Week 17 Recap

Happy New Year, everyone!

We took a short break from our weekly recap videos over the holidays, but you can still catch those sermons if you happened to be out of town.  They are available on our podcasting hosting website at http://sermon.net/vrbc as well as on iTunes (search Valley Ranch Baptist Church).

Yesterday, January 6th, Larry preached on Jesus' baptism as recorded in Matthew 3.  If you missed it, definitely check out the podcast-it's a good one!  Here is the short version of what he shared with us:

Background - John the Baptist (Jesus' cousin) is causing quite a commotion down in Judea (the southern part of Israel) by preaching that people need to "repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." He is also baptizing people in the Jordan River.  Jesus takes the trip down from Galilee (in the northern part of Israel) to see John.

When Jesus approaches John, he does a strange thing - he asks John to baptize him.  This has caused lots of questions for theologians over the years, as Jesus was the only person at the river that day who didn't have ANY sins to confess or repent of!  Larry explained it this way:

Jesus is fulfilling God's desire by being baptized, and he blazes a trail for us to be reconciled to God.  Jesus identifies with us so that we can find our new identity in him.

When we find our identity in Christ, what happened to Jesus in the Jordan River that day also happens to us.  We enter a new reality, where:

* Life is VERTICAL - no longer is all of our life "horizontal."  Instead, the heavens have been opened and we can be connected with God.
* Life is SPIRITUAL - We can live a Spirit-led life.  We don't have to wander around like a lost driver without a map.  We have the Spirit with us to guide us!
* Life is WONDERFUL - Jesus takes our sin on himself and clothes us with his righteousness.  When God looks at us, he doesn't see our sin - he sees his Son.  And he says to us the same thing he said to Jesus:  "This is my son (or daughter!), whom I love.  With him I am well pleased.


May this beautiful reality inform and inspire us this week!