Brought to Jesus - John 1.42

 

"Brought to Jesus" John 1.42

 One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. 41 He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated, the Christ). 42 And he brought him to Jesus. Now when Jesus looked at him, He said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (which is translated, A Stone).

Introduction

     During the Christmas season we remember the way God came into the world. The Son of God was born of the Virgin Mary. During the Epiphany season we remember the way Jesus was revealed and made manifest to be the Son of God to the world. Since we are all by nature sinners, we do not seek God. Instead God seeks us. God said through the prophet Isaiah, "I was found by those who did not seek Me" (65.1). Throughout the Bible we see this again and again. When Adam and Eve first sinned, they hid from God, but He found them and brought them back. God found Abraham when, as the Bible says, he was "a wandering Aramean" (Deuteronomy 26.5). One by one, every believer was found by God and brought to God. All the apostles were found by Jesus and He drew them to Himself (John 12.32). That is how we become Christians, we are brought to Christ. As we shall see that is both a great comfort to us, and it is the key to living the Christian life and bringing others to Christ. 

Jesus Is the Messiah

     After Jesus was baptized, God revealed to the world that He was His own Son. Immediately people were being drawn to Him. In our Gospel lesson today from John chapter one we see how the first disciples were brought to Jesus. Our featured disciple this morning is Andrew, he is one that we don't hear much about in the New Testament. But what he did is something we should all remember: He brought his brother Peter to Jesus. 

     Andrew was blessed to be brought to John the Baptist. He heard John proclaim that Jesus was the "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Why did John call Jesus a "lamb." That's not a mighty animal at all. Are there any football teams called "The Lambs"? If there was, people would laugh at a name like that. But John knew what he was talking about. Jesus was "The Lamb of God" because Jesus was the lamb of sacrifice for all of us sinners. God, who knows all things, knew that the only salvation from the horrible problem of sin was love, sacrificial love. Sin is full of anger, hate, and violence. On Judgement Day God will deal with sin in that way. Romans 1.18 tells us that God's wrath is "revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness." But to deliver us from that wrath, God first came to the horrible problem of sin in love, through Christ, the Messiah, His Annointed One. 

     Last Sunday I mentioned the four ways we know Jesus is the Messiah. The first is through the prophecies of the Old Testament. All of them tell us that the Messiah will take away sin and bring righteousness, not by more rules, but by grace, by forgiveness. This forgiveness will be earned by His suffering and dying. The second is through Jesus' teaching. The Gospels give us a one sentence summary of His teaching: Jesus preached, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand" (Matthew 3.2; Mark 1.15). The third way is through His miracles which were all given to save lives from the effects of sin. The fourth way is through His resurrection from the dead. In His resurrection Jesus proved that sin, death, and the devil were defeated. 

Four Wrong Ways

     This so important for us to know and believe. But we don't know it and believe by nature. Our nature is the opposite. Let's think about the three ways that human beings deal with sin. 

     The first and most ancient and common way is to Compensate. All other religions are based on the idea that we can oversome sin by trying to be good. The answer to sin is rules. Pray, give offerings, and force yourself to be a better person. Paul lived this way for many years as a Pharisee. But he finally had to admit that he was still a "wretched man" (Romans 7.24). No amount of good works can compensate for or removed the guilt of sin. That is just being honest. 

     The second way is to Compare. "Well, I'll admit I'm a sinner, but there are a lot of people worse than me." This person thinks that because others sin worse, God will somehow overlook their sins. But if God overlooks sin, He becomes a sinner Himself for He has commanded in James 2.10 "Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it." Pointing to the sins of others is just a deflection. You can't just break a window a little. If you break it, you break the whole thing. 

     The third has become very strong in the last decade. This is the temptation to politicize sin. Karl Marx taught that there are oppressors and the oppressed. Although baptized in the Lutheran Church, Marx rejected God and interpreted everything in terms of the material world. In this view, even if a person does something wrong he blames it on his economic circumstances. Only the oppressors are bad, and all the evils of the world are blamed on them. But the Bible warns against this very thing. "Give me neither poverty nor riches— Feed me with the food allotted to me; Lest I be full and deny You, And say, “Who is the LORD?” Or lest I be poor and steal, And profane the name of my God" (Proverbs 30.8-9). The rich and poor can both be sinners, and neither should excuse themselves because of their political and economic circumstances. 

     The fourth way may not be that popular, but it is growing. Some people think they can overcome the problem of sin by saying there is no such thing as sin. Driven by their worship of science and denying any place for God, the spiritual world, and the soul, they say all things are determined by our molecules. ALL THINGS. NO OTHER ASPECT OF LIFE. Since it's all just biochemistry, no one is guilty of anything because we are either born that way or conditioned to be that way. This is the moral insanity that fuels all mass murderers. The Bible is clear about this: "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no god'" (Psalm 14.1).

Saved

     Joel Chandler Harris was from Georgia. In the 1800s he went around and talked to former slaves to hear their stories. He put them together in a book titled "Uncle Remus Stories." If you want some good hearty laughs, please read this book. One story is about Brer Fox who was frustrated that Brer Rabbit kept tricking him. So he made a doll out of tar and set it up by the road. Brer Rabbit comes along and greets the Tar-Baby. When the Tar-Baby doesn't respond, he gets angry and starts punching and kicking it. Sure enough he gets completeley stuck to it. I'm not going to give away the end of the story, but I'll stop here to show how sin is like that Tar-Baby. We can't fight it ourselves. The more we do, the more we get stuck to it. We have to be pulled from it. We have to be cleansed of it. 

     I would like you to think about how you have been pulled and saved from the tar-pit of sin. Paul said, "By grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2.8). I was saved by my parents who brought me to Christ in baptism, prayers, Bible stories, and the catechism. Even after that God brought other people in my life who pulled me back from sin and temptation. If someone asks me how I became and Christian, I have to honestly say that God called me to faith by the Gospel that was given to me by many different people. My becoming a Christian was not my natural choice. It was God's choice as Jesus said, "You did not choose Me. I chose you" (John 15.16). Every day I thank God that, like Peter, I was brought to Jesus. 

For What?

     It doesn't end there. I said earlier that being brought to Jesus is a great comfort (it doesn't depend on us), and it is the key to living the Christian life and bringing others to Jesus. When you realize that you are a poor miserable sinner and cannot escape from sin, but that God rescued you from it anyway - what a great joy that is. Now, doing what God wants us to do is not a burden or chore. It's a blessing. I don't keep the commandments because I'm trying to save myself. I'm doing them because I'm already saved. I'm doing them out of thanksgiving to God. 

     I mentioned that Andrew is not the most well-known disciple. There's very little we know about him. But this little thing that he did is mentioned here in the Gospel for a good reason. God is telling us that everything we do as a Christian saved from the guilt of sin is important to Him. Let me emphasize that: EVERY LITTLE THING. 

     This is one of my favorite examples of that. One day an unhappy man was walking along a railroad track in India. As he walked he saw a cigarette butt that had some writing on it. Being bored as well as sad, he picked it up and unrolled it. Apparently someone had taken a Christian tract and used it for a rolling paper to make a cigarette. It was mostly burned up, but the few words that were left were these: "Whoever calls upon the Lord will be saved" from Romans 10.13. Well, this sounded okay to him. Maybe he should look into it. When he got to the next village, he began asking people about these words. Someone told him it was from the Bible and that he should go talk to the pastor in that village. He did, and when he heard the full Gospel, he believed and he was brought to Christ. This is also a good example of a small act of Christian love that brought someone to Christ. It might have seemed like a waste. Someone gave some money to a Christian tract society. They printed the tract and sent it to India. Someone brought in the train and hopefully read it. But someone else didn't care about it turned it into a cigarette. But God wasn't done with the small act of Christian love. The sad man picked up the butt and was brought to Christ. 

Conclusion

     Everything we do by faith in God has that same potential. Your coming to worship this morning makes a difference. People notice. When someone speak evil of you and love them anyway, people notice. When you do wrong and apologize instead blaming and playing the victim, people notice. When you live as a person who has been brought to Christ, that brings other people to Christ as well. God bless you this week as you remember this little passage about Andrew: "And he brought Him to Jesus." May it be a comfort that you were brought to Jesus, and may that comfort bring others to Jesus. Amen. 

Are You Sure? How the Baptism of Jesus Gives Us Confidence

Are You Sure?

 

"When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. 17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 3:16-17 (NKJV)

 

     Are you sure? This is a question that we often ask ourselves these days. What used to be called the "information age," is now probably better called, "the disinformation age." So much of what people claim to be true and reliable is actually wrong and destructive. When the internet was first introduced, people were amazed how quickly they could get information. Overnight we had no need of encyclopedias and no need of travelling to the library to dig up information. But it didn't take long for the fraudsters to mess everything up, and we began to guard against things like phishing and maleware. In this world the truth has always been undermined by lies. But amazingly the truth always stands in the end. Today we will see how God does this as we celebrate the baptism of Jesus. 

 

     In Jesus' baptism we are brought face to face with the true and only Son of God.  It was the first of many events that would give people confidence that Jesus is their Savior and Lord.  The Apostle Peter once preached to the disciples in the Book of Acts referring to all that Jesus did “beginning from the baptism of John to that day when He was taken up from us” (Acts 1.22).  Jesus’ baptism was an important miracle that gave His mission a start.  It is a miracle that still, when we encounter it in God’s word, encourages us and strengthens our faith.

 

False Confidence

 

     Many people are confident about different things today.  But not all that confidence is well placed.  Make a note that the devil’s effort to undermine our confidence always works first to divert us from Jesus, all the while tempting us to think that we are connected to Jesus.  In the first century all religions, philosophies, and worldviews mocked the Christian faith and derided it. They were very opposed to Christ. Today we see what appears to be the very opposite. Almost all religions, philosophies and worldviews claim to be compatible with the teachings of Jesus.  But this is only so on the surface. When you dig deeper, you find that they are fraudsters. They don't believe in the Jesus who was born of the virgin Mary, died on the cross for the sins of the world, and rose again for our salvation. They follow an imaginary Jesus.

 

     It is important that our confidence be placed on the right person.  How does the baptism of Jesus create or strengthen our confidence in Jesus?  It does so in three ways as we listen to the words of:  John the Baptist, Jesus, and God the Father.  As we look at what each person said, we will find the confidence that God wants us to have.

 

John Tried to Prevent Him

 

     John was baptizing in the Jordan- a baptism of repentance.  People were coming to him to confess their sins and to be baptized.  This is similar to but not the same as the baptism that Jesus would later give us in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  That baptism is also for forgiveness of sins.  But in this case it doesn’t make sense to John, “I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?”  

 

     John is puzzled because he knows that Jesus is the sinless Son of God.  At the great Christmas miracle that we just celebrated recall that the angel Gabriel told Mary that this child she was to bear would be “the Holy One of God” (Luke 1.35).  Jesus boldly challenged His enemies, “Which of you convicts me of sin?” (John 8.46).  There are many other passages to affirm this truth (1 John 3.5; 1 Corinthians 5.21; Hebrews 4.15; 7:26).  

 

     Can you imagine what it would be like to meet someone who was truly holy?  This person would tell us the truth in all things.  He wouldn’t gloss over unpleasant realities about us.  This is where our confidence building begins.  It actually begins by tearing us down.  It is healthy for us to think of Jesus being by our side at all times - listening in to all our conversations, reading all our emails, and watching everything that we watch with us. The Book of Hebrews warns us: "And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account" (4.13). 

 

     Our first encounters with Christ, like this one with John the Baptist, can be a little confusing and scary.  Think of Peter, Nicodemus, the Woman at the Well. His holiness exposes our unholiness.  This is something we have to see.  This is why every Sunday in our worship as a Christian church and individually in our private prayers we daily confess our sins and recognize our unholiness that we have according to our earthly bodies.  Our sin and the sins of the world around us is the most destabilizing factor in our lives.  Our confidence in Christ begins by recognizing this and confessing our sin.

 

To Fulfill All Righteousness

 

     Now Jesus speaks. “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”  Jesus was not only born holy, He also complied fully with God’s holy law to fulfill all righteousness.  But in this baptism He is doing even more.  Here He is giving His righteousness to us.  He fulfilled the holy law of God not only for Himself, but for the whole world.  

 

     Isaiah spoke of this in chapter 53 of his great book.  “My righteous Servant will justify many” (v. 11).  Now let me make this as clear as I can.  In the Hebrew language the word “righteous” and the word “justify” are basically the same word.  The problem is that in English we don’t use the root word “righteous” to say “make righteous.”  If we did we might try to say something like “righteous-ize.”  “My righteous servant will righteous-ize many.”  Jesus fulfills all righteousness in this sense that He makes us righteous.  In His baptism He is not being forgiven of any sins.  Rather, He is stepping up to take the sins of the world into Himself.  Isaiah goes on to say it this way:  “For He shall bear their iniquities.”  This is the Gospel.  This is the good news answer to the problem of our unholiness.

 

     Allow me to illustrate this with an unusual story.  Back in the 1950s two young couples went out on a double date. The girl from the couple that was riding along in the back seat had certain allergies.  While they were at a party she indulged in some food that she shouldn’t have eaten.  Her boyfriend reminded her of the potential reaction, but she said it wouldn’t be a problem.  She didn’t eat much.  Everything seemed to go well for the rest of the evening until they were driving home.  Then the allergy attacked with a vengeance.  In her case this allergy appeared with the symptom of nausea.  She became very sick to her stomach but was too embarrassed to say anything.  They were getting close to her home, and she was just sure that she could hold on long enough.  But as they were within one block of her home she lost the battle with the allergy.  Now all this time her boyfriend was quite aware of what was developing…  to save her from total humility in just the nick of time he allowed her to lose the contents of her stomach in the sleeve of his suit.  He also pulled out his clean handkerchief and wiped her face.  Within seconds they were stopped in front of her house.  The other couple never knew what had happened.  They said their goodbyes, and this loving young man proceeded to help his girl friend to the house.  He had saved her from a very bad situation.  

 

     This illustrates what Jesus has done for us.  He has taken into Himself all the sin and guilt of this world in order to save us from a horrible situation.  When He was baptized, He stepped into the Jordan River in order to receive His anointing. This means that He was selected by God the Father to fulfill all righteousness.  This is the beginning of the great exchange.  We give Him our sin.  He gives us His own righteousness.  Imagine all your sins and shame.  How embarrassing it would be to see that portrayed on a huge video screen for everyone.  Think of all the ways you have hurt people and disappointed God.  But now think of all those terrible, stinking things scooped up by Jesus.  He took them with Him to the cross, and there they died with Him never to haunt you again. 

 

This Is My Beloved Son

 

     The last one to speak is God the Father.  In Jesus’ baptism we clearly see the Triune God.  Many sermons on this text focus on the Trinity.  It is a wonderful theme, but we will have to save it for another time.  For now we see that at Jesus’ baptism the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove.  Then the voice of the Father came from heaven.  “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” 

 

     Jesus probably needed to hear this as much as we do.  Remember that He was fully and truly a man.  He was facing the most awesome task of all.  With this voice God the Father assured Him and strengthened Him.  Throughout His earthly ministry Jesus constantly shows us His close relationship to His Father. He constantly prayed to His Father and taught us to pray to Him as our Father. In the Garden of Gethesemane, as He was preparing for His own death, He prayed to the Father. His very last words from the cross were, "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit" (Luke 23.46). 

 

     Now the beautiful thing about Jesus’ baptism is that Jesus also brings us to the Father.   The Father’s word to His Son also becomes His word to us in our baptisms.  Because we have been given Jesus’ righteousness by faith, God the Father can also say about you, “This is My beloved son or daughter, in whom I am well pleased.”  Just as God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are a divine family, so we are brought into that family through our baptism and faith in Jesus. Instead of being embarrassed and ashamed in the presence of God, as John was at first, we are now, through Christ, the objects of God's pleasure. Remember the first Christmas carol every sung, the song of the angels to the shepherds of Bethlehem: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!" (Luke 2:14) And again these words: "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12.32). And the words of Psalm 40 "Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me..." (v. 13). God is pleased to save us from our sins!

 

Conclusion

 

     There are so many things in this world that we cannot be sure of, there are so many deceptions and falsehoods. But today we have heard two things we can be very sure of: That Jesus is God's beloved Son, and that in Him, we are also God's beloved children. Because He fulfilled all righteousness we can be assured.  We can have confidence.  “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3.1).