If this sermon is helpful to you look for my latest book, “The Greatest Commands: Learning To Love Like Jesus.” Each chapter is sermon length, alliterated, and focuses on the life and love of Jesus. This sermon is taken from chapter two. You can find it here:
www.amazon.com/gp/product/1606471120
by Scott Bayles
Following Jesus part 1:
Following Jesus to the River
There was nothing extraordinary about the Jordan River. It was a common place—a place for watering livestock, filling pails and jars, and washing clothes or dishes. It was an ordinary place; there was nothing majestic or magnificent about it. That is, until Jesus stepped onto it’s shores.
Before Jesus arrived, however, there was another man sent by God; his name was John. John was a simple man. He wore camel’s hair for clothes and ate honey and insects for dinner—he had been living apart from society in the arid wilderness along the Jordan. And he traveled all along the river banks preaching to anyone who would listen. He preached “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4 NASB), and everyone came to hear him.
The Bible says, “All the people from Judea and Jerusalem were going out to him. They confessed their sins and were baptized by him in the Jordan River” (Mark 1:5 NCV). Fierce and wildly charismatic, the people flocked to the wilderness to hear John speak and to be baptized by him. Among the multitude stood a thirty-year-old carpenter—Jesus of Nazareth.
Stepping down into the rust-colored river that was the lifeblood of his people, Jesus waded through the muddy stream as it churned around his waist; the cool mud squishing up between his toes with each step.
They had come to hear John preach, but the crowed gathered along the banks of the river that day became witnesses to something far grander. This is how the Bible describes it:
At that time Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan River and wanted John to baptize him. But John tried to stop him, saying, “Why do you come to me to be baptized? I need to be baptized by you!”
Jesus answered, “Let it be this way for now. We should do all things that are God’s will.” So John agreed to baptize Jesus.
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he came up out of the water. Then heaven opened, and he saw God’s Spirit coming down on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love, and I am very pleased with him.” (Matthew 3:13-17 NCV)
It’s easy to understand why John was hesitant to baptize Jesus. After all, John had been “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” and Jesus was the spotless Lamb of God. So, why did Jesus come to John in the first place?
I. PURPOSE:
Repentance means “turning.” The prophet Ezekiel, explained what God wants his people to turn from: “Repent... and turn away your faces from all your abominations” (Ezekiel 14:6 ESV). Another prophet, Isaiah, revealed what God wants us to turn toward: “Turn to me and be saved... for I am God, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22 NIV).
All through the Bible God pleads with people to turn away from our sins, failures, and mistakes, and to turn toward him—trusting in God alone to save us. That is what repentance means, and John’s baptism—like Christian baptism—was intimately connected to repentance. Baptism marked the “turning point” for those who chose to turn toward God.
Even though Jesus, himself, had no sins to turn from, his baptism still marked a turning point in his life and ministry. Before coming down to the river to meet John, Jesus was a carpenter for the small town of Nazareth. From that day on, he began his mission as the Savior of the world. Jesus’ baptism marked the beginning of his public work; he went from a life of obscurity to being the light of the world.
But Jesus’ baptism meant something even more wonderful. As Jesus descended into the water, he was coming down to our level. John MacArthur explains, “Christ was here identifying Himself with sinners.” Baptism was for the immoral, the impure, the liars, adulterers and thieves, and yet Jesus willingly plunged into the water as if to say, “I’m with them!”
Listen again to Jesus’ explanation, “This is the way it has to be now. This is the proper way to do everything that God requires of us” (vs. 15 GW). Jesus’ great love for you and me caused him to cast his lot with humanity. He came to the river because we are sinners. He was washed because we were not clean. He did what was right because we, so often, do what is wrong. He became like us so that we could become like him.
Jesus’ ministry began in the river and ended on the cross. And, even though his followers would not realize it for sometime, Jesus’ baptism in the river that day was, in fact, a foreshadowing of his death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave.
II. PICTURE:
The Jews saw baptism as a method of maintaining ritual purification for priests, or sometimes as a rite of passage for proselytes. John preached baptism with repentance for the forgiveness of sins—acknowledging that, apart from God, we are all unclean. But Jesus would add a whole new level of meaning to baptism, as it came to be a living picture of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. This is what the Bible says:
Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? When we were baptized into his death, we were placed into the tomb with him. As Christ was brought back from death to life by the glorious power of the Father, so we, too, should live a new kind of life. (Rom. 6:3-4 GW)
Just as the waters of baptism provided Jesus with a way to identify with us, they also provide us with a way to identify with him. Inspirational writer Roy Lessin explains, “The waters of baptism paint a vivid picture of our Christian faith—symbolizing the cleansing of our hearts from sin, death to our old way of living, and our resurrection with Christ to walk in newness of life.”
The Bible also says, “when you were placed in the tomb with Christ through baptism... you were also brought back to life with Christ through faith in the power of God” (Col. 2:12 GW). Baptism is an act of faith in the power of God that works together with our faith to help complete our faith (see James 2:22).Through faith (and only through faith) the waters of baptism become a meeting place where we encounter Jesus himself.
By faith, our baptism pencils us into the portrait of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. Jeff Childers and Frederick Aquino, in their book At the River’s Edge, reveal that “early Christians often decorated their baptisteries with the scene of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, depicting with paint and mosaic tile their belief that the person stepping down into the water for baptism was joining Jesus there. He or she was stepping into the gospel story.” Just as Jesus’ baptism looked forward to the cross, ours looks backward to it. My favorite author puts it this way:
Baptism is like a precious jewel—set apart by itself, it is nice and appealing but has nothing within it to compel. But place baptism against the backdrop of our sin and turn on the light of the cross, and the jewel explodes with significance. Baptism at once reveals the beauty of the cross and the darkness of sin. As a stone has many facets, baptism has many sides: cleansing, burial, resurrection, the death of the old, and the birth of the new. Just as the stone has no light within it, baptism has no inherent power. But just as the stone refracts the light into many colors, so baptism reveals the many facets of God’s grace.
When we descend into the water today, we become part of Christ—experiencing through faith what Jesus experience in the Jordan River. But, Jesus’ experience was far from over.
III. POWER:
Rising up out of the river, Jesus was soaked to the bone—loose strands of hair clinging to his face. All of a sudden, something miraculous happened. The Bible says, “Suddenly, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down as a dove to him. Then a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love—my Son with whom I am pleased’” (Matthew 3:16-17 GW).
What an awesome and inspiring sight this must have been. It isn’t that the Holy Spirit came down in the form or shape of a dove, but that he descended from the heavens in a visible form for all to see, like a dove would descend from the sky. The Bible says that the Spirit came “to rest on him” and “remained on him,” expressing God’s love and power.
Believe it or not, every follower of Jesus today receives the same love and power—we each are given the Spirit of God. John the baptizer pointed out, “I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:8 ESV). Later we read, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Cor. 12:13 ESV).
The Holy Spirit is a promise to everyone who places their faith in Jesus. The Bible says, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:38-39 NIV).
“It is the Holy Spirit,” says Charles Stanley, “who baptizes us into Christ. He is the One who completely covers us with the redemptive shed blood and living presence of Christ Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us our new identity in Christ so that we truly are born again spiritually.” In other words, the physical act of water baptism demonstrates a spiritual reality—namely, the washing (baptism) of regeneration by the Holy Spirit. Water—no matter how much soap you might add—will never be able to wash clean the sin-stained souls of sinful people. The only detergent with that kind of cleansing power is the blood of Jesus applied by the Holy Spirit. Water baptism, then, symbolizes the work of God’s Holy Spirit within our hearts.
Jesus repeatedly refers to the Holy Spirit as living water—and for good reason. Don Colbert, in The Seven Pillars of Health, devotes seven whole chapters to the benefits of water. He writes, “Water is the single most important nutrient of our bodies. It is involved in every function of our bodies.” He goes on to explain some of the advantages of keeping our bodies properly hydrated including greater energy, a heightened immune system, better nutrient absorption, prolonged life, weight loss, greater metabolic efficiency, reduced risk of heart attack, improved attention span, better memory, and the list goes on.
It’s amazing what just a little water can do! If natural water is so important for our bodies, how much more important do you think spiritual living water is for our souls? The Holy Spirit—the living water that Jesus offers—does for our souls what H2O does for our bodies. “You don’t have to live with a dehydrated heart,” writes author and pastor, Max Lucado. “God invites you to treat your thirsty soul as you would treat you physical thirst.... Just drink. Let Christ be the water for your soul. Come thirsty, and drink the water of life.” Like the morning dew on dry grass, the gift of God’s Spirit refreshes, revitalizes, and renews dry and thirsty souls!
As we set out on our lifelong journey of following Jesus, our first steps lead us to the riverbanks and we find ourselves covered in the dust (or perhaps mud) of identification—Christ’s identification with sinners and our identification with him.
If you haven’t already, let me urge you to allow the waters of baptism to become a witness to the testimony of your heart—a heart that is following Jesus and covered in his dust. Walk down to the river’s edge. Remove your sandals. Let the white foam gently splash over your feet. Bow your head. Hold your breath. Take the plunge.
