Jesus Christ: Manifestation of God’s Anointing

The Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ

January 10, 2010

Isaiah 42:1-9/ Psalm 89:20-29/ Acts 10:34-38/ Luke5:15-16; 21-22

Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines, D. D.

Many marketing firms love to have the wisdom that God has.  We begin the calendar year of the church with events that are so awesome that literally shakes the world to its foundation.  It literally makes statements that cause man’s heart to leap for joy. It gives to us a confidence, an assurance of a tomorrow that is filled not with grief or sorrow, but filled with the joy and the confidence that comes from a God who does not fail or forsake.   I wonder, “Are we prepared to handle such awesome things?”   We are warned, and it is acknowledged to us that which is coming is great.  But we see it and we portray it too many times as something with insignificant value.  We don’t see that star as that light that will never again allow darkness to rule.  We don’t see that tiny baby in a manger as a King that changes the events of humanity.  It takes away the curse, and brings new life to those that will receive.   We don’t comprehend the totality.  We live on the surface of events, but the roots come from the heart of God.   The roots come from an antiquity that is ancient, established before the foundation of the earth, established on stone that cannot be changed; established with that confidence, with that hope, that allowed God to bring forth the creation on earth of man – without fear and without anxiety because He knew the power.  He understood His ability. He is not intimidated, not threatened with things that seemingly go a different direction, but in time, sets a course and a direction to correct, to restore, and to reestablish life.

Today, we look at the baptism of Jesus.  It is an event that reveals God to us.  It is an Epiphany – God with us.  It was not going to be any second guessing because God Himself made the announcement at the baptism in the River Jordan.  The world shook as God spoke.  The forces of evil knew that it was all over. Their time was limited and their power was soon going to be brought to nothing.  The voice caused the angels to rejoice and all nations to establish hope within; that the time would come for the revealing of new life – freedom from the old; the curse broken; the sun to shine once again and that new life to be made manifest.  God spoke very clearly and very powerfully.  John did not want to baptize Christ.  He said that he wasn’t qualified.  But in obedience, he did the work.  He took Jesus into the water; and the power God and the ability of God in that event brought an ability to wash away the sins of the whole world.

It is an event that speaks to us not only of cleansing because in too many cases, Christianity is just being free from sin.  But that is not God’s desire. His desire goes way beyond that.  He wants us to walk in the power of the Spirit to demonstrate the very character that He has implanted upon us.  John says it very clearly, speaking of Jesus, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire – power.”  Amazing how the Church has missed this point; how that we have encompassed weakness into our ranks. Failure and defeat is a normal everyday event when in the life of Christ, who was sent to be the witness of God among us and a demonstration of God’s character within us, we do not see failure in His life.  Even in an event which could easily be qualified as failure – His trial, His persecution, His crucifixion, His death, His burial.  We might think that He failed.  No, He did not fail.  With God there is no failure.  With God there is no defeat. It was in that death that Christ brought new life and new hope to mankind.

John said that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  God sent His own Son to take upon the flesh, to become like man, born of the Virgin Mary.  He came into the world the way man comes into the world – identifying with man, God now becoming one with man.  As He became identified with man, in so doing, because of man’s sin and iniquity, there was this problem that has to be solved.  As He had become flesh, He could not deny the problem of the flesh.  He did not succumb to it Himself, but it wasn’t for Him. He did not come in the flesh because of Him; He came into flesh because of us. He identified with us.  He who knew no sin became sin that we would become the righteousness of God. It was for our benefit.  As He identified with the flesh, He then had to identify with sin.  Even though He was not guilty of the sin, He took the sin because of a choice He made.

I believe that the event of the baptism shows us the proclamation of God and what God is intending to do for the course He is setting.  He said, “I am going to do new things and as I do them, I am going to reveal them to you.”  This is a revelation at the River Jordan that Christ has come to take away the sin.  Christ has come to set man free and to give him a new life.  In the vigil last evening, we were reading from St. Gregory who said, “That dove that descended upon Christ could be compared to the dove that descended upon the ark at the time of Noah coming to say, ‘It is over. Now, you are free. You can be released. There is new life for you.’”  God was setting man’s course and direction with new hope and with new foundations.

At the birth of Christ, He made a declaration.  It was almost a demarcation line - the darkness is gone and now the light has come.  He was saying to us that there is new hope. The failure, the sin, the iniquity – all these things – we are going to put away.  We are going to take away the burdens from your shoulders.  I am going to give you energy, a power that is equal to none.  There will be nothing like it because it will be like that which is of God – the Holy Spirit.  Equipping you to face the issues and the problems and conquer them rather than be defeated by them, even being intimidated by them, to make certain that man understood who this was.  In the River Jordan God speaks, “Thou are My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”  God has spoken through the prophets in the past but it did not seem to affect man. Man continued to go on in his rebellion. So now, God sends His Son and Hebrews tells us, “an exact representation of the character of the Father,” because they were one.  He sends now His Son. His Son now comes to demonstrate to us, to show us the life that God was giving us.  Jesus did not do these events so that we can write a Bible and we could gloat in the things that He did.  Jesus said, “The things I have done, you shall do, and even greater than this because I go to be with My Father.”

Can we comprehend the events? As we begin this year, the hope that we have as we look forward to the unveiling of the gifts of God and the provisions of God to His people that God is holding back nothing.  He has given us the best. He has given us His Son. He has revealed the workings of the Holy Spirit.  He shared with us how that God Himself comes now to be with man, to strengthen man, to uplift man, and to cause man to rise above the failure and the defeat, and to live out a victorious life. 

Galatians 4:4-6 says, “But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son…to redeem all those under the Law as adopted sons. And because you are sons, He sent forth the Spirit of His Son crying, ‘Abba! Father!’…No longer a slave, but a son; and as a son, an heir through God.”  Can you hear the voice of God speaking when Jesus is brought forth out of the water, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  As I was meditating on these things, I saw a child being brought out of the baptismal font and it was like I could hear heaven ringing forth, “This is my beloved son.”  Do we comprehend the events that are taking place?  Do we have a revelation of God’s commitment and power to us? God reveals Himself to man – as man comprehends that God is coming to his aide, to his side, to bring him out of the bondage and slavery to his own mistakes and failure and set him free.

Christ took the sin although He did not sin.  He was not guilty of it, but He was going to the cross for Himself.  He wasn’t paying the penalty for Himself.  He became sin that we may have the righteousness of God.  He was baptized for our cleansing so that our sins be removed.  Now, can you hear the voice from heaven, “My beloved son, in whom I am well-pleased?”  It is not because of our work, not because of anything that we have done but a choice of God, a commitment of God, a work of God in our behalf.  Paul tells us in his writing that we are the workmanship of God – the craftsmanship. He is the One who created us in His work in our behalf.

We are shown in the beginning of the events that are taking place as He brings Christ to this recognition of cleansing – being proclaimed the Son of God, being given power.  Scriptures says He has power to deliver, to heal, and to restore. Can we comprehend this in our state of weakness today? Do we realize that coming to that baptism and hearing God’s voice speak to us and the workings of the Holy Spirit in our lives that we are no longer the weak?  We are no longer those without. We are no longer those in poverty. But the very power and very ability of God, finding residence within our lives, allows us to rise above the turmoil, the strife, the darkness, to bring light where there is no light, to bring joy where there is sadness, and to bring healing where there is brokenness.  This is now the task that God brings to the Church.  Christ, in His baptism, anointed with power to accomplish the task, was to show us our character, to show us who we are because of what God has done in His creation and His redemption – with hope, with declaration He speaks to us, destroying the power of the enemy.

1John 3:8 says, “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”  Why do we acknowledge the works of the devil if God’s power is meant to destroy them?  Should we not stand in declaration, in faith, in confidence? Can you imagine how that the forces of evil shake and tremble when a child of God stands by faith in what Christ has given to him? When he recognizes that his sin has been wiped away?  That he has been empowered with the residency of the Holy Spirit to face whatever the issue may be, to be able to conquer and to overcome them?   Whether it be water turned to wine; whether it be the storm calmed and peace brought to the sea;   whether it be the healing of sickness or the raising of the dead; whether it be the feeding of the multitudes.  Whatever it may be, can we see that these are not obstacles? These are opportunities for the glory of God to be revealed!   Can we, as God’s people, begin to realize that this is not our work?  This is the work of God Himself – the fullness of that which is ours because of what Christ has done for us.

Romans 6 says that we have been baptized into Christ.  Being baptized into Him means that He is one with us and we are one with Him. It then would indicate to us that His life now becomes our life and the things of Him now become those things which are now available to us – the ability, the power.  Not because of us, not because of who we are or what we have done, but because of what He has done for us and what He has provided for us.  Colossians 2:12 says, “Having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him, through faith in the working of God.”   This is God’s work towards His people. Where is our faith to receive and to believe?  God raised Him from the dead.  Paul tells us that the same power that raised Christ from the dead is the same power that is with us.  Are we not to demonstrate this that God’s glory can be seen on the earth?  As Christ’s life lived out with what God has given to Him, He brought men in recognition and in understanding of God.  God’s love, no longer God as a God of wrath, of anger, of punishment, but a demonstration of a God of love, of power, and of restoration. 

The baptism of Christ is a declaration and a proclamation; it is more than just an event or a ceremony. God now wants man to know, “I am here. Your failures, your defeat, no longer need to go on. I am here with you. This is my son, in whom I am well pleased.”   If you know the Trinity, you know that Christ would not be alone. If the Son was there, the Father was there.  If the Father was there, the Holy Spirit was there – the very power of God being manifest now in flesh.  It is no longer just an ideology; no longer just a theology; but now, a living reality causing the flesh to be quickened to life, giving us that ability to conquer and to overcome, to bring honor, praise, and glory to God.  The power of that water to wash away the sin was the work of God, of the Spirit, but it did the task.  It completed the work. 

I cringe when I hear someone say after having received Christ, “I am not worthy.”  I cringe because how could you not be worthy if the Holy Spirit is dwelling within you?  It is not your work, but His work in you, His provision in us to cause us to have that security and to rise up in that confidence. “If God is with me, no one can be against me. I no longer have to run from the problems.  Now I can face them. In fact, I could even come to a point where I could say, ‘Bring them on. I am ready because God is here.’”  The healing of the sick, the confidence of peace, the ability that God gives to us – we did not do it.  God did this in our behalf.  God gave of Himself because God so loved the world – becoming in the flesh.  The Word becoming flesh, He took upon an identity upon the flesh so that He could set the flesh free.  It is time.

Isaiah speaks it in prophecy, “Awake, awake!”  We have been blessed. We have been granted much – everything pertaining to life and godliness.  It is time for us to stop living in poverty – in spiritual poverty.  It is time for us to believe and to take the steps of faith and to build what God has given to us; to become the lights that the world is waiting to see; to become the sons of God that all creation is moaning and groaning for a revelation of.  Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that His glory will be seen on all four corners of the earth. But we must awaken to the gifts given to us.  Jesus did not do these things on His own. He was not trying to prove Himself.  John 12:49-50 tells us, “As the Father gives me the commandment that is what I say.  What I speak is what the Father has told Me to say.”  He did not do anything on His own.  He wasn’t trying to prove Himself.  He was in submission to His Father. He was one with His Father.  He spoke what the Father said.  He said, “I do not speak on My own initiative. As the Father gives commandments, even so I do.”  It wasn’t His idea, it wasn’t His plan. It wasn’t what He wanted. He was doing what God gave Him to do because He knew that in what God gave, there was victory.  He wasn’t about to go outside of His relationship with His Father.  He appeared for this reason: to destroy the works of the devil. 

In our lives today, we should rejoice that God has done this for us. There should be this thanksgiving in our heart. There should be this praise within us, this joy. Now, we are sons of God; we are heirs of the Father.  It means that the things of the Father now belong to us.  Most of us don’t know the things that belong to us.  Most of us have not taken time to search them out and find out, “What now is mine? If I am a child of God, what now is my provision, what is my character?”  Several years ago, I was challenged with this.  I spent about twelve months studying, going through Scriptures trying to find out what belongs to a Christian.  What is ours?  In the end of the time, I have discovered approximately one hundred fifty-six Scriptures in the New Testament that tell us what Christ has given to us.  It tells us what is ours.  I believe that it is time for us to know what belongs to us.  It is time for us to know what is ours so that we can claim it and we can have faith in it.  Colossians 2:9 says, “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, and you are complete in Him.”  Should we not know what that means?  Should we not grasp what it speaks to us because in baptism, we have been identified with Christ? We have been brought into partnership with Him, into fellowship with Him. We now walk together with Him, but do we know what this relationship means for us?  Do we understand it? 

I put these Scripture in writing, in several pages and I have given this away in the past, but it did not seem to affect those who received them. I am not giving it away this time but you can buy it for twenty pesos that will go to the Church.  If you want to study this, you make it valuable to you. What I recommend is that you take these Scriptures and you write them out by hand, not by computer because that helps us grasp the meaning. Take time to meditate upon them. Study and watch it change your life.  I can give you testimonies of those who really applied this and how that it changed their confidence and their ability to stand firm in their faith.  I want to make sure that you want to know God and that you want to grow in the things that God has given to you.  I would want you to know who you are and who you are in Christ.  One hundred fifty-six different references – take time to write them out one by one and meditate upon them and watch what it will do to your life. 

This is what Baptism does for us. He became one with us that we could become one with Him. He took our sin so that we could take His righteousness.  He declares us righteous and holy.  Can we grasp that?  Can we understand that?  Can we receive it?  Can we believe it?  It is time for our failure and our defeat to pass away.  It is time for the Church to stand up and become the glory of God on the face of the earth to help change the world around us.  The Feast of the Baptism of Jesus Christ now says something to us.  The rest of this year, as we go through this calendar year, the things that are revealed belong to us because we have been made one with Him.  If we have been baptized into Him, now, we are one with Him.  We are in partnership with Him. As He unveils these things to us, these are our abilities.  These are the power that He has given to us – no longer the need of the Church to be weak, but the Church to rise up in victory, in glory, and to proclaim the greatness of our God.  A year ahead of us – exciting!  A year ahead of us preparing to be even greater children of Christ, of God, than we were.  May we apply these ourselves and may we seek because it is in seeking that we will find.  Remember, the Magi had to seek but they found.  If we seek, we will also find and what we will find will do more for us than it did for them.

The Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ is our identity with God, with His Kingdom, as sons of God.   I was thinking: can you imagine that if a child was baptized here in the font, and when he is brought out of the font, the whole congregation says, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased?” Can you imagine the power released into that life? Talk about our faith rising. I believe that God has stored great things ahead.  May this day be a great day!  It is a Feast! Rejoice and give God glory! Amen.