2026 01 11 - A Proud Dad Moment for Sure! - Popp

Grace, peace and mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Hey, I'm going to talk to the dads real quick. Dads, I want you to imagine you fail. You have messed up, your plan is gone.

But you decide that someday you're going to put together a plan where your son is going to make up for it. He's going to fix it all. He's not born yet, not there, but you know what the plan will be. So you come up with this plan and then someday he's born and it happens. Feels pretty good, doesn't it?

I mean, granted it wasn't to save all sinners or anything like that. That's certainly what God did from the fall of Adam and Eve. He had a plan together that said, I am going to save everybody through my son.

And here we are. We just celebrated the Christmas story. I had the beautiful Advent wreath next to you. Thank you all who came to clean up yesterday. I feel like I have dancing room again.

But we celebrated that Christmas Jesus was born. He's here, he's in the earth now. It's fulfilled scripture. Now we start the ministry. And that's where we get today, the plan.

Love it when a good plan comes together, right? Today we talk about the beginning of the end again from Jesus birth and dedication to the baptism. 30 years later, it's go time. His second cousin John is out sharing this message of the coming Messiah and baptizing. As they repent of sins.

Jesus shows up and we see this ministry begin. Now before we get too far in, I want to just take you backwards just a little bit. I want to go back into John a little bit, a little background information, but right, they talk about John being the last Old Testament prophet. Now John the Baptist was obviously not in the Old Testament, right? There are hundreds and hundreds of years between those testaments.

John born six months or so, give or take a little prior to Jesus. I love some of the pictures they show. John is this old gray haired man and Jesus, you know, is 30 and it's like maybe the wilderness was hard to him. I don't know, maybe he became a pastor. That would do it.

But we see he's finally here. He's the last one pointing people to Jesus. Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, Daniel, David, all of these Old Testament prophets prophesied about the coming of Jesus, right? Saving us. And he's this last one physically pointing people John links the promise with the now.

He came to do it, he's out there doing it. He's proclaiming the coming of the Messiah and telling everybody, you better repent. Right. And another thing we need to look at before we get too far in again is how John's baptism is different than ours. I actually covered this a little bit a month ago when we did the peace candle.

Right. This was our scripture reading at that time. A little bit of what John the Baptist was doing. Right. We love baptisms, but this is not your normal baptism.

First off, it's this idea of water only for the repentance of sins. It said in verses 5, 6 and 11 people went out from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan confessing their sins. They were baptized by him in the Jordan river. I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes the one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.

He will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. Then of course, it goes into the winnowing fork and separating the wheat and chaff. I'm sure you remember that part right. Fire and brimstone, heaven or hell, it's a different baptism. There's no Holy Spirit, no new life in Christ.

This is prior to Jesus death and resurrection. Even as Sandy was reading the epistle from Romans. Right. We heard that again with the Romans, this idea of what was the purpose here. We hear it all the time when we get into our catechism that Romans 3, Romans 6, 3, 4, 5.

Or don't you know that all of us were baptized in Christ? Jesus were baptized into his death, that we were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too may have new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his that comes with Jesus. Sacrifice, death and resurrection. And of course, John's focus was preparing for Jesus.

He was pointing the way. That was his whole point, to point to the coming Messiah. So if John was there for forgiveness for the people, why did Jesus get baptized?

It was a short gospel. Yes, I'm going to reread those first three verses. Jesus came to Galilee, to the Jordan, to be baptized by John. But John tried to deer him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? Jesus replied, let it be so.

Now it's proper for us to do this, to fulfill all righteousness. Then John consented. I mean, how often are you going to tell Jesus? No one's sick with that one, right? He put up his argument and then of course did it.

So why did John or why did Jesus need to be baptized? All right, we're going to jump into this. I actually have. This is eight parts. Almost all of these could be a separate Bible study.

So I'm just going to barely touch on them and let you know where. You could certainly pick it up more if you want to. But the very first one, he had no sins to confess. Why did he do it? He had no sins to confess.

While everyone else was asking for sins to be taken away, Jesus was preparing to take all of our sins onto him.

He was preparing to do what none of us will ever be able to do, to live that perfect life, to take the punishment. Number two is to fulfill Scripture. Of course, we talked a lot about that. These Old Testament prophets. We know there's a lot I of the 330 plus Old Testament prophecies, every single one coming true.

Christ Jesus our Lord. Many were about this moment. We're going to come back to that a little bit about even as far as the Spirit coming. Number three as an example. Certainly Jesus did it to show what baptism was, what it is, what it's going to be.

We know baptism in a much different way, right? He, of course, last words before he went to be with the Father. The Great Commission, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It's one of my favorite things to do when I have a school baptism. The kids are all excited anyway and are there.

I actually let them profess the triune name with me. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That's so great. That's the way to bring the Holy Spirit in that blessing of water and word in which we talk about. If you've not been to your catechism lately, here's your little call to go and take a peek again.

How it is such a blessing as we have. It is truly. Well, let me get to the divine act first to endorse John's ministry. John was not the norm. They talked about it, right?

He wore skins and ate locusts and wild honey. He was a little wild. And out there, people were coming. People were listening for Jesus to come to him. The legitimacy of what's to come and who is to come.

Even some of John's disciples, I believe it was Andrew, went and followed Jesus after this. It was this divine act and the new covenant. A lot of times we don't think about this, right, the start of Jesus ministry. Here it is. He came to fulfill the loss, this new covenant in which we are members of now, in our baptisms, in this blessing.

It was about him linking ourselves to him, being clothed in Christ, belief in him, this divine act, this new covenant is the start again of what you're going to see. Years of miracles, of teachings. It's what we go through. If you're not familiar with how we go about choosing our three readings each week, you can look them up. It's the three year lectionary series we just started.

Series A. You can know what's coming, you can read them ahead of time. They're all out there. Put it in the Google machine, right? And it's to tell this story with this in mind how they help us see those blessings, those teachings, those miracles of what Jesus did to fulfill all righteousness.

The CPH commentary I think wrote a whole chapter on this. Just what it meant to fulfill this, what the whole point of fulfillment was, which was why we have 39 books of the Bible pointing to the coming of Jesus and after the gospels and other 23 books pointing back to what Jesus did and why it is we need to believe and follow him.

This fulfillment of righteousness, again, this one could be a four week Bible class in and of itself. Just talking about that righteousness and the types of righteousness and active and the passive and all the ways in which Jesus did and allowed and how it comes to us so important.

Let's not forget he allowed it. The FCSD 8. This is the formula of concord. Solid declaration. If you are not familiar with your book of Concord, it's okay, we can help you.

But if you want a deep dive into Jesus as man, what he allows in the catechism, it touches briefly on the idea of Jesus humiliation and exaltation. And every time we go talk about it in confirmation, like humiliation, understand, he allowed himself to be tempted, to be mocked, to be captured, to be beaten, to be sacrificed. He allowed it. He didn't have to. When he talks about his humiliation, it's not like he was humiliated.

Oh, they took off my clothes and put me on a cross and now I'm almost naked. That's not humiliation. We're talking about the fact that he laid down all of his powers and said, I'm going to feel what my people feel, I'm going to do what my people do and I'm going to take the punishment for all of my Children's sins in that solid declaration. Article 8, Person of Christ. It really dives deep into what those moments are and why it is so important.

This is how God planned to save us. This was that plan from the start in which God said sin is. Now here we see the consequences. We read about it. In fact, coming up couple weeks, I chose Genesis 3 as the sermon text.

We're going to jump right in to what that looks like and why. I don't think I've ever preached in Genesis 3. It got me a little excited just looking at, wow, what this plan was from the start and why it was we allowed it.

Why does God allow Adam and Eve to be tempted? Why did he allow the devil into the Garden of Eden? Why did he allow the tree of knowledge of good and Evil to even be in there? Right, we're going to jump in and talk about that.

But the plan to save us from that moment came sending his Son to live that. So let's real quickly talk about this proud dad moment. These last two verses. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was opened.

He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. A voice from heaven said, this is my Son, with whom I am well pleased. Whom I love, with whom I am well pleased.

I thought about that moment, the people that were there. Heaven opens.

Let's get to the dove first. The Spirit of God descending like a dove.

It certainly was read again by Sandy in that first verse you read from Isaiah 42. Here is my servant, whom I uphold, My Chosen One in whom I delight. I will put my Spirit on him. He will bring justice to the nations. Again, that's how those readings are chosen.

Right? They're supposed to align with that. They usually do. But I also went to Isaiah 61, 61:1. The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to to proclaim the good news to the poor.

Of course we know Jesus, the minute he goes through this baptism doesn't get to go out and start preaching right away. We now have the 40 days in the wilderness and the three temptations by the devil. But this is the start of his ministry.

But let's get back to God speaking.

The heavens open and God makes very clear that day whom Jesus is.

I've heard from some people how scary and difficult it is to try to share Jesus when people don't have the same understanding or the knowledge, when they don't want to believe or they don't want to talk about it. Imagine being there that day, watching heaven open in. Hearing that voice, you'd be a little excited. Now go try to share with somebody what you just saw.

Who would have believed you? What an unbelievable sight. It's one of those things that's so great. Who's going to believe you? But for those there that day, no question who Jesus is.

And finally, the Trinity's earthly debut, right? We point to this a lot. We talk about the Godhead, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, God the Creator, Jesus Redeemer, Holy Spirit the sanctifier. We as God's people profess our belief in this triune God every Sunday after the sermon. In fact, we're about to stand and recite the Nicene Creed and profess our faith in this triune God.

Here we are, Jesus in the water, coming up from baptism, Holy Spirit descending upon it, and God speaking the Trinity.

Every time we speak that name of the triune God, when we cross ourselves, we remember our baptisms, our baptisms, after Jesus died and rose again, profess our forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. How important that is, that we see it right here, the start of his ministry, all three together. No, Jesus, Baptism is not our baptism, the one that comes after his death and resurrection. But his baptism signifies the beginning of the ministry, his obedience to the Father, and the foreshadowing of his eventual death and resurrection for us, for our forgiveness of sins and eternal life in Him.

I don't know what better way we can finish this but by thanking Him. Thank you, God. To God be the glory. Amen.