Ephiphany 2 - Celebrating New Leaders

Scripture: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Luke 3:15–17 NIV

15 The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. 16 John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Luke 3:21–22 NIV

21 When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

1/12/2025

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

New Leaders Introduction and Prayer

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Communion

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes: New Leaders Introduction and Prayer

Week 1: Communion

Make up communion for last week’s snow day

Opening Prayer:

God of grace and glory, you call us with your voice of flame to be your people, faithful and courageous. As your beloved Son embraced his mission in the waters of baptism, inspire us with the fire of your Spirit to join in his transforming work. We ask this in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.

Holy Spirit - What People are Worth - Celebrating New Leaders?

Goals

It’s hard to set realistic goals.

I remember the teachers handing out assignment books in school when I was in fourth or fifth grade. That was around the time I realized school was not going to be as easy or fun as it had been in the past. Mom used to leave us lists of chores to do at home, and while none of those chores were especially difficult, my siblings and I usually fought over who got to put names next to each chore. Mom was not a dictator, and there was no democracy in our household. It was all “mob rules”, and “might makes right.” Too often, that list of chores ended in screaming, slammed doors, and phone calls to Mom from each of us trying to get our own way.

Assignment notebooks felt like a torturous method where we were made to create our own chore lists and then complete them ourselves. It was akin to finding the one person who detested eating broccoli and assigning them the task of cooking it for everyone at every meal. It simply didn’t seem right. Those assignment notebooks represented more than just chores; they were lists of small goals we were expected to accomplish each week. Read two chapters in this book. Fill out this worksheet. These would grow into reports to write, presentations to plan, and speeches to memorize in just a few years.

Homework lists were straightforward because the assignments were provided to you. You just had to copy them down in your notebook. However, the larger goals were more challenging for me to come up with. Those were the ones I felt like copying from my neighbor rather than coming up with my own. How was I supposed to know what I wanted to achieve in three, six, or twelve months? I don’t even know what I want for lunch today.

God had to lead me around on a very short leash for many years because I couldn’t get the knack of planning ahead. Typically, when we discuss planning ahead, we think about crisis prevention, which is vital and a foundational aspect of being a healthy family. However, setting goals and planning ahead are also crucial tools for what you build on top of that foundation.

When I live in the moment instead of planning ahead, I find myself repeating the same actions. If something works well for me, I practice it more; if something doesn’t go well, I never do it again. It goes from an easy choice to a habit, then to a tradition, to the point where I don’t even think about it—I just do it. I become a master of one tool and build my life around that one thing because it’s all I know. I’ve met preachers who can deliver an excellent sermon on John 3:16 any day, all day long, and by the third or fourth time you’ve heard it, you can preach it right along with them. However, if you need anything else, they have nothing to offer. I started off following Jesus in that way, serving him in the manner I liked most and not worrying about doing anything else.

Several years into pastoring churches, I became convicted, and God showed me that I was more focused on showcasing my gifts and serving Him than actually helping the people He sent me to guide and support in their faith. When I pick up my pen and paper and start writing down the names of the individuals that God has brought into my life, and reflect on the challenges they face and the opportunities they have to follow Jesus more closely, I quickly realize that they need much more from me than my one or two favorite ways to serve Jesus. So, I have a choice. I can either refer them to someone else who can assist them better than I can, or I can put in the hard work of learning to grow and serve in ways that don’t come easy or naturally to me. All of that involves setting goals and working to achieve them one step at a time. I still struggle with setting and achieving goals, but I have found renewed motivation to do that work when I recognize that I am not doing it for my own satisfaction. I do it so that others can grow closer to Jesus alongside me. This entire idea of being a follower of Jesus, setting goals, and working to achieve them is rooted in one foundational truth:

God sees more in us than we see in ourselves.

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Baptism of Jesus

The baptism of Jesus is a challenging story for us to grasp. On the surface, it seems straightforward. All four of the Gospels contain this account, and there are few differences in their narratives, indicating its significance and the gospel writers’ intent to convey it accurately. The details are quite simple. People gather from all over Judea at the Jordan River to repent for their sins and reconcile with God as they await the Messiah. John the Baptist leads this movement and tells them that the one they truly seek will provide a different baptism—one that is better. Despite being a powerful preacher and leader of this new movement, John the Baptist acknowledges that he is unworthy even to stoop down and untie the Messiah’s sandals.

Then, seemingly without hesitation, Jesus walks onto the scene among the crowd being baptized and asks John to baptize him. And here is where our problem begins. John just implied to everyone that the Messiah does not need to be baptized because he has nothing to repent from, and he is inherently far more worthy than anyone else present. To John, that would have been like asking him to clean fresh drinking water with a dirty sponge. It just seems wrong. This is not what we thought baptism meant. It’s supposed to be a symbol of us getting clean and getting right with God, but that symbol gets all messed up when Jesus steps into the water.

From our side of history, looking back, we can shrug our shoulders and give the Sunday school answer that Jesus was baptized because he was a model of what we all are supposed to do. He didn’t have to be baptized, but he did it as a symbol for us. However, that answer becomes problematic over time because sometimes symbols are not enough. For those people standing in the water with Jesus, who had waited their whole lives for the Messiah, they needed more than just a symbol of being saved and set free. They didn’t want to just pretend. They wanted to be saved for real. They desired to be in a right relationship with God and experience his blessings in real life, and they wanted to be free from the oppressive forces around them that pushed them into idolatry and sin, tempted them with greed and lust, and filled their lives with sickness and death. We run into the problem of putting our faith in symbols when our understanding of the baptism of Jesus stops with the water.

Luke and the other Gospel writers tell us that Jesus’ baptism began when he emerged from the water, not when he entered it. At that moment, the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove, and God, the Father, spoke from the heavens: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

That was something new, and it was much more than just a symbol. Many people got wet that day. Jesus was truly baptized.

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Holy Spirit

This baptism wasn’t primarily about sin. I’ve met many people who were baptized in many different ways, and all of us have sinned again sometime after we emerged from the water. No, I think this is a representation of what heavenly adoption looks like. Granted, it’s still a little strange seeing Jesus, God’s only legitimate and divinely biological child, undergoing some sort of adoption ceremony to be welcomed into God‘s family with the Holy Spirit as the messenger between heaven and Earth. But that adoption is real, and the fact that Jesus went through with this might suggest that being chosen and invited to be part of God’s family is even more significant than just being born into it. That’s still a symbol, but it’s one with real edges and handles that we can grasp and apply in our lives as we follow Jesus’ example.

Peter and the other disciples discovered this after their own personal adoption moment at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon them. In that moment, they received gifts and were empowered to be true children of God, not merely people pretending really hard. It changed their perspective on what it meant to follow Jesus, and they spent the rest of their lives helping others enter into a real relationship with Jesus in a way that was more than just a symbol.

Luke tells us in Acts chapter 8 verses 14 through 17:

Acts 8:14–17 NIV

14 When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. 15 When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16 because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 17 Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

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Adoption

In the early centuries of the church, as the rest of the world began to recognize the few groups of people from various regions identifying themselves as Christians, these individuals were forming an identity of their own, and their risen savior, Jesus Christ, became a force to be reckoned with. They viewed baptism similarly to how people regarded marriage. Upon baptism, individuals left their families to join a new one. Many were given new names. This was not a decision made lightly. There were weeks and months of prayer, fasting, and preparation involved. When the church faced persecution and had to rely on the miraculous intervention of Jesus for survival, they required baptism to be more than just a joyful emotional moment where people got wet and celebrated. They were changing their home address and choosing to belong more to heaven than to this world.

I could stand here and criticize our low view of baptism, where we are content to see it as just a symbol that we wear like a merit badge or display on our mantle like an award we earned in school. But the truth is, compared to those first believers and the persecuted Christians around the world, we live in comfort. So we can settle for symbols.

That is, until we can’t.

When we finally become sick enough, hurt enough, or addicted enough... when we face oppression or punishment for doing the right thing at the right time, and are given a real cross to bear by the world while sharing the message of Jesus... then we need more than just a symbol. When that cross that Jesus instructs us to pick up and follow him back to his house becomes real, and the road to heaven becomes real, we require much more than a water baptism. We need the Holy Spirit’s adoption, with the voice of God speaking to us, calling us His children, and calling us home.

Preacher, that’s a great place to end the sermon. Let’s leave on a high note, recognizing our needs once more and understanding that the real change we hope for in life comes from Jesus and the way he connects us to God. But we have to go one step deeper if this baptism of the Holy Spirit is to be more than just a symbol.

If we truly believe, no, if we know for a fact that Jesus came to show us the way to become adopted children of God, and that he paid the impossible price so that all of us could receive that adoption, and that he defeated death so that nothing could prevent him from leading us home, then that must change the way we look at every person we will ever meet. Furthermore, it must change how we view each other as a church family. When we pledge our lives together in baptism, we acknowledge a bond that is stronger than family ties, stronger than marriage vows; it’s stronger than the bonds between parents and their children. Those relationships all have an expiration date. But our relationships as brothers and sisters in Christ are eternal.

We need to determine how to get along, because we’re going to be together for a long time. More importantly, we must see each other as we truly are and find real ways to help each other grow closer to Jesus. We rely on the Holy Spirit to assist us in this, just as Peter and the disciples struggled to be the church until they had that genuine encounter with the Holy Spirit themselves. We have a responsibility to one another, especially those called to step up and serve; you have a duty to the people He has placed in your care. This distinction marks the difference between real faith and merely symbolic faith. It differentiates following Jesus from just pretending.

What aspects of your faith and relationship with Jesus do you know to be true? Do you stand on that truth and find it lifting you closer to Jesus?

What aspect of your faith is more symbolic than real? Where is God pushing you to stop trying or pretending to follow Him and simply do it? What will you need to let go of to find that real faith?

God‘s love for you is real. His desire for you to be adopted into His family as His child is real. He has real goals for you and wants to share them with you. Some of these goals are bigger than five or ten-year goals because He has all of eternity to spend with you. But for God, eternity has already begun. He wants you with Him today and desires us to be His church, right here and right now.

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You for inviting us to be part of Your family. We don’t know how blessed we are today by You, and we cannot imagine what life will be like with You forever. We know we will have to change and become more like Jesus. We hear Your call to come and follow You today. Help us to grow closer to You and closer to each other. Teach us to see the way You do, with eyes of eternity, that see more than just this moment, but all the potential of the future in who You are creating us to be. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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