Text: Matthew 3:13-17

Intro: Today we're going to look at an event that made it into all four Gospels - every author of every gospel found this event so inspiring and important that it was included. It narrates the inauguration of Jesus into ministry. It was His coming out party - His grand opening, so to speak. And, it begins the launch sequence of Jesus toward His eventual crucifixion. That makes it really powerful to think about.

It's an unusual story because, depending on what you think about baptism, there doesn't seem to be any reason for Jesus to be baptized. There's some confusion about baptism. Some people think it's the event that makes one a Christian. I'll ask people if they are Believers and they'll say, "Well, I was baptized when I was seven." Being baptized when you're seven is okay, but Scripture doesn't teach that baptism saves you. 

What saves a person from sin and hell is the work of Jesus. It is when we put our confidence in His resurrection that we receive everlasting life. 

Body: Baptism isn't where you find Jesus; it's what you do once you've found him. But that doesn't answer the question, "Why would Jesus seek to be baptized by John?" I think it's important that we realize John didn't just come up with this baptism idea on his own. It wasn't as if he was preaching one day and said, "Hey, let's go into the water and I'm gonna dunk some of you guys. It'll be fun!" There's a story behind this story . . .

It is important to understand the Jewish people were looking for a deliverer to make things right in their country. They were a people whose land was occupied by an oppressive foreign government, and they longed for freedom. But it was more than that. It was a people whose relationship with God had grown cold.

Thousands of years before, God had chosen Abraham to be the patriarch of His people. Like many relationships, it started out strongly but through the years complacency set in. Israel started taking God for granted, and God won't tolerate that for long in our relationship with us.

Here is a brief history of God's relationship with Israel: God blesses and Israel enjoys, Israel becomes complacent, takes God for granted, and turns her back on Him. God gets Israel's attention through tragedy. Then Israelites repent and the relationship is restored. And then the cycle begins anew. John the Baptist comes along at a time Israel is complacent, taking God for granted and turning their backs on Him, and God had allowed them to experience discomfort in order to get their attention. (Honestly, He does that with us sometimes too.)

And because God had always provided a deliverer in the past, people like Moses and David, there was great anticipating for the next manifestation of deliverer. John, as the preparer of the way, says what has to be said,

It makes perfect sense, doesn't it? The people had to turn their hearts back to God in order to experience deliverance. And John uniquely adapts a common practice of his day to teach his people about humility, commitment and identification.

Judaism was very popular during the times when God was blessing. Other nations and other people took note. They wanted their piece of the blessing pie so, occasionally, Gentiles petitioned to become Jews. It's just human nature - most of us want to identify with a winner. It's like when a sports team does really well, it's amazing how many people start wearing their gear. You see Yankees hats in TN - though there's nobody from Tenn. that has ever been to NY. But the Yankees win and people buy their stuff.

The Gentiles who wanted to become Jews were called proselytes. In the simplest sense, that means convert. For a Gentile to become a full-fledged Jew (and any Gentile could do this) there was a three-step process that had to be completed.

The first was to offer a sacrifice. A heifer or a pair of turtledoves was brought to the priest and given as a burnt offering to God. Obviously, there was an expense involved and the lifeblood of the animal was spilled. The next step was circumcision, the cutting away of a piece of flesh from a man's body. For a Jewish boy, this was done when he was 8 days old, thus the pain wasn't remembered. But an adult male, who wanted to become a Jewish proselyte, had to undergo this procedure, regardless of his age. I would think this would've prevented anyone from jumping into this without a great deal of thoughtful consideration.

Men didn't "impulse buy" Judaism. They didn't see a magazine at the checkout line of Lowes with the headline, "Is it Time for Your Extreme Jewish Makeover" and think, "Hey, that sounds like something I should get right on." I would suspect this element of the process left more than a few men out - the cost was a bit too much.

Circumcision was unique to the Jewish people. It was their distinguishing, permanent, irreversible, identifying mark on their body that designated them as the only people on earth who were in a covenant relationship with God.

Finally, after the circumcision wound had healed, the proselyte went through the final step of baptism. The person stripped off all of his clothes. (We don't do that here by the way.) He then went into the water naked and dipped himself under water making sure to fully immerse his entire body, being careful that not one bit of flesh remained dry.

Once this process had been completed, the proselyte was now considered a Jew in every way. He had fully renounced his previous life, his previous nationality, and his previous allegiances; he or she was fully Jewish physically and spiritually. His identity completely changed.

John's task wasn't to get people into Judaism; it was to get God's people to realize their sins and turn back to God. This baptism was a moment of humility, commitment, and identification; it was the time a person could look to and say, "That's when I did it; I made my commitment public that day."

Why Jesus was baptized? His was a baptism of humility.

If you'll recall, amidst the protests of John the Baptist, Jesus explains why He has come for baptism.

Jesus humbles Himself to do what God asks - it's obedience to God. Jesus does this because God requires it. He lived a life of complete obedience to God.

Obedience to God is all God's ever asked for. Back when God was getting this whole thing started, He had a conversation with Abraham where He said,

Remember I said that the nation of Israel got in trouble when they, "became complacent, took God for granted and turned their backs on Him?" What is that descriptive of?- disobedience. Baptism was another in a series of acts of humility and obedience on the part of Jesus. It began with his coming to earth as a helpless infant baby boy; it ended with His crucifixion, and in between Jesus obeyed His Father.

One of the most powerful expressions of this is found in...

This was also a baptism of commitment.

This launched Jesus' ministry that would eventually lead to the cross. He knew where this thing was headed. For three and a half years, Jesus did His thing and it ended with crucifixion. This inauguration began that process. It was a commitment to God's plan and you and me.

Finally, Jesus' was a baptism of identification.

He affirmed John's ministry and identity with the people He'd come to save.

I remember taking Cal to the doctor once - he need a flu shot. (H1N1) I remember him looking at me and saying, “Dad, is it going to hurt?" I thought to myself, "You can bet your shoes it's gonna hurt. You're gonna come outta here crying like a big baby!" But I said, "No, there's nothing to it." And I asked the doctor to give me a shot first to show him that it wasn't too bad. I put myself in his shoes to show him the way. Okay, maybe it was actually Erin that did that, but you get the point just the same.

Jesus took this step of obedience to show us the way - to identify with those of us who do need to repent and turn back. Humility, commitment, and identification: that's really what baptism is all about. But what does that mean for me and you?

I can't wait for the Super Bowl every year because they always have new commercials. I really like the Dorito commercials.Do you know why they are so popular? Because we've naturally developed a consumers mentality. Our attitude becomes, "What can this do for me?” This is true even about spiritual things. What can church do for me? What can Jesus do for me?

But there's so much more to following Jesus! There are incredible benefits to following Jesus: unreserved acceptance, limitless love, God's unmerited favor - grace, forgiveness for all our sins, and purpose in life. Those are powerful benefits to following the Lord. It pays to follow Christ. But following Jesus is more than benefits; it also entails responsibility.

The "more" of Christianity has to do with humility, commitment, and identification. The proselyte's baptism was about humility, commitment, and identification. Jesus' baptism was about humility, commitment, and identification. And the baptisms we are going to perform today are about humility, commitment and identification. It's humbling to get into the water in front of everybody.

It's also an act of commitment and identification. When you're baptized and people see you, the expectation level goes way up. People will expect you to walk the talk. You're identified with Christ, and just like He was baptized to identify with us, we're baptized to identify with Him. He was buried and rose again, and guess what? We get buried under the water and we rise again . . .

Do you remember what happened when Jesus came out of the water?

Humble obedience, commitment to God, and identification with Him always lead to His affirmation . . . Always.