Peace with God

Luke 3:21-22

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Well, peace be with you. Let's pray, Father. May your will be done, Jesus. May your word be proclaimed in spirit. May your work be accomplished in us.
We pray. Amen. Well, this morning I had a little bit of a challenge before me. I am a guy who, if you get to know me, is not quick on his feet. Matter of fact, I don't like to be put on the spot because I'm going to probably sound like an unintelligent person because I'm just, I can't think on my feet.
But you give me three days and I'm probably going to think of a lot of things. And I always tell Greg always referenced this to me all the time when I poke fun of somebody, usually it takes me three days to come up with that. So if I come up with it on the spot, it's probably from my own categories that I've already created for myself. But this morning as I was prepping to come here, I had my sermon, my seven page sermon that I was excited to preach to you. And I was like, man, I'm going to open up Jesus baptism on this first day, this first Sunday of epiphany.
And we're going to dissect it and we're going to learn a lot of amazing things about it. And then as I was sitting there preparing on our way to church, the Lord was just like, I just want you to focus on one aspect of that. I said, yeah, but that's not my full sermon. And he says, no, just focus on one aspect. That's enough for today.
So that doesn't happen much. But I am just trusting in the Holy Spirit that that's where he's leading me. So this morning what I want to focus on is one thing. And I know last week I kind of promised that I would go deep, but I'd go short. But I went deep and I went long.
And so hopefully I can make good on this promise. And I don't really pay attention to time anyway. I just pay attention to the Word. But this morning, as we look at Jesus baptism, the reason why we're in this narrative of Jesus baptism is because it's epiphany. It's that moment where God the Father speaks from heaven as the heaven open up and he declares his favor upon his son, Jesus Christ.
And in that moment with the people gathered around, Jesus Christ is revealed as the son of God before all people. And this is at the beginning of the Gospels. All four gospels account for Jesus baptism in Jesus baptism. What you're going to find are conversations or themes of judgment, of peace and renewal. And what I want to look at today is Luke's Gospel account in our Gospel lesson.
And I just want to focus on the peace. And in order for me to do that, I'm going to have to kind of take you back to the Old Testament a little bit, because there's something that's in Luke's Gospel that communicates peace, but it's not directly apparent to you. And that is in Luke's Gospel. In his account of Jesus baptism, which is just two verses, he says three things that are special and unique to Luke. Nobody else in the Gospels really point these things out, but Luke does.
He says that everyone had been baptized. Then Jesus comes. The second thing is that Jesus prays when he comes up out of the water in his baptism, which we don't hear from the other Gospel accounts. And then Luke specifically mentions that a dove, a bodily form of a dove, which is the Holy Spirit, descends on Christ. Now, the other gospels will say it was like a dove, but Luke says, no, the Holy Spirit took a bodily form of a dove and came to rest and descended upon Jesus.
And so I want to focus on that image for us. And I want to talk about the peace of God this morning in a context that is all about judgment, peace and renewal that takes place at Jesus baptism. And so going back to the Old Testament, where you find a bodily form of a dove, I have to take you into the depths of the flood. Now, you remember the flood. We all learned this in Sunday school growing up.
The flood is water that covers the face of the earth. And this is God executing his judgment on the face of the earth. Because the entire world is riddled with sin, wickedness and evil. But in God's loving kindness, mercy and grace, he bestows favor upon Noah, his family, eight persons. And he safely preserves them in the ark.
And the ark carries them through the judgment into safety, into the new creation that God would do at the end of the flood. The 40 days and the 40 nights before the water subsided, it came to that appointed time where Noah is to find out if the flood was over, if the judgment of God had been executed and is now over. And so he grabs a dove and he sends out the dove. And he sends out the dove three different times. The first time he sends out the dove, there was no land to be found, and the dove returned back to him as if to signify that God's judgment is still on the face of the earth.
So he waits seven days and sends out the Dove again a second time. And this time the dove does come back with an olive branch in its beak. Now we know what the olive branch symbolizes. It's in a lot of countries flags, and it symbolizes peace. And so this agent that Noah is sending out, which is a dove, brings back this olive branch to signify that peace is now been made, judgment is over, God has executed his judgment, and now peace has been made.
Made. But yet there's no land, there's no new creation to dwell in. And so Noah must stay in the ark and this wait seven days. And he sends out the dove one last time. And this dove doesn't return.
And the significance of the dove not returning is that there has been a new creation. And now the dove is going to dwell and live in the new creation. As the water subside and as land appears. God had cleansed the earth and now a new beginning takes shape. And now the fact that Noah's agent, the dove, doesn't return demonstrates to him now him and his family can go and be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and experience this new recreation after the flood once again.
So with that in mind, now let's go back and let's talk about Jesus baptism and specifically the dissension of that dove in bodily form, the Holy Spirit in bodily form as a dove, and what it signifies and what it represents here at Jesus baptism where we see this context where John the Baptist and people are gathered. And John the Baptist has been preaching about the judgment of God, the wrath of God upon the sin of man. And in response to this preaching to this word of John the Baptist, he's inviting people to repent of their sins and enter into the waters of baptism to be cleansed of their sins. And then here comes Jesus. Luke tells us, after all the people have been baptized, Jesus then comes and we can read this.
And now when all the people were baptized, Jesus was also baptized. And while he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came out of heaven. You are my beloved Son, in whom you are well pleased. And so right there you can begin to see that there are three unique features.
And the unique feature that I want to focus on again is the Holy Spirit by way of the dove. And in order to do that, you need to understand why is it that Jesus is coming to the water? Jesus is sinless. The people needed to come and hear about judgment and to repent of their sin and to cleanse themselves of all unrighteousness and the people began to ponder and wonder in their hearts, is John the Messiah? Which is a logical question to ask, because the people knew that only God can forgive sins.
So they ask in their hearts if John is the Messiah. And John, knowing this, says, no, I'm not. But there is one coming. And guess who comes? Jesus enters after the people have been baptized, and he enters the water.
And it's not for his own cleansing of his sin, but in those waters lay the unrighteous acts and deeds and intentions of all mankind. And Jesus enters into the water and he gathers all of that and puts it upon Himself. He carries that burden because as he begins his ministry in the next page, he's going to go to a cross and he's going to endure the ultimate judgment of all sin for all time upon his shoulders. He is going to face the wrath of God for the sins of the world, to finally do away with all sin. And by doing so, Jesus makes peace with God, man.
And this is demonstrated to us in an image that as people are standing around wandering where the Messiah is, if John is not it, and Jesus enters into the waters of judgment to absorb the sins of the world, to take them and to deliver them to the cross, is this going to be effective? Is he going to be able to accomplish this deed? Could be a question we can ask. And the Holy Spirit takes the form of a dove, which signifies to us, because Scripture interprets Scriptures, we can know what a bodily dove represents. We just read about it in similar waters, under similar judgment, and how the agent of the Holy Spirit by way of a bodily dove was the messenger and the agent by which communicated to Noah peace with God has been made, and renewal and restoration and recreation is now a reality.
And here the dove descends upon Jesus as a sign of peace and renewal that God the Father finds favor in His Son. And what His Son is going to accomplish is true, is right, is effective, that all those who unite themselves to Jesus by a ritual of baptism with water, because we identify with the death of Christ and His resurrection in that ritual of baptism, those who unite their lives to Jesus will be made peace with God. The question becomes, what's the big deal with peace? Maybe that's lost on you. This morning.
I don't get up every morning and think, ah, I have peace with God. So let me just for a brief moment spell out to you why peace with God is a big deal in this moment. Because for all of history, up to the time of Jesus, when he begins to get baptized and his ministry is all about redeeming fallen man and restoring that relationship between humanity and God. Up to that time, peace with God has not been felt or seen in any way, shape or form. Maybe small glimpses of it, but not its fullness.
And here's what I mean. Immediately when sin. If you remember in the Old Testament, right, in Genesis, when Adam and Eve sinned, they were kicked out of the garden. Why were they kicked out of the garden is because a holy God cannot dwell in the presence of sinners without them being completely undone and dead. So God kicks him out of the garden.
The garden was the place where God walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. But he kicked them out as an act of grace and mercy so that they wouldn't eat the fruit of the tree of life and live perpetually in the state of sin. So he kicks him out of the garden and he puts angels there with flaming swords. So if they were tried to enter back in, they would not be allowed. They would have to suffer the store and die.
And they go to the east as the garden was in the west, and they get further and further away from the garden, and they don't feel the peace that they once had with God anymore. Well, this gets passed on generation after generation, generation after generation comes and goes, and peace with God hasn't been established. And then God shows up among Israel and the cloud of fire and his glory is in the presence of the camp. But yet we're also told that nobody can enter into his presence without dying in the tabernacle or in the temple. Matter of fact, the Levites, the priests who would see to the whole tabernacle and temple, were loaded with weapons, swords, so that if anybody tried to, in their own effort, get into the holy of holies, into the very presence of God, they would strike them down dead first.
Because they enter in that they're going to suffer a worser fate than being stricken down by a sword. There's only one time a year in all of the world's history leading up to Jesus that only the high priest could enter into the presence of God. And even at this, it wasn't secure. He had to go through various cleansing rituals in order to prepare himself to atone for the sins of the people once a year. But the people did not have complete faith in this.
So they tied a rope around his leg just in case he would go into the holy of holies and meet his death. They would drag him back out. And I say all this because this is giving us that theology, that imagery that peace with God is not yet made. It's not satisfactory. And here's Jesus coming to make peace with God, that he is the one that restores that relationship.
And it's so effective, it's so freeing, it's so satisfactory that not only can God and man in Jesus Christ have a relationship again, but now belief in Jesus affords you that peace with God to where God's presence actually resides in you. It doesn't just walk alongside of you in the cool of the day. It comes into you and lives inside of you as you become the temple that houses the very presence of God, the Holy Spirit. That's how effective Jesus making peace with God and man is. And so we on this side of Jesus get to experience those things that the people on the other side of Jesus never got to fully experience.
That's a big to do. That is a big deal. Jesus makes peace and he demonstrates this at the beginning of his ministry, his baptism. That when you read Luke and the account that he writes about Jesus baptism, what you should see is a dove who descends upon Jesus. That same image of the dove being the agent to bring peace and renewal to Noah is displayed before all those people there who just encountered a baptism to repent of their sin for the coming judgment.
And so that now in Jesus, as the sign of peace and renewal rests upon him, all those who are found in him will receive no condemnation at the judgment day. And that is good news because of Jesus Christ. There's also this other aspect that not only does Jesus in his baptism signify and display to us and demonstrate to us that he is going to be making peace with God and man, but there's also an aspect that those who are baptized into Jesus, who have united their lives with Jesus, can also share this with one another. This is something that I studied and it really has nothing to do with the Gospel lesson, but I'm bringing a connection here that really spoke to me this week. It comes from Romans chapter one, verses 11 through 13.
And I want you to pick up on what Paul's intentions are and what he says about the connection with the people that he's writing to. Paul says in Romans chapter one, for I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you that you may be established, that is, that I may be encouraged together with you, while among you, each of us, by each other's faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you and have been prevented so far so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even among the rest of the Gentiles. Here's what Paul is saying in his letter. He goes, I long to be with you.
Because when those who are in Jesus Christ get together, we can, in part because of our faith that we possess, we get fruit from each other. We grow in what we already possess in Jesus a little bit more when we're together. That's what he's saying. He says, I want to be encouraged together while we're together among you. That each of us, by each other's faith, that I might receive fruit if I come to you.
And what are those fruits? The fruits of a life of Christ is a lot. And one of those fruits is peace. This is why we pass the peace in our church, because there is something spiritual, a spiritual reality that takes place because Jesus has made peace with God and man, that we can, in Jesus Christ, extend that peace to one another, that Christ offers us, that we can encourage each other and build each other up physically. It's a reality.
And this is why it's just not a theological point to say we should come together at church. Coming together at church means when I'm struggling, when I don't feel at peace with God, I can just shake your hand and you can say, peace be with you. And that spiritual reality becomes true and effective again in my mind, that I can feel at peace with God. That's how we share our faith with each other and build each other up. If you struggle with your identity and you're just like, I don't know, I'm actually doubting who I am in Jesus Christ.
I don't know if God loves me. I don't know if I'm at peace with God. I don't know if my sins are forgiven. I don't know if I have a new identity or just my past is defining me. You know what?
When you come here on Sunday and I pray that it becomes the most important thing to you because you might need it or I might need it, and that you love me enough to say, I gotta get to church today. Because Bruce might need to hear about his new identity in Jesus Christ because he's living in the past. Bruce needs to hear about the peace because he's unsettled, he's disturbed because of the sin that exists, all the scars. I need to go to church so that Bruce can be encouraged in his faith because he's doubting. I get up and I come to church, and that is my motive.
You, That's Why I pour my heart out into preaching God's good news to you and why I want us to meet together. It's important. And Paul right here says it's important. I want to come to you. I've been prevented so far.
But when I come to you, the reason why I want to come to you is because our faith stirs us up and builds us up and we receive fruit from each other and we grow together. That's what the people of God does. That's how effective Jesus, his ministry for us in redeeming us on the cross has accomplished.
Romans 5:1 affirms this peace says, therefore having been justified by our faith in Christ, we have peace with God through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
So I hope this morning, as that's all I have to say, is that as we celebrate this first Sunday of epiphany and we look at the baptism of Jesus right at the beginning, we're not at the end of his life, we're at the beginning of his ministry. We are giving tangible signs and bodily form that signify Jesus is the Messiah. He just heard the word about the judgment, but in him there is no condemnation. You've entered into the waters of baptism to be cleansed of your sin. And those waters unite yourself to Jesus, who's going to make peace between you and God, because that's what you need.
Not only that, but at Jesus baptism we are told that we are also going to be renewed and we get to live the life that he is about to display before us in his ministry. A life of righteousness. A life as God has always intended us to live. That's what Jesus affords us. So this morning, as you reflect upon the baptism of Jesus in this gospel lesson, I pray that you would think about the peace that he has established in your life with God and how God lives in you and through you.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gifts of baptism and the way it reveals your judgment, peace and renewal through Jesus Christ help us to live in the reality of our baptism, knowing that we have been cleansed from sin and reconciled to you and empowered to live a new life by the Holy Spirit. And we'll give you all the praise and the glory for it. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Let's all stand and sing praise.