's baptism site, andthen it says he went into the
wilderness for 40 days, and thenhe ended up on the Sea of
Galilee, calling disciples. SoJesus went from right down near
Jericho on the east side of theriver all the way up to the Sea
of Galilee, which is 65 miles inthose 40 days, 65 miles to end
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up on the Sea of Galilee, whereyou have there. Now I just want
to give you some other picturesso you can some other pictures
so you can kind of get a visualrepresentation of the River
Jordan. This is also the RiverJordan. Everyone go, oh, it's
really nice. How deep do youthink the River Jordan is? You
can shout it out. No one knows.
So just guess what? Six feet, 10feet, wrong.
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Sorry, trophy, so wrong. Youkind of nailed it right out of
the gate. It's between six and10 feet. Six and 10 feet, the
deepest part is say it again, 15feet. Wow. That was great. Good
job. That was awesome. It's sogood. See I was giving you wind.
You just didn't know it wascoming at sometimes there's
patience in ministry. Sometimesthere's patience in ministry,
patience in ministry. And we'llget there. It'll be beautiful.
And so with that, 15 feet ofdeceive us, but it's not a deep
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river. So I want you to takethis moment when you think about
the rivers you've seen andwading into the river, when
we're talking about the baptismof Jesus, five to 10 feet, seven
to 10 feet in most areas, right?
It's kind of a really lightRiver, and the river is getting
shallower and shallower. Nowthat's because a whole bunch of
things going on in Israel, andwater conservation,
conservations, and them fightingover the water and where it
comes from, and the tributaries.
(09:30):
There's a whole bunch of modernday things happening that are
lessening the flow of the river.
But then, I mean, it flowed, andit flowed from all the Lebanon
mountains, and three distinctrivers in the Lebanon mountains
feed right into what we know isthe river, the Jordan River, and
it comes down into this. And soI wanted to show you that they
have a site that has beenpreserved as the baptism site of
Jesus. And this is also from allthe different religions, is
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claimed to be the baptism siteof Jesus. So this is not like
one. Religion says. And thisreligion that UNESCO says, this
is the World Heritage site ofthe baptism of Jesus, and this
is what it looks like. So thisis the World Heritage site of
the baptism of Jesus. How manydo you expect that would be what
it looks like for the baptismsite of Jesus, right? Okay, so
it's a little bit interesting,right? There's a little bit of
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interesting narrative that thissite. Now, the reason it kind of
looks like this is because theRiver Jordan has moved right
over these years, and it's movedaway from the original baptism
site, and so now you havechurches and different
monasteries and everything elseplanted around where you can get
baptized at the River Jordan,which is near where Jesus got
baptized, right on the RiverJordan, but this is about six
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miles north of the Dead Sea. Sosix miles into that 65 mile
distance between the Dead Seaand the Sea of Galilee is the
baptism side of Jesus. And soyou walk into the bottom right
there, and you will see rightwhat happens right. Right in
this bottom area is wherethere's water from the river
Jordan. That's still there. Theyhave some chapels in those
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areas, and some different otherthings that happen too. So
here's a couple other picturesof the River Jordan, just so you
can see this. This is the nextone. It's a little video of the
River Jordan. So you kind ofkind of see how it cuts through
the mountains. And I got justtwo more for you. Here's how it
flows the River Jordan, right?
So you can kind of get a littlebit so there's your shallowness.
So just painting a picture ofwhat Jesus was walking through
(11:19):
in this time. And then Iparticularly love this one,
because I'm going to take youfrom biblical times to modern
day rafting down the RiverJordan. So how many of you
considered rafting down theRiver Jordan? Right? Apparently,
that's the thing too, which isreally wonderful. So now that
being said, we have our baptismstoday, right? That was
wonderful, because today isPentecost Sunday, the alighting
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of the Holy Spirit in theJesus's baptism, which we'll
read about in a second. TheSpirit came down like a dove.
It's a beautiful moment.
Baptized at the River Jordan byJohn the Baptist, and we go out
to the river to have baptisms.
And it's beautiful because wenever went to the river before.
We always did baptisms in thechurch, and it was usually for
infants that we did baptisms forin fact, up until the moment
(12:02):
that we went to the river, I hadnever baptized someone older
than an infant. I had actuallynever seen a baptism from
someone older than infant. Andso I got into northwest
Arkansas. That is how much theLutheran church baptizes
infants. And so with that, I hada youth come to me and say, I
want to be baptized in our youthprogram. This is second, third
year of the church. And I waslike, This is awesome. I can
(12:23):
figure out how to do this inchurch. Like, I've never seen it
before, but I can figure it out.
I know I can, right? This isgreat. They're like, what? Like,
people do this in church all thetime. Like, no, no one does this
in church all the time. I'mlike, I'll be the first No, I'm
just kidding. I didn't thinkthat. But at the same time, I
was like, let's figure this. Andhe goes, okay. And I said, so,
yeah, it's playing a Sunday.
We'll get the sponsors together.
Let's play this. And he goes,um, he was, yeah, I don't want
(12:43):
to be baptized in the church.
And I was like, what? And hegoes, Yeah, I don't want to be
baptized in the church. I said,Where do you want to be
baptized? He goes, I want to bebaptized in a river. And he
smiled all big, I'm baptized ina river. And I was like, boy,
that's like, give me one goodreason, one good reason to
(13:07):
baptize you in a river. And hegoes, wasn't Jesus? That's like,
look good enough for me. I waslike, we're, we're gonna go find
a river. I was like, what'sthat? So that's when we actually
went out and found mckissaCreek, which is beautiful now,
machisse Creek is gorgeous. Itis what they call the Blue Hole.
It is a cascading, like greeninto a blue I mean, it's
(13:29):
beautiful. It has this lightlike walkie rock out area where
you can walk out into it. It'swonderful. It's a little bit
frigid right now, but it's stillwonderful. And it's a beautiful
place to do baptisms. It's rightnorth of us in Bella Vista.
We're going to be doing thosetoday at 1245, and beautiful. We
have, like, there's 23 peoplesigned up, including baptisms,
affirmations and baptismalsponsors, which is awesome. And
(13:51):
yesterday there were storms, andthe day before, there were
storms. And I got a text fromone of baptismal families that
said, Hey, have you checked outmckiss Creek? And I was like,
not yet, but I was planning tolater today, and they said, Let
me save you the trouble. Andthey sent me this picture of
makiza Creek. And I was like,yep, that used to be out in the
middle where we go to dobaptisms, which you could walk
(14:13):
out to, and that tree was notdown before that tree was up.
And so we had this moment whereI was like, Okay, this isn't
gonna work. Do you have a couplemore pictures? Tom of just other
things that are going on? Sothat's a really close end
picture. So we can go to thenext one, but that's another
close end picture, so we'regonna go to the next one, and
then I just hit the next one.
There's a tree. Okay, that'sgreat. You can see how hard this
is, like, you're so close to it.
(14:36):
So yeah, so there's the downedtree, right? You can see that
one going on. And so that'sright where we do baptisms. And
then if you see that that riveris actually flowing, it's
usually kind of like, justgentle right there. And I was
like, can't do baptisms, and asI can't do baptisms out here,
right? And so I was like, It'snot safe. I don't know what's in
there. I don't know what'shappening. You know, it's down.
So I went up to taneyard Creek,and I hiked that. That's worse,
(14:59):
that has waterfall. Was like,that wasn't better. So I was
like, well, maybe we'll just dolike, a barbecue at the Pavilion
and say we're gonna do baptismslater. I was like, we'll do
something. And then we found apool, which was wonderful. We're
gonna do baptisms in pool. Andthen I'm happy to say that this
morning, I went back out thereat 7:30am and it is gorgeous. It
(15:19):
is absolutely beautiful. Sowe're still, yeah, there we go.
God is good. God is good. Sowe're gonna be back out at
McKissick Creek today, doing ourbaptisms, which will be
wonderful. But the River Jordanlooks like McKissick Creek last
night, and there was nodifference between wading in
that water and moving into thatand so I wanna share with you
today the story of Jesus'baptism and walk you through
(15:41):
that, and talk you through alittle bit about what we believe
about baptism. We did a baptismclass last week, which is
incredible, but I want to walkyou through some of the things
that we specifically HEAR fromJesus in this story. So we're
gonna open our Scripture. We'regonna be in Matthew chapter
three. So we're gonna be in thebook of Matthew, the gospel of
Matthew, Matthew, Mark, Luke andJohn. It is the first gospel.
And these tell the story ofJesus Christ from birth all the
(16:05):
way through resurrection andascension into heaven, and then
the New Testament continues onabout the early church, and then
continues on with that and thestories and letters to the
churches until the revelation.
But we're going to be in Matthewchapter three, and we're going
to be talking through thebaptism of Jesus, and it's going
to be verses 13 through 17. Soif you got your Bibles, raise
them up. If you got Bibles, welove Bibles in the church. Who's
(16:25):
got Bibles today, I can seeBibles out, yes, yes, yes.
That's great if you don't have aBible um, we're on the Bible
app, so just pull out the churchapps card in front of you, you
can download the Bible app andopen that and have scripture
notes in there. Same thingonline, uh, that's me. I
apologize. Same thing online.
There's a link in thedescription for the Bible app.
So you can take that and clickon that, and you'll open the
(16:45):
Bible app. And we have Bibles inour Bible boxes around the
church too, so you can grab aBible. So here's what it says in
Matthew chapter three, verses 13through 17. Then Jesus came from
Galilee to John at the Jordan.
This is John the Baptist, right?
And John the Baptist was meantto pave the way for Jesus,
right? This was always what Johnthe Baptist intention was, and
(17:07):
what he was fulfilling was thatsame thing. And he came to be
baptized by him, and John wouldhave prevented him. And I love
this. John would have, forBrendan, been saying, I need to
be baptized by you. And do youcome to me? But Jesus answered
him, Let it be so now, for it isproper for us in this way to
fulfill all righteousness. Thenhe consented, and when Jesus had
(17:34):
been baptized, just as he cameup from the water, suddenly the
heavens were open to him, and hesaw the Spirit of God descending
like a dove alighting on him,and a voice from heaven said,
This is my son, the beloved,with whom I am well pleased.
This is the baptism of our Lordand Savior, Jesus the Christ.
(17:56):
Now I want to take you through alittle bit of what John the
Baptist is doing when he'stalking through this. And if you
want to read back a little bitin your text, in your text, if
you're in Scripture, just take asecond and read back through 11.
And it's going to be what I talkabout. But back in 11, it's
talking about how John isbaptizing. Now it's weird
because we think of baptism inthe Christian identity, to be
baptized in the name of ourFather Son and Holy Spirit right
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to be baptism, to be baptized inthe name of Jesus. But imagine
that Jesus has not startedministry yet. This is the
beginning of Jesus's ministry.
So at this point you'rebaptizing into, what are the
Jewish traditions and rights andrituals leading into worshiping
God, and what's happeningthrough here? And so you have
Jesus coming on saying, I'm thefulfillment of Old Testament
prophecy, and I'm come, and I amthe one that is talking about. I
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am the Son of God, the Messiah,the Anointed One. And through
me, you will have access to theHoly Spirit and to the kingdom
of God. And so you have Jesuscoming into there. Well, John
has been out in the woodspreparing people for this,
preparing people that the Son ofGod is coming and I am not
worthy, is what John says. Tountie the throng of his sandal.
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He is coming, and I baptizedwith water for repentance, but
He will baptize you with theHoly Spirit. And here was the
very interesting about John, isthat John was already doing
things that were contrary to theJewish church at that time, to
Judaism and the Jews. See, Johnwas baptized Jews and Gentiles,
those who were in the church andout of the church. Is how you
can think about that those whowere understanding a
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relationship with God and thosewho had relationship with God,
and John was baptizing themboth. But in the church, what
would happen is that if Gentilescame in and they weren't a part
of the church, they had to gothrough purification rituals,
which were called immersionsbaptism, to be fully immersed.
And so they would go throughpurification rituals to enter
the temple and go through therites and rituals of the day.
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And so you have this kind ofnature where those who are
unclean had to be made clean inorder to embrace the altar, in
order to embrace their faith.
And so now you have John in thewoods baptizing Jews and
Gentiles, saying, Hey, we'repaving the way for someone
that's coming after us, forsomeone. That's coming, that is
greater than I, who is baptizingin a different way than I, and
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people are starting to bebaptized by that. And he's
saying, I'm baptizing forrepentance, which means a
changing of your ways.
Repentance involves confession,right, asking for forgiveness
and changing your ways. Thoseare the three parts of
repentance. And so he's saying,I'm baptizing you with water for
repentance, to confess right, toask for forgiveness and change
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your ways. I'm baptizing youwith water, the person after I
will baptize you with the HolySpirit. And so when Jesus comes
up, John's like, cool, I'm out.
Like, this is everything thatI've been waiting for. In fact,
he will send his disciples toJesus. And Jesus says, No, I
need to be baptized by you,which is a great question that
people ask often. Why doesJesus, who is part of the
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Trinity, need to be baptized?
Why would Jesus need this? Jesusis one in three, one in the same
with God sent by God is thefulfillment of the grace of God
is called The Word of God, andyet Jesus comes and says, I need
to fulfill this through you tobe baptized. So I want to walk
you back into this. If we'retalking about the baptism of
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John, I want to walk you throughwhat our definition is of
baptism. And it's this thatbaptism is an outward expression
of an inward faith that isbaptism outward expression
inward faith. And what thatmeans is that we are going to
publicly acknowledge our beliefin Jesus Christ and our faith in
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Jesus Christ from something thatis happening inside of us, not
necessary for salvation. This ispublic acknowledgement. This is
saying, I am being welcomed intothe kingdom of God. And we have
the element which is water. Wehave the command by Jesus to go
into all the nations, baptizingthem in the name of the Father
Son and the Holy Spirit,teaching them to obey everything
that I've commanded you. So wehave the command. We have the
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promise of the kingdom of heavenand being welcomed into the body
of Christ. And then we have theelement, which is water. So we
have this beautiful sacramentthat happens, and it's an
outward expression of an inwardfaith. But another way to think
about this is that it's a publicaffirmation of an experienced
grace. This is why I asked youat the beginning. How many of
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you walk outside of these wallsand take your faith with you?
How many of you, when you arewalking and traveling publicly
affirm your faith as anexperience of God's grace every
single day of your life? That'swhy baptism is beautiful.
Baptism is beautiful because wego out to McKissick Creek. And
you know what? We don't knowwho's gonna be out there. We
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show up with a tent. We walkdown with 4050 people, and
everyone who's down therehanging out and jumping off the
rope swing and doing all thiskind of stuff, and laying out
there in swimsuits and on theirchairs. And they look at us and
like, that's about to happenwith this colt, you know, and
I'm not gonna lie. I mean, whatwould you think? I mean, you got
fear? I'm not gonna lie that.
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And here's the deal. That's whyit's hard to publicly affirm
your faith, because you'rewalking with an identity that is
how you enter into everysituation in your life. And
until you embrace that situationuncomfortably, you will never
find a reason or a way to shareyour faith. Uncomfortably. You
have to find yourself insituations and places where you
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can share your faith. And itlooks like living out your faith
is an experienced grace in abeautiful way. But here's what
Jesus says in this, and I wantyou to take you back to this.
This is verse 15, and this isright after John said, but I
want to be baptized by you. Andthis is how Jesus answers. But
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Jesus answered him. Let it be sonow, for it is proper for us in
this way to fulfill allrighteousness. All
righteousness. Here's what allrighteousness means when we live
into this world now as a baptismwith Jesus through the Holy
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Spirit. What all righteousnessmeans is that Jesus came and
said, We have relationship toGod the Father through Jesus,
Christ, the Son and the HolySpirit. John baptized with
water, Jesus says, Now we haverelationship to the Father and
the Holy Spirit, because I amthe Messiah. I am the one that
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fulfills all of theseprophecies. What he was talking
about was full righteousness,full right relationship with
God, and that is the differencebetween John's baptism and
Jesus's baptism. The heavenswere opened. The Spirit came
down like a dove and said, Thisis my son, the beloved in that.
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Moment our baptism changes tobeing claimed in all that we do.
So now listen to this text thathappens next. So let's go on.
We're going to go on to Romanssix, right? Sorry. Romans. We're
going to get into yet Romanssix, and we're going to go
through verses three and four.
And here's what Romans six,verses three and four says. And
this is dying and rising withChrist. And I want to share with
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you what baptism truly is inthis moment. And here's what it
says, Do you know that all of uswho have been baptized into
Christ, Jesus were baptized intohis death, therefore we have
been buried with him by baptisminto death, so that just as
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Christ was raised from the deadby the glory of the Father, so
we too might walk in newness oflife. This is the difference
between John the Baptist with awater baptism of repentance,
changing our ways, and Jesus andbeing baptized into death and
rising to new life. ThroughJesus Christ, we now have the
experience of grace and theresurrection and the conquering
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of sin, death and the devil.
Baptism has changed in ourreality. It's become this
newness of life. And so we getto this incredible moment where
we realize that we're notbaptized into this moment of
life, we're baptized into thismoment of death, which is a hard
language, because baptism, wealways talk about is new life.
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I've been washed by the water.
I've been changed. I've beentransformed. I've been made new.
And that is true, because youhave died to your old self. This
is what it means to live withthe life of Christ, that you
have to change your ways and dieto your old self, because when
you know Christ, everythingchanges. That is the moment. So
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when we baptize, and you'refully immersed under the water,
and we don't, it doesn't matter.
It never says how much water andbaptism, just so everyone's
clear, it doesn't say thatbaptism does mean full
immersion. But at the same time,when he says, Go and baptize, it
doesn't say with this amount ofwater, you need a flowing river
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at this many feet per second inorder to baptize. It doesn't
happen that way. And so when webaptize people, when we dunk
them under the water and wefully submerse them, that is the
moment when they die to theirold selves, and as they rise out
of the water, and they take thatbreath of life that is the
newness of life that is enteringthem, saying that we cannot go
back to the way that it wasbefore we are now baptized in
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the name of the Father and ofthe Son and of the Holy Spirit.
And what that means is that theheavens have opened for you, and
you've been claimed as abeloved, divine love, not just a
love child of God, but a divinelove of God. You've been claimed
as a child of God. That is thebeauty of what's happening in
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this text, is that we'retransforming
this is why baptism is soimportant. This is why when we
talk about the River Jordan andwhere Jesus was and the parents
that people saw Jesus beingbaptized, it becomes a public
affirmation. It's the reasonwe're doing this series. The
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longer that we keep Jesus toourselves in the spaces that
were comfortable, the longer itwill take the kingdom to grow
what God intended. The longeryou keep Jesus to yourself, the
longer it will take to becomewho God intended you to be. This
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is why we walk with Jesus. Thisis why we're going back through
it. It's so that we can betransformed, not just by water
and repentance, but transformeda new life in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of theHoly Spirit. And all God's
people said, Amen, let us pray.
Oh Heavenly Father. We thank youfor this gift of baptism to be
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welcomed into the kingdom andfor Jesus to be obedient to full
righteousness, to this fullyright relationship between God
the Father, Jesus Christ, theSon and the Holy Spirit, to see
the heavens opened andexperience the spirit in baptism
on a day of Pentecost, where weknow that the disciples
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experienced this, and all whowere gathered they they
experienced these tongues offire from the Holy Spirit that
enabled them to speak to all thenations. And if, and if we think
about all the nations that theywere able to proclaim to. We go
back into baptism when we thinkthat you commanded us to go into
all the nations, baptizing themin name of the Father, Son and
the Holy Spirit in all thenations, means that we're an
experience of God where we haveto not only be here in Northwest
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Arkansas and here in our cities,but we have to expand that to
wherever we are. We cannotcontain all. Holy Spirit just to
where we're comfortable. Infact, our hope and our prayer
should be that we ask forforgiveness for the times that
we have contained the spirit,and ask for the spirit to
release us into the world sothat we may care for others.
Lord, My prayer is that youremind us of our baptism today.
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You remind us that we'veaccepted these gifts of
discipleship. You remind us thatwe are sent to publicly affirm
this experienced grace of God inJesus Christ, that we cannot
leave that and that we livethose gifts every single day for
the sake of the world, to bringpeople, not just a church Lord,
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but to relationship with you. Itis in these things that we pray
in Your holy and precious nameAnd all God's people said, Amen.
You guys enjoying our series sofar. Look.
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