Through Washing

Baptism Is God Working A Radical Change

1.19.25 [Titus 3:1-7] River of Life (The Baptism Of Our Lord)

Grace and peace to you from God the Father who loves us, God the Son who saves us, and God the Holy Spirit who renews us. Amen.  

Think of someone you love. Got a name? Great. 

Why do you love that person? Maybe they’re nice to you. Maybe they put a smile on your face. Perhaps they’ve been helpful, loyal, and faithful. Maybe they’ve given you good advice, tremendous support, or always put you first. Thoughtful, considerate, and kind people are easy to love. Loving them is delightful. Having them in your life is wonderful. You know that it’s a great blessing to have them, to know them, and to be able to love them and have them love you. 

Not everyone is like that. Some people aren’t nice. They make your day worse. They are selfish, deceitful, and unreliable. Instead of giving good advice they scheme against you. Instead of providing you with support, they take advantage of your kindness and generosity. Instead of putting you first, they’re always looking out for number one. 

How can you love someone like that? It might sound impossible, but many do. Many people love people who aren’t nice to them, who deceive them, who steal from them, and who take advantage of their kindness and generosity. It’s heart-wrenching to love someone who is an addict. A place to crash becomes a place to loot. A helping hand gets flipped into the next high. Only a radical change will save them. 

It doesn’t just tear up people’s hearts. Addiction tears families apart. It leaves them destitute and despondent. What do you do when getting justice also means seeing your loved one punished? If you’ve ever lived through this, you know the pain. It’s heartbreaking to even know someone who is living this nightmare.

At the same time, there’s a part of us that thinks we know what would fix the problem. Some tough love. Cut the cord. Let them fend for themselves. Make them face the real consequences for their choices. 

We’re much more likely to think this way if we’re not entangled in all the mess. Distance helps us see things differently. We know they love their addict, but we feel like their love, their loyalty, their faithfulness, their desire to help might be unwittingly enabling this self-destructive behavior. We’re all familiar with the promises that addicts make. They don’t sound too different than what we tell ourselves when we’re trying to stay committed to a new diet or break some bad habit. 

I’m going to change. This is the last time. I can fix this. I’m gonna get clean. It will never happen again. I’ll do better—starting tomorrow.

Addiction is, in many ways, just like every other sin. Repeated abuse of the body and the mind becomes habit forming. Normal. It might even begin to feel necessary to continue living. That’s how sin works. 

In our reading from Titus 3 today, Paul reminds us that all of us were sin-addicts. Titus 3:3 At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.

Does this sound like you? Maybe not at first, right? 

Our sinful nature has a way of convincing us we’re not that foolish. We just have bad luck. We haven’t been disobedient—we’re independent thinkers & see things differently. We don’t deceive. We spare people the truth. We’re not doing so bad. We can think of plenty of people who have done and are doing so much worse! 

But the truth is by nature we are just what Paul says. Enslaved by all kinds of passions & pleasures. Think about how hard it is for us to kick sinful habits like anger or vanity, pride or lust. Living in malice & envy. We’re passionate about ourselves. Making me feel good. Making sure I get a fair shake. No one takes advantage of me. 

We’re petty, jealous. We see other’s blessings and lives and think those things really ought to be ours. Recognition & raises at work. Playing time for our kids. We’re envious, too. We want what we don’t have: the cushy job, the brand new car, the extra garage space, the exotic vacations, their retirement lifestyle, their health, or their family. 

We hate that we don’t have and can’t do. We hate it when others seem to coast and don’t have to deal with the problems we have to deal with. We know it’s wrong. We know we shouldn’t hate, be petty, or envious. But we don’t see the need for a radical change. We think of it as a wart, not wickedness. 

We think we can clean ourselves up. We assume we can change. We can stop being foolish. We can behave. We can love. Celebrate other’s successes. We can break free from slavery to passions & pleasures. But, like a practiced addict, we resist real radical change.            

We dupe ourselves. This is the last time I’ll give in to lust. This is my last drink. Last time I’ll gossip. Last time I’ll cheat or lie. Last time I’ll be resentful or prideful or angry. The last time I’ll hate others and then myself. I’ll get clean. Starting tomorrow. 

Addicts often think they can stop at any time. Sin addicts think they can fix themselves, too. We try to improve ourselves through self-denial & self-discipline. We try to do what’s right even when we don’t want to. But we’re only cleaning up the outside. Because the sinful thoughts, the malicious feelings, the spiteful, petty desires are still there. We need a radical change. And we can’t do it on our own. 

But our sinful nature loathes the idea of radical change. By nature, we are always suspicious of God. We think he’s only around to make us look bad. Our sinful nature is convinced God asks too much. Says God demands more than he offers. The sinful nature wants us to continue to live as sin addicts. We need a radical change. 

And God does change us radically. He doesn’t dismiss us and say: You’re adults. Deal with the ultimate consequences of your choices.. 

God loves us & changes us radically. He completely regenerates and renews us. Because of his great mercy, God does something very surprising. He put himself in a vulnerable position so that we might be changed radically. Paul we are radically changed because the kindness & love of God our Savior appeared. God intervened, saving us from destroying ourselves eternally. He sent his Son to save us. 

This might seem foolish to us. It seems wiser and safer to love addicts at a distance. You don’t put yourself in a vulnerable situation, a time or a place where you could lose everything you have, compromise what you stand for to rescue someone who doesn’t care enough to do anything for themselves. But that’s exactly what God does. 

God saved us from ourselves, not because of the righteous things we had done, not because we made promises to make changes or to fix ourselves, not because he recognized some great potential in us, but because of his mercy. 

God didn’t love us at a distance. He sent his own Son to live among us. Gave up all he had in heaven—a magnificent throne room in heaven—to live here and not have a place to lay his head. 

He could have lost it all. He subjected himself to temptation. One sin would have compromised everything God stood for. One sin and God would no longer be the Holy Righteous One. For what? For whom? For you and me, sin-addicts who thought we just needed some behavior modification, some structure to clean ourselves up. 

God knew better. He made us better. Whole. Clean for the first time. It was a radical change. Complete regeneration. Because the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared in the middle of our mess. 

Throughout Jesus’ life you see him doing exactly that. Making appearances of kindness and love. Jesus demonstrated kindness and love to those who knew they were all strung out on sin—like the tax collectors and prostitutes. But he also demonstrated kindness and love to those who thought they didn’t have a sin problem. Jesus wasn’t just a dinner guest at the homes of notorious sinners. He ate dinner at the house of Simon the Pharisee. He taught a night class to Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin. Jesus show all sinners his kindness and love. 

Because by nature, we were all dead in our sins. God gave us life. Why? Because he had pity on us. He is merciful. Not just in an Oh, there, there way. But he showed us his mercy on there on Good Friday at Mount Calvary. His Son, whom he loved, suffered for our selfishness, all the times we chased pleasure fixes & denied God, all our sins. 

Now life is ours, through the most simple, yet elegant, plan ever—Baptism. Christ showed us how important Baptism is by being baptized himself. He wasn’t sinful. He was perfect. Already clean and holy, in his baptism Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit & power. In our baptisms, God washes us and gives us life. He drowns the sinful nature, wrests control from the addict in us & gives us life. And he connects us to his Son, making us heirs.        

But giving a sin-addict a clean slate isn’t enough. So he renews our mind. Changes how we think. And it is a continual renewal. It impacts how we think from that point forward. We aren’t worried about what we don’t have. Whether or not we have enough. We know we have all we need in Christ. He gave us his life and now we have the sure hope of eternal life. His generous gift of grace and mercy means life for us eternally. 

This radical change makes sin-addicts into grace-heirs. Complete regeneration. We are given a new life through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Continual renewal. We view life here differently than everyone else. We think in step with God. 

This radical change impacts the way we live and think here and now. Heirs aren’t worried about how things are now, because they know the best is to come. As heirs having the sure hope of eternal life we know that God never asked anything of us. He only gives, graciously. Mercifully. The renewed mind will not waver in its reliance on God for everything. This new life we have received is all the proof we need to know with certainty that God only offers too much. He is too generous. He never demands anything of us. We are loved, not because of anything we have said or done, but because of God’s mercy. That’s a radical change. Amen