January 13, 2002 Acts 13:34-38
34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right. 36 You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37 You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
I grew up never knowing either of my true grandfathers. Both had died before I was born. Even though I never knew either of them, a part of me wanted to know. Since one of my grandfathers was a pastor and a District President of the W.E.L.S. in Wisconsin for a short time, I was able to do a church history paper on him while I was at the seminary. It was interesting for me to interview his associate in the ministry and his children and find out more about my origins. My other grandfather was more of an enigma, harder to get much info on. But within the past few months I have been able to find out some information on him as well. I don’t know why it is, but I really enjoy finding out about my origins.
Epiphany is a season where we see how Jesus was revealed as true God to the world - a time to trace his origins as He was revealed to the world as not just another man, but also true God. Last week we celebrated the first Gentile Christmas with the Wise Men coming to find Jesus. This was the beginning of Jesus being revealed to the world as the Christ. But this wasn’t where the Christian church of the Gentiles really took off, and it wasn’t where it ended.
Peter explains that for us today. He found himself standing in the household of Cornelius - years after the death and resurrection of Christ. It was a very strange sight indeed. Here Peter was - a Jew - inside the house of a Gentile - in Caesarea - way northwest for Jerusalem. What in the world led him here? A few days prior to this, Peter received a dream of a sheet falling from the sky - telling him to kill and eat reptiles and birds. Little did he know that when he awoke from this dream he would end up in traveling several days north to a town far away from home - in the house of Cornelius. How did this all come about? As Peter explains to Cornelius,
It All Began with Baptism
I. The baptism of John
Peter started out, You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached. Although Cornelius already knew the origins of this meeting, he reviewed it with Cornelius. It all started with the baptism of John. Several years prior to this John the Baptist stood out in the desert of Judea wearing camel’s hair. And when the people came out to hear his message, he told them to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” He called them sinners, reprobates, rebels deserving God’s wrath. When they repented of their sins, they were then baptized in the Jordan River for the forgiveness of sins.
To the world this would seem like a strange way to prepare for a new kingdom and a king. When someone wants to become president, he goes where the people are, tries to promise them great things and flatter them - and tell them great things about what he will do so they will accept him. But instead, John went out into a desert, ridiculed and judged those who came to him. He told them, “like it or not, this king is coming. And if you want to be ready for him, you had better change your lifestyles! If you don’t you will be condemned to hell!” To the world this seems backwards. They would say, “I’m not going out to the desert to be ridiculed. I don’t need some freak pouring water over my head and talking about the fire of hell!”
But God’s way has never been man’s. He brings us to life by putting us to death. He lifts us up by first cutting us down. The voice calls out to us from the desert of our conscience - “you’re miserable. You’re unworthy. You have been impatient. You have not obeyed your parents. You have not honored God’s Word. You deserve nothing but God’s wrath!” This message humbles us. It crushes us. You would think that such a message would drive us far away from God. It does with some. They just get angry with God and call him hateful and his preachers bigots. But with us, it drives us to look for answers, look for shelter from that wrath.
And where do we find that shelter? In our baptism! At your baptism, God said that he took your Old Adam - that sinful nature within you, ripped it from your body - and nailed it to the cross. And this is where your life begins, with death. For once that Old Man is crucified, God then plants a new man within you - the Holy Spirit - who gives you the righteousness of Christ. With this new found righteousness, you also then have the ability to believe in Christ - confess his name - and live according to His will. It all seems so backward, so powerless in the eyes of the world - but it all starts with baptism. The even stranger thing is that it works! People repented! They came out to see John and listen to his word! Then after they had been humbled and crushed, he poured water on them and assured them of their forgiveness. With this humble heart and faith in God’s forgiveness, they were ready for Christ to come.
That’s where the Epiphany - the revelation of Jesus as true God and true man started out. A man went out in the desert and started preaching the law and the gospel - and baptizing people. God was preparing people for the revelation of Christ. The only way that our hearts can be prepared for the message of Christ is if the Holy Spirit works faith in it.
II. The baptism of Jesus
Then, in the midst of this great spiritual renewal, Jesus showed up on the scene. And what does he say to John? “Baptize me!” What? Here John was preparing the people for the great King to come, with the winnowing fork in His hand, and Jesus comes and asks John to baptize him!?! What was up with that? Jesus didn’t need His sins to be washed away. So why do it?
Jesus originally said that he needed to do it to “fulfill all righteousness.” Isaiah 61 had predicted on the coming Savior, The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. In this passage, Isaiah predicted that the Spirit of the Lord would come on the Savior through an anointing. This anointing of the Spirit would give Jesus the authority to preach the good news to the poor and step in the limelight as the Savior of the world. In order to fulfill this prediction then, Jesus went to be baptized. And what happened? As Jesus went into the Jordan to be baptized, the heavens ripped open! All of the sudden, a dove slowly descended from heaven - it was the Holy Spirit - and it landed upon Jesus! This was telling to all in the crowd - this is the Promised One! And if this weren’t enough, and voice cried out from heaven, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” When Jesus was baptized, it was as if the blinders were taken off the eyes of the world. It’s like when you open up the shades in the morning and let the sun shine in - that’s what this Baptism was like. Up to this point they may have looked at Jesus as a special son, a good man, a learned carpenter. But now they realized that Jesus was more than a man - he was true God! How could they not with the voice of the Father and the Holy Spirit landing on him!
Peter said what the results of this were. God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him. This is another interesting passage. What does it mean that Jesus was “anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power?” Didn’t Jesus already have the Holy Spirit and power? Yes he did. And some commentators believe that Jesus really didn’t receive any extra gifts at his baptism because in Him dwelt the fulness of the godhead in bodily form from birth. What we need to keep in mind is that Jesus was true God and true man. Yet in his humility he didn’t use all of the gifts that he had as God. As a matter of fact, we find that he “grew in wisdom and knowledge,” much like any ordinary man. So why would it surprise us then that Jesus - as our substitute - would not also go through baptism for the gift of the Spirit - giving him the license to use the powers which he was not using at the time, which would enable Him to carry out His public ministry - even though He already had the Spirit. So after this public declaration of Jesus as God’s anointed, and after this baptism, Jesus was then given the license to use His gifts publicly - to display to all people that He really was the chosen Messiah. That way, if anyone was not at the baptism of Jesus, they would still see he was the Son of God when they saw His miracles and saw Him chase out demons!
Again, it all began with baptism! This is where a greater number of people were first publicly exposed to the fact that Jesus was the Christ!
III. The baptism of the Gentiles
And it just took off from there! Here Peter was - many miles from Jerusalem - talking to Gentiles about Christ! It isn’t rare for someone’s popularity or fame to spread overnight. It didn’t take long for Ricky Martin to become famous. It didn’t take long for Elvis Presley to become a household name. But back in Jesus’ day - this wasn’t quite as easy. They didn’t have TV or radio to promote local heros across the nation in the blink of an eye. Peter knew that Jesus’ fame would spread - not just the fame of a local craze - but the fame of being called Wonderful Counselor, Everlasting Father, Almighty God, and Prince of Peace. He said to Cornelius, I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right. 36 You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. Peter knew that the Jews would be brought to faith. And he knew that Gentiles too would come to faith. But as you look at this passage, you can sense the almost shock at the reality of this truth in Peter’s eyes. Here he was being told to go into a Gentiles house! He was told to eat the same kinds of food that they eat! This was unheard of! But what an illustration of the fact that God really doesn’t show favorites - that God really does ACCEPT these Gentiles just as much as He does the Jews! And it all started with what? Baptism!
And what happened as a result of this conversation that he had with Cornelius? The Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. Their faith was confirmed as they were able to speak in different languages. So Peter said, “Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” 48 So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
Notice, once again, how baptism was a central point - a key part in the ministry of John the Baptist, the ministry of Jesus - and the ministry of the Gentile Christians in Caesarea. Peter didn’t wait for years before he decided to baptize these Christians. The first thing he wanted to do was to get them baptized. Why? In Acts 2:38 Peter made it clear that baptism is for the forgiveness of your sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. It all begins with baptism! And this baptism then would help to keep them in the faith!
Isn’t it a shame then, that so many “Christians” gut baptism of any power by simply referring to it as a symbolic act where the believer testifies to the world that he is a Christian. They act as if it’s just a flag that we wave and that we use to remember an important act that we performed in our life. Yes, the baptism of Jesus testified to the world that he was the Christ. But it also gave him the Holy Spirit and power. Think of how much more important it is to us then, as sinners! For not only does this gift give us the Holy Spirit - not only does it chase the devil out of us - but God also promises us that baptism wipes our sins away!
Several years ago I was looking through some of my old collectables and found an old birthday card that was about ten years old. I opened it up, and lo and behold I found a five dollar bill! Here I had had this money in my possession for years, but I never used it because if forgot it was there! My friends, how often do forget or not think about the fact that we were baptized? Here we were given a very special gift at our baptism, and we forget the importance of it. How many of you know the day of your baptism? How many of you care? Isn’t it sad that those who don’t believe in the power of baptism put more importance on their day of baptism than we do? If we really believe what we say we do about baptism - that God actually made us HIS through it, that he gave us the Holy Spirit and wiped our sins away, shouldn’t it mean more? When Paul wrote to the Romans he said to them,
We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Paul wanted the Romans to remember and cherish their baptisms! He wanted this memory of their baptisms to give them CONFIDENCE to live new lives according to the Spirit that was living within them.
You know the neat thing about baptism though? It’s the same as that money I found. Even though I had forgotten that it was there - when I returned to it - it hadn’t gone anywhere! It was still there! The beauty of baptism is that God’s promises never go away. He promises you forgiveness and the power of the Holy Spirit through it. If you forget about it, it doesn’t do you any good. But the Holy Spirit doesn’t go away. God’s promise of forgiveness doesn’t go away. If you have run away from your faith - forgotten the memory of your baptism - you don’t have to be re-baptized. All you have to do is remember the promises of God. Remind yourself, “I was baptized. God gave me his Holy Spirit.” And when you reach into that pocket of your mind that you hadn’t searched in some time - you’ll find that the blessings are still there! The forgiveness is still for you! It never left! You just forgot about it! So remember the origins of your faith! It all started with your baptism! And continue in it! Your spiritual life doesn’t just start with it - it continues and ends with it!
Just recently there was a movie called “pass it on.” It was the story about a young boy who was given a project from his teacher - to do something or invent something that he believed would change the world. So his project was to do a good deed to three people, and tell them to pass it on to three other people. If this would continue on, it would cause a chain reaction of good things that would change the world. Months down the road, a reporter was given a really nice car for free, and he wanted to know why. The man just told him to “pass it on.” From then, he investigated and found out the origin of this world wide craze was a young boy’s assignment in grade school. The one act of kindness had blossomed and caused a chain reaction.
You may not be one to believe that one moment in your life could change the rest of your life. But my friends, it can and it has! One small baptism of John changed many people into followers of Christ- preparing them for the Messiah’s coming. One baptism of Jesus worked to convince hundreds to thousands of people that Jesus really was the Messiah. And one small baptism of YOU has worked to change you from just another pessimistic unbeliever into a believer in Jesus Christ - with love for other people and hope for the future. If there’s one day in your life that you want to remember - is your baptism. If there’s one important thing in the Christian Church that is worthy of remembrance - it isn’t only Jesus birth or his death and resurrection - which are of course most important - but it is also his baptism! The baptism of Christ was the starting point for where the world would shown who Jesus was. It all began with baptism. Amen.
