Episode 1506 I Will Be With You

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1, 506 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:07] Felice Mathieu: I'm Felice Mathieu. And I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to build a strong relationship in your marriage is key.

[00:00:27] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this. The Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.

[00:00:36] Scott Maderer: That's

[00:00:45] our gift.

[00:00:45] That's the joy. That's what brings us here. That's what we have to offer to each other and to the world. There's no secret answer. There's no quick fix. There's no five easy steps to a better life, [00:01:00] but there is presence. God is with us. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:01:11] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:39] In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Isaiah chapter 43, verses one through seven. Psalm 29 and Luke chapter three, verses 15 through 17 and 21 through 22. I talk about the questions we ask about who's in charge and why it matters, and I also talk about how important [00:02:00] it is to realize that in all things God will be with us.

[00:02:05] Isaiah chapter 43 verses one through seven says. But now thus says the Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel, Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.

[00:02:25] When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned. And the flames shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God. The Holy One of Israel, Your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba, I exchange for you. Because you are precious at my sight and honored and I love you, I give people in return for you.

[00:02:46] Nations in exchange for your life. Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, Give them up, and to the south, Do not withhold. Bring my sons from [00:03:00] far away, and my daughters from the end of the earth. Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.

[00:03:10] Psalm 29 says, Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name. Worship the Lord in holy splendor. The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord over mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

[00:03:32] The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon skip like a calf and Syrian like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord causes the oaks to whirl and strips the forest bears, and in His temple all say, Glory!

[00:03:57] The Lord sits enthroned over the flood. The Lord [00:04:00] sits enthroned as king forever. May the Lord give strength to his people. May the Lord bless his people with peace. Chapter three verses 15 through 17 and 21 through 22 says, as the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming and I'm not worthy to untie the straps of his sandals.

[00:04:29] He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into his granary. But the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened.

[00:04:49] And the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, You are my Son, the Beloved, and with you I am well pleased. [00:05:00] There's a question that we ask when things are going wrong, when things are falling apart, when nothing makes sense. Who's in charge here?

[00:05:09] We're inclined to ask that kind of question. Who got us here? Who brought us up here where we're tinkering on the brink? Who got us to this point where we're wandering in the wilderness? Who's in charge here? It's not a random question. It's often the question that provides the backdrop to our text for this week.

[00:05:28] It's not the main point, or may not be the main point, but it is an undercore or subtext to all of these stories. It's in the background that sometimes makes it hard to hear grace and love in these different moments. When you think about those moments down by the river with John and Jesus, we kind of skip over some of the grace and love and talk about some of the fear that's in there.

[00:05:58] The baptism of [00:06:00] Jesus is the second of three moments of the season of epiphany that we celebrate. The first one, Epiphany, began last week, we talked about with the wise men or the magi, the foreigners followed a star. And the last part, the third, it ends with a collection of Jesus's best and brightest, stunned by transfiguration and a voice in the cloud.

[00:06:25] But in all three, there's this sense that we're just spectators watching something happening that's well beyond our understanding. We can't say why, but it seems to be moments of hope and joy. But we're watching from a distance, and we feel a little sad that we're not there. And it answers a question that we didn't even know we were asking.

[00:06:52] Think about that story as Jesus comes down to the water. In Luke's depiction, the baptism is an [00:07:00] aside. It hardly figures in at all. The verses that we skipped in there, because I read 15 through 17 and then picked up again at 21, the verses that we skip talk a lot about John the Baptist and usher him off the stage in favor of Jesus, who's now beginning his ministry.

[00:07:18] But after all of John's bluster, the next thing we know, the baptism has already taken place. And it's almost like we missed it. We came for the show, but it's already happened. It just says now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus had also been baptized, it seems like this baptism that we have focused on for centuries as a church and we fight about the details of baptism and how it, how do we do it, how do we not do it, what's real, what's not.

[00:07:50] Maybe Luke could have spent a little bit more time on that part of the story. Was Jesus immersed? Was he sprinkled? What was the liturgy that John used? What were the [00:08:00] vows that Jesus made? Are they still the same ones that we make today? Was John credentialed, and did Jesus follow all the rules to lead to a baptism?

[00:08:11] Surely we need to know these things, right? But Luke doesn't seem to think so. Jesus had also been baptized, and that's it. That's the sum total of the description that Luke gives. Luke seems to be saying it's not really the method that's important. It's not the question that we should be asking. It's not what we should be focusing on.

[00:08:33] Instead, all four of the gospels spend some time wrestling with the position of Jesus and John. They seem to focus somewhat on that question of who's in charge here. The people gathering at the riverbank may be wondered. They thought and they leaned into, Hey, it's John. This is John the Baptist.

[00:08:54] They watched him wade out into the waters and call for change and say, [00:09:00] quit playing games, quit fooling yourselves. Get down to the hard work of living right. There's more to life than status, power, and riches. Get right or get left out. Maybe it was his confidence, maybe it was his content, maybe it was how he presented it.

[00:09:17] But whatever it was, they began to wonder, maybe this is the Messiah, maybe he's the one. And Luke says that in their hearts, if not in their heads, they were questioning. It wasn't an intellectual pondering. No, this is a heart thing. They're leaning in. They're feeling it. They're wondering. They're hoping.

[00:09:37] They were recognizing, hey, we're a sheep. We don't have a shepherd. We need someone to be in charge. Is this the one? Is this the one we've been waiting for and praying for? Maybe they began to murmur to one another. Maybe even someone asked the question out loud. Or maybe John just saw the question in their eyes.

[00:09:58] But he says, [00:10:00] no, not me. No, someone bigger than me, someone stronger than me. Someone with a shovel who will toss you up into the wind and rip away the empty husk of your sin. Someone who will see down in the depths of your very soul. It's not me, but watch out, someone is on their way. In fact, Maybe they're already there, and maybe that's Luke's point.

[00:10:27] There's no grand entrance. There's no miraculous appearance. There's no big, loud banging of the drum. But when the people have been baptized, and when Jesus had been baptized too. Jesus shouldn't be a two in this sentence, right? He shouldn't just be a member of the crowd. It's Jesus. He should be set aside.

[00:10:51] He should have been. First, right? But think about that. Why is he even here in the first place? And that's a question that biblical scholars have [00:11:00] thought about since the very beginning of the church. John was preaching baptism of repentance of sin, but Jesus is without sin. So why would he need to be there?

[00:11:11] Why would he have to be baptized? Are you the one? Yes, but not the one that you want. Instead, Jesus is there to be the one you need, the one who stands in line with all of us, all of the broken ones, all of the ones that are bruised and hurting, all of the ones that are beat up by the mess of the world.

[00:11:37] And Jesus wades into that mess and lives right there in it. The one who climbs up out of the anxiety of living in this world and falls to his knees. That's the one that John is ranting and raving about. Maybe it's not a shovel that Jesus carries. Maybe it's a cross and through the cross, we are all [00:12:00] cast up by the winds of the spirit and we are transformed.

[00:12:06] And instead of condemnation, we hear those words that Jesus heard. You are my beloved. With you, I am well pleased. And who's in charge here? I think that's a question we live our entire lives asking a lot of the time. And most of the time, if we're honest, we answer it with, I'm in charge. I'm in charge of my life.

[00:12:29] I'm in charge of my will. I'm in charge of this. And yet in moments of saneness, moments of pain, moments where we feel it, we know there in the dark, we know we need help. We need someone to follow. We need an example, a guide, a hope. We need a savior, a messiah. That's the question of epiphany. Who's in charge here?

[00:12:57] That's the question of our baptism. [00:13:00] Who's in charge here?

[00:13:01] Who's in charge? The writer of the 29th psalm seems to answer that question, who's in charge. There are glorious descriptions of the God we worship in that psalm. Confident? Yes. Awestruck? Yes. And yet the psalm ends with a prayer. May you bless us. May you empower us. May you be with us. Don't rule from on far.

[00:13:28] Don't be out of our lives. Be with us. Be part of us. Be among us. Gather with us when we gather. Bring this glory and set our feet on the right path. Guide us and guard us. The reading from Isaiah knows that. There's also a reading from Acts that can be used during this week that where Peter and John talk about this.

[00:13:54] All of these passages are talking about God being with us. That presence that [00:14:00] came to Jesus and looked like a dove, that voice proclaiming, it's offered to all of us. It won't be easy, Isaiah tells us. There will be water, there will be fire, there will be bad things. Isaiah is not hinting. That's not what prophets do, but that's a good news and bad news situation because Isaiah also says you won't be alone.

[00:14:29] When, not if, but when you go through, I'll be with you. When, not if, you go through fire and water, I'll be there. It might be hot, it might be wet, it might be painful. You maybe think you'll be burnt out to a crisp or swept out to sea, but I'll be there. I'll be with you. That's the promise. Being Christian, coming into baptism, these things don't mean safety or security.

[00:14:58] They don't mean a pain [00:15:00] free life. It means presence. It means community. That's our gift. That's the joy. That's what brings us here. That's what we have to offer to each other and to the world. There's no secret answer. There's no quick fix. There's no five easy steps to a better life. But there is presence.

[00:15:24] God is with us. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. We'll see you next time. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor, go over to facebook.

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