Jesus and the Church: Week 3

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0:00 I'm glad you made it this morning. I don't know about you all, but these days I feel like I really look forward to the time together where I'm given permission to focus on just one thing. I was like trying to watch my regular Saturday morning stuff yesterday. My regular Saturday morning stuff is this old house. Not that I'm ever going to remodel a house, but I just love watching those guys. They were putting in a Yankee gutter yesterday when I watched it.

0:32 But there's something that feels indulgent about watching stuff and not watching the report of the storming of the Capitol building. It feels like I should be tuned in to all of the things that are happening. And so I really am loving Sunday mornings when we are allowed to say the world can do what it needs to do for this hour. I'm going to be present in this moment with this idea in this space. And so I'm glad we get to have that together this morning.

1:04 And we've been looking at the last several weeks. We've been looking at the role of the church in the life of Jesus. Partly because it's the beginning of the year and we have this little annual church form that folks for whom the cross is becoming our church. We've been just asking ourselves a couple of questions together about what we anticipate the role of the church in the next year. And then we're using that to plan our programs and our stuff throughout the year.

1:35 So looking at the role of the church in the life of Jesus has been helpful for that. And we went through some of the ways in Luke's account of the gospel at the very beginning. And Luke has a couple of stories at the beginning of Jesus's life that are not included in Matthew, Mark, or John. And so we spent the last couple of weeks there. Remember that Luke has a fuller version of the story of the original Christmas, the birth of Jesus.

2:07 And then has that story about the circumcision in that beautiful way that the God of creation and life involved Simeon and Anna. These two have no name people before that that were waiting to see Jesus. And then the story about the path over celebration where Jesus gets lost in the shuffle and spends a couple of days learning from rabbis. And the thing that was sticking with me from last week was that one, it's interesting that God incarnated in the person of Jesus is learning that he doesn't know everything

2:43 already, but he grows up like a regular child. And then the second thing that's really stuck with me is that the God of creation and life, the God who set about on saving humanity and in order to save humanity is found a way to incarnate in the person of Jesus, that this God leaves the teaching of Jesus up to some rabbis at the temple, that God doesn't teach Jesus himself immediately, but he teaches God through people. And that to me is such a powerful thing we could learn about God, that God works through

3:18 people. God loves through parents, God teaches through teachers, God protects right through civil authority, right? That God works immediately through people. And then this week I want to look at this story where Jesus crosses paths with his cousin John the Baptist in Matthew chapter three.

3:51 Matthew chapter three. John the Baptist. Now in order to get the proper connection to the story, we have to think a little bit about what it meant to be Israelite or Jewish in that first century period, right there is John the Baptist is living out in the desert, wearing the candles hair and announcing some things, right? And the Israelites had this notion, they understood that God had initially chosen Abraham and

4:21 then created a nation completely by grace, that Abraham didn't merit the ability to be Israel, but they also understood that in order to continue as Israel in the place where they were, they had to keep certain commandments that were outlined initially by Moses and then expanded on by the tradition of teachers, so that they had taken the initial commandments of Moses and in order to protect that, to make sure that people didn't break those initial commandments of Moses, they had erected commandments outside of the commandments.

4:54 For example, one of the key commandments of Moses is don't work on the Sabbath. Well, that's a pretty broad commandment if you try and figure out what constitutes work. Am I allowed to make a fire in order to cook? Am I allowed to walk and get water and carry the water back? And so the religious teachers had started to erect a lot of rules around it that would say, well, you can walk so far that's not considered work, but if you have to walk extra far, that's a lack of planning on your part, that counts as work, you can't walk

5:26 that far, you can only walk this far. You may be able to keep a fire going, but not initiate a fire. So they had erected what they all agreed were 613 laws to try and keep the laws that Moses had set. They got to 613 because there's numerical value in the Hebrew letters and the Hebrew letters Torah when you add up the numerical value, you get 613. So there was some disagreement on what the 613 laws were, but there was a general agreement

5:59 that there were 613. The reason is that this is important is because it was very easy to be a very bad Israelite, right? Because there are a lot of rules that you need to keep. And because it's easy to be bad at being an Israelite, much of what happens in the church is in the first century, is guilting and shaming people for not living up to who they're supposed

6:33 to be. And we know, at least we ought to know by now, guilt and shame don't set you free for new choices, they bind you into bad ones. And so it was very easy as an Israelite, I can imagine, to feel very crummy about how well you were living. And when you feel very crummy about how well you're living and you are then when you feel

7:04 crummy about it, you're bound with guilt and shame, you don't tend to revert back and try harder, eventually you just give up and you pick all the different other world religions that may find the way easier. This is an important lesson which may sound trivial, but it's not. If following the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Christ in the church, if being Christian for you, the first thing that comes to your mind is keeping a lot of rules, doing all the right things and not doing the wrong things, you're setting yourself

7:37 up for a cycle of guilt and shame which will bind you to bad choices and push you out of the pain. It just exists the way it works. If we're going to stick with the God of creation in life, we need to get out of a cycle of guilt and shame and we need to understand faith, not as doing something, but as Jesus being something together and John the Baptist gets there.

8:08 Let's look at it together in Matthew chapter 3. John the Baptist is baptizing folks out in the desert, chapter 3 in those days John the Baptist came preaching the wilderness of Judea, repent of the kingdom of heaven as at hand. For this is he who was spoken by the prophet Isaiah when he said the voice of one cry in

8:39 the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight path. John the Baptist is saying, y'all are living as a mess, but let's not give up. Repentance means make a different choice, turn around, walk in a different direction. There is remorse, conviction and change of behavior and commitment to change behavior and repentance. There is, I recognize this is wrong, the thing I'm doing, the way I'm going, I'd rather not work that way, live that way anymore, I'd rather live a different way.

9:10 John the Baptist says, in the midst of your guilt and shame, make a choice now to do something different and let this moment be a beginning of something different. That's why he's baptizing. He talks about John the garment of camel's hair and the leather belt around his waist and his food locusts and honey, but then when many, he gets on the Pharisees, he doesn't like the Pharisees for coming. When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said, you brood of vipers,

9:43 who warned you to flee from the wrath to come, bare fruit and keep them with your repentance. He's saying, you're the ones that are causing all the problems. You are shaming a guilty people and you're binding them into their bad choices with your shame and your guilt. Why do you get to repent? Repentance is the start of something different. Show me that you want to live different, but I want you to cut down to verse 11. He says, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I who sandals I'm not worthy of caring.

10:15 He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire, is willing to focus in his hand and he will clear the threatening floor and gathers the next thing to realize is that the baptism that John the Baptist is doing is different than the baptism that we do in the church on this side of the death and resurrection of Jesus. John the Baptist is telling people, make a choice for repentance. It's closer to what we would have in the Old Testament as a Nazirite vow or ceremonial prayer.

10:46 This is important if we're going to understand why Jesus is baptized. Okay, because next he goes, look at verse 13. Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. And John would have prevented him saying, I need to be baptized by you and do you come to me?

11:16 And Jesus answered him, let it be so now for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Something was happening with John the Baptist because he was outside the walls of the city in the desert. He was not a nice looking dude, right? He was wearing camel's hair and eating locusts and honey. I imagine if you live in the desert and eat only locusts and honey, you get really sallow and ugly. He's not a person anybody wants to be around, right?

11:46 Plus he's like wild eyed. He's calling the church leaders a brood of vipers. He's not, he's uncouth. And yet people are leaving the city walls and walking out to meet him. Why? Because when individuals were coming to John the Baptist making actual repentance, wishing that they were able to live the life that God had made them for and sad for the choices

12:18 they had made to leave the God behind. They go down into the Jordan River and come up and something is different for them. The act of repentance begins to change something. We are now they are able to make different choices. And this is where it's interesting for me and it took a little bit of thought to figure out, wait a minute, if John is baptizing people to make a choice for repentance, to agree that

12:49 I made wrong choices, I've been living the wrong way, I'd like to live the right way. Why is Jesus getting baptized? Jesus certainly hasn't lived the wrong way. When I was in seminary, we read a couple of books in a systematic class by on the Holy Spirit and one of them was by this saint called Saint Basil the Great.

13:27 I don't know when you get to put the great on the end of your name, but that's pretty awesome. Saint Basil the Great. And I don't remember very much. It was a little book, these desert fathers, these mystic types, write little books that are cryptic and you like read them over and over again and think you understand it and then you don't and then you read again and you think you understand it. It's a little book, I don't remember most of it, but there's just one phrase that I do

13:58 remember and he says, because Saint Basil says that which God inhabits, he redeems. And Saint Basil is using that in the book that we read to talk about our bodies, that our bodies are not evil. God inhabits flesh and when God inhabits something, he redeems it. When you think about the sinless seder of the world, waiting in line with Pharisees,

14:34 vipers, sinful people in front and behind him, he walks up to John the Baptist and John the Baptist says, this is a baptism of repentance, what are you doing here? And Jesus says, hey man, this is what we got to do. So that when Jesus goes through the process of repentance, he redeems the process of repentance for you. So that when you and I repent, we get up out of repentance, whether we do a ceremonial

15:11 walking with our repentance or not. When we come out of repentance, not with guilt and shame. Jesus comes up out of the waters and God says, the Holy Spirit lands on him. And God says, this is my son and my love. When you come up out of repentance, you get a fresh renewal of the life-giving spirit of God.

15:45 Jesus takes his place with the church who needs repentance. Jesus stands in line with all the sinful people of the church and goes through the process that the church ought to go through of acknowledging wrong and step receiving forgiveness and moving forward with the Spirit. God takes his place just with the church. You and I at least. If Christ goes through the waters of repentance, you and I can go through the practice of repentance.

16:22 When was the last time you like stopped activity and acknowledged honestly just with God, you're wrong? When was the last time where you stopped and agreed that part of you wanted revenge to

17:10 hurt or wound, that part of you only wanted for yourself and not others? When was the last time you stopped and acknowledged that you did not trust God to meet your needs so you had to do it yourself? You had to take intimacy. You had to take love. You had to take escape.

17:44 You had to take pleasure because it would not be given to you by God. You were sure. When was the last time you stopped and honestly acknowledged you were wrong? Jesus has redeemed that activity for me and you.

18:17 I was trying to find some evidence to that so that you didn't have to just take my word for it. I found it. If you're in the paper copy of the Scriptures, look to the right in the book, The Acts of the Apostles. If you're typing it in, we're in Acts chapter 3.

18:47 Acts chapter 3, Peter, this is just after Pentecost where that spirit of God is released on the people in the church. In new ways all of a sudden, the good news starts to go out. People who are crying for the crucifixion of Jesus are recognizing the error of their ways. They begin to realize that they killed the liberating king sent from God to save humanity.

19:28 Peter gets up and now filled with the spirit has confidence. He didn't have in front of just a slave girl. He stands up in front of thousands. There in Jerusalem and tells him, y'all killed the Messiah, the one we've been waiting for. Just at the end of his sermon there in Acts chapter 3, look at verse 17. He says, and now brothers and sisters, I know that you acted in ignorance as it also

20:05 your rulers, but what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Oh, repent there for and turn again that your sins may be blotted out. The times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the Christ appointed for you Jesus whom heaven must receive until the time of restoring all

20:40 things about which God spoke by the mouth of prophets long ago. The opter just told, and this little spot right here, the folks who killed Jesus, it's not cool, but it's cool. Repent and the sin of killing the Savior of the world will be blotted out and refreshing

21:12 will come from the Holy Spirit. Do you need refreshing from the Holy Spirit, like the original life-giving Spirit of God? If the ones who killed the Christ can have sins blotted out and refreshing from the Holy Spirit come at the act of repentance, then your things can be forgiven and you can have a refreshing from the Spirit of God.

21:43 It comes with your repentance. Repent and believe. There's no timetable on this and there's no expiration date, there's no limited edition of this, it works every time and actually it builds on itself.

22:13 The scriptures tell us we can cultivate or grieve the Spirit of God. I say the more practice you get at repentance, the fuller the experience becomes. It's a practice that is learned and a taste that is acquired. So get in the habit of repentance. Christ redeemed it in order that it would be a mechanism to give you refreshing of the Spirit. Rejoice when you find places where you are sinful, new avenues for repentance.

22:48 Because it means you have new places to invite the refreshing Spirit of God. If you didn't realize how unforgiving you were before, rejoice that you see, oh man, I have been harboring forgiveness, now I can repent of my unforgiveness. If you didn't realize how angry you were before, rejoice, now you know how angry you can repent of your anger and receive refreshing from the Spirit. This is why I put that little question on our church form.

23:21 This year I could have helped with, we put things like loving my family well. Serving others besides myself. Right? Because we are a church, which means we go down to the waters of repentance together. And we encourage each other to come along. I hope this year you are able to engage with the church in a way that spur you to repentance

23:54 because to the degree that we repent we receive forgiveness and are refreshing from the Spirit. Let me pray. Hey Lord, give us hearts that repent ratherly and receive forgiveness from you. In Jesus name you pray. Amen.