Baptized Into the Son of God

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according.

To St. Luke chapter 3 verses 15 through 22. As the people were in expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John the Baptist, whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all saying, I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people, but Herod the Tetrarch, who had been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother's wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, added this to them all, he locked up John in prison.

Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, the Holy Spirit descended on him in a bodily form like a dove, and a voice came from heaven, you are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased.

This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. The baptism of Christ. There is so much going on here, it takes multiple sermons to kind of look at all of the different facets. So we're going to start by considering a few things from the Old Testament, remembering that the Old Testament is type and shadow, all the substance is pointing to Jesus.

And so if you remember in our study as we've been working our way through the book of Exodus in our Sunday school, we noted that when Moses was up on Mount Sinai, gone for 40 days in the presence of God, and God communicating to him all of the instructions on how to build the tabernacle, all of the utensils in the altar, the lampstand, there was also an interesting portion of Exodus where God gave Moses recipes.

Recipes for fascinating things like incense, and another one of the recipes was a recipe for anointing oil. And according to God, anything anointed with this oil is made holy. End of story. That's quite an anointing oil if you think about it.

Well, fast forward a little bit into the book of 1 Samuel, and in 1 Samuel 16, we come to the account of the anointing of King David. If you remember the story, Saul was not a good king. He was a fellow who disobeyed the word of the Lord.

He did not have faith. In fact, he was somewhat crazed in his sin, and oftentimes would try to pin David to the wall with a spear, which I think would not have worked out very well for David had he succeeded.

But all of that being said, the Lord ends up rejecting Saul as king, and sends Samuel the prophet to anoint David as king. Keep this in mind, in the Old Testament, those who were anointed were either priests, they were either prophets, or they were either kings.

And a little bit of another note. One who is anointed, according to the Hebrew, the way the Hebrew language works, they are considered a Messiah. The Mashiach. That's the word for an anointed one. All of that being said, let's look at the account, and I'll highlight some sentences along the way before we get back into our gospel.

1 Samuel 16 verse 1. Yahweh said to Samuel, How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.

Hmm. I seem to remember that Jesus is a Bethlehemite. You know, I'm just saying. And so I see the sentence here. I have provided for myself a king among his sons. It just makes me wonder if God the Father is not sitting there going, yeah, let's kind of look all the way through Jesse to David, all the way back to Christ, because I'm pretty sure among the sons of Jesse, God himself has provided a king.

So you kind of see what's going on here. So Samuel said, Well, how can I go? If Saul hears of it, he'll kill me. And so Yahweh said, Take a heifer with you, and say, I have come to sacrifice to Yahweh.

Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do. And you shall anoint for me him whom I declare to you. Him whom I declare to you. I seem to recall something about God declaring something about Jesus in our Gospel text.

I feel like I'm playing blues clues today. I'm about to get ready to get on my thinking chair and put these all together. But there's still some more clues for us to consider. Samuel did what Yahweh commanded, came to Bethlehem.

The elders of the city came to meet him, trembling, and they said, Do you come peaceably? And he said, Well, peaceably I have come to sacrifice to Yahweh. So consecrate yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice.

And he consecrated Jesse and his sons, and invited them to the sacrifice. And when they came, he looked on Eliab. Eliab, the firstborn of Jesse's son. And here's a fascinating sentence in the Hebrew. Surely the Lord's Messiah is before him.

That's how it reads in the Hebrew. Surely the Lord's Messiah is before him. Interesting wordplay. But Yahweh said to Samuel, Don't look on his appearance or the height of his stature, because I've rejected him.

For the Lord sees not as a man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks on the heart. So then Jesse called Abinadab, made him pass before Samuel. And he said, Well, neither has the Lord chosen this one.

And then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, Yeah, neither has the Lord chosen this one. Now, consider this little parade, if you would. Because this kind of comes into play as we look at our Gospel text.

Think of it this way. We heard the voice of the Father saying about Jesus when he was baptized, You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. The Lord declaring Jesus to be the beloved Son of God.

It's almost as if God had this little parade that we see going on here with David's anointing. And all of us were caused to come before the Lord. And the Lord said, Yeah, no. No, no. And then Pastor Chris went, Oh, no, wait.

Next. Right? And it's like he's rejecting everybody. And then he comes to Jesus and he says, Ah, you, you, you are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. That plays into all of this. So Shammah passed by.

So he's not one. So Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, Yahweh's not chosen these. And then Samuel said to Jesse, Are all your sons here? And he said, Well, there remains yet the youngest.

But behold, he's keeping the sheep. So Samuel said to Jesse, Send and get him. We're not going to sit down until he comes here. So he sent and he brought him in. Now he was ready, had beautiful eyes and was handsome.

And Yahweh said, Rise, anoint him, for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of the oil and he anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And listen to these words. And the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.

This is almost like it's a one to one type and shadow of baptism. There David is anointed with this anointing oil, which God says anything anointed with this is made holy. And he was made holy. He was anointed, put into the office of king.

And guess what? He received the Holy Spirit and it remained on him, the text says. This sounds a lot like our gospel text. A lot like it. So let's turn then to our gospel text in Luke chapter 3. And here's what it says.

As the people were in expectation, this is verse 15, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John the Baptist, whether he might be the Christ, or you could say the Messiah. John answered them all saying, Listen, I baptize you with water.

But he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor, to gather the wheat into his barn.

But the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. And now verse 21. Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened. The Holy Spirit descended on him bodily like a dove, and a voice came from heaven and said, You are my beloved son.

With you I am well pleased. God, looking across all of humanity, and says, There he is. That's the one. That's the one. He's the one in whom I am well pleased. So take note. Take note. Jesus has been declared by God, revealed by God to be his beloved son with whom he is well pleased.

Now another facet of this, if you think about it, is that we know practically nothing, almost nothing, minuscule amounts of information regarding Jesus' childhood. We know that he was born in Bethlehem.

We know that he was to be named Jesus or Joshua because he's to be the savior of the world. We know that shepherds came and worshipped him. We know that the magi came and worshipped him. And then it gets really silent for a little while, and then he pops back up at age 12, and he's in the temple having discussions with the teachers there in the temple, and then he disappears again.

You'll note that Jesus doesn't begin his public ministry until he is placed into the office of Messiah. It's kind of a fascinating thing. There's order in the kingdom of God. And so this even has implications then regarding the pastor.

You want people to be rightly called, rightly ordained, properly installed into the office. Even Jesus himself didn't begin his public teaching ministry until he was placed in the office by the last and the greatest of the prophets, John the Baptist.

Kind of a fascinating thing if you consider this. But then listen then to John the Baptist, the day after he baptized Christ. This is found in the Gospel of John chapter 1, starting at verse 29. So the next day, the day after he baptized Jesus, he saw Jesus coming toward him, and he said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

This is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who ranks before me because he was before me. I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water so that he might be revealed to Israel.

And so John bore witness. I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself, I did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, he on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

And I have seen and I have borne witness that this is the Son of God. And so John, now knowing who the Messiah is, having placed him into his office, having baptized him, having heard the voice of the Father, having seen the Spirit descend and remain on Christ, you'll notice that Jesus received the Holy Spirit in his baptism.

Yeah, kind of a fascinating thing if you think about it. There are a lot of people today who say baptism is nothing. It's just a symbol. God doesn't do anything in it, and that nobody can receive the Holy Spirit in baptism.

Well, that's weird. Jesus did. David received the Holy Spirit in his anointing. So consider that if you would, because good theology, good Christian theology recognizes that when we are baptized, we receive the Holy Spirit.

That's what Scripture actually says. Now, all of this is great regarding Jesus. He's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And this is truly good news for us. And the reason why this is good news for us is because, I don't know if you've noticed this about humanity, humanity seems to be a mess.

Somebody was talking to me about Minnesota politics and the list of bills that are coming up. Things seem to be quite askew. Humanity is off the rails morally. And don't think that this is out there. No, no, no.

Humanity is off the rails, and that begins with us. Scripture is so clear. We are all born dead in trespasses and sins. We are all born under the dominion of darkness, enslaved to sin, death, and the devil.

Each and every one of us, a cantankerous, cranky, sinful, disobedient, lawless bunch. You see, God doesn't look at us and go, oh, you're my beloved son. No, God looks across, humanity looks at all of us and says, you're children of the devil.

And you are just like him. He's a liar and a deceiver and a murderer. You are all just like your father, the devil. You sit there and go, well, that doesn't make my self-esteem feel very good. Well, it's not meant to.

The truth oftentimes hurts. It's meant to hurt. In order to make you feel sorry and recognize the depth and the magnitude of your sin so that you can repent and be forgiven. So the baptism of Christ is very important in this sense, and that is that in a very real way the baptism of Christ is the very first Christian baptism.

Because Jesus receives the Holy Spirit in his baptism, and Scripture is so clear that we receive the Holy Spirit in ours. He's declared to be the Son of God in his baptism, and here's kind of the funny thing.

There's something similar, different, and yet similar that goes on in our baptism. Let me explain. Ephesians chapter 1 puts it this way starting in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us, and listen to the words, in Christ.

Have you ever noticed as you're reading, especially like through the epistles in the New Testament like Ephesians or Colossians or 1 Corinthians or even 1 Thessalonians how over and again Paul keeps referring to Christians as those who are in Christ.

In Christ. What does he mean by in Christ? Actually it has everything to do with baptism. So we are blessed, he's blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him.

There it is again, in him before the foundation of the world. That we should be holy and we should be blameless before him. In love he predestined us, and listen to the words, for adoption into himself.

Adoption? You see, when somebody is orphaned and they are adopted, they are considered the son or the daughter of the man who adopts them. So, something going on here, he's predestined us for adoption into himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

In him, there it is again, in him we have the redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace which he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. Consider then what our epistle text says in Romans 6.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? Huh? What? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? You see, now here's the point. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ, we were baptized into his death.

We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

And so you'll note that one of the great themes of the Old Testament is the theme of rescue through water. One of the major themes that we see that drawn out in, the stories we see that drawn out in, is the story of the flood.

And I love how the church fathers see the ark as a picture, as a type and shadow of Christ himself. One church father even going so far as to saying that coffin shaped ark had a wound in it and that was the door that you can get in there.

And they likened the door to the side of Christ which was pierced by the Roman centurion's sword. And so how then were Noah and his family saved through this great water deluge that destroyed the old and brought forth the new?

Well, they were tucked in. They were put into the ark by God. Jesus is our ark. And so when we are baptized, we are baptized into him. Jesus being the ark. And then through the waters of baptism our old sinful self is deluged and destroyed.

And the dominion of darkness is broken and the new comes forth. The new creation comes forth. That's the picture here that we see that Paul is drawing on then in Romans 6. If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

We know that our old self it was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing like the old world before the flood so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. Huh. So here's the similarity and the difference.

If you kind of put all the pieces together, we've got all of our clues. We're ready to sit on our thinking chair and think, think, think. Think of it this way. Jesus goes into the waters of baptism sinless.

He's committed no sins. And in the waters of baptism, he receives the Holy Spirit. God declares him to be his beloved son in whom he is well pleased. Pay attention to that. So then as Paul says, when we were baptized, we were then tucked into Christ.

We were united with him in his death and his resurrection. And so we go in sinner, dead in trespasses and sins. But it is a washing of regeneration, Titus 3 says. And so having been tucked into Christ, then we come out of the waters of baptism and God says to you, ah, my beloved son, my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased.

Not because you are the son of God, but because you are now adopted into the family. God is truly your father. The dominion of darkness has been broken. You are no longer a child of the devil. So do not continue to live as such.

That's the great mystery of all of this, is that Jesus' baptism is so much like ours, but it's different in one sense. He truly is the eternal son of God, and now we are the forgiven and regenerated and renewed, adopted children of God.

And now we can cry out to God, Abba, Father, because he is our father. Because we are in Christ. Or as Peter says, repent. Repent of your sins. Have true sorrow for the evil that you have done. And be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins.

And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And see, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit in our baptism. And see the promises of this great mercy and grace and adoption and forgiveness that God truly becomes our father again, and we are no longer children of the devil.

These promises then are for you and even for your little children, and all who are far off, and everyone whom the Lord God calls to himself. So this is a great gift. And this is why we Lutherans like to talk about the need to daily return to our baptism.

To daily recognize of just how woefully short we have fallen in the glory of God. And again, trust in the great promises of our sinful nature being deluged in the blood of Christ that was mixed in the waters of our baptism, that we call out like David called out.

Lord, do not take your Holy Spirit from me, but restore unto me the joy of your salvation. This is a returning to our baptism. And the promises of this forgiveness and mercy, it is for you, it is for your children, all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord God is calling to himself.

Wow. When you put all the clues together, baptism isn't a small thing after all, is it? It's kind of a big thing. So big that the promises are too huge to even open in one sermon. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

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